The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-25 00:00:00

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

The topics dealt with to-day by most of our con-
temporaries are of the ordinary secular character. The
Times discusses the prospects of the Turkish empire ; the
need of wore judges ; the crowding of the City of London,
and the efficiency of our iron-clad navy. With regard
to the East, it is said had it been at all in
our power we could have wished not to hear
of any disturbances likely to compromise the secu-
rity of the Ottoman Empire, but should it come to
the point that the battle between the Crass and the Cres-
cent had to be fought out to the death, we could never
forget that we are rather Christians than 111ussulinans,
rather Greeks than Turks ; that we look upon tho expul-
sion of the Ottoman from Europe as a mere question of
time, and that we have shown both the earnestness and
the disinterestedness of our sympathy with the Greek

cause.
During the last Guildhall sittings little more than one-
sixth of the business set down on the cause list was
transacted, while no less than me-third was postponed for
want of time. The Tin's points out the inconvenience
and pecuniary loss entailed by this state of things ou the
mercantile community, and urges that we have not in-
creased our judicial staff in proportion, or in anything
like proportion, to the increase of population, wealth,
and litigation. If twelve judges were not too many some
time ago, fifteen aro too few now, unless, indeed some
radical change be made in procedure and practice.
The Daily News expects much from the German palls-
ment, despite the marks it bears of the incomplete power
of those in whose interests it was devised or has been ac.
cepted. Should the North German Confederation,which the
world regards as simply an essay, work well, it will excite
in the southern states of Germany desires which must
prove irresistible. What Count Bismarck could not ac-
complish in the name of Prussian military power, he may
be able to effect with comparative ease in compliance with
the demand of the German people ; and we cannot doubt
that in older to invite and encourage that demand the
Prussian government will do all in its power to convince
the nation that its inLicsts and those of the House of
Hohenzollern are the same.
11 All that is distinctive in the Christian system, says the
P.,/, starts from this day. The initial point of that faith
which all the churches, eastern or western, have held fur
nearly twenty centuries, is built upon the incarnation of
the Son of God. Get rid of that central fact, and the
doctrines circling round it, and Christianity is at an end.
Then either the Jewish dispensation is yet in force, or we
are referred hack to the systems of the ancient philoso-
phers. If neither of these content uwe are cast loose
upon an unlimited ocean of speculations , and left, each one
for himself, to make what conclusions we can out of the
mysteries and problems that lie around us.
The Herald and Star plead the cause of the poor, and
urge that whatever may be our thoughts of Christmas,
we shall believe in it most thoroughly and with best
warrant as a time of enjoyment if we number first amongst
its pleasures the luxury of doing good.
The Tell yrapli dwells ou the day in language peculL
itself, and which the following specimen will it
lusttate
" The cruel, splendid, passionate, careless world of the
Casars to be rent, and riven, and re-modelled by the
tiny hands stretched from that manger at Bethlehem !
The small mouth, pressed to the pure maternal
bosom, to be charged with the messages which
should by-and-bye close the great circus with its blood-
stained sands and sweep of fierce faces, break the chains of
slaves, strip the worship and the glory from the high Gods
of Greece and Rome, veal up the oracles, and send ambas-
sadors of the Love of God far and wide into the world,
subduing all men to the kingdoM of the King whose
diadem was a crown of thorns with blood-drops for rubies,
and his proclamation the insulting scroll nailed over his
, I drooping head on the cross of Calvary !"
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