CHURCH WITH LEGEND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20182, 26 June 1928, Page 2

CHURCH WITH LEGEND

“ROUND THE CORNER” ALTAR FOR LUCKY WEDDINGS. Tho “Little Church Round the Corner,” famous little edifice to which couples come from all parts of the United States to be married, is achieving some note nowadays through the decision of its pastor, Dr Randolph Ray, to refuse his ministry to divorced persons. Ho has enlisted the aid of the clerks at the Marriage License Bureau who, when divorced people apply for a license, and indicate a preference for the little church, warn them they may not be married there. People who have been divorced claim that they wish to be married at Dr Ray’s Church to %Void another divorce, as marriages at the “Little Church” are said to be lucky. But the pastor is adamant, and says he is merely accepting the doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, based on Matthew xix, 6, “Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” • The all-embracing liberalism and charity of “Tho Little Church Round the Corner” is a legend that had its origin in a funeral half a century ago. The pastor of another Protestant Episcopal Church refused his ministration because the dead man had been an actor, saying, however, “There’s a little church round the corner where the pastor might do it for you.” The pastor did take the funeral, and, in gratitude, Air Joseph Jefferson, the actor, spread the story. The stage took it up, and its artists took their weddings as well as their funerals to the “Little Church Round the Corner.” On the official registrar, however, it is known as The Church of the Transfiguration. The legend that marriages at his church are lucky is shared by Dr Ray, who says that 85 per cent, of the marriages at the little church last. His doctrine is that marriage may never be repeated. “Too many of our people,” he said, “are making sex morality the only test of virtue. Marriage has more important elements than that. It has a great deal to do with temperamental adaptation and mutual understanding. There seems to be growing up among our people an idea that marriage is nothing but a civil contract. I hold it. is a sacrament. It may not bo set aside if the terms of the contract are violated. “In 'The Little Church Round the Corner’ the view that must always prevail,” Dr Rhy says, “is the law of. the Episcopal Church, which is that marriage binds with sacred oath in a spiritual relationship, and, when properly entered, it should be attended by grace from God—that is, by an increase in spiritual power through which difficulties in connubial life will be overcome and endured 'for better or for worse.’l “We talk about divorce so much in our daily conversation that children grow up expecting it as their state in life. They assume that, if they do not like a marriage, they may leave it. A thoughtful reading of the marriage service in the Prayer Book is the best lesson as to the nature of marriage.”