the General Body of Dissenters of Birmingham should be presented. This was done, in the most able and gratifyiug maner, by Lord Calthorpe. The reception it met with from the House of Lords, was more favourable to the petitioners thau could possibly have been anticipated. Not a single peer came forward to defend the clause objected to. The short discussion which took place between the Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Eldon, only respected the proper course for the governors to pursue, in order to expunge it from their bill. The next day they entered into a formal agreement to take the measures, for this purpose, which had been recommended. They accordingly presented au humble petition to the Lord Chancellor, in his Court of Chaucery, for permission to amend the bill, and THE CLAUSE IS NOW ERASED. Thus this extraordinary attempt of the governors of the Free School, to abridge the civil franchises of the Dissenters of Birmingham; to brand them as persons for ever unworthy of a most honourable and important trust; and to revive against so large a portion of their fellowtownsmen the odious spirit of religious persecution, met with a sigual and merited defeat. The Committee of Dissenters have ordered this narrative, and the papers that accompany it, to be printed and circulated, that their brethren, in all parts of the kingdom, may be informed of what has taken place in Birmingham, and, should it unfortunately prove necessary, be encouraged to resist similar aggressions. APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. [Some of these being of minor importance, or implied in other parts of the statement, are omitted here.] Case of the Dissenters and others, in opposition to a Clause in the Birmingham Free Grammar School Bill. "In the year 1552, King Edward the Sixth grauted Letters Patent for the establishment of the Free Grammar School in Birmingham, and willed and or dained that for the future there should be twenty men of the more discreet and more trusty inhabitants of the town and parish of Birmingham, or of the manor of Birmingham, who should be governors of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the said school;' but the Charter does not prescribe any other limitation of the persons from among whom "To this clause the Dissenters from the Established Church, and others * who reside within the town, parish, and manor of Birmingham object, that it is not in accordance with either the letter or the spirit of the Royal Founder's Charter, but in effect contravenes both. They further allege, that the proposed restriction does great injustice to a large and important portion of the inhabitants of Birmingham, by declaring them ineligible to an office which, until within a recent period, some of their ancestors held, and uniformly administered with strict impartiality. "Aud above all, that this PRIVATE bill, in fact, involves a great PUBLIC principle; since it proposes to re-esta blish, so far as the corporation of the Birmingham Free School is concerned, those disabilities from which Dissenters from the Church of England have been relieved by the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. "As the school was founded for the common benefit of the town, parish, and manor of Birmingham, without exception, it is submited that eligibility to the situation of governors should continue to be the privilege of all; the rather, since the harmony and good will of the town and neighbourhood are disturbed by the introduction of the proposed euactment; and would be yet more seriously injured by its becoming a law. "For these reasons the Dissenters resident in Birmingham respectfully hope that their case will be fully considered by the British Legislature, whose wise and just and salutary measures during the last two sessions of Parliament, in * This was added purposely with the view of including both those who, although they do not come under the technical description of Dissenters or Protestant Dissenters, were yet aggrieved by the clause in question, and those (not a small body) members of the Established Church who cordially sympathized with their Dissenting neighbours aud fellow townsmen. behalf of Dissidents from the Established Church, will be locally frustrated if the bill in its present form should be passed into a law. "A petition is in the course of signature by the DISSENTERS of Birmingham, to be heard by counsel against the BILL, and will be immediately presented. 66 Birmingham, May 20, 1830." Extracts from Resolutions of a General Meeting of Dissenters, &c., May 24, 1830, convened by public Advertisement in the Birmingham Newspapers. RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, "1. That this meeting has heard, with regret and indignation, of the attempt made by the governors of the Free Grammar School, in this town, to deprive those inhabitants who are not members of the Established Church, of their eligibility to the office of governor of the said school. 2. That the proscription thus attempted to be established is altogether unauthorized by the Charter of the Royal Founder of the school, Edward the Sixth, which merely directs that the governors shall be of the more discreet and more trusty inhabitants of the town, parish, or manor of Birmingham. "3. That believing the contemplated system of exclusion, if accomplished, will attach a most unmerited stigma to those who, on principle, are dissentient from the Church of England, and that its natural tendency will be to revive divisions and to perpetuate jealousies, which it has been the wise and beneficent policy of the Legislature to heal and extinguish, this meeting feels greatly indebted to those gentlemen who have been the means of bringing the subject before their fellow-townsmen, and approves and confirms the measures which, as a provisional committee, they have adopted to frustrate the object proposed by the governors. 4. That petitions be immediately presented to both Houses of Parliament, praying that the bill may not be passed into a law in its present form. "5. That the petitions now produced and read be adopted. “6. That the gentlemen who form the provisional committee, with power to add to their number, be appointed a committee for carrying the resolutions of this meeting into effect; and that they be authorized to take such further measures as shall appear to them necessary for the protection of the interests confided to their care." Matters agreed on between the Solicitors for the Parties, and in behalf of their respective Clients. tition to the Lord Chancellor, praying "The Governors are to present a pethat the words requiring future Governors to be of the Church of England, may be struck out of the schedule. "The bill not to proceed to any further stage, until his Lordship shall have decided upon such petition. "In page 39 of the printed bill, before the word birth,' insert place of,' and strike out qualification.' "J. W. WHATELEY, "May 28, 1830." Report, &c., of the Deputies sent to London on behalf of the Dissenters of Birmingham, &c. "Public Office, June 4, 1830. "The Deputies sent to London, to oppose the Free School Bill, on behalf of the Dissenters of Birmingham, being returned, and having delivered in a report of their proceedings, stating, among other matters, "That the Governors of the Free School had agreed to petition the Lord Chancellor for permission to strike out of the bill the clause, directing that no person shall be eligible to be a Governor of the school who is not a member of the Established Church of England'which petition, there can be no doubt, his Lordship will immediately grant; and that they had likewise agreed, in the most prompt and conciliatory manner, to alter two other clauses in the bill, which appeared to admit of an interpretation unfavourable to Dissenters:— "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, "That the highly gratifying report now read be received and approved; and that the cordial thanks of the committee be presented to the gentlemen of the deputation, for the ability and zeal with which they have conducted, to a successful termination, the business entrusted to their care." Thanks were also voted to Lord Holland, the Marquis of Lansdown, Lord Calthorpe, Francis Lawley, Esq., and other Parliamentary supporters or advisers of the petitioners; to William Smith, Esq., M. P., the Chairman, and to the Committee, of the Deputies appointed to protect the Civil Rights of Dissenters, and to John Wilks, Esq., Secretary to the Society for the Protection of Religious Liberty.' (Signed) "EDWARD CORN, "Low Bailiff, Chairman." "Yours truly, "J. W. WHATELEY. "William Wills, Esq., Solicitor, Birmingham." Lady Hewley's Fund. A MR. JOSEPH BLOWER, Solicitor, it appears, to the prosecutors in this suit, has taken advantage of our notice of the proceedings to advertise himself in the Congregational Magazine as a zealous Anti-Unitarian lawyer. We hope this attempt to invite the attention" will avail him, for he describes himself as a very civil man towards his opponents, and not at all addicted to “savage hostility." We cannot, however, agree with him that the prosecutors are not responsible for the suspension of the payments to the beneficiaries of the Trust; the fact of their petitioning that the exhibitions might continue, shews that they were conscious of that respon The petition of the Governors that the obnoxious clause, &c., might be withdrawn. This was the course pursued, agreeably to what had been publicly suggested in the House of Lords. sibility, and uneasy under it; and, taken together with his effort to shift the blame to the Trustees, shews some shame at the first wounds they have inflicted in their holy war. Nor can we think that Mr. B. really suspected the Trustees and their solicitors of having written, or us of having consulted them about, the remarks on this prosecution in our November number. He is welcome to our testimony to the certificate which, by this insinuation, he has obtained, that we are not their agents. And we thank him for his public admission of the fact that Lady Hewley's bequests, whatever were her own opinions, were not restricted to the Trinitarian or Calvinistic sect, but left for " godly preachers of Christ's holy gospel, and for the encouragement of the preaching of the same in poor places." If the Trustees have not conscientiously carried into effect this general and liberal instruction, let them abide the consequences. This impartiality is, we apprehend, the very head and front of their offending. However that may be, we shall not be deterred from the expression of our opinions and feelings on this, or any similar attempt, (if for the benefit of the legal profession such attempts are to be repeated,) to bring what the donors have left unrestricted, within the grasp of a party whose object is its exclusive appropriation. Ministerial Settlement. The Rev. H. Hawkes has accepted an unanimous invitation to become the permanent minister of the New Unitarian Congregation in Norwich. CORRESPONDENCE. One of the volumes, of the non-appearance of which D-e complains, has been published several years, and was announced in the usual way. C. H. and J. L. in our next. A "Constant Reader" (Nov. 12) is intended for insertion. Did not J. forget that "another year" would have commenced? Will he not prefer a seasonable appearance ? THE MONTHLY REPOSITORY AND REVIEW. NEW SERIES, No. L. FEBRUARY, 1831. SABBATH MUSINGS. THE bell has ceased. While it tinkled among the rocks, my solitude was not complete, though no one is nigh. Now may I be freely wrought upon by sound and motion, stimulated and soothed by influences which man can only interpret to me and not originate. Thou rolling sea! thou shalt be my preacher. Of old was that office given to thee. Wisdom was in her native seat before the throne of God when thy bounds were fixed; and from her was thy commission received to be the measure of time, a perpetual suggestion of eternity, an admonition to "rejoice ever before Him." Thine is the only unwearied voice: thy sound alone hath not died away from age to age; and from thee alone is man willing to hear truth from the day that his spirit awakes to that when his body sleeps for ever. By the music of thy gentle lapse it is thine to rouse the soul from its primal sleep among the flowers of a new life; blossoms whose beauty is unseen, whose fragrance is unheeded, till at thy voice all is revealed to the opening sense. What tidings of the spirit are there which thou hast not revealed or confirmed by thy murmur in the sunny noon, or thy lonely midnight hymn, or by thy wintry swell, rousing the rocks to answer thee, and drowning the chorus of the blasts? Every other voice utters, and is again silent; men speak in vain and are weary if they are regarded, they still become weary. The nightingale that sings far inland, nestles in the silence when the moon goes down. These winds which tune their melodies to thine, pause that thou mayest be heard; and yonder caverns which sing a welcome to the winds as they enter, are presently still. But if thou shouldst be hushed, it would be as if Wisdom herself were struck dumb; to me, communing with thee in this lonely cove; to the Indian in another hemisphere, now perhaps questioning thee of the departed spirits he has loved, and of the Greater Spirit whom he would fain know and love better; to the babes and to the wise who tread thy shores to learn of thee in sport or in meditation. If at noonday thou shouldst be stilled, men would look up to the sun to see it shaken from its sphere: if at midnight, all sleepers would rise to ask why God had forsaken them. It is awful to look abroad when the gloom of the night is drawing off, and to see thee still rolling, rolling below, and to know that it is thus when every human eye is closed. But what would it be to behold thee dead! to strain the eye and ear to know if thy voice might not yet be overtaken afar! How oppressive would be the silence, how stifling the expectation, how hopeless the blank, if we should call upon thee and find no answer! 66 How marvellous is the relation between material things, and the things of the spirit with which they are linked, we know not how! Where any thing human intervenes, the connexion may be better understood than here, where all external things are as they would have been if I were Adam, a solitary living soul. In a churchyard, the remains of humanity tell of the destinies of humanity, and thoughts of life and death rise as " by natural exhalation" from the ground we tread. Even now, the church-bell brought me tidings of the religious hopes and fears of many hearts: but, at this moment, when the wintry winds bear hither no human voices, and these everlasting rocks shew no impress of human foot, how mysterious is the power by which I gather from the scudding clouds the materials of prophecy, and find in the echoes new exponents of ancient truth! Was it not thus, at least in part, that the chosen servants of God knew Him as the world knew Him not? The divine impulse being once given, was it not thus strengthened, till their souls could grasp more than we know of the past, and the present, and of that which is to come? When Christ spent the night in prayer, was he ministered unto by forms which we have not seen, or by those with which we are familiar, beheld by him in loftier grandeur and intenser beauty? That which once appeared to his followers to be thunder, was to him an intelligible voice: and was it not thus also when he was alone? When he retired from the clamour of enemies and the narrow solicitudes of friends, was not the discord of the elements music to him because it told that his Father was with him? When the lightnings of the hills played round his unsheltered head, were not they the messengers of peace who were sent to him? If the place where Jacob rose up from sleep was to him the gate of heaven, because the Divine presence was made manifest, what must have been the mountain where Jesus watched and prayed! More hallowed than Sinai, inasmuch as the new law was better than the old. More hallowed than even the Mount of Transfiguration, because the light disclosed beamed not on the gross, outward eye, but on the inner soul. And what a light! When was it first given? Did it come to him early, breaking afar off over the obscurity and perplexities of life, as yonder gleam touches the horizon beyond the gloom and turbulence of these waters? Did the first consciousness of his destiny come to him from above, or from within, or from a peculiar interpretation of tidings given to all? Was the mighty secret known to himself alone, or was there a mysterious sympathy with his mother? Did she or did no one suspect his emotions when he first distinctly apprehended the extent of his privilege, when he first said in his heart, "The world hath not known thee, but I have known thee"? There is a fullness of meaning, a fervour of gratitude in these words, of which men seem not sufficiently sensible when they dwell on the griefs of Christ, or turn to the days of his glory for consolation. It is true, he was a man of sorrows, and it is natural in his case as in others, to mourn for the sufferer as well ast o reprobate the persecutors: but our sympathy ought to be regulated by the qualities of the mind with which we sympathize. While, |