Volume 27 — THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXVII., No. 161.—AUGUST, 1878. (continued 3)

Yet Harry calmly edged his way through the throng, always careful of the pretty rosebud, over which he frequently placed his hand for protection.

But ere this memorable day came to an end Harry grew serious.

“This is going to prove the greatest financial crash our country has known since the Revolution,” said Mr. Fletcher to him in the evening; “and, my son, I may be utterly ruined.”

“And I’ll not be able to go to Paris,” said Harry inwardly. “Oh! what will Kitty say?”

But it was not so much Miss Gibbon as Miss Gibbon’s mother, who took to heart the sudden, unexpected, astonishing change in Mr. Fletcher’s fortune; for the banker, who had been entangled in many speculations, did indeed lose nearly all he possessed—so little had he left that the widow made up her mind that her daughter should not marry his son if she could prevent it.

A few days after the panic Harry called on his betrothed, who was now back from Philadelphia. He meant to tell her the whole sad truth, and afford her an opportunity to break off the engagement, if she wished to do so. In the parlor he found Mrs. Gibbon, who seemed to be expecting him (he had written Kitty a note to say he was coming), and the widow’s countenance chilled his heart as he entered. Harry began by making a commonplace remark about the weather—the equinoctial was raging—then went on to speak of the unhappy change in his father’s fortune, wondering all the while why Kitty did not appear.

“We have heard of it,” answered the other, “and needless to tell what a shock the news gave us. However, such misfortunes will happen—c’est la vie. And now that you have been so frank with me, Mr. Fletcher, let me be equally frank with you, and say that my daughter and I have had a long, serious talk on the subject. Miss Gibbon, you know, has set her heart upon living abroad—indeed, we wish to be back again by the end of the month, and—”

“And now that I am penniless,” interrupted Harry, “perhaps you deem it best that the engagement be broken off.”

“I regret to say it is the conclusion we have come to.”

Harry, who had feared this would be the step which Mrs. Gibbon would urge Kitty to take, nevertheless wished to see the young lady in person, and so he said: “But may I not speak with Miss Gibbon a moment? I—I—”

“She has a bad headache and is confined to her room,” interrupted the widow. “Besides, sir, I am fully authorized to speak for my daughter, who, you are aware, is not yet of age.”

“Oh! but do tell her I am here; let me speak only a word to her,” said Harry in a pleading tone.

“I am sorry that I cannot grant your request,” answered Mrs. Gibbon firmly.

With this the interview closed, and Harry departed in a sorrowful mood indeed.

637For a while the blow quite stunned him. The tears did not flow; he could only sigh and groan. He wished he had been born poor, and that Kitty had not been an heiress. “For then poverty would not have separated us; we should have toiled for our daily bread, and been as happy as if we had lived on Fifth Avenue.”

The following week he read in a newspaper the names of Mrs. Gibbon and her daughter among the passengers by the steamship Russia for Liverpool.

“Well, Harry, let us not despair,” said Mr. Fletcher a month after the panic. “Happy days may yet be in store for us.”

And as he spoke his thoughts turned westward to Rock River—to Mabel Willey.

“And why not?” he asked himself, after musing a moment. “Why not? Many a man as old as I am has married a girl as young as Mabel.”

“Well, yes, father, I do believe happy days are in store for us,” returned the youth, his countenance brightening; for he was beginning to recover from the blow which his heart had received (young people easily recover from such blows). Besides, he had come to the conclusion that all had happened for the best. Miss Gibbon was not worthy of him, otherwise, despite her mother, she would certainly have managed to communicate with him ere she sailed. It was only his money she cared about. “And, father,” he added, “I could be perfectly content on a farm; yes, I know I could, and you have enough left from the wreck of your fortune to buy a farm, and we might live together on it very happily. Suppose, therefore, we go West—say to Illinois, where Mabel Willey’s father lives.”

“Just what I was thinking of,” said Mr. Fletcher, with a tender throbbing of the heart, which might have changed to a bitter pang had he known what was passing through Harry’s mind; for Harry, too, had asked himself:

“Why not? I abominate rich girls now. Mabel is quite good enough for me.”

Accordingly, to Illinois they went, and arrived in the most glorious time of the year—Indian summer.

“Why, I do declare! Can it be possible? Is this really my old friend Harry Fletcher?” cried Mr. Willey, as he grasped the other’s hand, while Mrs. Willey and Mabel and all the little ones stood in a gaping circle round them.

“Yes, I am he and nobody else,” was the response, given in a voice quivering with emotion.

“Well, you are welcome—a thousand times welcome!” put in the wife, a tear glistening in her eye. “Ay, Harry, it makes us young again to look at you.”

“And here is the image of yourself in the dear old days,” spoke Mr. Fletcher, turning towards Mabel, who blushed and looked very pretty, while Harry Fletcher, Jr.—who did not dream of his parent falling in love—whispered to Mabel:

“How romantic this is!”

“Very,” answered Mabel. “But pray, sir, why didn’t you bring Miss Gibbon? Or perhaps you are married, and I should say Mrs. Fletcher?”

“I’ll tell all about it by and by,” said Harry in a low tone. “It is an exceedingly painful subject. I am trying to forget it.”

Then, after a pause, and drawing the girl aside, he added:

“I may as well tell you now: 638our engagement is at an end—Miss Gibbon is in Europe.”

When Mabel heard this her kind heart was deeply moved for Harry as well as for Kitty. Mabel had no lover, but she had often thought that if she had one how dearly she would love him. “And if our engagement were to be broken off, I hardly think I should ever smile again.”

“Well, Harry,” continued Mr. Willey, addressing his old friend, and at the same time sweeping his hand over the landscape, “is not this a charming country? Look, yonder is the prairie; and there is Rock River—isn’t it a fine stream? And there you see my timber—I have fifty acres of it; and that is my corn-field—a good fifty acres of corn; and there are my cattle; and I have no end of chickens and turkeys; and I have a good orchard. In fact, I want for nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Well, you ought to be happy,” answered Mr. Fletcher.

“Happy isn’t the word,” put in Mrs. Willey.

“Right, wife,” said the farmer. “I’d not change places with the richest man in New York. People talk about the panic. Why, it hasn’t harmed me a bit. My corn is ripening just as well now as before the crash; my land is all paid for; I owe not a dollar to anybody; and I really don’t know what worry means.”

“No worry!” murmured Mr. Fletcher, pressing his hand to his brow. “Alas! when have I been free from it?”

“Well, it is worry and not work that kills people,” went on Mr. Willey. “So stay out here and buy a quarter section; ’twill make you ten years younger. No life so happy as a farmer’s life.”

“The very thing I intend to do,” said Mr. Fletcher. Here Mabel clapped her hands, and all the little ones laughed and clapped their hands too; while Mrs. Willey said to herself: “How very pleasant it would be if the son of my old lover were to marry Mabel!”

It was long since Mr. Fletcher had passed a happier day than this first day in Illinois; the balmy air, the entire change of scene, the gladsome faces around him, but above all the company of sweet Mabel, who insisted on showing him all over the homestead, obliterated from his mind the troubles and worries he had gone through and really made him feel many years younger.

The following week Mrs. Willey was delighted when she heard Harry ask her daughter to take a row on the river. “I have only a short letter to write,” said the youth, “then I’ll be ready. Will you come?”

“Suppose we take a row,” said Harry’s father to Mabel a few minutes later—he had not heard Harry’s invitation.

“To be sure,” replied Mabel. “But shall we go immediately, sir, or wait for your son? He asked me to go with him as soon as he had done a little writing.”

“Oh! indeed,” said Mr. Fletcher; and now for the first time it occurred to him that perhaps Harry might fall under the influence of this simple yet bewitching maiden. “Well, if he does,” he added inwardly, “dearly as I feel that I could love her—for her mother’s sake, dearly, dearly—I’ll not stand in my boy’s way.”

However, Mr. Fletcher and Mabel did go down to the river without waiting for Harry, who made his appearance on the bank in less 639than twenty minutes, waving his hand and shouting lustily.

But Mr. Fletcher seemed not to hear his voice; at least he did not hear it for a long time—so long that Mabel fancied the old gentleman, as she inwardly called him, must be a little deaf. At length she made bold to inform him that his son was calling; whereupon Mr. Fletcher looked round and exclaimed: “Oh! ay, to be sure, so he is.” And now the bow of the skiff was turned slowly shoreward. But the oars did not move very briskly; nay, so sluggishly were they plied that the boat drifted a good half-mile below the landing-place—poor Harry following it along the shore, while Mabel was tempted more than once to ask her companion to let her have the oars.

“Well, well, I have had my day,” sighed Mr. Fletcher, about a quarter of an hour later, as he sat on a stump watching with tearful eyes his son, whose vigorous young arms were now sending the boat upstream as rapidly as he himself had sent it down with the current. “No, I must not lament; Mabel is worth a dozen city flirts, and I hope that Harry will fall in love with her.”

“Is it not a beautiful view from this knoll?” spoke a voice, presently, close behind him; and, turning, Mr. Fletcher beheld Mabel’s mother, who had approached him unheard over a bed of moss.

“It is indeed!” he replied. “And the most beautiful object in the whole landscape is your daughter.”

“Well, Mabel is a jewel, and no mistake,” continued Mrs. Willey. “And right glad am I that she and your son are enjoying themselves together on the river.” But even as she spoke a strange thought flashed upon the mother, for she perceived that the eyes of her old suitor were moistened with tears.

“Can it be possible,” she said to herself, “that he, too, is falling in love with Mabel? Well, I hope not; for there will be a poor chance for him while young Harry is about.”

We need scarcely say that for Harry Fletcher, Jr., this was only the first of many pleasant excursions on the river with Mabel; and day by day the recollections of his former life—the dinner-parties, the operas, the balls he had gone to, the pretty girls he had danced with—grew dimmer and dimmer in his mind’s eye. More than once, too, did Mrs. Willey discover Harry’s father watching the happy couple from the stump on the knoll.

“How strangely things turn out!” spoke Mr. Fletcher, a fortnight later, when Mabel’s mother once more approached him over the bed of moss.

“Perhaps you are thinking of just what I am thinking,” returned Mrs. Willey. “If so, it is indeed strange, and, I may add, a most romantic way of taking revenge on me; eh, Harry?”

“Ah! little did I dream of this the day when I proposed to you and you refused me,” continued Mr. Fletcher, shaking his head. “It seems only yesterday. Yet here is a son of mine, with beard on his chin, as much in love with your daughter as ever I was with you.”

“And I guess there’ll not be any nay spoken this time,” answered Mrs. Willey.

At these words Mr. Fletcher buried his face in his hands and sighed, while the other, who remembered the tears which had once 640moistened his eyes as he sat looking at Harry and Mabel from this same spot, felt more than ever convinced that her child had two lovers, and wished that she had two Mabels, in order to be able to give one to each.

Yes, Harry and Mabel were already deeply in love, and Mabel, for whom it was quite a new experience, trembled every time the youth met her—and he met her very often between sunrise and sunset: at the churn, feeding the poultry, gathering chestnuts—“For now I am sure he is going to propose,” she would say to herself.

At length a morning came when Harry resolved to put the all-important question. Why dally any longer? He had made up his mind to become a farmer; Mabel would be just the wife for him; she was not only handsome but healthy—no headaches, no dyspepsia. If her hands were not so soft as Miss Gibbon’s, what of it? They were industrious, willing hands, and able to do almost everything except thrum on a piano.

Accordingly, Harry went in quest of Mabel, who, one of the children told him, had gone to pay a visit to their neighbor. Whereupon he took the lane which led to the adjoining farm, and had proceeded about half way when he saw the girl coming towards him. She did not walk with her usual elastic step; her eyes were cast upon the ground, nor did she raise them until he was quite close, and then Harry perceived that she was very pale, and seemed to be startled, as if she had not heard him approaching.

“Dear Mabel, what is the matter?” said Harry, taking her hand as he spoke. “I never saw you look troubled before. Are you ill?”

In a voice wonderfully firm, considering the poignant anguish she was suffering, and forcing to her lips the ghost of a smile, Mabel answered:

“Ill? No, indeed, sir! And I should not have been moving at such a snail’s pace; I should have been running, flying, for I bring you great news—news that will ravish your heart with delight.”

“Really! Well, pray, what is it?” said Harry, who felt the hand which he clasped growing colder.

“Miss Gibbon has arrived,” continued Mabel. “She is at our neighbor’s; she mistook the road, and went there instead of coming to our house; and I told her to wait where she was until I found you and broke the glad tidings So, Mr. Fletcher, make haste, do, for Miss Gibbon is longing to meet you.”

Here Mabel, who could not trust herself to utter another syllable, tore away from him, leaving Harry perfectly dazed and bewildered.

But Mabel did not go home. No, into the woods she plunged, where no eye might witness the tears which now rolled down her cheeks. And it happened that somebody else was strolling among the trees at the same time, pensive and musing over days gone by. Suddenly the girl found herself face to face with Mr. Fletcher. In vain she strove to hide her grief—too late; not ten paces separated them.

“Why, Mabel, dear, darling Mabel,” cried the other, who fancied that a lover’s quarrel had broken out between herself and Harry, “what has happened? ’Tis the first time I have seen anything but gladness on your sweet face.”

As Mr. Fletcher spoke he drew her affectionately towards him. But it was several minutes ere she could 641check her sobs sufficiently to answer.

Finally, yielding to his solicitations, Mabel opened out her heart; she told him the whole truth, and we may faintly imagine what Mr. Fletcher’s feelings were as she went on to confess her love for his son, and the cruel shock which her heart had received a half-hour since when she met Miss Gibbon.

“And Miss Gibbon told me, sir, that she loved Harry as much as ever; that she had sold all her diamonds, run away from her mother, come alone the whole way from Paris to find him, and that her mother should never part them again.”

A spell of silence followed Mabel’s confession, and during the silence Mr. Fletcher’s heart throbbed violently.

“Well, Mabel,” he began presently, and looking her full in the face, “you have unbosomed yourself to me, let me now reveal my inmost feelings to you. I, too, have a cause for sorrow—one which I find it impossible to overcome. Nobody can remove it except you; but you can remove it—you may make me the happiest man in Illinois, if you choose.”

“I!” exclaimed Mabel in surprise. “O sir! I will do anything, anything to make you happy.”

“Ay, child, the happiest man in Illinois,” exclaimed Mrs. Willey, who had caught these last words as she pushed her way through the trees, and was determined to back him up in his suit with all the authority she could command.

“O mother, mother!” cried Mabel, leaving Mr. Fletcher and flinging herself in her parent’s arms.

“Come, come, child! Don’t take on so about it,” continued Mrs. Willey. “I know what the trouble is. But it can’t be helped. Harry loved Miss Gibbon before he ever laid eyes on you, and she loved him, and they were once engaged to be married; and now they are engaged anew—not the least doubt about it, for I have just left them walking arm-in-arm, cooing together like a pair of doves. So, Mabel, dry your tears, and let me declare you would make me the happiest woman in the State, if you would accept the hand of my dear, good friend Henry Fletcher.”

“What! marry the old gentleman?” whispered Mabel, looking up in her mother’s face; then turning she gazed furtively on Mr. Fletcher, who had retired a few steps, while a smile, a very faint smile, played on her lips.

“Hush, child!” returned Mr. Willey in an undertone. “He is not old; his heart is just like a boy’s.” Here Mabel again hid her face in her mother’s bosom, and the latter began to feel a little vexed, for she fancied that she heard Mabel laughing.

“Be my wife, Mabel!” exclaimed Mr. Fletcher, drawing near, “and then I’ll settle here, and Harry will too, and we will all be happy neighbors. Oh! speak, dear Mabel, speak.”

“Give me until to-morrow,” answered Mabel, with her face still concealed.

“Surely I will,” said Mr. Fletcher.

“O child! be business-like and arrange the matter at once,” urged Mrs. Willey.

“Not now; to-morrow,” said Mabel—“to-morrow.” And she ended her words with a sigh.

With this Mr. Fletcher withdrew, and mother and daughter went their way home—the mother eloquently 642pleading the cause of her old lover, Mabel patiently, reverently listening; and when they reached the log-house, whom should they meet standing by the porch but Harry. He was alone, and appeared much confused as Mabel fastened her eyes on him—poor Mabel! Then in broken accents he said: “Mabel, Mabel, can you forgive me? I—”

“Forgive you! Pray, for what?” she exclaimed, interrupting him. “Did I not tell you I brought glad news? And I hope that you and Miss Gibbon will live long and happily together.”

“Oh! how good, how generous, how noble you are,” said Harry, who knew full well that Mabel loved him; in more ways than one she had let the dear secret escape her. “And fortunate will be the man who wins you!”

Here the girl stood silent a moment; a violent struggle was going on within her. Then, a sunny look beaming over her face, “Who has won me,” she replied.

“Well spoken, child!” exclaimed Mrs. Willey, clapping her on the shoulder—“well spoken!”

“Why, Harry,” added Mabel, “I am going to be your step-mother.”

“Really, truly!” cried a voice from an upper window. “My Harry’s step-mother!” In another moment Kitty Gibbon came rushing down the staircase at a break-neck pace, and half choked Mabel with her embraces. Her arms were still clasping Mabel’s neck when the elder Harry appeared on the scene; and we may imagine, if we can, what his feelings were as Mabel stretched out one of her hands towards him.

Presently Mr. Willey arrived; then the grandfather and all the little ones; and while they were rejoicing together a man on horseback galloped up.

“Is there a lady here named Miss Gibbon?” inquired the stranger.

“Yes, I am she,” answered Kitty, looking somewhat agitated, for she could not imagine what the fellow wanted; all sorts of things passed through her head.

“Well, I have a telegram for you,” continued the man, handing her an envelope.

“A telegram! Why, so it is, and from Europe, too!” cried Kitty. Then, tearing it open, she read as follows:

“Kitty, I forgive you. Will allow you $5,000 per year. Count de Montjoli heart-broken. Write at once. God bless you!”

“Oh! it is from mamma,” she said, after reading it to herself. “And now I’ll read it aloud. And, Harry, listen well, for it’s jolly. But let me say before I begin—and I wish mother could hear me—you are worth, dear boy, all the counts in the world.”

Here Kitty read over the telegram, after which followed a general round of embraces. All were indeed happy beyond measure, Mabel as well as the rest; and the girl said to her mother, “You have chosen a husband for me, and no doubt chosen for the best.” Then, with a smile, she added: “And I promise to grow older every day and catch up to him by and by.”

“And you will teach me how to be a farmer’s wife,” said Kitty to Mabel.

“And I’ll play boss over you all,” spoke Farmer Willey, spreading forth his brawny arms so as to covey the whole group.

“Yes, yes,” said young Harry, “and I will write to New York and tell others who are crying over 643hard times to follow our example and come West.”

“Do, do!” exclaimed Harry’s father. “Here is health and no worry, sound sleep by night, and—”

“Wives to be had without much wooing,” interrupted Mabel, glancing archly at her future husband.

“Darling girl!” replied Mr. Fletcher, with tender pathos in his voice. “This is the blessed end of an old, old courtship. Ay, Mabel, the shadow of my days, like Hezekiah’s, runs backward when I gaze upon you.”

“Well spoken!” exclaimed Mrs. Willey, with tears of joy glistening in her eyes—“well spoken! And, oh! most sincerely do I thank God that my old lover has won his Mabel at last.”

ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT LAFAYETTE, N. H.

I.

Thou rear’st thy graceful head, thy serrate crest,

O noble mountain, o’er the busy vale,

Franconia’s seething, motley-crowded dale:

Below, we inly chafe; on thee, we rest.

The scars that seam thy fir-crowned, rocky breast,

The rifts that rend thy floating, cloud-spun veil,

Tell but of nature’s laws the ordered tale—

Each change with seal of sovereign might impressed.

If void of man’s proud gift, a living soul,

At least thou knowest naught of rebel will,

Of petty passions, pettier aims, that toll

The knell of love and praise his days should fill.

Here rest we, while thine anthems heavenward roll,

And list the voice of God, so sweet, so still.

II.

Ay, rest, poor human soul, but not for long:

That searching voice hath bid thee look below,

Where freshening streams by dusty roadsides flow,

Where sunlit dwellings vales and uplands throng.

It bids thy fretted, fainting heart be strong,

It whispers of a glory passing show,

Of loftier intercommune thou mayst know

Than mountain top, skies’ sweep, or forest song.

Above yon hamlet gleams a glittering cross,

A beacon light to show where dwells the Lord.

He calls! our brethren call! Can that be loss

Which brings us nearer Him whose life outpoured

Hath power to right all wrongs, lift this poor dross

To heights where thought of man hath ne’er yet soared?

644

THE PRUSSIAN PERSECUTION EXHIBITED IN ITS RESULTS.

Seven years ago the government of the new German Empire, pursuing the Protestant traditions of Prussia, and spurred on to action by the occult power of Freemasonry, began its gigantic attack on the Catholic Church. It opened hostilities without the customary declaration of war, and, in order to hide the real motives and aims of the campaign, its crafty rulers professed well-meant intentions and a sincere solicitude for the welfare of the church, declaring over and over again that the religious policy they were inaugurating was exclusively directed against the Jesuit or ultramontane influence in the church. Soon, however, and as the government gradually unfurled the banner of persecution, the dark designs of Freemasonry appeared in their real light and character. Whilst the ministers moved heaven and earth to produce some plausible pretexts in justification of the announced legislation, such as the pope’s infallibility, the pretended encroachments of the Roman Church on the domains of the state, the creation of the Centre party, etc., the national liberals in the Landtag dogmatized on the religion of the future, the first mission of which was to bring Christianity into harmony with the spirit of the age, or, as one of their leading organs put it, “to reconcile the faith of our forefathers with the reason of their children.” At last, when the legislators had gained the conviction that the reasons alleged for the May Laws found neither credence with Catholics nor favor with honest Protestants, they threw off the mask, and Infidelity, fully armed and with colors flying, boldly entered the lists of the Kulturkampf. The final aim of the struggle, so long and persistently denied, now openly acknowledged, was nothing less than the annihilation of the Roman Catholic Church, and thereby of Christianity itself. Whatever exception Prince Bismarck may have taken to this sweeping programme in favor of his own idea of a German state church, with the emperor for its head, appears irrelevant before the extraordinary fact that he placed himself at the head of the enemies of Christ, and with their help worked for the destruction of his religion. For this end, and for this end only, did the German infidels devise and pass the May Laws. Have they succeeded? Will they ever achieve their object? To these questions we unhesitatingly oppose a decided never. As Catholics we have the promise of Christ that his church here on earth will last to the end of the world; as witnesses of the persecution and its results we proclaim with unspeakable satisfaction that the attempt to destroy the church in Germany has completely failed. Although the body of the church has been roughly handled, although it bleeds from a thousand wounds, and stands mutilated, disfigured, a most piteous sight, still the church itself, the Catholic faith, has remained untouched and shineth forth with increased splendor, strength, and beauty. Men have suffered, not their religion.

645Taking a bird’s-eye view of the present condition of the Catholic Church in Prussia, we discover an immense field of desolation on which a seven years’ relentless war has spread intense misery and suffering, heaped ruins upon ruins, and well-nigh destroyed every monument of Christian faith and piety. The guides and pastors of the church are dispersed, the whole hierarchy is broken up, hundreds of priests eat the bitter bread of exile, many more waste their lives in prison, and greater still is the number of those for whom the exercise of priestly functions is accounted a treasonable crime. More than one million of loyal Prussian subjects are doomed to live and die without the blessings of the church. In more than seven hundred parishes no sacraments can be received, no Mass be heard, no Christian burial obtained. New-born children must be baptized by lay hands or carried with personal danger to distant parishes. The sick and dying are denied the last sacraments, unless they, too, can be conveyed to neighboring churches. All Catholic seminaries, schools, and educational establishments are either closed altogether or taken possession of by the Protestant government. Convents and monasteries are empty or inhabited by criminals, their former saintly inmates driven out of their homes and country. Catholic orphanages, hospitals, reformatories, all charitable institutions are suppressed, and the church property of dioceses deprived of their bishops is sequestrated by the civil power. Catholic religious instruction in popular and higher schools, no longer under the control of the church, is now exclusively taught in the name and by authority of the Prussian government.

This sad work of destruction and persecution appears sadder still when viewed in the ghastliness of its details. By clause 1 of the law of May 11, 1873, all papal jurisdiction in matters of church discipline was transferred from the pope to the German ecclesiastical authorities, or, in other words, German Catholics were, declared cut off from the visible head of their church. This law, on the very face of it, could have no practical meaning in the nineteenth century, and therefore remained a dead letter. Beyond a certain number of penalties inflicted on priests and editors for publishing papal documents addressed to German bishops and priests, or forwarding letters of excommunication to apostates, no harm was done to any one by this law, and diocesan communications are uninterruptedly carried on by the pope, not publicly, it is true, but almost as completely and safely as if the Holy Father enjoyed the Prussian government’s sanction for it.

Far more mischievous, downright disastrous to the German hierarchy, became the various laws concerning the education and appointment of priests to the ecclesiastical office. With regard to the clause prescribing a state examination in science for ecclesiastics over and above the usual examination in philosophy and theology, its severity could not hitherto be tested; for, although the official list of thirty-four examiners is every year published in the leading newspapers, not one Catholic candidate has presented himself for examination. This clause, too, may therefore be termed a failure. On the other hand, the appointing and not appointing of priests to vacant parishes became fatal to all Prussian 646bishops. Whenever they proceeded to such appointments without giving the required notice to their respective ober-presidents, or if they failed to comply with the latter’s orders to fill up vacant parishes, the bishops were in all cases prosecuted, fined, or imprisoned. For a time fines were paid by some good diocesans, or the bishops’ sold furniture was bought back and restored to their owners; but when, from the continued and increased severity of such prosecutions, it became evident that the well-meant aid of good Catholics contributed only to enrich the persecuting government without removing their chief pastors’ difficulties, perhaps also on the express wish of the exalted victims themselves, the generous practice was discontinued, and the bishops, some reduced to utter poverty and unable to pay the ever-increasing penalties, were ignominiously dragged into prison. The Archbishop of Cologne alone was condemned to pay at very short intervals 120, 150, 3000, 21,000, 88,500, in all 112,770 marks. His brother bishops, even those not deposed, had to suffer similarly high and numerous penalties. What made a great many of these condemnations appear excessively hard and unjust was the bishops’ inability to fill up the vacancies; for they had no longer priests at their disposal, since the closing of the seminaries made new ordinations impossible. Thus the government asked an impossibility and punished the bishops for not achieving it. With the exception of the Prince Bishop of Breslau and the Bishop of Limburg, who escaped imprisonment by going abroad, all the Prussian bishops had to go to jail, some for months, others for years. As soon as their imprisonment was over proceedings for their “deposition” were instituted at the royal Tribunal of Ecclesiastical Affairs in Berlin. To the official summons to lay down their offices the bishops answered in substance that, the state not being a spiritual power capable of investing them with or depriving them of their ecclesiastical offices, they did not consider themselves empowered to accede to the government’s request; and that as the church alone—i.e., her head, the pope—had endowed them with the said offices, she alone possessed the spiritual power to dismiss them. The answers which priests gave to the government, when summoned to lay down their offices as parish priests, were couched in equally decided language. Thus Dean Leineweber, of Heiligenstadt, wrote to the ober-president that, according to the principle and teaching of the Catholic Church, Bishop Martin, although “deposed” by the state, was still their bishop, and that consequently no priest was released by this “deposition” from the vow of obedience by which he is bound to his bishop; moreover, that a faithful priest is a better and more loyal state officer than an unfaithful priest, and therefore could not in any way admit that his removal from office was required by the interest of the state. The government, however, paying no heed to the bishops’ refusals to resign, summoned them one after the other before the Supreme Tribunal of Ecclesiastical Affairs. After a short trial, at which the accused bishops neither appeared in person nor were represented by counsel, the court pronounced sentence of dismissal from their offices as Prussian bishops on the ground that “the accused had so grossly violated their duties as servants of the church 647that their remaining in office involved a serious danger incompatible with public order.” In this way the Prussian government managed to get rid of seven bishops—viz., Archbishop Melchers, of Cologne, who is supposed to reside in Holland; Cardinal Ledochowski, Archbishop of Gnesen-Posen, now in Rome; the Prince Bishop of Breslau, living in the Austrian part of his diocese; Bishop Martin, of Paderborn, now in Belgium; Bishop Brinckmann, of Münster, present residence unknown; Bishop Blum, of Limburg, somewhere with the Benedictines; Dr. Janiszewski, suffragan Bishop of Posen, in Cracow. The three episcopal sees of Treves, Fulda, and Mayence being vacant through the death of their former occupants, there are now nine dioceses without visible spiritual administration in Prussia. The only remaining bishops are those of Hildesheim, Osnabrück, Ermeland, and Kulm. For what reason these church dignitaries are allowed to remain in office, although they committed the same transgressions of the May Laws and are in every respect in the same position as their brethren, is indeed difficult to say; the only reasonable explanation we can venture to offer for this forbearance is either the government’s determination to discontinue the useless persecution, or the emperor’s unwillingness to consent to the expulsion of all the Catholic bishops from the country over which he rules. Even an emperor may dread the verdict of history.

As was to be expected, the “deposed” bishops, although far away from their flocks, found the necessary means and ways to carry on the spiritual administration of their dioceses, either by appointing secret delegates or with the help of certain priests with whom they keep up regular communications. Of course their conduct involved, in the eyes of the government, fresh and very grave offences, which were resented by endless prosecutions not only against the bishops themselves but all persons, laymen as well as priests, whom the public prosecutor suspected of helping the bishops in the exercise of their “illegal” episcopal functions. Summonses to appear again before the royal tribunal in Berlin were nailed on the doors of the bishops’ former residences, and in the trials which ensued the accused were sentenced in contumaciam to fines and years of imprisonment. And as the government could neither exact the inflicted penalties nor lay hold of the convicted dignitaries, it issued disgraceful writs of arrest in which the Prussian gendarmes were ordered to watch for the said criminals, and, when apprehended, to deliver them to the next police station for the execution of the sentences passed upon them. The bishops, in their safe retirement, could afford to smile at these futile attempts on their liberty, but those persons who remained within the grasp of the government had to suffer many hardships for the support they had lent to their bishops. Hundreds of priests are constantly harassed with summonses to make depositions concerning the secret delegate, but, to their glory be it said, all proved faithful, all persistently refused to give the demanded evidence, declaring their inability to recognize the authority of civil courts of justice in purely ecclesiastical affairs. The only case in which the prosecution was successful is that of Dean Kurowski, of Posen, who, on secondary evidence, was pronounced to be 648the secret delegate of Cardinal Ledochowski, and sentenced to two years and four months’ imprisonment. Released in October, 1877, he received his dismissal from office in the beginning of the present year. Connected with the illegal exercise of episcopal functions was the persecution of the Rev. Dr. Kantecki, editor of a Polish newspaper, who sat six months in prison without trial simply because he refused to turn king’s evidence; and that of Fathers Herold and Pudenz, of Heiligenstadt, who were kept in jail for more than one year for not revealing the name of the secret delegate.

Another deplorable consequence of the law concerning the education and appointment to ecclesiastical offices is the closing of all priests’ seminaries, which took place almost immediately after the promulgation of that law in 1873, in consequence of the refusal of the authorities to admit the delegates of the government as inspectors of these purely ecclesiastical institutions. Since then not one priest has received ordination in Prussia. That is not, however, a great hardship, as no new priests can, under the present circumstances, be appointed in Prussia, and a great many Prussian young men are constantly ordained abroad who will one day return to their country. On the other hand, the number of vacant parishes increases rapidly every day. At the present moment there are in Prussia about 700 parishes deprived of priests—viz., in the archdiocese of Cologne, 121; in the diocese of Treves, 153; Paderborn, 68; Münster, 70; Limburg, 33; Fulda, 30; Hildesheim, 22; Osnabrück, 23; Kulm, 14; Ermeland, 13; Breslau, about 100; Posen, about 100; in the principality of Hohenzollern, 19, to which must be added more than 100 curacies.

Of the exiled secular priests of Prussia about three hundred found a field for their labors in Bavaria; the others went chiefly to Belgium, Austria, Italy, England, and America. As the religious orders were expelled from the whole German Empire, their members had to settle outside of Germany; they emigrated either to America, or went as missionaries among the heathens, or transferred their establishments to Belgium, England, etc.

The number of Prussian Catholics deprived of church ministrations now amounts to one million and a half. If these wish to hear Mass on Sundays or receive the sacraments, they must attend the services in churches of their neighborhood, and sometimes walk as far as ten and fifteen miles. In a great many places, and now in nearly every widowed parish, so-called lay services have been arranged by the parishioners, at which one of them reads the prayers of Mass, and, if not forbidden by the local police, a sermon as well. In the afternoon they sing Vespers and hymns in the same manner. At first it was feared that even this poor comfort would be taken away from the desolate parishes, for in many places the conductors of lay worship were prosecuted and heavily fined for exercising illegal functions in church; but later on both the officials and the judges took a more lenient view of these cases and abstained from interfering with them. Now and then, however, the forsaken parishes have the unexpected joy of hearing Mass in their own churches. In every diocese, especially in that of Posen, banished or newly-ordained priests travel in disguise through the 649country, baptizing, hearing confessions, giving the last sacraments to the dying, and saying Mass in every deserted church they can reach. Notwithstanding the greatest vigilance by day and by night, the police seldom succeed in arresting one of these faithful shepherds, for the parishioners exercise a strict watch over the police and give their pastors timely warning of the enemy’s approach. When found out the itinerant priests invariably undergo a severe punishment of two or three years’ imprisonment, followed by banishment from their country. How loyal to these priests not only the Catholic but even the Protestant and Jewish population is may be seen from the following case, taken out of many. From Schwerin-on-the-Wartha, diocese of Posen, Father Logan, whom the government had exiled several years ago, managed for a whole year to administer a parish in the neighborhood, and to carry the consolations of his ministry wherever they were required. During that time he kept a well-attended shop in the little town, and travelled about in the neighborhood apparently as a cattle-driver, in reality as a good shepherd of souls. At last discovered and tried, he was committed to prison for thirteen months. Forty-six such priests, mostly newly ordained, are said to administer the vacant parishes of this much-troubled diocese, in which meritorious work they are successfully assisted by the great landowners, who provide them with food and shelter, and, when wanted, with safe hiding-places. Several of them have lately been discovered and thrown into prison. Greatly and unnecessarily increased was the number of vacant parishes by the arbitrary decision of some ober-presidents, that junior priests, after the death of their elders, should abstain, under pain of expulsion, from all parochial work, even from saying Mass. In vacant parishes the dead themselves fell under the application of the law, for Dr. Falk decreed that founded Masses cannot be said in such parishes, but must stand over until the vacancies are filled up with legally-appointed priests.

According to one of the May Laws, a parish which has stood vacant for one year possesses the right of electing a new priest. This law was evidently passed with a view of destroying the authority of priests as well as bishops; in fact, it was a bait thrown out to Catholics to join the state church. But Catholics at once understood the malign intention, and spurned it, to the amazement and discomfiture of the persecuting party, which had built its brightest hopes on the working of that law. Not one vacant parish in the whole kingdom of Prussia has as yet been found willing to elect a new pastor. Whenever the Landrath convened an election meeting for that purpose, the invitation was either not responded to at all, or, if for prudence’s sake the electors appeared at the meeting, it was decidedly refused with the declaration that the parishioners had no power to elect their own priests, and that they would never acknowledge a pastor who was not sent to them by their bishop. Such being the firm attitude of all Prussian parishes towards that particular law, how could the government flatter itself with the hope that its own nominees would be received and acknowledged by the faithful? And yet Dr. Falk, disregarding all previous experience, went on imposing state 650priests on protesting parishes wherever he found an opportunity for it, to the great injury of the faithless priests themselves, who were excommunicated, to the parishes that rejected them, and to government, which made itself only the more odious. By this time, however, the ministry must see their mistake, for, in spite of the many enticements and premiums offered to priests of doubtful character and doctrine, the government during the interval of three years has not been able to gather more than twenty-one apostates round its state-church banner. Twenty-one out of ten thousand! With the exception of one, all these misguided men belong to the provinces of Silesia and Posen. Here is a complete list of them: Mr. Mücke in Gross Strelitz; Kolany in Murzyno; Nowacki in Obornik; Lizack in Schrotz; Kubezak in Xionz; Brenk in Kosten; Kick in Kähme; Gutzmer in Grätz; Würtz in Grabia; Moercke in Podwitz Golembiowsky in Plusnitz; Sterba in Leschnitz; Pischel in Girlachsdorf; Kenty in Boronow; Grünastle in Cösel; Sabotta in Kettch; Czerwinski in Zirke; Büchs in Gross Rudno; Rymarowicz (Posen); and Glattfelder in Balg (Baden).

Besides these state priests who profess to remain faithful to Rome, the Prussian government introduced two apostates in vacant parishes, one of whom is the Old Catholic pastor, Struckberg, presented by the Protestant Baron von Dyherrn to the fat living of Oberherzogswaldau in Silesia, and the other the notorious Suszynski, the married state-priest of Mogilno, who enjoys the emoluments of his sinecure comfortably at Königsberg. In all these state parishes the faithful refuse to entertain any communication, social or religious, with the intruders, and fulfil their religious duties in other churches. As to the congregations of these state priests, they principally consist of a few bad Catholics or government officials, such as burgomasters, policemen, etc.; in some even Protestants and Jews attend, and several count no other members than the clergyman’s housekeepers.

As the sect of Old Catholics must be looked upon as forming part of Prince Bismarck’s intended state church, it may fittingly be mentioned in connection with the state parishes. None of the 26 Kulturkampf laws issued in Prussia and the German Empire since 1871 has been more abused, more arbitrarily and unjustly applied by the government, than the so-called Old Catholic law, which grants to Old Catholic communities the joint use of Catholic parish churches and cemeteries, and the joint possession of the Catholic Church property, wherever a considerable number of these sectarians exist. How ober-presidents apply that law and determine the meaning of the word “considerable” may be seen by the two cases of Braunsberg and Königsberg, where in the one case about 20 and in the other about 40 Old Catholics formed, in the governor’s estimation, a sufficient number to allow the application of the law, and to rob as many as 10,000 Catholics in one instance of their churches and property. The ober-president’s partiality and self-contradicting conduct received a further illustration by the treatment of the Catholics of Hohenstein, who, although numbering 1,500, were refused permission to build a church in the town because the number 1,500 was not considered 651“considerable” in the meaning of the law. The thousand Catholics of Willenberg who petitioned the government for the same purpose received a similar answer. Thanks to this unjust application of the law, the Old Catholics obtained hitherto possession of 13 beautiful Catholic churches—viz., in Witten (10,000 Catholics to 76 Old Catholics); in Breslau the Corpus Christi Church (20,000 Catholics to a few hundred Old Catholics); in Neisse the Church of the Cross; in Hirschberg St. Ann’s Church (3,000 Catholics to 250 Old Catholics); in Königsberg; in Wiesbaden (15,000 Catholics to 250 Old Catholics); in Bochum (10,000 Catholics to about 200 Old Catholics); in Cologne St. Gereon’s Church (10,000 Catholics to 87 Old Catholics); in Crefeld St. Stephen’s; in Boppard the Carmelite Church (5,000 Catholics to 45 Old Catholics); in Coblentz the Jesuit Church; in Bonn the Gymnasium Church; and quite recently the parish church of Gottesberg in Silesia. In nearly all these churches the Old Catholics made their first entrance with the help of the police, the doors being forced open with hammer and crow-bar. Since they fell into Old Catholic hands most of them stand empty. On Easter Sunday about 20 to 30 worshippers attended in the robbed church in Wiesbaden; in several places grass is growing on the pavement surrounding the churches, and in others mushrooms are springing up freely at the very foot of the altars. There can be no doubt that the sect is already declining. Were it not for the aid in money and other advantages which its members receive from the Prussian government, it would probably by this time have shared the fate of Rongeanism. According to the report read at the fourth Old Catholic synod at Bonn, in May, 1877, there were at that time 35 Old Catholic communities in Prussia, counting in all 6,510 people with civil independence; in Baden there were 44 communities, in Bavaria 31, in Hesse 5, in Oldenburg 2, in Würtemberg 1. The total number of adherents, women and children included, amounted in Prussia to 20,524, in Baden to 17,203, in Bavaria to 10,100, in Hesse to 1,042, in Oldenburg to 240, in Würtemberg to 223—in all 49,342 out of a population of 14 millions. The number of Old Catholic priests in the whole German Empire is now 56. In the course of last year four of them and a good many laymen from Wiesbaden and Dortmund retracted their error and returned to the mother church; others became Protestants.

Although passed in May, 1875, the law ordering the dissolution of Catholic religious congregations has not yet been fully carried into execution, not out of regard for the establishments themselves, but because the state interest required a departure from the rule. The last term granted to Catholic sisters engaged in education expires on the 1st of October next. Their expulsion is causing the deepest grief among all classes of German Catholics, for the good sisters have, by their noble and self-sacrificing exertions, so endeared themselves to the hearts of the people that they are looked upon as—what they really are—the greatest benefactors of the people, without whose help the moral and religious training of the young will remain defective. More than all do the poor and unhappy feel their departure, for it was chiefly on orphanages 652and other charitable institutions that the expelled nuns exercised their salutary influence. Now that these establishments no longer stand under the direction of those ministering angels, who work only for the love of God and man, the respective parishes have to grant salaries to their successors, for which the poor as well as the rich are compelled to contribute. In a great many towns, however, they cannot be replaced at all, not only for want of means but also for want of the competent persons, and about 10,000 orphans of the poor are left destitute by the expulsion of the nuns. No wonder, then, if under such circumstances the parting scenes were everywhere heart-rending; not only sobbing children thronged round their foster-mothers in uncontrollable grief, but the inhabitants, burgomasters, and magistrates came to express their thanks for the eminent services they had rendered to their parishes, and their deep regret at seeing them driven out of home and country—their own beloved benefactresses. No exact statistics regarding the number of expelled nuns have as yet been published, nor is it possible to say what has become of them all. It is, however, computed that about 500 houses have been broken up, which must have included at least between two and three thousand inmates. The Ursulines of Dorsten transferred their establishment to Holland, where forty pupils followed them on the very day of their expulsion. The house of Posen went to Cracow; those of Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Duderstadt, Kitzlar, etc., emigrated partly to North America, partly to neighboring countries. The Sisters of Our Lady, whose convents had been established more than 200 years in Essen and Coesfeld, went 250 strong across the Atlantic, and the School Sisters either returned to their families or left off their religious habits and continued their calling as lay teachers. The names of the other congregations that had to leave this year are chiefly the following: The English Ladies (Fulda and Mayence), the Franciscans (Frankfort, Erfurt, Treves, Fulda, Aix-la-Chapelle, Bonn, Oberwesel, Emmerich), the Sisters of Mercy conducting orphanages (Posen, Breslau, Lauban, Myslowitz, Steinfeld, Bromberg, Peplin, Düsseldorf, Crefeld, Bonn, Dortmund, Berncastle, Malmedy, Lannerz, Berge-Borbeck, Mayen, Rheinberg, Paderborn, Schroda, Düren, Bitburg, Neuss, Neustadt, Osnabrück, Salzkotten), the Sisters of St. Charles (Boppard, Oberglogau, etc.), St. Vincent de Paul (Deutz, Nippes, Ehrenfeld), the Daughters of the Holy Cross, and the Poor Sisters of Christ. Those Sisters of Mercy who exclusively devote themselves to hospital work have been allowed to remain; their exact number was a short time ago 5,763.

Of all the laws enacted since 1871 against the Catholic Church in Prussia, none will be attended with more injurious effects than the law regulating school supervision and religious instruction in popular schools. Not content with having removed nearly all ecclesiastical district and local school inspectors, and appointed Protestants and “liberal” Catholics in their place, the government has also forbidden the priests to teach the Catholic religion anywhere except in church out of school hours. In a decree issued by Dr. Falk in March, 1876, the right of parents to bring up their children in accordance 653with their religious principles is virtually denied, at all events practically destroyed, for it places the whole teaching and supervision of Catholic religious instruction under the supreme control of the Protestant government, and thus arbitrarily cancels clause 24 of the Prussian constitution, which guarantees to recognized religious societies the right of conducting religious instruction either through their priests or laymen invested with the missio canonica. By virtue of this ministerial ordinance the government, feeling its hands strengthened and unshackled, proceeds to all kinds of arbitrary and unjustifiable changes in matters of religious teaching. It sets aside Catholic catechisms and reading-books hitherto used in schools with ecclesiastical approbation, and replaces them by works more in harmony with the spirit of the age; it commissions schoolmasters (now already about 1,000) to teach the Catholic religion only in the name and by order of the civil power, threatening them with prosecution if they ask for or accept the missio canonica from church authorities; it either dissolves Catholic schools or amalgamates them with Protestant institutions under the name of simultan-schools, all of which stand under exclusively Protestant direction; it appoints Protestant and Jewish teachers to purely Catholic schools; it compels, as was recently done in Crefeld, Catholic children to attend Protestant school prayers; it limits the hearing of Mass to two days in the week, and strictly forbids Catholic teachers to exhort their pupils to a greater frequency of the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion; in one word, it uses all possible means to Protestantize Catholic children in popular schools. Priests and parents, school boards and parishes, have sought redress of this bitter grievance in innumerable petitions and protests addressed from all parts of the country to the emperor, the ministers, to both houses of Parliament, demanding in the name of liberty, of justice, of the constitution, of natural and human rights, that the teaching of their religion should again be declared free and placed under the only rightful authority, that of the church; but neither the prayers of distressed parents nor the powerful agitation got up by the leading Catholic representatives proved of any avail, Dr. Falk invariably rejecting all petitions on the ground that the grievances complained of did not exist—an assertion which the minister, if he had ventured to do so, could not have reconciled with the truth of facts. As ministers and national liberals alike expect the realization of their plans from the destructive school policy rather than from any of the other May laws, the Prussian government feels the less disposed to make concessions on this question, as it enables them to administer the poison of infidelity to the rising generation in a quiet and imperceptible but systematic and effective manner. Catholics have therefore nothing to hope from the present rulers of Prussia towards an equitable settlement of the religious question, as party interest, and not justice, is the moving principle of the May legislators. If the faith of the next generation is to be saved, it must be done by the parents themselves; if they take the religious instruction in their own hands, if by vigilance and self-devotion they detect, counteract, and destroy the evil influence of heterodox school-teaching, 654no power on earth will be able to interfere with their children’s faith; but if they neglect this solemn duty, which now devolves upon them with a fearful responsibility, they will have to bear the guilt of their children’s apostasy. Happily there is little or no ground for such apprehensions, now that bishops, priests, and laity have all so manfully withstood the storm and so far passed unscathed through the crucible of the persecution. Persevering in their course of loyal attachment to the church, Catholic parents of all classes of society look after their children’s faith and teach them catechism at home, in which excellent work they are effectually assisted by the advice and practical help of numerous societies instituted for that purpose all over Prussia.

Whilst Catholics heartily rejoice at the failure of their enemies’ endeavors to destroy their church in Germany, they deeply feel the enormous losses and sufferings which the application of the May Laws has so wantonly inflicted on so many thousands of their innocent co-religionists. Apart from the innumerable convictions of bishops, priests, and laymen for so-called May-law transgressions, Prince Bismarck alone instituted more than 7,000 prosecutions for alleged offences against his person. In his eagerness to silence opposition he spared neither sex nor age, neither office nor rank, proceeding with equal animosity against statesmen and artisans, distinguished writers and poor peasants, washerwomen and children. The sums paid in fines and the time spent in prison for Kulturkampf offences are said to be enormous; our readers may form an idea of the magnitude of the penal results of the persecution by the perusal of the following statistics: Within the first four months of 1877 Prussian courts of justice pronounced sentences of imprisonment amounting to 55 years, 11 months, and 6 days, and fines to the amount of 27,843 marks. The victims were 241 priests, 210 laymen, and 136 editors of newspapers. Imprisonment of 12 years, 8 months, and 14 days was decreed for offences against the emperor, and 8 years, 4 months, 7 days for 68 Bismarck offences. Besides these penalties, the police made 55 arrests, 74 domiciliary visits, and 56 dissolutions of unions and assemblies. A compositor of a Mayence paper, father of eight children, was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for having used a disrespectful expression towards his majesty whilst in a state of intoxication; a doctor had to spend a whole year in a fortress for a similar offence; a rag and bone gatherer got five and a half months, and a poor servant-girl of nineteen years of age one month’s imprisonment.

A few more instances, taken at random from the masses of Kulturkampf convictions, will further exemplify the nature of the offences and the penalties with which they were visited. Bishop Brinckmann received one year’s imprisonment, Vicar-General Giese two years, Father Fievez three months, Father Haversath four weeks, for alleged embezzlement of diocesan money; in reality for preventing certain church funds from falling into the hands of the government, which had no claim whatever to them. In Münster 2,500 heads of families were fined for not sending their children to school on Corpus Christi day. The successive editors of the Kuryer Poznanski, the Germania, and the Frankfort Zeitung 655have for several years past gone to prison, some for publishing papal and episcopal documents, others for offending the emperor, Prince Bismarck, and other members of the administration. Father Isbert, of Namborn, Treves, spent 903 days in the prison of Saarbrücken for “illegally” saying Mass, hearing confessions, etc. In April, 1876, the priests of the diocese of Posen had to pay 163,463 marks for similar offences. Father Simon was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment because he removed the sacred Host from the church of the Girlachsdorf the day before state priest Pischel’s installation. Fathers Bruns of Geldern and Kroll of Adekerke were prosecuted and punished for refusing absolution to two penitents. A French priest accidentally staying in Hanover was condemned to a fine of 4,800 marks for saying Mass in a private chapel. Dean Leineweber, of Heiligenstadt, went to prison for 18 months for granting dispensations; Father Nawrocki two years for secretly administrating the parish of Goszieszy. Besides endless prosecutions, hundreds of the inhabitants of Marpingen had to pay fines for granting hospitality to pilgrims.

But the Catholic clergy had to suffer for not acknowledging the May Laws as well as for transgressing them. By the so-called Bread-basket Law, intended to starve the priests into submission, many thousands lost their income and had to bear great misery, especially in poor parishes, where church offerings usually consist of farthings. In the diocese of Fulda, for instance, the average income of a great number of parish priests fluctuated between twelve and twenty pounds a year. In other districts they fared in so far better as their parishioners indemnified them for the loss of their state emoluments and homes by voluntary contributions or gifts in kind, such as meat, bread, firewood, etc. This help, if lastingly established, might have considerably alleviated the existing distress; but unfortunately the Prussian government forbade public offerings and collections for the relief of priests in distress, on the ground that such illegal remunerations encouraged resistance to the state laws. This harsh, not to say inhuman, proceeding, however, only harmed its victims for a time; for very soon the inventive spirit of the faithful found out other means of relief, over which the most watchful officials could obtain no control. In addition to secret parish subventions the priests now receive regular assistance from the Paulinus Verein, which charitable association collects contributions not only in Germany but also from foreign countries, among which England especially has distinguished itself.

Destructive as the Kulturkampf has been to the outward organization of the church and the happiness and worldly interest of the people, its consequences have in many other respects proved an immense blessing to the Catholic Church in Germany. Instead of having been destroyed or weakened, as her enemies hoped, she has, on the contrary, become stronger and more powerful in her influence over the masses, more respected by her adversaries, better understood by Protestant Christians, better loved and obeyed by her own children. Lukewarm Catholics, formerly almost ashamed of professing their religion in public, now no longer shrink from manifesting their loyal attachment to the church; nay, more, they stand up in her defence, 656and edify others by the regular fulfilment of their religious duties. The devout crowds that fill the churches on Sundays and all festive occasions; the enormous increase of regular communicants; the frequent processions from widowed dioceses to cathedrals of other dioceses for the reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation; the deep and universal grief shown by the people at the death of Pope Pius IX. and their cordial rejoicing at the election of his successor; the numerous addresses of loyalty sent on every possible occasion to the banished bishops by millions of the faithful; the touching attachment of the masses to their pastors—all these and a great many more significant manifestations afford ample proof that the Catholic Church has gained, and not lost, by the Kulturkampf. And it may not be exaggeration to say that never at any time did the religious sentiment among German Catholics shine forth so brightly, their piety so fervently, their spirit of self-sacrifice so strongly, their love for their church so unboundedly, as now after seven years of relentless persecution. Giving to the state what belongs to the state, but fearlessly obeying the church in all matters that regard their eternal salvation, the German Catholics, bishops, priests, and people, stand firm and unshaken in their resolution to remain true to God and his church, and to lose wealth, freedom, life itself, rather than give up one particle of their faith.

Nor are the beneficial consequences of the persecution limited to a revival in religion; they are also felt, with almost equal power, in the political and literary life of the Catholic portion of the German nation. Purified, ennobled, raised from a state of political servility to a sense of self-dignity, the persecuted German Catholics feel their love of freedom rekindled, their sunken courage revived, and a hitherto unknown power—the power of outraged honesty and truth—growing and spreading among them, and defending their inalienable rights with energy and success, in society, in parliament, in the press, and in general literature, wherever religious and political liberty and independence are wont to assert themselves. The Catholics of Prussia now constitute a political body second only in importance to the national liberals, whose influence in the country is rapidly declining. If the wishes for a return to a religious policy, as expressed by the emperor shortly after the late attempt on his life, should be carried out by his ministers, we may live to see Prince Bismarck courting the help of the Catholic Church to save that same state which resolved upon and worked for her destruction. How valuable the support of the Catholic party would be to the perplexed German government in these critical times is sufficiently shown by the number of its representatives in the various parliaments: in the Reichstag the Catholic Centre party counts 98 members; in the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies it commands the majority; in Baden, where only one Catholic sat in parliament before the year 1870, there are now 13 Catholic deputies. The best illustration of the growth of the Catholic party in Germany was furnished at the last elections, when, in spite of the arbitrary dissection of Catholic voting districts, Catholic members were returned with overwhelming majorities wherever a sufficient number of constituents 657made such elections possible. The same success attended the elections of municipal officers, but unfortunately to no purpose, as the Prussian government, contrary to right and justice, annulled all elections of Catholic burgomasters and appointed its own creatures to the vacant posts.

Another creation of the Kulturkampf for which we cannot be too thankful is the German Catholic press, which for its tone, skill, influence, and general success stands unrivalled by any press in the world. Beyond a few more or less obscure provincial papers, Germany possessed no Catholic press organization before the year 1870; now nearly 200 of these spirited children of the persecution flourish in the German Empire. Foremost among all appears the Germania, of world-wide reputation, which expounds and defends the political programme of the Catholic party with such statesmanlike ability that Prince Bismarck himself, in one of his parliamentary speeches, was fain to acknowledge the superior character and excellence of the paper. Worthy associates of the Berlin central organ of Catholic publicity are the great provincial daily papers, such as the Deutsche Reichszeitung in Bonn, the Kölnische Volkszeitung in Cologne, the Westphalian Merkur, and last, not least, the smaller provincial and local papers, all of which, in the involuntary absence of the chief pastors of the church, teach and guide the people in the paths of religion as well as in those of public life. The influence of the Catholic press over the people was felt in two ways: in the first place, it succeeded in preserving and consolidating among them that spirit of union, order, and loyalty of which the bishops and priests had given such admirable examples; and in the second place it prevented, by its wise admonitions, the exasperated people from abandoning the policy of passive resistance as recommended by the bishops, so that, in the midst of incessant, almost unbearable provocations, the Catholic population of Prussia has not been found guilty of one single act of rebellion or open resistance to the state power.

The difference of the effects which the May-law legislation has had on the Catholic and the Protestant inhabitants of Prussia must strike every one. Whilst to the former the Kulturkampf has been a school of improvement, of moral and religious regeneration, the latter have derived none but deplorable results from it; witness the general lawlessness, the frightful increase of crime, the sunken state of morality, and the all but complete extinction of Christianity which now prevails among the Protestant people. According to the Nord Allgemeine Zeitung, Prince Bismarck’s non-official organ, not a day passes in Prussia without murder and manslaughter, and the demoralization of the lower classes has reached such a depth that there is no longer any security for life and property, that the son murders his father, that the intoxicated father stabs his son, and that the servant kills his master on the slightest provocation. School-boys have become regular frequenters of public-houses; they fight duels in love affairs, commit suicide for the most trifling causes, and help to fill the overcrowded prisons. Since 1874 the number of prisoners has increased by nearly two hundred per cent. To mention a few instances only, in 1872 the town of Frankfort-on-the-Main 658had 1,072 convicts; in the present year it has 5,323. In the province of East Prussia more crimes were committed in 1875 than in the 20 preceding years together. Sacrileges, theft, murder, suicide, immoralities are the crimes of most frequent occurrence in Protestant Prussia. In the one small province of Schleswig-Holstein not less than 212 suicides were recorded in the year 1874; and in the city of Berlin in 1875 there were 284 (213 men and 71 women) cases, besides 38 corpses found in the Spree. In one month of the year 1876 the army counted 26 suicides—i.e., one-fifth of the whole mortality. Another offence, formerly little known in Prussia, but now spreading in an extraordinary manner, is the wholesale evasion of the obligatory military service. According to official returns the number of young men who evaded that duty by going abroad increased within the period of 1862 to 1872 from 1,648 to 10,069. Last year it was about twice the latter number. We may here add that Catholic priests are now also obliged to serve in the army as private soldiers. It is a remarkable fact, perhaps only a coincidence, but at all events one of the fruits of Bismarck’s anti-church policy, that socialism has grown in Prussia in proportion as crimes have multiplied. In the year 1871 the socialists had only two members in Parliament; now they have 13, representing two millions of adherents, who support 45 socialist newspapers. The party has not reached its maturity yet; but if the Prussian government, disregarding the disapproving vote of the Reichstag, should proceed against it with violent repressive police measures, it is sure to grow rapidly into a dangerous power that may one day shake the new German Empire to its very foundation.

Prince Bismarck did not intend to injure the Protestant Church by his May legislation, but, whether intended or not, it is now an undeniable fact that the two great results of that legislation are the growth of socialism and the accelerated extinction of Christianity in the German Protestant Church. When preachers of the Gospel are allowed to declare from the pulpit that to them the Bible is nothing but Jewish literature, that our Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man, that the idea of a Trinity, sacraments, miracles, etc., are human inventions, can it surprise any one if socialists go further still, and in numerously-attended meetings openly deny the existence of God and eternal life? Enabled by the May Laws to utter any blasphemies they like, the German infidels carry on their anti-Christian propaganda on a very extensive scale, and succeed in drawing hundreds of thousands of Protestants out of the established church. They alone make use of the so-called Alt-Catholic law, which gives freedom to leave a church without joining another, and which was passed for the purpose of inducing Catholics to follow the lead of the Alt-Catholic Bishop Reinkens. This ostentatious secession from the Protestant Church, however, is not its greatest loss; far more disastrous to its existence is that wholesale defection which takes place quietly, without people thinking it worth while to go out of the church. They simply abstain from frequenting places of worship, and refuse all ministrations from their clergymen for themselves and their children. During the last three months of 1874—that 659is to say, in the year following the promulgation of the May Laws—16,631 Protestant children remained unbaptized, and 8,346 Protestant couples refused to be married in church. In the year 1875 Berlin alone had 9,964 civil marriages without church blessing, and 15,000 children who received no baptism. In Königsberg the number of civil marriages not accompanied by any church ceremony was 36 per cent., in Dantzic 47 per cent., in Breslau 53 per cent., in Stettin 68 per cent. In Berlin 70,000 Protestants reject their church altogether. There only 18 per cent. of the whole Protestant population go to church; in Worms 6 per cent., in Mayence 5 per cent., in Giessen 5 per cent., in Darmstadt 3 per cent., in Chemnitz 3 per cent., and in some other places of Saxony only 1 per cent. In short, the Protestant Church in Germany is irretrievably lost. Thus it has come to pass, under God’s providence, that the blow which Prince Bismarck aimed at the Catholic Church glided off from the Rock of Peter, and fell with deadly effect on the Protestant Church, of which he counts himself a stanch adherent.

SONNET. THE MORAL LAW, AND THE UTILITARIAN PHILOSOPHY.

That law which cynic-sophists desecrate,

Creation deft, they boast of mortal hand;

Custom’s weak nurseling; or, by sea and land,

A tyrant’s edict fencing doubtful state,

Is older than the brazen books of Fate;

A bondage unto liberty; a grand

And circumscribing harmony, unplanned,

But from the breasts of all things good and great

Where’er the flame of thought and feeling played,

Issuing divine, a universal birth,

Before the first-born zephyr sang its ode,

Before pines grew on mountains of the north,

Before the greater light, or less, had flowed

O’er the glad bosom of the new-shaped earth

660

“THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY.”^[132]

The strangest and saddest commentary upon that dreary religious sentimentality known as positivism, or the Religion of Humanity, was the infatuation of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill with regard to two very commonplace women whom these men, one the founder and the other the ablest exponent of the religion, foolishly loved and worshipped in life, and actually deified after death. Guizot says that Comte was crazy, but Mill was confessedly a man of rare logical acumen, thoroughly-trained intellectual powers, and with no trace of mental alienation. One does not know whether to laugh at or to pity the maudlin sentimentalism of his love for his wife, the idolatrous honors he paid to her portrait and bust, and the painful conflict of his soul, halting between a frantic wish to believe in the presence and intimations of her disembodied spirit, and the necessity of rejecting, according to his theory, all hope or belief in the hereafter. There is something at once ludicrous and shocking in this, the only religious sentiment that such a mind as Mill’s would admit—the worship of a woman’s memory as the full satisfaction and highest reach of religion. The worship of woman irresistibly suggests the crowning of the Goddess of Reason by the French Revolutionists; and we trust our reflection will not be misconstrued when we say that woman holds her true and rightful position only in the Catholic Church. The tolerance of divorce in Protestantism is an injury to the sex, and when we glance at woman’s relations to most of the philosophico-moral systems that have been the outgrowth of the religious rebellion of the sixteenth century, we see how wise and tender the church has ever been in her treatment of the weaker vessel. St. Paul has laid down for all time the true idea of woman in her religious relations, and every attempt to change those conditions has resulted in failure and shame.

The Religion of Humanity is one of those vague terms which logic rejects with scorn. The phrase has a certain hazy beauty for hazy minds; but its gross spirit means the deification of man, the boundless extent of his natural powers, a worse than Pelagian confidence in his own moral strength, and the natural, social, and civil equality of woman. In our own country the system has not revealed all its deformity, nor are its principles apparently very familiar even to its advocates; but all its hideousness is laid bare in the writings of the German Feuerbach, and it is sad to think that Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot) devotes her uncommon powers to the exposition of its distinctive doctrinal phase—namely, that all religion is a diseased state of our consciousness, and its exercise through any form or in any sphere gives us neither present comfort nor future hope.

A primal instinct and yearning of the human heart tends toward an object of infinite blessedness 661and beauty. Descartes inferred from our knowledge and love of Infinite and Absolute Being, in which all glory, perfection, mercy, and power co-exist, that such a Being really does exist; and this famous proof of the existence of God has never been shown to be false or unwarranted, though some philosophers have held that it is not strictly a demonstration. Our readers know how cogently and eloquently Dr. Brownson expatiates upon that beautiful formula, Ens creat existentias. God IS. Every affirmation and reality announces that glorious and all-sufficient Being. Nothing less than himself can satisfy our immortal longings and aspirations. The very difficulties that enshroud our ideas of the Supreme Being seem to be only “dark with excess of light.” Nor has this truth, on which man’s feet have been stayed since the creation, ever been shaken. Dr. Newman, using Lamennais’ argument from universal authority, but without falling into Lamennais’ mistake of its being the only argument, challenges the world to explain away the universal consent of mankind to the divine existence. Cicero only echoes Plato when he says that there never was a nation, no matter how barbarous, that had not some idea of the existence of God. Talleyrand used to say: “There is somebody that has more intellect than Napoleon and more wit than Voltaire, and that somebody is—mankind.” The great heart of the world leaps to its Creator, and the testimony of individual experience in all ages but repeats the saying of St. Augustine: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord! and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

If we compare this noble and sublime creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” with the hollow metaphysical and humanitarian beliefs of our unhappy age, we at once recognize the profound truth and beauty of many of the utterances of the ancient Fathers upon the subject of religion. Their simple and antique majesty of thought and phrase is like a statue of Michael Angelo’s alongside of a bizarre specimen of fashionable ceramics. St. Clement of Alexandria holds that there is only one religion, and the great argument of St. Augustine’s City of God is the essential unity of the divine cultus, coming from Adam, through the patriarchs, the prophets, fully revealed in Christ the Son of God, and destined to endure for ever. All theology germinates from the invocation of the three divine Persons. When we bless ourselves we worship God, with the worship of unending ages, from everlasting to everlasting. The church condemned the proposition that all the virtues of the pagan philosophers were vices. Christ, the God-Man, is the object of religion, and, as thus presented, he fulfils all the yearnings and hopes spoken of by the humanitarians, who, in making the human race at once the subject and object of worship, fail to see that Catholicity gratifies man beyond his wildest dreams of exalted manhood and infinite progress; for humanity cannot be raised higher than it has been raised by the Eternal Son of God, who, clothed with our glorified humanity, which he will never lay aside, “sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

It seems an unworthy concession to a very weak school of scepticism for Max Müller, in the May number of the Contemporary Review, to propound the queries, What is religion? 662Have we any religion? and, after giving a long and flattering notice of every fool that says in his heart there is no God, to inform us graciously that there is a term for God in every language with which he is acquainted. The logical vice of nearly all non-Catholic scientific men here and in Europe at the present day is an ignorant and unwarranted obtrusion of their crude theories upon the subjects of religion. They have no perception of the exquisite sense and appositeness of the old saying, Ne sutor ultra crepidam. A satirical friend, after listening to Proudhon’s theories about the creation, remarked to him: “What a pity God had not the benefit of your suggestions when he made the world!” and such was the hebetude of the infidel that he rejoined: “In that event creation would have been infinitely better.” Huxley, who is pronounced a scientific charlatan even in those studies upon the invertebrata to which he has devoted twenty-five years, has the blasphemous audacity to call his Creator “a pedantic drill-sergeant”; and Tyndall refers to his God as an “atom-manufacturer.” Max Müller has far greater reverence, but his latest utterances convict him hopelessly of pantheism, which is about the absurdest form of “religion” that any unfortunate man can adopt.

It is a curious exemplification of the state of religious thought in England when such a man as Müller is selected to deliver a course of lectures upon theology. His only qualification is his philological learning, of which Scaliger, the greatest of modern philologists, said its value in theology has been very much over-rated. To such an extent does Müller carry his linguistic fanaticism that he derives all reason and all truth from language. He settles a controversy by appealing to the root of a word. The most cursory study of etymology suffices to show that it is in the main a vague guess-work; and the words we employ to express the subtlest operations of the intellect are so many metaphors or images drawn from sensible objects. The word religion may be derived from three distinct roots, relegere, to read back, to retrace; or religere, to collect; or religare, to bind together; and an enthusiastic etymologist, warming with the subject, would run us back to Babel. Who would suppose that the word goose, for example, which, on the “bow-wow” theory of language, must have originated with an old farmer driving his poultry to market, is traceable directly to the Sanscrit, through the Teutonic, Gothic, Latin, and Greek, and enjoys a proud pedigree of Aryan etymology? Like all modern specialists, Müller drives his philological hobby through all theological science. He has done a very great injury to religious thought by his constant prating about the essential oneness of all creeds, and his studied purpose to represent Christianity as only a modification of the great “world-creeds,” with a very decidedly expressed preference for the Vedas over the Gospels and for Zoroaster over St. John the Evangelist.

If Protestantism continues to disintegrate as rapidly in the next decade as it has in the last two, our theological professors may skip all the tracts at present devoted to the refutation of the principles and consequences of the Reformation. The older controversial works are already antiquated, and the theological lore of thirty years ago is no longer available. Yet it is very 663doubtful if any solid advantage can be gained by the study of modern philosophy. The Holy Ghost, ever ruling the mind of the church, brought about the definition of Papal Infallibility at the most opportune period of the world’s history. The only salvation for the human intellect is the dogmatic authority of the church, and the clearer this is shown and enforced the better for the world. The day of tedious Christian controversy is gone for ever. Amicable discussions upon controverted points of doctrine are no longer possible. The field has been narrowed down. The contest now is conducted upon the primal bases of the primitive truths—God or Satan, heaven or hell. “Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!” When the admired and acknowledged “leaders of modern thought” are come to such a pass as to ask if life is worth living? is there a hell? is not man the beginning and end of himself? was not Christ sublimely self-deceived? does not matter contain the promise and potency of all life, and is not immortality a splendid dream? it is manifestly useless labor for a Catholic theologian to pore for years over the question of Anglican Orders or the Donation of Constantine.

Our objection to the prolonged study of philosophy must be understood not of Catholic philosophy, which is the handmaid of revealed truth, but of those degrading systems that the materialistic mind of the age is constantly spawning. The facilities of the printing-press, and the habit of writing philosophical articles and systems in the common languages, have familiarized the world with a vast amount of error. One advantage of the learned tongues lay in their preventing many people from obtaining the little learning which is proverbially a dangerous thing. In our day we not only have technical treatises on science, philosophy, and theology, but popular hand-books which aim at the greatest simplicity and directness. Materialists give illustrated lectures to unscientific people, and labor strenuously to accommodate their ideas even to the unformed mind of childhood. The newspapers teem with all sorts of crude theories, and no effort is spared to disseminate the most outrageous fallacies. When Diderot and D’Alembert started the Encyclopédie there were protests and remonstrances from the church and from scientific bodies; but few persons could afford to purchase the huge tomes, as compared with the multitudes that now can buy for a few cents a dangerous publication at any news-stand. The New York Daily Graphic, not content with printing a likeness of Müller, gave also long extracts from the article to which we have adverted; and nothing is commoner than a so-called philosophical essay even in our lightest magazines. With the help of a learned and often unintelligible phraseology the impression is left that a mighty mind, after many mental throes, has given birth to a wonderful truth or profound reflection destined to influence modern thought and lead eventually to the widest-reaching social results. The only remedy for such a delusion is to impress readers with a modest consciousness of their own ability to penetrate the sibyllic meaning, which, if they fail to do, is very likely without any meaning at all. By this manly and rational process it is surprising how quickly one sees through absurdities, and catches a glimpse of 664the ass’ ears under the lion’s skin. Our present study of the Religion of Humanity will illustrate this idea (not in our own case, of course). Let us take up a few of the most famous dicta of humanitarianism. Note the obscurity of the language, which in many cases is intentional. In Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe, who may be regarded as the first arch-priest of positivism, the sage of Weimar expressly remarks that philosophical writers contemporary with him had told him that when they were most perplexed and confused, that was the very time when they courageously wrote on! This is enough to make a man give up metaphysics for the rest of his days.

“My theory,” says Feuerbach, “may be condensed into two words—nature and man. The cause of existence is not God—a vague, mysterious, and indefinite term—but nature. The being in which nature becomes conscious of itself is man. It follows that there is no God—that is to say, no abstract being, distinct from nature and man, which disposes of the destinies of the universe and mankind at its discretion; but this negation is but the consequence of the cognition of God’s identity with the essence of nature and man.”

What does Feuerbach mean by nature? Something distinct from man, evidently, for he continually separates them. Ah! man is the being in which nature becomes conscious—of what? Then nature, God, and man are said to be identical in essence. But if God is only an abstract term, how can an abstraction enter into a conscious essence, and how does it follow that after all there is no God? Oh! you mistake. This negation (of what?) is a consequence of a cognition, etc. Now, all this stuff amounts to nothing but low, base materialism. There is not a particle of reasoning, fancy, or poetic beauty in the entire book from which this extract, which is clear by contrast with others, is taken. Yet George Eliot, who is trumpeted through the world as a glorious prophetess of humanity, deemed it worth her patient toil to translate this bathos into English. In the foregoing extract are used at random words of deep and pregnant import, the meaning of which has been fixed by the sharp and subtle but eminently truthful and honest minds of Catholic philosophy and theology. These words are vilely misused by reputed philosophers, until there is no clearness or exactitude of statement in half the philosophical treatises that one takes up to read. The church herself, in her dogmatic infallibility, has defined for all time the meanings of certain expressions which she has made touchstones of the faith—tesseræ fidei. The devil was the first to equivocate, and his children have always followed his example. The term “nature” has an exact philosophical meaning which Feuerbach knew, and his school know. Essence, existence, cognition, and cause are words that have to be weighed with the nicest care when used in a philosophical disquisition. If these writers are sincere they should speak their meaning plainly, and not darken counsel with vain words. The plain English of the extract is this: “There is no God in the sense of creator or judge of man. Man is his own God. We cannot know that anything exists outside of our own consciousness.” Even this is obscure, because there is darkness 665upon the face of these abysmal depths of unbelief, over which the Spirit of God never moved.

The Religion of Humanity, in contradiction to the very consciousness and irresistible instincts and traditions of the human race, thus assumes that there is no God but man, out-Mohammeding Mohammed, who admitted that there is one God, and contented himself with the humbler title of prophet. It stands alone in its horrible deformity. It is a leper from which all other creeds shrink. It has attempted to prove its identity with many of the old pagan beliefs, but, notwithstanding a cumbrous and learned exposition of mythology, no such identification could be proved. There are some gibing comments upon the gods in Lucian, and Juvenal at times hints slyly at the amours of Olympic Jove; but there is no student of mythology but knows the depth of the religious sentiment in the vast masses of the Greek and Roman states. The worship of the earth, sea, and skies was idealized. It may be boldly asserted that ancient history does not present any traces of the gross materialism of modern times. Æschylus repeatedly declares that there was a power superior to Jove himself, and the researches of Niebuhr have established the virtual monotheism of Greece and Rome. Despite the multitude of gods, there was the Deus Optimus Maximus, clearly spoken of by Tully, and not obscurely intimated in nearly every relic of ancient literature and art. The attempt to trace the Religion of Humanity back to the beginnings of the human race proved a complete failure. Man never worshipped himself as the Supreme God. There was a broad distinction made between the heroes or the emperors to whom divine honors were decreed and the gods themselves. These are but the commonplaces of the history of religion; but the attempt showed a consciousness of weakness on the part of this wretched school of unbelief. Euripides himself would have upbraided them:

Απιστ᾽ ἄπιστα, καινὰ χαινὰ δέρκομαι.

Ἔτερα δ᾽ εφ ἑτερῶν

Κακὰ κακῶν κυρεῖ.^[133]

Every effort that has been made to find a purely natural and human cause for religion has failed. The wide study of religion which modern scepticism has unweariedly pursued always results in perplexing it the more. Volney went to Palestine to disprove the ancient prophecies, and his book shows their literal and startling fulfilment. Fichte used to open his lectures upon God with the blasphemous remark, “Gentlemen, to-day let us construct the Supreme Being,” but all attempts at such construction have only brought out more clearly the immemorial belief of his creatures in his existence. The permanency of the original traditions of the human family is so remarkable a phenomenon, in view of the perishableness of merely human records, that the most sceptical minds have been struck with fear and amazement. It is like the living proof of the Psalmist’s words: “If I go up into heaven, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and flee to the outermost ends of the earth, thou art there!” Even the pantheism of Brahminism is something entirely distinct from the confusion and chaos of the Religion of Humanity.

Strauss, in his last book, The Old 666and the New Faith, asks if the modern world is as religious as the ancient world was, and he appears to derive satisfaction from his conclusion that there is a vast falling off in religion. But as he does not deign to define what he means by religion, we are left in the dark. One loses patience with the perverse stupidity of the British and American public, that have always their ears erect for what Strauss will say, and sceptics will complacently assure you that there are arguments in Strauss that have left Christianity in a deplorable plight; whereas the fact is, Strauss’ Life of Christ is familiarly cited in the schools of Germany as an illustration of the futility of an argument against well-authenticated human testimony. Whately wrote a book to prove that such a person as Napoleon Bonaparte never existed, and Strauss wrote a book to prove that Christ never existed, both with equal success.

The true animus of Comte, Strauss, Renan, and the other heads of this school is demoniac hatred of Christ. Why are they for ever attacking him, if, as they claim, all religions are preparative of the advent of this Religion of Humanity? Why can they go into hysterics of admiration over Socrates, Voltaire, and Shakspere, yet foam with fury at the name of Jesus? They will not even credit our Saviour with effecting the slightest moral good in the world, but refer to his blessed religion as a darkness and blight on the human intellect. Surely no true measure for the elevation of humanity would throw aside Christianity. But it is clear that these men have no true love for man. It is only their insufferable pride that will not bend the knee before Christ, or bend it in mockery like Renan and the author of Ecce Homo. They cry out, “Son of David, what have we to do with you?” and their cry is that of lost souls. All the infidel literature about Christ that has appeared so abundantly in the past score of years bears traces of this humanitarian spirit. They fain would make out Christ to be a mere man, but they are in this quandary: that he had no “humanitarian” notions. He came to do the will of his Father. He said nothing about the Sublime Humanity, the greatness and glory of this world, the god-like intellect of man, the progress of vast ideas, the universal diffusion of knowledge, the infinite progressiveness of the species, the force of cosmic influences, and the gorgeous future that will dawn for woman. Therefore, worse than paganism, the Religion of Humanity will not erect a statue to him.