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    behaviour for three years . The result was indeed propitious . Victory , by the defendants , was already assumed . The bells of the surrounding parishes were prepared to ring- a merry peal ; and cockades and

    ale were to be distributed with unsparing ' hands * But the distinct , judicious , in . controvertible testimony of the jfrissenters prevented their success , and the massive means of defence collected by labour , and arranged with art , vanished into air .

    Another new , but not uninteresting- object , had , during the past year , obtruded on the Committee . Dissenters from the established church generally possess those moral qualities wluch prevent the contagion of pauperism from blighting their minds . TimeB of unexampled calamity had ,

    however , reduced the most industrious and prudent to require relief . And the fiend of persecution , domesticated iu the loftiest circles , had not disdained even in the sequestered hamlet , and among the village poor , to present her form . A t Stalbridge ^ in Dorsetshire , the officers of the parish

    would only relieve the poor on sabbathdays . At Woodbridgey in Suffolk , an attempt was made under the act for erecting workhouses , to prevent a Methodist from attending the place of religious worship which he preferred . But there the firmness and zeal of an excellent man , had compelled all who had projected the

    measure , and had executed the design , to forego their purpose . At Ringwood in Hants , a similar experiment was made , ^ fnd thus that fund , which all contribute to provide , and the amount of which had become so appalling to every philosophic patriot and Christian mind , might become a powerful engine indeed to oppression and to wrong .

    These topics he proceeded to suggest would prepare their minds for some statement as to the parliamentary interposition of the Committee . Previous to their appointment , all local bills and general measures affecting * the interests of three millions of the people , Methodists and

    Dissenters , were left unmatched . Accident might attract attention , but otherwise the most injurious provisions might and did pass entirely unobserved . Exemptions from ( oils depended on the words adopted in each turnpike act . Daring the past year a systematic exertion had been made to restrict those exemptions unfavourably

    to Dissenters , and even to exclude them from the benefit . The highest prelates had not disdained to meditate the design . Activity and firmness had delayed an" evil which uflabating- vigilance would alone prevent . The bills for regulating vestries , for amending the laws of the poor , and jfbr building Additional churches ^ had also attracted the tinsfambering' attention of the Committee , They found that they formed

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    an whole—unavailing * , injurious , and appalling-. Tbe first gave to property an unprecedented and offensive power , and

    was to have placed the clergyman always in the vestry chair . The second , among other provisions , sanctioned the establishment of select vestries , and enabled parochial officers to take the children of the

    poor , who applied for relief , from the paternal roof , and from maternal cave , and to impound them in any poor-houses which those officers might provide . Of the dissociating inhumanity and political inexpedience of that measure he did not doubt : and he had learnt with satisfaction

    that to those objections Mai thus had , by his concurrence , given the greatest sanction they could gain . But the principal objection had arisen from the violations of religious liberty , which that measure might produce , and which were rendered probable by the conduct of officers to the

    Dissenting poor . The Schism Bill , also , no lover of freedom could forget ; that bill by which Dissenters were to be deprived of the education of their children ; that bill , justly described by Wai pole as more worthy " of Julian the Apostate , than of a

    Protestant Parliament ; " that hill , which passed both houses of parliament , and obtained the royal assent ; that bill , whose malignant operation was to begin on the very day when Queen Anne sunk into the grave , and the star of the house of Stuart set to rise no more . The evils which that

    provision might produce , the Committee were anxious to avert ; and he congratulated the meeting that , by the attention and the kindly efforts in parliament of the member for Norwich , of their worthy representative Mr . Alderman Wood , and of other gentlemen , a provision had been

    introduced , whereby " all children are to be permitted to attend without impediment whatever places of religious worship their parents may prefer . " In the New Churches " Billy also , some alterations had been made , which , by preventing churches from being

    built at the expense of parishes , without the concurrence of the majority of the inhabitants , would mitigate , although not remove , the evils which , on the dissenting population , that favourite , but futile measure must inflict .

    To the finances of the Society he then briefly referred . All classes , including even clergymen of the Established Church , had invited the aid of the Committee ; but all classes had not with equal liberality afforded their supplies . The resolution of

    the Wiltshire Association , expressive of their gratitude , and recommending- the society to all their congregations , deserved his commendation . . One congregation , under the care of Messrs . Sloper and Elliott at Devils , who had remitted a collection of $ 71 . he mentioned with peculiar praise 5

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    458 lnteltigence .- ~> Prote 5 ta 7 ti Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1818, page 458, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2478/page/50/