in their worst forms. It is only after this first love has been interrupted, that either party can once indulge even an impure feeling towards another. Not only does the formation of a relation so tender, erect an impregnable rampart against this vice, but the very anticipation of it guards the heart of youth against destructive habits and impure passions. That young man is safe, though surrounded with the temptations even of a Joseph, whose love is reciprocated, and whose vows are plighted. As long as his heart is bound up in its first bundle of love and devotedness-as long as his affections remain reciprocated and uninterrupted-so long temptations cannot take effect. His heart is callous to the charms of others, and the very idea of bestowing his affections upon another is abhorrent. Much more so is animal indulgence, which is morally impossible. But, let this first love be broken off, and the flood-gates of passion are raised. Temptations now flow in upon him. He casts an amative eye upon every passing female, and indulges unchaste imaginations and feelings. Although his Conscientiousness or intellect may prevent actual indulgence, yet temptations now take effect, and render him liable to err; whereas, before, they had no power to awaken improper thoughts or feelings. MUTUAL LOVE CONSTITUTES MATRIMONY. In what does matrimony consist? In some one thing? or, in many things? In mutual love, or in the legal ceremony, or in both combined? If marriage consists in human law,-or, rather, just so far as it consists in law-it does not and cannot consist in love; and is, therefore, human in its origin and character, and just so far should human law be relied upon to create and perpetuate marriage, and punish its violation. But no human legislation can so guard this institution but that it may be broken in spirit, though, perhaps, acceded to in form; for, it is the heart which this institution requires. What would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? How absurd, how preposterous the doctrine, that the obligations of marriage derive their sacredness from legal enactments and injunctions! How it literally profanes this holy of holies, and drags down this heaven-born institution from its ori ginal, divine elevation to the level of a merely human device! Who will dare to advocate the human institution of marriage? Or, who will maintain that a compliance with its legal requirements strengthens, or a non-compliance, weakens, or either at all alters the matter? All must admit that marriage is wholly divine in its origin and obligation, and, as such, above, and independent of, all human laws, and consisting entirely in reciprocal and connubial love. "Whom GOD hath joined together, let not man put asunder." The Bible, in all its allusions to marriage, implies and asserts that its obligations derive ALL their value and sacredness FROM GOD. Unless, therefore, he makes our marriage laws, marriage cannot consist in any injunctions or enactments thrown around it by these laws; and, hence, to maintain that he imposes these obligations by means of human law, is next to blasphemy. No human tribunal or legislature can increase or decrease their obligations one jot or tittle. If so, their sacredness vanishes at once, because this makes them of men, whereas, now they are of God. But How does God "join together" two congenial spirits so closely as to make of twain one flesh? By ties the strongest, most tender, and most indissoluble of our nature-ties in comparison with which, friendship is but as a straw, and even self-interest but as a shred of flax in a burning candle. This tie is the passion of LOVE. This element of our nature, and this ALONE, constitutes matrimony, and as it was implanted by God, matrimony is divine in its origin and obligations. The happy, loving pair are always married in heaven, before they can be on earth; for, their agreement to live together in nature's holy wedlock, is marriage, with all its rights and privileges, and constitutes them husband and wife. I repeat the simple, single point at issue, namely, that the marriage relations are divine in origin and obligations, and therefore, have no possible connexion with the marriage ceremony, but are infinitely above all human enactments; and that, making marriage consist in, or depend upon, human law, makes it human, which completely strips it of all those high and holy sensations thrown around it by basing it in mutual love. Just as far as it consists in law, just so far is its purity corrupted, its exalted nature debased, and its sacredness converted into sacrilege! "What!" says an objector," would you then annul the law of marriage, abrogate the legal ceremony, and leave man to his own unbridled desires? Depraved man requires all the restraints of hu man law, added to the thunderings of divine vengeance, in order to make him faithful. and is wofully frail and faithless at that." I answer, that, since laws have been enacted, and a ceremony instituted, it may perhaps be well enough to obey the former and observe the latter as a form merely, but human law cannot touch the point any more than it can regulate the appetite. If law required that we should be hungry at particular periods, and forbade our eating at others, would this affect our appetites either way in the least, or prevent our eating? Of course not. Nor does its requirement, that legalized husbands and wives should love, and be faithful to, each other, have the least influence in promoting either. If those who are married according to law, love each other, they love wholly independent of legal requirements, but if they do not love each other, no human law can either create attachment or weaken enmity; for, it does not and cannot reach the case. In no way whatever, either for good or evil, can it affect those feelings of the heart which have been shown to constitute marriage. "Of course, laws do no harm," retorts an objector. I answer, that relying upon law to effect what law can never reach, does much more injury than relying upon a broken reed only to be pierced by it, because the matter concerned is so all-important. The perpetuity of love nature has provided for, and infinitely better than man can do, and therefore man need not feel concerned about it. Let men rely SOLELY upon the affections of the heart; for, their very nature is self-perpetuating. They need no law, and are above all law. Let them but be properly placed at first, and they will never once desire to change their object; for, the more we love an object, the more we wish to continue loving it, and the longer husbands and wives live together affectionately, the stronger their love. Love increases itself. Hence, we no more need a law requiring husbands and wives to love each other, than one requiring us to eat, or sleep, or breathe; and for precisely the same reason. True love recoils from a change of objects as a burning nerve shrinks from a scorching fire. Let men but rely upon the law of love instead of upon the laws of the land, and they will certainly have more connubial happiness, and less discords and petitions for divorces. Nor should the law ever compel two to live together who do not love each other; for, it thereby only compels them to violate the seventh commandment. Impotent as our laws are, touching marriage, they need re vising, for they are sadly defective and cruelly oppressive, especially upon woman, whom they should protect. The inference, therefore, is clear and conclusive, that those whose legal marriage is prompted by motives of property, or honor, or any consideration other than mutual love, are no more husbands and wives than as though they had not sworn falsely by assenting to the marriage ceremony. Does their nominally assenting to a mere man-made ceremony make them husbands and wives? It simply legalizes their violation of the seventh commandment. It is licensed licentiousness. If they do not love each other, they cannot possibly become husbands and wives, or be entitled to the sacred relations of wedlock. So, on the other hand, if two kindred spirits are really united in the bonds of true, reciprocal love, whether legally married or not, they are, to all intents and purposes, man and wife, and entitled to all the rights of wedlock. If they have reciprocated the pledge of Love, and agreed to live together as husband and wife, they are married. They have nothing to do with law, or law with them. It is a matter exclusively their own; and, for proud or selfish parents, from motives of property or family distinctions, to interfere or "break up the match," is as criminal and cruel as separating a husband and wife; or, rather, it is separating them. It is as direct and palpable a violation of the married relations—for it is the very same crime—as putting asunder those "whom God hath joined together. Ambitious mothers, selfish fathers, and young men seeking to marry a fortune, may bolt at this; but, any other view of marriage, makes it a merely human institution, which divests it of all its sacredness and dignity. Yea, more! For a young man to court a young woman, and excite her to love till her affections are riveted, and then (from sinister motives, such as, to marry one richer, or more handsome,) to leave her, and try elsewhere, is the very same crime as to divorce her from all that she holds dear on earth-to root up and pull out her imbedded affections, and to tear her from her rightful husband. So, also, for a young woman to play the coquet, and sport with the sincere affections of an honest and devoted young man,* is one of the highest crimes that human nature can commit. Better murder him in body too, as she does in soul and morals. There is no possible way *If she be only coquetting a male coquette, the crime and injury are mutual, and the accounts square, for each is equally guilty. of escaping these momentous inferences. No wonder, therefore, that so heinous a crime as separating man and wife, should result in all those wide-spread and terrible evils attributed to interrupted love, pp. 74-80. The punishment does not exceed the crime. Young men and women! Let these things sink deeply into your hearts! Pause, and reflect! and, in every step you take towards loving and marrying, remember that mutual love constitutes matrimony; and, that interrupting love is separating man and wife! Let me, then, be distinctly understood as maintaining- 1. That MUTUAL LOVE constitutes matrimony: 3. That FIRST love pre-eminently constitutes marriage, because stronger, more tender, and more Platonic than any subsequent attachment can be: 4. That interruptions in love, or courting and winning the affections without marrying, is the direct cause of licentionsness, by being a breach of the marriage covenant; and 5 That the order of nature, as pointed out by Phrenology, is ONE LOVE, ONE MARRIAGE, AND ONLY ONE. One evidence that second marriages are contrary to the laws of our social nature, is the fact, that almost all step-parents and stepchildren disagree. Now, what law has been broken, to induce this penalty? The law of marriage; and this is one of the ways in which the breach punishes itself. Is it not much more in accordance with our natural feelings, especially those of mothers, that children should be brought up by their own parent? The analysis of Philoprogenitiveness (p. 10) shows why it is that step-parents, as a general thing, cannot bestow all the love and attention upon step-children that they can upon their own. This partiality, so natural, is soon detected by the children, and causes unpleasantness all around. Another proof of this point is, that second marriage is more a matter of business. "I'll give you a home, if you'll take care of my children."—" It's a bargain" is the way most second matches are made. There is little of the poetry of first-love, and little of the coyness and shrinking diffidence which characterize the first attachment. Still, these remarks apply almost equally to a second attachment, as to second marriage. |