The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-05-09
Interchurch Conference at Phila-
delphia Presents an Earnest Ap-
peal for an Awakening.
WORSE THAN POLYGAMY
Greater Menace to the Nation in
the Laxity of Marriage Relation
and Ease of Breaking.
STATISTICS OF DIVORCE
Show an Appalling and Increasing
ly Worse Condition of Affairs
in the States.

PHILADELPHIA, May S.-The inter-
church conference on marriage and di-
vorce. a BODY representing officially four
teen leading denominations has issued
through it's secretary. the Rev. William
II. Roberts, d. D., an appeal to the pub
lie, calling attention to several aspects
of the divorce question. The paper is the
beginning of a national campaign of edu-
cation on the subject, to be followed by
efforts to secure the enactment of laws
in the State legislatures, and ultimately, 1t
is thought of amendment to the Con-
stituton of the United States.
Already action has been taken by the
conference looking towards the prevention
of the remarriage, by ministers of other
oommunions, of divorced persons, whom
clergymen of their own faith have refused
to marry
This movement is the first occasion of
any sort on which the representatives of
the great denominations have officially
come together The members of the con-
ference include: The Protestant Episcopal
Church in the United States. the Presby-
terian Church. the Methodist Episcopal
Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church
South. the Reformed Church of America.
the United Presbyterian Church. the Evan
gelical Lutheran Church. the Baptist
Church, the Congregational Church, the
Universalist Church. the Unitarian Church,
the Reformed Presbyterian Church; the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the
Alliance of the Reformed Church holding
the Presbyterian service.
AN AWAKENING NEEDED.
After a brief Introductory, setting forth
the scope and purposes of the appeal, the
document continues:
Before any civil legislation can be en-
acted which will be operative, and quite
apart from the accord which we are seek
ing 10 secure in the marriage regulations
of the Christian churches, must come the
leavening of the minds of men and women
which mall lift them toward recognition
of the n0blest dignities of life.
First of all plead for the cultivation
OF the grace of purity; for the careful
guarding of children within the atmosphere
Of home by parents, and for the realiza-
tion of the dignity of our physical nature
lifted TO such high honor by the Incarna-
tion. We plead for recognition OF the
sanctity of marriage. We are facing
condition I'm our country to-day which
threatens danger to the most sacred things.
The very sactuary 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 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 contagion, stands the sad fact or
the low ideal of marriage. 1t is true that
the element of mutual consent and the
element of legal contract enter into IT; but
underneath and behind these, the sure
foundation. stands the revelation of Gods
holy word. God at first brought
woman to a man. one woman TO one man,
to whom he shall cleave, so that in Gods
purpose and Gods sight they are one flesh.
Marriage is a holy thing. Marriage is
the institution of God himself and is sane
titled under the solemnities of the old
sanction by our blessed Lord. This is the
root of the matter Reformation must be-
gin here. Children must be taught it.
Young men and young women must be
made to feel 1t. 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 its mys-
teriousness as something higher and deep
er and larger than can be measured or
reached by the low ideas of convenience.
of worldly advantage, of the gratincatlon
of passion, or by the light and easy esti-
mate of the consent of the passing per-
sonal fancy and the mutual recognition Of
the civil contract
DIVORCE STATISTICS.
1.-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 ma rriage is, and of what mar
riage means. that it will cease to be en-
tered into unavisedly or lightly; that the
festivity which accompanies it shall be
sobered and consecrated by the conscious
presence of Him who adorned and beauti-
fed the marriage at Cana in Galiee by His
presence and the first miracle that He
wrought; that neither man nor woman
shah dare to enter the precincts of be-
trothal without the tested certainty of
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