notwithstanding their translation of the 18th verse agrees with that of our version and of Dr. M'Caul[1].
With regard to the Clergy of Scotland, I believe them to be all but unanimous on the subject. With regard to our English Clergy, I think that the small minority who favour a change in the law, would do well to consider the position in which all Clergymen will be placed if the law be changed, whilst the prohibiting Canon remains; and whether disunion between the Church and State on so grave a subject must not eventually and speedily lead to the entire separation of the two. This has been so much felt by Parliament, that in one Bill it was proposed to insert a clause freeing the Clergyman from the necessity of celebrating such a union. Certainly it would be a singular anomaly to compel a Clergyman to incur the Ecclesiastical penalties consequent on a breach of the Canon.
I have now accomplished what is to me in all respects a very irksome task. It is irksome to me at all times to commit my thoughts to writing. Controversy, again, affords no pleasure to me. Few of us can escape the evils that environ the disputant. Few, alas! can bear in mind, in the heat of controversy, Hooker's truly Christian warning, "That an hour will come when a few
- ↑ The New School Presbyterians of the United States about a year ago passed in their general assembly a Resolution against marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and deposed a minister who had so married.
