Outspoken Vicar.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7720, 24 January 1905, Page 3

Outspoken Vicar.

PREFERS CIVIL MAItRIAG'E IN ! CERTAIN CASKS. ; The Rev. Henry A. Mason, vicar of ' St. .Stephen's, North How, and rural dean of Poplar, announces in his parish regis'ter that he would rather not conduct services lor "marriages of necessity," or in the case of the guilty parties in divorce cases. "Such persons have n 0 right to claim or expect the Divine blessing on their union," he writes. " The proper place for persons who, having done wrongy wish to be legally united in the ollice of the registrar, whore the civil sanction of the State can be given without degrading religion by crediting it with connivance at sin." Mr Mason has worked in the East End for twenty-live years. He is one of the few men who can walk about this rough district in perfect safety i at any hour of the day or night. Mr Mason told an Express repre- i sentative that the position he had taken up was not only for the good of his parish, hut also of the nation. "The marriage service is too beau- : tiful, too sacred, to be used at marriages of necessity," he said. "It is t degrading the Word of God to give' such people the blessings of the ■ church. I think the only thing for these people to do is to go to the registrar's ofliee and get married, li.v this means their child will be born in wedlock—not holy wedlock, but wedlock. I have also Very decided views on the subject of divorce. I. would mqrry a man or woman who was the successful petitioner in a divoice case. Many clergymen refuse to marry people who have been divorced, under any circumstances. I only refuse to marry guilty ones.' Why should I retuse to marry the innocent ? It is putting a prenium on wrong-doing if I do not marrv them." . ,