oked together with unbelievers."
2 Cor. 6:14. This is a wrong application of this text. No doubt but it
does forbid the unmarried Christian yoking up with an unbeliever, as in 1
Cor. 7:39 the woman whose husband is dead is at liberty to marry whom she
will; only in the Lord. However, it does not teach the breaking of the
marriage yoke. Matthew gives the only cause. Paul says, "If any brother
hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let
him not put her away. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth
not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him." 1
Cor. 7:12, 13.

A man once told us that God showed him to leave his wife. (She was a true
wife.) He was decidedly mistaken and should have tried the spirit. "What
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." The word
joined is from the Greek _suzeugnuo_. and means "yoked together." This
yoke man can not break. When God by his saving grace unites a soul with
Christ, no man can break the bond of union. Sin, and sin only, will sever
the tie that binds them together. When God unites husband and wife into
one flesh and bone, no civil court can break the bond. When woman has
become so untrue to her husband and false to her marriage vow as to have
sexual connection with another man, God allows such an unchaste sin, and
such a sin only, to dissolve the union. Why is fornication the only just
cause for disuniting husband and wife? Why is sin the only cause of
separation between Christ and the Christian? It is because the design of
God in sending his Son to the world was to destroy and prevent sin. Then
of necessity when his purpose fails there can be no union. The design of
the Almighty in instituting marriage was to secure a legitimate population
of the world, or to prevent the lewd, indiscriminate sexual intercourse.
When this purpose fails the object of marriage fails, and there can be no
union.

Brooklets joining form the river,
Rivers joining form the sea;
Love uniting hearts together
Beat as one eternally.

God by law of his creation
Creates in one the happy twain;
Hand and heart they are united
As they pass adown life's stream.

See the flowers greet each other,
And the sunlight kiss the sea;
See the waves clasp one another,
Why not hearts united be?

Birds in springtime mate each other,
'Tis a law decreed above;
For th