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24 not free from ambiguity. Either the different statements of the Evangelists are not wholly harmonious, or the text of the crucial passages is uncertain, or, finally, the passages themselves are capable of more than one rendering.

In the next place we have to remember that we are living under circumstances extraordinarily remote from those which conditioned the teachings of Christ—so far, I mean, as His teachings must be supposed so to have been conditioned. We cannot fairly separate His pronouncements on marriage from the situation, social and political, which originally called them forth. Take for example Christ's prohibition of divorce, either absolute, if we accept the version of His words given by St. Mark and St. Luke, or with the single exception of adultery if we prefer that given by St. Matthew. Can we simply carry over the words of the Gospel without explanation to the conditions of our own time? "There is danger of making marriage too difficult," said a very wise Christian bishop—Phillips Brooks. His