The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-12 00:00:00

The clergy of this town have consented to, I should rather
say have been forward to avow and impress a distinction be-
tween the word of God and the formularies, however excel-
lent, of the church. In drawing up rules for the management
of the Collegiate Institution, now in progress, they decided
to use the formalities of the church, as a matter of course, for
church children ; but not to enforce them upon all as they do
and must enforce the reading of the Scriptures. In this distinc-
tion they have the hearty concurrence of the most distin-
guished of the laity of all ranks iu the town and county,
hacked by contributions approaching £20,000. Gentlemen,
I venture to express my conviction that this distinction will
commend itself to you for adoption in your schools. I am

strong in the assurance that on this great question you are
triumphantly unanimous, as it was the influence of this great
question, far beyond any others, that gave you your triumph-

ant majority_
Doubts have, indeed, been expressed, and some faint hopes
of differences and difficulties among you have been excited in
your opponents, by the published report of the proceedings
at your meeting on Tuesday last, on the subject of the edu-
cation committee. But, gentlemen, your best friends in the
town feel satisfied of what it may be well and wise plainly to
state to some of your own body—namely, that the differences
which appeared on Tuesday do not reach the question of
what is to be done with the schools, but only how it is to be
done? if we understand you aright, you are not only deter-
mined that the good thing shall be done, but also laudably
anxious that " your good should not be evil spoken of," and
therefore that it should be done in the best possible manner.
The education committee, of whomsoever composed, will, of
course, be so constructed as to carry out, in the great ques-
tion now under review, the determination of the majority of
the council. The selection of the individuals, therefore, who
shall compose that committee (the only difficulty now remain-
ing.) is a matter of practical wisdom, rather than fundamental
principle. There is no one member of your body so per-
sonally identified' with the school question as to render his
individual election on that committee a matter of principle.
Here, then, is a matter to which the advice, respectfully
submitted to your consideration in my former letter, fully
applies. I speak not of your avowed opponents in all things,
I marvel how any unitarian or Roman catholic member of
the council, if you bad one, could submit, if he could avoid
it, to be placed on such a committee—a manifest cypher in
influence, yet lending his apparent sanction and co-operation
to measures which he must repudiate. But among yourselves
we look first to measures, not to men. In determining on
the great measure to be adopted in the case of the schools,

you consult for your own principles, your own consistency,
and the clearly expressed opinions of your constituencies.
In determining upon the men by whose special instrumen-
tality that measure is to' be carried into effect, you are at
liberty, I think, perhaps.lshould rather say, you are bound to
consult for the good feeling of that section of the com-

munity, who are not so decidedly with you in the measure,
as to be above the consideration of the difference between the
men. If some of your men be personally objectionable, for
any cause, or without any cause, to that class of the com-
munity, why should you needlessly obtrude them on your
Education Committee, when by selecting others the
f)rtiter in re loses nothing ; and the suariter in modo
gains much ? Why should such men wish them-
selves to be on the, committee ? What can the great
cause gain by it ? Were 1 among you, and such a man, I
would say to you, Gentlemen, I entreat that you will not
place my name on that committee ; there is no principle in-
volved in it ; if there were, I would not, could not swerve,
but there is not. It is wholly a personal affair. I cannot be
unconscious of, perhaps I do not dislike, the charge of ultra-
ism connected with my name. I hope it is by my uncom-
promising faithfulness to my principles that I have incurred
that charge. But here is a matter in which it may damage
our cause with some, and cannot advance it with any ; I beg
therefore that you will proceed with our great measure,
leaving my name off the list of its special conductors.
My lctte: is already too long. But if I could enlarge still
further; and add persuasion to argument, I would with all
the energy of faithful affection implore you to remember that
although your majority is decisive and triumphant, it is not
such as to warrant any of you in dividing the whole council
upon any great question whereon you are divided yourselves ;
neither should any of you move in the council, in an insu-
lated extemporaneous manner, without previous consulta-
tion.

Be so good as to read my former letter in connection with
this. Excuse my freedom—Cultivate a disposition to agree.
Yours, FIDUS AC II ATES.

Liverpool, Nov. 11th, 1841.
t The framers of the written law here referred to, have
been, it seems, practically violating their own statute, with-
out having the honest boldness to avow their disapprobation
of it, and openly to rescind it.