The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-01-17

Los Angehles, Cal, January 1O-In this sermon the nations fragrant. besetting sin. easy divorce and the fncongruous conflict of state laws on the subject are unsparingy characterized. The preacher indicates the only way out of this im- mortal tangle which is wrecking the home and desecrating the marriage altar. The text is Mark x. 9. What therefore God hath joined together let no man put asun- ders'
 As the civil war was the mortal clash between two conflicting ideas, so today we find conflicting ideas in mortal combat over the marriage altar. The one is the Christ idea which declares that marriage Is not a confederation that can be broken at will. but an indissoluble union. This idea asserts that after marriage the twain in every sense becomes one. The second idea declares that easy divorce is not a crime, but often. for the social good, necessity. It says that when man and a woman are unequally yoked together 1t is better that they be separated by law, even if the cause for separation be not so serious as that recognized in the Bible and, more, that they may, if they wish, contract new marriages.
 But though James Bryce in his "Ameri- can Commonwealth affirms that the family as unit is ''the one Fundamental and permanent problem of human life and society,"" yet everywhere, by reading the signs of the times. we can see that by easy divorce the sanctty of the home Is imperiled. Everywhere the danger sig nals are being lifted, to prove that mar riage is becoming more and more mere temporary convenience. Carroll D. Wright in his labor statistics declares that in the year 1899 there were 36,072 di- vorces in the state of Illinois alone and that there was one divorce to every f1f- teen marriages. He went on to show that from 1867 to 1886 there were S2S.I16 di- yorces in the United States and that each year the proportions of divorces to the number of inhabitants in the United States was on the increase, just as the in dividual wealth of the Americans per capita increases year by year. Surely such an evil record as that ought to bring a blush of shame to the cheeks of Amer ican manhood and womanhood and might be regarded a national disgrace even by the inhabitants of the French capi- fal It would have been blot on the nls- torical pages of 1icentious Rome. Sc aW- full is the spread of this divorce evil and so blunted are becoming the once Keen edges of public sentiment upon tHlS dueS- lion that Morgan Dix, who in no sense can be called sensationalist, uttered last Thanksgiving day this scathing inveetVe against wholesale licensed lbertinism, now being practced through the wide open doors of the legal courts of our land: "The divorce evil is terrible. It IS an evil we must try to uproot. Once upon A time if we ever mentioned the fact that a person had been divorced we spoke or It under our breath. subject not proper for conversation. We then regarded di- vorce as something closely related to dis grace, and that not long ago either Now rapid degeneracy of social sentiment upon this evil has taken place. We look upon easy divorce as respectable. We even honor some of those who have thus crim- inallv broken their nuptial vows when, instead. we should hold them in everlast- ing disrepute.
 A Call for United Action.
 Against the further spread and for the extermination of this divorce evil the Catholic church is already up in arms. Against it the Presbyterian church, with Its general assembly committee working in unison with the sister churches, Is struggling night and day. Against it only a few weeks ago all the Rhode Island ministers banded themselves together to