The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-10-02 00:00:00

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.

In West Surrey, the show of hands was in favour of
Mr. Evelyn. At the close of the poll, on Tuesday. the
numbers were, Evelyn, 1,142; Edgell, 990 ; upon which
the latter resigned. Mr. Evelyn declared on the hustings
that he should abstain from voting on the Jew question,
simply on the ground of the position adopted by the
Ministry with regard to the House of Lords on that sub-
ject; his opinion on the merits being in favour of the
bill.

A HIT AT THE PEACE ADVOCATES. Whoever has
heard any of the great guns at Exeter-hall firing away in
glorification of peace might have imagined at first that it
was a feu-de-joie in honour of war. The attitude and
voice of Mr. Bright, for example, are those of a barge-
man challenging a prize-fighter, or a navvy defying a po-
liceman. He sings of peace as gently as a lion might roar
of love. And it is curious that the most warlike adjura-
tions and denunciations always " tell" the most with a
peace audience.—Times. _ _

RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE MINISTRY. Lord
John Russell is not a mere formal church-goer, but has
the reputation of being somewhat particular in his notions,
and select in his ideas of preachers and preaching. Stories
are even told of his spending hours, with the Bible in his
hand, beside his servants' sick-beds. Sir George Grey
has ever been a professedly religious man, married to the
daughter of one of the best of modern bishops, and him-
self formerly a constant hearer of the celebrated William
Howells, a Welsh clergyman, of high talent, who had an
episcopal chapel in Long-acre. Lord Grey is also, we
believe, peculiar in his taste for preaching, attending
a chapel near Belgrave-square. Lord Carlisle is well
known at Exeter-hall, where he ofte❑ takes the chair at
Bible and other Missionary meetings. Who, then, could
anticipate, from such men as these, a course like that
which the nation has latterly been taking, and which pro-
mises to engulph us in the whirlpool of avowed infidelity !
—Herald.

MR. COBDEN'S NEW AGITATION.—This gentleman
has just been stirred up by a prospectus of a new Austrian
loan, He wishes to know—or says so—from Mr. Edmund
Fry, of London, whether th.-re is not a Jew in London
who will not be eager to attend a meeting to " repudiate
all connexion with the projected loan, and to denounce
the authors of those atrocities against his co-religionists
at Buda-Pestli—atrocities in which Hay nau has surpassed
everything that has occurred since the persecution of the
middle ages." To this sapient epistle a Mr. M. Henry
replies, `• I beg to inform that gentleman k Mr. Cobden)
that the whole of it has already been taken without the
assistance of any English capitalists, and that the loan is
already at 21 per cent. premium. I have but just returned
from the Continent, and flatter myself that I have been
enabled to gain information that could not he accessible to
the hon. representative for Yorkshire; and if English ca-
pitalists require advice what to do with their loose cash,
they had better apply to Mr. Cobden, and he may recom-
mend them to invest in some cotton-spinning speculation."

THE CHOLERA.-MAN'S DUTY TN CONSE-
QUENCE OF THE VISITATION.

(From the Times.)
Should there not he some public and universal recogni-
tion of the Might which has stood between the living and
the dead—of the Mercy which has spared us the consum-
mation of a dreadful chastisement ? We know that there
are men who refuse to acknowledge the hand of God in
any great dispensation of His providence,—to whom all
the vicissitudes of the material world are hut the casual
results of fortuitous combinations, or the unevitable
operations of undetected laws. Fortunately, the majority
of mankind have not concurred in ousting the Deity from
all concern in the world which He has made. Most men
still feel sensible that there is one Omniscient and All-
Powerful who directs and determines the issues of life and
death to men and nations. It is useless to talk of second-
ary causes. Secondary causes are but the instruments
which the Deity chooses to employ. Sickness, famine,
and death, are warnings by which He reminds mankind
of their weaknesses, their helplessness, and their mortality.
Every man feels this in his own family, person, and cir-
cumstances. The sickness that hurries a favourite child
or an affectionate wife to an early grave is a humbling but
effective example of Divine power and human weakness.
The palsy that prostrates the strong man in the full flush
of health and vigour—the distress and poverty which stun
the rich man in the height of his prosperity—these are
but secondary, often tertiary causes ; they may often be
traced step by step through devious but connected con-
sequences; but each man, in his own heart, feels them to
be the indications of a supreme will and the tokens of su-
preme power. And when these befall individuals, the
prayer is put up in an earnest confidence that Ile who has
inflicted the wound—though He may not heal it—will yet
temper the disease with a blessing.
Doubtless the cholera, like any other phenomenon,
either of the corporeal or the mundane system, follows
certain definite and ascertainable laws. So does typhus
fever, so do hurricanes, so do waterspouts, so do thunder-
storms, so do earthquakes. But the laws of which we
speak are but a convenient phrase to express the will of
the great Lawgiver. He who made can abate, modify,
suspend, or warp them. He who can bid a plague rise in
the East may direct its sinuous course so as to baffle the
observations of the most sagacious, and the deductions of
the most intelligent. After all, when we have ascertained
the law. we are nearly as helpless as we were before. We
may foresee a certain number of cases and mitigate a cer-
+.;., nrirrtbor, but the highoct clogroo of knowledge which
we attain is, that we know but little about them ; and our
utmost skill is baffled by contingencies which defy its
explanation. One fact ever appears prominent above the
rest—that we are in the hands of a higher Power.
And this is a merciful dispensation. Without such, men
would stagnate into a moral apathy, and, forgetting the
existence of a God, would forget the duties which he has
enjoined. It is by these visitations that men are reminded
that they are weak. But they are also reminded that
they are accountable. There never yet was a great na-
tional affliction without some previous neglect of public
or private duties. The very plague which has visited us
was made more violent by the omission of kindly acts and
the neglect of beneficent laws. The loss of life and the
loss of money which we are suffering are penalties by
which Almighty Wisdom punishes the delinquencies of
Governments and States. Had we observed the duties of
charity and justice more than we have, we should have
suffered less than we have. Had we been more devout,
we should have been more just and more charitable.
Those who have suffered and those who have escaped
the pestilence of this year will need no exhortations to
acts of individual devotion and thanksgiving. But the
suffering assumed the form of a national suffering ; the de-
liverance has been a national deliverance. The thanks-
giving should be national also. The form and mode of
it we do not undertake to prescribe. But we are con-
fident that the people of this land will feel it their duty to
utter a solemn and public expression of their thanks
to Him who has heard their prayer in due season ; and
that, moreover, they will not forget that the mere ex-
pression of thanks, solemnised by whatever ceremonial
it may be, will, in a season like this, be but a poor
and unworthy homage at the throne of Infinite Justice.
There is a sacrifice which should be performed. The
graves of our cities have been crowded with the victims
of greedy speculation, careless legislation, and frigid sel-
fishness. They who have perished have for the most part
perished in fetid alleys, noisome and pestiferous houses,
vile and infectious cellars, the structures or properties
which were owned by selfish covetousness, and erected
by selfish indifference. Let us take warning from our
past stupidity or neglect, and not mock a religious solem-
nity by persisting in cruelty and apathy. While we allow
the houses of the poor to be without air, light, or water,
while we taint the breath of the living with the exhala-
tions of the dead, and while we squabble in the midst of
a destroying pest about the rights of vestries and com-
missions, our fast will be but an impious hypocrisy, and
our prayers a hideous mummery.
"Is it such a fast that I have chosen ? A day for a
man to afflict his soul ? To bow down his head as a bul-
rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ?
Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the
Lord ? Is not this the fast that I have chosen ?—To
loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy bur-
dens, and to let the oppressed go free ; and that ye break
every yoke ? "