protection meeting-houses, whose doors were neither "locked, bolted, nor of regis tered meetinghouses; Scope of Toleration Act narrowed by Occasional Conformity Act, and by Schism Act; tendency barred," were to be protected from molestation. Not until the middle of the nineteenth century was concluded that series of acts, whose contents will be briefly epitomized, through which the stingy instalment thus granted to protestant nonconformists as the result of the Revolution was widened into the perfect freedom of religious worship enjoyed at the present day. During the period of Tory reaction that closed the reign of Anne, the scope of the Toleration Act was narrowed (1) by the passage in 1711 of the Occasional Conformity Act,1 designed to thwart the attempt of dissenters, who, while clinging to their own forms of worship, attempted to evade the Test Act by occasionally receiving the sacrament at the hands of the state church; (2) by the passage in 1713 of the Schism Act,2 designed to suppress non-conformists' schools, —proscriptive measures happily repealed early in the reign of George I.3 more liberal The more liberal tendency thus manifested was advanced in manifested the reign of his successor by the Annual Indemnity Acts,* whereby the civil offices were really opened to such dissenters as had failed to qualify themselves under the Test and Corporation Acts. It was not, however, until the reign of George III. that a genuine spirit of toleration was stimulated by the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield, who proclaimed the broad principles judicially affirmed by the house of lords in the case of the City of London and the Dissenters,5-a case specially memorable by reason of the noble utterances of Lord Mansfield, who, in moving the judgment of the house, declared that "it is now no crime for a man to say he is a dissenter;" that George IV.; nothing could be "more iniquitous and unjust, more impolitic Ministers than persecution." In 1799 it was that the Dissenting Ministers' Act relieved all preachers and schoolmasters who came under that head from the limited subscription to the Thirtynine Articles still imposed by the Toleration Act; and in 1812 the Five-mile Act and the Conventicle Act were repealed by 52 Geo. III. c. 155, which contained a section (s. 4) extending by Annual Indemnity notable utterances of Mansfield in reign of Dissenting Act of 1799; Five-mile and Conventicle Acts re pealed in 1812; of unita in effect to unitarians the advantages of the Toleration Act, toleration from which they had been excluded by virtue of the clause rians; that withheld its benefits from all who denied the doctrine. of the Trinity.1 Not, however, until 1828, was Lord John Russell, undaunted by the failures of four predecessors,2 able to bring about at last the civil enfranchisement of dissenters through the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, by vir- repeal of tue of which civil disabilities were still imposed. Two acts of CorporaElizabeth - one of 1581, the other of 1593 that continued tion Acts nominally in force, subject to the provisions of the Toleration. Act, were repealed in 1844; and that section of her Act of repealing Uniformity which imposed a penalty of a shilling for non- and 1846, attendance at church was repealed in 1846.5 Test and in 1828; acts of 1844 Moravians, case; In 1833, Mr. Pease, the first Quaker who had been elected Quakers, to the house of commons for nearly a century and a half, was and sepapermitted to take his seat after making an affirmation instead ratists; of an oath ; and in the same year that privilege was guaranteed to all Quakers, Moravians, and separatists by statute. In May, 1880, Mr. Bradlaugh, member-elect from Northampton, Bradlaugh's who did not claim to belong to either class, offered to make an affirmation by virtue of the Evidence Amendment Acts, 1869– 70. After careful examination by a select committee it was held that those acts applied to courts of justice and not to the house of commons, and that ruling was sustained by the high court of justice, whose judgment was affirmed by the court of appeal. Being returned a second time, Mr. Bradlaugh offered to take the oath, but the house refused to permit him to take either affirmation or oath, upon the grounds that the first was illegal, and that the second, owing to his special belief, would have no binding effect upon his conscience. He then insisted upon taking the oath upon his own initiative without the consent of the house, and without being called upon by the Speaker, and in February, 1884, he voted twice during the proceedings caused by the course he had taken. In an action brought by the crown to recover the penalty consequent upon the vote of 1 Sir J. F. Stephen, Hist. of the Crim. Law, vol. ii. p. 483. 2 Lord Stanhope in 1718; Mr. Plumer in 1736; Mr. Beaufoy in 1787; and Mr. Fox in 1790. 3 9 Geo. IV. c. 17. 4 7 & 8 Vict. c. 102. 5 9 & 10 Vict. c. 59. 6 Several statutes had been previously passed upon the subject. See Report of select committee on his case, 1833 (b). 3 & 4 Will. IV. cc. 49, 82. judgment an unsworn member, the court of appeal held that the parlia of the court of appeal; mentary "oath must be taken by a member, with the assent of the house, according to the requirements of the standing orders, and after he has been called upon by the Speaker to be sworn." The court also held that a member of parliament who does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, and upon whom an oath has no binding effect as such, is, owing to his want of religious belief, incapable by law of subscribing the parliamentary oath. However, upon the opening of the new parliament in January, 1886, Mr. Bradlaugh took the oath, the speaker holding that he knew nothing of the resolutions of the past upon the subject, and that he had no independent authority to forbid a member returned to the house from coming to the table and taking the oath prescribed by statute? And to prevent such controversies in future, sec. I of the Oaths Act, Oaths Act, 1888, provides that a solemn affirmation may be made in lieu of an oath by every person who states that the taking of an oath is objectionable, either because it is contrary to his religious belief, or because he has no religious belief whatever. 1888. Emancipa Jews, The declaration "upon the true faith of a Christian" at the tion of the end of the oath of abjuration imposed by 9 Geo. IV. c. 17 not only hindered the entry of Jews into municipal offices, into. which they had been occasionally admitted along with protestant dissenters by virtue of the Annual Indemnity Acts, but it also denied them the right of sitting and voting in parliament. So far as the corporations were concerned, the disability was taken away by a statute passed in 1845; but not until thirteen years later was it removed so far as the parliamentary oath was concerned. Not until the cases of Baron Rothschild and Mr. Salomans had pressed the matter upon the house of commons was the act of 1858 passed, providing that either house could resolve that any person professing the Jewish religion may omit the words "and I make this declaration upon the true faith of a Christian ;" and a few years later 28 & 30 Vict. c. 19 entirely removed the phrase from the form of oath prescribed for members of the lower house. cases of Rothschild and Salomans. 1 Law Reports, 1885, pt. v. p. 667; 14 Q. B. D. 101. 2 Cf. May, Parl. Practice, pp. 160, 162, 163, 198. 8 Ibid., p. 158. Catholics from Toler to severe act passed from inher The Toleration Act expressly provided that its terms should Roman not be so construed as "to give any ease, benefit, or advantage expressly to any papist or popish recusant whatever; and in 1700, excepted when the intolerant spirit thus manifested was fanned into ation Act; flame by the presence of many priests who came over after the Peace of Ryswick, a very severe penal law was passed making subjected it a crime for any "popish bishop, priest, or Jesuit" to exer- penalties by cise any of his functions, and offering a large reward to any one who should detect and prosecute to conviction such as should attempt to violate the act. Every catholic was to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy six months after becoming eighteen, and to make the declaration in the act excluding that sect from parliament. Any one who failed to comply, but not his heirs, was to be disabled from inheriting land; and disabled during his life until the oaths should be taken, "the next of iting and his kindred, which shall be a Protestant, shall have and enjoy purchasing land; the said lands, tenements, and hereditaments." To that humane provision was added another, by which papists, who were prohibited from sending their children abroad to be educated, were made incapable of purchasing land after a certain date, and uses and trusts for their benefit created after that time were declared void.1 That act, which thus openly attempted to strip the Roman Catholic gentry of their landed property, was the last of the penal laws against that sect; and it remained in last of the force down to 1778, when it was practically repealed by Sir against George Saville's Roman Catholic Relief Act, as against all them; persons who, disclaiming the Stuarts, and certain catholic doc- of 1778; trines including the deposing power of the pope, would take an oath of allegiance to George III. During the trial of Lord George Gordon, who headed the "no popery" riots of the following year, the attorney-general, speaking of the operation of the laws against the catholics, especially of the act of William III., said: "The penalties and punishments appeared to every- act of 1700 body so extremely hard and severe that very few prosecutions for enforcewere carried on upon this act in my own time I only remember one, which was against a person for saying mass in a house 111 & 12 Will. III. c. 4. For a commentary upon the act and its objects, see Burnet, vol. iii. p. 253. 218 Geo. III. c. 60. "This act, for the first time for nearly two hundred years, allowed mass to be said in Eng- Relief Act too severe ment; somewhere about Wapping; he was committed, and of course doomed by the provisions of this act to perpetual imprisonment."1 Despite a still more liberal act than that of 1778, Relief Act enacted for the emancipation of catholics in 1791,2 they continued subject to many disabilities, which deprived them not only of the right of holding office, but also of sitting in parliaEmancipa- ment down to the year 1829, when, under pressure from the tion Act of "Catholic Association" formed by Daniel O'Connell, a tory of 1791; 1829; process completed by repeal ing acts of 1844 and 1846; summary of Sir J. F. Stephen. The ministry, headed by the duke of Wellington, passed, with the The Convention Parliament, bitter as it was to Roman Cathnon-jurors; olics, stingy as it was to protestant non-conformists, failed to satisfy a large section of the clergy of the state church, who, as teachers of the doctrines of divine right and passive obediby law to protestant dissenters in like 1 State Trials, vol. vi. p. 501. 2 31 Geo. III. c. 32. 8 10 Geo. IV. c. 7. In 1832 the act of 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 115 extended to catholic schools, places of worship, charities, and to persons employed about them the same privileges secured |