Without entering too explicitly upon this subject, do we not read in the chapters of Genesis that when Pharaoh of Egypt had cast his eyes upon Sarah, thinking she was Abraham's sister, that after he had been rightly informed, he at once desisted from his advances and made explanation? And did not Abimelech, when about to fall into a like error, offer apology and make restitution? Is it not plain from these cases that they well knew that the marriage relation was not to be broken, that one man was not to take another man's wife? Moreover, it never occurred to Abraham, or any of the patriarchs, to put away from themselves their wives, for any reasons, and these men lived nearly two thousand years before Christ. How absurd the contention that men originally lived without a knowledge of the sanctity of marriage! Turning to secular history, we have record of the same. Rome, for instance, was founded in the eighth century before Christ. Its first citizens were robbers, and such as had been banished for gross offenses from other cities of Italy. But concerning the marriage relation--they did not live as brutes. Every physically able inhabitant was legally required to wed, and for several centuries not a solitary case of divorce occurred. Such a thing was regarded simply impossible. It was not until late centuries, when effeminacy had taken hold upon the city, that we hear of those social abominations. The same may be said of our heathen forefathers, the German and Teutonic tribes; marriage, with them, was held in highest respect. This, then, is the true view according to Bible and history. God instituted marriage at creation, and God ordained that it should be a union between one man and one woman, and that this union is indissoluble and inseparable. As everything else, however, suffered by the fall of man into sin, so also this divine regulation. The corruption at the time of the flood was such that God destroyed the world on that very account. "They took them wives of all that they chose," is the sacred account. It is with regret that we read of men like Abraham, Jacob, David, who were not found strong enough to resist the common corruption, but were deplorably drawn into looseness of the marriage ties.