The National Register. — London, England, 1811-09-15 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL__ sissn.wiTT ittf;re dignified—ANlMATioN a'-)d sulivirY more tind the image is faintly traced, which I shall long dwell upon with delight, of my departed friend. , Though so early removed from us, let to be grateful that there yet remain, from the same ministerial seminary, a Percy, lay, a Whitehouse, a Hall, and many others; men of devout and ardent minds iu the Redeemer's cause ; and who, if they continue faithful unto death, shall at length, with Spencer, shine -as gems of no common magnitude, in his mediatorial crown. In concliPion—let me affectionately impress upon all who are preparing for the ministry, or engaged in it, the cultivation of that spirit of prayer and communion with God, which was so early and abidingly the frame of heart of the deceased. " Such • a spirit" to use one of his own beautiful remarks, " is, in the Christian lite, as the sap at the root; all other graces, in com parison of it, are but as the dew on the leaf !" I remain, Sir, Very respectfully, exc. Kennington, Sept. ii, 1811. C. SURREY CHAPEL PREACHNG. TO TILE EDITOR OF THE NATIONXI. REGISTER. SlR—The readiness with which you admit into your valuable paper remarks and strictures connected with religious subjects, encourages me to hope that you will allow the insertion of this short letter. Yesterday evening I attended a popular Chapel in this neigh bourhood, and heard there a melancholy instance of the prevail ing style of Methodist Preachers. The Preacher, an elderly • man, chose for hir subject the Crucifixion of our Saviour, a sub- , jeet the most awful that can interest human beings, and which, of all others, ought to he treated in a manner suited to its dignity and importance. You will easily imagine my surprise, and you will participate in my regret, when I inform you that the lan guage of the Preacher was calculated to bring the awful subject. into contempt and ridicule. In endeavouring to describe the j agonies the Saviour might he supposed to suffer, he used these words.- 44 What do yoti suppose were the agonies he suffered ?. Were they the agonies of the stone ? Were they the agonies of the gout? cr where they the agonies of tl.e tooth ache ? A man may be supposed to wince under the ru,cl , .ing pain of the atone ; be may be almost tempted to swear in a fit of the gout; and the sweat ray run down his face with the tooth-ache; but these are far inferior to what he might be supposed to suffer." Although it may be necessary in some measure to suit, in po pular discourses, the language to the capacity and education of the audience, yet I cannot think so meanly of the good sense and taste of any of his auditors, as to suppose that such 11(.titely language could he listened to with common patience. I went to the Chapel with impressions in favour of a style of preaching which has lately become extremely popular, but I returned front it extremely shocklc, at hearing a subject which I have always contemplated with reverential awe, treated in so light and bur lesque a manner. Hoping that this-letter, if it should meet the eye of any of his audience, who are both numerous and respectable, may be taken as a friendly hint, I remain, Your constant reader, Blackfriars-road, Sept. 9, 1811. TI M O THY. N. B. It is perhaps unnecessary to mention that the Chapel above alluded to is Mr. Rowland Hill's. An Auxiliary Bible Society has been established at Calcutta, whose object is the circulation of the Holy Scri p tures, w►thout note or comment, among one million of the na, ive Christians of India, including those of Ceylon. Mr. J. H. Harrington has been appointed President, and Messis. Udny and Edrnon6tosie., Vicr-Piesideata. FCISTER. UND UL A curirus and 'a very important fact occurred at. Cardiff, upon the Circait there, last week. A Gentleman of opulence, a Magistrate, and of no questioned repute, addressed a letter to one of the Judges, in which his object was, not only to accuse.Z culprit (committed for manslaughter upon a Coroner's Inqueet), of a deliberate and savage :mailer, hut also upon the evidence of assertion alone, to inflame the judical mind of his corresponf. dent against that prisoner, by persuading the Judge before-band that unless the accused should be cut oil by the law, not a life near him, or within his reach; could be safe. He represented this man as a conspirator in a desperate clan of miscreants, who were men of sanguinary habits and plosions. He told the Judge, that all the witnesses who were to be heard, were all partial to the accused, and would suppress the facts they knew, unless his Lordship would make them speak out ; and he desired him to keep the secret of these hints, for which he gave this reason, " that every thing valuable to hies 44 was at stake in withholding from this clan a knowledge of the " part he took against them." When die Judge had read this letter, which he received Pit Court, the Bar, and Grand Jery attending, he told them letter had been just put into his hand, and he named the wr i t* of it • he added, that circumstances of peculiar delicacy res; eats ing the subject of that letter imposed upon his feelings, thse painful necessity of deferring to publish the co ntents till dre jail had been delivered, but that he should then direct his prin. cipal Officer to read it aloud, and should pass a marked - acid public censure upon it, after delivering which, he should come mand the deposit of the letter upon the files of the Court, for safe custody, accompanied by a note of its diktat, that if the writer chose to appear he would be in time, and would be heard. When the man accused of the manslaughter had been triolt„ and had received the sentence of imprisonment for three monthi, he was remanded. The writer of the letter did not appear, and the Judge delivered himself as follows, to a numerous aloe dience. We give the substance without professing to give Ilse words:— " You have heard this letter; and your looks were eloquent. They reprobated this tampering and cruel artifice. " A. Magistrate of the County, at whose mercy in some de gree are the lives and liberties of men, writes to me for the ainglo purpose of insinuating and whispering away a man's hfr o by undue influence upon the judgment or the feelings of his correspondent. " Hi sobject is, to invert the habit and principle of ajudicial trust, which is that of being Counsel for prisoners, into the new and sanguinary department of a suborned advocate against them. His letter pronrts me to goad the witnesses into Woe deuce more hostile to the culprit, than it was their intestinally give—advice to me, insinuated behind the back of the unused, ard just before his trial, upon evidence of assertion alone, ua duly and surreptitiously communicat.'d " But what heightens the depravity of this insult upon the • Court, and this cruelty of it, as it has taken aim at the parties who arc implicated, is the ran dunce proyosed and claimed. • " My God!"• said the Judge, "is k in 1811, that any Man breathing, a subject of this realm, could think a Judge -base enough, to be an accomplice in this fraud upon the sacred ho nour of his covenant upon eiith ;---of-his dignified indifference to parties ;—arid, above all, of his presumptioni, which are. • those of the law, that up to the moment of conviction, by au-• thentic and sworn proof, the accused are innocent? 4 4 What can be said.for the writer I " Ev•ti to hint 1 would be merciful. Is it an error of judg ment ? Is it ignorance ? But can we for g et, that be is a Ma.gts trate, and that he is a mans Shall a Magistrate be indemnified, or dismissed with a gentle rebuke, who is ignorant of the judi cial honour imposed upon him by his peculiar office ? is he $ man, so unenlightened, as to be unapprged of those feelings, Which tell every honourable mind, that no man is to be con-. demned unheard, and whispered out of the world, by a merely between his accuser and his. Judge ? " As a memorial, to after ages, of the disgrace inseparable from attempts like these, I direct the Officer to file this letter upon the Records of the Court, accompanied by a note of the fact, that it was read aloud in open Court, and severely cells sured by the Judge to whom it was addressed." The other Judge assenting, it was made a Rule of Court. • ATTE, 3 T ' Monday morning, abort five o'clock, as some l : 4smrers were going to work in a brick-field near the Tianlpsteai-road , their attention was attracted bythe faint cites of an infant, a female apparent' r ibotit three months old. A genteel dtessed woman was seen leaving the field about a quarter of an hour before the chili, was diScovered, and is supposed to be the peraon who 'left itt that. The child was taken to St. Pancras workhouse. • mums .4/, .. . .