The New York Herald Newspaper, December 29, 1867, Page 6

4 NEW YORK HERALD. BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. All business or news letters and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New Yore HERALD. Letters and packages should be prope-ly sealed. Rejected communications will no! be re- turned. Volume XX) = RELIGIOUS SBRVICS$ TO-DAY, CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION,—Reyv. Baows. Morning and afte: CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH.<Rey. AnpREws on ‘Tum Nestvuss OF Pi Evening, Ww. W. CRURCH OF THE STRANGERS.—Rev. Da. Deexs. Morning and ereoing. CHRISTIAN CHURCH, Twenty-eighth street.—Morn. ing and Evening. DOPWORTH HALL.—Srimvarisrc Sociary. Maynanp. Morning and eveni MASONIC HALL.—Tae Association ov Srrmtrvarists. Morning and evening. SEVENT! Rev. Wat. P Tonait, Morning aud evening. ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, Yorkville. —Rev. Wa. Dison’ Morning and evening. ST. ANN’S FREE CHURCH.—Morning, afternoon and evening. st. STEPHEN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH.—Rev. Dn. Price.” Morning and evening. SOUTH DUTCH CHURCH.—Sabbath School Angiver- sary. Evening. THIRTY.FOURTH STREET REFORMED CHURCH, — K Rev. De. Sreveca, Eventn UNIVERSITY, “Parse Prno: ead evening. UPPER CHURCH OF THE ASCENBION.—Morning and evening. New York, Sunday, December 29. 1867. wEew s. EUROPE. ‘Te news report by the Atinntic cable is dated yester- day oveniny, December 28 Ths Fenians were in extraordinary activity all over Great Britain and the country remained excited by hourly telegrams reporting thelr movements. Friday night a party of men, disguised, stormed the govern- ment tower at Cork, Ireiand, routed the guard and car- way the arms and ammun:tion, A Fenian cru is said to have been chased by the British war vescels of Cork. 4:man has been arrested in London who, it is alleged, fired the fuse on the occasion of the Cierken- well explosion, The bili for the reorganization of the French army passed the legislative body, The term of service us ex- tended to nine years. M. Rouher, Minister of Siate, alluded to tbe “armaments of the neighboring Powers” THiS in support of the measure, The Spanish Cortes met in | session. Queen Isabella announced her determination to support the Pope’s temporal power, The Austrian frigate Novara, with Maximitian’s remains on board, arrived at Cadiz, A Paris jourual denounces the debt “repudiation”? of Italy. Consols closed at 923g a 924; for account and 924 @ 92% for money in London. Five-twenties were at 72a 72% in London and 76% in Frankfort. The Liverpool cotton market closed quiet. Middiing uplands was at 73¢ pence at noon. Breadstuffs and Provisions quiet and steady, Produce du!!. MISCELLANEOUS. General Grant issued an order yesterday, by direction of the President, relieving Major Genernis £0 C. Ord and John Pope of their respective commands in the Third and Fourth Military Districts. Ord wilt proceed to California, where he will relieve Generai McDowell, who will in turn take command of the Fourth District, Pope will report w head out delay, General Me i assigned to the com, mand ia hisstead. General ir Swayne fe relieved from duty inthe Free@men’s Bureau in Alabama and ordered to bis regiment, Our special telegrams by tha Cuba cable embrace items of intelligence from Trinidad, Demerara, Jamaica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbados. The Legislatures of Trinidad and Antigua were in session. Four hundred coelies bad arrived in Demerara, Lord Lyttleton had been given a warm welcome by the people of Jamaica. A tidal wave and volcanic eruption in the sen had visited Grenada, destroying several houses, The term of Gov- ernor Walker, of Barbados, had expired, The Commission to select aplan for the new cily Post Office have submitted a report to the architects who proffered plans and specifications for the building. Fifteen of the plans are ao far acceptabie as to Gall for premiums, bot none of them have been agreed upon for the new ouiiding. The reemiums thus awarded agzregate $14,000. It is determived by the Commission to perfect 4 design of their own ows of Bhose thus obtained. Judge Richard Busteed, of the United Sintes Court of Alabama, was shot iu Mobile yesterniay by District Attorney 1. V. B, Martin, reetving twe severe wounds, neither of which et known to jortal. Martin wes under iodiety Le 4° coort for alleged revenue fiauds am aed the diticaity grew aut of this fact, teed formeriy resided in New York Martin w oa > The Brivieh war y nviciner lay alongside of the United States steamer Lackawanos, at Kunolulu, re- cently, and ber band strack up "dixie and “Honnie Blue Flag,” rebel war songs, They were effectually silenced, er, whea te Americans played “The Wearing of the Green.’ The Louisiana Convention yesterday adopied the second arti je of the constitatnen, which designates woe shalt bo citizons of the State. A negro was tied to setake and dberned by a mob a rs at Washington with- Jefferson county, Ga,, on Monday, for ae aiteged oairage | on a white girl A eplit by baima, each branch claiming that « or too conserraure, and both eb genuine leazue, General Birong bas Deeg relieved of the command of the District of Arizona, aud it ® probable Geners! Crit. tendee wil! be pamed @s his si coessor The Onlario, Canada, Porlioment was opened on Friday, Jobn Stevenson wa: ted speaker, Busteees io Commercial circles was without improve- meat, though @ fow of the leadng commodities wore quite freely dealt in, Boyers operaied very cautiously, confining (heir purchases (9 immediate necessities Coaton was in active demaod, twaruly for expori, and closed higher at 150 for middling upland, Coffee was unchanged. Oo "Change flour remained dul! and un- ming Ww ve theonly Apnorr Coming oF THe Lonp,”* PNTH STREET METHODIST CHURCH.— Washington square.—Bissor Srow on » anp Waar Tuey Txaca,” Morning oocurred snong ibe Vaion Leagos tm Ala. | ber )¢ too radweel | Propesition so Mr. Seward. What are we to do with the Mormons and Mormod pologsmy in Utah? What is to become of them if we do nothing? These ere import ‘ent questions which cannot be safely over- looked or disregarded. When they first settled, some twenty years ago, in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, after being expelled by mob Jaw from Missouri and Illinois, these poor Mor- mons had reason to suppose that they were beyond the reach of the persecuting Gentiles for many generations, There they were, in s region only two years before made known to the world by the explorations of Fremont— beyond the great western timberless plains and the Rocky Mountains—a thousand miles from the nearest white settlements of the East, and seven hundred miles over the Great Desert Basin and the lofty chain of the Sierra Nevada from the nearest white settlements of Califor- nia. With these extensive and apparenily im- passable barriers separating them on each side from their remorseless enemies, surely, thought the Latter Day Saints, we can here build up our New Jerusalem and flourish for a thousand years. But they were mistaken, The silver mines discovered in Nevada to the west of them; and the golden discoveries in Idaho, north ofthem; in Montana and Colorado, east of them, and in Arizona, to the southward, have made within a few years the Happy Val- ley of the Mormons the common thoronghfare of migratory hordes of Gentiles from all points of the compass. Worse still; from the impulse which these rich and enveloping mines of gold and silver have given to the enterprise of the Pacific Railroad, the iron horse from the East now thunders along to the base of the Rocky Mountains, while from the Pacific he has already surmounted the lofty crest of the Sierra Nevada, and in the summer wil! ,be snorting in the sandy waste of the Great Basin. Two years hence his course will be free, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and then, with four days as bis time from St. Louis to San Francisco, Salt Lake City, the city of the Mormon saints and their saintly institution of polygamy, will be overwhelmed by the swarm- ing Goths and Vandals. Meantime, Brigham Young seems to be blind to this approaching danger. He still preaches polygamy as the supreme law. - His temporal kingdom in Utah embraces perhaps seventy- five thousand souls, twenty-five thousand of them in Great Salt Lake City and suburbs, In a political view he is to us what the Holy Father of Rome is to the King and kingdom of Italy. He standsin our way and he must be removed. But how? That is the question. It is morally certain that unless the government shall in season interpose and secure their peaceable removal, these Mor- mons will be exterminated in a bloody conflict with the Gentiles, We tolerate some queer sects of socialists and religionists in the midst of the Christian communities of our oldest States, but these sects are either too small to excite alfrm or too inoffensive to awaken the jealousy or wrath of their neighbors. Not so with the Mormons of Utah. They are impe- rium in imperio, a State within the State, in the most offensive antagonism to our established The Metmons asd Their Daskor—A Fiatr | nevertheless, thé; re too 0. American publishers mast bestir themselves. We cap get up as good books here as anywhere else, if we only take the trouble to do it “ for the gio rious privilege of being independent.” We csn supply the brains, and we should not fail in book making for want of the handicraft or the enterprise. ‘The Preseut State of Religious Feolng im America—Its Causes and Proebpble Fatere. No subject for social, political and mpral dissection haa more egregiously p' the surgeons of foreign criticism than the gereric American, who, with a mental and moral anatomy not materially different from thet of mankind in general, has engrafted therey)on a certain anomalous physiology, the princple of which it would take some dozen volume: of “American Notes” to illustrate. In the religous instincts of the American has also been >ro- pounded another problem, concerning which foreign divinity doctors have talked a g:eat deal, shaken their heads warningly a great many times and prophesied many tines more, all to no purpose, so far as either talk or prophecy related to its analysis. The fac: is, in religious, as in political and economical thought, we are in theory a free people; snd it is just this freedom, working out for itelf new forms of manifestation, that might heve been—had it been possible for those acca tomed to timeworn grooves of thought to comprehend thought freely creating for its:lf new grooves—to them the key of the riddle. Of the religious thought and the manifestation of the religious instinct in Europe but five phases have really been developed—viz., the dogmatic, which gave rise to early and rigid anatomies of creed; the Gothic, which ex- pended its vague aspiration, grand yet morbi|, on cathedrals like those of Strasburg and Co- logne ; the artistic, which spent the force of its reveries upon Madonnas and “Judgments;” the phase of critical rationalism, which, having been outgrown in Germany, has been trans- planted into English soil by Bishop Colenso and the authors of the “Essays and Reviews,” about which a bruit was made some five or six years since ; and the phase of transcendental rationalism (also German), which English theo- logians, failing to comprehend, have omitted to reproduce. To neither of these phases has the American feeling shown any emphatic leaning. We bui!d Gothic cathedrals without having ourselves vestige of Gothic feeling ; we buy old paint- ings, but have no sympathy with their weird and diseased allegories of heavenly things; we peruse the works of German rationalism, but they leave little ftmpression; we wrestle, at least most of us, to square our opinions upon the dicta of orthodoxy, and succeed but piti- fully in so squaring them. In short, we think and speculate ina way peculiarly Ameri- can—cannot help so thinking and so specu- lating—and it the divinity doctors of Europe agree with us, it is well, and if not, little it matters. It must be premised that we have now sevo- ral religions centres. Formerly Bostonisms of all sorts, free, yet frigid, had only to be invented to infest the whole land like an epi- social laws, the basis of our political system. The saints at the Great Salt Lake, with the gathering of the Gentiles around them, if not removed by the government, will be expelled by the mob, as they were from Ohio, Missouri and Nauvoo. We say removed, because this Mormon evil ot polygamy cannot be abolished without @ removal of the Mormon community. Their institution of polygamy bas become too deeply fixed to be otherwise extirpated. Morvover, they have built up and accumulate d valuable properties, the appropriation of which, when the opportunity comes to reck- less adventurers, will be apt to afford us a living illustration of the fable of the wolf and the lamb. What, then, ought we to do? How is this violent solution of the Mormon difficulty to be avoided? There isa way as simple as the purebase of Alaska. We think that the true plan was broachel some six or seven years ago by an enterprising seafaring man named Captain Perkins. His proposition was to buy out the Mormons in Utah, buy an island or nest of islands for them in the Pacitic and remove | thom there in government vessels. Strange, it | seems to us, that while buying up ice- bergs and earthquakes from the Rus- sians and the Danes Mr. Seward has not hit upon this idea of buying out Brigham Young. But it is not yet too late to act upon it, aad the Sandwich islands are just the thing. We have, too, a friend at court in the person of the amiable Queen Emma, and for a reasonable sum, no doubt, King Kamehamela would dix pose of his soversignty to Uncle Sam. Buy him out, Mr. Seward, and turn tiose islands over to Brigham Young, and he will soon make | them blossom like the rose with their tropical productions. But again, in the Alnska purchase we have acquired a string of islands, big and little, some two thouvand miles long. Perhaps some of these would suit the Mormons, especially as among their native Esquimaux polygamy | would be nothing new. And yet again, as Juarez is short of fands he may be induced to accept the Mormons as a colony for a few millions, or even fora few thousands cash in Ihand. Atall events, as the republican party \ stands pledged to “the abolition of those twin | relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy,” the | duty devolves upon this republican Congress | of providing for 9 peaceable settlement of this changed, While wheat and cora wore quies, amd om | thing of Mormon polygamy before it is too. quiet and searcely so Gra, Pork, beef and tard were wochanged. Freights were @uil, white nave: sores, oils aod petroleum were quiet, bus firmly held a former Prices. Pa AS RR Tax War or Races.—In the South tho comdi- tion of the relations between the races becomes aggravated with every day that passes. In Virginia it appears to portend even more immediate trouble than in the Gulf States. Murder, arson and robbery are already of indicating, apparently, country are following literally the instructions of Hen- tadioala as to the’ application of torches. 11 ia an Inevitable re- fection that the people who suffer thus were the firet to etrike down the reign of law; yor with this must go the consideration that but for radical madness society in this district would ere this have been returned to its Famine, murder, robbery are rife, and the savagery of politics is not yet ented. Now radical laws for reconsirac- common occurrence that the negroes in the nieutt and bis fellow natural state. tion are still in band. | bate, Holiday Books. We publish in another column to-day an account of a ramble through our principal book stores in search of those much needed requisites of the present season, holiday books. While there is no dearth of the material nor ny limit to the price, (be elegance and the real worth of much of it, thore ia a remarkable defi- ciency observable in American publications of | a superior class, The enterprise of our pub- lishers appears to have been seriously affected by the profits which imported works offer, de- spite the duty of twenty per cent on books of foreign manufacture. Thete aro only a few houses that present many books of their own produetion of a superior order, and some that have nono at al! to show of that attractive quality which suits the holidayseason. Nearly all the really well gotten up volumes beat an demic. Within the past ten years, however, New York has outgrown its Bostonism of thought and ita reverence for the philosophical fancies of the “Hub.”’ Cambridge no longer governs either in po'ley, postry or ,religion; and Americans at large are no Wenger in the orthodox habit of submitting their ideas to the Boston straight jacket—though the breaking loose from this influenco, always aggressive, noisy and overbearing, has been too recent to have settled into repose after reaction; and at least ten years will be required to demonstrate to what American religious thought may amount, independent of Boston. One thing is quite obvious: there has been a nobler growth of the beautiful in our mani- festations of religious feeling since Boston re- ceived the “cold cut,” and quite certain it is that religion has taken a musical direction. In public worship New York now absolutely wrenks its religion on music. No amount of Paritanic declamation has been sufficient to | stay the progress of this instinct, and no plead- ings on the part of elderly clergymen for sim- plicity of form have been of any avail. To- day an organist without an elaborate pro- gramin» of solos, duets and quartets, would sit a3 uneasily on his cushioned stool oi a Sunday morning as would the leader of a concert under similar circumstances on any evening of the week. It will be aiso impossible to ex- punge the exceas Of music from religious wor | ship for the presoat. Presbyterians, doctri- natly orthodox, have fallen into it; Methodists exhort in musical notes and semibreves; Epis- copalians cantillate everything, even prayers and responsea; and Catholics, always grand and copious in this respect, are becoming more and more so, in consonance with the general spirit of religious: worship in the metropolis. The Baptisia, only, as a great body, have held | aloot and kept to the letter of their original simplicity; and those will no doubt gradually sotien and mingle with the general pulp. It | is useless to fight against human nature, either special or general; and that tho religious in- stinct of the American human nature takes naturally to music, practical observation de- monstrates, The philosophy of all is found in this, Music is especially the organ of a certain vague, boundless aspiration and enthusiasm, which must be wreaked upon something and which constitute really the essence of the religious instinct. Scientific culture and digging have, in some degree, unsettled the founda- tions of dogmatic theology; and that same enthusiasm which formerly employed itself in miracles and mysticism has been driven to other modes of expression. The haloes of mystery with which the Gothic feeling had en- veloped the naked dogmas of the Creed have been melted away by new and perhaps more rational modes of thought, and from century to century @ transition has been going on in the religious world. Im America this transition has been rapid and approximates to its climax, wherefore the religions instinct bas assumed the mantle of music for want of mantle more tan- gible. There is no question but that the ten- dency of American thought is toward the re- jection of the dogmatice which form the ana- tomy of (the present system ; and there is no qnestion, furthermore, but that American bold- ness and want. of regard for precedents will carry, this tendency to its logical dey English imprint, We epeak, of course, in| duction within a couple of centuries. Practi- general terms, It will be seen by the article caily, the fashionable religion of New York is referred to that there are exceptions, but, | already e vague theism, which depends upoa music for its o deal of talk upon So also the religious instinct must manifest itself in some way, being,.as it is, an integral part of human nature. In America the end of the transition is near, unless new and bold minds, imbued with the proper liberality of thought, shall stand up and stay the progress of the dissolution. The old and oft iterated demands will not be sufficient, and had better be abandoned. Men will not believe without reason, even though commanded and implored; and a theology based upon freedom of thought must and will succeed the theology of dog- matics, unless dogmatics be made rationally intelligible. The religious fature of America, therefore, will be that of the religious instinct manifested through the utmost freedom of form andthought, The American mind is inventive, original and peculiarly utilitarian. To the generic American form is nothing and essence is everything—shadow passes for shadow, and substance is held with a vicelike grasp. There can be no Voltaire-like confusion of religion with morals in our modes of thought, nor can we be compelled to think in grooves with queer kinks and windings because our ances- tors so thought; and that the time is not far distant when an epidemic for remodelling will seize the public miad is quite obvious. And out of this will blossom an age in which, old forms and effete systems having been rejected, the substantial instinct of religious worship will have built a new and freer system upon the groundwork of the Bible; for, as holding the profoundest types of religious experience, that book will probably forever constitute the groundwork of religious superstructure. In a century or two, therefore, we shall have been religiously reconstructed upon the basis of substance per se, freedom in form and unity of feeling. Thus reconstructed, our religion will be natural, national and of practical utility—a religion which, like a business suit, can be worn on all days of the week. Our Theatrical Orchestras. ue orchestra is a department of vital import- ance in a theatre, but one which is very gene- rally neglected by the metropolitan managers, Not only does it occupy a prominent place in the opera, where, of course, it is all ‘essential, but in the drama it should receive the same attention as the cast, mounting and mise en’ scéne. In this particular our managers are far behind the European theatres. It is almost worth a journey to London to hear Costa’s magn ficent orchestra in the Royal Italian Opera or the accomplished bands over which Arditi and Manns wield their batons. Here a manager will sometimes bring out an opera, spectacle, drama or burlesque in a lavish man- ner, 48 far as the artistes and scenery are con- cerned ; but his last consideration is the orches- tra. An incompetent fiddler is often placed in the leader’s chair, aad, as a natural conse- quence, the different instruments under his baton are in a state of perpetual anarchy. When a really efficient conductor is ia charge, the manager tries to economiz> ex- penses by giving him insufficient funds to pro- cure a complete orchestra of reliable musicians. The great defect in mosi of our orchestras.is in the want of proper balance for the s:ring, reed, brass and percussion instruments, eo that’ the most essential part often becomes the weakest. Then we have the pernicious custom of allow- ing the regular membors of the orchestra to go off io ball or a concert for a fow dollars more on any night they please, leaving miserable substitutes in their place, There are many theatres in this city where one-third of the orchestra every night consists of substi- tutes, Another defect in this important ad- junct of a theatre is in the selections played during the entr’actes. If the play be “Hamlet,” “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Lear” or “Othello,” we aro sure to have a tripling polka, with mocking bird accompaniment, a negro medloy or a set of quadrilles, none of which is certainly in keeping with the subject of the drama. Thon we have heard a plaintive ballad, a funeral mareb, or other lugubrious picce given as a cheerful setting to a comedy or burlesque. Leaders of orchesiras are also too much in the habit of inflicting upon the andience their own compositions, which are, as ageneral rule, the veriest trash that ever fiddler bowed or hornblower tooted. The managers also must needs step within the charmed circle of composers and place themselves beside Auber, Rossini, Gounod and Flotow, with the title “faq.” attached to their names. Imagine the titles “Overture to Massanicllo, Auber,” and “The Swallow Tail Schottische, ——, Esq. manager,” placed side by side on a pro- gramme! Conceit and assurance can go no further. A thorongh roeférmation of our theatrical orchestras is sadly needed. In the concert hall we have the Philharmonic and ‘Thomas’ orchestras, which cannot be excelled in any city in Europe; but the orchestras of the thentres are a disgrace to music and | the drama. At one time it is an incompetent tyro who vainly endeavors, baton in hand, to educe order out of the chaos of sounds that rise on all sides of him and who scems to be in the same pleasant position in the conduc- tor’s chair that St. Lawrence was on the gridiron. Again, we have a thorough, painstaking musician as leader, who vainly scowls at the reckless “subs,” over whom control is out of the question, and who is con- stantly hampered into inefficiency by the parsimony and interference of the manager. The result is that the fiddles, clarionets, horns andeven the kettle drums are always on bad terms or seem to be anxious to outstrip each Other in the race for the “double barred” goal. The remedy for this glaring defect in our theatres is very simple. Let the manager be very particular in his selection of a thor- oughly competent leader, who must devote all his energies and ekill to fulfil the duties of his position, and Jet him then grant all reasonable demands in regard to sufficient quantity and quality of instruments and performers, appro- priate music for each play that is produced, adequate compensation for extra services and comfortable quarters for the musicians. Many of our orchestras are constructed with the same views in regard to comfort as the Black Hole of Oaloutta was, and the poor Sddlers often undergo a slow process of being steamed in { front Of the curtain, What aa admirable thing is e good orchestre under eg experienced con- ductor! How the waves of sound rise and fall at the beck of his baton, now murmuring like the sephyr among the trees, then crashing forth like the voice of the hurricane, anon breaking into fantastic bubbles of melody and again sweeping slong in billows of grandeur and making the ground shake in their lyrical wrath. It is truly s “colossal exponent of passion and emotion, of the art of wordless eloquence and celestial purity.” Let it not be neglected, then, by our managers, and tacked on at the end of the expense account as a sort of necessary evil which they must endure and pay for. But above all, let us have no “Esquires” on the programmes among the composers. Pealm Singing. A lively discussion is agitating certain Ameri- can churches as to the alleged impropriety of singing anything else than pealms. The anti- hymn party contend that the hymns which we had occasion to eulogise last week as expres- sive of almost every emotion of the pious soul are to be rejected as merely human composi- tions. They advocate the exclusive use in public worship of the inspired psalms of David. The practice of nearly all branches of the Scottish Church and, if we are not mistaken, of the English Church, in this respect, is cited as an example for imitation in the United States. Some of our publishers might object to such an innovation, inasmuch as it would seriously interfere with one of the largest and most profitable branches of their trade. The sale of hymn books is almost equal to that of spelling books. There are also other objections which might be urged against the innovation. As the psalms could not easily be aung in the origi- nal Hebrew by our choirs and congregations, some English version of them would have to be adopted. The version the most likely to obtain preference at present would, perbaps, be that of Dr. Isaac Watts. But an ingenious writer in a recent periodical has exposed the fact that “Watts’ Psalms” and the “Psalms of David” are very properly distinguished from each other by these different titles, because they are, in some points, unlike, and, in others, even contradictory. We cannot believe that. Dr. Watts intended to make his version of the psalms in any wise a deliberately dishonest perversion of them. And yet it can clearly be shown that his ignorance of later modes of in- terpretation and his firm conviction that the system of divinity which he bad been taughtto believe was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, led him unwittingly to deflect the real meaning of some of the Psalm- ist’s expressions. In the Messianic psalms, theologically so called, for instance, Dr. Watts does not hesitate to apply to the Messiah lan- guage which cannot have referred to any other person than to David himself. The Doctor evidently imagined that when David uses the pronoun “I” he means sometimes bimself— as when he says, “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that [am not able to look up”—and sometimes the Messiah. And he felt at liberty to discriminate between David's strictly personal references and such as he deemed prophetic. Nor is this all. He almost ventured to attribute to the Messiah, who prayed that his persecutors might be for- givon, the spirit of curses that have, like those’ in the sixty-ninth Psalm, the ring and emphasis of old-fashioned Jewish malediction. King David was not only a sweet singer in Israel, but a master of the bitterest invective, and when enraged against his enemies he could pile on the agony in cursing them to an un- equalled degree. It ts inconceivable that in this, at any rate, be could bave been the proto- type of the Moasiah. Dr. Watts himself, in hia hymns as well as his psalms, had to soften somewhat the terrible fury of certain Scrip- tural phrases, and some even of his softened peraphrases have bad to be omitted alto- gether from American editions of his “Psalms and Hymns,” as confounding in too shocking and monstrous # manner “ the dialect, ideas, expectations and purposes of the Jewish nation with those of the system that Jesus taught.” Perhaps it would be better for the churches to discuss rather the propriety of eliminating all these objectionable features of Watts’ pealms than that of singing them exclusively in public worship. Moreover, the question might be considered whether it is worse io sing bymns which, althongh uninapired, have consoled and thrilled millions of hearts, ‘han to sing the equally uninspired paraphrases of David’a psalms. The versification of hymns and paraphrased psalms alike is of buman in- vention, and so are all instruments of music, ancient and modern. Those who object to hymns, then, on the ground that they are of human invention, would be led to the most absurd conclusions if they carried out their argument. The psalms of David are at onee 40 faithful to the Divine law and so true to the experiences of the godly in all ages, and they are so full of the inspiration of the highest poetry, that they have survived the regal power of the hand that penned them and will continue (o rule an ever widening empire of hearts. But the great song writer of the He- brews would be the last to complain thata goodly host of other song writers have since arisen who share with him the admiration of the religious world. We cannot see why both psalms and hymns should not bo sung In: the American churches. Effects of Radicaliom Upow the Southern Religious Element. It is not alone the famishing condition of the Southern people physically that invokes the solicitude and deep commiseration of Chris- tians everywhere. Radicalism has also pro- duced a moral and religious famine all over the South that will require years of zealous missionary labor to overcome. The ignorant blacks are cepecially the victims of this moral desolation. Heretofore the Southern negroes were distinguished for their religious fervor, and having access to all the white churches, besides their own, they generally availed them- selves of opportunities to supply their spirit- wai wante from the fountains of Divine grace. Now their own churches are changed into places for holding brawling political gatherings ; their sanctuaries are given ap to corrupt partisan demagogues, and the teach- ings which bave led their souls to vation been corrupted ‘into lead them only to bodily suffering and moral death. It is not alone the famine of the hearth that prostrates the South at this time; it is the famine of the heart, that ooienaat yearning for it thele duty to bestow, The Fenian Excitomem iw Great Britain Alarming News. It ia naw, we think, no longer possible for the worst enemies of Great Britain which this country contains, provided only they are not in their own hearts cowards and assassins, to have a word of sympathy for that detestable and cutthroat organization called Fenianism. % The cable despatches which we publish to-day reveal the true character of that organization, and gentlemen occupying respectable posi- tions in New York and other of our cities are out parallel in history. In London the most alarming intelligence’ is hourly received from all parts of the United Kingdom. At Cork bands of men with their faces blackened and otherwise disfigured had captured the Mar- tello tower, dispersed the guard and carried away a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition. A Fenian cruiser was seen off the Irish coast, and moved off only when a war vessel made its appearance. In Dublin a most determined attempt was made to blow up the General Post Office by Greek fire, The attempt was happily frustrated and no great damage was done. At Faversham, about fifty miles from London, a large powder mill was blown up and utterly destroyed, ten persons being killed outright and a large number in- jured—cause unknown. It is also reported, as proof of the vigilance of the government, that the man who fired the fuse at Clerkenwell has been captared. If these incendiary and reckless proceedings are traceable to the Fenian organization, as they doubtless are, the cause of the Irish peo- ple must soon stink in the nostrils of every sensible man. If they are not traceable to the Fenian organization, the time is fully come. when Fenians on. this side of the Atlantie should disavow their sympathy with euch mean, cowardly and diabolical conduct, A fair stand-up fight has always some- thing to commend it; but the only effect of such doings as those which are daily reported by the cable will be te bring upon the Fenian, and through the Fenian upon the Irish name, the contempt and detes- tation of all right-thinking men. We can pro- tect ourselves against the attacks of an opom foe, but no skill can save us from the stroke of the assassin. It is no longer a British question; -it is a question between civilization and bar- barism. England’s difficulty may be ours to- morrow. The Fash Our Paris fashions correspondent says that gold and steel, satin trimmings and velvet leaves, are the accessories on everything in that gay city. In Gotham it is almost impossible to distinguish what the material of a suit is from the extravagant amount of trimming bestowed onit. The Parisian belles now look like livery Ge, a8 cloth costumes with no’ but gilt buttons are considered Tlatingu 9 thon Boots and alippers are going up in the price and heels to an alarming extent, and the unhappy wearers are in danger of breaking their necks ‘or their husbands’ exchequers in attempting ‘to keep in fashion. The wife of the Minister of the Interior wore ornaments from her native town at her reception, and displayed # yellow satin robe with black streaks and gold blonde on the occasion. Madame Rouher’s daughter at another féte wore a very charming dress, having an under petticoat of white silk with enigmatical figures in blue satin around the botiom of the skirt, and over it a blue tarlatam trimmed with lace and loeped up with wild brier, the whole appearing like blue and white vapor. This cannot be intended for second mourning for her lately deceased father. At the Foreign Office the ladies in command wore taffeta robes at their reception. Fashions in Paris at present seem to go hand in hand with politics ; here, Heaven be praised, they are distinct and we might say incompatible with each other.” What the result would be were the toilets of our belles made subservi- ent to politics, and become Ethiopian, planta- tion or otherwisa, according to the compjexion of parties, isa question too painful jor con- templation. In the American metropolis the bandsomest costumes are seen on the street, in the drawing room and in the carriage this winter. The cloaks are really beautiful in shape and trimming. Each velvet basque is encireled around the waist with a silk sash, the ends being tied in a coquettish bow be- hind. Velveteen suits are generally worn, and the daintiest little bats of indescribable ma- terials nestle amid the clustering curls or beneath the awful chignon of some bright eyed beauty. There are many original ideas developed by our modistes, who seem to have taken the hints suggested to them in the Heratp and consulted the tastes and refine- ment of their patronesses. Who knows but we may yet throw down the gauntlet of de- fiance to Paris and contest with the world on the score of fashions, aa we have so far suc- cessfully competed in the matter of pianos, iron-clads, breech-loaders, sewing machines and others too numerous to mention? La Grand Duchess=A Parting Shower of . Benbons. La Grand Duebess held her court “for the last time this season" at the cosey, elegant Title French theatre on Fourteenth improved by some of her Highness’ cous tiers In a novel manner. Taking the license. of the holiday season, they showered upom the Duchess amd her train tokens of their, regard fragrant and & private box nearest the siage, to deliver their Santa Clausian testimonials at fitting periods of the performance. Thus, whem le sabre de son pere is presented to the Duchess | twisted up in 8 manner that speaks but little’