Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-03-06
BISHOP IRELAND ON DIVORCE.

That Marriages Should Not be DIG
solved.
Tn, understanding that Bishop Ireland would
deliver sermon on the subject of allowing divorces,
was sufficient to fill nearly every seat in
the Cathedral last evening with people who
listened with the closest attention to what
he had to say upon that topic. AS will be from
the report Of the sermon to be found below he took
very ftrong ground against allowing divorces under
any circumstances maintaining that the marriage re-
lation when once entered into should always remain
He lifted the man iiage ceremony up to a higher
plane than that OF merely civil contract and de-
Tended it as an ordinance of the Almighty The fol-
lowing is the abstract of the discourse:
"what, therefore, God hath joined together let
not man put asdnder.'' Mark K %.
The great constitutive factor in human society,
need not tell you, is the family. It is itself among
men the first born society," Of all others the most i'm
periously commanded by nature, and thus manifest
y intended by the Creator the basis and archeype
Of all Interior social organizations The head of the
family is Gods original appointment before state
legislatures and state executives. to formulate laws
for the good government of his household, and to
shield from evil the weakness Of woman and child
The state freely recognizes this important fact that
the family is the essentIs social unit of the race
i
exercise of political suffrage the representai;o n of
the interests of the entire group over which his love
presides and when it jealousy denies itself the
privilege of interior ing in the legitimate sway of his
empire. The. family is for the future citizen the
true school Of intelligence and virtue. AS the fam
lily teaches, SO shall society at large be taught
Institutions of lean ming, state enactments church
manifestations, will assist, or partially rem
edy the home lessons; never, on any extensive
scale, will they supply the absence of wisdom and
hat r1f Of
very appearance into fe is made the pupil, AS you
regulate the family, SO you regulate society. Let
tie family be oncs set wrong in its consultative
parts, the whole social fabric is fatally attanted.
The family properly organized and d ing
rightly it3 work, ne salvation of societJ is
assured.
We have not to wonder that the most intense in
terest accompanies the discussion now taking place
among the leaders of thought in the country on the
divorce question, since it bears directly upon the
vital element in the framework of the family-the
marriage contract. The question is before the pub
lie more MOTIF sably perhaps than at any previous
period of our historyhow far, in point of duration
does the marriage contract bind? Is it indssoluble
gave by DEATH or are there cases when the contract
ing parties freed from all mutual obligations and
allowed to form new ties?
THE LAW OF CHRIST.
I propose 10 put before you this evening on d-
vorce, not the results of my own meditations and
judgments, the rulings of any special section of
social philosophy but the law of Christ as We find
it in the New Testament and il the pro-
nouncements of his church. There is
need, I believe, strange as it is that
such need should exist, to appeal
forcbly in the circumstances of day, to the la
Of Christ on marriage. In the discussions VIII oh
before u.s. state laws considered social con-
siderations weighed statistics of moraliiJ from
different orntlies are presented. Scarcely men,
ton Is made of Ohrists gospel. All other teachers,
it would seem, are to be brought into requisition to
help us to solve the difficulty except the teacher of
Palestine. The neglect to ascertain his VIII is an
ominous sign of the times. Can it be that we mean
70 conduct human ais without the PRINCIPLES of
the Christian religion?
The voice of civilization cries out that when social
matters are under consideration. the law of Christ
must lead in the formation of our judgments Our
civilization is the work of Christianity It began
With the spread of Ohrist's word through the uui-
verse; his doctrines permeae all it's parts; they are
its cohesive power, the energizing soul which main
5sins it in life. The world before CHRIST was as
night is to day, II compare it to the world after it
mad been imbued with Christ's doctrine. The pagan
world was rich Indeed in silver and gold superb
aaces lined the streets of its cities; the philoso-
pliers we're ingenious in thought and eloquent IN
word. But morally it was sink of vice and iniqui,y.
,ne fact-woman's degradation-tels the whole
tory of the moral infamy of the pagan world. Woman
mad been shorn of all dignity; she had no rights,
ave those which the capricious passion of the
stronger sex allowed her. Among more
barbfrods nations she was the slave, purchased
in he public market. In imperial Rome she was
gi'ded toy, courted one dsy, put aside the other.
High ststion in society was no protection Cicero
repudiated his wife, Terenta, because he desired
new dowry. Cato coded his wife. With the consent
Of her father, to his friend Hortensus. Maecenas
was continually changing Wives Paulus Aemilius
dismissed his wife, giving as his reason for the act
that 1t was his private business to keep her or
to dismiss her. So frequently in Rome was the same
woman rejected by husband after husband that, in
the language of Seneca, there were women who
reckOned their years rather by the number of their
husbands than by the Consular terms of the COM
Hta ,Nf
people may be inferred from these facts in the lives
of their teachers and models. The family was prac-
t.cally annihilated, marriage but name and the
name itself was soon despised that deluge of un-
iversa Righteousness threatened society, and pre-
miums for the birth of children were given by the
state. lest the race come to an end.
RESULTS OF cHRIsTIANIrY
The change which Christianity wrought was stu
pendCus the followers of the Nazarine pointed to
it as an evidence of his divine power. Woman was
reinstated in her rights and dignity. She was de-
clared the life partner of her husband entitled to his
undying respect and love, the possessor of rights
which no strength of arm could annul. The family
was re-creaed, raised to the lofty plane upon which
God had placed it when in the beginning he breath
ed life into the first parents of the race,
md from the purified family hearth-stone vjr-
tue radiated through the entire body polite Woman
altogether to christianity her high position in
the modern world, and through her elevation came
the moral excellence of our civilization Is it too
much, then, to demand that when the principles
upon which this civilization hinges are brought into
controversy, attention should first be directed to the
principles which he enunciated who built up our civ
lzaton, and upon whose doctrines it has heretofore
lived? Not gratitude only, but the sim pie sentiment
CT safety suggest this course. Are We, in obedience
to mere theories and brain specula'ions of recent
philosophers and social economists to abandon the
guidance which heretofore has been cur salvation
and to walk for mere experiment, in and untried
pathways?
But when We not only parsake of the favors of a
christian civilization but believe that the author of
this civilization far more than the wisest of men,
that he was divine teacher, the whole discussion
for us begins and ends with the statement of his
doctrine. He is the MASTER the supreme awgiver for
family and for state his doctrine allows no appeal
The wisdom of the philosopher who contradicts him
Is but folly; the liberty which human legislatures
afford to break his law is but RIGHTEOUSNESS. We
will state the teaching of Christ on marriage and d.
vorce
We read in the tenth chapter of Mark: "The
Pharisees coming to him. asked BIN: Is
it lawful for man to put away his wife. But
he answering saith to them What did Moses
command you? And they said Moses permitted TO
write bill of divorce, and to put her away And
Jesus answering said to them: Because of the
hardness of your heart he wrote you that precept
But from the beginning of the creation God made
them male and female. For this cause man shall
leave his father and mother, and shall cleve to his
now they are not two, but one flesh. What, there
fore, God hath joined together let put asun-
der. And in the house again his disciples asked him
concerning the same thing. And he said to them :
Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry an
other committeth adultery against her, and if the
wife shall put away her husband and be married to
another, she committeth adultery"