of
proper causes for divorce, and then closes up by giving to the courts
the right to make a decree of divorce in any case where they deem it
expedient. After that you are not surprised at the announcement that
in one county of the State of Illinois, in one year, there were 833
divorces. If you want to know how easy it is you have only to look
over the records of the States. In Massachusetts 600 divorces in one
year; in Maine 478 in one year; in Connecticut 401 divorces in one
year; in the city of San Francisco 333 divorces in 1880; in New
England in one year 2113 divorces, and in twenty years in New England
20,000. Is that not easy enough?

If the same ratio continue, the ratio of multiplied divorce and
multiplied causes of divorce, we are not far from the time when our
courts will have to set apart whole days for application, and all you
will have to prove against a man will be that he left his slippers in
the middle of the floor, and all you will have to prove against a
woman will be that her husband's overcoat was buttonless. Causes of
divorce doubled in a few years, doubled in France, doubled in England,
and doubled in the United States. To show how very easy it is I have
to tell you that in Western Reserve, Ohio, the proportion of divorces
to marriages celebrated is one to eleven; in Rhode Island is one to
thirteen; in Vermont is one to fourteen. Is not that easy enough?

I want you to notice that frequency of divorce always goes along with
the dissoluteness of society. Rome for five hundred years had not one
case of divorce. Those were her days of glory and virtue. Then the
reign of vice began, and divorce became epidemic. If you want to know
how rapidly the Empire went down, ask Gibbon. Do you know how the
Reign of Terror was introduced in France? By 20,000 cases of divorce
in one year in Paris.

WHAT WE WANT

in this country and in all lands is that divorce be made more and more
and more difficult. Then people before they enter that relation will
be persuaded that there will probably be no escape from it except
through the door of the sepulchre. Then they will pause on the verge
of that relation until they are fully satisfied that it is best, and
that it is right, and that it is happiest. Then we shall have no more
marriage in fun. Then men and women will not enter the relation with
the idea it is only a trial trip, and if they do not like it they can
get out at the first landing. Then this whole questio