The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-16 00:00:00

MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED

WIFE'S SISTER.

MEETING IN FINSBURY LAST NIGFIT.

---
Yesterday evening a public meeting of the Non-
conformists of London and its neighbourhood was
held in Finsbury Chapel, with the view of declaring
the sentiments of that body on the Bill now in pro-
gress through the House of Commons for legalizing
marriage with a deceased wife's sister.
At half-past six o'clock S. M. Peto, Esq., M.P.,
was called to the chair, by which time the floor and
galleries of the chapel were occupied by a very large
audience, which increased as the proceedings pro-
gressed until there could not be less than 500 persons
present.
On the platform were a great number of ministers
and gentlemen connected with the Dissenting body,
among whom we noticed the Rev. J. 11. Hinton, Rev.
J. Big wood, Rev. F. Trestrail, Rev. W. Reynolds,
Rev. W. Leask, Rev. J. Hatch, Rev. E. Ckrk, Rev.
T. Binney, and Rev. J. Burnet ; J. Scoble, Esq., G.
Lowe, Esq., F.R S., Mr. Oliver, Mr. J. Haddon, J.
Harris, Esq., M P., W. Griffin, sq , E. Miall, E.q.,
Mr. J. Soul, Mr. Chew, Mr. J. C. Williams, Mr.
Parnell, and J. Danford, Esq.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the meeting
said, the
necessity and propriety of Nonconformists calling a
meeting of this kind would be fully shown by the
fact that he himself had,had the honour, during the
present session of Parliament, of presenting petitions
representing the opinions of 1,200 congregations of
Nonconformists in favour of the Bill of Mr. Stuart
Wortley for legalizing marriage with a deceased
wife's sister.—(Cheers.) He submitted that in inter-
fering with so great and sacred an institution as that
of marriage they ought to have the indisputable
sanction of the Word of God, or be urged to that
course by some great social necessity. It would be
the business of this meeting to show that the altera-
tion made in the law of marriage by Lord Lynd-
burst's Act, in 1835, was not justified by public ne-
cessity, or sanctioned by the Word of God.—
(Cheers.) When that Bill was first introduced its
purpose was to limit the period within which objec•
tions might be taken to these marriages, and when
the Bill was in Committee, to meet the views of the
Bishop of London and the other dignitaries of the
Church in the Upper House of Parliament, the Bill
was altered altogether, and it was then reported as a
Bill to sanction all such marriages of this kind as had
previously taken place, and to prohibit all such
marriages in future.— (Hear, hear.) The ob-
ject of Lord Lyndhurst's Act was only to
sanction certain marriages which had taken place
among Members of the Upper House and their rela-
tives, and had no reference whatever to the general
well-being of the people.—(Cheers.) Great dissatis-
faction began soon to be felt throughout the country
with that Act of Parliament, and her Majesty ap-
pointed a Commission to inquire fully into the ques-
tion ; and that Commission unanimously reported to
Parliament in favour of an alteration of the existing
la w
beenHefathiroluyghgtivtehne
up. The
Jewish aspectvvisoh Rabbis, and
this question
had
almost all the learned men amongst the Jews, who
were best competent to form an opinion on this sub-
ject, had contended that the text of Scripture appli-
cable to those marriages gave a sanction to them ; and
those learned persons put a different construction
upon that text from that which the supporters of
Lord Lyndhurst's Bill did. The Jewish people, so
far from holding those marriages in detestation or
abhorrence, conceived they were entitled to their
warm commendation ; and they were universally per-
mitted to take place earlier after the decease of the
wife than any other marriage by a widower. That
no essential grievance existed to justify the passing of
Lord Lyndhurst's Act was shown by the fact that
not a single petition was presented to the House of
Commons in favour of it before the passing of the
measure ; and whilst that measure was passing through
that House its warmest advocates could only say that
those marriages were contrary to the canon law of
the Church of England; and that was the only
objection they had to offer.—(Hear, hear.)
It now became a question whether the Noncon-
formists of England would submit to that law.—
(Cheers.) The Nonconformists were not in the
slightest degree amenable to the canon law of the
Church of England ; that canon law bad been
altered from time to time. The ancient canons of
the Church of England, for instance, forbade third
marriages altogether; and second marriages, although
not forbidden, were as far as possible discouraged.
With reference to clergymen, second marriages were
prohibited, and a clergyman was prohibited altogether
from marrying a widow. The greater part of those
canons were not the law at the present day, but
had been altogether repealed. Were they, in the
nineteenth century, with the Word of God for their
rule and guide, to submit to the canons of the Church
of England ? No.—(Cheers.) And they were deter-
mined that the Act of 1835 should not much longer
remain the law of the land. They held it to be the
duty of the Legislature not to interfere unduly with
the freedom of action, and they thought in this re-
spect the Legislature had unduly interfered with the
liberty of action. And what had been the result ?
Why, the happiness of thousands had been destroyed.
Since Lord Lyndhurst's Act was passed upwards of
33,000 of those particular marriages had taken
place, which the law of this country did not recog-
nise.—(Hear, hear.) Besides that, the whole of the
children of those marriages were illegitimate, and a
man who had contracted such a marriage could not
recognise his wife or his children in his will without
their having to pay 101. per cent. duty on their lega-
cies after his death, as if they had been perfect stran-
gers to him. He contended that Lord Lyndhurst's
Act had never been found to work well, and if it was
not justified by the law of Gud or the law of nature,
then it was unjust to interfere with the civil and reli-
gious liberty of the subject, and the Nonconformists
were determined to persevere in their exertions until
that unjust and cruel law should be repealed.
The Rev. JOHN HOWARD HINTON, in moving the
first resolution, reviewed the various changes which
had been made in the law, especially in the time of
henry the Eighth and Queen Mary. The fact of
such marriages being forbidden by the 99th canon of
the Church of England might be a circumstance
binding upon the members of that church, but what
had those out of that church to 'do with it ?--(Hear,
hear.) It was a question never yet discussed in the
present day, who were and who were not prohibited
by God's law to marry. It was true that Arch-
bishop Parker's list had been the rule in courts of
law, and had been the guide in decisions, but to
no greater extent had the matter been decided.
He contended that the 18th verse of the 18th chapter
of Leviticus sanctioned, by implication, marriage
with a deceased's wife's sister. The verse ran as
follows :—" Neither shalt thou take a wife to her
sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside
the other in her lifetime." The insertion of the
words " in her lifetime" clearly implied that after
the death of the wife the restriction was not to be
enforced, and the law was so understood by the Jews.
To allow the present unjust and cruel prohibition to
continue would, in fact, be to retrace their steps
beyond the reign of Henry the Eighth, for all persons
were then allowed to marry who were not prohibited
by the law of God, and to return again to that period
of ascetic churchmanship and monastic spirit, when
the people had wrested from them the larger portion
of their liberties. If he might be permitted to give a
word of command and encouragement, he would
say to his hearers, as did Wellington, on a memo-
rable occasion, it Up, Guards, and at 'em," with a
confident hope that they would boldly, zealously,
and successfully fight the battle of truth and justice.
—(Cheers.) He concluded by moving the following
resolution :
" That, in the opinion of this meeting, marriage with
the sister of a deceased wife is not contrary to the law
of God; and that its being forbidden by the 99th canon
of the Church of England forms no valid reason for its
being prohibited by the Imperial Legislature to the
population of the United Kingdom, a large proportion of
which is not comprehendedwithin the pale of the
Church established by law.'
Mr. N. GRIFFIN, one of the Dissenting deputies,
seconded the resolution.
Mr. J. MITCHELL said he was desirous of address-
ing a Christian meeting, in a Christian house of
worship, against the most iniquitous and unjust Act
of Lord Lyndhurst, passed in 1835. He was enabled
to corroborate the statement which had been made,
that, according to the Levitical law, a man could
marry the sister of his deceased wife, and he knew of
a number of members of the Jewish Church who had
contracted such marriages, and be did not know of a
single instance in which they had proved unhappy.
The resolution was then unanimously agreed tut
The Rev. THOMAS BINNET rose to move the second
resolution—
" That, in the opinion of this meeting, the
Act of sth
and 6th William IV., commonly called Lord Lynd-
hurst's Act, by which marriage with a deceased's wil'e's
sister is declared ' absolutely null and void to all intents
and purposes whatsoever,' was, and is, an unwarranted
interference with social rights; that it has wrought, and
must continue to work, iteuriouety to the happiness and
morals of the community; and that the thanks of the
public at large, and especially of British Nonconformists,
are due to the Right lion. Stuart ‘Vorttey, M.P., for
having in successive sessions of Parliament, and in the
face of a tenacious and unscrupulous opposition, endea-
voured to obtain the removal of this unrighteous and
pernicious restriction."
He thought it was very proper to introduce the
words " commonly called Lord Lyndhurst's Act,"
into the resolution. It was commonly called his Act,
but it was not Lord Lyndhurst's Act, as they had
already heard. Lord Lyndhurst had a particular
object in view ; his Act would have been an improve..
ment on the previous state of the law, but the Bishop
of London introduced what completely altered the
character of the Act. Lord Lyndhurst proposed that
the marriages that had taken place should not be
questioned after six months, and that the marriages
that should take place should not be questioned sifter

two years. The Bishop of London went a great deal
further both ways, bath backwards and forwards ; he
introduced the clause, that six months should
not elapse with respect to the marriages
that had taken place, but be pronounced
valid at once and for ever; and with respect
to those that should afterwards take place, not two,
nor ten, nor twenty years were to sanction them, but
they were to be invalid altogether and for all titne.—
(Hear, hear.) Lord Lyndhurst and his friends said,
altered as the Bill was, it would answer their purpose ;
they wanted to secure a certain individual ; they pro-
posed a certain thing that would have secured that
individual, and the Bill, even as altered, would secure
him. Very true ; it would sacrifice everybody else,
but they said, " never mind ; if we get our object for
the one, we will let the millions go"—(Cheers)—
and so they wrapped it up.— (Laughter.) Now, he
contended that was not Lord Lyndhurst's Bill, but the
Bishop of London's, to whom the Nonconformists were
under so many end great obligations.---(Hear.) In
the chapter of Leviticus, to which allusion had been
made, there were two things in that law, admitting,
for the sake of argument, that it was the marriage
law, which bore on the particular marriage in ques-
tion. One of those things had not been referred to
that night. In that law there was a clause forbidding
the marriage of a woman with the brother of her de-
ceased husband. Upon that their friends, on the
opposite aide of the question, took their stand, and
said there was an express injunction forbidding those
marriages, acd, that being so, it was the same thing
for a woman to marry the brother of her deceased
husband as for a man to marry the sister of his de-
ceased wife. If the one, said they, was forbidden,
then the other was forbidden. But it was said, in
the 18th verse of the 18th chapter of Leviticus,
" Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex
her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in
her lifetime." It might be said, properly, that did
not mean a sister, hut, simply, a woman to a woman.
It was said the translators of the Bible showed
that the question admitted of a doubt, by
puting in the margin, oppposite that text,
the words, "a wife to a wife." Now he
could not go t into that delicate question in a
meeting like tha ; he could not give them his rea-
sons. It was one of the mischiefs of this law, and
this controversy, that it excited a great many ques-
tions which were better left alone. Without at-
tempting to give them his reasons, he thought those
reasons were sufficient. He thought those reasons
founded on the nature of the thing, and agreeable to
the Word of God. It was evident that the command
to which he had referred applied to the marrying of
one sister during the lifetime of another who was
the wife of the party, but had no application at all
to the marrying of the sister after the death of the
wife.—(Hear, hear.) Now, as regarded the morals
of the community, it was well known that hun-
dreds had married, in spite of the law, and let
them think of the position in which the children
were placed by the operation of the law. But
there were others whose sentiments were not of so
elevated a character, and who, finding that a
marriage could not be contracted under the law,
agree to dispense with the ceremony which would
be useless, and live together as man and wife with-
out marriage. Such was the effect of this most
unjust law, and what right, he would ask,
had the Government to place any portion of
the people in such a position ?—(Hear, hear.)
There were a great number of marriages tolerated
which were far more objectionable than those with
a deceased wife's sister, such, fur instance, as mar-
riages in which there was an actual blood relation-
ship.—(Hear, hear.) He thought marriages between
cousins were open to greater objections, both in a
physical and moral point of view.— (Cheers.) The
law of Leviticus, he contended, gave permission to a
man to marry his deceased wite's sister, and no
human legislators ought to interfere with that right.
The resolution which he proposed said, that the pre-
sentabtohuet cotmbamt. unit
liyee
law worked most injuriously to the happiness
Nknowewthetrbeatcoumlilanbye
noand mdoourablts of
persons of great respectability, education, re-
ligion, and high honour, were prevented marry-
ing, although they were satisfied in their own
consciences that their marriage would be perfectly
agreeable to the will of God, and though their affec-
tions were trammelled and interfered with, they were
so anxious not to break through the law of the
land, that they did not take the advantage of pro-
ceeding to other countries where they might have been
legally married. Many persons, however, of equally
high position had married in spite of the law, but
their children, who were considered illegitimate, were
branded with the name of bastards, and many a
gentle spirit was crushed by the ignominy which
perhaps awaited him. It was said the law ought to
be a terror to evil doers, but in this instance, it was
a terror to the good and virtuous.—(Cheers.) He
(Mr. Binney) and Dr. Cox had given two or three
pages of evidence before the Parliamentary Select
Committee, on the subject of these marriages,
but Mr. Roundell Palmer had undertook to
say, in the House of Commons, that they did
not represent the sentiments of the Dissenters
of England.—(Great laughter.) Now, he was
astonished that a man like Ilr. Roundell Fulmer,
who perhaps had never been in a Dissenting chapel in
his life, nor spoken to a Dissenter vis-a-vis, should have
the boldness to assert he knew the Dissenters butte]
than Dr. Cox or himself.—(Laughter.) It had beet,
said by their opponents that much immorality anti
corruption would result from the passing of the Bili
now before the House of Commons, that women would
have an interest in looking forward to the death of
their married sisters ; hut he protested, in the namt
of the women of England, against so gross a libel or:
female delicacy, honour, and purity.—(Loud cheers.)
The Rev. Gentleman then concluded by proposins
the resolution as given above.
Mr. J. C. EVANS seconded the motion, which was
unanimously agreed to.
The Rev. Mr. BURNET moved the next resolution,
and with much humour referred to the conduct of
Henry VIII., in the several marriages which he con-
tracted. Nothing, he said, was fixed on the subject
till the time of Elizabeth, when, at her command.
Archbishop Parker drew up his table, regulating the
degrees of affinity within which marriage might be
contracted. The whole matter was, in fact, a job.
Henry wanted a little job effected, and he applied to
Archbishop Cranmer ; Elizabeth wanted a job done
also, and she applied to Archbishop Parker, and het
object was to secure her own succession, which she
feared might otherwise have been endangered.
Again, in 183.5, a certain peer wanted a job completed,
and he got a very arch peer to undertake it—
(Laughter)—and so the country in that way got the
Bill called Lord Lyndhurst's Bill. The Rev. Gentle-
tlernan continued at great length, and concluded by
moving a resolution to, the following effect :—" That
the strenuous support of this meeting be given to the
Bill for legalising marriage with a deceased wife's
sister, now in progress through Parliament, by peti-
tions to both Houses, praying them to pass such Bill
into law ; and that the petition to the Lords be pre-
sented by Lord Wharncliffe, and that to the Com-
mons by Samuel Morton Peto, Esq., M.P."
Mr. E. Mreen seconded the resolution. He had
great objections to the existing law, because the Act
of 1835 was carried under circumstances which did
not entitle it to respect. He had a further objection
to it on the ground of its inefficiency ; the rich evaded
it, and the poor disregarded it.
The resolution having bean agreed to,
The Rev. Mr. BROCK moved the last resolution,
" That a deputation should be requested to wait upon
Sir George Grey on behalf of the Nonconformists,
and to solicit the ective concurrence of her Majesty's
Government in the effectuation of their desire.'

Nr. J. Iliauts, M.P., seconded the resolution,
which was agreed to.
Thanks were then given to the Chairman, and the
meeting separated.
Towards the conclusion of the proceedings, a man
named Duncan, a Chartist, rushed into the meeting,
with the fury of a madman, and shouting at the top
of his voice ' I will speak, I will speak," leapt upon
the reporters table, and thence bounded upon the
platform, where he began menacing and threatening
everybody there. He was immediately laid hold of
by several gentlemen on the platform, and a police-
man being on the spot, he was taken into custody,
and conveyed outside. The incident for some time
caused the greatest consternation, and was the means
of putting a somewhat abrupt termination to the pro-
ceedings.

Mr. Alderman Humphery paired off with Mr.
William Cubitt against Mr. Grantley Berkeley's motion for
a committee on the corn-laws.
POST-OFFICE NOTICE.—The Postmaster-General
of the United States having announced that the Government
of that country is about to establish contract mail packets
between Liverpool and New York, all letters, &c., intended
to be forwarded by these vessels must, until further orders,
be specially addressed, " By United States' Packet from Liver-
pool." The postage will be the same as that charged upon let-
ters and newspapers conveyed by British packet, viz.: —One
shilling for a letter not exceeding half an ounce in weight,
and so on, and one penny for each newspaper. Tho former
may either be paid in advance or lett unpaid, at the option of
the sender, but the postage upon newspapers must be paid,
or they will not be forwarded. No particulars have yet been
received with respect to the periods at which these packets
will leave this country.

ST. PAUL'S ScnooL.—The Apposition yesterday
was well attended. Among the audience were the Bishops
of St. David's, St. Asaph's, Bangor. Manchester, Sir R.
Inglis, and the principal members of the Mercers' Company.
A great many ladies were present. The proceedings were
begun with a Commemoration of Dean Colet, founder of the
school, spoken by the captain. Messrs. Lawrence and Cooper
then recited their poems--first and second prizes —on " The
Conquest of Peru." Both were much applauded. These and
the other prizes having been distributed, recitations from
Sophocles, Shakspeare, Terence, and Aristophanes, were
given by several of the scholars, one of whom (Lord) was
particularly happy in the spirit with which he delivered his
parts. Au announcement that, at the request of the bishops,
eight days additional holidays would be graated, terminated
the procee4i_ap _