The Express.
London, England, 1866-01-03 00:00:00

THE EORESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING. JANUARY 3, 1866.

,4

faith and practice from suspicion, we may venture ..7,014 d evidence bknve giving up a Oscan goLlend be.
to ask, what useful end the English authors of this its° PractielnY • landur7 for fulit"boon!renal
movement hope to secure by the proposed union I os. If. the treaty is not renewed
d there Sill be very
We should like to know what spirit impels them littlerr rityapfohr propertye intheLon
towards a Church which is the creature of put by the • 'sten
of the Interior through the columns of the Opinion
a despotic Sovereign, and which in its intel- Nationale, specially noting the absence of all figures,
lectual character is the type of rigid immobility. which seems to justify the suspicion that they do
Why are we to be at pains to show that we are sot bear out his views. Nevertheless, the Telegraph be.
not Protestants, as many suppose ? We might iieves that from the conscientious adherence of our judicial
feel inclined to ask how it is that a body of English authorities to theF letteranodf
Athe tent, th
lica neotobitliftunof
atttired.n.
clergymen should go so far as Russia to find on further investigation it will probably be founyd that the
Christians with whom to fraternise when treaties may be amended, so that, without violating the
disunion and discord are among our greatest sanctity of the legitimate right of asylum, its operation as
afflictions at home. There is • work • protection of crime may be for the future more effectually
of union to be done here, but if the Prevented.
gentlemen who met Prince Oaxory have been
earnestly engaged in it, the fact has escaped our
notice. We presume it is intended, sooner or
later, to make the country at large a party to this
movement, but whenever that takes place its
friends will have to explain what it is in the
Russian Church that is more congenial to its de-
sires and aims than anything that can be found
among the Protestant bodies at home which they
nn-church and despise. These questions may
admit of a satisfactory answer, but they must be
answered before the recent proceedings of the
Bishop of OXFORD and his friends can commend
themselves to the judgment of the public.

THE UNITED STITZEI.

The adoption of the constitutional amendment directed
against slavery, by 27 out of the 36 gates of the union,
and the consequent incorporation of He provisions with
the supreme law of the republic, mark the completion,
the Daily NCO, remarks, of the greatest revolution that
has taken place in America since the days of Washington.
The refusal of Mississippi wan of no avail, and it
will be the right and duty of Congress to guard the liberty
of the freedmen there as elsewhere—a duty out of which
will probably arise some of the greatest difficulties that
will beset the future course of the government. It is idle
to speak of the reluctance of Congress to give immediate
effect to the reconstruction policy of President Johnson as
fanaticiam. Congress hesitates because it fears and sees
a disposition on the part of the ignorant masses of the
white population in the South to revenge upon the
blacks all the humiliation and suffering they have endured
'in the war. In some way or other it is clear that the
Federal government, as General Grant s►ys, will have
to interfere for some time to come for the protection of the
freed men.

The Pod condemns the policy of those in the Congress
who do not at once accept the propositions of President
Johnson, and describes the President and General Grant as
not looking upon the whites as a conquered people to be
subjected to the iron rale of martial law ; nor upon the
negroes as men who, by the mere fact of manumission, are
at once invested with the moral and intellectual qualities
fitting them to exercise all the political functions and
privileges of the white race trained to freedom and self-go-
vernment through a dozen generations.
Tke executive government of the United States has con-
quered the South. ft has now, the Gerald says, to con-
quer the Northern House of Representatives, and it will
find the struggle as hard ss that which preceded it. Its
own Congress has for the moment frustrated and rendered
nugatory its humane effort. at re-union, and the people of
the South are still separate from their brethren of the North•

)178 TOPICS.

The storm in the Scotch kirk raised by the Prayer•book
innovations of Dr. Lee is described by the Times, which
sympathises with the doctor, though it expresses surprise
at learning that there is no law in the kirk against the use
of a written form ; that John Knox himself used a public
form, and that it continued in use for seventy years after
his death. If Dr. Lee's view that the prohibition was
directed, not against any printed forms that a man m►y
make for himself and recommend to his congregation, but
against a liturgy publicly authorised, and compelled upon
the use of all the ministers and congregations, etude,
the Times is not sure that the Scotch kirk will
not have the advantage of the church of England,
in having liturgical worship with an unlimited power of
adapting it to every variety of want and occasion, and of
consulting the taste acd convenience of the worshippers.
We are becoming much too refined and fastidious for decla-
matory prayer ; congregations, with the best intentions,
finding that they can only sit by and listen, taking no more
spiritual part in the harangue than they would in the per-
formance of a ucrificial rite or the dancing of a dervish.
The Times again argues with Sir Fitzroy Kelly
about the Malt Tax, and addresses to him a mixt-
bee of questions which it thinks he will find it
difficult to answer. Malt liquor, though an article In
very general consumption, mast yet be considered a
luxury, necessary though it be to the strength and health
of many hard-working people. It is a luxury by comparieon
with but f ; and a luxury in the same sense that tea, coffee,
and sugar are luxuries, and therefore taxed. There is no
inconsistency in Mr. Gladstone maintaining the Malt Duty
if he finds he cannot do without it ; but it would be a
neat inconsistency—which we should certainly hear of—
if we abolished the Malt Duty, and retained the duty on
cheap foreign wines, as well as the duties on tea and
coffee.

The Star accuses Mr. Cardwell of weakness and dereliction
of duty in going down to his constituency at the beck and
call of any benefit society that may happen to have an an-
niversary celebration ; and uttering platitudes laboriously
but timidly adapted to the prejndicte of his hearers. The
awkward misadventures of a minister wko has neither bold-
ness to tell the truth nor judgment to keep his own counsel,
are almost as contemptible as those of the gentleman in
comedy who drops his hat in order to pick up bis cane, and
in recovering his vine loses of once his gloves and his last
remnant of composure. Mr. Cardwell ought by this time to
aspire to some nobler r6le than the Captain Maydemblueh
in the cabinet of the Little Treasure.

The Telegraph congratulates tke metropolitan brigade
on the manner in which they have worked at the first great
fire since the concentration of their force under one ad-
ministration, and in describing the fire at St. KatharineB
Docks, expresses a wish that some of those ingenious in-
ventions about which we are always bearing when there are
no fires, would air their merits on occasions like this. Here
was flame inclosed in a kind of large box, with a door at
the side—exactly the chance for the patent which was
tried at Woolwich the other day, or for some similar &pp'.
ratus. There are gases, of course, which quench flame as
surely as an extinguisher puts out a bedroom candle ; but,
somehow or other, the business is always left to the pump-
and-squirt idea, and to the old-fashioned species of ma-
chines, somewhat new-(angled in detail, but identical in
method with the parish engines which played upon Pudding.
lane and Pie-corner in the Great Fire.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(num% TIIIO/18.)
THE ITALIAN BUDGET.
FLORENCE, Jim. 3.

It h believed that Signor Scialoja, the new
Minister of Finance, will maintain the budget as
drawn up by Signor Sells, with the exception of the
army and navy estimates, in which he will endea-
vour to make further reductions.

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