The Express.
London, England, 1867-08-29 00:00:00

THE CHURCH OF ENCLV(I).

With regard to the report of the commission on
ritualism, which will be found in another column, the
Times says that it amount' to • direct and decided con-
demnation of the ritualists. Although the significant
paragraphs of the report are not more than ten lines in
length, their consideration has occupied the commission
several weeks. The ritualists proclaimed a crusade against
the whole established system of public worship ; they in_
suited the protestant feeling of the English people by the
most open defiance of custom; they refused to listen to
the advice, the warnings, almost the entreaties, of their
bishops ; in • word, they forced into public prominence a
bitter religious controversy and disturbed the peace of the
church ; and we now learn, on their own admission,
that they have been contending for things which
are not essential. Such conduct is the more un-
pardonable because, if the ritualists had but ab-
stained from flaunting their anti-protestantism in
the faces of the public, they would have been
allowed the utmost toleration of opinion. With re-
gard to the mode of preventing ritualistic practices
in future, the Times is of opinion that the suggestion of
the commissioners undoubtedly hits the weak point of our
present church organisation. The existing law is con-
fessedly ambiguous. It would be of little avail merely to
accelerate the mode of procedure. We should simply pro-
mote an endless series of unsatisfactory lawsuits. If
redress is to be rendered easy and effectual, the rubric
must be made plain and decisive. The Times hopes so un-
expected yet so decisive • result may induce the ritualists
to reconsider their position, and to render unnecessary
any future amendment of the law by anticipating its
operation.

The Daily News is glad to see that the more responsible
of it. tory contemporaries are beginning to treat the
church rate question ;.1 a new style ; but it reminds
them that the time for compromise is past, and that
nothing short of complete abolition will now satisfy the
nation. As an illustration of the oppression that might
be practised if the payment of churob•rates in any form
were allowed to exist in law, the Daily News quotes the
following case The Hon. F. W. C. Villiers, of the
family of the Earl of Jersey, has given one of the oldest
tenants on his estate, Mr. Job Srueeton —a gentleman who
with his father has occupied some put of it for sixty
years—notice to quit his farm, avowedly" in consequence
of the position he has assumed as to the church-rate."
Mr. Sineeton is a Nonconformist, but not like his
landlord a sectarian, having recently contributed
cheerfully tow►rds the restoration of the parish church. In
the exercise of his right as a p►rishioner—a right which is
as indisputable as that of Mr. Villiers to his estate—he has
opposed the loving of church rates, and thereupon it is
resolved in the cause of the church that his interest in his
holding shall be sacrificed. The one merit which must be
conceded to Mr. Villiers is that what he has done has Ix en
done openly, and without circumlocution ; it is, however,
but a specimen of what is going on all over the country all
the year round. When church rates are abolished, he will
doubtless still prefer to have good churchmen for his
neighbours : but he will not be so strongly tempted to
turn old and peace-loving nonconformist tenants out of
their farms.

751 TOPICS,.

Referring to the present position of Mazzini and
Garibaldi with respect to Italy, and of Kossuth with
regard to Hungary, the Times is of opinion that the game
of Revolution has for the present been played, and some-
thing like disenchantment and lassitude has followed upon
too excessive • strain on popular passions. Revolution
begins to be looked upon as • clog on the wheel of progress.
Men may not be willing to take their rulers for better for
worse, but they have too often found how easy it is to fall
from bad to worse. On the whole, fashions only take in
Europe when they come from Paris, and the hands that
were so rarly at barricade•work have forgot their cunning.
The cause of order gains ground, and, although order alone
is but a poor substitute for freedom, yet freedom itself is
not freedom unless based on order. The maxim is old and
the lesson seems easy, but the world is only now beginning
to learn it.

According to the Herald the irrepressible Mr. George
Potter is in the field again, fomenting fresh dissensions,
and beating up for new disciples. This time it Is not the
working builders, nor the operative tailors, but the metro-
politan gas stokers whom be has taken under his tuition.
The demand made on behalf of the gas stokers is that the
men should work one-third less time, and be paid the same
wages as at present, the consequential increase of expense
being taken from the fund applicable for the share-
holders' dividends. The idea is not twelve hours' pay
for twelve hours' work, but eight hours' work for
twelve hours' pay. According to the statement
of the secretary of the Chartered Gas Company
the first-class stokers get 345. fid- a week ; second-class,
345. ; and third-class, 321. In addition, each has half a
pint of oatmeal daily, a paid holiday monthly, an excur-
@ion, with his wagesandpart of his expenses paid,amivally ;
besides which, the piice de resistance at the workman's
Christmas dinner is provided by his employers. By them,
also, the men have been furnished with a I;brary, lavatory,
baths, and medical attendance while in the service, and
with superannuation allowances when they have left it.
The Herald trusts that the gas stokers will take warning
by the experience of the North Eastern engine drivers
and the West-end tailors, and will learn from the suf-
ferings of others, without insisting upon being taught by
their own.

The Post is of opinion that the edifice of German unity
fa not safe, became it is not built on a moral foundation.
It is plain from the movement of the liberal party in the
Southern states that they will not pass under the Prussian
yoke if they are able to help themselves, and it requires
very little political prescience to see that, if disposed to
resist absorption, they will have support. Independence
and liberty have been sacrificed to compass unity, and,
after half a century of peace, war has come so be regarded
as inevitable, if not imminent. On the whole, therefore,
the Germans cannot but be aware that, u their account
is now made up, the balance is against them. It is in
favour of Prussia ; their loss has been her gain ; and it is
the aggrandisement of Prussia, and not the union of Ger-
many, that disturbs France and Austria.

The Trier/rook thinks that if the liberal party had had
the °outage of its opinions, and had proposed house-
hold suffrage in 1866, it would have carried the