E S S AY S CON NELL LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright No..- Shelf.lffi^ ^5" UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ESSAYS Practical and Speculative BY THE SAME AUTHOR History of the American Episcopal Church. Eighth edition, illustrated. 8vo, cloth, - $2.00. A Year's Sermons. 12mo, cloth, - $1.25. Sons of God. A series of Sermons. 12mo, paper, 50 cents. Cloth, - - - $1.25. Sermon Stuff. First series. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Sermon Stuff. Second Series. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher 2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK ESSAYS Practical and Speculative BY S. D. McCONNELL, D.D., D.C.L. NEW YORK THOMAS WHITTAKER 2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 1900 47557 L ib***r y of Conarese ^v,%s T'Uv (jpies Receiveo US' SEP 15 1900 Copy rig* < miry SECOND COPY. 0«Kv**H« OftDtfl DIVISION, SEP 21 1900 J 5OO94 Copyright, 1900 By THOMAS WHITTAK ER TO MY GOOD OLD FRIEND KOBEET W. GRANGE, D. D., THIS LITTLE BOOK Note. — I hereby make my sincere acknowledgment to the New World, the Churchman and the Outlook for their courteous permission to reprint portions of this little volume which have already appeared in their pages. Contents I. THE MORALS OF SEX . II. CHURCH AND CLERGY III. ABOUT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES IV. BROAD CHURCHMEN, AND NARROW V. THE NEXT STEP IN CHRISTIANITY VI. SCRIPTURE, INSPIRATION AND AUTHORITY, VII. THE FALL, — UPWARD VIII. THE ROLE OF BELIEF IX. GOD, EVEN OUR GOD X. THE NEW SITUATION XI. NATURE AND GOD XII. EVOLUTION AND GOD XIII. GOD MANIFEST . XIV. THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS XV. THE OTHER LIFE XVI. THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH PAGE 7 33 53 75 89 107 125 117 155 169 181 191 209 233 255 273 THE MOKALS OF SEX THE MORALS OF SEX Of all the Commandments in the Decalogue, the most difficult to enforce and expound is the Seventh. For the present purpose it is its exposition with which I am concerned, and it is the clergy chiefly that I have in mind in what I say. There are at least three rea- sons which make a discussion of the Law of Sexual Morality pertinent to us professionally. First, as offi- cial teachers of righteousness and ministers of disci- pline we are continually called upon to apply and in- terpret the law. Second, we are confronted with a new social and economic order which has introduced into this region of morals quite new and very profound difficul- ties. Third, in common with Protestantism generally, our Church is engaged in the attempt to formulate the law of the case in a Canon of Marriage and Divorce. These three reasons may also serve as the headings for the divisions of what is rather a memorandum for an argument than a symmetrical thesis. I. What, then, is God's law as to sex relation- ships ? Upon what sanction, human or divine, does the law rest? Is the same law binding upon men and women? To these questions the Social Purity League would 9 10 THE MOKALS OF SEX give one answer. The average practicing physician would give another. The law of the state is based upon ideas differing from both replies. The Church gives an answer differing somewhat from all of them. What is the actual will of God and the will of Nature on the subject? "We may be certain that the two wills will coincide. Usually if we can find out pre- cisely in any case what Nature wishes we may be quite sure that we have found out what is the will of God in that case. For Nature is God's way of ex- pressing Himself. But in the case of sex relationships it may as well be confessed that Nature does not seem to know her own mind. This is the origin of the whole moral con- fusion upon the subject. In regard to other appetites and desires Nature is a trustworthy guide. Their existence is prima facie proof of their innocence. They are warnings of needs. They protect them- selves against abuse by the sense of satiety. For other moral prohibitions the reason is so evident in the nature of things that the understanding is ready to uphold the conscience in its mandates. But in the case before us we cannot "follow the guidance of Nature.'' The instant that proposal is baldly made, all men see that it will not work. As a social rule, it is condemned by the practically unanimous vote of so- ciety. And it is not civilized and Christian society alone which condemns it. Unregulated intercourse at will is not permitted even by the lowest savages. THE MORALS OF SEX 11 i Among the lower animals it is not possible. In men it is physically possible, but it is limited and regulated by social conventions. These limitations have the force of law, and are maintained by an appeal to re- ligion. What then are they, and ought they to be ? The first prohibition is of Adultery. "What is adultery? The legal definition is slightly different, but the practical definition is : sexual connection with another man's wife. In what does the wrong of the action consist ? The first answer is, it is a wrong to the woman's husband. This is the view which the law takes of the matter. This was the view of the Old Testament Scriptures. The adulterer was punished as a thief. He had trespassed upon another man's prop- erty. This is the Common Law doctrine to this day in Europe and America. The remedy for the " injured husband," — the phrase is significant, — is sought by an action to recover damages. Underlying it is the feel- ing surviving from ancient times that a wife is prop- erty. In quite modern practice has been introduced a legal fiction to put the wife on the same legal stand- ing as the husband, and she has been allowed also to sue for damages for " the alienation of the husband's affections." Courts and juries have always found it difficult, however, to assess the value of the thing sought to be recovered. But the punishment of the adulteress has always been reached on other grounds. Her offence has been estimated not by the damage inflicted upon the 12 THE MORALS OF SEX wronged husband, but by the damage she has done to society. She has "defiled the blood." "Where so- ciety was organized, as in Israel, about the tribal principle, it is easy to see why she was so sternly dealt with for having " wrought eonf usion " in Israel. But the same quality must always distinguish the adulteress from the adulterer. The husband may wander among harlots, and in the view of law, the wrong which he does and which he incurs is personal to himself. But for the wife to admit an intruder is to confuse the inheritance. Her offence is against her father, her husband's father, her children, against the State. It vitiates, or at any rate renders uncertain, the testaments of all who have preceded her and her husband. In the sin of adultery the same judgment has never been meted to the man and the woman, and never can be. The implications of this we will meet again when we come to consider the moral basis of marriage and divorce. Practically, it is sufficient to say at this point that the offence is one which has al- ways been so sternly condemned by all men that we need not dwell longer upon it. Any man guilty of it flies in the face of Nature, society and God, and among the three he will find his punishment. But what about commerce of the sexes which does not involve the element of trespass and does not defile the blood ? What is the absolute and ideal right ? Is the law the same for all ? Should all be alike pun- ished for its breach ? Let us take this last question THE MORALS OF SEX 13 i first. Should the man and the woman be held to the same accountability and be dealt with the same way ? The answer is, they cannot be. The cry " the same law of purity for both sexes," is both silly and mis- chievous. The champions of this crusade do not seem to perceive that in the leveling process attempted the woman is quite as likely to be dragged down as the man is to be led up. Set the ideal of manly purity as high as you will — as high as Christ does — but remem- ber that even then woman's purity must transcend it. Nothing is gained by ignoring facts. Society judges the woman's fault far more severely than it does the man's, simply because it believes the fault to be far more heinous in her than in him. One element in guaging the gravity of an offence against a rule is the consideration of the consequences of such offence. In this offence the woman is defiled in the body, in her emotional nature, in her affections, in her soul, to an extent and in a way which is not true of the man. In her case the consequences are conserved, retained, transmitted. In his they come to an end. His of- fence may have a moral aggravation far beyond hers, or it may not. But the same offence it is not, nor can, nor ought society to deal with her as with him. His penalty cannot be of the same kind as the one meted out to her. If he be threatened with that alone by well-meaning reformers and preachers, he can well afford to smile in their faces. Nothing is idler than the rhetoric about the injustice of the fact 14 THE MORALS OF SEX that she is cast out to shame and cold while he is re- ceived to club and drawing-room. This has always been society's method, and always will be. The fault has demonstrated her to be incapable to discharge her social duty, while it has not conclusively shown his unfitness. From this the law of sexual purity for women, and the reasonableness of that law begins to appear. For them the law is absolute chastity. No excuse or pal- liation will be admitted in the judgment of human so- ciety. God's judgments, we may well believe, will be in many instances different. He can heed the plea, "she sinned much because she loved much." But society cannot. There is too much at stake. In her person society itself is defiled by the offence, and is compelled in self-defence to visit upon her a penalty which does not fall upon her partner. This may be called hard, unjust, unfair, atrocious, but that does not change the fact. Beside that, a closer examina- tion of all the data would probably show that it is not open to these charges. At any rate, it is the way in which woman herself deals with her offending sister. It is clear, therefore, that human society, presum- ably giving voice to the will of God, demands abso- lute continence (1) of all married men, under the penalty which attaches to a broken oath ; (2) of all women, under the penalty which attaches to any act which brings confusion into the social structure ; (3) THE MORALS OF SEX 15 of all married women, under an additional penalty for debauching posterity. This leaves for consideration the case of those men who have contracted no obligations, whose incon- tinence does not seem to them to carry with it any evil consequence, whom society does not severely pun- ish, who find across their path only what seems to be an arbitrary prohibition. What will keep them con- tinent ? What ought to keep them continent ? What has Nature, what has God, what has the preacher to say to the young man here ? There is no department of morals where it is so difficult to speak honestly. There is no place where conventional morality, both in its teaching and result, or lack of result of its teach- ing, is so unsatisfactory. When the young man is bidden, " thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery," he heeds. In all these cases he sees both the reason for the prohibition and the peril of the offence. But when he is bidden, " thou shalt not commit fornication," he heeds little. He knows that fornication is not adultery. The reasons for its condemnation are not so evident. They lie so deep down in the complex nature of things that he doubts their existence. The torment of an appetite which he knows to be " natural " drives him across a prohibiting line which he suspects to be " artificial." What shall the moralist, the physician, the priest say to these ? It would surely be a great gain if they, all three, can say the same thing. To the unmarried 16 THE MOEALS OF SEX American woman, little needs to be said. She is chaste by habit, by tradition, by pride, by instinct, by temperament, by physical nature. She needs little exhortation. But what of the man ? How many are continent between the ages of twenty and thirty-five ? No one can say. Some are ; probably far more than is often supposed. But more are not. They say, when they speak at all on the subject, that it is " a counsel of perfection" to which they are not equal. They find no fault with the high demand which con- ventional morality exacts, but they regard it as im- possible of attainment. What considerations can we urge to give vigor to the young man's will by which he can bid his turbulent appetite come to heel? Christianity provides the supreme truth. It tells him that his body is the temple of a Holy Spirit. It warns him against defiling the temple of the Holy Ghost. It asks him if he will dare t6 "make the body of Christ the member of a harlot." There are thousands for whom this is sufficient. Their souls are inwardly reverent, and they compel their reluctant bodies to be at least outwardly respectful. But there are tens of thousands to whom this is not sufficient. For various reasons the spiritual dynamic of Christianity does not touch them. Has the law of purity any other hold upon them ? There would seem to be at least two facts which we can fairly urge to bid them pause. The one is the peril to the body ; the other is the peril to the soul. THE MORALS OF SEX 17 Let us not be misunderstood. We do not well to flourish threats of death to the body or of damnation to the soul. But there are a thousand ills which stop far short of either dissolution or damnation, which are nevertheless so grave that none but a fool will take chances with them. Fear may be a low motive, but the appeal to it is not unworthy. Indeed it probably is in point of fact the most common of sanctions. The man who buys sexual indulgence habitually, takes risks of bodily damage which none but a fool would incur. He imperils his subsequent life ; the health of his wife who is to be ; the life and self-respect of his unborn children. Does he smile and say, " I'll take the chances " ? Would it not be well if we could per- suade the experienced physician to say to him : " I have heard men say that ; and I have seen them after- ward, when they wished that they had at least died before they were damned ! " There is another penalty, however, about which Nature is inexorable. It is none the less natural be- cause it happens to be a law of human nature. Why is pure lust not immoral in a beast ? And why is it immoral in a man? Because in the beast it is not correlated with the affections, and in the man it is. " Making a beast of one's self " is not a metaphor. It is a scientific statement of a possibility. It is accom- plished by eliminating the humane element from any human act and thus reducing it to the deed of an animal. But this can only be done at the expense of the human 18 THE MORALS OF SEX part of Nature. If it be done repeatedly, the humane element is injured. II it be done habitually, the humane element is destroyed. Nature is leisurely but unerring in her revenges. If one should then be counselled by the complaisant physician, who knows only the body, to " seek health by the temperate grati- fication of an appetite," the religious adviser may be allowed to intervene and say, "the doctor's advice would, no doubt, be good if it concerned an appetite which had in it no quality but physical. Your pre- scription would be well for a beast ; for a man it is not well." Incontinence of the body means deteriora- tion of the soul. This would be just as true though the Bible had never been written, and though there were not a preacher of morality in the world. " The house of the strange woman opens unto death, and her paths unto the dead." The soul which goes there sickens, and dies if it abides there. This is the price which Nature fixes. Any cost of self-repression is cheaper. In this, Solomon, Kobert Burns, St. Paul, and the Great Physician agree. I have not mentioned the crime of seduction in any of its forms. The man who is capable of taking ad- vantage of youth, ignorance, inexperience, or of woman's love for the gratification of his lust, or the rare, but still existent, wanton woman who plays and preys upon " the imperious instinct of man," are both alike beyond argument. They are condemned al- ready. THE MORALS OF SEX 19 11 Who cast the devils from the Gaddarene, Could hardly do so much for these I ween." II. I said that we are confronted by a new social and economic order which has greatly aggravated the difficulties in this region of morals. In a simple social structure each man and each woman is mated and mated early. Physical appetite is transfigured by af- fection, and held in check by the responsibility of parentage. But each generation the average age of marriage is being pushed farther onward, and the per- centage of unmarried men and women increases. Within the last fifty years the average age of mar- riage in New York State has been pushed upward, for men from about twenty-two to about twenty-seven, and for women from nineteen to twenty-four, as near as can be deduced from the very imcomplete statistics. Speaking generally two causes are at work to bring about this result. First, the increasing exigency of life, and second, the increasing personal independence of women. Suppose the man is a professional man. He leaves the preparatory school at nineteen, leaves the university at twenty-two, leaves the technical school at twenty-six. Assume for him at the outset even more than average professional success. He cannot and does not marry until he has passed thirty. Suppose he goes at once from the public high school at nineteen to learn a skilled trade or to go into busi- ness, he cannot get to the point when he can marry and live in this city much earlier. Only the unskilled 20 THE MOEALS OF SEX laborer can marry shortly after maturity, because his ability to support a family is at its best from twenty- four to thirty-four, and rapidly declines thereafter. The case of women is the same, with aggravating circumstances. The butcher's daughter and the bak- er's now remain in the public school until nineteen or twenty. I was present lately at the opening exercises of a high school containing two thousand four hundred young women, the majority of whom were older than their grandmothers had been when their mothers were born. Do not understand me to be making an argu- ment for " early marriages." I am not making an argument at all. I am trying to make a diagnosis. We are set to preach purity. To do so effectively we must know to whom we are preaching. We are sur- rounded by thousands and thousands of unmarried men and women who remain unmarried for a length of time, far longer than has ever been known in any other time and place. The men are journeymen mechanics, clerks, commercial travellers, salesmen, lawyers, engineers, doctors. The women are college graduates, shop girls, factory girls, saleswomen, stenographers, and myriads of young women living aimless lives in dull homes, waiting while their bloom fades for the man to speak, who cannot speak because he cannot make a home to which to invite her. But what of the " imperious instinct " meanwhile ? Love of life and the instinct of generation are the two elemental forces. Society has safeguarded life, made THE MORALS OF SEX 21 / it comfortable, lengthened it. Never was human life so secure, so pleasant, so easy. American society has certainly succeeded in its aim at " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But does any one suppose that the companion "instinct of propagation" can be ignored, or forgotten or suppressed without it having its revenges ? Does society do well to make individ- ual life easy and homes difficult ? After a young man has lived for five years at a Mills' hotel, and a young woman in a Young Women's Christian Asso- ciation boarding-house, will they be more or less likely to combine their lives in the narrowness of a home ? One is tempted to ponder upon the proverb that " the wise ones of the world are kept busy undoing the deeds of the good ones." The hard fact confronts us that the sex instincts of nature are more and more obstructed by the exigencies of human society. Con- tinence is subjected to a longer and ever more severe strain. Is it surprising that it breaks down ? What reinforcement can the minister of religion bring to the continent will which finds itself called upon to ar- bitrate between the law of the mind and the law of the members, after the contest has been artificially prolonged beyond the time which Nature has decreed ? It may be well to say at this point that I assume the appetite of sex to be just as legitimate and as noble as any appetite whatsoever. Indeed one might say much more. Whosoever shall penetrate the ultimate mystery of sex will have gone far to know the es- 22 THE MOEALS OF SEX sential nature of God. Creation and procreation are more nearly allied than are any other motions of the Creator and the creature. The religion of Christ ought by now to have recovered from the sickly taint of asceticism with which the mumified corpse of dual- ism infected it in the Thebaid centuries ago. The monk and cloistered nun have never been altogether sane. Their confessions, their hymns and prayers, their theology and casuistry proclaim them less than Christian because less than human. I believe that we will never be able to urge and interpret God's law of chastity except as we honestly and reverently recog- nize the truth that " in God's image created He them, male and female created He them." It may well be that just now the most efficient way in which we can preach personal purity shall be by addressing our- selves to the correction of some of those things in the social and economic order which make impossible that condition of things which God contemplated when He promulgated His law. III. We are concerned with the application of the Christian law of sex relationships to divorce and remar- riage. This discussion usually commences with an array of statistics to show the rapidly increasing num- ber of divorces. I will assume the figures. Let us admit the extreme. In one state there is one di- vorce for every six marriages. In other states they range from this downward to South Carolina where there are none. The fact of consequence is that there THE MORALS OF SEX 23 has been and is a rapidly increasing disposition to break the bonds of matrimony when they begin to chafe, — and in a less marked degree a disposition for those thus made free to contract new alliances. There is so little question of the facts that it would be time wasted even to exhibit them. But the second step in the discussion is usually to argue that all this indicates a prevailing laxity of sexual morality, and a perilous lowering of the ideal relations of man and woman. This I believe to be an error. A careful examination of the facts will show that, taking the country as a whole, a slow but steady advance in chastity has occurred much in the same way as has occurred the advance in temperance. The multiplication of divorces is not to be accounted for by the division of the sum total of popular morality. If this were the situation the Church's task would be a very simple, even though not an easy one. But the reasons are far more complicated. Speaking broadly, it may truly be said that Christianity itself has caused the present multiplication of divorces. Every intelli- gent student of Christianity has noted the way in which it began almost at once to change the status of woman in society. It began by crediting her with an independent personality. But the accumulated tradi- tions of countless generations stood between her and the conscious realization of her personality. In all human society she stood in a position of less dignity than that of a slave or even of a chattel. A bonds- 24 THE MORALS OF SEX man or an ox had at least an individuality of its own. The woman had not. She was an appendage of some man — of a father, a husband, a brother, or even a son. All law, all custom, all social order, all domestic life was built upon this conception of woman. Even St. Paul asserts it and bases his dicta upon it. But what is of more significance, this was woman's conception of her- self. And woman is, as Amiel says, " the very genius of conservatism." The glory of Christianity is that it has at long last succeeded in bringing woman to conceive of her own personality as Christ conceived of it. The process has been a marvellously slow one. Indeed it is only within our own time that the result has begun to show in any large way. The phenomenon is not fitly termed the " emancipation of woman." It is not "emancipation." It is not "independence." It is a coming to consciousness of self. The free woman in Christ is not thereby- set in opposition to men, or transformed into a man in all save bodily function. It has nothing to do with the " suffrage " or with the "right to earn her own living." But this new-found consciousness of absolute and underived personality has given to her a new-found, and sometimes bewil- dering sense of her personal dignity and personal sanctity. This is what we wish, what Christ in- tended, what we would not have turned backward. But when this stage has been reached why should we be amazed if she turn to society and ask, sometimes THE MORALS OF SEX 25 tearfully and sometimes defiantly, " Am I a person ? Am I not the owner of my own body? Can Chris- tian law under any conceivable circumstances lay an obligation upon me, or so construe any promise which I have made, as to command me to give my body to the embrace of any man against my will?" Thus Christianity itself has led not a few women to the point where their religion prompts them to take an action the precise opposite to that which devout women of an earlier stage would have taken. At that earlier stage a devoted woman endured to her life's end the approaches of a brutal or drunken or distasteful husband because her religious sense bade her do so. To-day her equally pious granddaughter utterly re- fuses such outrage of her personality because her religious sense bids her so ! Divorce is just as likely to be the result of a higher moral ideal as of a lower one. "We may as well face the fact that marriage is coming more and more to be thought of as a mutual contract betw r een two self-contained persons than as the absorption of the wife's personality by the hus- band's. And Christianity has done this by transform- ing the woman from a possession into a person. Do we wish that undone ? If not, then all the exhorta- tion of the " conservative " — who is the man with his eyes in the back of his head — all his exhortations to bring back what he calls the " primitive basis of the marriage bond," is idle. The sacred marriage estate lies before us, not behind. I am willing to say that 26 THE MOKALS OF SEX for one I believe that in most cases where divorces are actually granted it is better upon the whole for the state to loose the bans which have become fetters than to hold them fast, — better for the men and women concerned, better for society, better for pub- lic morals. In point of fact they never were those "whom God had joined together." As to the re- marriage of the severed individuals, that is quite a different question, and a far more difficult one, both for the state and the Church. But this is the stage at which the Church comes face to face with the problem. Concerning a first marriage it would seem that the Church could do no more than she has already done. That is to warn the young man and maiden who ask her benediction upon their vows that " if any persons be joined together otherwise than as God's word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful." Shall she at- tempt to pass judgment upon the facts in each in- stance ? If so, what is to be her measure or standard of legality ? If by " God's word " here she mean the written scriptures she simply cannot derive from them a working statute. They were not written for such a purpose. If she mean the ideal prerequisites and con- ditions of Christian marriage, as is the practical con- struction of the phrase, then she can do no more than adjure them by the sober warning of judgment to come, that " if there be any impediment they do now confess it." The practical outcome of the common THE MORALS OF SEX 27 admonitions of our more or less reverend fathers in God that we should look with more care to the origi- nal marriages, seems to me to amount to this and nothing more. But what of the remarriage of those who have been divorced? Shall the Church forbid it absolutely? Shall she forbid it, with exceptions ? Shall she per- mit it absolutely ? Whichever she decides upon, what shall be the ground upon which she shall rest her decision ? The real difficulty is with the last question. What ^6- the law Avhich governs the Christian Church in this cause? And where is it written? Many, possibly most, will repty, the law is in the New Testament. I think they are mistaken. Christ enunciated no law of marriage and divorce. He did that which was ultimately to make marriage a sacrificial symbol and separation an impossibility, but not by dictating statutes. He did for the Seventh Commandment what He did for the Sixth and the Eighth, and waited for time to show the result. " Thou shalt not kill," says the law : Christ gives it the dynamic, " whoso- ever hateth his brother is a murderer." " Thou shalt not steal " becomes dynamical through His, " love thy neighbor as thyself." "Thou shalt not commit adultery." "Whoso looketh with lust is an adul- terer." The attempt to extract a canon from the words of Christ is the medigeval philosopher's task to distill bottles full of elixir of life out of the morning 28 THE MORALS OF SEX dew. "My words are spirit, and they are life." When the exegete sets about with purblind eye to ex- amine the words through the opaque lens of learning for the purpose of turning his rendering over to the canonist to be written in the black letter of ecclesias- tical law, the Christian can only go about his business, — and wait with what patience he can. The history of the Christian society is the gradual unfolding of the work of Christ in this cause as in all others. The early Christians did not conceive polyg- amy to be inconsistent with their profession. As a matter of expediency it was agreed that the clergy must be monogamists. But there would have been no meaning in the mandate, " let a bishop be the husband of one wife," if the same rule had antecedently been regarded as binding upon clergy and laity alike. And how could the early Christians take that attitude hav- ing only the Old Testament in their hands, and the New not yet written ? It may be a surprise to be re- minded that the Catholic Church has not to this day officially pronounced that the possession of a plurality of wives is per se a bar to membership. It is still an open question whether a missionary in pagan land may withhold baptism from a sincere convert until he put away all his wives but one. As a matter of fact Christ has eradicated polygamy as He has done slavery by slowly producing individuals whose nature is such that they cannot be either polygamists or slaves. Can the same method be trusted to eradi- THE MORALS OF SEX 29 cate the ancient custom of divorce ? Surely we must think so. But what can the Church do meanwhile ? I reply, she may make such, and only such canonical regula- tions as are not for her ultra vires. Let me say here, in passing, what has been often said by wise Church- men, that our Church is exposed to peculiar danger from the lack of any judicial tribunal to determine the limit of her right to legislate upon any cause. If a secular legislature pass a law which it has really no power to do, a supreme court so adjudges, and the law at once becomes nul and void. In our Church the people are only fairly well saved from such legislation by the fact that what we call the common law of the Church is so generally respected, and by the further fact that vio- lation of canonical law is so uncommonly easy and free from danger. From the beginning it has been admitted that the Church may make such regulations for the conduct of the clergy as she deems expedient, provided the com- mon rights of Christian people are not encroached upon. Thus she has forbidden the clergy to bear arms, to submit to the trial by combat, to marry, to engage in unseemly avocations, and such like. All these regula- tions rest upon expediency, and are of their nature transitory, local, may be modified, or revoked when conditions change. On this ground I think the clergy may well be instructed not to officiate at the remar- riage of any divorced person. If such a canonical 30 THE MORALS OF SEX prohibition were passed I would cheerfully obey it. I should vote for such a canon. Practically, I see no other course open to the Church at the present stage. The clergy must either be left free to marry any and all divorced persons or must be forbidden to marry any. Discrimination is not possible for the obvious reason that the Church possesses no machinery of her own by which to ascertain the facts concerning any case of di- vorce, and she cannot commit her action to the formal decisions of secular court without by that act com- mitting ecclesiastical suicide. Let the Church forbid the clergy to remarry divorced persons ; — and let her stop right there. I say, stop right there, because the Church cannot see her way any farther at present. ISTo agreement can now be reached as to what marriages God's word doth allow, and what ones it doth disallow. Some maintain that marriage is indissoluble for any cause ; some that adultery by either party vacates it abso- lutely ; some that such breach of vow only releases the other party to the extent of separation a mensa et thoro ; some that the secular law fixes the status of every individual in this regard so that the Church is free to bless any marriage when the state pronounces the parties marriageable. All appeal to the dicta of Christ as recorded and interpreted in the New Testa- ment. Now, while this situation continues the Church dare not go any farther in exercising discipline upon the THE MOEALS OF SEX 31 laity than she has already done in her rubrics. By fundamental Catholic law and custom there are only two offences for which a citizen in Christ's visible Kingdom may be expelled. They are, first, notorious uncharitableness : i.