society would neglect to have that ceremony performed, but he did think that the great mass of the uneducated people of the country would not be so particular, and this bill afforded them an inducement and encouragement to content themselves with naming the child according to the civil ceremony, and dispense with the religious observance. He further objected to this part of the bill, because it violated the conscientious feelings of members of the established church; for he never could agree to dispense with a rite which it looked upon as so solemn and necessary a ceremony.-On a division, the amendment was lost by 97 members voting against it, and 73 for it. The House of Lords passed the bill on the 11th of August, with several amend ments, to which lord John Russell advised the Commons to agree; because, although his own opinion did not go with these alterations, the principle of the bill had been preserved, and it would be better to leave the practical effect of its provisions to be ascertained by experience, than to anticipate, as a subject of discussion with the other House, the probable consequences of particular regulations.

In the committee on the marriage bill, in the House of Commons, a proposition to continue the publication of bans at least in rural districts as a more effective means of giving notice to families interested in preventing a clandestine marriage, than a register which would require to be daily examined; and a proposition to allow a dissenting chapel to be licensed for marriage-purposes on the application of ten householders belonging to the congregation, instead of twenty, because, it was

said, there were many dissenting congregations which did not contain ten householders, were severally rejected. Mr. Poulter, member for Shaftesbury, and

an

adherent of the ministry, moved the rejection of the clause which allowed persons, who objected to marry in church or in a registered meeting-house, to marry at the office of the registrar, on the ground that it altered the whole marriage law of England, and separated the contract of marriage from all religious sanction. The church of England could not accept such a clause, and he believed there was no intention on the part of Dissenters to separate marriage from the religious sanction. On the other side it was maintained that the omission of this clause would be inconsistent with the principle of the bill. That principle was, that marriage was a natural right, and that this right ought to be no farther limited than might be necessary to prevent clandestine and illicit unions. The bill allowed all persons to be married according to the form suited to their own conscientious feelings. Thus some persons were left undisturbed; others, who were Dissenters, and who thought marriage was a religious ceremony, but who desired that it should be performed in their own chapel, were permitted so to celebrate it; and, lastly, there was another class who thought it merely a civil contract, and, according to the soundest principles of religious liberty, they had an equal title to have their scruples attended to. There was nothing in the clause which dif fered from this principle. The probability was, that 99 persons out of 100 would regard mar

riage as a religious as well as civil contract; but although the number of those who thought differently might be few, the principle was great and important. A large majority decided in favour of the clause. On the third reading of the bill, Mr. Goulburn moved the insertion of a clause requiring, that in all cases where marriages were solemnised, not in a church or chapel, nor according to the rites of the church of England, the parties should make the following declaration:-" I do solemnly declare that I have conscientious scruples against the solemnisation of marriage according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of England." There were Dissenters as well as members of the church of England, who thought a religious ceremony operated to the validity of a marriage; and nothing more was required by this clause than that those, who considered marriage as purely a civil contract, should make a declaration to that effect. He did not wish to enforce forms which were objected to; but members of the church of England were convinced of the necessity of retaining the awful denunciations against improper marriages, which would be omitted in the mere civil contract. The effect of the clause would be, that marriages in registered buildings would be confined, as they ought to be, to persons who had conscientious scruples against the ceremony as solemnised by the church, and the same awful sanctions, which now existed in respect to marriages so solemnised, would be retained as regarded all members of the established church, who would be bound by the same obligations as at present, and in structed in the same duties.

VOL. LXXVIII.

Dr. Lushington declared that such a clause would utterly defeat the great object of the bill. That object was to afford relief to the great body of Dissenters, by giving them that to which they had a clear right-the power of contracting marriage without being subject to a religious test; and he considered this clause to be a reli gious test. A great many persons attended dissenting chapels who did not call themselves Dissenters, and who communicated with the church of England; but the great bulk of the dissenting body claimed and were entitled to claim, the right of marrying in their own chapels according to their own forms. To require such a declaration as was proposed, would be to violate a natural right, by conceding it to Dissenters only under the bondage of a test. Sir Robert Inglis observed, that this ground of opposition could never be maintained, because ministers themselves had introduced the very same declaration into the 18th clause of the bill where it now

stood, requiring persons who wished to be married merely before the register to make this declaration. "I do solemnly declare that I have conscientious scruples against marrying in any church or chapel, or with any religious ceremony." Mr. Baines, a Dissenter, admitted the force of this argument, and was shocked at finding in the bill the religious test contained in the words which sir R. Inglis had read from the 18th clause. If ministers did not strike them out again, nine-tenths of the Dissenters would reject the bill. Alarmed at this, lord John Russell stated, that he had not intended them, and did not consider them, as any religious test. [K]

The clause provided for the marriage of persons who objected to being married in any place of worship, or according to any religious ceremony. But it was apprehended that the effect of the clause might go beyond what was meant ; that it might not only permit such marriages, but permit them among members of the church of England, and encourage, contrary to the policy of the state, the making of marriage a mere civil contract. If he was told, however, that it was inconsistent to retain these words which he had introduced, and yet oppose the clause now moved, he would rather strike out the former than consent to the latter. Sir Robert Peel hoped that Lord John Russell would not be so easily driven by his friends into abandoning what he had himself proposed, after full consideration as being wise and proper, and before committing himself, he he might at least have waited till the dilemma occurred of being compelled to take both or neither. He ventured to prophesy the dilemma would not exist; his lordship would be able to reject the clause now tendered by Mr. Goulburn, and likewise to retain his own provision. He saw no connection between Mr.Goulburn's amendment and the proviso introduced into the 18th clause: Many persons might dissent from the former, and cordially approve of the latter. With that proviso the proposition of ministers stood thus: We invite you to perform the religious ceremony-we tell you, members of the church of England, that it is open to you to be married according to the rites of the church; and with respect to you, Dissenters, we will register your places of worship, and respect

But

your religious ceremony. there may be a limited class, whose conscientious scruples are so excessively fastidious that no church, no chapel, no dissenting meetinghouses, no registered place of public worship will please them; and we say to you, you also shall have an opportunity of being married; our wish is to encourage the religious ceremony, but not to enforce it; and therefore all we ask of you is to say that you dissent from the church of England. Anything more reasonable by way of respect for other men's religious opinions, he could not very well conceive. Could any man deny, taking an enlarged view of society in general, that it was for the benefit of the public at large that the marriage contract should be enforced by the religious ceremony, and that the policy of the legislature should be to encourage it? He was prepared to give his assent to the proposition of Mr. Goulburn; but at the same time he did not think that those who objected to it were involved in the slightest contradiction, if they still declared their wish to afford some encouragement on the part of the legislature to the religious contract.

Mr. Goulburn's motion having been rejected by a large majority, Lord John Russell, instead of maintaining his own proviso, the reasonableness of which he had admitted, resolved to sacrifice it to the Dissenters, because, as he now said, he felt it to be contrary to the general principle of the bill. In vain the opposition entreated the House to consider the state to which this would reduce the church of England in regard to marriage. As the bill at present stood, even with this proviso, there was nothing to pre

But if this proviso were removed, they would go a step further, and declare, that marriage might be contracted in contempt of every religious ceremony which heretofore had sanctified it; and in this way any individual might prevail on one of their daughters, though both were members of the church of England, to go before the registrar, and make a clandestine marriage. The motion to expunge the proviso having been carried on a division, sir Robert Peel said, that the bill, as it now stood, did a positive injustice to the members of the church of England. He had been desirous throughout not only to afford a full remedy for every grievance, but believing that no remedy would be effectual, unless it consulted the fastidious feelings of Dissenters, he had been desirous of seeing them fully respected. The bill had now assumed an entirely different aspect; and while it provided for the relief of the Dissenter, passed a gratuitous and most intolerable insult on the feelings and principles of the members of the church of England. The noble lord, out of his own good feeling, had introduced this proviso under the impression that it would be more conformable to the feelings of the religious part of the community, both of the church of England and the Dissenters;

he had now, at the instigation of those behind him, abandoned ithe had followed a course which was without precedent on the part of one who attempted to be the leader of that House. Lord Lincoln, after expressing similar sentiments, moved as an amendment, in consequence of the course which government had taken, and the state to which the bill was now reduced, that it should be read a third time that day six months. The third reading, however, was carried by 104 votes against 54. It so happened, however, that in the bill sent up to the Lords, the proviso in the 18th clause was still retained; and the Commons were under the necessity of sending a message to the other House to have the bill returned that the error might be corrected.

The second reading of the bill in the House of Lords encountered no opposition, the objections to the bill being reserved for the committee. The archbishop of Canterbury stated that he was willing to make the bill what it legitimately ought to be, a measure of relief to the Dissenters ; and nothing but a strong desire of giving this relief could have induced him to consent to the second reading of a bill, almost every clause of which was liable to objection. He professed himself favourable to the principle of the bill, but he was not favourable to the manner in which that principle was proposed to be worked out. The members of the church of England should be continued in possession of those advantages which they now enjoyed, and with which, in general, the clergy as well as laity were satisfied. The legislature had abstained from all interference with the marriages of

Jews and Quakers, and one reason was, that according to their system, there was a most perfect security against clandestine marriages; but this bill did interfere unnecessarily with them, for by it they were bound to give notice to the registrar. He would give the Dissenters all the relief they sought for, if they gave good security against clandestine marriages, as the Jews and Quakers; but this bill, instead of giving such security, took away that security which had hitherto been derived from the publication of bans, while it likewise removed the religious ceremony from marriage. The bishop of Exeter said, that however desirous he might be of consulting in this matter the conscientious scruples of Dissenters, he never would consent to those provisions, which directly interfering with the rites and discipline of the church, degraded marriage into a mere civil contract, and held out an invitation to its members to contract that most solemn of all engagements, without any religious ceremony whatever. The bill would enable parties to enter the holy state of matrimony without recognising, in any way, the religious nature and binding obligations of the contract, without the slightest vocation of God upon the occasion, and upon simply declaring their readiness to live together for purposes of mutual convenience.

Accordingly, in the committee, the bishop of Exeter proposed, in order to avoid the desecration of the marriage contract, when the ceremony was not performed in church, that the parties should make the following declaration: "In the presence of Almighty God, and these witnesses, I, M., do take

thee, N., to be my wedded wife, to live together according to God's holy ordinance; and I do here, in the presence of God, solemnly promise before these witnesses to be to thee a loving and faithful husband during life," instead of, as it stood in the bill, the words, " I call upon these persons here present to witness, that I, A. B., do take thee C. D., to be my lawful wedded wife." Hitherto, marriage had always been considered as a sacred and religious ceremony; and at the time of the Usurpation, a most solemn formula was established. A similar form was adopted still by the Quakers and other sects. Nothing ought to be done to reduce the sanctity of that ceremony; but he feared, that the laxity of the proposed law would reduce it to the same state as it was in France. This addition was opposed, not only by ministers, but likewise by lord Ellenborough, the earl of Ripon, and the duke of Wellington. They contended, that such a declaration would be productive of great mischief to society generally, and especially to the church. The bill already contained a clause providing for the religious solemnization of marriage; and if the amendment were agreed to, there would be two religious forms. The amendment, however, was carried, in a very thin house, by a majority of nineteen to fifteen. On the bringing up of the report, however, the bill, on the motion of lord Melbourne, was restored in this respect to what it formerly had been. His lordship said, it was far from being his wish to impair or diminish the sanctity of the marriage contract, or to lessen the authority or weight of the obligation, by which that solem