1878, the chairman of the committee was absent in Europe and failed to send in his expected elaborate report. After some cavalier remarks tending to make light of the divorce question, a certain Doctor moved that the Committee on Divorce be discharged. His motion was adopted, and since then General Synod has given no attention to divorce legislation.

By appointment of the Synod of the Potomac at Hanover, Pa., the writer of this article prepared a somewhat elaborate report on the divorce question, which was submitted and earnestly discussed at the meeting of Synod a year later in Chambersburg, 1885. The substance of the historical and Scriptural argument covering three printed pages of the minutes was embodied in four resolutions, as follows:

(1) Resolved, That the alarming increase of the number of divorces, granted by the civil courts on unscriptural grounds, is an evil that strikes at the very foundation of society.

(2) Resolved, That this Synod calls the solemn attention of our people to the requirements of God's word, which recognizes adultery alone as a valid ground of divorce.

(3) Resolved further, In cases of absolute divorce granted on the Scriptural ground of adultery, only the innocent party is entitled to enter anew upon marriage relations.

(4) Resolved, That our pastors be directed to govern themselves accordingly in performing marriage ceremonies and our consistories in exercising discipline.

The body of the report and the first three resolutions were adopted without much opposition but the fourth resolution above (given as third in the report) was rejected by a vote of 74 to 27 on a call for the yeas and nays by the writer. This was a virtual repudiation of the provisional action of General Synod at Fort Wayne which directs pastors and judicatories to give no validity to any divorce in their spiritual discipline except such as has been granted on the ground of adultery. As this was the enacting clause and really the practical part of the entire deliverance of the Potomac Synod without which all that preceded it was a nullity, the writer felt that no progress had been made except to ascertain the fact that many brethren had very confused notions

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or lacked the courage of their convictions on the divorce question. Like the Maine politician no matter how much they might favor Prohibitory legislation in theory they were opposed to its practicrl enforcement. They approved of the matter heartily in the abstract but not in the concrete. Statesmen and political phil anthropists frequently occupy higher ground on the marriage and divorce question than ministers of the Gospel. Hon. Wm. J. Baer, as a member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention earnestly and eloquently advocated the limitation of absolute divorce to the sole ground of adultery. Governor Pattison advocated legislation to this effect in one of his messages to the Pennsylvania Legislature.

It is high time that the Church of Christ should lift up a standard against this monster iniquity, which is sapping the very foundations of society-that the Bride of the Lamb should emphasize the teachings of the Heavenly Bridegroom on the marriage and divorce questions. For Christian patriots this seemto be the supreme duty of the hour. No halting, half-hearted, vacillating course will avail. On no social problem does Christ speak words so direct and positive as on the matter of the family and divorce. Many pastors and people imagine that the decrees of the civil courts are binding in matters of spiritual discipline. The writer has been threatened with prosecution and dire penalties for claiming that persons who married again after being unscripturally divorced were guilty of adultery according to our Saviour's teachings. No civil court in the United States dare interfere in matters of spiritual discipline when the Church proceeds according to rules based on the teachings of God's Word. And even if they would dare to violate that principle of American Magna Charta, every true-hearted Christian would respond, "We must obey God rather than man.”

A little more practical experience illustrating the demoralizing tendency of equivocal action by our ecclesiastical courts on the divorce question must be given before I conclude this paper. Not long after the inconsistent deliverance of the Chambersburg Synod, heretofore quoted, the writer was informed that a young

lady member of his pastoral charge was receiving marked attentions from a very dissipated married man, whose wife had left him because of cruel treatment, etc., and who had applied for a divorce from her on ground of desertion.

In company with an elder I went to the home of the young lady and in the presence of the widowed mother pointed out the danger and wickedness of her conduct, telling her that even if the man would get the divorce by default of his wife, who held to the Dunkards and was opposed to litigation, to appear against him in order to secure a speedy release from his cruelty, etc., she as a Christian woman would have no right to marry him because the divorce would be granted on unscriptural grounds. She set our admonition at defiance and was married to him immediately after the divorce was granted by default of his wife to appear against him. The drunken fellow had even the audacity to bring the young lady to the parsonage to try to convince me that I ought to perform the marriage ceremony as soon as the decree of divorce was obtained. But what I indignantly refused to do he had no trouble to get done by another Reformed pastor. Of course we suspended the contumacious woman, but here again our authority was nullified by another Reformed pastor who received her and her dissipated husband on renewal of profession without paying any regard to her suspension by our spiritual council or the fact that she had willfully married a man who had obtained his divorce by default on unscriptural grounds.

When the attention of the Classis was called to the matter still another Reformed pastor made a speech trying to justify the breach of discipline and violation of principles of Christian fellowship because the offending pastor was trying to save souls and hence ought not to be too particular in inquiring into previous moral delinquencies of applicants. The writer could but reply "The salvation of souls goes to the dogs when fundamental principles of Christian morality are trampled under foot in this manner."

The writer has observed in his extensive experience, East and West, that no class of people are so indifferent in upholding

scriptural principles of marriage and divorce as the advocates of unchurchly systems of revivalistic religion. Here, as in other matters, they will strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Merely temporary, local or personal considerations are allowed to override eternal and immutable principles. The minister who was deposed after so long a struggle heretofore described, was received with open arms by the United Brethren and went ahead preaching as before in defiance of his deposition and excommunication by the Reformed Church.

To sum up the situation, as legislative records confront us, the deliverance of our General Synod at Fort Wayne, which agrees with its previous decision in the concrete case of Rev. Henry Knepper at Cincinnati, must be regarded as authoritative and regulative by all loyal members and judicatories of the Reformed Church. That deliverance and that decision recognizes adultery or fornication alone as a valid ground of divorce, in the exercise of spiritual discipline. Until that regulation is legally changed by General Synod it must be strictly observed by our people in church courts, and it is not at all likely that the scriptural position therein set forth will ever be lowered or repealed by any future deliverance of General Synod. It behooves us as patriotic citizens of this great Republic, as well as faithful members of the Reformed Church, to help forward the movement to reform divorce legislation wherever needed in church or StateWe should join heart and hand with public-spirited Christians everywhere in earnest efforts to reconstruct the disjointed foundations of society on the normal basis of Christian marriage and the Christian family. Thus shall we best subserve the truest interests of the Commonwealth.

VIII.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.

The death of Queen Victoria was an event which made a profound impression upon the civilized world. This impression was not due to the event being unexpected. The queen's age and state of health made it certain that her departure could not be very far off, and hence nobody was surprised when it took place. Still the announcement of it produced something of a mental shock, wherever it was received. Men stopped to think and to reflect, not merely upon the vanity of sublunary things in general, but especially upon the fact that, no matter how high men and women may be placed in life, they must all meet the common end which is appointed to all flesh. The queen, indeed, had reached more than the fourscore years which form the ordinary limit of human life. Indeed her long reign of sixty-four years was one of the circumstances which made it so difficult for most people at once to reconcile themselves to the fact that she was no more. Her name was familiar to everbody. In fact it was a household word wherever the English tongue is spoken. Two generations of men grew up during the continuance of her reign. Comparatively few men now living had been born when Victoria was crowned Queen of England. Very few of us have ever known England otherwise than in connection with the name of Queen Victoria. Hence it is somewhat difficult for us now to reconcile ourselves to the change. To part with so familiar a name, although few of us ever saw the person to whom it belonged, creates something of an uneasy sensation; and it will be a long time before the name of Edward the Seventh shall sound as familiar as did that of Queen Victoria, even if he should prove himself to be not unworthy of so illustrious a mother.

But another circumstance which invests the queen's death with