Chapter XXXI. Matrimony. 391 information thus far received by us it is not in our power to pronounce a sentence of nullity. We cannot utter a judgment in opposition to the rules of the Church, and we could not, without laying aside those rules, decree the invalidity of a union which, according to the Word of God, no human power can sunder." Christian wives and mothers, what gratitude you owe to the Catholic Church for the honorable position you now hold in society ! If you are no longer regarded as the slave, but the equal of your husband; if you are no longer the toy of his caprice and liable to be discarded at any moment, like the women of Turkey and the Mormon wives of Utah; but if you are recognized as the mistress and queen of your household, you owe your emancipation to the Church. You are especially indebted for your liberty to the Popes who rose up in all the majesty of their spiritual power to vindicate the rights of injured wives against the lustful tyranny of their husbands. How opposite is the conduct of the fathers of the so-called Reformation, who, with the cry of religious reform on their lips, deformed religion and society by sanctioning divorce. Henry VIII. was divorced from his wife, Catherine, by Cranmer, the first Reformed Primate of England. Luther and his colleagues, Melanchthon and Bucer, permitted Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to have two wives at the [416] same time.543 Karlstadt, another German Reformer, justified polygamy.544 Modern Prussia is now reaping the bitter fruits of the seeds that were then sown within its borders. Seventy-five per cent, of the marriages now contracted outside of the Catholic Church in Berlin are performed without any religious ceremony whatever. A union not bound by the strong ties of religion is easily dissolved. This subject excites a painful interest in our own country, in consequence of the facility with which divorce from the 544 Audin, p. 339.