“MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE.”
Our Lord declares that “as were the days of ‘Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of ‘man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the ‘flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the ‘coming of the Son of man.” Matt. 24:37-39. The thought is not that eating, drinking, and marrying are wrong of themselves, but that the people were and will be so absorbed in such things that the great things of eternity are unnoticed. The great day of God approaches unthought of. The solemn portals of eternity open as tho unannounced. That is the way judgment came to the antediluvians; that is the way the last of the last days is coming upon the people of this generation. The much marrying is one sign of many. There are many more marriages in proportion to the people who get married. The marriages increase with the divorces. Divorces formerly were rare. Men and women married to stay married till death did them part. How many there are who marry for fancy or passion, till fancy fades, and passion wearies till awakened by a new face and form. Then follows divorce and remarriage, which is oftentimes a licensed system of concubinage. Religious organizations pass severe censure upon the loose practise, and call for more stringent legislation, which follows; but the divorce courts grind on with a generally augmented grist. For instance, in this perhaps more than average good county of Alameda it is said that one-third of the marriages prove failures; “that there are five ‘departments of the Superior Court grinding out divorces six days in the week; that an average of eight ‘divorce cases are filed every week; that in the month ‘of July there were one hundred and five marriage ‘licenses issued and over thirty suits for divorce filed; ‘that in the month of August there were one hundred ‘and nine marriage licenses issued and twenty nine ‘divorce suits filed.” These statements are appalling. The greater number of people who are divorced are divorced for the sole reason that one or both desire another partner for a time. The divorce mills run that there may be more marriages—in kind. The very foundation of society—the home—is becoming broken up, and the sacred marriage bond is becoming of less value in the minds of people generally. Society is becoming filled with burned-out lives and calloused hearts, lives in which the needs of abnormal fancy and passion have smothered to death faithfulness and principle. The only way to remedy the evil is for each man and woman, each husband and wife, each father and mother, each minister of the Gospel, to prove true to God. The great mad world will go on, even as did the antediluvian world, till it is sadly too late for those who have no time for thoughts of God and duty.