"
"That is not for him to restore. 'What, therefore, God hath joined,
let not man put asunder.'"
The old man grew majestic when he thundered the sonorities of Holy
Writ. Charity was cowed, but she made a craven protest:
"But who is to say what God hath joined?"
"The marriage sacraments administered by the ordained clergy
established that. There is every warrant for clergymen to perform
marriages; no Christian clergyman pretends to undo them."
"You believe that marriage is an indissoluble sacrament, then?"
"Indeed I do."
"Who made my marriage a sacrament?"
"I did, as the agent of God."
"And the minute you pronounce a couple married they are registered
in heaven, and God completes the union?"
"You may put it as you please; the truth is divine."
"In other words, a man like you can pronounce two people man and
wife, but once the words have escaped his lips nothing can ever
correct the mistake."
"There are certain conditions which annul a marriage, but once it
is genuinely ratified on earth it is ratified in heaven."
"In heaven, where, as the New Testament says in several places,
married people do not live together? The woman who had seven
husbands on earth, you know, didn't have any at all in heaven."
"So Christ answered the Sadducee who tempted him with questions."
"Marriage is strictly a matter of the earth, earthy, then?"
"Nothing is strictly that, my child. But what in the name of either
earth or heaven has led you to come over here and break into my
morning's work with such a fusillade of childish questions? You know
a child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.
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