The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-24 00:00:00

suer.

Let us turn also to the difficulties which encounter
us in our home policy—to an alienated people amongst
whom the seeds of disaffectiow have been allowed to
spring up unchecked,—nay, fostered for the purposes
of faction, and with whom the laws, the ancient usages,
and the time-hallowed associations of Englishmen are
but flimsy cobwebs entangling the feet of a spurious
philosophy. At such a crisis as the present, go filled
with bitter presages of evil, is the state of society in
England one of which the lover of his country's weal
can be proud ? We fear it is not. There is a poison ,
festering at the root of England's prosperity for which
only the healing power of true religion can provide an
antidote. There is a serpent coiling by the hearthstones
of our countrymen whose defiling breath stifles,
as they ascend, the aspirations of patriotism and
the prayers of faith.
We are told by their press—by the literary scaven,
gers who rake the filth from before their feet—that the
members of Lord Melbourne's administration can look
without dread upon the prospect which is before them.
We must ourselves confess that we are not formed of
such happy materials. We can see nothing in their
position which is not disgraceful ; we can see nothing
in the position of our country which is not pregnant
with danger and difficulty. We believe that we enter-
tain these feelings in common with a great majority of
the people of England ; and although we trust that we
may be in error, yet we cannot but fear that the day is
approaching when England will weep tears of blood,
and England's Sovereign would give the brightest
jewel from her diadem to avert even half the evil which
these base and reckless men have brought upon their
country.

We may form a correct idea of the tender conside-
ration with which the ministerial faction regard the
welfare of our Established Church, from the feelings
of bitter hostility and malignant hatred which have
been levelled against it during the present Easter Ves-
tries. Scarcely a parish throughout England is without
its anti-church or anti-church-rate agitator. The dark-
browed Puritan and the fierce Papist, the wily Socinian
and the meek and saintly Aminadab, walk hand in
hand in the attempt to spoil the altars and undermine
the walls of our venerable fabric ; and, if a stone is
displaced, if a buttress is weakened, or a font broken—

nay, if only so much as a bell-rope can be suffered to
to decay, or a pulpit-cushion to be worn out by the
obstruction offered by their rancorous hatred, a yell of
delight resounds throughout the land, and the eyes of
thousands of the canting hypocrites, who make the
profession of religion a cloak for moral deformity, are
ready to gloat upon the prospect of the overthrow of
that pure and holy church whose unobtruding piety is
hateful from the contrasts which it presents to their
own pharisaical professions.

That these attacks upon the established religion of
the land are viewed with satisfaction by the present
ministry call scarcely be doubted when we observe the
active and earnest endeavours which have been made
by the accredited organs of the government during the
last ten days, to excite the fierce passions of their sup-
porters, and to point out the weapons by which their
object could be attained. Day after day these organs
have launched forth their slanderous tirades, directed
against the church, its ministers, and its doctrines.
The thunder of the Chronicle has been reverberated by
the small whisper of the Globe and the sputtering blus-
ter of the Sun. The little luminaries which spread
their weekly twilight over the otherwise benighted ob-
scurity of our provincial towns have stirred up their
wicks and shone out in rival flames whose intense bril-
liancy will be matter of wonder for months to come.
And mark the result of all this thunder and lightning.
The hallowed walls of those venerable piles which were
erected only to echo to the voice of prayer have been
converted, not into a den of thieves, perhaps, but into
an arena of faction, disgusting scurrility, and bitter

contention. The simple matter of electing a church-
warden has been turned into a subject of party war-
fare. The laying of a halfpenny church-rate 'has been
seized upon to supply materials for a struggle, profes-
sedly of principle, which can only be properly and
finally decided within the walls of Parliament.
We trust we are not too sanguine in expressing our
belief that in every instance the enemies of the Esta-
blishment will be foiled in their efforts to impair and
diminish its usefulness ; for that, in reality, is the ob-
ject which they have in view. We have no patience
with the disgusting cant by which the purity of their
motives is paraded before the world. We cannot
readily believe that the saving of a few pence yearly
would induce men of otherwise respectable characters
to engage in an aggravating and useless contest. 'We
are told, it is true, that it is the principle of a church-
rate to which they object, and not its amount. Fudge !
The real and only objection which these men have to a
church-rate is the purpose to which it is applied : the
repairing and sustaining of those venerable walls which
they would willingly pay ten times the amount to see
levelled with the dust.

As the friends of Mr. Joshua Walmsley appear to
be attaching some importance to the connection of that
gentleman with the Established Church, and suppose
that he will thereby be placed in a better position than
Mr. Thornely, it may not be useless to inquire, what
services has Mr. Walmsley rendered to the Church of
England which entitle him to the support of its mem-
bers ?

In the first place, Mr. Walmsley is a church patron,
and has lately had an opportunity of exercising his
right of presentation. And how has he acted ? In-
stead of following the laudable example of a noble-
minded gentleman, collaterally, we believe, related to
him, and zealously seeking a clergyman of acknow-
ledged piety and talent, by whose untiring exertions an
almost deserted church might be crowded with repent-
ant sinners, he has made such an arrangement as will
give him the opportunity of presenting his son, a minor
and an untried man, to the living, when he may be le-
gally qualified to hold it. In doing this he certainly
has not transgressed the law; but, surely, from one
who inveighed so bitterly against the late corporation
for exercising their right of presentation in such a
manner a different course might naturally have been
expected.

Mr. Walmsley is a strenuous advocate for the sepa-
ration of church and state and for the voluntary sys-
tem. But how has he acted ? There is in Liverpool a
society which has been instituted for the purpose of
building and enddwing churches by
.voluntary dona-
tions. How much has Mr. Walmsley contributed to
this society ? Positively not one farthing ; whilst num-
bers of his fellow-townsmen, with less means, and op-
posed to the voluntary system, have subscribed upwards
of one hundred pounds each to it. Nor has he been
more generous to the Diocesan Church Building So-
ciety. Now, were Mr. Wahnsley a poor man or a con-
scientious advocate of the right of the state to provide
scriptural accommodation and instruction for the peo-
ple, there might be some excuse for him ; but such
conduct from a man who avows voluntary principles,
and can afford to subscribe annually to the O'Connell
tribute fund, or to lavish ostentatiously thousands of
pounds upon balls and dinners, admits of no defence.
Again, with respect to education according to the
doctrines and principles of the Church of England,
how has Mr. Walmsley acted? It is well known that
Mr. Walmsley is a staunch supporter of the system of
education pursued in the Corporation Schools, which,
however agreeable to the members of the Protector
Society, cannot he too strongly condemned by every
churchman. Mr. Walmsley is likewise well known as
a director and late president of the Mechanics' Insti-
tution, of which not one-fifth of the directors belong
to the Church of England. It would be hence ima-
gined that Mr. Walmsley, as a churchman and a pro-
fessed friend to the education of the people, would
have gladly hailed the establishment of the Collegiate
Institution, and at once have connected himself with
it. But no : although waited upon as the Mayor of
_Liverpool by a deputation, he declined to award his
support or lend his sanction to an institution in which
religious instruction according to the doctrines of the
Established Church will be for ever given ; whilst he
is proud to preside over an educational establishment
into whose studies, as detailed in the printed Pro-
graMme, no religious instruction of any description
enters:

We have thus briefly reviewed the public actions of
the new parliamentary candidate, so far ar they are con-
nected with his duties as a member of the Established
Church, and candidly confess, that although we find
much in them to entitle him to the gratitude and sup-
port of the Catholics and other enemies of the church,
we can glean nothing to recommend him to the notice
of true churchmen. On the contrary, he appears to us
as a wolf in lamb's clothing, from whom the church
has more to fear in the approaching struggle for Pro-
testant ascendancy than the Unitarians or other avowed
enemies. Let not any of his friends lay the flatter-
ing unction to their souls that their cause will be
benefited by the connection of their candidate with the
Church of England. He has been weighed in the
balance, and found wanting.

We beg to direct attention to a report in another column
of the proceedings of the annual vestry, held on Tuesday
last, at the neighbouring village of Walton-on-the-Hill. Our
readers will perhaps be aware that the fabric of the church
at Walton has, for the last few years, been undergoing dila-
pidation, and that the churchwardens, following the require-
ments of the law, have expended a portion of the church-
rate, levied for the purpose, in endeavouring to repair the
ravages of time, and to restore its walls to a state of security.
To complete this object, it appears that it will be necessary
to levy a church-rate for the present year of 2d in the pound;
and the mere supposition that such a demand would be made
brought, as a matter of course, the whole force of the Whig-
Radical camp, like a swarm of hornets round the eats of
the worthy vicar and the parochial authorities. An amend-
ment was duly moved, and the array of the anti-church
faction, after endeavouring in vain to throw the burtlken of
the expenses already incurred, upon the shoulders of the
churchwardens, succeeded, on the show of hands, in nega-
tiving the rate. A poll, however, was demanded, the result
of which will no doubt show that our national establish-
ment is not yet reduced so low in public estimation as to be
trampled beneath the feet of its enemies.
We dare say it would be abundantly delightful to some of
the gentlemen who attended the vestry to witness the arrival
of those halcyon days, when churches will be allowed to
crumble unheeded like disused dog kennels. Such a con-
summation, however, the march of liberalism has not yet
brought round ; and so long as the laws of England require
from the inhabitants of every parish a contribution for the
express purpose of preserving the sacred walls of those
churches from decay, we trust that men will be found amongst
their members bold enough to perform that duty even at
risk of provoking a hubbub such as was presented on Tues-
day, or• of drawing down upon themselves the virtuous in-
dignation of gentlemen who carry " Doctor Lushington" in
their pockets.
It will be seen from our report that at the close of the poll
on Thursday the anti-church faction were in a large minority.
We trust that still the friends of the church will not omit to
record their votes. The next good thing to giving a man a
good thrashing is to thrash the conceit out of him.

TOTNES ELECTION.

TRIUMPH OF THE CONSERVATIVES.

Mi. Baldwin, the conservative candidate, was, on Tuesday,
returned by a majority of seven, as the following statement
will shew :

CLOSE, OF THE POLL.

Mr. Baldwin.....
Mr. Gisborne....

Majority for Mr. Baldwin....

LIVERPOOL PROTESTANT OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION.—
The monthly meeting of this association took place on Wed-
nesday evening last, at Mr. Tyzack's Academy, No. 1, Hill-
street, Toxteth-park, the Rev. S. Fenton, M.A., vicar of
Fishguard, in the chair. The meeting having been opened
by the Chairman with prayer, and remarks, as usual, Mr.
Ratcliffe moved the following resolution :—" That this meet-
ing being convinced that it is only by the revival of true, ze-
'mine Protestantism that true religion and civil liberty can
be maintained in our land, and that Protestant associations
are admirably calculated, under God, to accomplish this im-
portant object, call loudly upon our fellow-townsmen to join
our association, and unite with us in this glorithis cause."—
The speech on this occasion was delivered in a strong and
powerful argumentative style, and appeared to have the de-
sired effect upon a crowded audience. Mr. Williams, in se-
conding the resolution, brought forward a whole host of quo-
tations from Dens and other Popish writers, contrasting
Protestantism with Popery, with much effect. Mr. Watham
then addressed the meeting in a humourous, yet effective
style, respecting DAN and his tail, and made an appeal to
the shipwrights to form a branch association in the Park,
which was loudly responded to. A vote of thanks to the
chairman having been moved and duly seconded, and a few
remarks made by the chairman, the doxology was sung, and
the meeting concluded by the three watch-words of this asso-
ciation (Ist, Scriptural Education ; 2d, Church Extension ;
3d, Repeal of the Popish Emancipation Act) being given out,
as usual, at the close of the meeting, with tremendous cheer-
ing, clapping of hands, and cheers.
The next Birkenhead cattle and cheese fair will be held on
the 28th instant, two days before the great fair at Chester.