The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-19 00:00:00

Ire the Stvdmi, It wu tvfiat porinti of his higory that

he resigted with ouch 03 igwil fillet;;C:ca tho spread of the

Irvingite heresy,

In Liverpool he was soon felt. No description of
ours can do justice to the almost miraculous effects
produced throughout the town by bis unwearied minis-
try in the pulpit, in the school-room, and in the private
chamber : for as yet he had not appeared upon our
platforms. Gentlemen from all the congregations in
the town and neighbourhood, strangers from all parts
of the world passing through, dissenters of all denomi-

nations were to be seen from week to week at St

Jude's. The impression made upon dissenters was
manifested by the numbers of Baptists and Quakers
whom the reverend gentleman received into the church
by public baptism ; and the permanent religious effects
may in some degree be estimated by the fact that the
congregation of St. Jude's contains now between 500
and 600 communicants.

The writer in the Chronicle does not kntw Mr.
M'Neile. He admits, indeed, (as who can deny) the
brilliancy and power of his speeches on various sub-

jects, but he can form no idea of the scriptural research,
the solemnity, gravity, depth of reasoning, and clear-
ness, beauty, and simplicity of illustration which give
such a charm to the professedly religious instructions

of the reverend gentleman. Frequently have we heard
the remark, and felt its justice, that Mr. "M'Neile's
reading of the scriptures was in itself an elucidating

commentary

It was the education question that brought him fully
before the Liverpool public, as an orator as' well as a
divine. It is not too much to say, that our new Church
of England Schools would never have been built but for
Mr. M‘Neile. The success of the enterprise depended
upon the sympathy and liberality of the town at the
moment ; and no one conversant with the facts of the
case will deny, that, the meeting at the Amphitheatre,
where that success was secured, would have been a
failure, exciting little sympathy and producing little
money, but for his burning eloquence on the occasion.
His sermon on the subject, preached the week pre-
vious, and briefly reported in the Courier, had been
made the theme of abuse in the Town-council, and the
reverend gentleman himself denounced as a pestilence
to the Liberals. This added immensely to the interest
excited by that celebrated meeting, and Messrs. Rath-
bone and Blackburn have good reason to remember
the recoil.
Mr. M‘Neile next defeated the designs of the volun-
taries against our church-rates. A meeting of the op-
ponents of the church was held upon that subject. A
meeting of the friends of the church followed, at which
the reverend gentleman spoke with his usual efficiency.
And when the dissenters called a third meeting, and
by a quibbling requisition endeavoured to give it the
character of a town's public meeting, Mr. M`Neile at-
tended, endured patiently the brutal treatment be re-
ceived, maintained his ground, extorted from an un-
willing chairman the confession that the meeting was a
private one of the friends of a particular measure, and
then immediately withdrew, when nearly one-half of
the meeting followed him.
'These things checked amongst us the overflowings
of liheralism which followed the passing of the muni-
cipal reform bill, and gave returning weight and influ-

ence to the friends and supporters of the Church. It
was the reluctant acknowledgment of Mr. M'Neile's
bitterest enemies, that Mr. Cresswell was mainly in-
debted for his triumph over Mr. Ewart to the results
of Mr. M`Neile's labours in the town.
Those labours have been continued with unabated
energy. We need not speak upon the important sub-
ject of church building. St. Silas is a standing monu-
ment of the reverend gentleman's unprecedented eili-
cieriCy with his cOngregatiOn, and all who • know the
history of it, know that his energy on that occasion
gave practical impulse to the Liverpool Church Build-
ing Society. His appointment, beyond all competition
to be one of the trustees of that society, bore honour-
able testimony of the estimation. in which he was held
by the subscribers.

To come to events of a later ' date, Mr. M`Neile's
unrivalled exposure of the practical abuses of the Irish
registration system is well known, and held in grateful
rernetimbrance by every admirer of Lord Stanley and
advocate of his lordship's bill.
Mr. M`Neile's: speech upon the corn laws was ano-
ther master- piece ; and however our contemporary of
the Chronicle may affect to sneer at the reverend gen-
tleman's scriptural argument from the 'history of Tyre,
it is gratifying to, observe that Sir James Graham

thought it of sufficient consequence for adoption in
one of his speeches to his constituents, and introduced
it as having been used " with vast skill by. an eminent
and dignified divine."
It is our deliberate conviction that no one individual
in the kingdom has contributed more than Mr. M'Neile
to our late anti-revolutionary reaction. And this he
has done chiefly by awakening among all classes of the
community a renewed and intelligent attachment to
the Established Church. He has defended the church,
not with the mere assertion of arrogant pretension, but
by scriptural arguments, which commend themselves
more and more to the good sense of the nation. It is
not the smallest part of Mr. M`Neile's well earned
praise, that in the midst of his popularity, naturally
exciting envy, he has remained friendly with .all his
reverend brethren, and cordially co-operates with all:
Is a-Missionary or Protestant movement to be made
by the evangelical clergy, Mr. M`Neile is the chief
mover of the town. Is a church building or diOcesan
education movement to be made by the high church
clergy,
.(as they are commonly but improperly called,)
Mr. M`Neile gives it the crowning impulse for adop-
tion and support.
We know not whether any serious intention of pro-
moting the reverend gentleman be entertained by the
government, but we are assured no appointment could
be more serviceable to the best interests of the church
in these agitating times ; and we are assured that no
appointment would be more popular, or so popular,
with the great bulk of the conservative electors of the
United Kingdom.