against the lustful tyranny of their husbands." Those who have read the lives of popes can hardly concur in this statement. Beginning with Pope Boniface III, A.D. 606, who obtained ecclesiastical supremacy through Phocas, who murdered the Emperor Mauritius and all his family, down to the eighteenth century, popes, with few exceptions, were a monumental success, but not in the direction above referred to, and the least said of them the better.* Further, the Cardinal says: "If ministers and magistrates would take the high stand of Catholic priests, refusing to marry any but those they know never to have been married before, the solution of the difficulty would be near at hand." As to the "high stand" referred to, Baroness Von Zedtwitz (neé Caldwell), already referred to, formerly a Catholic, says, in a book entitled "The Double Doctrine of the Church of Rome," "with the exoteric (for the sheep) doctrines the church finds means to defend itself against attack, and retreats always behind the bulwarks of Christian ethics. It proclaims charity, sincerity, justice, altruism, professes from the pulpit the gospel of Jesus Christ, and thus deludes its adversaries who fall back disheartened, and abandon a systematic attack. It will scarcely be maintained by the most partisan Roman Catholic that the obligations placed on the priesthood are never violated. It would be preposterous to assume, even lacking positive proof to the contrary, which, however, is

*See "American Text Book of Popery," p. 115. Griffith & Simon. Philadelphia. Robert Carter, New York, 1847.

abundant, that all members of the Roman clergy and hierarchy lead that life of continency and purity which should be the underlying spirit of their celibate law. The church imposes on all its clergy alike, a law beyond the power of universal observance unless accepted in its broadest interpretation, and has no intention of interpreting this law so strictly in its general application. Besides, the vow of celibacy is the vow of chastity. On all points of conduct the clergy are reprimanded in proportion to the scandal which they have caused and not at all for the act, per se. Because of her love of power the church applies all her administrative skill to conceal from the public the dire results of her inexorable policy in this respect." According to Celeot, "too great severity should not be applied to the clergy, as there never can be too many priests, as it promotes her earthly power through the power conferred on the priests at ordination." Let us hope the solution is near at hand, that the church does not juggle with Christian doctrines as it suits its purpose, that ecclesiasticism in state matters always has not meant what it is, viz. tyranny. In spite of the Pope's Bull "declaring all marriages without a Roman priest's celebration, null and void," the state still survives, and many of its inhabitants are happy and in the enjoyment of good health without the kindly offices of the clergy.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

In England, five years after the death of his wife, a gentleman wished to marry his deceased wife's sister, whom he had known from boyhood, and dearly loved. For many years the clericals have opposed the creation of any law making possible such marriage; and on July 8, by a vote of two hundred and twenty-four to twenty-four the church council attended by bishops, clergy, and laymen of the Church of England declared, in spite of public opinion, "that marriage to a deceased wife's sister was contrary to the moral rules of the church and to the principles of the Scriptures, and that the use of the prayer-book in the service solemnizing such marriages was reprobated in the strongest terms." September 8, Rome says, "After Easter next, such marriages in Protestant churches, or registry offices will be for Catholics not only sinful, but invalid, and persons contracting them will have merely gone through an empty ceremony and are no more man and wife than ever before." What audacity! and how much longer will English free men and women suffer such indignities. An English newspaper says, "that as the result of fifteen years' experience as president of the British Divorce Court, Lord Gorell reported last May to the Lord Chancellor, that cheap and secret divorce is the crying social need of England.

At present, divorce is a luxury so expensive in England that the poor cannot afford it." That such a state of things is not the millenial condition which so many reformers crack it up to be is evidently the conclusion to which long and close observation has brought this British judge.

Can any decrees of church join or separate men and women who love each other, or can any civil law compel two people loving each other to ask permission of the state or church to love? But why blame the clergy? Is not their opinion of their superiority but a reflection of your own? Is it not you who have made them believe they are indeed the depositaries of spiritual truths, that their opinions and decisions are to be respected and heeded; until in time they properly begin to think so themselves? Before the civil war the clergy could honestly easily prove from the Bible that human slavery was right, and did so. After the war, they as honestly and easily proved it was wrong, and did so. Why blame them? They preach what they believe, what you want, and when you don't like what they say they have to move on. With the Catholics, and some Episcopalians, they take the food set before them, and murmur not; or at least not loud enough to be heard. But in countenancing the assumption of dominion over morality by a small body of clericals, are you not openly inviting mental and spiritual slavery, when you remember that the domain of morals carries ninety-five per cent of the acts of your daily life, that it is one of the strongest

citadels of the church, through which it has managed for centuries to hold the world in mental and spiritual bondage?

To set at rest all contention and avoid future conflict why shouldn't the state relieve the clergy of the function of performing marriages? In Mexico, after centuries of experience with the Roman Catholic Church the government now compels couples to be married by an officer of the state authorized by law to perform such services. The priest's service, if employed, is illegal unless preceded by the civil service, all necessary papers being issued at cost. Would not such provision remove all interference or attempt to regulate or control marriage and divorce on the part of any religious organization? If matrimony is a civil contract, a mutual obligation between the parties as some people are inclined to believe, should it not be free, entering in, or withdrawing from it, as in the making of any other contract; and why should not the community agree and allow that, as is sometimes the case married people find they are the victims of an awful mistake they should rectify it soon as possible. What is to be thought of a Christianity that places a penalty on affection? Do the defects of marriage lie in divorce, or the unhappy causes, that compel so many to seek it; and who, if not these women, have a right to our sympathy and assistance when the church frowns and friends are few?

The following experience of a couple happily married may prove interesting as well as instructive.