The Express.
London, England, 1850-03-08 00:00:00

THE , EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 8, 1880.

or to bring authority to supply the weakness of the
rezoning and the right, by which • prohibitory law
is supported.
Uafortsaately it is is these weak, doubtful, an-
prove, and non-aseetial points, that the champions
of sedesisatical authority love most to exercise and
enforce it; sad that, not fee the sake of the particular
aim to be chtlimed, or peibeiple enforced, bat' for the
sake of mieffilihing a new basis sad a new proudest
for the pedisseinasse of church authority. Muss it
heal gems taps that this authority and these pre-
intend of Wag pet forward on vital and
Important pots% auk es would do honour to the
chink sail aM sersegth to it, are on the contrary
slahsed and aged with regard to questions of which
NW gravity, uwell u truth, may be denied.
Bat of all the arguments for passing a bill pro-
hibitory of certain marriage., and anathematising
certain coonexione, the meet droll is that of Sr.' F.
Tanana, who urged that this should be done in
order to prevent a broader division of the church into
two parties. So that the validity of these marriages
is not to be decided on their own merit., bat from
considerations of the result the decision may have upon
the church. The ease is so doubtful, that it creates
division in the church. Parliament, therefore, must
clear away the doebt by statute. It matters not
what wrong is dome to society, or to individuals, pro-
vided union be preserved is the church. Such an
argument as this readers Sir FILIDEZIOIC Tante=
eminently worthy of a cardinal's bat
If Sir FAZDISIICK THESIGISE went to Rome he his
irritants, Mr. ROZBUCK went to Utopia. The gees-
doe is not whether it might not be better for the
parity and -sanctity of ever domestic circle to have
men and women within certain degrees of
affinity irrevocably and effectually forbidden to look
upon each other in the light of poseible husband and
wife. We admit at once that it might be
better to endow the man and his sister-in-law
with inch relative sentiments. But, we ask, is it
panible Parliament may make a statute for-
bidding first cousins to marry, and the church may
sanction it, from high ideas of its own authority, and
of purity of life. Bat will the statute bind the
conscience P Or how will two first cousins, that come
to like oue another. be prevented in England from
questioaing church and statute, and, if their
love be strong, and their temper decided,
setting both church and law at defiance P
It is the same in the relation which is the object of
the bill before parliament. If you cannot demon-
strate the religious law of separatioa to be binding on
the oon,cience, or the moral law upon the conduct,
what will your statutory prohibitions be but " a de-
lusion and a snare r The courageous and conscien-
tious will brave it and suffer. The cunning and the
timid may indulge in an immoral and secret con-
nexion to escape it ; whilst if society, the society in
which people move, agree to set the law at nought,
it will be set at nought, and thus become a source of
unworthy and of class perused**.
Admitting, therelbre, that it would be desirable to
preclude a man from regarding his sister-in-law as in
the category of women whom he could many, we
cannot admit that this desirability amounts to any
thing like necessity for attempting it in law. Even that
desirability is a matter of opinion, and much die.
pored; and as to the moral and religious grounds of
prohibition, neither are clear. In such a state of the
question, it is against every principle of tolerance, of
expediency, and of justice to interfere, and to create,
for any vague rupee of good, prohibitive laws,
which must be ineffectual, and must provoke their
breach, not insure their obarvanon

GREECE AND THE LEVANT.

MALTA, MASON 2.
The Fres& steamer Osiris same in from Alexan-
dria on the 24tku1t, and left at 6 pm. for Marseilles.
H.M. steamer Antelope also arrived the same day
from Corfu, &ate, and Patna; she brought no
Athens mall, although she waited for it until the noon
OMER,. Metter keen Patna says z eUp to this
time so armagemeit has been made towards settling
the differences between the !betel' and Greek go-
memento, and lir William Parker continues' his
restrictive assasens, ref to anew any Greek
ship to quit the principal beebeurs of Greece, or to
permit them 1,0 land goods( .for • Oreek.sesrehents. , In,
Act we have the imaniend. Gmenmader Foote;
Racer, Gmunacder Bidden; and the Tartarus, Lieut.
Commander Sir G. Webster, cruising off here; these
vessels seize any Greek ships they lad in the
vicinity, mid take them to Corfu, when the
Frolic, Oom. Vansittart, is in charge of them until
the peewee of the British government is known.
Nine ships have been taken to Corfu, besides two
small soltooamn of war ; their value is at leant
20,0001.; the mews are obliged to leave the weeds,
with the martian of master, mate, and one se tiro
bands, which is very distressing to them, as they
have no mesas of prooseding to their Imam There
can be no doubt, believer, that the Greek government
deserved a laws of this kind, for, whatever may be
said by some of the insignificance and the weakness
of the country, it was highly necessary to bring them
to a sense of their dependency, as tor the lest few
years they have treated the demands made brover7
British authority with the greatest contempt.
Nothing dsiog. Woos% the only ankle for freight,,
at 30e., 10 nes. and 10 we eent—Exebalege, 601 d.
to 61d. the Spanish dollar.",
A letter from Corfu of the 20th states t—u Borne
stir is making in oil. Four vessels wen chartered to-
day at 37e. 64., to load in this port, bat first calling at
Gallipoli for casks. Trade is generally dull, and
these unpleasant affairs. between Greece and England
tend to make matters worse."

IThe direct French steamer from Marseilles was in
on the 29th, and proesided on to the Levant the same
day, at 6 p.m. The Peninsular and Oriental steamer'
Sultan, Captain Brooks, also came in the same morn-
ing from Constantinople and Smyrna. She will leave
for Southampton immediately after the arrival of the
Medina from Alexandria.

A Quteu's messenger, Captain Cecil Johnstone,
came in the French steamer, Telemaque, from Mar-
seilles, on the 25the with important despatches for Sir
W. Parker, Mr. Wyse, and Sir Stratford Canning,
relative to the Grecian affairs. He is said to have the
opinion of St. Petersburg with him upon the subject,
se also a despatch having reference to the Russian-
Darkish question. I believe that he is the bearer of
a despatch from Lord Palmerstoa, notifying the
acceptance of the French mediation, and desiring
Sir William Parker to raise the blockade
and restore the vessels seized. Alter deliver-
ing the despatches to the admiral in the
bay of Salamis, he will proceed on to Constanti-
nople in the same steamer, and deliver a despatch
respecting the Russian unit Austrian question, and,
after receiving an answer to them, return in her im-
mediately to Malta, en route to France. The Greeks
here are delighted at the rumour of the removal of
the blockade; for, had it continued much longer,
they must have sold or mortgaged their Teasels for a
subs►stence.
Captain Johnstone is endeavouring to best Mr. Ha-
viland, who left for Greece, eia 'Trieste, on the 14th,
so as to supersede the despatches he carries by his own.
The captain, D. Napier, of the barque Commerce, of
Montrose, with his crew, arrived here on the 25th in
his !erg-b.:at, and reports as follows :—At 10 a.m., on
the 21st, he left Girgenti, with a crew of fourteen
men and five passengers, with a cargo of sulphur,
for Glasgow. The same night it blew hard from the
W.N.W., with a heavy sea; the following day (22nd)
the vessel sprung a leak, making 32 inches of water
per hour. He therefore bore bore up for Malts, to
save the vessel and the crew. On the 23rd the wind
shifted to the E.S.E., right stead, and so continued
until he arrived in sight of the island, bat to the
southward. On the 24th, at 9 p.m., the captain and
crew abandoned the vessel, she having six feet of
water in her hold, and being distant about twelve or
fourteen miles E.S.E. of the island of Filfla. At 11
p.m. the vessel foundered. At 2 a.m. in the morning
of the 23th the captain and crew landed at a place
called Ta Gueira, on the S.E. coast.

INDIA