The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-11-19 00:00:00

' t led to prosecute .an inquiry. into t! e Atrairi. of be ‘Featoco's
Hospital ;if so, he iihutiAu glad kvw
.the time they
posed doing so, in order to give notie... to the Tnsstecs?
Arr. Wilkinson asked whether the subject was connected-
with the Corporation
The Town-clerk replied that the only way the Corpiration
were connected with it was,- that they held fluids of the hospital,
upon which an interest of five per-cent was allowed.
Mr. Wilkinson said that he did not think that the hospi;al
came within scope of the conitois4.,ion and adjoaraed the- court
until ten o'clock this .

THE BRITISH MAGAZINE,
Mt RI 1.1. AND CU., LON

With the hope that there is still amoug us a large por-
tion of Eng a h readers who possoss genuine English.
fcelincrs, we recommend The 13 ritidt Magazine for No-
vember as a periodical containing an exceitent variety of
matter respecting. the. Church of England, and religious
subjects general)v to Which, indeed, its pages are exclu-
sively devoted.

- •
The leading article in this number is entitled " Old
times compared with the :.resent," Which thus dispose-s of
.modern discoreries:in twirals and rcligi!,n :
The most eyes, however, the strongest hings. and the most
voices, are very false measures of the truth : and there are some
strange sceptics on these subjects, who. in the midst of the ge-
neral strife of tongues; are tempted to ionise, whether reelis,
ou the whole, we are going back wards or fOrwards. To those
never look back, every-thing that :::eitts is a novelty; every
objection brought forwarct appears a dEseoverv, every improve-
meat suggested, livery reform agitated, has the charm of being
new. But to those who do so, who are in the habit of observing
what has been in human, action, these same things ate, for tho
most part, exceedingly old. lam one of those pi:table persons
who spend most of my time in thus looking baek, for one plaits
reason—because I have no means of looking forward without it;
I have no means of judging what-will be, but by analogy front
what has been ; and sure I am, that there is to be collected
from the scenes of olden time a more faithful picture of our age,
and its tendencies, than the keenest modern prophets'ean dis-
cern by pure anticipation. Reserving then to the times in
which we live a character which none will deny them—that. of
being distinguished beyond all others by the multittide and va-
riety of mechanical and scientific inventions and improVernents,
—I shall contend that in other matters of more abiling interest
and importance to mankind, which concern us as reasonable
and immortal beings, we are neither much wiser nor much bet •
ter than our fathers; that there is little, for instance, in divinity
which has not been better said centuries ago; and little in mo-
ral philosophy which is not aittiq-nity diluted ;—that the disco-
veries which are being made in religion and morality—the mon-
strous disunion of the two—the variety Which an author on
church reforielas found in the one, and the convenient loop
holes which are daily opened in the other, are, after all, very
old, and are only so many absurdities into which the human.
mind is sure to fall-wheneverit sets out on such excursions. • -

On the boasted march of intellect anti universal dausion
of knowledge, we find the following observations :
The universal spread' of intelligence amongst all ranks is a
favourite cant phrase of the day ; and rightly enough, by the
way, is it, called a spread, confined us it is to a surface. There
is a certain smattering of tiimsy observations prevalent over the
whole surface of society, a .number.of crude notions floating
over the surface of men's winds, and wen skim over the surface
of much miscellaneous" information; but real mutual collision
of minds, and real individual depth of thought, and real sound
knowledge of .any subject, are confined to comparatively very
few, and to the intercourse of those who are comparatively little
heard or thought of. All, it. is true, can talk on almost any
given subject, but very few can do so to any purpose. Men
have fin time and no power to know every thing, and seek for
information from abridgments and sketches; and with these
they are plentifully supplied. They are fed to the full with
pamphlets and penny compendiums of knowledge which spare
them the trouble of thinking for themselves, and from which
they neither wish nor are able to draw any other inference Viten
that which has been already drawn for them • - hence, though
entirely at the mercy of the shallowest,- the- wickedest, and the
most designing, they imagine themselves to be tit judges of all
things. Dr. Johnson says, in his Idler, "that it is commonly
observed of ill-governed states, that they have many laws," and
parallels the remark with another; " that he knows not whether
it be, not equally true of an ignorant age, that it has many
books." ft is a remark less palatable, perhaps, than .trne,'tif
the age of which we-are speaking and our own. , Men then, as-
now, appeared, it would seem, to know- very much, but really
knew very little; it was the commencement of a pamphleteer-
ing age, particularly on matters of icligion and church govern-
meut, and the common people, who are, of -course. always the
executive in public movetneuts, began to• conceive them;elvee,
on the authority of the " Martin Mar-Prelates" of the day, to
have the full powers of deliberation also.. And is it not even.
so now, in the present wild state of private judgment, just as
whenemen swelled and intoxicated themselves in its first free
exercise? Wilt .not an unseriptural and fanatical tract or
pamphlet turn more heads giddy and brain sick, than the whale
clear current of precedent and the collected wisdom of all ages
can cure? We wise ones then have yet to learn that this
petite for any thin:;; and every thing, is, after all, either a child-
ish or a pampered appetite ; that we ought no snore to be fed
upon cheap compendiums of religion and learning of all soils,
than a child, because it fancies it Can eat it, should be fed upon
confectionery.; and that, as life, at, longest, is so much t
saor.er
than any one department of knowledge, the powers of men-tad
digestion battler better he concentrated upon the plain identity
of a wholesome folio, than- dissipated and weakened upon nil
sorts of heterogeneous trash and made dishes. And now let me
introduce 'mak Walton's- "ingenious Italian," who sneered at
England as-it Was, and would have eneered ten times more.at
it as it is. The letter Which he "writ scoffingly to his friend"
abroad, might be v. ritten as- stArertgly now With justices,
and realty could have but little added to it
" That the conaodpeeple of Englund were wiser than the
wisest of--his nation'; for that here the very women and shop.- -
keepers avert able to judge of predestination, and to deteratiue .
what laws Were fit to be wade for church government, and these
what were fit to be obeyed or abolished. f hat they were more
able, or at least thougfit so, to raise and determine. perplexed
cases of conscience, than the most learned colleges in Italv.
That men of the slightest learning, and the most ignorant of the
common people, were mad for a new, a super, or re-reformation
of religion ; and that, in this, they appeared like that man who
would never cease to Whet and whet-his knife till there was no
steel left to make it useful; and that those very men that were
most busy in oppositions, -and disputatious, and coutrovereies,
and finding out the faults of their governors, had, usually, the
least of humility and mortification, or of the power of godli-
ness."

There was, moreover, an admirable use 'tnade:of this spread
of information, as an instrument of unlimited private judgraeut t .
It was used to thwart the good effect which men should.'derive
from the pinching of the gospel. Bishop Sauderson, in one
of his sermons, alludes to this, in terms not unlike those already
quoted—" that learning, in his days, abounded even unto wan-
tonness; that most of the people, very women and all, could
look through the ignorance of a clergyman; and ace if he were
not pOintivise mall that he said." It was an admonition made
fur the best of purposes—to warn the younger clergy against
coutenting themeelves with :thy mediocrity of spiritual gifts;
bat we may fairly infer from this; that men went to",church,
much as they are apt to go now, not as hearers, but as judges;
and that not only they could, hut that they would, whether they
truly could or out, act as'such ; that it was a rhurch-going age,
and that the reason why so few fruits of this said chili-eh-going
were discoverable in the temper of the- times, was, that men
went not as to the house of prayer, but to the house otpreacb-
ine;• and this with a viniv rather of criticising the preacher,
than of bearing him in Christ's stead; and thus were, es Her- ,
bert quaintly illustrated such a case to his good neighbour,
"sermon-hearers, like those fishes which-live in saltwater and
vet are always fresh." All this, again, it is clear, is unquet-
iionahly true of that church-going age in which we live. The '
government, the liturgy, and the revenues of the church, were
assailed on all hands, and the church continually wouuded, as
now, through the sides of the clergy. Every fault, in every in-
dividual, was sedulously singled out, end wade to serve the per-
pose of a rhetorical inauction against the whole establishment.'
There were those then, as there are now, (no matter to which of
the classes of revolutionists above-mentioned they belonged, or
'in which, more than
.the others, they are to. be found- now,)
enough that there were, and ate, those "who exclaimed ageinst
abuses in the church, in order to carry their corrupt dealirtees tit
the civil state More covertly, taking advantage of this charac-
teristic of the multitude; that', if their liking cr dislike can be
directed towards any one object, many others may, in the n.ean
time, escaped unperceived." flow touch more then, when that
one object selected is that which is usually best and dearest of
all ! For my part, whenever I can divest myself of fear that
we are,_ as a nation, beceming -rapidly apostate, ceunot help
cherishing the notion, that the very hatred manifested against
the church is the very best proof or her real importance to our -
happiuess, and that Ate country, in its state of fever and deli-
rium, thrusts her from it because, in its health, it must ever love
her most. At all events, the words quoted on this head arc a
tolerable correct description of that policy which has produced.
this irritation, and diverted-it upon the church. But further,
-there were those who,•in language- current again note through
every.part of society, (even amongst mien who are very farfroai -
being, perceptibly to themselves, enemies- to the church uir its ,
ministers,) soughteseys the shrewd George Crummier, 4.t.tte dis-
grace the clergy by entertaining a conceit in men's minds, tied
confirming it continually by practitC-.—That men of learning,
and especially of theetlergy, which tare employed in the chiefeat
kind of learning, are not. to Ise admitted to Mailers of state;--
contrary," he continues, " to the_prectice of it'd well-governed.'•
commou wealths, and. of our. own till these late Years." These
were the Seed. of that police which not veil; mane years -after
ejected the bishops (tom th.eit seats in the House r;f Lords, and
are now again sown,
and again ripening towards. the sante
happy consuennatititi.
Tlee prieciphe too, is carried to a strange
length amidst the 'he's exeited ranks of society i • it is made to
tie the touguae of the clerev, as igueramuses-andbieces, on sub.-
jects which most vitally concern ielieion, and or which the mob
are, in the mean time, allowed to be more competent,.becauee '
they are inclined to show themselyee moreefilcieet judges ; so ,
that religion is to be imidiouslY cemplimennel eat of the world,
and Christian considerations looked upon as "exceedingly
well in. their way," an long as they.caube kept within certain
-limits, and eau he made to quarter in and out without running •
awkwardly against tl,e hidden and crooked policies states-
men, or prograting the sovereignty of the. pcop;e!
It is to be regretted that our periodical literature cannot
boast of a greater number of works of this description,
sent forth at a pt ice sutficientlylow to circulate with those
of a contrary tendency, with which the country has been
inundated. Were this-the case, the pre.S would cure the
ills the press creates—the bane and die antidot.c woulil go
forth together.

CAPTURE OP BURGLARS.—The town and -neighbouthood of
Ashburton hate long been infested e ith a set of tiring
and all attempts to discover them had hitherto Lein uneeeiiing;
but having lately admitted a greenhorn into their gang, he was •
too fond of displaying his ih-gotten wealth, which led to a sus-
biton and his apprehension; he In:t1 not been long in custody
efore he confessed -a few of the robberies coin-milted by die
gang within the last month ; among other items, ten bags of '
wheat from one farmer, five Train another, essd flour, cheese,
and bacon, from several shops in Ashburton, ''hey had the
impudence when they effected the robbery of the ten hap of
wheat, to take a valuable horse out of a field, and ore him to
convey their booty to a barn they rented,' and after finishing
their work led back the horse to the litA, then put the sacks
they had shook the wheat from into two of them, and set them
against the farmer's door, where they were found the nest
morning. The hoard in the barn, rented by-the burglars, pre-
sented a most extraordinary scene, being a'mixture of wheat,
barley, oats, potatoes, thitty.-five couple or live fowls three fat
pigs, bacon, flour, apples, in fact, a little of every' Ching they •
could lay their hands on. The leader of the gang, called.liele,
whose friends are very respectable, after he was taken into cus-
tody, knocked down the constable, and made" across the coun-
try, but, after travelling above twenty miles, was apprehended
at a farm house, quite exhausted, where he went. to beg a
draught of cider. A.O examination of the prisoners took place
114 A IP/ till! nesw. IP • cast!. n rtsi "•••• _