The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-09-21

The East, it seems, is not to be allowed
to rest in the romantic and lazy tranquility
which, as regards material progress at least,
has been its lot for 80 many centuries for
all sorts of holy and classic places, with a
view to improvements. Already the
Mont Gents Tunnel admits hordes of Eng
glish and Yankee travellers into a land
which, q quarter of q century ago, scarcely
had any railway at all ; the suez Canal has
water from Europe to India and China,
without weary voyage around the Cape
of Good Hope and Cooks voyacers /"
make return excursions to the pagodas of
Bombay and the bungalows of Bengal a
railway is being laid from Jaffa to Jerusa-
an echo in the Holy Sepulchre itself; Yo-
ohama and Yeddo are connected by an
iron road, and Persia is to be divided by a
similar way from the Caspian to the Gulf
Jerusalem is revealing, to the energy of a
few enthusiastic Englishmen, the real form
ana degree OF magni1icenee of Solomon's
Temple ; and it will not be many years be-
fore it will be possible to go by rail from
Alexandria to the hitherto most strange
and mysterious of African waters, the
albert Nyanza. A project entitled to
rank with any of these in difficulty, and,
possibly, as far rs the future is concerned,
IN Importance, is about to be set on foot
by an Italian and Greek They propose
to themselves task which no less than
three Caesars, not to speak of two Corin-
THAN kings, essayed in vain. This is, to
make canal across the obstinate Isthmus
of Corinth. What splendid memories does
not the very name of Corinth evoke! We
think of the classic games to which all
Greece hocked, with their tests of muscu-
lar and martial skill, their valueless vet
invaluable wreaths of laurel, their eloquent
poets singing the praises of the 'victors,
their gay festivals under decorated groves,
and in the terraced gardens of palaces
we think of tho glory of the proud city
which, seated at the foot of the Acrocorin-
thus, along the sheres of her sparkling
gulf, was at one era the mistress of the
worlds commerce, trading with the Ro-
mans in the West, and the followers of
Buddha, Zoroastes, and Confucius, in the |
Orient we recall that Caesar, with his |
shrewd head as we'll as indemitable enter |
prize, struggled with the Isthmus to force !
q passage from sea to sea, to restore to
Corinth her commercial queenship, that |
Rome might profit by it and wax yet more |
splendid and luxurious. We remember
that Nero presumptuously attempted what
the great consul had failed to do, and then |
Caligula, and then Atticus :; all however,
in turn abandoning the then impossible
job. But the present projectors live in
other times aud in other times there are
not only other customs, but other and
vastly better scientific reason and resources.
It is probable that the Corinthian Isthmus
will really be pierced this time and if 30,
there is no reason why the PelOponnesus
should not again become teemiug and
prosperous commercial centre. Corinth
would then naturally be a main eutrepot
between Brindiei, which is the same as
saying all Western and Northern Europe,
and the Levant; while the importance to
Greece herself, whose present commerce
q deplorably staguant and meagre, is not
easily foreseen. Greece needs, more than
Utmost any thing else, material prosperity,
which would produce content aud it is
oy no means unlikely that the restoration
If Corinth to something like the CONNER
:ial Importance she possessed twenty one
ago, would be one valuable
means of creating q new, peaceful, and
prosperous, if not glorious, Hellas.-Ap-
1Ieton's Journal,