The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-08-14 00:00:00

perfect perception of right and wrong. They are both
Incumbents, and, consequently, are in the receipt of
incomes, to the possession of which they were admitted
: upon the strength of certain oaths and declarati to
which their letters Prove that they pay no regard.
They continue to eat the Church's bread, while they
deny what they admit to be her doctrine, and violate
her precepts. How different the conduct of those
Scottish Ministers who first constituted the Free
Kirk ! Little as we sympathise with their principles,
we have always respected them as honest men—as
men who proved their honesty by giving up their all
rather than sacrifice their principles : and little as we
sympathise with their views and principles who
deprave the Book of Common Prayer, still we should
respect their honesty if they relinquished those
material advantages of which they obtained possession
by, inter aria, declaring their assent and consent to
the said book. We repeat, they must be wilfully dis-
honest, or else be endowed with a very low perception
of right and wrong ; and, until we have proof of the
I former, we are but too glad to suppose the latter.
I But besides these, there are clergymen who, hold-
ing certain doctrines, profess their conviction that the
Prayer Book really contains the same only they
ladmit that there are some things in it which are capa-
ble of being differently understood, and, therefore, to
prevent mistakes they wish these parts to be altered.
These men occupy a position widely different to that
of the others : they do not deprave the Book of Com-
mon Prayer—on the contrary, they contend that its
doctrines are identical with those truths which them-
selves maintain and teach. All that they complain of
' is, that some things are not quite so clearly ex-
pressed as they might he. In all this they may be
mistaken, and yet be perfectly honest ; but, supposing
them to be perfectly correct—supposing their doctrines
to be orthodox, and their interpretation of the Prayer
Book the true one, still we are prepared to maintain
that their course is an unwise one, and that if they
could carry out the objects which they have in view
they would do infinite mischief.:-pf. all those who are
discontented with the Prayer Bodc' as it is, it would
be difficult perhaps to find half-a-dozeif who would be
contented with the same amount of alteration. We
have not the 'slightest fear of any alterations, such as
are proposed, ever being accomplished : but we dread
any serious attempt to accomplish them, as calculated
to cause a degree of excitement and animosity, which
cannot but be prejudicial to the best interests of the
Church at large. We must defer till next week any
more particular notice of the papers to which we have
already referred, when we shall endeavour to show
the dangerous and objectionable character of the
Society in question, or rather of the objects which it
proposes to accomplish.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.

THE last week of the present parliamentary session has been
expended in the prosecution of labours which form a worthy
sequel to the work in which honourable members have been
engaged, with few intervals of useful occupation, since the day
of its opening in January last—every bit of legislation has been
hurried and bungled as if the members were weary of their
work. The only labour which has been performed con amore
has been the creditable task of blackening the character of
ministers; and this has generally devolved upon themselves,
or been volunteered by one of their ex-colleagues. This dis-
reputable office was initiated by Lord Jour/ Russ LL, and, it
has fallen to his lordship's lot appropriately to close the session
as he opened it, by the liberal distribution of abuse, and the
plentiful sowing of the seeds of dissension among his quondam
colleagues.

On Tuesday, iu accordance with a hint which he had pre-
viously dropped, and to which be had made allusion on the.
preceding day, Lord JoRN, taking advantage of the third
reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, delivered himself of an
oration which admittedly eclipses all his former efforts at wan-
ton mischief, and stands unique in the annals of party warfare.
From the few first sentences which grace the opening of that
singular address, and even from the terms in which
he chose previously to allude to it, no one could very
clearly divine what exact object he had in view;
although all who were in .any degree conversant with the
waspishness of his disposition augured from its very ambiguity
that he meant mischie. The few initiatory sentences,delivered
as they were, in a deprecatory tone, led to the conjecture-that
he meant the effort, for an effort it evidently was, to end in a sort
of wind-up address, reviewing the proceedings of the session
with a view to re-establishing himself in the good graces-of
the House and of the country, which he obviously felt he- had
forfeited. It is not unlikely that such was his real intention—
nay, more, it is far from improbable that he actually deceived
himself into a belief that by such a course he was again worm-
ing his way into popular favour. If such were his desire, he
has lamentably mistaken his own position, and singularly un-
derrated public perspicacity. In the course of his protracted.
political life, Lord JOHN has indeed played many parts, not a
few of the least creditable being crowded into theuntics per—
formed by him during the session now closing. For many
years' the world regarded the proceedings of Lord' Joe Bus-
SELL as expository of the feelings of a largesection of the. politi-
cal society of England. A little more self-command--a• little
more management on his part—would have thaintainettthe de-
lusion, and enabled him to strut the remainder of his brief hour
upon the stage bedizened in the borrowed plumage whichmo one
deemed it worth his while to strip him of. By his owa act he has
fallen from the place he laboured so hard and so• unscrupu-
lously to attain. He has dropped from that high,position, as
he had previously descended from others to which greater
fame and prouder emoluments were attached. He now stands
exposed a recreant Briton—npaltry marplot—n worthy, be-
cause a craven, colleague of the peace-at-any-price, men,_ who
aro repudiated and condemned by every class of Englishmen..
In his last, and sincerely to be hoped. it is politically his dying.,
speech, he traversed every point of foreign, policy on which.
he could expect to fix a greviance, or into which he could.hope -
to insert an infernal machine, with any chance- of creating:
an explosion. As the Times truly says, `'there• is not a sore-
point in European politics, there is not apiece-where the- fire
still glows under the treacherous ashes, that Lord. Jogs.. RT,:tS.
SELL does not stir up with the recklessness of a novice,.or the
artifice of a less amiable character ; " sad all with, the. single
and sole and obviously malicious intention of damaging his
quondam colleagues. Yet this man, is a British senator, was
once the potent leader of a powerful party, was recently, a Mi- '
nister of state, the representative of his Sovereign ala,Eurepean
Congress, and is still the sworn councillor of that betrayed and
insulted Sovereign! Lord Jonx was one of those.who counselled
the war; and, if we may credit his own assertion), lie quar-
relled with and broke up one Cabinet of which he was a mem-
ber, because their conduct of the war was not sufficiently
energetic to meet the requirements of his burning zeal. What,
then, does he mean by the dolorous reference. he made to the
ex pease of that war which he at first approved of—which, till
within a few brief months,he was ready to go to combat with his
colleagues for the eager prosecution of—and which, but yes-
terday as it were, he told the wondering world he still ap-
proves of ? Having stumbled and fallen from his place of
pride, was he stooping his neck and courting the yoke of Con,
DEN ? His lordship next directed his dimmed vision to the.
Baltic, and there he discovered that the state of our naval
armament is not such as to ensure speedy victory, against an
enemy we cannot reach, and who sedulously 'avoids approach-
ing us. Oh, shame, where was thy blush, when Lord Joni./
RUSSELL uttered disapprobation founded on such a plea?
Was he not a member of that Cabinet which delayed or refused
to construct gun-boats which would have enabled our gallant
sailors to seek those foes who are afraid to meet them ? From
the forbearance he displayed towards the ABERDEEN Cabinet,
and from that he now exhibits towards the Xinistry of Lord
RiLMERSION, are we to infer that he alone insisted on the
Baltic fleet being fitted and equipped in such a manner as to
confer efficiency of action on it ? Every act, every declara-
tion, every whisper he has made knownjorbids the monstrous
supposition. The annals of party turpitude furnish no parallel
to the.effrontery and baseness combined in such a course as
that pursued by Lord Jorpr RussuLL,' in reference to these
matters. He does not, however, confine himself to these, but,
stalking over the general policy of the two last Cabinets, he
reviews and reprobates each act and intention in succession.
He complains that the Foreign Enlistment Bill has failed in
its object ; but seemingly forgets that being a party to its en-
actment he must bear some share of its responsibility. He is
next querulous as to the great force sent by the allies to the
Crimea, and asserts with ill-concealed gratification that that
force will be speedily met by a "large Russian army, that
army being now augmented by troops sent from Poland
and from other frontiers of Russia bordering on the Aus-
trian empire, which are now set free owing to the present
policy of Austria ;" out of which comfortable state of matters
the patriotic plenipotentiary pleasantly foretels the vexed
ocean of party squabbles which awaits Ministers in the
next session of Parliament, and which without doubt will be
I kept as hot and turbulent as he can make it, if he be permitted