FOR THE SABBATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 502, 21 September 1912, Page 6

FOR THE SABBATH.

- A TERRIBLE ADMISSION.

Seldom has a more terrible admission come from the lips of the Bench than the strong terms in which Judge Gibbons, of Chicago, the other day denounced the growing evil of divorce. He confesses that he is positively weary of the turmoil and trouble which the daily grind of divoce cases has unfolded to him. And he not only sees the evil but he diagnoses the cause with relentless exactitude. "Marriages," he asserts, "performed outside the sanctity of church walls furnish 75 per cent, of our divorce cases. " He reminds his litigants that if such marriages were performed with religious rites the divorce evil would become an occasional marital tragedy instead of a national disease. We commend his conclusion to those critics who attack the Catholic ideal of marriage with such deplorable ignorance and sectarian fury. They surely would do well to p°use before they rail at the only institution which safeguards the family life and moral welfare of Christendom to-day. Church Commonwealth, THE DIVINE SIDE OF THE BIBLE. Anyone can see the human side of the Bible; anyone, perhaps, can see its uniqueness, and stand on the threshold which must be crossed before the Divine side can be reached. But to appreciate aright the Divine side of the Scriptures is the gift of that Spirit by Whom they are inspired spiritual things are spiritually discerned. In these things the simplest and moat unlearned reader may penetrate to depths to which the most eminent critic's keenest instruments give him no access, of the very existence of Which the critic may have no inkling. Or if the critic, as such has an inkling of this aspect of the Bible of which his science is not cognisant, it is because, as a student of human nature and human history, he cannot ignore the enormous weight of evidence supplied by the accumulated testimony of the wo*ds and lives of millions for whom the Scriptures have clearly contained secrets of most transcendant value.

MELANESUN MISSION. Members of the Royal Navy are unofficial and candid observers of the work of the Melaneaian Mission, »nd their testimony to its value is always an important feature of the annual meeting. Admiral Fawkes spoke this year, and his brief speech this year, and his brief speech was very much to the purpose. And a few years a go Captain D'Oyly, who was not in sympathy with missionary work before his experiences in the SouthWest, Pacific, made a quite permanent value. "I have b come," he said, "to this conviction, that the missionary, in the Southern Seas has been the greatest asset to civilisation. His life, his very existence, depends on the influence which tte holds over those natives. What is the influence of this man, residing as he does among these savages, going to places as he does where perhaps others could not go without a party of armed men and perhaps a Maxim or two? It is this: he has touched the hearts of the natives, and that is what some don't understand. At bottom of all the savage has a heart, and the missionary 13 the only man who has touched it. They look up to him, they trust his word. He is leading a life which is an example of what we like to consider all that is noble, all that is great in the characteristics of our race he is inspiring the natives with higher views, higher aims, and better habits. Not only is he doing a great work for hi 3 mission, but he is doing a great and glorious work for his country."