Again, another particular that tends to the honorableness of the marriage state, as pointed out in the text, is the high purpose which it is intended to serve according to the will of God. The family life is the foundation of human society. Married life, without seeking to fulfill its first purpose, the perpetuating of the human race and the bringing up of one's offspring in the proper manner, is to undermine, frustrate, that foundation of the state. This leads me to refer to an evil which I hardly know how to speak of, which should be named in the blackest of evils,--I mean the willful intention and resolve to defeat the first of those purposes for which matrimony was instituted by God. It comes looming up on the view of this generation as a great, a growing, an almost national crime. The foundation of a home is the first thing intended in matrimony. But some deliberately resolve that there shall be no home, or at least that it shall be as narrow, as limited, as possible. Be it to avoid pain, be it to shrink the duty of the parent, be it to remain free to enjoy the world,--arts base and black, devices which in the Old Testament were punished by death, are used to carry out these ungodly and absurd resolves; ungodly, because it would not be possible more grossly to outrage God's law than in this way; absurd, because a marriage contracted with that understanding and intention is a contradiction, a misnomer, a fraud on society and on the Church. And so I say, as God's minister and in His name, as we who must speak fearlessly, that this act of deliberately preventing the formation of a home is a crime, and one which brings down curses from a God of justice, who knows and who rewards according to our deeds. "Marriage," be it noted, "is honorable in all"; it is a holy and pure estate, and holiness must prevail therein.
And now let us regard the other part of our discourse: If marriage is a holy estate, then it must be entered honorably and must be continued honorably.
Marriage ought to be entered honorably. There is something appalling in the thoughtlessness, the irresponsibility with which young people will contract marriage; there seems to be often no apparent sense of the gravity of the act, no reflection upon what is involved. A pleasant face, captivating demeanor, money, or position are not infrequently the flimsy threads that tie the conjugal knot.