SMART SOCIETY'S SINS.

NZ Truth, Issue 63, 1 September 1906, Page 6

SMART SOCIETY'S SINS.

FATHER VAUGHAN'S ATTACKS.

Loveless, Childless Marriages.

The Road to Divorce.

Ruin, Shame, Shipwreck.

Father Bernard Vaughan, a London clergyman, is causin- a considerable sensation by the manner m which he is denouncing the "society" women who marry for money or rank, and who. when married, have no love for their husbands,, refuse to have children, ami spend' their time intriguing with paramours ,r.s worthless as themselves. He delivered two sermons on this subject and- Father. Vaue;hanV third sermon, on Sunday, June 2 ; 1. on the sins of "smart" societv. caus-ed as. much sensation m Mayfair as his previous • utterances. Women Mngh. up the social ladder, he declared, were : easily condoned for those deadly deeds for which their sisters lower .down would be, severely tabooed. »Sal°m<?!' s part how would nositively help hfcfc! to stand out all the more prominently. as v 'the really

smart woman of the smart set. Provided she and Herod "did you well," there would be no difficulty m making every excuse for their actual life.

WARNED BY SOCIETY JEZEBELS. Father Vaughan went on to say that he would not ask his hearers what might happen to John the Baptist were he to come and occupy a fashionable London pulpit, ■ but it might be interesting to them to know that not a v few Society Jezebels A ;had warned him of the: rod they had m pickle for one who had dar&d to be so- tactless and reckless as- he himself had been. Was it not appalling to think that ' the very • last thing for newly-married people to want was mutual love ? Nay, they ridiculed belief m any such old-world relic. It was "bad form," and that was the- end of it. These .people put their, trust m "hard cash/ but had.

NO FAITH IN REAL LOVE. If ever thero had been such a thing m. the past, it was quite certain there was none now. He himself had more than once heard a girl exclaim, "If ever I do marry, be sure it will be someone I< do not care about ; tomarry a man one likes means breakins; one's heart." '

Wedded life being started as it, was, wifch no blessing upon it, but, ok the contrary, the curse of God upon it, went on fr.om bad to. worse, husband and wife going their own way. drifting further and further apart, till at last m extreme cases divorce nroceedings began with the legal form— "a plea for restitution of coniun-al rights."

ASHAMED OF "A NURSERY ■ • . OF CHILDREN. Nqwadaj's, instead of being proud, Society was ashamed of owning to a nursery of children. In a sense this was a' blessing, for what with club life, and club habits, and club morality, .there was no time left for a mother to look to her -own child, which she neither fed or saw, except,at tea-time, when it was -brought down to show off its clothes. Were those, smart people who "loved vanity and sought after lying" really' harjnv . ? You had but to see them "dbms; the Park" m their Victorias to pity them almost to tears.