Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1904-05-26

he Observation-Disclosures conference on
marriage and divorce has issued a strong
appeal on this subject. The churches
represented are the Episcopal Methodist,
/ Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran Congre-
gational, Reformed, Unitarian and Uni
versalist The following is the appeal
APPEAL TO CHRISTIAN PUBLIC.
On behalf Of the representatives Of the
fourteen churches composing the inter
church conference, which, during the past
two years, has held frequent meetings for
the consideration Of the important subject
Of marriage and divorce, we have been
instructed to issue this first general address
and appeal
ut is proposed to issue other appeals as
occasion may require, in the hope, that the
influence Of this representative conference
may be brought to bear effectively upon
ecclesiastical and civil courts and legisla-
tive bodies, for the securing of better con-
ditions and for the deliverance of the church
and the state from impending evils.
Before any civil legislation can be
enacted which will be operative, and quite
apart from the accord which we are seeking
to secure in the marriage regulations of the
Christian churches, must come the leaven-
ing Of the minds Of men and women which
shall lift them toward a recognition of the
noblest dignities of life
First of all we plead for the oultiva-
ton of the grace Of purity; for the careful
guarding of children within the atmosphere
of home by parents, and for the realization
of the dignity of our physical nature lifted
to such high honor by the incarnation.
~We plead for a recognition of the sane
tity of marriage. We are facing condi-
ton in our country to-day which threatens
danger to the most sacred things. The
very sanctuary of human life and of human
love is assaulted and profaned. Manhood,
womanhood and childhood, the home and
the family are involved; and neither civil
| legislation nor ecclesiastical discipline can
save them until and unless the conscience
Of Christian humanity is reached.
Behind the monster of polygamy, behind
the spectre Of the lax divorce court, with
its collusions, its corruptions and its con-
tagion, stands the sad fact of the low ideal
of marriage. It is true that the element
of mutual consent and the element of legal
contract enter into it, but underneath and
behind these, as the sure foundation, stands
the revelation of Gods holy word God at
first brought woman to man, one wo-
man to one man, to whom he shall cleave,
so that in Gods purpose aud Gods sight
they are one flesh.
The primal marriage was followed by
centuries of hardened hearts and laws
lowered or lost, until at last Christianity
was connected by the voice of the divine
law-giver with the old law which He laid
down at the creation: Have ye not read
that He which made them at the beginning
made them male and female, and said, for
this cause shall man leave his father and
mother and cleaYe unto his wife, and they
twain shall be one flesh
Marriage is holy thing. Marriage is
the institution Of God Himself and is sanc-
titled under the solemnities of the old sane
ton Of our blessed Lord. This is the root
of the matter Reformation must begin
here. Children must be taught it, Young
men and young women must be made to
feel it. Protected in purity, boy and girl,
man and woman alike, must be trained to
look with reverent eyes upon the holiness
of this estate; upon it's righteousness as
something higher and deeper and larger
than can be measured or reached by the
low ideas Of convenience, of worldly adj
vantage, Of the qualification Of passion, or
by the light and easy estimate of the con-
sent Of the passing personal fancy of the
mutual recognition Of the civil contract.
The hope of curing and crushing the
horrible tendencies to facile and frequent
divorce rests, we believe, upon impressing
and intoxicating such an intense conviction
of what marriage is, and of what marriage
means, thai 1t Will cease to be entered into
'unadyisedly or lightly;' that the festiyity
which accompanies it shall be sobered and
consecrated by the conscious presence of
Him who adorned and beautifed the mar
riage at Cana in Galilee by His presence
and first miracle that He wrought shat
neither man nor woman shall dare to enter
the precincts Of betrothal without the tested
certainty Of loye; without the full recog-
milton Of the mutual duty Of service, fore
bearance and faithfulaess which it involves
| What words can we find to express the
abhorance which ought to rise in righteous
indignation against the present possibilities
and the existing facts Of the divorce habit
in America just now polygamous Utah
looms large and ugly in our minds. But
/ we r1TIet 1ook nearer home 70 rea1iza the