have, by the vile arts of an abandoned man, being betrayed into guilt. This, my Lords, has, I know, sometimes happened; and sure I am, that this temporary seclusion gives a woman an infinitely better chance for recovery, than a marriage with her seducer. For, can your Lordships suppose, that the con versation and society of a man, who has shewn himself destitute of every principle of honour and virtue; who has been guilty of so foul and base a crime, as to corrupt the wife, of perhaps his dearest friend, and plunge the very object of his affection into a gulph of sin and misery; can your Lordships, I say, suppose, that the society of such a man can possibly be the means of restoring to her that purity of mind which he has himself destroyed; or that his house should be the proper school for repent 省 ance ance and for reformation? No, my Lords, the true, the only way to bring the unhappy victim back into the path of virtue, is to separate her from the arms of her vile betrayer; to lead her into retirement; to place her under the protection of a few kind relatives or friends, and thus give her an opportunity of making her peace with her offended Maker; and, by the discreetness and circumspection of her future conduct, of recovering in some degree her former character, and re-establishing herself in the good opinion of the world.". It was during the debate on this subject in the House of Lords, that Lord Clare, at that time Lord Chancellor of Ireland, publicly declared in parliament, that, in his opinion, marriage was a mere civil contract, and that where that contract was declared void by a competent jurisdiction, jurisdiction, the parties were at liberty to marry again. "Now this position," says the Bishop, "I hold to be a false and dangerous doctrine. Marriage is indeed a civil contract; but then it is also something more. It is a divine ordinance. It is so pronounced to be by our Saviour. It is also declared so to be in our Marriage Ceremony. Now the Christian religion is incorporated into our Constitution, and made a part of the law of the land; and the Liturgy besides is formally established by Act of Parliament. It follows therefore that matrimony is considered by the law of England as a divine institution. Indeed, if it were not so, why should adultery be considered as so very heinous a crime? What would the breach of marriage be as a mere civil contract, but a mere civil offence?" To To this I may add, that Lord Loughborough, then Lord Chancellor, at the Bishop's earnest and particular request, took occasion to give a direct contradiction to Lord Clare's assertion, by declaring it to be his fixed opinion, that "marriage was not only a civil institution, but also a divine ordinance, and that it was uniformly so considered by the laws of England." The year 1800 closed by a singular concurrence of circumstances:-the commencement on the same day of a new year, a new century, and the Union of Ireland with Great Britain. Such a combination of events would naturally make a strong impression on a thinking and religious mind, and it evidently made a very strong one on the Bishop. "The present," he says, in a passage written written with his thoughts full of the subject, and elevated by the warmest patriotic feelings, "the present is a memorable æra in the annals of this kingdom. God grant it may be a happy one! Auspicium melioris ævi! replete with the choicest blessings of Heaven upon this land, and bringing back to us once more that Divine assistance and protection, which have lately been withdrawn from us, and without which all the efforts of human wisdom and power, as we have found by sad experience, can avail us nothing!? 1 "To me," she adds, "a gracious Providence has marked the close of this f JA century by many propitious circum stances; more particularly by favouring me with success in a contest of great importance with a clergyman of my diocese, in which the interests of Religion |