The age-herald., 1899-10-07
SHOULD DIvoRcEEs
 BE REMARKED i?
From the New York Journal.

From the New York Journal. i"-is sl~zrT
 Marriage and divorce, the subject which has agitated the clerical and lay minds of the Protestant Episcopal church. will be dealt with pro and con today by an eccles- fastical body. This body constitutes a special committee of the general convention of the Protestant Episcopal church ap- pointed to draft canon on the oft-mooted question of marriage and divorce. This committee, having among its nine members some of the most prominent clergymen of tine Protestant Episcopal church, will meet in secret session in a room in Trinity Chapel, No. b west Twenty-fffth street.
 The individual views of each member of the committee will be reduced to writing, and 1t is the intention of the body not to make these written opinions and sugges- tions public until two years hence, when they will be read at the next biennial con- veEition, which convenes in San Francisco.
 These treatises on marriage and divorce, coming, as they will, from the pens of learned and deep-thinloing ecclesiastics who have studied the question in it's many phases, will furnish valuable documentary information and suggestion the topic.
 This committee is composed of the Rev. Di. NaOi Sdl OlA, ItCtOI Ol lfiHfly the Rev pr. John Fulton, of Philadelphia; the Rev. Dr. Lobdell of Buffalo the Rev. J. H. Eccleston, of Baltimore, and the Rev. pr. Eugene A. Hoffman, dean of the Gen eral Theological seminary. Also associated with this committee are Francis Lynde Stetson, of this city; Francis A. Lewis, of Philadelphia, and Clarence H. Stanley, of Washington, who represent in a measure and by selection the thinking lay mind of the Protestant Episcopal church.
 Among this committee are two men-the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix and Francis Lynde Stetson- whose views on the divine institu- tion of marriage are contained in a recent report of committee of the Protestant Episcopal Diocesan convention. In pant this report reads:
 "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 stigmatized as adulterous by our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet these offenders are permitted to retain their places 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 aire accepted as in good standing and beyond reproach."
 Of course. mere speculation can only pre- vail as to the manner the question of marriage and divorce will be disposed of by the committee, which meets today, burt it is +h church that it will be handled without gloves, as presaged by the foregoing.
 pr. John Fulton arrived in the city yes- terday and stopped over night in the coun- ry home of Francis Lynde Stetson. The other out of town members are due to ar rive this morning.
 The Rev. Cortlandt Myers, of the Baptist Temple, Brooklyn says:
 ''This is one of the greatest evils in American life and the church is a sharer in the guilt. Make it as hard possible to get married and harder to get un- married.'
 The Rev. Dr. R. R. Meredith, of Tomp- kins Avenue Congregational church, Brook lyn, says:
 ''I do not believe that absolute divorce should be possible, except on the ground of adultery, and that the guilty party should not be permitted to remarry. honor the position of the Roman Catholic church on this whole subject"
 The Rev. pr. James G. Patterson, for merly of the East Harlem Presbyterian church:
 q recognize only one cause for divorce the Scriptural cause-infidelity-and l be- Heve the innocent party should be permitted to marry again.
 The Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke, Brick Presbyterian church:
 ''Divorce should be granted only for in- fidelity CT for such desertion as amounts to infidelity, and only the innocent party should be free to remarry.'