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Introduction

THE Sermons contained in this volume relate to the conflict of Pius IX. against the political movements which he has described so often in these years as ' the anti-christian and anti-social revolution.' Seven of them were preached on Kosary Sunday, on which day there has been, in the diocese of Westminster, a special yearly intercession for the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Some of them mark certain notable periods of the conflict, such as the invasion of the Romagnas, the battle of Mentana, and the sacrilegious occupation of Rome; the others treat, at least in outline, of the cause for which the Holy Father has so inflexibly contended.

In the beautiful Cemetery of San Lorenzo, on which Pius IX. has bestowed so much cost and care, there was a simple monument to the memory of the Christian heroes who fell at Mentana in defence of the Holy See. The Italian Junta in b

X INTRODUCTION.

Home have, we are told, placed upon it the following inscription:

THIS MONUMENT,

WHICH THE THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT ERECTED IN MEMORY OF MERCENARY STRANGERS,

ROME REDEEMED

LEAVES TO POSTERITY

AS A PERENNIAL TESTIMONIAL

OF CALAMITOUS TIMES.

We have here an unconscious confession. The government of Pius IX. is admitted to be a theocracy: Eome is therefore ' redeemed' from God, and brought again into bondage to the prince of this world. This may be taken as the last word of the anti-christian and anti-social revolution: namely, the rejection of God and His Christ.

Here also is an acknowledgment that what the defenders of the Temporal Power have so long been saying is true after all: namely, that the aim of the Italian revolution, cheered and hounded on by the Liberals of Europe, was directed to the end of excluding God from the civil and political society of mankind. The separation of the State from the Catholic Church, which began in the Lutheran Re-

INTRODUCTION. XI formation, and was continued by the manifold revolutions springing from the principles of 1789, has now received its completion in the rejection of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Eome is redeemed from the sovereignty of the Redeemer of the world. We see, therefore, the standards of Christ and of antichrist front to front. The time is now past for illusions. The masks are off all faces; the halters and waverers are out of the lists, waiting for the shock of the great antagonists who know what they mean, and mean what they say. The conflict is no longer between Gallicanism and Ultramontanism, or any internal shades of Catholic policy in feeling or thought, but between faith and unbelief, God and the world.

Since the 20th of September 1870 we have been looking on at the comedy of two sovereigns in one city: of two royal and sacred persons; the one violating every sacred right, the other in just judgment passing sentence on the royal doer of the wrong. This spectacle alone is enough to justify the Divine Wisdom which by a Civil Princedom has provided for the independence of the Head of the Church; and to show that the Temporal Sovereignty of the Pontiff, so long as the world remains Christian, is the only solution of this problem. The Head of the Church can only be a sovereign or a subject. The

Xll INTRODUCTION.

King of Italy does not dare to claim the Vicar of Christ as his subject; nevertheless, he has usurped his. sovereignty. The problem can, therefore, be solved only by the fall of the Italian kingdom; and that solution seems to be not far off.

It is believed in England that the Italian revolution is the spontaneous act of the Italian people, and that the Koman people have spontaneously accepted the Italian monarchy. This excites in us but little surprise. The steady, traditional animosity in this country against the government of the Pontiff, predisposed Englishmen to believe what they hoped. Their will made them credulous of all they wished to believe; and not only incredulous, but deaf, to all they wished not to believe. In England we glory in the freedom of the press. But a free press may be the harshest of tyrannies. A free press which publishes everything on one side and nothing on the other, which will not even publish corrections of errors or contradictions of falsehoods, is not a free press: its freedom is licence to oppress truth and justice. Such has been the action of many of the chief journals of this country. The English people read them with confidence and credulity, not knowing the hands by which the foreign correspondence and the leading articles on that correspondence are written. They

INTRODUCTION. Xlll do not know that what they read as the impartial judgment of Englishmen, comes from men whose names would carry their own antidote. The English people have heen unconsciously reading with undoubting trust the systematic misinformations of men pledged or paid, or hoth, to engage the public opinion of this country in favour of the Italian revolution.

In England we cannot conceive it possible that a political party, comparatively few in number, can gain an ascendency over the majority of a people. And yet there is not a revolution in history that has not begun in the action of a minority. If they can only go to the country with a plausible cry, trade on some popular discontent, and gain a momentary political power, by which the public money is at their disposal, all may be done: and there are men enough in army, navy, and every public service, who will go where the sound of money is to be heard, even at any distance. Such has been the growth of the Italian revolution in all its stages through the last five-and-twenty years. It had not one cry only, but two: Fuor d' Italia gli Stranieri, and Abbasso il Governo del Preti. These two cries, against Austria, and against the government of the Pope, were sure to find a response wide enough to be mistaken for the voice of the Italian people. As to

XIV INTRODUCTION.

the first, it truly expressed the desire of Italy, as a like cry would express the desire of other countries whose voice is not heeded. As to the second, it is to be remembered that for half a century an incessant sedition has been actively propagated in all the cities and provinces of the States of the Church. If Belgium had been treated in like manner, no dynasty could have retained its throne. We, in England, guarded by four seas, have been less easily infected by the political propagandism of the revolution. But we must be blind if we do not already discern that our time is coming. We shall pay the penalty of our past. We have countenanced, and flattered, and aided the dangerous political movements of the Continent; and they will pay us back in our own coin. Englishmen have cheered on the revolution against the Pontifical government, believing in their simplicity that they were only pulling down the Pope. Garibaldi and Mazzini have organised their conspiracies not against the Pope only, but against Christianity. Englishmen have been helping on the overthrow of Christianity in Italy. Already the same organisation is spreading among ourselves. But our point now is the will of the Roman people: and I would, therefore, ask any fair man to weigh these facts. 1. Rome was seized in September 1870 by an overwhelming Italian army. From that day all plebiscites and votings are visibly no longer free.

  1. Kome has been from that day under the constant intimidation of a mob gathered from all parts of Italy; the cries of which reveal its will and its intentions. In face of this, no private person is free from danger. Not only were illuminations forced on the unwilling, but counter illuminations were ventured with peril.

  2. The Romans were unable to vote in any political elections; both by the fact that they would thereby acknowledge tacitly the authority of the Italian government in Borne, and by the fact that the exercise of the electoral suffrage was coupled with an oath of allegiance to the Italian monarchy. The elections therefore have gone by default, the Romans abstaining from voting.

  3. In the plebiscite, it has been ascertained, by every possible test, that not more than 14,000 Romans voted: the rest were men from all parts of Italy, who entered with the besieging army; or soldiers, or impiegati, of the Italian government.

  4. In the late municipal elections the government candidates would have been rejected, but for the votes of some three or four thousand foreign impiegati of the government.

XVI INTRODUCTION.

For these and many other reasons we are convinced that the will of the Roman people has never been freely expressed.

What has been said of Rome may be said of Italy. The Italian population is about twenty- six millions. A calculation has been made by Italians fully versed in the political movements of their country, and close observers of recent events, from which it results that not more than three millions spread over the face of Italy are to be counted as the governing party in its present revolutionary state. It may be asked, why do not the majority assert themselves? Any one at all versed in history, or in the events of the movements in France and Spain, well knows that a small organised minority will always and for a long time prevail over an unorganised majority. But it will be asked again, why should the majority be unorganised? The fact is, that majorities are always unorganised. They are content, actively or passively, with the existing order of legitimate governments. The discontented organise themselves in some new forms of aggression, to change or to destroy what exists. The mass of the people are always taken unawares, and are at a disadvantage at the first, and for some time; it may be for many years, until the events of revolutionary changes gradually elicit a counter-organisation, by which at last the will of the people is really known. This I believe to be strictly true of Italy, and of Rome. Already the Catholic sense of Italy has begun to make itself felt. The late municipal elections were carried in many places by the number of those who explicitly voted in the Catholic sense. In Rome, the government candidates would have been beaten if the government impiegati, drawn from all parts of Italy, had not voted: even so, if the Romans, who are faithful to the Sovereign Pontiff, had not abstained from voting, the government candidates would have been beaten. It may be asked, why did they abstain? The answer is plain. Hitherto they have abstained from all voting, as a protest against the existing usurpation. In this case they were not directed to vote. They were left to their free choice; and the majority of them persevered in taking no part in what they regard as revolutionary and of short duration. That the sense of religion and of justice in Italy will before long find its organisation, and rise up against the impiety and injustice which now scourges the country, no one can doubt. The time is not indeed ripe as yet; and all things must be worse before they can be better. There is a crisis to be passed, which will, I fear, take a severe account

XV111 INTRODUCTION.

of Italy and of Kome. But God is over His Church, and His eyes are upon His people.

Here we may turn away from this ignoble part of the conflict. The chief work of the government in Rome seems to be the spoliation of convents, the expulsion of religious orders, and the de-christianising of education. We may leave it to fill up the cup of its iniquities. God only can intervene to stay this sacrilege, and He will do so.

There is, however, one point in this history so evidently critical as to form an epoch: I mean the Council of the Vatican; and of this a few words must be added.

No one who was present in the year 1867 will ever forget the moment when the Sovereign Pontiff first announced his intention of convoking an (Ecumenical Council. It was in the last Consistory which closed the eighteenth centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom. We were sitting in the aula over the portico of St. Peter's, not knowing whether we should ever meet again in Rome; for the September convention was then expiring, and the protection of France in a few months would have ceased to guard the Holy See. It was then that Pius IX., with the confidence of faith which has ever sustained his own calmness and the courage of all about him, declared his in-

INTRODUCTION. XIX tention to convene the Bishops of the whole world once more at Rome. I do not know how any one can fail to see in this a higher power, and a prescience more than his own, guiding the Head of the Church. The state of the Church and of the world demanded a remedy more potent than human legislation. The intellectual and moral aberrations of the last three hundred years had reached a point beyond which there lay only ruin to the civil order of nations. The ultimate power of the Church of (rod was required to deal with the evils of the Christian world. An (Ecumenical Council was therefore convened. The four winds of heaven were holden till the Council had been assembled, and had done its chiefest work. The tempest then fell in a day upon Europe; in the midst of which the government of Italy usurped Rome, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ became morally a prisoner in his own city.

But I do not purpose to dwell on these facts, patent to all the world. I wish to trace out the chief lines of a new persecution which has arisen against the Church. Before the assembling of the Council, it was foreseen that the civil powers would be invoked to control its liberty of action. Of this we were well aware; and I may be excused if I repeat here what I wrote hefore leaving England for the Council: —

' The tendency of civil society everywhere is to depart farther and farther from the Church. Progress in these days means, to advance along the line of departure from the old Christian order of the world. The civil society of Christendom is the offspring of the Christian family, and the foundation of the Christian family is the Sacrament of Matrimony. From this spring domestic and public morals. Most governments of Europe have ceased to recognise in marriage anything beyond the civil contract, and, by legalising divorce, have broken up the perpetuity of even that natural compact. With this will surely perish the morality of society and of homes. A settlement in the foundations may be slow in sinking; but it brings all down at last. The civil and political society of Europe is steadily returning to the mere natural order. The next step in de-christianising the political life of nations is to establish national education without Christianity. This is systematically aimed at, wheresoever the Revolution has its way. This may, before long, be attempted among ourselves. It is already in operation elsewhere. The Church must then form its own schools; and the civil power will first refuse its aid, and soon its per-

INTRODUCTION. XXI mission, that parents should -educate their offspring, except in State universities and State schools. The period and the policy of Julian is returning. All this bodes ill for the Church; but worse for the State. The depression of the moral order of right and truth is the elevation of the material order of coercion and of force. The civil powers of the world do not choose this course; they only advance in it. There is behind them a power invisible, which urges them onward in their estrangements from the Church; and that unseen power is at work everywhere. It is one, universal, invisible, but not holy; the true natural and implacable enemy of the One, Visible, Universal Church. The anti-christian societies are one in aim and operation, even if they be not one in conscious alliance. And the governments of the world, some consciously, others unconsciously, disbelieving the existence of such societies, and therefore all the more surely under their influence, are being impelled towards a precipice over which mon-archies and law and the civil order of the Christian society of men will go together. It is the policy of the secret societies to engage governments in quarrels with Rome. The breach is made, and the Revolution enters. The Catholic society of Europe has been weakened, and wounded; it may be, unto death.

The Catholic Church now stands alone, as in the beginning, in its divine isolation and power. ' And now, 0 ye kings, understand: receive instruction, you that judge the earth.'1 There is an ahyss before you, into which thrones, and laws, and rights, and liberties may sink together. You have to choose between the Eevolution and the Church of God. As you choose, so will your lot be. The General Council gives to the world one more witness for the truths, laws, and sanctities which include all that is pure, noble, just, venerable, upon earth. It will be an evil day for any State in Europe if it engage in conflict with the Church of God. No weapon formed against it ever yet has prospered. The governments of Europe have been for the last year agitated and uncertain; the attitude of France is wise and deliberate, worthy of a great people with the traditions of Catholic history at its back. The attitude of other great Powers is also hitherto dignified and serious, proportionate to great responsibilities. Lesser potentates and their counsellors may circulate notes and resolve questions, and furnish matter for newspapers; but they are not the men to move mountains.

' Whilst I was writing these lines, a document has appeared purporting to be the answers of the 1 Psalm ii. 10.

INTRODUCTION. XX111

Theological Faculty of Munich to the questions of the Bavarian government.

' The questions and the answers are so evidently concerted, if not written by the same hand, and the animus of the document so evidently hostile to the Holy See, and so visibly intended to create embarrassment for the supreme authority of the Church, both in respect to its past acts and also in respect to the future action of the (Ecumenical Council, that I cannot pass it over. But in speaking of it I am compelled, for the first time, to break silence on a danger which has for some years been growing in its proportions, and, I fear I must add, in its attitude of menace. The answers of the University of Munich are visibly intended to excite fear and alarm in the civil powers of Europe; and thereby to obstruct the action of the (Ecumenical Council, if it should judge it to be opportune to define the Infallibility of the Pope. The answers are also intended to create an impression that the theological proofs of the doctrine are inadequate, and its definition beset with uncertainty and obscurity. In a word, the whole correspondence is a transparent effort to obstruct the freedom of the (Ecumenical Council on the subject of the Infallibility of the Pontiff; or, if that doctrine be defined, to instigate

XXIV ' INTRODUCTION.

the civil governments to assume a hostile attitude towards the Holy See. And this comes in the name of liberty, and from those who tell us that the Council will not he free!

' I shall take the liberty, without farther words, of dismissing the Bavarian government from our thoughts. But I must declare, with much regret, that this Munich document appears to me to be seditious.

' Facts like these give a certain warrant to the assertions and prophecies of politicians and Protestants. They prove that in the Catholic Church there is a school at variance with the doctrinal teaching of the Holy See in matters which are not of faith. But they do not reveal how small that school is. Its centre would seem to be at Munich; it has, both in France and in England, a small number of adherents. They are active, they correspond, and for the most part write anonymously. It would be difficult to describe its tenets, for none of its followers seem to be agreed on all points. Some hold the Infallibility of the Pope, and some defend the Temporal Power. Nothing appears to be common to all, except an animus of opposition to the acts of the Holy See in matters outside the faith.'2

2 Petri Privilegium, pp. 128 seqq. The (Ecumenical Council and the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. London, 1869.

INTRODUCTION. XXV

When these words were written, it was already believed that the Bavarian government, through Prince Hohenlohe, had begun a systematic agitation against the Council. It was known that he had addressed a circular note to the European governments. But the text of that note was not, so far as I know, ever made public. I am able now to give the text in full. It affords abundant proof of the assertion here made, that a deliberate conspiracy against the Council was planned with great artifice, and speciousness of matter and of language. Moreover the date of this document shows how long before the opening of the Council this opposition was commenced. The Council was opened on December 8th, 1869; Prince Hohenlohe' s note is dated on the 9th of the April preceding, that is to say, about eight months before the Council began. It runs as follows:

c

XXVI INTRODUCTION.

sideration, it appears to me indispensable for every government to give it their attention; and it is with this view that I am about to address to you some observations.

' Tt is not probable that the Council will occupy itself only with doctrines appertaining to pure theology; there does not exist at this moment any problem of this nature which requires a conciliar solution. The only dogmatic thesis which Home would wish to have decided by the Council, and which the Jesuits in Italy and Germany are now agitating, is the question of the Infallibility of the Pope. It is evident that this pretension, elevated into a dogma, would go far beyond the purely spiritual sphere, and would become a question eminently political, as raising the power of the Sovereign Pontiff, even in temporal matters, over all the princes and peoples of Christendom. This doctrine therefore is of such a nature as to arouse the attention of all those governments who rule over Catholic subjects.

' There is a circumstance which increases still more the gravity of the situation. I learn that among the commissions delegated to prepare matter, which later on is to be submitted to the deliberations of the Council, there is one which is occupied only on mixed questions, affecting equally international law,

INTRODUCTION. XXV11 politics, and canon law. All these preparations justify our believing that it is the fixed intention of the Holy See, or at least of a party at present powerful in Kome, to promulgate through the Council a series of decrees upon questions which are rather political than ecclesiastical. Add to this that the Civilta Cattolica — a periodical conducted by the Jesuits, and bearing an official character through the brief of the Holy Father — has just demanded that the Council shall transform into conciliar decrees the condemnations of the Syllabus, published on December 8th, 1864. Now the articles of this encyclical being directed against principles which are the base of modern public life, such as we find it among all civilised nations, it follows that governments are under the necessity of asking themselves if it is not their duty to invite the serious consideration, both of the Bishops who are their subjects, and of the future Council, to the sad consequences of such a premeditated and systematic overturning of the present relations between Church and State. It cannot indeed be denied that it is a matter of urgency for governments to combine, for the purpose of protesting, either through their agents in Rome, or in some other way, against all decisions which the Council may promulgate without the concurrence

XXV111 INTRODUCTION.

of the representatives of the secular power, in questions which are at the same time of a political and religious nature.

intentions of the court of in respect to the course which it deems it advisable to follow. You will submit for the approbation of M. - - the question whether it would not be advisable to fix beforehand the measures to be taken, if not jointly, at least identically, in order to enlighten the Holy See as to the attitude which the governments of the Continent will assume in reference to the (Ecumenical Council; or whether conferences composed of representatives of the States concerned would not be considered as the best means to bring about an understanding between their governments.

' I authorise you to leave a copy of this despatch

INTRODUCTION. XXIX with the Minister for Foreign Affairs at - —, if he desires it; and I wish you to inform me as early as possible of the manner in which this communication shall have heen received. ' I have the honour, &c.

4 Munich, April 9, 1869. HOHENLOHE.'

Who can doubt by what hand this truly theological document was written?

The indiction of the Council was no sooner published than the well-known volume called Janus appeared. It was said to be the work of many hands, and of various nations — of two at least. The chief object of its animosity was Rome, and its detailed hostility was levelled against the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff and the Syllabus. The book was elaborately acrimonious and extravagantly insolent against Rome. Its avowed aim was to rouse the civil governments against the Council. The Sovereign Pontiff had, with great wisdom and justice, dealt with the governments of Europe on the ground chosen by themselves. They had renounced the Catholic relations of union hitherto subsisting between the civil and spiritual powers. Pius IX. took them at their word. He convened the spiritual legislature of the Church; he did not12 invite those who have gloried in their separation from it. This, again, sharpened the jealousy and suspicion of the governments. At this time came forth certain publications — to which I will not more explicitly refer — avowedly intended to excite the civil powers to active opposition.

Ahout the month of September 1869, as I have already said, a document containing five questions was proposed by the Bavarian government to the Theological Faculty at Munich. No one could for a moment doubt by what hand those interrogatories also were framed: they were intended to elicit the answer, that the action of the Council, if it were to define the Infallibility of the Koman Pontiff, would be irreconcilable not only with Catholic doctrine, but with the security of civil governments. In due time the answers appeared, leaving no doubt that both the questions and the replies were inspired by one mind, if not written by one and the same hand.

We have already seen that Prince Hohenlohe, President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bavaria, addressed a letter to the French and other Catholic governments, calling on them to interfere and to prevent the ' fearful dangers ' to which the Council would expose the modern world. Next, the Spanish Minister, Olozaga, hoped that

INTRODUCTION. XXXI the Council would not meet, or at least would ' not approve, sanction, or ratify the Syllabus, which is in contradiction with modern civilisation.' He then threatened the Church with the hostility of a league formed by the governments of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Bavaria. An Italian infidel then took up the game and proposed an An ti- (Ecumenical Council' to meet at Naples. A French infidel was invited, who promised that his soul should be present, and said: 'It is an efficacious and noble idea to assemble a council of ideas to oppose to the council of dogmas. I accept it. On the one side is theocratic obstinacy, on the other the human mind. The human mind is a divine mind, its rays on the earth, its star is above... If I cannot go to Naples, nevertheless I shall be there. My soul will be there. I cry, Courage! and I squeeze your hand.' The reader will forgive my repeating this trash, which is here inserted only to show how the liberals and infidels of Europe rose up at the instigation of Dr. Dollinger to meet the coming Council.

About the month of June in 1869 another despatch was addressed by Prince Hohenlohe to the other governments, inviting them to make common cause against the Council. It was extensively believed to be inspired by Prussia, the policy of which was thought to be, to put in contrast the liberty accorded to its own Catholic subjects in respect of the Council with the pedantic meddling of the Bavarian government. At this time General Menabrea, under the same inspiration, addressed a circular to his diplomatic agents, proposing to the Powers to prevent the assembling of the Council, on the ground of their not having been invited to it. It was supposed at that time that this policy also was secretly supported by Berlin. A joint despatch was sent by Prince Hohenlohe and the Italian government to the French government, urging the withdrawal of the French troops from Home during the Council, to insure its freedom of deliberation!

Such were the preparations to oppose the Council before it had assembled. It met on December 8th, 1869. In the following January Dr. Dollinger received the freedom of a German city in reward for his attacks on the Catholic doctrine of the prerogatives of the Holy See.

When the well-known postulatum of the Bishops, asking that the definition of the Papal Infallibility should be proposed to the Council, was made public, Dr. Dollinger openly assailed it; and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Daru, addressed a letter to the Holy See with a view to prevent the

INTRODUCTION. XXX111 definition. Home was at that time full of rumours and threats that the protection of the French army would be withdrawn. I had personally an opportunity of knowing that these threats were not mere rumours.

At the same moment while France was attacking the definition of the Pope's Infallibility, the Protestant Chancellor of Austria, Count von Beust, addressed himself to the Canons of the Schema, published in the Augsburg Gazette, which he declared would ' provoke deplorable conflicts between the Church and State.' Every European government from that time put a pressure more or less upon the Council to prevent the definition.

The source of this opposition, then, was Munich. The chief agent beyond all doubt was one who in his earlier days had been greatly venerated in Germany and in England. Truth compels me to ascribe to Dr. Dollinger the initiative in this deplorable attempt to coerce the Holy See and to overbear the liberty of the Bishops assembled in Council. Prince Hohenlohe is assuredly no theologian. The documents published by him came from another mind and hand. Such was the opposition before and during the Council.

What I have hitherto said to prove the conspiracy of certain European governments, and the intrigues of the Old Catholics against the Council, both before

XXXI V INTRODUCTION.

its assembling and during its sessions, would not have been needed if the Diary of the Council by Professor Friedrich had sooner come into my hands. I have been feeling in the dark for proofs which he brings to light by a series of astounding confessions. I had always believed in the conspiracy: but I never knew how systematic and how self-confident it was. I had always known that the Gnostic vain-glory of German scientific historians was its chief instigator; but I never before imagined the stupendous conceit or the malevolent pride of its professors. A critique of Professor Friedrich's Diary? by some strong German hand, has appeared lately in one of our journals; and I cannot refrain from giving certain passages in final confirmation of what I have said above.

And first as to the governments. Professor Friedrich puts into the mouth of a diplomatist the following words: ' The means by which the greatest amount of influence might be brought to bear on the Council, would be a determined and plain manifestation of the public opinion of Europe in favour of the minority. Clearly the Curia could not prevent this; and it would add strength and numbers to the opposition, by giving it the assurance that, if at the last moment it found itself obliged to protest and appeal

3 Appendix to Tablet Newspaper, Oct. 5 and 12, 1872.

INTRODUCTION. XXXV to the nation, the governments and all intelligent laymen would support it. This measure would also secure weak and doubtful Bishops' (Diary, p. 184). On the 26th of December 1869 Friedrich wrote: ' That he was considered by many persons to be residing in 'Rome as the representative of an approaching schism, if the majority obtained the upper hand in the Council' (p. 41). He says in another place: ' It would not be the first time in the history of the Church that a schism had broken out. Church history recounts many such, besides that of the Greeks' (p. 196). The critic of Professor Friedrich's book writes as follows: ' The alliance between "German science" and diplomacy was not productive of all the results which at first had been looked for. Friedrich expresses himself very bitterly on this point; nevertheless he endeavoured all the more to excite German science to fresh efforts. Under date of the 27th of March -(p. 202), he writes: " The governments are by degrees acting an almost ridiculous part towards the Council. First boasts; then embarrassment, connected with meaningless threats; and at last the confession that the right time has passed by, and that the Curia has command of the situation. If German science had not saved its position, and been able to establish a firm opposition in the Coun-

XXXVI INTRODUCTION.

cil, even in contradiction to its own will, and kept it alive; and if our Lord God had not also set stupidity and ignorance on the side of the Curia and of the majority — the governments would have been put to shame in the sight of the whole world. Prince Hohenlohe, in fact, is the only statesman possessed of a deeper insight in this question, and by degrees he has come to be looked upon as belonging to the minority.":

A few words must be added as to the pretensions of * German science.'

Some years ago an address was delivered to the University of Munich, in which were found certain extravagances which were believed, at least so it was hoped, to be rhetorical phrases. It was said that the.candlestick of theology had been removed from Italy, and that its place now was in Germany alone; that scientific theologians hold now the office of the prophets under the old law; that it is by. them that the public opinion of the Church is elaborated and formed; and that by this public opinion the doctrinal office of the Church is governed, and to it the authority of the Holy See must ultimately conform itself.

We never supposed that these dreams would pass beyond the lecture-room of a professor. But the Diai«y before us shows that these mental intoxica-

INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 tions have been in close contact with the Vatican Council.

Professor Friedrich shall give his own account of himself. A more mournful and odious exhibition of conceit and feebleness can hardly be found. He declares himself to be the sole representative of German science at the Council (p. 329). According to page 37, until the arrival of Hefele, it was represented by him alone; the rest of the theologians * having come to Eome without any scientific preparation, and practising theology only in a haphazard manner.' But Hefele maintained in the Council that the Council of Florence was oecumenical; on which Friedrich declared that he should be destitute of all help, and should still be the solitary theologian who alone had any scientific education. After speaking of the Bishops of the majority in terms of gross depreciation, Friedrich adds: ' And if even among this class of people some really excellent characters are to be found, ignorance of the history of the

Church, and especially of the Councils, is a great hindrance in their path; for in these critical circumstances it is only from such sources the light can come which can guide us out of our difficulties.'

Of the Bishops of the minority he goes on to say (May 15, 1870, p. 247): ' It is often a sort of silent

XXXV111 INTRODUCTION.

satisfaction to me when I hear from one person or another, after the lapse of two or three, or even more weeks, things that were derived from myself only; and which through myself alone came to the knowledge of these gentlemen. They even accept and reproduce my own ideas. They do not know, however, by whom this thing or that was put in circulation. And that is very well; for, as matters stand at present, it would cause great suspicion if it were to be discovered that anything took its origin from my witches' kitchen.' At page 318 he says: ' I am still very curious to know what part I shall one day play in an Ultramontane history of the Vatican Council.' This self-importance besets the man like a possession. At page 7 he talks of Jesuit poison. At page 61 he says the Pope himself was afraid of him. At pages 161 and 190, that he was pursued with unceasing hatred because he was a Munich professor; but at page 227 he is indignant that the Jesuit Father Schrader had no idea that he was in Rome. At page 317 he is angry with the Univers for the same reason. At page 318 he will not believe that the Pope had not been told that he had been in Rome a long time. But we must come to graver matter.

Friedrich says, at page 82, that in all Councils, Trent included, science formed the highest court of

INTRODUCTION. XXXIX appeal; but at page 239 he affirms that, ' in all this the Vatican Council was entirely deficient; that theological science was wholly excluded; that therefore the Council could never be regarded as truly oecumenical.' At page 203 he says: 'Even at the time when I felt the greatest anxiety and perplexity on the subject, it was always clear to me, and I had no scruple in saying so repeatedly, that it would be theologians exclusively who ivould have to decide whether the Council was oecumenical or not. I have always felt firmly convinced that its oecumenical character would be denied; and no one must imagine that the power of theology is of as little account as it is attempted here to make it appear. The time will come, and I see it already approaching, when neither the Index, suspension, nor even excommunication itself, will have any effect.' He then adds: ' As for myself, I am firmly persuaded that the Holy Spirit will first constrain the Bishops by His power to make themselves capable, before they can be rendered His organ for any definition of faith. That we theologians will have to take a part in the decision of the principal question, is also equally clear to me.' The Council of the Vatican was not convened an hour too soon. If the Gnosticism of what has well been called the Professordom of Germany had been xl INTRODUCTION.

allowed to spread its mixture of conceited illuminism and contemptuous rationalism for a few years longer, the faith of multitudes might have heen irremediably lost; and Germany, which now presents the noblest fidelity and constancy in its Episcopate, in its Priesthood, and in its laity, might have heen a prey to the Old Catholic schism, or to the tyrannical liberalism of those who deify the civil power.

We will now look at the events which followed the Council. It was no sooner suspended than at Munich began the ' old Catholic' schism. As a religious movement it was unworthy of notice. This even its leaders evidently felt. The exposures of Frohschammer, and the language of the Augsburg Gazette, showed that, as a religious movement, it was sterile, and doomed to extinction. But as a political movement it had better hopes. It was certain that all the unbelievers, all the rationalists, all the worldly, all the anti-catholic politicians, all the freemasons, all the so-called liberals, all who hate the supernatural, especially in the forms of what they call Sacerdotalism and of Ultramontanism — that is, of Christianity in its fulness of grace and of authority, would flow together into one common tide of hostility to the Vatican Council, and to the definition of the Infallibility of the Eoman Pontiff. But they

INTRODUCTION. xli could not unite in a doctrinal or a religious controversy against it. Every time they met to do so, they separated in irreconcilable religious confusions. Frohschammer told them plainly that he was the only consistent ' old Catholic:' that to reject the Infallibility of the Pope, and to retain the infallibility of the Church, was to stultify themselves; that ' scientific history' either refutes both, or neither; that to hold the Council of Trent, and to reject the Council of the Vatican, was still more incoherent and unworthy of ' cultured men.' Others, again, laid down as the programme of ' old Catholicism' the rejection of the celibacy of the clergy, compulsory confession, the Immaculate Conception, and the like. This to the Tridentine ' old Catholics' was fatal. On the basis of revelation, or religion, or doctrine, no common ground was to be found. It was therefore necessary to find a common ground outside of religion. It was ready to their hand in the political animosity against Home with which the Bavarian government had been inspired by Dr. Dollinger. As a religious movement, therefore, the ' old Catholic' schism may be considered to be at an end. Its last act has been to involve itself in the excommunication by which the Jansenists of Holland have been formally cut off from Catholic unity. The mission of the Jansenist d

Archbishop of Utrecht to Munich closes this part of the history. But the true character and work of this schism is to be traced in the politics of the German Chancellor.

For some time after the closing of the war in France, it appeared that the government of Prussia was disposed to act with calm and reasonableness. Certain professors holding chairs by the nomination of the government were suspended for refusing submission to the Vatican Council. The government declared that the public law of Prussia recognised the Council of Trent; but that it had never incorporated the Council of the Vatican in the public law of the State. This was in one sense true, in another it was obviously unreasonable. The public law of Prussia recognised not Councils, at any time, but the Catholic Church, and therefore whatsoever the Church, whether in or out of Council, should declare to be the Catholic faith. No such plea was set up at the time of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. If, then, the government of Prussia had said, ' Give us official knowledge of any new definitions which enter into your faith, and we will recognise them as obligations on the professors appointed by us,' it would have acted with justice, and would have shown a desire to maintain the relations of peace

INTRODUCTION. xliii then existing between Prussia and the Catholic Church. But this the government did not say. It endeavoured by a high hand to maintain heretical professors as the instructors of Catholic youth: from which it may be inferred, without injustice to the Prussian government, that it desired to quarrel. This was speedily followed by the legislation which excludes the Catholic clergy from the management of schools: and this again by the nomination of Cardinal Hohenlohe as ambassador to represent Germany at the Holy See. Whether this proposal was intended to throw on the Sovereign Pontiff the odious necessity of a refusal, which to the public opinion of Europe should have the appearance of discourtesy, unreasonableness, and an implacable opposition, I will not venture to say. It is certain that Pius IX. could return no other answer. Cardinal Hohenlohe is already so united to the sovereignty of the Holy See that he could not represent any other sovereign. He is also one of the Sacred College, whose office it is to elect the Pontiff. No ambassador of any civil power can be admitted to such a trust. Every Catholic nation in the world would rise up to protest against it. Every Catholic throughout the world would be bound to denounce the attempt to introduce in the Conclave the national influence of any government. The utmost that has

Xliv INTRODUCTION.

ever been allowed as a concession to Catholic nations, while they were faithful to the Holy See, was a veto upon some one member of the Sacred College whose election they supposed to be adverse to their welfare. But this veto could only be exercised before the election. The Pontiff once elected, all vetos were null. It is an historical error to say that French cardinals have been ambassadors of France at Rome. They were not ambassadors. They were only charges d'affaires: and even this was an anomaly sufficiently inconvenient, and tolerated only because the crown and people of France were at that time altogether Catholic. What parity, then, is there in this respect between France and Prussia? Nevertheless, down to this stage of the controversy there was nothing on the part of the Prussian government to forbid a hope of reconciliation. It is perhaps not safe for us to speak confidently on the state of public feeling in any country except our own. And even here we know how hard it is to form a correct and adequate judgment. Nevertheless, I must venture to say, that there were abundant evidences to show that the Catholics of Ger-many would have accepted, some with zeal, others with passive acquiescence, the political unity of the German empire. The love of Fatherland had united them through the sufferings and losses of the war in

INTRODUCTION. xv

France. They were willing to consolidate their great victories by the unity of Germany. The differences of religion had not hindered their fighting and dying side hy side; neither would this have hindered their living together in a solid political unity. Only one man could hinder this consummation: and he has hindered it. He has made it impossible in conscience for Catholics to obey. They would have been good subjects if he would have let them; but by some inexplicable policy he has refused to let them be loyal. He has forced on them the alternative of violation of conscience or opposition to his laws. We, in this country, should have thought that the history of England and of Ireland would have rendered impossible so stupendous a political error. The Catholic religion would have consolidated the civil obedience of Germany to the empire. It has been the only element which has made Ireland submissive. Religious persecution has made Ireland ungovernable even by the imperial power of England: it is the cessation of anti-catholic legislation which is slowly drawing Ireland to a willing union with Great Britain. The German Chancellor appears to be reversing this policy: and in the very moment when he has completed the political unity of his country he has opened its religious division with an intensity which can be xv INTRODUCTION.

overcome only by one of two policies. He must retrace his steps, or he must carry through in the nineteenth century a persecution which, after two hundred years of unequalled cruelty and injustice in England and in Ireland, has utterly failed, and has been abandoned as wicked and foolish. It may be that, flushed with the overthrow of Austria in the east, and of France in the west, he may contemplate the overthrow of Bavaria in the south, and that he may desire a religious quarrel as a pretext for a political and military conquest. But this is a policy which cannot last.

I have said, that, at the outset, the acts and speeches of the Chancellor of the Empire gave reason to believe that his broader intuitions, and calmer consciousness of strength, would have led him to adjust peacefully and solidly the relations of the German Empire with the Catholic Church. We were led to hope this for many reasons, among which this was one: kingcraft has become a losing trade. The governing powers of the world are weak; and the millions of all countries have become in every ten years since 1789 more and more ungovernable. The political constitutions of Europe have ceased to be commensurate to the needs of the people. The population of every European state has outgrown its institutions in number, needs, and power. The governing classes everywhere are a numerical minority, and are exposed to the odium and animosity attaching to privileged classes. They possess political ascendency, without possessing also real effective power (to maintain themselves against popular animosity, or revolutionary movements. The discontented classes are in a great majority everywhere. At this crisis of European society an organisation arises in every country, united by a common aim, namely to destroy utterly the old Christian and civil-ised society of the world. In 1848 it challenged the aristocracies of Europe to fight for their existence. It now challenges legislatures, and authority as such, in every form, to defend itself by force, or to be swept off the face of the earth. The war in 1848 was against privileged classes. The war now is against the society of mankind; against property, nation, and family.

I shall be told that these are the utterances of madmen. That may be. But madmen can set the house on fire, and are more likely to do so than men of sound mind. We have these madmen by hundreds of thousands in all countries of Europe. When then the German race united itself into one great empire, I believe the Catholics of many countries xlviii INTKODUCTION.

looked on with hope and sympathy. They hoped for three results, which would have been blessings to Christian Europe. First, that a powerful empire would block the path of war between the great empires of East and West, and thereby give security for peace. Secondly, that the civil authority of Ger-many would be so strong as to guarantee the social order of central Europe against anti- social revolutions; and thirdly, that the peaceful and loyal Catholic populations of Germany would live securely under the shelter of a great empire, whose every interest would bind it to respect the liberty of the Catholic Church. There would, we believed, be no more contented and faithful subjects of the Emperor William than the Catholics of Germany; no more friendly and respectful well-wishers than the Catholics of almost every country in Europe.

All this has been deliberately ruined by the later policy of the Prussian government. This policy seems to be a medley made up at Munich and at Florence; a conspiracy of Janus and Cavour. The simultaneous action of the German and the Italian governments against religious education and the religious orders points to a common policy; in which, however, the German government has pre-eminence of injustice. The Italian government has indeed, at the time I am writing, seized the House of the Gesu; but the German government has by a legislative act expelled the Jesuits from its territory. This is an ignoble act, view it how you will. A body of men, without accusation, without evidence, without judgment, and therefore without fault; citizens invested with every civil right enjoyed by every subject of the Prussian. Crown, from the Imperial Chancellor to the boatman upon the Khine, driven into exile from home and country by a, blind and passionate vote. And not the Jesuits only, but 'the Liguorian Brothers,' whosoever they may be, and ' all kindred societies,' are likewise under the ban of the empire. The Prussian government has therefore created a new crime, that is, freedom of conscience. It has tarnished the name of Emperor William with the imputation of tyrannical acts worthy of Henry VIII. But this is not all. There is no resting-place in this descent; nor any power to check the course of persecution once begun. The illusion of a free Church in a free State deceives nobody at Berlin. The banishment of the Jesuits is but a skirmish of outposts. The true battle is against the Bishops of the Church, and in them against the Church itself. To the Bishop of Ermland belongs the honour of being the first struck at in this conflict. The children of St. Thomas of

Canterbury will pray for him in his fidelity to one of the chief liberties of the Church for which our great Martyr died. It was precisely for refusing to absolve from excommunication those who were unworthy of absolution that St. Thomas won his crown. In the northern transept of his Cathedral, and at the last moment of his life, one of his murderers cried out, ' Absolve the Bishops, whom you have excommunicated.' He answered, ' I will do nothing more than I have already said and done.' This is literally tlfc cause of the Bishop of Ermland. And for this the government pretends to inhibit him from the exercise of all episcopal acts; that is from the exercise of the authority which he has received, not from men nor by men, but from the Holy Ghost. Such is the account which has reached us. It is not indeed easy, as I have said, to know the truth in respect to foreign affairs. The inculpable blunders and the culpable misrepresentations of journalists and correspondents have reached to such a pitch that we must always speak with caution. Nevertheless, I believe what has hitherto been said to be within the truth. It was some time ago announced that if the Bishop of Ermland should refuse to withdraw the excommunication, he would be stripped of the temporalities of his See. As it is certain that not a Bishop in Germany would so pro-

INTRODUCTION. H stitute his divine authority, they must be stripped of their temporalities, one by one, as occasion shall arise. It is more probable that another vote of the Reichstag will save all trouble by proclaiming a separation of the Church from the State; but when that shall come, it will not be a free Church in a free State. A power which has exiled Jesuits for no crime but their existence as Jesuits, has effaced religious liberty and freedom of conscience from the statutes of the empire. It is more likely to offer to the Church subservience as the condition of existence; that is, of a Church in bondage to a State not free; for when conscience is under the coercion of human laws, to prate of freedom is hypocrisy. The attack upon the Jesuits and kindred orders, therefore, is a transparent feint. The real attack is upon the Church. The pretence of distinguishing between Ultramontanism and Catholicism is too stale to deceive any Catholic. The Holy See is Ultramontane, the Vatican Council was Ultramontane, the whole Episcopate is Ultramontane, the whole Priesthood, the whole body of the Faithful throughout all nations, excepting only a handful here and there of rationalistic or liberal Catholics, all are Ultramontanes. Ultramontanism is Popery, and Popery is Catholicism. Even English Protestants are not to be caught with such chaff. They

Hi INTBODUCTION.

do not believe in a Catholic who says that he does not believe in the Infallibility of the Pope. They know that this was explicitly or implicitly contained and affirmed in the Supremacy of the Pope for which our martyrs died. They know that their fathers persecuted ours for this, which they call Popery. There is no Catholicism to attack except Ultramontanism; and it is Catholicism that is attacked now: witness the exclusion of the clergy from the schools; the maltreatment of the Bishop of Ermland, and of Mgr. Namzanowski; and finally the official threats of laws now preparing to regulate the Catholic Church in Germany. The air is full of rumours, which may be false and foolish; but they may be true. The Prussian journals tell us that by the new laws the examination of candidates for Ordination is to be held in the presence of a government commissary; that Episcopal Seminaries are to be subject to the government; that the manuals of theology are to be examined and approved by the government; that no successor to Pius IX. is to be recognised in Germany unless he consents to rescind the acts of the Vatican Council. These are not the ravings of madmen, but the deliberate threats of ' Liberals.' One mask at least is taken off. The most despotic tyranny is the Liberalism of the nineteenth century. It no

INTRODUCTION. Hii longer comes to us in sheep's clothing. We see it for what it is. But do these men really believe that they will have their will? If eighteen centuries of experience are not enough, when will they at last learn that it is ' hard to kick against the goads'? They may inflict much misery, and shed much blood, and make the fair Christian civilisation of Germany like Kussian Poland or Siberia; but the desolation of their Fatherland, the hatred of their own flesh and blood, with the just judgment of God, will be their only reward. Among other rumours that come to us, the two following are perhaps the most significant. An Austrian diplomatist of the highest rank is reported to have said that Italy will never be able to deal with Pius IX. until it has cut off the supplies of Peter 's-pence, and forbidden the concourse of the faithful from all nations to the Vatican. This again is a revelation, precise, direct, and emphatic, of the spirit of Antichrist: ' This man doeth many miracles: if we let him alone, all men will believe in him.'3 This also is the freedom of religion and of conscience of which modern progress is so proudly boastful. The other rumour I give as it comes to me. I have no means of testing its truth; but as it is believed in Berlin, it may as well be known 3 S. John xi. 47, 48.

v INTRODUCTION.

in London. It is said that Prince von Bismarck has addressed a diplomatic note to the German charge d'affaires at' the court of Victor Emmanuel. In it the Chancellor dwells on the impossibility of the co-existence of two sovereignties in Rome; and recommends the removal of the Pope from Italy. The Capitate quotes the German National Zeitung as saying, 'An institution like the Papacy, closely connected with the character and history of the country, cannot be disposed of by a law of guarantees, or the reduction of its real power within a narrow circle, while it is left an unlimited sovereignty in the region of the ideal.1 That is to say, so long as the minds of men are free to believe that Christ has a Yicar upon earth, the German and Italian revolutions are baffled of their completeness. We must make penal laws against the mental freedom of men; we must persecute the inward thoughts of men; we must make faith a felony and a treason; we must erect a Liberal Inquisition to extirpate the Catholic Faith; we must encounter the Infallibility of the Church by the Infallibility of the State ' in the region of the ideal;' and make it penal to differ from the theology of the civil power. The National Zeitung continues: ' The last struggle between the Vatican and the Quirinal has not yet come off.... The

INTRODUCTION. v

Italian government will be more or less obliged to follow in the road which the government of Ger-many has been treading in the last year. Germany and Italy are two creations incompatible with an infallible Papacy.'4 That is to say, they are formally Antichristian. I commend this to any who still believe in Liberalism, or have ever been deceived by the imposture of ' a free Church in a free State.' In confirmation of what is here said, I add the judgment of a very competent writer in Germany: —

' Herr Wagener, a member of the Reichstag, and honoured by the Berlin correspondent of the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung (No. 172), as one of the most confidential intimates of Prince Bismarck, has revealed to us the full import of these events. In his speech on the 14th of June the same officious correspondent tells us that "he expressed with palpable clearness the will of the Chancellor of the Empire." "The German Empire," he remarked, "is at open war with that party which is now in power at Rome, and by this law we have put ourselves in a state of siege" (Sten. Rep. 1,009). A similar character is assigned by another exasperated antagonist of the order, Dr. Yolk, to the course of action set on foot by the law against the Jesuits. " This question is a contest be-

Ivi INTRODUCTION.

tween the Koman Catholic Church, subdued as it has been by the Jesuits, and the German Empire. Such is properly the fight in which we are engaged" (Sten. Eep. 1,022). The well-known canonist of the court, Dr. Dore, also spoke of the war between the Pope and the German Empire. The tone of the press is still more explicit. Its constant strain is: "Down with Catholicism!"

'Wagener's expressions were taken up by the members of the Centre as a declaration of war. " The deputy Herr Wagener," replied Windthorst, "has intimated to us repeatedly and in the most unmeasured terms that he and his — ' We' (the party of Bismarck) — are bent on war to the knife with us, the representatives of the greatest part of the Catholic people. Gentlemen, the Catholics of Ger-many do not wish for a war, they wish to live in peace. If you will not allow them to do so, if you wish to declare war against them in such a brutal manner — well! you shall have it, since we are forced to defend ourselves with all the energy we can" (Sten. Rep. 1,013). Then the orators of both sides declared, one after the other, " The war has begun."

' We have, therefore, the most interesting spectacle— a war between the two greatest powers of the

INTRODUCTION. Ivii

Continent, between the most powerful State and its greatest Church; and the most important action that has occurred till now has been the debate on the law against the Jesuits. Although it has been said at different times during the debates that the assailants did not wish to fight against the Church, but only against that party which is now dominant at Rome and in the Church, it comes in the end to the same. Did not Prussia also say in the beginning of the French war that she did not march against the French people, but against its ruler? It would seem that in Germany the attack is not aimed against the Jesuits only. "The law against the Jesuits," said its proposer, Dr. Mayer, "is but the taking up of our first position in this war" (Sten. Rep. 1,063). Other measures have already been taken against the Catholic Episcopate and clergy, or are prepared for the future. At Berlin they already are turning their thoughts to the question of the next Conclave, in order to secure a pliable Pope, who may allow the foundation of national churches. For, according to the view of one of the principal counsellors of the government, Dr. Gneist, interference with the jurisdiction of the State is "inseparable from the essence of a Universal Church;" religious peace is endangered by "the immutable position of the Uni-

Iviii3 versal Church, and peace is here only possible hy an appeal to the majesty of the State" (Ibid. 422- 423).

' The gravity of the struggle against this character of the Catholic Church has not been under-estimated in the Reichstag. Wagener himself, who so courageously gave the signal for the combat, confessed "that the expeditions against Rome in matters spiritual to which we now are called, are attended with as much danger as were military operations against Rome in the middle ages" (Ibid. 862). "For my part," exclaimed another exasperated enemy of the Jesuits, " I have entered upon this contest with feelings of reluctance; since I see that it will be the cause of involving the consciences of many in conflicts which I should regret" (1,079). Moreover the Prussian Court canonist, Dr. Dore, said, " The combat upon which we are entering is one of greater difficulty than attended the conquest of France; the way is dangerous and long" (1,130). But the unprecedented victories of Prussia in the French war fill him with hope of the good success of this undertaking also: " This German people," he exclaimed, amidst the loud applause of the house, "will vanquish the Jesuits and the Vatican, as it has vanquished Paris" (1,130).

INTRODUCTION. x

' I cannot for my part share in this sanguine hope of victory. I rather believe that Prussia will not gain in this war with the Vatican the same laurels which she has wrung from France. The war against France was the occasion of the union of the German nation, and it is only to this united action of Catholics and Protestants that the conquest of Paris is to he ascribed. The war against the Vatican will disunite the nation, and will rend asunder its most intimate links. Such discord is not a pledge of triumph; it is an ominous sign of the downfall of the Empire. I am still more confirmed in this opinion when I consider attentively the success which the government hitherto has obtained in the first skirmishes of this campaign. Has, it may be asked, the protection of the Old Catholics by Berlin secured a victory for that party, or even prevented its great pretensions from coming to naught? Has not the government been obliged in the Braunsberg affair (in which it wished to force the Catholic pupils to listen to religious instructions from a priest who has been declared a heretic and excommunicated) to cease from insisting on this exaction as too signally violating liberty of conscience? Has that despicable pulpit-law at all diminished the influence of the clergy in elections? or has it not rather exasperated x INTRODUCTION.

this already powerful section of Catholic Germany against the government, and made them act with greater caution, but with more success, in this matter? Did not the government, on the 1st of July, quickly pay the salary to the unyielding Bishop of Ermland, although he had been frequently threatened with its withdrawal? But the greatest miscarriage seems to have happened in the proceedings against the Catholic military chaplains, the treatment of whom has been the occasion of introducing religious discord even in that army otherwise so celebrated for its union. Moreover, I doubt very much whether the government will have better success with the present law against the Jesuits. " This measure," said Dr. Lasker, the leader of the national Liberals, a man otherwise much attached to the policy of Bismarck, "is not calculated to reconcile hearts, but rather to farther estrange them." " It is," as another notable speaker, Dr. Keichensperger, said, " a declaration of bankruptcy from modern Liberalism" (1,131). So much does this law belie the principles at other times so highly extolled by Liberalism. Therefore it has been received by the press with coolness and even with contempt; with the exception, of course, of numerous officious correspondents of such newspapers as, being bought

INTRODUCTION. Ixi over into complete subjection by the immense amount of money freely dispensed by Prince Bismarck, continually distract the public opinion of Germany. At Berlin itself the social democratic party — in other things very hostile to religion — has held a large meeting against this law. But, after all, even the defenders of the law themselves could not deny its preposterousness; they tried to excuse it on the plea of extreme need in the urgency of the straits to which the Society of Jesus has brought the German Empire. A marvellous confession! The German Empire, — defended by a million of bayonets, and with a legion of secret and public policemen at its disposal; celebrated, sung, and idolised only a few days ago by an innumerable crowd of panegyrists as the first Power of the world, — reduced to straits by two hundred defenceless priests! The home of intelligence, with innumerable schools for the people under its inspection, with so many celebrated universities and colleges, and a great number of other scientific establishments; backed in its contest against the " Ultramontanes" by almost the whole press and even the theatre — brought to straits by the learning of two hundred men, who have not a single school in Prussia and Southern Germany! Indeed, it is too much to ask a stranger to believe it without evidence; if any-

Ixii INTRODUCTION.

where, surely here, he must lay claim to the right of examining.'5

The following summary of the utterances of the German newspapers and political writers, carefully made by a very competent hand, is too valuable to be omitted. I therefore insert it as it stands. One thing is worthy of remark, namely, that the true character of Liberalism is a hypocritical pretence of fairness while it is weak, and an insolent tyranny when it is strong: —

'What it is necessary above all things to bear in mind in considering the action of the Prussian government, what arises incontrovertibly from the review of the situation, is, that the attacks on the Catholic Church are not isolated acts of hostility, such as have frequently occurred under un-catholic auspices, but stages in a deliberate plan of operations designed thoroughly to stamp - out Catholic Christianity in Germany and in the world. Of course this implies, and by the Freemasons is meant to imply, the extinction of Christianity itself. It is needless, however, to go beyond the avowed designs of the Prussian government. As the Allgemeine Zeitung of Augsburg wrote on the 30th of

5 Special Correspondent of the Tablet, from Germany, Aug. 10, 1872.

INTRODUCTION. Ixiii

June, " Whereas the State is the la-wful organisation of the community, it is impossible that it can abandon the definition of ' the independence of the Church' to any ecclesiastical party. Religion is exhibiting itself anew as too great a power to be classed among the private predilections of individuals.... In this sphere, accordingly, people are anxiously looking for an ecclesiastical — Bismarck." In other words, the civil power is to define the relations of Church and State, and to dictate to men what to believe and what to think. It is to be supreme over intellect and conscience. We are not, however, left to conjectures to understand the policy which is to be applied to the Church. The leading organs of all the anti-catholic parties, in other words, the mouthpieces and representatives of the Reichstag majority, have openly explained the procedure which is to make the Catholic Church of the future reverence, as an old Pagan would say, " the Divinity of the Emperors." The Allgemeine Zeitung, the National Zeitung, the Spenersche Zeitung, and similar journals, are weekly and daily engaged in developing the plan and spreading the knowledge of the necessary steps among the anti-catholic populations who are to support the measures of the government. Nor does it detract from the importance of these journals, that, though some of them are not the government, they are the masters of the government. They are, in a word, the so-called national Liberal party or intolerant Germanism and intolerant Liberalism combined. Every measure they have demanded up to the present has been accorded. They have favoured Dollingerism. They have suppressed the separate department for Catholic affairs. They have banished the Jesuits. It is only rational to suppose that they are as likely to have their own way in the future as in the past. Their declarations of a policy may, accordingly, be taken as authoritative declarations. Knowing what they design, we know what the Catholics have to expect.

'The Berlin correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung writes on the 18th of July, to say that the forthcoming law to regulate the relations of the State and the Catholic Church is being prepared with the utmost zeal. Among the provisions are regulations by which " all Catholic Bishops and Catholic professors of theology are to be required to sign engagements binding them to a definitely formulated line of conduct" towards the State. " Every refusal will entail exclusion from the Episcopacy and the professoriate." " The seminaries are to be withdrawn from episcopal supervision and made dependent on the approbation of the State." " The teachers and the taught in the ecclesistical seminaries are to be alike subjected to examination by government commissioners." The reason of these provisions had been previously set forth in the Allgemeine Zeitung of the 7th of July, in an article on die Bildung des Geistlichen. " The prohibition of the Order of Jesus is an important sign that the German Empire is taking up position against the enemy. It will be of little use, however, unless more positive measures follow." " What need is there for Jesuit colleges in Bavaria, when in neighbouring Innspruck there is a theological faculty of Jesuits, when the young clerics can get schooled there or in Jesuit colleges at Home, and when Jesuit manuals of dogmatic and moral theology lord it over the ecclesiastical seminaries of Germany?" It is thus already avowed that the legislation which pretended to attack the Jesuits alone, cannot stop short there.

' It is in the following terms that the Spenersche Zeitung of the 25th of July recommends the deprivation of the Bishop of Ermland. Such a measure it says will produce hardly any public inconvenience. It is true that the priests appointed by a Bishop repudiated by the State will have no more legal status than their diocesan. The marriages performed by such priests will have no civil consequences. "But temporarily couples can be married by priests in the neighbourhood. Finally, the difficulty must be met by civil marriage, whether by the action of the Landtag or the Keichstag."

' The Berlin correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung, writing on the 21st of July, reports with satisfaction that the army will not be neglected in the struggle against the Church. " The military authorities are acting with like resolution against the military chaplains who refuse to submit themselves unconditionally to the orders of the Minister of War, by distinguishing between military and spiritual obedience. There cannot be a doubt that this resolution will result in the total suppression of Catholic chaplaincies in the army"

' A very important series of articles in the Allgemeine Zeitung of the 24th, 25th, and 26th of July, entitled Zur religiosen Einigung der deutschen Nation, is devoted to the double thesis that the Catholic Church is the mortal foe of Germany, and that every nation has a religious development suitable to itself. " To-day it is not on the border and in weaponed hosts that the enemies of the Fatherland stand. In the very midst of us have they risen, some with audacious forehead opposing the will of

INTRODUCTION. Ixvii the whole nation, some with secret cunning creeping about from congregation to congregation and from city to city.... That this is so requires no proof; we all know it.... The only question is, how to master these enemies.... Let us only consider our own people, leaving out of consideration foreign peoples and the forms which the Christian religion has assumed in them Let the representatives of the Komish Church ignore deep national distinctions, as the Komish Church has affected to ignore them for centuries: the German nation will not allow itself to he deceived; it will rather take up the combat against its nearest and most dangerous enemies, against anti-national hierarchy, against anti-national hypocrisy, against international superstition and intolerance, against antinational lies and cozening, against anti - national Rome with all its champions, partisans, and trainbearers, Catholic and Protestant." After this mild introduction, the Allgemeine Zeitung proceeds to observe that " sufficiently long" has Germany endured the moving spectacle of "science and art, trade and industry, and all our modern State -life being cried down as the enemy of religion and the work of Satan;" and accordingly the Allgemeine Zeitung is of opinion that a wider, and higher, and nobler,

Ixviii INTRODUCTION.

and broader, and deeper Christianity is required, which is to achieve the desirable end of " embracing everything," and which the great, deep, broad, and in all things noble German nation is to proceed to substitute for the falsified Christianity of Rome. The Allgemeine Zeitung explains how this is to be done. "Above all things is it necessary to deny now and for ever, resolutely and once for all, the pretension of the Hierarchy to be an intermediary between God and us." In the second place, the " Priesterthum," which has been so powerful a support of the Hierarchy, must get the same treatment. " This edifice, this fortress of the Komish Hierarchy must we keep in view, must we with the weapons which have been given to us storm and destroy down to the very ground (von Grund-aus zerstoren), &c."

' The precise manner in which the Catholic Church is to be "stormed and destroyed down to the very ground" has recently been explained in the semi-official Jahrbuchfiir Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Rechtspflege im Deutschen Reich, in a special treatise entitled Das Deutsche Reich und die Katholische Kirche, from the pen of the distinguished Dr. Friedberg of Leipsig, who enjoys the reputation of being an " aide-de-camp of Bis-

INTRODUCTION. Ixix marck," and who possesses the very highest kind of influence among the so-called national Liberals. The object of this important treatise is declared to be, "to make clear the principle and the present relation of the modern State and the modern Catholic Church;" and to show how it has become "the duty of every statesman to take position in the great struggle upon which the G-erman Empire has entered, and whose leading issues the present generation seems called to decide." The modern State being declared to be based "on the principle of free individuality," Herr Friedberg continues, "therefore it follows that the teaching of the Catholic Church and the conception of the modern State are absolutely irreconcilable (absolut unvereinbar sind). Today must we say out the dreadful word: so long as the Roman Catholic Church upholds the traditions of the Middle Ages and rejects every pacification with the modern State and.modern civilisation, so long is a peaceable union betiveen the State and the Catholic Church not to be looked for, and so long must the Catholic Church be regarded as an institution dangerous to the State." Herr Friedberg makes the following suggestive observations on the Jesuit controversy. "It is true that during the Jesuit debate in the last session of the German Keichstag, not only a number of deputies, but even the President of the Federal chancery, declared that in the war against the Jesuits there was no thought of war against the Catholic Church. We are unable, however, to mew the measures against the Jesuits as a terminus in the struggle of the modern State against the Catholic Church Can there be a more striking proof than that the Catholic Church of the present is completely identified with the Jesuit Order? Terribly grave though the saying be, we must say it out: the nowaday Jesuit Ultramontane Roman Catholic Church is dangerous to the State (staatsgefahrlich)." Herr Friedberg makes the following confession about Dollingerism. " The Old Catholic movement, generated by the opposition to the dogma of Infallibility, seemed at first to be about to take enormous dimensions, and enjoyed the favour of the governments." Unfortunately Herr Friedberg must add, "the Old Catholic movement did not attain the hoped-for significance." But though Dollingerism has failed, none the less has it become inevitable that "the State cannot retire from a violent struggle (heftigem Kampfe) with the Catholic Church. It is true that, as Herr Windthorst declared in the course of the Jesuit debate, the principles of the Vatican Council are already contained in the Bull Unam Sanctam of

Boniface VIII. But these old assertions of Papal omnipotence have become in our day eminently dangerous to the State." The national Liberals have thus given up their first pretence that the Vatican decrees were innovations; but openly declare that the absence of the original pretence will not make them desist from this war against the Church. The next portion of Herr Friedberg's treatise contains the whole plan of campaign against the Catholic ecclesiastical and religious system. He asks the two questions: how is the State to guard itself against the Church? and whether is the proposed legislation to be the work of the Empire or the different governments of Germany?

' In the first place, the State is to proceed against the Church, "by drawing a firm boundary-line between it and the Church, and by guarding its dominion from every ecclesiastical influence. By this is to be understood (1) the introduction of compulsory civil marriage; (2) the abolition of the obligation of baptism, Taufziuang; (3) the separation of Church and school; (4) the secularisation of the care of the poor, Armenpflege. Moreover, the State must have (5) a penal law to prevent the misuse of the clerical office; and farther, the State must take care (6) that no persons enter the pulpit, who are

Ixxii INTRODUCTION.

of a disposition hostile to the State: that is to say, the State must control the education of the clergy, who, even when the school shall be taken from them, will remain in an eminent degree the teachers of the people; the State must overlook the examination of the clergy, and must suffer no clergyman to be appointed who meditates civil or political opposition to the government, ivelcher der Regierung in biirgerlicher oder politischer Beziehung Anstoss bereitet. The State must (7) supervise the management of the Church property. The State must not (8) allow ecclesiastical penalties to produce civil consequences, and especially must prevent ecclesiastical penalties from being used to exercise a pressure on State officials. The State must (9) require every ecclesiastical regulation (jede kirchliche Verordnung) to be submitted to it; and must (10) make the existence of every religious order dependent on its approval; and must not (11) endure the Order of the Jesuits. Finally, (12) the State must have an effective remedy against misuse of the clerical office, which may hinder every encroachment on the part of the Church, by fines that will be felt, coupled with removal from the clerical office, so as to produce a salutary system of deterrence by fear (ein hcilsames Abschreckungssystem)"

INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii

' Such is the system which the author recommends for the Church.

'With regard to whether this system is to be the work of the Keichstag or the local parliaments, Herr Friedberg naturally concludes in favour of the Reichstag. What makes Herr Friedberg's treatise so important is, that it is really meant, and has been accepted as the legislative manual of the national Liberals. In the words of the Allgemeine Zeitung, "whoever wishes to see clearly in these questions and to be able to give a well-founded vote, should take in hand this treatise, which has been published in a separate form, and make it the subject of careful perusal."

' But indeed the German authorities are hardly waiting for the full and perfect legislation which the Jahrbuch filr Gesetzgebung inculcates. Thus the authorities in Schleswig-Holstein have addressed a circular to the Landrdihe, explaining the scope of the words " kindred congregations" in the ukase against the Jesuits. The explanation makes it evident that the design of the government is absolutely to prevent the exercise of every function which is not actually sacramental. Catholicity is to be locked up in its churches, while anti - catholicity is to be put in possession of everything else, preparatory to f putting it in possession of the churches also. The authorities, accordingly, instruct the subordinates that every congregation is to be considered affiliated to the Jesuits, and consequently prohibited, which is under the direction of a foreign superior; it is added, with unlimited power, and independent of the Bishop of the diocese; which is under the duty of passive obedience to the rules of the Order; or, finally, which pursues a Jesuitical aim, such as missions among the people or among Protestants, ' paedagogic action,' and so forth. Tried by these tests, the authorities have ascertained the Jesuitical character of the Kedemptorists, the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, the missionary priests of the Congregation of St. Vincent de Paul, the Barnabites, the Theatines, as well as the Redemptorist nuns, and the nuns of the Sacred Heart.

' Nor is it to be supposed that the national Liberals intend to content themselves with banishing, or reducing to servitude, the priests and Bishops of the Church. The laity are also to be taught to feel that that alone is legal of which national Liberalism approves, and that alone is right which Freemasonry practises. The lay societies of Catholics for the defence of Catholic interests are threatened as follows in the Spenersche Zeitung: " An association of Ger-

Ixxv man Catholics has been established at Mayence, and has published its statutes, as well as a protestation and an appeal to the Catholics of Germany. In brief, this association designs to supply by a new organisation the ivant of the political Propaganda, at present paralysed, of the Order of the Jesuits... The absolutely illegal character which distinguishes it is manifested above all in the protestation it has published against the decisions of the Parliament, but in reality against the three supreme authorities of the Empire. These counts and barons, transformed into agitators, are only distinguishable from Karl Marx in that their fanaticism makes them much more impudent.... But the German Empire and its members will be under the duty of watching the proceedings of this new Jesuitical organisation, and of applying the laws concerning the abuses committed by associations."

' At the same time, the most ordinary liberty of the press is more than threatened; and following fast on the numerous seizures and suppressions of Catholic journals, the Spenersche Zeitung openly writes: "While the present clerical agitation aims, by the foundation of Catholic unions and the like, to bring upon the Landtag a new flood of petitions and resolutions upon the oppression of the Catholic Church, the government is also busy collecting materials in order to restrain the activity of the Catholic Bishops in Prussia, especially in the matter of furthering newspapers of an Ultramontane character, and consequently hostile to the Empire."

' When we see, in addition, all the leading journals of the German Empire, like the Provinzial Correspondenz, insisting on the necessity of the Pope heing the nominee of the Secular Powers, and the National Zeitung warning Italy that the way to put an end to an institution like the Papacy is, not by " according it a boundless domination in the sphere of the ideal," and that " Germany and Italy are two creations incompatible with the Infallible Papacy," it is easy to recognise the comprehensive plan of this systematic campaign against the Church. In a word, the German Empire desires to destroy the Church "in its head and its members, "and will attempt the satisfaction of this desire to the utmost extent of German ability.'

Such, then, is the present attitude of Germany. The great Empire in the pride of its strength is confronting a greater Empire, e of whose kingdom there shall be no end;' a rash and perilous conflict, in which no human power yet has obtained victory or glory.

Those who a year ago were well content, and even

INTRODUCTION. IxXVli hoped, to see the consolidation of a strong and peaceful German Empire, are now no longer able to desire it. They helieve that its master-builder has undone the work of his own hands. The political unification of Prussia, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, and other states, with the strong repulsions, antipathies, and jealousies which have hitherto held them asunder, and have been at last suspended only by the war of France against the Fatherland of their common race; this work was in itself arduous and difficult in the extreme. It was enough for the undivided powers even of Prince von Bismarck. But with this already at stake, what spirit of evil counsel should have misguided him to reopen the religious division of Ger-many, and to rekindle the memories of the thirty-years' war, it is not easy to divine. I have indeed heard his admirers say that the imperial Chancellor has counted the full cost, and is prepared to wage this war to the bitter end; that the subjugation of the Catholic Church is essential to his imperial policy; that the unity of Germany must be consolidated even upon the stones of the altar. There is much wild talk in the wind. One day we are told that Germany is to be detached from Kome, and a national German Church erected. Another day, that Germany is already engaged in measures to control the Conclave in the election of the next Pontiff. But the age of national churches is at an end. England has tried its hand at this experiment in Ireland, and has pulled down its own work. It has tried it also in England, hut its most cherished work is pulling itself down to the ground. King William of Prussia tried it also in the fusion of Lutheranism and Calvinism in the Evangelical Church, which is now doomed to dissolution. National schisms from Catholic unity were possible when nations and governments were Catholic. There is now neither a Catholic government nor a Catholic nation. There is now no national Church in existence. The Established Church of England does not contain half the English people. No scheme of national religion could satisfy and embrace the whole. Every scheme of comprehension would cause new defections. Even the non-catholic peoples of Europe reject secular legislation, and government-meddling in religion. What infatuation, then, can have deceived men into dreaming that Catholics can be seduced or persecuted into a national Church? The civil powers of Europe in separating themselves from the unity of the Church, and opposing themselves to the Holy See, have for ever lost all action upon the conscience of their Catholic subjects. The Prussian government by its opposition to the (Ecu-

INTBODUCTION. IxXlX menical Council, by its expulsion of the Jesuits and other religious, and by its menace of coercion against the Bishop of Ermland, has roused in Germany an opposition against which the whole weight of the German Empire is powerless. Any attempt to separate the Catholic Church in Germany from the Holy See would have two direct consequences. It would throw it more completely upon Eome as its only centre; and it would purify the Church in Germany of a multitude of faithless Catholics like those who in the Eeichstag revealed their unbelief; of a multitude of Gnostics, such as those who liken the German professors to the Prophets of the Old Testament; of a multitude of worldly men who by their politics and their patronage have infected the Catholic spirit of many in Germany. This sifting is not far off. Men forget in the midst of their tumults that there standeth One among them whom they know not, ' whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor.'6 We have, therefore, no fear of national churches or of German patriarchates. What was imposssible in the reign of Frederick II. is more than ever out of all human power now. Whosoever shall attempt it will be broken upon the Eock which cannot be moved; and the fidelity of the

6 S. Matt. iii. 12.

Church in Germany will be tested and revealed as the gold is tried in the fire. It is strange how the highest intellects in politics become suddenly blind when they deal with the Catholic Church. They seem never to learn, that when the civil power attempts to coerce the Church, it throws it more and more intimately upon the centre and source of all spiritual freedom. The Council of the Vatican did indeed extinguish Gallicanism as a theological error; but it was chiefly the revolution of 1830, and the separation of the Church from the State, which ex-pelled Gallicanism from the pastors and people of France. Already the policy of Berlin has united German Catholics with a sevenfold closeness of fidelity to Korne. It has also compacted the Church in Oermany into a solid unity of resistance which revives the memory of forty years ago. Once more the Archbishop of Cologne, with the whole Episcopate of Germany assembled at the tomb of St. Boniface, has published to the world a defence of the liberties of the Church which will be re-echoed in all the world. The laity also of Germany the other day met in Cologne, and with one voice made a noble protest against these violations of conscience and of liberty on the part of the civil power.

As to the other part of the programme — the manipulation of the Conclave — I have not a doubt that the influence of Prussia will be most powerfully felt by the Sacred College. I can conceive nothing more certain to close, not only the doors of the Conclave, but the minds of Cardinal Electors, against all insinuations and all threats. The insolence of pamphleteers and journalists — for I cannot conceive that any statesman can have so far forgotten himself— has already roused them to a vigilance which will baffle all intrigue. Neither Italy nor Germany, but the Holy Ghost will elect the successor of Pius the Ninth, happily reigning, and in the vigour of old age outliving, one by one, those who have wronged and betrayed him.

But while we are intently watching the attitude of these two great antagonists, a change has passed upon the whole face of Europe. Hitherto the world has known two great powers, Civil and Spiritual, or the State and the Church. Their contests make up the greater part of the history of the world. But this duel is nearly at an end. A third power has arisen, which is at war with both. For generations there has been accumulating in every European country a multitude who are neither reached by the beneficent legislation of the State nor won by the spiritual action of the Church. They may now be counted by millions. They are the raw material of sedition and irreligion, of conspiracies, revolutions, and communes. Society has done little for them; religion they have cast off. They have therefore grown up outside of the social order of states and the communion of religious bodies, with hard labour and scanty food, with little education, and without faith. The inheritance made for them is one of privation. Their experience of society is of a power which exacts labour, and inflicts punishment. Their experience of religion is of restraints without intelligible reason, and of catechisms which they cannot understand. What wonder if they become antisocial and anti - Christian? This state becomes a bitter heirloom to their children; and now for centuries millions have been born into it in almost every European country. They have common griefs, common sufferings, common resentments, common antipathies, common sympathies; the bonds of a common humanity, deprived of the culture and of the benefits of civilisation, bind them together in every nation, and thus bind in one the suffering and the dangerous classes of all nations. The International is not a creation of Carl Marx or of Vesinier. It is a growth in the wilderness of man which the State has not cultivated, and the Church has laboured in vain to reclaim. But creation or growth, the International exists, and in every ten years attains extension, solidity, and organised unity of power. This has been the work of the secret political societies, which from 1789 to this day have been perfecting their formation, and in the last six or seven years have drawn closer together in mutual alliance and cooperation. In 1848 they were sufficiently powerful to threaten almost every capital in Europe by a simultaneous rising. In 1871 they obtained their greatest momentary success in Paris. The International is now a power in the midst of the Christian and civil-ised world, pledged to the destruction of Christianity and the old civilisation of Europe. It has just now held its Congress at the Hague.7 It is the antagonist of both the natural and the supernatural order. It denies God, law, property, the family, the relations of parent and child, the continuous life of nations, the natural authority of human society: I will not say that this is the o uvopog, the lawless one of St. Paul; but assuredly the world has never seen anything so like it. Hitherto all forms

7 The division of the International into the political and economical, and the general and sectional moieties, may for a time retard its action; but these sections will easily coalesce again on any occasion. Much unwise confidence has been inspired by this internal division.

of evil have been parasites of the Christian world. The International is a new creation or upgrowth from beneath, which cannot coexist with the Christian society of mankind. Its mission is to destroy it utterly: if need be, by fire.

What Mahometanism was in its day, the International is now; but in this far more formidable than Mahometanism: it is within the Christian world, mingled with it everywhere, within all its lines, behind all its defences, cognisant of all its movements, accurately informed of its strength and its weakness. It shares all its resources, all its communications, all its social influences. The Church thoroughly knows its existence, and tracks its operations. The governments, with an incredible infatuation, long refused to believe in its action, and even in its existence. The International desires nothing better. It acts upon the public opinion and upon the governments of Europe without revealing itself. It is invisible and impalpable, but ever active, kindling strife between the people and their rulers, between government and government, and, above all, between governments and the Catholic Church. So long as the civil and spiritual powers of the world are united, anarchy and lawlessness have no opportunity. When these two powers, divinely created for the peace and

INTRODUCTION. IxXXV stability of the world, are in conflict, and in proportion as they weaken each other, disorder has its hour of hope. It has no need to assail either, so long as it can compel both to destroy one another. Such is the conflict now rising in Germany. The ' Old Catholic' heresy could never have prevailed to launch the Prussian government upon a policy faial to the German Empire, if a mightier power, vowed to its destruction, had not driven both the political parties in Germany into a frenzy of suspicion and of fear. Strange spectacle — a mighty military empire, in self-defence, driving a handful of helpless scholars into exile, and turning pale with fear at a quotation from the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel. Stranger recognition of the power of spiritual authority over all material might! No weapons can prevail over a solitary truth; and no truth fails to avenge itself on those who strive against it. Already these acts of injustice and violence have produced in Ger-many a reaction which cannot long be disregarded. From two distinct sources, most diverse in character and race, though both German, and wholly unknown to each other — the one an Ultramontane Catholic, the other an advanced Free-thought Protestant — I received the same judgment as to the consequences of the present policy. Both alike foretold the complete

IxXXVi INTRODUCTION.

dissolution of the Evangelical state religion in Prussia, and finally of dogmatic Lutheranism. The withdrawal of the State from all religious communions will throw them upon their own centre and their own resources. There is but one which, in its origin, began the world all alone; has endured all that man could do against it; has overcome all human power; and can survive and renew itself after all spoliation and all persecution. All else must return to the dust out of which it came. The disestablishment of Protestantism in Germany, like the disestablishment of Protestantism in Ireland, will close a chapter in the history of human error.

It may well be asked, What has wrought this change in Germany? A year ago, the Catholics in Germany were returning with victory and with joy to their Fatherland, many exulting, and others at least acquiescing, in the German Empire. With them returned also the Catholic chaplains and the sisters who, in the soldiers' hospitals and on the fields of battle, had exposed their lives with the armies of their country. The laws of Prussia were then sternly just to both Catholic and Protestant alike; and both the Catholic clergy and the ministers of the Protestant communions were loyal and contented subjects. What, then, has changed peace

INTRODUCTION. IxXXVli into conflict? I must believe it to be chiefly the work of one man, who, first poisoning the mind of his own government, has ended in poisoning the other governments of Germany. Like all leaders of revolt against the authority of the Church of God, he has invoked the powers of human rulers to avenge his griefs. Henceforth his name, once venerated in the Church, will go down to history as the instigator of persecution against the faith of Jesus Christ, and as the Achitophel who cast the seeds of dissolution into the first foundation of the German Empire.

History seems for some men to be written in vain; and the lessons of experience seldom outlive the first generation of those whom suffering has made wise. The governments of Naples, Vienna, France, and Spain, in the last century, wrested from Clement XIV. the suppression of the Jesuits. In less than a generation the armies of revolutionary France scourged and overthrew every one of these dynasties. At this moment Italy and Germany are beginning once again the same policy of violence, and there is in the midst of them a Nemesis with its iron scourge, and lips compressed in silence, waiting for its hour to strike. That avenging power is no angel of justice tempered with mercy, but man without God, pledged to destroy the Christian and civilised order of the world, and to strike down, on either hand, both Churches and States.

This grave and ominous conflict has however been relieved by one amusing episode. Certain estimable members of the two Houses of Parliament, together with a Protestant Archbishop, and a President and other members of some Free Church bodies in England, borrowing the graceful custom of German students, serenaded the Imperial Chancellor on the expulsion of the Jesuits without trial or fault, and on the penal laws projected against Catholics, to the well-known air of ' Civil and Religious Liberty.' The Chancellor from above answered with a gravity and elevation proportionate rather to the Reichstag than to so youthful an indiscretion. From this frolic, however, we may gather what our ' friends of religious liberty' would do in these kingdoms if they could. But the public opinion of England is too just and calm, and has not followed them in applauding the penal laws of Germany.

But we are told that all this is the fruit of the Vatican decrees. The Council has introduced, it is said, a new religion, changed the relations of the spiritual and civil powers, turned the Syllabus into dogma of faith, and invested the Pope with omniscience. Do men really believe what they say? or is all this written and said only to create odium, suspicion, and hostility? But, to let all this cant and rubbish pass, I am ready to admit that the Vatican Council and the Definition of Infallibility have been the occasion of the conspiracies of Janus, and the political intrigues of the Old Catholics. The woes denounced by our Divine Master against the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, at His last visit to the Temple, were the last rebuke that stung them to compass His death. In like manner, no doubt, the inflexibility of the Council and the Definition of the Infallibility stung those who were thereby baffled and defeated to avenge themselves. But they who steadfastly urged onward the Definition to its completion were well forewarned. They were threatened, week after week, with the withdrawal of the French protection, and with the approach of revolutionary hordes. They knew the alternative to lie between any extreme of temporal persecution and the compromise of a doctrine of revelation. The very imminence of the dangers revealed the necessity of proclaiming the truth. The divine authority of the Church throughout the world, the divine certainty of all faith were at stake. Even though it should cost the usurpation of Eome, or a century of persecution, the Council could not waver in its office as g

XC INTRODUCTION.

the Witness, Judge, and Teacher of the truth as it is in Jesus. Therefore, though kingdoms and empires combine to persecute, necessity was laid upon the Bishops of the whole world to declare a truth, vital at all times; more than ever vital now, because never so insolently denied. The storm it has evoked is the test and the measure of the need. If the Vatican Council had to be convened to-morrow, with the usurpation of Kome and the persecution of Germany before its eyes, all the more would it promulgate to the world the divine institution of the Holy See, the supreme jurisdiction and infallible assistance given to Peter, and in Peter to his successors for ever. We are told also that the Church by the Syllabus and by the Definition has separated itself by an impassable chasm from the Christian religion and the thought of man. If the Syllabus and the Definition be false, this would be certainly true; but what if they be true? It is strange that acute reasoners do not see how this is to beg the question. What if the Syllabus and the Definition be the true application of Christianity to the moral, political, and spiritual errors of human society? Then there is no chasm between them and the Christian religion, but an union even to identity. And as for the thought of man, it is thereby convicted of aberration. The Word

INTRODUCTION. XC1 of God teaches us a truer estimate of the thought of man. They ' have become vain in their thoughts.'8 The thought of man is normal only when conformed to the Word of God. And here we have the same petitio principii over again. In truth, men have made up their mind that the Catholic Church is a troubler of the world and a teacher of falsehood. It is manifest that either the Church or the world has gone wrong. Aut mundus errat, aut Christus frustra mortuus est. If, indeed, the thought of the world be the rule of faith, we may be forgiven for rejecting it. The universal and ever-multiplying confusions both moral and intellectual outside the unity of the Catholic Church, the rapid progress of unbelief, the irresistible advance of speculative and practical atheism, demonstrate that the unassisted thought of man is not the witness, or the judge, or the teacher of the Christian Revelation. But no serious or grave man would deny this; and if not, why contend against the Holy See for resolving its rule of faith into the witness, and judgment, arid teaching of the Universal Church, assisted by the Spirit of Truth, and infallibly enunciated by the voice of its Head? Such is the Definition. And in what does it bar the progress of human thought? Truth 8 Rom. i. 21.

XC11 INTRODUCTION.

bars the way to error; every known truth closes some path to falsehood; but every truth is also progress to the thought of man. The revelation of Christianity was the largest, noblest, highest progress ever made by the reason of mankind. The infallible certainty of faith, by guaranteeing the human reason from aberration.and from retrogression, guarantees for ever the progress of Christian and human thought in the knowledge of God and of man.

Where, then, is the judge who shall decide which has erred, the Church or the world? If the Church lias erred, ' Woe to the world because of scandals.'9 'There is no salvation left for it. But a church that "errs is not the Church of God; for if it errs, it cannot be God's witness to mankind. But if God so leave Himself without a witness, ' Woe to you, blind guides.'10 The blind are leading the blind, and all truth, morality, law, civilisation, and order will fall into the ditch. It is of this the Syllabus has warned the world. The Deism, Atheism, and Rationalism, the deification of the State, the denial of the basis of all morality, now infecting the Christian world, and sapping the foundations of public and domestic life, have separated the nations of Europe, with their laws and their governments, from the revelation of Chris-

9 S. Matt, xviii. 7. 10 Ibid, xxiii. 16.

INTRODUCTION. XC111 tianity, from the Sovereignty of God, and therefore from their own progressive welfare. There are now no Christian governments, no Christian nations; and therefore no Christian world. The Christian Church, indeed, is still in the world, and therefore the world will not helieve itself to be fallen from Christianity. It resents the warning, it hates the voice that passes judgment on its intellectual aberrations and on its pride of life. But we cannot therefore be silent, even though men will not hear, and governments are offended, and the world still goes its way. The Church exists by the truth and for the truth; and even if it be abandoned by the multitude for the truth's sake as its Divine Head was, in the desert, it can only repeat its doctrines, and ask of those who stumble at the Word of God, ' Will ye also go away?' The tide of unbelief has been running for three centuries against the Christian society of Europe. It has now almost accomplished its work. The Church stands out more than ever visible to the world, as the old civilisation is washed away from the rock on which the Church is built. The political society of the world is no longer Christian. Eeligion has been eliminated from legislation, science, history; from the public laws and institutions of nations; and now it is being expelled from the public schools and public education of the people. Against this de-christian-ising of the society of man the Church opposes itself with all its power and all its inflexibility. It will not reconcile itself with this progress from national Christianity to national Atheism. It will even cast itself across the path of nations in their fatal departure from God. If its members be crushed here and there, it will rise again. It willingly gives of its life-blood for the salvation of society. What befell in Ireland, in England, in France, will, it may be, befall in Italy and in Germany. The public life of nations will be desecrated: but the Church will rise again, more pure, more united, and more powerful in its work of saving souls one by one, even though the nations will have ceased to be Christian. Such is the reason why, in this Pontificate of six-and-twenty years, Pius the Ninth has refused all compromise with an antisocial and anti-christian revolution. He is bound to witness for the sacred laws of Christian society. The 6 Theocratic Government,' whose epitaph is upon the monument of those that shed their blood for it, was the government of God's laws over the Christian world. If, indeed, it be now at an end, then let all who believe in the Incarnation watch lest they should be deceived. Whatsoever power claims to be sovereign over the Vicar of Jesus Christ is apostate;

INTEODUCTION. XCV and they who aid, or by countenance or acquiescence partake in this rejection of the sovereignty of the Kedeemer of the world, will share in the scourges and the judgment, which till they fall upon the nations will be derided, and when 'they come will be believed too late. I am well aware that these words will be as foolishness not only to infidels and deists, but to the statesmen and diplomatists, the wise and prudent in public affairs. So it always has been. They have always been asking, where is the promise of His coming? And we have always seemed to be dreamers. So be it. We are willing to be derided by the many, if only we may save souls.

The tenth Sermon in this volume is a mere outline of an argument, which, after being despised as mediaeval superstition by the apostles of modern progress, must hereafter be treated again by those who will have to reconstruct the Christian society of the world, if, indeed, there be a reconstruction to come in the designs of God. I have there simply sketched the Theocracy of Israel, the commonwealth of the Christian world, the state of the world without Christ and without God. The Italian government, by its epitaph over the martyrs of the Holy See in the cemetery of San Lorenzo, proclaims itself to be the antagonist of the Christian Theocracy of the Vicar of Jesus

Christ. This, like the shadow on the dial, tells us where the world is now, and what its future must be, unless it retrace its progress falsely so called.

At this time there is no civil power, as such, either Catholic or Christian: there is no nation, in its organised and public life and laws, professing Christianity. The tendency of all political and social movements is to the exclusion of Christianity from the public life of nations. We are progressing rapidly in one direction. Let us see whither we are going. I have said that it is to the destruction of the Christian society of the world. Let us briefly run over the signs that are evident. There is at this time no distinction in the public laws of any country between unity and schism, faith and heresy. All fragmentary Christianities are on the same level with the Catholic faith, and all forms of error on the same level with Christianity. The public law of Christendom has ceased to promote or to uphold or even to prefer Christianity. It is one of the religions of the world, not even ' relegated to obscure municipalities,' but to the conscience or the caprice of individuals. In truth, the more earnest men are in religion the more troublesome they become to legislators and governments. The Protestant Keformers did not foresee that 'the religious difficulty,' which

INTRODUCTION. XCV11 they created by heresy and schism, would one day be fatal to Christianity and to themselves. The men of progress have found out that education forms men, and that men form society. They are, therefore, labouring to expel Christianity from education; for men formed without religion will expel it from society. To this end governments are taking education into their own hands; and men of progress are clamoring for education, free, secular, universal, and compulsory. If Christian parents are to have a voice in the formation of their children, the hope of building up a state without God will long be deferred. Therefore, the unrelenting effort to secularise our schools. Thousands of professors in all countries, paid and unpaid, have been preaching for generations that religion must be separated from politics, from philosophy, from science. We are almost wearied into silence. Public opinion is poisoned into believing this falsehood. The youth of these days is being reared upon a literature which is rationalistic and sensuous, if not worse. The period of life in which the mind and the man are to be formed is spent in studies from which Christianity is being more and more excluded every day. The little religion which remains in education is in juxtaposition with science and literature, not in union with it, much less diffused throughout it as its life and governing law. What wonder that so many grow up without God in this world? that the Christianity of many more is shallow, powerless, and, so to speak, not so much as skin-deep? Christianity has been left as a matter of choice to private individuals; but modern education renders it morally impossible for individuals to be formed as Christians. What wonder, then, that society should exclude Christianity from its public acts? that it should cease to look at crime as sin? that it should measure only the offence against society, and ignore the offence against God? To be just, I admit that society as such has no jurisdiction over sin as such. The Church alone has this divine commission. But this proves my thesis, namely, that in rejecting the ' Theocracy' civil society has reduced itself to paganism, that is, to society without God. This is the inevitable consequence of rejecting the Church of God, and of excluding it from the sphere of the civil commonwealth. But this state of simple exclusion is merely for a time. It will soon be followed, as we see, by active persecution of Christianity. A state of indifference cannot long last. Nobody knows this better than our modern Liberals. If Catholics and all honest men are not aware of it, they have only to thank them-

INTRODUCTION. XC1X selves. Our enemies have been shouting and trumpeting their intentions for these ten years. On the 20th of July in 1862 the Italian Deputy Petrucelli della Gattina told the Chamber in Turin that ' the Pontjff of the people would hunt out the Pontiff of Christ.' In Kome and on the Piazza Navona, on the 20th of last July, credible witnesses affirm that the cry was heard of ' Abbasso Cristo!' Another of the Italian Deputies, Fenni, has told us in print, that the way of progress is ' to pull down the Cross.' Another, Civinini, on August llth, 1863, wrote in the Diritto to say, ' Our revolution is tending to destroy the Catholic Church;' and another, on April 19th, 1865, declared, ' It is not only the religious orders that we will abolish, but we will destroy the old trunk which is called Catholicism.' The same Petrucelli della Gattina above quoted with great frankness tells us that the policy of the future consists ' in making war against the preponderance of Catholicism everywhere, against all comers and by all means;' adding, ' We -see that this Catholicism is an instrument of dissension and of misfortune, and we ought to destroy it!'11 The imposture of ' a free Church in a free State' has thrown off its mask. It has already begun to ' destroy Catholi-

11 L'Unita Cattolica, July 26, 1872.

C INTRODUCTION.

cism,' and 'to pull clown the Cross.' It is at work to suppress religious orders, to confiscate their property, to turn them out of their houses, to violate all the immunities of the Church. It has shut up the Vicar of Jesus Christ in a moral imprisonment. It is mere hypocrisy to say that he is free to come out into the streets of Home. If his life be not in danger — and who could guarantee it in the midst of a population crying incessantly, ' Morte ai preti!' ' Morte al Papa!' ' Abbasso Cristo!' — he is bound not to expose himself to the mockeries of blasphemous litanies, or to processions carrying the heads of murderers, who conspired against him. The taunts and levities of newspapers in this matter are either from simple ignorance or sheer insolence. I have before me at this moment the evidence of scores of assaults, insults, violences, committed against priests, prelates, bishops, even under the windows of the Vatican. And the Pope is free to go out; and is putting on the affectation of imprisonment! The revolutionary papers have not attempted to deny the facts which two Catholic papers, the Osscrvatore Romano and the Voce della Verita, in Rome have steadily published with the evidence. But the correspondents of the English newspapers write home their denials, and our journals publish these

INTRODUCTION. Cl denials without giving the evidence of the facts. The state of Eome is in this country simply concealed. Our newspapers have never made known to their readers the atrocities of the revolutionary press, the ahominahle caricatures, the indescribable cartoons with which Kome has been defiled. Since the 20th of September 1870, I have received a constant supply of this garbage. The person of the Holy Father is, of course, the centre of this blasphemous and obscene ribaldry. But on last Good Friday One even greater than he was outraged. Eome was desecrated by a caricature of the crucifixion of the Saviour of the world. Is it into streets where these things are sold, hawked, and placarded, that the Holy Father is invited not only by Garibaldians, and by 'reduci,' and by the Italian government, but by English journalists and by English gentlemen? They counsel him to drive out for air and recreation in the midst of ' expropriated' convents, and to show himself to a respectful populace, who would salute his sovereign person with cries of ' Yiva Yittor Emmanuele!' and ' Abbasso Cristo!' If we were not as usual in crass ignorance of facts on the continent of Europe, would not this be hypocrisy? The theatres in Rome present night after night scandals of so gross a kind that even the journals

Cll INTRODUCTION.

of the revolution cry out against them. Under the eyes and within earshot of the Holy Father, the Catholic Faith and Church is derided, profaned, and dragged through the mire in its dogmas, in its worship, in its ministers, and in its morality. The foulness of every night on the stage of the theatres has drawn from the Diritto the following confession. Speaking of a play called the Nun of Cracow, a mass of obscenity, calumny, and impiety, it says: ' We don't know when we shall come to an end of this rage for plays which brutalise the public taste, and excite every kind of popular foulness.' Night after night cardinals, priests, monks, nuns, are introduced as monsters of every kind of vice. The phrases, 'our holy religion,' 'our holy mother the Church,' uttered with ironical malice, are greeted with hisses and howls. And all this is done under the eyes of the government of the 'Law of Guarantees.' Garibaldi the other day demanded of the government, as a condition of its tolerated existence, that the first article of the statute which declares the Catholic religion to be the religion of the state should be can-celled. It was well answered, that he might save himself the trouble. The state has no religion, whatever the statute may say. Moreover, the Catholic religion serves for farces and burlesques at

INTRODUCTION. Clll the Correa and the Sferisterio.12 If it were legally abolished, the people would be robbed of their nightly

12 ' Under one shape or another, the Papal question is the all-engrossing topic of the day. It is discussed in the press, in the political caricatures (the name of which is legion in Eome), in private conversations, and last, not least, upon the stage. We have at this moment three open-air theatres in full work, and drawing crowded audiences every afternoon. And with what do you think? The subject is always the same, namely, the real or pretended misdeeds of the Catholic Church, the horrors of the Inquisition, Torquemada and his 77,000 victims, Peter Arhues the Grand Inquisitor of Aragon, the Massacre of the Huguenots, and other kindred arguments. Nothing else will go down with the Eomans at this moment, and those who cater for their amusement take care not to let the occasion slip. The actors are not quite lively enough to suit the tastes of a Shoreditch audience, and a little more cut-and-thrust business would be required to meet the critical demands of a Surrey gallery. Still there is a full feast of horrors notwithstanding, stabbing, poisoning, burning at the stake, beheading, and hanging. And how the people enjoy it all! How they groan and whistle at the recurrence of certain phrases, such as "the Holy Roman Church," "Catholic and Apostolic," "our blessed religion," and so forth; all which the actor is careful to pronounce with a whining unction which serves the purpose of a signal. How the Grand Inquisitor is hissed at and hooted through the three or four acts during which he has it all his own way; and what yells and threats accompany him in his final discomfiture when he meets with his deserts; for the playwrights of the Correa and of the Sferisterio are not scrupulous in the matter of historical fidelity, and when they get to the last act invariably cut the wretch's throat, or string him up, or tie him to the stake in the place of one of his victims. "Monster, thy hour has come!" shouts the avenger in the closing scene. The trembling craven cowers on the ground and sues for mercy. " That's right," 017 the people in chorus; " give it him, serve him out, throw him over into the pit!" Sometimes the avenger will not strike just then, as he prefers to wait for a more solemn occasion, and then he is assailed

CIV INTRODUCTION.

carrion. And yet there might be more equity of procedure. A correspondent from Rome last week writes as follows: ' As a specimen of the administration of justice, it is well to notice the following fact. One of the illustrated papers last week brought out a caricature of a menagerie, in which the Holy Father, the cardinals, and some religious were represented in cages, with insulting titles on each. The following day a Catholic paper, the Lima, brought out a similar caricature, but, in place of the Holy Father and the cardinals, the royal family and ministers were represented. The latter was immediately sequestrated, although the other was allowed free circulation. By the Italian law the person of the Pope with such epithets as " duffer," "ass," and the like, and exhorted to strike while the iron is hot, &c. The clericals are very angry at all this, and would fain have us believe that the three theatres where these popular manifestations take place are filled with buzzurri only. The Romans, they say, take no part therein. This I can assert from my own experience to he quite false. Besides, the buzzurri had a surfeit of these sensational anti-Catholic pieces years and years ago, and do not care to see them repeated. For the Romans, however, so long kept under restraint, they present all the freshness of novelty and all the flavour of forbidden fruit, and the more staid among them highly condemn the yells, whistling, and other vassallate (blackguardisms) which prevent the judicious public from fully enjoying these belle produzioni, as they call the infamous trash — infamous, I mean, in a literary sense. Altogether, a visit or two to the popular theatres of Rome at this season will afford the materials for an interesting study of human nature.' — Roman Correspondent of the Standard, Sept. 10, 1872.

INTRODUCTION. CY is sacred, and all acts against him are to be punished in the same manner as those against the king.'

But it would seem that we are in an age when ' the unclean spirits, like frogs,' have gone out of the mouth of the dragon, and of the beast, and of the false prophet, against God and against His Christ. There are nuns of Cracow, nuns at Picpus, scandals at Carcassonne, scandals everywhere: all self-evident, notorious, flagrant, world-wide, to set men on fire against the Catholic Church. After three days all are known to be lies; but they have done their work: the flame is kindled, and cannot be stayed; the matches may be stamped into the mire. And it is into this city of Rome that the Holy Father is invited to take his daily drive! It is not I, but the Nazione of August 22d that says, ' Roma e diventata ormai il mare magnum del birbanti di ogni regione;' which, being translated, signifies, ' is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every unclean spirit.' ' Go out from her, My people; that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.'18

Such, then, is the aspect of the Christian world. Pius the Ninth, through a pontificate of six-and-twenty years, has vigilantly noted every new step of this modern progress from God to anarchy. By

13 Apoc. xviii. 2, 4.

h

CV1 INTRODUCTION.

a succession of public declarations in encyclical letters, allocutions, and rescripts to Bishops and to others, he has condemned the principles which lead to antichristian and antisocial revolutions. As the witness of faith and truth, he is charged also with the supreme judgment in matters of Christian politics: for politics are a part of morals; they are the morals of society, founded upon the dictates of nature and the doctrines of grace. He is therefore the witness and the guardian of the principles of all authority, order, law, and justice; in a word, of the Christian commonwealth and the foundations on which it rests. The Syllabus is the declaration of those principles, laws, and rights, which modern progress has deliberately Violated; and having violated, it invites the Vicar of Christ to reconcile himself to the accomplished facts of impiety and of injustice.

De Tocqueville said that in his day all the currents of human action and thought, all the tide of events, were running fast to democracy. He noted that the influences of men, both of those who laboured for it and those who laboured against it, of all who hoped for democracy and all who feared it, united in forcing it upon the world. So it may be said of the atheism of modern progress. All things are converging to the vanishing point where God will be shut out of His

INTRODUCTION. CV11 own world. The civil powers have ceased to hold their authority from Him; to acknowledge Him as their sanction; to take His law as the rule of their legislation. The culture of science, of philosophy, of literature, all are independent of His mind. The formation of mankind is carried on as if He did not exist. The society which grows up from such formation is godless; if it he intellectual, hy a set theory; if unintellectual, by a sensuous materialism; either way God is not in all its thoughts. Look round the Christian world. The East is in schism; its churches are mosques; the Incarnation has departed from them. Look at the north and north-west of Eu-rope. Protestantism has done its work in heating its fragmentary Christianity as fine as the dust of the summer threshing-floor, and the winds of revolution are carrying it away. Wheresoever Protestantism has been, the old Catholic churches are desolate. The Word made flesh is no longer there. The antisocial and antichristian revolution has descended upon Italy, submerged the whole peninsula, and flooded Kome at last. The Incarnation has no longer a home in the Christian world. The Vicar of Jesus Christ is bid to go forth, because for two sovereignties to co-exist in Rome is impossible. The nations look on and applaud. They are all, either

CV111 INTRODUCTION.

by active co-operation as in Germany, or by tacit connivance as in England, participes criminis. One and all alike say, ' We will not have this man to reign over us!' ' We have no king but Caesar!' It would seem that the ' discessio,' or the falling away foretold by the Apostle, is not far from its accomplishment. We are indeed entering upon perilous times: but we enter them with no fear: ' When these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads; for your redemption is at hand.' No Catholic doubts of the final and complete overthrow of the powers now in array against the Vicar of our Lord. They are more lordly, imperious, and to human force more irresistible, than ever before. But they have entered the lists not against man but against God. If we have to suffer, so be it. God's holy will be done! May He only make us fit for so high a grace; and hasten the redemption of His Church in His own good time!

Rosary Sunday 1872.

Footnotes

  1. Monsieur, — It appears to be certain that the Council convoked by his Holiness Pope Pius IX. will meet in the month of December next. The number of prelates who will attend it from all parts of the world will be much greater than at any former Council. This fact alone will help to give to its decrees a great authority, such as belongs to an (Ecumenical Council. Taking this circumstance into con- ↩

  2. I thought that the initiative in so important a matter should be taken hy one of the great Powers; but not having as yet received any communication on this subject, I have thought it necessary to seek for a mutual understanding which will protect our common interests, and that without delay, seeing that the interval between this time and the meeting of the Council is so short. I therefore desire you to submit this matter to the government to which you are accredited, and to ascertain the views and ↩

  3. Tablet, Aug. 31, 1872, p. 259. ↩

Chapter 1 of 12