The Sun.
London, England, 1828-01-10 00:00:00

be suffered one by one to repudiate that responsibi-
lity, by declaring that the safety and welfare of the
State can only be secured by a measure in favour of
which the influence and authority of their stations
are not to be exerted. The Catholics, by compel-
ling the Noble Marquis to come forward conspicu-
ously, as the bearer of their petition, have placed
him in a dilemma from which there is no chance of
escape. If instead of speaking as he has spoken
heretofore of the measure of Emancipation
as paramount and indispensible, he should
veer and trim and talk as others have talked
of the coherency of time and circumstances,
and of his • hopes that the sense of the
. English Nation will one day become more propiti-
. tious to the cause—he will be for ever ruined as a
Statesman—sunk and degraded as a mail ; the
place-hunting Marquis will become a common by-
, word and term of reproach among all classes of so-
ciety. If, on the other hand, he should speak as
he has been wont to speak, and represent the salve.
tion of the country as merely contingent upon the
prompt surrender of all that the Catholics demand,
he convicts himself as an unconstitutional Mini-
ster—as a Minister who shrinks from the responsi-
bility of his station—who sacrifices every principle
to the love of place—who so far disregards the sal-
vation of his country, as to form part of an Admi-
nistration which will do nothing, or nothing except
to save appearances and in mockery, in furtherance
of the measure upon which in his opinion the sal-
vation of the country immediately depends.—
Morning Post.
The Times of yesterday notices, as a rumour,
that Lord Mandeville, who intended to proceed to
India as Secretary to Lord William Bentinek, will
not go out, because the Right Honourable Secretary
is suspected of Christianity. We know nothing
further of this rumour than what our contemporary
has seen fit to divulge, and therefore we cannot
vouch for its accuracy. If true, we must say, " 'Tis
pity 'tis true." We are far from imputing to our
aristocracy a greater neglect of religion than other
ranks of the community; but it is somewhat of a
novel thing, even in our days of novelty, to find it
charged against a Nobleman, otherwise unexcep-
tionable, that he is attentive to religious duty. There
may be a zeal of proselytism which outruns discre-
tion; but assuredly it is no common vice. For
one who endangers the welfare of the community
from an honest desire, however misdirected, to be-
nefit his neighbours, there will generally be found
a thousand who put it to hazard with the view of
benefitting themselves. We know it was said that
the missionaries had endangered the peace of
some of our West India settlements, but we know
also, that nothing of the kind was ever proved,
and as little have we ever heard of any thing like
proof being tentkred of any mischief arising from
the missionaries in the East. It is true, as our
Contemporary observes, that the hour has been hid
from our knowledge when the gospel shall over-
spread the earth ; but it has been hid, according to
our reading of the prophecy, not as an encourage-
ment to sloth, but as an incitement to labour. The
hour and the time when the individual salvation of
the Christian shall be complete, are also hidden ; but
he is not the less called on to work it Gut with fear
and trembling. The Christian religion does not
send forth its votaries as the delusion of Mahomet
does, with the sword in the one hand and the book
of life in the other; but its commands to spread
the truth in all lands, to teach all men to be for
that purpose instant in season and out of season,—
to abandon the very charities of life, to leave
father and mother when its all-engrossing duties
require it, are not the less imperative that they are
conceived in the meek spirit of its eternal founder.
(here may be wisdom in abstaining from the
propagation of Christianity where there is a
prospect of its claims being more effectually
urged at some future period; but the prospect ought
to be one of moral certainty that will justify delay
in such a service. In Christianity there is no middle
course; he that is not with it is against it; and he
who holds.back from warning his fellow of the error
of his way, is very little less guilty than he who
leads him into it. True, the blessing is from
Heaven—unless a higher power keep safe the city,
the watchmen keep watch in vain. But was not
this truth as obvious eighteen hundred years ago as
it is now ? Yet was human agency considered ne-
cessary in the days of the Apostles; and through
human agency must we look for success in the days
of their descendants. That any danger is to be ap-
prehended from the preaching of Christianity in
India has been proved to be utterly false, by the ex-
perience of the last twenty years, in which it has
been preached honestly and zealously by men, who
though sectaries, may in this respect be quoted as
examples to the Christian Church at large. It is
utterly false that those men are disturbers of so-
ciety; but were even that accusation justly pre-
ferred against them and their labours, it ought
not to be brought forward against one who
is an holiest and upright member of our
English Church. No man, however, averse from
the introduction of Christianity among the Africans
or the Hindoos, has dared to insinuate of her Mis-
sionaries, or of her schools, that they have been
found inimical to the peace of any community. It
is charged against Lord Mandeville that in his
baggage was discovered an immense mass of tracts.
This overhauling of his Lordship's trunks, as well as
his creed, is one of our contemporary's pleasant
exaggerations we suppose. It is added that the
best description of these tracts is, that they were not
bought at Carlile's. We are not very extensively
read in tracts, but we have occasionally dipped into
them, and, with a very few exceptions, we have
found them written, looking to their object and their
intended readers, with much care and much ability,
and exhibiting, in many instances, specimens of
sound argument and devout eloquence, which our
Contemporary would find it difficult to rival or to
equal. Of his lucubrations, indeed, when he chooses
religion for his theme, to use his own words, the
best description is, that they were certainly not
bought at Carlile's in Fleet-street.—New Times.
A very poor, and very miserable young man, clad
in the tattered remains of what had once been de-
cent, and even fashionable clothing, applied at
Bow-street yesterday, for the means of reaching
Exeter or Cheltenham, where his friends resided.
He said he had been a surgeon-dentist in Exeter,
and had unluckily failed in business ; be came to
town with a view to obtain some employment, but
found none. lie was pennyless, friendless, and
houseless ; and for the last meal which he had en-
joyed, which was two days previously, he had been
compelled to pawn the shirt from off his back, His
eyes, it appeared, had always been weak, and the
extreme cold of the preceding night, which he had
spent in the open air, and want'of food, had so in-
jured them, that he was obliged to have recourse to
the arm of a casual stranger to guide him to the
presence of the Magistrate. What did the Magis-
trate in this case ? We often hear of his poor-box,
and of the donations and fines that slip-into it. Was
no part of its contents appropriated to the poor
man's immediate wants ? Sir Richard gave the
miserable applicant a lecture on his improvidence on
coming to• London, told him the story of the boy
who thought the streets of London were paved with
gold, from the last edition of Whittington
Cat, and dismissed the poor blind petitioner to find
his way to Queen-square, and to get relief there if
he could.—lbid. and his

THE DESTITUTE 10011.—The Annual
Meeting of the Association for the Relief of the Poor of
the city of London and parts adjacent, was held at the
London Coffee-house, last night, the Rev. J. SAUNDERS
in the Chair. The object of this Association is to furnish
the poor with'coals and potatoes at reduced prices, which
is effected by means of tickets distributed to subscribers,
whereby benevolent individuals become almoners of their
own bounty. By this means thousands of bushels of coals,
and many tons of potatoes are bestowed every "as", not
gratuitously to the idle and worthless, but at a small
charge (viz., one bushel of coals and 141 b. of potatoes for
Is.) to the deserving and industrious poor. The Report
of the Committee was read to the Meeting, and hoving
been approved of, the Meeting proceeded to :elect office
bearers for the ensuing year, and afterwards separated.