THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN, in calling attention to a Petition from the Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland against legalizing marriage with a deceased wife's sister, said: My Lords, I have the honour to present several Petitions to your Lordships against the Bill for legalizing marriage with a deceased wife's sister; but there is one Petition, and only one, upon which I would ask to be allowed to say a few words, and in doing so I will abstain from offering any remarks on the Bill itself, which would be to anticipate a future debate upon it; but I will confine myself to the Petition I am about to present. That Petition emanates from a learned and venerable Body, and it comes from the whole of that Body. It is subscribed with the names of all the Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. My Lords, the Bishops in Scotland are not now represented in either House of Parliament; but they are the legitimate successors of Bishops who were Peers in the Parliaments of Scotland, some of whose Episcopal Sees were anterior to the Norman Conquest; and, although these Bishops are now reduced to half of their former number—namely, to seven—yet they fill the original Sees, some of which have become blended together. The present time is a memorable one in the history of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and suggests some interesting reminiscences. Nearly two centuries ago—namely, in the year 1689—that Church was disestablished, and greatly it has suffered from its disestablishment. All the Bishops of Scotland were deprived of their secular rank, civil privileges, and temporal revenues for conscience sake, because they refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary as their Sovereigns de jure in place of King James II., although they were ready to affirm that they would submit to them as their Rulers de facto. My Lords, a good deal has been said lately as to the Oath of Allegiance being a mistake; but if the Oath of Allegiance is a mistake, the Disestablishment of the Episcopal Church of Scot 1284 land was a crime. But, to pass on to the year 1884. That will be a remarkable one in the history of the Episcopal Church of Scotland and of Christendom. Just 100 years will then have passed away since the disestablished, suffering, afflicted, and persecuted Episcopal Church in Scotland bestowed the gift of Episcopacy on America. It did this by the hands of three of its Bishops at Aberdeen, on November 14, 1784, in the consecration of Dr. Samuel Seabury, the first of a line of Bishops who now amount to no less a number than 60 in the United States of America alone, to say nothing of British America. The grain of mustard seed sown a century ago at Aberdeen has now become a great tree, and its branches overshadow the Western World. The noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack will remember he w a venerable and learned person—one of the most venerable and learned in the University of Oxford, whose life was extended to nearly 100 years—the President of the great and magnificent College of St. Mary Magdalene—of which the noble and learned Earl himself is so distinguished an ornament—I refer to Dr. Martin Joseph Routh, when he had gathered together the precious remains of primitive Christian antiquity, he inscribed that valuable collection and literary work, his Reliquiœ Sacrœ, to the Bishops of the Episcopal Church of Scotland and their Clergy, and showed his reverence for them in a respectful and laudatory dedication. My Lords, since that time the Episcopal Church in Scotland has distinguished itself in a manner which I believe no other Church has done in the last 50 37ears—namely, by building two noble Cathedrals—one at Inverness, and the other at Edinburgh; and it is a happy sign of the abatement of religious strife, and a fortunate augury of a future reign of peace in that country, that at the consecration of the Cathedral at Edinburgh the Bishop of that City and his Episcopal Brethren were honoured by the presence and cordial support of the Lord Provost of the capital of Scotland. My Lords, having been honoured by these right rev. Persons with the charge of their Petition, I have thought it my duty to request your Lordships' indulgence on this occasion in presenting it; and now that, happily, by the spirit of liberal and enlightened toleration which cha- 1285 racterizes your Lordships' proceedings, those penalties and disabilities have been removed which formerly pressed upon them, I feel confident I may assure them that the Petition which has been presented to your Lordships to-day will receive that consideration to which it is so fairly entitled from the character, learning, and offices of those who have signed it. I would, in conclusion, request the leave of your Lordships to read it, and I have to add that in presenting it I entirely agree in the substance and prayer of the Petition.
§ Petition read, and ordered to lie on the Table.