Lewes.
_Registry of Ministerial Offices performed by Dissenters_ (Vol. iii., p.
370.).--The note of D. X. has led me to examine the baptismal registers
of Ecclesfield parish, and I find on the parchment fly-leaf of the book
which contains the baptisms, that date from nearly the beginning of the
seventeenth century, the following heading--"Births of the children of
some Dissenters enter'd as given." Then comes a list of the names of
fourteen children, with the dates of their births; and, after several
miscellaneous entries of baptisms, I find,
"January 3. 1750-1, Samuel, son of Thomas Sayles, said to be
baptised at Sheffield by ye Popish priest."
The enrolment of births is, no doubt, quite improper. But the entering
of dissenting baptisms in the parish register (mentioned by D. X.) would
not, I think, be equally open to reprobation; inasmuch as the
registering has always been of baptisms _in the parish_, and not merely
_in the church_. Hence, if dissenting baptism be, as no doubt it is, a
valid title to burial by the clergyman, he might, not unreasonably, be
disposed to keep a list of such irregular administrations. That the law
has regarded them as irregular, is evident from the fact, that when in
1812 an act was passed "for the better regulating and preserving parish
and other registers of births, baptisms, marriages, and burials in
England," the 146th chap. of the same distinctly declares, that when a
baptism is performed by any other than the licensed minister of the
parish, the certificate of its performance must state that it was
"according to the rites of the United Church of England and Ireland." No
dissenting baptism, therefore, could now be registered by the clergyman.
In our burial register there is a slip of paper pinned, with this
inscription upon it:
"These are to certify that the remains of Ann, the wife of Thomas
Ellis, was buried in the Methodist chapel-yard in Ecclesfield, the
5th day of November, 1826, aged (about) seventy-three."
The poor woman chose to lie apart from her "rude forefathers;" and she
has continued to be the solitary tenant of the small enclosure round the
chapel. It seems, however, that her friends did the best they could
towards preserving her name on the list of those who sleep in the
consecrated cemetery.