The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-15 00:00:00

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• Strad Wilde "TM eapremb" saataistag be isms earslags
" (battle." Ypaldidied gamy Tuesday sad Iliday Wed. int tame
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melt ba at lb, 114se. 10. Itabaeriwattert, b 7 Tate o'clock as Ile
day af pabilestles.

111011 WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE
T... 1.444-11crusui. O. 7s. Alterman% 41. 23a.
To•nessel4-14arsat. 0. *.. 414. 3114.

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 1..

IN the dormitory of dwarfs that is known to exist
at Frankfurt, there has recently been an unusual
commotion. Whether it was between sleeping and
waking. or in a sort of simultaneous night-mare, it
were vain to conjecture; but so it was, that on a
sudden all the dwarfs set up a piteous cry that they
were about to be strangled. The two giants who
lie upon either side of the door were, they averred,
overheard plotting their ignominious extinction; and
of all modes in the world by that most revolting of
methods which is politely termed being handed over to
the police. Police Earnestly the dwarfs argued
that they had each a small gendarmerie of his own
—to whom in royal and princely style they issued
their orders as men in authority by lineal right di-
vine, as ineontestible as that of Hapsburg or Ho-
henstauffen, though not deemed by the ignorant as
quite sts potential. One Lilliputian prince offered to
prove that he maintained on an average thirteen-
and-a-half constables in uniform. A diminutive grand
duke declared he was ready at any hour of the day or
night to cull out every third adult male in his domi-
nions to act as "specials' for the preservation of
order in Europe, the said adult males numbering by
the last census nearly half as many as half a Swiss
canton ; and a panting little Serene Highness promised
that he would engage two moqnted patrols and four
grirrhal de weans, with full equipments, so as to en•
able them to act when needful as spies, informers,
bailiffs, or in any other capacity that the Diet might
declare requisite, although for the purpose
in question he were obliged to pawn his celebrated
tunluoise and mortgage the mother-of-pearl casket
that the Empress Mum liii:ttr.st bequeathed to his
grand aunt the Archduchess of Ltrrt.E-werz.
Hut to he handed over to a federal police, com-
posed half and half of Austrians and Prussians, and
officered alternately by the nameless favourites of
the giants—the thought was insupportable. No
cowardice, or dullness, or hope of secret re-
ward could comprise the awakened dwarfs to
Mop again after they had, as with one ac-
cord, wakened with this haunting apprehension.
Mediatisat ion was, they vowed, more preferable by fur.
They would then be extinguished at once, and fur
ever. The humiliation of snubbed sovereignty on a
small scale would be spared them. They might
affect the airs of" wandering Bourbons, and go about
the world for the rest of their lives hwy., nobody
ever suspecting by the look of them that they too
had played the part of God's vicegerents on earth.
blediatisell primes are paid off, and contrive to exist
in snu,,,o olccurity upon their compensation ; but to be
obliged to Noland to the regulations of an imperial
policy —not to be suffered to dangle the keys of their
own petty state prisons--was inure Blatt ducal or
cketoral nature could endure.

Accordingly, tit, re has been n mutiny among the
monarchic mannikins. They had mad of the wit
who declared that had the Ileus lulu only unanimous
they might have pulled him out of bed; and they
resolved to test the truth of the theory. 'flay had
heard the democrats say that • even among the
weak is strength; and they were determined to try.
'archon. to relate, it iscurrently rumoured that thew
unporedented act of politieul pluck has act uallyproved
suemssful. At least, for the present, the allied courts
of Berlin soil Vienna--for allies unhappily they too
plainly arc in all that is adverse to right and justice
11111 Gennany—have been foiled in their designs. The
dwarfs declare that in time of peace they are all
able to take care of theme l% ; that in time of war
they obey the laws and requisitions of the Diet; and
that in lime of revolution they lutist be left
indivi-
dually to say when they are very much frightened,
and when only a little —when they think they can
put out the tire with no other help titan their
own political parish engines, and when they must
sound tlw alarm hell and send express for aid
to the Great Northern or the Great Southern Assur-
ance Office, as the case may hi'. Luckless dwarfs !
They are like to pay dear for this solitary sputter of
apirlt. The giants will lie very apt to leave theta to
deal with the dreaded element neat time, by way of
exacting panisliment fur their contumacy in thwart-
ing their imperious will. lint for the habitual
joulousv which these latter elwrish towards each
of her, the petty principalities would have been allrwept
away long bitter. 1 oder a resuscitated diet such as
now sits at Frankfurt, there are, it is true,
nominal and legal guarantees against open and
avowed absorption of the minor states into Austria
and Prussia. Hut how dung will any such defences
avail if no other Sinlet.SSl 110: invoked?—or what sub-
stantial check will treaties. constitutions. or acts of
Ingresses exert over confederate cupidity, if the
free powers of Europe submit to be told, as within
the last few days they are said to have been told,—
that within the bounds of Germany they have no
right to be heard, and that the hounds of Germany
are whatever the governments of Berlin and Vienna
think tit front time to time to decree?
Th, incorporation of the whole of the vast non-
German populations subject to Austrian, with what is
%aguish. called the German Confederation, has been
deenad by the cabinets of London and l'uris so im-
portant an infraction of the settlement of Europe as
defined by general treaties. as to call for a formal
protest. But if it lie true that this joint protest has
heel, freaks] with supercilious disdain as un unwar-
rantable intrusion in the proper affairs of the abso-
lutist powers, and if it be true that with such responses
the aforesaid lowers calculate with confidence that
the cabinets of Paris and London are likely to put
up mcekly if not mutely—what other law of further
aggrandisement can he prescribed to Austria and
Prussia than that which is the law of their own
monarchic being?

Tor documents" respecting North.ld manor arc
not the only episcopal publieation lately issued from
Albemarle-street for Mr. N111.111U% hits likewise lent
his respectable name to the " Acts" of the Synod of
Exeter, as the prelate of that sec chooses to entitle
the proceedings of the little knot of his clergy which
voluntarily assembled under his chairmanrhip, in its
cathedral church. on the nth. 26th, and Tah of
June Leo. The loisioes• and discussions which then
took place were at the time conducted in tsynsy ;
and this is the revised and correct amount of them.
gist.° to the public. - ny xt-rtiont rv."
To this Assembly, thirty out of, it is stated, thirty-
two deaneries of the diocese returned three repre-
sentatives each ; and, as the representatives were
generally much of one way of thinking, they were,
it is to he presumed, elected exclusively by those
clergy of their deaneries entertaining similar
opinions; the other incumbents and curates refrain-
ing from taking any part in what they deemed to be
either in its spirit unlawful or in its tendency in-
expedient. This general uniformity of tone and
thouLtht accordingly deprives the meeting of all pre-
tensions to represent the church in the see of Exeter,
and gives to it. vs hat it really deserves, the character of
a purely party manifestation of priests, for the pur-
pose of promoting sacerdotalism.
Being gentlemen by nurture and habit,: of life and
social position, there was not. of course• anything
unseemly in the manner of their proceedings. On
the part of the episcopal president there was a grins
suavity of tone, a kneed and compulsory humbleness
of language, a factitious desire to be instructed. a
petulant eagerness to agree with his reverend friends;
aceompanied. however, be occasional snatches of
temper, flashes of angry logic, glances of intolerant
looks„ expressions of impatience. manifesting.
too clearly that the old leaven was still
fermenting beneath tee fiercely as when it had
excommunicated Archbishop SUMNER, ilUprimnlvd
Mr. limner., and persecuted Mr. GORHAM. On the'
part of his clerical allies there was much affectionate
respect for their episcopal leader. considerable display
of learning. a manifestation of much zeal, though
perhaps of a lower order and aiming at smaller
matters than that of their bishop, and occa-
sionally intervals of rational conversation and
instructive suggestion. Once or twice a cler-
gyman, pressed a little hard by the reso-
lutions impending over his consdcuee, was

provoked to inquiry as to terms, to propose
a slight modification in the language employed,
and might have risen almost into opposition
had he not been frozen into silence by the severity
of episcopal frowns.
On the whole, however, the proceedings of this
select body only adds another to the constant succession
of justifications which history contains of the denan-
dation which, fourteen centuries ago, OItEGOILY of
Naziazus uttered against exclusively priestly
rule, under every type of Christianity the same.
Here, for instance, were assembled for three
days, at Exeter, a body of able, learned, con-
scientious priests; and with what objects? To
pioneer the way to progress and improvement? to
organise new victories of morality and civilisation?
to devise great plans of charity and peace, and good-
! will amongst men ? to offer, as a body, the hand of
! goodwill, fellowship, and co-operation to their brother
Christians? Alas. no. Nothing of the sort illus-
trates and adorns the Synod of Exeter. Its objects,
designs, and " acts" were very different. they
were to narrow, circumscribe, and limit the
terms of subscription to their own church, to de-
price it, as far as they could, of its com-
prehensive character, to claim for it privileges
unwarranted in the Word of God, and a status un-
authorised by the law of the land ; to stigmatise and
proscribe other Christian communities around them;
to restore obsolete pnicti6s in their own Churches;
1 to lower the standard of education to be given to
their people; and to hold themselves and their allies
out as the only true ministers of the Church of Eng-
land in the diocese of Exeter. For three whole days
were Bishop Piiii.rorrs and his associates (inter-
rupted only by going to and fro and attending
morning and evening service in the cathedral) en•
gaged in such deliberations; and on them, at their
close, a divine blessing was asked.
. . . -

That this is no inaccurate amount of their " acts,"
one example will, perhaps, sufficiently. prove. On
the first day they took into consideration the late
secessions. The bishop proposed a declaration, which.
after deeply deploring those perversions, and record-
ing their hearty attachment to the church of Eng-
I hind, thus ended :

Anil we further record our full conviction, that secession
from this church, being a sound part of the catholic church,
is in itself an act of schkin, and, as such, perilous to salva-
tion ; and in particular, that secession to the Roman com-
munity in Enaluol is not only an act of schism, but involves
also the abandonment of truth for error.

This part of the declaration startled, as well it
might, Archdeacon SrEvExs and Dr. Mums. "My
only doubt," said the former. "is as to the use of the
word schism. • • • Schism is a large word."
"True," answered the bishop. "There is no doubt
of that. My notion of schism is, to leave a true
branch of the catholic church. There cannot be
two branches in the same country. • • • •
It is schism to depart from a sound branch
of the church to another religious community,
even if that religious community hold all
the doctrines which we believe." Can bigotry and
intolerance go further? If you leave one orthodox
church for another orthodox church in England, you
are guilty of schism, and, being guilt• of schism, you
peril your salvation. Why, Bit, logic of this is even
worse than its intolerance. You may be damned, is
its reasoning, for worshipping in a church where the
pure word of Om is taught, because vou left another
church in which, despite of its orthodoxy, you were
not edified! Was there ever such nonsensical, anti-
Christian bigotry?
But contra►t this harshness of sentiment towards
English dissenters with the kind and gracious man-
ner in which the Burnish communion is dealt with out
of England,where it does not come into competition
with Bishop l'fichrutrit' church. "In particular,"
concluded the declaration, "secession to the Roman
coinmunity in England is not only an act of schism,
but involves also the abandonment of truth for error."
The words " in England," Dr. MMUS said, " appear
to me objectionable." Mark Bishop
reply.

11l were in a riuntry where the Roman catholic church
is established, and I could communicate with it without
joining in its sin, I should feel myself bound to do so, inas-
much I hold the Rmnan catholic church, however cor-
rupt, to be a part, though a corrupt part, of the church
catholic. It is a great church principle, that if we are in a
country where it is possible to communicate with the
Rennin catholic church, without communicating in its
errors and sinfulness, it is our duty to 110 The words
" in England" w, re inserted because that is the immediate
abject of the declaration.

So that the Bishop of EXETER. would, out of Eng-
land, communicate with what he holds to be a tor-
nipt church, whilst in England he holds it to be
schismatical and perilous to salvation to communicate
with a pure chuivh other than his own. All
clru•ity is fur corruption out of England; all his in-
tolerancc for purity in England: And to this view
of the merits and demerits of corrupt Rome and
orthodox English nonconformists there were only
five dissentients in the synod of Exeter. There is,
surely, something very shocking in the result of such
deliberations.

We do not, however, ssy that such intolerance is
solely characteristic of the Bishop of EXETER and his
friends. Fur from it ; it is too general a result of the
priestly office in all churches; for in the position of
those who held th,•tt office there is something very cor-
rupting, if not carefully guarded against. The clergy
of every church are in constant danger, and run inces-
sant risksof being spoilt My thedeep, honest, unresisting
submiasion with which they are listened to. They are
a caste which other men do not meet on equal terms ;
and teaching and being paramount on matters
the most momentous to num, they by degrees
imagine themselves supreme over his whole
being ; uncontradieted in their promises of
salvation, they grow into Popes. This is the
fatal tendency of the age. Hence the
all-im-
port;uece• of preserving in the Church of England
the lay element; its lay legislation, its lay tribunals,
and its liability to the ordinary laws of the land.
These are our only real safeguaras against the intole-
rant :lets" of diocesan synods or provincial con-
vocations.