ས་ nes and prieges as the teachers e been the frustful cause of all the c the minor of Jesus. As the characters, at Cranet 14 CECOmstances, we have too gener Lut the presentatives of this system are suc Cơn BET MET be supposed to engender. te priest, as one of a class, the col X-. Jones assumes an importance : ur hands, to which personally we i-atures in the conduct of this man, up ped, we cannot pass over with the, at interview with the father ruman wom he was called upon to marry. proped that the intended husband and aloud at the altar, before el "CHELIN ENÍ Then, immediately that our fri me the tourne et proposed and understood, t UP STILLS TLMENIŻ attempted to baffle, to sil o wi or tent, and to prevent his carryin And, second, the unfee' 115 BLUCA Imong out of his way nee Seimer's 2′′ or craft the ceremony, and, conti Treat every part of the serv me steel was prepared for the p Julie lig dissetters stal shortly after, , the Marquis of Lansprints, has brought in the Marriage Cerewe have last noticed, i have felt ourselves e debate in the Lords, he bill should go into a 1 has been lost for the unt of the lateness of the een anticipated, we cannot imate success is consider1 this bill produced was in that we shall endeavour, rs with a correct report, ery imperfect, and failing the character of the dislown made a manly and ghts of conscience. Lord ument for the object of the enborough, and other noble Ion. Even the Lord Chansed the second reading of ssions, admitted that some senters; and, though he obposed by the bill, professed d to spare his life to another some approved method of ster of bishops in the house, ⚫ sentiments on the bill. We d with any thing strikingly i in principle, or captivating he right reverend bench; one rcester, supported the second of the bishops ventured to ject as claimed by Unitarian on of the house, there were ling, and FIFTEEN against it; ed, gave a majority of six only ttee; so that the bill was lost by who had not heard the arguments 1. And, even in this case, its fate , if it had occurred to the bishops h they are parties-upon a question ps, shall continue to possess an auiences of us, the dissenters, it would y the public as equally delicate and former; and did, in fact, actually omit it at the time, and part of the service, in which, by the rubric, it is directed to take place. Not having been present, and being unacquainted with any who have been present, at any marriages celebrated by this gentleman since the year 1819, we cannot prove that on these occasions he has omitted a great portion of the ceremony, but we can believe that he has so done; and our readers also will believe it, when they are informed that this person's curate, for whose acts he is responsible, has, and that in the present year, in the performance of the office of matrimony, omitted a great part of the service. It may be said, to be sure, that the curate is not the rector. Certainly not: but will any one seriously assert, that, if the rector had discovered that all marriages were illegal unless the whole service were performed, he would not immediately have instructed his curate and representative therein, in order to have guarded, in future, against illegal marriages. And yet it is a fact, that Mr. Burford, the curate the agent of this Mr. Jones--did, on the 8th day of January last, marry a gentleman of the Unitarian persuasion, in the parish church of West-Ham, on which occasion he omitted at least one third part of the marriage service as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Let then the assertion of the pious vicar-that he considered marriage illegal, unless the whole of the ceremony were performed, receive the credit which it deserves, and establish to the whole world the veracity of his character. Far, indeed, from us be the wish to interrupt either the present honours, or to forestall the posthumous fame which the record of these transactions may attach to the West-Ham clerk. Nor will it be attended either with envy or regret on our part, should the celebrity of his reverend predecessor, whose virtues stand recorded at "Tyburn Tree," rest upon him, and cleave to his name like the leprosy of Naaman to the false Gehazi, and his seed, for ever!!* Turning from the contemplation of the conduct above exhibited we readily confess to the reader that we have, on other and similar occasions, met with instances of the most polite and liberal treatment from individuals of the clergy. One such with pleasure we record, in the way of example, as extracted from our church books; the name and date the * The celebrated Dr. Dodd, who was executed for forgery, was minister of West-Ham. He was also a great supporter of the public charities of his day, and author of a very obscene novel, called "The Sisters," reader will pardon us for omitting, lest even the virtues of the individual in question should prove "holy traitors" to his security and peace. "The elder and friends present at the marriage of our brother of the London branch, and our sister of the branch of the church of God, have briefly to report, that the marriage was The minister, respecting our conscientious scruples, appeared desirous to make the ceremony as short as he could, consistently with the duty he had himself to perform. When he came to the objectionable passages, "With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he pronounced the words himself, and then passed on without waiting for, or requiring that our brother should, as is usual in such cases, repeat them. Having read the declarations that the parties were man and wife, he wholly omitted the prayers, and the remaining part of the ceremony; thus avoiding for himself, as well as for us, the painful and humiliating mockery of devotion, which, in the case of conscientious dissenters, must attend the repetition. Impressed with the propriety of the behaviour of this gentleman, we took occasion to thank him, and to express our respect for his liberal and conscientious conduct." Signed by the Elder, and eight friends present. Observation here is scarcely necessary, but the contrast between the two gentlemen last noticed is so striking that, when we call to mind the violent, unfeeling conduct of the one, with the conciliatory, conscientious course of the others -the fierce look, the impassioned tone, the violent gesture of the former, with the mild manners, the meek demeanour, and the kind consideration of the latter-we more than suspect that "THIS man went down to his house justified " rather than the former." Since the period that Mr. Smith first brought his bill into the House of Commons we have, in common with the Unitarians, again petitioned the two houses of parliament for relief; and we have been eagerly watching each succeeding session, from 1819 to 1822, in the hope that the honourable member for Norwich would have renewed his motion. Upon the reasons or necessity of the delay that took place it is not for us to pronounce, as we are aware that the subject is one of extensive and complicated bearings, and the promoters of the measure for relief have, ' 314 it is understood, more than once had to alter the principle upon which the proposed relief was to be granted. In the first instance it was proposed to seek merely an alteration, or omission, of such parts of the marriage ceremony as were contrary to the religious belief of Unitarian dissenters, but, in all other respects, to celebrate marriage in the established manner. religious ceremony to be binding on us but what has the As Christians, admitting no authority and commands of Jesus for its performance, we felt the strongest objections to this measure of relief, and in a conference with Mr. W. Smith, at the office of the solicitor employed by the Unitarians in this cause, two of our friends took occasion to point out that, to us, the place, the priest, and the ceremony were equally objectionable with the doctrinal part of the service. In this state, however, the bill was again brought into parliament April 17th, in the last year, by Mr. W. Smith, when Mr. H. Gurney appears so clearly to have seen the objections to which the mode of relief was liable, that he, at once and boldly, stated that "he did not see "what possible objection there could be to Unitarians "being married by their own clergymen. The whole service "would then be suited to their own sentiments, and, banas "being regularly proclaimed in the church, no inconvenience "could arise from it. On the other hand there were many objections to parties having the service performed by "clergymen of a different persuasion. He wished, therefore, "that, instead of such a measure as was now proposed, the "honourable and learned gentleman opposite" (Dr. Philli more)" would embrace the subject in his bill." This plan of relief was also violently opposed in a high church article which appeared in the Christian Remembrancer, No. 41, but the writer admitted the justice of the claims of Unitarians, and, like Mr. Gurney, suggested a plan upon which they might be married by their own teachers. The New Times daily paper also held the following just and liberal language on this occasion: "We fully admit the "existence and the magnitude of the evil which Mr. Smith proposes to remedy; perhaps we regard it as more obnoxious than he himself does: but our doubt is, whether "the proposed mode of correcting the evil be not worse "than the evil itself." Of the expediency of granting ease to scrupulous consciences in respect to marriage, the editor expresses his decided and perfect conviction. Mr. Smith, properly appreciating the objections to his bill, withdrew it from the house, and the Unitarian association have since directed their attention to a more extended principle of 66 |