him a brother's rights, nor receive a sister's privileges. She will shrink from him as from every other man. She will become a stranger in her sister's house and to her sister's children."-" Is she to have all the rights and privileges of a sister, without a sister's protection? Is she to be a sister in all the relations but one, and as to that one, a stranger?" The natural inquiry upon these quotations is, What is the practical answer of society to the suggestions? It is believed, that every state of the Union but one, it is certain that in eighteen of them, comprehending a large proportion of the oldest and most popu lous, the law sanctions marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. This law has been enacted and approved by those intrusted with legislative power; it was prescribed, and it has been sustained by public opinion. These states will certainly bear advantageous comparison with any other people of modern or ancient time with respect to morals and religion, and decency, refinement and intelligence. Is it found, that a wife's sister shrinks from her sister's husband? that she becomes a stranger in her sister's house, and to her sister's children? that she suffers through want of protection? These questions answer themselves, affording a practical and complete refutation of the reviewer's doctrine. The makers of these laws were more competent for their office, than the reviewer. Not only did the institutions of the country commit this subject to then, making their action conclusive; but they were selected from the walks of men, where intercourse with society and practical knowledge acquired among the experiences of life naturally would qualify them for the proper discharge of their duty. The reviewer's notions pushing even prudery to extravagance, might suit oriental customs, immuring females to save them from pollution, but they do not correspond to the manners of Christian communities, where men and women freely associate in full reliance upon the common proprieties of decorum, never surmising that there is peril or indelicacy in their intercourse." She will shrink from him as from every other man."-Certainly; for it is not discernible by common sense, how with propriety she can associate with him in any other way than with every man worthy of her acquaintance. The suggestion, however, is, that "she will shrink from every other man:" an idea that cannot have been formed in the world, among its people and their ways, for nothing can be found there of which it is the image. Indeed, prohibition of marriage, if there were no other

adequate security, would be most precarious and vain protection; to trust to it, would invite instead of obviating ruin.

The reviewer appeals to the sentiments of parents as universally requiring the separate education of males and females. His conclusion is deemed a mistake. In the parts of our country where the writer of this article passed the first twenty-two years of his life, males and females were educated together in the common schools and in the academies. In these schools and academies were both sexes, from early childhood to ages above twenty years. One consequence was, their acquaintance with each other, so that their intercourse was easy and agreeable. In all companies of the young, would be both sexes in nearly equal numbers, enjoying each other's society. He removed to another part of the country, where he has since dwelt, and where he found a different custom in these respects; the sexes being educated separately, the males by themselves and the females by themselves in appropriate schools. The regulation thus begun, formed the subsequent habits; the young men associated together, entering the company of females in refined society with embarrassment, and preferring to be anywhere else. The reason is apparent. Separation of the sexes for the purpose and in the course of education, occasioned awkwardness in each other's company. From long and careful observation the writer of this article is convinced, that this estrangement of males from female society, the natural result of this separation of the sexes in education, has been the most copious source of noxious immorality that has wasted our youth, like a frost in spring, nipping almost every blossom of promise; and that the habit of males associating with females for the enjoyment of agreeable society, was the most pure and beneficial moral influence he has ever observed.

The summary of this argument is: On this subject the church ought to pay deference to the civil power in the exercise of its just constitutional authority, and of course receive the law of a state where a marriage is regularly contracted, as the rule in relation to it. This argument rests on two grounds:-( 1st,) legally, morally, and scripturally, it is the duty of the church to obey the laws of the land, constitutionally enacted and administered, and it is insubordination to set up its discipline paramount to them:-(2d,) those intrusted by our civil institutions to make and administer the laws upon this subject, are better qualified to discharge these functions, and can be more safely

confided in, than those who administer church discipline. What has been the history of church discipline?

The article in the Princeton Review, so often referred to, contains what may be quoted as pertinent in reply to the summary just stated. Consideration of it in this connection, will conduce to a fuller understanding, and a juster appreciation of the argument, that has been used. The research to which it will lead, will discover the origin and nature of the principle on which the decision of the General Assembly is grounded. The reviewer says, "Now there is prima facie evidence, that this view of the subject is incorrect, from the fact, that the Christian world, for so many ages, and with so much unanimity, has regarded this marriage as an evil of such magnitude as to require its prohibition, both by the civil law and the canons of the church." "We are not so much wiser than all other men." "If the great mass of Christian men, in all ages, have united in thinking such marriages wrong, then the probability is, that they are wrong." "It will not be denied, that the earliest records of the ancient church, relating to this subject, condemn the marriage under consideration. By the apostolic constitution, no man who had married the sister of his wife, could ever be admitted to the ministry; and by the early councils, the parties to such connections were excommunicated from the church; so that this became as settled a point in ecclesiastical law as any other connected with the whole subject of marriage. Indeed, the language of our Confession is a literal version of the old canon law on this point. As the law was of authority in all the western churches before the reformation, so all the Protestant communions adhered to its provisions so far as our Confession retains them." "We are not only adhering to our own laws, and to our own usages, but we are standing up for the common law and practice of Protestant Christendom, against modern innovations." (*)

(*) The law of Pennsylvania was enacted in 1705, that of Maryland 1777, Connecticut 1793, New Jersey 1795. The dates of other laws cannot be here stated, they being found in revised editions; those of both Massachusetts and New Hampshire are believed as old as those of Maryland, and probably older. Not modern, according to the acceptance of the term, in this new world. Appealing to precedents of the ancient church in derogation of changes-[reformation it has been called] is not in unison with the spirit which peopled this country and founded its institutions of freedom.

Here is a retrograde movement, a going back into former times and establishments, of a bold character-a church upon our own free soil, fled to as an asylum from the abuses of these former times and establishments; this church, a part of our social system, within the pale of our institutions formed for ourselves to secure our civil and religious liberties, to claim for its own, and avow its adhering to, and standing up for the laws, usages and practices of those times and establishments "against modern innovations," being no less than the laws of our own states, made according to our constitutions! "We are not so much wiser than other men." Must the conclusion be, that the laws of other men shall supersede our laws upon our own soil? But what is this wisdom of the ancient church, before which our laws are to be despoiled of both character and power; of the character of law, to determine the innocence or guilt of acts done under their regular cognisance, of the power of law to protect the citizens in their conformity to them? "But this law was of authority in all the western churches before the reformation." And why was the reformation? Because there were abuses, corruptions, and errors in the laws, usages and practices of the churches. It is, therefore, nothing in favor of a law, usage or practice, that it existed before the reformation; because it was, in all human probability, at least tinctured with the abuses, corruptions and errors, which required the reformation. We know that, in the laws relating to marriage, there were gross abuses. It is said, however, "the Protestant communions adhered to the provisions" of this law. Do we not know that many errors were adhered to? Can we suppose, that men educated in inveterate errors, which had been impressed with their first conceptions as truths, in connection with all they held holy, should not retain very many errors? Did not Luther himself adhere until death to the doctrine of transubstantiation ? Even Queen Elizabeth could hardly be persuaded to part with images, or consent to the marriage of the clergy. In the great doctrines of salvation, there was remarkable light in the reformation. In this respect the minds of the reformers seem to have been peculiarly under the unction of the Holy One. But upon church government, discipline, law of marriage, and divorce, men were left to evince the infirmity of their nature. Do we not consider, do not liberal Episcopalians admit, that their church is prejudiced by "a literal version" of that which was retained in the reformation? And shall we hold it as imparting authority to our con

fession on the subject of marriage, that it "is a literal version of the old canon law upon this point?" In England, did not the Parliament find it requisite to interpose a statute, and her courts to render their solemn judgments, to prohibit the church courts from proceeding in relation to marriage upon laws and usages to which they as "Protestant communions adhered ?" One of the best law reporters thought it a matter of consequence, requiring the subjoining of a special memorandum to his report, that a high dignitary of the church had labored with the judges to produce a decision different from that which was the result of their judgment, and by which they deterinined, that the church court was illegally extending prohibition of marriage, and restrained its proceeding. This was more than a century after the reformation. When we consider the strong inclination that was in the church before the reformation to enlarge the prohibitions against marriage, and observe the tenaciousness in this respect of the Protestant church since, and take into view its power through its union with government and its being arbiter of conscience, it would be surprising, indeed, if very questionable law and usage upon this subject had not been retained. Certainly we cannot cease to remember, that abuses left by the reformation in Protestant churches, drove the Pilgrim fathers first to Holland, and afterward to this new world; their recorded motive," by separating from all existing establishments in Europe to form the model of a pure church free from the admixture of human additions." What is it but to condemn and impugn this motive and its principle, to cite "the earliest records of the ancient church," "the apostolic constitutions," and the very establishments referred to by these devoted adherents of civil and religious liberty, and in deference to them reject our own laws as "modern innovations?" Let it be noted, that these "earliest records of the ancient church," are not the Scriptures of the Old or New Testaments, but the writings of that obscure period, which, within our memory, used to be styled "the dark ages," when there seems to have been just light enough to bewilder and lead astray. These writings have been the storehouse of proofs, to sustain unfounded pretensions in the church. The apostolic constitutions, Mosheim says, " are the work of some austere and melancholy author, who designed to reform the worship and discipline of the church, which he thought were fallen from their original purity and sanctity, and who ventured to prefix the names of the apostles to his precepts and regulations, in