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Untitled Article
to gain the only comfort which poverty and disease allowed her to enjpy . At siahorne , too , amid the « ytvB ** ptettriseff Warwickshire , he had known another instance of this worst abuse of power . [ Here Mr . Wiu& related ttie story of the denial of a share in a parish benefaction
to a Baptist , of the name of Knight . The dialogue between Mrs . K . and the etergyman of the parish , as related by Mr 4 W ., produced quite a dramatic effect . ] At Hampton , he had found the same vexatious daemon amidst parks and bowers . There he met a labourer , whose form was bowed beneath heavy
burdens , and whose hands were become homy with his toil . At the age of sixty this poor man had learnt to read his Bible , to cheer the evenings of each day , and the approaching night of life . Accidentally , he learnt that the wife had asked the parochial minister to include her i * ame in the list of women on whom the
Dftke of Olarence , whose palace was in that vicinity , bestowed some yearly alms . For two successive years she had applied —twice she was refused . She was poor , was old , ' was honest , had been : the mother of fourteen children , all brought up
without * parochial aid , only by rare economy and indefatigable labours . Why was . she refused ? She was guilty of the crime of preferring the Baptist meeting to the parish church—and her Methodism was all her guilt !
Could he be deceived ? He held a printed book that precluded apologetic hopes . It was a printed pamphlet from the parish of Broadwater , published in April last . In that parish was JVorth * ing , where Dissenters as well as Church * mea went to gaze upon the ocean , and to obtain relief from a plethora of wealth .
In that pamphlet the Committee and pa * rish officers announce , that " no relief will be given to persons whose children do not regularly attend the National Schools , " and thus they class all the conscientious and Dissenting poor with the
extravagant and profligate — with the drunkard and the poacher , from whom also , * ad more righteously , they threaten to withhold relie f * In this case he would trust that exposure would produce redress , and that his influential Sussex friends
would procure the correction of an ordi * wance disgraceful to liberal minds . To Mots -and illegal interruptions of Public Worship he would next allude . These needed punishment for their
repression . In cities and the chapels of wealthy congregations they were not kuowH . He did not * however , wish to eggravate these matters * They resulted tifton from inebriety or ignorance , rather tha i * a malicious spirit and predetermin-
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ed hostile minds ;—partly encouraged too by fr eburcb establishment , and by the mAeqvif which affected all Dissenters , from the continuance of penal statutes , and their exclusion from the bench of magistracy and other public situations which their fortunes and knowledge fit
* them to adorn . Of these affrays many were repressed by private effort and local associations . But at Urchfont , in Wilts , a man was disorderly—s ^ ng aloud- ^ would fight—was prosecuted , convicted and forgiven : and the Committee
contributed five guineas to the charge . Chipperfield , in Hertfordshire , wae the * cene of another riot . Stones were thrown at the windows and the doors , and the people insulted and disturbed . The case had been recommended to the attention
of the Committee by Pr . CotLY ^ R , who , though mild as embodied meekness , was firm for right . The magistrates had been tardy to interfere , but perseverance overcame that tardiness , and the offenders awaited trial for their offence . At Wood * ford Bridge * where The London Itinerant Society have long endeavoured to improve one irf the many desert spots that
environ London , Wijluam Withal was apprehended for misconduct . He was committed to Chelm $ ford gaol , and expressing contrition , add paying a trifle to the poor * was finally released . But expenses to the Committee resulted from the prosecutors having entered into recognizances to prosecute , which preclude a prompt forgiveness of defendants , and which prosecutors should avoid . At Bow Common and
at Peterchurch 9 in Herefordshire , where a female was shot through the hand , and Cricklade , where the Home Missionary Society prosecute their excellent , much * needed labours , and in other places , such proceedings , varying in their outrage and
atrocity , occurred . At Ickford , near Thame , not only the rooms opened for worship by a Christian philanthropist , were rendered offensive by putrid matter , the lights extinguished by birds , and the social meetings interrupted by disgustful noise ; but that case was rendered
remarkable by the shameful obstructions opposed to redress by clerical justices , to whom he must so often and unwillingly allude . At Sqffron tValden too , vigils , not superstitious or unseemly , held on the last night of the departed year by the
s ^ me good and wealthy females ^ of Wesleian denomination , were disturbed by rude wassailers . Their tank and legal knowledge should have taught them other conduct , and prevented a disturbance of the grateful praises aud fervent prayer * of the thankful and devout at that midnight hour * But the hour of reckoning came .. In broad noon-day the offender *
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644 Intelligence . —Protest dnt Sotietp ^ Mr . fVilhsU Speech .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1822, page 644, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2517/page/60/
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