The record-union., 1899-11-12
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
EXPRESSIONS FROM VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.

RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
The Religious Thought Of the Day
as Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press
"A committee was appointed at the
recent Diocesan Convention in New
York to consider that portion of Bishop
Potter's address which related to mar
riage and divorce" says the Living
Church (P. Ed of Chicago. 1.-The re-
port of this committee contained a
strong statement of the evils which
have come out of the present laxity.
Most significant of all is the glazing
fact that the offenders are permitted
to retain their place in the circles in
Which they move; their actions, though
criminal in the eye of the law and the
judgment of the courts, are cOndoned
in society, and they are accepted as III
good standing and beyond reproach.' 1t
is this deterioration of morals in the
leading circles of society which en-
phasizes the necessity that the church,
at least, should speak upon the subject
with no uncertain voice. 1t is for the
church to set the standard of good NOR
ais. She cannot afford to allow society
to lay down the law for her. The New
York Evening Post says: If these
charges are only partly true, there
should be no doubt concerning the at
titude of the church. Civil marriage is
open to divorced persons, and that is
all that they can reasonably ask. In
fact, the sanctity of the church is
sought by divorced persons as a relief
from a social stigma. Marriage by u
clergyman rehabilitates them, and en-
society," These are words of truth and
soberness."
I'm commenting on Bishop Potters
somewhat pessimistic statements as to
the prevalence of the divorce evil, the
Church Standard calls attention to
some mitigating circumstances. If here
in America divorce is sometimes made
frightfully easy, and if society too
often pardOnS it, yet there is a general
protest which puts a stigma upon it.
But is there more vice here" says the
New York "Independent,' with our
liberty of divorce, than there is in, say
the Latin countries, where divorce is
utterly forbidden by the church, but
where society condones and expects
Illegal infidelities? We had some curl
Gus illustrations of this in the Dreyfus
trial, such as prove that morality de-
ponds on something much deeper than
divorce laws. No people have had y
purer family life than the Jews. and
yet divorce, whether under the Mosaic
or the Talmudic law, was fearfully
easy. Marriage laws and divorce laws
may make that right which is wrong
and wrong which is right They allow
divorces when divorce provides for
tandem adultery, and they forbid mar
riage in connections which are faithful
marriages. 1t is not the law, but the
sound conscience which must make I'M
justifiable divorce intolerable in a de-
cent community"
s"The Reformed churches generally al
low obstinate and willful desertion as
ground of divorce allowed in the
Scripture" says the New York Chris
! tan Advocate (Meth.) 1.-The subject
of divorce is not to be disposed of either
by the Roman Catholic theory, that
calls marriage a sacrament and does
not allow a remarriage, even if the per-
son obtaining the divorce dies, or OF
the ground of a violation of the seventh
commandment by wife or husband; nor
by the adoption of that rule by the
Protestant Episcopal Church, nor by
, the maintenance of a rule ny other de-
nominations that no other causes shall
be allowed The dreadful evil which
now exists in most of the States. OF
divorce for almost any cause, needs
heroic treatment; but a reaction to an
exclusive proposition doubtfully sup
ported by Scripture, or which fails to
recognize the complex conditions of
modern civilization, or which proposes
to secure uniform laws otherwise than
by the free action of the separate
States, instead of diminishing can be
shown to be likely to intensity the evil,
and contribute to the great number Of
families in the land utterly alienated,
to the third and fourth, and perhaps to
the twentieth, generation, from religion
of all kinds, besides producing habituai
winking at violations of rules in the
church by clergy and laity, in itself a
grieyous evil There is naturally
feeling of delicacy which interferes with
the frank discussion of this subject in
the secular and religious press, but be-
fore a reasonable and unmistakable
scriptural and effective solution can be
found and adopted this will be neces-
sary."
eve doubt if there ever has been
time when religion was more prominent
in the popular mind than now" says
the "Congregationalist'' of Boston THE
daily newspaper aims to represent what
men are thinking. In the excitement
of the autumn political campaigns, in
the amazing development of business,
in the intense interest of industrial re-
adjustments and even in the midst of
the enthusiasm of the home coming of
our great naval hero from Manila and
the excitement of international yacht
races religious affairs occupy large
place in the daily reports and editorial
discussions of the journals most widely
read and of greatest influence. The
congregational Council just ended, the
assembly of Presbyterians which has
been in session at Washington, the
Episcopal Church Congress in Mime
apolis, and several other meetings Of
commented on with fullness and in
telligence which will not only spread
information of Christian truth, but will