The Express.
London, England, 1866-10-19 00:00:00

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

ROAN CATINNICUOI IN TH) CHURCH Or riOLAND.

The extravagances of the ritualists and the pro-
found disregard which they exhibit for the ecclesiastical
virtue of obedience are commenthd upon by the Times ;
sad a letter is given from a correspondent describing the
kindred instruction which he heard communicated to a
class of children in St. Alban's, Holborn. There
is, remarks the Tines, in these proceedings a vulgarity
of taste as well es an absurdity of practice made ape-
airily apparent when it is known that the very
vestments in which these ecclesiastical performers
flaunt, and to which they attach such ridiculous
importance, have been shown to be nothing but orna-
mented varieties of the usual garments of the time of the
Roman empire. But the greatest evil of all is that
these antics, as our contemporary terms them,
are definitely connected with the system of Roman
catholic doctrine. Archbishop Manning, in • recent ad-
dress, congratulated his audience that they were relieved
of the necessity of maintaining the controversy about
transubstantiation, because the English clergy had
adopted that doctrine, and were diligently inculcating it
among their people. The statement, it must be admitted,
was scarcely any exaggeration. Even the celibacy of the
clergy is beginning to be openly advocated, and the duty
of confession is avowedly circulated, while it is attended
by none of those safeguards which alone render it toler
able in the Roman catholic church. The easy consent of
fathers and husbands is grossly abused, and the un-
employed young-ladyisin of their households is turned to
account by teachers of this school. It would be reducing
articles and ecclesiaaticaljaws to a mere farce if it could
be proved that they were incapable of repressing the
very errors against which they were expressly designed.
The issue ought at least to be definitely tried, or people
will be asking what is the use of an established church if
it cannot maintain established doctrines ? It is time this
pernicious nonsense was stopped, and whatever the noise
which these innovators might make, the authorities of the
church would have the general support of the English
people if they would but summon up resolution to do their
duty.

POLITICAL PARTIES IN PRANCE.
Though the disorder under which the Emperor Napoleon
is understood to suffer is rather lingering and painful
than directly threatening to life, or disabling from the
duties of sovereignty, the Daily News observes that
uneasiness and apprehension have been excited in France.
It is the misfortune of the system of personal
government that it can with difficulty survive
the person who created and wielded it; and if
the imperial system should fall, what is to take
its place! Even if constitutional principles have not been
discredited in France too much to allow of the reorganisa-
tion of constitutional monarchy there are too many signs
that statesmen capable of wisely and firmly administering
it cannot be sought in the ranks of the present opposition.
The toryism of England was the ideal which M. Guizot
deliberately set before himself in his administration, and
the Orleanist school have not, it would seem, had their
eyes opened to their errors by eighteen years of exile. M.
Guizot advocates the maintenance by French arms of the
temporal power of the papacy ; M. Thiers denounces
Italian freedom and unity ; and M. Forcade protests
against the consolidation of Germany. From the Orlean-
ist leaders proceeded the chief resistance which Mr. Cob-
den had to encounter in his negotiation of the French
Treaty of Commerce. M. Prevost-Paradol's recent apology
for small and rotten boroughs and electoral corruption as
the means of securing parliamentary independence
went beyond the expressed convictions even of
the highest English toryism. M. Forcade's stric-
tures upon our reform agitation given in the current
number of the Revue des Deus Mundes might have been
translated from some of our openly or covertly tory prints.
These politicians who managed their own affairs so ill
emulate the blindness of our blindest party. They counsel
us to act in the spirit of resistance, if not to adopt the
exact measures of suppression, which in 1848 involved
France in revolution. These things force us tol the mis-
giving that a really liberal government in France is, for
the present, little short of an impossibility. The folly and
incapacity of the constitutional party does more than any-
thing else to preserve the despotism which its folly and
incapacity created. Orleanists of the fashion of M.
Forced* and M. Provost-Paradol are the most dangerous
foes that constitutional monarchy possesses in France.