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Untitled Article
Dissenters and their trusts . We were glad to see that Lord Eldon did not , in the late debate in the House of Lords , venture to repeat this doubt , for which we heard him receive , on a former occasion , a severe castigation from JJord Liverpool , * and that the existence of such a crotchet was thrown on one side , and not even thought worthy of notice in the present Lord Chancellor ' s manly and straightforward speech .
t On the subject of Registers , Mr , Beldam might have pointed out the glaring difficulties in which Dissenters are placed by the confining of these records to the Established Churchy and the crying necessity for some new system of registration . What does he , as a lawyer , mean to convey by copying the form of birth register formerly adopted at Dr . Williaras ' s library , and the instruction ^ as to its use ? Some alterations are in contemplation
which will improve this register ; and , in the present state of the law , it is the best the Dissenters can hope to have , and is , in some particulars , much better than the Church registers ; but Mr . Beldam must know that the form as he has given it ( which is not , by the bye , the one which has for many years been used ) is in itself no evidence at all , as it does not purport to contain even the signature of either of the parents , so as to make it equivalent to a declaration by them , like an entry in a Family Bible .
On the Marriage rite , too , it would have been very useful to have given us some information , legally and historically , particularly when we are told that Quakers " still retain the liberty of solemnizing matrimony in their conventicles . " How lax all this is ! Where is there in any law quoted by Mr . Beldam a word about this " liberty of solemnizing matrimony in conventicles " ? In order that we may guess how Quaker marriages now stand , one would like to hear from Mr . Beldam what he considers was the old law of
England as to marriage , which is left to the Quakers by the excepting clause in the Marriage Act . It might have been observed , too , that Quakers , by this sulky exception , are left without any facilities for proof of their marriages , their Register being , as such , no evidence . We cannot congratulate Mr . Beldam on his good fortune in the precedents of trust deeds imparted to him . We will not pay them so bad a compliment
as not to admit that they are better than the miserable form which the Deputies put forth under the sanction of Mr . Preston ' s name ; but we hope that our Dissenting friends will equally avoid Mr . Beldam ' s project , which we consider as , in many points , very unworkmanlike , and marvellousl y ill adapted to the general views and objects for which we should hold up a precedent for DODular adontion . - - cedent for popular adoption . - -
To conclude : how obviously does a review of this disgraceful part of our code suggest the ease with which a revisal and consolidation might take place , —sweeping away altogether many of the present bones of contention , — providing easily and in a straightforward manner for the due exercise of the religious worship of Nonconformists , —the privileges , duties , and restraints , so
far as the welfare of society demanded them , of its professors , and the peculiar cases of some bodies , —and settling a simple , intelligible pledge and promise of attachment to the welfare of the community , on which all citizens should be equally entitled to its privileges , to be forfeited only by actions at variance with its well-being !
* . Siticc this was written , we have traced the old spirit at work in a clause tacked to the Marriage BUI . by amendment , and specially providing that nothing therein contained should , be construed to alter or abrogate any law in fore ? with regard to the doctriu * of the Triiiity . ' kfloite food for doubts ! -
Untitled Article
Review . —Beldam vn Nonconformity . 595
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 595, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/43/
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