ENGLISH ITEMS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 206, 11 January 1872, Page 7

ENGLISH ITEMS.

(From the Spectator.)

The Church Congress at Nottingham appears to have been a very demure affair, of which perhaps the only the real interest was the Bishop of Manchester's manly sermon at the opening, and manlier speech at the public meeting intended for the working classes. The main drift of the sermon was the need of a fresher and more real life for theologians, the necessity of vigilance — the Bishop's text was, " I say unto all, Watch "—" — the duty of meeting scientific truth frankly and without hostility, tho need to the clergy ot the more real knowknowledge of the mind of the laity, both for theirown sakes and for the world's :—": — " We are a tribe," said Dr. Fraser, " and many of us live in caves more or less secluded from the busy walks in life, outside the stream of active thought. And so we sometimes - dream our distempered dreams in solitude, and. never attempt to check them by experiment ; or we follow blindly those who set up to be our leaders without reckoning whither they are leading or we following." .He deprecated the attachment of too much value to technical theological formulas: — " Catechisms and creeds will have their scientific or theological valun, cannot be dispensed vs-ifcW for tTioi-ougjli Christian training, but their power over the heart is small; their worth as motives to right conduct is insignificant." Is not that giving up a good deal ? Surely the Bishop would not say that the faith expressed, say, by "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible," had but a small-motive power over the heart. And if not, what parts of what creeds does his Lordship mean to condemn? Whatever they may he. if he condemns them justly, we confess we should greatly doubt ab/io their scientific and theological value.

The best defence made by the communists- under trial was, it is said, offered by Paschal Grousset, the Foreign Minister of that body. "He repudiated all complicity in the assassination or in the firing of Paris ; but admitted the change of insurrection. He believed, he said, in his cause, and

if he had won the world would have believed in it too, and he was willing to take all consequences. The defence of M. Jourde, the Finance Minister, is nearly the same, with the addition that he saved the Bank of France from pillage, and with millions in his hands lived on two fraucs a day and sent his children to the public school, a proof of disinterestedness, but not necessarily of innocence. Courbot's defence, on the other hand, is that he was too much a fool to understand politics, and only entered the Commune to save the^ nrfe feveftsu-uoa.- — The prosecution demands death for all ; but it is not likely that either of these three will be executed, or indeed as we hear, anybody else implicated in the execution of the hostages. Time has softened statesmen, though not the populace of Versailles, or the majority of the English correspondents.

Lord Shaftesbury is mellowing. He lately made a speech to the good folks of Glasgow, who have just presented him with- their citizenship, on the Sunday question, which must have greatly disappointed the Presbyteries. Instead of absolutely prohibiting recreation, his Lordship expressed his strong approval of Sunday walks — which in great cities iuvolve journeys by train or omnibus — declared that the best way to study the works of God was to study them out of doors, and defended the " Sabbath " as affording a break in the hurried unrest of our modern lives. He actually went so far as to say that* he regarded the day as one " of holy physical and mental recreation." and to deny that he and his party desired " to impose upon others any ascetic obs«ivance." Ho called the Rev. Bee Wright and his supporters "fussy, misguided, foolish people," and defended the Act of Charles 11. as the " charter of the working man." Of these terms we can all of us be Sabbatarians, for we doubt if there are a dozen men in England who do not believe that one day a week for rest and meditation is expedient, that for all persons to use the same day is convenient, and that the convenience is sufficient to justify a statute. Only we think we remember a time when all those arguments would have been styled by the Cnlvhmts weak apologies, and anybody who used them would have been called a feeble brother. And, after all, if God did decree the Sabbath amidst the thunders of Sinai, as Lord Shaftesbury thinks, they are rather impertinent surplusage.

The steamer Baltic, recently built at Belfast at a cost of £130,000, for the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company of Liverpool, is one of the most luxuriously fitted vessels afloat.' Her saloon measures 60 feet by 40 feet, and is provided with lounges of crimson velvet, marble mantlepieoes and open gratea in' which coals are burned, an escritoire, and piano. .- . The ladies' boudoir is a gem of taste in pink and wnite. A bar-room is provided for the thirsty, and for those who are fond of medicine there is a chemist's shop, while the culinary arrangements are described as perfect. The Baltic is on the line between Liverpool and New York,