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This melancholy episode is very illuminating. It shows the difficulty into which the reformers were brought by their repudiation of the elaborate ecclesiastical machinery, which had been slowly constructed to match the needs of human nature and secure some application to human life of the Christian law of marriage. They were perforce driven back on the Scripture, which they invested with the character of a sufficient, infallible, and self-explanatory rule of life. In these connections, where human conduct in the relationships of society was concerned, they found themselves drawn more to the Old Testament than to the New. reason is plain enough. The New Testament gave extremely little guidance in practical matters, for most of the writings which it contained were biographical, or theological, or occasional; but the Old Testament contained in the earlier books the legislation of a commonwealth, and to that extent covered the ground of the abrogated canon law. The reformers had little power of discrimination;