The New York Herald Newspaper, February 20, 1871, Page 4

ae ine eien lmemetene : 4 VY NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. Volame XXXVI... AMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING, LINA EDWIN'S THEATRE, 720 Broadway.—HUNTED ; On, THE Two Lives oF Many Lerten. GRAND OPERA HOUSE, corner of 8th av. anc 234 sh— PRRIOHOLE. OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Tar RIcnELIEv OF ‘Tar PrRiop. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.—Pomr; on, Way Down Bourn—Man anv TraRrR. FIFTH AVENUS THEATRE, Twenty-fourtb street.— BaRaroca. GLOBE THEATRE, 728 Broadway.—Vaginry Enter TADNMENT, &C.—GREEN BANNER. WEW YORK STADT THEATRE, 46 Bowery.—Din Gumus. BOOTH’S THEATRE, 234 RICHELIEU. between 5b and 6th avs.— ‘WOOD'S MUSEUM Broadway, corner 30th st.—Performs ‘ances every afternoon and oven na. i — FOURTEENTH STREET THEATRE (Theatre Francais)— Rronz. mv. ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Fourteenth street—l, Tro- ‘VaToas. NIBLO’S GARDEN, Broadway.—Tas SPECTACLE OF Tug BLack Croox. Was WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway ana 13th street.— A Mommye CaLL—Woov0ock's LitTLE GAME. ‘MRS. F. B. CONWAY'S PARK THEATRE, Brooklyn.— BaRaroca. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, 21 Bowery.—Va- BiE1Y ENTEETAINNENT. THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadway.—Co mio VocaL- Imus, NxORO ACTS, £0. SAN FRANCISCO MINSTREL HALL, 585 Broadway.— Neeno MINSTEELSY, Fanors, BUBLESQUES, £0. BRYANT'S NEW OPERA HOUSE, 234 st., between 6th and 70 avs.—NeGuo MINSTRELSY, EOCENTEICITIES, £0. HOOLEY'S OPERA HOUSE, Bro —Hoouer' kar Luowe Mixereee. oe oe APOLLO HALL. corner 28th street and Broadway.— De. Cozer's Diokama or IRELAND. NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteenth street.—ScENES IN ‘THE RING, ACEOBATS, ‘£0. UNION LEAGUE AHALL.—Miss GLYNN’s SAK- GPEARIAN READINGS. SOMERVILLE ART GALLERY, 8 Fifth avenue.—Ex- HIBITION OF WORKS OF ART. NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, 618 — SCIENOE AND ArT. i cain DR. KAHN’S ANATOMICAL MUSEUM, 745 Broadway.— SOLENOE AND aur. sie las WITH SUPPLEMENT New York, Monday, February 20, 1871. CONTENTS OF TO-DAys HERALD, Pace. t—Advertisements. 2—Advertisemente. 3—Art Notes—Music and the Drama—Musical Re- view—Trigger Touruament—Farmers’ Griev ances—Real Estate Matters—Court Calendars for To-Day—Advertisemente. 4—Editoriais: Leading article, “M, Thiers and His Regency in France—Wnhat Will He Do With Ity"—Amusement Announcements, S—Editorial (continued from Fourth Page)—The New French Government—News from Paris Business Notices, 6—The Joint High Commussion: Questions for Adjusunent Between America and England; the Alabama Clatms; Free Navigation of the St. Lawrence; Canidiau Clams for Feman Raids; Resume of all the Susjects; Removal of the British Flag trom the American Con unent; Perpetual Peace and Friendship Be- tween the English-Speaking Nations—The Coal Miners’ Strike—Criticisms of New Beoks, ‘Y—Advertisements, S—Regic: Yesteraay’s Spiritual Manna; the Churches aud the Congregations, the Services and the Sermons; the Coming Lent; Theology of All Kinds, Pungent, Philosophical, Poetic, Profouna and Prophetic. 9—Religions (Continued trom Eighth Page) New Hamburg Horror—The Fatal Fire Brookiyn—Financiai and Commercial Re- orts—Marriages and Deaths. 10— or European Revolution—News from Washingto! Shipping N —New Advertisements, Tue ALBANY Journal says there ‘‘seems to be no limit to the grasping rapacity of Tam- many Hall.” What about the ‘grasping rapacity” of the radical land-grabbers in Con- gress? Tae Comine Carnivat in Washington is creating some excitement about the country and getting a great deal of gratuitous adver- tising. The entertainments offered are of a bewildering variety, and the affair will un- doubtedly be a great success, but it is some- what humiliating to know that all the ado is about nothing more magnificent or heroic than the completion of a wooden pavement on Pennsylvania avenue. Ir 1s Statep that the trunk railway lines from New York westward have deeided upon a reduction of their freight tariffs on Monday (to-day) from one dollar and eighty cents to one dollar and fifty cents per one hundred pounds on first class, and proportionately on others. Shippers may think that ‘‘half a loaf is better than none,” and congratulate them- selves accordingly. Tue TENNESSEE.—The anxiety still contin- ues regarding this vessel, particularly in Boston, where many of the friends and rela- tives of those on board reside. It is very natural that they should feel uneasy after all that has been said by sensational jeurnals to throw doubts upon the vessel’s safety; but the old salts of that vicinity still think she is safe, and we think with the old salts, who are better able to juige than those who depend for exist- ence upon eading broadcast, with suitable additions, rimors and reports that have no foundation whatever. When the steamer arrives from St. Domingo without tidings of the Tennessee having arrived at her destina- tion, then, and not until then, wiil it be time to think that an accident bas occurred whereby she has been delayed, and we trust that those interested in the people on board will keep their spirits up until there is some slight reason to fear a disaster. Tue Mixers’ S$ This morning the Miners’ Benevolent Association make known to the public, through the columns of the HERALD, the causes which led to the suspen- sion of operations in the Pennsylvania coal mines. The miners certainly make out a good case, andif their statements are truo public sympathy must beceme enlisted in their behalf. Itis shown that at the commence- ment of the strike the operators had a surplus stock of two million tons of coal on hand, and the subsequent rise of two dollars a ton has already netted the snug sum of four million follars, Wherever the fault concerning the trike lies, no excuse can be found for the sudden increase of freights, by which the sea- board is effectually cut off from its coal ae plies. About the most effectual manner in which to regulate this matter is to repeal the duty on coal; then we shall hear less about strikes, monopolies and railroad combinations. NEW YORK HERALD, MONDAY, FEBRUAKY 20, 1871 —WITH SUPPLEMENT. M. Thiers and His Regency in France— What Will He Do with 1? By epecial telegram to the New York Herarp from Bordeaux we are enabled to present to our readers the new Ministry selected by M. Thiers te assist him in the deli- cate task of restoring peace to France. In the selection of advisers M. Thiers has done well. Jules Favre is Minister of Foreign Affairs; Ernest Picard, Minister of the In- terior; Jules Simon, Minister of Public Instruction; General Le Filo, Minister of War; Adwiral Potthuan, Minister of Marine; Jules Dufaure, Minister of Justice, and Felix Lambrecht, Minister of Commerce. The appointment of Minister of Finance has net yet been announced. This Cabinet is a strong one, and is composed of men of energy, who will devote themselves to the work before them. There is hope yet for France. With her proud capital in sackcloth and ashes at the foot of the invader; with her National Assem- bly elected and in session in a provincial city by permission of the German Emperor from his headquarters at Versailles; with half her territory laid waste; with the flower of her late imperial grand army, to the oumber ef four hundred thousand men, held as prisoners of war beyond the Rhine; with the terrible fighting Germans, to the number of seven hundred thousand, still upon her soil, and in the midst of all her unparalleled disasters, hu- miliations, sufferings, bewilderment and politi- cal confusion, there is still hope for poor France. There is the hope of a treaty of peace under which, without further bleodshed, she will be relieved of the German armies, and the hope of a peaceable reconstruction of her government by authority of the French people, and the complete re-establishment of internal law and order and all her industrial activities, through the good sense, prudence and thonghtful patriotism of her present Na- tional Assembly. The election of her wisest and most expe- rienced living statesman, M. Thiers, to the re- sponsible and delicate position of acting Execu- tive, or regent of her present provisional govern- ment, in behalf of peace, external and interaal, is exceedingly encouraging. To France, in the severe extremities of her misfortunes, he may be likened to the immortal Cincinnatus, and there is every reason to believe that the great Frenchman, like the great Roman, will go down to history as a model of honest patriot- ism and heroism under the greatest tempta- tions of absolute power. So stands this great and venerable French journalist, historian and statesman, M. Thiers, to-day; for it may be said that the French people, through their assembled deputies, have placed the recon- struction of their government in his hands, to- gether with the terms of their submission for peace to Germany. As the head of what we may call the Regency of France, what will he do with it? He isneither a radical nor an imperialist. He is either an Orleanist or a moderate republican, as we find from his pub- lic record. Let us see. In 1832, as a journalist, through the Wa- tional, he opposed the unconstitutional pro- ceedings of Charles X. and his Minister, Polignac. Next, from his long association with the government of Leuis Philippe, and especially as his Prime Minister, he became closely identified with the Orleanists. He was, hewever, called from his retirement to serve in the National Assembly of the republic of 1848, and expelled from France by Louis Napoleon, with his coup d'état of December, 1851, though subsequently by the Emperor permitted to return to Paris. He has since repeatedly been returned by the liberals to represent them in the imperial Legislature, where he has distinguished himself as a cham- pion of the people’s rights and as an opponent of Italian unity and as an upholder of the Pope’s temporal sovereignty. With this c.rious admixture of principles—liberal and conservative—we have in M. Thiers the embodiment of a compromise between the two extremes. But what will be the fruit from this blossoming of the Assembly at Bor- deaux—a liberal monarchy or a conservative republic—an Orleanist king, who will recog- nize the sovereign rights of the people, or an elective president, under a constitution bind- ing him to recognize the sovereign rights of the Pope? This is the problem which M. Thiers is now called upon to solve. He goes for the people and he stands by the Pope, and the Count de Paris, in this view, would seem to be the coming man; for the dogma of the sovereign rights of the Pope is utterly incom- patible with the dogmas of a French republic. The parallel which we suggested yesterday between the dictatorial position lately held by General Prim in Spain and that now held by Thiers in France is very interesting. We may say, however, that the late Spanish Regent, Serrano, and General Prim, are now repro- duced in France in Thiers and Trochu, It was the able, cool and sagacious Serrano who so successfully conducted the transitional government of Spain from the revolution which expelled Isabella to the establishment of that new and liberalized monarchy under Amadeus of Italy; but at the same time it was Prim, who, with the army in his hands, played the part of General Monk in securing a king for the Spaniards. It would appear that while the Regent Serrano, with the Spanish Cortes at his back, was strong enough to com- mand the submission of Prim, the general at the head of the army, and as the protector of the Regency, was strong enough to act as the dictator of Spain. So Thiers, as the pro- visional Executive of France, backed by the Assembly and looking to the leading general or generals of the French army, may find his only course tobe a liberal monarchy. His election, with his political antecedents, looks this way; the Bordeaux Assembly amounts to a popular repudiation of Gambetta and com- pany, and very few, ifany, of the influential generals of the French army are of the politi- cal school of Garibaldi. Yet again, as Amadeus from Italy has been made by the Cortes King of the Spaniards, as acompromise between fle extreme royalists and republicans, 80 the Count de Paris may be made King of the French, as a compromise between the eld Bourbons, the empire and “the reds.” The French property holders and the French Catholic peasantry have a deadly fear of the Church and State levelling down principles of “the reds,” and ‘‘ the reds” held an abiding hatred of thé old Bourbons and the empire. On the other hand, the government and the family of Louis Philippe have left be- hind them in France nothing of the unpardon- able outrages of the elder Bourbons, nothing of the frightful orgies and atrocities of the first republic, nor of the follies of the second, er the buffooneries of the third, and nothing of the usurpations or of the national disasters and humiliations of the Bonapartes. But still, as in Spain, the transition in France from the government expelled to a new establishment may be more than the work of a day, or a month, era year. It has been said that Count Bismarck was the guiding genius of General Prim to that nomination of the Hohenzollern which entrapped poor France to her ruin with Louis Napoleon, Whatever may be the truth cencerning that affair, it is appa- rent that the profound diplomatic sa- gacity of Bismarck is most strikingly displayed in this concession to the French, at this crisis, to choose their own government, when, by simply recalling the Bonapartes or the Orleanists, he could have settled all his business with France in two or three days. But he has chosen to settle with the French people themselves, through a government of their own election, and in this settlement with Bismarck, in the name of France, lies the greatest difficulty of M. Thiers in the formation of his new government. i The Rhine province of Alsace, including the strong and beautiful city of Strasbourg, and at least a very considerable slice of the adjoining province of Lorraine, will have to be given up to Germany. There is no escape from this sacrifice of ‘‘the sacred soil” of France, and there will be no escape for the govern- ment making it. What, then, will M. Thiers do? He will, probably, first, with this As- sembly, make the sacrifices necessary for peace with Germany, and then resign his position, subject to the election of a king or a president under a new constitution. We have no idea that the war will be resumed. Its suspension has too far revealed the dreadful exhaustion of France to suppose that this Assembly will think of resuming the struggle. General Chanzy has said that France must postpone her revenge and must now make peace. This week’s extension of the armistice is granted for a treaty of peace. It is the task now before M. Thiers and the Assembly. He will, then, sacrifice himself in a treaty which France cannot at once approve; but, in thus making himself the scapegoat for the sins of his people, he will clear the way for the elec- tion of a king or president, who, while bound by the treaty, can plead “‘not guilty” of the dismemberment of France. Important Despatches from Spain toe Washington—International Settlement and the Cuba Question. By a special cable telegram from London, dated in the British metropolis yesterday, we are informed of the fact that the Secretary of the United States Embassy in Madrid, who had arrived in England a few days previously, took his departure from Liverpool by mail steamship on Saturday, bound fer New York and Washington. The gentleman carries spe- cial despatches addressed by Minister Sickles to President Grant on the subject, generally of our diplomatic relations with ‘Spain, and, par- ticularly, with reference to Cuba, in the past, present and probable future of the island. The United States Minister reports, in the first instance, the very important fact that King Amadeus’ government has settled the matters of all outstanding American claims against Cuba—claims arising from circumstances attendant on the late insurrectionary movement on the island—in a satis- factory manner, and that the lateral issues which were evolved during the colonial eom- plications, and are still pending between the Spanish and American governments, will be treated in the same spirit of equitable, friendly conciliation, and thus furthered to an adjust- ment. This special intelligence is of very great importance in itself, but better still—the sugar plum part of our special despatch—we are assured that the question of the purchase of the island of Cuba by the United States is now received with a very considerable degree of “patience” by the Spanish authorities and that his Majesty’s Cabinet is ‘“‘better dispnsed to treat on the matter just now than the Spaniards have been at any former peried,” although the point of sale or purchase or transfer of the territory is not exactly mooted in the American despatches which are in transit to this country. The facts denote progress, however, and go to prove—with others from Great Britain—that we are rapidly approach- ing to the realization ef an era of international arbitrament of many embarrassing subjects, The Herald as an Exponent of Church Discipline. We devote a very large and most valuable share of the Heratp columns every week— particularly on the mornings of Sunday and Monday—to the publication of matters which pertain to religion, the grand, cardinal, saving essential for man, both in the present and for the hereafter. Our enterprise in this direc- tion has produced the most beaeficial results, We have enabled many, very many, persons to become better; returned sinners to the sanctuary and lost sheep to the fold. The churches have acknowledged our services. One of the most prominent attestations of the value of our Christian lay missionary labor which has yet been afforded was given in St. Gabriel’s Catholic church yesterday, solemnly and from the altar, when the pastor, Rev. Father Clowry, in annoancing the com- mencement of the holy season of Lent, next Wednesday, and its penitential rules and regu- lations, told the members of his crowded con- gregation that they would find the Most Reve- rend Archbishop's circular printed in the New York HERAtp of the day, Sunday, a copy of which should be had and preserved in each family for reference during the period to Easter Sunday—a fine compliment to a free, inde- pendent and non- sectarian press, Senator Sumver’s Iuuness is so serious that his physician informs him that he must avoid all mental labor, and that he cannot re- sume his seat in the Senate for some time. How. the old halls will miss the ring of bis deep voice, the fascination of his courtly presence and the iatrepid daring of his leader- ship! With all his faults and follies of statesmansbip Sumner was the lion of the Senate, whose roar had the genuine bass about it, whatever the hide he wore. Tue FASHIONABLE Season in Florida has not been so flourishing this season as formerly. The alligator trade. howevor, is looking up. The Church Services Yestercay. The most inveterate backslider could have found no weather excuse for staying away from church yesterday. Even rheumatism must have failed him, for the skies were as radiant and the air as bracing as the all-sus- taining glory of religion itself. The churchos were well filled in consequence, and the ser- mons were naturally much better than nsual. In fact, we may say that there was a regular dress parade of pulpits, and that our sectarian leaders held a high carnival of theology. The Rey. Father Farrell, of St. Joseph’s Reman Cathelic church, who some time ago took occasion to say that the unity of Italy was by no means a blow at the holy Catholic Church, stated in the course of bis sermon yesterday that he was not te be removed for his remarks, as had been rumored. We are glad to see that the good father is not to be martyred to a mistaken idea, and that the strong Catholic opponents of Victor Emmanuel can still see the injustice of persecution for opinion’s sake. Rev. Mr. Hepworth preached at his Church of the Messiah on the marvellous gooduess of God in giving His only Son as a sacrifice for us. The Rev. C. C. Carpenter, of Boston, preached at Dr. Bellows’ Church of All Souls on joy and gladness as the essential parts of a religiously inclined soul. He argued that to be good is te be anything but miserable, and that to worship God isto enjoy with a light heart and a face overflowing with laughter—that unmistakable indication of an easy conscience—the good things that He lavishes upon us in the over- flowing joy of His own heart. He argued that Christ not only smiled and enjoyed mirth, as at the wedding at Cana, but that He indulged in puns, the most popular style of wit, and made a play on Peter’s name when he spoke of that sturdy old apostle as a rock. Dr. Chapin, at the Church of the Divine Pater- nity, preached to his usual large and refined congregation on the text, ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens,” and as a fitting comment at the close, made a stirring appeal for the sufferers in France. Dr. Armitage, at the Fifth avenue Baptist church, also addressed a large congregation on the efficacy of prayer, in which he made use of some very apt and beautiful similes, Brother Beecher made a touching appeal for France, or, rather he told the touching tale of her distress, and then ordered the baskets to be passed, and the way in which small coin clinked and little crispy notes rustled in those baskets was marvellous. Daily Journalism Not a cience. The Leader isa very sprightly paper, and would be a good deal better if its wretchedly bad puns and conundrums were expunged. We are glad to admit that as a lively journal devoted to the spice trade department of jour- nalism it partakes still of those characteristics which sparkled in its columns in the days of John Clancy and Miles O'Reilly. But we can- not agree with much that it has to say, espe- cially with its views concerning journalism asa science. We believe that itis im- possible to reduce daily journalism to a science. Journalism, properly understood and wisely developed, is tue reflection of events which are created almost hour by hour of thoughts and opinions that change and take shape in the mould of these events. Based upon the shifting sands of perpetual change; following rather than leading the philosophy of daily life as we hear and read of it in all quarters of the Earth, journalism must catch the current as it passes. It must be instan- taneous, quick almost as the electric flash itself. The capacity to accomplish this may be skill, method, enterprise, discipline, genius, if you will, but it does not belong to the sober ranks ofscience. The secret of power in journal- ism, after all, lies most in the impersonality of the journalist. If the managers ef news- papers would only stifle the ambition to unite their individuality with their professional suc- cesses, whatever they may be, they would be pursuing their grand mission clothed with a tenfold influence. Egotism has so taken hold of our editorial system in this country that the majesty of the press is often reduced to the infinitesimal proportions of the writer, which is a great pity, because the newspaper press is a mighty engine, working witha mystical and sometimes latent force through all the channels of civilization. In statesmanship as in journalism imper- sonality is essential to success, The wise statesman, whether he be a ruler of a nation oraruler of men, always preserves himself from the whole responsibility of his public action. He shares the odium with his advisers if any odium there be, and they generally have to bear the heaviest portion of it. Ifa great evil should befall a people, the consequence of bad government, as in the case of Napoleon and unfortunate France to-day, a sagacious ruler would act as Napoleon did. He would so divide the responsibility that he could retort to the condemnation of public opinion—in the words of Macbeth to Banquo—‘‘Thou canst not say I didit.” This was the policy of Napo- leon. He left the responsibility so divided between his Cabinet and his generals, his good and his evil counsellors, his faithful and his faithless Ministers, that Bonapartism is shielded and sheltered by the doubt as to where individual responsibility can be credited with this sanguinary war and the downfall of a great chivalric nation. We might quote instances in our own country to illustrate this idea. Without intending at all to descend from the sublime to the ridiculous very abruptly we might cite the case of Andy Johnson and his ‘my policy” policy. If he had shared his councils with his Cabinet, instead of thrust- ing his individuality upon the country, the Cabinet might have been turned out and Andy Johnson might have stayed in. To cite an instance still nearer home of the sagacity which prompts the statesmanlike mind to seek impersonality, we take the case of Peter B. Sweeny, who, everybody knows, is the con- trolling mind in the government of the city, But who sees Mr. Sweeny on the surface of public life? His friends, who have a taste for flourishing around at balls and dinners and target excursions, making speeches at ward associations, donating princely sums to the poor, and such like practices, are the recog- nized representatives of our city government before the people, while the calm and thought- ful head of the New York Bismarck directs the whole machine from quiet and unseen places. Hence we fear that should a nolitical storm arise and there are any rocks and shoals and quicksands to be encountered, it is our ponderous friend Tweed who will be the victim. Impersonality, then, as far as practicable, in the management of newspapers, as well as in the thorny paths of statesmanship, is a grand essential, if not controlling necessity. Unfor- tunately for jouraalism in this country, we have not yet learned to appreciate that idea and put it in practice. Peace er Revolution in Europe?—Queen Victoria’s Circular to Prussia and Bis- marck’s Snub to Britain. Her Majesty Queen Victoria has made a de- cided movement with the view of hastening the arrangement of peace between Prussia and France. By a special cable telegram from London, which appears in our columns, under date of yesterday, we learn that Lord Loftus, the English Ambassador in Berlin, has just read to Count Bismarck a circular addressed to the Prussian government by Earl Granville, the English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in which the noble lord pleads as a volunteer in behalf of France for the cessation of the war, and intimates that the Queen’s government has been hitherto silent in the matter from a desire to avoid the appearance of interference between the belligerents, but that just now, when Germany is on the high tide of victory and has accomplished her objects in the field, the Emperor's government can afford to listen to friendly counsels calculated to terminate a conflict which is ruinous to France and from which Prussia has herself suffered very heavy, losses. Such, as will be seen from our special telegram letter by cable, is the sum and substance of the communication which Lord Loftus read to Bismarck in the name of the sovereign of England. The Prussian Premier was sharp, short and decisive in his action in the premises. He listened to the reading of the circular, but refused to accept the paper for official file. Count Bismarck said that ‘the Emperor's government permit- ted no foreign interference between Prussia and France.” Earl Granville’s Cabinet docu- ment classes, consequently, as waste paper in Berlin, and ‘‘Mr. John Bull” remains snubbed as a sort of insular intermeddler in other men’s affairs and under diplomatic correction, Coincident with the above news we are told that Prussia is engaged in the prosecution of an active intrigue on the border fringes of Italy, with the object of insuring the neutralization of Savoy in the event of war being commenced in a new direction, and that the North German government bas been officially assured by Mr. Odo Ruasell that Southern Europe is being deeply agitated toward a revolutionary outbreak. The peo- ples coming to the front? Or is England about to ally herself with Austria, the Teuton democracy of the South, and continental radi- calism generally against the power of German imperialism as it is expounded, or controlled, by Bismarck ? 5 Practical Christianity. It is not often that our columns contain so many sermons by the leading preachers of the city upon the purely practical features of Christianity as they do to-day. Mr. Beecher, in a discourse on selfishness, directed his arrows at the pockets of the wealthy members of his congregation, whom he compared to “magnified augurs boring their own little diameter, and the deeper they go the harder they find it to turn round.” ‘Selfishness is a chord on which no angel will play.” No truer sentence was ever uttered, and, while our rich men are giving away hundreds and thousands of dollars annually for benevolent and Chris- tian purposes, there is greater meed now than ever to preach against selfishness, which threat- ens to be the besetting sin of the Church of Christ in this age. There is not that true recognition of a common brotherhood in man by our rich men in their gifts that there should be, and there is too much of the selfish spirit manifested in the bestowment of them. And as Mr. Beecher further asserts that “the law of the individual should be the law of na- tions,” it is even so to a very great extent, although it is becoming less so from year to year, and the best practical preofs that w have seen of it recently are the spontaneous contributions in this country and in England for the relief of the suffering French, It was in the same line of practical Chris- tian thought that Dr. Chapin, in discoursing upon the duty of Christians to bear one another’s burdens, appealed to his au- dience to help the same prostrate people. Humanity, said he, is loaded with burdens. Some of them are born with ourselves and must be borne by us alone. But how often have we not the power to lighten even those? The exhortations of these two divines were practically tested and collections taken up in aid of France. Equally practical, though more local in its bearing, was the sermon preached by Dr. John Hall yesterday, on the duties and obligations ef Christians toward each other and toward the world. How sadly true it is that many a man on the lowest round of the descending ladder of life may turn about and charge his Christian friends and neigh- bors with his almost helpless and hopeless condition! Were Christians more practical in thefr lives and more honest in their conversa- tion and upright in their conduct how much more good might be a¢complished in the wor ld and among men! If the unruly were warned, the feeble-minded comforted, the weak sup- ported and Christian patience magnanimous, long suffering manifested toward all men, how many men, good and true, might have been saved from perdition! But, as this eloquent divine has so fitly said, church members see their neighbors and their neighbors’ children running into vice and immorality, and they philosophically speculate as to when a change may come overthem. Had Jehovah thus treated a ruined world where should we be to-day ? keideaocee Dr. Hepworth was eminently practical also in his comments upon that golden text which so forcibly expresses God’s love to mankind in the gift of a Saviour. And, in the words of the speaker, ‘If we can make ourselves worthy of that revelation, and act according to its spirit, how ennobled will our souls be- come and how pure and beautiful will our lives be! We can go to Him in our youth and He will make our joys brighter ; we can go to Him in middle life and He will make our duties plainer ; we can go to Him in age and He will give us 2 deeper faith; and when wo die we Will go to Him and to heaven, borne upward by the angels, who sing ‘Our Father.’” And the power of prayer received amplification and illustration from the: mouth of Rev. Dr. Armitage. Hera aro five of the leading ministers of this city and vicinity, be- sides others less prominent, giving their audiences pure and practical Christian pre- cepts which ought not, and which cannot, with+ out incurring deep guilt, pass unheeded by them and by the thousands to whom we re- preach their words to-day. The Former Distresses of France—A Hise torical Parallel. Guizot, the historian and statesman, has written that England owes her existing liber- ties to having been overrun and conquered by the Normans, seems to be a paradox, is found to be very fully sustained by the testimony of fact. The Saxons also loved liberty, but at the time when the new invaders appeared the sturdy spirit that once animated them had begun to wane, and it required the stimulus imparted by the arrival of William the Conqueror and his splendid warriors to revive it. Sub- sequently victor and vanquished alike shared the benefit of a manlier life and healthier institutions. This assertion, which at first There are very many who believe that the modern William who now wears the imperial crown of Germany, in the palace of the French kings, at Versailles, is destined indirectly to infuse similarly fresh vigor into the laws and. into the blood of France, since, although, for the moment, he sits upon an eminence apexed with bayonets, beneath which is a vast union of States hitherto ‘jarring and discordani,” but now closely pressed together by a common national feeling, it is true, but also by a rigid military system which is as near an approach to a real desptism as our peculiar period will tolerate, the inevitable intercourse of his armies with the people among whom they are temporarily stationed will, in the long run, bo a mutual benefit, Others contend that France is so exhausted and prostrated that her present co2di- tion is a complete downfall—that she can neither fight any longer nor govern herself in peace without assistance and surveillance. It is not this question that we propose to discuss to-day, since it refers to the future, and, in such cases, one opinion is as good as another, the only diffsrence being against that rude, dogmatic assertion without proof which is but “sounding brass.” Our object now is simply to glance back at two or three periods in the history of France, when that great nation seemed to be utterly crushed, and thence to draw some illustration of the marvellous recu- perative energies which it has always dis- played. In doing this we must consider all things relatively, or we violate both history and common sense. Each age has had its own weapons and its own military systems, and the compact discipline and improved arms of the Germans bear no higher relation to the previously supposed skill, valor and superb equipment of the French than did the dash, agility and numbers of the Paynim hosts who swept over Southern and Eastera Europe more than a thousand years ago te the prowess of the races they assailed. If the Prussians had needle-guns the French had the Chasse- pots, which ‘did such wonders at Mentana ;” if the former were flushed with Sadowa, on the Gallic banners glistened the inscriptions of Magenta and Solferino; if William, the soldier king, headed the one host, the other had the magic name of a Napoleon at the téte Carmée. MacMahon and Bazaine were thought to be a sufficient set-off to Ven Moltke and the Crown Prince. One side or the other must win, and whenéhe struggle is over there is no lack of learned reasons to show why. In the meantime things are relative to-day as they were yesterday and will be to-morrow. It was in 732 that Abderrahman, flushed with the conquests of Africa and Spain, poured over the Pyrenees an almost countless array of Arab warriors, veterans ef a dozon campaigns, thoroughly disciplined, perfectly skilled in the use of weapons and inspired with the traditionary romance and valor of the East. The Saracen light cavalry—the ublans of those days—spread over the whole south of France like swarms of stinging locusta, which slew as well as devoured. Villages and towns were ruthlessly burned, all the strong cities fell, one after the other, and the whole land blazed with conflagration up to the very gates of Tours. Not only Franee but all Northern Christendom was terror- stricken, and it is no less an authority than Gibbon who writes that the battle of Tours, in which Charles Martel finally arrested this flood of woe, was the event that “‘rescued our an- cestors of Britain and neighbors of Gaul from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran.” Such was the tremendous number of the invaders that in the one battle alone, asthe monkish chroniclers relate, three hun- dred and seventy-five thousand Arabs were slain, Yet, previous to this defeat, the whole Fegion of Narbonne, Toulouse and Bordeaux had been seared like a desert, and the river Garonne floated thick with the bodies of the unfortunate people who had dwelt on tts! banks. At Tours, which the Moslems had at first succeeded in storming, “their fury and cruelty toward the inhabitants were those of raging tigers.” Even afier the flight of the Saracens back into Spain the south of Gaul was thought to be ruined beyond recuperation; but in leas than thirty years, or before the beginning of the period of Charlemagne, it was blooming like a garden and was full of population, Yet there were no railroads, telegraphs nor steam ves- sels in those days to facilitate and hasten intercourse. Descending the stream of time until we arrive seven hundred years nearer to the pre- sent hour, and in doing so passing by re- peated epochs of devastation through war, flood and pestilence, each of which was de- clared to be the irrevocable ruin of the French, we have now before us the triumphant Eng- lish invasion in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. The apparently irresistible islanders had installed their own monarch with royal pomp at Paris, and the physical prowess, discipline and veteran skill of their soldiery as hopelessly overbore the utmost chivalry of France as did the ability of their leaders. As the old historian, Do Serres, referred to by Creasy, shows, the very brute creation seemed to partake the general misery and hecsor