of postulatum, that if the adulteress be not permitted to marry her seducer, she is necessarily and of course driven into prostitution for life. Now this I hold to be an assumption which cannot be maintained. Is there no alternative, no middle and better course between marriage with the seducer and a life of prostitution? Is it not possible, that the adulteress may be struck with horror, with contrition and remorse for her crime? May she not even wish to seclude herself for a time from the world; to withdraw herself from the observation of mankind, and endeavour to recover in the privacy of retirement those virtuous habits which she has unfortunately lost? Instances of this sort are undoubtedly to be found, especially amongst those, who have been educated in principles of virtue and religion, but in some unguarded hour have, by the vile arts of an abandoned man, been 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 conversation 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 gulf 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 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 66 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 |