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Updated: May 24, 2025
John Angell James was then at the head of the Nonconformists of the town, and was in the prime of his intellectual powers. He was very popular as a preacher, and the chapel in Carrs Lane was always well filled. Mr. Wm. Beaumont, the bank manager, acted as precentor, reading aloud the words of the hymns to be sung and the notices of coming religious events. Mr.
But few strictly sectarian books appeared, "the censorship of the press, the right of licensing books being almost entirely arrogated to himself by the untiring enemy of the Nonconformists, Laud, Bishop of London, whose watchful eye few heretical writings could escape.. . . Many of the most ultra pamphlets and tracts were the prints of foreign presses secretly introduced into the country without the form of a legal entry at Stationers' Hall."
He said, that it was their fixed opinion, that no man, merely because he differed from the established faith, should ever, while he remained a peaceable subject, be exposed to any punishment, or even vexation: that the prince and princess gave heartily their consent for repealing legally all the penal statutes, as well those which had been enacted against the Catholics as against the Protestant nonconformists; and would concur with the king in any measure for that purpose: that the test was not to be considered as a penalty inflicted on the professors of any religion, but as a security provided for the established worship: that it was no punishment on men to be excluded from public offices, and to live peaceably on their own revenues or industry: that even in the United Provinces, which were so often cited as models of toleration, though all sects were admitted, yet civil offices were enjoyed by the professors of the established religion alone: that military commands, indeed, were sometimes bestowed on Catholics; but as they were conferred with great precaution, and still lay under the control of the magistrate, they could give no just reason for umbrage: and that their highnesses, however desirous of gratifying the king, and of endeavoring by every means to render his reign peaceable and happy, could not agree to any measure which would expose their religion to such imminent danger.
Trench, as we have seen, gathers from the parable that the pure, or those who consider themselves pure, are not justified in leaping out of the net at their own pleasure; that is, the Nonconformists should not go and constitute conventicles beyond the pale of the Establishment.
Many a person looked at us as we passed; almost everybody knew us, but few, even of our own neighbours, saluted us; we were Nonconformists and Quakers. I had never been in the town since the day I came through it with John Halifax. The season was much later now, but it was quite warm still in the sunshine, and very pleasant looked the streets, even the close, narrow streets of Norton Bury.
In later years, when I was myself the editor of the Leeds Mercury, some of my excellent friends in London and notably Mr. Stead were wont to deplore my tendency in favour of Imperialism in foreign affairs, and to attribute it to the influence upon me of the Pall Mall clubs. As a matter of fact, I was led in this direction by the influence of these two estimable Yorkshire Nonconformists.
For the learned and pious were greatly tossed about, like worthy Mr. Chillingworth, by doubts wavering between the Church of Rome and the Reformed Church of England. The humbler folk, also, were invited, now here, now there, by the clamours of fanatical Nonconformists, who gave themselves out to be somebody, while Atheism itself was not without many to witness to it.
But there was no reason why, because the Church of England had done in times past and was still doing grand work, there should be no place for the Nonconformists. Church people rejoiced, and Nonconformists might rejoice, that the prayers of the Church of England were enshrined in a Liturgy radiant with the traditions of a glorious past.
Let us now return to the history of our own Socinians, or, as they preferred to be called, Unitarians; we shall soon see how far short they fell in point of belief of their foreign predecessors. The heresy naturally spread more widely among Nonconformists than it could in the Church of England.
The laws against conventicles were now rigorously executed; an expedient which, the king knew, would diminish neither the numbers nor influence of the nonconformists; and which is therefore to be deemed more the result of passion than of policy. Scarcely any persecution serves the intended purpose but such as amounts to a total extermination.
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