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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
heard of in England which has no rules ; no laws whatever exist except as they can be gathered from practice . There are no resolutions constituting the Society which can be referred to as the rule of its proceedings . It has ( as might be expected ) been exceedingly lax and irregular , and scarcely a meeting passes without discussions about matters and principles which in
every other society are fixed and certain . Till within a very lew years , the Committee never made a Report . It was not till last year considered regular for a question even to be asked as to the Treasurer ' s Account ; and even members of the Committee declared that they knew nothing of the funds or income of the Society . Is it proper , or even prudent , that such a society should go on without some definite constitution or declaration of its objects ?
By the disclosures which some discussions last year brought out , it is now publicly known that the Society had , from want of any very deep call on their resources , accumulated about the value of £ 8000 ; the income of which ( without calling upon any congregation of late for a shilling ) had carried on all the ordinary purposes of the body of Dissenters for a great many years . It was certainly not too much for such a purpose ; and many cases , where assistance had been of the most eminent service , bore witness to the policy
of keeping up such a resource . The call which the late expensive proceedings have occasioned , and some other expenses , will , perhaps it is no over estimate to reckon , diminish this fund more than one-third , and thus , unless it is replenished , the common exigencies of the body will not be supplied . Perhaps Dissenters in the country have not been fully aware of the extent of the agency for good which the administration of this fund ( always ready when wanted ) afforded , nor of the
serious injury which would often have accrued from its absence , while the whole has cost the country nothing , so far as the present generation are concerned . There can surely be no objection to the Dissenters buying the late increase of their liberties at what it has cost ; by replacing the fund which has been applied for the purpose , in order that it may continue to be devoted to the same useful purposes . If the repeal of the Test laws is not at least worth the pecuniary expense of procuring it , the attempt might as well have been omitted .
No one surely can imagine that it is desirable to break up or cripple an institution representing the most influential portions of the Dissenters , at the time when their position in society has been raised , —when it becomes more than ever desirable to see them respectably represented , —and when all the objects which , for thirty years , occupied their exclusive attention remain , and must remain , to be held in view . It is no time to take off a watchful
eye from the protection of our liberties when they have become more valuable . If we have less left to gain , we have more to lose , and abundant occasion for resisting encroachment . The session which repealed the Test Act did not pass over without witnessing one of the most scandalous attempts ever devised , to add new burdens to the Dissenters in favour of the Church ; and without active and prompt resistance this attempt would have
been successful . Have the Dissenters no other points beside the Test laws , in which their liberties are imperfect ? Have they no relief to seek on the subject of registration — to say nothing of marriage ? Are they not at least bound to support their own institution for the registering of births , which they have oeen lately advised to take measures for extending to deaths ? But I am very much inclined to look at the kind and conciliatory feelings
Untitled Article
532 The Deputies .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1828, page 532, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2563/page/20/
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