The Divorce Question.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 2445, 27 August 1891, Page 2

The Divorce Question.

WESLEYAN OPINION.

In a prelude to his sermon at Pitt street Wesleyan Church last Sunday night, delivered to a crowded congregation, the Rev. J. Berry, m commenting on tht Divorce Extension and Amendment Bill, said: "I think the time has come when every Christian minister should speak out, especially as silence maybe interpreted to mean consent. (The preacher read from Matthew xx, 3 to 9.) These are the words from Christ; no one can possibly misunderstand their meaning. Husband and wife are one until death or the one-sin there specified dissolves the bond. . To marry a person divorced few any other act is to commit adultery. The teaching of Christ has hitherto been the basis of British legislation and of the law m this colony. .It is. now proposed to alter this, and to legalise divorce for insanity and several, crimes other than the one referred to, and to permit persons so. separated to. marry again. Shall we permit our Legislature to set the law <;f' Christ aside ? Does the country desire ihis ? Will the people submit to it 1 Let the people of the colony be appealed to and I have no doubt that the answer would be such a .'No,' as has rarely been thundered into the ears of our representatives. I say that neither; the New : Zealand Government nor any other can validate such conduct. If thjs Bill were passed it could not, with any justice, apply to existing marriages, Ket I see no proposal to exempt them. The covenant m all such is ' Till death us do part.' If this act were to become law the marriage service-would need to be altered m some such way as this, 'Till death or insanity or some' crime or misfortune doth us part.' But if the contract were so altered I do not .see how any Christian minister could celebrate a marriage.;; The contract would be fundamentally different from any that God's law .fallows.. It wuuld not be a marriage ' making of the twain one flesh,' but a legalised concubinage, and what Christian minister couli "ask or pronounce God's blessing upon that ? The whole colony; should be consulted before any representative assembly should dream of making the proposals legal, In the name of Christ whose clearest teaching is set asidp, m the name of 100,000 homes Avhose sanctities are touched m the nerve, I ask those who support-this bad Bill to take the verdict of their constituents. The United Church Council will meet next Tuesday, and will, I hope, suggest some practical action by which our citizens generally may have an opportunity of expressing their convictions, 1 sum up, therefore, by remarking —(1) This act is, mmy opinion, unchristian—it proposes to sanction that which God can never sanction at any time or under any circumstances; no legislative whitewash can make an adulterer anything but an adulterer. (2) The proposals of this act are mischievous m the highest degree. The family is the arch that holds up the State: This proposal would loosen the keystone m the arch. (3) The people as a whole have never asked for this alteration. I am sure that they would regard it with abh«))ren-33. Therefore, to alter our laws iv the direction this act proposes would bo m uiiftlmstain, un-English, and an essentially unconstitutional act which we are all bound to resist to the-utmost," Mr Berry's outspoken denunciation of the bill is said to bavo caused a sensation m Auckland, . '