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charge Sissison to conceal them, or to burn them ? Ilis courage comes too late to serve his reputation.

3. We are furnished with a third collateral evidence on the subject, which we must submit to our readers at the expense of being tedious.—Mr. Hill professed very early in the history of these transactions, that he had received a letter from the true anonymous libeller which entirely exculpated him, and which promised speedily to develope the whole story. From this letter he read, or permitted to be read, an extract, while he carefully concealed the original, though he was frequently urged to produce it for the satisfaction of his friends and the conviction of his opposers. About the time of the last Conference he had again recourse to the old expedient, declaring that he had just received a letter from the anonymous writer; of this he gives a fac-simile, which we certainly believe, as he states, to have been written by the very person who wrote the original scandal against Miss Bell. The only question is : Who was that person? Those who swore to the former letters would have no difficulty in tracing this. There is a point of importance respecting this communication, which shows that all is not fair and natural and as it ought to be. There is the overdoing of imposture in it, that curse which attends the ingenuity of sin, as if judicially attached to it for the sake of leading to ultimate discovery. Let the reader, then, compare the two libellous anonymous letters with the additional letter of which Mr. Hill gives a fac-simile, and which is inserted at length in the concluding pages of his vindication, and it will be seen, that though the hand-writing is sufficiently similar to prove the identity of the writer, yet the inditing is so entirely different as to show that the author of tbem was not writing naturally and at ease, not writing in his own but in a feigned character. There are at least fifteen words mis-spelt in the latter, whereas we find but one mistake in both the former. Now supposing the letters to have been written with the design to impose, this may be accounted for, but not otherwise. And we are persuaded that few will rise from a careful examination of these documents, without a firm persuasion as to the author of them all.

In taking a farewell look of Mr. Hill's pamphlet, a question is naturally suggested: Why did he choose Birmingham as the place in which it should be printed ? Has he ever resided in Birmingham since the suit ? Has he ever been settled near it? From Northwich he was removed in 1827 to Redruth in Cornwall, and yet be publishes at neither place. If he had made choice of London, he might have been supposed to do so for the sake of giving greater circulation to his book. If he had chosen Shields or Hull, it would have appeared that he was not afraid to contradict statements derogatory to his character in the places where they had been made. But instead of this, he goes from home to avoid his antagonists rather than meet them, and issues his vindication, where it would not be likely to be contradicted, because its character was unknown.' The Reviewer says, that the book “has been extensively circulated through the kingdom.” And so in one sense we believe it has.-The Methodist preachers have received it; through them perhaps the Methodists inay obtain it—but if the Reviewer intends his readers to understand that it has been sent extensively to the booksellers in the Country, we are sceptical as 'to the fact. We can only say, that it was with difficulty that we could obtain a copy. We have never been able to meet with a single advertisement concerning it in any Newspaper or Periodical Publication, and the Methodist Magazine cautiously avoids telling us where it is sold.

After what has been said, it will not be deemed necessary that we should dwell long on the remarks made by the Wesleyan Magazine, on our publication. We are confident that a case is already made out to justify all that we have spoken. We will however deny that our review of the Hull publication, "contains copious extracts of libellous matter, with several defamatory remarks of our own on the Methodist Conference," unless by libellous matter is meant those gross and foul slanders which have proceeded from the party whose conduct we have felt it our duty to censure. We are aware that our opponents would not permit us to libel them with impunity, and we have no wish to do so. We have not mis-stated one fact : if any such mis-statement can be pointed out, by friend or foe, we are, and always have been ready, yea, anxious to correct it. We repeat that “ we have never on any occasion, exhibited the Methodist Ministers in general as hypocritical and wicked men," and the extract which the Reviewer gives from our article of January last, fails to substantiate his charge. The remarks which he quotes, are inserted at the opening of our review, without any previous mention of the Methodist Ministers, and are intended as a general expression of our abhorrence of certain evils whether in public bodies or individuals. The expressions themselves will be allowed to be unexceptionable. So far as the case which we subsequently examine comes under that censure, so far and no further was it meant to apply. Some of the general terms, we have no doubt are found to be merited by Conference-others by the man whose cause they have espoused. One party may have committed and another have countenanced iniquity. And it is for the countenancing of iniquity that we particularly censure the Conference. We do not accuse them of the falsehood and hypocrisy with which the individual is charged, but we accuse them of “ strengthening his hands in his wickedness."

And further, suppose we had detected all those evils in the Conference with wbich we are unjustly said to have charged them. We still should not deem the inference a fair one, that we had « exhibited the Methodist Ministers in general, as hypocritical and wicked men.” A man may be guilty of one act of hypocrisy, and yet not deserve the appellation of hypocrite ; and may have fallen into any given sin, and yet not deserve to be called a wicked man. Sinful habits are necessary to establish a title to the denomination of wicked. And we have said nothing to accuse the Conference of habitually justifying the wicked, and condemning the righteous, whatever may have been its conduct, in the present instance.

The Reviewer betrays the baddess of his cause by shaking the rod over us, and intimating to the public, that “he could a tale unfold." But if he thinks to stop our mouths, by threats of exposure, he is mistaken ; we speak what we believe to be the truth, without fear of consequences; and shall continue to do so, let our adversaries say or do what they will to intimidate us into silence.

A few words on what the Reviewer says respecting the Ministers of Conference, and we have done. He tells us that “ in the degree in which they (the preachers) thought him (Hill) really culpable," they visited him with censure; and again they “ passed upon him a censure, to the full extent of those parts of his conduct which they conscientiously thought culpable, and published it to the world.” And what was this censure ? First, they exculpate him from all that the law had brought against him—and then they accuse him of “ an intemperance of expression, highly unbecoming the character of a Christian miuister.” Now this is the highest degree of guilt, which they attach to his avowed letters. Surely the moral standard by which a Methodist preacher is to be measured is very low.-Was there nothing beyond intemperance in the declaration : “ She could pray like an angel any half-hour, and vituperate and calumniate with any body the next”-that “ she was the most consummate whining hypocrite that can be found?” This must be something worse than mere haste of intemperance. Then again, it was in evidence on the trial, that he had spoken in the very opposite terms of Miss Bell, that he had denied having written any ill of her to Hull-was this also sheer intemperance ? Conference must either bave very strange notions of right and wrong, or they cannot have visited the culprit, as the Reviewer professes, with the full chastisement which they thought his crime to deserve.

After the Conference had come to the extraordinary decision, recorded in their Minutes, we asserted that they. “ had ventured to impugn, without a shadow of evidence, the verdict of a Jury, and the decision of a British Court of Judicature.” Concerning which assertion, the Reviewer exclaims: “ A more disingenuous and unjust reflection was, perhaps, never made by the most violent and unprincipled party writer." How so? When a set of men assemble in conclave, and pronounce a man innocent of the crime of which a British Jury has just found him guilty-is not this very much like impugning the verdict of the Jury? And if this conclave founds its decision on nothing but the culprit's own testimony, is not this very much like “impugning" the verdict of a British “ Court, without a shadow of evidence ?Where is the disingenuousness and injustice of such an inference ? and where is the necessity that a man should not only be a party writer-but a most violent and upprincipled one, before he would bring himself to believe it and to state it to the world?

But let us observe the Reviewer's ingenious reasoning on this subject, and see whether his article is better furnished with logic than it is with facts, to prove his point. “ The Jury, (says he) pronounced their verdict, and the Court decided, as in duty bound, according io the evidence before them." Very true; and the Conference pronounce their verdict, and decide (no doubt as in duty bound) without any evidence before them—and their decision is at direct variance with that of the Court. Is not this impugning the legal decision ? No, says the Reviewer—“ the complaint of the defendant referred to in the Minutes of the Conference was,-not that an English Jury gave a verdict contrary to evidence not that a British Court made an unjust decision—but that the counsel employed by the Defendant, for “ some professional reasons,” refused to bring his witnesses into court.” Here then, the whole blame is laid on Mr. Pollock, who must have strangely neglected his cause, if Mr. Hill is to be believed—and Conference in order to get rid of the opprobrium of having trampled upon the administration of British justice, unite with Hill in impeaching the professional talents or principle of one of the most eminent Counsel on the Northern Circuit. The truth doubtless' is, that Mr. Pollock saw the cause to be hopeless, and made the best of it.

The writer of the article in the Wesleyan Magazine, in vindicating the Conference from the charge we have brought against it, lays much stress on the witnesses which Hill had in readiness, to prove that the letters were not his writing. We ask, did Conference examine these witnesses, or did they take Mr. Hill's word, respecting the nature of their testimony? If they did, they were setting the mere declarations of one set of men in opposition to the solemn oath of another--and if they did not examine them, then they took the word of Hill against the testimony of all the sworn witnesses, the obvious opinion of the most cautious of all judges, and the verdict of an intelligent special Jury of Englishmen!

And further; though witnesses are, by the law of the land, necessary in order to prove identity of hand-writing, however indisputable the internal evidence of the documents themselves may be-yet it does not follow that because one man swears that he believes the accused did write a certain letter-and another swears the contrary, there should be no conviction. Testimony in such a case is not easily to be set aside by counter testimony, because the documents are before the Court, and the Court exercises its own judgment on those documents. If Mr. H. could have brought up 500 persons who would say, they thought him guiltless, this would not have prevented the Jury from seeing with their own eyes the proofs of guilt which lay before them. If their own senses had been at variance with the testimony of the plaintiff's witnesses they would have found for the Defendant. Hence it is plain that the attempt of the Reviewer to exculpate Conference, is as futile as his attempt to whitewash Hill. Conference did, unquestionably, impugn the verdict of a Jury, and the decision of a British Court of Judicature.

In order to complete the vindication of Conference, and our confusion, it is added—“ There are members of Conference who are intimately acquainted with all the parties, who have had a knowledge of the business from the commencement"-(the Reviewer, as we have shown, is not one of them)—“who are certainly as competent to form a correct judgment on the subject as the Conductors of the Guardian are; and who, to this day, express their decided and conscientious conviction, that the man whom these gentlemen have undertaken to persecute, is as innocent of the principal offence laid to his charge as they themselves are !" Why then have such men stood by and permitted one who had not read even the books on his own side of the question, to advocate the righteous cause in the Methodist Magazine? Why have not such men, for the honour of · Methodism, come forward and exposed to the public those hidden sources of information so essential to the purgation of the character of the accused. If there be men who know the truth, and are confident that the publication of it will justify the proceedings of Conference, they owe it to the cause of truth, to the Methodist Society, to the public, and even to us, either for the purpose of convincing or confounding us, to state it openly and fairly. But those among the Preachers who know the whole affair, will not risk an exposure so fatal to the cause which in an evil hour they have been prevailed upon to vindicate. Having laid these observations before our readers, we leave them to judge in what sense the assertion of the Wesleyan Magazine is true, that the publications of Hill materially alter the complexion of the whole business. They do alter it truly from bad to worse ; and awfully show to what lengths man may be permitted to go, when he once departs from that plain sincerity and truth in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures, which renders it needless for him to guard against exposure, because it preserves him from every thing of which he would have occasion to be ashamed. :

INTELLIGENCE.

BIBLE SOCIETY.-FRANCE. A HAWKER of the village of Esquehe- an extraordinary ardour. He not only ries, situated in the northern part of the was the means of gaining his cause at department of the Aisne (formerly the Vervins, and by his advice contributed province of Picardy) a Protestant, and to procure his acquittal at Laon, but, the collector of a Biblical association, fearing that it might not be sufficiently carried about Bibles and New Testa defended at Amiens, he proceeded to ments to distribute them amongst his that city, during the most inclement co-religionists scattered about in those season of the year, and, at the risk of districts. He was arrested, and brought his life, travelling more than thirty miles successively for this act before the tri- on foot in the snow (from not being bunals of Vervins and Laon, who both able to find a carriage, on account of the acquitted him of any breach of the law elections), not wishing to allow such an regulating the bookselling trade. The opportunity to escape of defending the public prosecutor having appealed to cause of the freedom of worship, in the the Cour Royale of Amiens, that supreme centre of Jesuitism; for one of the printribunal confirmed the sentence given in cipal establishments of that order is that favour of the hawker. The three advo- of St. Acheul, near Amieus. cates who defended this poor man Protestant churches have been rebefore the three Courts, are all of them cently created at Clermont Ferrand, in Roman Catholics, and acquitted them the department of Puyde-Dome; at selves of their noble task with a zeal Dijon, department of Cote d'Or; and which a Protestant would have been at Versailles, department of the Seine afraid to display. The advocate of et Oise. The liberality of the Mayor Vervins, M. Loubry Piette, whose name of Dijon has been praised on this deserves honourable mention, evinced occasion.

AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY. THE eleventh report of this Society, those who speak the Mohawk dialect. which comprises five hundred and Mr. Case speaks favourably of the chaforty-seven Auxiliaries, has lately ar- racter of this people, whom he reprerived. The number of copies of the sents as serious and docile. A letter Scriptures issued, during the past ten has been received by the Society from years, is 511,668. Portions of the Messrs. Temple and Smith, at Malta, New Testament, in the Mohawk tongue, which states, that a firman from the have been translated by some intelligent Porte forbids the circulation of the Aborigines ; and the Gospel of St. Luke, Arabic Scriptures in the Turkish domiin that tongue, has recently been for- nions. They add, however, that they warded to the Society, by the Rev. have some encouragement to hope, they William Case, Methodist Clergyman of shall be able to print an edition of the Canada. This Gospel is now in the Scriptures, on Mount Lebanon, at a press, and will soon be forwarded to native press.

EPISCOPAL FLOATING CHURCH SOCIETY. We are happy to hear that his Majesty's demand a considerably advance of Ship Brazen has been prepared for the money; and the friends and supporters service of a Floating Church, to be of the Institution are earnestly requested stationed in the Port of London; and to exert their influence, not only for that the Rev. J. Hough has been ap- the immediate necessity, but also pointed minister, and will as soon as to provide a permanent fund for the the necessary fittings are completed, general objects of the undertaking, and commence the regular performance of thus place it upon a sure foundation. Divine Service on board, in conformity A general meeting, for the promotion to the regulations of the Established of this important object, &c. was held Church, with the approval of the Lord on Wednesday the 16th of April, at Bishop of the Diocese.

which the right hon. the Lord Mayor The equipment of the vessel, the pro- presided, when some interesting statevision for the salary of the chaplain, ments were made, which will, we hope, and other necessary disbursenients, now be followed by liberal subscriptions.

TAVISTOCK CHAPEL ROMAN CATHOLIC LECTURES. Tue Course of Lectures on Points of 9.* Transubstantiation, John vi. 53. controversy between the Roman Catho- Rev. W. Borrows, M. A. lics and Protestants at Tavistock Chapel 10. Purgatory and Prayers for the terminated for the present season, on Dead. Rev. xiv. 13. Rev. Thomas Tuesday, April 15, when a review of Webster, M. A. the whole series was taken by the Rev. 11. Praying in an Unknown Tongue. T. Webster, Minister of that Chapel. 1 Cor. xiv. 14--17. Rev.C.Jerram, M.A. The following is we believe a correct 12. Invocation of Angels, Saints, list of the Subjects, Texts, and Preachers. and the Virgin Mary. Col. ii. 18. Rev. We understand all the Lectures, with

William Ford Vance, M. A. the exception of those to which asterisks 13. Ditto. Rev. xix. 10. Ditto. are prefixed, are already either printed 14. Papal Restrictions on the Reading or in the press.

of the Holy Scriptures. Rom. iii. 1, 2. 1. Introductory. 1 Cor. x. 15. Rev. Rev. Hugh Mc. Neile, M. A. Thomas Webster, M.A.

15. Unity of Doctrine. Eph. iv. 8, 2. On the right of private Judgment. Hon, and Rev. B. W. Noel, M. A. 1 Pet. iii. 15. Hon. and Rev. Baptist 16. The Merit of Works, and AugW. Noel, M.A.

mentation of Grace Thereby. Luke xvii. 3. The Character and Tokens of the 10. Hon. and Rev. G. T. Noel, M. A. True Catholic Church. Eph. v. 25-27.

17. The Lord's Supper. 1 Cor. xi. Rev. R. Waldo Sibthorpe, B.D.

23. Rev. Thomas Webster, M. A. 4. The Sufficiency of the Holy Scrip. 18.* One God and One Mediator. tures alone for Salvation. 2 Tim. ii. i4 1 Tim. ii. 5. Rev. I. H. Stewart, M. A. -17. The Rev. Charles Jerram, M. A. 19. Administration of the Lord's

5. Christ, not Peter, the Rock of the Supper in one Kind. Matt. xxvi. 26– Church. 1 Cor. iii. 2. Rev. Henry John 28. Rev. David Ruell, M. A. Owen, M. A.

20.* Judicial Blindness. 2 Thess. ii. 6. Justification by Faith. Rom. ii. 11. Rev. W. Marsh, M. A. 28. Rev. E. Bickersteth.

21. The Lord's Supper, concluded. 7. Confession, Absolution, and Pe- 1 Cor. xi. 28. Rev. T. Webster, M. A. nance. 1 John i. 8, 9. Rev. G. Mutter, 22. The Effect of Romanism. Matt. M. A:

vii. 16. Rev.J. W.Cunningham, M. A. 8. Extreme Unction. Rev. xiv. 13. 23. A Review of the whole Series. Rev. Thomas Webster, M. A.

2 Tim. ii. 7. Rev. T. Webster, M. A.

WEST INDIES. The following Letter, recently received give you a sketch of my life since I from the West Indies, affords a striking left your employ some time in 1790. illustration of the precept Cast thy bread We took our departure in a waggon upon the waters and it shall be found for Liverpool, where we arrived safe, after many days.

and in a few days sailed for Dublin;

we were at sea eight days, and suffered Dear Sir-Seeing your name in one much from hunger, not having laid in a of the London Hibernian Reports, I sufficient quantity of provisions :.... presume and hope you are still in the After our arrival, I got a situation in land of the living, if so, permit me now Dublin, where I remained a few years, to address you, as it is from a sense of but seeing no prospect to advance mymy greatest gratitude, for I assure you, self in pecuniary matters to supply an from the various vicissitudes of life in increasing family, I removed to a large which I have passed through since I town about the centre of Ireland, where left your employ, I have never forgotten I had some relations and a friend. I • your great kindness, nay bounty, to there opened a retail shop for a few wards me, my wife, and children, when years, but finding that that line of life I was about to leave London to return could not obtain for us an honest and to our native country (Ireland) for the conscientious livelihood, I resolved to benefit of my partner's health. I have try my fortune in the United States of no doubt from your kind good offices to America; I obtained several letters of me, not only to me but to several others, recommendation, and sailed from the you will feel pleasure in hearing of their bay of Galway with my wife and two prosperity, as one of those who received children (leaving two behind with their your benerolent acts. I beg leave to grandfather) in September, 1797, in a

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