The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-10-02 00:00:00

RETROSPECTION.

How mellow'd down by time and recollection
Are things long past, that once were bright and fair,
How much we lose, and gain, too, by reflection—
It tells us what we were, and what we are.

It tells us hopes that long the bosom cherish'd
Are doom'cl to wither ere they're half matured,
That all the day-dreams of our youth have perish'd,
And not one heart-fulfilling wish secured.

It tells of many, whom he loved, departed—
It holds a mirror to our tear-fill'd eyes,
In which we view, as if to life had started
Those who have long been tenants of the skies.

Their forms, their features, rise again before us,
We clasp chimera in a warm embrace,
Until the sad reality comes o'er us—
Then dark and dreary seems the vacant space.
And what in this world answers expectation ?
What pleases most still palls upon the taste;
Pleasure is but a cheating speculation
Which lays our virtues and affections waste;

And disappointment like a blight hangs round us,
And love is but a sweeter name for pain,
And Friendship in her silver link has bound us,
Only to break, and never knit again.
'Tis thus we find each earthly tie must sever;
And fades that's fairest to our dazzled sight,
For all is changeful, but that bright for eve,'
Which reigns in realms of everlasting light.
( The New Monthly Magazine.)

ANTI-CHURCH-RATE AGITATION.

( From the Morning Herald.)

An anti-church-rate meeting was held at Birmingham on
Monday last. It was presided over by Mr. Scholefield, the
high bailiff. The usual portion of cant was, it is scarcely
necessary to add, poured forth on the occasion, by the princi-
pal speakers.
Mr. Joseph Sturge, who would seem to have been the
ringleader in this conspiracy against the established church,
held forth in the following pharisaical style:—
" lie told them that he had opposed church-rates all his life
from
_principle, as a proof of which he had sup, ed his goods to
be taken out of his house rather than pay them; and, viewing
them as a legal robbery, be should consider it his duty to
join in takiug any legal exception to the mode in which the
present rates had been imposed. (Cheers.)"
Church-rates are, according to Mr. Sturge, " a legal rob-
bery." All property, as well as church-rates, is the creature
of law; and there are to be found men who declare the insti-
tution of private property, in all its forms, to be nothing less
than a huge robbery, perpetrated by thecunning and success-
ful few, upon the great mass of mankind ! Mr. Joseph
Sturge's views as a reformer do not extend, we dare say,
quite so far as those of the sect to which we have alluded.
The reason may be, perhaps, that Mr. Joseph Sturge him-
self possesses considerable property. Yet .the mere opinion
of Mr. Joseph Sturge is entitled to no more weight than is
the opinion of those whose notions of reform extend, in the
matter of property, so much farther than his own. The same
right which he possesses to denounce any portion of church
property as the fruit of " legal robbery," will entitle re-
formers of another school to denounce Mr. Sturge himself
as a " robber" under the forms of law !
But Mr. Sturge states, as a proof of his "principle," that
" he has suffered his goods to be taken out of his house,
rather than pay" church rates! Truly, this proof of " princi-
ple" is somewhat equivocal in its character, ui, if it be out,
England, at all events, has never lacked a host of men, who
" carry out" that " principle" to its uttermost extent by sys-
tematically refusing payment of all debts whatever. Our
gaols are crowded with men whose " principle" impels theta
to " let their goods be taken" rather than satisfy the claims
of their creditors; and, if Mr. Sturge's ethical code be a true
one, there is not a fraudulent debtor in the country who may
not boast of having afforded the highest practical illustration
of anti-church-rate morality !
There are yet other grounds on which Mr. Joseph Sturge
desires to rest his opposition to church-rates!
" They did so on two grounds ; first, because they regarded
that impost as a violation of justice; and secondly, and prin-
cipally because it was a violation of the rights of conscience.
(Hear.) Some of their episcopalian friends thought they
were rather factious in this their opposition to church rates;
but if they would place themselves for a moment in their situa-
tion, and suppose that the catholic:, or independents, or bap-
tists, or quakers, or any other body of dissenters got the upper
hand, and imposed a compulsory and exclusive rate for the
support of that peculiar form of worship which they approved
of, they would soon see the force of the objection which dis-
senters now entertained against the payment of this tax."
(Cheers.)
If one set of men may escape the payment of a legal debt
to the established church, on the ground that the "rights of
conscience" will be violated by conformity with the law, it
becomes somewhat difficult to understand why the plea in-
volved in the phrase " rights of conscience" should not be
allowed to operate as a bar to the enforcement of every legal
obligation whatever. The metaphysical " tights of consci-
ence" never take so questionable a shape, as when their vin-
dication brings with it some wordly advantage. We read in
holy writ of " sufferers for conscience sake;"—but we do
not remember lo have met with any allusion to the possi-
bility of rendering " conscience" a matter of profitable
commodity. Nor let it be supposed that the smallness of the
pecuniary stake at issue in tnis question of church rates de-
prives the opposition to these rates of its wordly character !
Love of money is not the only form of worldliness. The
gratification of sectarian pride must be taken into account ;
nor must the increased weight of influence which the various
orders of dissenting teachers may hope to gain by the over-
throw of the established church be omitted from our calcu-
lations. The Church of England has, for centuries past,
preserved ecclesiastical learning at a very high level. Im-
perfectly skilled in the literature of past ages as the great
body of dissenting teachers happens to be, still their re-
sources in that kind are much more ample than they would
have been, but for the influence of the Established Church.
The endowments of the church afford to her ministers vast
facilities in the acquisition of recondite knowledge; and
amongst these ministers, accordingly, there have always
been men whose stupendous attainments have thrown into
the shade the acquirements of the far less perfectly educated
dissenters. If, however, the church could be overthrown,
these disparities in clerical learning, and, consequently, in
the influence of the various orders of clergymen over public
opinion, would disappear. A feeling of jealousy, on the
part of many dissenting teachers, of the superior learning
possessedby clergymen of the established chutch, does, un-
doubtedly, enter largely into the organised scheme of oppo-
sition to tithes and church rates!

The Reverend Mr. Swan followed up the arguments of
Mr. Joseph Sturge with others of a like pattern. He ob-
served, that

"'They should do unto others as they would wish others
should do unto them.' Now, he desired, in all his transac-
tions in life with his fellow-man, to be guided by that golden
—that heavenly rule. (Hear.) He did not wish the Epis-
copalians to defray the expense of maintaining his religion,
and he (Mr. Swan) was determined that he would nut wil-
lingly pay for the support of the religion of another denomi-
nation.
We are at a loss to conceive how the payment of a legal
debt, by a person possessing the means, can be construed
into a violation of the " golden rule," adverted to by this
reverend conspirator against the church establishment.
Then, as to the argument that dissenters from the church
ought not to be called on to contribute to the support of the
church--let us only mark the consequences to which the
principle involved in that argument would, if conceded, lead.
A dissenter from the national religious establishment can
fairly claim no privileges, which may not be pleaded with
equal force by dissenters from the soundness of our national
political institutions, If conscientious objections to the con-
stitution of the established church were to be held sufficient
to exempt every man who might urge them, from paying
tither and church rate, and the other dues of the church, then,
by, parity of reason, conscientious objections to the form or
government ought to exempt every political dissenter from
the necessity of contributing, directly or indirectly, to the
public burdens. Under the influence of a principle so con-
venient, the number of " tender consciences" would, we will
venture to predict, multiply to a most alarming extent.
The following passage proves how readily Mr. Swan and
his dissenting friends will urge against the church principles
which they would resist if an attempt were made to apply
them a little more extensively. " The church-rate," we ate
assured,
" Came from the industrious, the all-important, the pro-
ductive class. Why then should they be called upon to pay
a compulsory rate for the maintenance of another reli-
gion ?'
Softly ! good Mr. Swan ! There were capitalists, and men
et Property of various kinds, amongst the auditory to which
these things were addressed. These men of property seem to
have applauded the doctiine of resistance to church rates, on
the ground that church rates are levied from the "all-produc-
tive class" of labourers ! But are no other things levied
fremlabourers which labourers might be well pleased to le-
. wg,possession ? Are not the profits of capital
3211 'row thThheettirtwis-••-alT-prceinct Pre dare" in ques-
tion ? Has rent, in all its varieties, any other source?
Why, then, is the property of the church to be exclusively
denounced, because it is raised in part from the labour of
the poor ? The men of property who, by their applause,
sanctioned such a doctrine, were unconsciously abandoning
the only ground on which their own possessions can aspire
to the cbaracter of sacredness. Let but the anti-church-rate
doctrine be impartially applied, an'! the institution of private
property will very speedily disappear.

NF.wsPAPERs.—The largest collection known belonged to
th• late Dr. Burney, comprising it numerous and rare se-
nes of these periodicals from the vear 1(103 to 18(8', amount-
ing in the whole to 7(X) volumes, and valued at 1,000 guineas.
These important documents for the illustration oi.history were
purchased by the government for the British Museum, and,
together %sail complete se's of all the newspapers published
from 1818 to the present time, consisting of more than 3,000
volumes, form a record of public events not to be paralleled
ia ear other library izt 01 world.