The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 20, 1858 endeavoured to vindicate, his determination not to interpose his authority to prevent, on the part ' of some of his clergy, an intrusion into the parish ofa brother clergyman, to which he does not feel himself justified in giving his direct sanction; a s pecies of neutrality hardly consistent with the Bishop's official position,. all the less so since he does not conceal that his sympathies are with the intruders. In the other, and much more important case of Mr. POOLE, the Bishop is accused of having exercised his power in an arbitrary manner, which certainly did not carry with it the feelings of many who would readily subscribe to the views set forth in the Charge with regard to the confessional ; and as that exercise of his power has been made the subject of an appeal, first to the Archbishop, and, on his Grace's alleged refusal of justice, to the Court of Queen's Bench, it would, perhaps, have been more dignified if leaving the personal question affecting the revocation of Mr. POOLF:8 licence untouched, the Bishop had contented himself with laying down in general terms the principles by which he was guided to that decision. For the clearness and frankness with which he enunciated those principles, Dr. TAIT has entitled himself to the gratitude of the whole community. In his few introductory remarks on the views of the character and authority of the ministerial office taken, respectively, by the two schools of theology within our Church, he carefully abstained from pronouncing authoritatively between them ; on the contrary, having with great fairness stated what is called the High Church view, he implied his personal dissent from it in the most modest and unobjectionable form by including himself among those for whom he claimed the " liberty " of resting content with the lower view. But when he came to the deductions drawn from the High Church view by some few men of extreme tendencies, in support of a regular system of formal and habitual auricular confession, the Bishop as sumed, as became him, a more decisive tone. The arguments by which he combated that system, protesting against the introduction of it into our Church, the advocates of auricular confession will find it difficult, or rather impossible, to answer. The references he made to the provisions by which the Roman Church guards the office of penitentiary were particularly felicitous, inas much as they clearly prove that the indiscrimi nate claim of some of our clergy to act as " father confessors," simply by virtue of their priests' orders, goes considerably beyond the system of the Church of Rome, which does not extend the office of confessor to all her priests, but makes it the subject of a distinct licence and appoint ment. Not less to the purpose were the Bishop's observations as to the inference to be drawn from the silence of the Church of England in regard to auricular confession—a silence the more signi ficant since it appears from the history of her formularies that it is the result, not of inadver tence or forgetfulness, but of omissions deabe rately made with the express design of discoun tenancing a practice which,—out of tenderness, doubtless, to weak consciences,—had been suffered for a short peri o d t o con ti nue in our Reformed Church, and o f insuring its disuse for all future time. Nor, on the other hand, was the Bishop less explicit and emphatic in asserting the sanc tion which, in exceptional cases, our Church undoubtedly gives both to private confession and to special and individual absolution. We trust that this eminently sound exposition of the doc trine of our Church on the point in question, and of the line of conduct indicated in her formu lanes for the guidance of her ministers, may have the effect, as on one hand of allaying the excite ment which h as b een crea t e d i n th e public mind with regard to auricular confession, so on the other hand of indu c in g the abandonment of practices in imitation of the Romish confessional, for which nothing contained in the Prayer-book of the Church of England affords even the shadow of a warrant. lye cannot, without largely transgressing our limits, foll ow Dr. TAIT into the vast variety of topics embraced, and for the most part ably and explicitly handled, in his Charge. There is one point, however, of great practical importance )Tbich we cannot pass over in silence. Dwelling kith much force upon the insufficiency of the spiritual provision made a t p resen t for the inha bitants of this vast metropolis, the Bishop laid dow n , and by the most convincing arguments mlPPorted, the position that, in attacking the practical heathendom into which an alarmingly large portion of the population has lapsed, the first measure must be a commensurate addition to the numbers of the clergy, and the employ ment of a part of them in a distinctly missionary character, by the side and in subordination to, the parochial system, and the ordinary means of grace for which that system provides. The " Diocesan Home Mission," set on foot for this purpose by Bishop TAIT, will, we doubt not, largely enlist the sympathies of the laity, when its proper objects, and the principles laid down by his Lordship as his own rule of action in car rying out those objects, come to be properly un derstood, as they cannot fail to be after the lucid statement of the Charge. And, in connection with this point, Dr. TAIT further deserves great credit for the boldness with which he has spoken out on the subject of the remuneration of the clergy, showing its utter inadequacy to the sup port of men of the education and social standing below which his Lordship justly remarked that it was not for the true interests of the Church and the people of England that her clergy should be suffered to sink. The statement made by the Bishop as the result of his inquiries into this matter—that, while not less than 2,000 souls, on an average, fall to the charge of every clergy man in the diocese, the average income provided for these hardworked and overburdened public servants, does not exceed 1401. per annum—will startle many persons who have, perhaps, never bestowed a thought on the question how their clergy arc supported. Not only did his Lord ship point out the injustice as well as impolicy of so anomalous a state of things, but he pledged himself to urge the claim of the clergy to a com petent provision upon the laity, with whom the remedy rests, on all fitting occasions. To hear a Bishop recognizing this part of his episcopal duty in express terms, and with special reference to the ample provision made for the Episcopate, as imposing upon their Lordships an increased weight of responsibility in this respect, must have been singularly gratifying to the clergy ; nor is it to be supposed that the appeal made by the Bishop on their behalf will fail of its effect upon the laity. In all this, and much more that we cannot now advert to, there is much promise for the Diocese of London and for the Church at large. May Dr. TAIT live to carry into effect the plans which he has formed, and so auspiciously announced, for the spiritual welfare of the population of the metropolis, and thus furnish his successor with materials for a tribute to his episcopal adminis tration as justly encomiastic as that which, in the opening of his Charge, he so gracefully paid to the memory of Bishop BLONIFIELD. 1123 triangle to reach one of the extremities of the third side. The shortest way between two points, however defective as a mathematical de finition of a right line, is a correct exponent of the rule of modern travel and modern enterprize. If we are to govern India as we ought, we must diminish the distance between us by the fullest application of the resources of modern science. We must have a means of warm and vital com munication between the heart and the extremi ties. Every one in India should be enabled to feel that for all the practical purposes of govern ment he is as well off as in the mother country. The British resident should feel that he can com municate at a days notice with his native land ; and the llindoo, or Mussulman, should be made aware that the first symptom of disaffection or mutiny will bring within a month an overw helm ing force of British troops to the rescue . This does not, however, imply that our reign in India will be a reign of terror, or that we shall hold that continent by the power of the sword alone. Quite the reverse. Increased facility of intercourse between this country and the East will do more than anything in the world to improve the administration of government, to promote civilization, and to breathe into all Indian institutions the improving influences of the Western world. The fear of our soldiers may prove a wholesome check to such atrocities as have lately rent our hearts, but we shall never use it for the purpose of maintaining tyranny or supporting maladministration. About a year ago there were two railway schemes before the public—one proposed by Mr. STF.PHENSON, and the other by Major-General CHESNEY. The former designed a passage over the Balkan, the Taurus, and other mountain ranges, involving many engineering difficulties, and making a length—reckoning from London to the entrance of the Red Sea, and thence to Kurrachee—of 6,077 English miles. On the other hand, Major-General CHESNEY'S scheme, via the Euphrates Valley to the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and thence to Kurrachee, gives only 4,973 miles, leaving a difference of over 1,100 miles in its favour. This disparity is found in the difference between the two sea voyages. The obvious advantage of the latter arrangement is, that it would allow us to convey mails and passengers to Kurrachee, which would then probably supersede the port of Bombay, in thirteen and a half days, or less than half the time at present occupied in the existing transit by the Red Sea and Aden ; while the introduc tion of an electric telegraph line along the same route would place us within eighteen or twenty hours speaking _distance. But the rapidity of intercourse by rail and electric telegraph, though naturally an object of absorbing interest at the present moment, affords a very limited idea of the political benefits which must result from opening a way by the Euphrates Valley. No country possesses associations of deeper historical interest, or teems with greater internal resources. Here we find the site of th e famous empires of CYR us the GREAT and CYRUS the YOUNGER; here, again, ALEXANDER laid the basis of intercourse between the East and West. The Romans, also, well knew the value of this territory as a roadway, for CRASSUS, TRAJAN, and JULIAN, all made attempts to conquer it. To come down to later times, the First NAroLEoN conceived, in 1809, the idea of transporting a force down the Euphrates with a view to the in vasion of India. It is evident that a district so eagerly sought after from the earliest ages must possess no oral LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE ON TURKISH PROGRESS. ADVANTAGE has been taken of Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE'S temporary detention at Smyrna to celebrate the commencement of the first rail way in Asiatic Turkey, and in a remarkable speech, in acknowledgment of his health, pro posed by Sir MACDONALD STEPHENSON, the Noble Viscount took occasion to allude to the probabilities of a direct line of railway communi cation between England and Calcutta. In the present circumstances of India this is a subject of peculiar importance, and one, too, which de mands more attention than it has hitherto received from the public. The importance of easy intercourse with our possessions in the East cannot be overstated, and no effort should be neglected to bring the fullest appliances of English enterprize to bear upon the completion of this gigantic undertaking. Recent occur rences have shown the paramount necessity of the means of rapid transit to the seat of our Indian Government. We shall never again leave India as we have done. We cannot afford to have that great source of wealth and power at so great a distance. The rapid progress of the age does not leave us time to go round two sides of a .1