DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

(ae country ? Need I mention the Corporation Act of 1662, which deprived the Dissenters of the most valued rights of a citizen; the Five-Mile Act of 1665, which strove to make it impossible for Non- conforming Ministers to earn a living and hard for them to escape being sent to gaol; and the Test Act of 1673, which imposed a qualification on all officials which most Nonconformists could not con- scientiously take ? And these Acts were all passed during the reign of Charles II., ‘the merry monarch,’ as he was called from the levity and licentiousness of his conduct. It was only after the Revolution of 1680, which unfettered public opinion, that the Toleration Act gave the Dissenters the right to worship freely after their own manner. During the eighteenth century a series of remedial laws slowly, but gradually, removed the disabilities and inequalities which attended Dissent; but it was not until 1828 that the Test and Corporation Act was entirely repealed ; and it may be said that it was not until 1880 with the Burials Act that the religious equality of the Nonconformist was finally established. Intolerance in its most inhuman form was long exemplified by the treatment of the Jews in this country. It is strange to record that in the comparatively uncivilised days of the last Saxon and first Norman Kings the Jews enjoyed in England the same rights and liberties as any of their fellow- B