Engaged to Marry.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 11, 13 March 1902, Page 18

Engaged to Marry.

Some poet has compared marriage to a feast where the crowd is —like our public service —greatly • stuffed,' and ' Where they that are without would fain go in, And they that are within would fain go out.' It would Beem that betrothals, or engagements to marry, frequently follow a similar rule. Many of our marrying youths and maidens jilt their betrothed spouses with no apparent thought of the questions of propriety and justice involved, and break their engagements as lightly as they would crack an empty egg-shell or snap a twig to boil the morning kettle. A case was recently stated to Father Lambert, of the New York Freeman, of a young man who had kept company for some years with a very estimable young lady, prevented her thereby from securing the ohoice of another eligible life-partner, had promised to marry her this year, but deserted her at last in favor of a younger lady, and justified his oonduct by saying that the Catholic Church does not consider engagements of marriage sacred. Father Lambert's reply (which was sought) might be advantageously pasted in the hat of the inconstant young man or on the mirror of the flighty maiden that has broken or is disposed to break an engagement of marriage. ' The young man,' said he, 'in whom you take so friendly an interest is greatly misinformed if he thinks the Catholic Church does not hold an engagement or espousal sacred. Not only does she hold such engagement sacred, but that it induces an obligation that cannot be disregarded without grave sin. An engagement (espousal) is a contract that binds both parties equally, and for either to break it without the consent or grave fault of the other is a sin against justice. Such contract constitutes an impediment or prohibitive impediment, so that a marriage with another cannot be contracted lawfully in the eyes of the Church. Tell your young friend that the girl who waited for him for ten years faithfully and true, that he might take care of his good old mother, is the girl that will make him a wife that an emperor might envy him.'