I04 



HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



which limit it, and too often pervert it. Ap- 

 parently their idea is that divorce is an effect of 

 lax laws concerning the marriage relation, and 

 that men and women can be made faithful by 

 legislative act. A more careful study would show 

 that divorces are many, not so much because there 

 is an open door of escape from the marriage rela- 

 tion, as because so many are married in form who 

 are never joined in spirit. 



Thousands whom God has forever separated 

 are joined in matrimony by human ceremonies. 

 The bonds of genuine love are very rarely broken ; 

 bonds of passion, bonds of convenience, bonds of 

 caprice, will be broken in thousands of cases, what- 

 ever be the sanctions the State puts upon them. 

 It may be best for society to make almost indis- 

 soluble the bonds of those who are formally mar- 

 ried, but it should not be forgotten that by so 

 doing illicit relations will be vastly multiplied ; 

 and that where only human laws stand in the way, 

 some avenue of escape from unbearable domestic 

 relations is sure to be found and justified. The 

 case of George Eliot is an illustration. The first 

 wife of George Henry Lewes had, it is said, been 

 guilty of breach of her vows which had been 

 condoned. Consequently Mr. Lewes had no case 

 in the courts. 



