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Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4348, 28 November 1921, Page 2

“AH marriages are no,t made in Heaven,'’ said the Rev, J. Napier Milne, lecturing at Rugby Street Methodist Church in Christchurch. More than half of the matrimonial tangles of the world began with young men and women fancying themselves in love. They did not conceive cf love as something into- which the mind and the character entered, but at a sudden, violent emotion associated with the discovery of physical beauty and outward charm. When there was no common ground for two people to stand upon, it was the perfection of folly to marry. If they jarred upon one another during the days of courtship it .was pretty certain that they would jar upon one another very much more when they were man and wife. Identity of opinion was not necessary, but love must include friendship and deep essential spiritual sympathy and agreement. Anything less than thatji might only be the fruit of passion. To be strangers tv one another in the things thav mattered most was to be unequally yoked, and the prospect of happiness in that case was exceedingly remote. The world needed a more exalted idea of marriage, of its bindingness and . its responsibilities. Judicial separations for cruelty and the like there must be, but divorce, except for adultery—and it was doubtful whether our Lord allowed even that exception—must be persistently discouraged and denounced. It ,was the scandal of our times that we were making divorce easy. Marriage was coming to be regarded in the nature of a mere contract which could be ended when one was tired of it. Marriage should look forward to perman ency, however lightly and unadvisedly taken in hand. The refusal to admit final failure would often result in the relationship becoming beautiful and sacred.