MARRIAGE WITH' A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3244, 29 June 1872, Page 3

MARRIAGE WITH' A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

TO TIIE EDITOR.

Sir—ln your editorial of to-day you roll upon the shoulders of tbe Anglican Bishops the responsibility of retarding the measure for legalising marriage with a deceased Avife's sister. And because ill-conditioned communities abroad haATe adopted that obnoxious measure, you goon to blame the recalcitrant spiritual peers for their factious opposition. Now, Sir, Avhatever may be thought of sectarian dogmas of divinity, one cannot refrain from owning that the English clergy have almost exhausted the question of morals, and given to the Avorld, in tlieir excellent sermons, an almost complete body of pure morality. Hoav, then, can their representatives be expected to lend the a>gis of their authority to the passing of a law, which, as Matthew Arnold Avell asserts, in his work on " Anarchy and Culture," strikes at the very root of moral purity and sesthetical beauty.? The discussion of such a question is a very delicate topic of casuistry. But I feel convinced that every reflective mind, after carefully weighing" the pros and cons of the subject, will agree with Arnold that the national endorsation of such a Bill would be a public calamity, and would go far to mar tlie beauty, purity, and glory of English society and morality. The very broaching of such an idea is a manifestation of social degeneracy. I hope such a Bill Avill never receive the sanction of a British Legislature, and I envy hot the heart and mind of any man or woman who would take advantage of its obnoxious and indelicate provisions. Englishmen are not reduced to the abnormal condition of the ancient Latins that they should adopt such Sabine measures to prop up tlie declining fortunes of their domestic hearths and altars. I hope I Avrite respectfully, and I trust you will not refuse to me a very small corner in your columns for the expression of my honest convictions. . —I am, &c, J. G. S. Grakt. York Place, June 28 th.