Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-10-26 00:00:00

The political world affects to despise the transcen-
dental claims of priests, and treats them with
a supercilious indifference. But the modern de-
velopment of national life and political rights,
having outgrown the stationary systems of the
old world, it is the relative position of the POPE'S
temporal power that now suffers a change, while
the most sacred of all governments has not
escaped the influence of innovating tendencies.
That the Bishop of Rome claims to be head
of the Church and Father of the faithful, supplies
to his subjects no motive of contentment under
an oppressive or unsuitable government, or any
secret of endurance under the deprivation of social
and material happiness. Italian Roman Catholics
are still men,—even the most sincere and religious
among them ; and what shall be said of that larger
proportion in every society and every Church, on
whose hearts and lives religious motives have but
a slender influence ? If the Court of Rome could
have destroyed, as in too Many ways she has per-
verted, the relations of social and family life ; if
she could have put a final ban upon all the rest-
less heavings of human intellect, she might have
remained in a barren and selfish security, un-
troubled by political aspirations, and secular de-
mands. It has been remarked, however, that Rome,
when most depressed and humiliated at the centre,
has been strong and vigorous at the extremities.
At this peculiar crisis in the temporal power of
the Popedom, which NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE
initiated, and which, after a long but temporary
lull, the revolutionary movements of late years
throughout Europe have re-opened and inten-
sified, its threatened interests have demanded a
special and peculiar defence, against an opposition
based not so much upon a religious as a
political principle. The Gallicanism, which
was once the glory of the French Church,.
and supplied so worthy an advocacy to the
magnificent talents of BOSSUET—the modicum
of national feeling which certainly did at one
time leaven and improve the minds of Roman
Catholic prelates in this country, have given place
to a certain blind fanaticism, which laughs at
every claim that may be made to conflict with
the high assumptions of. the Popedom, and which
seems almost to have turned the deepest religious
motives into the zeal of political faction. The
principle, therefore, which has come to the rescue
of the temporal sovereignty is that Ultra-
montanism, which poisons a great portion of the
Press, and perverts much of the otherwise
religious mind of Europe..

It is, most probably, this-power that seriously
strengthened the motives which deterred Louis
NAPOLEON from going on with his Italian pro-
jects; and it is this power which the vain and pre-
sumptuous soldier has come home from Italy to
encounter. Perhaps the issue of the contest is
by no means certain. It is, evident, indeed,
that none but personal motives, and the neces-
sities of his position in France;. will prevent the
Eldcbt Son of the Church crushing—the pre-
sumption of his anathematiSing ecclesiastics.
The sham of universal suffrage does yet testify to
a reality; and if popular criticism in France should
gain a new licence, and become gradually endowed
with an unfavourable sentiment, the. Napoleon
dynasty might begin again- to falter in its hopes
of continuance. The power •of Ultramontanism
is undoubtedly great ; and. the vigour of its
fanaticism both deep and wide-spread. The poli-
ties. of religion will ever be • more, popular than
religion itself ; and so it is-a Tact of history, that as
the power of the Church has grown, its spiritual
life has languished and decayed. True religion
IS quiet, unobtrusive, uncomplaining, suffering,
meek. She has no beauty in her that the world—
even the theological world—should desire her.
Ffer virtues are lowly; her hopes, are hidden,
her rewards are future •and intangible. The day
has passed when Religion in the veiled majesty of
her true character can enlist the strenuous sup-
port of large societies of men. Rat Ultramon-
tanism is just the embodiment of that esprit de
corps, that political enthusiasm, which is as much
.
of the earth, earthy, as the most. confessedly
' secular interests of states or parties. The reli-
gious champion finds just the same mean, or
selfish, or vain, or unconscientiens, or angry, or
malicious motives appealed to on the stage
of his miserabk warfare, as the factionist
of a senate, and the manoenverer of party
machineries. He proposes to himself the-
same object of ambition, and has just as,
poor an encouragement in the strife. The highr
est aims of both are alike; the success of the
society with which he is identified ; the outward
glorification of the cause which has deserved bas
advocacy, the triumph and exultation, knownland
read of all men, of the bold predictions with
which the attempts of the adversary have. been
scorned; nay, the humiliation, the disgrace, the
useless resentment, and impotent hatred,. of the
discomfited opponents. Ultramontanism, is a de-
vice for enlisting. the " religious world!' in sup-
port of the Papacy, and as religion is more
powerful as the policy of an organisation than as
a principle of life, the Church of Rome presents,
in this aspect of her defence, a not insignificant
position.

But this strength is, after all, the degradation
of a Church, and the sure precursor of some
signal corruption. It is more for her own sake,
and for the interests of religion in general, than
of the few inhabitants of the Romagna or the
Legations, that we should rejoice in the death-
blow given to this accursed spirit in the downfall
of the temporal power of the Church of Rome.
It might be a step towards the accomplishment
of that period when, perhaps, all Churches—our
own among the number, where, alas, the lesson
is so greatly needed—may learn that the true
end of religion is the saving of the souls of men,
and that the political spirit,—with all its tempers,

aims, its. manceuvres, its triumphs,—i- it'
?raxation, its caricature, and its ruin.

iE active preparations which are still being
::tide in the French navy-yards, cannot but at-
tract our most anxious attention. The more we
endeavour to divine their purpose, the more
patent it is that they are intended for some secret
purpose the Emperor NAPOLEON has concealed in
his own plotting mind ; and we do not hesitate
say, that the only Power against which sle,
preparations are directed is that of England
Our Government is forewarned, and ought there'
fore, to be forearmed. The Emperor of the
French has confessedly endeavoured to deprive
us, by diplomacy, of our former influence in Cee
tinental Europe; but he cannot do so with regard
to our supremacy on the sea, and, therefore,
he
preparing for a struggle. The accounts Wch
reach us from the port of Toulon are sufficientii
startling, plainly indicative as they are t
of some
formidable enterprise, cunningly contemplated la
this ambitious despot. We permit French an
Russian naval officers to visit our arsenals, to
spect our improvements, to study our Armstrong
guns, and even to photograph our very fortifies'
tions, leisurely seated on the glacis of our bastiells.
Surely, a system of reciprocity would not interd
fere here with the principles of free trade; nil t
we would therefore suggest that some effiejelig,
English officers should be sent to see what fo
along the French sea-board, and how it is ailay.
arranged.
It is reported that, at Toulon, there are' 13ja
down no less than twenty-two slips for 1)11°7
line-of-battle ships, and that each of these 514:
is occupied by the shell of a vessel, at Whlc
shipwrights are working night and day. l‘f r,
over, fifteen line-of-battle ships are in the ha
e.
b
hour, en commission, de p7rt, which could
manned by the Minister 'of Marine, at rnris'n,
at a day's notice, with a numerous and scea.
trained crew. So that, from first to last, tile-
vessels could be reads- for sea, and for action,
fully and efficiently equipped, in a fortnight'
addition to these, there are at least fifty fl°at'ljr;
battelies,'each carrying fifty rifled fifty-Pnlactg
cased with plated steel, capable of resist"-
cannon-balls ; for aught we know to the coo'
trary, even ARMSTRONG'S: conical balls are
ready to be fired from his- own guns'
pei
appears that the plates are composed of 43:
iron, and some amalgam, which. renders then'
almost impenetrable. The old floating batter
which we built for the Crimean war, five I c,
ago, have been the targets which. we have Pree
tised upon as tests of the powerot the itrrostre
gun, the plates of which; composed' alone of irece
have been so oxydized by exposure• that they 110;
been easily penetrated by the balls fired at thew,
and, therefore, they afford no proof that the sa et
results would follow practice • at the taro
i
which the French naval authorities
have been, unsuccessfully in. one• sense, for
cessfully in another, experimenting. upon 'ote
the last six months, at various interhtedira%
ranges, ,of from one hundred to twenty-fivg
both with rifled and unrifled cannon) of ivw.
the
only one conical ball partially penetrated
new Windage with which these floating batters it
gunboats, and steam-rams,- are covered. no
is diffteult to regard such armamenlsboi
these, as formed for any other purpose itis
aggression, and this against- some PoNvertlls
It
looked upon as a most formidable opponer`t.nrr
is quitepreposterous for French officials' tc' of
tend that they are necessary for the abCettile
their country, when it is apparent that- n° 13-this
intention is entertained against it, at least b'Y nor
country. We are informed that fifteemortyreo,
of
ampeps seventy-two
each
incredible
c-
rit
nwe
additionbltransports; t d'laid d°ooo
ot
ho t,
oetheirnotordered n
maf
carceaciwu
are already completed, capable of carrying
inte at
nautical affairs; but when it is remarxv-- ad
these transports are each as large as a hundreal:of
twenty gun ship, and carry no guns, it
050
readily be understood: Now, for what Purl)a,
can such preparations be making of. so' lamer
meet of steam-vesselS, unless for some sie
attack and invasion.?
eyes,
With such facts as these then, before e'•
we must be blincP indeed if we do not kee`
the
fh t
good look out. It is satisfactory-to fin.€l4. -El •
necessity for vigilance has not escaped the a
Lion of our present Government, which is
only,
however, completing and carrying out thato by
tern of national; defences so 'wisely laid doh
.413
alt o,
the last Conservative Administration, cioa,
momentarily interrupted by- the preselit sad
cellor of ' the Exchequer's, penny-wise 05
pound-foolish economy, bat whose parsimeni it•
soon countermanded. Our- national defence
s.:O-
is consolatory to know, have been aeti/ell fter
gressing: for some time; and harbours of 1;00
are in course of construction., of which Sir id*
PAKIN.WON thus expressesd himself at row
—" I do not believe that any more irne
stepsst r
en
gctohud , t
hbee takennnt national
r defence,pniotinangd
the ti°n
"-mercial prosperity of England, than the era and
"of these two noble harbours of Porte lity of
"Holyhead. I trust, then, that the lib tea in
" the House of Commons will not be rests'?,
" this great item of public expenditure' rob-
GLADSTONE, who was on this occasion thus the
licly appealed to by the late First Lord
.00aght
a sentiment Admiralty, in favour of such harbours, ta
tibije
fit to declare against them, on the plea of P
economy. We feel nfint, hesNe-ar, h 110
the country, which is not inclined to P be
trust in a BUONAPARTE. time
This is no vtir
paring down the
means
of
ulaintaininb t°
II
We are 0111 Y
w mficnodndeo
re_sportratilattgt 5
011;
n
repairing, at great cost, the inefficient staticse
national honour and security,