The Express.
London, England, 1863-08-25 00:00:00

it he erpreoo.

TO 0011t113PONDENTIL
Advertisements intended for The Some Itemlos Waning
Payer, must Met the °Sea 10. Beaveriewireet, by Two
o'clock out the day nt webbeattee.

namisra.
TOTS Vll3llllO. OTBKLL". Mc Waller Montgomery.—After
%bleb LIND MI YIVI SHILLINGS.

RILITANNLL
TM ITEM', THE ANOEL OP PEACE. Mudrated by THE
Okla 0908 T EFFECT; Protalsor Pepper's adaptation of Mr.
Directs Tneentioa.—Yr. Parker and Mr. atoman.—Aud TOE
DETECTIVE; of. TICKET Olf LEAVE.

MOB WATRA AT IMSDOA WDGL
MIDI DAT AITITATIRD. 20b 7e.. . Allmesse 10N. 501.
20-1101111011 lla. Ala... .A/brefee. OIL Om

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 23.

Waits the Congress of Sovereigns and the Con-
gress of Deputies in the busy and stirring city of
Frankfort are debating the conditions of German
unity in liberty, a Congress of Roman Catholic
priests and laymen has been gathered together from
all parts of Europe in the muatyold town of Malines,
for the purpose, it should seem, of debating the
possible conditions of political liberty in ecclesias-
tical unity. Belgium, marked out by its happy poli-
tical neutrality and its ease of accesato be the classic
home of free international assemblies—the coun-
cil chamber when it is not the cockpit of Europe
—was naturally selected for the meeting of a Con-
gress whose object was to reconcile the Church
with liberty. For in Belgium, where, according
to the charter of the kingdom, public liberty of
conscience is smeared to all, the Roman Church is
wealthy and powerful, and predominant in num-
bers, if not in the government or legislature of the
State. In Belgium, as in all countries where thought
is free, the intellect of the young generation
is setting strong in an opposite direction to that
of faith in ecclesiastical systems ; the men, it
is true, are baptized into the Church before
they can speak, married by the Church to
satisfy the scruples of their wives, and buried
by the Church because they have no choice;
and that is the sum and substance of their rela-
tions with the Church ; it has no hold upon their
active lives. They regard it as a vast machine far
preventing the world from moving too fast.. They
leave it to its own devices, and go their own way,
believing nothing. Meanwhile the Church works
upon the feelings of weak women, besieges death-
beds, manipulates wills, and counts no artifice un-
worthy of the great end and aim of recovering
its lost domination. In Belgium the Roman
Church is the Church of the majority, but as that
majority is composed of the indifferent as well
as of the believing, and as the Roman Church
is wonderfully tolerant to all who remain
within its fold and auk no questions, it
has much of the moral authority without the
temptations to oppression of a State Church. Not
but that the instincts of oppression are there :
the Church would persecute if it could, but being
obliged to live in company with liberty, it feels
its way to power by stealthy steps. The
Church in Belgium, however, has its party in the
Chambers, whose principal object is to lay bends
upon the charities and the education of the country.
Needless to add that if this party were in power,
it would suppress all liberty but its own, and be
prepared to sell the country to any foreign power
in exchange for its own supremacy. We have only
to look to the Roman Church as it is at Rome and
in Spain to understand the sincerity of its respect
for liberty in countries which it cannot enslave.
At the Congress last week, indeed, liberty was the
theme of all the orators, lay or clerical. Oar ewn
Cardinal bore grateful and even enthusiastic wit-
ness to the generous indulgence of the English
Parliament, and professed his confidence in the
power of opinion and the justice of his counbi.
He drew a brilliant and imposing picture of the
increasing prosperity and strength of the catholic
hierarchy in England ; of their religious houses ;
their charitable institutions, their monastic eats-
bliahmenta ; and actually gave half the credit of
these achievements to the genius of English liberty.
Perhaps the Cardinal presumed somewhat on the
probability that his audience knew nothing of the
facts when be spoke of those excellent women the
Sisters of Charity as the only nurses the English
Government could obtain for service in time of
war. There are sisters of charity in all
churches and in all homes, but it was
not permitted to a Cardinal to do homage to the
name of Niornixo.a.r.. The lion of the Congress
was M. Di MONTALEMBEAT, who, happily nornird-
ful of some former passages in his own public life—
when, for instance, be declared to the National
Assembly that France hungered for silence ; when
he called for a Roman expedition at home, and
in no doubtful language demanded a Coup &dot--
unmindful of these put errors, M. DC Moxturat•
weer read to the Congress a magnificent apology
for liberty of conscience, insisting more especially
on the advantage to the Church of giving to others
the liberty she claimed for herself ; though we
observe that the eloquent orator forbore to advo-
este the principle of mutual toleration on its merits
as one of the preceptsof the Founderof Christianity.
M. Di MONTALIMBILAT beyond all doubt gives
this remarkable advice to his fellow-churchmen
will all the sincerity of his present convictions, and
with the experience of twelve years of the
silence he " hungered for." Whether M. DE
MONTALEMBUrr in full possession of the tribune,
and face to face with a republican assembly, would
be the ardent liberal of today or the turbulent
reactionist of '4B-52 is a question he will probably
never be called upon to solve. So we gladly take
him without reference to the past and without ap-
prehension of the future, as the most revolutionary
of ultramontane Catholics, the most contradictory
of all the champions of liberty, and the most in
consistent of all the champions of the Temporal
Power. We should be glad to find that prolonged
silence had chastened M. ox MONTALEIIBEWE'S
rhetoric. It argues a singular ignorance of
the mere manners of liberty to defame the dead
and insult the living antagonist. To speak of
CAVOUR as that " great culprit," and to load
M. RENAN with opprobrious epithets, is • sorry
exhibition of impotent spite. The great Italian
statesman could have taught the Catholic orator a
politer logic, and the French philosopher a more
Christian courtesy. M. Di MONTALEMBERT is
doubtless irritated by the incomparable joke of
being angry with Cavora for establishing in
Italy the free Church in • free State which he
extols in Belgium and demands in France. M. DC
3foersterstar insists on something more than the