Hon. George S. Hale, of Boston, addressed the members of the Divinity School yesterday afternoon upon "The Civil Law and the Ministry." This constitutes the first of a series of lectures to be delivered concerning the legal aspects of the ministry.
The speaker quoted several authorities in the theological world to show the need that a student for the ministry has for a knowledge of the civil or general law. A minister who lacks this knowledge stands in danger of committing mistakes in the performance of the marriage ceremony, and in the pursuance of his duty as a guardian of church property and appropriations.
By virtue of the power to perform the rite of marriage, the clergyman becomes a civil officer, responsible to the state. Ignorance of the laws of divorce often leads the clergyman into unhappy blunders.
In very early times the laws of the state and the church were identical. Law, among men of olden times, was believed to be sacred and to come from God. This close kinship existed between theology and jurisprudence before those terms were used as the names of definite
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Mr. Black's Lecture.
