wife of Agrippa, and then the wife of Tiberius. Such examples are found
almost without number in the annals of Tacitus. The extent to which this
evil was carried may be learned from the poet Martial, who informs us,
that, when the Julian law against adultery was revived as a prevention of
the corruption of the times, Thessalina married her tenth husband within
thirty days, thus evading all the restraints which the law imposed against
her licentiousness. What is the marriage bond worth in such a state of
society?

Where is the state of society essentially better in the absence of the
Christian religion?

The Bible teaches us that the institution is of Divine origin, established
by the Lord himself. It inscribes upon every marriage altar, "What God
hath joined together let no man put asunder." It definitely defines
marriage to be the act of uniting two persons in wedlock, and only two.
According to the Scriptures, this union can only be dissolved by crime or
death. With great tenderness the Bible prescribes the duties of this
relation. "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church." This love
is not the cold hearted affection that is after the fashion of free-love
philosophy, but it is after a model that has touched heavenly hearts, and
caused more admiration than all other things combined.

In the ancient dispensation adultery was punished with death. In the
Christian dispensation, it is said with _great emphasis_, "Whoremongers
and adulterers God will judge." There is a place of which it is said,
"Whoso is simple let him turn in hither, but he knoweth not that the dead
are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell." There is a sin
of which the Bible often speaks, pointing the guilty perpetrators to the
fact that they have none inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ.

The history of Pagan nations is little else than a record of crime. By
studying it we may learn something of our obligations to the Christian
religion, and our indebtedness to its pure spirit, which has brooded over
the darkness of the nations, and brought order out of confusion. It will,
also, learn us to value the names father, mother, husband, wife, children
and parents; these names were of little value among Romans. In the annals
of the Roman empire may be found a record of all that is shocking; a
record of all that man can be guilty of; a record of all that an enemy
could be guilty of; suspicion, licentiousness, murder, con