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    these may be weaker brethren , we are not to despise them ; we are , on the contrary , to remove the stumbling-block which our greater knowledge may perceive in their way . If on ' some we are to hare compassion , making- a difference / ' others we are to save with fear , pulling them out of the fire . ' But if these persons see the Meeting-house enjoying the very same privileges as the Church , they will not only be confounded into infidelity , as even now is too frequently the case ; but every landmark erected by our ancestors to keep them in the right course will be removed : we shall thus allure them to

    schism , instead of restraining them by all lawful means . "It is at this very point that the measure now under consideration aims . It is to place the clergyman and the Dissenting teacher—the church and the conventicle — on precisely the same footing that these persevering efforts are made . Conscience affords the plea , but ambition inspires the zeal . "—Pp . 10

    —12 . We think we discern the marks of genuine apprehension in the passage above quoted ; but fear is very apt to fabricate as well as magnify its objects , and not nnfrequently betrays its subjects into gross and palpable injustice . One would be led to suppose , that by the alarming measure here adverted to , the whole body of Dissenting Ministers were at once to be invested with a

    definite and recognized character , instead of that comparatively small part of the body which is attached to a sect frequently represented as alike contemptible in numbers and in knowledge . But a slight glance at the history of this measure will convict our Presbyter of a hasty and injurious aspersion of the motives which prompted an application to Parliament in a new form . Indeed , his own statement of the nature of the first measure at once acquits the Unitarians and their " teachers" of all the sinister and insidious motives here imputed to them ; and , however it may surpass the belief of the Presbyter , we can venture to assure him , that the great recommendation of the

    first Bill to its promoters , consisted in its avoiding all necessity for recognizing Dissenting Ministers as officers of the State . Whilst it was regarded as desirable and probable that parties taking advantage of the Act would g ive to their contract the additional solemnity of a devotional service , the idea of making such solemnity legally imperative was deprecated , precisely because

    the Dissenting Minister , being neither in " hol y orders , * ' nor * i pretending to holy orders , " must , in that case , be brougnt into competition with the Established Clergy . The Bill was introduced originally in the latter part of the Session of 1819 , and was framed so as to include jDissetiters of every description ; but , after being read a first and second time , it was , upon the suggestion of Lord Castlereagh , deferred until another Session .

    The death of the late King , and the absorbing interest of certain discussions which speedily followed that event , sufficiently account for the lapse of the year 1820 without any attempt to re-introduce the measure ; and it was not until after the rejection of the Catholic Emancipation Bill , in the year 1821 , that the subject was again brought before the House of Commons , by Mr . Smith , who , upon an objection from Dr . PhiHimore , that the Bill formerly proposed would do away with marriage as a religious ceremony , observed , that the petitioners were not wedded to any particular mode of

    relief , and had suggested that mode as producing less change than any other in the existing system . On the 17 th April , 1822 , Mr . Smith obtained leave to bring in the Bill ; but the highest authorities of the Church having been consulted , it was discovered , that though the right to relief was pretty generally conceded , the mode of affording it was stronly objected to , as involving an alteration of the Liturgy . About the same period , a paper of considerable talent appeared in the

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    Meview . — Unitarian Marriage Bill . 367

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 367, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/55/