The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-12 00:00:00

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tile " State Chprrch" as an incubuswhich or uglit t 4 be rooted
out from the land, and in their weal for what they call '1 civil
and religious liberty" they would deprive the Established
Church of its revenues, which they would " appropriate" to
secular purposes,—thus leaving the ministration of the gos-
pel to be provided for by voluntary means. Our opinion as
to the obligation of the state to provide for the maintenance
of the established religion is well known, and probably some
of our political opponents will be somewhat surprised when
we quote the authority of a dissenting minister in favour of
an established religion. The Rev. John Gray, minister of
the Dutch Reformed Church in New York, and formerly an
Independent minister in England,—whose experience adds
some weight and authority to his opinion—has recently
written to a friend in this country, and his observations on
the subject of an established religion are worthy of a careful
perusal. He says—
" I see that the dissenters in England plead the example
of America in support of the voluntary principle being ap-
plied to the support of the gospel ; Americans laugh at you,
and all from England pity you. Did you know how it works
here in nine cases out of ten you would not be so in love with
it. The voluntary principle will do where all, or most, are
desirous of the gospel; and only there. Come and see our
vast moral desolation in populous neighbourhoods, and then
you will be convinced what voluntaryism will do for the
Church of Christ. Suppose the parish of Polesworth was se-
lected for example. First, then, the majority are wicked,
worldly and careless ; they do not want a church built, nor a
minister to preach, and they will give nothing for either pur-
pose. Then others, who desire it, cannot agree among them-
selves to what denomination the church shall belong. Here
are Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed,
Unitarians and Universalists ; each presents their claims and
demands that the church shall belong to their body. They
cannot agree, and the consequence is, the place continues
without the gospel at all ; or some two or three small churches
are got up by the different parties, and then each party is too
weak to support a minister ; and again, there is no preach-
ing; and this is more the case in the country parts where the
population is scanty. Thousands and tens of thousands for
these reasons live as heathens ; no churches, or no ministers,
no sabbaths, no religion, and why ? Because of the voluntary
system. Happy for America if it had a good Established
Church, or something in its place, in which the gospel is
faithfully preached. For want of an establishment, every de-
nomination must have a Home Missionary Society' to as-
sist these little handfuls of different denominations, who are
so few and weak as not to be able to support a preacher ; and
yet this provision by no means reaches the hundredth part of
the necessity and destruction of the land. Hence the aged
are forgetting the ' God of their fathers,' and the whole youth
are growing up without the very form of religion. Open and
avowed infidelity is everywhere to be met with ; and men
openly work, hunt, &c.. on the Sabbath of the Lord. Their
fathers could not build a church or pay a minister; hence
they had no church to attend—no gospel to hearken unto ;
and they grew up wicked, ignorant, profane, and careless;
and all for want of au establishment or some such thing. If
anything will destroy our union (the United States of Ame-
rica) and overthrow our republic and bring ruin on the land,
it will be the want of religious instruction. Voluntaryism
will never evangelize America, unless we can get more men
like Paul, who will make tents for their support, and preach
for nothing. No, no ! You miss, sadly miss, your mark,
when you plead America in support of voluntaryism. Very
many of our most eminent ministers, who deprecated an
establishment like England's as much as you do, begin to
write against your reasonings in our religious newspapers. If
the gospel is to be universally preached, it must be by an
establishment or a Missionary society ; and no Missionary
society has yet been formed either in England or America,
who can support the gospel to the hundredth part of the na-
tion which stands in need of it. But an establishment can
support it in every parish. In what I have written, I have
expressed the sentiments of every Dissenting Minister I have
met with in this country." _ _

We will not add anything to this plain Christian state-
ment, except that we should like to see the dissenter who has
the hardihood to attempt to answer it. With all rational
men it must be conclusive.

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY OF HER MAJESTY'S
SHIP EREBUS, &c., IN THE SOUTH SEAS.

A letter from a petty officer on board, to his freinds in
London :

" Hobart-town, Her Majesty's Ship Erebus,
April 20, 1841.
..

" I shall now describe to you a little of this exceedingly
interesting voyage, which, when I embarked in the London
Docks, on board the West Indian, I little dreamed I should
have made, Hobart-town being to my uninitiated eyes quite
as far south as it was desirable to go.
" We sailed from the river Derwent, Nov. 10, 1840, and
thence proceeded to a certain cluster of islands called the
Auckland group, where, having procured the necessary ob-
servations, the dipping-needle, and a sight of a transit of
Venus, or some other beauty, we again sailed towards another
island, a little further to the southward, called Campbell's
Island, whence having performed a second edition of the
last, we again proceeded. Of these islands it is only
necessary to say, that they are covered with wood, and totally
uninhabited, except by a few pigs, which were put there by
the French discovery ship. e procured a great many
albatross's eggs, which are good eating; they weighed 21
and 22 ounces each, and are rarities of their kind. How-
ever mai-a-propos your allusion to India was, that which
regards sending the treasures from the depths of the sea was
not at all so, as every day we try for bottom and for the
temperature f the ocean, at 600, 1500 and 3600 feet below
the surface, and sometimes more. This water so procured
is weighed, measured, and its temperature taken in compa-
rison with that at the surface, which latter is taken account
of every hour, day and night, together with many other me-
teorological concerns, too numerous to mention : we like-
wise sink a machine, which draws up stones, coral, or what-
ever it takes hold on. These experiments take all hands the
best part of a day to haul in the line, which is a stout rope.
Besides all this, upon occasion, in the deepest part of the
ocean, we let go a piece of iron ballast, about three cwt., at-
tached to a small line, to the length of four or five miles in
depth, invariably getting bottom, but the line, of course, is
cut away, and lost. The French, after going to about 60 or
70, went home with a most astounding account of what they
had not done. The Yankees, however, after coming some-
where about the same as the French, made out a very inge-
nious chart of land, which, in my belief, they never saw ;
for, where they described the peak of the highest mountain,
we cruised three days, but got no soundings within 800 fa-
thoms. Well, we proceeded in company with our consort,
the Lenon, till we came to lat. 69 S., where we first fell in
with the ice, extending over the whole visible horizon. This
was what was called field ice, i. e., loose pieces, closely
packed together, and having a flat surface. We had previ-
ously seen some bergs floating by of a tremendous height,
which I can only describe to you as a huge mountain adrift
in the sea • but the transparency and the celestial blue tint
of the hollow parts destroy the comparison. All ice floats
are two-thirds under water; therefore you have the satisfac-
tion of knowing, when you see an iceberg 600 feet above
the water, that there is 1200 feet under, all the buoyancy
it possesses being acquired by the expansion produced in
freezing. We sailed, or rather ploughed this field for up-
wards of 120 miles, and then got clear seaway. We found on
the top of a berg a large piece of rock, having very much the
appearance of lava, but no signs of land near. Some days
after this we fell in with some small islands, bare rocks, in
fact, to one of which the name of Prince Albert was given,
a flattering comparison, truly ; a like compliment was paid
to the Queen. There is not the least vegetable life upon
them ; they are covered with perpetual snow, which of course,
as it never thaws, has been increasing since the creation; it
puzzles me to know where it comes from, as I never saw any
fall where we have been, for the temperature will not allow
the existence of vapour or clouds unless they come from vol-
canoes ; the thermometer very rarely rises so high as freezing
point. These remarks, of course, apply to all land which we
have seen still further south. We kept on our way to the
southward for some time, occasionally meeting with field-ice.
I am describing the incidents without the effects, for if I tell
you all our small troubles, from the inclemency of the wea-
ther and the frozen state of the ropes, rigging, &c., and the
work with the sounding-lines, I should fill a quire of paper ;
suffice it to say that hands and legs were of little use, and the
pieces falling from aloft were enough to break any head of
moderate thickness. In latitude 76, or thereabouts, we fell
in with Victoria Land, a vast continent of high mountains,
having the appearance of a perpetuity of snow-white tint with
lofty peaks. The only dark places to be seen are next the
sea, or more properly the ice, for the warmest day in sum-
mer, which is the 21st of December, makes no material differ-
ence, there being always a space of seven or eight miles of
barrier ice, like a wall of masonry, and of great height, bound
to the coast, which is so vertically steep as to be quite inac-
cessible, setting aside the cold. We continued sailing south-
ward by slow degrees till we came in sight of the burning
mountain, which we named the Erebus. This is the first I
have seen—therefore I cannot compare it with others ; but
when I describe it hereafter, I shall have the advantage of
not being contradicted by the cockneys, who talk so large
about Vesuvius. This, then, is in sight of the magnetic pole
of the earth, in latitude 78 degrees odd, about 300 or 400
miles further than any former discoveries to the southward,
considerably further to the eastward, and consequently more
latitude still, as the magnetic pole has longitude, while the
pole of the earth, or 99, has none. The magnetic dipping
needle is an instrument similar to a compass needle, only
suspended perpendicularly. At the equator it hangs nearly
horizontal. At 12 south it is quite so, having no dip—that
is, it has no more attraction to one pole than the other; but
where we were it hung vertical, this being the test of the
situation of the pole. The steering compass began to vary
till they showed the opposite points, so that what they were
directed towards consequently were useless until we came
away. From this to 9 south there is a solid block of barrier
ice, with lard in one part of it."