The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-11 00:00:00

Zits Vltvvisis.

TO oosassposnwirt
11dserthemente Wended for " The Expreee,^ London Evening
P.per, must be at the Offtee, 10, bouverie-street, by Two
Yidaelc on the day of pabliestton.

DitERY•LANE.
i?II Evaarittl, KIN': Mill N. Slaws. Phelps, Is. sulliran,
E. Phelps, M•lntyre, Earrett. J. Johnstone, dt Master P.
. Mesdames Herman an 4 Vsuilenbutt—And TUE
M I LLEIt .V.ND Ills MEN. Miss Edith Stuart.

rtAYNI ARK IT.
Ia: Etienne, ROM Et) AND JULIE-T. Meters. Chippendale.
Howe, Huger; Kendal, Clark, Compton, die.: Mee lames
o.cott Chlppondale, ite.—And THE TAMING 9M
T +IIR KW. Mr. Howe; M. Scott Siddons.

PRINCTIWIA
UM EVENT o. POOR PILLICODDY.—After which ARRAN
NA 14061. E. Ileum Beach:Ault, Vining, D. Murray, J. O. Shore,
G. Neville, de. ; Mies Halms and Sim Beaelesult.—And NO.
ONE, ROUND Tug LIMN Eft.

LY('Er M.
Tnr FlocNom, THE NINTHEAS OP THE MILL—THE
I SOY or LYONS. Mr. Pechter, Messrs. Jordan, Rosary,
01111:1.111, Mellon, Dalton, Stuart, and Frances; Mamas El.-
worthy and Carlotta Leclereq, Iln, Marston.

lITLAND.
urs Evirma, OM DOM MTICS. Hewn. Paraelle, Thorne,
awl .I amt.: Mesdames Johnshme and Wcallicreby.—After which
WILLIAM TELL WITH A V ENG CANCF.. Wawa Jamas and
!Wane ; Mu Ada nwanboronat, dm—Awl OKAY AB A POST.

Tills ETROIso, DANDELIONSHOLBORN. DOODES.—And FOR LOVE.
!Imes 11. J. Montagne, Rice, Garden, Westland, and 11. Wld•
dicomb: Mesdames Stephens, llenrade, Jenny Willman, and C.
Sauthlera—To conclude with A.A.S. Mr. J. W. Ray.

BRITLa.
THIS EVEXI3O, BREAK BUTAB NB OT BRIO. Mrs. S. Lane
rite American Minstrels and Japanese Tommy; MM. Castel.,
lier and alike, astounding Oymnasta—With LION LIMB,
KING OP TILE SOUTH YEA ISLANDS.

RIGA WATFR ger LONDON RAMON.
LlOl DAY —Warning, Ott. 25=--..Allontoot, Ob. 4510.
10-1101110W—Moralog, 10. Ili. Ylm.

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11.

IF a statement be correct which appears in an
Irish journal exceedingly likely to be well in-
formed, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland
have unanimously and positively refused the offer
of endowment at the hands of the State under any
form or conditions whatsoever. They will not
take any part of the revenues of the Established
Church ; they decline not less peremptorily a dis-
tinct and separate endowment ; nor will they ac-
cept the bounty of the State for the maintenance
of their churches and glebes. The Roman Catholic
prelates by no means intend that the rival Church
should retain the temporalities which they them-
selves decline, but propose that they should be ap-
propriated to the relief of the Irish poor. We
need not discuss the positive part of this recom-
mendation until it assumes a more precise and
elaborated form than that in which it is
now barely indicated. Do the Bishops
desire that the temporalities of the Church
should form a fund for the relief of the
poor in addition to or in substitution for the
rates ? If the latter, they will have to show that
the local taxation of Ireland is in excess of the
resources of the country. We doubt whether
they will be able to make a case against a poor
rate. If the fund is to supplement that furnished
by the rates, the temporalities of the Established
Church will simply be appropriated to the whole-
sale manufacture of pauperism—a branch of pro-
duction in which individual energy is already quite
sufficiently active in Ireland, and which does not
need the co-operation and encouragement of the
State. The high value set by the Roman
Catholic religion upon almsgiving, the sort of wor-
ship of poverty which it deliberately fosters,
and the comparatively light estimate which
it makes of the energetic and industrial
virtues, appear in this suggestion. But
we need not further discuss a proposal on which
Bishops, as such, speak with no special au-
thority, and on which statesmen are more
likely to consult political economists than
ecclesiastics. The refusal of the Irish Roman
Catholic Episcopate to accept any share of
the revenues of the Protestant Establishment, or
to become iu any way the allies or stipendiaries of
the State, does credit to their good sense and self-
respect. The motives from which they have acted
are nut, of course, identical with the feelings which
animate the Protestant Alliance or even the Libe-
ration Society in combating this abortive project.
The " sin of fostering Romanist idolatry and
" superstition" is not likely to appear a " sin in
the eyes of Cardinal CULLEN. Nor does his
Eminence, we may presume, hold those
theories of absolute religious freedom and
equality which the reigning POPE has so
repeatedly and emphatically condemned. But
as all roads lead to Rome, so does every conside-
ration which can influence reasonable men, con-
demn the design of preserving and multiplying
State establishments of religion in Ireland. The
Roman Catholic hierarchy have come to a sound
practical conclusion ; and it would be ungracious
to disparage them because the path by which they
have travelled to it is not that along which others
journey to the same goal. They have been swayed,
no doubt, by a supreme regard to what they con-
ceive to be the interests of their own Church ;
and this is a feeling which the sternest Protestant
cannot but respect in them, though it is impos-
sible he should share it. They have resolved to
preserve their spiritual independence, and that
moral influence over their flocks which depends
on their independence, from the taint even
of suspicion. They have seen very clearly
that the object of English statesmen was to make
the endowment of the Roman Catholic Church a
means of preserving the Protestant Church Estab-
lishment in Ireland, and they have refused to be-
come the bulwark, or rather (to adopt Father
NEWMAN'S distinction) the breakwater of that
doomed and tottering structure. If they have
been wise in rejecting, what is to be said of the con-
duct of English politicians in making the overtures
which have met with a deserved and summary
rebuff? The transaction shows painfully the in-
tellectual poverty and blindness of even our best
statesmanship. It gropes about obsolete tradi-
tions, and falls back upon inapplicable precedents.
It is essentially mimetic. Mr. Pirr meditated the '
endowment of the Irish Roman Catholic Church
three-quarters of a century ago. Lord FRANCIS
LEVESON Gowen carried a motion recommends-
tory of it in the House of Commons in the
year 1825 ; and later statesmen seem
to be mentally captive to these pre-,