a marriage consummated between an unrighteous man and an unrighteous woman, is a marriage in which God has joined the parties together. You might as well take the ordinance of baptism, and say that Simon Magus, when he went forward and was baptized, had complied with the ordinance of Heaven, while he yet remained in a condition of hardened sinfulness; and that because he had passed through the outward observance of the ordinance it was acceptable in the sight of Heaven. God never had anything to do with the marriages of the wicked only to permit them, perhaps for a wise purpose, as he permitted Joseph to be sold into Egypt by his brethren. He permitted the deed for his own wise purposes, but He did not justify the instruments who did the deed. So he permits these unauthorized marriages between wicked men and wicked women, to perpetuate the human race, because they will not hearken to Him, until the time shall come when he can have a pure people who will obey his laws, educating their posterity to honor and serve him. He permits, but He does not sanction such marriages. If we should argue with the reverend gentleman that the census shows an equality of males and females, this argument that I have now advanced will rebut the idea thus sought to be established. The idea is that because there may be made to appear an equality in numbers, therefore, every man must be confined to one wife and every woman must have one husband. Is that the way God dispenses his gifts and blessings to the human family? Does he give the same amount of blessings to the wicked that He does to the righteous? In some respects He does. He sends the rain from heaven upon the just and the unjust. But there are many great and important blessings that are bestowed more abundantly upon the righteous than upon the wicked. God has holy designs to accomplish when He makes a distinction between the righteous and the wicked in dispensing His blessings. Therefore if the wicked take wives without their being joined together by divine authority, those wives have allied themselves to their husbands without the Lord's sanction. Because the Lord permits this it does not prove that He sanctions it; and He would prefer that a people should be like Israel of old, a nation of polygamists as well as monogamists, and the blessings be dispensed between them, rather than have this so-called perfect equality between the males and females, and a wicked generation be the result. To prove this I will refer you to the 37th Psalm. God in that Psalm has expressly said, and repeated again and again, that the seed of the evil-doers should he rooted out of the earth, while the righteous should inherit it and should prosper. He bestows His blessings upon the one and His curses upon the other.