The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-09

be hardship, undoubtedly, and, in some in
stances, injustice. But the Judgment of the
Court rests upon an intelligible-if not an
agreeable or entirely Neutrality-suspicious.;
the promulgation of which constitutes another
reason for the restoration, with all convenient
speed, of specie payments. When we get
back to hard cash basis, these conflicts of
interest and Interpretation will cease-and
not till then.
THE LIBERAL PARTY IN THE CHURCH.
From the Pal Man Gazette.
Besides the bishops who are wise in their
own generation, there is that Liberal party in
the Church which resists the dogma for q diff
ferent reason. All their sympathies are in
the direction in which the spirit of the age
moves SO strongly outside their Church. Its
characteristic is impatienoe of dogmas alto
gether, as being chains on the truth and pro-
hibitions of free thought. Its tendency is to
throw aside the authority which speaks in
creeds and separates men by theoretical dis
tinctions, and to seek for unity by making the
bond of Interpretation more elastic and the
exclusive tests less specific or binding.
Strange as it may seem to us that a spirit so
essentially Protestant should find an echo
within the Roman Church, yet it is 30. And
those who feel this influence recoil from the
prospect of the new dogmatic fetters which
Papal infallibility would forge for them. They
feel that not only would these
be more than they could bear,
but that they would set fatal
gulf between their creed and the march of
modern intelligence. All the thoughts, all
the aspirations, which are Just now the
strongest motive powers in the world, would
be made utterly aud obviously irreconcilable
with Church which would speedily come to
be built and compacted of the straitest,
hardest, most uncompromising theological
propositions and the most absolute contradic-
tion to all human reason and its discoveries.
The party which we have been speaking of
could not remain in the Church under these
conditions. They find the effort hard enough
now; it would then become Impossible. They
struggle, therefore, that they may not be
driven forth
Yet, even as the matter stands. the Church
is in extreme difficulties. The council has
been summoned, and it must do something.
If at the last moment the Pope and the
Jesuits fall back from the programme, it will
be fiasco which cannot bat damage the
Church. The failure to affirm the infallibility
and the syllabus will seem to the world the
denial of both, and the great objects of Pho
Nonos life will be made abortive. A certain
amount of ridicule, too, will fall upon a
Church which has gathered together council
from all the ends of the earth with no practi-
cal result except the regulation of some trivial
ceremonies. And the spectacle of intestine
division thus afforded will be most serious
thorn in the spirit to those who demand sub
mission of schismatics on the ground that
the true Church knows no parties and admits
no quarrels. But, on the other side, the
prospect is still more alarming. France and
Austria, the sole surviving pillars of the
Church, have plainly declared that
| Papal infallibility must not trench upon
their rights. But can infallibility submit to
dictation? The bishops will doubtless pro-
fess acceptance if they are beaten but with
what heart can they longer strive for faith
at whose future expositions they tremble !?
The liberal party in the Church will simply be
| cast out, either at once or in the course of o
very few years, by the pressure of the intol.
| cradle conditions to which their intellect will
be subjected. A vast schism, in which the
necessity of self-preservation will force gov.
ernments and people, the press and the uni
versities, science and faith, to resist the de.
crees of the single mouthpiece of the Church
will sooner or later be the consequence OF
the imputing to it divine powers of enunci
| ating truths. There is no doubt, indeed
that the coming dogma is only the logical
development of the doctrine on which
all ecclesiastical authority is founded
| There is no more intrinsic alb
surdity in pronouncing the Pope alone in
| lallDle tnan IN prouounclnS Gne majority OF
council infallible. The inspiration which
breathes through the bishops must breathe il
a still fuller influence through their spiritua
chief. But there are some doctrines which
survive and look reasonable so long as they
are limited to hypothetical and complicated
conditions, and to which logical development
to simple issue is suddenly fatal. And il Ger
tainly seems as if Pho Mono, who during hi
first years in the Vatican was the instrument
of stirring up the national movement in ITALY
which has since cost him so much, has beer
in his closing years the occasion of move
ment which must either cast discredit on tn,
pretensions of his Church, or involve it il
internal confusion of which no man can se
the end.
VICE-ADMIRAL PORTER'S USURPA
TIONS.
From the ~ Y. Sun.
The accession of Vice Admiral Porter a
chief of the Navy Department has alread
caused great detriment to the service. Unit
his voice became powerful at Washington
| gratifying eSDTit de corps prevailed anon,