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Show r THE BAPTISTS AND DIVORCE. Following the example of Bishop Potter Pot-ter the denominational ministers of the country, are showing much anxiety -on the question of divorce. It is well that they should, for the riotous manner in which the members of all churches, outside out-side the Catholic church, treat the marriage mar-riage tie, points conclusively to the disintegration, dis-integration, if not early dissolution, of the sects. " The Baptist ministers of Connecticut assembled in annual convention at New Haven on the 19th inst., and a resolution resolu-tion was offered declaring that "ministers "min-isters of the gospel should sustain no relations to the remarriage of persona divorced on' any ground." It will be seen that this is the attitude which the Catholic church has always maintained towards divorcees. ' 7 This resolution was only-lost by sis; votes, and in its place a resolution was adopted declaring that Baptist ministers minis-ters "should sustain no relation to the remarriage of persons divorced, except such as are Scripturally qualified." Catholics, of course, recognize no such thing as Scriptural" qualification, and this action of the Baptists but follows fol-lows the Episcopal custom, which that church has found sadly lacking, as a means of preventing the destruction of the family in the home. The incident is important as showing that, consciously or otherwise, masses of intelligent men are realizing that the Catholic church alone stands- as the protector of the home, and consequently of the state. The Rev. Allan K. Foster, who moved the adoption of the resolution discountenancing discoun-tenancing absolutely the remarriage of divorcees, cited figures showing that within the past thirty years one in every twelve marriages in Connecticut had been dissolved by the courts. With ' reference to New Haven, he said that 298 Protestant marriages were recorded in the first seven months of 1899. and that the number of divorces to be se6 off against them on the ratio established for the whole state would be fifty. In other words, there is about one divorce to every five marriages among tha Protestant people of the enlightened city of New Haven. It is no wonder that a great secular journal exclaims: "The fearful social consequences of the freedom with which marriage ties are broken and new ones formed are at length being felt and recognized by all Christian churches. Thousands of children chil-dren are every year being made worse off than orphans by the terrible grinding grind-ing of the divorce mills. The churches are rousing themselves none too soon to grapple with this great enemy of American Amer-ican family life." . A |