The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-22 00:00:00

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GERMANY.

BERLIN, Arnim 18.
The reaction in the administration of the political
affair,' of this country has reached a point at which
the next step mast be the transition to that state of
government which existed previously to March
184 S. Your columns have daily contained
all-sufficient proofs of this fact. Attention
must now be drawn to the reaction in
the administration of the religious affairs.
According to the constitution passed and sworn to
in February, POO, all religious persuasions may be
freely exercised and are wholly separate from poli-
tical rights. Let me premise here that the state
church of Prussia is protestant, catholic, and Jewish
--that is to say, the teachers of the Lutheran, ca-
tholic, and Jewish persuasions, are all paid by the
state, and are under the immediate control of the
eultus minister. All persons preaching tenets dif.
firing from either of these three must depend fur
support on the voluntary contributions of their fol-
lower'. Of late years the number of these sects has
greatly increased, owing mainly to the forcible union
of the evangelical and Lutheran churches decreed
some eight or ten years ago. There are baptists and
anabaptists, methodists, Christian catholics, German
eathohcs, free Christians, primitive Christians,
and others, the majority of which have
found locations principally in the Saxon
and eastern provinces of Prussia. They have
long since been viewed with suspicion and dis-
like by the higher authorities in the protestant
branch of the state church, and as the leaders of this
confession are now in peace at court and in the go-
vernment, they have set in motion the whole of the
machinery of the ecclesiastical and political police in
order to put them down and efface them from the
country. The brethren of the sects have been de-
clared political offenders, because they hold public
meetings not sanctioned by the law. In Pomer-
ania and East Prussia, in Breslau numbers have
been arrested and sentenced to the payment of fines
varying in amount from sto 341 thalers. The com-
mon illiterate police are the machinery employed to
terrify and suppress. In East Prussia all the sacred
offices of the church performed by members of these
sects have been declared illegal, with a retrospective
action. The married have been unmarried, the christ-
ened unchristened, the dead not buried, with the usual
Christian rites. In point of fact, all persons pro-
fessing any other faith but those recognised by the
state have been excommunicated. In the Saxon

province the police have been strictly ordered to place of execution, where the prisoner, who
watch with the greatest care the proceedings of the twenty years of age, was hung.
dissenting bodies and the activity of their leaders. A similar scene was near being enacted in San
Wherever they occur, the parish authorities have Francisco. There, also, a people's jury tried a person
been instructed immediately to acquaint the police accused of an attempt to commit murder, but luckily
authorities, in order that the necessary repressive three of the jury resisted the demands of the popu-
measures may at once be put in force. This is merely lace. Their firmness saved the life of the culprit,
the commencement of a crusade against dissenters and he was eventually handed over to the officers of
from the recognised protestant church. I could de- justice, to be legally tried.
tail several other cases, but I prefer waiting until The legislature has failed to elect a senator in the
they shall have accumulated to such a degree that place of Colonel Fremont. Atter one hundred and
public attention begins to be aroused. forty-four ballots, the joint convention in effect ad-
I have desetibed the manner in which the authori- journcd sine die.
ties of the church are punishing dissent. What are I Though there had not been any remarkable dis-
they doing within the church to prevent it? I will coveries of gold, yet the general tenor of the news
not enter upon the new "Kirchen Ordnits? (church from the interior is decidedly favourable to the
regulations), as it requires a more careful digest than miners. The quartz mines are being worked with
I have yet been able to give to it. Suffice it here to much success, and the stories heretofore published
remark, that it entirely subverts the principle upon' of the richness of the placers at Trinidad Bay are
which the old "Kirrlien Ordnuny" was ssed, viz., I, corroborated by this arrival. Miners were going to
that the parish clergymen or priests were under the the Gold Bluff' in great numbers.
direction and subordinate in many matters to the At the mines dry weather continued to be expe-
parish council, the elected administrative body. The rienced, and, from the lack of rain apprehensions
new regulation places the council and administration were entertained in many new quarters; locations
entirely under the dominion of the clergymen, whose had, however, been explored which promised to yield
power is in some degree to be absolute. He is to largely, and from the general tenor of the accounts it
keep conduct lists of his parishioners, 8:c. There was expected that unusually large receipts of dust
are many other obnoxious points in the regu- would be received during the spring, tho miners
lation, and I must return to it in an- I having adopted plans to meet the difficulty. Gold
other letter. Its spirit and its action must ' dust was already arriving somewhat more free yat
be catholic and not protestant. I do not sup- lat San Francisco, and the essayers were fully em-
pose that the enforcement of such a regulation cs ployed. On the 2nd of March two steamers were de-
calculated to prevent dissent ; for, careless as the stroveil by fire at San Francisco. In mercantile affairs
Berliners may be to religious matters, there is in the since the departure of the previous mail operations
• eastern and northern parts of Prussia a mass of pro- had been light. Goods had heti' offered freely for
testant feeling and principle. full of life and vigour, sale at auction, and lower prices accepted.
which revolts at the progress now making by popery, The Pacific Mail Company had raised their rate