The Business Committee also reported favorably upon the following resolution:

Voted, That the delegates of the Association to the International Council be requested to convey to the Council a very cordial invitation to hold the next session in America. The Council originated at the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the American Unitarian Association, and it is appropriate that after three meetings in Europe it should return to the place of its nativity. The American delegates are therefore requested to express to the Executive Committee, to the Council in formal session, and to the individual members and delegates the urgent hopes of their American friends that the session of 1907 may be held in Boston.

Attention being called to the fact that the Council would probably meet. at about the same time as the National Council, it was

Voted, That this resolution be referred to the Directors of the American Unitarian Association, with instructions to confer with the Council of the National Conference.

The Business Committee then reported adversely upon the following resolution:

Resolved, That in the interests of Christian comity ministers should exercise the utmost prudence in marrying divorced persons whose marriage is forbidden by the laws of any church in which either party holds membership.

Resolved, That ministers should in any event decline to marry divorced persons until assured that a period of one year has elapsed since the decision allowing the divorce.

In presenting the adverse report of the Committee, the chairman said that it did not seem to the Committee that it was within its province to recommend the action indicated, such action being more appropriate for associations of ministers.

Prof. Francis G. Peabody said: "Mr. President, I am responsible for the introduction of these resolutions, and I regret the action of the Committee. The Committee might feel itself moved to dismiss the consideration of these resolutions as matters of business. But they are not matters of business. They are the expression of the corporate interest and sympathy of the Unitarian communion. They are not mandatory, but advisory. These resolutions proceed in effect from a voluntary organization known as the Inter-church Conference on Marriage and Divorce, representing sixteen different Christian churches, which has met at intervals during the past two years. This Conference on Marriage and Divorce goes to the different communions concerned, with different language adapted to the organization of those communions, mandatory where the ministers of a church are under orders of a superior, advisory in other cases, as in that of our own communion. It has confined itself to two recommendations. One is addressed to the scandal of discourtesy, and the other to the scandal of haste. On the one hand these resolutions ask the various churches to consider carefully whether Christian comity does not demand the most rigorous scrutiny of persons coming to be married, and proving to have been previously divorced, who are thus coming because the rules of their own church will not permit remarriage. The other resolution passed by the Interchurch Conference this year advises ministers to abstain from the responsibility of divorced persons till at least one year after the divorce has been secured. This is intended to remove from the communion concerned the stain of complicity in the precipitate haste of marriages performed immediately after divorce proceedings had terminated. Now these resolutions as they are presented

are purely advisory, and that reference to ministers' meetings means that we are sacrificing the expression of a corporate moral protest to the technical logic of the situation. It is precisely when an organization like this has expressed its judgment that ministers' meetings should proceed to consider the resolutions proposed. I for one desire that, as these resolutions are thus, in one or another kindred form, transmitted to the various communions by the Interchurch Conference, we shall be neither the last nor the most hesitating to express our cordial co-operation with their efforts in this direction. With all deference to the Business Committee, I take the liberty of moving the adoption of these resolutions."

Rev. John W. Day: "There are some occasions where advice is equivalent to direction, and our purely advisory action may be understood by other bodies as mandatory. Moreover, it is entirely unnecessary. I am in full accord with the resolutions, and so far as I know all Unitarian ministers have acted in accordance with them."

Rev. H. C. Parker: "It would be an act of presumption on the part of any minister to inquire about the religion of the people who come to him to be married. As to the second resolution, we can lay down no hard-and-fast rule that will apply to all cases. Therefore I oppose the resolutions."

Rev. Frederic J. Gauld: "I should like to see the resolutions separated into two parts, and vote for the last and against the first. It is desirable that the ministers of the Unitarian body should have behind them such an expression of sentiment. It might add authority to our advice when we advise such people who come to us to wait."

Rev. Kenneth E. Evans: "I am opposed to the resolutions, for it is a matter purely of individual judgment.

A great many of us believe to some extent in the remarriage of divorced persons. Some of us would not raise any question, regarding it as matter for the civil bodies to settle. It is wiser to throw our influence to the stiffening of the civil law, making it more difficult for parties to be married recklessly and in haste."

Rev. Benjamin R. Bulkeley: "We want to stiffen the backbone of the civil law, especially when very few States agree; and it is a notorious scandal that the utmost haste may be secured in this matter of the remarriage of divorced persons. But we shall not stiffen the civil law by voting down resolutions that will tend to put us in line with the reform that Professor Peabody has brought to our attention. I should like to feel back of me the moral sentiment of a body that takes its stand on the side of a needed reform. It would do untold damage to have it said that we had voted down all reference to the matter. It is a moral as well as a social question."

Mr. George H. Ellis expressed his determination now to vote for the resolutions, though at first he was inclined to vote against them.

Rev. Henry T. Secrist would hesitate to vote for the first resolution, but did not wish to oppose anything that Professor Peabody favored, nor to pass by this question without some expression of opinion. He suggested the following substitute:

Resolved, That the Association expresses its sympathy with the work of the Interchurch Conference, and with all things looking toward the preservation of the integrity of the family.

Professor Peabody: "That would be better than nothing. But the outcome of two years' deliberation by the Interchurch Conference, consisting of representatives of sixteen denominations, is represented by these two

resolutions which are to be presented to different communions. The question is whether the Unitarian communion will in any way put itself in accord with these sixteen communions in their expression of public sentiment concerning these two scandals. A resolution of such a general character as is now proposed would carry us a little way toward that end; but it would still represent us as dissenters, as disclaiming the hospitality offered by this great body of churches in the United States. The adoption of these resolutions disclaims any authority over the ministers of a free church, but expresses in behalf of this representative organization the judgment it would wish to convey to the ministers of our communion.”

Rev. Wilson M. Backus: "I hail from the West, and I want to say that we do not want any rule to stiffen the backbone of the ministers of that region. It is well known that the ministers of the Unitarian denomination refuse to perform more marriages than those of any other communion, unless it be the Protestant Episcopal. I object to the resolutions because they are too definite. If we adopt them, and a Catholic should come to us to be married, according to the law of the Church it would be impossible for us to perform the ceremony. This matter should come before the ministers, and not before this body."

Rev. Paul R. Frothingham: "I want to stand here just long enough to say that I hope these resolutions will pass. While I am glad that our ministers in the West have got such stiff backbones, I am convinced that there are plenty of ministers here in the East who need to be strengthened, and I shall be distinctly glad to have something of this kind behind me. The real reason why I favor the passing of these resolutions is that we are here