The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-25 00:00:00

peculiarly open to re

when he

is leaving his native country,

return ; and the society trust that, by sowing good seed
as far as practicable, some of it may bear fruit in distant
lands. The society is under the superintendence of a

committee of highly respectable gentlemen. and the cause

they have in hand recommends itself to the sympathy

of the benevolent public.

RECANTATION OF SIX RONIANISTS.
INTERESTING CEREMONY.

THE Church of St. John, in this town, was on the even-
ing of Tuesday last the scene of a most

'atifying and

impressive public ceremony—six adult converts having
and

on that occasion renounced the heresies of Rome,

declared their adhesion to the Church of England. The
sacred edifice was crowded by a most attentive audience,
including a large number of the humbler class, to which
some of the converts apparently belonged. The evening
service having been read by the Rev. Mr. Matti
of the curates, the converts were ranged around the altar,
and the customary questions addressed to them by the
Rev. W. F. Taylor, incumbent. Each of the adults
having replied to these queries without any reservation,
they were accordingly received into the communion of
the English Church. Eight children—some belonging to
the present converts and others to Romanists previokial
converted—were then, at the express desire of "
rents, likewise received into the Church ; after wh._
Mr. Taylor offered up an impressive prayer, that the
converts might be protected from the revilings of their
enemies and the scoffs of the indifferent,

ins, one

and tt

ght become instruments for good to their
creatures who still lived in darkness. After an appropri-
ate hymn had been sung, Mr. Taylor delivered a brief
and appropriate discourse, founded on Romans, xvi.
17-18 :—" Now, I beseech you, brethren, mark them
which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doc-
trine which ye have learned ; and avoid them. For they
that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their
own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive
the hearts of the simple." In his opening remarks Mr.
Taylor announced that last year they had enjoyed the
pleasant task of receiving twenty-six Romanist converts ;
they had now made a beginning for the year on which
they had recently entered ; and he trusted the Lord might
graciously grant that many more might be brought out of
a Church sunk in darkness and idolatry, and their eyes
opened to the light of truth. Those who were led to
come out of that Church would doubtless be charged by
the unconverted man who remained behind with being
schismatics, and very possibly some plausible argument
might be adduced in support of the statement—perhaps,
amcng others, they might select the passage he had cho-
sen as his text. But he contended that mere separation
from a Church did not constitute schism ; for, if such
were the case, then the Apostle Paul himself must have
been a schismatic, for " He separated the disciples" from
the Jewish Church. Nor does the mere fact of excom-
munication necessarily constitute any man a schis-
matic, for if the Church excommunicated a person
wrongly, then it was the Church which was euilty. This
was proved by the case of our Lord and Saviour, who
was excommunicated from the Synagogue, then the only
visible Church in existence. St. John, too, and other
ministers of Christ, were excluded from the Christian
Church over which Diotrephes presided—(vide 3d John,
9, 10.)—and yet they were neither schismatics nor
heretics. These cases were only the incipient manifesta-
tion of that spirit which was destined to germinate and
bring forth such terrible fruit in the shape of the Papal
supremacy. It was not enough that the charge of heresy
should be preferred : they must prove the point. Asser-
tion was one thing, proof another. And it had been the
case before now, that the true Church was charged with
heresy and schism by the dominant party. He next en-
forced the principle, that the Church which imposes un-
lawful terms of communion is, from that fact, schismatic;
because it either makes a man profess to believe what he
does not believe, or it drives him from the Church if he
is not willing to make the false profession. That this
applied to the Church of Rome, was proved by extracts
from the writings of Dr. Wiseman, the Pope's cardinal in
England, according to which there was only one way of
admission into the Romish Church—by " absolute and
unconditional submission to its judgment." But even
this provision had not been sufficient to preserve the
Romish Church from dissensions, and in its history they
found that rival Popes had at various periods broken the
boasted unity of Rome. He therefore rejoiced that these
persons, who had that evening been received into the
communion of the Church of England, had discovered
that Rome was guilty of heresy, and that they had ac-
cordingly deemed it their duty to decline its membership.
He finally commended to the prayers of the congregation
the work in which they were engaged.—Mr. Taylor after-
wards offered up an impressive prayer, and having pro-
nounced the benediction, the proceedings terminated.

,00r fellowl

THE ASIA.—The British and North American mail
steam-ship Asia, with advices from New York to the 12th
inst., had not arrived when we went to press.
TESTIMONIAL. The workmen of Messrs. Walker,
builders, at Birkenhead, have presented Mr. William
Walker with a handsome silver tankard, on the occasion
of his marriage with Miss Thomson, of Birkenhead.
THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.—We are glad to find,
by an advertisement in our columns to-day, that the
Society for Protecting the Rights of Conscience in Ireland
is about to be brought before the notice of the Protestants
of this town. It is a most valuable aid to the various
societies engaged with such signal success in evangelising
Ireland, having been lately founded by the Archbishop of
Dublin, after he had, by close investigation, become
satisfied of the depth and extent of the Reformation
movement, and discovered not only the utter falseness of
the bribery cry, but also the reality of the sufferings which
the converts almost invariably have to pass through.

CHURCH CF ENGLAND INSTITUTION.—III our adver-
tising columns it will be seen that the next lecture of the
present useful and interesting series will be delivered to
the members and friends in the newsroom of the insti-
tution this evening. We understand the lecture was
postponed in consequence of the meeting of the " Work-
ing Men's Church Association" on the evening first ap-
pointed. The subject is Nineveh, and the lecture will be
illustrated by a series of diagrams, exhibiting the most
remarkable of the antiquities discovered by Rawlinson,
Layard, and others. We have much pleasure in stating
that Lord Stanley has requested his name to be enrolled
on the list of life-members of this valuable institution.
GIRL BURNED TO DEATH.—On Saturday evening, in
the absence of her parents, a little girl of seven years,
named Margaret Hughes, was burned to death in her
parents' dwelling, in Kent-place, Comus-street. She
had been left in the house by her mother, in company
with her sister Mary, aged 12, and Mary Allen, a neigh-
bour's daughter, about sixteen years. While in the act
of snuffing the candle, Margaret's clothes became ignited,
and the two elder girls, losing all presence of mind,
instead of affording help ran out for Mr. Allen, who
came and speedily extinguished the flames. She was so
severely burned, that it was deemed advisable to convey
the little sufferer to the Northern Hospital, where, after
enduring much agony, she died on the afternoon of Sun-
day, about two o'clock. An inquest will be held on the
body of the deceased to-day (Tuesday).