The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-03 00:00:00

SEACOME DAWBARN,

TAILOR, kc.,

110, BOLD-STREET, LIVERPOOL,

AGENT FOR NICOLL'S

:EGISTP.RED PALETOT,

:AMA CLOTH, AS ALSO

FOR THEIR OTHER MANUFACTURED GOODS.

CONSTANT SUPPLY OF FILTERED WATER

SMITH AND STURGES'

rATErci, .n.J.
WATER FILTER.
THIS purifying Apparatus, being attached to the
I. Pipe of a Cistern is at all times supplied with Water. By
turning a cock, filtered water is drawn, whilst by a simple
arrangement the impurities arrested are expelled. It is com-
pact, not liable to derangement, and inexpensive.

ADEN
ETT,
of urer and Ironfounder,
LAS'S-BUILDINGS,
AND
05 WIITTECHAPEL,
LIVERPOOL,
Where a Patent Filter of each size may be seen constantly in use.

W. B
Grate Manx*
67; SIR TH'

TO THE ELECTORS OF ST. PETER'S WARD.

GENTEEMEN,
rfiHE unanimous expression of a Public Meeting of
my Fellow-Wardsmen, of all parties, inviting me to offer
myself as your REPRESENTATIVE in the TOWN COUNCIL,
at the ensuing Election, I regard alike as a high honour, and a
call to public duty, which dema y grateful acknowledg-
ment and respectful considerati .
I cannot fail to recognise fully appreciate the special rea-
sons which have influenc your choice on this occasion. and
which have led to the pression of all party considerations ;
and, on the part of any of you, to the waiving in my favour
of other and str claims on your support.
It has been n y duty, officially, to occupy a prominent posi-
tion in recent movements on important questions deeply af-
fecting your interests as Rate-payers, viz., the Supply of Water
for the Borough, the Rating of the Dock and Corporate Estates,
and the general principles of Nrtional and Local Taxation.
My opinions and conduct on these subjects were, therefore,
already before you, and were sufficiently decided to elicit any
difference of opinion that may exist respecting them. I cannot,
therefore, but regard your invitation, and the unanimity with
which it has been conveyed, as the strongest expression of your
approval of the course I have taken, and as an indication of
your wish that I should pursue the same course in the more
extended and important sphere of the Council Chamber.
Believing it to be the privilege of every faithful citizen to aid
in promoting the interests of the community, according to the
measure of his ability and opportunity, and that existing cir-
cumstances give a specialty to your claim upon my services, I
feel I should be unworthy this expression of your confidence if
I did not respond to your call, by placing myself in your hands,
resolving, if elected, to discharge my duty faithfully and fear-
lessly. _

I regard it to be the duty of your Representatives in the
Town Council to manage, for the benefit of the Burgesses at
large, the immense and valuable Corporate and Dock Estates of
this town—their property—with the most rigid economy, con-
sistent with efficiency; and, in their administrative and legis-
lative functions, to respect equally, and promote impartially,
the rights, privileges, and interests, of every class of the com-
munity.
I hold that all necessary taxation should be equitably dis-
tributed, to render its oppressive weight at all tolerable by the
trading community ; and, therefore, that the Dock and Corpo-
rate Estates should be assessed to local rates.
I shall cheerfully aid in maturing and carrying into operation
all measures which tend to elevate the moral, and ameliorate
the social condition of my fellow-creatures.
I shall also feel hound to reflect, in the Town Council, the
opinions of my constituents, on questions which they may
consider of such importance as to require a decided and general
expression of their wishes.

I regard with pride and veneration the principles of the Bri-
tish Constitution, and the Institutions which have sprung out
of them, the value of which is but more surely demonstrated
by every fresh occasion on which they are tested. And lam
convinced that the truest conservation of those institutions
consists in the gradual eradication of any abuses which the en-
larged experience and progressive character of our age may
from time to time demand.

Should these views meet with your sympathy and approval,
I am willing, if it be your pleasure, to give them practical ef-
fect in the Town Council ; if, on the contrary, they do not ac-
cord with yours, I shall be content to advocate them within the
limits of my present sphere.
I remain, Gentlemen, faithfully yours,
JOHN FERGUSON.

Liverpool, September 25, 1848.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL,

FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, &c. &c.

MY LORD,
OUR high official position, your well-known ur-
banity, your long professed attachment to the cause of
civil and religious liberty, your influence both as a nobleman
and statesman, your ample experience of the genius of your
countrymen, and your insight into the tendencies of the present
movements over the length and breadth of Europe, all concur
in determining me to address you on a mattt,r of no small
magnitude to the interests of the youliartef this great country,
and, through them, to those of .orn generations ; and if
further apology be needed, I fi, tin the fact that, some time
since, you honoured me wit 1 interview, as part of a deputa-
tion, to remonstrate, in • name of myriads, against the Mi-
nutes of Council on • 'cation. The evils which I then point-
ed out to your lord p, as likely to flow from the influence of
those minutes o .ur Village Schools, and especially in those
stations with ich, as Treasurer of the Home Missionary
Society, I am fully conversant, have been seriously realised.
The predicted hostility to the liberties of the poorer classes, if
they are found among the ranks of Dissenters from the Na-
tional Church, of a system which plays into the hands of the
opulent, and increases the power of unscrupulous partizans of
the hierarchy, has been fulfilled. The foreseen seductions of a
system which adds to the resources of the rich, in exact pro-
portion to their wealth, and increases the means of bribery in
the hands of those who have the predisposition to allure the
poor and the unsuspecting from the instruction to which they
are conscientiously attached, have been witnessed in many a
hamlet and village, and have become historical facts. Our de-
voted Missionaries, who are labouring to dispel the superstition
and ignorance amidst which the clergy of the richly-endowed.
Church have in most instances left the rural poor, have to con-
tend not only against those mental evils, but also against the
material advantages which the clergy and their coadjutors are
enabled to offer. an.cl the refusal to accept of which they threaten
comp..., /al Chat. oi7lll. Out inlbaltma—
ries and teachers touch not, and will not touch, the national
resources in doing the work of mind, of truth, and of God,
which others have neglected, they should be continually ham-
pered and thwarted in their benevolent enterprise, by the very
parties who greedily receive the nation's money, and so fre-
quently employ it to the injury of justice. liberty, and peace.
We complain that those consistent Dissenters who refused to
accept the grant, and who thereby evinced faith in their che-
rished principles, should be subjected to increased discourage-
ments by parties who had no such principles to cherish, and no
such scruples of conscience to prohibit them from accepting
the Government largess. But, my Lord, our sufferings have
not resulted in inaction, nor are our complaints intended to
prepare the way for a retreat from our 'vantage ground. No
I assure your Lordship, in the name of multitudes, that whilst
we consider our principles infinitely stronger than the com-
bined power of the Nationid Church, the National School, and
National Money, instead of retreating from the conflict, we
mean to rely still more implicitly on the power of that truth.
the diffusion of which is our sore object, and on the virtues of
that Voluntaryism which it is fashionable to decry among the
ranks with which your Lordship associates. And although the
influence of the Tractarian party, from which your Lordship
has already experiencod some little trouble, has introduced a
new element of opposition to the evangelical labours of our
Home Missionaries, yet the decided improvement in 500 vil-
lages and hamlets, the result of the labours of those opposed
Missionaries, affords practical demonstration that the Volun-
tary principle contrasts most advantageously with the cum-
brous machinery of State interference. I believe most so-
lemnly that the; best and wisest way to evangelize the rural
population and to educate the children of England, would be
to withdraw all national resources from every party now re-
ceiving them, and to throw the people on the illimitable re-
sources of untaxed benevolence. At all events, it is our settled
determination not to receive the aid of the Government ; for.
apart from our principles, which are dearer to us than policy,
we believe it will be found ultimately that that "aid" is an in-
cumbrance. We prefer our freedom, and are resolved to retain
it.

It may not perhaps have escaped your Lordship's memory
that the Committee of the Sunday School Union made a repre-
sentation, similar to that to which I have already alluded, to
your Lordship's noble coadjutors, but without practical effect;
for although the noble President is the friend of the liberties of
the humbler classes, and the friend of justice, and assured the
Committee of the deep anxiety he felt to protect their schools
against the arbitrary regulations of the National School, yet it
was evident there was a concealed power working against them
in opposition to which his Lordship had attempted to contend
in vain. It is true that the Sunday School Union have admitted
the principle for which your Lordship argues, and against which
we have repeatedly protested. But the defence of our princi-
ples is not weakened ; nor are the facts which justify our oppo-
sition to the Government scheme lessened, by the defalcation
of parties on whose co-operation we might have counted.
I remind you, my Lord, of these steps in your remarkable
nro-endowmentpoiicy ; a policy which has already created
discord and division at home and in the colonies, and which
threatens our Colonial Missionaries and Mission stations with
increasing danger • and a policy which, if persisted in, (allow
me to add with all danger;
will place England in the rear
instead of the van of European nations.
And now, my Lord, it is reported over the length and breadth
of the land, that your next purpose is to seize the first favour-
able moment for the public endowment of a priesthood whose
system was denounced by your Royal Mistress, our gracious
Queen, as superstitious and idolatrous, when she ascended the
throne of these Protestant realms. It is certain that your po-
licy has long pointed to this consummation • but still the pro-
ject appears so incredible, that but for its publici announcement,
it would not have been believed. You, my Lord, about to en-
dow Popery, to patronize the disciples of Loyola, to invite a
system fraught with death to the civil cnered liluarti., of
the people, and to tax the oyez::oiythened nation to sell those

libehieritO the hoary fee of all that is great and good in hu-
manity, and soul-stirring in Christianity, and precious in free
inquiry and liberty of conscience? Is this to be the climax of
your political career, the acme of your fame, the crowning deed
in your public life ? A member of the noble house of Bedford,
whose historical associations are identified with the struggles of
England for constitutional freedom, to appear, during the high
noon of the nineteenth century, when the nations of Europe are
throwing off the crushing. yoke of politico-ecclesiastical esta-
blishments, as the champion, patron, and endower of Popery ?
My Lord, the name of Russell is not only historical, but you are
yourself an historian, ;and without asking you who were the
most inveterate foes of liberty and civilization during the long
night of darkness, or who built the Inquisitions of Italy, and
persecuted by fire and sword those great and holy men who, in
the dawn of the Reformation, gave their ashes as the seeds of
civil privileges and religious freedom, to be scattered on the
soil of our common fatherland—great and holy men who, with
a daring for truth and God, for the rights of man and the ho-
nour of Jesus Christ, leaped in the breach where a Roman
Curtius would have trembled, between ecclesiastical tyranny
and national oppression ;—I say, instead of asking you these
questions, I will merely ask you how it will read in the pages of
the future historian, that Lord John Russell re-established Po-
pery in the nineteenth century ? My Lord I beseech you tO
think again—think seriously—think long, before yon submit
the odious propisition to the Commons of England. In the
event of such a proposition, the overthrow of the Ministry of
which you are the head is certain ; but this were a small matter
compared with the calamities to the rising generation which
your success would inevitably produce. But no ! success is
impossible ! Nevertheless, the attempt will arouse against the
political existence of the statesman who makes it a storm such
as the present generation has not witnessed. The Protestant
people of these lands will lift up their voices like the roll of
mighty thunderings, as in the days of your ancestors; and, as
in the experience of the House of Brunswick, the Protestant
2n
aDo
oiys
,sOO Lord,e Dissenters eo ri samws
yial
fl
Sundaye rlal
ol rteo
asucenhi
eorotslh
teacherew T hhorho
an
veoef;
chargealanrd I
ge ecoxafpn
et
the
ieeernrt iecfleyi
religious
uau s
education of 2,030,000 of Britain's t,
i sons and daughter's, and
who love them too well to hand them over to the tender mercies
of Popery—which you must endow in England as well as in
Ireland—will arise to push you from office, and to request you
to retire to private life, on the day in which you so far forget
yourself as to propose to Parliament your plan for an addi-
tional Church Establishment in this kingdom, which is fettered
and injured by too many already.
I have the honour to be, my Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient servant,
THOMAS THOMPSON.
Poundeford Park,l3th Sept., 1848.
[Secretaries of Sunday School and Sunday School Unions
generally, are invited to send promptly any communications on
this subject, which they think suitable, to the Editor of THZ
CHRISTIAN TIMES.
See " ristian Times," Sept. 15, 1848,
Published at 10, Gough-square, Fleet-street, London.