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by inundations from vulgar violence or misappropriated power . Oppressions to the Poor , when compelled to enter workhouses or supplicate parochial relief , by depriving them of the benefit of public worship , and refusing to permit them to receive consolation in sickness , old age , and death , from
thenpastors an < J religious friends , being again renewed , were again communicated and condemned , and they confirmed the reluctance , often expressed , to increase the means of thus inflicting ill , on those persons who so abused their " brief authority , " by entrusting to them the universal Education of the Poor .
Statements were then made of the illegal conduct of the Clergymen at Hartland in Devonshire ^ and at Bishopston in TVilts , in declining to read the Service of the Church over the bodies of those who had not received the rite of baptism from Episcopalian hands ; and especially of the refusal of the Vicar of Kimbolton , in the
county of Huntingdon ^ to marry Joseph Hudson and Mary Williamson , because the bridegroom , being the son of a Baptist Dissenter , had never been baptized ; with the applications to their several Bishops , and the apologies the Clergymen had been compelled to make . Those statements were obviously listened to
with pity , but with pleasure ; pity for ministers of the Established Church , who displayed an animosity so unchristian but so impotent—and pleasure , that on all those occasions the interpositions of
the Committee were attended with just and most triumphant success . Wishes also were expressed , and loudly approved , that the Unitarian application to Parliament for relief as to marriages should rinally succeed , and that by the burial of Dissenters in their own cemeteries
they should diminish the power of vexation which so many Clergymen continued to exert . Of lesser indications of the inclinations of Clergymen unkindly to assume or pervert authority , other instances were then adduced ; and among them the prohibition by the Vicar of Hungerford , in Berkshire , of the tolling of the parish-bell at the funeral of the affectionate and
lamented wife of Rev . R . Frost , the Dissenting Minister in that town , especially produced displeasure and regret . The measure of Mr . Brougham as to the Education of the Poor was amply and ably discussed . The benefits of
education were asserted , and Dissenters vindicated from all complaints of unfriendliness or indifference to a blessing they had most contributed to patronise and diffuse * But the difference between mere literary instruction , and the education that would form the character , and influence the
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final as well as immediate destinies of man , was beautifully . and forcibly described . Sunday schools were defended from the charge of inefficiency to supply adequate knowledge to the children of the poor , and their moral and religious advantages—their individual and national beneficence happily maintained . Whilst Mr . Brougham was respectfully noticed
as the general friend to liberty , and praised for the motives that induced his labours , his measure was analyzed and censured : —and it was demonstrated , that its enactment was not required by necessity—would be both difficult and expensive in operation , and must ultimately lessen the quantity and value of the education it was intended to increase * The
contradictions between two articles , as to the marriages of Dissenters , and as to the Education Poor Bill , in a number of the Edinburgh Review , published that morning , were pleasantly exposed ; as
the former article eulogized the Society and its Secretarj ' , whom the other article wished to degrade ; whilst the latter article became the vehement panegyrist of the Established Church , and the former article was calculated to excite
many a smile or loud laugh at its expense . The latter article was considered to be the requiem of the Education Bill that had excited universal and just alarm , and would be probably its funeral dirge . Yet vigilance would be needful to meet the evil spirit if in another Session of Parliament it should reappear ; and then the love of Dissenters to knowledge and
to freedom , and their consequent aversion to a measure that must augment their burdens , infringe their toleration , and render their degradation more deep and lasting , would doubtlessly produce exertions that would lay that * ' foul fiend , " so that it would never rise again . But especially it was advised that by
additional , intermediate and ever-progressive efforts to establish schools on liberal principles , and to prevent one hamlet from remaining uncheered by the light of information , Dissenters and all friends to gratuitous and liberal Education , should render the measure , now
needless , yet more unnecessary , and so satisfy even the advocates for the experiment that spontaneous and bounteous charity would adequately and better supply , without any compulsory laws , the universal education which the opponents and advocates for the measure equally
desire . ~ On the Test and Corporation Acts * on the effect which the relief of the Catholics would have on the future emancipation of Protestant Bh ^ entevs ; and on their present situation , yome concluding observations were made . .
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Intelligence * — Protestant Society . 377
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1821, page 377, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2501/page/53/
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