But the Lambeth Conference only expresses the opinion (however weighty) of a gathering of Anglican bishops. It cannot legislate for the Church of England. And the legislation which has taken place is purely civil legislation made from a civil point of view and going beyond what the Lambeth Conference would allow. And on such a matter as marriage which lies at the heart of our religious life it seems quite unreasonable to ask Christian people to accept this, as authority sufficient to upset an ancient practice of the Church. Granted then (1) that Christ did not prohibit[95] the remarriage of an innocent party after a divorce for adultery, (2) that the unaltered Church law of England does prohibit it, it seems to me that the best course is _not_, at least in the present state of Church feeling, to alter the Church law on the matter, up to the point which Christ allows, by getting leave for Convocation to make a new Canon――though this would be a course to which no one could take just exception――but to retain and observe the Church law, allowing no remarriage with the rites of the Church, but simply leaving it to bishops to act on the decision of the Lambeth Conference as far as admission to communion is concerned. This refusal to allow remarriage in churches may involve some collision with statute law till an equitable concession to our principles is accorded. But the difficulty is not greater than has been overcome by a little resolution in the case of the Public Worship Regulation Act. If in the process of the controversy the institution of compulsory civil marriage here in England, with the same publicity as in most foreign countries, to be followed by a voluntary religious ceremony, becomes a more likely event, there would be a good many Churchmen who would not regret it. As regards the allowance of remarriage to the innocent party after a divorce for adultery, it is sometimes pointed out that it is only explicitly allowed by our Lord to the innocent _husband_. But it is, I submit, at least competent to the Church to interpret this in the more lenient sense as extending to the aggrieved wife also. It is more often urged that it is illogical to forbid to the guilty party what is allowed to the innocent――that if declared adultery dissolves the marriage tie for either, it does so for both. To this I should only reply that our Lord appears on the matter to be _legislating_ rather than laying down a principle. His legislation covers the one exception but not (with any degree of clearness) the other. He appears to be sanctioning in the case of an innocent and deeply aggrieved person a dispensation which violates the logic of the marriage tie on grounds of equity: but this carries with it no necessary consequence of a similar dispensation in favour of the chief offender. INDEXES I. PERSONS AND AUTHORITIES CITED