The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-08-02 00:00:00

REV. H. MELVILLE AND THE CORN-LAWS.

The following is an extract from a sermon preached by the
Rev. Henry Melville, in accordance with the taneen's letter
for the collection of money for the distressed operatives in
the manufacturing districts. Mr. Melville's name will at
once be a recommendation of the extract ; but its sound
merit will perhaps be the more fully appreciated when we
say it was quoted for condemnation by Mr. Milner Gibson
in his " distress" speech in the House of Commons; and
the Morning Chronicle has in consequence of it pronounced
Mr. Melville to be "a great pest in the country." The sen-
timents of Mr. Melville are similar to those we have so often
put forward, but what infinitely greater. importance do they
assume when clothed in his glowing and earnest language :
" It may be allowed even to the preacher to express a
deep and painful conviction; that
the tendency which of late
years has been so largely exhibited in this country—the ten-
dency to the exchanging an agricultural for a manufacturing
population—to the gathering the people into dense masses,
for which it were almost hopeless to attempt providing means
of Christian instruction (even if the frightful demands upon
strengtt and upon time allowed of their being used, suppo-
sing them provided)—that this tendency is among the most
fatal that was ever 'encouraged, and is but likely to continue
working out increased and even irremediable disaster. The
cry.has been that England ought to be the workshop of the
worril;rlll44 4n the "dream of avarice, which for once bor-
rowed siameTthingolthe imagery of the poet, all nations have
been r k efrted as crowding to our shores, entreating that
we asasqltdielfithe them, and eagerly proffering the rich pro-
duct3o4-theirlieldi in exchange for what we could dig from
our Mines and throw off from our looms. We left out from
our showy calculation that bone and muscle belong to other
people as well as to ns ; that industry and ingenuity, how-
ever they may distinguish the English, are not monopolised
by them ; that, in manufacturing for the world, we might
perlutifs'Vabh the world to manufacture for itself; and that
it was at least possible that, if other countries saw us driving
so ad's-Mita-aeons a trade, they might think of their own re-
sources, and attempt competition. And the fearful evil of
being thus once engaged in a struggle with the world—(and
a struggle there no* is; if not the struggle of army against
army, and fleet againstfleet, as when we tood almost single-
handed, and in a glorious, because a righteous cause, chal-
lenged Europe to the combat, yet there is the struggle of
machine against machine, toil against toil, factory against
factory)—the evil, we say, of being once engaged in a struggle
such as this—it is that human beings have to be more and
more crowded together, and more and more tasked."
" Why, as a clergyman, would I shrink from seeing in this
country the abolition of all corn-laws ? Because lam a po-
litical partisan ? God forbid that a clergyman should ever be
such. Because I wish to uphold the interests of one parti-
cular class ? God forbid that a clergyman should ever iden-
tify himself with any class. But I cannot hide from myself
that whatever tended still more to drain the people from the
fields, tied crowd them into factories—whatever went to en-
courage the plan of making England the workshop of the
world,- would but increase the difficulty of getting any moral
hold en a swarming population. And this is what a Christian
should deprecate. Parties may jostle for place ; but the
measures which a Christian should oppose are those which,
whatever their apparent political expediency, menace injury
to the riirtiorial piety ; the measures which he should further
are thofteetvhich; however they may seem to threaten our
greatness as a kingdom, tend to the advancing the cause of
Christ and the diffusing his gospel."

lIEMPTB- OF RELIGIOUS AND BENEVOLENT
IIiI4AII,TUTIONS FOR Ty;; PAST YEAR.
- s. d.

Afritii4 Society..
AgedsitittritOr ... .....
Anti-Sirtvery*
Baptist Missionary,
BaPtiitUnGiC,Missi(marY • • •
Baptist Irish
Baptist-Colonial-Missionary • •

3,692 10 3
1,600 6 6
2,840 17 4
22,727 2 2
5,153 15 5
2,300 0 0
507 9 1

Bible Transla-t-io-n-(.13-a-p-tist)

1,600 0 0

British and For.r...s
British p-- —An liible*
.iiit bailors'
95,095 4 8
British anti Po
porreeiiiii Schools
17n
British and . 7,080 13 4
British ReforiantiojmPerance* l,lOO 0 0
Christian Knowledge* ,<
ChriStianiustruttion• '' .. .........
Church Missionary..•
.• .. 1,428 8 9
9
Church of Scotland-Mi mar .
---- Jecvishllissrion
... .. Y. 4,577 3 0
. . '
--s— Colonial. .• . . .........
---7:lEdncatioit Scheme ... • •
Church l'nstord Aid
.
Colonial Church ................. ..
Colonial Missionary ..................... 1,900 0 0
District visiting.
Foreign Aid
Hibernian ............... ......
........ 14,953 0 0
Home and Colonial Infant s: h I (1
School \Ain.). '.' ',9050 0 0
Home ),lissionary ...... • 1,995 7 4
9,402 4 n
.3_ ,
Irish
0
Irish Evangelical, about .. ,000 0 0
Jews, for Propagation of Christianity among
the .....................titution 799 0 j
.... 21,690 80—
Operative Converts In-
London City Mission .................
London Missionary ................. .• •
Lord's-day Observance
Moravian Missionary ...
National School, annual subs., about 6,000
,
Naval and Military Bible*
New British and.Poreig,n Temperance* •• • • 2,13 0
0
7 6 10
Newfoundland Sch00l .
......
Peace* ... - 768 0 0
.
2,496 8

1,376 0 0
56,014 8 1
2,811 0 0
. 4,196 14 9
.. 10,211 9 71-
908 15 0
.
... 2,201 14 0
...101,618 2 4

Prayer-book anal-10,114* ...............
Protestant Association . • .........
Religions Tract*
Sailors' Home
Scottish -United Sece:,sion Mission Fund.. •
Sunday SchooT
Suppression of Intemperance
Trinitarian
...
Wesleyan Missionary .

The total of the receipts of the societies thus marked,
include sales of publications.—Christian Spectator.
t The Church Extension Fund of the Church of Scotland
is omitted., which for the general fund was £3,403 15s. 4d.,
and for the supplementary fund £1,240 9s. 11d. Adding
£4Ol ss. 4d. for the Probationer and Library schemes, the
total missionary income of the Church of Scotland amounts
to £25,307 Os. 9d.. which, with the exception of the Church
of England and Methodist Societies, forms the largest deno-
minational contributions in the list,