The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-10 00:00:00

IariTRITPOOL grANOAttri.

CORRESPONDENCE.

TO LORD SANDON, M.P.

" Never came Reformation irr a flood,
With such a heady current."

MY Loan.--if I may bepertnitted to estimate yourlord-
ship's political position in parliament bysorre ofyour record-
ed sentiments and votes, 1 should consider 'lilt you are not
a convert to Puseyism in the church, or Peeli,m id the
state. You have an important part therefore yet to play,
for the times must necessarily develope a new arrange-
ment and embodim-nt of governmental powers and par.
ties, before the dangers which are thickening around us
can be confronted or effectually conflicted with.
We live in an age possessing an insatiable and diseased
desire of change, and of ceaseless aspirations atter some-
thing which we do not want, to the neglect of things of
practical utility which are indispensable. This troubled
spirit of discontent, and of a misbegotten ambition, is but
too symptomatic of those towering flights of empire, in
the elevations of which nations have been frequently
stricken as with a judgment of Prividence. Tne me-
nacing tides of reform are not confined to our political
institutions : they pervade the entire circle of our domes.
tic relations—political, religious, civil, and social. We
are placed like the Indian amid his burning prairie—girt
in a circle of advancing fites. No law, order, or institu-
tion is permitted to be at rest: the very skies are dark-
ened with impending theories, threatening us with a chaos
of all the elements of order thrown into disorder. The
paltering neutrality and indecision of government are only
encouraging the agents of agitation, and giving audacity
to all their m..vernents. Ten years of experience, in an
age so teeming with important and impressive lessons, do
not appear in the slightest degree to have enlarged and
extended the horizon of Sir R. Peel's judgment, but have
rather cowed his courage and increased his indecision.
Matrculated in the weak conciliation policy of Lord Li-
verpool's ministry, he has fallen back on the spurious
toryism which chlracterised its wretched career, when
the opponents of government bad preference in the ap-
pointments to offices of trust and power, over the Ales'
supporters of the constitution. It was this policy which
nursed and fed the powers that confederated their creeds
in 1829, and fused their politics in 1830; before which
the modern genius of conciliation has quailed, and con-
ceded to clamour whatighe refused to the pretensions of
reason and rerr.onstrance.ll

When we re collect the able and prophetic speech made.
myslord, by your venerated father, lig tiost the t•weeping
confiscations of the Reform Bell,—which speech remains
to this day the faithfullest illustration of the desigas and
tendencies of that hill,—and when we see the monument*
in Sandon Park, ere3ted to the memory of the great
founder of those principlea_under_the influence of ..o;oki
the entire ryttinn was rallied against revolutionaty France,
—we are entitled to expect something from your lord-hip
beyond the drivelling, split-difficulty politics of the pre-
sent Premier.

I will now oelv take one out of the department of many
important considentions which press upon the time, and
address you as a neighbour rather than as a c:mstituent.
You have recently taken an active and useful part in some
affairs relating to the restoration of the ancient parish-
church of the county town near which you reside; within
the jurisdict on of which county, though it contains near
halt a of inhabitants, we have not a single journal,
or other organ of public opinion, possessing political in-
dependence enough to insert this letter. It is no part of
my intention to offer any criticism on the anomalies of
architecture upon which a large portion of the £lO,OOO
has been expended, in the repairs of the church in ques-
tion ; leaving the mixed company of carved saints and
moesters to agree as they best may.
The new interior arrangements of the church have all
a semi-Popish character, aid have given great and general
dissatisfaction. The extreme lowness of the pews, put-
ting aside their unfitness for feeble age, is such as to
render teem very little, if any, better than plain forms,
and impresses von with a sense of doing Popish penance,
rather than offering Protestant worship. We have no
objection to a system of some uniformity, and disapp ove
much of the presence of the occasional towering and cur-
tained pews of the olden time, which secluded a brother
sinner from public gaze, while it obstruct d a view of the
clergyman from a portion of his congregation. But per-
sonal discomfort is no aid of piety : to humble the mind,
and to debase it, are essentially different things. It is
true that, in the presence of the Deity, we are all a tho-
rough democracy of sinners ; but it is not the absence or
the presence of distinctive sittings which will duly regu-
late our duties as Christians, or that will impress the
mind with the equality of human nature before our com-
mon Creator. There has been a proverbial pride in af-
fected lowliness from the days of Plato and the cynics ;
and when t'.e Poise puts on his aprouf to wash the f .et of
beggars, does any one believe that he ei.h.sr feels greater
humility himself, or sets an example of it to others? It
is a prime ingredient, and works profitably, in Popery :
for the power of the priesthood, and the dominimi of
priesteraft, take elevation and extent over the prostration
of mind in the laity. There is said to be a natural ten-
dency to idolatry in human nature. The first reformers in
the church (in 717) were Iconoclasts, or image-brealcers.
The Greek church arose in that form, and the sect wor-
ships paint and canvas instead of wood and stone. The
Chinese, with less knowledge, had more wisdom ; and
the simple inscription of the name of Confucius super-
seded all physical objects of irrational worship, or idols,
which are the nuclei of superstition. Burke has said that
Superstition is the religion of weak minds." But this
is not said with his usual philosophical accuracy ; for it is
rather the cause than the effect of mental weakness.
Stript of superstition, Spain would be one of the first
nations in Christendom ; a country which, after a quarter
of a century of bloody struggles to emancipate itself from
the more intense thraldom of Popery, is now retrograding
On state tyranny and church absolutism. ,

. ,
It is from the head-quarters of the Anglican church
that the decree has gone forth that we shall fall back on
antiquated positions, and the old forms of the Rubric—
forms retained at a period when the people were wedded
to the usage of ceremonies end priestly formula, which
the majestic simp!icity of Protes.an-ism had gradually
sloughed off and exploded ; and this is now done, not
only without consulting the laity, but in contempt of their
opinions and in defiance of their remonstrances.
It may be " breakng ground" in trifles, my lord ; hut
the end and the aim is the ascendancy of Priestcraft—
nsothwiirigtmdo,raetd
aendtin,V anotheriingless:
isonpeuetnocnrotti osricepnst. is no
may soon expect here that which is producing strife and
schism at ether places—the weekly offertory, in practical
aid of questionable purposes,
. or to eke out poor church
livings, instead of ministering to the parish poor ; and
the surplice of the priest in the pulpit, instead of the gown
of the theologian and scholar.
There is no doubt, my lord, but that the troubles and
divisions of the church will come before parliament, in
some shave or another, in the ensuing session ; and we,
as good Protestants, trust that you will be prepared to
meet it. Popery and Protesta=ntism are elementally anta-
gonist principles, es acids and alkalies are antagonist sub-
stances ; and their danger of conflicting is in the ratio of
their proximity. Peace is found in their remoteness
and isolation. The endeavour to fuse them in the rudi-
ments of our schools, or work them in harmony in public '
appointments, may be a part of the crack political philo-
sophy of the shallowness of the times, in the dearth of
enlarged minds in our senators; but it shows an utter
ignorance of men and things. Sir It. Peel may seek to.
moderate and modicate, and dilute and adulterate, our
national faith ; while Popery, in some (palters. biding its
time, creeps and crawls before th- s..irit of the age, adopt-
ing is old maxim, divide et impera ;—but we know that
its exclusive spirit is intact; that its boast of being a
church without schism is true, for it tolerates no freedom
of thought ; and that it wilt remain " unchanged and
unchangeable."
It has become a maxim with strong governments, that,
to keep power in wind, it must be. kept in exercise, in
that direction in which it is most liable to be resisted.
The Peel policy has reversed the principle, and called on
Protestants to disarm and disorganise themselves, while
their opponents were levying contributions for war, and
giving vigour and discipline to their confederacies. Sir
Robert's starling's cry of " Register! Rewist,T ! ! Regis-
ter !!!" arid that " the battle of the constitution is to be
fougt.t on the registration lists," has lost its talismanic
efficacy; and that spirit which placed him at the head of
the government, at an expense of labour and of sacrifices
which no mere power can command, no profligacy bribe
into action, and no doling out of offices remunerate, will
never again rally at the registration-court or at the hus-
tings, under the fustian banner of the 'f amworth baronet;
for to have served as volunteers in his ranks, and fought
his battles, has become a disqualification to serve the
constitution or the country.
I reserve, my lord, some animadversions for another
letter, and am, &c., ALPHA.

* Erected to the memory of the immortal Willi ,m Pitt.
t Popery has reduced hypocrisy to a species of science, or
system; being made up, as Coleridge sa d. " of all the cunning
of six thousand years," dovetailed with politics and paganism,
arid graltel on ambition• and selfishness. The triple.crowned
tyrant, who sets himself forth in his bulls as servers servorum
Dci and attache= the fisherman's sea', has. with his episcopal
staff, in the palmy days of Popery, int rdicted entire nations
from Christian rites, placed his foot on the necas of kings, and
deposed sovereigns as a sportsman would dispense with super-
numerary puppies: ex. gr.:—
" And I have entyrCyted Yngelond.
Ther schal no preest synge !rms..: with hon.;
Chylde schal be crystenyd non :
My bisschoprycke thou renest me,
And Crystendom f rhede I thee.
Freest schal thee non syngge."
ANCIENT PeliTaY.