THE MARRIAGE LAW.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1475, 25 June 1912, Page 7

THE MARRIAGE LAW.

CHURCH AND STATE.By Tclc?rapli-Press Assoclation-Copyrfcht (Rec. June 24, 9.50 p.m.) London, June 24. Lord Halifax, one of the leaders of the tligb Church party, in a letter to "Tho Times," referring to the Norwich. com'munion cafe, argues t'Tiat if under State law clergymen are no longer able to refuse Communion to violators of Church it becomes questionable whether the Church possesses any principles which it is entitled to maintain and enforce on its own members.' The House of lords recently decided that a clergyman of the Church of England cannot refuse Holy Communion to a person who has married his deceased wife's sister. Tho Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore), referring to the uiairiago and divorce, recently stated: "We might to demand of the State liberty within our own communion to live" by our own law. There is no doubt what the law of. the Church is. There is no doubt that the representative assemblies of Uie Church to-day would demand its maintenance. If there is any doubt of this, let it be put to the test. If tho present mind of cur Convocations and Representative Church Council be plainly for maintenance, let us require, oven peremptorily, that our churches should not be used for marriages that are contrary to cur law, and that we be .left free to exercise our own discipline. Let us make it: plain that there is no other discipline in religious matters that can acknowledge."