unsuitable, obsolete, perhaps unjust; it imperatively requires to
be amended; and the remedy is, Abolish it, let there henceforth
be no relation at all. From the "Sacrament of Marriage"
downwards, human beings used to be manifoldly related, one to
another, and each to all; and there was no relation among human
beings, just or unjust, that had not its grievances and
difficulties, its necessities on both sides to bear and forbear.
But henceforth, be it known, we have changed all that, by favor
of Heaven: "the voluntary principle" has come up, which will
itself do the business for us; and now let a new Sacrament, that
of Divorce, which we call emancipation, and spout of on our
platforms, be universally the order of the day!--Have men
considered whither all this is tending, and what it certainly
enough betokens? Cut every human relation which has anywhere
grown uneasy sheer asunder; reduce whatsoever was compulsory to
voluntary, whatsoever was permanent among us to the condition of
nomadic:--in other words, loosen by assiduous wedges in every
joint, the whole fabric of social existence, stone from stone:
till at last, all now being loose enough, it can, as we already
see in most countries, be overset by sudden outburst of
revolutionary rage; and, lying as mere mountains of anarchic
rubbish, solicit you to sing Fraternity, &c., over it, and to
rejoice in the new remarkable era of human progress we have
arrived at.

Certainly Emancipation proceeds with rapid strides among us, this
good while; and has got to such a length as might give rise to
reflections in men of a serious turn. West-Indian Blacks are
emancipated, and it appears refuse to work: Irish Whites have
long been entirely emancipated; and nobody asks them to work, or