The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1895-12-08

Then Or. Carter married third wife.
| Did he have n moral and religious light
| to do this. as he unquestionably had the
right In civil law? There was nc bigamy
was there. also, no wrong?
There is with many an impression chat.
on general moral grounds. the second
marriage though broken in civil law. by
the divorce OF 1885. and though void IN
Gods eyes and adulterous at the time OF
its contraction In 1874 Che first wife being
then alive and defrau1ed by wicked d.
vorcc OF her lawful rights. carried with
1t disablement at least. on carter
part. 10 pass by that woman and during
her life take a third
made no such point. and 10 not here
maintain II. The position which / be-
lieve was and is impregnable grows OUT
Of Church legislation I'm 1856 and 1890.
This antedates not only DR.. Carter's
third marriage, but his admission into
the conference and part Of IT his recep-
ton. a. a reconvcrt, into the Church at
Norfolk.
A CARELESS DECREE.
II would have been IN the power OF the
court which in the District of Columbia,
In 1SS5. divorced Mrs. Garter No. from
her husband. TO have inhibited either or
botn OF ih.m from marrying again during
The life time Of the other. II didn't. II
vorce law in careless way. 1t took no
heed to the question whether they ever
married again and cared nothing as 70
whom they married. 1t was doing the
work of breaking the matrimonial bono,
for which its power had been invoked
But divorce court in morals and re-
ligion in the Methodist Episcopal Churcn,
South. had. when he entered the Church
and ministry, expressly laid its Inhibition
1,-,-f.. nc The
General Conference OF 1856. held In Rich
mond, Va, passed the following resolu-
ton:
Resolved, That no minister Of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
knowingly, upon due inquiry, shall
solemnize the marriage of any person
who has a divorced wife or husband stiil
living; provided this inhibition shall not
apply TO the innocent party TO divorce
granted for a Scriptural cause, or to par
ties once divorced seeking TO be remar-
ried.'
THE LAW AS TT IS
This. not being enacted in the technl-
cal form of amendment to the Discipline,
did not appear in that statute-book, ana
in 1890 the General Conference held at
ST. Louis. amended the Discipline by in
sorting the present paragraph 49, Dis
cipline of 1894. which reads thus:
''rhe ministers of our Church snail be
prohibited from solemnizing the rites OF
matrimony between divorced persons, ex-
cep. in the case Of innocent parties who
have been divorced for the one Scriptural
cause"
1t is very true that these laws, in their
precise terms. deal with and prohibit the
celebration of the marriage ceremony IN
the case of such divorced persons. But
as an expression of the position of the
H., r maj
no sane person can be In doubt If law
on the statute-book Of the State punished
with death person guilty Of being "ac-
cessory before the fact" to murder, does
any intelligent person question whether
that law includes the doctrine that muir
der Itself IS the highest of crimesy Could
a preacher be punishable for marrying
divorced persons. and yet that ZANE
prel innocenty and unpublished be
a principal in just such marriage? To
state the proposition is enough.
So probable was the application of his
law TO such a marriage as his that DR..
Carter thought. TO use his own words. II
is unwise that any of our (he Methodist
ministers should be connected with the
natter, and so betook himself and his in
tended wife 10 Washington, ID. c., and
was there married by a Lutheran minis
ter. in whose Church there is no law or
rule on the subject.
IL was argued by his counsel that these
laws were never intended to bear upon
cases like Dr. Carriers, but upon mar
riages of persons who having been truly
and validity united in law and morals, had
sought release from such a bond for
cause other than adultery-'the one Scrip
tural cause
INGENIUS BUT SOPHISTICAL.
This is fngenius, but not the less So
nj, IL nj "A
the report on divorce to the General Con-
ference of 1856, and who pOnders the Ian
euage Of the resolution they reported, as
also that OF the law of 1890 now in the
Discipline lparagraphed 1880, that those
lawmakers We're putting all the difficulty
they coul0 in the way of the remarryins
of divorced people who had dissolved their
marriage tie on an unscripturd ground,
and that II was not at all in the purview
of this legislation TO 20 oshind the fact of
a legal marriage 4nte1atiag divorce and
cCnC,rn themselves or their ministers
With settling the validities in morals and
religion of those marriages. II was enough
for them that these people once married
were seeking too easily 10 get loose from
the tie. These marriages and inma~rias-
es and marriages again were the shame
and disgrace Of America II was determ-
incd t. say and decree that Methodist
preachers should not even be ,elebrants
of marriages where some of the parties
were divorces without grounds of adut-
terry alleged or maintained IN such divorce
pro ,eedings.
II is very true that probably they
tholeht of no such case as this. They
did not expect a man. claiming 10 be re-
converted and entering the Christian min
istry once more, after more than twenty
years of terrible backslidings, TO plead the
commission of one of the greatest OF his
sins as a reason why he should be al
lowed the privilege of marrying Ike an
unstained and unpolluted man 10 whom
marriage is a blessed and holy state as
ISOLATED with no memory of vice or lust.
no Indebtedness of most unclean living.
Such talking advantage of his own
wrong" had not occurred to them.
And certainly no friend of Dr.. Carriers
who helped TO enact those laws OF 1886
and 1890 dreamed, when voting for his
admission in 1892 into the Virginia Con-
ference. that he would ever stand in
such a position as TO be obliged 10 evade
the moral bearing of those laws by such
a plea.
In dcfying the moral principles involve.
in this legislation, DIR Carter, in my hum
bic judgment. deeply offended against the
pure and devoted instincts of the Meth
odist public at large. and the damage in
ficted upon the moral tone and influence
Of our ministry is. | think. irreparable.
| agree with Mr.. Phelps. who, some,
some years since, in one of the great re-