The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-11-14

close and sweet
Than Thou hast ever held it: and,
while fleet
The night is falling, down the unknown
way,
Lead me, O God!
Henry ]. Stockard (of North Caro-
lina) in Youths Companion.
The Christian people must take up
the imperative matter of divorce and
deal with it. 1t is a positive shame
and reproach to our country and
imagined or claimed civilization that
the guilt and ignominy Of wholesale di-
vorce should so afflict society and
stain the annals of the country. And
the pity of it is that while the church
has been silent, Indifferent, asleep, the
unchristian legislators ave put up the
gates, turned down the bars, and by
evil avs have invited the most wide
spread divorce mania. If the curse in
creases for the next two or three years
as it has for the last two or three
years in North Carolina, there will have
to be COURTS of divorce created to at
tend to the urgent, precipitate action
of welded people seeking to break loose
from the marital ties and to go it with
a free and unrestrained will, without
the fear of God or man. 1t is a stigma
that will stick and blur so long as the
mania continues and the public mind
is debauched. 1t is surely high time
that the various branche of the
church were moving in this question of
divorce that is proving so calamitous,
wrecking so nan homes, and en-
couraging the reign of lust. Can it be
that the church of God will continue
unmoved and silent under the deluge
of crime and folly and in express oppo-
sition to and disregard of the sacred
law of Jehovah? What will the Chris
ton church do about this vast, rapidly
growing evil and curse to humanity?
That there is great mischief being
wrought and great sin being practiced
cannot be obseured by shutting the
eyes or escaped by profound silence.
The Christian men and women in all
our and should awake and take action
bold and aggressive, in this most i'm
portant matter. To a most lamentable
degree in the north and in the south
the divorce fanaticism and practice are
having it their own way to the damage
of society and the prostration of de-
ency.
In New York there has been a move
ment started among Episcopalians to
enforce the doctrines of God and their
church. We hope the good example
will be quickly followed by all the
Christian bodies. The Roman Catholic
church is as ound as aygold dollar in
the question of marriage and divorce.
y The truth is. the Christians are too
lax, too careless, too thoughtless, too
inert in this really great question. 1t
is a biting shame hat the plain letter
of Gods law is every day violated by
the connivance Of leg slators n the
courts and the tone of society is low
cred and debauchery encouraged. Rev.
DR.. Morgan Dix, a leader in the Epis-
copal church in New York. made q
strongly worded and impressive report
upon divorce. and showed that there
was a constantly increasing tendency
Ito wrong doing under a much lower
ideal of marriage. We make a quota
ton from the Doctors report:
Men and women outrage the divine
law, and render themselves liable to
prosecution and punishment under our
human statutes; they easily obtain the
dissolution of the ties by which they
were bound by mutual promise and
VOW; they proceed with as little delay
as possible to enter into new relations
contrary to Gods Word, and stigmatiz-
ed as adulterous by our Lord Jesus
Christ; and yet these offenders are per-
mitted to retain their place in the cir
cles in which they move; their actions,
though criminal in the eye Of the law
and the judgments of the couts, are
~condoned in society, and they are &C
copied as in good standing and beyond
reproach.
Families are broken UP, homes ruined
under frivolous pretenSes or at the die
tate of the lawless passion, yet it is
assumed that these things should be
left to the individual as his or her per-
sonal concern, and not the concern
of the social circle in which they
move, and feeble, if any, opposition is
made to the exoneration and full re-
Mobilization of offenders whose acts
merit the reproof of just and honora-
BILE men,"
The report has moved the New York
Tribune to write a column ON divorce
closing with these words with which
true Christians must sympathize sim
cerely: 1--WE are quite aware that the
problem presented is a delicate and
thorny me 1t is also one of tremen-
dous Importance, and all decent people