CHURCH AND STATE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 248, 14 July 1921, Page 6

CHURCH AND STATE

; RECENT CHANGE IN DIVORCE LAW ! DIOCESAN SYNOD PROTESTS I' ' BISHOP’S STRIKING SPEECH That this Synod views with j strong disapproval the extension of the grounds of divorce made by the 1920 amendment .of the Divorce Act as being more subversive of the Christian standard of marriage than any previous legislation on the subject; that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the Acting-Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice I The resolution quoted above was yesterday carried unanimously by the Wei. lington Diocesan Synod, after a debate to which Bishop Sprott contributed a most interesting speech. The mover was the Dev. O. M. Stent, •who said that it was with a sense of tremendous responsibility that ho proposed i- the motion. The recent Act permitted divorce to take place after three yea th separation, no matter whether the contracting parlies had lived chastely or mot; and if that was so, it seemed to him that the standard of marriage laid down in the Word of God was in very grave peril. If it was in peril, it behoved every Christian priest and every Christian layman with one voice and one determination to pass the resolution he proposed, and do the utmost possible to bring about a return to the paths of righteousness. A grave crisis has been reached. The amendment practically meant that a couple were permitted ho would not say encouraged, because i he did not wish to utter anything bitter or rash—to part company after a space of three -years, if they mutually desired to do so. Was this marriage or was it not? If it was not marriage then he wished to remind his hearers of what they had been told in tne recent Marriage Amendtnent Act: '‘’Every poison commits an offence against this Act, and is liable on summary conviction To a fine of £lOO, who alleges, expressly or by implication, that any persons lawfully married are not truly and sufficiently married." Did the law of this country oven-ide the law of God? That was the question the Synod must face. Mr. Stent contended that tlie passing of the recent amendment was inimical to the social well-being of the community. “I would ask any father or any mother who is in this room this afternoon," ho said, "would i he or she allow a son or daughter to be married under such conditions as

this: that they may be cast adrift in the space of three years? There is not 1 one of them that would do so. It Is with very great sorrow, but with a stern sense of duty, that I move the resolution standing in my name.” The Court’s Discretion.

Mr. H. E. Evans, in seconding the motion, said that the legislation had been passed in the dying hours of a session, and. its effect was only now becoming apparent from the decisions of the Courts. This legislation was not merely a matter of pushing open a little wider a door that was already regarded by many as too wide open: it was a revolutionary ; change that bade fair to shake down the whole of the sanctuary in which the institution of holy matrimony ought to be enshrined. One respect in which the English divorce law was ahead of the New Zealand law, said Mr. Evans, in discussing the law generally, was that in England a divorce could never be obtained at the instance of the really guilty party. With regard to the 1920 amendment, nobody had known until lately on what principle the Court would exercise its discretion. Most people had tacitly assumed that moral guilt or moral innocence of the parties would have something to do with the matter. This had I— not proved to be the case. Even before the first important judgment came out, however, close examination of the amendment would have made it clear that the consideration he had mentioned.could not be the dominant one. The principle on which the New Zealand Courts proceeded Had recently been laid down. It was in effect as follows:—So long as the circumstances attending the separation or the 1 duration of the separation satisfied the Court that the foundation of the marriage had irretrievably gone, and that there was no chance of the parties ever coming together again, the Court would 1 pronounce a decree. The Rev. W. J. Williams hoped that 1 the Legislature would bo compelled by I public opinion to repeal the amendment under discussion. The Rev. H. J. Blackburne heartily supported the motion.

ft Guiding Principle. Mr. E. H. Hadfield was anxious to hear the views of the president of the Synod on ths question under discussion. He felt personally that the amendment had gone a great deal too far, and he would have no difficulty in voting for the resolution. But the difficulty for the public and the Legislature and. everybody concerned. was to get any indication of a guiding principle. He took it they must accept the. fact that there was a human nature that was very depraved, and that the Legislature must take the best, practical means to "keep it on the rails," For a Christian philosopher, it was a question only of which ideal was the higher. Functions of Church and State. His Lordship the president said he did not think such a resolution should go hv without his saying a word or two. He felt, however, that he was not equal to satisfying the demands of Mr. Hadfield because he did not think anyone had succeeded yet. It might, however, clear up the question somewhat if they tried to distinguish the functions of the Church and the State respectively. The Church and the State both met at one point—that they both claimed to deal with human conduct. It was the function of the Church to hold up the true ideal of human life and conduct, and to seek to obtain the acceptance of that Ideal and the effort of men to follow it, not T>y any thought of external compulsion, hilt by the awakenings! inner reverence for moral law. The Stnte dealt with human conduct from another point of view. Tt dealt, with peonlo just as it found them, because it had no power by which it could work the inner transformation. That was where the tragic mistake had been made in the taking over of education by the State—the most tragic mistake, he supposed, of modern times, hccnnse the State had no method by which it could awaken inner reverence for moral law. . - . The State dealt only with outward misconduct, and with only certain departments of that. fho State’s sphere of operation was the failure of the Church. livery policeqian was an evidence that the Church had not yet succeeded in its function. The Christian ideal of marriage was indissolubility. The relations between the Church and the State had become greatly complicated in our time. He did not th th ft that people realised yet the revolution that had taken place. There had been n, time when the ideal of conduct which the Church upheld had been recognised by the State as the ideal of conduct, and the ideal of marriage which the Church uphold had been recognised bv the State as the ideal of marriage. He ' H,; did not think it was realised that that had gone. “Christians Tolerated.” There was no Christian State to-day. Now Zealand was not a- Christian State. It could not be. He did not mean that the majority of tho people of this conntry were not Christians- But the mo-

ment that the State admitted to full rights of citizenship people who did not recognise the Christian ideal (such as the Mohammedans) it ceased to be a

Christian State. The Christian ideal now was not necessarily the ideal recognised by the community as such. The Christian people were in the position of being tolerated. At present there was a sign—at least last session of Parliament there had been one —that even the tolerance might go. They had been allowed to hold up before their own people the Christian ideal of marriage, but that had very nearly gone, and indeed at the present moment, if they took the strict letter of the law, It had gone. Who were to blame? The laity. The laity were too much biased. If a clergyman incurred the penalty of .£lOO prescribed in the Marriage Amendment Act. how many of the laity even in the Synod he was .addressing would stand by it? He believed there were even some who would say: “Serve him right.” "That is the weak point,” said His Lordship. "The Christian ideal is not accented, and we stand as voices crying in the wilderness. The Roman priesthood gets a certain amount of support in these questions. We get hardly rtny. That is the honest truth of it, and I say it and you know it. Persecution. "We can only claim tolerance, which may bo taken from us. I believe ultimately it will bo taken. I believe ultimately a few Christians will have to endure persecution. No community will, of course, tolerate any individual casting discredit upon its laws. In the falsj and delusive tolerance of rhe nineteenth century we imagined that the day of persecution was gone. That was because in the nineteenth century the cleavage between the Church and the State—not- on points of dogma, but on points of conduct, on the ideal of conduct —had not been perceived. But it is becoming clearer now that the Christian Church stands for an ideal, and that the modern community does not accept it, and the result will be, I am perfectly convinced, that a few earnest Christians will soon find themselves persecuted. I don't believe that any of us in this room will be persecuted, because our Christianity is too much of a compromise. But there may be some Christians among us, our children, who will find that the day of persecution is not gone, for the simple reason that no community will tolerate any practical resistance to its laws."

His Lordship admitted that he had not thrown much light on Mr. Hadfield's question. Modern legislators thought that on the whole they avoided greater evils by permitting the lesser evil of divorce. That wns a very difficult problem indeed, but he thought—he was sure, indeed —that the greater evils wore caused by divorce. Divorce might bring relief to a couple of individuals who were unhappy. But there was the debasement of the moral currency; and he could imagine nothing iforo terrible than that two persons should outer into tho state of holy matrimony with the sub-conscious notion: "If this is not a success, I can get out of it.” A Woman’s Question. "What amazes me," His Lordship continued, “is that the women of this country have not risen up, because it is the woman that suffers every time. I rejoice that I have no marriageable daughter. I can imagine some elderly scoundrel coming along with his new license of three years. 1 can imagine many innocent young girls being married by men with the deliberate purpose of leaving them after a time. That certainly is not go ing to increase tho happiness of this country; and it is the woman every time, and this is a woman’s question." With reference to tho suggestion that a copy of tho resolution should bo sent to the Prime Minister, the Bishop said that he had no objection to sending tho resolution to Mr. Massey, but he did not ses how the Christian ideal could be imposed by law on a State that was not Christian. The present licence could be condemned on grounds of social utility quite apart from the Christian ideal of marriage. M T hat he would try to enforce was this: If they were going to try to raise the public standard, if, for instance, they wore going to try to get the legislators wrestling with the problem, they might not be able to secure tho highest idea! of marriage, but they must strike the compromise with evil as high in the moral scale as possible. It was a compromise with evil. The legislators had dealt with people and things as they were: but did they strike the compromise with evil as high in the scale as they could? Did it ever enter into their heads? And if it did not enter into their heads, whose fault was it ? “Cast Out and Trodden Down.” "We Christian people,” said the Bishop, "are here to hold up the Christian ideal of conduct. Wo cannot force it on others. We can do much better through our lives and conduct than we can do on the platform. But are we going to stand by the highest ideal? I am sure that is the question with which Christian people all over the world are faced. Remember what Our Lord said will be the fate of the Church if found wanting. 'Ye are the salt of the earth. Ye are the light of the world.' I am not so sure we are not undergoing th:-fate as I stand here. 'lf the salt have lost its savour, it is fit for nothing but to be cast out and trodden down of men.' Does it strike you that that may he what is happening to the Christian Church this very day —being cast out and trodden down of men? ~ , , A "You remember St. Peters words: that judgment would begin in the House of God. I am not so sure that judgment is not beginning now.”