The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-18 00:00:00

bemlnit nt

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1850.

On Monday evening the Marriages Bill passed the
House of Commons, and notwithstanding the
vexatious delays and obstructions to which it was sub-
jected during the twenty-three weeks of its progress,
finally received the sanction of the representative
branch of the Legislature. It will now have to en-
counter a new ordeal. T'ne Peers of England will,
for the first time since 183.5, have to express their
views and opinions on this gieat question of civil and
religious liberty. They will have to decide whether
there shall be retained on the national statute-book a
law which has notoriously " failed to attain its ob-
ject," and which may therefore be regarded as
a mere brutum fulmen, the only parties really
punished being the innocent offspring of these
marriages—of marriages which her MAJESTY'S
Commissioners have told us " will take place when a
concurrence of circumstances give rise to mutual at-
tachment," which "are not dependent on legislation."
The Commissioners have also,expressed their decided
opinions that such attachments --and,marriages would
not be extensively increased in number, were the law
to permit them, " because it is not the state of the
law, prohibitory or permissive, which has governed,
or, as we think, ever will effectually govern them."
This would appear to bear strongly on the ques-
tion of " social convenience" on which some of the
most formidable opponents of the just and salutary
measure now before Parliament have chiefly, if
not altogether, rested their case. The "re-
ligious ground" is manifestly too untenable to be
relied on by any persons possessed of ordinary rea-
soning powers. The prohibition against marriage
with a wife's sister, in the 18th Leviticus,
18, being expressly limited to the lifetime of the
first wife, is a distinct permission of such unions.
INay, the very cause and reason for the temporary
prohibition is set forth—it is the vexation to the first
wife that must necessarily arise at seeing her sister
preferred before her. And as that vexation cannot
occur after her death, the restriction will be wholly re-
moved on that event, according to the old and well re-
cognised principle, " Cessat ratio cessat lex." Indeed
there is no portion of Scripture, either under the old
or new dispensation, where such connexions are for-
bidden, either directly or by inference
but, on the contrary, the inference deduci-
ble from the 18th Leviticus is altogether in
favour of their perfect validity, according to the true
interpretation of the Divine law. We do not, there-
fore, thank those who have given up a❑ argument so
inane and futile, any reliance on which must exhibit
the real weakness of their cause in the clearest light.
But, in truth, though the religious part of the
question has been in many instances formally aban-
doned, it is really the exciting, although unavowed,
cause of the entire opposition to the Bill. The feel-
ings would not be so very strongly excited on a mere
question of doubtful "expediency," more especially
when we are told, on unquestionable authority, that
the law has " failed to attain its object," and
where its effect, in fact, is either to induce
persons, who are justly described as of " moral and
religious character," to set the unjust and impolitic
enactment at defiance, to despise the vain prohibition,
and to refuse to be bona- by reatrictions on their
most sacred privilege, which are not based upon any
religious or moral objections, or to make less scru-
pulous persons dispense with the ceremony altogether
and to cohabit openly together without going through
any form. The attempt to rest the question on the
" social inconvenience" is then nothing but an im-
pudent attempt to divert attenticn from the real
issue, which could not long remain doubtful in the
present age of universal toleration, viz., whether
one class or sect in the community are to make
laws to bind the consciences of their fellow-
men, by prohibiting marriages which are by many
believed to be not only not interdicted by Scripture,
but to be very laudable in themselves.
We cannot conclude our observations on this sub-
ject without protesting in the strongest and most un-
equivocal terms against an erroneous statement which
appeared in the Times of Monday last, the 15th inst.,
and which supplied to that journal an argument for
the rejection of the measure. It asserted that the Bill
" having, during the session of last year, been passed
by the House of Commons, it was submitted to the
House of Lords ;" and again, that " the House of
Lords, in the exercise of its most useful
function, determined to give the represen-
tatives of the people the opportunity of
reconsideration and more careful argument. They
rejected the Bill." Now what will be thought of the
accuracy of a " leader of public opinion" when it is
known that the above statements are pure fictions,
that the Bill was never before the House of Lords,
and that it was consequently never rejected by the
Peers of England for any reason whatsoever ? The
truth was that the " Fubian " policy proved but too
successful last year, and that although on every de-
cision in the Commons large majorities decided in its
favour, it was withdrawn before it received the final
sanction in consequence of the rapidly approaching
termination of the session, which was hastened on
account of the Royal visit to Ireland.
If we were to adopt cur Contemporary's own style,
we might feel disposed to borrow from the article
now under notice, and say that such statements "re-
quired no small degree of ingenuity, no common
Powers of assertion, no ordinary effrontery." But
we shall not do so, we do not believe that the false-
hoods were wilful. It most probably fell into the
error unintentionally, but we would beg it for the
future to use greater care in avoiding similar mis-
takes, and we would again quote its own words from
its second article of Tuesday, that "no man is so
mischievous as a conscientious bigot. A judicious
mixture of philanthropy, error, obstinacy, and power,
forms a very powerful combination for the infliction of
evil upon the human race."

Death has been latterly decimating, among all
classes of the community, some of the more prominent
consequence rnonaf theth
creecleobvreirteieds
from
our generation. Scarcely has the nation
Sir ROBERT PEEL, when edfii
dissolution
itiseveren of shockth great
st aexperiencedtesmani n,
then royal
.dynasty becomes
Highness the Duke of cy,mthe demise of his Royal
plunged into mourniric, by
simul-
taneously with the departurenotiltathbat illustrious Prince
the world
STEVENSON, o f
ad sciencethe
e DOE.. Almost
arty theb world of the
world of the death of Mr.
histrionic and dramatic profession, the death of
Mrs. (ILovER. Shortly before these occurrences
urren
literature had been deprived of the lives of the minor
poet BowLEs, and the bard of idyllic
meditation'
IVOBD9IVOLLTH. At Rome had expired the cultivated
powers of Wrlrr, the sculptor, and in A •
America the
untutored genius from which had emanated the marble
form of Tarn O'Shauter. Among the more distin-
guished artists who constitute the group of our Royal
Academicians we are compelled to look in vain for the
large and sensitive capacities of ETTY, the Titian of
Great Britain. SHARON TURNER has passed away
from among the small but glorious conclave of our
living historiani. All sections cf the community, all
divisions of tY.e State, all portions of the social popu-
lation hays ex perienced the evanescence of that physical
vitality whir:h is as frail, if it be not frailer, among
those who a re endowed with genius , than among the
masse 3 distinguishable only for their prevailing rue-
diocri ;y. 'Our intention in directing the notice of the
multi! ude to this circumstance is not that of
merel y uttering a few bootless regrets at the
calam itic a which have thus fallen more or less
heavily, and more or less recently, upon the in-
habi ;ant 3of these islands. It is with a view to im-
pres 8, with as much energy as possible, upon
the F Public mind the duty incumbent upcn