The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-06 00:00:00

PETITIONS FOR RAILWAY AND PRIVATE

BILLS.

Yesterday, Messrs. Smith and Mar, the examiners
of the House of Commons, declared the standing orders
complied with in the following caws:
EAST ANGLIAN RAILW SYS.—The standing orders were
complied with in respect of this company's bill for power to
sell, lease, and amalgamate with the Norfolk, Eastern
Counties, and Great Northern Railways, and to amend pre-
vious act. Parliamentary agents, Messrs. Dyson and Co.
GItEAT WESTERN RAILWAY.—The standing orders, SRI?
considerable opposition, understood to enutnate from the Lon- I
dun and North Western Railway, were declared complied
with in respect of this company's bill for enabling them to
construct new lines of railway to connect the Birmingham and
Oxford Junction Railway with the London and North
Western Railway, at Birmingham, and with the Rugby
and Leamington Railway at Leamington, and to proride
additional station ground in Birmilernain. The railway to
be on the wren-feet gauge, with a double line of gauge of
4 feet tti inches; the mechanical construction of the mixed
gauge to be executed to the satisfaction of the railway com-
missioners. Parliamentary agents, Messrs. Prltt and Co.
ELVEN! VALLEY RAILWAY.—The standing orders were
complied with in the ea... Cathie company's hill for:junction
with, and power to sell or lease to, South Wales Railway.
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH CUMPANY.—The standing orders
were complied with in the case of this company's bill, which
proposes an alteration in the capiaal.

FIRST PRINCIPLES ASSOCIATION. —A correspond-
ent says : "In accordance with the rules of the aloe:
Association, the members met on 'Tuesday, at the Sc.
ciety's rooms, 66, Chancery-lane. The subject for discus-
sion was, The Itelstive Position of the Episcopate and the
Priesthood.' Out of this arose an important question,
What healed to the great want of sympathy between the
bishops and their clergy ?' Two solutions were given to
this, which was universally admitted to be pregnant with
I the wont consequences to the church ' • one was, the non-
residence of bishops at their cathedrals; the other, which
necessanly follows, the almost total neglect of that part of
their sacred office which consists in celebrating the holy
eucharist, assisted, as he ought to be, by hie presbyters.
' Under the first of these beads, it appears that se-
venteen of the bishops do not reside at their ca-
thedrals, and that only ten do. Much of the evil
which in the present day bears so heavily upon
the church may be traced to this circumstance. Under
the second head. ;t was steed that many of the bishop.,
except at consecrations of churches, and of candidates for
holy orders. hardly ever celebrate the sacrament. The first
bishops of Christ derived their personal claim anon the
people's respect altogether from the dignity of their priestly
office, as set before men's eyes and ruindein the celebrating '
constantly, not now and then, the holy communion. Persons
who have been at Horne or et St. Petersburg have seen
how much of the extraordinary repute in which the
chief shepherds in these sect arc held, is owing to
their coming forth not as greet statesmen, but as
exalted priests, doing that which brings priests and
people as one great united body into communion
with him to whom they all belong. The feeling of the
meeting was that an increase in the eniscopats was abso-
lutely necessary for fully carrying out the system of the
church. Instead of twenty-seven bishops in England we
ought it was argued to have four time.the number. There
is no need of additional funds for this, the salaries of the
present bishops arc ample for a hundred. A thousand
pounds a year is enough for any one man who is to be a
follower of the Apostles and their saintly successors, such as
St. Ambrose and St. AuFputine. There is rarely much
community of feeling between persons in those tanks of life
which differ widely from each other. A bishop with five or
six thousand a year can have very little in common with a
poor vicar with two or three hundred. It was thrther con-
tended that tie extinction of the presbytery as a delibera-
tive body in every diocese, and of the lower Louse of convo-
cation in which prices have a voice in the laws and govern.
meet of the church, had had very great influence in bring-
ing about the present state of things, and of setting up the
bishops more as the worldly governors than as the holy
fathers of the inferior order of the clergy."