The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-04 00:00:00

WEST INDIES

The Lyra Packet has brought the regular West Indian
mails. The dates from Jamaica are to the 23d, from Barba-
does to the 17th, from Demerara to the 15th, and from Tri-
nidad to the sth ult. The intelligence received is not of
particular importance. Some inconvenience had been suf-
fered from drought, but the showers had proved refreshing :
the want of water bad added greatly to the necessities of the
poor, but it was presumed that the showers had been only
partial, as no accounts from the interior mention a change.
The prevalence of commercial distress was still complained
of, and the anticipated reduction in East India rum was

ooked forward to with much apprehension. Much surprise

appears to have prevailed on this subject, as the interests
most deeply affected by it do not seem to have been aware
of that contemplated attack on their vested rights. Great
alarm had been occasioned by the serious illness of Sir Henry
M'Leod ; but he was almost well again. The weather hav-
ing been very favourable to commercial pursuits, much busi-
ness had been transacted at Trinidad. The accounts from
Grenada state that the Maltese emigrants, who arrived there
last year, had disappointed the expectations of the planters,
preferring idleness and begging to working on the estates.
An address had been presented to Mr. M'Queen, as a testi-
mony for his services in establishing the Royal Mail Steam
Navigation Company. We refer our readers to an ar-
ticle in the usual place, where will be found several arguments
why Liverpool should be chosen as the port, in England, for
the arrival and departure of these vessels. A great deal of
uneasiness and alarm appears to have existed about the un-
necessary agitation in this country in respect of the import
duties ; and the disquietude on this subject is not to be won-
dered at amongst parties who have been accustomed to other
descriptions of anxiety and threatened disasters. As a me-
tropolitan contemporary, however, justly observes, the West
Indians may console themselves that their case is only that
of the country at large, where no man knows whether he will
rise up to-morrow with the property untouched and untaxed
which he possessed to-day.
The crops, in consequence of the dry season, were not
looking well.

DR. BUTLER-HIS CHALLENGE--AND HIS

CHALLENGER

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SIR,—I confess I was rather surprised on reading the cor-
respondence between the Rev. Joseph Baylee and Dr. Butler,
in the Liverpool Mercury of this day, to observe the manner
in which the latter avoids the challenge so fairly offered, or
rather, I should say, avoids making good his own challenge
so recently made, anei so promptly met. _

I do not think, that, because the Doctor's Scripture Lec-
tures have not been (as he says) yet answered, that therefore
he shoulddecline all further controversy. If, &s he seems to
infer, from making this statement, he deems these lectures
unanswerable, or not to be refuted, surely it is no reason why
he should decline coming forward to obtain further triumphs,
and by silencing Mr. Bay lee, at once prove him to be " IN-
COMPETENT" to undertake either the defence of his own
church,.aud to prove the charges he advances against that of
Rome.

I should wish, Sir, to give Dr. Butler credit for zeal and
sincerity, in coming forward, as he has done, to endeavour
to vindicate his church, and can he give a better proof of
both than by at once accepting the challenge so fairly offered
to him ?

He states, if I remember rightly, in one of his communica-

ons to Mr. Baylee, that several have, by means of his
reaching, been induced to renounce the errors (as he styles

them) of the Protestant Church, and to embrace the Roman
Catholic faith, If his labours have indeed produced such
effects, and if, (as I have no doubt he does,) he desires to
make more converts, would he not have a fair opportunity of
so doing by refuting Mr. Baylee's:argumenis, thereby proving
himself to be right and Mr. 13. wrong? In my humble
opinion, the course he is at present taking, in altogether
avoiding Mr. Baylee, and at the same time accusing him of
incompetency, is not likely either to increase his number of
converts or to give the public a favourable opinion of his own
talents.

Truth ought never to shrink back, but, strong in itself,
should, in boldly confronting all error, and in pursuing a
straightforward course, show its own power; and no one can
say that Dr. Butler, after offering a challenge to ANY Pro-
testant clergyman, and then refusing to meet the FIRST that
offers, is either boldly facing what he believes to be error, or
pursuing a straightforward course, in thus keeping back what
HE conceives to be truth, from the attack of those who con-
ceive otherwise. In my judgment, (and I should imagine it
would do the same in that of every person possessed of com-
mon sense,) it appears that the reason for his having acted
as he has done, is because he is AFRAID of meeting Mr.
Baylee, knowing that the doctrines of his church cannot bear
to be submitted to the only revealed standard of Christian
faith and practice,—the Holy Scriptures, which, on this ac-
count, he and other ministers of his church so carefully en-
deavour to keep back from their lay communities. if the
Doctor persists in refusing to meet Mr. Baylee, who can ever
for one moment suppose, that it is because he thinks him
incompetent ? Surely, if he thought so, he would come for-
ward at once and attempt to prove this charge, by showing
his own superiority, and not as he has done, meanly shrink
from nisi under such a pretence, for a pretence it is and no-
thing more ; and he may rest assured that this mode of pro-
ceeding will not benefit the cause he has come to Liverpool
to advocate ; on the contrary, he had far better have staid at
home, for he must know that Popery in this town is not so
strong, neither has it obtained so great an ascendancy as not
to suffer from the cowardice and meanness of any of its sup-
porters. He will only, by pursuing the present shuffling
course he is adopting, be an unwilling, but certainly a strong
witness to the power and truth of Protestantism, and to the
weakness and falsity of Popery, and as such be the means,
I trust, of opening the eyes of those who, till now, may have
been blinded, so as not to discern the real nature of the great
Apostacy. If such be the case, he will indeed make some
converts, how many soever he may have hitherto succeeded
in perverting.—l am, Sir, yours,
Everton, April 30, 1841

A PROTESTANT

A man in New Jersey, named Bills, has been presented by
his wife with three little Bills.