Page:Against profane dealing with holy matrimony.djvu/15

 obtain the help which he desires; I answer, This is entirely owing to the evasion of the law, and agitation of the question. Once set it at rest,—as it would be set at rest, if the great body of English Churchmen and Churchwomen were to declare themselves, on principle, against this change,—and then bereaved families will taste again the balm and comfort of sisterly affection, already impaired in no slight degree by the bare supposition that such a thing is possible.

Of course I take here into consideration the effect of the law while the first wife is living. It will be, ordinarily speaking, neither more nor less than the loss of all her sisters, as sisters, out of the family. Estimate, if you can, the amount of such a loss, throughout all the decent households of the realm; and see if the hardships alleged against the present state of the law, were they multiplied a thousand fold, could at all be compared with that loss.

I come now to the great question of all. Is it, as the Church of England has always held, contrary to the law of God, for a man to marry his wife's sister? I have not the