The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-21 00:00:00

STATE OF TRADE.

The imports of the week have been very insignifi-
cant, and a very large fleet of vessels, which must be
in the immediate neighbourhood, have been prevented
getting in, owing to the still continuing easterly winds.
Holders of produce on the spot are reaping consi-
derable advantage from this circumstance, and per•
haps, on the whole, adverse winds were never less
seriously felt ; for, so late in the year, we seldom find
the market for goods brisk, and importers have
always abstained from pressing sales until after
the first week in January. The stock of cotton
is, from the same cause, getting into smaller
compass, and the excess over last year is now only
about 100,000 bales. There has been a quiet
market this week, without apparent change in prices;
but buyers have the best of the bargain. Strenuous
efforts are making to obtain the abolition of the duty
on this article, the work being committed to the hands
of influential parties. In Liverpool, generally speak-
ing, there seems a strong feeling that no particular
claim exists to entitle cotton alone to be exempted
from duty. The soap trade are making an effort for
a remission of their duty, and, as it seems to us, with
a more general ground for the application; they
complain bitterly of the system of collection, as
it now exists ; and whilst, perhaps, a modi-
fication of that system would satisfy many, yet
they go for a total repeal. This is a branch of ma-
nufacturing industry which is in a great measure
confined to this immediate neighbourhood, and might
be, as we hear, very considerably increased, even if
the trade were freed from the annoying survey to
which they are now subject, whilst, at the same time,
it is thought the revenue would be very much assisted.
It is evident from what is passing in all quarters,
that there will be again an anxious session, and the
door will be opened to all sorts of speculative invest-
ments, in the hope of a favourable change of duty to
assist the articles purchased.—Liverpool Mercury of
Friday.

DRAYTON MANOR.—The Right Honourable Sir
Robert Peel, Bart., gave an entertainment at the manor,
on Monday last, to a party of above forty of his princi-
pal tenants, mostly in the occupation of large farms on
his estate. Dr. Buckland, Dr. Playfair, and Mr. Smith,
of Deanston, the well-known Scotch agriculturist, who
were on a visit to the Right Honourable Baronet, after
dinner addressed the company. Dr. Playfair delivered
an eloquent discourse on the different descriptions of
manure, and the most approved systems of manuring
land, to which the assembled farmers seemed to devote
the greatest attention. It was after eleven when the
circle broke up, the tenants retiring with expressions of
their high sense of their esteemed landlord's hospitality.
SEASONABLE BENEVOLENCE.—Mrs. John Master-
man, jun., after having attended prayers at St. Dionis-
back Church, Fenchurch-street, yesterday morning, with
the other ladies of the Committee of the Infant School of
that neighbourhood, distributed blankets, flannels, and
other useful winter clothing to upwards of 60 mothers of
the infants under their care, the benevolent contribution
of that lady.
SUPPOSED SUICIDE IN A PUBLIC D1N1216-ROOM,
—Mr. Payne held an inquest on Thursday at St. Bar-
tholomew's Hospital, on the body of Walter Steelt,
aged forty, a parer ornament maker. Joseph Cooper,
eating-house-keeper, of No. 26, Newgate-street, said
that on Wednesday afternoon the deceased,
whom he had never seen before, entered the
shop and called for some roast beef for
dinner. Deceased sat down in one of the boxed, anc
appeared as if nothing was the matter with him, but a:
soon as he had taken one mouthful of meat he we;
seized with a great desire to vomit. Witness led hits
out to the street, and by that time deceased was so weal
as to require support. Ile took him to a chemist's it
Newgate-street, where a cordial was administered, be
without success, and from thence he was taken to thl
above hospital. He never spoke after the first women
of the attack. Some friends of the deceased said the
he left home in the morning in a good state of health
having recovered from the effects of a dose of mini
taken three weeks ago. Mr. Philip Hurlock, resider
medical officer of the hospital, said that the decease
was dead upon his admission. A post mortem examine
tion was made that day, but there was some difficulty i
arriving at the precise cause of death. Considerabl
inflammation of the stomach was found, such as woul
be produced by some corrosive poison, arsenic or oxali
acid for instance. Those appearances might, however
have arisen from natural causes. Verdict—" Died fro!
inflammation of the stomach, but how caused there is n
evidence to show."

ACCIDENT TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE GLOUCEI
TERSHIRE QUARTER SESSIONS.—A rather serious ace
dent befel Mr. Purnell, the chairman of the Gloucester
shire Quarter Sessions, this week. He was skating
along with some other gentlemen, on a pond near hi
residence at Stincheomb Park, near Dursley, and, i
consequence of a fall, his thigh bone was broken. let
Purnell is an accomplished skater, and fond of the exec
eise, and one report is that he was skating backward
and came in contact with another gentleman, who wi
doing the same, but coming in an opposite direction, at
that the accident was occasioned by the collision.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM Tin: DAILY PAPERS OP YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The meeting over which Lord John
Russell presided yesterday at Exeter Hall—the pro-
ceeding of which are reported in another column—
affords us an occasion of alluding to the Temperance
Society ; to Father Mathew, its founder ; and to the
pecuniary embarrassments in which he is involved,
by his endeavour' to induce his countrymen to bind
themselves, by solemn pledge, to abstain from in-
toxicating drinks. To raise a fund for releiving
Father Mathew from the debts for which he has be-
come liable, and to reimburse him at least a portion of
the sums he has expended in carrying out his benevo-
lent designs, was the immediate object of the meet-
ing. The able advocacy of the Noble Lord who
presided orer the meeting, and the testimony borne
by his Lordship, and by other distinguished
speakers, to the disinterestedness of purpose, and
unwearied diligence, devotedness, and success with
which Father Mathew has laboured, will go far to
remove objections from the proposed subscription.
In endeavouring to reclaim his countrymen from the
self-inflicted curse which preyed upon the earnings—
making the little less—inflamed the passions, and de-
moralised the habits of his countrymen, the Apostle of
Temperance, it appears, has incurred a debt of 740001.
The bona fide existence of the debt ; the legitimate
modes by which the various items of which it is
constituted were incurred—and the frugality and care
with which Father Mathew, and the agents he
employed, invariably acted, both with respect to their
personal and relative expenses, in connexion with the
object they endeavoured to accomplish—these highly
proper questions have been investigated with great
minuteness by disinterested persons, whose compe-
tency and standing in society furnish a guarantee for
the integrity of their report. That report is, upon
the whole, honourable to Father Mathew ; upon whose
conduct and management of the funds which came
into his hands there is not the slightest imputation.
The only questions with which the public has any
concern, is whether the object sought to be effected
by the Temperance Society be one of sufficient inte-
rest to deserve general sympathy ; and whether Father
Mathew ought to be relieved, by a public subscription,
from the embarrassments he has incurred in carrying
out the objects of the Temperance Society? In dis-
cussing these questions, it is not necessary to embark
in the wide inquiry, whether the means adopted by the
Temperance Society be the best of all imaginable means
for effecting the discouragement of drunkenness ; nor
do we undertake to settle the vexed question, which has
been somewhat intemperately debated by the advocates
of the rival Societies, as to whether " ter-totalism"
or " temperance" be the best form of pledging the
individual to abstain from intoxicating drinks. The
only material question, we apprehend, is, whether a
considerable improvement in the physical and moral
condition of the lower classes—especially in Ireland,
where it was so much needed—haft not been accom-
plished by Father Mathew's exertions ; and whether
patriotism and philanthropy do not prescribe, that
the labourer in this benevolent cause should be exone-
rated from the pecuniary liabilities he has incurred in
promoting its influence in the country where the vice
it assails was working all kinds of abominations? Lord
John Russell, with considerable pathos and manifest
effect, thus stated the case :—" Whatever, therefore,
can remove the temptation and the evil consequences
of that vice requires no ordinary efforts. To make a
great impression upon a whole nation—to bring
them at once from a habit in which they were too
apt to indulge, to the practice of those virtues by
which their domestic happiness may be increased,
and their moral and religious conduct improved,
must, I say, have called for no ordinary diligence ;
no common exertions would have sufficed for such an
object. But we all know the extraordinary elo-
quence, the untiring energy, the disinterested for-
getfulness of all selfish objects, which did enable Mr.
Mathew to accomplish this moral miracle, and by his
exertions to effect a change in Ireland which was
surprising to the whole civilised world." Mr. S. C.
Hall bore testimony, from actual personal comparison,
to the former and present state of the Irish peasantry.
Allusions to the perpetuity of the union, as it exists
between the two countries, were received with cheers
which show how little the people of England are likely
to encourage the repeal project. Lord John Russell
said :—" 'What, then, should be the conduct of that
country to which he belongs, and of this country,
which is closely, and, I trust, perpetually- united with
it ?" We think the claim of Father Mathew to pub•
lic sympathy and aid is established by the facts
brought before the meeting. We cordially concur in
the effort to raise the proposed fund ; and hope that
the amount required will soon be realised.
STANDARD.—Dr. Pusey has published a letter
denouncing the statute proposed for consideration by
the Oxford Convocation on the 13th of February, 1845,
and plainly intimating that as hitherto he has not
subscribed the Articles honestly—that is, adopting
the language used in " the Tracts for the Times,"
in their " natural sense," so he is prepared to retire
from the Church and University if called upon so
to subscribe them. Doctor Pusey, we have heard,
is a rich man, who can well afford to surrender
his canonry and professorship, and therefore the public
is relieved from the single regret that could allay the
general delight with which the realisation of the
Reverend Gentleman's threat will be welcomed by
the Christian public. It will be but a descent from
Portman-square to Baker-street; and this, as Gold-
smith observes, has not enough of the terrible to
give interest to a tragedy. The letter of Dr. Pusey,
however, leaves a comparatively favourable impres-
sion—it is a picture of the writer's mind, hazy,
feeble, and timid. He sees nothing distinctly, con-
ceives nothing vigorously, and takes refuge in a mist
of generality, because he cannot embrace any
obvious or well-defined truth. We may pity such a
man, but we cannot admit those feelings of contempt
and aversion for him that we must for one whose
perverseness in other respects is disgraced by hypo-
crisy. Even when we find Dr. Pusey canonising the
betrayer of Bishop Williams, the controversialist who
silenced adversaries with fine and imprisonment, pil-
lory,ear-cutting,and ignominious scourgings, the man
who fined Leighton 10,0001., sentenced him to stand
twice in the pillory, losing an ear upon each occasion,
and to be twice publicly scourged—even when we find
Dr. Pusey canonising this man, we are sure that, if his
saint, Laud would never be his model. We say this
much in defence of Dr. Pusey from an inference that
might hastily be drawn from his letter. The Rev.
Gentleman's objection to the proposed statute ap-
pears to be this, that the statute requires subscribers
to subscribe to the Articles in the known sense
in which the Articles were drawn up (the rule
of interpretation in every other case in which
men make a declaration, from the coronation
oath downward) ; whereas he and others have,
since " Laud won for them the liberty," inter-
preted the ambiguous expressions of the formulary in
some different manner, but in a manner so vague, that
Dr. Pusey can approach to it no more closely than
by such phrases as by "by the faith of the whole
Church, before east and west were divided," a phrase
dislocated from a passage of Bishop Ken ; or, " ac-
cording to the analogy of the faith." We need
scarcely say that so broad a rule of interpretation by
a standard so uncertain, is, in fact, no rule
at all. " The faith of the whole Church before
east and west were divided," is a thing that
never existed, because from the Apostles' time,
and in the Apostles' time, nay, in the blessed
college itself, there were controversies; and " diver-
sities of faith" are recorded as from the beginning.
But if the consent of faith did not exist, the analogy
afforded by that consent cannot exist ; so that the in-
terpreter appealed to is but the resource of weakness
or the subterfuge of fraud. The truth is, that the
Church of whieh Dr. Pusey and his sect speak as the
Church, had no distinct existence (through the universal
Church existed and still exists) before the Council of
Trent, and then the Romish Church obtained its distinct
existence (as any sect may), by excommunicating
all others, us Protestants among the rest. There might
be, however, little harm in this reference even to an
impossible interpretation of ambiguous passages, be-
cause there is really not one ambiguous passage in
the whole Thirty-nine Articles, with such admirable
precision are they drawn up, if men would be only
honest and discreet in determining the question of
ambiguity. The misfortune, however, is, that only
allow dishonest or weak men a condition on which
they shall be at liberty to indulge their humour, and
they will soon make the condition for themselves.
Words cannot be more plain, distinct, and une-
quivocal
than those in which the second clause of j
the 28th Article rejects the doctrine of transub-
stantiation ; yet Dr. Pusey finds that article so
ambiguous, that with the help of his analogy of the
faith, he subscribed the Article, and then preached a
sermon in support of the very doctrine rejected. Such
a loose style of interpretation as this will enable
one to extract any desired meaning from any
combination of words. Were not the subject
too grave, we might quote from Swift some
examples in point. Doctor Pusey is not singular,
however, in the labyrinth of difficulties in which
he involves himself by a.departure from the bona fide
and common-sense rule of interpretation ; his Saint
Laud wandered in the same maze before him. Bishop
Hall addressed to the-proto-Puseyite the following
remonstrance at the Commencement of his cruel and
tyrannical mercer :—"1 Would to know where to find
you, then I could tell how to take a direct aim, whereas
now I must rove and conjecture. To-day ou are in
the tents of the Romanist.' to-morrow
n -torrow in )ours, the
next day between both and. against
both. Our adver-
saries think you ours, we theirs, your conscience finds
you with both, and neither. I flatter you not • this
of yours is the worst of tempers ; heat and cold have
their uses, lukewarmness is good for nothing butt
trouble the stomach. Those that are spiritually hot
find acceptation, those that are stark cold have a less
reckoning. The mean between both is so much
worse as it comes near the good, and attains it not.
How long will you halt in this indifferency ? Re-
solve one way, and know at last what you do