The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-21 00:00:00

Comment* at 7.

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.—This
Theatre will OPEN on SATURDAY next, September
24, with a new Drama, by J. Oxenford, Esq., entitled IVY
MALL ; the scenery by Messrs. T. Grieve and W. Telbin. To
conclude with a dramatic tableau in Watteau colours, by J.
Planche, Esq., entitled LOVE AND FORTUNE ; the
Ocenery by Mr. W. R. Beverley. During the recess the Thea-
tre has been redecorated.

bTW THEATRE - ROYAL, AD ELPHI.
lESole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. Benj. Webster.
This splendid New Theatre, replete with every comfort,
WILL OPEN for the Season on MONDAY, Sept. 26, 1859.
ADELPHI DRAMA, COMEDY, FARCE, and BUR-
LESQUE, and ADELPHI EFFECTS ! ! !—On which occa-
d
sion Mr. Benjamin Webster, Mr. J. L. Toole, Mr. Davi
Fisher (his first appearance at this theatre), Mr. Paul Bedford,
Miss Woolgar (Mrs. Alfred Mellon), Miss Henrietta Simms,
Ac., Are., will appear. The performances will consist of a
DRAMA (2d time), of the highly successful piece of ONE
TOUCH OF NATURE ; a new Farce, by J. M. !Morton, Esq.,
Celled LOVE AND HUNGER ; and the popular Burlesque
of THE BABES IN THE WOOD.
The Box-office will be opened on Thursday, Sept. 22, and
every day after, from 10 to 5. No charge for securing seats,
nor ter bills of performance. All fees to servants of this
establishment are strictly prohibited.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Lessee and Directress, Miss Swanborough
THIS EVENING, THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN
la
Followed by THE VERY LATEST EDITION or THE
LADY OF LYONS.
After whioh, A SCHOOL FOR COQUETTES. Misses
Swanborough, Oliver, and Lavine.
Commence at 7 o'clock.

CANTERBURY HALL CONCERTS.—
EVERY EVENING.—The 11,1181 C of Verdi's Opera of
MACBETH (now first made public iron England at these Con-
serts), the extraorainary Violin Performances of the cele-
Vrated Infant DELEPIERRE FAMILY, and the usual
coal Concert.
Comic Vocalists —Messrs. George Hodson (the Irish Come-
disc and Mimic), W. T. Critchfield, and E. W. Mackney.
Several interesting Pictures are added to the Fine Arts
gallery. The suite of Halls have been re-decorated and
beautified, and constitute one of the most unique and brilliant
sights of the metropolis.
Will shortly be produced, a Grand Selection from Meyer-
beer 's new opera of DINNORA.

THE WEATHER.—Strx OFFICE, SEPTEMBER 21.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
66--highest since noon yesterday.
57--4owest this morning and during the night.
60—this day at noon.
DinourrEn-29.45 ; a fall of half an inch since yesterday.
VirSICD, Westerly; rough, wet, and stormy, with sun-
shine. This day is the Autumnal Equinox, and the
weather is very unsettled.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Two DAY.—Morning, 7h. 37m.—Afternoon, Bh. 28m.
To-Mouitow-Morning, 9h. 12m.—Afternoon, 10h. 2m.

THE SUN.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1859.

Suggestions continue to be hazarded by corre-
spondents in almost every department of our forces
as to the best mode of manning the Navy. But
the true principle, after all, is better pay, better
usage, with a proper reform in the Mutiny Bill.
Seamen are as kind and good-hearted as other
people, and can appreciate good conduct in their
officers accordingly. What they chiefly dread is
the tyranny so frequently and so unmercifully
exercised by some commanders, who mistake their
duty, by using severity instead of kindness, to en-
sure smartness. A good seaman is ever smart when
duty requires ; but to be always harassed and kept
on the qui sire without any reasonable necessity
disgusts good men, and gives a bad name to the
service. Men are frequently flogged for a mere
trifle or misapprehension ; and, if not flogged, they
are put in the black list, and kept there from
wilful caprice. This degrades men in their own
estimation, and renders that odious, which would
otherwise become a pleasant duty, for sailors pride
themselves on meritting the good opinion of their
fellow-men and the respect of their officers.

Experience daily proves that the working of our
naval system must be altered to meet the require-
ments of the age. Steam has introduced a new
element into the management as ;well as the
fighting of our ships. Steam has greatly altered
the character of navigation, and must be met
accordingly. Whatever changes may become
necessary should be made with care and simplicity.
Improvements will duly present themselves in our
experience. But, first of all, we must have men.
The late Board of Admiralty have deserved
well of their country by making provision for a
good reserve. We quite agree with the Times that
in order to get good men and keep them, tempting
inducements must be held out in the shape of pre-
sent pay, with increasing pension according to
length of service, good character, and severe wounds.
These and more promotion to deserving men from
before the mast, would act with magical effect on sea-
faring people, and even on landsmen too. Young lads
would enter willingly, and become an excellent
nursery for seamen in after years. There ought
not to be so much squeamishness in receiving young
men as there was lately displayed with regard to
entering volunteers.

Now, with respect to our Marine force. Years
and years past, we have impressed on those in
power the expediency of increasing that force and
making them all learn the practice of Artillery.
But advice is thrown away on those who fancy
themselves above responsibility. Now, however,
they must conform to the exigency of circumstances
or give place to those who will, for the national
safety is paramount to all other considerations.
Suppose the present Marine force were aug-
mented, say to 48,000 men. Divide that force into
three watches of 16,000 each. Let one watch be
always on board ship, for a given time ; let the
second watch man o'r forts and do duty as Coast-
guardsmen, and let the third watch be at the
head-quarters of the several divisions, or em-
ployed where -wanted. Then to perfect these
men in their several duties on land as well as
on board ship, let the watches relieve each
other in due time, and thus We shall have a force
prepared for any service and inured
to every s
-men they would be on
requ-
site duty. As coastgusarardu
(A:ling, and be ever on
the watch to prevent
the alert to meet invasion when that dreaded bug_

bear adventures on our coast.
Then as to manning our ships, the proportion of
s&'amen and marines—marine artillery, for they
would all be drilled for that service, the proportion
must depend upon the actual working of our steam
navy—be it one-third more or less according to
.circumstances. Coals are wasteful expense where
'wind can be turned to account for nothing. We
may be for months blockading an enemy's ports,
bud the decisive arbitrament of action is only for a
day, or it may 1)e an hour. Why, then, waste what
it is costly to get and no loss to husband ?
In case of any sudden emergency we could, by
having such a disposable force of marines at hand,
say 32,000, double or even treble our home Navy
at once, by dividing the crews of ships in comng.ssion

into two or three watches—and with the marines
be ready for immediate action, for the sailors and
marines being all well used to the service, they would
be ready for any and everything. Let the Admi-
ralty look to it—or rather let the Government
insist on breaking through red-tape tomfoolery,
and act as men.

Then, again, with respect to being prepared
against invasion, which must of necessity be
sudden, we shall have a nucleus of well-trained
men, who can turn their hand to prompt account.
Instead of fortifying points here and there all
along the coast, for the invaders will choose their
own ground, how much better would it not be to
have flying batteries at several central stations,
ready to be transported by railways at telegraphic
notice to th• scene of danger ?
We may be told that suggestions like these
would entail heavy expense. We answer—no
expense ought to stand in the way of national
safety. Our being well and always prepared will
make our assailants think twice before they ven-
ture in paying us a rough, and unwelcome
visit. We shall have two chances to their one
—land and water—and a good hot fire into the
bargain.

Suddenly—in the midst of European and Asiatic
complications, in the midst of all that is said and
written about the anxiety of the Italians and the
atrocity of the Chinese—there starts up another
of those periodical annoyances, a new difficulty be-
tween Great Britain and the United States. The
present difficulty between the English and the
Americans, like so many of its predecessors, proves,
on examination, to be only the sequel of one of the
old difficulties long past and gone, and, up to this
moment, supposed to have been years ago settled
definitively to our mutual satisfaction. Again the
supposition turns out to have been quite erroneous.
Again the more sanguine believers in an amicable
understanding between father and son, between
JOHN and JONATHAN, have been too precipitate,
we find, in laying that flattering unction

to their souls. The celebrated treaty of
the 15th of June, 1846, solving (as it
was imagined) the problem of the Oregon
Boundary, defined, it is true, the line there sepa-
rating the territories of Great Britain and the ter-
ritories of the United States, to all appearances,
quite explicitly. It traced that boundary line as
running " along the forty-ninth parallel of north
latitude to the middle of the channel which sepa-
rates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and

thence southerly through the middle of the said
channel and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean."
But, as it so happens—" this said channel," appa-
rently very clear and simple phrase, indeed, is, in
reality, one of considerable complexity and uncer-
tainty. And for this sufficient reason that there are,
am it so chances, two channels dividing Vancouver's
Island from the North American Continent.
There is a channel, that is to say, upon either
side of the little group of the Arroo Islands.
Which of these two channels is the one meant by
that clause in the Treaty of 1846, about the Oregon
Boundary, remains in fact yet to be decided. Inso-
much is this uncertainty recognised in both coun-
tries, that Commissioners from the two Governments
have, in point of fact, been busily occupied for some
time past in striving—hitherto ineffectually—to
settle the matter in dispute for once and for all to

general satisfaction.
Such in effect was the actual situation out in

Fuca's Sound, when the Government at Washing•

ton—incited, probably, by a remembrance of the old
legal adage about possession being nine points of
the law—sends ont a sort of a buccaneering, fili-
bustering expedition to put an end at once to all
further uncertainty by formally seizing one of the
said Arrou Islands—the one variously called the
Island of San Juan or Bellevue. The ex-
pedition is altogether so flagrantly lawless
of its kind, that it is not unworthy of
having been led by General WILLIAM WALKER,
the most renowned and daring of all the Yankee
filibusters. Another filibustering general, however,
takes command of the invading force—General
HARNEY it is who suddenly makes this descent
upon San Juan, formally taking possession
of it in the name of the Republic, not
" one and indivisible," but free and independ-
ent. General HARNEY goes thither with one com-
pany of infantry and four companies of artillery.
He is supported by four vessels of the American
navy. He lands fifty of his soldiers on San Juan
—begins building barracks there—and issues a
proclamation claiming the island as American ter-
ritory. Free and independent !—certainly, a Re-
public is that acts thus contrary to all right, to all
justice, to all international law. Against proceed-
ings so directly and monstrously •in contraven-
tion of all the habits and usages of civilised
countries—Governor DOUGLAS at once protested
loudly and indignantly. His Excellency, by a
counter-proclamation, declares the occupation to be
illegal—claims the island on the part of her Bri-
tannic MAJESTY as under the supremacy of the
Crown of England—and despatches to San Juan
forthwith a British force of Sappers and Miners
with her MAJESTY'S ships Tribune, Plumper, and
Satallite. Captain PICKNET, who has command of
the American garrison already established on the
island, refuses leave to the English Sappers and
Miners to land. It is even asserted in some of the
United States newspapers received by this last limit,
that a British steamer had opened fire upon the
Americans, and that in consequence of this lament-
able collision between the forces thirty Americans
had been killed. Rejecting these rumours,
however, as altogether idle and extrava-
gant—it is obvious to us, at a glance,
that, here, in this little difficulty about
San Juan is the germ of what may, if not nipped,
betimes, in the very bud, grow speedily into a
monstrous disaster. Happily, Governor DOUGLAS
and General HARNEY appear to have, both of them,
taken the wisest course left to them, under the cir-
cumstances, by referring the whole matter, at once,
to the consideration and decision of their respective
Governments. Upon those Governments, therefore,
at London and Washington, devolves, at this mo-
ment, a very solemn responsibility—the imminent
responsibility of hastening, at last, to an amicable
settlement, a long standing dispute which has been
brought thus to a sudden climax by a lawless act of
occupation.

We have for some time refrained from noticing a
subject on which most of our contemporaries have
seen fic to comment, because we thought it hardly
fitted for the columns of a newspaper. It has, how-
ever, become so prominent of late, having neces
sarily attracted the attention of local journals in
three sections of the kingdom, that a daily news-
paper can hardly ignore it ; nor, on account of cer-
tain remarkable connected circumstances, should Iv(
be justified in doing so. We refer to the " Re-
vival of Religion" in the North of Ireland.
One of the consequences of the great commercial
panic in America, at the close of 1857, was that
many persons, in New York especially, regarded it
as a providential judgment, more particularly on
the i
originated
egt commercial world.
s
rrh
idea of mid-da money-getting, money
in y meetings for
cprayer and worship the intervals of business ;
these extended, till throughout that great commer-

dal city, and the Free States generally of the
Union, mid-day prik yer meetings, in which laymen
were the chief actores, became as common as Sab-
bath-day services in other Christian countries.
There wag not, that A e remember, any remarkable
physical excitenienl, but a good deal of pithy,
pointed speaking, mu,* more calculated, doubtless
to awaken the thought `less than a faultless sermon
from an English rector,. and very numerous short
prayers, offered chiefly by laymen; our American
exchanges at that time I tad frequently columns
filled with accounts of then, meetings. The busi-
ness daily papers, some of tlf.em at least, even pub-
lished supplements filled with: such narratives.
Now, for a long time we have heard little or no-
thing about the American revivals from the Ameri-
can journals. There is not, that we are aware,
any reason to doubt that their religious influence
was considerable. The chief thi.ag apparent was a
very great multiplication of the services common
amongst the Christian denominatiions of the coun-
try ; and this must be likely to result in the diffu-
sion of more religious feeling than usual. For our-
selves, we confess, we have looked', and shall yet
look to the effect, in reference to Atnerican Slavery.
We shall be slow to believe in any religious excite-
ment being the work of Heaven, which does not do
its part in destroying that unmistakeable work of
hell. We were told in a recent number of The
Westminster, that the work, or " mission " of the
" Evangelicals" in England came to an end with
the Abolition of Negro Slavery. We all know that
in this country they were the strength of that
movement; and we may reasonably look, therefore,
for a marked effect on the position of Negro Slavery
in America, from a " revival" amongst the " Evan-
gelicals " of America. If wo see it, we shall believe
that it was, at least, a Revival, conscience-deep.
The Revival now in progress in Ireland was an
off-shoot from that of America. The Irish journals
most favourable to it describe it as having begun
with persons who were " led to pray for an Irish
Revival from what they heard of the American
one." For a time all went on as quietly, in man-
ner, as in America, but the Irish excitability ere
long surpassed:all that had been heard of from New
York. The most marvellous accounts were soon
published, not merely of crowded prayer meetings,
and monster open-air meetings, surpassing those
collected by the popular young Baptist orator of
the Surrey Music Hall, but we heard also of per-
sons " falling down in trances," having " visions of
heavenly scenes," and sometimes of infernal scenes
also ; and of almost every variety of supernatural
excitement. The grand distinction of these physical
excitements from all usually connected with reli-
gious "revivals," was what is termed in the local
phraseology being " struck" or " struck down." Of
course the greater part by far of those thus affected
are young women, and in them the affection un-
qnestionably seems like one of the many diversities
of hysteria. It is, however, confessedly not con-
fined to young women; in some cases mentioned in
the Irish papers it is strong men who are " struck."
One we noticed, a robust and powerful man, a
farmer, another a publican ; and the former is
mentioned as having stated that he long struggled
against yielding to the influence or power to which
he was ashamed to submit. It is these manifes-
tations which have formed the subject of so much

controversy.
The well-known GEORGE GlLFlLLAN—hini%elf a
Scotch reverend—pronounced them in a sermon
to be the " veriest work of the Devil." But some
Presbyterian divines on the spot speak of them as
the work of the Deity himself ! More moderate men,
less versed in the mysteries of Heaven and hell,
and more likely to he correct, regard them as every
way objectionable, but as purely natural and as
not being, with very few exceptions, impostures.
Under strong religious impressions an individual
or two were thus affected in the first instance.
Such affections are always contagious ; if one
fainting person he not promptly removed from an
assembly, it is well known others will soon follow,
and in this way the " strikings down" probably
began in the neighbourhood of Belfast. But na-
turally it would not, and did not, stop here
Persons met together under the circumstances in
connection with which the first physical prostrations
had occurred ; the preaching and service was of a
character adapted to produce them ; it was looked
for, expected by hundreds, and the conseq•zence was
that such scenes were multiplied. Even strong and
robust persons, like the farmer and publican adverted
to, are far from being unlikely subjects for such im-
pressions. They were doubtless illiterate persons;
indeed, we are told that illiterate persons only
have been attacked ; and this class is peculiarly
liable to a superstitious kind of apprehension of the
magic influence of some unknown power.
By far the ablest pamphlet we have seen on the
subject is one by the Rev. Archdeacon SToPFORD,
who went to investigate on the spot. Dr. STOP-
FORD belongs to the Evangelical school, has no an-
tipathy to Religious Revivals—rather, we should
say, a prepossession in their favour ; but ho is very
positive, assigning his reasons at great length, that
the physical effects adverted to are those of hyste-
ria, and nothing else. He even designates his
pamphlet " The Work and the Counterwork "
regarding the revival essentially as a really good
work, but the " strikings down," and the like, as
the " counter work." On the whole it is not denied,
we do not know that anyone wishes to do so, that
much good has been done amongst a large number
of illiterate and immoral persons. A Catholic
judge on the bench, and secular as well as religious
journals, testify to this. We only hope the refor-
mation will be permanent—more so than that
begun by the excellent Father MATIIEW. The ex-
travagancies, all wile and prudent divines, as well
as laymen, regret, and endeavour to suppress them.
Let us hope that nothing of the kind will be im-
ported into theological Scotland and exciteable
Wales, into which, as the country papers inform
us, the " revival" is spreading. So long as these
revivals are employed to spread religion amongst a
class who will attend to it in no other form, per-
sons of better religious tastes will accept the acci-
dental evil for the sake of the substantial good.
Earnest men must choose their own methods.

In The Sun of yesterday we gave a communica-
tion from a special correspondent of the Times. It
was an account of a monster prayer meeting at
Armagh, to which place cheap excursion trains were
ruR from Belfast, a distance of thirty miles. A part
of the scenes, both in the railway and on the green
where the meeting was held, were such as certainly
could not redound to the credit of religion any where.
In the centre was a large platform, on which many
really educated and respectable ministers stood and
addressed the people, among them the well-known
and much-respected Hon. and Rev. BAPTIST NOEL,
of our own metropolis, a preacher certainly here of
the more refined caste, and in whose place of wor
ship nothing unseemly would be tolerated for a
moment. It seems, however, that a violent and
illiterate class of speakers drew off considerable
numbers, and endeavoured to produce the "striking
down" results which have made so much noise. It
would appear, however, from the letter that re-
spectable ministers are endeavouring, though in too
feeble a voice, to suppress what they see to be so
undesirable.

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