p. 16 | The Divorce Evil

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 18, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 29.

The Divorce Evil

The "divorce evil" is a crying one. A few years ago but one or two States were noted for rapid and frequent divorce proceedings; but they are more common in some of the old conservative cities to-day than they were in the exceptional ones a few years ago. For instance, in Philadelphia, on June 4, fifty-three divorces were granted in the four divisions of the Court of Common Pleas. Roman Catholicism lays all this to Lutheranism. The secret lies back of this. It is born of lawlessness, disregard of God's law, in which the Roman Catholic Church has, by its own confession, been leader. Legal divorce on unscriptural grounds even is preferable to open adultery, tho both are violations of the law of God. When a human organization assumes the authority to change God's law, which He declares to be unchangeable, when behind that assumption it poses as the true and only church of God, and when multitudes are deceived by such assumption and claim, that organization has a tremendous influence for lawlessness. And all the religious lawlessness that Luther possessed, all that Protestantism possesses, came by direct legacy from the mother church. The form of the lawlessness undergoes change, but the essentials are the same.