Then my friend goes back to Adam, and says our first parents wore clothes made of skins, and therefore we must wear similar ones. Well, let us see. Our first parents were placed in a garden and were driven out of a garden, therefore we must be placed in a garden and driven out of a garden. The first man was created out of the dust of the earth, therefore all subsequent men must be created out of the same material. The first woman was created out of man's rib, therefore all subsequent women must be made so. They would make very nice women, no doubt about that! Such is the logic of my friend! So you may follow on his absurdities. He has failed to make a distinction between what is essential to marriage and what is accidental to marriage; or in other words, he has failed to make a distinction between the creation and the fall of man, and between the institution and characteristics of marriage. One, therefore, is surprised at such arguments, and drawn from such premises! Now, my friends, that first marriage in the garden of Eden is the great model for all subsequent marriages: one man and one woman. My friend says that God could have made more if He had chosen; but He did not do so, and it seems to me, if God Almighty had designed that all us men should be polygamists, and that polygamy should be the form of marriage, that in the very beginning He would have started right, that is, He would have made a number of women for the first man. Ah! what a grand sanction that would be; but instead of that He makes one man and one woman, and says--"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." This is not merely an historical fact; were it so I think the argument would be with my friend. But as I come along the stream of time I find this fact referred to as expressing a great law. I hear old Malachi repeating the same words, referring to this institution of marriage in the garden of Eden, reproving the Jews for their practice of polygamy, putting the pungent question to their conscience--"Why have ye dealt treacherously with the wife of your youth?"--your first wife, the one with whom you went to the bridal altar and swore before high Heaven that you would forsake all others and cleave unto her so long as you both live. "Ah!" that old prophet asks, "why have you dealt thus treacherously with the wife of your youth and the wife of your covenant?" God hates this putting away, says the prophet, and then he refers to Eden as a reason for his reproof. The reason is purely monogamous, and that in the beginning God created one woman for one man, and one man for one woman.