The matrimonial institution of Rome was a compromise between the right and the wrong. The institution was considered in the light of a civil contract, entered into for expediency, and protected by the magistrates because it was deemed a blessing to society; by the law of the twelve tables it continued during the pleasure of the husband. The result was that frequent, and often, rapid succession of divorces and marriages took the place of polygamy, and introduced many of its evils. The private history of Roman ladies of first rank is a succession of marriages and divorces, each new marriage giving way to one more recent. Octavia, the daughter of the Emperor Claudus, married Nero, was repudiated by him for the sake of Poppæa; this woman was first married to Rufus Crispinus; then to Otho; and at length to Nero, by whom she was killed. Nero murdered Thessalina’s husband, and married her for his third wife. Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was first the wife of Marcellus, then the wife of Agrippa, and then the wife of Tiberius. Such examples are found almost without number in the annals of Tacitus. The extent to which this evil was carried may be learned from the poet Martial, who informs us, that, when the Julian law against adultery was revived as a prevention of the corruption of the times, Thessalina married her tenth husband within thirty days, thus evading all the restraints which the law imposed against her licentiousness. What is the marriage bond worth in such a state of society? Where is the state of society essentially better in the absence of the Christian religion? The Bible teaches us that the institution is of Divine origin, established by the Lord himself. It inscribes upon every marriage altar, “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” It definitely defines marriage to be the act of uniting two persons in wedlock, and only two. According to the Scriptures, this union can only be dissolved by crime or death. With great tenderness the Bible prescribes the duties of this relation. “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.” This love is not the cold hearted affection that is after the fashion of free-love philosophy, but it is after a model that has touched heavenly hearts, and caused more admiration than all other things combined. In the ancient dispensation adultery was punished with death. In the Christian dispensation, it is said with _great emphasis_, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” There is a place of which it is said, “Whoso is simple let him turn in hither, but he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.” There is a sin of which the Bible often speaks, pointing the guilty perpetrators to the fact that they have none inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ.