The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

able on moral ground%. is natural to his posi tion, and to the traditions of his race and country. He has inherited it with his crown, as English Ministers, until ABERDEEN, in herited the duty of stubbornly opposing it. If he now makes a daring effort to snatch the long-coveted prize of Russian statesmanship, shall we blame him, or the Ministers whose treachery has encouraged his during?—their treachery, even if we suppose them well meaning, as weakness is treachery when na tional interests and honour are at stake. If it should be asked what our Government is doing while the Continent is heaving with momentous events, the answer must he shortly —nothing. No Cabinet Council has been held. Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT is hospitably entertain ing—as we learn by the fashionable intelli gence—several members of the Russian aria tocracy at his seat in Wilts; Lord PALMERSTON is at Balmoral ; Lord JOHN Roseau. enjoying vigorous health in Scotland ; Sir JAMES GRA umvi on RD Admiralty cruise to the Cove of Cork; and other members of the Cabinet are left to pleasantly pursue their favourite crotchets, that Lord ABERDEEN may be nuin tt•rrnpted in his friendly conferences with the Russian Ambassador. PROOREss 01" THE CHOLERA. THE authorities still continue to oppose the cholem in a Chinese style. There are words iu plenty " notifications" of the Board of leulth which are binding on no one . and pro clamations riven under our hauls "by the Chadwicks ton! Southwood Smiths, which, though they may be obligatory enough, have the nceowpanying drawback of being unintel livible. There seems to IRI un 41114:11, to get up, under the influence of a panic, an univer sal consentaneoum action. which is to supAy the place of a well-devised organisation. Ex cept in sudden and spontaneous revolutions, such general combinations have never been known to 'unwed, and they have generally collapsed when the immediate excitement was • over. While the preliminaries are being settled on paper, an - I while Loan SuArresnenv is 411 his %%ley hack from the Continent to preside at the Board of Health," the enemy is at the odes, — nay, within the citadel. The deaths at. New matte on the 20th instant amounted to tin' enormous number of 11$, of which 108 were from cholera. The report of the 21st from the same place is certainly a little more en couraging. inasmuch as the total of deaths is 84, of which $0 were from cholera ; but. on the other hand. the gross mortality. since the eom mencement of the disease, has been such as to lend to the inference that, should it generally spread. it will assume a form more virulent and fatal than during its former visits. In Newcastle alone there have been in fifteen days 930 deaths. while in ls3l 2 there were only 156 From Gateshead the necounts are scarcely less terrible. The total deaths during the Erst fifteen days in 1531.2 was 125 ; during the same' period in 1553 they have amounted to 227. hi various other parts of the country the disease has made its appearance, but it has not yet commenced its nirages. If we reflect that at the very worst period of thg cholera in 18:11.2 the gross total of deaths for five weeks was 20,000, or no average of 4,000 per week—and this on the %%hole Fopulation—the 108 deaths in one day, in one town only, present a formild able s‘mptom. And yet nothing is done for the effectual removal of the nuisances which, if they do not produce, at least tOster and spread the cholera. What we now want is not words but deeds. But the machinery is so complicated, and so difficult to set in motion, that the evil may go on multiplying itself, and the danger be actually invoked by the delay. Surely there must be some radical vice in our administrative system that can thus, at a period of pestilence. practically leave the care of the public safety to the stimulated and spasmodic etfurts of !id :.111.11 individual exertion. ' ROFESSION IN THE •'.f ; 4% 'ED STATES. Montt.% • requently referred to as an examplq, .t . 4e .tianity can support itself without ~; Establishment, and that Aeligious.trutllll; ure to overcome religious error, $f 03,04, be ft to its natural action. THE PRESS. Undoubtedly, if it were the will of Heaven to act independently of human agency—to leave nothing to human effort—but to over ride all the instincts, passions, and affections of men, we should vainly perplex ourselves with any cares beyond those of providing for our physical necessities. But this is not the part of the being framed with large capacity of reason—" looking before and after." It is a narrow view of his position to suppose that he is the slave of an irresistible fatalism. Acknow ledging that Divine government is plainly perceptible in the history of the world, we yet see that the general course of affairs has always been directed by human means, and that to man it is given to fashion and evolve the destinies of his race. Had LUTHER left the Bible to battle for itself, and work its own way, what would have become of the Reforma tion ? Establishments are designed to embody and perpetuate great principles, and so to preserve then► from the carelessness of neglect, or accidents of caprice. We hear no clamour against established charities against the liluecoat School or Guy's Hospital—yet it «•cold be as rational to argue that the training of youth or the cure of diseases should be as independent of Institutions as the spiritual instruction of a people. We are inclined to suspect that understand ing is defective, or sectarianism rampant, in those persons who cry out against our Church emtabhshment as pretending to do the work which should be left to God alone. Surely, to be consistent, they should cease to labour for its destruction. Why trouble themselves to pull down a structure which, by their own showing, must fall when the appointed time arrives ? Do they claim a monopoly of Pro vidential agency? Do they imagine that man may be commissioned, or permitted, to destroy but not to build The Wesleyaus are supposed to be not adverse to our Establishment. Respect for their founder will probably long prevent them from making any direct attack upon what was to the last kis church. But there is a fear that the dire necessity of sectarianism may catch them in its maelstrom. In the first number of their new Quarterly (noticed in our literary columns) there is au indication of ill fooling towards the Church which cannot be misunderstood ; though, so far as we have ob served, it stands alone in the review. "In " America," it is said, " the Romish organisa " tion and doctrine cannot make good their " footing, for the simple reason that in America " the State absolutely refuses to lend itself to " the object of enforcing the temporal autho " rity of auy church whatever." This is followed by a panegyric on American practice, and an endorsement of FRANKLIN PIERCE'S eulogy of his countrymen as " a nation of sovereigns." We question the accuracy of the statement that the Church of Rome is making no pro !_tress in America. In the vast valley of the Mississippi Romish missions are so firmly establishing themselves that a great Romish ,tate will probably one day rise up in the heart of the Nerth American continent. The fitet of this progress of Rome is stated by Mr. MACKAY, as well as by other recent travellers, and, if we recollect rightly, he expressly attributes it to the absence of any provision for supplying the spiritual wants of the people. That Rome has not yet been able to effect any great social disturbance in the States, or to obtain absolute ascendancy in any one of them, is no evidence that she is not working there to the full as successfully as in any Fart of Protestant Europe. Were it true that the religious equality which prevails in America stood in the way of Romish organisation, the reviewer, in view of the dangers attending the system, should have hesitated before according to it his unqualified approbation. For reference to those dangers we will not send him far. In the previous ar ticle to his own, scarcely twenty pages distant, he will find that Dr. Ensox, a laborious Ame rican minister, has the painful conviction forced on his mind that the people of the States are fast abandoning the essential cha racteristics of Christianity. " My experience (sues br. EnsoNl of nearly thirty years us a pastor has. I am sorry to - say, forced upon ute the painful cunvit;tiou SATURDAY, " that our public school system has under " mined already among our population to a " great extent the doctrines and principles of " Christianity. That this evil is already nearly " universally felt and acknowledged in this coup " try there is no longer room to doubt. From " throwing off authority in regard to religious " matters, and holding doctrines loosely, the " step is easy to abandoning them altogether, " and accordingly it consists with my observe " tion here during several years past, that the " great majority of those now growing up " cannot be said to hold more than mere natu " tural religion."—Lond. Quart. Review. As the result of this contempt of authority in matters of religion, the land gives birth to monstrous shapes of imposture, fanaticism, and impiety. What must be the religious state of that society which could furnish F. colony of Mormons to found a city in the wilderness of the far west? From the rank soil of religious in differentism new forms of delusion continually spring up. Spirit-rapping is one of its latest products. It is a startling fact that in the United States there are thirty thousand pro fessed media (as, in the jargon of the sect, they are termed), pretending to communicate with the invisible world ; and attempts are made to accommodate passages of the Bible to this deplorable foolery. That genuine Christianity has numerous congregations in every state of the Union we can well believe, but we doubt how far it leavens the whole mass of society. As the State professes no creed—as no religious in struction is given in the schools—it is not surprising that the people should consider religion to be a matter with which they have little concern, or that those persons in whom a sentiment of veneration (never educated to its proper use) predominates, should be ready to receive JOE MORMON as a prophet, and spirit-rapping as a new revelation. Certainly such a country cannot offer effectual resistance to the designs of Rome, though the time may not be ripe for their full development. Nor is it to America that we can look for ar guments favourable to what is called "the voluntary system." Since the above was written we observe that au infidel convention has assembled at New York. The following is from the New York correspondence in yesterday's Times:— NEw Yonx, Sept. 7. Last Sunday evening a scene was witnessed in the Me tmpolitanhall of New York which would hare disgraced the lowest Om of barbarism. French Socialists, " strong minded women" dressed a la bloomer, renegade priests of various denominations. blaspheming atheists, deists, and infidels, and a coarse gang of disorganised agitators, met in a " World's Convention," with the avowed object of dissolving the Union, pouring contempt upon Christianity, and outraging all that civilised men hold sacred in the in stitution of marriage. The report of the meeting blame that the language I use is none too strong. A night or two before the same " set " had assembled in the same building for a festival. It turned out to be a vegetarian saturnalia, in which speech after speech was made that no English or American mother, worthy of the name, would have allowed a son, much less a daughter, to hear. It is to he hoped that no English journal will reprint their pro ceedings. They are not fit to appear from the press of any civilised nation. The writer of this letter supposes that the blasphemous fanatics who thus disturb society are not numerous. On this point we are in clined to differ from him, though it is perhaps true that many congregations of them have the sense to keep at present in the back ground. WHIGGISH AND WAR. Watts the Premier and the Home Secretary have been in Downing-street engaged in low ering the diplomatic pretensions of England, Lord Jonx RrssELL, at Greenock, has indulged in a little characteristic Maple, designed to repair the mischief. Among his political merits. the Noble Lord has the art to be a great tactician in little matters. No one knows better than he how to make a small quantity of specific statement produce a large result on the imagination or the enthusiasm of his hearers. While Sir ROBERT PEEL still lived, his parliamentary rival paled iu the light of his superior power : but now Lord JOHN Rea SELL stands alone, not only without a master, but even without a competitor. in a craft beevrniug, let us add, yearly of less iutrinsw