in the words of one of our greatest modern law authorities, LORD REDESDALE; who, in the debate on the marriage bill, in the House of Lords, at the very moment we are writing, is reported to have said "That the object of civil society, in forming regulations on the subject of marriage, should be "to render the contract of marriage certain between the "parties, and all the world besides."-Times, June 4.

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We proceed now to exhibit to the reader, and to place upon record, the history of those exertions by which the subject of dissenters' marriages has been raised to the importance it now holds in the public mind. The indifference of the dissenters-of even enlightened Unitarian dissenters to the objections which existed against submitting to the marriage ceremony, had long been matter of serious regret with the early members of our church; and we had, in consequence, frequently stated to our Unitarian acquaintances, our scruples against submitting to a Trinitarian marriage service. Our objections, however, received little attention; we were scarcely, indeed, supposed to be serious; it appearing to be the general sentiment of most whom we consulted that, upon such an occasion as marriage, it was little short of affectation to feel scruples of conscience, and that Cupid cares not for creeds." How readily the dissenters satisfied their consciences in this respect may be collected from an avowal contained in a work esteemed to be the very manual of non-conformity, and proceeding from an able and enlightened writer: "The marriage ceremony " is also performed at the altar, an evident relic of popery, "which makes matrimony one of the seven sacraments. If "it be objected that the dissenters are inconsistent in sub"mitting to be married at the altar, it is answered they con"sider marriage as a civil affair, and therefore can submit "to the will of the magistrate in regard to the place, as well as other circumstances of this rite."-Nonconformist's Catechism. We have seen it asserted that, when the district meetings of the united dissenters took place, in England, in the year 1789, in order to obtain the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, it was also designed to move for an emendation of the Marriage Act; the object, however, of these meetings was speedily abandoned, and the design of moving for any alteration in the Marriage Act, if ever entertained, was never proceeded in.

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In the year 1808, there appeared in "The Monthly Repository," the organ of the Unitarian body, the following letter;-page 377.

"On reading Mr. Lindsey's treatise on "Christian Idolatry," I met with an objection, page 110, to that part of the marriage ceremony, according to the form of the church of England, where the priest prays to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, to bless the married couple. This led me to examine the form of marriage with more attention, when I discovered additional objections; such as the invocation, Christ have mercy ' upon us,' and the declaration which the man is obliged to repeat after the priest, With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now, though any thinking and honest man might object to the mummery of the ring, the wickedness of promising to worship his wife, and the falsehood of endowing her with all his worldly goods, it appears to me utterly impossible for an Unitarian, either tacitly or openly, to join in the worship of the man Jesus, or to pronounce that he does all this, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, thereby giving a sanction to the absurd and idolatrous notion of the Trinity. As such, I shall not be able to be married in the church of England, which Unitarians consider as antichristian, unless some of your learned correspondents can give me a fair, honest, and rational explanation, how I may conscientiously go through the ceremony, or obtain a wife consistently with Christian principles without it. A speedy insertion and reply will much oblige."

This letter, though anonymous, was written advisedly, and with the design of calling the attention of the Unitarian dissenters to the important subject on which it treats. It was from the pen of a respected member of our church, but the editor took the freedom of altering the signature, and signing it "AN UNITARIAN BATCHELOR." The letter was also headed in the Repository in a similar manner, and thus a subject deeply affecting the rights of conscience, was made to assume an air of lightness, somewhat approaching to the ridiculous. The only notice that was taken of this letter was that of a correspondent in the same volume, (page 470) who signed himself" An Unitarian Husband;" and whoafter briefly stating that, in the instance of his own marriage, he used the words "In the name of ALMIGHTY GOD," instead of "the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;" and that being known to the minister no notice was taken of the deviation, but that he took his fee, and wished him happiness-proceeds to warn the Unitarian batchelor that, if he" take to himself a wife, without performing the marriage ceremony as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, "the marriage will be void in the eye of the law, and the "offspring illegitimate;" he then, after recommending his own example, concludes by " hoping that the Unitarian "batchelor will soon be blessed with a wife, without departing from his principles." Now, not to notice other objections, the advice contained in this letter was, at once, inconsistent and impracticable. Inconsistent-because it advised

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a departure from the marriage ceremony at the same time that it avowed that the marriage would be void, unless the ceremony were performed "as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. Impracticable-because few ministers would suffer such an alteration in the service, except, as in the instance of the writer, the party might be a particular friend or acquaintance. This subject, important as it was, received no notice whatever from the able and enlightened editor of the Repository; and for a space of four years not even a single correspondent adverted thereto, and yet, during this period, "The Protestant Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty," with whom the most enlightened Unitarians were associated, was in active operation for the attainment of objects of far inferior importance to the conscientious disciple of Jesus; we allude to the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts; the claim of dissenters to pass to their places of worship free of toll; and the objections of clergymen to bury the children of dissenters, in cases where they had not been baptized in the church. The first of these objects was important chiefly to those who aspired to the honours or emoluments of the state. The second was designed merely to protect the pockets of those who could afford to ride to their places of meeting, and is an exemption, we think, unjust in principle. The last claims merely the performance of a superstitious rite, from a church which the dissenter has renounced; and which, as a dissenter, he ought to feel it disgraceful to accept at the hands of a priest whose communion he has relinquished. And yet, upon subjects such as these, the labours, the vapouring, the speechmaking, the resolution-passing of these enlightened dissenters, between the years 1808 and 1812, would fill a volume-whilst a subject constituting a direct violation of conscience was utterly neglected!

In the mean time, in the year 1811, "The Freethinking "Christians' Magazine" was commenced; and, in the very first number of that work, we had an article "On the "Marriage Ceremony," in which we took occasion strongly and pointedly to call the attention of Unitarians to this important subject to rebuke their delay and condemn their. inconsistency. We called upon the Unitarian clergy, in particular, to rouse their followers to a sense of the violation

* The work under this title was published from the year 1811 to 1814, and has been long out of print.

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of principle, which a quiet acquiescence in the marriage ceremony manifested to the world; we declared that, unless the Unitarian clergy pursued this incumbent duty, they were "betrayers of their flocks, and enemies of the truths they profess to believe;" and we encouraged their congregations to make those efforts which they were called on to do from a conviction, that from their numbers and respectability they could not fail to obtain parliamentary relief. Towards the end of the same volume (1811) this subject was again discussed by a Correspondent, and it was with pleasure we witnessed the first fruits of our labours among the Unitarians, in a letter which appeared in the Monthly Repository the next year (1812) p.567, written evidently by an Unitarian, dated Norfolk, and signed T. The writer does not advert to the services we had rendered to this cause; but he very properly and boldly asks, “Can any sufficient cause be given for confining the performance of the marriage ceremony to the clergy of the established church? Why should not the objections of Unitarians "to Trinitarian language, upon this occasion, be treated "with the same respect as those of 'Friends' upon other "grounds? We who most solemnly protest against the worship of Jesus Christ, are permitted to baptize our children, and to commit our departed friends to the silent "abodes of the grave, in the use of religious forms which we prefer to those which are prescribed by an authority unacknowledged by us. In the present enlightened state "of the world justice and decorum, no less than religion, "require, that, in a protestant country, there should be full "and complete liberty of conscience to marry and to bury "where and as we like." The allusion in the above to the right of Unitarians to baptize their children, will sufficiently indicate that the writer was not a Freethinking Christian, our society having long previously rejected infant baptism as an idle and puerile rite derived from the church of Rome: adult baptism we had also abandoned, as a ceremony applicable to the Jewish converts alone, at the first introduction of Christianity, and in no way binding on Christians in the present day.

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From 1812 to 1815 no further notice of the marriage question appears to have been taken by any Unitarian writer in the Repository. During this interval the subject occupied the frequent attention of the Freethinking Christians; and when, in the year 1812, notice had been given in the House of Commons, of a motion for amending the.

Marriage Act, with regard to its operation on the marriage of minors, &c. two of our members took occasion, in a correspondence with the learned mover, to point out the unjust operation of the act as regarded Unitarian dissenters, and to suggest the propriety of making their case a part of his intended measure. The honourable gentlemen, in his reply, admitted the importance of the case stated “in a moral, as well as political point of view;" but, aiming at one specific object, he expressed himself unwilling to introduce any other subject, "however seriously wanted," lest he should provoke some difference of opinion, that might retard his first object. He further admitted, that, since his attention had been drawn to the Marriage Act, he had seen several points which it would be advisable to alter; and intimated the probability of his attempting its reform on a larger scale! In the year 1813, when Mr. W. Smith had been successful in obtaining for Unitarian dissenters a relief from so much of the 9th and 10th William III. as relates to persons denying the Trinity, it was deemed a favourable opportunity again to urge upon Unitarians the propriety of making an effort to obtain relief with regard to the marriage ceremony. Accordingly one of our members addressed a letter to the Monthly Repository on this subject, signed, " A Friend "to the Rights of Conscience;" this letter, however, the editor rejected, upon the plea, as stated in the notice to correspondents, that the style was too "impassioned and "oratorical," but that "a cool and temperate statement of "the grievance" would be admitted. This letter, thus rejected, was subsequently published in our own Magazine for 1814, with remarks. In the mean time, as the Unitarians as a body had as yet done nothing to obtain relief; and as several of the youth of our church were now approaching that period of life when they were likely to enter on the marriage state, the course which, as Christians, it behoved them to adopt, became the subject of serious inquiry. For a long time it had appeared to us, that our only course would be for our members to take a journey to Scotland, to celebrate their marriages in that country; but upon further consideration this plan was abandoned, because it did not appear applicable to the various situations and circumstances of the members of a Christian church, many of whom could not afford the expense; whilst others, such as clerks, servants, &c. could not obtain the time for such a journey. It was considered also that such a course exhibited to the world no public testimony against the injustice of the mar