It so vindicates matrimony from everything profane, that it
forbids the civil power to touch it. It employs the magnifi-
cence of its ritual to deck with all possible grandeur the sol-
emn ceremony. It sets apart a special Mass, special prayers,
special blessings for the occasion. It abominates and anathe-
matizes that plague-sore of modern civilization, that foul
wrong to Christ and His Church, that menace to peace of
families and the life of the state, absolute divorce. The
Church has fought many a battle in history to defend mar-
riage against the attacks of mad fanatics and rebellious here-
tics. The Manichees were among the first to attack its sacred-
ness. They condemned it as the immediate means of propa-
gating and multiplying original sin. They appealed to pas-
sages in St. Paul like the following :

" It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ' ' 1 Cor. 7. 1.
' ' That they also who have wives be as if they had none. ' ' 1
Cor. 7. 29. "And they who are in the flesh cannot please
God." Rom. 8. 8.
