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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Xhe Committee To Whom The Application To...

    cc That I may not be accused of recommending impossibilities , I will shew how the important objects just alluded to may be _reconciled . Let the banns of marriage between Dissenters be published in their Parish Church ; let a certificate of such publication be given by the _minister ; let the parties be

    married on the strength of such certificate , by their own teacher ; and let them bring a certificate of their marriage to the parish register . This would provide against clandestine marriages , and would give sufficient facility of recording and proving them . I am not aware of any material objection to this plan : of its infinite superiority to that which is now before the House , I cannot think that one individual will doubt . "

    While the subject was yet under consideration , the Marriage Law came generally under the consideration of the Legislature from other causes ; and it was thought that while a Committee of the House of Lords were engaged in considering the whole code , it was peculiarly necessary that no time should be lost in calling their attention to the imperfect basis on which any law

    would proceed , which should provide only for marriages according to the rites and services of the Church . At the same moment appeared statements of a most important character with regard to the Roman Catholics , whose objec tions to conformity with the doctrine and discipline of the Church by joining

    in her worship and services , had , it appeared , carried great numbers of them so far , as to induce them to overlook all consequences of a civil nature , and to contract their marriages solely before their own priests—of course without any legal validity .

    The Report of the Committee of the House of Lords to whom the Dissenters' petitions were referred , apparently admitted the principle that relief of some kind ought to be extended , but left it to the parties to bring their own case distinctly and separately before the Legislature . It was therefore

    determined ( notwithstanding the late period of the Sesssion ) to place a Bill before the House , that at all events discussions might take place , which if they did not end in the approval of the present measure , would point to oijie more likely to be acceptable .

    The Bill 30 introduced forms the subject of the ensuing discussion . A copy of it is subjoined , and its principle and details may therefore be fully examined . It was thought fairest to make the cause a common one , by including all persons separated from the Church of England , whether Catholic or Protestant , in the plan of relief : and if the Committee who had the

    matter under their management originally on behalf of the Unitarian Dissenters only , have found their progress in any way _embarrassed , by their having considered more the general principle than their individual cause of complaint , they hope that they shall be thought to have erred on the best and most liberal side .

    Ar00601

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 12, 1823, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/smrp_12061823/page/6/