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71
A Resolution was thereupon passed reciting the order of
the Vestry on the 11 Feb., 1819, and stating that "the
articles sold is a preparatory measure for restoring the
Chimes when the state of the Parochial Funds are flourishing
enough to bear the expence."
Religious Persecution. Among the multitudinous matters in which
authority was exercised by the Vestry, one, at
least, stands out as being wholly repugnant to
the mind of the present day—that of assisting in the
punishment of those who, for conscientious reasons, did not
attend the services of the parish church. In this matter,
as in some others, the power exercised was simply assumed,
there being no statutory obligation upon the Vestry to
exercise it. As a legal offence, refusal to attend the services
of the established Church had been punishable since 1 Eliz.
cap. 2(1558); but its prosecution was attended with singular
rigour and tyranny in the Stuart dynasty, before and after
the Restoration. In the 3 James I. (1606, the year after
the discovery of the Gunpowder plot), an Act was passed
"for the better discovering and repressing of popish
recusants." After a long preambulatory denunciation of
"the wicked and devilish counsel of the jesuits * * *
who, the better to cover and hide their false hearts, and
with more safety to attend the opportunity to execute
their mischievous designs, repair sometimes to the church
to escape the penalty of the laws," it was enacted:—
II. For the better discovery therefore of such persons be it
enacted That every popish recusant convicted or hereafter
to be convicted shall once in every year at the
least receive the blessed sacrament of the Lord's supper in the
church of that parish where he or she shall most usually abide.
III. And if any recusant shall not receive the said
sacrament he or she shall for such not, receiving lose
and forfeit for the first year twenty pounds, and for the
second year forty pounds, and for every year after
threescore pounds.
Monthly presentments were to be made by the Churchwardens
and constables of all persons, including children