But even if divorce _a vinculo_ were not forbidden by divine law, how inadequate a remedy would it be for the evils for which so many deem it a panacea. "Divorce _a vinculo_," as Dr. Brownson truly says, "logically involves divorce _ad libitum."_*** Now, what reason is there to suppose that parties divorced and remated will be happier in the new connection than in the old? As a matter of fact, many persons have been divorced a number of times. Sometimes, too, it happens that, after a period of separation, divorced parties repent of their folly, reunite, and are again divorced. Indeed, experience clearly proves that unhappiness among married people frequently does not arise so much from "mutual incompatibility" as from causes inherent in one or both of the parties--causes that would be likely to make a new union as wretched as the old one. There is wisdom in the pithy saying of-a recent writer: "Much ill comes, not because men and women are married, but because they are fools."*** * Mark, x., n, 12. Luke, xvi., 18. J I. Cor.,vii., 10, 11. ** Essay on "The Family--Christian and Pagan." *** Prof. David Swing in Chicago Journal. There are some who think that the absolute prohibition of divorce does not contribute to the purity of society, and are therefore of opinion that divorce with liberty to remarry does good in this regard. He who believes the matrimonial bond indissoluble, divorce a vinculo evil, and the connection resulting from it criminal, can only say: "Evil should not be done that good may come." But, after all, would even passing good come from this greater freedom? In a few exceptional cases--Yes: in the vast majority of cases--No. The trying of divorce as a safeguard of purity is an old experiment, and an unsuccessful one. In Rome adulteries increased as divorces were multiplied. After speaking of the facility and frequency of divorce among the Romans, Gibbon adds: "A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute. The minute difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be forgotten."* How _apropos_ in this connection are the words of Professor Woolsey: "Nothing is more startling than to pass from the first part of the eighteenth to this latter part of the nineteenth century, and to observe how law has changed and opinion has altered in regard to marriage, the great foundation of society, and to divorce; and how, almost pari passu, various offences against chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution, illegitimate births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have increased also--not, indeed, at the same pace everywhere, or all of them equally in all countries, yet have decidedly increased on the whole."!