Chapter XXXI. Matrimony. 393 of Ohio and Connecticut will enable us to form some idea of the fearful catalogue of divorces annually obtained in the United States. There are some who regard the Catholic Church as too severe in proclaiming the absolute indissolubility of marriage. But it should be borne in mind that it is not the Church, but the Divine Founder of the Christian religion, that has given us the law. She merely enforces its observance. The law, how rigorous soever, is mercy itself, when compared with the cruel consequences which follow from the easy concession of divorce. The facility with which marriage is annulled is most injurious to the morals of individuals, of the family and of society. It leads to ill-assorted and hasty marriages, because persons are less circumspect in making a compact which may be afterwards dissolved almost at will. It stimulates a discontented and [418] unprincipled husband or wife to lawlessness, quarrels and even adultery, well knowing that the very crime will afford a pretext and legal grounds for a separation. It engenders between husband and wife fierce litigations about the custody of their offspring. It deprives the children of the protecting arm of a father, or of the gentle care of a mother, and too frequently consigns them to the cold charity of the world; for the married couple who are wanting in conjugal love for one another are too often destitute also of parental affection. In a word, it brings into the household a blight and desolation which neither wealth nor luxury can repair. There is but one remedy to this social distemper, and that is an absolute prohibition of divorce a vinculo, in accordance with the inflexible rule of the Gospel and of the ancient Church. In Catholic countries divorces are exceedingly rare, and are obtained only by such as have thrown off the yoke of the Church. If the sacred laws of Matrimony are still happily observed by so large a portion of the Protestant community, the purity of morals is in no small measure due to the presence among them