In

one Esther Graham at the house of the Rev. John Johnstone of Banbridge, County Down. Mr. Johnstone, being at that time, the regularly placed Minister of the congregation of Protestant Dissenters, commonly called Presbyterians, performed a religious ceremony of marriage according to the usual forms of the Presbyterians, and thereby George Millis and Esther Graham entered into a marriage contract, and cohabited as man and wife. In December, 1836, Millis again married Jane Kennedy at Stoke, in Devonshire, according to the form of the Established Church, by a priest in holy orders, the officiating minister of the said parish. September, 1841, Millis was taken into custody at Belfast on the charge of bigamy and subsequently tried, the jury finding a special verdict in accordance with the above facts and the court reserving a point for the consideration of the judges as to whether the first contract thus entered into was sufficiently a marriage to support an indictment against Millis for bigamy. Upon the argument which took place before the Court of Queen's Bench (Ireland) the judges were equally divided in opinion; but one of the judges, with a view to the case being brought before the House of Lords, gave judgment pro formâ in favour of the prisoner. A writ of error to the House of Lords was thereupon brought by the Crown. The case was then argued at the bar of the House in the presence of the English learned judges of the Courts of Common Law. At the conclusion of the argument the Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst proposed to the judges certain queries for their solution. In reply thereto, the Lord Chief Justice Tindal delivered to the House of Lords an address which embodied the opinions of the judges on the law of this controverted case, and the House affirmed the judgment of the court below, the Irish Court of Queen's Bench. The votes of their lordships were equal:-Whether the judgment complained of should be reversed? Two peers were for reversing and two for affirming, whereupon, according to the rule: "Semper praesumitur pro negante," it was determined that the judgment of the Court below should be

affirmed. Consequently, their Lordships' decision was in favour of the prisoner Millis, that he could not be indicted for bigamy.

The principle which determined this question was, that the former Marriage had not received the benediction of a priest in Holy Orders: the judgment resting on the constitution of Archbishop Lanfranc, at a council held at Winchester in 1076. Praeterea statutum est, ut nullus filiam suam, vel cognatam det alicui absque benedictione sacerdotali; si aliter fecerit non ut legitimum conjugium, sed ut fonicatorium judicabitur. This canon declares that it is decreed, no one should give his daughter or kinswoman in marriage to any one whatever without the priest's benediction: other marriage should not be deemed lawful, but fornication. It was also decided that the contract per verba de praesenti was by the English law never held to be actual marriage.

Consequently, three enactments, resulting from their Lordships' Judgment, passed the Legislature. 1. The 5 and 6 Vict. c. 113, to render valid marriages heretofore solemnized by Presbyterian Ministers, excepting those declared invalid by any Court of competent jurisdiction. 2. The 6 and 7 Vict. c. 39, to render marriages celebrated in Ireland, before and after the passing of 5 and 6 Vict., c. 113, by Presbyterian or Dissenting Ministers, of the same force in law as solemnized by Clergymen of the Established Church. 3. The 7 and 8 Vict., c. 81, commonly called the Irish Marriage Act.

To Register Marriages in Ireland, this last Act distinguishes between Presbyterians and other Protestant denominations. Also, in its mode of regulation, Presbyterian marriages follow closely the analogy of the law relating to marriage by the Established Church. By the 4th section, marriages between parties, one or both of whom are Presbyterians, may be solemnized in Certified Presbyterian-houses. Those Acts, confirm marriages celebrated by Protestant Dissenting ministers in Ireland. An Act of the Irish Parliament 21 and 22 Geo. III, c. 25 had previously legalized marriages solem

nized by Protestant Dissenting ministers between Protestant Dissenters.

case.

In Beamish v. Beamish the facts were as follow:-In 1831 the Rev. Samuel Swayne Beamish, a Clergyman in Holy Orders, in a private house in the City of Cork, performed a ceremony of marriage, agreeably to the Form of Marriage in the Book of Common Prayer, between himself and Isabella Frazer, the mother of the respondent in the It was averred that the said Rev. Samuel Swayne Beamish received the declaration from the said Isabella Frazer, that she took him, the officiating Clergyman, to be her wedded husband. Also, that he placed a ring on the forefinger of the said Isabella Frazer's hand,—that he pronounced the blessing in the form appointed by the marriage service,— that there was no other Clergyman or person present in the room where his marriage was solemnized; and that the only witness was a woman, outside the house, who saw the ceremony performed without hearing what passed between the parties. On these facts an action was brought-one of ejectment -to recover land by the respondent against the appellant, his Uncle, the validity of the respondent's title depending on his legal status, whether he was the legitimate son of Beamish. The Court of Queen's Bench (Ireland) held that the marriage was valid. On error to the Exchequer Chamber, six judges, (namely, Chief Justice Lefroy, Chief Baron Piggott, Justices Crampton, Perrin, Moore, ar.d Baron Richards) held that the marriage was valid; and five (namely, Chief Justice Monahan, Justices Ball, Jackson, Keogh, and Baron Greene) that it was not. The case was argued at the bar of the House of Lords, and the learned judges were summoned to attend the arguments. When concluded, the question was put to the judges, whether upon the facts found by the special verdict the plaintiff, Henry Albert Beamish, was the legitimate son of the defendant? In answer to this, the late Justice Willis delivered an elaborate and unanimous opinion in the negative as expressed by all the judges, which the

then Lord Chancellor Campbell declared to be a repertory of all the learning to be found on the subject. Their lordships thereupon reversed the decision of the Court below, and treated the marriage as invalid.

The law of the case was accordingly declared that there never could have been a valid marriage in England before the Reformation without the presence of a priest episcopally ordained, or afterwards without the presence of a priest or deacon. And where the bridegroom was himself a priest, and there being no other priest present, a valid marriage could not be contracted by his sole ministerial agency. The law requires that equally in the case of the clergy as of the laity; marriage in this country must, in the absence of express statute, take place in the presence and with the assent of a clerk in Holy Orders, who must be a third person, and whose duty it is to defer or prevent the marriage if there be a just impediment ascertained; and who, in case he allows of its proceeding, is then, in the primary sense of the word, to marry the parties by receiving their mutual consent to become man and wife.

According to Littleton, marriage is knit for civil purposes after affiance and troth plighted between them. It was also declared in this judicial decision that the ceremonies enjoined by the Rubric, such as addressing the congregation, putting the ring on the finger, pronouncing the benediction, &c., are not absolutely essential to the validity of a marriage in facie ecclesiæ; the essential part being the reciprocal taking of each other for wedded wife, and wedded husband, and their being declared married persons.

The case of Yelverton v. Yelverton is one of the greatest blots upon our jurisprudence in matrimonial proceedings of modern times. It serves to illustrate the consequences to which the contradiction and conglomeration of the Marriage Laws of the United Kingdom, not only may but actually give rise. The facts are these: Major Yelverton married a lady named Miss Longworth, first in Scotland, and next in Ireland; and then forgetful of his honour as well as his vows,

he married subsequently another lady, by whom he had an offspring. As to the first marriage with Miss Longworth, in` 1857, the parties to that suit went through a ceremony in Scotland, which, in the opinion of the Court of Session, constituted a valid marriage; and afterwards, the same parties went through another ceremony in Ireland, which in the opinion of the Irish Court of Queen's Bench constituted a valid marriage. But on appeal to the House of Lords, the judgments of both the Courts below were reversed, and both the Scotch and Irish ceremonies were declared null and void. Considerable and weighty conflict of opinion prevailed among the eminent legal members of the Appellate Court of the House on this important and serious case. Two of the members of that august assembly-and the most eminent jurists this age has presented in the forum of English Justice-namely, ex-Lord Chancellor Brougham, and the then Lord Chancellor Westbury, gave their decision in favour of the Yelverton marriage in Scotland, if not in Ireland: for by a monstrous Irish law, 19 Geo. II., c. 13, the aggrieved lady being of the Roman Catholic persuasion, every marriage celebrated by a Popish priest between two Protestants, or between a Papist and any person who hath been, or hath professed him or herself to be a Protestant at any time within twelve months, which Major Yelverton had done, before such celebration of marriage, is declared to be absolutely null and void to all intents and purposes; and by two other Acts of the same reign such a celebration of marriage is made capital felony.

Such a conflict of legal opinion, on the part of most eminent jurists, led immediately after the verdict, or rather decision in the Yelverton case, in 1865, to the issue of a Royal Commission, whereby a public inquiry was instituted, whether the marriage laws in the three parts of the kingdom could not be assimilated?

The Commissioners, of whom Lord Chelmsford was chairman, consisted also of the present Lord Chancellor, the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Selborne, Lord Hatherley,