set her free from the restraints which the tolerance of the times for the present lays upon her. My Lords, it is not enough that this dæmon be kept in order for the time by the prevalence of the contrary principle, that she sit mopping, abashed, disheartened, under the conviction that the hand and heart of every man are against her: My Lords, she should be disarmed, and laid in chains until the judgment of the Great Day; my Lords, her armour should be broken and her chains rivetted.

"But, my Lords, if the peaceful state and temper of the times afford no reason for the continuance of laws which in worse times might be oppressive, your Lordships, I persuade myself, will think it a strong reason for taking time to proceed with due deliberation and caution in so important a business as the revisal and reform of so considerable a branch of our criminal law

as that which regards offences against religion. Your Lordships will think it becomes your wisdom to consider the contents of the writing before you apply the sponge; lest, meaning only to obliterate oppressive laws, you abolish the most beneficial and necessary restraints.

My Lords, my objection to the bill

upon the table is, that I can discover nothing in it of this discretion: It drives furiously and precipitately at its object, beating down every barrier which the wisdom of our ancestors had opposed against vice and irreligion, and tearing up the very foundations of our ecclesiastical constitution. My Lords, if this bill should pass into a law, no established religion will be left. My Lords, when I say that no established religion will be left, I desire to be understood in the utmost extent of my expressions: I mean, my Lords, not only

that the particular establishment which now subsists will be destroyed, but that no establishment will remain of the Christian religion in any shape,-nor indeed of natural religion. My Lords, this bill, should it unfortunately pass into a law, will leave our mutilated constitution a novelty in the annals of mankind, a prodigy, my Lords, in politics, a civil polity without any public religion for its basis.

"My Lords, these are not rhetorical words, that go beyond the truth of the thing. To convince your Lordships that they are not, I shall beg your indulgence while I endeavour to show the operation of this bill both upon the statute law and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

ແ First, for the effect of the bill upon the statute law. My Lords, the first clause. -But, by the way, I must apprize your Lordships, that I mean to confine my re

marks to so much of the bill as relates to the laws concerning religion; other matters are oddly enough intermixed, but I confine myself to what concerns religion. I have no objection to the noble earl's eating beef in preference to any other meat, on any day of the year or any hour of the day. The first clause, my Lords, so far as it relates to the laws concerning religion, abrogates in a lump all the laws in the statute-book relating to the observation of the Lord's-day. My Lords, do your Lordships perceive any thing in the manners of the times that calls for the abolition or the relaxation of those laws? Are we guilty of any childish superstition in the observance of the day, that may interfere with duties of a higher obligation? My Lords, is not the contrary notorious? Is it not notorious, that the business and the pleasures of all ranks of the people are going on, on the

Lord's-day, with little interruption? Perhaps, my Lords, some extravagant severity in the penalties of these laws may call for mitigation. My Lords, I certainly shall not be the advocate for that law of Queen Elizabeth which imposes a fine of 20%. per month upon any person above the age of sixteen who neglects to go to church; much less shall I pretend to vindicate that law of James the First by which the King is authorized to refuse the 201. per month, and take two thirds of all lands, tenements, and hereditaments. There might be reasons to justify these laws at the time when they were passed;—I shall not enter into that question: Those reasons subsist no longer, and those laws now are not to be defended. But, my Lords, the noble earl's bill equally abrogates the 1st Eliz. cap. 2. sect. 14.; to which no objection can be made on account of the severity of its penalties. My Lords,