schismatic baptized person, and the case where one of two Jewish or infidel married partners becomes a believer is subjected to other rules founded on 1 Cor. vii., 12-16. The impediments from nearness of relationship, making or capable of making marriage void, grew up by degrees into a most intricate and cumbrous system from comparatively small beginnings. First the degrees of consanguinity within which marriage was unlawful were greatly extended. Next, on the principle that husband and wife are one flesh, the blood relatives of each were counted as relatives of both, and from this source might arise impediments to a second marriage of either of them. And not only this, but it became unlawful for certain blood relatives of the two parties to marry with one another. The rites of baptism too and confirmation introduced a spiritual relationship, as in the case of a godmother and a godson or his father, which was an obstacle in the same direction. So also adoption might present a hindrance of a similar kind.

In regard to consanguinity the canonical law went no farther at first than the Roman, which prohibited marriage between the immediate descendants of the same ancestor, as a brother and sister, and between one immediate and one more remote descendant, as an aunt and a nephew or a grea-tuncle and a grandniece. In the reign of Theodosius the Great (A. D. 385), marriage between first cousins was forbidden. The church, starting from this point, gradually extended the prohibited circle until it included those who were within the seventh degree, that is, sixth cousins, according to a computation which counted the immediate descendants of a common ancestor the first degree, first cousins the second, and so on. This rule was authoritatively settled in the West in the eleventh century by Pope Alexander II. (A. D. 1065), although it had prevailed, more or less, long before. Being however not a rule of strict morality but of church practice, it could be dispensed with or suspended. Thus Gregory the Great (A. D. 601) writes to his missionary in England, Augustin, permitting members of the fourth and fifth generations to intermarry in that country, intending, as he says, that they should be, when more confirmed in the faith, bound by a stricter law. In this letter he makes the remark that Roman law allowed own cousins to marry, but

says, "experimento didicimus ex tali conjugio sobolem non posse succrescere." But the rule of the seventh degree having been found inconvenient and not capable, absque gravi dispendio, of being observed, the sound sense of the great Pope, Innocent III., led him to bring about an alteration of the rule in A. D. 1215, at the fourth Lateran council. The new rule is this prohibitio copula conjugalis quartum consanguinitatis et affinitatis gradum non excedat, which was so modified by Gregory IX. who had the decretals compiled, that a person in the fourth and one in the fifth, or third and fourth cousins, might be united in lawful marriage.* The same decree confined the ban of affinity to the fourth remove, which before had the same sweep with consanguinity to the seventh degree. In the Greek Church the blood relatives of the married pair were considered to have contracted affinity with one another, but not in the Latin, except that the children of a woman's second marriage were looked on as standing towards her first husband's relatives within the prohibited circle, but this impediment again was taken away by the legislation of Innocent III. There was again an impediment from illicit intercourse which was brought within the narrowest limits by the Council of Trent. Still another from the relation of the godparent was so far removed by the same council, that it effected only the godparents, the child and its parents, and the baptizer. And the same analogy applied to the parties at a confirmation. Finally betrothal involved a ban against marriage for each party with the relatives of the other, but the Council of Trent restricted its effects to the first degree.†

In all cases, where a prohibition of marriage rested on other than fixed moral grounds, the Pope, or others acting with derived authority, could dispense with the rules of the church, and this was done frequently, with or without reason. The Council of Trent makes the general order that dispensations are to be given beforehand either not at all or rarely, and, if at all,

* A reason alleged for this was that quatuor sunt humores in corpore, qui constant ex quatuor elementis. Decretal. Greg. iv., 14, cap. 8.

+ Comp. Walter u. s. § 303-308, and Göschen in Herzog's Encycl. iii., p. 667 et seq. The leading canons may be found in the Decretals iv., 13 and 14, and in Sessio xxiv., cap. 2-4 of the Council of Trent.

for good cause and gratuitously. There are to be no dispensations between parties standing in the second degree, nisi inter magnos principes et ob publicam causam. Another declaration of the Council in regard to the extent of the dispensing power is worthy of notice here. "If any one shall affirm that only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity, which are expressed in Leviticus [xviii., 6, seq.] can prevent contracting marriage or separate it when contracted; or that the church cannot give a dispensation in regard to some of them, or enact that others besides shall not prevent and separate, let him be anathema." If the reader will consult the passage in Leviticus, he will find that all the cases there mentioned are beyond the precedents of dispensation and would be regarded as obstacles of an absolute and moral nature, except that of a brother's wife in v. 16. Is not this then a sort of ex post facto justification of the action in regard to the marriage of Henry VIII. with his deceased brother's wife?

When a marriage had been consummated with the proper formalities, and there appeared afterwards good reason for believing that it was an unlawful one, the case was brought before an ecclesiastical court. Where the impediments were of a public character, a public authority alone could institute a process of nullity, but where the impediments affected especially the private interests of one of the parties, the injured party could bring a complaint. If a decree of nullity was given by the judge, it had no effect on the condition of the children, nor yet on that of the parties up to the time of the sentence, if they had acted with good faith; and in any case the form of the marriage protected the children. The parties after the decree were permitted to contract marriage with other persons, but the validity of the first marriage was always an open question, and new evidence might at any time reverse the decree. In this case the second marriage would be a nullity and the first would recover its obligatory force, so that now two separations, it might be, would be demanded by canonical law. The separations by sentence of nullity were formerly called divorces as well as the separations a menca et thoro on account of adultery, but a modern distinction of some

Catholic writers between annullatio and separatio removes all ambiguity.*

*

We may sum up what has been said of the separation of married partners during the early and mediæval periods of the Christian Church in the following simple statements.

1. The prevailing and at length the unanimous opinion in the Church was that no crime of either of the consorts, being baptized persons, or Christians, justified the other in marrying again during the life of the offending party.

2. When an infidel deserted his or her Christian consort, the latter was allowed to proceed to a second marriage.

3. The development of the theory of the sacrament, as far as divorce was concerned, accepted conclusions already drawn from scripture.

4. As no crime entirely released the married pair from their relation to one another, and as forgiveness and reconciliation, being Christian duties, could now be exercised, consorts separated on account of adlutery could come together again. For a time rigid penance kept the offender from the innocent party, and penance also was inflicted on the innocent party who strove to renew intercourse before the church was satisfied.

5. In many cases where marriage was prohibited by canonical law, a sentence of nullity left them free to unite themselves to other persons.

Comp. especially Göschen in Herzog, u. s., 697–700.

ARTICLE VI.—SIGNS IN DEAF MUTE EDUCATION.

The Education of Deaf Mutes; shall it be by Signs or Articulation? By GARDINER GREEN HUBBARD. Cambridge: A. Williams & Co. 1867.

Report on the Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb in Central and Western Europe, in the year 1844. By Rev. GEORGE E. DAY.

Mr. WELD's Report of his visit to Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb in Europe, 1844.

Report on European Institutions for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. By HARVEY P. PEET, President of the New York Institution for the instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.

1851.

The Vowel Elements in Speech; a Phonological and Philological Essay, setting forth a new system of the vowel sounds, accordant with the mode of their formation by the organs. By SAMUEL PORTER, National Deaf Mute College, Washington, D. C. New York: B. Westermann & Co. 1867.

CHILDREN learn the language of their parents easily and spontaneously, not because they are children, though language is more easily acquired in childhood than at a later period, but chiefly because the meaning of words is revealed to them by circumstances. Thus, the mother says to an older child, "shut the door." The little one, with eyes and ears wide open, hears the direction and sees the act performed. So of learning a foreign language among a people who speak it.

When, however, the business of teaching, or rather of learning a language, is transferred from the family to the school, it is obvious that these great natural advantages for its acquisition must be in a measure lost. Comparatively few of the thou