From the Spectator, of 8 Sept.

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY.

DOCTRINE floats upon the uncertain waters of language, and cannot but share in its fluctuations as the stream grows broader and more open to the winds of thought; but there are things more steadfast than doctrine. The spectator of the world's life, through the last two generations, cannot fail to derive consolation and support under every doubt from observing the remarkable train of phe

nomena in the matter of ecclesiastical affairs. We

are not now considering any theological doctrines,

their nature and merits-which is indeed a function that we uniformly disclaim; but we are simply reviewing the relation of such matters to the external world, intellectual and material. We

the adviser and helper of his flock, by his acuteness in fulfilling that office actively and efficiently, and by his untiring zeal, which no worldly interest or failing health could abate. His promotion to the rectory of Christ Church in Southwark, by the Bishop of Winchester, is an example which can scarcely fail to animate others. Again, in asking Mr. Brown to name a successor for Bethnal Green, who should be able to continue the ministry in a similar spirit, the Bishop of London has given a high authoritative sanction to the same view, from a quarter in which many would have been very unwilling to look for it.

Meanwhile, controversy and doctrinal warfare go on, not interrupted, though elevated and perhaps sweetened, by this sort of spiritual chivalry,

with the development of human faculties must come a more enlightened and a more worthy conception of the divine powers that rule the universe. Whatever may be the merit of doctrines now severally advocated, we believe it is impossible to deny these striking facts-that zeal, though not less zealous, is less intolerant; that orthodoxy is less supercilious, dissent less oppugnant, inquiry less presumptuous; to a great extent bigotry has laid aside its malignancy, and free-thinking of the freest kind is no longer blank scepticism. In every distraction of council, through every change of doubt, a more reverential and trusting recognition of eternal influences is apparent; and at the same time, even the highest representatives of orthodoxy are awakened to a remembrance that authority may be graced and strengthened by beneficence; which is indeed to the simple and ignorant the highest and most intelligible manifestation of authority. There can be no question that

the Church of England has lost an immense amount of influence, for extending its moral authority and for strengthening its own position, by neglecting its office as the adviser and helper of the poor, the ignorant, and the helpless; an office performed by every church that zealously and intelligently seeks its own enlargement.

A new spirit, however, is awakening. Lord Ashley has avowedly been animated in his benevolent exertions among helpless and proscribed classes by a spirit of piety, and has evidently extorted a respect for that spirit which would have been very generally denied to its mere dogmatic assertion. Within the church itself, we have noticed the labors of such men as the late incumbent of St. Matthias, Bethnal Green; and the sequel, the events that have occurred since our notice of "The Poor Man's Pic-nic," have been not less interesting. The Reverend Joseph Brown is, we believe, held by the highest authorities to be unexceptionable in his ministry; however, that by which he has been distinguished is not doctrinal force of utterance or polemical vigor, but his enlarged conception of the office of a pastor as

I reached the office of the malle poste (in Rome) at 5 o'clock in the afternoon precisely, and as I had been told that the arrangements were of the most positive nature, and that as the clock struck the coach would start, I had been fully employednewspaper correspondents ever are up to the last moment, and even abandoned an excellent cutlet, on "time" being called; but I might have saved all this bustle, for when I arrived the coach was quietly in the remise, the horses busy with their last feed of barley, and the courier taking his siesta. The only persons I saw employed were a priest, and a clerk of the post-office, who appeared to entertain a most confidential communication.

The courier and the clerk looked hard at the

stranger, and seemed to have a design on him. I paid no attention to what they said, until both opening a double battery at once explained that my consent was required to robbing the administration, and at the same time suffocating myself by admitting two extra fares. To this I stoutly demurred; but when asked in the name of God and of religion not to separate three sisters of charity, who had been ordered by their superior to proceed to Naples, how could I hold out? I insisted, however, on the exclusion of the extra gentleman; and thus it was settled that in this bonnet-box of a malle poste were to be packed five instead of four-namely, the courier, myself, and the three sisters. I hope they are not fat, I inwardly exclaimed; as yet we had seen nothing of them, the thing being so well managed to avoid the inspector's eyes that the screw was to be put on outside the gates. There, true enough, were the priest and the three good women in waiting; two monsters of obesity, and the third a sweet pretty creature of eighteen, with a shape like a poplar tree, and a pair of dark eyes never intended by nature for a nunnery. Fortunately the two stout ladies occupied one seat, and the novice sat between me and the courier, for the first time in her life having been so close to two men, and for the first time having embarked on so long an excursion.

I never met such simple-minded, good creatures,

6th. This chemical agent takes the place of expensive and complicated apparatus.

7th. The manufacture of sugar from the cane and the beet root will be so simplified that the alterations which are requisite need not be feared. 8th. Every manufacturer can, without making great changes hanges i in his establishment, apply the process immediately.

9th. The cost of production will be considerably diminished.

The Belgian government takes the matter all at once to heart, and the minister of the interior, M. Rogier, has made it the subject of a special report to the king. The report is too long to be translated for our columns, but in it the minister speaks in high terms of the discovery, and mentions that the approaching harvest of the beet root will permit experiments to be made in a proper manner. He suggests that a special commission be organized to state the results of the experiments, and requests that the decoration of the order of Leopold be given to M. Melsens.

The Moniteur Belge subsequently announces that the special commission has been ordered, and the nomination made of the chemist to the grade of Chevalier of the Order of Leopold.

These proceedings look as if there were more in the discovery than we were inclined to suppose. The sugar planters of Louisiana will be very anxious for the publication of M. Melsens' secret; which cannot but prove of interest even to our maple sugar boilers in the north. -N. American.

From the N. Y Nation, 1 Sept.

CLERICAL COMBINATIONS AGAINST THE PRESS.
TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC:

Nation Office, 121 Fulton-street, 2
New York, August 28, 1849.

In Paris, the press is persecuted in the name of "law and order;" in Petersburg, it is excluded as an open enemy; in Rome, it is silenced in the name of religion; in Dublin, it is suspended for "the security of the crown." Where can freedom of speech and writing find a refuge, if not in these United States?

But even here it is sometimes subject to one species of interference the interference of a selfish combination, a corporate conspiracy, which, if less summary, is not less successful in its attempts to stifle opinion and punish independence. An instance of this method of violating the liberty of the press is now submitted to the American public; in whose power it is to make it the last, as it is probably the worst, experiment of the kind, hitherto attempted here.

A short statement of the facts in this case will enable all men to judge whether it does not call for a prompt verdict of public condemnation.

On the 28th of October, 1848, I commenced the publication of a weekly newspaper in New York, called The Nation, "to be devoted to Ireland and her emigrants, and the European democracies." From the first number, it had to deal with the causes of the degeneracy and destruction of the Irish in Ireland, with the intellectual and social condition of the emigrant Irish in America, and with European questions, such as have arisen in France and Germany, Ger and of late, especially with the Roman business.

In relation to Ireland, The Nation was the first journal, owned and edited by a Catholic, which charged the horrors endured by human nature in that island equally on its clerical politicians and its foreign rulers.

a

To the emigrants in this country we devoted fixed department, explained by its motto" Educate, that you may be free." We told them their faults in the plainest language. We showed that they were "tools" in society, "units" in political influence, and "the dung" instead of "the seed" of the American Catholic Church. We preached to them " a wise selfishness," " temperance, cleanliness, and frugality;" we exhorted each man to own his own house, and his own opinions.

In relation to Rome, we advocated the republic, vindicated the Triumvirs, opposed the collection of Peter's Pence, and urged the total separation of the temporal from the spiritual power.

These were new ideas in our Irish community but many were prepared for their reception. We have the satisfaction to know, that in each town, state and territory, throughout North America, some Irishmen have received, advanced, and manfully upheld them.

But it cannot, ought not, to be concealed, that a wide-spread and powerful influence has been organized to stifle these opinions in their infancy, and to crush The Nation, their organ. For half a year we have been informed of the workings of this influence in several states and cities, and have endeavored, by remonstrance, and every honest mitigation of language, to conciliate or remove it It is implacable, and continues so.

In the dioceses of Boston, Hartford, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Pittsburg, and Toronto, special measures have been taken by many Catholic clergymen to arrest the circulation of the New York Nation. Our subscribers or ourselves have been denounced, by name or description, from the altars, and in other ways by the clergymen of South Boston, Mass., Pawtucket, R. I., Springfield, Mass., Cohoes, N. Y., Lockport, N. Y., in some of the churches of this city, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and in Richmond, and other parts of the diocese of Philadelphia. In one instance (that of Mr. O'Grady, of Cohoes) the right of confession was refused by the clergyman, Mr. Van Reeh, to a subscriber for The Nation. In other towns our travelling agents have been denounced by clergymen as soon as they arrived, and literally "hunted out." This has been going on since the beginning of the year.

It is easy to show that the entire American public are interested in it. It concerns liberty, and liberty concerns us all. The safety of a republic is the intelligence of its citizens, and in this the Irish form a numerous class. It is not unimportant to the commonwealth that independent opinion should be promulgated through their special organs. They have acquired the ballot-but the best of the ballot is the safety it affords to independent men. Those who can be led or driven in groups from side to but slaves. Such electors are valuable only to speculators in the vote-market, or aspirants after lucrative offices, to which their merits do not entitle them.

THE American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions held its fortieth anniversary in the Congregational meeting-house in Pittsfield, on Tuesday, the 11th of September, 1849.

We have read the report of the proceedings with great pleasure. There seems to have been a hearty devotion to the great matter in hand-undisturbed by the controversial heat which too often interrupts the best business, and drives away or weakens the spirit of love.

We were much affected by the simplicity and self-denial shown in the following story, told by a venerable missionary to Ceylon.

Mr. Poor said that his first duty on meeting with the board should be to report himself to the official members from whom, thirty-three years ago, he received his commission as their missionary to India. But where are they? Where are Governor Treadwell, and Dr. Lyman, and Dr. Spring of Newburyport, and Worcester, and Evarts! They do not need that I should report to them, for they are among the cloud of witnesses with whom this meeting is surrounded, and now hold us in full view. He spoke of the good hand of God upon himself and his brother missionaries; of six that were sent out at that time, he said there were three able-bodied men yet remaining, and he straightened himself to his full height and shook his arms as he spoke it. He dwelt fondly, as he is accustomed to do, upon the schools of the Ceylon mission. A single anecdote of the many he related with his peculiar force and naiveté, we copy from the report of the Boston Traveller :

He would conclude by relating a story. Moses Weltch, he said, was his assistant pastor. He had been a long time in the employ of the mission, and was a very useful man; but his story was not about him. His wife was Clarissa Peabody, and she was educated at the female boarding-school, and was a very efficient helper to her husband. When it was proposed to build the first church among the natives, she generously gave a portion of a lot of land that was given her as a dowry, for a site for the church. She had done many other noble deeds. But it was not the wife that his story was about. It was about Mrs. Clarissa Peabody, whose name she bore. When he returned to this country, and

the widow of Professor Peabody, of Dartmouth College. It occurred to him that she might be the patroness of Clarissa Peabody. But his story was not about this lady. He visited her, and made the inquiry; but she said she was not the person who gave the money to educate the heathen girl that bore her name, but it was Lucy Osborn, a colored girl that once lived with her; she had given it out of her wages at one dollar per week. She now lived in Lowell. When he was in that city he made a request from the pulpit, that if any one knew such a person he would make it known; and after meeting, a gentleman introduced her to him, and he had the pleasure of informing her of the fruits of her beneficence. He had since seen Mrs. Peabody, and heard more about Lucy Osborn. He learned that she had never received more than $1 a week, but she made it her uniform practice to give $1 at monthly concert. Her friends remonstrated, but she said the Lord would never permit her to suffer. If she was disabled, the Lord had provided an almshouse; and there were many who were willing to give money to support an almshouse, who would not give it to convert the heathen. And now, said he, I told this story once before since I came here, but a gentleman said, if I would tell it again at this meeting, he would make Lucy Osborn an honorary member of the board.

Correspondence of the Tribune.

FROM THE GREAT SALT LAKE.

Great Salt Lake City, July 8, 1849. PERHAPS a few lines from a stranger in this strange land, and among a still more strange people, will be judged sufficiently interesting to find a place in your columns.

The company of gold-diggers which I have the honor to command, arrived here on the 3d inst., and judge our feelings when, after some twelve hundred miles of travel through an uncultivated desert, and the last one hundred miles of the distance through and among lofty mountains and narrow and difficult ravines, we found ourselves suddenly and almost unexpectedly in a comparative Paradise.

We descended the last mountain by a passage excessively steep and abrupt, and continued our gradual descent through a narrow canon for five or six miles, when, suddenly emerging from the pass, an extensive and cultivated valley opened before us, at the same instant that we caught a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake, which lay expanded before us, to the westward, at the distance of some twenty miles.

Descending the table-land which bordered the

valley, extensive herds of cattle, horses, and sheep were grazing in every direction, reminding us of that home and civilization from which we had so widely departed for as yet the fields and houses were in the distance. Passing over some miles of pasture-land, we at length found ourselves in a broad and fenced street, extending westward in a straight line for several miles. Houses of wood or sun-dried brick were thickly clustered in the vale before us, some thousands in number, and occupying a spot about as large as the city of New