Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-06-03
Glimpse at New England Morality

The prevalence of the divorce mania
in New England is still one of the topics
of the press of that section. Rev. S. w.
Dixie, of Vermont. is lecturing in Coz
necticut on the subject He shows that
in New England in the last year there
were 2013 divorces. There is no doubt
that the abuse is very great, and that the
Scriptures are disregarded in most in
stances. The New Haven Reqister saws
that the loose morals of that county and
of Hartford county are greater than IN
Chicago, proverbial for the same thing.
aud that not one-fourth of the divorces
we're granted for Scriptural causes.
We must give one paragraph
from the Register that should leach
the philanthropists of New England that
they have under their noses the greatest
possible offenses that demand the prun-
ing knife and the cautery. It would
really seem that there are enough cry
ing evils at home demanding their atten-
tion without coming thousand or two
thousand miles southwark to pry into
other peoples shortcomings. When
they have ceased to disfranchise tens
of thousands of white men, and when
they have ceased to destroy the
S6ACblbyJ du0 DCdutX OI Tue
marital relations by easy laws and
fragrant abuses; and when they have
cured the damning curse of prostitution
and illegitimacY and other startling
crimes against decency, civilization,
morality and national progress, they may
then mount their studs and go off in
quest of other conquests in the great
field of reform. Let them first set their
own houses in order before endeavoring
to inquire Offlciously into the manage
ment of the households of other people.
Let them be first true TO themselves and
then they will not be false to others.
But to the extract from an editorial in
the New Haven Register. 1t says:
Instances Of couples agreeing to live to-
it was not satisfactory to agree to divorce,
are not wanting, and many instances Of peo-
pie obtaining two, three. and sometimes even
four divorces are known. Mr.. Dixie. from a
correspondence with one hundred cities and
large towns in New England, gathers the testi-
mony that while there is less open and fagrant
crime than formerly, the crime against chastity
has increased with great rapidity that the birth
rate is correspondingly low with the increase
of divorces, that the number of illegitimate
births has increased from s in 900 in 1850, to
II in 1,G0O in 1879, and that the birth rate is
probably lower than in any European coun-
try"
We mentioned before that in New
England a lecturer said that the divorces
in the Northwest were a genuine pro-
duction of that section In one county
in Minnesota. Hennepin by name, in ten
years there were 289 divorces granted,
or one in every fourteen marriages.
With such figures and facts the wonder
is that all the God fearing or virtue
loving people in the North-if there be
such-do not rise up and demand a re-
form. Some of the best people are be-
coming alarmed. Only the other day
Professor Phelps, of the Andover Theo.
logical Seminary, sounded note of
alarm. He said-and mind you it is 8
New England man talking-a man of
learning and of character:
1--WE are not half awake to the fact that by
our laws of divorce and our federation of the
social evil We are doing more to corrupt the
nations heart than Mermonism tenfold Vice.
avowed and blatant and organized, to large
extent nullifies itself, so far selfdfusion is
conceT ned But vice, lurking and still trickles
into all the crevices Of society. nation of
Mormons is impossible-not so a nation of lib
ertines."
Any people who depart from the law
of Christ and make lax laws for lustful
people, are simply legalizing adultery,
corrupting the hearth-stone, destroying
society, and diffusing Mormonism under
another guise through the North.