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in the official doctrinal standards of several important non-Catholic religious denominations in this Dominion. Such terms are nowhere to be found in the official laws and doctrines of the Catholic Church, But all alike necessarily (however regretfully) recognize the facts of the position oreated by the civil law in respect of such marriages." The page's Bishop Cleary cites contain no proof lor his statements, and the' extraordinary misrepresentation of the " doctrinal standards ' of the' Presbyterian Church of New Zealand by,the counsel for Bishop Clear)' makes more vivid the foundation ol sand on which the Bishop builds. Bishop Cleary arid Sir John Findlay find in the 1 statement of the Westminster Confession of Faith- published in London in 1618, nearly three hundred years ago — that " incestuous marriages " can never " be made lawful by any law of man," a declaration or weir against the marriage laws of this Dominion ! Bishop Cleary never made a more unhappy use of a document whose meaning he did not understand. The statement gleefully quoted by his counsel is a declaration ol war against the Pope who, in the eyes of the Westminster divines, defied Heaven by making marriages "incestuous" in nature lawful. Popes in the sixteenth century had made themselves the scandal of Christendom bj' their nullification of marriages and by their permissions to marry again, and the " Confession of Faith "in its chapter on marriage, fires all through at the Pope 1 , and not at the Parliament who had summoned the divines to draw up the Confession. There are few blacker pages in history than those that deal with the Popish meddling with marriage condemned by the Westminster divines, and the blackness can be seen in "Historical Essays and Studies," pages 76 and 77, by Lord Acton, a Roman Catholic with a passion for truth and freedom. His shocking story is before me, but J cannot burden this letter with quotation. There is indirectly in the Confession of Faith of 1648 a condemnation of the deceased wife's sister marriage, but the Churches of the whole Presbyterian world have found this indirect condemnation to be inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture, and so to-day this condemnation is obsolete, and liberty of opinion and perfect freedom of action obtains in relation, to this marriage in the Presbyterian churches of Christendom. The position with regard to the marriage laws of this Dominion taken up by the New Zealand Presbyterian Church is that of silent approval and not condemnation. The Clerk of the General Assembly writes me that the supreme court of the Church has not on its minutes a single protest against any of the marriages permitted by the State, As an officiating minister under the Marriage: Act I. have solemnized the deceased wife's sister marriage, and I have also solemnized the marriage of a woman whose former marriage: was morally subverted by desertion. Such is the practice of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church, and in doing these things I realized 1 was .faithful to the law of God and true to the law of a State, whose Constitution rested on our common Christianity. Bishop Cleary's allegations about the Ne temeres of the Presbyterian and other Churches are simply a smoke-screen to make obscure the whole question. When this smoke-screen is blown away there is only 7 one Ye temere to be seen that smites men and women and helpless children outside the Roman communion. .'). Bishop deary again asks you to believe that the Roman Catholic: Church in New Zealand is a voluntary association, as football clubs and non-Roman churches are voluntary associations. The Roman Church in our midst is poles apart from these, institutions. Football clubs and non-Roman churches have independence and self-government, and their rules are, not imposed on them from Rome, or Geneva, or Canterbury. As regards Dr. Cleary's Church in New Zealand, laws are imposed upon it and upon him, and he is not consulted about the matter. Take this Ne temere decree as proof and illustration. Before Faster, 1908, Bishop Cleary believed and taught that a Roman Catholic and a, Protestant married by a Protestant Minister contracted a true marriage l —a sacramental marriage and the couple were really husband and wife. But Ne temere was imposed upon him by the Vatican at Borne and he had to change his faith and practice, lie was compelled after Faster, 1908, to believe and to teach that the foregoing marriage was, as his catechism says, " No .marriage at all," and as I he Auckland priest said, they were "bachelor and "spinster" still. Such is the freedom Roman prelates possess in New Zealand. I. Bishop Cleary closes his letter by quoting a Presbyterian "leader" who says that "No one questions the legal validity of whatever the State may enact, be it ever so contrary to morality and the revealed will of God." The' Presbyterian Church has always questioned inequity set up by law, \mt it- has seen no inequity in our Dominion marriage laws. The Presbyterian Church looks to the State to elo the will of God in its own sphere as she seeks to elo the will of God in her sphere. I append baptismal certificate referred to above, and (he explanatory statement of the United States Protestant Magazine of 1911. I am, &c, W. Downie Stewart, Esq., ROBERT Wood. Chairman, Marriage Amendment Bill Committee. [Extraot from U.S. Protestant Magazine.] HOW LEGALLY MARRIED COUPLES IRE DEEAMED. A case of much significance which involves the enforcement of the Ne temere decree in the United States has recently come to our attention. Having been able to secure convincing testimony to show that a. Roman Catholic priest acting under the authority of this decree, has, in defiance of the law of the State of New Jersey, declared a valid marriage to be no marriage, and the child of a lawfully married couple to be an illegitimate child, we present the facts herewith, in order that our readers may know that Rome is already setting church law before, civil law in this country, and, by declaring a marriage lawfully contracted to be no marriage', has put the stamp id shame upon persons whose relations were wholly honourable. The facts briefly stated are these : A Roman Catholic Hungarian, of Perth Amboy, N.J., named Stephen Dagonya, was married on the 4th August, 1909, to Mary ('soma, a member of the Hungarian Reformed Church ol the same city, by the pastor of her church. Rev, Louis Nanassy. In November, 1910, they took their little girl, Anna Susanna, to the Roman