And now, tell me, friends, if the picture of that youthful affection,
strengthened and intensified in the hearts of both by long years of
unavailing regret, does not awaken in you a conviction of some better
way for protecting helpless women and children from the evils of
drunkenness? Oh, say, can you calmly contemplate the hundreds and
thousands of hearts which would throb with repressed anguish, when the
wretchedness which drove them to divorce shall have vanished with the
doomed traffic, and reformed men, by the strong arm of law, reclaim
their children from the weeping Rachels of the land?

But think not, friends, that I am unmindful of the misery of years, or
months even, when I plead that divorce shall not be made the necessity
of hunted and betrayed affections, the factitious barrier against
abuse and starvation. I present to your consideration a remedy equally
effective, and far more grateful to the delicate sensibilities and
hopeful affection of the woman and the wife--a remedy which possesses
the merit of a preventive power, and the collateral security of a
reclaiming influence.

The advantage proposed to be secured to the wife of the drunkard, by
divorce, is the release from his control of her property and person.
Secure to the innocent and suffering wife the guardianship of her
children, and the control of her own earnings--in short, make her a
free, instead of a bond-woman--and you secure to the family of the
drunkard all the alleviation in the power of legislation, and without
compelling the wife, from pecuniary necessity or self-immolating
regard for her children, to sever her conjugal relation, and quench
the hope of a future of rational companionship.

The pauperism and extreme degradation of the drunkard's family is
mainly chargeable to the laws, which wreck the energies, by merging
the means of the wife and mother in the will of the irresponsible
husband and father.

With these views--gathered from facts and heart-broken confidences
open to few--I appeal to you in the name of the most sacred
affections--I protest, in behalf of humanity, against compelling the
unfortunate of my dependent sex to choose between their present
bondage of means and divorce.

To the Christian, who shrinks from divorce, as separating what God
hath joined, I appeal to carry out the principle, preserving
everywhere what God hath joined. Hath He not joined mother and child
in body and spirit? Sever them not. Hath He not jo