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"MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER. A BIBLE ARGUMENT, WITH FACTS LONG OBSCURED." By A Clergyman.

PAPER ONE.


Such is the title of an article which appeared lately in the Churchman's Magazine for August, and which is now put forth in pamphlet form — purporting to b a reply to a letter from the Rev. W. M. Punshon, addressed to Dr. Hodgins, and communicated by him to The Church Herald, and inserted in our paper on the 6th ult. It will be recollected that Mr. Punshon's name, as well as Dr. Ryerson's, was improperly dragged before our last Synod in a discussion on the question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. With the Churchman's Magazine writer's personal attacks upon Mr. Punshon we have nothing to do; but to his attacks upon the most distinguished dignitaries and members of our Church, his Colenze-method of destroying all confidence in the authorized version of the Scriptures, and his Romanizing idiosyncracies in the matter, we have something considerable to say.

CAUSE OF AGITATION IN ENGLAND ON THIS SUBJECT.

But before we enter upon the discussion of this subject, we think our readers would like to know the cause of the agitation respecting it in England during the last thirty years. It has arisen from an Act of Parliament passed in 1835, declaring all marriages with a deceased wife's sister, contracted after that date, to be illegal, but legalizing those which had taken place before it. Previous to that time the civil law of England was like that of Can-