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rights on his spouse in such places licensed for marriage purposes. Licensing a consecrated building, the House of the Lord—certainly not a play-house, is desecrating it; it is rendering it a house for marriage purposes.
The difference between the two is, while the Native marriage celebrated in the house claims the Christian position, the English marriage in the Church claims the contrary.
Rev. S. A. Coker, in his lecture on "The rights of Africans to organize and establish Indigenous Churches, unattached to and uncontrolled by Foreign Church Organisations" says: "Marriage by geniune Native form and controlled by Native laws can in no way militate against Christianity nor hinder spirituality in its members nor effect any degradation to it. English state laws have reminded the Churches and Missionaries over and over of their encroachment on the laws of Marriage."
Dr. Blyden in his "African Life and Customs" says:—
Africa solved the marriage question by herself thousands of years ago. It has needed no revision and no ammendment, because founded upon the law of Nature and not upon the dictum of any ecclesiastical hierarchy. Europe is still grappling with the problem, and finds that not only is her solution unsatisfactory, but out of it have grown her difficult questions."
Dr. O. Johnson in his "Christian Marriage" 'a paper read at a church conference at Lagos, in the year 1902' says:—
