The Express.
London, England, 1864-10-05 00:00:00

HAYSTARICIST.

This Itrwwnio. aAccniiißD AidaNT.—MADEMOISELLE
DE BELLILLSLC. Mows Howe mad Farm : Mesdames Beatrice
sad AngeL— And THE CASTLE OF ANDALUSIA. Mews.
Wain, Isuckstone, Compton ; Was Hecky and Madams Weiss.

TRW Brims, BORN TO 000 D LUCK. lir. D. Rum).
And TEA STIRIFS OF LONDON. Worm Vining. J. W. Ray,
D. Maw, D. Murray, J. Nelson. IL Foamier, and 11. Mallon ;
Yrs H. MArstAa. Masai Barnett and Owynos.

LYCSITM.
4•TrIDAT, Oct. 2t, A NEW DEA WA, hi which Mr.
Fechter will sustain the pelacipet diameter.

BRITAir!IrtA.

Tin/! ItYnnisa. THE MOTHER'S DYING CHILD. Mn. &
Lane —Dan-ing by Mello. C. Stephan and Sirs. W. Ceauford.—
Singing by Mears. 0. lister. Loafs Lindsay. and Dp aff ;
Madame Placa—And THE RETURN OF THE WAN

HIGH WATZE AT LONDON.RHIDOH.

Tani DAY 4b. Um.
Taso&sow Yoruba& 4k. bOat....AttAusam, IL Oa

LONDON, IVEDNESDAT, OCTOBER 5.

BELOTEK, which hu been called "the cock-
" pit of Europe," from the propensity of its
powerful neighbours to fight out their political
wars there, instead of settling them in their own
fields, has been acquiring for the last thirty years
an additional title to that distinction. It is in
constitutional Belgium that some of the most im-
portant questions that arise out of the distinctive .
character of our age are being debated. It is
there that we see most clearly the effects of the
great strife between lay society and the Roman
Catholic Church. We recently called attention to
this contest as it directly affects the working of
the political institutions of Belgium, and the se-
rious modification which political warfare undergoes
when parties are formed in the State on • simply
ecclesiastical basis. But it is only at intervals
that the contest can be directed to ascendancy in
Parliament, attainable through the elections, while
in the sphere of legislation and administration
it is perennial and unceasing. As Lord Attest-
DELL of War.eore has lately explained, the Roman
Catholic Church does not desire to encroach upon
the proper domain of the State. It claims, how-
ever, the family as its own, and prescribes the
most rigid laws concerning marriage and educa-
tion. Especially it insists on taking possession of
the school, and in countries where the people have
neither sufficient enlightenment and strength of
individual character nor aptitude for voluntary
association to provide for the instruction of youth,
the choice seems to lie solely between education
by the State and education by the clergy. The
priesthood in Belgium strain every nerve to gain
control over the instruction of the young, and
their opponents are unremitting in their exertions
to show that the young could not have more
dangerous instructors. And certainly the oc-
currences continually revealed in the public press
and established by evidence in the public courts
powerfully assist the latter in their warfare. An
impulse has been given to the controversy by
a trial which took place last month at
Clunk In Belgium, as in most Roman
Catholic countries, the work of education is carried
on with the aid of the religious fraternities. A
MAD known by the name of Brother BERNARD,
53 years of age, belonging to the congregation
of Brothers of Charity, and who had been a
teacher in the orphan asylum called " Kidders,"
was charged before the tribunal at Ghent
with abusing the influence which his sacred
character gave him over his pupils. It was
shown that he had been for years a cor-
rupter of youth. It would be impossible, even
were it desirable, for us to attempt to convey a
notion of the hideous details of the trial, which
ended in the conviction and condemnation of the
prisoner. The accusation was established against
him in the most conclusive manner by • number
of young orphans, who were reported to have given
their evidence " with the cynicism of unconscious
" vice, and with that naive grossness of which
" only minds completely depraved are capable.
" It was apparent that they were strangers not
" only to modesty but to shame." And
yet these poor children had been brought
up within the walls of a so-called religions
house ; and it was there that they had learned
• slang which for foulness would disgrace the most
abmidoned of mankind. It would be unfair to
allege the case of Brother BERNARD against the
general morality of religious fraternities professing
celibacy if it were a rare instance of depravity in
their members. Last, unhappily, a day scarcely
passes without an appeal to secular justice.
The Indept,dunre of Brussels, which has devoted
some articles to this subject, states that two years
ago it publisher! • list of one hundred "religions "
who had been condemned by the tribunals in the two
years preceding, and it offers to bring the roll down
to the present date, declaring that if it did so the
continuation would include as many names as the
original series. It also appeals to an official docu-
ment lately issued by the Minister of Justice in
France, in which it is stated that the proportion
of vice and infamous offences is eight times greater
among ecclesiastical than among lay teachers.
These facts are of some importance just now,
when amidst the weakness and distraction of the
religious world some minds are turning half in
despair to the monastic system as • means of re-
storing the vigour of the Church. There is no danger
that the singular person who, under a fancy name,
is now haranguing multitudes in Lancashire, will
convert many persons by his paradoxes from Eng-
lish notions of comfort to a life of useless austerity.
But if only a few weak minds are unsettled and
led to choose a life of unmeaning and barren routine
under the pretence of religion, we may soon have s
crop of grievous scandals, of which a shocking
letter, signed "Brother AUGESTINL," and re-
cently published at Norwich, is a foretaste.
That letter has been publicly referred to
by the person who, styling himself the "Superior "
of the writer, must be held to a certain
extent responsible for its character, as a " foolish."