The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-03 00:00:00

(From the Daily News.)
The Ultramontane party of the Roman Catholic
Church, flushed with the successes achieved in Aus-
tria and Naples, has for along time acted as though
it believed that at last the reign of its Saints was at
band, and that the time was, near when it could
successfully make a
grand effort todrive back the ad-
vancing Tide of Intelligence and Freedom. Galling
as were its repeated discomfitures in Sardinia, they
were in some degree compensated by the spectacle or
Spain once more brought beneath the yoke, and by
the prospect of increased power in Portugal. In
Belgium, the struggle, though more protracted,
was not considered doubtful, with a majority in the
Chambers and in the Ministry. That kingdom in
fact has latterly been -looked upon as one of the
strongholds of Ultramontanism, and as destined to
be the theatre of one of its greatest triumphs.
Checked in 1830, the new constitution of the king-
dom gave into the hands of the parti pretre a wea-
pon, in the shape of the extended suffrage, of which
it has availed itself with singular dexterity. It had
to act on the constituencies, and by keeping them
in a state of ignorance and superstition, and in a
sort of ecclesiastical thraldom, it possessedthe means
of ultimately obtaining such a majority in the
Chambers as should enable it, by the very forms of
a constitutional Government, to strike the most
serious blows at that constitution, and at the civil
liberties of the people. The events of 1848, by the
effervescence they created in the popular mind, ren-
dered the task too perilous to be then openly
avowed, but the present time, when reactionary
principles have spread so widely and with such im-
punity over the Continent, seems to have been
thought propitious for a more open attack, and for
ri'vetting once more the chain of priestly domina-
tion round the necks of the people. Hence the im-
pudent fulminations of the Belgian prelates against
the State Universities, and the flagrant touting, en-
forced by threats of ccelesiastical censure, for the
Jesuit College at Louvain, which provoked so mas-
terly a retort in the earlier sittings of the present
Chambers. The crowning assault, howeser, is that
which has recently been made in the Charitable So-
cieties Bill, and which has provoked a manifestation
on the part of the people so serious and so unmis-
takeable that we trust the tools of the Ultrarnonta-
nsts have received a lesson • which will keep thein
for a while in check. By the new constitution, all
charitable and ecclesiastical bodies in Belgium were
declared incapable of holding property. All dona-
tions for charitable purposes are obliged to be made
to the civil administrators, and their distribution
was expressly confined to those functionaries who
were amenable to the civil tribunals in the case of
malversation. But in the Bill the discussion of
which has provoked this recent storm and the ad-
journment of the Chambers this regulation was en-
deavoured to be set aside, and ecclesiastical and
charitable institutions were to be allowed not only
to receive donations of every kind, but donors were
to have the power of nominating special trustees
for the administration of their bequests and gifts.
The old priestly thumb-serew was again to be
brought into play, and the terrors of the death-bed,
aggravated by the threat of withholding the conso-
lations of religion from the wealthy moribund, were
to be used once more as the foundation on which to
build the riches of the Church and of its dependent
institutions.
The liberal press of Belgium, and the liberal
minority of the Chambers, have fought the battle
gallantly but ineffectually, so far as regards the
mere result in votes; but an incident in the debate,
trifling apparently, but momentous in its conse-
quences, has achieved what no strength of argument
had been enabled to effect. The epithet of " un-
woi thy comedy," applied to the pretended guarantees
against an abuse of this flagrant infraction of the
pt inciples of the constitution, brought down on M.
Frere Orban the wrath of the Church party, the
strong demonstrations of sycn patby on the part of the
audience in the galleries, and the forcible expulsion
of the latter. The deliberations were ordered by the
President to be private, which added fuel to the
flame, and the populace insulted the Papal Nuncio,
hooted the ministers and the obnoxious deputies,
and for some days the principal cities of Belgium
have been in a state of excitement in which the
sympathy of the masses with the opinions of the
opponents of the Bill, and their determination
to resort if necessary to violence rather than
suffer it to pass, have been clearly demon-
' strated. The enthusiastic reception of the Duke
and Duchess of Brabant at the theatre, and the
universal cries of " Vive le Roi " and "Down with
the Priests," &c., gave unquestionable evidence as
to the tone and direction of popular feeling. The
King has very wisely adjourned the Chambers,
which is a mode of shelving the obnoxious measure;
- and we trust that quiet will be restored and the
priestly faction will take the lesson to heart, That
in one sense it will not be lost on them, or on any
of the despotic Governments of Europe, we are fully
convinced. For months, as we have stated, this
battle has been fought by the press and in the tri-
bune, with no better result than giving such a
check to its progress as might be attainable by par-
liamentary strategy. The fact that the public was
adtnitted to hear the verbal struggle, and was made
as it were a party to it, was unintentionally the only
effectual pressure on this priest-governed majority.
It has been the policy, for years past for organs of
the parti pritre in Belgium to denounce that por-
tion of the liberal press which systematically op-
posed their encroachments, as favourers of atheism,
socialism, and all other isms that fright quiet citi-
zens in their homes. There was not a political crime
committed in any part of Europe that some of these
ecclesiastical trumpeters did not endeavour to fix
upon the liberal press the chargé of having directly
or indirectly incited its commission. The most
recent scandal of that nature was the one connected
with the murder of the Archbishop of Paris, and it
was, as our readers will remember, brought under
the notice of the Chambers, who were compelled,
however reluctantly, to brand the ecclesiastical
organs with the disgrace of a proved slander.
It is no small matter in these days to find the
spirit of resistance to priestly domination active
and earnest. Sardinia has a difficult part to play,
surrounded by priest-ridden and ignorant neigh-
bours ; and this demenstratfon in Belgium will
have a great moral effect both in Northern Italy
and in Germany. There is no mistaking the signs
of the times when we find everywhere the spiritual
soldiery of the most domineering section of the Ro-
man Church diligently at work, using all weapons,
however vile, una,t-snshed by no, conviction of fraud-
or wrong, however flagrant. Respectable members
of that Church are scandalised and grieved atthese
things, and feel as we do, that it is not in the lat-
ter part of the 19th cintury that absurd rescripts of
the Holy Inquisition, such as we not long ago pub-1
lished, bearing the signature of ..4iraldi, the Grand '
Inquisitor, can be issued without danger of bring-
ing religion into contempt. In France, under the
patronage of a Soverewa who professes a special
care for religion, we have had the impious hoax of
Our Lady of La Sallette, and still later, the Univers
a Parisian journal, announcing a live. Saint, who
noses a heretic, as pigs discover truffles, and cis s
involuntarily into the air in the mere contempla-
tion of a church. These things, and a whole tribe of
winking and weeping Madonnas, have passed un-
censured by the Church, and we trust that, al-
though it he at the cost of some alarm to the public
peace, no efforts w'll be spared by the citizens of
free Roman Catholic countries to give no more
power, either of the purse or of the law, to apriest-
hood scr little in accordance with the intelligence of
the age, and with the feelings of the most sincere
and enlightened of their followers.

(Prom the Times.)
Within the last few days events have occurred in
the Belgian capital which, if met with lessprudence
might have ended in tumult, if not in revolution.
They seem to have attracted less notice abroad than
they deserve, for the battle was the immemorial
ore between bigotry and religious freedom, between
the claims of a priesthood and the rights of the
State.
and people. A little country must expecttbat
• •ItEl internal affairs will not continually receive the
at tentioA of the world ; but now and d then, when
great • • the sympathy
are at stake, Belgium may well ask
sympathy f ' such a nation as ours, which has en-
countered tliee
tlesx alld woveeatablisithangers, fought the tame bat-
man Catholic C6ure,h, e sameinstitu•ions. The Ro.-
the cause of the
of and its pretensions have been
the priesthood
It is well known
pre;
that the power
i3o_ipriesthood has been for many
years greater in
tholic country. Tholg Bei tYans in any northern Ca-
Peoplegia;lia've a.busy and in some
respect a domestic
Church, partly
contentedly in the di.cipliee of tar,always acquiesced
from habit and an uninquiringion°:
the bad
tk.artly from
natural relierious feeling, but chiePfteyr'' because the
on oth their
Church has feen to some extent
nationality against Protestant ldolland
have for years had things all-
side arid free-thinking France on the other. e The
priests consequently
maiiues and Louvain have been
their own way.
in the most liberal times the strongholds of cetho-
doxy. The old towns of Flanders, usually so quiet
and melancholy, are on every feast day alive-with
priests and monks, nuns and sisters of charity,-
Belgian children and schoolboys have been allowed'
to read nothing but what was doctored to suit the
palate of the'devotee. A translation of "Robinson.
Crusoe," could hardly be published without a pre-
flee watning the infant readers that Robinson was
unhappily not a Cathelie, and even older students
were expected to take their history and philosophy
and 1 olitics diluted avi h. commentaries by some.
holy father. But now the Church has gone too far.
The ile'g an people are not qute so docile as their
spiritual eulogists iu Ireland. and England have re-
presented them. In answer to the great and abid-