The Church and the Divorce Law.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 98, 19 October 1894, Page 2

The Church and the Divorce Law.

Some very pointed remarks on the sub. ject of Divorce Law were made by Arch deacon Fancourt in the course of his address to the Diocesan Synod on Wednesday. There was, he said, one subject of the highest importance to the whole Christian community in this country, the consideration of which had been forced upon them recently by what bad taken place in the Legislature — he meant the tendency on the part of some no longer to regard the state as a Christian State. They were all familiar with that in the matter of State education, but what he specially alluded to was the introduction into such a body as the Legislative Council of snch a measure as the Bill for the amendment of the Divorce Act read a second time and partly considered in com* mittee before it was rejected. The Bill hs they knew, contained a clause whereby had it become law, the grounds on which a divorce might have been obtained would have been extended to a number of other things than adultery. That would have placed the law of the land in direct opposition to the law of the Church and the law of God, It would likewise have opened the door to all manner of collusion, and would have tended to sap the very foundations of society. Happily it was thrown out, or it would have met with the strongest opposition from the Church, if not from the whole Christian community. As it was constantly taken for granted that what the state had made lawful was regaided by the Church as lawful, he took this opportunity of stating that the Church did not regard divorce an setting either a man or woman free to marry again, and that no clergyman was at liberty to solemnise such marriage ; nor to solemnise marriage between a man and his deceasea wife's sißter.