The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-22 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22.

IT is gratifying to observe at the end of the se-
cond week after the departure of the French troops
from Rome that the HOLY FATHER is not only in
the enjoyment of external peace, but appears to
have recovered the accustomed serenity of his
mind. He is reported by the telegram to have
been saying something of King VICTOR Emus-
NITEL, the prodigal son of the Church, much more
civil than the language he lately held respecting
the Emperor NAPOLEON, his elder and more deco-
rous brother. There is reason for this improved
tone. VICTOR EMMANUEL has promised to secure
the independence of the Pork:, and two represen-
tatives of the Italian Government are at the pre-
sent time conferring with Cardinal ANTONELLI
upon the various matters in dispute between it
and the Head of the Church. The most striking
proof, however, that the Film apprehends
no such trouble at Rome as would make
his withdrawal from the capital necessary, is
found in the letter of Convocation which he has
addressed to the Bishops of his Church throughout
the world, inviting them to assemble at Rome next
Juno to celebrate the eighteenth centenary of
the martyrdom of the Apostles PETER and PAUL.
The business to be transacted on that occasion is
declared by the POPE himself to be of the highest
importance, being nothing less than the formal
and solemn advancement of a number of heroes
of the Church, front the ranks of the beatified to
those of the Saints. Canonisation is a more
serious affair in our days than in those early
times when the spontaneous but sure instincts of
popular faith anticipated the solemn sanction
of the Church, and canonised a brother by the
simple act of building an altar over his grave.
As a practice of the Popes it only began in the
tenth century, but now, as we read in this Ponti-
fical letter, it is " one of the principal and gravest
" cares of the Apostolic ministry of the SovEatuus
" PONTIFF" to recruit the saintly army which the
Church honours in its worship. The ceremony
of June next promises to be an imposing spectacle,
in which nearly every important country of Eu-
rope will have an interest. France will be repre-
sented among the saints to be honoured by a
" secular virgin" of Toulouse, Spain by an in-
quisitor of Saragossa, Naples by a sister of the
Five Wounds. and Russia by a martyred archbishop.
The Latin race will appear with pre-eminent splen-
dour, as it usually does on these occasions. The
Gotha, however, will be indemnified, for
Holland supplies a formidable contingent in the
" nine blessed martyrs of Ghorkum." (if course,
the claims of these meritorious persons have been
examined with the utmost rigour. The Church
of Rome boasts that for such purposes it is
accustomed to require stronger evidence than
would satisfy the most sceptical of unbelievers.
Commissions of inquiry have sat to sift the testi-
mony of ardent admirers, and welcome all who
could suggest the least objection to the character
of the candidates, and in the face of friends and
cavillers it has been established that they all
died in the odour of sanctity, and that their virtues
and graces have been abundantly attested by
miracles. After this it would be invidious to ob-
ject to their exaltation in a service, promo-
tion in which is so strictly regulated
by merit. If, nevertheless, we might sug-
gest an objection, we would ask if canoni-
sation is to proceed at this rate, and fifteen
holy men and women are to be admitted into
the company of the Saints in one day, what
Liturgy will henceforth be sufficient to contain the
names of the vast host ? Their number is perpe-
tually increasing—fur while many are added none
are ever dropped out. Hitherto these fifteen
good people have had only a local and provincial
fame, belonging merely to a country, a diocese,
or a church, to which the practice of worshipping
them has been restricted ; henceforth their merits
and intercessions will he the heritage of the whole
Church. This superabundance of spiritual wealth
is embarrassing ; it has become a most difficult
matter to choose a patron from the numberless
throng of saints, each with his special
and peculiar ability to aid the earthly
pilgrim, and as their number increases
the selection is in danger of becoming
little better than a lottery. These matters, how-
ever, are not exactly within our province, and
lest we should betray a carnal ignorance, wo will
leave them to the wisdom of the Hotv FATHER, re-
cognising in these sacred cares the proper sphere of
his skill and judgment. It in occupations of
this kind that he shows himself the great and pre-
eminent Pontiff that he is. Better be employed
in ordering the hierarchy of earth and heaven,
than in haggling with Ronisenitn, or equipping
red-legged Zouaves. We wish the venerable
Prelate health and peace, a large concourse of the
faithful, and fine weather.

According to the Saturday Review, all the world
is aware that the real object of the Emperor Napoleon in
raising the army to the enormous total of 1,250,000 armed
men is to provide himself with an army of offence—an
army which would place him at the head of Europe, and
make him as much the arbiter of its fate as he was believed
to be before the battle of Wows. And nothing could
show in a more striking way bow great is the change that
is passing over Europe and France than that it should be,
not Europe, but France, that feels aggrievcd and hurt at
the proposal. He may force his subjects to adopt his
plan, whether they like it or not ; but there can
be little doubt that they (Is''ke it bitterly.
lOn no previous occasion in his reign has there
been the same heartiness and unanimity of opposition
that this scheme for remodelling the army has excited.
The Emperor is not lightly to be moved from determina-
tions which he has once taken, but he has never yet disre-
garded the general feeling of the French people. He wi 1
try to gauge their opinion far more thoroughly and
deeply than anyone else could do ; but if he finds the
1 country to be seriously opposed to his scheme, he will be
much too sensible to persevere, and will admit modifica-
tions of it which will content his subjects without expos-
ing him to the reproach of a defeat.
The state of public feeling here and in America, is, says
the Snitirday Reriew, eminently favourable to a temperate
and rational treatment of the matters at issue. Tho
Americans are sore with us, but they are an eminently
just and law-loving people, and they will gladly listen to
us if we will but do our best to inspire them with a confi-
dence that we are trying to deal with the case in a per-
fectly fair spirit. The English public think it not un-
natural that the Americans should be a little sore with
us, regret very much that the Alabama got out to sea,
and would be quite willing to make any compensati in in
their power, so long as they were satisfied that they
were not being bullied into giving it, and so long
as they found that the case of the Alabama
was not treated as an isolated one, and that a rule
was understood to be laid down, of which the Alabama
case might lye held to be an infraction, but which the
Americans, and every other great maritime nation would
I observe in our favour if we unhappily found ourselves at

war.
It is now generally understood, says the Examiner, that
our conservative ministers, who so scornfully rejected the
claims of a few intelligent working men to the franchise
six months ago, are preparing a bill which is to admit at
least as many six months hence. It very much f ears, however.
they are but wanting their labour. If good the measure
wilt have the support it deserves ; but it is hardly possible
that those who rejected this year's bill, as going too far
can in decency produce one themselves next year which
shall go as far or farther. And farther it must go. They
have conformed too late.
The Sne,totor says that Mr. Lowe's great argument,
" Show me the vices to be remedied in the present parlia-
ment before you rush into change," almost answers itself.
The chief fault is its obstinate jealousy of the great clan■
who ask for their share in the representation, and that the
house is either in secret or open war with the numerical
majority of the nation. But the only evil is not abstract,
but takes the form of special legislative and administra-
tive deficiencies. Compare the time, energy, and vehe-
mence devoted to stamping out the cattle plague to the
time and energy devoted to more crying, rind quite as con-
spicuonsevils—the overcrowding and under-housingof Lon-
don, and the treatment of the poor in the workhouses, and
workhouse hospitals. Does Mr. Lowe !replies. that
with a strong working-class representation, these matters
would have received the transient and inefficient notice
they have received from the House of Commons' Com-
pare the time devoted to discussing military officers' ques-
tions, to the time devoted to discussing questions affecting
the welfare and treatment of the rank and file of the
army. Can Mr. Lowe conceive parliament creat-
ing a really popular army—an army in which
the common soldier had a fair chance of rising above
the beads of the commissioned officers—with our present
House of Commons? Can Mr. Lowe imagine that our pre-
sent defective educational system would ever be changed
for one thinking more of the intere,t, of the taught than
of the clergy and dissenting ministers who superintend the
teaching, with an unchanged House of Commons! Is not
the tone of parliament, whenever combinations and strikes
are mentioned, strongly capitalist! When, during the
American civil war, Mr. Baring rose in the name of Lon.
don commerce to protest against the irritating tone we were
adopting towards the North, the check to the passions of
the house, Confederate as it was, was electric. But when
Mr. Forster or Mr. Bright protested in the name of the
labouring class, the sympathies of whom were entirely
with the North, the effect produced was merely a stimulus
to the previous sentiment of aversion.

The third volume of General Todleben's " His-
tory of the Siege of Sebastopol," and the third volume of
Mr. Kinglake's " History of tho French and B. Wall Al.
hence in the Crimea" will appear in the course of next
year.