The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-12 00:00:00

DECEMBER l2, 1850.

RESIGNATION OF MR. BENNETT, OF
ST. PAUL'S, KNIGHTSBRIDGE.
The. follovving important correspondence has been
forwarded to us for publication :-
1 " St. Barnabas', Pimlico, Dec. 4, 1850.
"My Lord,—On reviewing the correspondence
which has been carried on between your Lordship
and myself since July 1, I find that in my letter to
you, dated July 15, I wrote as follows :
" On the one hand, as I hope it will be clearly uo-
derstood that, conscientiously, I cannot forego any of the
principles which in this letter I set forth and advocate,
and, if I remain in the cure of souls, by those princi-
ples I must be permitted to abide; so, on the other hand,
as I consider myself morally and spiritually bound not
to oppose your Lordship in those matters which, as
diocesan, yon have a right and a duty to regulate, I am
ready to withdraw from a position in which the possi-
bility of such an event might arise.'
" And again in my letter of October 23, I wrote
as follows :
" My conclusion is in this difficulty, as it was in my
previous letter of July 15, that I ought, if called upon,
to resign my living I would then put it to
your Lordship in this way :—if your Lordship should be
of continued opinion, seeing me and knowing me as
you do, that I am guilty of unfaithfulness to the Church
of England, and if your Lordship will upon that signify
your judgment as bishop that it would be for the peace
and better ordering of that portion of the Church which
is under your episcopal charge that I should no longer
serve in the living of St. Paul's, I will then the very
next day send you my resignation.'
"I have now to acknowledge the receipt of your
Lordship's letter, dated November 27, in which you
say,—
" Upon the whole, if you are not prepared to comply
simpliciter and ex anirno, with the requisition contained in
my letter of the 16th inst., I must call upon you to fulfil
your offer of retiring from a charge which I deliberately
think you could not in that case continue to hold with-
out great injury to the Church.'
" My Lord, seeing that I am unable conscientiously
to place myself under the former clause of this sen-
tence, i. e., to comply simpliciter and ex animo with
your requisition of the 16th inst.,' it follows that I
must submit to the call' made upon me in the latter.
" But this ' call' refers to an offer' made by me
in my letter of October 30.
"I conclude, therefore, that in making this call
upon me you wish to express all that was involved or
contained in that offer—namely, that you are of
continued opinion that I am guilty of unfaithfulness
to the Church of England,' and that you therein
' signify your judgment as Bishop that it is for the
peace and better ordering of that portion of the Church
which is under your epiticopal charge that I should
no longer serve in the living of St. Paul's.
" To this judgment of my Bishop deliberately
given, and the call thereupon deliberately made, I
consider it to be my duty to submit.
" Accordingly, I now redeem the pledge given in
my letter of Oct. 30; and in answer to your call'
now made upon me, I hereby send you my resig-
nation of the perpetual curacy of St. Paul's, Knights-
bridge.
" The precise time when I shall cease to have fur-
ther charge of the parish, and the future arrange-
ments necessary for the performance of the various
services of the Church, perhaps your Lordship will
have the kindness to arrange with the churchwardens,
whom I will desire to wait upon you as soon as pos-
sible for that purpose.
" In concluding this correspondence, as I feel that
in all probability I may have made use of expressions
or brought forward arguments which may have given
offence to your Lordship personally, I desire for all
such occasions of offence to express my sincere re-
gret, and to assure your Lordship that they have been
purely inadvertent.
" For any offence so inadvertent I- hope I may
safely ask your Lordship's charity and forgiveness,
and remain,
" Your Lordship's faithful servant,
" W. S. E. BENNETT.
" The Lord Bishop of London."

" Fulham, Dec. 9.
" Rev. and dear Sir —I have to acknowledge the
receipt of your letter of the 4th instant, in which you
tender your rebignation of the perpetual curacy of
St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. That resignation, under
the circumstances of the case, I think I am bound to
accept; and in doing so I deem it right briefly to
recapitulate those circumstances.

"During the last four years I have several times
cautioned you on the subject of the excessive ritua-
lism which you were inclined to practise, as approach-
ing too nearly to that of the Church of Rome. Writ-
ing to you on the 7th of January, 1847, on the sub-
ject of intoning the prayers, I said, I really fear
you are carrying things too far.' This caution re-
ferred, as I afterwards explained it, not so much to
any deviations from the rubric, as to certain pecu-
liarities of manner, which are not necessary to a cor-
rect observance of the rubric, and which afford a
handle to objectors.'
"In February, 1849, I received a letter from one
of your parishioners, complaining of certain peculiari-
ties in your mode of celebrating divine service. On
the 10th of that month you waited upon me, accom-
panied by your two churchwardens, and, in their
presence, denied most of the statements contained
in that letter. Both you and they assured me that
you had made no change since the day of the conse-
cration, and that the congregation at large were not
dissatisfied. I told you, I did not approve of so much
form, especially of the procession with the elements,
nor of the choristers receiving the communion before
the other communicants. In a letter which I wrote
on the 16th of the same month to the gentleman who
bud made the complaint above mentioned I gave him
an account of what had passed at my interview with
you and the churchwardens, and after stating that
your mode of performing divine service, which was
not disapproved of by the congregation in general, was,
as far as I could collect, 'in conformity with the
practice followed in cathedral churches,' I added,
" I am bound to acknowledge that I greatly question
the expediency of introducing that mode of celebrating
divine service into our parochial churches; but if an in-
cumbent thinks it right to do so, seeing that he has the
rubric in his favour, I doubt whether I have authority
to prohibit it; although if I were made aware of a gene-
ral feeling of dissatisfaction in the congregation I might
interfere in the way of advice and remonstrance.'

"No expression of any such general feeling with
respect to St. Paul's ever reached me. In a letter
which I wrote to you on the 6th of March, 1849,
were these words :—' I certainly understood at that
time (of the consecration of St. Paul's) that the
prayers were to be read, and not intoned.' Since the
consecration of St. Barnabas' you have carried your
ritual innovations to such an extreme that I have
found myself obliged to remonstrate with you more
strongly and more particularly than I had done with
reference to the services of St. Paul's. And this leads
me to complain of an assertion made by you in your
published letter to Lord John Russell, as being utterly
unfounded. You say, in page 20 :
" My views and principles in the regulation of the
service—intending to do, teach, and pima° my way, in
the very way I am now pursuing it—all this was known
to the Bishop.'

This I emphatically deny. I knew, generally, your
mode:of celebrating divine service in St. Paul's, and
I had more than once signified to you my disappro-
bation of some features of it; but I had no notion of
what you intended to do in St. BarnEthas' in the way
of additional novelties. As soon as I heard of them,
within three weeks from the day of the consecration,
I wrote to you in the following words
" Tho accounts which have reached me of what is

taking place at St. Barnabas' leave me no choice but to
interfere. You are aware that some of the practices
which you have at different times adopted in the mode
celebrating divine service in St. Paul's Church ap-
peared to me to approach too nearly to those of the
Church of Rome, and to be contrary to the spirit and
intention of the rubric of our Church, if not to its ex-
pressed letter. I have more than once expressed to you
my fear that you were exciting or encouraging in the
members of your congregation a taste for forms and ob-
servances which would lead them to seek for its fuller
gratification in the Church of Rome. That this has
been the actual result, in some instances, there can be no
doubt. Whether others have occurred, of persons re-
tained in our communion by the partial concessions
made to a morbid appetite, may well be questioned.
" ' But I am informed, upon authority which I can
hardly doubt, that in the services at St. Barnabas' you
are introducing still further deviations from the ordinary
forms of our Church, and that practices are adopted and
encouraged there which have not yet found their way into
St. Paul's, and which give just offence even to those who
have hitherto gone with you in your observances.'
" I then proceeded to specify the particular forms
alluded to—viz., your posture, and that of your
curates, in celebrating the holy communion : the not
giving the cup into the hands of the communicants,
and the putting the bread into their mouths instead
of delivering it into their hands; the form of words
used before the sermon instead of a collect and the
Lord's Prayer, and the crossing of themselves by the
clergy present.
In your answer to that letter you attempted to
justify the use, not only of those forms, but also of
any other which you might from time to time adopt
from the supposed practice of the Church before the
Reformation, except those which are in terms prohi-
bited; on the principle—that wheresoever no prohi-
bition occurs--there the ancient usages of the Catho-
lic Church were meant to prevail ;' and you said in
conclusion :
" On the one hand I hope it will he clearly under-
stood that conscientiously I cannot forego any of the
principles which in this letter I set forth and advocate,
and if I remain in the cure of souls, by those principlet
I must be permitted to abide; on the other hand, as I
consider myself morally and spiritually bound not to op-
pose your Lordship in those matters which as diocesan
ycu have a right and a duty to regulate, so I am ready
to withdraw from a position in which the possibility of
such an event might arise. I therefore place myself in
sour Lordship's hands, us the right and lawful judge in
this matter and the Church's guardian.'
"I received that letter at a time when I was too
unwell to attend to any business of importance—a
fortnight before I went abroad for the recovery of my

health. After my return home I wrote to you at
!considerable length on the 16th of October, combating
the reasons which you had advanced in defence of
your practices, and stating with respect to one of
those practices—
"' The great objection to the practice (and to many
others) is, that it offends the weaker brethren by re-
minding them of the abominations of Popery, and wear-
ing the semblance of a return to them. Such scruples
you yourself confess that it is necessary to consider,
though in another passage of your letter you would set
them aside as prejudices. You overlook the fact, that
while " making concessions to the morbid appetites" of
some you are offending the scruples of others. But why
is not a scruple, or even a prejudice, entitled to as
much consideration as a "morbid appetite?"
" You tell me that you cannot conscientiously forego
any of the principles set forth in your letter. My
remonstrance to you was directed against certain prac-
tices—practices in behalf of which you offer no valid
defence, and which you surely cannot consider of vital
importance. If I restrain you from those practices—
which I feel myself bound to do as far as I can—l can-
not think that your conscience will be seriously ag-
grieved, or that a sufficient ca3us will have arisen for
your leaving the ministry, to which you have hitherto
been so zealously devoted.'
" In your answer to this letter, dated October 30,
you

"' rmuch less feared the imputation of " Romish
practices" than I longed for an opportunity of winning
back the souls of men to the ancient sta❑dards of faith,
of devotion, and of sanctity, which I found the Catholic
Church, both in the Esat and in the West, invariably
teaching and professing. I could not permit myself
to acknowledge that the Church of England could be
cut off from such universal standards. I cannot see
how it is that she can be separated and alone in any mat-
ter. What is universal must be true. What all ages
have loved and venerated she ought not to be permitted
to lose. Therefore, as I could best have opportunity
(consistent with the obedience of those points strictly
forbidden or commanded by the local Church, to which
obedience is due in its place) I have always made my
teaching and ritual practices accord with such Catholic
ideas. I feel very great confidence that whatever is
Catholic (in the ecclesiastical sense) must be true ;
what is merely local, not necessarily so ; and certainly
not so ualeas made to be consistent wish and in harmony
with what is Catholic.

"' It remains for me to consider whether I can, upon
your Lordship's repeated request , set aside these prin-
ciples, and with them, as they appear to me combined,
the practices to which your Lordship objects.
It :grieves me more than I can say, because I
foresee that it will probably end, sooner or later, in the
loss of all that I have ever lived for and done in this
parish—it grieves me to say that I am unuble to
withdraw or to alter anything that I have said or done.
The principles themselves, as above described, L feel that
you would not ask me to abandon ; and I also feel
that by not abandoning the principles, and yet aban-
doning the practices founded upon them, I should be a
mere hypocrite in God's sight. There would be such a
loss of consistency and steadfastness of purpose in the
eyes of my parishioners as would cause me deservedly to
lose their confidence and support, and utterly destroy
my usefulness in the pastoral office. On the other hand,
I have very great reluctance to disturb the peace of the
Church (if so it must be). I dread becoming the occa-
sion of any legal prosecutions, or running the risk of
ecclesiastical proceedings, and I think it my bounden duty li
to sacrifice all that belongs to myself rather than place
your Lordship under the necessity of appealing to any
such means for correcting what i❑ your opinion is wrong.
Therefore, my conclusion is in this difficulty, as it was
in my previous letter of July 15, that I ought, if called
upon, to resign my living.
"'I would then put it to your Lordship in this way
—I would say, if your Lordship ahouid be of continued
opinion, seeing and knowing me as now you do, that I
ate guilty of unfaithfulness to the Church of England;
and if your Lordship will upon that signify your judg-
ment as bishop that it would be for the peace and better
ordering of the Church which is under your episcopal
eharge, that I should no longer serve in this living of
St. Paul's, I would then, the very next day, send you my
formal resignation.' _

"To this letter, dated October 30, I replied on the
16th of November, having been prevented by the
business of my Visitation from returning an earlier
answer.

".Being still desirous of bringing you, if possible,
to a right view of your duty to the Church, and of
inducing you to obey rather than to retire, I expressed
myself as follows :
" I cannot for a moment admit the soundness of
these principles, upon the strength of which you consider
yourself to be justified in doing that which is contrary
to the order of the Church of which you aro a minister,
to the spirit of all its rules and formularies, and to the
judgment of your bishop.

" lam under the necessity of stating my decided
opinion that a continuance of the practices against which i
I have in vain remonstrated, and of any others which
are not. sanctioned by the laws or customs of our
Church, as well as of any peculiarities of dress or manner
which are unusual in our Church, but are copied from
that of Rome, is inconsistent with your duty as a minis-
ter of the English Church; and I now again call upon
you to relinquish them.'
" In answer to this, you wrote me on the 23d of
November a letter, in which you abandon the prin-
ciple against which I contended, and take entirely
new ground. You say—
" I would take the following rules as my guide in the
present difficulties:—
"' 1. I have ascertained from Mr. Dodsworth, Mr.
Richards, and Mr. Murray, all the points of ritual
and ceremony which have been in use in their churches
for many years, known to and permitted by your Lord-
ship.'. -

6lt is my intention to adhere to any or all of these
ritual and ceremonial observances. '

" 2. Your Lordship will remember all that was done
in ritual and ceremony in your own presence at the con-
secration of St. Barnabas.'

" ' It is my intention to adhere to any or all of that ritual
and ceremony.'
__

" '3. I have collected together from various cathedrals
of the Church of England the forms of ritual observance
practised is them.'
" It is my intention to adhere to or to adopt any or
all such points as I may find authorised therein.'
" Whatsoever is not found or authorisedby either
ono of the above rules, and whatsoever is not found, or
cannot be legitimately deduced from the Book of Com-
mon Prayer or the canons of our Church, it is my inten-
tion, in obedience to your Lordship's episcopal requisi-
tion, to abandon.'

"In reply to this letter, wherein you clearly gave
up the principle insisted upon in your former letters,
I wrote on the 27th of November as follows :
" I cannot for a moment admit that any one of the
ceitcria which you propose is binding upon me.
" ' 1. Supposing even that I had not objected (which,
however, I have done in the strongest manner) to some
practices in the churches to which you allude, there must
be many things done there which I cannot be cognizant
of, and there may be many little things not prohibited
by me, the aggregate of which would be very offensive
and objectionable. Your plan, it seems, will be to pick
out from various churches everything unusual, and to
combine them into a complete system in your own.'
" 2. There was more form and display at the con-
secration of St. Barnabas than I liked ; but I saw
nothing decidedly contrary to the rubric—certainly
none of those forms which I have since heard of as
being observed by you, and to which I have objected. It
was not likely that I should take that opportunity of stating
my objections to minor points; but I spoke very plainly
in my sermon of the danger of excess, and in less than
one month from that time I wrote to you a strong letter
of remonstrance. There may have been things done at
the consecration which did not fall under my eye; and,
from what has since happene.l I think it likely that such
was the case. But, even if it were not, I cannot consent
to be hound to tolerate now what I did not take that op-
portunity of censuring.'
" 4 3. Even were I to admit that the diocesan cathe-
dral was to be a rule and standard for all the parochial
churches in the diocese, it is clear that I could not con-
sent to extend this privilege to all other cathedrals; for
if that were done, then, if any one dean and chapter were
to adopt extravagant and Romanizing practices, I should
be bound to tolerate them.'

" • I have no reason to suppose that there is any cus-
tom observed in any of our cathedrals of which I should
disapprove, but I cannot bo bound by their usages.'
" Upon the whole, if you are not prepared to com-
ply simplicitor and ex animo, with the requisition con-
tained in my letter of the 16th inst , I must call upon you
to fulfil your offer of retiring from a charge which I de-
liberately think you could not in that case continue to
hold without great injury to the Church.'
"In your recently published letter to Lord John
Russell, you declare that what your intention and
mine was at the time of the consecration of St.
Barnabas,' • in ceremonies and rituals that it shall
be now, please God, for ever the same, unchanged,
unchangeable.' It is an unavoidable inference from
this solemn declaration, that the novelties of which I
complained, and which I called upon you to lay aside,
will not be given up, although I have forbidden them
as being contrary to the Church's order and inten-
tion. This leaves me no choice as to the course to be
pursued. It is impossible for me not to think that
• the peace and good order of the Church which is
under my episcopal charge' would be seriously in-
terrupted, and occasion of triumph given to the
Church's enemies, if you were to continue in your
present post, deliberately and avowedly disobeying
the admonitions of your bishop, and setting up your
own judgment of the Church's intention in opposition
to his. The evils necessarily resulting from such a
state of things would greatly outweigh the good which
might be derived from your zeal, ability, and devoted-
ness, supposing the innovations complained of to
have no connexion with the erroneous opinions in
certain points of doctrine which they are commonly
supposed to express or indicate.
" It is with very great pain, but with no hesitation
as to the necessity which binds me to this conclusion,
that I now eirlify my acceptance of your renewed
offer to resign the incumbancy of St. Paul's, and,
with it, the chapel of St. Barnabas'.
" Praying that the Divine Head of the Church
may guide you to a right judgment in the things
which concern its peace,
" I remain, Rev. and dear Sir,
" Your faithful servant in Christ,os
C. J. Lorin
ox."

l
RoTmih3eh Tablet
lo
.ast week announces that Viscount
Campden and his Lady have been recited, at Paris, into the

REPLY OF THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S

TO HIS CLERGY.

The Bishop of St. David's, who, it will be remem-
bered, was one of the two prelates whose sigce'ures
did not appear at the foot of the address from the
English hierarchy, published last Thursday, has
issued a reply to the addresses voted to him by the
clergy. of his diocese. The document is a very
lengthy one, but the following are its most important
passages :
" It has afforded me very great pleasure to observe
that the expression of your feelings is accompanied
with a declaration that you do not desire anything at
variance with those principles of religious toleration
which form a part of the British Constitution. I hope
that none of us, but especially none of the clergy,
will be provoked by the recent insults to breathe a
wish for any infringement of those principles. I can-
not even now regret the removal of those disabilities
under which our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects for-
merly laboured."

His Lordship adds that he approved of those mea-
sures more in confidence of the strength of the Pro-
testant feeling in this country than in the faith of the
Romanists. He continues :

" I think it as clearly incumbent on the clergy,
whenever their flocks are threatened with the infec-
tion of Romish error, diligently to resist its progress
by exposing those corruptions of doctrine and practice
against which our Church bears witness in her Articles
and Liturgy, and more particularly by laying bare
the hollowness of those pretensions which have been
recently put forward in such an extravagant and
offensive form."

His Lordship rather discourages " frequent refer-
ence to controversial topics " by his clergy, and thus
concludes his address ;

" But I must further observe, with reference to a
portion of your address, that you seem to me, unless
I have mistaken your meaning, to have put an
erroneous construction on the terms of the declara-
tion—" that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state,
or potentate, bath or ought to have any juris-
diction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or autho-
rity, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm.'
I conceive that this is a declaration not of a matter of
fact, but of a point of doctrine which we hold
as Protestants, not as English subjects, and
which our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects both
notoriously do, and lawfully may, reject. I
apprehend that the words "or ought to have,
are simply explanatory:of the word ' bath,' and that
they import no more than if the declaration had ran
' bath no rightful jurisdiction ;' in short, that they
amount to nothing more than a denial of the Pope's
spiritual supremacy. I feel deeply your expression
of kindness towards myself, as well as of veneration
for the office which I unworthily bear; and commend-
ing yeu and your work to the Divine blessing,
" I remain your faithful and affectionate brother,

" C. ST. DAVID'S?:

LORD MIN TO AND THE POPE.
The Rev. E. Wilmot, Vicar of Kenilworth, wrote to
Earl Minto, asking authority to contradict the state-
ment which had been made in the public journals re-
specting his intimating, on the part of Government, that
they would offer no opposition to this step of the Pope,
and has received the following reply :
" Minto, Nov. 1, 1850.
" Sir,—l very much regret that the reserve neces-
sarily imposed o❑ those charged with diplomatic duties
does not admit of my entering into unauthorised expla-
raions on subjects connected with my mission to Italy,
which 1 should otherwise have been most ready to afford
you. I ♦enture to hope, however, that recent experience of
the distrust with which statements from the same quar-
ter are to be received will induce you to hesitate in
lending too easy credit to insinuations that I have been
consulted upon, or had sanctioned, any scheme of Roman
Catholic organisation in this country.
" I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
" himo."

COURT CIRCULAR.
WINDSOR, DEC. 11.
The Queen and his Royal Highness Prince Albert
walked this morning in the Slopes.
The Royal Family took their usual airings.
The Marquis and Marchioness of Clanricarde and
Lady Emily de Burgh, Lord and Lady Mahon, and
Sir David Dundas, are expected to arrive at the Castle
to-day, on a visit to the Queen and the Prince.
The royal dinner party at the Castle this evening
will include the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk and
Lady Adeliza Howard, the Marquis and Marchioness
of Clanricarde and Lady Emily de Burgh, the Earl
of Carlisle, Viscount Canning, Lord and Lady Mahon,
Sir James and Lady Graham, and Sir David Dundas.
The band of the Royal Horse Guards will attend
during dinner.

The Queen's private band will afterwards attend
in the Castle.

The band of the Coldstream Guards performed the
following pieces in the Castle during dinner on
Tuesday :
Overture, " Alcade de Vega" Onslow.
Valse et Galop de Fascination,
"Alma," Costa.
Selection from "Le Prophete," ,
Quadrille, " Hibernian,"
Glee and Chorus, " The Chough
and Crow "
Procession March, "La Jeuve" Halevy.
Her Majesty's private band afterwards attended at
the Castle, and played the following selection :
Overture, "Frieschutz "
Concerto, violin (M. Sainton) Mendelssohn.
Trio Bouffe, " Le Prophete " Meyerbeer.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday afternoon at
the Foreign-office. The Marquis of Lansdowne
arrived in town to attend the meeting from his seat,
Bowood-park, Wilts. Lord John Russell arrived
in town to attend the Council from a visit to the
queen at Windsor Castle. The Lord Chancellor,
the Earl of Minto, Sir George Grey, Viscount Pal-
merston, Earl Grey, the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, Sir Francis Baring, Sir John Hobbouse,
the Earl of Carlisle, the Right Hon. Henry La-
bouchere, the Marquis of Clanricarde, and the Right
lion. Fox Maule, also attended. The Council sat
three hours and a-half.

Baron de Brunnow, the Russian Minister, had an
interview with Lord John Russell yesterday, at his
official residence in Downing-street.
Lord Sondes had an interview yesterday with Sir
George Grey, and delivered to him addresses from the
Mayor and inhabitants of Canterbury and Faver-
sham, against Papal aggression.
A deputation from the committee for promoting the
formation of a park for the borough of Finsbury, con-
sisting of the Right Hon. Lord Robert Grosvenor,
M.P., Sir James Duke, Bart., M.P., Mr. Wakley,
M.P., Mr. T. H. Boykett (returning officer), Mr.
William Tyler, Mr. C. Woodward, F.R S., Rev. S.
Clissold, A.M., Mr. J. Barnett, Mr. J. Parson, Mr.
Wade, Mr. J. R. Taylor, and Mr. Tarplee, accom-
panied by Mr. J. Lloyd (Hon Sec.), had an interview
yesterday with Lord John Russell.
The Cambridge University Commission met yes-
terday at the official residence of the First Lord of
the Treasury, in Downing-street. Present—the
Bishop of Chester, the Dean of Ely, Sir J. F. W.
Herschel, Sir John Romilly, the Rev. Professor
Sedgwielc, and the Rev. W. H. Bateson (Secretary).
The Committee on agricultural implements of the
Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 met at
two o'clock yesterday afternoon, at the new Palace of
Westminster. Present—Mr. Pusey, M.P. (chair-
man), the lion. Dudley Pelham, M.P., Colonel B.
Challoner, Mr. Joseph Locke, M.P. Mr. B. Gibbs,
Mr. H. S. Thompson, Mr. J. V. Shelley, and Mr. A.
Hamond. Colonel Reid (chairman), Mr. Cole, and
Mr. Dilk.2, of the Executive Committee, were also
present.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lady Mary
Wood returned to town yesterday, from a visit to her
Majesty at 'Windsor Castle.

Dispatches were received yesterday at the Colonial-
office from the Governors of the Cape of Good Hope,
New-Zealand, and the Falkland Islands.

JAMAICA.

LIVERPOOL, DEC. 1 I.—From Kingston we have ad-
vices to the Bth ult. Cholera continued to rage with
great violence all over the island; the deaths in
Kingston alone, from October 10 to November 7, were
1,000. Business was all but suspended. The weather
had been highly favourable for the suppression of the
disease.

GAS AND POPERY.—When the chairman of a
company, formed for lighting the Eternal City, waited on
the late Pope to solicit the required permission, Gregory in-
dignantly asked how he presumed to ask such a thing so
utterly subversive of religion. The astonished speculator
humbly stated- that he could not see the most remote con-
nexion between religion and carburetted hydrogen—" Yes,
but there is sir," shouted the Pope, " my pious subjects are
in the habit of vowing candles to be burned before the shrines
of the taints ; the glimmering candle would soon be rendered
ridiculous by the contrast of the glaring gas lights, and thus
a custom so essential to everlasting salvation would fall into
general contempt, if not into disuse." No reply could be
made to this edifying argument. Silenced, if not convinced,
the speculator withdrew— the votive candles still flicker,
though not so numerously as heretofore, and they just render
visible the dirt and darkness to which Rome is consigned at
night. The introduction of gas and the fall of the Papacy
appeared, therefore, to be simultaneous events reserved for the
astonishment of the Romans in future ages.—From the
Gas Journal of October, 1850.
_ _

-
Pownall's Magnetic Indicator is now working at the
CattleVxhibition in:George-street, and by its extreme simpli-
cityand unerring correctness the number of visitors who enter
the Exhibition is ascertained, each person being marked upon
a small dial, which is inclosed in a box, and communicated
with by the electric wire as each individual passes in, who is
quite unconscious of the operation. This invention will not
alone be a check upon cheque-takers, but a groat saving of
time and labour, and may be adopted at all theatres and
public rooms, where it may be desirable to ;ascertain the
numbers entering.

The price of gold at Paris is about at par, which,
at the English Mint price of 31. 17s. 10%d. per cuoce for
standard gold, gives an exchange of 25.15; and the ex-
change at Paris on London at short being 25.02%, it follows
that gold is 0,54 per cent. dearer in Paris than in London.