“It was not until the Church was eleven hundred and sixty-four years old that Peter Lombard put marriage among the seven sacraments. And marriage did not become an official matter of Church jurisdiction till the Council of Trent in fifteen hundred and sixty-three. Think of that! Marriage was not a sacrament for fifteen centuries, and it has been one for less than four. And at that the Church could only manage the problem by increasing the number of impediments to marriage, which meant that it increased the number of excuses for annulling it. “The total number of marriages annulled would amaze you. History is full of the most picturesque devices for granting divorce without seeming to. Sometimes they would illegitimize two or three generations in order to find a marriage within the forbidden degrees. “According to Saint Matthew, Christ allowed divorce on the ground of adultery; according to Mark and Luke he made no such allowance. New York State follows Saint Matthew. The Catholic Church follows Luke and John. Old Martin Luther said that marriage was none of the Church's business. And that's what I think.” “You don't believe in the religious ceremony?” “I'm afraid I don't believe in religious ceremonies about anything. I'm rather a heathen, you know--brought up in a good Presbyterian Calvinistic atmosphere, but I've lost it all. I'll give three cheers for virtue and the home as well as anybody; but my study and my experience lead me to distrust preachers and preaching. “Still, this is a free country, and married people have a right to go to church if they want to, or to stay away. But I believe that marriage must be a civil contract and that no preacher has a right to denounce the State's prerogative, or try to belittle it. It is strange, but true, that when the Church has ruled the State the world has always groaned in corruption and cruelty. “I believe that the law of New York is ridiculous in allowing only one ground for divorce, and if the United States ever arranges a uniform divorce law it will undoubtedly follow the policy of the more liberal States. I believe, with Bernard Shaw and John Galsworthy and a number of other good, great men, in cheap and easy divorce, divorce within reach of the poor. “As for morality, you have only to read the literature of the time when there was no divorce to realize how little a safeguard it is for the home. Boccaccio gives a social portrait of such a life, and he is almost too indecent to read. Yet the picture he gives is not half so terrible as Saint Catherine of Siena gives. They had to cut that chapter out of her works.” “Oh, do you read her works, too?” said Charity, remembering her experience with that flaming biography.