The Express.
London, England, 1864-03-26 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY

HIMPILITS, Norton fit Philip, brewer—let divklend of
34d., say Wednesday, et SUller's, Bristol.
Joan alum. Mewl. ocersodor-116 dividend of la. Bd., any
Wednesday. at Makes, Bridal.
wn,mAje Wm, B7omwr, draper—lat dividend of 6e, 64., any
Wednesday, at muses. Beata
osmium waaellailt, currier—lit dividend of la 6d., any Wed-
needa,y, at I, Bristol
W. T.
squenParnison—letr dividen' dar of la Id., March 31, and any
anbe Werne, at Mes,
_LrepooL
JAMS TeTLOt R-Ist dividend of 2d., starch 31, and any sates-
euent Wednesday, at Morgan's, laverpool.

PATENTAL AWAHDYD.
ALLEN'S PORT 17S and
TRAVELLING BAGS wild
LADIES WAZDZOBE TZUNILB,=OB, wild
diva
DOZE, WiITINO end DIMMING CABIB, sad
We older articles for dome et continental travelling. Illustrated
eitelogs peat tree.
Ala A welien's Barrack Furniture Casinos of Portable Bed
steads, Drawers, Bea Chan, Waakbantlatands, Canteens, de.,
Ad tree._

HOW COLD IT HAS BEEN.-NRORKTTI
and UMBRA'S adtbratad TIIIIIMUMMIS will ow-
redly nwlslw lomat temporally% Priall la IL —l, nation-
=; 153, Flosiwinal 111.
t 2s

BENSON, late HUDSON and CO.,
CIGAR IMPORTERS, 112. OEFORD-STREEL
W. BENSON respectfully Informs the aohlltty and gentry that
the above oldeatabUshed business has been REMOVED to

" WA," where, In future all orders are mooted to be addreeset

Ike e3prtoo.

TO cpVLISPONDINTS.

hdeielleuseate rive ke " Loges began
oast be at Me ailed le. Beaverbeetreet, by Two
e'k ea Use day et yebbeelkia.

Os lamas MONDAY, WICAMI.BRAN oorsrs. Memo.
Sothero sod &tattoos : Mom Amok Hard; sad Booerdoo.
BN US AND ADONIS. Mr. Compeer. : Mimeo Keeler. Snow-
dm N. Moore, HiU, Wright.—And MY HUSBAND'S DROOL

Lyczox_

On Le= UMW. A DAY TJTIUL THE FAIL Illn
Widdlcomb awl Hie E. Livonia —And BILL DI'IONIO.
Mom Yachter, Broulsoli, *wry, F. Morton. Charles, and
Jordan ; Wawa Terry. Lwow. msd PlinverUsg, and her. Las.

enru~xu.

THCS Immo, EVIL HANDS AND HONEST HEARTS.
Mn. Lane.—A °RAND CONCEIT. Yews. Fords, Steele,
Sestliton, Fto Whautkint IL. Coe. d—Dancing by
Matte. Stephan—And THE SLUM CAVAIN.

Mel WATIR AT IMMO, MUM/
TIM DST Karulag, ..Alterseas, O. 1m
roaiossow Morning, lb. lea.. .Aftraose. lb. 33a.

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 26.

Tea POPE'S Brief to the Archbishop of Musicx,
relating to the Congress of learned Catholics
held last September in that city, has a wider
and deeper significance than is likely to
be at once recognised, especirlly in Protestant
countries. Unlike so many of the pastorals
and allocutions that issue from the Vatican,
it is not occupied with merely the stereotyped
denunciations of heretics and admonitions to
the faithful. It is directed, on the con-
trary, against a movement within the bosom
of the Church itself—a movement that,
while comparatively recent In its origin, is
of the profoundest and most contagions kind,
which is spreading with silent force through-
out the vast organization of the Romiah Church,
and has already manifested itself in some
shape or other in every cultured and advanced
Catholic community of the civilized world. This
movement represents in effect the old conflict
between reason and faith, science and authority,
manifesting itself, however, in a form that is
essentially modern, and under conditions that are
in many respects altogether new. So far
as the conflict itself is concerned, the
Romiah Church is perfectly familiar with
it, having obstinately maintained against
the heretic for the last three hundred years the
supreme and exclusive claims of Catholic authority.
This has in fact been the great battle-ground
between Romanist. and Protestants ever since the
Reformation, and in the eyes of Catholic Christen-
dom at all events, the Romig]) Church, in virtue
of her mere antiquity, has achieved an easy
victory. But the infallible head of the Church is
now called upon to renew the conflict under far
more difficult, perplexing, and painful conditions,
having to defend the supreme prerogatives of
authority, not against the common enemk
but against the most loyal and devoted,
the most learned and accomplished of his own
children. This ie the peculiarity of the new
movement, which, stirring -with unwonted life the
half paralysed members of the Romish Church, has
at length leached tne torpid centre of infallibility,
and roused once more the antiquated thunders of
the Vatican. The principle of authority is indi
rectly, almost unconsciously indeed, but at the
same time resolutely, assailed irom within ; and
the purblind PON-TIFF and his advisers are evidently
aghast at the discovery that, after all, the worst
enemies of the Church may be those of her own
spiritual household.

It must be confessed that, however exaggerated
they may be, there is, nevertheless, some ground
for the apprehensions which the Papal Brief suffici-
ently shows are now acutely felt at Rome. Catholic
Europe has recently shown many ominous signs,
not only of restless and inquiring energy, but of a
strong reviving tendency towards local action and
individual life. The great Catholic congress at
Malines, for example, received with enthusiasm one

of the most eloquent addresses in favour of spiritual
freedom and political toleration in questions
'of religion that was perhaps ever delivered. It is
true that the higher dignitaries of the Church
did not formally respond to MONTLLEMBEST%
fervid appeal for an enlarged Catholic freedom in
harmony with modern requirements ; and many,
no doubt, strongly disapproved of his stirring
language; but his speech was cheered to the echo by
the great masa of the Assembly, including all its
younger and more promising members. The Con-
gress at Munich, which discussed the rights of autho-
rity in matters of science and opinion, followed im-
mediately after that of Melina' ; and if its composi-
tion was in some respects less imposing, its pro-
ceedings and results were of far higher importance.
The mere fact of having such a scholar and theolo-
gian as Dr. DOLLINCEE not only for its president
but as its foremost speaker, necessarily gave to the
proceedings of the Congress the dignity and weight
belonging to pre-eminent learning, judgment, and
ability ; and before it separated the Congress by a
formal resolution vindicated the claims of reason
and science within the limits of Catholic authority.
The main point to be noted in relation to these
conferences is, that the foremost advocates of
freedom are not only loyal and eminent members of
the Church, but championsof itasupremeauthority,
desiring, above all things else, to extend its power
and influence in the world. This is notoriously
true of such men as Dr. DOLLTNGER and MONTA-
LEMBEEL They aro not, like Professor Fnoscussf-
fizz, of Munich, while still professedly Catholics,
under the ban of the Vatican, and in open hostility
against the head of the Church. On the contrary,
they are devoted Catholics, zealously defending
the supreme authority of the Church both in prin-
ciple and practice. If we look from Europe
across the Atlantic the same phenomenon appears

in the Catholic Church of America. Dr. BROWN-
80N is, beyond all doubt, the ablest writer the
Romish Church possesses in the New World,
and his Review has long been, not only
highly popular with American Catholics, but the
first and moat authoritative Catholic organ. No
one has ever doubted the sincerity of his attach-
ment to the Church of hie adoption, and he bas
amply vindicated it by twenty years of devoted
service. Yet recently he too has become the
strenuous advocate of enlarged freedom within the
bosom of the Church, and on this ground is rather
severely rebuked, if not indirectly charged with
positive heterodoxy, by the Dublin, Review, the
great organ of Catholic orthodoxy in this country.
It appears that Dr. Bnow NSON, in his zeal to har-
monise the rights of reason and science with the
supreme claims of authority, has not only spoken
favourably of such black sheep as Gionzirri and
Faoseasiorza, but has actually adopted a scheme
of reconciliation that is essentially Protestant and
heretical in its character. This scheme is based on
the well-known distinction between the visible and
invisible Church of CHRIST, which, according to
our contemporary, orthodox Catholics repudiate
and denounce as a fatal error. Dr. BROWSON,
however, adopts it for the purpose of harmonising
the 'Lowish dogma of infallibility with the rights
of reason and the progress of science. " The ideal
" Church," he says, "is infallible, but the indivi-
" dual members who compose the exterior body
" of the Church have no privilege of infallibility."
Again, he says still more emphatically—
"We are perpetually boasting, and our
" Church journals are continually glorifying the
" Catholic body as if it had the infallibility and
" sanctity predicable only of the ideal or internal
" Church." These are some of the many striking
illustrations that might be adduced of the mighty
movement that is already beginning to agitate the
most powerful organ of immobility ever created
and perpetuated by the genius of man. On all
sides there are symptoms of a gradual upheaviog
even in the consecrated inclosure of the infallible
Church. Everywhere enlightened reason and con-
science are struggling with unobtrusive, but almost
irresistible strength, against the coercive and re-
pressive action of blind authority ; and amidst
the general intellectual and spiritual awakening
it seems as though some resurrection, some re-
newed form of life were possible even to the torpid
frame of the Romish Church. The reason and
conscience of Catholic criticism, bound in the cere-
ments of the last great Council, have virtually
lain in the grave for the last three centuries. But
already the truest friends of the Church are
hovering round the tomb, and calling anxiously
for help ; and as the result of their efforts there
may, perhaps, even yet be heard at no very dis-
tant day theauthoritative command, " Loose them
" and let them go."

THE jury which has been inquiring into the
causes of the dreadful calamity at Sheffield has
come to the conclusion that the embankment of the
Bradfield Reservoir broke down because it was
badly made. In the opinion of the jury, " there
" had not been that engineering skill and that
" attention to the construction of the works which
" their magnitude and importance demanded."
This verdict is terrible even in its vagueness. No-
body in particular is condemned—neither the
Directors of the Company which owned the reser-
voir, nor the consulting engineer who plarned
the work, nor the acting engineer who superin-
tended its construction. Nor is the precise
cause of the failure assigned. Whether it was
because the basement of the immense wall which
stretched across the valley and, connecting the
hills on each aide, formed the reservoir was not
properly puddled, as it seems not to have been—
or that the embankment was loosely constructed,
, instead of being well constructed by the beating
down of the successive layers of earth—or whether,
again, that the water pipes were carried directly
through the embankment, instead of circuitously
through the natural rock—the jury do not attempt
to decide. On all these points they heard evi-
dence, and they were satisfied that neither the
engineering skill ror the practical attention given
to this work was such as its importance demanded.
If this was all that they could see clearly through
the uncertainty of the scientific evidence, they
did right to pause where they have done. It
seems a sensible moderate verdict. The jury were
in a position to form a sound and fair opinion
on the points they mention, although they
appear to have been unable, and perhaps
were not anxious, to assign culpable negli-
gence as the cause of the disaster. But it is a
serious thing to say of any great public work in
England which has caused the deathsof between two
and three hundred people, that it was badly con•
strutted. This is the country of great engineers.
From this island they go out to execute vast works,
now in Russia and now in India, which will be the
admiration of ages. And this Bradfield Reservoir
was not an experiment. It belongs to a class of
works which have been successfully executed in
countries pretending to no conspicuous engineering
skill, countries which we scarcely acknowledge
as civilized. It is certainly possible to construct
earth walls even of the height of 155 feet, ►nd
reservoir,
capable of holding millions of tons of
water, which shall be perfectly safe. And in such
works nothing should be left to chance. Perfect