The Portland daily press., 1898-09-21

proud OF Un0 young men VINO had u9
liyered the addresses of the afternoon. re
thought that there should be bureau OF
information as suggested by Mr.. Ride
out. MIR. Wilson said that he personally
knew of men who were scamps being EN-
ployed as clergymen in Maine because
there was no means of learning their past
records.
Several others also participated in the
discussion.
CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL
PROBLEMS"
was the general subject of the evenings
discussion beginning with a paper by
Rev. 81. W. Kimball of Skowhegan or
"The Church and Our Industrial
Problems We cannot be foes in Eusi
ness and brothers in heart, said Mr.. KIM
ball in the course of an argument de-
signed to show that the present business
competition must give place to some form
of cooperation before the kingdom of
God can come ON earth. AS 1t is now,
the reason that SO few young business and
laboring men are found in the churches
is that they cannot make their business
methods seem right in the light OF the
teachings of the church. The church
should be fearless in pointing out these
evils, In showing men that business
methods are un Christian-like. Is the
pulpit now pointing out that the system is
evil which makes one man success depend
on another mans ruin9 Laboring men
are engaged in struggle against long
hours. When the bakers union of New
York was trying to secure the closing of
the bake shops on Sundays they wrote to
the churches of the city for support and
got just three replies. Is it any wonder
laboring men declare the church is not in
sympathy with them? A type setting
machine is invented. an improvement is
made in mill machinery, and thousands
lose work--something is wrong.
Mr.. Kimball in drawing his conclusions
from his somewhat glowing picture of the
industrial world, expressed the belief
that the church might be the Inspiration
to better state of things. even though
to-day she Is justly condemned because she
stands aloof.
Rev. Samuel L. Dixie. LII. D., was in
troduoed to discuss the question
DIVORCE AND OUR DUTY TO.
WARD IT."
DR.. Dixie is an authority on the subject
assigned to him having for years made it
a study and Icing the author of a num-
Der of important contributions to the
literature of the question. He spoke of
the sanctity of the family. Divorce is
the dissolution of the family. In Maine
in 1894 there were 674 divorces, one to
every eight marriages in that year. Now
how ere you doing in Maine? asked DR..
Dixie. You are doing 1t by system of
licenses. License in prohibition Maine.
The state has the right to permit it's
courts to grant divorces, I will not say
for one cause alone but. perhaps, for half
dozen causes but the state has no right
to inflict capital punishment on the
family for any number of trivial causes.
The evil of divorce is not confined to
felt in other families. I am net a
pessimist I think that family life may
be better than it was in the past and the
NUN Der of divorces is not always test
of morality. The question is, is the
family life of today vigorous enough,
healthy enough, strong enough to stand
the strain pnt upon it by the industrial
and other questions which affect the life
of the peoplef The significance of divorce
statistics is like the significance of suicide
and murder. 1t is symptomatic, showing
the drift of things. No oifilized country
is taking the risk with the family by the
Iooseness of its marriage and divocre laws
as are the United States.
A-.t s-4'~Il we do - it asked D..
Dixie and in answering the question he
said that much was being accomplished
by the improvement of the laws and the
movement to secure uniformity of legisla-
tion in the several states although Maine
is behind other states in this regard. One
of the evils of today is the disuse of the
family. We have been cultiyating the
collective idea. 1t is within the last hun
dred years that the Sunday school has
grown up and with 1t we now have the
Y. NJ. G. A, the Y. p. S. G. E.. the
wolnan's mission orioles These are all
applications Of the congregational the col