Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/697

* NOMOCANON. 597 NONCONFORMISTS. canon). In the Greek 1 lunch, the collection ,.1 ecclesiastical laws, both those pioceediiig from ihe Cnureh (caiionts) ami those from the Slate iHOmoi). The first collection was made in the ■•ixth century, but the most important in the fourteenth, the so-called iiyntagma. NO NAME. A novel by Wilkie Collins I 1S(12). It is the story of a prosperous Eiifjlish lamily, but it turns out that the i)arents have not bi-cn married. That having lie<>ii linally done, before a new will can be drawn up, the father is killed by accident, the mother dies, and the ille- fiitimatc daughters are left destitute, in sjiite of their father's wealth. The purjiose is to show the evils resulting from the Knglish law on such cases. NON-COMBATANTS (in War). Officers and men charged with the administrative duties of the military or naval services, who do not fight excc]it in self-defense. NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER. A sol- dier holding a rank intermediate between that of the enlisted man or private soldier and the commissioned officer. The following classifica- tion gives the various non-commissioned grades of the United States Army in the order of their j)recedence: ( 1 ) Sergeant-major, regimental, and sergeant-major, senior grade, artillery corps; (2) quartermaster-sergeant, regimental; (3) commissary-sergeant, regimental; (4) ordnance sergeant, post-commissary-sergeant, post-quarter- master-sergeant. electrician sergeant, hospital steward, first-class sergeant signal corps, chief musician, chief trumpeter, and principal mu- sician; (5) squadron and battalion sergeant- major, and sergeant-major, junior grade, artillery corps; (6) first sergeant and drum-major: (7) sergeant and acting hospital steward: (S) cor- poral. In each grade, date of appointment deter- mines the order of precedence. See Corporal; Sekge.xt; Staff. The non-commissioned officer of to-day must possess the ability to assume executive command in any emergency demanding prompt action and tactical ability; consequently only the most in- telligent of the enlisted men are selected for promotion. United States Army regulations per- mit a certain proportion of non-commissioned officers to obtain commissions annually, and in other ways make tlie rank ery desiral)le. In the English army, except in rare instances, social conditions preclude the possibility of any non-conunissioned officer of humble birth attaining the commissioned rank as a combatant officer: for although commissions are granted as quartermasters, riding masters, and occasionally as officers in certain divisions of the artillei-y and in the engineers, they are only given after a lifetime of service, and are to all intents and purposes honorary positions. During the Boer 'ar of lSnn-1902 the heavy casualties among olhccrs made it necessary in many instances to admit qualified non-commissioned officers to the conunissioned ranks, apart from any family or social consideration — and it is expected that this initiative will lead to an order of things similar to that of the United States Army. In Italy nearly one-third of the officers of each arm of the service are taken from the non-commi*- .sioned ranks. (See Military Education.) The German army system, as also that of France, makes special provision for the training of non- conuni.ssioned officers. NON COMPOS MENTIS (Lat., not having ]iowcr over the mind I. A legal term for lunacy. See Ix.sAMTY. NONCONFORMISTS ( from iioii-, not + con- formist, from Lat. conformis, similar, from co»i-, together + forma, form). A name given gen- erally to those who do not conform to the religion of an established Church. The most fre- quent use of the word, however, is in relation to those who at any period in English history since the Reformation have refused to conform to the doctrines and ])ractices of the Church of England; though even here, in ordinary usage, it designates only Protestant dissenters. The unifi- cation of the English Xoneonformists, in spite of their varying beliefs, as one body over against the Established Church practically dates from the repressive measures enacted soon after the Restoration in the first flush of reactionary zeal. The Act of Uniformity, requiring assent from all clergv'men to everything contained in the Prayer- Book, drove out nearly 2000 of them, or about one-fifth of the whole number of clerg>' : these were the first to be formally known as Xoncon- formists. In the place of Puritanism, now ex- tinct, came political nonconformity, which has since had its seat principally in the middle or lower-middle classes of Enghuul, and whose in- cessant efl'orts have by this time succeeded in depriving the Church of England of most of its exclusive privileges. The Act of Uniformity was followed by the Corporation Act, which attacked the dissenters in one of their strongholds; the Conventicle Act, which prevented their gathering in any number; and the Five Mile Act, whose result was in many places to deprive them of religious teaching of their own sort. The next epoch-making date is that of the Toleration Act of 1080, which, while it only rela.xed and did not repeal the penal statutes, was at the time regarded as a great charter of religious liberty. Xonconformists acquired legal security for their chapels and funds, with some- thing approaching a clerical status for their ministers. But its policy of grudging and par- tial indulgence perpetuated the division of the ' nation into two more or less hostile bodies of Churchmen and Dissenters. Niggardl.v as it was, it recognized dissent, and shook (he belief that the State was bound to provide all its members with a religion and to force it, if necessary, upon their acceptance. The history of the nineteenth century, or at least the last two-thirds of it, is that of a per- tinacious struggle for further recognition on the ])art of the Nonconformists, crowned with con- siderable success — though the great object of political nonconformity, the disestablishment of the Church of England, seems further off than it was. In 183G Dissenters were allowed to be married by their own ministers and rites; the commutation of tithes (q.v.) into a rent-charge rendered their collection less odious; registra- tion of births, deaths, and marriages was trans- ferred from the Church to the State : and a charter was given to the free I'niversity of Lon- don, which imposed no religious tests. Perhaps the most important of the later gains of non- conformity have been in the department of educa- tion—the great universities having been thrown