divine sanction for its dissolution than for its original formation. And in many instances the maxim might be exactly reversed. So unfortunate is the result of many marriages, that it would be easy for a religious reformer to say of them, with perfect sincerity, "What man hath joined together, let God put asunder." There is, in fact, almost as much to be said on moral grounds for the divorce of unhappy couples as for the marriage of happy ones. Nor does Jesus by any means face the real difficulties of the question by allowing divorce where either of the parties has been guilty of adultery. This, no doubt, is the exteme case, and if divorce is not to be given here, it can be given nowhere. But why is adultery to be the sole ground of separation? Why is an institution which may bring so much happiness to mankind to be converted into one of the most fertile sources of human misery? Why, when both parties to the contract desire separation, is an external authority, whether that of opinion or of law, to enforce union? None of these questions appear to have presented themselves to the mind of Jesus. Supposing even that his decision were right, he assigns no reasons for it, but simply lays down the law in a trenchant manner, without giving us the least clue to the process by which he arrived at so strange a conclusion. Nor is it in the least likely that the many perplexities encompassing this, and all other questions affecting the morals of sex, had ever troubled him. His mind was not sufficiently subtle to enter into them; and thus it is that, throughout the whole course of his career, he lays down no single doctrine (if we except this one on divorce) which can be of the smallest service to his disciples in the many practical troubles that must beset their lives from the existence of a natural passion of which he takes no account.
Another weak point in the system of Jesus is his aversion to wealth and wealthy men, apart from the consideration of the good or bad use they may make of their property. Thus, the only advice he gives to the rich man who had kept all the commandments was to sell everything he had and give the proceeds to the poor; a measure of very questionable advantage to those for whose benefit it is intended. When the man naturally declined to take this course—practically a mere throwing off of the responsibilities of life—Jesus remarked that it was hard
