Snt,—In reply to. Mr. Gavin Fargus may I say that
the Modern Church- men's Union does not set out to contribute to the " still Catholic thought and practice of the Established Church," but to the main- tenance of Christian truth and charity, and we do not believe that the narrow view on divorce is consistent with either.
Will Mr. Fargus kindly explain why the utterance on Marriage and Divorce in St. Mark's Gospel is taken as a literal law, while St. Matthew's form of it is ignored, together with all those other injunc- tions which have equal authority, such as: " Resist not evil "; " Give to him that asketh thee "; " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth," and so on. It is inconsistent to choose which commands are to be taken literally and which are ideals.
One suspects that the ascetic tendencies of the Early and the Mediaeval Church took this opportunity to ".Compound for sins that they're inclined to By damning those they have no mind to." • In our Evidence submitted to the Royal Conunission, we challenged the whole basis upon which the " Catholic " view is supposed to rest. When the clergy of the Meese of Chelmsford were asked whether they approved the remarriage of an innocent party in Church (after, say, two years), 188 said Yes: 189 said No. These figures show on how narrow a majority the " official " view now rests.—Yours faithfully, T. J. WOOD. (Hon. Sec., The Modern Churchmen's Union.) Charlbury Vicarage, Oxford.
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