The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-15
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE
EARNEST SERMON PREACHED BY
 FATHER EATON.
Catholic Priest Points Out the Infexf- ble Law of His Church Against
 Great Social Evil

services at St. Peters Catholic Church yesterday. Throughout the month of May devotions are conducted every evening at 6:30 o'clock in honor of the Mother of God, whom the Cathoiic Church honors by virtue of her digni- ty as the mother of the Redeemer, ana because God Himself. honored her. Ihe devotions are well attended.
 At the 10:30 o'clock High Mass yes terday morning Rev. Father Eaton, the assistant pastor of St. Peter preached on the sacredness Of mar riage and the evils of divorce.
 It is understood that the suggestion for this sermon came from Right Reve- rend Edward P. Allen. Bishop Of MO- bile.
 Father Eaton spoke from the text, What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," St. Matthew XIX: 6.
 Occasionally. my dear bretnren, said Father Eaton, i've are directed 10 speak upon a matter that is of extreme importance to our people from the standpoints of their natural and super natural welfare, namely the institu- tion of the Holy Sacrament of Matri- mony. There Is no more solemn or sa- cred compact than the marriage bona, and there is no contract fraught with such happy and such hideous result.
 Tt well behooves the State for mo- lives of It's own existence and salvation to hedge around the married life with every protective law 1t can enact and every penalty 1t can enforce. Evade the marriage laws. despise them, ana you ruin the home, and sap the very | foundations of the State A country with a lax marriage law is an adulter- ous country. and an adulterous country can never long continue great, can nev- anything 1 but TO tten, nursing tho principle Of Its l own destruction, the cancerous ulcer | that eats away in secrecy It's vitality | And here, let me remark that the State law, preEuming to grant divorce prop erly so-called, is a law in name alone; | a veritable misnomer, usurping the place of constitutional legality. The State has the unquestionable right to adjudicate the civil effects of marriage, as for instance protection in case of separation. safeguarding the effects or property, and so on, but the State has no right to dissolve the marriage bond | for the simple reason that no human power can dissolve that bond. Marriage | Is a spiritual thing and any legislation
 pertaining to 1t evidently can belong only to the spritua. power and not to the State or civil power. No human legislation can, however. dissolve the 1 matrimonial contract. Once properly
 married you are married forever, and no cause can give you the right to mar ry again. Any further union Is pepet- ually sinful and aduiterous.
 l "One of the effects of the much laud-
 ed, so-called reformation was the de-
 struction of the marriage contract for at least what is called the Scriptural cause. The argument Is founded on | the oft-quoted text in St. Matthew's s | Gospel, And I say to you that whoso- | Hah 11th axxynu ia yUt RXRnnf for fornication. and shall marry anoth-
 CT committeth adultery, Matthew xix: | g. From this text 1t Is argued that Christ
 says: He who shall put away his wife | for the crime mentioned and marries another, does not s1n. This Is the fa-
 nous Scriptural cause. In the first place let us remark that the clause.
 except for fornication,' this exception
 does not occur in the corresponding
 passages of St. Marks and St. Luke's Gospels. 'Whosoever,' says St., Mark, 1 (x:11,) shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery
 against her. and If the wife shall put laway her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery. St.
 Luke writes similarly xvi:1S, Every
 one that putteth away his wife and marrietn another commftteth adultery
 and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery There Is no clause no ex- ception.
 regard to the whole text; the i testimony of Scripture Is against
 the interpretation that divorce may be permitted for any cause st
 Paul says very clearly. For a woman that hath a husband. whilst her hus- band liveth is bound by the law. But if her husband be dead, she is loosed Il of fnra
 whilst her husband liveth she shall be called an adulteress If she be with another man. (Romans vii 2) In his epistle to the Corinthians the same apostle remarks, but to them that are | married not I, but the Lord com mandeth that the wife depart not from
 her husband, and if she depart, that she
 remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband
 put away his wife q Corinthians
 vii 10)
 Those texts need no explanation; 1 they contain no cause justifying the dissolution of the marriage contract. | In fact our Divine Lord Himself said | speaking of marriage: Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning made them male and female
 For this cause shall man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and i the two Sndll De III OIe w AAt | therefore God hath Joined together let no man put asunder.' (Matthew xix, 4, 6) Can anything be plainer than those words? And to show you that the reasoning from the disputed text of St. Matthew is false, I shall recall a parallel example That text, as you | remember is But I say to you that | whosoever shall put away his wife except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery and the reasoning, as I have remarked Is this, | therefore he who putteth away his wife for fornication, that is adultery, and marries another does not sin That this conclusion is not true is evident from the following parallel illustration. He who punishes his child, except for disobedience, and kills him, commits sin Therefore 1t would follow, ac cording to the deduction of those who argue thus with regrad to the text of St. Matthew, that he who beats his child for disobedience and kills him does not sin. Anyone of sane mind will scarcely admit that conclusion and yet the example is an exact parallel with the text alluded to. The con clusion in one is just as foolish as 1t Is In the other.
 If the Holy Scripture is to have any meaning at all, if 1t is to remain the inspired words of God and not be made the groundwork of support of every theory that fancy or desire may sug- gest, Its text must be interpreted in maner quite in keeping with its evident general signifcation. From passages