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INTELLIGENCE.

MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE. The annual meeting of Trustees was held on Thursday, Jan. 18, at the CrossStreet chapel rooms, Manchester. The chair was taken by the President, Mr. James Heywood, M.P. Amongst the Trustees present in the course of the day were Mr. Mark Philips, Mr. R. N. Philips, Mr. R. H. Greg, Mr. John Grundy, Mr. R. P. Greg, Mr. R. D. Darbishire, Mr. Eddowes Bowman, Mr. Booth, Mr. Grimshaw, Rev. W. Gaskell, Rev. John Cropper, Rev. John Wright, Rev. J. H. Hutton, Rev. H. Green, Rev. T. E. Poynting, &c. The Treasurer's report was read by Mr. Aspden, and shewed an excess of income (about £70) over expenditure, notwithstanding the addition during the year of about £400 to the permanent fund. The Treasurer, Mr. R. N. Philips, congratulated the Trustees on the prosperous financial condition of the College. The expenses of the removal to London had fallen short of the estimate. The cost of the Chancery suit had been less than the sum provided by the generous zeal of the friends of the College, and the balance was added to the general fund. The subscription-list had been doubled. All this had involved much watchfulness and exertion. By the same exertions hereafter, he did not doubt that the College would be well upheld. He paid a warm compliment to Mr. Field and other friends of the College in London, who had so largely added to the number of the London Trustees. The Treasurer's report was passed with many expressions of satisfaction from the Trustees. The officers for the ensuing year were elected, the new members of the Committee being Rev. John Cropper, Mr. Martin Schunck and Mr. E. Crompton Potter, and Mr. R. D. Darbishire was elected one of the Secretaries. The Committee's address was read by Rev. R. Brook Aspland, and was as follows:

The Committee are enabled to meet the Trustees on the present occasion with an expression of congratulation on the success of the College during the past year, and of the hope of its future and increased usefulnesss.

"The last session-the first after the transference of our Institution to a new locality-was" (to use the language of our excellent Principal) "one of much anxiety and painful responsibility to all who

were engaged in conducting it, and attended with difficulties and embarrassments, inseparable from the introduction of so great a change, which none but those who actually encountered them can adequately appreciate." In their address last year, the Committee had to speak of financial difliculties and an excess of expendi ture over income. Now it is their pleasing duty to report that, by the great personal exertions of their Treasurer, assisted by one or two members of the Committee, and by the liberal aid of friends of the College in various parts of the kingdom, the financial condition of the Institution has been very greatly improved, and, notwithstanding the large expenditure rendered necessary by the recent changes, the income now exceeds the expenditure.

And although the Committee expect that an increase of students on the foundation (absolutely necessary if thoroughly educated candidates for the ministry are to be hereafter supplied in numbers at all proportioned to our vacant pulpits) will in future years occasion a still larger expenditure, they are enabled from past experience to entertain a cheerful confidence that the necessary funds will be supplied. In order to provide for the growing wants of the College, and to make good the casualties which are constantly affecting the subscription-list, it is desirable that personal applications should be made from time to time to the members of our several congregations.

In overcoming the other difficulties of the past year, the chief labour has devolved on the Principal, the Rev. John James Tayler, and the Professor of Theology, the Rev. George Vance Smith. To both these gentlemen the Committee feel it to be an act of simple justice to express the warmest gratitude for their untiring zeal and assiduity, and the great ability with which they have discharged their important duties. To them it is mainly owing that "the first year's results of this great experiment have proved satisfactory." At the same time, the Committee desire to add their own to the grateful acknowledgments publicly made by their Principal to the friends in University Hall and in London, for the kind welcome and the cordial sympathy which they have extended to the College on its establishment in the Metropolis.

The annual examination, held in June last, for the first time in University Hall, was well attended by Trustees from all

to a doctrine on which those who aspire to rule this movement stake their religious reputation.

"This would not be a satisfactory state of things, if the persons to whom I am referring were prepared honestly to act up to the principle of their own doctrine. It would be but a small consolation to those who suffered injury by that doctrine, to know that they were made the victims of men blindly ignorant of the claims of Christianity and common sense to which they had placed themselves in antagonism. But the conduct of these men is distinguished by anything rather than by its honesty. They are not blind to the claims of the contrary side of the question whenever those claims have to do with their own interests. They can and do make every exception to their professed law which those interests prescribe; and, in this very instance, they put upon the class whom they come forward to defend, a yoke which they will not allow to be put upon their own shoulders.

"It is beyond controversy that they, as a party, have been the great oppressors of the cabmen on this point of Sunday hiring. Driving to church has been the chief occasion of that hiring. Of this the cabmen have formally complained: and this is peculiarly the case in Edinburgh, where Sunday cabhiring is almost confined to church-goers. I say nothing of the hypocritical practices that have been described to us, of slipping religious tracts into the cabmen's hands, and advising them to hasten to church, after paying them for breaking the Sabbath. The plain fact that the breach of the Sabbath, in their sense of it, has been habitually committed, and imposed by this party, is enough for me, without any additional colouring of that kind."

"Now it is no excuse that members of this party express repentance for their sin. That does not touch the point I moot. My point is, that, in its bearing upon themselves, their act was no sin. They were not conscious of it as sin. They committed it, in the belief that they were justified in so doing. Their sin lies elsewhere. It consists in their pretending that what they permitted in their own persons, ought to be forbidden to their neighbours-in their upholding as a Divine Law for society, that which they did not themselves keep as a law at all. That was their sin in past time,-and that sin is perpetuated in their present attempt to subject these cabmen, under pains and penalties of religious reprobation here and hereafter, to a strictness of obedience in which they did not possess, and do not now possess, any conscientious belief."

The Sunday-School Penny Magazine. Published by the Manchester District Sunday-School Association. New Series. Vol. IV. London—

E. T. Whitfield.

THIS sound, vigorous and useful little publication, which still enjoys the benefit of the editorship of the Rev. John Wright, of Bury, continues to deserve well of all interested in Sunday-schools. It is plain, practical and eminently religious. We regret to find that the support it receives is less than it ought to be. Is the diminution of subscribers at all connected with the recent establishment of a separate periodical for Teachers? We Unitarians weaken our resources by excessive subdivision. But, whatever the cause, we hope that the evil will be remedied It would be deplorable if this little Magazine, so welcome to our best Sunday scholars, had to be given up.

at once.

The Unitarian Almanac for 1855. Edited by John Webb, Resident Secretary to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association.

MR. WEBB has introduced several improvements into this useful Almanac, and has edited it with great care. It now well deserves the support of the denomination for whom it he been compiled.

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ragement to further exertions in behalf of religious liberty in education. Nor can the Committee allude to this topic, without referring, with feelings both of gratitude and pride, to the circumstance that,

as in the first instance the right of the

nation to admission to the ancient seats

of learning was asserted in Parliament by a long-honoured officer of this Institution, the late Mr. George William Wood, so its recent successful assertion, so far as Oxford is concerned, was made by the present honourable President of the College, Mr. James Heywood.

While welcoming the progress made, the Committee see no reason for supposing that there will, in consequence of this partial triumph of liberal principles, be less necessity than before for the maintenance of separate and independent educational institutions, and especially of those that are designed for the cultivation of sacred literature.

The Committee have, in the discharge of the duties assigned to them, met thirteen times during the past year, viz. Jan. 26, Feb. 18, March 15, April 6, May 24, June 21, July 27, Aug. 23, Oct. 3, Nov. 10, Dec. 14 and 22, 1854, and Jan. 16, 1855. The annual examination took place in University Hall on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, June 26, 27 and 28. In consequence of the absence, through illness, of the Rev. John Kenrick, M.A., Visitor, the usual address to the students was delivered by the Rev. Thomas Madge, of Essex Street, London.

On Wednesday, June 28, the Trustees and friends of the College dined together at the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street, London,-James Heywood, Esq., M.P., in the chair; and on the evening of Thursday, June 29, a soirée was held in the rooms of University Hall.

During the past session the number of divinity students was ten, viz., Mr. R. C. Jones and Mr. John Gow in their fifth year; Mr. Carter, Mr. Coe, Mr. J. T. Whitehead and Mr. Edwin Smith, in their fourth year; Mr. Charles Wood, Mr. Thos. Holland and Mr. William Blazeby in their second year; and Mr. Charles Upton in his first year. Mr. Gow has since settled with the congregation at Cheltenham, and the Committee have to regret the death of Mr. Charles Wood in May last.

The number of divinity students in the present session is fourteen, viz., Messrs. R. C. Jones, Edwin Smith, J. T. Whitehead, Charles C. Coe, T. Carter, William Blazeby, Thomas Holland and Charles Upton, mentioned above; with the addition of Mr. J. C. Addyes Scott, fourth year on his own foundation; Mr. Reuben Jas.

Rogers and Mr. R. B. Drummond, fourth year; Mr. Joseph Dare, Jun., Mr. Percy Bakewell and Mr. George Heaviside, in their first year.

The address was cordially adopted by the Trustees, and after passing the

usual resolutions of thanks to the officers and to the President, the meeting separated. The friends of the College shortly after re-assembled at dinner at the Albion Hotel, and passed a pleasant afternoon, under the presidency of Mr. Heywood and Mr. John Grundy.

Honour was done in the toasts to the more eminent friends and benefactors of the College, and amongst them to Rev. Charles Wellbeloved, Rev. Wm. Turner and Rev. John Kenrick.

OPENING SERVICES AT HUDDErsfield.

In our last No., we were only able to report the services of the opening day. We are now furnished by a friend with some particulars respecting the religious services of the following Sunday.

On Dec. 24th, two deeply interesting and suggestive sermons were preached by the Rev. W. H. Channing. That in the morning from the text-"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us" (John xvii. 21). Referring to the following day as being that on which we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, whose prayer for unity among his followers was recorded in his text, the preacher vividly pictured the aspect at this moment presented by the confederacy of nations called Christendom. Nation warring against nation; the many trodden down by the few; the weak oppressed by the strong; the weak and oppressed rising up against their oppressors. And from this war of justice, which is the basis of peace, he augured well for humanity, in the establishment of a more enduring peace. As regards the churches of Christendom again, how far were they also from exhibiting that unity for which Christ prayed! Yet the preacher lost neither hope nor courage, but firmly believed that, unpromising as the state of Christendom now appeared, all would be overruled and issue in good; and, for our encouragement,

The striking sermon of Mr. Martineau on that occasion has just been given to the public, under the title of "Life according to the Pattern in the Heavens."

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