The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-11-13 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR Op THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

S I 11,—Being in Bedford-street, Toxteth-park, yesterday morn-
ing, (Sunday,) I noticed a person of the vagrant caste hawking
and distributing Hethrington's Weekly Dispatch ; also, annoying
the dwellings of those inhabitants who are, I hope, much better
en►;.tloyed on Sundays than in purchasing and reading Paine
and his followersi infamous doCtrines; however, will you, sir,
be kind enough to inform me why, in a land famous for religion
and christian principles, such unholy desecrations of the Sab-
bath are allowed, and if the powers that be have no legal autho-
rity to prevent, if not punish, the authors and venders of on-
stamped and infidel publications ? Waiting your pleasure, 1
am. &c., CLIO.
Kirkdale, Monday, Nor: 9, 1835.

TO MR. THOMAS BOLTON.

has been said of the Quarterly Review, that an author
would prefer having his work condemned and ridiculed in that
journal, rather than it should be overlooked entirely. So is it:
with. Mr. Thomas Bolton and the Liverpool Standard.' He bils.
tried hard to attract its attention, and it would be a pity indeed
to disappoint him. Lest, however, he should deem the notice
already taken in that paper insufficient, a very humble indivi-
dual ventures to enter the lists with the self-elected champion.
alike of the protestant dissenter and of the popish intolerant—
with the leading organ of the baptist and of the socinian—with
the ci devant defendant in the town dues question—with the bur-
gess he thinks he is, and the councillor he expects to be—in
short, with Mr. Thomas Bolton.
To enlarge the list of your various and contradictory qualifi—
cations and pursuits is unnecessary, since those I have already
enumerated must convince the most sceptical of the greatness
and versatility of your talent, and, what to a patriot is of infi-
nitely more consequence, the boundless confidence apparently
placed in you by sects the most opposite and parties the moat
dissimilar. In you we behold amalgamated the designs and
wishes of the calvinist and of the socinian—of the believer and
of the infidel—of the followers of John Knox and of the student:
of Dens' Theology—of Mr. Thos. Blackburn and of Mr. Richard
Shiel—a more curious amalgamation, a more unholy alliance
11 was never exhibited, and to you, sir, he the credit of this new
discovery iu chemistry, by which oil and vinegar,"fire and water
have been blended in the closest union.
And now let us turn to the letter on which you appear con-
tent your fame shall rest; and, in the first place, we will look
at the preface with which, in the pages of the Albion, you usher
into the world your otherwise still-born production. You there
state your motive of publication to have been "some garbled
extracts which appeared in the Liverpool Standard of the 6th
instant." A more unfounded assertion was never made; for
though in the paper to which you 'allude there aro spine re-
marks on your having officiously written such a letter, there is
not one extract either garbled or otherwise from any part of it.
As this then, notwithstanding your assertion, neither was nor
could be your motive, we must endeavour to look for it else_
where, and I have no hesitation in stating it to have been this.
You were afraid that the credit of having written so derer a
letter—as I have since heard one of your friends term it--would
he lost to you, that the time and labour expended in its compos
sition would be thrown away, and the common council very
properly having taken no notice of it, you detei-oined upon
some other plan of proclaiming it to the world; and this, sir,
and not the "garbled extracts," is the real version of its publi-
cation. , _ _

As it regards the signification of the word sect, the editor of
the Stamford has so well exposed your sophism, that I should
consider another syllable unnecessa►y. Were it .not for the
deplorable: .ign orange. put herein display of what I.ba.se been,
taught to call the inspired writings. Yeif that '" in the
scriptures, where the word is frequently used,. it is not used as
a term of disrespect." It is of little consequence to the main
argument whether it is or not; but I cannot refrain from oh.
serving in passing, that you will find, if yen "search the scrip-
tures," the word sect is certainly never used as a term. of re.
spect. You will find that it is there applied chiefly to the Pha-
risee and Sadducee, sects repeatedly condemned by our blesied
Lord, and whose doctrines were not mole incompatible with
the religion he inculcated than are those of the modern socinian
with the established church of this country.

The next statement you .make is of a very different com-
plexion, and in it, I am happy to say, I most cordially agree
with you. You are quite right in expressing your belief that
your opinions "are not extensively entertained." There is no
mistake here; the truth, however., you own with reluctance,
forced from you, as it were, in bitterness of spirit by reminis-
cences of the misapplication of Lady liewles's charity.
You may arrogate what merit to yourself you please in the
boast, that "of late years you 'have been an edvocate fur the
extension of equal privileges and equal duties to all in equal
stations." Your conduct in the town dues question is an ad-
mirable commentary upon this statement. To the detriment of
every interest in Liverpool, whethe'r sectarian or otherwise, you
endeavoured to extend these equal privileges and rights to the
slave holding. planter of Alabama and Tenesse, robbing your
friends to the exact extent you endeavoured to benefit them.
This you, may term " acting the part of a good conservative," but
for my part, excuse me if I differ from you; and I am very
much mistaken indeed if the inhabitants generally of this great
town do not view with indignation the man who could endea-
your to give to a citizen of the American states equal privileges
with a burgess of Liverpool.
And this brings me to the letter itself, which you have
laboured so strenuously to introduce. You say you are now a
burgess; be it. so. It is a matter of indifference to me, as I
dare say it is to almost every one else, what you are, so you
will only refrain intruding your crudities upon the world as the
amateur champion of parties, many of whom disclaim your ad-
vocacy. I will therefore pass on to what you call your first
remark, "that as the scriptures are alike addressed to all man-
kind, and as all sects contribute to the support of the corpora.
tion funds, it appears unjust that one sect in particular should
have the whole of the pecuniary benefit." But is this the case?
Certainly not, as I shall proceed presently to show. It is true
that the scriptures are equally addressed to all mankind, arid
as such it is the more &to be deplored, that so many in this
boasted age of human reason, should so utterly disregard those
sacred precepts, nay more, endeavour to wrest them in the frit-
therance of their own unhallowed schemes, degrading the cha-
racter and offices of our great,Redeerner, turning the truth of
God into a lie, and dishonouring the gospel of his dear Son..
This, F urely, is no reason why corporate or any other funds
should be made subservient to the desecration of the- bible,.or
applicable to the stippoit of a religion which our laws stigma-
tise as blasphemous and idolatrous. As well may the jew, for
he equally with the socinian and the Roman catholic contri-
butes to these funds, lay claim to a participation in them far
the use of the Synagogue, as yourself for the purposes you enu-
merate.

-----
But it is not true that our sect in particular, as you term the
established church, derive the sole benefit front a fund "to
which all sects contribute." These contributions are more than
repaid to them iu the improvements to the town, by which. "all
sects" benefit, and in the security and accommodation which
"all sects" receive, either in the additional safety to their per-
sons and estate, or the increased and increasing facilities
afforded to thc.m in business.
Other property, however, the corporation possesses to which
no sectarian ever contributed. Property given or bequeathed
by members of the established church, and received by them in
trust as guardians of that church; and certainly neither the
giver nor the receiver ever contemplated, an appropriation,
'which, as I have before observed, even you admit "not to be
extensively entertained."
To make the matter more plain, it would be equally as just
were you, sir, to bequeath an estate for the endowment of one
of your own meeting houses, or for the education of men, (I
borrow the exact words of your friend Mr. Martineau,) "within
whose closets God may compute the destinies of remote gene-
rations, men at once erudite and free, men who'may have the
materials of knowledge with which to determine the great prob-
lems of morals and religion." What would you think, sir,
were ynu to leave an estate for this purpose, and convey it in
trust to some body of men, the committee of the Mechanics'
Institution, for instance, and were told that some hundred
years hence an individual, like yourself, desirous of immortaliz-
ing himself in the columns of another Albion, would come for-
ward
and express his opinion, "that it appeared unjust that as
all sects contributed to the support of the Mechanics' institu-
tion funds, that one sect in particular should have the whole
of the pecuniary benefit, and that it would be equally reason-
able to pay from the same funds the baker's bills, &e." I will
not quote more of your elegant illustration, and shall only fur-
ther observe, that such reasoning would be as contemptible
then as it is ridiculous now.
Your letter would furnish me with matter for many further
remarks, but at present I have neither time nor inclination to
pursue the subject further, and if Via will only refrain from
again thrusting yourself forward as the champion of the most
unholy alliance ever formed, you will not again hear from me.
I now take leave of you. You have obtained your
you are again noticed in the pages of the Standard, and with
this notice any reasonable man would be s.niisfied.—l sin, &c.
Liaerpoul, Noronber 10, .1835. A 1.2,111.7,RC1-1.1.19.1ti