The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-04 00:00:00

'RESS, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 4,, 1549.

jadvertierments in fitie *toter. Its magnums' custom
lof his, which we are gaits sate be would be sorry to
be obliged to relinquish. Only once before has it in-1
deiced such observations as the present, and that was
in the month of December, 1846, when the board of
guardians of the Whitechapel union thought it in-
cumbent upon them to publish a report rebutting Mr.
Mutates etatewswats reapeeting his district and its
inhabitants, and aaintadverting in no "wagered terms
on one of his publication. "I acknowledge," said
Mr. HARRIS, in a letter be was forced to publish in
reply, "that I used too strong an expression when I I
stated that the help I obtain would not give a morsel
of bread to the hundredth part of the famishing poor
around me. I regret this observation, writtei ..t •
moment of great excitement" To such humiliating
confessions was this clergyman reduced.
And now let us be permitted to ask what is the
very peculiar necessity that causes this reverend gen-
tleman to parade himself before the public after this
extraordinary feeblest P He speaks of his district as
containing in it as mrsch misery and woe as the three
adjacent parishes put together. We happen to know
all those parishes well. Whitechapel has a popula-
tion of 36,000; 8% Philip's, Bethnal-green, 13.000;
St. Matthias, Bethoal-green, 10,000; total, 68,000.
The two last-named parishes are certainly the pow est
north of the river Thames. The Rev. Mr. HARRIS'S
district of Mile-end New Town has a populatien of
at most 8,600 ; and the IV hitechapel guardians, who
are authorities on the subject, terve publicly
denied " that it assumes the character de-
scribed by that revere nd gentleman." We
have no doubt that Mr. HARRIS ought farther to
acknowledge " that he used too strong an expn s-
tolen when he stated that it contained as much misery
and woe as all the rest put together,' and that he
ought also to "regret this observation, written at a
moment of great excitement."
Bat what we the means of meeting the necessities
of this district ? In the correspondence of 1846,
Mr. HARRIS was obliged to admit that he had re-
ceived in the preceding winter from a public source,
" either 1801. or 2001." for the relief of his poor, that
he might have had more if he had required it, but
that he bad not asked more because he " held in his
hands, through the liberality of a christian nobleman,
a small fend which would enable him to meet any
extraordinary case of distress and destitution." Is
I it true, as we have heard asserted, that from the same
'public source (the Bishop of LONDON'S Association
for the Relief of Destitution) that Mr HARRIS is at the
present time a recipient of funds for the same ob-
jects ? But more than this. There are districts in
London in which there is no help to be obtained from
local residents. Now it happens that Mile-end New
Town is not one of these. Close to the church of ,his
advertising clergyman is the gigantic establishment
of Messrs. TRUMAN, HANBURY, and BUXTON. There
is not one member of that Arm—we might almor. say
there is not a single man connected with it—who is
not engaged in the most exemplary works of charity
and benevolence. This very district may be said to
be their peculiar care. No cry of sorrow or
distress can issue from it that the brewery is
not ready to relieve. In 1846 Mr. HARRIS stated, in
a letter to the public prints, in the most distinct and
emphatic way, that one of his parishioners had cliid
of starvation. Now, will it be believed P—" From
the 9th of October until the 18th of November, the
day of her death, this woman (as the Whitechapel
guardians said) was receiving asistance in feed,
clothing, and other necessaries, from a most charier. le
lady in the neighbourhood, well known to Mr. HAR-
RIS (it was Mrs. BUXTON), who not only personally
visited her, bat placed her under the care and atten-
tion of a servant in her establishment, whose lest visit
was made on the Monday previous to the woman's
death, from consumption, on the Wednesday." And
Mr. HARRIS was obliged to confess that all this, and
a great deal more to the same effect, was true!
We venture to ask, is it right, is it proper, that a
minister of the church of England phoWel be per-
mitted thus to emulate Mr. Puff in his appeals to
the " heart of pity and the hand of help "? Has
' the Bishop of LONDON cognizance of these advertise-
ments? " Appeals to the charitable and humane"
usually conclude with some references to parties ac-
quainted with the advertiser. Mr. HARRIS mentions
his bishop's " pastoral letter;' he pays his lordship a
well-merited compli cent, and cites him before the
public in his advertisement, but he does not directly say,
as some of these advertisements would do, " The case
is well known to and is recommended by the Bishop
of Lost-tom." This is au observable defect. It is also
a defect that though we have seen many of Mr.
HARRIS'S harrowing advertisements, we never yet saw
any account of the sums which they produced—any
"balance-sheet"—any statement in " Dr.and Cr."—
shewing what Mr. HARRIS may have received, or
how he may have expended the amounts benevolently
sent to him. Before we join Lady Tabitha &eft-
heart in sending the reverend gentleman a ten pound
note, five for himself and five for his poor, it would
not be unsatisfactory to see a document of this sort in
such form and shape u advertising parsons may
usually submit it.

Tait secession of Mr. BAPTIST NOEL appeared et one
time likely to produce results extremely injurious to
the Church of England. The arguments brought
forward against the church, deduced from notorious
imperfections in her constitution and administrati.m,
received an immense addition of force, when it was
learned that they had acted with such irresistible
strength upon the mind of one of her most pious,
active, conscientious, and (estimated by his pulpit
eloquencv) talented ministers, as to cause him
to leave the establishment. Had Mr. NOEL
confined his opposition to the church to
the mere act of leaving her, accompanying
the act with an enumeration of the ceases which in-
duced the secession, we have no doubt that the church
would have had serious cause for regret that she had
not sooner applied herself to set her house in order.
But Mr. NOEL has not contented himself with this
quiet warfare. He has assumed the offensive : he
has written a book.
Now, in our bumble judgment, the book in ques-
tion is precisely the kind of book that a man meats
hie enemy to write. The defenders of those imper-
fections in the church which excited Mr. NOEL'S hos-
tility are everywhere appealing to this book
as a testimony to the worthlessness of his
example. The appeal is a forcible one. The
work is remarkable for nothing but a com-
plete proof of the author's inab lity to treat
the question of church and state in a manner at all
commensurate with the wants of the age. We could
fancy that instead of being written by an enlightened
Christian of the nineteenth century, it was written by
a bigoted puritan of the seventeenth. Mr. NOEL is
the JOHN BUNYAN of the present day, without the
stern will, the excursive imagination, the vigorous
conception, the masculine style, of the old puritan. But
he is equally) pious, almost equally ignorant of every-
thin gbryond thetext of the sacred volume,equally inca-
pable of seeing anything beyond a small- cluster of
dogmas in that volume, equally determined to stick to
the baldest literal interpretation which the words will
allow, equally unconscious of any large purpose
which Christianity has to accomplish. Christianity
with him means nothing more than the preaching the
doctrine of justification by faith to a select few
within the four walls of a chapeL It has nothing to
do with the civilisation of the world, the emancipation
of the intellect, the happiness of the race upon earth.
It went to sleep in the reign of CoxicrANTlsx, and woke
up at the reformation. There was no Christianity
during the intervening 12 centuries. The church
which pretended to profess christisnity was a "her-
by," living in adultery with the state. The church
of England is a "harlot" now. JOHN BUNYAN him-
self never employed this dialogistic term with more
gusto to the scarlet lady of easy virtue on the seven
hills than does the elegant Mr. NOEL, when speaking
of the church he has left. He seems to revel in
this metaphor of questionable
_propriety. But
he is not content with this. He quotes, with
all the gravity of Jorix BUNYAN himself,
a collection of texts from Scripture, and find-
ing that the church of England cannot lay claim
to a literal conformity with them, he comes to the ex-
traordinary conclusion that the church is at one and
the same time " • community with two spiritual
kings (!) a household with two separate masters (!!)
a wife with two husbands
sc! ! !) a body with tst o
heads (!! ! !)" Mrs. Maio s definition of Cerberus
sinks into common sense y e side of this monstrous
extravagance.
The %hole argument of Mr. NozL, such as it is,
is bead upon the narrowest views of the nature
of Cori tianity, and the most extravagant use
of a few scripture texts applied with a ludicrous
fttelity to the letter. Ore of the most prominent of
' these texts is the declaration : " I: is easier for a

camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter in the kingdom of God." The im-
, nay, the iniquity of allowing rich men to
rienanything to do with the church is gravely
put forth as a logical deduction from these words.
Spftleing, for instance, of the abuses of patfrangei
Mr. No= says: " Since these patrons are generally
rich, and 'it is easier foe a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich min to enter into the
kingdom of God,' May are as a class MOM likely to be
irreligious than others are, and thus far leas capable of
estimating rightly the qualifications of a good pastor."
This is but one example of a process which farms
the staple of Mr. NoWs book. We are sorry for it.
We looked to him for such a clear and candid expo-
sition of the causes which influenced his determina-
tion as would have convinced the blind defenders of
the imperfection of the church that t hese imperfections
are sapping her very foundations. There is nothing of
this. In the pace of it we have incorrect reasoning
and frothy declamation. Great injustice, indeed,
have we done the fine old puritan in comparing him
with Mr. Nov.. At tho most the latter is but the
Joins BrINTAN of a fancy ball. There is the dress,
but the heart, and soul, and strength gee wanting.
We have as strong an opinion cc Mr. Nom on the
subject of the imperfections of the church; we sym-
pathise heartily with the struggles he has had to
endure in making up his mind to secede, bat we
have no respect for the manner in which he has con-
ducted his attack, and less for the materiel of his
warfare. We expected a powerful exposure of abases
which have long been d-eely regretted by every
lover of the church; we should have been c..nteoted
with a simple enumeration of them. We have had
neither ; but the adversary has had all that he
wanted—a compilation of false logic and intemperate
invective, which can be turned with ease against the
aesailant himself.

NEW YORK, Dec. 20. 1848.
We are in receipt of the news by the Niagara, w►ich has
folluwed closely un that brought by the Canada. Our papers
are fined with foreign extract', and it is curious to we how
much intense is taken in every occurrence that is thought
worth) of a place in the columns of an English newspaper.
The deaths en Lord Melbourne and Sir John Barrow ace the
subjects of much comment, and both these personages were
as well known by reputation here as they wail in their own
country.
At tbii moment scarcely anything is thought of but Cali.
(ornia. Many large and small •team«rs are advertised for
Chagrin., and a gr. at number of sailing vessels are preparing
t depart for the Pacific. AR through tee country associa-
tions of emigrants are forming to proceed to the golden land,
and the ezetterneut is intense. It is so general and so great
as to have driven the idea of cholera out of mind, and t)
this cause principally our medical savant attrihnte the fact
that it has not yet made any *maul' upon our citizens, or in-
deed any Americans.
The wonderful accounts from that region are every day
confirmed, and gull is new discovered as low down as Los
Anaelos. and in large quantities. The amounts collected
surpass belief, and persons are actually arriving in the
United States with ample fortunes in gold, collected by
themselves in a few months Government will, doubtless,
establish a mint at San Francisco, as soon as casgress grant
the r.quisite powers, and in the meantime propose to send
oat a squadron to prevent the exporta•ion of the gild, with-
out some custom-house sancti .n. The great object is to get
it into the shape of Americen coin, that we may retain the
circulri w. The only perceptible effect on burn. as this has
had here )et, is to put up the price of vessels, and to reduce
the wages of seamen (or the Pacific. Ttise persons are
shipping at ono dollar per month, with t..e understanding
that they are at liberty to leave, on reaching the gold
co tit.

Immense cargoes of ars,rted goods are going oat to this
new market, and will, prettily, d well for the lonsigncre.
The doubt which "gives us pours" i= as to the conveyance
lurch& the isthmus. It is supposed from the statements made
at the List meeting of the Selfish West India Steam Navi-
gation C .ml nal, that it has laid out a consideratle auto
of moro y upon a road in New Granada, and that a large
quantity of vehicles were sent out recently to ply upon it.
tilers. we are told, that Chagrta is a mere negro village, that
a ni.jht passed there CAMPO certain death to a white that the
navigation of the liver up the Cruces, about 42 miles, is try
canoes through a air• am li tray bordered with snakes and
alligators, that from Cruces to Panama the route is moun-
tainous and lull of danger, to bo traversed only with mules,
and that Panama, though quite a respectable city, is already
crowded by a band of six thousand emigrants, who tie not
know how they are to get up the coast. Notwithstanding
all this, " The cry is still —the) come." Some dour moral-
ists are becoming alarmed at the new tende:xy of the public
Som quote the Bible, a'.d some the poets. V:rgil's
" Auri sacra f..mee," is in the mourns of some, and the well-
known aid melancholy statement of Propettius is on the
lips of others— . .