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Show Chicago Ministers on Divorce. A Chicago paper sent out a query to the Protestant Pro-testant ministers of the city, asking them to state what they would do if a divorced person sought to be. remarried in the lifetime of their divorced partner and thoy were asked to perform the ceremony. cere-mony. The priests Avcre not questioned as . their position was well known. Of 1C. clergymen who . replied to the question whether they would marry divorcees but 38 returned a positive "no." Eigthy replied that they would refuse marriage to any divorced person applying to them except in cases of "scriptural grounds" for the divorce. Of these eighty about half were of the opinion that marital infidelily was the only biblical . basis for legal separation, and the other half admitted willful desertion de-sertion as an allowable second justifiable 'cause. Eorty-sevon gave more lenient views on tlie subject of divorce, and gave it as their opinion that many divorcees whose separations had not been on strictly scriptural grounds were entitled in justico and charity to the right of remarrying. Many adhere to the stricter view that no divorcee can marry again without committing, a crime; literally that those who are once joined in wedlock become forevermore of one flesh, and that no act of man and no sacrament of church can justify either the divorce itself or a subsequent marriage. Thirty-eight Thirty-eight active clergymen of Chicago declare that they will never marry the divorced, no' matter what the cause, no matter how innocent the victim may be, no matter how grievous were the. trials which' seemed to make the separation necessary. "There is no such thing as divorce," ihey say, and most of them during long years in the service of their j churches have never solemnized the wedding of a j divorcee. From the foregoing it would appear that our Portestant friends are hopelessly at sea on this very important question. Western Watchman. f - : : |
