5 JUNE 1909, Page 19

DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

[To THE EDITOR ON THE "SPECTATOR."] SIn,—In your issue of May 22nd you express the opinion that the decision in the case "Rex v. Dibdin " "is as sound in law as in policy, and will be upheld by the higher tribunal." Very respectfully I ask if you consider at all those consciences of certain clergymen which Mr. Justice Bray recommended them to sacrifice. On p. 142 of the Lambeth Conference Report we read "The opinion is held by some of your Com- mittee that this is a prohibition of Divine immutable obliga- tion." When we were ordained, we understood that this opinion was open to us, and that the Table of Degrees was the official Table of the Church of England. Are we then now to learn that there is no longer a place among the • beneficed clergy for those who hold the opinion P If so, it is at the bidding of one partner alone in the partnership of Church and State. For, as the Bampton Lecturer said the other day, the marriage law has been altered without the