The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-19 00:00:00

!lOLHORY,I.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19.

Tne Emperor of Ausrms's replies to the
addresses of the twenty-five Bishops and of the
Municipal Council of Vienna are in spirit and in '
sense such as should proceed from a Sovereign who
hasceased to bo an absolute ruler, and who is ready to
acknowledge his constitutional obligations. Acting',
on the advice of responsible Ministers and recog-
nizing the authority of the national Parliament, he
declines to treat the question of the Concordat as
one to be decided on his own mere motion by a
personal understanding with the Court of Rome,
or by reference to a state of things which
has irrevocably passed away. It would ,
be ungracious to strain the interpretation
of a few words in which the EMPEROR, as
in duty bound, professes his constant determina-
tion to protect the interests of the Church, and
his conviction that religion must be the basis of
sound national instruction. There is nothing
in such harmless and proper sentiments as these
that Baron BEusr might not with perfect pro-
priety suggest as befitting the occasion—nothing
that should give umbrage to the most susceptible
constitutionalist. M. Ds Bern, secure in the con-
fidence of his Sovereign, may well have been dis-
posed to moderato the effervescence of the episco-
pate by conciliatory assurances, while satisfying
the Reicharath and the municipality of the firm-
ness of the Government in maintaining the autho-
rity of the Legislature, and paying homage to
public opinion. M. DE BEVST has been de-
scribed as more of a diplomatist than a
statesman—as a man of negotiations and
transactions and compromises, rather than
of bold and resolute determinations. It is said
that he would have preferred to proceed by slow
and dilatory steps towards an amicable revision of
the Concordat, after a protracted correspondence
with the Vatican, without agitating the public
mind, and to obtain at length an acquiescence, on
the part of Rome, in a complete change, which
would practically reduce the provisions of the
Concordat to a dead letter. This course of action
would perhaps have been more congenial to tho
ARezt-Cuancin.wit's temperament and habits of
policy. The Representative of Austria at the
Court of Rome was about to receive definite
instructions on the subject before returning to his
post, when the violent commination of the
twenty-five Bishops burst upon the community
like a declaration of war, and instantly made any
compromise impossible between modern society
and legislation, and pretensions to absolute control
over both. M. DE BECST'S position, as a stranger
and a Protestant, was so delicate and difficult
before, that his tenderness towards the ultra-
clerical party, so long paramount in the Councils
of the Empire, might be excused if not justified.

. - •
The constitutional party in Austria—that is two-
thirds of the Reicbsreth and all the intelli-
gence and independence of the middle clesses—
owe perhaps a debt of thanks to those ultramon-
tane Bishops who, by their intemperate provoca-
tions, have forced the question of civil and reli-
gious liberty to a crisis, and compelled the
Emperor FRANCIS JOSEPH to make his open choice
between that dark, irresponsible reactionary party
which has brought the empire to the brink of ruin
and the national party of progress and reform.
The result is a victory for the cause which all
Liberals in all countries have at heart. The En-
PEROR administers a just rebuke to these arrogant
ecclesiastics, who, while protesting their desire for
unity and concord, have provoked a dangerous
and destructive agitation, and even called the
constitution in question. And he reminds them
solemnly of the existence of the constitutional
duties of the Crown, and the constitu-
tional rights of the nation. Certainly he
is the protector of the Church of the majority ; ho
impresses on the Municipal Council the importance
of preserving the religious basis of national edu-
cation. But in this kuiguage we can fairly discern
nothing incompatible or inconsistent with perfect
fidelity to the new institutions of the country.
An English monarch is " defender of the faith ;"
English national education has the dominant reli-