borough of Birmingham, who, in the year 1787, in conjunction with Dr Priestley and a few other zealous friends to the cause of education, founded the New Meeting Sunday Schools, in the management of which he has, during upwards of half a century, continued to take a most active and important part.

CHELTENHAM UNITARIAN CHURCH ANNIVERSARY. -The celebration of the eighth anniversary of the Christian Unitarian Church, Cheltenham, took place March 25. A religious service was held at the Church at Manchester Place in the morning. The anniversary sermon, which was an eloquent and earnest appeal to pursue the advocacy of truth" for its own sake," was preached by the Rev. Samuel Bache of Birmingham, to a full and deeply attentive audience. In the evening, a Tea Meeting was held at the Clarence Gallery, the walls of which were profusely decorated with evergreens, and banners, bearing the names of all the eminent defenders of Unitarian Christianity. About 200 persons were present. Similar meetings were held the same evening by the various orthodox dissenting bodies in the town, but the number of persons who attended the largest, did not exceed an hundred. The Rev. L. Lewis, the minister of the congregation, on being called to the Chair, read letters from the following ministers, regretting that indisposition and other causes prevented them from being present; -the Revds. T. Davis of Evesham, J. Owen of Shepton Mallet, F. Bishop of Warrington. The Chairman introduced, with appropriate remarks, the annexed sentiments, which were responded to by the persons whose names are attached: :—“ Unitarianism, may a sense of its importance make us zealous in its diffusion and support:" Rev. H. Davies, LL.D. of Gloucester. "The Fatherly character of the Deity, a distinguished peculiarity of the teachings of Jesus Christ," Rev. S. Bache; "The right of private judgment in matters of religion," Mr T. J. Read; "Love, the strongest bond of Christian Unity," Mr T. Furber; "Prosperity to the Unitarian cause at Cheltenham," Mr J. Goding. "Lord of all power and might," and other anthems, were sung at intervals during the evening with good taste and judgment by the choir belonging to the congregation. Thanks having been voted to the Rev. S. Bache for his valuable and timely discourse in the morning; and to the Rev. L. Lewis for his services in the Chair, and for the zealous manner in which he has laboured to disseminate the "Faith once delivered to the Saints" in this locality; the meeting was terminated by singing according to annual custom, Dr. Bowring's inspiring hymn, "God is Love." J. G.

WE copy from the Worcestershire Chronicle, the following letter from the Rev. John Taylor of Glasgow, to the Rev. S. R. Waller, curate of Kidderminister, in reference to his conduct in relation to the burial of the Rev. R. Fry, recorded in our May number. We are glad to learn that the Bishop of Worcester has since written to the curate, informing him of the law of the case, and nothing of the kind will occur again, Is it not a crying sin that in this age, there should exist a possibility of such intolerance occurring at all?

REVEREND SIR,-As the late minister of the New Meeting, Kidderminister, in which office I succeeded the deceased Mr Fry, with whom I was acquainted for a period of five years, I am induced to submit to your consideration the following remarks on your conduct in reference to his funeral. The whole correspondence on that matter now lies before me. You, Sir, are minister of a church established by law, and as such you are a servant or officer of the State, bound in that capacity to act according to its commands. As officers in our military and naval establishments are paid by the nation to perform certain services, and are amenable for a breach of duty to naval or military law, so you, who, as an officer in the ecclesiastical establishment of the country, eat the bread of the State, must in return perform those services which the law enjoins on your profession. Whilst you remain in your present station, the ecclesiastical law is your sole rule of conduct, and you cannot consistently or honestly plead conscience in open disobedience of its requirements. If the services which the ecclesiastical law makes imperative are distasteful to your religious feelings, or such as you have a conscientious objection to perform, of course you have your remedy. You can satisfy any scruple in the performance of your clerical duties by retiring from ecclesiastical service and giving up its emoluments, just as the naval or military officer who may have scruples on the lawfulness of war, or on the propriety of certain duties incumbent on him, may satisfy his scruples by retiring from his branch of the service. You cannot, however, claim the title of a conscientious man if you voluntarily continue in a position where, at any moment, you may be called upon to violate your conscience. You have stated, Sir, in reply to a request that you would inter the remains of the late Mr Fry, that you could not conscientiously do so, because, as you say, your Church has "no service except for those who are baptised into the Church and die in its communion ;" and you add, "if, after all, the corpse is brought to the Church, I shall not refuse to bury it; but if it is brought, and I am thus required to perform the service, I shall take the fact of the funeral coming to Church as a tacit acknowledgment that the deceased did not wish to be regarded

in death as a Dissenter from our communion." These observations of yours apply, you will perceive, to all Dissenters. Afterwards, with singular inconsistency, you say, in a letter to various Dissenting ministers, that your "scruples and difficulties" extend only to "ministers and members of the New Meeting." I have no desire to press sorely upon you here, and to enlarge upon the glaring inconsistency of these statements, but shall confine my comments to other matters. I observe that you do not refuse to bury." Oh, no! you dared not; for you probably knew that then you would have subjected yourself to legal penalties. No doubt you are aware that the Court of Queen's Bench has decided that the right of sepulture is a common law right, and that such Court will at any time grant a mandamus to compel a clergyman to inter a corpse brought in the usual way. I now inform you also, that, by the ecclesiastical law it is imperative on a clergyman to read the burial service over every baptised person, even though baptised by a Dissenting minister, and baptised, consequently, not "into the Church," but into a Dissenting community, or Church. In the Court of Arches, December 11th, 1809, in the case of Kemp v. Wickes, cited in Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, vol. 1, p. 264, it was decided by the Dean of the Arches, that baptism by any Dissenting minister, or even lay baptism, was sufficient to lay the clergy under obligation to perform the burial service. This judgment remains in full force; so that you may now perceive, Reverend Sir, that by the Ecclesiastical Court you may at any time be compelled to bury any person who in the eye of the law (and not according to your notions) has been baptised, and is brought to you for interment. Over such person, even though a minister or member of the New Meeting, you will be obliged to read the burial service, so long as you continue one of the established clergy. Over such person the burial service must be read in his legally-recognised capacity as a Dissenter-the existence of Dissenters being as much a legal fact as the existence of Churchmen. How then can you with any propriety or legality, as holding office under the law, "take the fact of the funeral coming to Church as a tacit acknowledgment," &c. &c. ? By such declaration (which is merely a private and erroneous notion of your own) you have indeed shewn what manner of spirit you are of;" you have exhibited the plague spot of intolerance; but by it you cannot alter that law which in your office you are bound to recognise as your supreme guide. Your duty, Sir, is neither to expound the Canonical law, nor to dispute it, but quietly to obey it ;-if, as you assert, you cannot conscientiously obey it, you have but one remedy, and that (which I commend to your serious consideration) is secession from

the Establishment. Permit me to direct your attention to the following case, which is somewhat similar to your own; so that, if you should not see fit to resign your curacy, you may, at least, make the amende honorable. In December, 1839, Mr. Wilkinson, curate of St Thomas's, Exeter, refused to bury the child of Wm. Tucker, an honest labouring man. The reason assigned for this conduct by the curate was, that the child had been baptised by a Unitarian Minister. The child was interred in the church-yard, without any funeral service being read. A statement of the whole case was laid before Dr Addams (whose eminence as an ecclesiastical lawyer is well known) and also before Sir John Campbell, at that time Attorney-General. They both gave it as their opinion that Mr. Wilkinson had acted illegally, and subjected himself to the penalty of the law. These opinions, with the case as drawn out, were courteously laid before Mr Wilkinson, in order that he might make an apology, if he thought proper, and prevent further proceedings. He made an apology, part of which I extract: In acting as I did, I imagined I was correctly interpreting the language of the church in the prayerbook, which I am most solemnly bound to obey. The legal opinions, which you submitted to my notice, have convinced me that, in refusing to perform the burial service, I in ignorance committed an illegal act; and, having done so, I make this acknowledgment of my error, which acknowledgment, I trust, will be satisfactory." I may add, that in the progress of this matter, and before Mr Wilkinson made his apology, he was in communication with the Bishop of Exeter. During the past week, I perceive that an enlightened and Christian Prelate, the Bishop of Norwich, has expounded the law on this subject to some of the clergy of his diocese, and informed them that all baptised persons-by whomsoever baptised— must, if brought for interment, be buried in the usual way, by the nationally endowed clergy. I leave you, Rev. Sir, to reflect on these remarks at your leisure, and to act as conscience and Christian feeling may dictate. Let me only remind you, that you cannot continue the minister of a legally endowed church, and plead conscience against the performance of legally enjoined duties. I conclude with observing that it is a pity your conscience should feel so tender over the burial of a Unitarian Minister of virtuous life, while it has never given you uneasiness in committing, perhaps, many drunken, dishonest, or vicious persons' remains to the grave, and in acknowledging, at the same time, that you so committed them" in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life." I remain, Reverend Sir, your very obedient humble servant. GLASGOW, April 6. 1842. JOHN TAYLOR.

CONGREGATIONAL TRIBUTE OF RESPECT, UNITARIAN CHAPEL, PRESTON. A pleasing tribute of respect was, on Sunday April 17 paid to a worthy townsman, known (we believe) to many readers of the Preston Chronicle, on the eve of his emigration to America. No publicity was contemplated for the circumstance beyond that of the immediate circle in which it took place. But as something of useful impression must result from every instance which comes before the public eye, of the respectful consideration which attends upon true respectability of character, in every station of life, it may not unfitly be recorded in the local intelligence of the week. At the close of the morning service, and in the presence of a number of the members of the Congregation worshiping in Churchstreet Chapel, the Rev. J. Ashton, the Minister of the Chapel, presented to Mr George Fryer, in the name of the congregation, a silver box, of very neat workmanship, bearing a suitable inscription,* neatly engraved by Mr R. Dugdale, of this town, and containing a surplus from the money subscribed for its purchase; and in doing so, thus addressed him :

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My Friend, and Christian Brother, Mr Fryer. The kindness of our respected friends of this religious society, has assigned to me an office of the most pleasing nature in every respect but one, and that is, in reference to the occasion on which I am called upon to discharge it-to all of us an occasion of deep regret. By your intended departure to America, to spend the decline of life near those of your family already settled there, we are about to lose a most valuable and valued member of this congregation, one to whom it is under a debt of much obligation, and who possesses the high respect and esteem of all his fellow-worshippers. For many years, you have gratuitously conducted the psalmody in this place, with a cheerful disinterestedness truly admirable, and in a spirit of christian piety, which has unspeakably added to the obligation. It may be that your services have not been requited as they ought; we pretend not now to requite them; but we cannot permit you to leave us without some trifling acknowledgment, which may shew that they are not unappreciated, which may mark the estimation in which you are personally held by us, and may testify the feeling we all experience, that in your removal we sustain a Congregational loss, and shall be deprived of one whose modest and exemplary character rendered him an ornament of this Christian Society.

* "Presented to Mr GEORGE FRYER, by the Members of the Unitarian Chapel, Preston, Lancashire, England, previous to his departure for America, as a trifling token of the esteem and regard in which he was held from his having been a consistent and active Member of their Church for nearly thirty years.-PRESTON, April 15. 1842.”