The Monogamic Statement. The Difficulty of meeting one's Counterpart. All Evi- dences of True Union not External. The Offspring of Love and Wisdom... CONSIDERATIONS CONCLUDING THE QUESTIONS OF MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE. Errors of early Marriages. Testimony of a Writer on the Question of Parentage. Fewer Offspring and Better. Nature's Revelations concerning the Perpetuity of Evils. When is Marriage not Premature? Application of the Law of Temperaments. The The first Divorce. Historical Statements on this Question. Reviews of different Reformers on the Merits and Demerits of Marriage and Divorce. The Teachings of THE GREAT HARMONIA. LECTURE I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF REFORM. Ir is generally understood that REFORMS are primarily suggested by the existence of positive evils. If there were no evils to remove, it is said, there would be no need of schemes of Reformation. Reform is a normal development. By studying the plan and aim of Nature, and the perpetual play of countless forces in the domain of Matter, you will discover that Formation and Reformation are legitimate coequal concomitants of universal life; the inevitable results of the operation of immutable laws. An idea of Reformation, therefore, is as natural to the human mind as an idea of any other process in the empire of being. Reformation is not a physician sent by God to heal a sin-sick world; is not a medicine manufactured arbitrarily to overcome disease; is not a special agent, despatched from the celestial court, to overlook human accounts and liquidate long-standing obligations. If Reformation had come from de-formation, then it would at best be but an evil itself. If it be urged that Refor mation would not exist unless positive evil first existed, then, I ask, how can the effect be intrinsically superior to its cause? Can a development be essentially more perfect than its origin? Does a Reform exist simply because an evil exists? Does a Reform die when an evil dies? If so, then Reform is temporary and mortal. It is but the evanescent antidote to an evanescent poison. In such an estimate of Reform there is nothing but experiment, uncertainty, instability, dissatisfaction. The reformer finds no eternal, no immovable Rock beneath his feet. He but stands upon slippery places; and, with a lever both short and weak, strains to move the world. He works and tugs with all his soul; he fancies the work is efficient; he thinks he sees the mighty world in motion; but a few years of incessant toil, amid hoary-headed institutions, uncaps his mistake; and he discovers, with momentary despair, that only himself, not the world, had moved mainly in the direction of his thoughts! Such is the experience of him who regards Reform as the temporary means of removing temporary evils. In fact, such an experience is inseparable to that mind which begins the work of Reformation on the idea that "evil" is the great antagonist in the world to overcome. He begins with an error and his experience will correspond. He is fighting "a man of straw," and a man of straw will come as his reward-or, he aims at nothing and succeeds at last in hitting it. Such is the fate of that mind which is enough impious, sufficiently ignorant and blasphemous, to fight any condition or influence as if it were an absolute evil. But such is the motive-power of the Christian system. It would never have had an existence, in the opinion of its sponsors, had there not previously existed a terrific evil to overthrow. Christianity is, therefore, regarded as a supernatural scheme of Reformation, especially instituted to counteract a deformation equally supernatural and all-embracing. The Christian system begins with a false idea of Reform; and, as a sequence, exerts a corresponding influence on mankind. And all reformers who begin by admitting the absolute existence of "evil," have taken to their bosoms a viper whose poison will surely steal throughout and cripple their every movement. The church estimate of human nature is an insult to the Great Spirit. We must reason inductively, and charge upon God the evil we find in the world. The interposition of human nature between the Creator and the end of creation—the alleged supernatural sin growing out of man's free will in exercise is no relief to the argument. The mind will ask the All-wise, the All-good, the All-mighty, why he did not exert his sovereign attributes so surely that only goodness and wisdom and happiness could exist in the universe? with these attributes in what we term "God"-the power to know all things, the power to bless all things, the power to do all things-we can find no excuse for the permission of evil. He was not ignorant, requiring experience; was not weak, requiring exercise; was not impoverished in goodness, requiring enrichment of essence. Nay: the Christian's God is surcharged with the purest, the best, the wisest, the mightiest attributes. Consequently, we can find no excuse for the existence of evil. He had the wisdom to know better, the goodness to feel better, the power to do better. On the Christian's theory of evil and of God, therefore, there is no utility in the sufferance of the former -no human pardon for the conduct of the latter? Theologians may plead the cause of Jehovah, they may construct elaborate superstructures of argument, may strive, as they always do, to exchange our condemnation for admiration; but man's most faithful friends, his Intuitions and his Reason, will remain the inexorable and imperturbable opponents of theories so absolutely irreconcilable to the principles of equity and Nature. Evil is the great enemy, the implacable personified foe, whom the Christian system is organized to destroy. The "Devil" is the poetical impersonation of all discord and wrong; of vice and misery. Hence, the church levels its sacred canons directly at the fancied fortifications of his infernal majesty. In nine battles out of ten the "Prince of Darkness" comes off victorious; the Doctors of Divinity are routed, and make an inglorious. retreat. This species of warfare, this theological fillibustering, is entertaining to the saints. And yet the practice must cultivate pugilistic propensities. Why not be as reasonable with this implacable fabulous foe as with living modern reformers? The wisest of the clergy counsel non-resistance in reference to the innovations of Harmonial Philosophers; on the truthful theory that opposition merely discloses their own impotency and lends strength to the advancing enemy. Why not treat the Devil in a corresponding spirit? Does not the agitation of clergymen excite opposition in the bosom of the infernal Prince? Or, rather, does not such opposition generate sympathy for the victim? If so, would it not be wiser for all Reformers, whether in the church or not, to cease a warfare against imaginary evils ; and, instead, take their position earnestly and firmly before the world as the seers and followers of Nature's Principles? The Philosophy of Reform is plain and simple like the philosophy of everything else in Nature. In short, and shortest, it is the philosophy of progressive development. First comes formation; then reformation—just as improvements in nature succeed alterations and changes. Every being exists, not only for itself, but also as a portion of some other existence superior. The myriad forces of nature unfold themselves into myriad forms-each after its own germinal impulses-which live and act on the world, not only for themselves, but go to form a basis of existences still higher and more perfect in the scale. The superior not only comes from the inferior, but depends upon it |