The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-21 00:00:00

TEX EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING. MARCH 21, ISM.

But the legal and political principhisomwhieh the
former question was answered are (Wive of thus•
If the letters patent were good fot the *pose of
establishing any personal relations between the
two bishops, "it is quite clear," may the Lords of
the Judicial Committee, "that the Crown had no
" power to confer any jurisdiction or coercive
" legal authority upon the metropolitan over the
" suffragan bishops, or any other persona." The
Crown may by its prerogative establish courts to
proceed according to the common law ; but it
cannot create any new comb to administer any
other law, and in the case of a settled colony the
ecclesiastical law of England cannot be treated as
part of the law which the settlers car-
ried with then) from the mother country.
" There is, therefore, no power in the Crown to
" create any new or additional ecclesiastical tri-
" bung or jurisdiction, and the clauses which
" purport to do so, contained in the letters patent
" to the appellant and respondent, are simply void
"in law. No Metropolitan or Bishop in any
" colony having legislative institutions can, by
" virtue of the Crown's letters patent alone
" (unless granted under an Act of Parliament or
" confirmed by a colonial statute), exercise any
" coercive jurisdiction, or hold any court or tribe-
" nal for that purpose. Pastoral or spiritual
" authority may be incidental to the office of
" bishop, but all jurisdiction in the Church,
" where it can be lawfully conferred, must pro-
" ceed from the Crown, and be exercised as the
" law directs, and suspension or privation of
" office is matter of coercive legal jurisdiction,
" and not of mere spiritual authority."
But it is said that if the Bishop of CAPE TOWN
had no jurisdiction by law, at all events he ob-
tained it by contract, or submission on the part of
the Bishop of NATAL. This is the third part con-
sidered and decided in the judgment. When Dr.
COLENBO was consecrated, he took an oath which
was administered to him by the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY, in which these words MOUT : " I
" profess and promise all due reverence and obe-
" diem* to the Metropolitan Bishop of CAPE TOWN
" and his successors." The judgment deals very
briefly—too briefly we venture to think—with
this point. It is merely said " The argument
" must be, that both parties being aware that the
" Bishop of CAPE Torii had no jurisdiction or
" legal authority as metropolitan, the appellant
" agreed to give it to him by voluntary submission.
" But even if the parties intended to enter into
" any such agreement (of which, however, we find
"no trace), it was not legally competent to the
" Bishop of NATAL to give, or to the Bishop of
" Ctrs Torn; to accept or exercise, any such juria-
" diction." It is undoubtedly not competent
to any subjects of the Crown to assume
to constitute a " court " in the proper sense
of the word, and this we presume is all that the
words we have quoted are intended to convey.
But it was laid down by the Judicial Committee
in the judgment in Lucia r. the Bishop of
CUE TOWN,that any religious or other lawful associa-
tion may agree on terms of union and constitute •
tribunal to decide whether the rules of the aaso-
ciation have been violated or not, and what shall
be the consequences of such violation, and that
the decision of such tribunal will be binding. No
doubt the present decision is consistent with the
former, but a fuller explanation is necessary to
show the agreement.

Having disposed of these three questions, and
having decided that the letter patent purporting
to make Bishop GRAY Bishop CO/AMOS Metro-
politan have not that effect ; that those letters gave
Bishop CRAY uo coercive jurisdiction over Bishop
Cousso or any other persons ; and, lastly,
that the oath taken by Bishop COLENRO does
not give Bishop GRAY legal authority as Me-
tropolitan, the Court concludes by asserting
and vindicating its authority in this matter
against the protest of the Bishop of CAPE
Towx. It was argued that if the Bishop of Cara
Tow'''s sentence was • nullity, there was nothing
to appeal from. But the Judicial Committee say
that the question whether the effect attributed by
Bishop GRAY to his judicial sentence reallyhelongs
to it, is one which it can and ought to decide, as
otherwise there would be no remedy for great
inconvenience and mischief. That question
is not one for the Archbishop of CAN-
TERBURY to decide, as the Bishop of Cars TOWN
contends; it belongs to the appellate jurisdiction
of the Sovereign as Head of the Established
Church. Thus, it will be seen that the two
Bishops are treated as prelates of the State
Church, and bound by the laws enacted to deter-
mine the relations of Church and State, although
it is admitted that the ecclesiastical law of England
does not extend to their diocese. It is this
one-sided action and application of the law of
which the Bishop of Cars Towis has so often com-
plained. The Colonial Church gets neither the
material advantages of an establishment nor the
freedom of the voluntary religious bodies.
There is, however, another important question
raised by this judgment. Is there in the view of
the law a Bishop or a diocese of Natal 1 Is there
even a Bishop or a diocese of Cape Town ? And
if so, how are they constituted? We know that
Dr. GRAY and Dr. Comusso were consecrated by
mandate of the QUEEN, but how did they become
Bishops of a particular territorial circumscription ?
The judgment says that " they received their
" dioceses under grants made by the Crown ; "
but it also says that the Crown had no power
to make those grants. Not only the Crown
cannot confer a coercive jurisdiction upon
the Bishops, but it cannot give them
dioceses. These are the words of the Judi-
cial Committee : " After • colony or settle-
" meat has received legislative institutions the
" Crown (subject to the special provisions of an
" Act of Parliament) stands in the same relation
" to that colony or settlement es it does to the
" United Kingdom. It may be true that the
" Crown, es legal Head of the Church, has a right
" to command the consecration of • bishop, but it
" has no power to assign him any diocese, or give
" him any sphere of action within the United King-
" dom." The Quasi" and Parliament eon make
new dioceses, but the QUEEr without Parliament
cannot create • see. But the dioceses of Cape Town
are equally unknown to Imper4il and Colonial
legislation. The Judicial Committee say elsewhere:
"We therefore arrive at the conclusion, that
" although in a Crown colony, properly so called,
" or in cases where the letters patent are made in
" pursuance of the authority of as Act of Perlis-
. " went (such, for example as the Act of 6 and 7
" Vick, cap. IS), a bishopric may be constituted
" and ecclesiastical jurisdiction conferred by the
" sole authority of the Crown, yet that the letters
" patent of the Crown will not have any such
; " effect or operation in • colony or settlement
" which is possessed of an independent legislature."
How, then, have these Bishops received their
grants from the Crown I' And if they have not
L done so, how does the Sovereign obtain a special
jurisdiction over them

The Royal Commissioners of the Patriotic Fund
have appointed Dr. Armstrong, Deputy Inactft,
General Royal Navy, to be a member of the Rxecn-
five and M.OlllOO Committee of the fund.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

Owaria's 711101W1.)
THE BOMBAY MAIL.
MALTA, MAsoe 24.

The Nyanza, with the Bombay mail, will leave
at 1 a.m. to-morrow for Marseilles. She may be
expected there about the 23rd. Letters in London
say Saturday morning.
The Pere, with the heavy portion of the mail, is
hourly expected from Alexandria, en route to
Southampton.

Nunes szrisse.)
LETTER OF THE POPE TO MGR.

------
DUPAZILOI:IP.
ROME, MAsca 14.
The Pope has addressed the following letter to
Mgr. Dupanlonp :

To the Venerable Brother Feltz Bishop of Orlsm.
Pio Papa LX.,

Venerable Brother,—Health and Avast°lie benediction.
—Sack, 0 venerable brother, is oar appreciation of thy
reverence and affection towards u, that even when those
document' had not reached us in which thou bast so hap-
pily and usefully united different things, we already
seemed to hear thy voice joined to the noble voles. of thy
brethren, who, setting aside every human considera-
tion, and braving every risk, have nearly all de.
fended with sacerdotal constancy and freedom before
the high ministers of the empire, the violated rights of this
au, and endeavoured to ware the faithful committed to
their Merge of the dangers of the et:ors condemned by u,
execrating them in the same sense in which we have re-
proved them. Wherefore the pleasing, although certainly
not unexpected account, has reached uc of the Pigmies
with which thou but forwarded copies of our letters to all
the parishes of thy diocese as wall as thy pamphlet, in
which praising the intrepid ,protests of thy brethren, thou
hat joined in the same with all thy and. Eagerly penning
this work, we see, not without pleasure, that thou hut
not only collected and condemned to well merited contempt
the calumnies and errors of the newspapers, but severely
reproved the injurious prohibition by which, leaving to
presumptuous and inimical writers license of discussion, It
is sought to demise the sole legitimate interpreters of our
letters, to whom besides they were addressed, of
the faculty of publishing and explaining the same.
And we r-e ptMcipelly gratified with the enumeration of
wicked and arrogant machinations and frauds, acts of de-
struction and cruelty that, supported by the testimony of
indubitable and public facts, thou hest set before the eyes
of all in the first pert of thy work in order to manifest the
iotentioos of those to whose Mask ions guardianship, under
the convention of the 11th of September last, it was thought
proper to confide the rest of the spoil and the meredoess of
our rights. We therefore testify to thee the gratitude of
our soul, rarely knowing that thou, from the zeal with
which thou art accustomed to defend the cause of religion
and truth, will explain to thy people the teas sense of
our letters with that study and accuracy, no Ws
than energy, employed in repelling the calumoions intee-
pretatioos given to the ume. And meanwhile we promise
thee ample recompense for this study, in token whereof,
and is testimony of our special goodwill, we lovingly bestow
upon thee and upon all thy diocese our apostolic benedic-
Wu.

Given at St. Peter'a at Room the 4th February, 1865, he
the 19th year of oar pontificate.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS

(nom ova owl! coi

PARIS, MONDAY EVINCIO.

A nipping frost last night, succeeded this morn-
ing by as bitter a March wind as I ever remember
fazing, completely settles the great question of the
Tuileries chestnut tree—it has no leaf. Before the',
week is out the Paris newspapers will certainly
have many articles upon this catastrophe. The
common belief is that the celebrity of this tree,
now so unfortunately in default, dates only from
the Emperor Napoleon's return from Elba, on
March 20, 1815. Bat the French papers now tell
another story, which, although very possibly au-
thentic, is generally forgotten. It is said that a
celebrated painter, named Joseph Vien, was, in
1746, accused of having murdered on the 20th
March a rival candidate for admission to the
Academy of Painting. Vien, however, declared
that at the moment of the crime he was far from
the spot where it had taken place, and was talking
to a Spanish lady, the Duchess de Roncevaux, be-
neath a tree in the Tuileries gardens, which he
could identify, as it was the only one in leaf on that
(lay. This alibi be proved, and thereby saved his
life. Ever since then attention has been yearly
directed to the same tree at the date mentioned.

The Bishop of Orleans lately paid a visit to Sainte-
Beaume, in the department of the Var. Sainte-
Beaume is a famous grotto in which St. Magdalen
passed several years at prayers. The local tradition
is that she died there ; although ecclesiastical his-
tory teaches us that she died and was buried at
Ephesus, and that her remains were exhumed and
translated first to Constantinople and afterwards to
Rome. It is certain that to this day catholic,
worship at her tomb in the Holy City, and so no
doubt does Mgr. Dupanloup when there ; but hie
present visit dhows that in France be has
no objection to encourage the popular
belief that her true resting-place is in
Provence. It appears, however, that he was very
much scandalised the other day at St. Beaune by
finding on the tomb a statue of the saint in a state
of nudity not by any latitude of construction saint
like. From inquiries made it results that this statue
WA in reality that of Madlle. Clairon, a celebrated
actress of the last century, who was the mistress of a
Provençal gentleman named De Valbelle. His cha-
teau was sacked by the revolutionists in 1791, and
Madlle. Clairon's statue got into a broker's hands,
and was ultimately sold to a pious individual, who
in perfect good faith presented it to the grotto of
Sainte•Beanme as being a genuine image of St.
Magdalen. It is attested by as good evidence as
such things generally are, that sines the statue of
the frail actress has been in the grotto it has per-
formed a great many miracles. Now, however,
that the truth has come out it is to be taken away.
At the moment when the Holy See is preparing
to canonise a new saint, Pierre d'Arbuols, the ques-
tion as to the merits by which that personage dis-
tinguished himself is naturally asked. The Temps,
on that subject, remarks that an answer may be
found in the " History of Ferdinand and Isabella,"
by Prescott. The journal just named sums up the
account in these words :
The inquisition bad been established in Armen about
the middle of the fifteenth amatory, but the national liber-
ties forming a counterpoise to that institution there were
at first bat few victims. In 1484, however, that formid►ble
Whorl was firmly raooastitated for the Arragooese, as it
had been previously done for the Castilians. For the diocese
of Saragossa two judges were appointed, one a dominiean,
and the other • moos ; the latter was Petro Athol'
de Spits. In spite of the Cates, Arbats and hie
colleague entered on their functions ; in the months of Ilay
and Jane following they were shady celebrating sato-de-
lta with all the accompanying horrors. Those emotions
were not only atrocious but illegal. They had taken place
against the will of the country sad without respect for
the rights of the Cortes. A conspiracy was formed to
amens those cruelties, sod Arboes in vain protected him-
self with a coat of mall, and won a helmet ; be was sar-
wised sod killed. Labelle the eatkolie and bee Imellmasd
used every effort to and oat t►e maidenly ; they were all
Intoned after their right hands bad bees cut off, with the
exception of the traitor who bad betrayed the others. and
to whom a premiss bed been made that his life should be
spared. As • favour his heed was not out off nabl ends
ha bad bees he get Two hundred fadividaai. pawed
to be accomplices, were bussed, end a still larger wasiller
died in 'Masa. The nephew cd the king was even ess-