Transcribed by Ann Selchick. Geo. THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS, SEPT. 19. 1907 DECEASED WIFE’S SISTER ACT. _____ Discussing some of the things that have led to this national estrangement from the Church of England, the Bishop refers to the new passive resistance of the clergy. He was personally against the Act, but was he, therefore, to discourage the use of our national churches for the benediction of these marriages? For half a century, the question had been debated, intelligently and conscientiously. The more the matter had been examined the more consentient had grown the verdict of the three estates of the realm that these marriages were not contrary to the law of God as revealed in Holy Scripture. Was the Church going to bind where God had not bound? Was she going to set an ecclesiastical canon centuries old against the better trained, more widely illumined national conscience of the present day? It was unwise and impolitic that the use of the parish churches, which belonged to the parishioners as much as to the clergy, should be left to the sole decision of the individual clergymen. So says the Bishop; but the mischief of the business is that the individual clergyman is his own Pope, be he right or be he wrong, and can ignore his Bishop and defy his parishioners. Until that is mended or ended we fear the national estrangement will go on, and the war between ecclesiastical and Christianity grow more fierce. ______