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watchful vigilance of Lords Holland, Lansdowne and Grey, and the firmness of the Duke of Wellington, caused their rejection by large majorities. One alteration, very lamentable in its effects, was made in the form of the Declaration. Lord Harewood, in a speech on the Bill going into Committee, expressed his wish that a clause should be inserted in the Declaration, from which it might appear that the person taking it believed in the Christian religion. He did not expect additional security from the Declaration, but he wished it to be so worded for the credit of Parliament. The suggestion accorded with the feelings of many Peers and Bishops, and, on the motion of the Bishop of Landaff, a clause was added to the Declaration-" on the true faith of a Christian." Lord Holland spoke and voted and protested in the Journals of the House* against the addition. The United Committee publicly recorded their regret that the Declaration should be converted into any thing like a profession of religious faith (however general) as a qualification for civil office. †

The Bill as amended finally passed the Lords without a division, Lord Holland expressing on the occasion gratitude to the House and congratulation to the country. The amendments of the Lords were discussed and agreed to by the Commons on the 2nd of May. Lord John Russell explained that a person declaring 66 on the true faith of a Christian," could only be understood to mean on the faith of that community of Christians to which he belonged; and Mr. Brougham and other Members expressed the opinion that the Declaration had been made much worse in the other House of Parliament. The Royal Assent was given to the Act on May 9, 1828. It came into immediate operation, and relieved a numerous and most deserving portion of the King's subjects from a degrading stigma, and opened to Nonconformists a path of honourable ambition, which many have since trodden to the great advantage of their country. Regarded in itself and its immediate consequences, the Repeal Act was most memorable, and formed an important era in the history of religious liberty. But regarded, as it properly may be, as the first of a long series of wise and liberal changes which have been going on in the same direction to the present day, and which have produced more benignant results than the legislation of any period of equal duration in the history of Great Britain, the Repeal Act becomes a national era, to which it may without exaggeration be anticipated that the future historian will point as deserving the grateful admiration of posterity.

It was a fortunate circumstance that during the continuance of this important struggle Mr. Aspland enjoyed unusual health, and was able to devote his whole strength to the cause to which he gave his whole heart.‡

Hansard, XIX. 49.

+ Could they have foreseen that this clause would be the means of excluding Jews for several years from important civil privileges, and would be nearly the last relic of the days of persecution to be defended by High-church bigotry, it is to be hoped that they would have resisted it at every stage of the Bill, even at the hazard of postponing relief from their own disabilities.

How varied were his labours may be seen in the Minutes of the United Committee, preserved in the Test-Act Reporter. For services in not less than five departments he received the respectful acknowledgment of the United Committee

It was determined to celebrate the great triumph of religious liberty by a Commemoration Dinner.* The Duke of Sussex consented to preside, making the single condition that the meeting should recognize the equal claim of the Roman Catholic to the liberty now conceded to the Protestant Dissenter. This gratifying festival was held on the 18th of June, at Freemasons' Hall, was attended by four hundred noblemen and gentlemen, and in respect to the talents of the speakers, the high tone maintained through a meeting which lasted seven hours and a half, and the rapturous enthusiasm of all present, was probably never surpassed. The only ministers of religion who took part in the proceedings of the Commemoration Dinner were two gentlemen who had been fellow-students at college, afterwards near neighbours for seventeen years and friends for thirty years -Dr. Cox and the subject of this Memoir. Dr. Cox proposed the health of The Archbishops and Bishops and other Members of the Established Church who liberally promoted the restoration of the Protestant Dissenters to their Constitutional Rights. Mr. Aspland had the honour of replying to a toast given by the Chairman-The Protestant Dissenting Ministers, the worthy successors of the ever-memorable Two Thousand who sacrificed interest to conscience.

The toast was acknowledged in a speech which must have a place in this Memoir :

"May it please your Royal Highness, at the request of the managers of this Meeting, I rise to acknowledge the honour you have done to myself and my brethren, the Protestant Dissenting Ministers, by the toast so kindly given from the Chair, and so cordially cheered by the company.

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'Sir, we are a humble class of men, but we may be allowed some share of Christian pride on the present occasion, and we do feel proud that we are met to celebrate the triumph of those great principles to which we and our fathers have been devoted; in the promotion of which we have employed our small portion of talents; and for the sake of which we should have been ready, I trust, to meet privations and sufferings at the call of conscience.

"Sir, you have done us honour by uniting us with the ever-memorable two thousand,-men who made a noble sacrifice of all that is dearest in this life to the great cause of truth and freedom. We cannot pretend, Sir, to their profound and varied learning, to their unspotted and exemplary manners, and to their exquisite sense of religious honour; but we do share with them, and every Dissenting minister would consider himself calumniated if it were not admitted that he did share with them, in their ardent love of liberty, civil and religious liberty,-England's distinction, and England's happiness.

"Sir, when I speak with veneration of the ever-memorable two thousand ministers who cheerfully renounced the highest interests and honours which the Church of England could confer, in order to maintain the integrity and purity of their consciences, I am not aware that I am moved by any sectarian feelings; for I look with veneration also upon those ministers of the National Church who, in the time of the Commonwealth, made equal sacrifices to their religious convictions; and I may answer, I am sure, for my Protestant Disprevious to their breaking up (see Test-Act Reporter, pp. 483, 484). It may be added that the Committee expended during their proceedings about £3000, of which two-thirds were defrayed by the deputies of the London congregations, and the remaining one-third was discharged by the Protestant Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty.

The list of stewards (133 in number), of various denominations and residing in widely-separated districts, is a remarkable document. It would not be easy to form a list of the same number of private gentlemen, that should comprise a greater amount of intelligence and well-deserved influence.

senting brethren, and the ministers and Protestant Dissenters in the room will bear me out in saying, that we look back with veneration likewise to the ministers of the Roman Catholic Religion who, in times when reason, justice and mercy were trampled under foot, and when they were regarded as traitors because they were true to their religion, gave up every thing to their consciences, mistaken consciences, it may be,-(but who am I, to say mistaken? They were conscious of their innocence, and felt assurance in their faith, and their own was the only conscience that could guide them)-to conscience they surrendered every thing valuable in life, and even life itself, giving to their faith the surest pledge of their sincerity, their dying testimony (cheers). I say then, Sir, I have no sectarian feelings when I rejoice in the tribute of respect which you have paid to the memory of the two thousand Ejected Ministers: I could select two thousand names from the clergy of the Church of England, and two thousand from the Roman Catholic clergy, that have exhibited the same fearless and self-denying devotion to their honest sense of religion, and I would say, that the six thousand should be equally held in reverence and honour as a noble army of confessors and martyrs (cheers). For, Sir, allow me to say that I regard such tried examples of the integrity that never flinches, and the conscience that nothing worldly can overcome, as a nation's wealth: no matter where the examples are found-they dignify human nature and exalt our country; and but for men of this character, England would not have obtained the liberty in which she so justly rejoices, nor would she have had the present august Family to govern her, a Family honoured by being called to the throne in order to preserve the liberties of the people. It appears to me that a Meeting like this reads a lesson of incalculable benefit to youth, when it holds out to admiration religious integrity under any form; and I am persuaded your Royal Highness will agree with me in saying, that nothing could have been more eloquent or more wise, and nothing more Christian, than the declaration of a learned and gifted prelate in his place in the House of Lords, who, when the Dissenting Claims were brought before their Lordships in 1779, said, in words never to be erased from my mind, 'I am not afraid, my Lords, of men of scrupulous consciences; but I will tell you whom I am afraid of,—and they are the men that believe every thing, that subscribe every thing, and that vote for every thing.'

"I will not detain your Royal Highness and the company long, but my mind is so full, my heart is so full upon the present occasion, that I cannot sit down without saying a word or two upon another topic. It is not often that we Dissenting ministers have the honour and the privilege of speaking to persons of the rank and importance of those whom I am now addressing; and therefore I take this opportunity of expressing my earnest wish that right honourable Lords and honourable Members of the House of Commons would bear in mind, that whatever the Dissenters may want, and whatever Dissenting ministers may want, there is one thing they do possess; they know the history of their fathers, their sainted fathers; they know the principles of the Constitution of England, and they regard themselves as having been mainly instrumental in placing the present illustrious Family, of which your Royal Highness is so distinguished a member, upon the Throne (cheers). Sir, it is our boast that our fathers were mainly instrumental in that which I must ever consider a happy and glorious event: and let no member of that august House ever feel astonishment or surprise if the Dissenters, who took so active and responsible a part in their settlement in this country upon the principles of freedom, should still profess and support the same principles, even if,-a supposition I dare hardly entertain,-even if, in some inauspicious moment, any member of that House should seem to forget them.

"You cannot be surprised, Sir, that Dissenting ministers hail the event that we are met to celebrate, for they know and feel that it is but the harbinger of good things to come: they regard it as a pledge to the country on the part of the legislature and the government, that hereafter measures of conciliation,

and not of coercion, shall be pursued with regard to conscience;—and let those measures be pursued, and what grandeur, what happiness, is there to which England may not attain!

"Allow me, Sir, to express one hope; I express it not for myself, but for my children and my children's children; and I know that I express the hope and feeling of my brethren in the ministry, and of the Protestant Dissenters generally; it is, that the repeal of the Sacramental Test is an earnest of the repeal of other tests not enacted by the government, but by corporations, and learned corporations; it is, that our country, our beloved country, our mother country, which has dealt rather hardly with us Dissenting children, which has allowed us hitherto only the crumbs of learning that have fallen from her table, will, by and by, open her bosom, her maternal bosom, and receive us to her cordial embraces; and that hereafter we Dissenters shall have our fair portion of the children's bread (cheers).*

"In conclusion, allow me to say, Sir, that we Dissenting ministers have been accustomed to watch the signs of the times, as is natural to those who have been inured to storms and perils; and we have observed, as you, Sir, must have observed, with infinite pleasure, that the course of legislation in this great kingdom, for the last quarter of a century, has been all in one line, and that the straight-forward path of justice; and we can hardly doubt, we can have no doubt, that things will go on,-under that ever-adorable and merciful Providence which, amidst the commotion and confusion of human affairs, causes all things to work together for good,—to greater and greater perfection, and that the government of this country will be still more paternal and still more Christian. But let me not be mistaken; when I speak of a Christian government, God forbid that I should be thought to express a wish that the government should ally itself to a sect, that it should be Protestant as opposed to the Catholics, or Church of England as opposed to Dissenters. What I mean is— judging from the past and looking at all the auguries of the times-that the future government of this country, the best and the greatest country on the face of the earth, will and must be the government of the people, and for the people. Sir, let the course of government in this country be, as it has been under the present happy reign, and as I am certain it will continue to be, wise and beneficent, and then the three great religious divisions of the country,the members of the Church of England, the members of the Roman Catholic Church, the old church, let my Dissenting brethren remember, the church of our fathers, and the members of the various Dissenting churches,-instead of consisting of so many opposing establishments, and reckoning any one's gain another's loss, will be bound together in the bond of peace and charity, and

Sir Francis Burdett thus alluded, in a speech delivered on the same evening, to this topic: "I listened with pleasure to the Reverend Gentleman who spoke with a liberality and good sense that did him honour, at the same time that he lamented the ungenerous policy which withholds any source of education from the Dissenters of England. He said, with a modesty I admired, that they had been only allowed to pick up the crumbs;-I think that Reverend Gentleman showed he had not fed upon crumbs, but that he had been nurtured with the choicest food which the feast of learning could produce. Gentlemen, I did listen to that learned, and politic, and Christian, and eloquent address, with a delight I have scarcely words to express; and I must confess that if no other good result had come from this meeting but that of eliciting such sentiments from those Dissenters, who have expressed themselves with so much liberality and talent, (efforts which it seems to me only a diffidence and modesty not justified by their powerful talents and powerful minds can prevent being more frequently exhibited,) that result would alone be a most important one; and I am sure that the more we can call them forth, the more we can produce them before the public, the more will this great cause gain as well as their character triumph; the more will religious liberty be advanced, and the firmer may we entertain the hope that its ultimate triumph will be soon attained."

form that triple cord that cannot be broken; in the strength of which, our Rulers (to use the words of that great man whose language has been quoted with so much felicity, and whose prose is poetry, and whom I may here quote with peculiar propriety, because he was not only an ardent lover of his country, but also a Nonconformist, I mean John Milton) 'may be able to steer the tall and goodly vessel of the Commonwealth through all the gusts and tides of the world's mutability' (repeated cheers)."*

Mr. Charles Butler to Rev. Robert Aspland.

"Lincoln's Inn, June 19, 1828. "Dear Sir, I have often corresponded with you, but never had the pleasure of seeing you till yesterday, at the Dinner to celebrate the Repeal of the Sacramental Test.

"This dinner I shall never forget. The speeches pronounced at it on civil and religious liberty, the power of argument, the impressive appeals to the heart, the noble sentiments of real Christianity, and, above all, the generous feelings towards the Roman Catholics, with which they abounded, will never escape my memory or my gratitude.

"You were pre-eminently great. I hung upon every word you spoke. When you mentioned, with so much sympathy, the poor Roman Catholic priests who have suffered for conscientious principles, I was lost in admiration of your real liberality of mind and fearless disdain of prejudice. May my country abound with such as you! This assuredly is wishing her a great good.

"I have advocated the Catholic cause since 1778, the year in which the first Bill for the relief of the Catholics was brought into Parliament. I had great pleasure yesterday in thinking that I had uniformly advocated it on principles applicable to the case of all religious dissidents from the Church of the State. Early in life I met with 'Locke's First Letter on Toleration,' which, you know, comprises all that is to be found in his subsequent Letters. His doctrine of religious liberty became mine, and I have undeviatingly adhered to it. The sanguinary code of Queen Elizabeth-the Court of High Commission-the Episcopalian persecution in Scotland-the ejection of the Presbyterian ministers by the Act of Uniformity-the proceedings in Oates's plot the scanty measure of religious liberty doled out in the Act of Toleration,-I have frequently and loudly lamented and reprobated. As frequently and as loudly have I lamented and reprobated the Inquisition-the Marian persecution-the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day-the revocation of the Edict of Nantes-the expatriation of the Jews and Moriscoes from Spainand the niggard toleration yet shewn to Protestants in some Catholic countries on the continent. I perfectly agree with Father Persons, in his 'Judgment of a Catholic Englishman,' that neither breathing nor the use of common ayre is more due unto man, or common to all, than ought to be the liberty of conscience to Christian men: whereby eche one liveth to God and to himselfe; and without which he struggleth with the torment of a continued lingering death.'

"In my History of the English Catholics,' I have recorded Mr. Fox's having said to me, that 'I should not meet with so many real friends to civil and religious liberty as I seemed to expect.' What a stride has the glorious cause taken since his death! What a spring did it take yesterday! But never, never should our obligations to Mr. Fox be forgotten. He took up our cause while it lay shivering on the ground, and, to use the words of Gray, Oped its young eye to bear the blaze of greatness.'

When, at half-past one in the morning, the Duke of Sussex vacated the chair, he proceeded to the distant part of the room where Mr. Aspland was, and taking him by the hand in his accustomed frank and hearty manner, said, “I thank you, Mr. Aspland, for the lecture which you have read my family, but I wish you to remember that I at least have not deserved it."

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