The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-15

I
 not that enough?'"
 | Strange how even a minister's l homily on virtue must begin with I a line or two on the holiness of things. | Things all necessary, all important, | second then comes a long argument on 1 the beauty of "fealty to the church, ''to higher law" to recognized stan dards. Is it not that church as we'll as State needs renovation? Could the church 1 in truth live on the words of Christ l its Head. would there be such a, tangle of life and living as between church and State?'. As long as@ tho church rents better seats for higher prices as l long as it follows social laws and cus- l tom in its treatment of those like the | one to whom Christ said: Go and sin no more" just so long as 1t takes its ltext from Holy Writ and lives It's life by Civilizations Code. so long will the l Church prove weak before its antagon- | ist the State, in the struggle to win in any vital contest. But Judge Grant does not press his arguments thus far l His only concern with the attitude of | the Church in this volume is: The Church regards marriage as a sacra- ment. and therefore inviolate. l And again: The State regards mar riage as contract, and therefore to be dissolved as both or either parties l choose. In the lengthy argument be- l tween the minister, Mir. Prentiss, and 1 the lawyer, MT. Gordon Percy. all the points of both Church and State are | set forth. The argument leaves either contestant pursuaded fin his own mind, as at the beginning.
 l In the case of Constance as we have said remarriage Is a foregone conclu- sion. Her husband has deserted her without cause. She has fitted herself 1 for work.
 A threatened blindness takes from her all opportunity and power of earn 1 ing living for herself and her chill dren, except by the gifts of charity, called to sugar-coat the pill; work. A threatened blindness not total blindness, for the reader would. shrink with horror at the thought or even so ardent lover as Gordon Perry marry ing blind woman. Romance would ioverstep the bounds were such di- ilemma thrust upon a world of readers That would make as Kipling says An other story By the way most read CTS feel of how stern stuff Kipling's heroine is made that she prefers her life of art to wedding and caring for the hero whose light has failed" But is there a reader who would harbor for a moment the thought of hero's devot- ing his life to a blind heroine, as lover or husband. So stupid is the world in the recognized standard for woman. Reminiscence, that a woman who re- sists by ever so little is at once dubbed abnormal and utterly out of the ques- tion for a heroine of the dear readers approval.
 But Constance's is only a threatened blindness which rest from office work will entirely cure.
 So Judge Grant proceeds In a most enthralling way to his foregone con clusion, and carries our approval with him.
 In the other instance of divorce and remarrying he also makes a strong bid for our approval
 The woman of wealth and fashion desires divorce simply because she has fallen in love with another man, one in tile same smart set
 Mrs. Wilson, a truly good woman up- holder of our best social standards, ar gues with this candidate for divorce her daughter: Tt Is true, Lucille, that disapprove of divorce on aesthetic if not religious grounds. It Is an unsav- ory institution. It seems to me to diminish spiritual self-respect, and to impair that feminine delicacy which Is an essential ornament of civilization. You have just told me, my child, that you are seeking a divorce from your husband because you are mismated, in order to become as quickly as possible the wife of another man whom you pro- fess to love. cannot prevent you from doing this if you insist. but, as your mother, I cannot let you commit what seems to me. from the most lenient standpoint, a gross indelicacy. without seekingito dissuade you"
 Gross indelicacy. Again we have the gloss of civilization to be preserved Is the church striving to maintain deli cacy and refinement or right? Tolstoi goes deep into the questions of sex and marital relations beyond all gloss of outward things--but Tolstoi Is unor- | thodox.
 Judge Grants approval of divorce, or that put forth in this book, shows in his making the butterfly Lucille be- come. with her desire for divorce and her study of legal and social aspects of the divorce question a more intel lectual and companionable person than she had ever seemed capable of bO- coming. Her remarrlage proves a most happy one, her social prestige is into sort of accepting approval of the new matrimonial venture. Anoth- CT instance of how a novelist takes the reins in his hands and drives evenly and happily over boulders and ob- stacles which in real life might provo wreckipg 10 life and limb.
 The main motive of the book is the divorce problem, but not the least in-