The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-22 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A 'axed &Utica et" The Eames; eostatateg the tame evenlog's
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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22.

No room for doubt any longer exists as to the
determination of Russia to adhere to her arbitrary
demands upon the Porte, and her resolution to en-
force them—if permitted to do so. Intelligence has
now reached us of the final rejection by the SULTAN
of the Ultimatum of which so much has recently been
said, but which was in point of fact nothing more
than a formal reiteration of Prince MENCIIIKOFY'S
demands. We are likewise in possession of a species
of manifesto, or expose des motifs, on the part of the
Cabinet of St. Petersburg, in the shape of a
Ministerial note, which has been officially sub-
mitted to the governments of the other Great
Powers under the signature of NESSELRODE. In this
important document there is little that is new, and
still less that is true, regarding the aims and pur-
poses of the Russian aggressor, but it possesses at
the present juncture a certain importance, inasmuch
as it betrays more openly than tny document which
bee yet proceeded from the head-quarters of despotic
dissimulation a sense of the pressure outwards and
awards in the career of aggression, of which the
CUR has been long believed to be alternately the
stimulator and the instrument. Count NESSELEODE,
in this singular document, declares that after what
has occurred Russia cannot recede without such
a degree of humiliation as would wholly change
her position in relation to the other states of
Europe. What the Muscovite ides of that position
is we need be at no loss to conjecture. Plainly it is
not one of real or ostensible equality with the other
Great Powers, for that she had confessedly enjoyed
in the fullest sense, before the development of her
present schemes of encroachment and aggrandise-
ment; and to that she might still return with the
unanimous assent and approval of all Europe, by
their relinquishment. But it is clear that in her
arrogance and pride Russia has cherished dreams of
domination, which she has hitherto thought fit to
I disclaim. It is the position of arbiter and
dictator in the fate of Christendom that she
desires to fill; and it is a repulse in her
present overt attempt to play this overbearing part
that her haughty spirit refuses to endure. Hereto-
fore her princes and her statesmen have for genera-
tions steadily pursued the same undeviating course of
territorial aggression, and diplomatic interference
where she dare not appear as an armed intruder; in
the one capacity as the subtle foe of liberty, in the
other as its ruthless destroyer. And Continental
Europe has been induced to submit to one after ano-
ther of her exactions and encroachments, often with
childish cunning, pretending not to be afraid, and
trying by the effrontery of flattery to cajole its
implacable foe into mercy and moderation.
There are many politicians of note in Western Europe
who have sullied themselves by stooping to this
folly and baseness ; but happily there are still some
to whom the indignant eyes of England, France,
and Germany instinctively turn in the hour of trial,
and by whose firmness and unity of purpose the
further advance of the Cossack conqueror will, doubt-
cm, be checked and restrained.
A few days, possibly a few hours, may bring us
tidings that the Russians have broken the bounds
assigned to them by treaty ; and the peace being thus
broken, that the Portehas called upon the ambassadors
of France and England to summon the allied fleet
to the Golden Horn. If these events have not
actually occurred, there is manifestly little probabi-
lity that they will be long postponed. The cabinets
of Paris and London have already been given to un-
derstand that Moldavia and Wallachia, the two pro-
visoes of Turkey north of the Danube, will be forth-
with occupied by a Russian army. The country will
of course be laid under contribution, and its grow.
fa►g export trade be paralysed and destroyed. A
limitary more extensive than Ireland, and a popula-
den not inferior to that of Scotland, will thus, at a
degle blow, be riven from a peaceful and unoffending
ally, without a shadow of excuse or justification which
the Government of any civilised people will
recognise or admit. And then will come the real
question that must test the political quality of our
own and of neighbouring Statesmen, and by which
far more than the fate of the Danubian principali-
ties for many a long day to come will inevitably
be swayed.

There are two lines of policy which already have
their advocates amongst us. There is the policy of
prompt resistance, and there is the policy of tempo- 1
rising and delay. The latter is—with thin dis-
guise—advocated
by those who discredited to the
last the idea of suspecting the magnanimity and
moderation of the CZAR; and who now, that they I
can no longer venture openly to defend his conduct
or his language, are eager to palliate what they
cannot justify, and meanly to tolerate what they
shrink from sanctioning. With this trimming class
of politicians no course, however right and just, is
worth taking for its own sake. All their resources
are in evasion of great truths, and the mere
adjournment of present difficulties without regard
to accumulating circumstances that must op-
' press the future. Let the Russians occupy Molda-
via and Wallachia say they, while France and
England make a safe show of friendship by ordering
their ships to pass the Dardanelles ; and then let the
autumn be spent in negotiation, while the invader
feeds his troops at the cost of plundered provinces,
and the outraged and humiliated SULTAN is com-
pelled to maintain a ruinous expenditure upon pre-
parations for defence, whilst ho is to be told to
remain in ruinous inaction. This is the policy
of delay ; but it is surely fraught with
consequences of fur deeper and graver moment—coq.
sequences the mere perception of which induces the
advocates of prompt resistance to consider that to
temporise in such a case would be folly, if not rain.

Opposite• to the •WaUachlan shore lies the richer
and far snore important province of Bulgaria.
The bulk of the population aro Christians,
whose priesthood have long been suspected of
receiving the pay of Russia. It is hardly
three years since an insurrection, originating
in some trivial and local grievances, was so dex-
terously fomented by certain of the prelates and
clergy of the Greek church as to cause serious
alarm to the Turkish authorities, and to cause the
effusion of no little blood before it was effectually
put down. At the time when these transactions
took place, a ltussian corps with the temporary
assent of the SULTAN was stationed in Wallachia ;
but what will limit the influence or restrain
the intrigues of the Muscovite, when the
whole of the northern bank of the Danube
is seen to bristle with Cossack spears, and
when nothing but the stream separates the sacer-
dotal emissaries above referred to from their powerful
and opulent employers ? So sure as an army of oc-
cupation is suffered to establish itself without hin-
drance or reprisals at Jassy and Bucharest, so sure
will fanatical passionsbe worked upon in Bulgaria, and
the smouldering ashes of insurrection be fanned into
a flame. And then, when the Ottoman shall at-
tem

ipt to crush disturbances thus assiduously p, °-
yoked, the pious protector of the Sclavonic faith will
suddenly find himself inspired to cross the Danube,
and to occupy the most populous and industrious
province of Turkey in Europe.

TIIEAiI of BLANDFORD prefaced his motion,
last night, for leave to introduce a bill to make better
provision for the management of episcopal and capi-
tular property, by the presentation of a petition from
800 endowed clergymen of the Established Church,
in
_

which it was stated that there were many Church
dowmenta which did not exceed 131. a year, while
there were upwards of 4,000 incumbents whose in-
comes did not exceed 1,101. a year. We question
whether ST. PAUL or ST. PETER—the Bishops
from whom their modern episcopal represents.
tives persist in tracing their descent—would
have seen any very great cause for com-
miseration in the above statement, although we
confess that, looking at the Church from the point
d view which oar modern bishops have adopted,
idea a statement is likely to produce unpleasant im-
pressions. While we are quite sore that ST. PAUL
and ST. PETER could by no possibility have been
made to understand why a cure of souls should be
objected to, because the emolument derived from it

amounted only to 131. a year, we arc no less con-
strained to acknowledge that we of the present day,
looking at the Church as it is, understand the full
value of the objection. The most remarkable
Episcopal " Charges" of the present day have
not been those delivered from the thrones in
the cathedrals, where moderation and humility
have been affectionately recommended, and avarice
and ostentation and filthy lucre decried, but those
fierce Charges which the Bishops, wielding all the
weapons of the Church militant, have directed
against those guardians of the golden apples of the

Church—the —Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The
organs both of the high and low church party in the
public press have all for the lest ten years asserted,
directly or indirectly, over and over again, that
while many a Bishop could by no persuasion be in-
duced to stir himself for the purpose of eradi-
cating a whole crop of heretical tares in his,
field, there has never yet been an example
of a prelate remaining quiescent if his re-
venues were in danger. When we see, then, how
valiantly and how cleverly a Bishop, or a Dean, or a
Canon will fight for an additional 501. or 5001. of
revenue, we have a tight to consider that the profes-
sion generally are actuated by a desire no less earliest
to obtain a due pecuniary appreciation of their ser-
vices. For this reason we do not hesitate to join
with them in denouncing the present system of the
distribution of ecclesiastical revenues which awards a

remuneration of less than nine pence a day to some
clergymen, and less than nine shillings to so many
others, while a portion of the same body are in the
possession of revenues which is their magnitude laugh
to scorn the great prizes obtainable in the army or at
the bar.

To remedy such a state of things, some such mea-
sure as that proposed last night by the Marquis of
BLANDFORD is necessary. The object of this mea-
sure is to transfer the entire management of epis-
copal and capitular property into the hands of
the Estates Commissioners, and to invest them with

legal control over the property, for the purpose of
management only, making them the lawful re-
ceivers of the rents and profits. The first and para-
mount object which would be achieved by such a
regulation is this—that the estates being placed
under the management of Commissioners responsible
to the public, the accounts would be always
aeossaible, and the possibility of perverting large
Varpisses to private purposes would be considerably
diminished. Some idea of the amount of property
that up to a very late period has been placed under
'the uncontrolled management of irresponsible par-
ties in the Church may be formed from a statement
made by the Marquis relative to the see of Durham.
The value of the property of that see as given in
evidence before the committee was 100,0001. ; from
the return of 1846 it was only 39,0001. It is mon-
strous to suppose that vast sums of money
of this nature can be any longer left at the
control of private individuals. The very bishops
themselves have been obliged to denounce the eye-i
tem, however imperfect their efforts may have been
to effect its destruction. " If," said the Bishop of
LONDON in a memorable speech made some years
ago in the House of Lords, "if I direct my steps
towards the cathedral of St. Paul, I see that noble
structure with one dean and three residentiarics,
enjoying an income of 10,0001. or 12,0001. a year,
and twenty-six officers connected with it, holding
complete sinecures amounting to an annual income
of 12,0001. If I proceed a mile or two eastward, I find
myself in the midst of a population, the most wretched
and destitute of mankind, consisting of artificers,
labourers, beggars, and thieves, to the amount of at
least 300,000 souls." Now, in one of the districts
of this quarter, which belonged exclusively to the
Cathedral of St. Paul, and which consisted of 40,000
souls, there was but one church, in which one ser-

mon was preached every Sunday by one of the
Canons of St. Paul's, and another by a clergyman
who was paid by the Corporation of London for
that purpose. His Lordship pointed in terms which
might be uttered by the most radical of reformers
to the absurdity of supposing that such a perversion
of funds destined for national purposes could be
long submitted to. As a pendant to the statement of
the Bishop, we may point to the condition of Chiches-
ter. This town contains nine parish churches. Of
seven of these churches tho incumbents are, unless

any alteration has taken place since 1818, in the pos-
session of an annual income of 701. each. One living
was in the year specified worth 1501. a year, and the
other had no endowment but 40/. per annum from
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. While these ample
salaries were considered sufficient to recompense
nine clergymen for their labours amongst 8,000 per-
sons, the canons residentiary received each 700/. per
annum for their arduous services in the cathedral,
the whole expenses of which establishment were not
less than 5,0001. a year. These are not solitary in-
stances, discovered after wearisome search by hostile
eyes ; they may be mot with in numerous places

throughout the land—they are quoted by the best
friends of the Church. While this is the case in
the upper departments, in the lower there
is dearth and misery. The Marquis of BLAND-
FORD divided the wants of the parochial
system into three classes. The first comprised poor
livings, in which re:ief had been partially afforded
and the promise of more held out. The Ecclesios.
tical Commissioners have augmented 796 benefices

of this classat an annual charge of 41,728/.. while
there are no less than 737 yet requiring augmenta-
tion to the amount of 100,467/. a year. The second
class comprised that class of cases in which new dis-
tricts had been wholly or partially formed. The pe-
tition alluded to, referring to this class, after enume-
rating many of the consequences of the insufficient
endowment of these districts, states that the clergy
appointed to them are in many cases reduced to the
utmost distress, and obliged to turn to other avoca-
tions to procure food and raiment. There are 4,000
of these clergymen whose incomes do not reach the
sum of 150/. per annum for each. Thc third class

comprised those cases into which inquiry had been
made, but for which no funds had been provided. It
was calculated that no less than 530 churches were
required for districts containing each more than
3,000 inhabitants. The Marquis of BLANIWORD
showed that the surplus of the episcopal and
capitular property which would remain after
payment of all just calls would he suffi-
cient to provide for the three classes of wants
above stated, and that as the population increased
further resources might be obtained in a si,Lilar
manner.

It is satisfactory to see that Lord JoitN
heartily concurred in the giving leave for the intro-
duction of the Marquis of BLasneonn's bill, and the
favourable manner in which Mr. Hrxe, Sir liaNta-
MIN Ham., and other Church Reformers, spoke of its
tendency, gives reason for supposing that it may be
made the basis of much reform in a Church estab-
lishment greatly in need of improvement.