The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-03 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1854.

Festivities continue to overlay the natural
anxiety prevalent in the principal capitals of
Christendom. The Sovereigns of Europe by en-
couraging these festivities are wise in their gene-
ration. At least they are contriving thus adroitly
enough to postpone the evil-day—the inevitable
day of reckoning. They are hereby striving
somewhat ingeniously to divert the popular atten-
tion from the misdeeds or the short-comings of
their respective Governments. They are endea-
vouring, by the prolongation of these seasonable
Court ceremonials—seasonable so far as concerns
the time of the year, though, politically speaking,
never more unseasonable—to distract the atten-
tion of the multitude from the deplorable confu-
sion in which the family of nations has become
involved, thanks to their perverse diplomacy and
pusillanimous mal-administration.

Amidst the throng of these Christmas rejoicings
and New-Year's festivities—what, let it be asked,
are the more conspicuous events of a political
nature observable in the chief capitals of the
European Continent 1 Why, candidly, they are as
readily enumerated as they are significant in their
character. Private advices from Constantinople
nform us that there has been a somewhat serious
disturbance in that metropolis—a disturbance
provoked by the Ulemas, but readily suppressed,
according to our information, and calculated, in
the opinion of certain credulous gobemouches, to
render the Divan favourable to an Armistice. A
conjecture, this latter, exceedingly probable
under the circumstances, just as it was all along
exceedingly probable that the proposals of the Four
Powers would be favourably received at the Su-
blime Porte—always and invariably providing
two essential conditions are attended to as pre-
liminaries—Firstly, that the Principalities be eva-
cuated, and, secondly, that, the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire be guaranteed. Intelligence
from St. Petersburgh acquaints the rest of the
world with the gratifying fact that the Te
Deum has passed off with admirable effect,
in the presence of the Court and the high
functionaries the Te Deum chaunted in
honour of the butchery at Sinope, that blas-
phemous sequel to the Manifesto, ending with the
versicle of the Royal Prophet, In to Domine
speravi, non confundar in ceternum. Accounts
from Vienna imply that the same specious policy
is being persevered in by the imperial councils of
Schoenbrunn which have so long deluded that over-
zealous lover of " harmony," that accomplished
dilletanti, but most egregiously blundering of
ambassadors, Lord WESTMORELAND. Information

from Berlin comes to us laden with the record of '
fresh arrests—arrests showing, it is thought by
many, that the conspiracy of last spring was of '
considerably larger importance than some ob-
servers have hitherto conjectured. From Madrid
we learn that anxiety for the health of M. TURGOT
commands the interest of the masses, together with
the reception of the Duke and Duchess de MONT-
PENSIER. On the other hand, we learn, through the
latest despatches from Lisbon, that the King Regent
had, on the 19th ultimo, proceeded in State to the
Cortes, and there formally- taken the required
oath of allegiance. Meanwhile, we have to re-
mark in Paris a considerable fall in the Funds—
attributed in part, we are told, to the result of the
liquidation. However this may be at the Bourse,
another circumstance is clearly and satisfactorily
re-assuring to the public mind throughout France
—a circumstance of itself sufficient to justify the
declaration made the other evening by the Patrie,
that France has confidence in her EMPEROR-that
incident, we mean, which marked the grand cere-
monial of the reception given on New-Year's Day
by NAPOLEON 111. and his Empress EUGENIS to
to the Ministers, Cardinals, Bishops, and, among
other high personages, the Corps Diplomatique—
when his MAJESTY having addressed a few gracious
words to the assembled representatives of the
other Sovereigns expressive of a hope that it
might be within his capability to maintain ami-
cable relations with the Powers his allies, singled
out the Turkish Ambassador, assuring him that
his sympathies, his good feeling, and his strenuous
efforts would all be exerted in the cause of the
SULTAN, an assurance which his Imperial MAJESTY
thereupon requested might be communicated to
ABD-UL-MEDJID by his diplomatic Representative.
Of all recent occurrences of a political character,
that we believe to be the most important and the
most significant—an incident creditable to France
and honourable to NAPOLEON. All the while,
intelligence such as the foregoing dropping in upon
us from Paris, from Lisbon, from Madrid, from
Berlin, from Vienna, from St. Pe tersburgh, from
Constantinople—in London Ministers are still
drowsily and silently preparing themselves for
their dreaded Parliamentary explanations. Eng-
land is compelled, whether its so doing be palata-
ble or unpalatable, to swallow intermittent doses of
hope deferred. We have as a people to illustrate
the wisdom of that verse of LONGFELLOW'S-

" Learn to labour and to wait."

Restricted to this effort, we find even it suffici-
ently difficult—difficult not 'only in regard to the
waiting, but also (bearing in mind the "Strikes,")
in regard to the labouring. Nothing else, how-
ever, seems left to us ; we are denied any alter-

native; until the arrival of the 31st of this notable
month of January, we are without option in the
matter—we must, perforce, tarry as we best
may, content (if we can be) with the tardy
intimation sneaking out through the very audible
whisper of the Ministerial journal, at the begin-
ning of 1854, instead of at the beginning of 1853
—to the effect that, on the 19th of December, in-
structions were sent to our fleet in the Bosphorus
to proceed from Beycos into the Euxine. At

last ! It is the old story of this dear, old, fatuous
Aberdeenism. After the steed has been stolen
the stable door is to be carefully padlocked. After
Sinope has been reduced to a heap of charred
timbers--the ashes being copiously slaked with
blood—the maritime armament of Great Britain
to steam out into the Black Sea to reconnoitre
and see how affairs are going on. We have sent

salve to the wounded—perhaps we are now to supply

wooden legs to the maimed. Everybody has heard
of our last glorious enterprise in the East, the
enterprise which is the laughing-stock of the rest
of the world, and will long be remembered among
the redoubtable achievements of the ABERDEEN
Coalition as—what do they call it ?—the Lint

Expedition. Another has now, it would seem,

been actually set on foot by the Cabinet of the
dear and excellent. What will it be desig-
nated ?—this wonderful and daring enterprise
—entered upon at last after ten or eleven
months of profound deliberation. Who knows
—perhaps the Telescope Expedition ! The
expedition for hovering about the ports of
Russia, peering into Odessa, and peeping into
Sebastopol—au expedition, the truest type of which
might be—a War-steamer with PAUL PRY on the
Paddlebox. We shall see. After the lapse of a
few more weeks it may be just barely possible
England must, it would seem, content herself with
this vague futurity nowadays—it may be just
barely possible, within the limits of a chance, that
Aberdeenism will then, before much longer, con-
descend to vouchsafe the country the shadowy
semblance of an explanation. Perhaps !

We have seen the question mooted, if we mis-
take not, by some of "Our own Correspondents" in
America, " What will the Union do when it is
proposed to admit the Mormon State as a member
of the federation ?" Their misbelief might be
borne with, their semi-ecclesiastical Government
might be just bearable, but how possibly unite
in federal matrimony with those who scout the
Christian view of that "seed bed of the Republic?"
In nothing has Christian civilisation been more
uniformly consistent than in abolishing polygamy,
and restricting men in the matrimonial relation to
the primeval arrangement of their CREATOR.
Even where divorce is too lightly conceded, and
where lax Court morals have winked at concu-
binage, yet even there the limits of legitimacy
both for mother add children were defined by the
record in Genesis, confirmed by our LORD, that he
" who made them at the beginning made them a
male and a female." In the United States public
opinion and feeling is as strong on this point as
in any part of Christendom. How, then, will the
respectable men of New England, and still more
its respectable females, tolerate a national union
with a State of bigamists and polygamists ? How
can they receive amongst them visitors who
may seduce their daughters to become the
thirteenth or the thirtieth chosen one of
a 13RIGHA.II YOUNG ? HO permit their sons
under five-arid-twenty to travel amongst a
community which teaches worse lessons than
a brothel itself ? Does any provision exist
in the constitution, veiling revolting wickedness
by the substitution of a phrase for a name, and
making it possible for a Mormon in any of the
present 31 States of the Union, to prosecute in
an action to which the validity of a thirtieth mar-
riage was essential ? And should a Mormon with
his harem be compelled by circumstances to mi-
grate to one of the other states, would. his mar-
riages with all of them be recognised by their laws,
and would even his presence be endured by
society ? Such questions, and many others, may
well perplex a States' man, looking forward to a
possible, and it may be not very distant, future.

Does it, however, never occur to " Our own
Correspondents," and those who think with them,
that they are already in the closest union with
the most awful State abuses of Christian matri-
mony. The Slave States profess (after their
fashion) to teach their slaves Christianity,
and to make them Christians ; although,
of course, the negro pen, or the negro
chapel, are essential to impart the Christian
graces of humility and reverence for a white com-
plexion ; yet, side by side with this Christian in-
struction, slave laws deny to the slave a marriage
which no man can put asunder ; deny him a mar-
riage which legitimates his offspring, and which
protects parental claims to their guardianship.
Slave laws and slave practices, too, utterly set at
naught the Divine law of holy matrimony. They
encourage, more than indirectly, universal con-
cubinage. They protect the sale of virtuous