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Show A ner.v Answered. The Hcese Hivcr AV re , in aft editorial edi-torial on the latest .sensation in the shape ofa divorce case, quotes from an article in this iournal on the sub ject, and says: Before closing this .article we would beg the editor of the S. 1- :r.iu to explain to us what it means when it says, speaking of I his -natter: "That marriage, purely nil ecclesiastical alliiir, independent of civil ceremony or legal enforcement," etc, Pray what sort ofa marriage is an "ecclesiastical "eccle-siastical marriage" without legal enforcement en-forcement ? From our Uentile standpoint stand-point we cannot see il. The answer is vry simple. An "ecclesiastical mai i ia'-e without legal enforcement" is one -auctioned by tho religious faith and practice of those contracting it, but which is not sanctioned by any statutory or civil law. An act of the United States Congrededliu-OH polygamy in the Territory of Utah a crime. It is held by some of the best jurists in the country that that net its unconstitutional; but while it is upon the statute books no sane man would say that a polygamous or plural marriage mar-riage had legal enforcement; and yet a Mormon plural marrage U an eccle. sinstical affair, held sacred, and binding bind-ing on the parties ns a matter in which religious faith is the governing element. If the editor ol the Itereille : were to go to Ireland he would find I that there a marriage has to he celebrated cele-brated b-fore noon, in a regularly licensed place of worship, the orllciat-ing orllciat-ing clergyman being either duly licensed to perforin the marriage ceremony or assisted by a registrar of marriagos, a license having been first obtained, unless the banns have been duly published; or a special license has been procured from Doctors Commons. Com-mons. And if the ceremony should be per formal, say by a Methodist clergyman who was not licensed, and in any place except a licensed house of worship, a license not having been procured, nor the banns published, it would he simply no marriago in law. Ecclesiastically the clergyman might say "what God has joined together," and the parties might hold they were so united; but the state would not recognize the marriage, which would be " without legal enforcement," And so it would be should a Catholic priest unite in marriage a Catholic and a Protestant, a legal fact well exemplified ex-emplified by the famous Yclvcrton case. A Mormon holds his or her plural marriage as sacred and binding as any marriage can be ; and the husband hus-band owes to the wife all the care nnd attention that it is in his power to bestow be-stow ; this is obligator)' on him. as a matter of religious faith ; but who would hold that such a marriage could be enforced hy law, while a law stands declaring it illegal, until that law is itself dcclaral unconstitutional and consequently of no force? |