The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-09-03 00:00:00

position

This was a novel proposition, but the board was of
opinion that it was a just one, and proceeded with due
diligence to search for the object decided, and, strange to

say, success crowned their efforts

Some time previous to receiving Mr. M'Clay's letter, a
young lady, Miss Henrietta Sperry, of Brooklyn, New
York, made application to the board to be sent as a mis-
sionary to China, but was refused on account of being
unmarried. To her the application of Mr. M'Clay was
shown ; she at once filled up the blank application, and a
correspondence ensued, which ended in her leaving New
York, in company with a number of other missionaries,
on the 12th of March last, in the ship Tartar, for Hong-
Kong, where she will be met by Mr. M'Clay, and the
nuptial ceremony will be solemnised.

The lady's personal attractions have been described to
us by one who had the pleasure of seeing her previous to
" • .

taking sail on her mission of love. She is described as
being beautiful and fascinating in appearance, and pos-
sessed of that charm of loveliness which should adorn
every female character—a well-cultivated mind, stored
with the richest gifts of knowledge from the fountain of
education, and a moral refinement which will bear with it
the jewel of a bright inheritance beyond the confines of
time.—American Paper.

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.

The conservatives of the county of Cambridge have re-
solved to bring forward Mr. Serjeant Byles as a candidate.
Mr. Cowling has issued an address to the electors of
Cambridge University. He is a Protectionist.
Captain Montague Merryweather Turner, who con-
tested Poole at the last election, is now canvassing that
borough on the Protectionist interest.

Mr. Walpole Las been requested by about fifty non-
resident members of Cambridge University to become a
candidate for its representation in Parliament. He is a
high Churchman.

Lord John Russell stated, before the committee on of-
ficial salaries, that when he got into office he got into debt,
where he had never been before, and it was the Duke of
Bedford, ar.d not the nation, that supported him in an
upright manner.
TEE PEACE CONGRESS.—Lord Brougham once told
Mr. Hindley that the members of the Peace Congress
were " the greatest fools in the world." Whatever our
own opinion may be, we might have hesitated before ex-
pressing it quite so tersely as the noble and learned lord.
But since the word has been said, we will only add that a
great many people are of Lord Brougham's way of think-
ing upon this point.--Times.

Mr. Headlam, M.P., attended a meeting of the New-
castle and Gateshead Parliamentary Reform Association
the other day, and gave an account of his stewardship,
after which a vote approving of his conduct was about to
be put, when it was opposed by a Chartist, who proposed
an amendment. One Mr. Liddel, the corypheus of the
association, became very wroth at this, and at his instiga-
tion the unfortunate Chartist was dragged out of the room.

ABUSES AT THE MINT.-It appeared in evidence before
the parliamentary commission that the moneyers, who
are a company in the Mint, have been in the receipt of
enormous profits. From the year 1842 to 1847, the pro-
fits, on their own acknowledgment (they refused to pro-
duce their books), amounted to the almost incredible sum
of £105.187 12s. 11d., divided among five persons.
Though for several years previous to 1842 their profits
were not so large as during the five years we have named,
yet they were very enormous, and far above what they
ought to have been. Indeed most of the subordinate
officers of the Mint appear to make profits on a scale
quite incommensurate with all notions of fitness or jus-
tice. The profits of the melter, for instance, who is the
clerk of the Alaster of the Mint, amounted from 1828 to
to 1847. to £49,650 7s. lid., or to more than £2,600 a
year. Our readers may ask who are the five moneyers
who for several years have been receiving an income of
more than £25,000 a year ? The moneyers are, as they
allege (but this is denied by the Master of the Mint and
by the Attorney-General, who has given an opinion in a
contrary sense), a corporation. They have existed in
their present capacity for three or four centuries. The
Master of the Mint contracts with them for the coinage,
and the contract entered into in tFe year 1770, 80 years
ago, subsists to the present day. The great profits of the
moneyers have arisen from a contract made with the
Master of the Mint, which the Premier has the power
of terminating at three months' notice, but no Master of
the Mint ever „directed his attention to this ,ahuse tll
Mr. Sheil was appointed to his office in NM.

at I must s

pu tear

thing to Tom Reynolds. When the Lord Mayor was not
his friend, but the contrary, I was his friend. The Lord
Mayor said he could not permit a continuance of this lan-
guage. The aid of the police was, of course, several time
evoked to quell the riot, which only grew more fast am
furious at the mention of the " civil"

,he day's sports

"coward."

The worthy o

by stig

CLERICAL IN?

ng the chair

LLIGENCE,

scitrate of Charles Chapel, Plymouth, because

Ile flows iur. uornam-s opinion on baptism.
It is understood that Mr. Vaughan, the recently ap-
pointed Professor of Modern History, has been nominated
fifth commissioner, to inquire into the state of the

Universities

The Deanery of Waterford, vacant by the death of Dr.
Usher Lee, has been conferred, by the Lord-Lieutenant,
on the Very Rev. Dr. Townsend, the present Dean of
Lisrnore, and Rector of Burncharep, which leaves vacant
the latter Deanery.

One article of the Nicene Creed has been very much
insisted on in the Gorham controversy—" One baptism

for the remission of s
of the same creed had been as much insisted on— _
Here in the Holy Ghost THE LORD AND GIVER of
LIFE." But it would seem as if the work of the Hols

Spirit had been enti

•
theology by attributing to Christ's manhood that which
is in scripture ascribed to the Holy Ghost.

THE BISHOP OF EXETER'S LAST LETTER.—I am per-
suaded that I express the sentiments of thousands among
the laity in saying that it is a great relief to us to learn.
from the Bishop of Exeter's letter to the churchwardens
of Bramford Speke, that we are allowed to hare some
judgment in matters of doctrine ; and as we are invited
by his lordship to judge of Mr. Gorham's doctrine, and
Are told that it would be a dereliction of duty not to do
so, we must of necessity form a judgment of the opposite
doctrine; that we may discriminate between the sound and
the unsound ; and so are compelled to examine and weigh
the doctrines propounded by the Bishop of Exeter.—
Correspondent.

THE PEW SYSTEII2.—We stated a few weeks since that
Mr. Handcock of Yeovil had demanded from the church-
wardens a pew in the church suitable to his position in
life. The Bishop of the diocese (Bath and Wells) on
having the case referred to him. decided that the pew
system was clearly illegal, and that every parishioner was
entitled to a seat in the parish church without fee or pay-
ment of any kind. On this the churchwardens called a
vestry meeting for advice, at which a very long discussion
took place without developing any practical effect. At
length a Mr. Vining offered to give up for ever the pos-
session of a pew which he held in the north gallery, with
the view of enabling them to seat Mr. Handcock. This
compromised the matter, but of course does not decide
the legal point of the question.

DR. 31`NEILE AND THE TRACTARIANS.

The following is a letter from the Rev. Dr. M'Neile to
a clergyman who had written to him, citing from the
doctor's publications several bold and uncompromising
statements against latitudinarian indifference, and asking
if it could be possible that the author of such statements
bad expressed his approval of the recent judgment of the
Privy Council in the case of " Gorham v. the Bishop of
Exeter 1'

This is, we understand, only one among many commu-
nications of the same character which have been made to
the reverend doctor. To judge by this answer, we are of
opinion that his tractarian correspondents have " taken
nothing by their motion," as the lawyers have it
" Liverpool, 24th August, 1550.
" Reverend Sir,—l have been in Ireland for some time, or I
would at an earlier date have acknowledged your letter, and
replied to it in that spirit of Christian candour and courtesy
which you invoke. I do cordially approve of a d thankfully
rejoice in the recent judgment of the Pi ivy Council. You
seem to think that such approval would be inconsistent with
the strong and reiterated denunciations of latitudinarian prin-
ciples contained in my speeches and writings. Ido not agree
with you, and I will briefly tell you why. I cannot command
time to go largely into the subject, I detest the latitudinarian-
ism which makes light of any Word of God, and of course that
which would deal even-handed with Popery, and Socinianism,
and Christianity. Against this I have written and spoken, and
hope again to write and speak, just in such terms as you have
quoted from my books. I equally detest the narrow-minded
bigotry which would exalt any rubrick, or canon, or catechism,
or prayer, of man's composition, into the place of a Word of
God. Concerning the efficacy of baptism upon infants—con-
cerning the baptism of infants at all, I do not know any one
Word of God. It is never once mentioned in Holy Scripture.
The antiquity of the practice is undoubted as a matter of fact,
and I very cordially agree with those who think it most agree-
able with the institution of Christ.' But all that men have
written about its efficacy, the quando and the quomodo, is no
more and no better than inference—inference honestly drawn,
let us grant, but certainly fallibly, and by some erroneously,
since all do not infer alike. He who elevates any such infer-
ence into the place and authority of a Word of God, and there-
upon pronounces an opposing inference to be heresy, seems to
me to arrogate infallibility (at least in this instance) to himself.
The recent judgment of the Privy Council has checked such
arrogance. therefore I rejoice in it. I may express my corn-
' bined convictions thus—in divine truth no latitude; in human
inferences no bigotry. Is the proper Godhead or the true hu-
manity of the Saviour the question ? Is the atonement the
question ? Is the divinity, personality, or agency of the Holy
Ghost the question ? Is the bowirg down before images the
question ? Is anything on which God has plainly spoken the
question ? Then. after the first and second admonition, reject
the heretic. But is the efficacy of baptism to infants the ques-
tion ? or anything else on which God has not spoken ? Then inferences may vary, and he who, on either side, would excom-
,
municate, is himself the schismatic. Your inference that man
must be entirely irresponsible under the Christian dispensa-
tion, it there be such a thing as a prevenient or arbitrary act of
grace untied to means,' appears to nee to be utterly unfounded,
nay ludicrously absurd; but I would be sorry to call you, or
think of von as, a heretic for holding it. My inferences on the
snbject, as you will find them detailed in the chapter on bap-
tism, in my book entitled The Church and the Churches,' will
probably °PAM' tp yva to be wholly unsound, but I hope you