Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/19

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INTRODUCTION.
15

The names are recorded. "Whereupon it was Resolved, nemine contradicente, That it is inexpedient to make any alteration or modification of the decisions of the Church on the subject of a man's marrying his deceased wife's sister."

Fifteen years after this, in 1842, this vexed question came up again, by appeal from a Classes which had subjected an offender to merited discipline. The Synod sent it down to the Classes to be considered and reported on. The result is before the public. By a vote of forty-eight to twenty-two the resolution already recited (p. 10) was adopted.

The sad event, deprecated by the venerable man who contended for the purity of that Church which he so much loved, and whose interests he had so greatly promoted, has arrived. Were he now living, he would pour out his devout soul in deep humiliation before God, and exclaim, Ichabod!

The feelings of the New England Puritan are doubtless of an opposite nature. The pamphlet bearing this name, to which we now return, is, as a whole, a singular production. It is composed of two distinct essays, written by different persons, and an extract from an essay