The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-24 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 24, 1851.

the political troubles of the Continent to bring back
a part at least of his old gainful ascendancy. As
long as Pio Norco had hopes to make the papal go-
vernment the head of revolutionised Italy, he was as
rank a revolutionist as MAZZINI himself. Battled in
ki.,attempte he reconciled himself with the despotic
powers—at *hat prix may be infetted front what •ist
now 6-iloing, under the protection of Austrian by°.
lets,' in proteetant Hesse-Cassel. The aggreesion
I.which we are sow engaged in repelling in -England
is only part of a great plot against the secular
liberties of Europe hatched at Rome. And the legis-
lative act of the -British parliament, against which a
cry of persecution has been attempted to be got up,
is merely levelled against this plot so far as England
is concerned.
The abettors of the Roman court in this country
boast that the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill will prove
inoperative. Time will show. If it do not answer
the ends for which it was passed, other measures will
be resorted to. The Roman court has dared free
England to a trial of strength, and England will not
shrink from the contest. It may fare with the
Roman pontiff as it did with the dog who let go his
supper to snap at its shadow in the water. The
audaciou3 attempt to extend the secular authority of
the POPE over England may end in his being
stripped of his temporal sovereignty in Italy.

IN his speech on Lord REDESDALE'S motion
Bishop WILBERFORCE said there was no faith in the
divine mission of the church. .

This is a solemn appeal to the great idea of the
Christian church; that idea which is peculiar to the
faith of Christians; the greatest of all earthly
ideas. Let us, then, take it up in all sober earnest-
ness; neither as politicians nor journalists; but as
Christian men, acknowledging its truth and cherish-
ing the duty of its realisation. For that is the
mighty consideration ; the elevated motive which
Bishop WILBERFORCE has put before us. We thank
him for this exercise of his pastoral office; we re-
spond to his invitation; we will enter into counsel
with him as Christians, reverencing the same faith,
and intent on doing the same bidding.
For what ends, then, was the Christian church
instituted? Who so eloquent, so impassioned on
this topic as the high church school. The church,
say they, exists in this world; but its objects trans-
cend it. It is the body of Cultist, and is animated
by his spirit. CHRIST'S example is therefore its
rule; his tone and feeling, his whole mind, its law.
It associates men together avowedly as followers of
CHRIST, as communing with him now, as seeking to
be with him hereafter.
These are lofty thoughts; yet they are the daily
occupation of the church ; they should be the practi-
cal sentiment influencing us really. and truly as
churchmen. The church aims at raising men above
the world; the ends of its institution are always held
out as higher than those of the state. That is, men,
as Christian churchmen, arc called to a higher life, to
nobler and holier feelings, than they are as citizens.
The church tells men to set their eyes on heaven
to live as those whose treasures arc there. It sum-
mons them to place their warmest affections there;
and then, by holding out brighter prospects than
this world can offer, it purifies and elevates the
world. The church is an abiding, ever active protest
against worldliness, selfishness, and every temper of
mind which buries men in earth. Its pattern in the
Scriptures exhibits the loftiest self-denial, the most
heroic self-sacrifice ; and this ideal, thus pourtrayed
and carried out in the days of the founder of the
church, has been its vital principle throughout its
history ; it has lived and prevailed by virtue of this
idea.
The bishops are the chief pastors of the church.
If any, they are called to set an example of what
the church would have men to be. High churchmen
extol episcopacy as the greatest of human blessings.
Clearly, then, episcopacy, should show itself pre-
eminently us a leader guiding men to Christian feel-
ing. The bishops are called the successors of the
Apostles. Think of the Apostles and think of them,
Alas! is it not fearfully true—so true that it is a
pain to all conscientious men to speak of it—that our
bishop' s live and act just as the purest men of the
world do; but no more. They behave just as pru-
dent, moderate, sensible men of the world do ; they
appreciate the value of worldly advantages as other
people do; they care for them as much; they shape
their conduct with respect to them precisely
in the same way ; when reproached, they
answer " there is no law against it." But of
examples of self-denial, of living oliore this world,
of seeking objects higher than worldly good—where
shall we find them amongst our bishops ?
Take the Bishop of Lox Dos. We would not
speak harshly of him. With many faults he ha:
many excellent qualities. But we ask, does he not
act precisely as any other prudent man of the world
does ? Ho has solemnly declared that 10,0001. a
year is an ample income for the r of his see :
that is, he has avowed that airstlesige° objects the
church aims at realising by having a Bishop of Lon-
don, can be realised by an Income of 10,0001. a year.
He acknowledges the annual receipt of more than
double that sum. From whom does the surplus

come? From the church. Does the bishop restore
these funds which he obtains from the church, but
which he says arc not wanted for the discharge of
the duties which the church requires of him ? No:
he pleads that it is private property—that it is •
good thing which the church has made him a gift
of for his own private use and worldly advantage; he
tells you that it is his " by laic."
We ask, in sober sadness, how could the spirit of
pure worldliness be more plainly manifested? As
citizens we do not complain ; what the Bishop of
LONDON does is exactly what hundreds of ordinary
men do in respect of state property, or of any other
good thing which they have been so fortunate as to
secure : his conduct is moral ; it violates no
rule of society • it is even in conformity with
the received doctrine of the House of Com-
mons. But we say also that it is the very
essence of worldly-mindedness; it has the com-
mon tone of mankind; it is totally wanting in
every feature which peculiarly belongs to the
Christian church; there is not a trace of a divine
mission, of any divinity in it. Would it ho possible
to conceive—would it not shock our feelings despe-
rately to think of any of the Apostles pursuing the
same conduct? Can we, by the strongest effort of
imagination, picture to ourselves ST. PAUL agreeing
to receive from the Christians he taught a certain
income to cover the expense of his apostolic journeys,
and then, on finding a large surplus remain over,
pocketing it for himself and his children? The thing
is absolutely inconceivable.
Such comparisons as these provoke great anger.
We are indignantly remonstrated with for comparing
modern bishopswith the holy Apostles. We admit
that Christians in these times cannot be expected to
come up to the standard of the church's heroic days.
But then, we add, that if the principles of the volt
toile practice are not to be referred to; nay, if it is
not the duty of the church constantly to brir.g them
before the minds of men now ; if conduct is to be
excused now which could not be thought of for one
moment in a primitive bishop; if the plea that
bishops now do as other men do, is to be received as
satisfactory; if any example of self-sacrifice, of pure
devotion, of superiority to worldly motives, is
sot even to be expected, much less talked
of in respect of bishops of our day; then,
we conclude that, and the conclusion is an
awful one, the church has lost its Divine mission ; 1
It has become a purely secular institution ; it is an
association of worldly men—respectable, amiable,
excellent, worthy, and so on—but destitute entirely
of the scripture idea of the Christian church, without
the vocation to exalt and purify the world : in short,
in the glorious sense of St. Pert., no church at all.
This painful and distressing topic is none of our
inking; it is forced upon us ; and it were treachery
sad cowardice to turn aside from its consideration.
It is in these cases where the conduct
is respectable, ordinary, uneensured by the
tone of society, in harmony with the common
dealings of the world; it is in such cases (and the
cases of the parliamentary bishops are, of course,
more deplorable still than even the one we have
quoted), that the divine mission of the church is
fairly tested. If the church and its rulers set no
example, and proclaim by their own practice no
teaching higher than the average standard of the
world, then it has no divine mission. This is not,
however, an argument against bishops, but an argu-
ment justifying our reminding them that they are
no better, higher, or more Christian, than the world.
Yet Christianity is nothing if it be only as the',
world. For the Bible rings with the elevation of Os
church above the world.

FRANCE.

PARIS, WEDNESDAY EVENINO,
The ministers hese mane up their minds to remain
in office foe the present, notwithstanding the defeat
en tine motion of ceasare proposed by M. Baze. In
`fact it is evident that the meaning of this malevo-
lent vote was to dash the triumph of the large ma-
jority on revision with a personal mortification for
Lotus Napoleon. It was to show that at least one
hundred of the 446 voters for revision were decidedly
opposed to the re-election of the President; and the
division euabled those hundred to record in a rather
spiteful way their protest against being considered
revisionists in a Napolconist sense.
The reports have fallen which were current in the
morning about the intention of the Assembly to in-
terpellate ministers on the appointment of General
Mignon; and to prosecute the Patric for some ar-
ticles on the recent votes, couched in a disrespectful
tone to the Chamber.
M. Bane has charged M. Placatory and General
Ledo to demand an apology from M. Leon Faucher
for accusing him of calumny.
To-day the Assembly entered on the first delibe-
ration relative to the Assembly
Bill. M. Emanuel
Arego delivered a long speech, of which the main
object was to show that the municipal franchises
were not the growth of the monarchy, but due to
the revolution of 1789. He then criticised the elec-
toral conditions proposed by the committee, and at-
tacked the law of May 31. M. de Tinguy defended
the law. M. Mathieu de la Drimie then occupied
the tribune. The debate was expected to be ad-
journed. As the first deliberation is usually little
more than a formality, the chief speakers reserve
their strength for the second reading.
A vote of supplies to meet the extraordinary ex-
penses of the ministry of the interior, was adopted
by 481 against 205'.
31.Lcon Faucher has presented a bill for continuing
the law of July 30, 1830, on the police of theatres
for another year.
The inatAll's baton vacant by the death of Gen.
Sebastiani is expected to be given to Oudinot.
M. de Clermont Tonnerre, a legitimist emissary,
with instructions from Frolisdorf, arrived yesterday
in Paris. The object of his mission is to reconcile
the contending fractions of legitimacy.
Conferences opened to-day at the ministry of
foreign affairs between delegates of the European
powers for the purpose of coining to some under-
standing on a common code of sanitary laws to be
applied to the ports of the Mediterranean. The
necessity of reform upon this question has long been
apparent, and has reappeared from time to time in a
shape asuming a political no less than commercial
importance. 1n fact, not many mouths ago a sort of
oillieute occurred at Marseilles, from a disagreement
between the government and the municipal autho-
rities on a quarantine question.
M. l)uinas, then minister of commerce, thought fit
to supersede the sanitary board of that city, because
they set their faces against a decree of the govern-
ment, removing the quarantine on vessels from
Malta at a time when the cholera had hardly disap-
peared from that British colony. The whole town
was up in arms at once against the minister, who, to
maintain the dignity of the central government, was
obliged to supersede the Marseilles board of health
for contumacy, and to appoint a government commis-
sioner to carry the decree into execution. Fortu-
nately the conciliatory temper of Dr. :Mellor, the
gentleman employed upon this mission, succeeded in
soothing the susceptibilities of the municipality, and
the question was finally compromised between the
contending parties. On that occasion M. Dumas
headed his decree by a scientific preamble, in which
he impugned somewhat superciliously the theory of
contagion and infection in cases of cholera as a
popular superstition. But so rooted is this belief
among the apprehensive peoples of the south, that a
scientific minister can no more affront such notions
with impunity, than a Calvinist can safely question
the miraculous powers of the Madonna among fanatic
Romanists. More or less this terror of the great
epidemics which scourge from time to time the
populations of Europe prevails along the whole
Mediterranean coast, and in greater intensity in pro-
portion to the ignorance and religious fanaticism
of :the local race. Thus, of all the sovereigns
of the Mediterranean, the King of Naples is the po-
tentate who most frequently plagues the merchant
with his arbitrary impositions of quarantine. Fer-
dinand no sooner hears a rumour of pimples appear-
ing among the loaders of hides at Genoa, than like a
true Lazzaronc despot he claps on a quarantine of 20
drys on all ur.ivals front Piedmont, thereby inflicting
grievous losses upon merchants, and inconveniences
of all kinds upon his subjects. The quarantine is
also popular at Constantinople, formerly desolated
by plague, the cessation of whose terrible visits is
set down, with what truth is open to dispute, to the
operation of sanitary cordons. These facts are enough
to exhibit the urgency of adopting some common
system which cannot be capriciously violated without
raising an international question. To Dr. Helier
belongs, 1 believe, the merit of having suggested
the conferences which open to-day.
A 13th democratic bulletin has been seized,
which speaks of the proximate triumph of the so-
cialist republic as certain. Notwithstanding the
threats of the Mott/tear against papers reproducing
such documents, the Petrie prints the manifesto in
full.

M. Cabet appeared to-day before the Tribunal of
Correctional Police, to clear himself of the sentence
by def mit pronounced against him for the embezzle-
ment of Icarian funds.

The ntlnir of Lemulier against M. earlier, which
has been so often postponed, actually came on at
the Palais de Justice today. The speeches of coun-
sel were very animated. The cause stands ad-
journed till this day week, when the Avocat-Gene-
ral will be heard.
The Bourse was flat. The Fives closed at 94.95,
with a rise of 10c. The Threes rose 10c., and closed
at 3.85.

The national guard of Chatelhcrault has been dis-
solved, by a decree of the President of the Republic.
It will bC remembered that it was at this place that
the President of the Republic was insulted, on the
occasion of his visit to Poitiers.
Marshal Horace Sebastiani was born November
11, 1771, at Porta, in Corsica, of an ancient family,
connected with that of the Bonapartee. Ho entered
the army at a very early age, and gained the first
steps of his promotion in the Italian campaign. His
services on the 18th Brumaire placed him high in
the confidence of Napoleon. He was severely
wounded at Austerlitz, and was raised to the rank
of general of division on the field of battle. In 1805,
when the emperor formed the design of excluding
the British fleet from the Dardanelles, he selected
General Sebastiani as his ambassador to animate and
sustain the courage of the Sultan Selim. The gene-
ral afterwards took part in the campaigns of Spain,
Russia, Saxony, and of France in 1814. Lnder
the 'restoration, on the vacancy caused by the
the death of General Foy, he was elected by the de-
partment of the Aisne to the Chamber of De-
puties, where ho sat on the benches of the
constitutional opposition. After the revolution of
July ho was railed to the ministry of foreign affairs
by Louis Philippe, was subsequently ambassador suc-
cessively at Naples and at London, and was, on the
21st October, 1840, created a marshal of France. A
dangerous illness, from the consequences of which
he never recovered, compelled him to retire prema-
turely from the responsible conduct of public affairs.
But lie was on terms of private friendship with Louis
Philippe, who often had recourse to the counsels of
his sagacity and experience ; and perhaps that mo-
narch, in the bitterness of his exile, may have re-
proached himself with having turned a deaf ear to
' the frequent representations of Marshal Sebastiani
, of the perilous consequences of an over-strained
policy. The terrible catastrophe of his daughter's
(the Duchess de Prelates) death, cast a dark shade
over the latter years of the marshal's life.

PArrEa EnrcATlON.—Yesterday, at the meeting
of the St. Pancras vestry, Mr. Churchwarden Pearce in the
chair, the report of the committee of directors on the schools
of the workhouse was brought forward. It recommended
=entire change in the system of female education in the
house, and stated that the present means adopted are ex-
tremely defective. The report recommends the appoint-
most of a competent person to take the entire management
of the establishment containing the girls and infant children,
duly qualified to educate the children, and to make the
elder girls practically useful in the care and superintendence
of the infants, and that en assistant mistress to carry out
these objects be appointed, and that their respective salaries
should be. superintendent mistress, 2.51. per annum;
assistant ditto, 201. per annum. The report was ordered to
be catered upon the minutes, and the vestry will be specially
called for Wednesday next, to take it into consideration.