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Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to

show that an institution which was thought to be a revelation

from heaven, is only the growth of history and experience. We ask

what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the

right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually

arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We stand face to

face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. We are

compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest account of

the origin of human society. But on the other hand we may truly

say that every step in human progress has been in the same

direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of marriage

and of the family has been more and more defined and consecrated.

The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage

tribes; the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East; the

Christian nations have been stricter in their views of the

marriage relation than any of the ancients.