The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-04


any detection from morality of professed ex-
Founders of religion. It is natural that ex-
Founders of religion should shrink from the
occasion which it might seem to them would
be afforded to such enemies by an official
condemnation by the church of its own
agents But it is still true that such q con-
demnation, if the agents were unworthy, was
the one thing needed to free the church from
the stigma brought upon it by the acts of its
own agents, and that scoffers at religion, or
at that phase of it which the Methodist
Church represents, have now an occasion of
railing which would have been denied them
if the church had itself undertaken and rigidly
prosecuted the inquest which has now been
carried into the courts.
1t is natural that men who profess, as
churches and their auxiliary ins itutions do,
to have higher standard of conduct than
obtains among their secular neighbors, should
be judged by that higher standard. 1t is
upon this ground that the misdeeds of
clereymen always excite more notice than
those of laymen, although q layman is obvi-
ously as much bound to righteousness of life
as clergyman, and that the defalcations in
the Methodist Book Concern have been more
discussed and more denounced than defalca-
tions in strictly secular corporations of
much more criminal and much more inj u
rious character. But those who are pleased
to deduce the corruption of the entire
Methodist Church from the frauds, if it shall
appear upon the approaching trial that frauds
Have been committed, in the conduct of the
Methodist Book Concern, ought to remember
that the disclosure of them is due to worthy,
as the commission to unworthy, members of
that church. Much more shameful and much
more profitable swindles are committed every
day in secular public offices and in secular
private corporations than have been even
charged in the affairs of this ecclesiastical
corporation. The difference is that there are
not in the secular corporations men of cour-
age and fidelity enough disinterestedly to
expose the swindle, as DR.. Ianahan and his
coadjutors have done in the case of the
Methodist Book Concern.
THE ISOLATED POSITION OF FRANCE.
From the N: Y. Herald.
The result of M. Thiers mission to the
great powers of Europe has ended as we an
ticipated. cold shoulder was held out to
him everywhere. The Russian Government,
the last one he approached, refused to recog-
nize him in any official character whatever,
and the Gar positively declined to see him.
Frarce-republican France-has no friend
among the monarchs and aristocracies of the
Old World. They both hate and dread the
republic, and will do all in their power to
suppress it and to check the progress of re-
publican sentiments. The Prussian monarch
is their champion, and they could not find
better representative of absolutism or
greater enemy of republicanism among all
the crowned heads. They may fear his
power and would like to see Germany kept
within safe bounds, probably, so as not to
become dangerous to themselves, but they
are more afraid of republicanism. Herein
we see the cause of Nj. Theirs failure to en-
list the sympathy or aid of Russia, England
and Austria in behalf of France.
1t is very convenient, therefore, for these
powers to say there is no government in
France that they can recognize. How soon
they would recognize the government of any
monarchical or Imperial usurper! How ready
they would be to do that if another Napoleon
or any of the royal pretenders made coup
detdt and seized the powers of government;
yes, though such a government might be
erected upon the blood of the French people
and against the wish of the nation There
are examples enough of this. There was no
such hesitation when Louis Napoleon usurped
the imperial authority. No. 1t is the republic
that the crowned heads will not recognize,
and the assertion that there is no government
in France is pretext only. The assertion is
not true. The Provisional Government is
acknowledged and obeyed from one end of
French territory to the other. The whole ma
ton is rising to defend the country under the
direction of that Government. 1t is the only
one existing or possible Just now. 1t has all
the elements and power of de fdct0 govern
ment. 1t sprdng legitimately from eircum-
stances and the situation in which France was
placed by the defeat and capture of the Em-
peror and by the flight of the Regency. 1t
was necessity, and the French people every
where are rallying to support it. AS to the
reports that BaZaine, shut up in Metz, does
not recognize any other authority than that
OF the Emperor, they are very doubtful; but
if even he has assumed such ridiculous
position, he has no right to speak for France,
and is powerless to determine the form of
government. Then, again, the pretended
news that is concocted and spread abroad by
monarchical agents about the reds" social
disorder, andimperialist proclivitiesin France,
is utterly unreliable. On the contrary, we do
know that, witt the exception of few such
men as Cluseret, who have no influence over
the mass of the people, the whole population
is united in sustaining the de factO Govern
ment in the present terrible struggle. But the
republican Provisional Government has been
recognized by several nations, and by the
United States, which is one of thu first powers
of the world. The Duke of Argyle, one of the
British Ministry, at a Cabinet meeting in
London on Friday called attention to this fact
! He is reported to have said ''the French re-
public had been formally recognized by the
| United States, and that it would be sort of
constructive discourtesy to this country to
assume that Government which existed suf-
! ficiently and with suf1i eient warrant to com
mand American recognition, had no sufi cient
standing in fact to justify England in treating
with and through 1t for so great an object as
the settlement of Europe"
These autocratic and aristocratic govern
ments of Europe may yet ind that they have
| made a mistaka in attanHfino fo cruSh tho