The Express.
London, England, 1865-01-09 00:00:00

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MAIrMASCST.
Tuts Immo. DAVID GAILEICK.—LORD DIINDRZART
MARRIED AND DONS POS. Itiews. &Ahem Braid. Suck-
dope. Dodos; X 1 Sawrion.—PSINCINN 81.11NOTDIS.
lAr. Compton and Was Istley.—Azd MBA WHITE.

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THIS mimic LTITLI 1011TP.B.ZZ • or, the Old Lid y of
Threadmesellestmet. Mesdames L Lane, W. Cranford. and E.
Jacobs 0. M ood, Flese.rahe Pantondnalsta —6sd THZ
W 03.1.01178 01 LONDON.—Commenoe at balf-past S.

HIGH WATIZ AT LONDON-MOM
Two DAy llmam O. Ouo.....Aftionoce, OD. Oot.
TO4loiloir Mari a& Ok. Ma ....Attoosoos. Ili. 6a.

LONDON, MONDAY, JANUARY 9.

B &WWI of French novels are familiar with the
good priest who in the midst of • society full of
sentimental and interesting sinners of every age,
complexion, and degree, personifies every possible
and impossible virtue. His authority is so gentle,
and his severity so accommodating, that he creeps
into the consciences of the most fascinating and
the most obdurate offenders against the social law,
keeps the moat damaged domestic machinery going,
and converts the cupboard where the family
" skeleton " is kept into an oratory where the lady
of the house, on her knees before • private altar,
stimulates her jaded nerves with occasional drams
of spiritual ecstasy and hysterical devotion.
Whether to satisfy the prevailing popular
impatience of priestly intervention in the
bosom of the family, or to repel the equivocal inter-
pretations of ribald minds, or simply with • view
to probability, it somehow happens that the good
priest is almost invariably a very old man ; very
old, and very infirm. Now, with great respect for
the Fathers of the Oratory at Brompton,we cannot
help regretting, on their account and for the sake
of all that is worthy of respect in their institution,
that they cannot plead the inestimable advantages
of the good priest of the French novel—age and
infirmity—when they appear before the pub-
lic in the capacity of advisers of young
girls of sixteen. A spiritual father who is
described by the reporters in • police-court as
" appearing to be a, very young man," is evidently
at a serious disadvantage in such a case as that
which occupied the attention of the magistrate at
Westminster on Friday last. There is no denying
that the English public with their heretical pre-
judices in favour of family life and parental
rights and the sacred relationship of flesh and
blood, and their imperfbct sympathy with "Fathers"
who cannot marry, are disposed to criticize with dis-
agreeable curiositybroceedings of which • Protes-
tant parson (with • wife and several children)
might any time be the harmless and even praise-
worthy hero.
This we take to be the inconvenience under
which Father BOWDEN laboured at the West-
minster Police-court in his searching examination
by Mr. SELF; with regard to the disappearance
of the girl M'Dzamor from her mother's house,
and her more or loss voluntary removal to
a Catholic " Home." The mother complained

that her daughter had been taken from her
against her will, and that the suggestion of her ;
entering a Home had come from Father BOWDEN
who, it seems, was in some sort the girl's
spiritual director. On the face of such a 3
charge, it seemed to promise all that the most
rampant Protestant public could demand for a
wholesome agitation and a vigorous outcry.
Here was a young girl of sixteen persuaded by a
priest, a "very young looking" Father, her con-
fessor, to leave her mother without her mother's
knowledge or consent, and to enter a place
where she was to be concealed. Cases of
this kind sometimes occur in countries where
Roman Catholicism is the religion of the State,
or at least of the majority of the people, and when-
ever they happen in France or Belgium they are
exposed without mercy by all but the " religions"
journals, and do not always escape the tribunals.
Thanks to that horrible growth of the secular
power and of liberal principle* which the POPE%
Encyclical has lately condemned, s morbid prefer-
ence of the rights of fleshly fathers and mothers
to those of spiritual Fathers prevails even in some
Catholic countries ; and a poor little Jew boy
cannot be kidnapped for the purpose of salvation,
even under the shadow of the Vatican, without an
indignant protest from the whole civilized world.
The protest re-echoes from all the corners of
Europe year after year, long after the little Jew
boy has grown into a devout and most ac-
complished catechumen who prays for the con-
version of his benighted parents ; and thousands
of professing Christians think more of the poor
mother who was driven into a madhouse by her
bereavement, than of the rescue from perdition of
her child.

If, then, even in Catholic countries the public
are not reconciled to the salvation of little MoaTAlu.s
and Cotters by the "good intentions " of the spi-
ritual Fathers of Hebrew boys, what interpreta-
tion could Father BOWDIS, of the Brompton
Oratory, expect to be put in a London police-court
upon his obviously and undoubtedly good inten-
tions in counselling and aiding the removal of
the girl ll‘Dznator from her mother's house
to a Home of refuge from danger and temptation t
This is not the first time the Brompton Oratory
has been before the public ; and although on the
former occasion it was difficult for the sternest Pro-
testant to be angry at the "abduction" of a public
achoolboy,who aspired to be a "Father" against his
father's will, it was unfortunate, even for its own
sake, that an institution like the Oratory, whose
office it is to do good by stealth, should become
tainted with notoriety. The present ease is one of
which, we are inclined to believe, the Fathers of
the Oratory need not fear the fullest investigation.
The girl ll‘Dsamarr, it appears from Father Bow-
DEN'S statement, is a flighty girl of IT, whose
father and father's brother died mad, and whose
widowed mother gets a living by a frequent change
of faith. She has a son at home with her who is