MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.
A BIBLE ARGUMENT WITH IMPORTANT FACTS LONG OBSCURED.
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BY A CLERGYMAN
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It is the fate of truth as well as of morality to be opposed in an evil world, and this not altogether without advantage to both. For as purity becomes purer and more beautiful through conflict, so it is also with truth. What St. Paul says of persons is equally applicable to doctrines: "There must be also heresies amongst; you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." (1 Cor. xi-19). So must there be erroneous teachings, that God's truth may be made manifest—clearer to the intellectual and spiritual apprehension, and more illustrious and attractive too. Such indeed has been the history of many essential articles of the Christian creed.
It is only of late years, however, that the present subject has been brought into the region of controversy. Few points of doctrine or morality have enjoyed such undisturbed repose for eighteen centuries; and now that the enemy would unsettle the rule in which Christians have hitherto so calmy acquiesced, we may be assured that the Great Head of the Church will overrule the attempt for good, will bring out into stronger relief the antagonism of His holy truth to the sensuality of the world, and will give new point and force to the Church's testimony. Happily, therefore, the movement in the mother country, as is well known, has been the work of a very small but very wealthy clique, who have literally lavished gold in furtherance of their selfish object. But, thank God, they meet with a very determined front. The great bulk of English Churchmen are against any alteration of what is and has been the law of the Church and the law of the land, and which forbids a man to marry his deceased wife's sister. The Presbyterian bodies are all pledged against it. The Roman Catholics are immoveably opposed to it; and only a certain portion of English Nonconformists with some loose and worldly-minded Churchmen, are to be found to give it any shadow of religious support.
Some confident boasting is occasionally heard of the favour accorded to the proposed change by the popular voice, as expressed in the Imperial Legislature. The following useful history of the Marriage Bill is given by the Saturday Review:
"The measure first reached the Lords in 1850, when it was rejected without a division. In 1861 it was introduced in the Lords and lost by 60 to 16. In 1866 the Peers rejected it by 43 to 24. In 1868 it was refused by the same House by a majority of 46 to 29, and again in 1869 by 40 to 39. In 1870 the Lords were taken by surprise, and it was thrown out by 11 to 73. And this year it was rejected by a majority of 26, so constituted that if every one of the Bishops who voted against the bill had
