that mankind never possessed an original God-consciousness, which could be either lost or further unfolded. Darwin himself would rather have descended from an heroic ape or an altruistic baboon, than from brutal aboriginal man. * Whence came the superstitions and wickednesses of mankind? Are they an altogether unaccountable wilderness in the realm of mind, corresponding to the free course of untamed nature in prehistoric times, when monsters and miasms flourished in the Reptilian Age? The conclusion does not harmonize with the Word of God. Dr. Herman Rust, the writer's sainted father, taught that man originally possessed all the capabilities and powers necessary to meet the demand of the highest moral rectitude. He might, in that distant day, have succeeded in conquering the environment of nature so as to make him as much a master as he is now in civilized lands, of the comforts and conveniences of life. But he wasted his energies in warfare, immorality, superstition, and idolatry. Thus we may say that his original powers of understanding and research soon became darkened, resulting in the atrophy of the supreme functions of the soul, or in a sense remained latent for ages because of the hereditary reign of ignorance, degeneracy, sensuality, and wickedness. †

Miracle, even in the best sense of the word, has no place in the scheme of evolution. When Mr. Darwin says: "As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian period, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world," he not only rejects the historic background and ethical significance of the Noachian flood tradition, but puts God entirely out of the domain of nature. This declaration

"Descent of Man," p. 613.

For a telling criticism, in defense of the Christian doctrine of sin, of Huxley's admission concerning the "infinite wickedness of mankind for thousands of years, and his confession that the study of history is "unutterably saddening" in its effect, see Dr. George P. Fisher's "Nature and Method of Revelation," p. 152.

also excludes Him from history, because it involves the denial of the special mission of the Hebrews, the Incarnation of our Lord, and His atoning sacrifice. Thus there never has been a self-revelation of God in history, any more than in the mind and life of man. At the last, Darwin does not deny the belief in immortality, but he deals with it superficially, and dismisses it with a vague generalization. If this is a closed universe, then, though a spiritual world may exist, communication from that realm can never be received by anyone here. The conclusion culminates in the rejection of the objective spiritual phenomena of the New Testament, especially the after-resurrection appearances of our Lord, and their bearing upon the future state of man.

TIFFIN, OHIO.

66

III.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

BY THE REV. J. W. SANTEE, D.D.

One of the great problems, at the beginning of this century, demanding consideration from every well-wisher of good morals and affecting the permanence of society, is that of marriage and divorce. The idea of marriage is the basis of society, but frequently unhappy marriages have so disturbed the social order that measures have been proposed to preserve the original purpose of this sacred institution. But the applications for divorce seem to be on the increase and it is not strange that the public is alarmed when confronted with the fact, that, according to the report of A. M. Pond, who is in charge of the taking of the divorce census of Chicago, forty thousand divorces in twenty years, an average of two thousand a year, are the figures for that city, and for tabulating which, twenty-two clerks are now at work. Chicago leads the country, New York being second, with twenty, and Philadelphia next, with fifteen.” It is clearly evident that many matches and marriages were not made in heaven, and because of the frequent failures, numberless ways and means have been resorted to to break the bonds and set the parties free for another experiment in marrying. That this is wrong is keenly felt by the public moral sense. Since the evil is on the

increase, the courts have begun to block the way and make the divorce mill grind finer and slower. At Wilkesbarre "the court decreed that in the future all hearings in divorce cases shall be public. The court appointed six examiners to hear testimony in these cases, and these men sit regularly in an open court." At Pittsburg the judges of the Allegheny County courts made a ruling that there should be no more secret divorces in said county, that all papers must be filed and all

hearings held in the open. No wonder that the stones began to cry out when (August 23) "Justice McLean, in the Supreme Court to-day, handed down decisions in sixty-five cases of divorce, breaking all records, besides dismissing twenty suits, and granted interlocutory decrees in forty-five, and in addition has eight cases before him yet to be decided." It seems an easy thing, even for some trifling cause, to obtain a decree, annuling the marriage relation, thereby wronging one or the other of the party interested, and cases are on record where the ink on the paper decreeing the divorce was scarcely dry before another contract was entered into, as if such proceedings were not to be classed with the scandalous. any one say that the good order of society is not thereby affected, good morals depreciated, the peace of the home broken up, or at least seriously invaded? These are facts clearly showing that the marriage relation in the beginning of this century is not held as sacred as in former years, and that we are, therefore, confronted with "a condition" which is farreaching and full of menace.

Will

In discussing this subject our aim will be to do so from a Christian standpoint, using as a base "The Elements of Christian Science," by William Adams, S.T.P., whose system is biblical, though it may be at variance on some points with the trend of thinking on this important subject in our day. I. What is marriage? It is defined "as a mutual and voluntary compact, properly based on mutual regard and affection and suitably ratified, to live together as husband and wife, until separated by death" (Standard Dictionary). Again, "Christian marriage is the internal fusion of two human beings, so that each may supplement the other and both be joined by mutual self-devotion in a perfect unity of life and will." As thus defined, "marriage constitutes two persons into one family, and it is a permanent relation between two persons, opposite in sex. . . 'till death us do part"" (Porter, "Moral Science"). It is clear, if it is thus constituted, that no human legislation can ever dissolve it. The Roman Church

places marriage among the seven sacraments. That church takes high ground. For the good of the family and society she always insisted on the doctrine as Christian and as very simple, viz., "one with one exclusively and forever." The passions of men rebel against such a doctrine and would undoubtedly have trampled the marriage relation under foot, had they not met this insurmountable barrier in the church. "Neither promises nor threats could move Rome, for she placed it under the august shade of religion, a real sacrament, and thereby raised it above the stormy atmosphere of the passions of men (Balmes, "Lec."). In the Protestant Church, where faith still exists and the pregnant words of the Apostle, "this is a great mystery," are not wholly stripped of the mystical, marriage, though not regarded a sacrament in the Roman sense, is still conceived as partaking of the sacramental

-a mystery, in which the union of two persons becomes one humanity. The ideal of marriage then is a sacred indissoluble union of two persons in one humanity.

...

II. Man's ideal state, according to the Scriptures, is realized in marriage. In Gen. 2:18-24, Jehovah said, "It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for him. . . . Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." In this passage we have the true conception of man, one with one. On this point we have some interesting fables. "The soul of man and woman," says an ancient Greek fable, was originally one: it was then divided by Jove into two portions, half to one body and half to the other: and hence the one soul, with instinctive patience, seeks its lost half and will wander over the world for it, and, if united with it, shall be happy, if not, miserable." "Behold," say the Cabaliststhose Jewish retailers of absurd philosophy and foolish wisdom -"man was originally one, both soul and body, the Ish Kadmon, or primitive created being, and then God separated them and man fell." However absurd these fables are, there is a faint suspicion "of an intimate relation