The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-25 00:00:00

Cite ervrefso.

TO CORRESPONDINTE.
Abiriboriati Wooded her "ii. Teem." Übangi Vide, vs.
awl be ell Mee. Beneldellelle. TWO Wee* is W
iby mbibition.
HIOR WATNR, AT LONDON SWOON.
Tom Dit—llirsion. 50... 6l. Us.
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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25.

Ann all, there is nothing in the events of the times
to disturb in this country the serenity acd good fellow-
ship of Christmas. The political quarrels of parties, and
the social suite of classes, were never at • lower ebb.
Protectionism is left but a squeak, and chartism does
not indulge even in that. The religious quarrels,
which have sprung up, are of themselves a proof that
there is an absence of those substantial vireo and
moral afflictions, which absorb the public mind, nor
allow it to get entangled in the play of polemics.
This, too, must be said, at least, of the parties which
dispute possession of the religions mind of England,
that their objects—the objects of the disinterested
amongst them—are in the main the same. Both
would develop, excite, and attain the vitality of re-
ligion , and would devise some pan for arousing the easy
and ind.fferent of the world, not merely from torpor,
bat even from egoanimity, and would thus force the
whole community into ore fervent mass of religion;

feeling.
It is this aim, a worthy and a holy one, which
has rent the church in twain, or crested, as it were,
two wings, or two collateral churches, seeking the
great aim of vitality by two opposite means,
either by the dieciplige and mutu►l encouragement of
the community itself, or by the power and prestige of
its appointed teachers. Of the former we have had
long experience; we know its action and its fruits.
We have examples o! its wonderful influence and
effects in certain times, and have only had to regret
the difficulty of sustaining a high degree of religious,
se indeed of any sentiment, for a continued warm

of time.
Of the other system, to keep mankind to a given
point of religious tention, by meansof priesthood and
prelacy, resplendent with dignity and pomp, macro-
nanetity and ceremony, we n had experience out
of the Church of Home, which seldom brought talent,
or the concomitants necessary to exercise such over a
well-informed, a thinking, and an enlightened
people. The experiment has never ben tried in
the Church of England, sod it has now been
fortunately put to the proof. For what could not
have been known before, is now perfectly irte-
fragably established, which is, that all each eff,cts
lead to Romanism and to the Porn, and nothing else.
The unhappy clergy who followed this iynis Aeons
can scarcely be expected to abandon at once the illu-
sion, or own themselves in a body, to have been guilty
of egregious folly. Many will peeler leaping straight
to lt,,me to drawing back in shame. But their en-
emies' are the vomit of a mistake, that cannot again
revive. No man henceforth can tamper with media-
valiant, without knowing whither it leads him. And
if a min tin want to go to Rome he will travel by a

Ka more direct.
And, so tar, those attached to the great protestant
principle of religious freedom have great cause of con-
gratulation. A more utter failure or more pernicious
consequence could not have ensued upon the
trial of the antagonist principles of religious
authority. It has borne its fruits, and we
may contemplate them with satisfaction, with
benevolence, and without fear from the quiet
corner of Christmas contemplation. We have no
reason to be discontented with the result., in wisdom
and in experience, ot the year that has passed away.
Would we could say as much of our brethren in
foreign countries, or at least on the continent of
Europe. For to them we fear that the present season,
though one of momentary peace, is also one of
peculiar bitterness and scanty hope. France,
indeed, scarcely fetes the day ; that san-
guine people give neither ceremony nor attention
within or without the family circle to the great an-
niversary of Christian regeneration. All festivity
with them is reserved for the opening of the new
year. Their devotion is directed to the future, not
the past ; their regards always turn to the rising
min, or to the east, where the sun ought to rise.
They are no worshippers of the peat; nor is there
any fear of their resuscitating aught tiled is anti-
quated or even medueval in religion or in politic*.
With strange inconsistency, however, the French
can patronise abroad what they are little for at home.
Their bayonets alone support the PUPS in his chair.
'fheir troops alone enabled hies to go through the cere-
monies of such a day as this onexecrated, utopia upon,
unstoned by a population which worshipped his
predecessors, but which have for him but the
curse of hatred and of scorn. Even the cere-
monies of religion have, we understand, become
odious to the Romans, linked as the priesthood
have been with all that is eangviinary, Infamous
and oppressive. Nothing can be imagined more
lugubrious or unchristian than the celebration of
tteristma, throughout crushed and bleeding Italy in
the year le;0.
In Germany and Central Europe the state of
things is even more sad. A population which is
under the eyes of Europe and its publicity
cannot, at least, be exterminated. Bat this ex-
treme has not been shrunk from in regions
over which despotism rules, unchecked by any
observer. Titre we have learned that • system of
persecution and depopulation was carrying into
°hint throughout the protestant districts of Hungary,
which would even reduce the Slovacks to the sob-
missive catholicism of the Bohemians. Whilst the
catholic government of Austria thus permeates the
protestants of Hungary, the Russians are de-catholi-
cising Poland. They have Wisensanised that coun-
try by the planting of Greek biabeps and priests
throughout it; and Rome, so aggressive at Westmin-
ster, dorsi not utter • word for its oppressed and per-
secuted Bock at Warsaw.
In the late events of Germany the Protestant cause
has suffered more than it has done since the treaty of
Westphalia. The pusillanimity of Prussia in giving
up Protestant Hesse to be victimised by the troops
of Austria and B means, as well as the authority of
Austria acknowledged in the affsirsgenerally of North-
ern and Protestant Germany, has widely awakened
fears for the balance of religions power, as well as
for the revival of constitutional freedom. Germany
does not want men like MONTALIMIIIERT, who render
all politics subordinate to the establishment of Jesuits
as the only legislators and the only statesmen. Count
MON, the head of the Frank/art diet, is one of these
men, and actively has he exer ed himself.
So much is this the case, that whilst the
last popular insurrection in Germany sea.'
marked by not • word of hatred to either king,
or noble, or priest, the next will probably be charac-
terised by all the sentiments of the old French revola-
rims, and by a proscription of thoss privileged classes.
Such is the seed that bigotry and despotism are
sowitig—such the sentiments that corrupt and mar
what was once so pure, the kind and fraternal senti-
ments that surround the German's Christmas tree.

Tits law which in this country assumes to regulate
the interests of inventors, imperatively demand', not
partial amendment, but entire reconstruction. It is
wrong iu principle, and wrong in practice ; it virtu-
ally treats as a favour what it ought to concede as
a right; and it makes the so coring of that right so
costly as to put it wholly beyond the reach of all dis-
coverers, however gifttd, who cannot command an
amount of capital, which, to r. pow man, is wholly
unattainable.

For the make of those aranngst our readers who may
not yet have given much consideration to the gan-
tlet of Patent Law Reform, we shall endeavour, very
concisely, to state the principles on which such law
ought to rest, the mode in which it is now actually
administered in this country, and the remedies which
it becomes the dety of all who bare any voice in the
matter to press upon the attention of the legislature.
Is it desirable that tho rights of inventive labour