Home Reading Union the librarians will not even give publicity to its appeal for members, though repeatedly and emphatically urged to do so, among others by the late Lord Chief Justice and the present Master of Downing College. It is a matter of common experience to find that in districts where University Extension centres are established the only people who take no interest in them are the librarians and councils of the public libraries, not because of any hostility, but simply because they have no conception of the lectures having any relation to the functions of the libraries.

The recently established University of London which, epochmarking alike in its constitution, its policy, and its aims, will infallibly, before many years have passed, revolutionise civic education, might, with advantage, extend the surveillance which it exercises over other educational bodies in the metropolis to these institutions. It already undertakes the organisation and control of the University Extension lectures, and such surveillance would therefore be work very germane to that in which it is now engaged. It might, for example, assist in the selection of books, a most important function, by providing experts in the different subjects of study, whose business it should be to ascertain and specify what works should be chosen and what rejected. It might undertake the occasional inspection of the libraries, have some voice in the election of librarians, and in the economy generally of the libraries. It might suggest and supply short courses of lectures on appropriate subjects. In the case of new libraries being founded, or additional grants conferred on those already established, it might with propriety be consulted. But these are details, and details adjust themselves. The point of importance is that the libraries should be in touch with the University and the University with the libraries. If what is here suggested were initiated in London there can be little doubt that it would be followed elsewhere.

I am not pleading for any interference with the recreative side of these institutions. It would indeed be hard and in the highest degree absurd to attempt to place restrictions on the readers who find in these libraries welcome and legitimate relaxation from the toils and cares of daily life. Men and women engaged from morning to evening in arduous work, jaded it may be, and half worn out, cannot be expected to seek anything but amusement. And who would grudge it them, whatever frivolous form it might take? In the case of forty, perhaps, out of every hundred for whom the librarians have to cater, the mere pastime craved has been fairly and hardly earned. But the case here stated rests on the remaining sixty. Of these, twenty probably are sauntering losels, who prefer bad novels to honest work, and to whom these libraries are an unmingled evil. The other forty consist of those in whose cause

and in whose interests this article has been written.

In conclusion, let me repeat that this question of the public libraries-their present condition, their future prospects-is one which deserves what assuredly at present it has not receivedvery serious consideration. It is important politically, it is important socially. On a truly colossal scale they are powers for good or powers for evil, and as they are now constituted there can be little doubt on which side the balance inclines. There are some questions, the decision of which may with safety be left to the general body of the people, certain subjects in which it is both an intelligent and competent guide; but education is not one of them.

J. CHURTON COLLINS.

MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER

I SHOULD not venture to write even a few words on this subject, which has been talked about and written about amongst us so long, and by so many persons of light and leading,' but that (so far as I know) it has not been discussed in print by any woman. I do not know what is the view taken of it by those women who regard themselves (and I would speak with all respect of them) as the pioneers of female progress. I hope they do not include the legalising of these marriages in England in their list of desirable changes. But I should think it probable that many, if not most, of them do. And so I write rather as the spokeswoman, if I may be such, of women who do not speak on platforms or attend public meetings, but occupy the normal position of our sex in this country -the position which it will always occupy, despite any possible changes in the machinery of national life.

And first I would offer a few words, with all humility, on the religious aspect of this question. It is not for me to speak as a theologian or a Biblical scholar. But it does not appear to me that the question is one either of theology or Biblical scholarship. They who accept the authority of the canonical Gospels cannot (I submit) ignore the importance, in regard to this controversy, of our Lord's express setting aside of the 'precept' attributed to Moses, in a yet graver question than this concerning the relations of the sexes. I understand that the import of the texts St. Matt. xix. 3-8, St. Mark x. 2-9 is not in dispute, whatever be the case with the verses immediately following in those Gospels. If in the question of permitting divorce Christ expressly overruled Moses, a fortiori it would seem impossible for Christians to base Christian obligations in the matter of marriage upon the Mosaic' law. Our supreme authority sets aside Mosaic ordinance in the graver case, and refers His disciples to an older and Divine law. It would follow that references to the Book of Leviticus are not in place as laying down the law for His disciples in the lesser case. Such references may indeed be made, as showing the light in which marriages of affinity

were regarded in the Jewish Church and nation. But it cannot be argued that since Leviticus says this or that Christ says so too.

But what does concern Christian people most deeply is to collect, from all sources they can reach, the mind of Christ. Now, no one disputes the substantial accuracy or the practical authority of our Revised Version of the New Testament; no one disputes the general trend of primitive Christian tradition in the matter of marriage. It is not a question of textual scholarship, nor of minute acquaintance with the scanty records of early Christian society. As Christians we endeavour to collect, from the New Testament as we have it and from unquestioned primitive tradition, the counsel and the ordinance of our Lord concerning marriage.

And we find Him sounding no uncertain note for us. In that vital question of divorce, whatever be the precise import of one Greek word used by one of His reporters, the whole purport of His counsel is in restraint of natural, human self-will and self-pleasing. He refers us to a primeval Divine law which, according to Him, establishes the indissolubility of marriage, however much its dissolution might be desired by either or both spouses; and He indicates unmistakably that the law is the same for man and wife. And I believe all Christians are agreed that the general 'note' of Christ's teaching is one of restraint of natural impulses-especially in regard to the strongest of human passions. The question remains, of course, where restraint is to come in.

Our Lord refers to the primeval Divine ordinance as governing His view of the whole subject. But to this it will be replied nowadays, that for many persons amongst us Christ's reference to Genesis has no authority whatever-Genesis has no authority; Christ Himself has no authority; Genesis embodies rude and early Hebrew tradition, of no more weight than the rude and early traditions of other peoples. Christ spoke merely as a man and a Jew accepting the earliest, and not the subsequent, traditions of His nation. From all this I appeal unto Cæsar-the Cæsar of modern science. My contention is that it matters not to the present argument whether the nature and authority of this (supposed primeval) marriage law derive (as according to Genesis they derive) from a revelation made by a personal Divinity for the good of mankind, or from the evolution of ages of human society, which have threshed out what mankind have found beneficial for themselves. To some persons, indeed, these alternative hypotheses seem merely the statement of two aspects of the same fact. On either the sanction of the law is in its proving good for men; it is binding for that reason, both on Christian and scientific grounds. And therefore I claim that, whether people accept Christ's authority or not, the law, whether revealed or evolutionary, is 'holy, just, and good,' and ought to be obeyed.

'But you are speaking' (it will be answered) of the general law of the indissolubility of wedlock-not of the prohibition of certain marriages. Now, whatever be held as to the sanction, in the experience of the race, of the indissolubility of wedlock (and there may be two opinions as to that), it is a far cry to the forbidding marriages of affinity.' No doubt; but I shall humbly endeavour to show why (as it seems to me) these two laws-or rather these two clauses of the marriage law-are of kindred significance and obligation.

It does not come within my present purpose to discuss the first of them, otherwise than to insist upon the significance of its restraining force. According to it men are not permitted the liberty in relinquishing their partners of the other sex which animals exercise. Whether the general principle admits of exceptions or not is not here discussed; but the principle stands out clearly-that individual wishes are not to be supreme in the matter. Now, in what stands the reasonableness of this? What is its claim upon the human conscience? Apart from the word of Christ, which suffices for Christians, it stands in nothing but this-that experience has proved that individual passion, if not restrained, works havoc for humankind, and most signally in the relations of the sexes. These things are not so with animals; but it would seem that since man was man things have been so with us; and so they are plainly before our eyes at this day.

I suppose it is unquestionable that all anthropological and ethnological science impresses us with the fact that human progress is a record of slow steps upward from the brute level. One position after another was won by the wonderful differentiating force (so to speak), the variation' whose origin is still lost in mystery; and in no particular have its victories been more momentous than in the development of the human relations of the sexes. It was only by virtue of these that family life in the course of ages became possible; and the best family life has only emerged by degrees. We should revolt now from the manner of existence compatible with polyandry, or (most Europeans would add) polygamy either; and however people may fail to realise it in their own lives, it is not and cannot be denied that true family life, as developed in Christian and civilised nations, is the best product of human evolution yet reached. Science recognises, no less than the Church teaches, that in the family is the germ of all human well-being, the foundation of a truly human polity.

Now, the point I would insist upon here is (as has been said) that all this achievement has taken place in virtue of restraint put upon the passion between the sexes. We are told that the etymological significance of the word 'Paradise' is 'a wide-open park, enclosed against injury, yet with its natural beauty unspoiled;' and thereafter 'a safe-fenced garden, wherein the wicked shall not enter.' Even so