The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-08 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

The letter of " A Resident " arrived too late .to be even
perused.
The advertisement of the Hull Almanack and Diary cannot
he inserted unless we receive a reference for payment. •
" J. W.'s" letter uid not reach us until too late for publi-
cation.

ETA' FLtinrpool Atanbatt.

FRIDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 8, 1841

We had the pleasure of laying before our readers
on Tuesday, a tolerably full report of the great meeting
which was held at the Amphitheatre on the preceding
afternoon. Feats of expedition of this kind have been
so long familiar to the public, even in the provinces,
that we may seem to pass out of our line in claiming
the smallest attention for such an effort. There is,
however, an exertion, neither small nor trilling, re-
quired for the successful accomplishment of these mat-
ters out of the capital, of which our good public has
in general but little idea; and the reason is this, that
that which is in the metropolis the labour of ten or
twelve, becomes, in any other place, the work of one or
two only. A practised corps of reporters is turned out
to take in successive order, and successive portions,
for the London morning paper, a task which must be
executed in the same time by the far more limited staff
of the provincial journalist; and if this can be, and
not unfrequently actually is, performed with as much
dispatch and accuracy in the one case as the other, we
must certainly take leave to claim for our provincial
brethren and for ourselves, when we happen to he in
the efficient number, a degree of credit proportioned
to the difficulties overcome, and the odds against us.
The most interesting inquiry connected with this
meeting seemed to be, whether any or what change
would have been wrought in the society.hy the recent
ejection of the Radicals from power—and this ques-
tion has, we think, been very satisfactorily answered.
Our Protestant Associations are established on a basis
which can be but slightly affected by so temporary a
circumstance, however important it may be in itself, as
a mere change of administration. They are not pri-
marily political—they are rather religious societies;
and as yet there appears no reason why they should
make any deviation from that plan of proceeding, or
depart from those views with which they originally
started.

But it may be said, that when we have a thoroughly►
Protestant government, the association becomes super-
fluous ; the government itself will then do all that
would be expected of the association. To this it is
answered, that by the same rule various other volun-
tary associations for useful, or' Christian purposes,
ought to cease the moment that good men are placed at
the helm—who will at once feel all their good works
and designs to be a care upon themselves. The objec-
tion is therefore manifestly weak and insufficient ; but
it is at the same time one calculated insidiously to ope-
rate, and paralyse the .-xertions of many.

It was forcibly and justly remarked by Mr. MiNeile
that we have just as much need, in a religious point of
view, for a great and. powerful combination for the pur-
pose of withdrawing tnen from the errors of Romanism,
as we have for such a combination to deliver them from
the darkness of Judaism, or Heathenism. Now the
fact is, that we have not only as much need, but a
great deal more; we have " as much " because, as we
are hound to believe, and as we do believe, Popery is a
and we have in the second
soul-destroying system ;
place " more "—because Romanism prevails more ex-
tensively at home, :and because it contains within it,Lan

active spirit of proselytism, which is not to be found i
either of the others.

But the Protestant Association calls for the aid

Protestants on a defensive principle. Popery is an
aggressive system, and it continues to spread and