While war marriages proceed at the some vertiginous rate and many take place in register offices as being. simpler and. less. expensive tha marriage by special licence in church, a demand has grown up for having Such marriages afterwards blessed church. So great has this practice become that the Bishop of Rochester nas issued an instruction clergy.
He points out that there is no reform in the Prayer Book for such blessings and he has therefore drawn up a form for the convenience of the clergy. The only point that be emphasized is that the bless: ug does not constitute a marriage and the names of those thus blessed must on no account be entered in the parish registers. With these condi-Hions observed, the desire to have the Church's blessing is certainly to] bbe encouraged.
Under war conditions it is not al ways practicable to be married cept In a register ofice. But though any of these offices now decorate to look as invit-was they can, the ceremony is short and oficial, altogether a. rather cold i bloodless sort of affair as com= pared with the many beauties of the Church marriage service.
And apropos, one sees that Miss Sybil Morris, assistant re-at Caxton Hall." Westminister, of more marriages. than any advised "hundreds of soldi intricacies of getting married past 12 months, has herself got maried to a soldier. And she did not et married at Caxton "Hall, but in the Roman Catholic church' of St Etheldreda, Ely Place.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.