form of marriage became almost obsolete, and a laxer one, destitute of religious or civil ceremony, and resting solely on mutual agreement, became general. Each party could dissolve the marriage-bond at will and under the most trifling pretext, and both were free to enter at once into second wedlock. Marriage was, accordingly, treated with extreme levity. Cicero repudiated his wife Terentia, that he might obtain a coveted dowry with another; and he discarded the latter, because she did not lament the death of his daughter by the former. Cato was divorced from his wife Attilia after she had borne him two children, and he transferred his second wife to his friend Hortensius, after whose death he married her again. Augustus compelled the husband of Livia to abandon her, that she might become his own wife. Sempronius Sophus was divorced from his wife, because she went once to the public games without his knowledge. Paulus Æmilius dismissed his wife, the mother of Scipio, without any reason whatever. Pompey was divorced and remarried a number of times. Sylla repudiated his wife during her illness, when he had her conveyed to another house.' If moral censors, philosophers, and statesmen, such as Cato, Cicero, and Augustus, discarded their wives with so much levity, how lax must have been the marriage-bond among the humble members of society, with examples so pernicious constantly before their eyes! Wives emulated husbands in the career of divorces. Martial speaks of a woman who had married her tenth husband. Juvenal refers to one who had had eight husbands in five years.3 St. Jerome declares that there dwelt in Rome a wife who had married her twenty-third husband, she being his twenty-first wife. "There is not a woman left," says Seneca, “who is ashamed of being divorced, now that the most distinguished ladies count their years not by the consuls, but by their husbands."5 II. 4 The world is governed more by ideals than by ideas; it is influenced more by living, concrete models than by abstract principles of virtue. The model held up to Christian women is not the Amazon, glorying in her martial deeds and prowess; it is not the Spartan woman, who made female perfection consist in the development of physical strength at the expense of feminine decorum and modesty ; it is not the goddess of impure love, like Venus, whose votaries 1 Plutarch's Life of Seneca. Ep., 2. 2 Epig., VI., 7. regarded beauty of form and personal charms as the highest type of female excellence; nor is it the goddess of imperious will, like Juno. No; the model held up to woman from the very dawn of Christianity is the peerless Mother of our Blessed Redeemer. She is the pattern of virtue alike to maiden, wife, and mother. She exhibits the virginal modesty becoming the maid, the conjugal fidelity and loyalty of the spouse, and the untiring devotedness of the mother. The Christian woman is everywhere confronted by her great model. Mary's portrait gazes down upon her from the wall. Her name is repeated in the pages of the book before her. Her eulogy is pronounced from the pulpit. Altars and temples are dedicated in her honor. Festivals are celebrated in her praise. In a word, the Virgin Mother is indelibly stamped on the intellect, the heart, the memory, and the imagination of the Christian daughter. The influence of Mary, therefore, in the moral elevation of woman can hardly be overestimated. She is the perfect combination of all that is great, and good, and noble in Pagan womanhood, with no alloy of degradation. Hers is exquisite beauty, but a beauty more of the soul than of the body; it delights without intoxicating. The contemplation of her excites no inward rebellion, as too often happens with Grecian models. She is the mother of fair love devoid of sickly sentimentality or sensuality. In her we find force of will without pride or imperiousness. We find in her moral strength and heroism without the sacrifice of female grace and honor-a heroism of silent suffering rather than of noisy action. What Spartan mother ever displayed so much fortitude as Mary exhibited at the foot of the cross? It seems to me that some writers are disposed to lay undue stress on the amiable and tender qualities of Mary and of holy Christian women without dwelling sufficiently on the strong and robust points of their character. The Holy Scripture in one place pronounces a lengthened eulogy on woman. What does the Holy Ghost especially admire in her? Not her sweet and amiable temper or her gentle disposition, though of course she possessed these virtues, for no woman is perfect without them. No; He admires her valor, courage, fortitude, and the sturdy virtue of self-reliance. He does not say: Who shall find a gentle woman?" but rather: “Who shall find a valiant woman? As things brought from afar and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her." It is only heroic virtues or virtues practised in a heroic degree that the Church canonizes. 44 1 Prov., xxxi. In every age the Church abounds in women immeasurably surpassing in sturdy virtue the highest types of Pagan female excellence. What woman of ancient Greece or Rome can exhibit evidences of moral strength so sublime as have been manifested in the lives of an Agnes, an Agatha, or a Cecilia, who suffered death rather than tarnish their souls? of a Felicitas and a Symphorosa, who encouraged their sons to endure torments and death rather than renounce their faith, and who shared also in their glorious martyrdom? Pagan history furnishes no instance of motherly devotedness comparable to the strong and tender love of Monica, who traversed land and sea that she might restore her son to a life of virtue. Every impartial student of history is forced to admit that woman is indebted to the Catholic religion for the elevated station she enjoys to-day in family and social life. We may recall in what contempt woman was held by the leading minds of Greece. She was kept in perpetual bondage or unending tutelage; she was regarded as the slave and the instrument of man's passions, rather than his equal and companion, by nearly every nation of antiquity; and she is still so regarded in all countries where Christianity does not prevail. The Catholic Church, following the maxims of the Gospel and of St. Paul, proclaims woman the peer of man in origin and destiny, in redemption by the blood of Christ, and in the participation of His spiritual gifts. "Ye are all," says the Apostle, “the children of God by faith which is in Christ Jesus. . . . . There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither servant nor freeman; there is neither male nor female." The meaning is that in the distribution of His gifts God makes no distinction of person or sex. He bestows them equally on bond and free, on male and female. And as woman's origin and destiny are the same as man's, so is her dignity equal to his. As both were redeemed by the same Lord and as both aspire to the same heavenly inheritance, so should they be regarded as of equal rank on earth; as they are partakers of the same spiritual gifts, so should they share alike the blessings and prerogatives of domestic life. In the mind of the Church, however, equal rights do not imply that both sexes should engage promiscuously in the same pursuits, but rather that each sex should discharge those duties which are adapted to its physical constitution and sanctioned by the canons of society. To some among the gentler sex the words equal rights have been, it is to be feared, synonymous with similar rights. It was no 1 Gal. iii., 26-28. VOL. XI.-42 doubt owing to this misapprehension of terms that the attempt was made, not so very long ago, by some of the strong-minded fair, to introduce the glories of the Bloomer costume. But though the attempt proved a failure, the spirit that impelled it still survives, as may be seen by the various masculine modifications that have crept into female dress during the past few years. Where is the flowing and graceful drapery of former days that jealously shielded the modest wearer from gaze on the public street? Is it because the woman of to-day has laid aside what she looks upon as the cumbersome style of her grandmother's time that she aims at dauntlessly presenting herself at the ballot-box to cast in her suffrage for A or for B? Only a few years ago it provoked laughter to hear that Miss Jemima Snarl was to lecture on "Woman's Rights," or that Dr. Mary Walker had appeared on Broadway in male habiliments capà-pie. But now it is quite ordinary to hear of ladies, gentlewomen, daughters of some of our country's best men, not, indeed, imitating Dr. Mary Walker's exceptionable attire, but mounting the rostrum to harangue their audiences on the power of the "Faith Healers" or the merits of the "Salvation Army." Is it any wonder that a feeling of sadness creeps over one that such things should be? Fancy a fragile, highly-cultured lady starting up from her drawingroom surroundings at the alarm of fire, rushing to the scene of action, mounting a ladder, axe in hand; or her delicate fingers at play on the engine instead of the light guitar, while her ears are assailed by the coarse language of the motley crowd whose duty or pleasure it is to frequent such places? To debar woman from such pursuits, is not to degrade her. To restrict her field of action to the gentler avocations of life, is not to fetter her aspirations after the higher and the better. It is, on the contrary, to secure to her not equal rights so-called, but those supereminent rights that cannot fail to endow her with a sacred influence in her own proper sphere; for, as soon as woman trenches on the domain of man, she must not be surprised to find that the reverence once accorded her has been in part, or wholly, withdrawn. But it was by vindicating the unity, the sanctity, and the indissolubility of marriage that the Church has conferred the greatest boon on the female sex. The holiness of the marriage bond is the palladium of woman's dignity, while polygamy and divorce involve her in bondage and degradation. The Church has ever maintained, in accordance with the teachings of our Saviour, that no man can lawfully have more than one wife, and no woman more than one husband. The rights and obligations of both consorts are correlative. To give to the husband the license of two or more wives would be an injustice to his spouse and destructive of domestic peace. The Church has also invariably taught that the marriage compact, once validly formed, can be dissolved only by death; for what God hath joined together man cannot put asunder. While admitting that there may be a legitimate cause for separation, she never allows any pretext for the absolute dissolution of the marriage bond. For so strong and violent are the passion of love and its opposite passion of hate, so insidious is the human heart, that once a solitary pretext is admitted for absolute divorce, others are quickly invented, as experience has shown; thus a fearful crevice is made in the moral embankment, and the rush of waters is sure to override every barrier that separates a man from the object of his desires. It has, again and again, been alleged that this law is too severe, that it is harsh and cruel, and that it condemns to a life of misery two souls who might find happiness if permitted to have their marriage annulled and to be united with more congenial partners. Every law has its occasional inconveniences, and I admit that the law absolutely prohibiting divorce à vinculo may sometimes appear rigorous and cruel. But its harshness is mercy itself when compared with the frightful miseries resulting from the toleration of divorce. Its inconvenience is infinitesimal when contrasted with the colossal evils from which it saves society and the solid blessings it secures to countless homes. Those exceptional ill-assorted marriages would become more rare if the public were convinced, once for all, that death alone can dissolve the marriage bond. They would then use more circumspection in the selection of a conjugal partner. Hence it happens that in Catholic countries where faith is strong, as in Ireland and the Tyrol, divorces are almost unheard of. The enforcement of this law has been maintained by the Church against fearful odds, and has caused her many a mortal struggle. For if the strong government of the United States, with military forces at its command, with the sympathy of public opinion and Christian traditions on its side, is successfully resisted by a colony of Mormons, how violent must have been the opposition to the Church and how hopeless her task, humanly speaking, when physical force and inveterate custom were arrayed against her, and when she had on her side only moral power and spiritual penalties. In vindicating the sanctity of marriage, the Church had to contend with a triple enemy-the fierce passions of barbarous tribes, the arbitrary power of princes, and the compromising spirit of rebellious churchmen. From the fifth to the eighth century Europe was periodically visited by warlike tribes from the shores of the Baltic, from Asia, and from Africa. They threatened the overthrow of the Christian religion, and, in the general upheaval of society, the landmarks of |