"April 20. Your candidates for matrimony, first obtaining each other's consent, and the approval of parents or guardians, apply to the legally constituted authorities for a license or permit to enter the holy state, and when procured they repair to a priest or magistrate, who for a few shekels pronounces a few stereotyped phrases, followed by the solemn declaration pronouncing them man and wife, closing generally with the ludicrous and farcical command, 'whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.' Oh, what a caricature and farce. It is bad enough to declare whom the law has joined together, and so forth, but to assume with such solemn gravity that God has joined in wedlock's sacred union many of the marriage alliances which are mere caricatures of marriage, is not only blasphemy, but the very apex of nonsense, and is the widest possible departure from truth. "If it be true that God joins them together, no power, save himself could put asunder or disunite. To assert otherwise would amount to affirming that God is the author of failures. The difference between marriages that only have their basis in consent, license, and ceremony, and that marriage which God cements when two are joined by the divine laws of soul affinity and magnetic attraction--the one is of the earth earthy, the other is from the Lord through and by the operation of eternal law, and is therefore heavenly. Oh, that the children of earth might learn and conform to these subtle and glorious laws for their own good and in the interest of those to come after them. "On the planet Mars the people have no license system on any subject. While you on earth are wrangling about licensing the sale of intoxicating beverages, on Mars they have none to license. While here you are exercised over measures of taxation to raise revenue to support the government, on Mars no taxes whatever are imposed, and public affairs for the general public good are administered freely and without compensation, purely as a labor of love. The truth is that the mundane affairs of Mars are more regulated, controlled, and conducted by the spiritual powers of the planet than by those in the form. The two worlds are so intimately related to each other, and are so closely brought together, that this is not only practicable but desirable and profitable.