FRANK SERMON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 28 June 1943, Page 4

FRANK SERMON

LOVE, SEX AND MARRIAGE NATION 8 FUTURE DEPENDS ON THE FAMILY Love, sex and marriage formed the theme of a sermon preached in St. Peter's Anglican Church, Wellington last night by Archdeacon W Bullock. He was led to choose this subject, he said, partly because—if Wellington could be taken as a guide —June would be a record month for marriages in New Zealand—and pertly because the question had lately been discussed by public men, including churchmen. The Archdeacon commended an outspoken speech on the birth-rate made by a member of Parliament during the Budget debate. There was too often a tendency for members in the Parliamentary Chamber to side-step such issues, he said, and to proclaim that all was well in this Eden of the south. Also, in much public comment on morality, marriage and allied subjects, there was a disposition to deal with result* instead of causes. He often wondered, too, whether the young people who came to be married understood the nature of the partnership into which they were entering. FAMILY AS UNIT OF SOCIETY It was evident, said Archdeacon Bullock, quoting his text, that the physical side of marriage wee not denied by Christ. Equally fallacious was it to go to the other extrome and imagine that the sex act was the only part of marriage that mattered. That was to degrade it to the level of the brothel. Marriage had a two-fold purpose—a short-term and long-term object. First it was ordained that the natural instincts might be satisfied, that two loves might be consummated. In any real love story of reel people, such as that of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, the leva element could not be separated from the physical act of marriage. The long-term purpose ef marriage, continued the Archdeacon, was the procreation of children and the Increase of mankind. If we forgot that cardinal truth we imperilled not only o«r ewn sonls bnt the future of our nation. Cod's method was to have the family as the unit ef soeietr —not the individual. Larger fellowships we might have but not at the expense of the family. No child, however fortunate It might be in other respects, could ever pick up elsewhere what it should get in the home. When the family went then the impulse to the continuance of life would disappear. Christianity stood for the family. In a sense there was no more materialistic religion than Christianity, because it never forgot the physical side of man's make-up. A FELLOWSHIP It was a great evil. Archdeacon Bullock went on, to take the central function of marriage out of its proper setting. That was a danger in these days of “sex appeal." with the glamour girl on the one side and the professional sheik on the other. When the sex act became divorced from its proper purpose it was a danger and a threat to society. More true love was needed and greater regard for the sex life, along with a clearer perception of the central theme of mar-* riage which was instituted for the mutual society, help and comfort that one ought to have of the other. It was a fellowship and, in the final analysis, that was what Heaven was, for it was in Heaven that the loving companionship of friends was made known. When people married they entered into a contract made in Heaven and what man should have the temerity to put asunder those whom God had joined?