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Show ii i r I J BISHOP POTTER ON DIVORCE. 1 I Bishop Potter, of the Protestant , Episcopal Dioeepp of New York, de-- de-- . livered an address a few days ago which attracted considerable attention, because the Bishop ventured to utter a rather mild protest against the remarriage re-marriage of divorcees. Just why the , j: address in question should have at- i traded so much attention is difficult j to understand. It is certain that the j J F.ishop took no pronounced stand j against divorce itself. The mere fact that lie uttered a protect against the! re-marriage of divorcees should hardly j -j j have attracted attention, because the j custom anions: Bishop Potter's own " j people has become notoriously scandal- :! j m:s. I The Reverencd Dr. Morgan Dix who I has been more pronounced in con- i i. ; demr.ing divorce per se than any of J j his brethren in the Episcopal Church, in speaking of the condition which was the occasion of Bishop Potter's remarks re-marks says: "The immediate occasion of the Bishop's address as far as it j applied to divorce was due to a horri- j bio and scandalous affair that recently developed w here a woman belonging to j ' our best society, our so-called 400. was j divorced by her husband on the ground j J ! 4 if udii1t4rv. urtA Ihp K.imo .ifterrKum I i was married to another man of the : i , ! same (ilique as the husband who t j divorced her, by a Congregational . ! Clergyman in Connecticut. V "This woman was received by society , j even afler b,e-r husband began divorce i proceedings, and now society is wait- ', ing to decide how it shall receive her : I again, and f-he herself is waiting" the i decision. In fact, we are all looking on ; i and wondering what " te outcome will be. "Is it. not a horrible state of affairs j that there should be any doubt what-1 what-1 : ever on this point? There was a time -; j wit en Mrs. Jacob Asor and Mrs. Hamilton Fish were social leaders when , stub a spectacle would have been im- . ! possible. They were good, noble and pure women who would not have tolerated within their doors a person to whom the stain ef scandal attached . ' itself, but unfortunately they have both passed away." Viewing, therefore, the horrible condition con-dition which Dr. Dix depicts, is it any a wonder or should people marvel in the least that the Bishop of such a flock Ijl should utter a protest against such scandalous conduct? But Bishop Potter did not go to the tions, he did not have courage for them, and uttered not a word of protest pro-test against divorce itself. Indeed it is difficult after reading the Bishop's address ad-dress to come to any but one conclusion conclu-sion and that is that he temporisnd and dilly-dallied t ith his subject so as to give as little offense as possible. Speaking on this subject, the New-York New-York Sun takes a similar view and j says: The references of Bishop Potter to the subject of marriage and divorce in i his diocesan address on Wednesday were somewhat ambiguous. He was "by no means sure" that the absolute s prohibition of the re-marriage of the ) , divorced "is not the wisest conclusion" the Episcopal Church "may reach at 5 present;" yet afterward he pointed out "a wider view of the whole subject," which discloses "the fact that it is not the only remedy, I' though he said also v that "it would be well that the Church : should meet such legislation" (civil legislation) by making "divorce increasingly in-creasingly difficult, if not impossible." Exactly where Bishop Potter stands as to the question, accordingly, is not , easily discoverable. It is plain, hoW- 1 ever, from his omissions and from the general lone of his remarks, that he does not take the sacramental view of marriage-and its consequent indissolubility indissolu-bility as a religious obligation. Ke treats the subject rather from the point , of view of expediency. In his general philosophizing he seems .to include the ; inclination of divorce among the logical j manifestations of. "the spirit of individualism," indi-vidualism," "the great movement which ! issued, here, in the revolt of the Amer-i Amer-i iean colonies." ati'l has tended to "the j almost complete abrogation of some ; earlier forms of authority" and "some ! of the most venerable and sacred tra-i tra-i ditions of the community and of the State." The Sun has hit the nail squarely on the head, but it is little of compliment to Bishop Potter that a secular daily should point out to him the correct view of the subject which he so carefully care-fully avoided. The Sun goes even further and points out to Bishop Potter Pot-ter a view, which as a Churchman, professing to look upon matrimony as a. sacrament, it was his bounden dutuy to take. It is all nonsense for Bishop Potter to talk about the "vicious tendencies" of the age and a lot more meaningless verliage which he assumed as-sumed to be the cause of so much prevalent divorce. Had the good bishop been honest with himself and his hearers he would have found the teal cause and given expression to it. Divorce is a legitimate legiti-mate consequence of the repudiation of the sacramental character of marriage. It is difficult to conceive that Bishop Potter is not awsre of this fact. The stir raised n New York by this mild protest of Bishop Potter's will seion pass away, society will, receive and continue to receive the re-married divorcees, and Fishop Potter's flock will continue to to" divorced, re-married and revdivorced ad nauseam. The Sun points out to Bifhop Potter a duty which all would like to sec him perform per-form when it sa?s: A clergyman of the Episcopal Church, preaching at the seat of fashion at Newport, besougl L that society to assist as-sist the Church iy frowning on such marriages; but siould not the Church rather frown on .hat society for tolerating toler-ating them? Mifht not Bishop Potter evidently unprepned to advocate the,-sacramental the,-sacramental viewof the indisso'- "V'.uy of marriage, havv hette'1 .".Tirated the "stern front" finst these divorces and re-manages by hurling the anathemacif the" Church against those wifjo obtain them and contract themVa flagrant violation of its law and'thus in its eye commit the grievous siii of adultery? |