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The deep interest which for a long period you have taken in preserving intact our Table of Degrees as to prohibited marriages, will, I hope, sufficiently account for my wish to address the following remarks to your Lordship, and your unvarying kindness will no less account for the ready permission which you have given me to do so. I will not take up any time in preface further than just to observe that of course you are not in any way responsible for the views or the argument of the ensuing pages, though I am, I hope, justified in believing that, whatever be their imperfections, the object at which they aim will meet with your sympathy and approval My earnest and anxious wish is to do what I may, God helping me, to aid in averting what 1 feel would be a grievous sin if our marriage law were altered in the sense desired by the promoters of the Wife's Sister's Marriage Bill. I do not purpose to go over the whole ground which has been so often contested, (to do which would be almost an impertinence in remarks addressed to your Lordship), but rather to confine my observations to the Scriptural