The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-18
PHILADELPHIA AND VIRGINIA.

From the ~ r. WOTld.
The ocean or one of our great inland seas
is not nauch disturbed when mass of rock is
by some convulsion thrown into their midst
or an actual island disappears. But pebble
cast into placid pond makes great splash,
and when two or three disturb the surface at
once, there is manifest ripple on the shore.
Our sister city of Philadelphia just now has
its chronic camness disturbed Her courts
of justice are engrossed by a controversy, agi-
tatipg one set of ecclesiastical organizations
to their centre, on question whether Epis-
copal bymnology is orthodox in Presbyterian
choirs, and whether in point of fact From
Greenlands 10y Mountains" and Crock of
Ages Cleft for Me" are not positively licen-
tious melodies. Then, in turn, prelaoy is
convulsed by ritualism, and the TOM
foolery of one crack-brained parson has
tempted the successor of Bishop White to
make an ass of himself. We have no more
faith in the necessity or expediency in Pro-
testant organizations of auricular confession
than has the Pennsylvania ''Father in God"
but when we hear, in this day, of the con-
fessional as practised in our country, Sin
vading the sanctity of domestic life, I" ''des-
troying the purity of womens hearts, "breed-
ing loathsome ideas and fostering lust and
crime" we are profoundly grateful that the
jurisdiction and teachings of such an Episeo-
pal nincompoop are west OF the Delaware.
But it makes a sensation in Philadelphia
Nor is this all. In 1876 there is to be, and
we are sincerely glad of it, a centenary cole
bration IN Philadelphia, and our neighbors
are actually discounting it. Congress has
sanctioned it with reservation that it is to
cost the Federal Government nothing. New
Jersey approves; Delaware agrees; and now it
seems Virginia has sent an exploring expe-
dition to see how the land lies, and Philadel-
phia is at this moment busy making them
welcome. Judging from the newspapers the
poor Virginians are having at once q hard
and Jolly time of it. OF conviyiality at
the expense of the municipality there is
abundance, and in all the elements which
makes hospitality so easy, as we admit CRATE
fully, Philadelphia is fertile. We have no
means of knowing who the Virginia guests
are, whether scalawags, which is quite pro-
bable, or carpet-baggers, or genuine Rebels.
From the magnanimous tone of the speeches
which are made to them we should infer they
were the last. If SO, grievous must be their
suffering at the hands of their taskmasters.
They have been carried through all the classi-
calities, old and new, of the city. They
went to Independence and Carpenters Hall,
but did not remain at either long-the walls
being redolent of rebellion. They were en-
tertained at the Union League and saw
Thaddeus Stevens picture, and the old flags
| that bad been saved from the routs of Frede-
ricksburg and Charlottesville, and the frag-
ments of shell picked up on Virginia
battle-felds, or amid the ruin of Virginia
homesteads. The Philadelphia masterpiece
of srt-her 'Last Judgment" Rothermels
Gettysburg, was shown to them with the
bloody repulse of Pickett's Division, and
| Groner, and Edwards, and Williams, and
Whiting, Virginia's soldiers, in bloody death.
There, too they were treated to glimpse of
Sheridan's ride to Winchester-a picture emil
nently suggestive of sympathy for Virginia,
with lurid background of burning mills, and
barns, and haymows. Girard College was
avoided, for there there is a vulgar, old
fashioned prejudice against black boys,
and Laurel Hill, where the Rebel Hugh
Mercer, of Fredericksburg, is entombed.
But they saw the prospective park, and
General Grants log cabin, and General
Grants Chestnut street house, gift
of Borie and company. Bnt supposing them
to be gentlemen and loyal to the land of their
birth, most grievous must have been their
suffering, when in speeches, aud addresses,
and editorial congratulations, they were told,
as a matter of felicitation, that they-that
Virginians, proud of their State and conscious
of its resources-bad sold themselves to an
alien and corrupt corporation. They were
| made to see, as the Press says, 'the power of
the Pennsylvania Central in pushing its re-
sistless branches into the South, and for this
they were bid to be grateful. While all this
is going on north Of Mason and Dixon we
| found the following pleasant allusion in an