The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

764 they only have some guarantee for the " scholarship, intelligence, and candour " of their condescending instructor, might pos sibly concede as much attention to his re marks as to that of any other individual. Bat anonymous writing loses every particle of its weight when conducted on the ipse dixit prin ciple. And as HOMER sometimes sleeps, so let us trust that the vigilant censor of Printing house-square had begun to dose over his du ties when this silly piece of swaggering was permitted to appear in print. We, on our part, must beg to recall our readers' attention to the exact position of the argument at the present moment. The passage of St. Matthew upon which the ad vocates of this measure chiefly rely is as fol lows : Whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for forni• cation, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her which is put away committeth adultery. Now, it is clear that the words, " her which is put away," in the second clause of the sen tence, must refer either to the case mentioned in the first clause—that is, the woman put away for some cause except that of infidelity— or to divorced women in general. If we accept the first interpretation, which is that adopted by the advocates of the Bill, we get into this difficulty :—A married woman is permitted to gratify her passions legally, only on the proviso that she shall have done so illegally first—as if we should say to a thief, it is wrong to steel purses, but if you can prove that you have already stolen one, the contents are your lawful property. A much more probable meaning is surely this: that our Saviour was forbidding remarriage altogether. If a man married a woman divorced for any other reason than that of infidelity, he was commit ting adultery ; but a woman divorced for that reason he could not marry, for the law con demned her to death—therefore he could marry none. But there is good reason to suppose that the above ;nterpretation of the words " her which is put away " is incorrect, and that they were in tended to apply to divorced women in general. This, indeed, would follow simply from obedi ence to the good old rule of interpreting one am biguous passage by two that are perfectly clear. To many minds the two passages in St. Luke and St. Mark would be quite sufficient to settle the meaning of that in St. Matthew. But there is, if possitle, a still stronger argu• ment. The Greek article required to connect the woman spoken of in the second clause of St Matthew's sentence with the woman in the first—her, namely, that is put away except for the cause of fornication—is wanting. We should r•eluire, in this case, not merely the word anoX,X✓Nceo'r, but 1- , , airor. The passage, therefore, will stand thus :—Whoever divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, commits adultery ; and whoever marries any divorced woman commits adultery. One cause, and one cause alone, can justify divorce. None can justify the remarriage of the guilty parties. Ever since the question was first mooted we have directed our arguments solely to one end—that the clergy be not compelled to cele brate marriages which seem to them a direct violation of Scripture. That this opinion is not taken up upon frivolous grounds we trust the above statement may be sufficient to show. It may be right or wrong ; Mit where so much is to be said in its favour, we stoutly maintain that the minority are entitled to indulgence. It is an indulgence that would defraud no one of their rights, and in no degree impair the efficacy of the measure. It would, on the other hand, be to the Church herself rnor•e like bare justice than indulgence. The State claims to have a conscience of its own free from the interference of the Church. Why is not the Church to have a conscience of her own free froin the interference of the State ? We repeat, that if the obligations of support and protec tion between Church and State be not recipro cal, and if a remonstrance backed by clergy of all parties be contemptuously disregarded, the whole question of this relationship will have to be seriously reconsidered. THE PRESS, AuGusT 8, 1857. THE MILITIA. WE are heartily glad that the Government are, however slowly, beginning to foresee a necessity of calling out our national reserves. We are too happy to see these symptoms of conversion to care very much for the conduct that preceded them ; vet we must not omit to state that the remarks both of Lord HA RDWICKE and of Lord DERBY on Monday last have been entirely misrepresented in the daily press. What they did say was, not that Go vernment ought to have called out the Militia in the middle of the harvest, but that Govern. ment might very well have come to some de cision on the subject earlier than the month of August. This is merely a question of con venience and courtesy to the Lords Lieute• nant of counties, and even more, perhaps, to the officers of regiments. We do not mean to say that the country will suffer by the delay, or the reduction of our revolted provinces will be thereby protracted ; but we think if Government had not been so exceedingly anxious to underrate the magnitude of events in the East, they might with propriety have taken the subject of the Militia into considera tion at a somewhat earlier period. As it is, we are quite sure that the offi :ers of militia, more especially those who wish to make their service a reality, will feel grateful to Govern ment for shortening their period of suspense as greatly as possible. This would be but a fair acknowledgment of their services during the late war, and some slight set-off against the rigour of the rule which Government felt itself compelled to adopt, of refusing compen sation to all officers, on their disbandment, higher than the grade of lieutenant. The officers have, therefore, every claim on the forbearance and generosity of Government ; and we sincerely trust that, whatever addi tional force may be required in our present emergency, the embodiment of the Militia may be the first step taken towards supplying it. This is only a fair and just acknowledg ment of their claims upon Government. recog nition ; and public indignation is not likely to be small should it appear that there is any in tention of looking elsewhere for military re inforcements while our own countrymen re main neglected and unemployed. At such a crisis as the present the feeling would be peculiarly strong. As we daily read of the murder. dishonour, and torture of our country men and countrywomen, every Englishman will feel that to allow a foreigner to aid us, however indirectly, in our vengeance, while he remains idle, would be to rob him of a rightful privilege, and to degrade him in the eyes of Europe. The Militia, we assert, have claims upon the Government as militiamen ; they have doubly strong claims upon the country as Englishmen—as fathers or brothers, per haps, of some of the unfortunate victims of barbarian ferocity. So plain and so powerful is this claim alone, that we cannot but treat the rumour of a new Foreign Legion as an idle and baseless report. We have invariably pointed to the Militia as the true legitimate resource of a monarchy like England, which, while not professing to be a great military power, holds within its grasp an empire of such enormous extent. To hold our own under such circumstances, it is absolutely necessary, as was pointed out by the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, that, our small regular force should be hacked by an effective re serve. His Royal Highness is accordingly a warm advocate of the measure under contem plation. But, supposing Government to have made up its mind on this subject, and to have resolved on turning the present Bill to some account, another question will arise upon the particular regiments to be embodied. On this point, at least, we do hope that no favouritism will be permitted to interfere, and that those regiments who distinguished themselves in the late war, either by superior discipline or foreign service, shall now be rewarded by the privilege of the earliest embodiment. Foreign service constitutes an especially strong claim ; for by it there can be no doubt that the tie between officers and men is strengthened, and the whole regiment rendered more united and soldierly. This selection would again be but a simple act of justice. And we trust that the aspirations of many excellent officers now lan guishing in obscurity may not be doomed to disappointment, or condemned to a period of anxious and needless suspense. lortign 6orrEsponbentt. PARTE, August 5. I HAVE good reasons for saying that the visit of the Emperor to Osborne is of more importance than is generally imagined. Great political questions will be discussed, and it is hoped satisfactorily arranged. The first subject entered into will be the Danubian provinces. It appears positive that the Emperor will not yield in any way to what he considers to have been the intentions of the contracting powers at the Congress of Paris. His Majesty will insist that the voting shall not only be free and unbiassed, but conducted upon the principle of universal suffrage, and that all the electoral proceedings that have taken place up to this day shall be declared by the Porte to be null and void. Although His Majesty is determined in his resolution to sea that the inhabitants of Moldavia and Wallachia are immediately pia in possession of their just rights, he will not enforce those rights by any other than by "pacific means and moral iafluence." Be assured the Emperor will never endanger the peace of Europe; while at the same time he will insist that all treaties be executed to the very letter and inten tions of the signing powers. The visit of the Emperor to Osborne will avoi,l much diplomatic correspondence ; Lord Palmerston will be made ac quainted with the determination of the Emperor; and the Emperor will know to what extent England is prepared to go in supporting the Sultan in opposi tion to the existing Treaty. Another question that will be discussed will be the cementing by the strongest ties the friendship and amicable relations between England and France. And here I am enabled to say that thi, Emperor is most desirous that the entente cordiale should be car ried to the fullest extent. Whether Lord Palmerston is equally sincere is another question. It is true that all the Clarendon despatches are filled with the most friendly professions ; but what weight can the Emperor or the French nation attach to such pro fessions when they see the English press, and par ticularly the organs known to possess the confidence of the Prime Minister, not only daily insulting the Emperor, but by their writings doing all they can to create a disunion between the French people and their Sovereign ? What confidence can be placed in the professions of a Government when it is generally believed that most of these insulting articles ema nate from the pens of persons holding official and responsible positions? The Turkish Ambassador at the Court of the Tuileries, on learning the change of Ministry at Constantinople, immediately came to Paris from Vichy, and had several conferences with Count Walewski, previous to the departure of his excellency in attendance on the Emperor. The nomination of Dr. Kerne as the representa tive of Sw►tzerland in France has given great satis faction to the Emperor, who has a high opinion of the Swiss Envoy as a prudent and a conciliatory statesman. The trial of the conspirators commencing to morrow, I think that in justi3e to all parties I should offer no remarks ; but this much I may say, that the attempt on the life of the Emperor has created feelings in his favour from one end of France to the other. Do not place any faith in all the idle reports about the demand for the extradition of Ledru Rollin; the French Government holds no such in tentions. All that is asked is, that the English Go vernment should keep a watchful eye on certain turbulent refugees, and prevent them, as far as lies in its power, from conspiring against the peace of friendly States. There .as been much discussion in the English papers lately about the importation of negroes into the French West India Islands. Letters from Marseilles state that Messrs. Regis and Sons are about sending two vessels, the' Stella and Clara, to the coast of Africa, to convey to Mar tinique and Guadaloupe from 1,500 to 1,800 free African labourers. It would be difficult to say whether Messrs. Regis and Sons really mean to carry out what they profess to do ; but I must confess that many persons have legitimate suspicions. These gentlemen are accused at Marseilles, whether justly I know net, with having made an immense fortune in the slave trade, and it is not long since a person connected with that firm was accused, tried, and acquitted with dealing in slaves. On that occasion, if lam rightly informed, the books of Messrs Regis and Sons were examined and nothing found to criminate them. All this shows that the Stella and Clara ought to be well watched.