The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-24 00:00:00

LYCICUIL

0c B~sroo MGR?, MY WIPES OUT. Mr. Widdloorob..—
RrY BLas. Messrs. Pechter, Ryder, Fitzpatrick, Cbarimerltz.
mood, Mclntyre, Moreland, Collett, Clifford Mae C.
—And BAREFACED IMPOffrORE. Mr. Middleman.

HIGH wAras AT LONDON-MI[IMM
MS DAY Morning, 10h. Mo.....Mternoon, 106. Wm.
ro-KOSSOW Morning, 11b..100.....Arternoria, 1111. 411.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24.

THE great Christian anniversary once more re-
turns to lighten with its gladness the shadows of a
declining year. As the day has drawn nearer and
nearer we have all of us confessed its mysterious
gentle influence, mildly rebuking care and passion,
reviving gracious memories, and disposing the
mind to gratitude and goodwill. A feast which
celebrates the birth of Hot who came " not to be
" ministered unto, but to minister," naturally
directs our minds to the pleasures of friendship and
the exercises of charity. Even so sacred a feeling
as domestic affection at this season loves to place
itself under the consecration of religion, and feels
elevated and purified by the sanction. How
many thousands will to-day beaten from east and
west, north and south, to take their places, if but
for a few hours, by the hearth which has been the
centre of family joys, and to which their thoughts
have turned in many an interval of bus;ness
during the year. Throughout Christendom—no
longer the restricted area which the word sig-
nified to our forefathers—and beyond Christen-
dom, in heathen lands, where our countrymen
struggle, with whatever arms, against barbarism,
to-morrow will be a day in which joy will triumph
over care and sorrow.

Looking beyond the social groups where the
genial influences of Christmas will be felt in their
highest measure, let us express a confident trust'
that as a community, composed of various ranks
and classes in different circumstances of worldly
fortune, the spirit of the Angelic message of peace
and goodwill is better understood among us from
year to year. Truly we have much still to learn.
Because we are far from comprehending with accu-
racy the part which fixed and inevitable laws
have in determining the conditions under wh'ch
we live, and strive, and enjoy, and want, we too
frequently accuse one another wrongfully. If
there were more light thrown on our social and
economic rel►tions there would be lees suspicion
and mistrust; and even that knowledge upon which
an eminent but too arbitrary author has mis-
bestowed the name of " the dismal science " might
make many happier by clearing their minds of
jealousy and ill-founded discontent. We have
divisions, too, where we might expect most unity.
The Christian Church is distracted and rent by
doctrinal contradictions, and still more by opposi-
tions of organized interests. Too many abandon
themselves either t 3 a harsh bigotry or • spurious
toleration ; and many of us have yet to learn how
to reconcile a firm and intelligent devotion to con-
victions with a consistent and cheerfully-paid
respect for the interests of others. But notwith-
standing these and other drawbacks which reflec-
tion too plainly reveals, we may console ourselves
with the thought that we are making real and solid
progress as a whole people. How to build up a
real national unity has been the problem of states-
men in all ages and countries where the good of
the governed has been recognised as the true end
of government. Some have attempted to attain
this end through war, hoping to fuse discordant
elements in the passion of hostility, which has
often had an unofferiding neighbour for its ob,ect.
Others have endeavoured to accomplish the same
task by means of institutions—especially those
of religion. But neither class of attempts
hail been successful. The privileged confession
or ecclesiastical system has made dissenters, and
when the unjust war has come to an end
the people whom only • temporary com-
mon danger banded together have again been
found as disconnected as ever. Neither by the
spirit of antagonism nor by the extension of
authority into regions sacred to freedom can nations
be made one. If, se we believe, we are advancing
to that goal, it is by more natural agencies which
it has not been given to statecraft to invent or
discover. We are becoming united simply
by better understanding one another. The
great and distinguishing sign of our times
is the greater readiness of every class to per-
ceive and acknowledge the virtues and excellences
of the others. This is not a fact requiring elabo-
rate demonstration, it is one of which we every year
have multiplied proofs. We see it in the intelli-

gent sympathy with which, just three years ago,
the great body of the people estimated the loss of
one whose merits were displayed in •
sphere the most remote from their own,
claiming as it were a title in him, and demanding
that the fleeting distinctions of political conve-
nience should not separate them from a man bound
to them by the community of an essential nature ;
we see it in the admiration which was excited by
the patience of the Lancashire operatives under
distress, and again in the grateful acknowledgment
by the sufferers of the beneficence which their
sufferings called forth ; and we see it in the ease
with which our best public men, whether conspicu-
ous by hereditary rank or acquired personal dis-
tinction, find it possible to meet assemblies of the
working claws, and find there a common ground
for the interchange of opinion and occasions for the
mutual expression of goodwill. We are mani-
festly drawing closer together. The rich man casts
away the notion that the working man is a fero-
cious creature, to be restrained only by gross
superstitions and stringent laws, and the labourer
ceases to regard nobility and proprietorship as
inevitably connected with an idle and unprofitable
life. Circumstances favour this more generous

way of thinking. Heaven, which twenty years
ago raised up wise counsellors in our Senate,
has blessed the legislation it inspired. Not only one
or two branches of trade are good, but there has
been • generally-diffused prosperity. Profits have
I been large, capital increases, and, what is still more
important, there is a better chance for every-
body in this country than there ever was before.
If these considerations are calculated to dispose
us to general good will, it will be felt that they
also heighten the inducements to those special acts
of benevolence which so well becomethe season. We
feel under no necessity here of urging incentives to
such good works. The motives stir within and
the occasions lie around us. Within the last few
days our columns have contained appeals on behalf
of various agencies of philanthropy, any one of
which offers a means of doing great good to our
fellow-creatures, • result which we need not say
does not always follow the indiscriminate and
thoughtless gratification of charitable impulses.
As we have been in the habit of connecting
our congratulations at this season with the
mention of some particular work of mercy,
we will on this occasion specify an undertaking
which is in its infancy, the institution which Mrs.
FREDERICK H. BELBERT is founding to provide •
" Temporary Home" for the fallen and destitute
women discharged from the Queen Charlotte's
Lying-in-Hospital, an account of which will be
found in • neighbouring column. Our :readers
know the concern we have always manifested, lest
any scheme for the relief of distress of this order
should tend, contrary to the intentions of its pro-
moters, to favour laxity of conduct, by mitigating
the natural penalties which follow departures
from the path of virtue. We are happy to
know that the managers of the Temporary
Home are equally solicitous in this respect, and
that the relief of distress, which it would be inhu-
man deliberately to consign to despair, will be sur-
rounded with the completest safeguards against
this danger. The young institution, we under-
stand, is about publicly to receive high sanction,
and in the meanwhile the name of Mrs. HILBERT
is a pledge that its affairs will be administered with
sound judgment and discretion. We believe, in
naming it, we have indicated • worthy object of
Christmas benevolence.

Cbe Court.

OSBORNE, Dac. 23.

---
The Queen, Princess Helena, and Prince Leopold
walked and drove yesterday, and Princess Louise drove
out, attended by the Hon. Mrs. Bruce.
The Hon. Lucy Kerr has been succeeded by the How.
Florence Seymour as maid of honour in waiting.

Despatches were sent yesterday from the Colonisl-odiee
to the Governors of the settlements on the West Come et
Africa.

LORD PALMERSTON AT SOUTHAMPTON.--SOTIM-
AMMON, FRLDAT.—Lord Palmerston and a large party Irvin
Brannan& visited the Ordnance Survey Department here
this day. His lcalebip rode on honeback, and, notwith-
standing the extreme column of the weather, he wore
ooly a frock coat. The diatinginaked party stopped for
nearly an boar.

The Duchess of Grafton and Lady Ashburton
have arrived in Paris. The duke 'rill meet them in that
city on their way to Cannes to pans the winter.

The Marchioness (Frances Anne) of Londonderry
is in a condition considered by her medical attendants
almost hopeless. For the lut four months the marchioness
has been in weak health, and latterly there has been no
prospect of her recovery.

Viscount Courteniy, Mr. and Lady Evelyn Bruce,
and the Hoe. George Craven have joined the circle as-
sembled at Dean Park. on a visit to the Earl and Countess
of Cardigan.

Last year Mr. David Davis, a gentleman of the
Hebrew persuasion, was the Sheriff of Southampton : this
year Mr. Emanuel, of the same persuasion, is sheriff. The
latter will give a banquet to the recorder, the bar, and the
magnates of the towo on the 9th proximo. fie has appointed
the Rev. Dr. Bradshaw, a clergyman of the established
church, his chaplain, and has presented hint with a badge
of ofthe in the shape of a massive gold chain, to which is
attached a medalboa, ea which is a prayer•book in gold,
and the Southampton arms in rubies and diamonds. The
value of the whole is about 100 pilaw.

Mlle. Beatrice is said to be now engaged at the
Lyceum Tocsin.

The Metropolitan Board of Works has agreed to
• peopositioo that Kiag-street ma New Bing-street, Co-
vent-iowden should came to bear those names, and be called
henceforth by the title of Garrick-street.

Memire. Pereira and Rothschild are causing large
quantities of breed to be distributed moos the poor of
Paris.

As it is impossible for the Royal Academy to ac-
commodate Mr. Gibiotes works on the premises at resent
occupied by that body, acceptance of hie late offer—the
Athetyrum remarks—implies a readies's to withdraw from
Trafalgar-square.

In a report which was yesterday issued from the
press, the Poetramter-General gives the history of his de-
partmsot during the year 1863, and takes advantage of the
coeclusion of the decade over which his annual reports
have extended to review its program during that period
with the view of giving a clearer and more striking de-
=option of the improvements which have taken place
during the period, and better mean, for judging of their
effect and value than it has been possible to give in
reports which have followed each other in such quick
succession, and no closely upon the improvements
themselves. Lord Stanley also shows what hes
been the progress of the post-office in each of the
great divivions of the kingdom, and in each of the principal
centres of trade and population ; and answers a recent
complaint of the delay in the production of this report by
the statement that it was caused by the preparation of the
statistical information which will be found so interesting.
THE ROYAL BARON OF BLEF.—On Thursday the
royal "baron of beef" was roasted, under the superinten•
deuce of Mr. Godfrey. the Queen's cook. assisted by Mr.
Colitis, before the great kitchen firs at Windsor Castle, and
forwarded yesterday by the Leedom' and South Western
Railway to Osborn. where, with the "boar's head" and
"game pie," it will deck the eh:Wines sideboard of bar
Majesty.
BRITISH Mrserm.—On Boxing-day (Monday)
Bed during the week, excepting Saturday, the national
oollections of the British Museum will be open to the
public as usual ; bat during the ensuing week, commencieg
Jai.uary 2. 1865, all visitors sod modem will be excluded,
in order to allow of the customary cleaning end rearraego.
scent of the collections.