The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-26 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1856.

The Marriage Law Amendment Bill was last
night refused a second reading in the Upper
House by a majority of 19, in which the Bishops
largely figured, as well as in the debate. The
amendment(l) was proposed by a Right Rev. Pre-
late, and three others spoke against the measure,
while only two lay lords followed on the same side,
and yet not one of the number ventured to assert
that a clear and express prohibition of these mar-
riages was to be found in any part of Scripture.
The whole argument, if argument it could be
'called, was based on the wages of the early
Church, which might just as well be resorted to
in order to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, and
to prove that every one of these pious occupants
of the Episcopal Bench were living in a state
opposed to the Divine law. We would venture
to remind them that One, whose authority they
will not dare to repudiate, in speaking of similar
arguments, declared, "Ye make the Word of
GOD of none effect by your traditions." How,
then, can they endeavour, by their traditions, to
dispense with the sacred writings—which at least
a large proportion of the many persons " of re-
ligious and moral character," so deeply interested
in the question, are disposed to regard as the
sole rule of faith—the only authorities by which
they will permit themselves to be bound?
The Bishop of OXFORD, the principal speaker
against the measure, founded his opposition
mainly on the ecclesiastical law, forgetting that
the great and rapidly-increasing body of Pro-
testant Dissenters unequivocally repudiate that
law, and that their consciences should not be
bound, in a country professing to accord un li-
mited civil and religious liberty to every
professor of Christianity without exception.
Even in the Establishment itself a large propor-
tion of the clergy and laity declare that there is
nothing either immoral or reprehensible in such
unions, and yet a minority are permitted to impose
undue restrictions on the consciences of their
fellow-men, debarring them from the exercise of
the most sacred and valuable privilege belonging
to mankind—the right of selecting a partner for
life—of giiing a kind, loving mother to their
orphan children. Verily, we may exclaim with
LUTHER---"Perish, therefore, those cursed tr a-

ditions of men, which have been brought in only
to multiply dangers, offences, and miseries in the
Church."

It is also remarkable that the question of expe-
diency, or social inconvenience, was equally
avoided by the lay and eerical opponents of the
Bill. They clearly perceived that on such a point
they had no foundation, and, therefore, judici-
ously—for they also are wise in their generation
—rode off on a collateral issue, the canons and
traditions of the Church. They advisedly and
deliberately avoided the only ground—other than
a Divine prohibition—on which the restriction
could be justified, and thus practically relin-
quished the argument to the advocates of civil
and religious liberty.
There is nothing to show that in the earlier
ages these marriages were prohibited or censured
in the Christian Church. PAUL, who espe-
cially directed his attention to the subject of
marriage, never alluded to it in any way, and as
these unions were frequent then as now, there
can be but little doubt that he would have done
So if he considered them in any way objectionable.
In the Jewish Clnirch "it was distinctly under-
stood to be permitted, and on this point neither
the Divine law, nor the Rabbis, nor historical
Judaism, leaves room for the least doubt." Such
is the statement df Dr. ADLER, Chief Rabbi of the
Jews in Great Britain, an unexceptionable witness
on such a question. After some centuries they
were prohibited in the Roman Catholic Church as
ri""matteeof disciptin-e." But the same power
that created the difficulty, found means of over-
coming it by granting dispensations wherever the
applicant possessed a golden key to unlock the
fetters imposed not by Divine, but merely human
authority. It was the "scruples of conscience"
of a sanguinary and licentious tyrant, who proved
that he had other means of dissolving the nuptial
tie whenever he became tired of his partner, or
deSirous of a new one, that led to the movement
in the sixteenth century ; and that HENRY might
indulge his caprice, and ELIZABETH be regarded
as legitimate, the Canons were framed, although
not without considerable hesitation and contro-
versy, which included marriage with a deceased
wife's sister, as prohibited by Scripture. There
were then, as at other times, Prelates willing to
sanction anything desired by one who possessed
the power of rewarding or punishing. Had HENRY
desired to maintain indissolubly his connection
with CATHERINE of Arragon, the obedient
Bishops would have obeyed the injunction, and
it is to his licentious and fickle disposition that
we are indebted for this most inequitable and
impolitic law.

Up to 1535 these marriages were not abso-
lutely void, but merely voidable. If no proceed-
ings were taken within the lives of both parties,
indeedlunless a final decree had been pronounced,
they were to all intents and purposes valid and
binding, and the children legitimate. The cases
where malicious scoundrels, or greedy relatives,
interfered under a pretended anxiety for the
soul's health of the parties were rare indeed.

Unfortunately, however, a nobleman of the
highest rank in the peerage had married his
deceased wife's sister, the niece of another Peer
of equal rank and. vast influence. A bill
was introduced for the purpose of rendering
that marriage effectual, and preventing the youth-
ful heir from being deprived of the numerous
honours and wide-spread domains of his ancient
family. It would, however, be invidious to spe-
cify a particular case, and, therefore, the privilege
was extended to all similarly affected. The Right
Rev. Prelates -could waive their conscientious
scruples where one Duke and the niece of another
were concerned : they were quite willing to render
all marriages that had previously been celebrated
legal, which was all that the measure provided.
But one of their number, the Bishop of LONDON,
at the last moment, introduced a clause, rendering
them absolutely null and void for the future. It
was rejected by the House of Commons, but un-
happily they yielded in the too great anxiety to
save a few from inconvenience, and in the
hope that the obnoxious clause would speedily
be repealed. The measure was thus carried, and
serious grievance inflicted on large and respectable
classes of her Majesty's subjects.

The evil has now continued more than 20
years. Many efforts have been made to obtain
an adequate remedy, but hitherto they have been
foiled by the mischievous zeal and energy of the
occupants of the Episcopal Bench. We trust,
however, that these efforts will not be relaxed—
that the question may be unceasingly agitated,
until it is finally and satisfactorily dis-
posed of. Truth is great, and must ulti-
mately prevail. Parties will at length
be induced to inquire for themselves, and to form
their own judgments, without suffering them-
selves to be led astray by the lawn-sleeved gentry.
Possibly the Prelates may, by a much-required
act of peerage reform, be exempted from the
labours of legislation, in which case there can he
little doubt that the wishes of the great body of
the people will receive immediate attention, and
the obnoxious enactment be for ever erased from
the National Statute Book.

PEACE and PLENTY—of—Gau-boats, when we
do not want them ; hardly one to be had in
1854 when we did, and could have had them ;
not even in 1855, when we might have had them
all in the Baltic as easily as at Portsmouth on
Wednesday. Plenty of gun-boats now no Swea-
borg, or Helsingfors, or Cronstadt may be touched
—scant supply enough when those fortresses
might have been tumbled into a convention with
the Aland Isles ; and when the CZAR, battered out
of St. Petersburg, would have given up gladly,
not a paltry strip merely, of Bessarabia, but the
whole of it, and much more to boot.
Plenty of gun-boats—some 250 of them—now
they can do no harm to the great modern spoiler
of nations, to the Emperor of all the RUSSIAS, but
the oppressor of a vast territory which never was
a _Russia, and which honest nations ought to have
wrested from the dishonest one. Plenty of gun-
boats for sight, none when they were wanted for
service. Plenty of gun-boats to create nice little
steps of patronage in peace, none when there was
work for them to do.
PEACE and PLENTY—Of consideration for Russia
—none for Poland, Finlind, the Tartars, and the
Circassians. Plenty of humiliation spared to the
aggressor ; plenty of money left in his hands,
which, according to his own practice, he ought to
have paid to Turkey at least, and to the partners
of Turkey too. Plenty of fortresses left to
him with which to menace Germany ; a " Con-
tinental Sebastopol" among them, Lord PALMER-
STON being witness. Plenty of exiled Poles in
Siberia, and plenty of Crimean Tartars journeying
thither for selling food to our troops ; plenty of
consideration for the oppressor, none for the op-
pressed. Plenty of delicate silence about the
atrocities and knaveries of the Great Despot, and
total silence touching the rights and wrongs of
the nations. Peace, and plenty left undone which
ought to be done.

PEACE and PLENTY---Of Austrian troops in the
Principalities, and on the borders of our nobler
ally, Sardinia ;—of money is the pockets of Prus-
sians for a hostile neutrality ;—of military tro-
phies for France, while Kars and its English
General, perhaps, the greatest hero of the War,
was left to his fate ;—of Coburg influence at the
Court and the Horse Guards ;—of Crimean Reports
ou the " want of promptitude and ingenuity" on
the part of the English commanders, and of Chel-
sea inquiries to prove the truth of the Report, but
to let off the honoured incapables of the War-
office. Peace, and Plenty—of money spent, of lives
thrown away, of horses killed, of battles won by
soldiers, of assaults miscarrying through the Ge-
nerals; Peace, and plenty of—" care fur Down."
Peace and Plenty—of despots and despotism
—little enough of liberty, civil or religious ;
some thirty or forty, we forget how many, pup-
pet, yet real despots, in Germany ; a despot in
Prussia, a despot of the most odious descent, in
Austiia, a despot in Naples, another as bad, or
worse, in Rome, another in Tuscany ;—and what,
as to his form of Government, can we denomi-
nate an Ally who will not permit the nomination
of any but a Government candidate for election ?
—Sardinia is, of course, a happy exception ; and
the despot of Turkey seems to be next in honestly
liberal tendencies. Elsewhere we have plenty of
Concordats, and oppression of Protestants by
Catholics, and of both by the Greek Church in
Russia ;—plenty of religious intolerance on ;the
part of monarchs who will give to no Christians,
but those of the despot-favoured Church, the
religious liberty and equality which the SULTAN
now concedes to all! Peace, and plenty of civil
and religious tyranny, and civil and religious
slavery.

Quito natural, then, that we should have PEACE
and PLENTY—Of Government shows. Splendid
naval reviews, peace and splendid Government
fire-works----peace and rejoicings made to order ;
all very reasonable, when the people will not re-
joice for what Government has done, that Govern-
ment should rejoice itself. Nothing like a bold
face on a thing. EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS worth
of Fireworks ! Why all the lads and lasses under
fifteen will applaud the peace to the echo, and
wish for a peace every year: The Moniteur, the
Invalide Busse, and all the despots' journals of
the Continent, will re-echo the Government re-
joicings for England to the tune of "Exhausted
Albion." A Ministry gilding their own misdoings
and not doings Rill, over all the Continent, be
represented. as the nation. Yet what a difference!
Those who are old enough to recollect the last
peace cannot understand this. They remember
the spontaneous and universal fetes, illuminations,
and rejoicings ; whatever Government did was
anticipated everywhere by the people. It was
peace and plenty of—heartfelt rejoicing. Now it
is what an eloquent Athenian orator so justly
denounced—what the same Government has also
done in the case of the Crimean commanders—an
attempt by rewards and honours to anticipate the
scrutiny. How are we to condemn the officers
whom the Horse Guards have honoured for the
very conduct for which they were rewarded
How to censure the peace which a naval review,