human heart; but it is not so with us; we have holier associations with the language than mere forms of speech. It is that in which our Bible is written, in which our infancy has been instructed in the church, which it is impossible to replace in the course of a few months by any instruction which can be gained in a foreign country. This, then, in some degree accounts for the feeling one has of the coldness of a foreign religion, of the impossibility of awakening those fires of the soul which kindle at the slightest spark of suggestion in our own land; and I think it is necessary to make this allowance in any judgment which we may form. And though I have had much instruction, and am thankful for the great prospects which the opportunities of the past year have opened to me, I would say to any of my younger brethren who may in future years desire a similar opportunity of leisure, that, after all, sometimes rest is dearly purchased, and if it be prolonged, the home sickness arises within one; then there is a great drawback to the advantages and benefits which we receive. But at the same time this prepares one for a joyous and glad return to the scene of our accustomed labours. These few words respecting the past. As for the future, my friends, I do not like rash promises. I think that whatever resolves are formed respecting the future upon the growth and rise of future opportunities are better hidden deep in the heart, and breathed only to Him who can give them the strength and fervour of devotion. I say, then, little respecting our future. I believe that some of my friends who are here have wondered why I have been for some weeks in Liverpool, and have not shewn myself again in the old place of my accustomed labours, and I wish to say a word of explanation upon this point, because there is nothing which I can so ill bear and brook as a charge of indifference like that. The truth is, to say nothing of the public impropriety of presenting one's self, after a public and formal farewell of the scene of one's labours, I must say this, that when with a great effort of nature one has made up his mind to bear the wrench and struggle of separation,-when we have said the word farewell, and gone through the strife of heart which those words must occasion,-it is a painful thing to appear again, to go through the same scene again. It is just as if a man were going out to a foreign country, an exile for life, and having gone the round of his house, kissed and religious changes will take place in the course of coming years, which the old influences will do little to control or direct. But this is far more the case in Germany than here, and I think one cause of it is this-whilst religion has never separated itself from the highest intellectual culture which we possess, in Germany that severance has taken place. While in England our universities, where that culture is sought, and to a great extent found, remain essentially ecclesiastical corporations, producing thereby a multitude of social evils, at all events it has this good effect,-it keeps the highest understanding and the deepest learning of the country in close connection with religious influence. In Germany this is far otherwise; and I think I do not speak with any extravagance in saying that there the almost entire mass of its most cultivated classes, of the intellectual men who constitute the strength of our universities, and give them their endowment, is practically alienated from the Christianity of Germany. I come home then, sir, I confess, with a most confirmed preference for our English social life-(applause)-for our English modes of thought and habits of action, and especially I come home with a decided preference for that popular and practical religion which exists in this country, rather than that purely intellectual and critical theology which exists in Germany (applause). Of course I do not mean to speak with the slightest degree of disparagement of the inquiries which have brought the condition of theological literature to such a degree of perfection in Germany. These aids are always necessary; but I think it a matter of the utmost importance that these should not remain as a separate study, as a division of labour, but should remain in practical connection with the influ ences of the Christian religion. How. ever, I acknowledge that there is something in one's associations of religion that prevents one doing justice to the religion of a foreign country. We speak to one another, perhaps, in the tongue of other nations, but there is something in our own mother tongue which is consecrated especially to God; and I believe few persons can have been abroad with out seeing that it is scarcely possible to pray and worship in any language but the language of our infancy and childhood (applause). To God, indeed, to whom these prayers are directed, the varied tongue of different nations ascends, and as it ascends becomes as it were the vernacular speech of the great his children, and shed all his tears, were to come back for a forgotten umbrella (loud laughter). This is the reason why I shrunk, in thought, from a re-appear ance there. If I had cared for the place less, I should have felt less at presenting myself. I trust that will be deemed an apology for my non-appearance at a scene where I laboured so long and happily (applause). Sir, without adverting further to the future prospect of our Christian church, I will gently intimate one hope which I cannot conceal from you, and that is, that we may be able to find some machinery of administration with which we may more truly and faithfully realize the idea of a Christian church. I mean the high tie of an associated fraternity (hear, hear) of men holding a common faith, taking a common view of the great work of life, and the great hopes of the future, and intent upon realizing them through the means of the Christian church (hear, hear). I trust that we shall be able to realize this idea better than we have heretofore been able to do (hear, hear). When I read our public journals, and open my mind to the sentiments current in English society, nothing surprises me more than thiswe have run much after what I would call the gospel of the economists, which cries out "let a man help himself;""help yourself is the modern gospel of England-" help one another" is the ancient gospel of the Christian church; and unless we can find some means of doing ample justice to the sentiments concealed in both of those expressions--unless we can do this, I see most plainly either that the ancient characteristics of the Christian church expressed by the motto "See how these Christians love one another," must disappear; and unless we do, it will be useless to retain the name of Christianity when that essentially binding and operative spirit has entirely failed. Without dilating on the end, I can only say that I came home to resume my duties with an earnest desire to see it accomplished, and I shall put my trust and faith in you to carry these views out; and see-without the attempt to establish any ecclesiastical institution which may endanger individual freedom, or trench upon the least independence in the religious mind-if still we may find some method by which those individual convictions may be brought to one common focus, so as to be brought to act, and kindle action in the world around. I do not think that a Christian church sustains its duties unless it sustains a Christian life, and spreads it by a sort of mis sionary action in the circle around. And now, sir, after your warning against long speeches, I feel that I have transgressed too far (no, no). I will therefore simply be content to reserve whatever else may occur for occasions of more deliberate suggestion. I can truly say that during my absence on the continent, I have seen nothing, amidst many things to delight, cheer and instruct, nothing that has been equal to the experience of this day. I have seen many great and glorious minsters, in which processions of priests and clouds of incense added magnificence to the scene; but I have seen nothing which equals to my heart the simple beauty of that place of prayer which we have this day had consecrated to the service of God, I mean, of course, not as a work of art,-but nothing that is so delightful to the eyes of those who look forward to the experiences which are to be written upon its walls, and of the hopes which it is to be the means of realizing. I have seen ten thousand beauties and glories of God upon the face of creation, but nothing that so moves and delights me as the dull old scenes and neighbourhood of this town and port. I have seen a number of collections of the remains of great works of art, but I have seen nothing like that gallery of faces whose image now stands before me. It has risen day after day, week after week, after periods of long absence, but is now presented before me in the form of living minds and living hearts, among whom it is my blessedness to labour (loud and continued applause). The CHAIRMAN called upon Thomas Thornely, Esq., M. P., to give the next sentiment. In doing so he expressed his warm admiration of that gentleman's public and private character, and alluded to the eminent public services he had rendered in the matter of the Orders in Council, the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Catholic Emancipation, Reform in Parliament, Reform of the Municipal Corporations, and more recently and especially the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. THOMAS THORNELY, Esq., M.P., after acknowledging the compliments paid him by the Chairman, for whom he, in common with all who knew him, entertained respect and warm affection, said that to the kindness and confidence of his townsmen he owed his recommendation to the people of Wolverhampton, an obligation for which he felt the utmost gratitude. He proceeded to say, that in that large assemblage which met that morning in the great Hope-Street church, there was present no individual who more delighted in the service than himself, or that looked forward with more pleasure to the long-continued services of their respected pastor. When that distinguished minister's day should be no more, he trusted a long line of worthy successors would be found. The day was not simply an occasion of interest to the members of the Hope-Street congregation; he was quite sure the attractions of the public services of Mr. Martineau would make that place the resort of all the lovers of Christian truth and the admirers of intellectual powers in the town of Liverpool. He was one of the few who could remember the erection of the Paradise-Street chapel. In 1791 that chapel was opened. He was then a schoolboy; but he well remembered hastening from the morning school to attend the opening service; and last Sunday evening he had made an effort to attend the closing service in that chapel, and had the pleasure of listening to an excellent sermon preached on the occasion by the Rev. J. H. Hutton. They could not but be proud that the time had arrived when Dissenters from the Established Church came forward boldly and with spirit, to erect places of worship suitable to the age in which they lived; not in holes and corners, but where they could stand before the world, and invite the community at large to come and behold how their devotions were conducted, and to hear what were the instructions there given. No one was more gratified than himself by the admirable manner in which the congregation had raised a noble temple for the worship of God. The sentiment which he was about to propose for their acceptance, contained an allusion to the time that was past, to the unflinching integrity of that band of Puritans who founded the Nonconformist societies in England, and who founded the free states of New England. He had enjoyed opportunities of witnessing, again and again, the state of things in New England. He had heard in Boston the eloquent Channing. It was owing to the independent and noble character of those who, more than two centuries ago, crossed the Atlantic in search of that religious liberty which here was denied them, that at this day there was perfect religious freedom in New England, and that the days of persecution were mere matter of his tory. In England, too, there was much to cheer them; and much as the Unitarians were spoken against, he believed there was a considerable under-current of respect for them in English society. He concluded with expressing his earnest wish that the utmost prosperity might prevail in the church of Hope Street, and proposing the following sentiment-"Honour to the Nonconformists of the seventeenth century; to whose devout integrity, and resolute zeal, we owe the formation of Dissenting societies, and the progress of the Reformation at home; the foundation of the free states of New England; and a large proportion of the constitutional liberties of our country." JAMES HEYWOOD, Esq., M. P., said, that as a descendant from one of the ejected ministers, Oliver Heywood, he had much pleasure in acknowledging the sentiment proposed by his honourable friend, Mr. Thornely. He, equally with him, was delighted to see Unitarian churches being erected in several parts of the country. He regarded their erection as an assertion, on the part of those who worshiped in them, of their equality in religious privileges with the established sect. A hundred and fifty years ago their forefathers had, with great effort and zeal, constructed their brick parallelograms. In that day Dissenters were compelled to avoid, rather than court observation; they had no towering spires, and their assemblies were not gathered together by the church-going bell. In themselves these things were of very little importance. But when the right to them was denied by others, it became a duty and a matter of principle to have them. The proceedings of the day were very interesting to him; amongst other reasons, because he was a native of Liverpool, and belonged to a branch of those honest Nonconformists who in that town had done much to promote its welfare. There was, he believed, no place in the world in which there was more of the spirit of commercial enterprize, and there was also a strong feeling in behalf of religious liberty. They might, in an historical review, very properly go still further back than the age of the Puritans and the Nonconformists, and trace the early struggles of religious liberty in this country before the 17th century, in the lives and sufferings of the Lollards. The dominant party of that age resisted the progress of Lollardism. In their hatred of it, they refused to allow private schools to exist, which they feared would prove nurseries of the new and obnoxious faith. But their opposition was not successful. It should, indeed, be remembered, in palliation of the persecutions that prevailed in that carly day, that by no man or party was the theory of perfect religious liberty received or understood. The compromise of the matter which the Church of England at length accepted gave little satisfaction to the Puritans, and their resistance and nonconformity, both here and in America, were entitled to our admiration. Last year, he (Mr. Heywood) visited some of the New-England States. At New Haven, he observed that all the denominations had erected their houses of prayer in the same part of the city-a spacious path. Here were to be seen Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian and Methodist places of worship. The citizens said they should not be pleased to see a place of worship in any other part of the town. This was as near a realization of the idea of a national temple as could perhaps be effected in the 19th century. Mr. Heywood proceeded to say, that he sympathized with the feelings of Mr. Martineau. He too felt, on his return home, that there was no country like England. Nowhere, he believed, was there a greater amount of good feeling and religious toleration. Nowhere was there more practical religious liberty than in Lancashire. He had heard with interest that their excellent minister was not only a descendant from the Hugenot emigrants who found in England an asylum, but also from the early Nonconformists of this country. With admirable integrity and resolution did those men carry out into practice what they believed to be right in the sight of God. When called upon to subscribe their assent and consent to every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, conscientious and religious men, disapproving of many things contained therein, had no alternative but to bow their heads in sorrow, and retire from the church and the flock they loved, and wait for better times. We live in happier days. Great but quiet changes were now going on. In the bosom of the Church of England itself, a party is rising up bent on asserting the rights of free inquiry, and of effect ing large reforms in the Church. It was his own deliberate belief that the Church of England would be reformed. The reform might not be in his life time, but come it would. The party to whom he referred consisted chiefly of laymen of great intelligence and public spirit, but he was glad to state that several clergymen of varied learning and considerable eminence belonged to it. There was a subject which was now calling forth a very large amount of public feeling: he meant, the condition of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the necessity of effecting an extensive reform in them. He knew that men of all denominations were heartily united on this subject. In connection with this topic, he might mention that he had placed on the Notice-book of the House of Commons, a notice of his intention to move an Address to the Queen, praying her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission for inquiry into the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin. He should be glad to see the same harmony prevailing amongst the several religious parties of England on the subject of the education of the lower classes. He thought there were signs of improvement, and he gave the Government credit for perfect sincerity in this matter. They were solicitous to promote education, and they were anxious to secure the full religious liberty of all.-Mr. Heywood concluded by expressing his hope that the congregation would be distinguished, not only by their very beautiful church, but by the large amount of good they were both able and willing to effect. He then proposed-"The extension of a generous and an enlightened Education; the speedy reform of every institution in which its principles are perverted, or its benefits unjustly restricted; and success to those in which its true value is practically apprehended and vindicated." The Rev. JOHN KENRICK.-The subject indicated by the sentiment just read is so very comprehensive, that to attempt to enter upon it at large would occupy more time than falls to my share. I conclude, from the sentiment's being proposed by Mr. Heywood, that it has a particular reference to the improvement of collegiate and academical education. Whether, as Dissenters, we shall gain any thing by the opening of the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, may, I think, bear a doubt; but there is no question that the national honour and justice loudly demand such a change. It would be a very difficult thing to say what constitutes in all its extent a generous education, but there is no difficulty in saying that the system of our Universities is an ungenerous system. Is it not ungenerous to take a young man, before his mind and opinions are formed, and tell him, as is done at Oxford, that at that fountain of knowledge he shall obtain nothing except he put his name to thirty-nine propositions, which even their imposers avow that they cannot explain? Is it not an ungenerous system which at Cambridge permits him, indeed, to go through all the preliminary toils, to arrive within sight of the goal, to see the honours of an academical career within his grasp, and then, unless he comply with the same condition, tell him that he shall not carry away the distinction he is entitled to receive? Against such exclusion I hope Mr. Heywood will not cease to contend, and that he will find many and able coadjutors in the struggle. The conclusion of the sentiment expresses a wish for the success of those institutions in which the true value of a generous and enlightened education is practically apprehended and vindicated. Although no particular institution is mentioned in this connection, yet I cannot but suppose, from the sentiment being allotted to me, that there is some reference to an institution with which I have been connected for forty years; and in which, whatever may be its merits or defects, certainly the great principles of religious liberty and free inquiry have always been most sacredly regarded. If I, indeed, boast improperly on behalf of the institution, there are present those who can confute what I have said. I have the pleasure of seeing here pupils of the first year in which I was connected with it, and others also of the present year; and if any one of them assert that he has been in any way checked or discouraged in his pursuit of truth, I can only say, that I have not been cognizant of or concerned in it. The office which I now fill is one which at all times involves much responsibility and anxiety; but there are times in which that anxiety is unusually great, and the present is one of them. There are times when men are content to stand quietly upon the old ways; and others, when they scorn the old ways because they are the old ways, and strike right and left into a variety of paths. It becomes a defect rather than a merit, in a truth, that our fathers believed it before us. And if, under these circumstances, we who are engaged in education at Manchester New College, had undertaken to teach our pupils our own or any man's creed, we should undoubtedly be exceedingly anxious. But in such circumstances there is nothing to be done, but to think less of creeds and more of principles; and those which have always guided us are, that free inquiry can never be opposed to the cause of truth, and that truth can never be at variance with Christianity, the purest form of religion and the noblest code of morals. Having responded to the sentiment which is expressed on this paper, may I be allowed, before I sit down, to offer my word of congratulation to my Liverpool friends, and particularly to the members of Hope-Street chapel, on the event of this day. Perhaps, as having resided so long in a city which boasts the possession of the very noblest specimen of Gothic architecture, I may be allowed to express the delight with which I have seen your new structure, and at the good taste which has presided over its execution. It was fitting that religion should have such a temple,—especially when we see a temple like this, raised for themselves by the lovers of pleasure and luxury and taste; when we see the splendid shrines which Mercury and Pluto and Mammon have erected-far more splendid than any in which they have worshiped in antiquity-surely it was fitting that in Liverpool should at length arise a structure in which the beauty of holiness should find its appropriate symbol. Mr. Thornely has expressed the hope that the sight of such a building might stimulate those who are not of us to attention and inquiry; and I think that such a result is highly probable. The stranger and the passer-by will inquire to what worship is this splendid edifice dedicated; and will be told, not to ignorance and superstition and mystery, but to one God and Father of all, in our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is a table of communion from which no honest, sincere-minded follower of Christ is excluded-a pulpit from which is never heard the anathema of an assumed infallibility and orthodoxy. I cannot but think that the knowledge that such a religion is professed within these walls, will draw many auditors. And now, one word of personal feeling with respect to your excellent pastor.. As a pupil, friend and colleague, I have known him for a quarter of a century. As a pupil, I have not forgotten that he was distinguished for his excellent moral conduct, his ardour in the pursuit of knowledge, and that he carried away with him from college the affection and esteem of all. As a colleague, I have had means of observing his profound acquaintance with the science which he professes, and his eloquence in expounding it. As a minister, I feel that, among those who know him so much |