It would seem to me that the vital and essential question all persons wishing for divorce ought to ask themselves is, "What is my motive in desiring this freedom?" They should search their very souls for the truth. If it is because the position has not only become intolerable to themselves, but is a menace to their children or society, then they should know that they are acting rightly in trying their utmost to be free; but if the real reason is that they may legally indulge in a new passion, then they may be certain that if they take advantage of a law designed for the benefit of a race, and use it to their own baser ends, they are invoking most dangerous forces to militate against their own eventual unhappiness. No one who is in a position where his or her good or bad example will be followed has any right to indulge in any personal feelings to the influencing in a harmful way of his or her public actions. This is the true meaning of that finest of all old sayings, "_Noblesse oblige_." To me it would seem to be a frightful sin for a man or woman for personal motives to degrade an order or a community. So this is the standpoint I would suggest every one looking at divorce from: "Will the thing bring good or harm?--not to me who am only a unit, but to that wider circle of my family and my country?" And if common sense assures him or her that no good can come of it, then the true citizen should not hesitate to bear the pain of refraining. It would seem to me to be wrong to allow any personal feeling at all to influence one to divorce, no matter what the cruelty of the circumstances or the justice of the grievance one had, _if by so doing the children of the marriage were injured in any way, or that the prestige of an order or the honour of a family were lowered by one's action_; but that were the husband or wife a shame and degradation to the children or the family, the individual would be entirely justified in divorcing, and would be helping the good of the State by preventing the guilty and debased partner from committing further harm. Common sense is always the truest wisdom, but it has often unhappily had to be cloaked and hampered either by spiritual superstition, prejudice, or ignorance. So that when a flagrant case which corrupts a whole neighbourhood cries aloud to common sense to remove it by divorce, there are found hundreds of good and worthy people to oppose this on the ground that the Church does not sanction such proceeding! If the State religion administered by the Church cannot inculcate higher principles in its members, so as to prevent them from sinning, it would obviously seem to be more fair to allow the statesmen and sociologists to have a free hand in their attempt to better the morality of England than for the Church to use the vast influence it still possesses to the stultifying of these plans. The homely proverb of the proof of the pudding being in the eating seems to be plainly shown here.