that Registers are of importance to himself and every one, just as much as they are to the Dissenter;-that a wealthy divine, who kicks at performing these offices for a Dissenter, may spend hundreds in making out a title to his estate, or may, perhaps, lose it, owing to defects arising out of this squeamishness of himself or a predecessor. No! he persists in supporting the Church's exclusive right to keep these Registers, at the same time that he refuses to render them efficient.

But, after all, what is this Birth Register, as it is called, even to a Churchman? It is at best but a clumsy proof; for it does not prove at all, except inferentially, the most essential requisite-the age of the party. It proves, to be sure, that the party was baptized at a given time, and we are wise enough, and courts are wise enough, to infer thence, that the party was at all events born before that event; but when, or how soon before, no where appears; and important cases have occurred where parties have been of age, and exercised important acts as such, when the only record which the institu tions of the country afford, will not prove them to have been of age till some time after; and it has become necessary to have all intermediate acts subsequently confirmed.

The truth is, that a completely newmodelled or created establishment is wanted for this and many other purposes of a similar nature, connected with what we may call the police of the country, and all together (so far as civil formalities are concerned) dissociated from these ecclesiastical offices, which the progress of toleration places at every turn at variance with convenience and common sense. We believe that there are few countries in Europe where such establishments do not exist. For instance, in the case of marriages, all the difficulties attending on the discussions in this case, and on reconciling civil regularity with religious charity and liberty, would be at once avoided if the parties, wherever performing their religious ceremony (which the Legislature, if it thought it necessary, might require to be done some where) were attended at that ceremony by an officer, whose duty it was to take note of the civil formalities and to relieve the minister from any duties not properly religious, and from the fear of transportation or some other degrading penalty if be neglects them.

The district notary, constable, or by whatever name he might be called, should have a permanent office, as he has abroad, and would answer a thousand

purposes of regularity and security in civil transactions, which are now managed by the clumsy and ignorant intervention of churchwardens, &c., the only persons to whom recourse is had on all occasions.

With regard to a Birth Register, it is still more important to provide for a system independent of Church observances, (though, of course, it might avail itself of them when resorted to,) because there are sects who do not resort to infant baptism in any place, and who, on the present plan, can in no way get registered at all. An easy remedy for this would be effected by providing for the same civil officer taking, either at the baptism when it takes place, or from the parents, or other competent evidence, a declaration and certificate of the birth to be verified and certified by such officer, and entered on record, which would give a much more correct and valuable Registry than the present. Asimilar provision could be made with greater ease as to deaths. This Register might be kept (for want of a better office for acts of this description) in the parish chest, but should be regularly copied for the general custos rotulorum of the county. If all this be too much to be conceded, the parish Register ought to be made as comprehensive as possible, and the births or baptisms, &c., of Dissenters should be entered upon it (as they actually were by a statute of William III., for the purpose of collecting a stamp duty, then in force); and if the minister feels a difficulty in performing this office, let the parish clerk or the churchwarden do it.

But supposing things to remain as they are (which we fear is most probable), the question arises, how are Dissenters to provide a registration at any rate for births, which shall give as good a record (if not legal proof) of the fact as can be got, considering that they have not and cannot have any person answering to the recognized and official character which is borne by a Church clergyman, acting under the canons of his Church and Acts of Parliament, and which entitles his acts to credit per se in courts of justice? Where a Dissenter's child is baptized at a chapel keeping a Register, this is one mode of proof, and we would by no means recommend this to be neglected, the Registers there being valuable documents easily resorted to; but this does not apply to all Dissenters. Their Registers are, besides, carelessly kept and easily lost, and they have not the legal character, after all, which the Church Registers have.-Birth, then, it is evident, must be of necessity, in the case

of Dissenters, (as it ought to be under a good system in all cases,) the fact to be selected for record; and so far the Dissenter, if he makes this out in any tolerable way, has a better thing than the Churchman's Register can give him. But then it is obvious, that all you can get for this purpose is a written declaration by the parents with an additional testification of the fact by witnesses; and in a court of justice, the witness himself is always wanted, if alive, to prove a fact, and any written memo. randum or declaration he has made is no evidence if he himself can be found, unless a specific law has made his declaration in some way (as by an oath administered before a competent authority or in some other way) evidence of the fact contained in it, without the necessity of calling the party himself.

Now the system at Dr. Williams's Library has been this; which (with the imperfections necessarily attendant on such a voluntary establishment) we maintain to be a most excellent plan, and one which it is highly important to encourage and recommend as an example, not only to the Dissenters, but to the Legislature for its imitation. The parent signs a declaration of the birth of the child;-the child is identified by every necessary circumstance with its parents, who are so described as to link all together in a pedigree ;-and competent witnesses attest the whole, which they can, if alive, be called to prove in person. Now it is manifest, that if this document be not per se evidence of the facts, it is the best possible clue to actual and positive evidence of those facts, and such evidence as is afforded by no parochial Register when there arises a doubt as to the identity. If the parent be dead, it is the best evidence (subject of course to the necessity of proving his handwriting) of the facts he has declared, and so far it stands on the same footing as entries in Bibles, &c., to which we are obliged every day to resort in courts of justice, with this essential preference over them, that the certificate at Dr. Williams's Library is indexed, recorded and preserved, out of the reach of all suspicion of forgery, collusion, or alteration. It possesses, too, the advantage of affording the strongest moral and historical proof, and this very often prevents even the occasion or necessity for recourse to legal dispute. There are few persons of experience in such matters who have not known cases where such a Register of facts as that which these certificates afford would not have instantly settled or prevented disputes

What is there, theu, that is wanted to give the fullest and most absolute legal validity and facility to such a Registry as this, or to any such Registry as in our view ought to become general? Merely this; that the declaration should be signed in the presence of some authority, say a Justice of the peace, or of the officer who we contend should be appointed as Registrar; and should, after entry in a book kept by a proper officer in a suitable place, be received as evidence of the facts, as a parochial or other Register is; and that copies, certified by the officer keeping it, or examined and proved to be copies by a witness, should be evidence without bringing up the original.

Are the Dissenters likely to get this for their private Register? If they did, they would have a far superior system to that of the Church; but it is plain that such a concession in favour of a voluntary institution is not likely to be made ; that if it were it would be attended with endless difficulties in its details; and if it were a Metropolitan Registry it would be too expensive and troublesome for general use, without effecting which it would hardly be thought worth while to set about it. We could scarcely think of establishing provincial establishments for Dissenters only. It would, moreover, provide only for births. The great object, we repeat, is not to patch up an exclusive and partial system by setting up any new institutions founded upon it, but that a general system should be established, forming one common Register for all denominations; and for this either some entirely new machinery is necessary, or much greater alteration in the ecclesiastical jurisdictions than, as we fear, the country will be prepared for, till it has taken steps in our favour on far more important subjects.

Mean time, we again urge upon Disseuters the importance of adhering to the best system which can, without legislative assistance of a much wider character than they are likely to get, be devised for them-a system in its basis superior to that of the Establishment, and which gives every moral and almost all material legal evidence and certainty to the facts

recorded. And we would take this opportunity, which we shall on all occasions repeat, of urging the attention of the Deputies, and of all Dissenters, towards the greater questions which press upon them, and which, if favourably decided, would bring with them necessarily relief in all these more trifling particulars. To build up at this time of day some new system of expedients, founded on the present machinery of exclusion and irregularity, seems to us, we confess, to be to despair of the cause of reason and freedom more than we are warranted in doing. Let the Deputies direct half as much attention to enlightening the public mind on their great questions, to pressing on the Legislature the absurdities and anomalies of their position, and to rousing the old spirit of liberty and manly zeal which animated their fathers, -as they have for thirty years confined to the trivial vexatious which are mere incidents and badges of the system which oppresses them, and our firm conviction is, that we should not have to waste our time in discussing any such topics as many of those which now occupy our attention.

and moderation) confined their attention to the question before them, which was simply whether a petition should be received, not what should be done upon it. Mr. W. SMITH complimented Mr. Peel on his prudence and moderation. Mr. Batley was a young member, and, when he was more experienced in the House, would learn to treat such subjects with more temper. Gentlemen seemed to make no distinction between a Deist and an Atheist. An Atheist might perhaps be incapable of giving to his testimony the, sanction of an oath, but a Deist might assuredly do so. In his opinion, the State, and the interests of all who were connected with the State, would be in infinitely greater danger from the oaths of those who did not believe the Christian religion, but concealed that disbelief, than from the oaths of those who openly avowed their opinions.

Mr. HUME observed, that the petition itself was a complete answer to the learned Serjeant. He would ask, what was a Jew, but a Deist? According to the honourable gentleman, (Mr. Batley's) principle, a Jew ought not to be allowed to be sworn. The argument of the honourable gentleman, therefore, was

in Christianity.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, November 29. Mr. HUME presented a petition from a Mr. Robert Taylor, of Carey Street, Clerk, who stated that he was canonically ordained a clergyman of the Established Church-that after laborious investigation and philosophical research he could not admit the Christian faith that he had discovered that he could not on that account give evidence in any court -that he is a believer in a future statethat a short time ago a shopman of Mr. Carlile was robbed of a watch, but was unable to prosecute in consequence of his adherence to the doctrines of Deismand therefore praying that persons professing Deistical principles might be sworn in Courts of Justice in the same way as persons professing Christianity," Judaism or Mahometanism.

Serjeant ONSLow violently opposed the petition on the ground that the profession of a Deist was too vague-that no form of oath would bind him-and that he held in mockery every thing which could give a sound reliance on his veracity.

Mr. HARRISON BATLEY (a young Chancery barrister) thought it was disgraceful to entertain such a scandalous petition.

Sir EDWARD CARRINGTON expressed his horror at it.

Mr. PEEL (with his usual judgment

As to Sir E. Carrington, it really appeared to him (Mr. Hume) to be very strange, that an individual who had for such a length of time, in Ceylon, been administering oaths to men who did not believe in the Christian Revelation, should feel any difficulty on the subject in this country. It only shewed that men might live long without gaining experience. For his own part, he could see no reason why a Jew, a Turk, or the professor of any other religion different from our own, provided that his difference was a conscientious one, should not be considered as credible as any other person; and he should be happy to see that liberal policy pursued, by which such an individual should be placed on the same footing as any other. He moved that the petition should lie ou the table.The motion was agreed to.

We think it of importance (recording, as we intend to do, all matters affecting religious opinion) to give the above short report of the debate on the subject of a petition of an individual sufficiently notorious as a champion of Deism, who nevertheless styles himself "the reverend." The point agitated is an important one, and it bears on other questions of still more consequence. However small may be our sympathy with the immediate parties, there are no questions of this sort which

do not more or less affect the great and leading principles in which all are interested.

The objections taken every day in our Courts of Law to the competency of witnesses, instead of going to the Jury as observations on their credibility, give rise to a number of practical anomalies and absurdities;-as, for instance, when the story of an artless child, (the most convincing of all testimony, perhaps,) is excluded by Mr. Justice Parke because, on his private examination, he doubts her theological proficiency.

We cannot believe that, if the question comes solemnly to be argued, it will or can ever be decided that a Deist, avowing his belief in a retributive Providence, is au incompetent witness in point of law. It does not clearly appear how the facts stood, or how the objection was taken, in the case mentioned in the petition, of Carlile's shopman. We shall quote the summary of the law on this head of religious incompetency which stands in Mr. Phillipps's book on the Law of Evidence, and add a few observations on the propositions on which we suppose the opposition to the reception of this testimony was made.

The decision in "Omychund v. Barker," which settled that any foreign infidel avowing his belief in a retributive Providence is competent to give evidence, we always considered of great importance, conceiving that it settled the principle on a broad basis which would include all persous similarly circumstauced. If belief in Christianity was to be the test, we should come round to the old question, which lawyers with equally kindly dispositious to those of Lord Eldon would put, viz., "What is Christianity?" And a Unitarian or any other Dissenter might be told by him, "Christianity is OUR Christianity, not yours."

But we also considered the decision of "Omychund and Barker" (supposing it to be what common sense seems to shew it was meant to be) as of great collateral importance, inasmuch as it appeared to sap the very foundation of the doctrine on which the prosecution of Unbelievers rests at common law. There is no other foundation for this jurisdiction than a few cases (decided when no doubt Lord Coke's opinion mentioned below would have been considered law) in which it was held, that impugning Revelation was an offence, because it was a dissolution of society, inasmuch as it destroyed the foundation on which oaths rested. Jewish oaths, Mahometan oaths, Hindoo oaths, Otaheite oaths-in fact, all infidel (at least all foreign infidel) oaths, have,

however, since been decided to be equally available; and what then becomes of the common-law doctrine which governs the old cases of prosecution, that are still quoted as the authorities, and the only authorities, for these prosecutions, though the substratum has been solemnly removed?

We proceed with Mr. Phillipps.—” Atheists, and such infidels as profess not any religion that can bind their consciences to speak the truth, are excluded from being witnesses. Lord Coke, indeed, says generally, that an infidel cannot be a witness, in which denomination he intended to comprise Jews as well as Heathens; and Mr.Serjeant Hawkins thought it a sufficient objection to the competency of a witness, that he believed neither the Old nor New Testament. Lord Hale, however, was of a different opinion, and strongly points out the unreasonableness of excluding indiscriminately all Heathens from giving evidence, as well as the inconsistency of compelling them to swear in a form which they may possibly not consider binding. It were a very hard case,' he says, if a murder, committed here in presence of a Turk or Jew, should be dispunishable, because such an oath should not be taken which the witness holds binding, and cannot swear otherwise, and possibly might think himself under no obligation if sworn according to the usual style of the courts of Eu gland.' All doubts upon this subject, however, are now removed. In the case of Omychund and Barker (which came before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, assisted by Lee, C. J., Willes, C. J., and Parker, C. B.) it was solemnly decided, that the depositions of witnesses professing the Gentoo religion, who had been sworn according to the ceremonies of their religion under a commission in Chancery, ought to be admitted in evideuce. And it may now be considered as an established rule, that infidels of any other country, who believe in God, the avenger of falsehood, ought to be received here as witnesses; but infidels who believe not that there is a God or a future state of rewards and punishments, cannot be admitted in any case. It follows that, for the purpose of trying the competency of a witness, the proper question is, not as to his particular opinions, as whether he believes in Jesus Christ, but whether he believes in the existence of God and a future state. In a case before Mr. J. Buller, where a witness, who had been sworn on the Gospels, was asked whether he believed in the Gospels on which he had been sworn? the question was objected to, and is

said to have been overruled by the Court. Mr. Phillipps thinks this was because the question was asked too late; that if he had not believed in the Gospels, he would not "have been effectually sworn on them;" for "that the evidence would be given without any religious sauction;" that "if the law requires an oath, and the witness believe not in any form of religion, the consequence must necessarily be, that he cannot be sworn."

Now here, with deference to Mr. Phillipps, we cannot see the sense of this reasoning, or that it in any way follows up the decision of Lord Hale, or the Judges in Omychund and Barker. According to this, a witness is a good witness if he denies Christianity, and takes an absurdity, perhaps an immoral and profligate system of idolatry, instead of it; but he is a bad witness if he is a man who has the misfortune to reject Christianity, and therefore (for we may put it so) to reject all pretended revelations, which his inquiries must have shewn him, stand on far less evidence than the one he has found himself called on to reject. Infidelity, plus idolatry, superstition and immorality, is good; minus those qualities, it is bad. Was ever such an absurdity heard of? And whence arises the objection, merely technical as it is? Only from the witness having a book placed in his hands, (to which, by the bye, the words of no oath allude, and which the Quaker never has given him,) in which he does not believe. Because he does not believe in that book, Mr. Phillipps says he has "no religious sanction"; and yet he has just before told us that the only proper question is, "Whether he believes in the existence of God and a future state." Is not this the sanction required? Is it not this which makes the oath binding; and if this principle be rejected, why do you swear an Indian by his trumpery; another by holding up his hand, and another by covering his head? If you avoid the anomaly of giving a Heathen a book in which he does not believe, and swear him in a form which he chooses to say he considers binding, (for which you take his word, be it observed, as we believe was held in the Queen's case,) why, in the name of common sense, is not the English Unbeliever to be allowed the same privilege as an Indian savage, of stating what does constitute his religious sanction, and of being sworn in that way? And if the book be considered an objection, (and probably the objection would not come from the witness, who would be indifferent about it,) let it not be offered. What jumble exists in Mr. Phillipps' mind be

tween the form of a religion" and the form of an oath we do not exactly see. We cannot doubt for a moment that if a Heathen came, who said that he was a believer in God, and in a future state of rewards and punishments, but that in his country he knew of neither any specific "form of religion," nor even form of oath, any man of common sense would reject him as incompetent on that account. "Whatever be the form," concludes Mr. Phillipps, "the meaning of the oath is the same. It is calling on God to witness what we say, and invoking his vengeance if what we say is false." To be sure it is; and if the decision in "Omychund v. Barker," amounts to any thing, it is, that the law looks to the substance; to the religion, not to the form of it, or of the oath either. If, however, there be any weight in the technical objection which Mr. Phillipps puts forward in one sentence, and seems to retreat from in another, that some form is necessary, it would seem that the petitioner and his followers (who, by the bye, are not bound to answer any other questions than the general one mentioned by Mr. Phillipps) have in any case an obvious shift for relieving the law of its difficulty. Some more substantial form would certainly be more likely to succeed than the ridiculous scheme of this gentleman for swearing on his book of nature, i. e. upon a metaphor; but it would seem that they have only to agree on some form, (the law quarrels not with its absurdity,) which they may state to be theirs, and then they become qualified to come at that substance, which the law professes to have alone in view, but which it bids fair to miss under a cloud of subtleties.

At all events, the debate is worthy of note, as a specimen of the vague state of shallow declamation usually resorted to ou these subjects even by lawyers. (We wonder at Sergeant Onslow, though we do not see occasion to wonder at what falls from Mr. Harrison Batley.) This cannot be more strikingly evinced than in such a case as the present, where the very proposition which is treated as too gross to be received even in the form of a petition, at this moment forms part of the established common law of the land, in a much stronger form, and one which we should suppose more revolting to these gentlemen and their Dissenting supporter in the Times. One would think, by the arguments used on these occasions, that it was considered good service to the community to increase the chances of evading justice by throwing impediments in the way of the reception of evidence.