In applying the sharp knife of reform in this direction, it should be seen to, that we do not cut into the very life of the _idea_--to use a favorite phrase of the modern reformer. No evil against which legislation attempts to guard, can be compared with the damage which might come from such a wound. No hurt might be more incurable than one that would result from families of children growing up every where with the familiar thought of divided legal interests in the joint source whence they derived their birth. There must be something holy in that which the apostle selected as the most fitting comparison of the relation between Christ and his Church; and there have been far worse superstitions (if it be a superstition) than the belief which would regard marriage as a sacrament. Be this, however, as it may, it is the other error of which we have now the most reason to be afraid. There is a process going forward on the pages of the statute book, in judicial proceedings respecting divorce, and in the general tendency of certain opinions, which is insensibly undermining an idea, the most soundly conservative in the best sense of the term, the most sacred in its religious associations, as well as the most important in its bearings upon the highest earthly good of the human race. The opposing philosophy sometimes comes in the most plausible and insidious shape. It, too, has its religionism. It talks loftily of the "holy marriage of hearts," and of the sacredness of the _affection_; but in all this would only depreciate the sacredness of the outward relation. It affects to be conservative, moreover. It would preserve and exalt the essence in distinction from the form. It has much to say of "legalized adulteries." The affection, it affirms, is holier than any outward bond. But let it be remembered that the first is human and changeable, the second is divine and permanent. It is the high consideration, too, of the one that, more than any earthly means, would tend to preserve the purity of the other. The relation is the regulator of the affection, the mould through which it endures, the constraining form in which alone it acquires the unity, and steadiness, and consistency of the idea, in distinction from the capricious spontaneity of the individual passion. Let no proud claim, then, of inward freedom, assuming to be holier than the outward bond, pretend to sever what God has joined together. At no time, perhaps, in the history of the world, and of the church, has there been more need of caution against such a sophism than in this age so boastful of its lawless subjectivity, or in other words, its higher rule of action, transcending the outward and positive ordinance. * * * * *