Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1862-08-29 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE BISHOP OF EXETER.—There was a large congregation at Durham Cathedral on Sunday morning, in the expectation that the sermon would be preached by the Right Rev. the Bishop of Exeter, who is at present in residence, and whose turn it was to preach. The venerable prelate was, however, unable to attend the service, but remained in the Chapter House, and afterwards received the sacrament of the Holy Communion. His place in the pulpit was filled by the Venerable the Archdeacon of Lindisfarne, who preached a most able sermon, adapted to the occasion of the Dissenters' bicentenary. The Archdeacon took as his text the 11th and 12th verses of the 4th chapter of Ephesians; and having stated that his sermon was a continuation of a ;former discourse, in which lie had shewn, from the text, that the English ecclesiastical polity was that which had been ordained by the Almighty himself; he went on to prove, by the history of the Church of the Iluguenots, the Church of Geneva, and the German Churches generally, that those Churches which had discarded Episcopacy in the government, and Bishops in the orders, of the Church, had invariably lost the faith itself, and degenerated into Arianism, Socinianism, and Pelagianism, and that the invariable tendency of schism was towards infidelity. It is much to be desired that a most effective addition to the literature which the bicentenary ferment has produced in vindication of the Scriptural character and government of the Church of England, will be made by the publication of these two sermons. On Monday evening last, Mr W. Lancaster, a respectable commercial traveller, representing a wholesale grocery house in London, went to the Peacock Hotel, the leading commercial house in Boston, and retired to rest about midnight. Soon after one o'clock he was awoke by hearing something move under his bed; he listened intently, and being convinced that some person was secreted there, he immediately jumped out of bed and struck a light, and then looked to see from whence the noise proceeded. Ile discovered a man under his bed, whom he immediately collared and dragged from his hiding-place. A struggle ensued, but Mr Lancaster, being a very powerful man, succeeded in pinning his assailant to the floor, and gave an alarm, which quickly brought the landlord and several other commercial gentlemen who slept in adjoining rooms, to his assistance, and the fellow was effectually secured. lie was escorted down stairs and given in custody of the police. On searching his lair twa large stones were discovered which were no doubt intended to be used as "knuckle dusters," and close to where the struggle took place a formidable-looking knife was found, which was afterwards identified by the keeper of the house where the man had lodged some few nights previously. When taken before the magistrates the prisoner said that his name was John Lee, and that he was formerly a clerk at Leeds. The same fellew some few weeks previously was apprehended at Great Grimsby on a charge of felony, and broke out of the lock-up in that town. He then said that his name was George IV bite. here can be no doubt that his purpose in secreting himself under the bed was robbery, and had he been detected in the act he would not have scrupled to have added thereto the more serious crime of murder. The magistrates have committed him foe trial at the next quarter sessions.