The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-05 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, DRCEMBER 5.

Tne Church of England was never framed or
fitted for a state of religious war. It is one of them
vessels that rids powerfully and majestically in a
calm, bat the very WA of which renders it the sport
and victim of roses seas of controversy. The Church
of England, like the constitution, is a compromise;
and the nature and condition of a compromise is, that
extreme parties shall submit to it, not as the exact
solution that each should desire, but as the beet and
moat pacified result they can hope to obtain.
It has, however, been now for some years evident
that a church which is • compromise does not satisfy
the ardent aspirations and devout zeal of many of its
sons. The idea began to prevail, that religious faith
without enthusiasm was of little worth, and that it
was scarcely deserving of the name, unless it per-
vaded and coutrolled the thoughts and feelings of the
whole community and of each individual in it; nay,
unless it was the universal motive not only of
man's serious resolves and actione, but even or the
minutest circumstance and observance of his life.
It is the striving after thir, which has rent
the church in twain, and that it will succeed in com-
pletely destroying it, is at least one of the eventuali-
ties towards which reflecting men should look.
The present moment, and the circumstances of the
time, fully reveal the importance of the crisis; and
we must confess we can perceive no power that has
as yet been brought to bear upon these opposite ten-
dencies and dissensions that is either capable of com-
bating or likely to appease them. Whenever by
chance one of the impartial public contemplates the
starchy of the church, his first burst of resent-
ment is directed against the bishops. But after
all do we not heap too mach blame upon them indi-
vidually Are they not, like drivers of mingled
and heterogeneous flocks, unable to keep and tend to-
gether the sheep that wish to wander into fat pas-
tures, and the goats that would climb the barren
rocks" The episcopal crook cannot reach both, and
the pastor infallibly abandcns either one half of the
flack or the other, or else in despair of controlling
either, flings himself at full length to slumber.
If the authority of the bishops has failed, and if the
bishop's office itself has become more a stumbling
block and a derision than an active, efficient, and use-
ful authority, shall we look to the state for help'
Bat the state is even more ignored than the prelacy,
by both the extreme partite. Its interference has
given rise to serious resentment. The aim of the
state has been no doubt so to trim the Teasel of the epie-
copecy and the church as to keep the balance even, nor
allow it to vary so much on one side, or to let water in.
But at every movement of the kind, the unruly
sad mistrustful crew fling them-elves alternately,
from one side to the other, co that it is in truth
a miracle that the church is yet above water. What
happy church and state pilots were PITT and Lord
Lletkeixit.! They bad no need of balancing or trim-
ming. All went straight in those right tory days.
Bat now it is far different. The church boa t as-ed
the power of bishops to control, or of a Prime Minis-
Mr with his official authority alone to manage.
There is, in truth, bat one remedy. Call in the
laity. Let not the church be earned away and
divided by purely ecclesiastical schisms, and merely
sacerdotal views. Cadet the idicaremey of the
clergy by the good and plain sense of the laity. It is
the latter that pay for the church; let them have a
voice in it. And then, when there is a public, • lay
opinion, clearly and constitutionally expressed, on
church matters, the minister can lean upon that, in-
stead of being compelled to go out of his
way, and make au extraordinary apyeel to
the public sentiment, which, however powerful
and decia:ve in the answer that it provoke., is
still derogatory to the dignity and calm of high
office, us well as offensive to these who deem them-
selves the objecti, not of legal repression, but of icdi-
viduel tied driveler permeation.
The time is one which demands a large measure of
church reform; and it the present outburst of religious
zeal lead to such a result as that, it will be one of the
mast salutary move meats that ever stirred the British
stied. We Noe, indeed, that this movement is Cr nited,
and we read that Mr. HOLBUCK amongst others has
cease forward to denounce it se intolerant. In what
is it intolerant! What penalties does it seek to in-
Wet, what persecution does it demand? It has stirred
up certainly orators and writers to utter their opinions
of the eangers of Roman c itholie progress and amen-
dancy. But who provoked them? And if the leaders
of the Roman esthetic church at Rome and en this
country have provoked it, what great reason have
they to complain that potentiate express their learn,
state their convictions, and frankly Lyaw their avereou
to the principles, the forms, and tendencies of • t dig ion ,
the moat illiberal and intolerant on record.
Mr. Romani( tells us that protestant fears are
groundless, that the catholic propagandists who come
amongst us use but the weapons of persuasion, and
appesl merely to reason. But of what value is the
reasoning of sn uneducated multitude ? We have
millions in our very streets et the utterly ignorant,
the hopelessly destitute; we have a population of
children in intellect, just the population that
would fall down and worship the large hat
and red stockings and the gilded couch
of a Cardinal. And we have a half-educated upper
class, many of whose members have disinherited their
offspring, in order to endow a church, one element of
whose greatness is successful mendacity and extortion.
M. ltoeueck will say, why not educate? Why not,
indeed ? Why not mire tt e Irish helot, the
hewers of wood, and drawers of water in our great
moderns, to that rank amongst rational and edu-
cated beings, which would enable them to distinguish
between an astutely trading religion, and an ho-
nestly philanthropic one? Bat this cannot be done in a
day, evaa if we knew bow to set about it, and until
this has been done, Mr. ROEBUCK must permit us to
take precautions—precautions, not savouring of perse-
cution; and he must permit us to express fears—sen-
sible, rational, well-grounded f. nre—of the partial
success of a retrograde religion amongst us, whilst
we contain those most legitimate fears, both with
repent to sentiment and to linguar, within the
fairest bounds of tolerance.

Tax question whether inventors should have en
acknowledged right to property in their inventions,
and if so, bow far those rights should extend, and
under what conditions they should be exercised, con-
tinues to be discussed with increasing interest the
more the defective state of the peteat laws become
known, and their probable detriment to the Great
Exhibition of Industry becomes more clearly per-
ceived. One of the difficulties under which an in-
ventor labours is the necessity to work in secret, not
only from the dread of fraud, but because the mere
fact of publicity would legally deprive him of all pro-
perty in his invention, should he subsequently be in a
condition to obtain a patent for its exclusive exercise.
How far an inventor may go in revealing the nature
of his invention without such a disclosure amounting
to a " publication," has often been argued in courts
of law. It hit been decided that confidential commu-
nications do not inv,lidate a patent; bat a printed
description, a public lecture, or the exhibition of an
invention bef Ire it is patented, is unquestionably de-
structive to it as property.
A promise was givea to inventors that all works
sent to the Great Exhibition should be protected
from piracy by a special set of parliament. It was
hoped that admission within the precincts of the
glass palace would have been enough to secure tem-
porary protection, and that an inventor would there
at least have had the opportunity of showing the pro-
duct of his ineftnity without the certainty of plunder.
The bill whia weed through the Howe of Lords to
that died was, however, so emasculated in the Com-
mons as to limit the protection to works of design, for