MARRIAGE SERVICE REFORM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sza,—At the holy marriage of Princess Mary with Viscount Lascelles the Archbishop of Canterbury stressed the phrase in the Office that it is to remind them of "the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity." The splendid Mothers' Union, founded by Saint Mary Sumner, wholeheartedly supports this point, and has started for young wives "The Fellowship of Marriage." incorporating this guild within the Mothers' Union, which fully favours this reform in the service of the Solemniza- tion of Matrimony in our Book of Common Prayer. I venture to surmise, pace the intransigent ecclesiastic, that were the " Thirdly " in our Office of the Sacrament of Holy Marriage placed as "First," we might eonceivably hear of fewer cases of these degrading divorce actions—over 3,000 in 1919. If you soberly consider the point, without prejudice and with such vital faith in religion as not to be afraid of facing fact, this " Thirdly " acts and reacts wholesomely on the " First " and " Secondly," both of which, by the way, might well be phrased in less coarse language, which read in cold blood perturbs any refined mind; but which uttered at, perhaps, the most solemn moment in the lives of a young man and a young woman is admittedly ghastly. The Divine Creator's purpose would surely be better served were the offspring of the union the children of a veritable sacramental love of two human beings than that of the carnality of a brace of "brute beasts." In this connexion recall the outspoken address delivered by Lord Dawson of Penn at the Church Congress at Birmingham, Octo- ber, 1921, on" Love-Marriage Birth Control," and that thought- compelling book by Miss A. Maude Boyden entitled Sex and Common Sense. "Staunch mate" was the telling expression used in the death column of the Times for December 9th, 1921, by a man recording the "passing" of his spouse; the children of this husband and wife, living in godly love and honesty, are indeed a heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord.—I am,
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