Norfolk day book. [volume] (Norfolk and Portsmouth Va.) 1868-1880, 1869-08-27

| viving the old material of 1921 would
have been more effectual by far in put
ting down the Carlists. Proceed by a
I preamble, in which Minister Gorilla
gives credit to the few ofthe clergy who
are loyal, he administers severe reproof
to the many who are not, and VIII ON he
accuses of ''offering the doleful spectacle
of being formenters of discord and civil
war, nuucios of peace, and examples of
meekness, long-suffering and obedience"
Mindful of the fact that his colleague,
Sagasta, and his chief, Prim, have got
into dreadful disgrace by the revival of
the old conspiracy law of 1921, he says
that "the actual political and admins
trative organization of the country did
not permit of the reproduction CT dispo-
sitions of former epochs dictated on an
alogous occasions" and therefore he
proposes to the Council of Ministers and
to the Regent new decree altogether,
which is sanctioned and published in
yesterdays Gazette. 1t is aimed at the
Episcopal bench. They are ordered to
do four things. First, they must give
immediate information to the govern
ment of all the ecclesiastics of their re-
spective dioceses who have abandoned
| their churches and taken the field. Sec
ondly, they must without any proroga-
ton or excuse give instant statements
! of the steps they have taken, canoni-
cally or otherwise, "to correct and to re-
strain the rebel priests, and to repair
the grave scandal they have caused. A"
Thirdly, they must each and every one
of them issue, within eight days, pos
torial edict, exhorting their diocesans to
obedience to the auth critics, and send a
copy of the same to the Minister of Grace
and Justice; and, fourtbly, they must
cancel the preaching and confessng liz
censes of the VIGOROUSLY disaffected
priests who have not hesitated to mani
fest an ostensibly hostile attitude against
the constitutional regimen. How The
prelates will take this degree and its
Illuminating commands remains to be
seen. 1t certainly presages no very
pleasant relations between the Church
and the State. For the prelates no ex-
cuse can be made on the score Of failure
of the State to pay them. Their sala-
ries are not in arrears. The attitude of
the poor clergy is perhaps little to be
wondered at, seeing how Carlism and
Catholicism are bound up in common
interests. Some blank enlistment forms
have been seized with other Carlist doc
uments, and on them are the words,
defenders OF our Apostolical Roman
Catholic religion and our Sovereign
Lord, Carlos VII, by the grace of God"
In the present government of Spain
from the Regent downwards, the clergy
recognize only doubtful friends or open
enemiss, and they cannot forget or for
give the great alteration the revolution
mas made in their social and political
position. Added to all this is the fact
that the poverty of the treasury has
prevented the government keeping faith
with them in respect to their stipends.
They are so many months behiadhand
that some of the priests are in reality
experiencing the bitter ness of a poverty
they have hitherto been strangers to.
Very recently dastardly attack was
made on the premises of the Isabellino
paper, the Siglo, by party of armed
men in open dayli. hit in Madrid The
type was broken up and scattered, the
presses broken, and the editors SO severe
'y assaulted as at one time 10 cause
serious fear for their lives, The same
thing was done to the Jsremias, a sati-
rical paper, and threatened to be done
to the Gordo, another of the same class.
All three have suspended publication
for the present. The parties who COM
mitted these are said to be liberals and
known, yet no official cognizance has
been taken of their proceedings, and no
arrest made.