THE MARRIAGE QUESTION.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11930, 28 October 1919, Page 2

THE MARRIAGE QUESTION.

GROWING DISREGARD OF SACRED TIES. The Bishop of Waiapu (Bishop Sedgwick), in the of his address to the Anglican Synod in Napier, said: — “We cannot: but view with the gravest apprehension the growing disregard of the sacred ties of marriage. An agitation has been conducted in the Home press for an appalling extension of divorce which would practically have the effect of abolishing marriage and substituting a legal concubinage at the will of the parties. One recognises the right of the State to regulate marriage within its own province as a legal institution, but, as has been said, ‘Marriage is more than a legal institution, a natural relation of man and woman, and, as such, an Ordinance of God. It is in the province of the Church to guard this divine institution and to teach all men its true and unalterable nature. ’ “It was prophesied by that shrewd prelate Archbishop Magee that when disestablishment came about it would be due to the cleavage between Church and State upon this very question of the marriage law. Whether this he so, or not, it is our duty as Churchmen to resist the laws of the State when these laws clash with the law of God. On a matter such as this, which threatens the very lire of the nation and the sanctity and blessedness of home, there can be no compromise. How many churchmen have read the draft of the ‘Matrimonial Causes Act’ put forth by the ‘divorce Law Reform Union’? And "yet never have laws been proposed so openly defying the law of God those embodied in this proposal. “I view with considerable misgiving the large and growing number of marriages that are performed at the registrar’s office, ana I would request my clergy to preach from time to time on marriage, its sanctity and its indissolubility, and to hold before the young the fact that ‘Holy Matrimony’ pre-supposes marriage by the priest in God’s House. ’ ’