bers into the Commons' House of Parliament. To what extent his views of reform were carried, or what modification they may have undergone in the long period during which the question has been under discussion, I have not the means of judging; but the same principle which urged him to support popular interests, since, by so doing, he would best support the balance of the constitution, would have induced him equally to maintain the just rights of the Throne, had he seen them invaded. And when the country armed in its defence in the year 1803, Mr. Shore appeared in the novel character of a military officer, and raised a company of volunteers, chiefly from amongst his own tenantry and dependants, whose services were accepted by the Crown.

Activity of body, no less than activity and energy of mind, belonged to Mr. Shore. He enjoyed through his long life an enviable state of health, and that evenuess and elasticity of spirits which belong peculiarly to those who are conscious to pure intention, to beneficial action, and who have the hope which religion gives. He sunk very gradually into the tomb. His was truly a green old age. There was the freshness and the floral hues of youth upon his counte⚫ nance; but the bent form and the few crisp hairs of silvery whiteness shewed that he was a man of many days. Mr. Shore had married, about the time when he settled at Meersbrook, the only daughter of Freeman Flower, Esq., of Clap

ham, in Surrey; and his declining years were soothed by conjugal affection and by filial tenderness, and he has departed full of days and honour, enjoying the undiminished regard of his friends, aud the high admiration of all who can honour worth and a wise consistency.

MRS. BAYLEY.

Nov. 22, at Chichester, after a few days' illness, Mrs. BAYLEY, in the 51st year of her age. The sufferings of this the Unitarian lamented member of Church were most severe, and deeply agonizing to the affectionate friends who witnessed what she endured, while anticipating the loss they themselves were about to experience; but the fortitude she evinced, and the calmness with which she looked forward to her great change, were well calculated to mitigate in part their sorrow, from the feeling they inspired that she was fully prepared to meet her God. Death, indeed, in her case, seemed to be swallowed up in victory; and truly edifying was the proof she gave by her placid confidence and devout aspirations, that, whatever some may think, or pretend to think, of the inefficacy of Unitarian sentiments in the prospect of dissolution, there is belong. ing to them a consoling influence and dignified character in a dying hour, and that those who really have lived by the rules of the Unitarian creed, may die with magnanimity while relying on its hopes.

United Committee.

Unitarian Association.

Ar a Meeting of the Committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, held Dec. 11, 1828,

It was resolved, "That it appears to this Committee, that the friends of religious liberty are imperatively called upon, at the present crisis, to declare their principles, and to seek to carry them into effect by all constitutional means.

"That this Committee deem it their duty to renew the declaration frequently made by the Unitarian Association, that entire and unrestricted liberty of reli gious faith and worship is the right of every human being, and that this right

is violated by the establishment of any religious test of fitness for civil office.

"That they recommend to the congregations in connexion with them, to send up early in the next Session petitions to both Houses of Parliament, in consonance with the foregoing Resolutions, praying for the removal of all peInalties and disabilities which, by the existing laws, are attached to the profession of any opinions on matters of religion."

Society for the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India.

We have been requested to insert the Address and Regulations of a Society recently formed at Coventry for the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India. Our limits will only allow the following extracts:

"These sacrifices are perpetrated by the Suttee (the burning or burying alive of Hindoo widows), Infanticide, Cruelties to the Sick on the banks of the river Ganges, and Pilgrimages to various holy places. By the practice of the Suttee, hundreds of disconsolate widows (some of them mere children) are hurried to the funeral pile, and burnt with the remains of their husbands, a few hours after their decease. Infanticide chiefly prevails in Guzerat, under the Bombay Presidency, and dooms numbers of infants to death at the very dawn of life. The cruelties to the sick are exercised on the banks of the Gan

ges, which is considered a goddess, and numberless victims of superstition are annually sacrificed. At the temple of Juggernaut in Orissa, Gya, and Allahabad, a tax is levied on the pilgrims, and multitudes are allured to these shrines of idolatry, (made more celebrated by British connexion with them,) many of whom never survive the miseries of pilgrimage. How are their sorrows multiplied that hasten after another god'!

"The extent of these evils is very appalling. The number of Suttees in the Bengal Presidency, from 1815 to 1824,. was as follows:

the number of murders occasioned by
Suttees, Infanticide, Cruelties to the
Sick, &c. The late Rev. W. Ward, in
his valuable work, View of the History,
Literature and Mythology of the Hindoos,'
conjectures the number of victims an-
nually sacrificed on the altars of the In-
dian gods' as follows:-
"Widows burnt alive in all
Hindostan

Pilgrims perishing on the roads
and at holy places....
Persons drowning themselves in
the Gauges, or buried or burnt
alive
Children immolated, including
those of the Rajpoots
Sick persons, whose death is has-
tened on the banks of the
Ganges

.......

......

5000

4000

500

500

500

10,500.' (Vol. II. p. 323.)

"That the British Government in India is able to abolish these murderous practices in its own dominions, appears from the testimony of many of its functionaries, given in the six volumes of Parliamentary Papers on Hindoo Immolations. An intelligent magistrate in Calcutta observes, respecting the Suttees, They will believe that we abhor the usage when we prohibit it in toto by an absolute and peremptory law. They have no idea that we might not do so with the most perfect safety. They conceive our power and our will to be commensurate.'-Parl. Papers as above, Vol. II. p. 67.

"Regulations of the Society.

"I. Its designation shall be, "The Society for promoting the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India.'

"II. Its object is to circulate information respecting the nature and extent of human sacrifices in India, by the burning of Hindoo widows, infanticide, river murders, pilgrimages, &c.; to awaken general attention to the subject; and to promote the speedy abolition of these horrible practices.

"III. The means by which this important object may be promoted are, procuring information upon the above subjects, circulating it among persons of influence in this country and in India, and originating petitions to Parliament from every part of Great Britain and Ireland.

"IV. Every person subscribing not less than 58. a year, shall be considered a member of this Society.

"V. Every member shall, on appli

of them, Norton Hall, the Park, Demesne and Manor, were assigned to Mr. and Mrs. Shore. The younger daughter became the wife of Francis Edmunds, Esq., of Worsborough.

Norton Hall, which thus became the seat of Mr. Shore, was, in its ancient state, one of the picturesque old houses of our country gentry of the higher order, of which so few remain in this neighbourhood. Some portions of it were of very high antiquity. Others appeared to have been built about the first of the Stuart reigns; and some of the best apartments had been added by the Offleys. There was a fine old entrancehall with a gallery, and in this room the Nonconformists of Norton and the neighbourhood had been long accustomed to assemble for public worship, and continued to do so in the time of Mr. Shore. Great improvements have since been made in the house and grounds; and a chapel has been erected at a little distance from the mansion, in which, so long as he was able, Mr. Shore was duly to be seen a devout and humble worshiper. During the life of Mrs. Shore, Norton Hall was their constant residence. She died there in 1781; and when some years after, Mr. Shore's eldest son had married, Norton Hall became his residence; and Mr. Shore took up his abode at Meersbrook, which had been the seat of his father, at a short distance from the village of Norton, where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died.

The public life of Mr. Shore began early; for as long ago as the year 1761, he served the office of High Sheriff of the County of Derby. He acted for some time in the Commission of the Peace; but having never qualified, according to the terms imposed by the now happily abrogated Test Act, nor being willing to qualify, he retired from the commission, and resumed, so far, a private station. His public services are, therefore, rather to be looked for in what could be done by a truly conscientious Nonconformist, and his rewards not so much in public honours as in the jucundæ recordationes of his own mind. To the place of his birth he was always a liberal benefactor. Our infirmary and our schools were the constant objects of his attention and his bounty. When there was any peculiar pressure of distress, his hand was always open. When projects were devised for the general benefit of our population, Mr. Shore evinced that he had inherited the fortune and public spirit of his fathers. He was

a member of the trusts of most of the old societies of Nonconformists in this neighbourhood, and one to whom, in all affairs of importance, especial deference was wont to be paid. He was also, through his whole life, a very active member of trusts connected with Nonconformity, and embracing higher objects than the interests of particular societies; and, in particular, in the trust of the Hollis charity in which this town so largely participates; and in that still more importaut trust to which are committed the lands bequeathed by the relict of Sir John Hewley, of York, for the education of ministers, and the support of Dissenting worship in the North of England, he was, through life, a very active and efficient member. To the Nonconformist body of England he was, indeed, an invaluable friend-one who was ever attentive to its interests-one who could represent it with dignity on all occasions-and by whom, perhaps, more than by any other private individual, it became connected with public men, and with those in high stations who are called to legislate respecting it. The mind of Mr. Shore was, through life, earnestly directed upon means for affording suitable opportunities for education to the ministers and those of the Dissenting youth at large, for whom more was required than was presented in the ordinary schools. The Dissenting academies at Warrington, at Hackney, and at York, were, in succession, objects of his constant solicitude and his liberal bounty. He belonged to that class of Nonconformists long called Presbyterians, almost the only class formerly known in the counties of York and Derby. The right of religious inquiry which that body had always maintained, and the duty of making an open profession of principles, which had passed from opinions into the class of demonstrated truths which had been always enforced by its ministers, had produced, in the early years of Mr. Shore's life, a material change from the doctrinal opinions of the founders of Presbyterian Nonconformity. In these changes Mr. Shore had gone with the body with which he was connected, if it may not rather be said that his enlightened and inquiring mind shewed to others the track of truth as it is laid open by the proper use and better knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; and that his fearless and independent spirit, his deep feeling of the importance of religious truth, his sense of the duty of making an open profession of it, did not animate

and encourage others in this necessary, but somewhat difficult duty. In that great crisis in the religious history of our country, when the application to Parliament by a great and respectable body of the clergy of the Church of England for some change in the required subscription to make it more congenial to the Protestant principles of liberty, of religious inquiry, and the sufficiency of Scripture, was rejected by an overwhelming majority; and when, in consequence of it, a beneficed clergyman of this county, of the highest character, gave up his preferment, withdrew himself from the church, and opened a chapel in London for public worship on Unitarian principles, Mr. Shore, and the neighbour and great friend of the family, Mr. Newton, of Norton House, were amongst the first to encourage and assist Mr. Lindsey. That truly conscientious, and truly learned and excellent man found, indeed, his best friends amongst those who had been trained in the school of Nonconformity. In his journey from Catterick to London, a pilgrimage which will be looked upon with increasing interest as time advances, and brings forth more and more of the consequences of that event, Mr. Lindsey spent a whole week in this neighbour hood. He was, during that time, the guest of his friend, Mr. Mason, who was residing on his rectory of Aston, the biographer of Gray, and one whose taste gave beauty, and poetry celebrity, to that cheerful village.

To Dr. Priestley, a man of a still bolder and more ardent mind, Mr. Shore also extended a friendly patronage; aud Dr. Priestley has inscribed to him his History of the Christian Church, as to one whose conduct had long proved him to be a steady friend of Christianity, and whose object it had been to preserve it as unmixed as possible with every thing that has a tendency to corrupt and debase it."

Mr. Shore was not less active in his endeavours to regain for Protestant Dissenters the rights of which they had been deprived in the reign of Charles II., and which were but imperfectly restored at the Revolution. He not only concurred in all the applications which were made to Parliament, but he exerted to the utmost that high influence which he possessed in the exalted ranks of society. He lived to witness the success of these applications; and some of his latest thoughts were directed upon this gratifying proof of the increased liberality

of the times, and this advancement in the general liberty of the subject.

Throughout life, Mr. Shore looked with solicitude to the popular parts of our well-balanced constitution, which he thought in more dauger of injury than the monarchical or aristocratical portions of it. He looked with an apprehension, in which many great and wise men agreed with him, to an increase of the influence of the Crown, too great for the safety of the people; and in his character of a citizen of this great country, he thought it his duty to support all measures which tended to maintain, or even to give an increase, correspondent to the increased influence of the Crown, to the rights and privileges of the commonalty. In his own county (Derby) he was the supporter of the house of Cavendish, because that house was a supporter of the principles which he thought essential to the maintenance of the public weal. And in the county of his birth, though not of his residence, and where he possessed great interests, he was the supporter of that public interest of which Sir George Savile might, in his day, be accounted the illustrious representative. When the principles of those who leaned to the monarchical, and of those who leaned to the popular part of the constitution, became posited on the great question of Parliamentary Reform, Mr. Shore was among the foremost of those eminent persons in the county of York who formed the Yorkshire Association of former times; and when the great Yorkshire petition for reform was agreed upon, he was one of the deputies to whom the care of it was committed. A list of the members of that Association who met at York is before me; but few are at this day living. Of the two deputies with Mr. Shore, the Rev. Christopher Wyvill, and Sir James Innes, who became afterwards Duke of Roxburgh, both are dead.

Through the period of alarm, Mr. Shore still retained his former principles. He was attached to the political party of which Mr. Fox might be regarded as at that time the representative; but it was entirely an attachment lying in community of sentiment-an attachment so truly independent, that it might be at once broken when the community of sentiment had disappeared.

In later periods, Mr. Shore has shewn the importance with which he regarded the question of the improvement of our representation, and the infusion of a greater number of really elected mem