ace Darling and an Ida Lewis, a Madame Roland and a Florence
Nightingale, as well as to a Bayard and a Shaw, a Napoleon and a
Farragut.

PAGE 73.

"_That moment should the intimate relations
Of marriage end, and a release be found!_"

In the United States the action of certain State legislatures, in
increasing the facilities for divorce, has been a subject of alarm among
persons bred under the influences of a more conservative system. It
would be difficult to show as yet whether social morality is harmed or
helped by the increased freedom. Nothing can be more deceptive and
unsatisfactory than the statistics offered on both sides of the
question. It is generally admitted, we believe, that in those countries
where divorce is most difficult, the number of illegitimate births is
largest, and the reputation of married women is most questionable. In
the nature of things, much of the prevalent immorality being furtive and
clandestine, it is impossible to estimate the extent of the evils
growing out of illiberal laws in relation to matrimony. In any
legislation on the subject women should have a voice.

PAGE 80.

"_Unlike the Church, I look on marriage as
A civil contract, not a sacrament._"

Kenrick here refers of course to the Catholic Church, whose theory of
marriage, namely, that it is a sacrament and indissoluble, when once
contracted according to the forms of the Church, still influences the
legislation and social prejudices of Protestant communities in respect
to their own religious forms of marriage. It was not till the twelfth
century, and under the auspices of Pope Innocent III., that divorce was
prohibited by the civil as well as the canon law. But it is only a
marriage between Catholics that is indissoluble under the Catholic
system. In the case of a marriage of Protestants, the tie is not
regarded as binding. A dissolution was actually granted in such a case
where one of the parties turned Catholic, in 1857, by the bishop of Rio
Janeiro, who pronounced an uncanonical marriage null and void. Modern
legislation in establishing the validity of civil marriages aimed a
severe blow at ecclesiastical privilege.

To Rome and not to the Bible we must go for all the authority we can
produce for denying that marriage is simply a civil contract. The form,
binding one man to one woman, had its origin outside of the Bible. Up to
the time of Charlemagne in the eighth century, polygamy and concubinage
were common amo