The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-08-29 00:00:00

actually writes himself concerning it—'

•g‘ SUCH IS THE

APOLOGY WHICH I OFFER FOR THE LIVERPOOL CLERGY IN
WRITING A PRIVATE LETTER TO STRANGERS. HAD I IN-

TENDED TO WRITE A GENTLER PROSPECTUS FOR THE EYES

OF THE LIVERPOOL PUBLIC, SHOULD I HAVE SUPPRESSED
THIS PARAGRAPH ?" This is really all but incredible It is
the most marvellous instance of self-possession—the most
extraordinary comment on language—l ever remember to
have met with. But it saves me the trouble of quoting again
at length Mr. Wray's private letter. This being its
"gentlest" language, what must be its character throughout?
Containing this "APOLOGY FOR THE LIVERPOOL CLERGY,"
what must have been its assaults upon them 1 Did I say that
the letter was "steeped in bitterness ?" Nay, it was grievous
misrepresentation ! I ought. in common with all my bre-
thren, to have been full of gratitude to oar apologist ; and,
beyond question, gentleness like his ought to have accom-
plished the end of "shaming me into a more conciliatory
tone !" for such, Mr. Wray deliberately tells us, is the "hope"
he entertains in his gentle dealings with his brethren.
There are several important points not yet noticed in the
letters of Mr. Pughe and Mr. Wray, on which, however, I
shall not pause at any great length. I say little, then, of Mr.
Pughe's "utter ignorance that two editions of the letter
existed," and of his still continuing to "forward many hun-
dreds of copies" of the first " during the last year and a half,"
while we learn, on the other hand, from Mr. Wray, that there
have been, in fact, not two editions, but several, (a " second
and subsequent editions,") " the date being altered, anti
verbal alterations made as each hundred or two were struck
off!" Has poor Mr. Pnghe, then, been condemned to circu-
late still the first letter only, with all "its expressions likely
to give offence?" Has it been utterly withheld from him
that his Incumbent had prepared revised editions, exceedingly
different in their tone: and that they, too, were going out by
hundreds, appearing in the public journals, and receiving all
the while progressive revision and emendation? This was
hardly fair toward the Curate of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields ;
but let Mr. Wray and Mr. Pughe settle it between them.

Again, I can afford to bestow no more than a glance in

on Mr. \S ray's explanation of his omission, in his

published prospectus, of his foriner Churchmanlike allusion
to his brethren here of the United Church, who had "come

from Ireland." Only Ido not wish for a moment to have the
appearance of acrepting his off-hand statement that " in that

island an indifferpre to ritual proprieties is notorious ;"
and I give to it, as I go along, a decided and unqualified
contradiction. At the proper ti:ne and place, I should be
prepared to contend, and to prove, that in Ireland the Rubrics
are, aillikrule, at least equally, and perhaps, more observed
than in this country. It is, however, very certainand this,
perhaps, is Mr. Wray's true quarrel with Ireland—that as its
soil refuses absolutely to foster the snake or the toad, so also
the atmosphere of her Church is ill adapted to the Romaniser.
We know too much of the real thing, to be satisfied with the
sham in Ireland.

Once more, a single word of "a verbal alteration" of Mr.
Wray, which, however it may tell on his ingenuousness, does
some credit to his ingenuity. He talks of his brethren now
but as "Enemies to these principles," and puts the word
"enemies" in inverted commas, as though it had been the
phrase at the first employed by him. Every one, however,
will feel how much this adept in the mitigation of language
has softened down his original phraseology, in which, when he
called for a bold assault on "the strongholds of Puritanism,"
he simply and broadly declared, in all the power and solidity
of the singular concrete, that this chief town of the provinces
was "in the hands of THE ENEMY."

But, in truth, I am weary, and so also must your readers
be, of these investigations of morbid anatomy; and I shall
merely draw public attention, in closing, to the following
facts which have been elicited in the present controversy.
They are worthy of our most serious consideration.