The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-07 00:00:00

CHINA

Intelligence from Macao to the 6th of March has been re-
ceived ; but it is not of great importance. Sir Henry
Pottinger remained at Hongkong, whither he was about to
remove the postoffice and all other British establishments
from Macao. There was occasional fires in the wooden
buildings there. He has issued some proclamations ;by one
of them Hongkong and Tinghae in Chusan, were declared
to be free ports, and to remain, as well as Amoy, in our
possession until the British demands were satisfied. If any
one of them is to be vacated due notice is to be given, and a
special stipulation is to be made for the safety of the native
Chinese who may have sided with the English. The batteries
along the Canton river were completed, and some of them
unmasked ; yet no apprehension was entertained of imme-
diate hostlities. Business was dull there. The troops of
the expedition were healthy. A Madras regiment and the
Bengal Volunteers were about to return to India. The
head-quarters of Sir Hugh Gough continued at Ningpo ; he
and the naval commander were, as it is stated, authorized to
act in cases requiring urgent decision, without waiting to
consult the Plenipotentiary. Sir Hugh Gough was about to
disperse a body of Chinese troops collected near Yu-Yuou.
The French Vice-Consul, M. Challaye, and some French-
men, having ventured too far, were seized and insulted by
the Chinese, but released after some parley. It was said
that there were Russian officers at Pekin, giving instructions
in military matters to the Chinese. The coast is now in-
fested with pirates.
A war about to break out between Cochin China and Siam
is interesting solely as likely to have some influence in the
settlement of the British demands upon China. The Si-
amese Monarch threatens to invade Cochin, which is tribu-
tary to China, and this may tend to embarrass the councils
of the Court of Pekin. The King of Siam has, through the
influence of the neighbouring British, been induced to grant
a portion of his ancient territory to the son of the old Rajah
of Quedda. The Governor of Prince of Wales's Island has
published a proclamation, announcing the final cessation of
slavery within that district.

OXFORD AND DR. HAMPDEN

(From the Cambridge Chronicle.)

Oxford is once more in a state of discord and excitement.
A contest is at this moment going on in that university, pro-
bably quite as anxious and earnest as the late struggle for
the Poetry Professorship, which was so much deprecated by
many sober-minded persons.
It seems the Board of Heads of Houses propose to rescind
the state which was passed in 1836, conveying a censure
upon Dr. Hampden, then recently appointed Regius Pro-
fessor of Divinity. In pursuance of this proposal the follow-
ing form of statute will be submitted to convocation, on
Tuesday next, the 7th instant :

" Quum per Stat. Tit. XVI. s. 8. 11. Dublicatum et con-
firmatum in domo Convocationis die Vto mensis Maii A. D.
1836, sancitum sit, ut Theologise Professor Regius munerum
quorundum in eodem Statuto memoratorum expers sit donec
aliter Universitati placuerit: Placuit Universitati Statutum
istud abrogare."
A strong and determined opposition to the re-instatement
of Dr. Hampden in certain privileges attached to his office,
but of which he was deprivel by the statute of the sth of
May, 1836, on the ground of his unsound theological opini-
ons, immediately manifested itself upon the determination of
the Hebdomadal Board becoming known. A protest was
signed by 30 or 40 resident members of convocation, who
urged the withdrawal of the proposition. The Hebdomadal
Board, however, are inflexible in their resolution to submit
the matter to convocation, and the university is consequently
again in the midst of a contest which can scarcely be regarded
without regret and alarm. _ _

. .
It is contended, by those favourable to the abrogation of
the censure, that Dr. Hampden, although he has in no man-
ner explained or retracted the objectionable passages in his
published sermons, which in 1836 were held to justify the
ban then placed upon him, has, nevertheless, so conducted
himself, in his high office, that the repeal of the statute is
only an act of common fairness. To this it is replied, that
the original offence remains in statu quo—that unsound doc-
trines are not disavowed merely because they are not re-
peated—that if there were reasons for the censure passed by
an overpowering majority in 1836, those reasons exist in
equal force in 1842—and that, therefore, to repeal the statute
will be either to acknowledge injustice in 1836, or to stultify
the university in the eyes of the world, by retracting a formal
decision in the one point on which it professes to be the espe-
cial depository of truth.
Again, it is said that the university has already committed
itself in principle to the repeal of the censure by its accept-
ance of the statute relating to the two fresh theological pro-
fessorships founded in Oxford, by which a prominent place
in the new arrangement of the duties is assigned to the regius
professor. The university, by passing that statute, acknow-
ledged Dr. Hampden a fit person to be entrusted with a
theological office, and therefore he is not liable to theological
censure.

On the other hand it is contended that the Convocation
which passed this statute did not legislate about Dr. Hamp-
den, but about the Regius Professor of Divinity ; it did not
regard the individual, but the office—and that, inasmuch as
to pass a general statute, which happens obliquely, and quite
apart from its object, to include some objectionable point,
and to pass a particular one which has for its very object the
formal establishment of that points, are obviously two differ-
ent things, the Convocation, because it has done one, is not
at all committed to the other. Certain regulations, it is
urged, were made affecting all the four Divinity Professor-
ships; the Regius Professor as one of the four came under
these regulations, but it came under them purely in the ab-
stract character of the office, distinct from the accidental
holder of it pro tempore.
Since the foregoing was in type we have received the fol-
lowing extract from Dr. Hampden's lecture delivered in the
Divinity School on Wednesday last :
" I have formed no party around me. I have not sought
to proselytize any. I have stood alone except so far as my
teaching might associate me with other members of our com-
mon faith and common church. Look to those by whom I
am opposed ; there you see a compact body, understanding
each other, ready to act with each other, and to join their
names and their hands at the first signal from their leaders.
Look to my case on the other hand ; I make no boast of it,
but I have quickly gone about the functions of my office.
Some may say, 1 have been comparatively silent on it ' - hut
I have not been silent in my place, nor have I shrunk from
the labour and responsibility of publishing what from time
to time seemed to me proper. But I have formed no party.
discernw h n
are whothe arein nnt
vhaet
adritauwr disturbers s a
roef
theth
I have giveny thisn o
cnr
tme
rei
etno ma
anti
d f oltel
sotwme rys , a
dTv
ehnresa
sp rtanyn yaonud,
test me by
you the many omre
" I would that you
what doctrine 1 have
have attended my lectures
hun-
dredse
of this university who
pyenancewlof then
thechreuardcihl—y
during these six years, -
persons to be suspctednaoanandldd dant.
sae
kial d
tbehde
ef.
am sure, with one
taught them. They which is now so
voice (unless, haply, the seductive spiritmbers has drawn off
actively at work among our Junior
d Catholic views)—they
any to partial sectarian, rniscalle
them withaffec-
tion-
towould tell you that I have ever spoken
would tell you I •
1, at I have trained
practices, and all that belongs to it ; t
in the paths
them so far as I had opportunities and means, and reverence of our own church, its doctrines and
deuce
branch of the Catholic church planted by Gods
of their forefathers, in the faith the Reformer provi dnce
of that pure
and grace in this country.
* * * * *
" But though I may look for the censures and oppositions

* *

of this party, I have certainly as little reason to hope for a
more patient judgment now than perhaps was possible on a
former occasion, from the unprejudiced and still Protestant
members of the church. To them I earnestly propose a calm
consideration of my whole conduct since my appointment to
this chair. I ask them only to retrace for themselves what I
have done, not to take their estimate of me from the studied
representations of those who are, and must be opposed to
me. On such I make the call, to believe me—to read, if it
were only the sermons which 1 not long ago delivered before
this University, and say whether they are the writings of one
who does not hold, uncorruptedly, the great doctrines of the
Gospel. I ask such to cast away all previous misconceptions,
to make allowance for former excitement, and fix their eye
not on what the invidious and censorious may hold up to them
as objectionable. but upon what I have always really intend-
ed. What avails it that ingenious disputants may, by artifi-
cial parallelisms, display an apparent inconsistency in any
one's writings ? May not this be done in any case? Might
not the infidel practice this delusion, even with Scriptures
themselves ? Has not, in fact, one of the tractarian writers
'drawn together a number of passages of Scripture, and called
on the reader to observe the startling' character of the quo-
tations ? For my part I am not over anxious about the plea
of consistency. Consistency in itself, further than it is con-
sistency in right, is of no value. If I have anywhere said
what is wrong, I disclaim it now. If I have said what is
right, I maintain it, though it may appear wrong by those
with whose views it may accord. Such is the equitable con-
sideration with which I may well believe I have been regard-
ed by the presiding body of the University, who, in their
concern for its interest and well-being of its particular mem-
bers, have brought before Convocation the recent measures,
both the statute relative to the establishment of additional
lectures and examinations in theology, and that to be shortly
decided. They have valued truth, and right, and peace, and
kindness. I may say, without flattery, above other consider-
ations—above all party spirit—above all sinister construc-
tions and imputations : I ask the candid only to follow their
example."