The Express.
London, England, 1861-12-25 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 25, 1861.

r Ix the tranquillity of a hallowed and gracious •
season, in the quiet momenta that come between
holy rites and household celebestions, what can be
more natural than to think of the priceless civil
and social blessings which Christendom owes to the
event we this day commemorate. " And all this
" civilization rests upon Christianity—requires
" Christianity as its indispensable basis," was the
crowning reflection of one whose wise public ad-
dresses are now remembered with sad interest.
The unity of the human race and the Divine
vocation of man—what have not those profound
and fruitful ideas, revealed, confirmed, and
exalted by the Christian Revelation, done
for the world. Wherever the religion of Jeans
CHRIST is preached man becomes sacred in the
eyes of his fellowmen because of his origin and
divine destiny, because the image of Coe is re-
flected in him, and because he has been redeemed
with ineffable goodness.
On former anniversaries we might have been
content complacently to develope and illustrate
these reflections, and trace in many an historical
crisis the operation and influence of Christianity in
civilizing the human family by the sacredness with
which it invests the person of every man. But
we are keeping this great festival under cir-
cumstances unparalleled in history. Until now,
although violence and oppression might abound
in countries which were Christian in name, at
least we knew that in every Christian society a
testimony was borne, and a spiritual power was
warring against every form of injustice and wrong.
But all this is changed. Since we last celebrated the
birth of Our Luse, events extraordinary and por-
tentous have taken place. A community, jealous
of its Christian reputation, abounding in churches
and wide and bibles, has separated itself from
the rest of Christendom, formed its own govern-
ment, and founded that government upon social
doctrines which oppose and defy the uninterrupted
teaching and testimony of Christianity as to
the relations of man with man. It may be of little
importance that the Southern States of the
American Union have renounced the political
theories of the founders of the Republic, and the
doctrines of the rights of man current at the era of
the revolution; these things are human, local, transi-
tory. But it is much to have the very founda-
tions of Christian civilisation falsified and changed.
The conscience of the Christian Church guided
by the Sacred Scriptures has in all ages con-
demned slavery. The form which its opposition
has taken has been shaped by prudence and a due
regard for the general interests of society ; but in
one form or another such opposition has been con-
stant, and has been uniformly based on the MUM
grounds. The numbers of slaves in the decaying
Roman world were immense ; sudden abolition
was seldom if ever possible ; and the spirit of
Christian society was a spirit of peace and order.
But the ideas and maxims of Christianity were for
ever at work to limit and to extirpate the evil,
and to them were soon added positive and prao-
tical means. Councils legislated to counteract the
ideas and manners of antiquity, to raise up a de-
graded class to respect, to limit the power of
masters and give the bondsman the protection of
the law, and generally to assimilate the condition
of the slave to that of the freeman. Manumission
before the congregation was encouraged, and the
goods of the Church, even to the sacred things of
the altar, when no other were available, were con-
sidered well spent in redeeming man from so great
an evil. And while the Church did this, the hope
of full and universal emancipation was never
absent from her mind and purpose. Men we-s
continually reminded of the marked and perpetual
antagonism between the principles of slavery and
those of Christian soc;ety. " You cannot be igno-
" rant," said the Tenth Council o: Toledo,
" that these slaves have been redeemed
" with the blood of Jesus Custer."
" Since our Redeemer, the Creator of
" all things," wrote Pope GREGORY TER GREAT,
"has deigned in His goodness to mourns the flesh
" of man, in order to restore to us our pristine
" liberty, through His grace, breaking the bonds
"of servitude which held us captives, it is a ,
" salutary deed to restore slaves by enfranchise-
" went to their native liberty, for in the beginning'
" nature made them all free, and they have only
"been subjected to the bondage of servitudeby the
" law of nations." But before then ST. Avous
rise, in his treatise " De Civitate Dei," had in-
voked the will of Ow) against slavery and in
favour of the dignity of man :—" This is the
" order of nations ; thus has man been created
"Ly GOD. He has ordained that reasoning
" creatures, made according to His own image,
" shall rule only over creatures devoid of ma-
" son. He has not established the dominion
"of man over man." How different from the
degrading doctrines of ARisrorts and even of
Pura. In sp;te, however, of Anoveruts and
ORSOOST, and canons and council% slavery ex-
isted, but existed only as an evil which, too deeply
rooted in society to be torn up, was to be jealously
and impatiently watched, circumscribed, and, as
soon as possible, obliterated.

It is not, then, the more fact that slavery exists
and is extending in the Southern States of North
Americathatiseithernovel or alarming. That which
is new, and is well calculated to alarm those who
have made the mistake of supposing that the pro- 11
grass of ci‘ilization is automatic and mechanical, is
that a sacred truth which has struggled for can-
tunes with man's interests and motives, is de-
throned and stifled. The sprealin tree which
gkes shelter and shade is pierced in its tap root.
The leaders of the South have deliberately re-
solved to put out the eyes of the Gospel. "Evil
he thou my good" is their choice. " The founda-
tions of the new government are laid," Mr.
13verweirm, the Vioe-President of their Confedera-
tion, has said, " its corner-stone rests upon this
" great truth, that slavery is the natural and
" moral condition of the negro :" laid, therefore
—since tho proper humanity is not denied—in
avowed and daring impiety.

How will Cloonan Society regard this open de-
fiance of its Kura 1 Has it calculated the pro-
bable effect of the consolidation of a gigantic
system of wickedness, systematic and entire,
crime corresponding to crime, villainy entrenched
and barricaded by villainy, all the various vices of
human nature subordinate to one master vice, and
the whole defended by power, flattered by litera-
ture, and blessed by a hireling priesthood with the
sign of the cross t Does Christian Society con-
ceive that it ►as discharged all its duty by a few
whispered repots, or a cheap commendation of the
world to the care of Providence 1 It may be
powerless to control events, but does it still pro-
fess to guard the region of moral ideas, or is the
paralysing doctrine of the fait accompli to be
admitted there alto 1 At a moment of halt and
refreshment we commend these questions to the
Church Militant.

Faint the church towers of every capital in
Christendom—save one—a glad and grateful peal
rings out, m honour of this festal day. Only in
ono devoted city is there no sign of joy—no
sound of Christmas bell. Warsaw sits desolate ;

her garb is that of mourning ; the chimes that
every year upon this day for centuries past have
summoned her people to thanksgiving and prayer
are mute ; and the venerated hands wont to be
raised in benediction are clasped in resignation in
the loneliness of a prison cell. No child or mother,
old man or youth, is seen going or coming in the
neighbourhood of the many edifices dedicated to
Divine worship. The gates of all are closed ;
aisle, and nave, and chancel are alike empty, in
token of a people's grief at the desecration of their
hallowed shrines. It is a thousand years since the
choral hymn failed to ascend on Christmas morn
from any city of Poland. Whatever else may
have been its shortcomings, it has never been re-
proached with lack of reverence or devotional feel-
ing. Many, indeed, have been apt to say of its
people, that " in all things they were too snpersti-
" bona" What, then, must be their feelings
when, on this great anniversary of the Christian
world, the people of Warsaw see the doors of
their temples closed, as an act of reverence of the
Moer Hioa, and in signal protest against the blas-
phemy and brutality of oppression

Many weeks have elapsed since the butchery
committed in the great church of Warsaw by the
soldiers of the Cast, yet that cowardly and in-
human act of barbarism remains unatoned for to
the present hour. On the following day the vicar-
general of the arch-diocese ordered the gates of
the churches to be closed, and forbade any reli-
gious service to be celebrated within their pre-
cincts, until the murderous violation of
their sanctity should be disowned by the
temporal authorities of the realm. The
order was rigidly obeyed, not a murmur Of
dissent having arisen from either clergy or people.
Unmoved by a reproof that might have touched
the oonsoisnes of any other government, it was
resolved at St. Petersburg to follow up the out-
rage on the laity by taking vengeance on the
clergy. Mgr. BIALO3II2BKI and twenty of his
priests and curates were seized in their respective
dwellings by order of the Governor, and thrown
into prison. The charge against them was that
of inciting to disaffection and revolt. They were
given to understand that it they were ready to
resume their pastoral functions, and to prevent
the singing of commemorative hymns in the ser-
vice for the dead, they would be set at liberty.
One and all refused ; and one and all have been
doomed by a military tribunal, sitting within the
walls of the Citadel, to banishment for ten years
in Siberia. Most of them have been already
hurried off to that huge open grave, into
which Imperialism flings its victims, to
perish of cold and cruelty. The aged
and infirm \Twin-Getman is said to have
been too ill to be removed, without foregoing the
hope of his prolonged suffering. It was sup-
posed by ALFSANDER 11. and his confidential
accomplices that the example thus made would
, have struck terror into the rest of the clergy of
I the city, and that the church doors would have been
unlocked by the trembling hand of fear. But in
this anticipation they have been wholly disap-
pointed ; and the latest tidings are to the effect
that one hundred awl sixty of the clergy have been
arrested and thrown into felons' cells.

M. Wmerouisr, who for some months con-
sented to fill the post of Minister of Worship and
Education, finding all remonstrance vain, has re-
signed. A man of noble family, good fortune,
and rare attainments, his ambition has long led
bun to court the favour of St. Petersburg, at the
sacrifioe of popularity among his countrymen. M.
Wimeroutxt always, indeed, wished it to be
understood that he was actuated by an
esoteric zeal for the rescue and redemp-
tion of his country ; but he tried to
persuade others, and perhaps persuaded him-
self, that the way to serve Poland effectually
was by winning power in the Russian administra-
tion. Until Moses could stand and speak in the
court of PHARAOH he could not lead his people
forth from bondage. So M. Wfluerot.sal has
sper i the best years of his life in being, or seem-
ing to be, un-Polish enough to be trusted by the
conquerors of his country ; he has clutched for a
few brief months the prize so painfully sought;
and now, even he is driven to withdraw from all
participation in local government in disgust and
despair. A nameless, noteless tool of power is
appointed his successor; and every semblance of
moral or social check upon the intemperance and
insolence of alien despotism is thus removed.
It was but the other day that our indignation
was invoked, by the enemies of popular institu-
tions, against the severities which confessedly had
hot been committed as yet in America, but which
might be apprehended there, because they had been
foretold by certain irresponsible writers in obscure
journals as likely to happen.Whata pity that the fervid
vocabulary of indignation should be exhausted on
excesses about which it is only possible to speak
in the subjunctive mood, when here, in our own
dynastic quarter of the world, we are compelled
to record enormities and crimes with indicative
plainness and prec'sion. Have the idolators of
hereditary right—the revilers of democratic inati-
tuions, no word of rebuke to spare, no cry of
shame for the atrocities of Russian rule? Is the
mere name of Imperialien still sufficient to sanc-
tify multitudinous misdeeds in Poland, as it was
for years held by our instructors to justify like mea-
sures of remorseless repression in Italy and Hun-
gary, when perpetrated there by similar authority
We say similar measures, because the Poles are
subjected at this hour to the same arbitrary sen-
tences of protracted incarceration, of lifelong
banishment, of ruinous mulcts, and of shameful
and brutal punishment by the lash, which we were
always told it was useless to exclaim against
when inflicted by the legitimate rulers of Austria
on refractory Hungarians or Italians. It is not •
week since • young lady of good family re-
sident in Warsaw was overheard playing, in her
own chamber, one of the forbidden songs of her
country. In the course of the same afternoon •
party of gendarmes entered the house, seized the
youthful musician, dragged her to the office of the
guard, and there, upon her refusal to swear that
she would never sing or play the interdicted air
again, inflicted upon her person stripes so many
and so terrible that soon after her return to her
father's dwelling she expired. So much for a sys-
tem of rule in which every shadow of democratic
power is wanting. Set opposite to this the worst
talk ever uttered in the two or three towns of the
United States, where a half alien populace im-
pudently usurp the right to speak in the name of
the Federal Commonwealth, and let any man
with heart or conscience say which of the two ought
to monopolise the virtuous indignation of neutral
criticism. The rage of civil war may poison many of
the ordinary influences of social life, and Ike]
men's breasts to acts of harshness and inhumanity
that at other times they would instinctively recoil
from. it is possible that in progress of a terrible
schism deeds may be perpetrated in America, in
' the excitement of conflict or the incoherency of
tumult, as irreconcileable with the ordinary habits
of law and justice as history tells us were enacted
in our own country in days of civil war. But the
popular Government of America cannot be MD-
preached with the iniquities of European WI-

perialism. The clergy of no hated race or sect
are imprisoned or banished by scores; unarmed
congregations, while upon their knees before the
altar, are not set upon by disciplined Janissaries
and doomed to death for no other crime than that
of joining in the chorus of a traditional hymn ;
women are not flogged to death for like offences ;
and upon this auspicious day, when peace on
earth and good will towards men were promised
from on high, the population of a great city are
not left without the means of public worship in
consequence of the ferocious conduct of an alien
garrison.

be Cow.

WINDSOR, Du. 24.

The Prince of Wales, attended by Major-General
the Hon. R. Bruce and Captain Grey, left Windsor Castle
for Osborne this morning, having completed the last
melancholy duties oonocctid with the ceremony yesterday.

The Buie of Brabant and the Count of ilLiders left
Wiadmor Castle thia morning, to pay a visit of condolence
to her Majesty at Osborne. Their Royal Highnesses will
proceed immediately to Brussels.

OSBORNE, Duo. 2&

Prince Arthur, the Crown Prince of Prase* the Duke
of Saxe Coburg C ,tba, and his Grand Ducal Highness
the Prince Louis of Hesse, left Osborne at a quarter before
eight o'clock yeaterilay morning for Windsor Oast* to at-
tend the melancholy ceremony. In attendance were Lord
Alfred Paget, Colonel the Hoo. Si- C. Phipps, Major
Elphinetene, Colonel F. Seymour, Slots Fusilier Guards,
Count Furatomstein. and Colonel von Obernits.

The Crown Primo of Prussia remained after the funeral
with the Prince of Wales; at Window.
Prince Arthur, the Duke of Saxe Coburg, and Prince
Louis of Here, returned to Caboose in the evening.
Captain the HOC. J. Denman was in attendance at
Osborne during the day.
The Queen slept for several hours last night, and is com-
posed this morning.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer left London yesterday
for Haw..den Castle, Chester.
Secretary Sir George Grey left town yesterday for High.
worth.