8 JANUARY 1842, Page 2

A crowded meeting was held at the lecture-room of the

Lambeth Social Institution, yesterday, to consider the necessity of supporting Mr. Southwell in an action brought against him by the clergy of Bristol, for a blasphemous libel on account of free opinions in a new work by him, in which be comments on "the Jew Book," the Bible. Mr. Hine was called to the chair. Among the speakers were Mr. Hetherington, Mr. Savage, Mr. Carpenter, and Mr. Southwell himself. Some expressed dissent from the writer's opinions, but supported him on the ground that all opinion should be freely expressed. Resolutions were passed declaring that the social and political freedom of the people could never be consolidated until prosecutions for the free publication of opinion on theological and political subjects were abolished, and pronouncing the particular prosecution to be impolitic and unjust.