natural contract: it then came under the cognizance of the Church, and it was elevated to the dignity of a sacrament; and so the law of the church, the canon law, though it recognized it as a sacrament, so far regarded the natural and civil origin of marriage as to hold that where the natural and civil contract was formed it had the full essence of matrimony without the intervention of a priest.

The consent therefore of two persons expressed in words of present mutual acceptance constituted an actual and legal marriage, and consummation was presumed as following that acceptance. At the Reformation, England disclaimed the doctrine of a sacrament in marriage, retaining, however, the rules of the canon law that were founded in the natural and civil contract of marriage. As we have observed, the marriage law of Ireland was considered the same as that of England prior to the Marriage Act of George II., but in 1840 there was raised a question on an indictment for bigamy, which resulted in a protracted legal battle, ending in the House of Lords. This case was the origin of the existing statute law in Ireland now regulating the marriage ceremony in that country; but this statute does not affect the Roman Catholics, Quakers, or Jews. That statute is the 7th & 8th of the Queen, and became necessary by reason of the following incidents.

In 1840 Dr. Miller, the Surrogate in the Consistorial Court of Armagh, having to decide a question raised before him, on the validity of a marriage between a Presbyterian and a member of the Episcopal Church solemnized by a Presbyterian minister, had declared such contract to be null and void. In the North of Ireland, where such marriages had been of frequent occurrence, this judgment aroused great hostility. The intensity of the indignation was increased, when it was known that the decision was rested on a Saxon canon of the tenth century, requiring the presence of a "priest" necessary to validate a marriage; and the Presbyterian minister not being episcopally ordained, was held not to come within the canonical requirement of one in holy orders. The question before the Consistorial Court was as to the right of administration to the property of a deceased individual, and in the conflict amongst the next of kin the legality of the marriage was disputed. Shortly after the judgment of Dr. Miller was pronounced, a man being indicted for bigamy in the county of Antrim, pleaded that though he had been previously united in wedlock by a Presbyterian minister, such was no valid contract, because he was an Episcopalian. A special verdict was found by the jury, under the direction of the judge who tried the prisoner, and the question came before the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland. The judges were divided in opinion as to the validity of the marriage, and the case was taken to the House of Lords. Lords Brougham, Campbell, and Denman were for reversing the judgment of the Irish Court; Lords Abinger, Cottenham, and the Lord Chancellor were against the reversal; and so, according to the rule presumitur pro negante, the judgment of the Queen's Bench in Ireland was affirmed, and the prisoner acquitted; thus deciding that to

validate a marriage in Ireland the ceremony must be in presence of a priest in holy orders. To justify this decision there was cited a decretal of Edmund, promulgated in 940, directing that "at the nuptials there shall be a mass priest by law who shall with God's blessing bind the union to all posterity." But it was rather pointedly asked, If this be law, why are not all the Saxon enactments law? why was the law of King Ina not part of the Statute Book, which imposed the penalty of forfeiture of goods on a man who had not his child baptized; or the law of King Alfred, which inflicted a graduated scale of fines for criminal conversation, according to the rank of the parties? In truth, it would appear that the enactment of Edmund simply recommended a more formal ceremony, but it did not annul a marriage contracted without sacerdotal benediction. This case, which is known as The Queen v. Millis, has been more or less questioned, and it is generally assumed that though it is a binding authority of the highest appellate tribunal, yet if the question involved in it were reopened, the decision would be different. The effect of it was somewhat alarming, for the legitimacy of many Presbyterian families in the North of Ireland was assailed by it; and so in the same session of Parliament in which it was decided, the Act of 7 & 8 of the Queen was passed, validating previous marriages that had been solemnized by Presbyterian ministers between members of different communions, and providing in future for the registration of all marriages depending on the civil contract as well as the religious. In fact it is an analogous statute with those applicable to England dealing with Nonconformists and persons who object to a religious ceremony. It came into operation on the 31st March, 1845, and was amended by 9 & 10 of the Queen, cap. 72, and by 12 & 13 of the Queen, cap. 99, but not altered in any essential. Now, therefore, in Ireland all the rules prescribed by the rubric concerning the solemnizing of marriages continue to be observed by every person in holy orders of the United Church of England and Ireland, but the giving of notice to the marriage registrar of the district, and the issuing of his certificate, may be used instead of the publication of banns; and Presbyterian marriages may be solemnized in Presbyterian churches according to the form used therein. But the Act does not affect Roman Catholics, whose rights are not interfered with if the marriages celebrated by them were legal previously to the Act passing; nor does it alter the contract of marriage as solemnized by Quakers and Jews, for such marriage performed according to their usage is good in law, if both parties be Quakers or profess the Jewish religion. These persons, however, must give notice to the registrar and obtain his certificate before the ceremony.

Scotland then remains as before, the marriage being unaffected by any statute, the law only requiring the consent of the parties to take each other as husband and wife; but this consent is required to be proved by a witness present when it was given, or by a writing signed by the parties. But of it may be said what was observed by Serjeant Maynard in the time of the Commonwealth, "that the law lies very loose as to

things that are naturally essential to marriages, as to pre-contracts and dissolving marriages."

It would be interesting to detail some of the cases as reported in law books in reference to the marriage law, but those who are desirous of mastering the subject cannot do better than peruse the reports we have before referred to, and especially an able resume of the whole matter by Mr. Justice Willes in the case of Beamish v. Beamish, in the House of Lords' Reports. That was the case of a clergyman in holy orders going to the house of a person named Lewis in the city of Cork, and there performing a ceremony of marriage between himself and one Isabella Fitzgerald, by reading between them in the house the form of solemnization of matrimony in the Book of Common Prayer, and by declaring that he Samuel S. Beamish took Isabella Fitzgerald as his wedded wife, and Isabella Fitzgerald declaring she took him for her wedded husband, and by placing a ring on her finger and pronouncing the blessing in the appointed form. No person was present at the ceremony, but its performance was seen by a female-who, however, did not hear what passed between them. The validity of this marriage was raised in an ejectment proceeding on a question of legitimacy; the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland held it was a valid, though an irregular marriage, but the House of Lords decided that it was null and void. This decision flowed from The Queen v. Millis—for that case deciding that to constitute a valid marriage by the common law it must have been celebrated in the presence of a clergyman in holy orders, the fact that the bridegroom was himself a clergyman in holy orders, there being no other clergyman- present, would not make it a valid marriage. Mr. Beamish might have somewhere met in his reading with this passage from a document of the 10th century, to be found in Ancient Laws, p. 335, chap. ii., and it might have been well if he had pondered it: "A priest's wife is nothing but a snare of the Devil, and he who is ensnared thereby on to his end, he will be seized fast by the Devil, and he also must pass afterwards into the hands of fiends and totally perish.”