Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

The Catholic World

A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science

Vol. XVI.

October 1872 to March 1873

The Catholic Publication House.

New York

1873

CONTENTS

Contents.
The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 91.—October, 1872.
Bismarck And The Jesuits.
Choice In No Choice.
Fleurange.
Review of Vaughan’s Life Of S. Thomas.
The Progressionists.
Gavazzi Versus The See Of S. Peter.
Number Thirteen. An Episode Of The Commune.
On A Picture Of S. Mary Bearing Doves To Sacrifice.
Centres Of Thought In The Past. First Article. The Monasteries.
Versailles.
Father Isaac Jogues, S.J.
Doña Ramona.
The Distaff.
A Martyr’s Journey.
Odd Stories: III. Peter The Powerful.
New Publications.
The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 92.—November, 1872.
Centres Of Thought In The Past. Second Article. The Universities.
Fleurange.
The Poor Ploughman.
A Dark Chapter In English History.
The Progressionists.
The Virgin.
The Homeless Poor Of New York City.
The House That Jack Built.
Where Are You Going?
Number Thirteen. An Episode Of The Commune. Concluded.
Use And Abuse Of The Novel.
Review Of Vaughan’s Life Of S. Thomas: Concluded.
To S. Mary Magdalen.
God’s Acre.
Personal Recollections Of The Late President Juarez Of Mexico.
New Publications.
The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 93.—December, 1872.
The Spirit Of Protestantism.
Fleurange.
Sayings Of John Climacus.
Dante’s Purgatorio. Canto Fifth.
Sanskrit And The Vedas.
The House That Jack Built.
S. Peter’s Roman Pontificate.
Sayings.
The Progressionists.
Christian Art Of The Catacombs.
Beating The Air.
A Retrospect.
The Russian Clergy.
The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross.
Odd Stories. IV. The White Shah.
Signs Of The Times.
New Publications.
The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 94.—January, 1873.
A Son Of The Crusaders.
At The Shrine.
A Christmas Recognition.
Fleurange.
Sayings.
Prince Von Bismarck And The Interview Of The Three Emperors.
A Christmas Memory.
The House That Jack Built.
A Retrospect.
The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross.
Europe’s Angels.
The Nativity Of Christe.
The Progressionists.
ὙΠΝΟΣ
A Legend Of Saint Ottilia.
The Year Of Our Lord 1872.
New Publications.
The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 95.—February, 1873.
Who Made Our Laws?
Dante’s Purgatorio. Canto Sixth.
The Church The Champion Of Marriage.
Fleurange.
Cologne.
John.
The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archaeology.
The See Of Peter.
Atlantic Drift—Gathered In The Steerage.
A Daughter Of S. Dominic.
The Progressionists.
F. James Marquette, S.J.
Prayer Of Custance, The Persecuted Queen Of Alla Of Northumberland.
Acoma.
New Publications.
The Catholic World. Vol. XVI., No. 96.—March, 1873.
The Relation Of The Rights Of Conscience To The Authority Of The State
Under The Laws Of Our Republic.
The Widow Of Nain.
Fleurange.
American Catholics And Partisan Newspapers.
Brussels.
Sayings Of S. John Climacus.
Marriage In The Nineteenth Century.
A Pearl Ashore.
The Benefits Of Italian Unity.
Sonnet.
Recollections Of Père Hermann.
A Daughter Of S. Dominic.
The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archæology.
Atlantic Drift—Gathered In The Steerage.
Martyrs And Confessors In Christ.
The Roman Empire And The Mission Of The Barbarians.
New Publications.
Footnotes

[Cover Page]

CONTENTS.

Acoma, 703

Atlantic Drift—Gathered in the Steerage, 648, 837

American Catholics and Partisan Newspapers, 756

Beating the Air, 783

Benefits of Italian Unity, The, 792

Bismarck and the Jesuits, 1

Bismarck and the Three Emperors, 474

Bolanden’s The Progressionists, 40, 192, 358, 541, 674

Brussels, 766

Centres of Thought in the Past: The Monasteries, 79;
The Same: The Universities, 145

Christian Art of the Catacombs, 372

Christmas Memory, A, 502

Christmas Recognition, A, 448

Church the Champion of Marriage, The, 585

Climacus, S. John, Sayings of, 318, 775

Cologne, 615

Craven’s Fleurange, 18, 158, 303, 459, 600, 737

Cross through Love, and Love through the Cross, 412, 523

Crusaders, A Son of the, 433

Cyprian, S., Martyrs and Confessors in Christ, 844

Dark Chapter in English History, A, 176

Daughter of S. Dominic, A, 658, 813

Deschamp’s Bismarck and the Emperors, 474

Distaff, The, 133

Doña Ramona, 122

English History, A Dark Chapter in, 176

Episode of the Commune, An, 61, 227

Europe’s Angels, 533

Father Isaac Jogues, S.J., 105

Father James Marquette, S.J., 688

Fleurange, 18, 158, 303, 459, 600, 737

Gavazzi _versus_ the See of S. Peter, 55

God’s Acre, 264

Hermann, Père, 808

Homeless Poor of New York City, The, 206

House that Jack Built, The, 212, 336, 507

International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archæology, 639,
829

Italian Unity, The Benefits of, 792

Jogues, Father Isaac, S.J., 105

John, 622

Juarez, Personal Recollections of, 280

Legends of Saint Ottilia, 557

Marquette, Father James, S.J., 688

Marriage in the XIXth Century, 776

Marriage, the Church the Champion of, 585

Martyr’s Journey, A, 137

Martyrs and Confessors in Christ, 844

Monasteries, The, 79

Mission of the Barbarians, The, 845

Nativity of Christe, The, 540

New York City, The Homeless Poor of, 206

Novel, Use and Abuse of the, 240

Number Thirteen, 61, 227

Odd Stories, 138, 420

Ottilia, Saint, A Legend of, 557

Partisan Newspapers, American Catholics and, 756

Pearl Ashore, 788

Père Hermann, 808

Personal Recollections of Pres. Juarez, 280

Peter the Powerful, 138

Prince von Bismarck and the Three Emperors, 474

Progressionists, The, 40, 192, 358, 541, 674

Protestantism, The Spirit of, 289

Relation of the Rights of Conscience to the Authority of the State under
the Laws of our Republic, 721

Retrospect, A, 395, 516

Review of Vaughan’s Life of S. Thomas, 31, 254

Roman Empire and the Mission of the Barbarians, 845

Russian Clergy, The, 403

S. Peter’s Roman Pontificate, 345

Sanskrit and the Vedas, 322

Sayings, 357, 473

Sayings of S. John Climacus, 318, 775

See of S. Peter, Gavazzi _versus_ the, 55

Signs of the Times, 422

Son of the Crusaders, A, 433

Spirit of Protestantism, The, 289

Universities, The, 145

Use and Abuse of the Novel, The, 240

Vaughan’s Life of S. Thomas, Review of, 31, 254

Versailles, 92

Where are You Going? 221

White Shah, The, 420

Who Made our Laws? 578

Year of Our Lord 1872, The, 558

Poetry.

Anselm’s The Poor Ploughman, 175

At the Shrine, 447

Chaucer’s Prayer of Custance, 702

Choice in no Choice, 17

Dante’s Purgatorio, 319, 581

On a Picture of S. Mary bearing Doves to Sacrifice, 77

Poor Ploughman, The, 175

Purgatorio, Dante’s, 319, 581

Prayer of Custance, 702

S. Mary Bearing Doves to Sacrifice, 77

See of Peter, The, 647

Sonnet from Zappi, 807

To S. Mary Magdalen, 265

Ὕπνος, 556

Virgin, The, 205

Widow of Nain, The, 735

Zappi, Sonnet from, 807

New Publications.

Adams’ Young America Abroad, 859

Agnew’s Geraldine, 573

All Hallow Eve, etc., 428

Ambition’s Contest, 144

Arundell’s Tradition, 430

Athenæum, The, 859

Beloved Disciple, The, 143

Bibliographia Catholica Americana, 713

Bolanden’s New God, 573

Book of the Holy Rosary, The, 140

Brownson’s Life of Gallitzin, 712

Burke’s Ireland’s Case Stated, 857

Caswall’s Hymns and Poems, 858

Catholic Class Book, 288

Catholic Family Almanac, 429

Catholic Worship, 571

College Journal, 576

Commentary of the Fathers on S. Peter, 286

Conversion of the Teutonic Race, 567
The Same, Sequel, 567

Coppée’s Elements of Logic, 285

Craven’s Fleurange, 570

Cusack’s Life of F. Mathew, 572

Daily Steps to Heaven, 572

De Mille’s Treasury of the Seas, 859

De Vere’s Legends of S. Patrick, 570

Ellis’ Two Ysondes, 719

England and Rome, 286

English in Ireland, The, 716

Finotti’s Bibliographia Catholica Americana, 713

Fleurange, 570

Formby’s The Book of the Holy Rosary, 140

Froude’s English in Ireland, 716

Gardening by Myself, 144

God and Man, 430

Gratry’s Henry Perreyve, 141

Great Problem, The, 575

Guillemin’s Wonders of the Moon, 574

Hart’s Manual of American Literature, 431, 860

Heart of Myrrha Lake, The, 569

Henry Perreyve, 141

History of the Sacred Passion, 427

History of the Blessed Virgin Mary, The, 573

Holland’s Marble Prophecy, 431

Holley’s Niagara, 432

Holmes’ The Poet at the Breakfast‐Table, 858

Hope’s Teutonic Race, 567
The Same, Sequel, 567

Hübner’s Life of Sixtus V., 567

Hymnary, with Tunes, 431

Hymns and Poems, 858

Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, 429

Index Circular, 860

Ireland’s Case Stated, 857

Issues of American Politics, The, 431

Jenna’s Elevations Poetiques et Religieuses, 717

Keel and Saddle, 857

Kroeger’s The Minnesinger of Germany, 575

Lacordaire’s God and Man, 430

Lasar’s Hymnary, 431

Lectures on the Connection of Science and Religion, 573

Legends of S. Patrick, 570

Leifchild’s The Great Problem, 575

Liberalisme, Le, 714

Life and Times of Sixtus V., 567

Life of Demetrius Augustin Gallitzin, 712

Life of S. Augustine, 714

Liza, 573

Macdonald’s Hidden Life, 432

Macdonald’s The Vicar’s Daughter, 143

Manual of American Literature, 431, 860

Memoirs of Mme. Desbordes‐Valmore, 715

Minnesinger of Germany, The, 575

Moriarty’s Life of S. Augustine, 714

Morris’ Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 287

My Clerical Friends, 567

New God, The, 573

Oakeley’s Catholic Worship, 571

Orsini’s History of the B. Virgin Mary, 573

Paquet’s Le Liberalisme, 714

Palma’s History of the Passion, 427

Parsons’ Biographical Dictionary, 572

Parsons’ Shadow of the Obelisk, 572

Peters’ Catholic Class Book, 288

Polytechnic, The, 859

Photographic Views, 714

Poet at the Breakfast‐Table, The, 858

Pocket Prayer Book, 286

Potter’s The Spoken Word, 142

Rawes’ The Beloved Disciple, 143

Revere’s Keel and Saddle, 857

Roundabout Rambles, 432

Sainte‐Beuve’s Memoirs of Mme. Desbordes‐Valmore, 715

Shadow of the Obelisk, The, 572

Skinner’s Issues of American Politics, 431

Spoken Word, The, 142

Stockton’s Roundabout Rambles, 432

Tradition, 430

Treasure of the Seas, The, 859

Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, 287

Truth, The, 571

Turgeneiff’s Liza, 573

Two Ysondes, and other Verses, 719

Unawares, 143

Vicar’s Daughter, The, 143

Warner’s Gardening by Myself, 144

Waterworth’s Commentary of the Fathers on S. Peter, 286

Waterworth’s England and Rome, 286

Weninger’s Photographic Views, 714

Wiseman’s Lectures on Science and Religion, 573

Wiseman’s Works, 714

Young America Abroad, 859

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 91.—OCTOBER, 1872.

Bismarck And The Jesuits.

“1. The Order of the Company of Jesus, orders akin to it, and
congregations of a similar character, are excluded from the German
territory. The establishment of residences for these orders is
prohibited. The establishments actually in existence must be
suppressed within a period to be determined by the Federal
Council, but which shall not exceed six months.

“2. The members of the Company of Jesus, of orders akin to it, and
of congregations of a similar character, may be expelled from the
Federal territory if they are foreigners. If natives, residence
within fixed limits may be forbidden them, or imposed upon them.

“The measures necessary for the execution of this law, and for the
certainty of this execution, shall be adopted by the Federal
Council.”

Such is the amendment on the original motion for the recent legislation with regard to the Jesuits which was proposed to the Reichstag by Dr. Friedberg. The original motion was identical in aim and almost in substance. The amendment is more exact and well‐defined, leaving not the slightest loophole for possible evasion or escape. It was framed and pressed on by the kindly spirit and generous hand of Prince Clovis of Hohenlohe, the brother of the cardinal whose rejection by the Pope as ambassador from Germany to his court gave such high umbrage to the exquisitely sensitive Prince Bismarck.

Such is the law: plain, clear, and well‐defined. There is no mistaking it: it is “goodly writ.” Paraphrased, it runs thus:

There is a body of men—and women even; for though we attach ourselves to the chief point at issue, the phrase, “Those congregations of a similar character,” may cover a very extensive ground, and seems ingeniously framed for abuse—in Germany, possessed of certain property, colleges, churches, seminaries, schools; possessed of certain rights as free citizens of a free land: liberty of action and of thought. Most of them are natives of the soil; many of them members of the highest families in the empire. They have been doing their work all these years without let or hindrance, or rumor of such. The state found no fault with them, or at least never expressed it. Consequently, they went on without changing one iota of their principles or mode of action, teaching in the universities, colleges, and schools: preaching in the churches; gathering together communities; giving themselves free voice in a free press, that all might hear and tell openly what they were doing, and what they purposed doing. Without a moment’s warning, without a trial or even a mockery of a trial, the state swoops down on them, seizes their property, breaks up their communities, turns them out of their homes adrift upon the world, proclaims them outlaws, banishes them the empire, save such as were born in it—one of whom happens to be a cousin to the emperor himself; and these latter they proscribe to fixed limits under the surveillance of the police.

And such is law! The law of the new German Empire: the first great step in its reconstruction!

Short of death, the state could not do more utterly to destroy a body of men. Condensed into a word, these measures are—demolition. As death alone can make their penalty supreme, the crimes of these outlaws ought to be proportionately great. What, then, are these crimes that in a moment produced such a sentence?

Here we must confess to as great an inability to answer the question as Prince Bismarck or his followers found themselves; for the very simple fact that there are no crimes to answer for. This may account in part for the extra severity of the sentence. Only make the penalty big enough, and the popular mind needs to hear nothing of the crime. Prince Bismarck knows the value of the old adage, “Give a dog a bad name, and hang him.”

When the Communists seized upon Paris, we all knew what to expect: scant justice and speedy sentence; none of your careful balancing of right and wrong. They took what they could and gave no reason. This model German government, this new power which we all tremble at, though it promises to regenerate us, follows _la Commune_ pretty closely in this its first essay of power.

In the even balance of the law, it is useless to _talk_ of conspiracies, parties, plots, and this, that, and the other. Show us those conspiracies; point them out in black and white; let the law lay its inexorable finger upon them, and say, such and such actions have been committed by such and such persons; here are the proofs of guilt—and we are satisfied. Though the condemned may have been our dearest friends, we have only to acknowledge the justice of the sentence, to deplore that we have been deceived in them, and to range ourselves as honest men and true citizens on the side of the law. But in the present case, we have not had one single fact produced nor attempted to be produced; not a crime in the varied category of crimes has been laid at the door of the accused. We have had instead from such men as Bismarck and his tools vague generalities of “conspiracy,” “enemies at home as well as abroad,” intermingled with fears for the safety of the new empire—“the new creation”—padded in with bluster and empty bombast, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

And in the face of this advanced nineteenth century, this era of facts, figures, and freedom, on the strength of evidence that would not suffice to condemn the veriest scoundrel that ever stood face to face with justice in the dock, a body of intellectual gentlemen, beloved in the country from which they are banished, are proclaimed outlaws, enemies of their own nation, faithless to their country and their emperor, unfit to live in the land that is proud of them, and driven without scrip or staff into the world.

Let us bear it in mind, before quitting this point, that the feeling of their countrymen as well as of the whole Catholic world is with them. We all know how a government, and particularly a strong government, can influence the public voice and manipulate votes. Well, petitions rolled in for the suppression of the Jesuits; but, strange to say, roll in as they might, a still vaster number came to retain them; and on the strength of the former, the measure was put before parliament and passed. This fact of the popular voice proclaiming itself boldly in favor of the Order is very significant when we take into account the forces arrayed against each other, though, in truth, the battle was all on the side of the government. On the one hand we have the Prince‐Chancellor working the engine of the state—his own creation—with every nerve that is in him, joining himself in the debates with speeches of the bitterest and most inflammatory character; on the other, we have a body of 708 men! Such was their number in Germany according to the statistics of last year; the total number throughout the world being 8,809.

To this, then, the contest reduces itself apparently. These are the ostensible foes. The new and powerful German government, in the first flush of an unprecedented success, headed by the “terrible Chancellor,” pitted might and main against 708 individuals, staking its very life on the contest. What evenly matched foes! For the Jesuits are the sole object of this attack, mind. Listen to Minister Delbrück in his speech on the third reading of the bill: “It is my duty, in the name of the confederate government, to repudiate anew that view of the question which identifies the Society of Jesus with the Catholic Church.... In such an allegation they can discover nothing more than an arbitrary perversion of notorious facts: a falsification which is the more to be deplored, as it might serve to deprive the measure in circles outside of this assembly of its true character, and impress on it another which it does not possess.”

This minister was the mouthpiece of Bismarck—“the hands indeed are Esau’s, but the voice is that of Jacob.” Was there ever such a picture of injured innocence and righteous indignation?

Seven hundred and eight men who spend their lives, as all the world may see, in teaching, preaching, studying, visiting the sick, performing their daily household duties, are such terrible plotters, dangerous political leaders, that they cause the great Chancellor actually to tremble in his shoes. It is a strange fact that he did not find this conspiracy out sooner. Bismarck and the Jesuits are old neighbors, not to say friends. They have lived very happily together up to yesterday. They accompanied him to his wars, and took the place that is always theirs in the battle front, among the wounded and the dying, when no succor was nigh, in the endeavor to give rest and peace to the last moments of those whom Bismarck summoned from their quiet homesteads to die for him under the empty name of glory and patriotism. Some of them were rewarded by the Emperor with the Iron Cross—the proudest decoration which he can bestow on a man; as some others of them on the other side brought their science to bear on the dismal walls of the beleaguered city, spreading out light far and near to discover the crouching foe, and they were rewarded with death. Why, then, after living in harmony so long together, does the Chancellor turn round in a moment and make such a sweeping attack upon them, only _them_? The body, numerically, is absolutely too insignificant for all this uproar. Why, we could pack them all into some of our hotels, and they would scarcely make an appreciable difference in the number of visitors. Had there existed a conspiracy on their part against the empire, as is alleged, is it possible that with Bismarck’s unlimited power and resources, aided by those wonderful spies of his, who so infested France that his generals knew the country better than the French themselves did—is it possible that he who esteems so highly the value of the opinion of “circles outside the empire,” could not produce _one_ sorry fact to bring forward against them? Their most determined opponents must confess that he has utterly failed to do so; and failing to do so, he has exercised, and the majority of the German Parliament has sanctioned, a barefaced abuse of power, such as we thought had died out with the good old days of Henry VIII. and Queen Bess, or lived only with the Sultan of Turkey or the barbarous monarchs of the East. May it not recoil on their own heads!

The quarrel is scarcely confined to these limits, then, terrible as the power of the Jesuits may be. We do not intend to insult the intelligence of our readers by going into a needless defence, for the millionth time, of the Jesuit Order. Their defence is written on the world with the blood of their martyred children. Their defence rests on the fact of their very existence under such persistent and terrible persecutions as their mother, the church, only has surpassed. It rests in the record of every land upon which the sun has shone. And as for the time‐worn themes, ever welcome and ever new, of secresy, unscrupulous agents, blood, poison, daggers, and all the mysterious paraphernalia which the Jesuit of the popular imagination still bears about with him under that famous black gown, which the intellect of the age, in the persons of the London _Times’_ correspondents and those of the _Saturday Review_, are never weary of harping on, we leave them to the enlightened vision of these gentlemen, and their rivals in this respect—the concocters of the villains of fifth‐rate novels. But they object: Well, we are ready to admire your Jesuits. They live among us and we know them, and really, on the whole, they are not half such bad fellows; in fact, we may go so far as to say they are very peaceable, intelligent, respectable gentlemen. When we wish to hear a good sermon we always go to listen to them. They are very fine writers, and very clever men. They have done much, or tried to do much, for America, Africa, Japan, and every out‐of‐the‐way place; they have done something in Europe, even. But after all you must acknowledge that they are very dangerous fellows. Why, your own Pope, Sixtus V., could scarcely be prevailed upon to permit the foundation of the Order at the beginning; and another of your Popes, Clement XIV., actually condemned them. Come, now; what do you say to that?

Must we soberly sit down to answer this absurdity once more? Our readers will pardon us for merely glancing at it, and passing on to the more immediate subject of our article.

First of all, granting, which we by no means intend to do, that all that they allege is true, that it was with the greatest difficulty they even crept into existence, and that a Pope found it necessary to suppress them; there stands out in the face of such opposition the telling fact of their existence in the broad light of these open days, when no sham can pass muster, when the keen, eminently honest eye of these folk pick out the false in a twinkling, expose it, hoot it down, away with it, and there is an end. Such a fact opposed to such never‐failing opposition is a very stubborn thing, and bears with it something very like reality and truth. As for the difficulty of their beginning, that is the history of all orders in the church, so careful is she of new‐fangled notions. In fact, if our recollection serves us, that, we believe, is the history of the church herself. So much for the alleged opposition of Sixtus V. And now for the quelcher: the suppression by Clement XIV.

Here we give in: our opponents are right. Clement XIV. actually did issue a _brief_ suppressing the Jesuits. Of course it is perfectly unnecessary to inform these theological and mediæval scholars that a brief is a very different thing from a bull; that a brief is in no wise binding on the successor of the Pontiff who issues it; that a brief has no more to do with infallibility than these gentlemen themselves have. And now we would beg them to listen a moment to the very few Jesuitical words in which we explain this whole thing away.

Clement XIV. issued this brief in exactly the same way that King John signed the Magna Charta; Charles I. the death‐warrant of Strafford; or George IV. the act for Catholic emancipation. We believe none of our readers would blame King Charles for the death of Strafford, or thank King John for Magna Charta, or George IV. for Catholic emancipation; as little do we, can we, or any one who has read the history of the time, blame Clement XIV. for the brief which suppressed the Jesuits. The timid old monk—he was consecrated Pope at what the Bourbons considered the very safe age of sixty‐four—was strong enough to resist this wicked demand of their suppression to the utmost. We must bear in mind that the demand was made by no body in the church; but only by the ambassadors of France, Spain, and Naples. “I know what you want,” he said, “you want to create a heresy and destroy the church.” Another time he writes, “I can neither censure nor abolish an institute which has been commended by nineteen of my predecessors.” In the meantime, we have a disinterested witness, happily enough from Prussia, a man whom we have no doubt even Prince Bismarck has some respect for. It is no less a person than Frederick the Great, who writes to _Voltaire_:

“That good Franciscan of the Vatican leaves me my dear Jesuits,
who are persecuted everywhere else. _I will preserve the precious
seed, so as to be able one day to apply it to such as may desire
again to cultivate this rare plant._”

At last, notwithstanding his entreaties and prayers, they wrung the brief from the heart of the tottering old man. They gained their point while he lost his peace of mind, and was ever after murmuring, _Compulsus feci, compulsus feci_. We should be more correct in saying that they only half‐ gained it; for they were wild with rage at its being only a brief. What they wanted was a bull: destruction, not suspension. And such is the history of the famous suppression of the Jesuits.

To make the story complete, we may as well add that, as soon as the brief became known, Switzerland, knowing that it was the production of the Bourbon faction and not of the Pope, refused to submit to it and deprive the Jesuits of their colleges. Catherine of Russia interceded in their favor, and gave the poor Pope a crumb of comfort in the few days that were left him. Well did he say, “This suppression will be the death of me.” While Frederick the Great—but he shall speak for himself, and we commend his utterance to Prince Bismarck. He writes to his agent at Rome:

“Abbé Columbini, you will inform all who desire to know the fact,
but without ostentation and affectation, and you will moreover
seek an opportunity of signifying soon to the Pope and his chief
minister, that, with regard to the Jesuits, _I am determined to
retain them in my states_. In the treaty of Breslau, I guaranteed
the _status quo_ of the Catholic religion, and I have never found
better priests in every respect. You will further add that, as I
belong to the class of heretics, the Pope cannot relieve me from
the obligation of keeping my word, nor from the duty of a king and
an honest man.”

These words would be weakened by comment. We pass with relief from this worn‐out subject, and wish our adversaries joy of their mare’s nest. Men who have won the praise of their bitterest foes need small defence from their friends. We leave them in the hands of such men as Voltaire, Lord Macaulay, Sir James Stephens, Bancroft, Prescott, Parkman, and a host of other eminent men of all nations and all creeds save our own. When those who carp at the Jesuits have studied and refuted these writers to their own satisfaction, they may be in a fair way to meet us.

Now we are met with the further objection: if the Jesuits are such an excellent body as we make them; as Protestant historians and infidel writers make them; as Catherine of Russia, as Frederick the Great, the founder of the Prussian empire, and in this respect the proto‐Bismarck, make them—why should Prince Bismarck pick such a deadly quarrel with them?

Have we possibly been mistaken in him all this time? Have we had another Luther lurking beneath the person of the burly Chancellor? Has his aim been all along not merely to create a German empire, but a German religion and a German popedom? Has his zeal been inspired by religion? In his speech the other day he protested against the pretensions of the Pope “as a Protestant and an evangelical Christian.” We congratulate the evangelical Christians, whoever they may be, on their new apostle. For ourselves, we could not help laughing, and thinking that the height of solemn farce had at length been reached. The words reminded us of one Oliver Cromwell, who, in common with a well‐known kinsman of his, had a knack of “citing Scripture for his purpose.”

No; we confess it, notwithstanding this solemn affirmation from his own mouth, and before the German parliament too—(we think the printer must have omitted the “laughter” at the end)—we cannot bring ourselves to look upon the Chancellor as a “vessel of election,” though he may be a “vessel of wrath.” We consider that his worst enemy could scarcely say a harder thing of him than that he was a religious man. His is “Ercles’ vein: a tyrant’s vein.” The Emperor “is more condoling.” Now he presents the picture of a religious man _par excellence_. Why, his nostrils discerned a sanctified odor rising up from those reeking fields of France; and he could pray—how well!—after he had won the victory. But his Chancellor is a man of another complexion. He found a rich humor in it all. We have not forgotten that grim joke of his yet about the starving and doomed city. Is he not the prince of jesters? No, however bad may be our opinion of him, we will not accuse him of religiousness.

Where, then, lies the difficulty between them? The answer to this necessitates a review of the whole present question of Bismarck with the Papacy; and we must beg our readers’ indulgence in carrying them over such beaten ground in order to get at the root of it all, fix it in our minds, and keep it there, so that no specious reasoning may blind us to the reality of it, to the true point at issue.

We recollect the position of the Papacy prior to the Franco‐German war. The Pope was supported in his dominions by the arm of France—we say France advisedly; not by Napoleon. The war came and smote this right arm. Victor Emanuel stepped in; took possession: coolly told the Pope he would _allow_ him to live in the Vatican. The world shrieked with delight at seeing a powerless old man reft of the little that was left him. The world was astonished at the generosity of Victor Emanuel in _allowing_ the Pope a fraction of what happened to be his own property. The world looked for the regeneration of Italy, and it has had it. The _New York Herald_ furnished us with the increase of crime since Victor Emanuel’s possession: if we recollect rightly, it is about fourfold. So the Pope rested, as he still rests, a virtual, in plain truth an actual, prisoner in the Vatican, without a helping hand stretched forth to him. Came his jubilee, and with it kindly and solemn gratulations from a quarter least expected—the new emperor. Our eyes began to turn wistfully to the new power, and people whispered, Who knows? perhaps our Holy Father has at last found a defender. Here was Bismarck’s opportunity of winning the hearts of the Catholic world, of binding us to him with the strongest chain that can link man to man. Time wore on, and the gloss wore off. Home questions arose, the Chancellor began to feel his way, to insinuate little measures such as the secularization of schools, which the Catholics, strange to say, found reason to object to. Prince Bismarck grew a little impatient; he was anxious to conciliate the Catholics as far as he possibly could; but really “his patience was nearly exhausted.” Our golden hopes began to grow dim. We have heard this sort of thing before; we hear it every day, from some whose opinions we respect; and we know what it means. It is the old cry, “We have piped to you and you will not dance; we have played to you, and you do not sing.” You are irreconcilable; there is no meeting you on debatable ground. And that is just the point. Our religion has no debatable ground, for it is founded on faith, and not on what goes by the name of free investigation. So that whether it be Bismarck or nearer friends of ours who would force or woo us in turn from our position, we must meet them in matters that touch our faith with the inevitable “Non possumus.”

Prince Bismarck began to grow weary of us; and he soon showed signs of his peculiar form of weariness. He scarcely agrees with “what can’t be cured must be endured”; his motto is rather, “What can’t be cured must be killed.” The secularization of schools was carried in the face of the protest of the Prussian Catholic bishops, assembled at Fulda. The solemnization of the sacrament of marriage is handed over to the civil jurisdiction, the same as any other contract. Still not a whisper against the Jesuits, though, as we have already quoted, his quarrel is purely and entirely with them. We pass on to the crowning act in his list of grievances: the embassy to the Court of the Vatican.

What a noble thing it looked in the all powerful Chancellor to despatch an ambassador from the high and mighty German empire, the mightiest in the world, to the old man pent up in the Vatican! What a condescension to acknowledge that such a person existed!

Of course the Pope would receive such marks of favor with tears of gratitude and open arms. What! is it possible? He actually rejects the ambassador, and sends him back on Bismarck’s hands. Well, well! wonders will never cease.

Now there never was such a tempest in a tea‐pot as the explosion this carefully laid train created. The very fact of sending an ambassador at all to a monarch acknowledges the perfect right of that monarch to receive or reject him as he pleases; and to common sense there is an end of the question. The Pope did not choose to receive this ambassador; he had every right to exercise his freedom of action; he exercised his right, but Prince Bismarck’s sensibilities were hurt. It was not so much the fact of rejection as the Pope’s want of politeness that afflicted him. In his speech before the Reichstag he declared that such a thing was without a parallel in the history of diplomacy. What martinets these Germans are for punctilio! We remember Mr. Disraeli actually refusing to accept as sufficient reason for the late war the “breach of etiquette at a German watering‐place.” Now, with all due respect, Prince Bismarck knew, as those he addressed knew, as all the world knows, that this statement was anything but correct. Ambassadors have been rejected before now, and probably will be again. In fact, had certain individuals of this class to and from ourselves been rejected at the outset, it would have saved national difficulties, or at least wounded feelings and displays of school‐boy recriminations scarcely creditable to such high and mighty folk as gentlemen of the diplomatic body. But there is more in the question than this. The Cardinal‐Prince Hohenlohe is a prince of the church. He is in addition attached to the Pope’s household. He gave himself freely and voluntarily to the service of the church. He is not a mere ordinary member of the Catholic body. He stands in relation to the Pope as Von Moltke, the Dane, stands in relation to the Emperor William; as those who were once fellow‐citizens of ours stand in relation to the Khedive, whose service they have entered; as Carl Schurz and millions of our fellow‐citizens stand in relation to the government of the United States. When the Italians entered Rome, Cardinal Hohenlohe left it; and the next the Pope heard of him was that his own servant had been appointed ambassador to his court from Berlin! Just as though tomorrow we received intimation that a new ambassador had been appointed to us from England, and that ambassador was no less a person than—Minister Schenck. We can imagine the _New York Herald’s_ comments on such a proceeding. And yet Prince Bismarck is sore aggrieved at a breach of political etiquette.

We think we need trouble our readers with no further reasons for Cardinal Hohenlohe’s rejection. What share the cardinal had in the whole proceeding we do not know. Probably Prince Bismarck would eventually have found himself sadly disappointed in his ambassador had he been accepted. S. Thomas of Canterbury made an excellent chancellor till the king, against his wishes, compelled him to enter new service. But it is very clear that if Bismarck, as we do not believe, ever contemplated the possibility of the cardinal’s acceptance at Rome, what he wanted was a tool, one who, to use his own very remarkable words, “would have had rare opportunities of conveying _our own version of events and things_ to his [the Pope’s] ear. This was our sole object in the nomination rejected, I am sorry to say, by Pio Nono.”

We have no doubt of it: it was his sole object; and the acceptance or rejection of his ambassador was one to him; for Prince Bismarck is generally provided with two strings to his bow. Had the cardinal been accepted, he believed he had a churchman devoted to his interests, another Richelieu; his rejection suited him still better; for he could now declare open war, and throw the onus of it on his adversaries. Through the whole proceeding we detect the fine hand of the man who forced on the Danish, Austrian, and French wars. Prince Bismarck must not be surprised if, in the face of such speaking examples, we come at last to have a faint conception of his strategy. His policy always is, and always has been, to egg his adversary on; to goad him into striking first, taking care all the while that he himself is well prepared. They strike, and he crushes them—all in self‐defence. He is exonerated in the eyes of the world. He can tell the others they provoked him to the contest; he can say to them, “Your blood be on your own heads.”

And so this carefully prepared train exploded. It looked such a noble, generous, friendly action to send an ambassador to the Pontiff’s court in the present position of the Pontiff, that, when the ambassador was calmly rejected, the world could not believe its ears; and Prince Bismarck entertains a very high respect for those ears notwithstanding their length. What could we say but that it was too much? There was no conciliating these Romanists and Ultramontanes, do what you would. It was clear that the Pope was altogether out of place in these days; and his obstinacy only served to keep very respectable bodies of men from agreeing and living neighborly together, and so on _ad nauseam_. Thus Bismarck could afford to froth and fume about insult, unprecedented actions, etiquette, and so on; urge upon the German nation that they had been insulted in the person of their august emperor, who seems as touchy on points of etiquette as a French dancing‐master; and ring the changes up and down till he closed with the loud‐sounding twang, “Neither the emperor nor myself are going to Canossa!”

Could anything be more theatrically effective? Could anything be more transparently shallow?

Well, in the face of this awful outrage and unprecedented provocation, what does the wrathful Chancellor do? March on Rome; declare war against the Catholics; utterly exterminate them; smite them hip and thigh? Nothing of the kind. He not only lets the Pope alone from whom he received the outrage, _but he actually looks about for another ambassador, __“__in the event of unlooked‐for eventualities.__”_ He entertains the greatest possible respect for Catholics. Indeed, he seems to be aware that the small fraction of 14,000,000 of them go to swell his empire; the most Catholic of whom, by the way, bore the brunt of the battle in France. He accepts his rebuff more in sorrow than in wrath. He lets the whole question slip; he has no quarrel with the 14,000,000; but there are 708 of them whom he pounces upon as the policeman on the small boy; and nobody can quarrel with him for letting the steam of his wrath off on this small body, which is at the bottom of every mischief that turns up.

Is not this excellent fooling? He says to the Catholics: I will not touch you; you and I are very excellent friends; I will not touch your mother—the church; I will content myself with murdering her eldest son, who is the cause of all the trouble between us.

Now, we may fairly ask the question: Is the quarrel confined to these limits? Why does Bismarck turn aside from the church, from the Pope who so angered him, from the bishops who protested against his laws and refused to submit to them, from the Centre in the Reichstag who so boldly, calmly, and logically oppose him?—why does he turn from all these legitimate foes, and fall on the small body of 708 men who compose the Jesuit Order in Prussia?

The answer is not difficult. The Jesuits as a body represent the intellect of the church. They represent indeed more, much more, than this; for intellect, great as it is, is not the highest thing in the eye of God or of his church; but our present point deals with their intellectual power. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ said the other day, writing on this question:

“One of the most remarkable traits of the Society of Jesus has
always been its literary productiveness. Wherever its members
went, no sooner had they founded a home, a college, a mission,
than they began to write books. [We beg to call the attention of
those who would fain make the church the mother of ignorance, to
testimony of this kind from such a source.] The result has been a
vast literature, not theological alone, though chiefly that, but
embracing almost every branch of knowledge.”

The Jesuits in Germany, as in all countries where they have freedom, possessed the best schools and colleges. They made themselves heard and felt in the press. “In Italy, Germany, Holland, and Belgium,” says the journal above quoted, “the most trustworthy critics are of opinion that there are no better written newspapers than those under Jesuit control.” It says further, and nobody will accuse the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of being a Jesuit organ:

“Why indeed is their Order so dangerous, if it be not on account
of the ardent, disinterested conviction of its members, their
indomitable courage and energy, their spirit of self sacrifice, to
say nothing of their intelligence and their learning? The effect
of all this can but be heightened by persecution. On the other
side [Austria, if we recollect rightly], the danger which the
existence of the Order in the country really offers is much less
than it is supposed to be. In Germany, it does not really exist.”

These extracts from various numbers of one of the leading rationalistic organs in England, which it were easy to supplement by many others of the same import, notably from the _Saturday Review_ and the _Spectator_, we merely present here to such of our non‐Catholic readers as might receive our own testimony of whatever value with a certain suspicion. They embody very sound reasons for Bismarck’s unprovoked and unlawful attack. We purpose going a little deeper into the question.

The Jesuits now, as always, small as their number is, were the leading Catholic teachers in Germany among high and low. Their access to the chairs of the universities made them to a great extent the moulders of thought, the teachers of the teachers, the great intellectual bulwark against the spread of rationalism and every form of false doctrine which strives to creep in to the hearth of the commonwealth and endanger its existence. As they were the strenuous upholders of Bismarck in all that was right; as their influence against the maxims of the International, though not so immediate and showy as his, was infinitely deeper and more lasting, so when he would intrench upon rights that are inalienable to every man of whatever complexion and creed, they turned and boldly faced the Chancellor himself. Were the character which their opponents would fix upon them true, they had their opportunity of showing it—of going with him at least at the outset. He would not have disdained the assistance of such able lieutenants. But instead, the wily Jesuits, the men of the world, the plotters, the schemers, the Order that is untrue to everything and everybody save itself, throws itself with undiminished ardor, with a devotion worthy of the fatalist, with all their heart and soul, into a losing cause; into a cause which they have ever supported; which has been losing these eighteen hundred and seventy‐two years, but which has never lost.

These considerations bring us to the root of the question.

This marvellous German empire, this more than a nine days’ wonder, has been convulsed into life; and sudden convulsions are liable to as sudden relapses. Bismarck’s heart is in it; he is the corner‐stone; it is built upon him; and he of all men knows on what a rocking foundation it is built. Listen to his mouthpiece once more, Minister Delbrück, in his speech on the third reading of the bill against the Jesuits:

“We live under a very new system of government, called into
existence by mighty political convulsions: and I hold that we
should commit a great error in abandoning ourselves to the
delusion that everything is accomplished and perfected because the
Imperial German constitution has been published in the official
organ of the empire. For a long time to come we shall have to keep
carefully in mind that the constitution—the new creation—has
enemies not only abroad but at home; and if the representatives of
the empire arrive at the conviction that among these internal
enemies an organ is to be reckoned which, while furnished with
great intellectual and material means, and endowed with a rare
organization, steadily pursues a fixed inimical aim, it has a
perfect right to meet and frustrate the anticipated attack.”

We have shown how nobly they met and frustrated the anticipated attack—a rather summary mode, we submit, of dealing with those who _may_ be enemies, for it has grown into only an “anticipated attack” now. Worse and worse for the wielders of law. It may be as well to note also that the Chancellor lets nothing slip. He allows the “great intellectual means” to go; but the “great material means” is a far more important thing. He sticks to that. There must be something of the Israelite nature in him. He out‐Shylocks Shylock. As in France, so here; he is not content with the “pound of flesh,” he will have in addition the “monies.” After all, what is there to surprise us in this? The great Chancellor, who coldly wrung such griping terms from bleeding France, could scarcely be expected to leave to the church the great material possessions, that is to say, the schools, seminaries, and churches, which belonged to her children.

But to resume: The first sentence of this quotation strikes the key‐note of the whole movement. And, we avow it, Prince Bismarck is right. This empire has enemies at home as well as abroad, and the Jesuits are in the van. All Catholics are its enemies; and we make bold to say that all free men, and particularly all Americans, are its enemies. For it is not a German but a Bismarck empire; a Bismarck creation, that started into life men scarce knew how; a momentary thing for mutual defence, but never to be made, as he has made it, as powerful an instrument of tyranny as ever was forged to bind and grind a free‐born people in fetters of iron for ever down. Never, in the vexed history of nations, has power, and such awful power, fallen into the hands of any one man at such an opportune moment for good; and never, at the very outset, has it been so basely and so openly abused. The state of Europe, at this moment, is deplorable; revolution in Spain, revolution in Italy, revolution in France. The government, the supreme control of the whole continent, shifting from hand to hand; yesterday it was Napoleon, to‐day ’tis Bismarck: Europe cannot stand these successive shocks, from empire to anarchy, from anarchy to empire, without warning and without ceasing. Under all smoulders the burning lava, breaking out from time to time in fitful eruptions—here the Carbonari, there _la Commune_, in other places as trades‐unions—which threatens to overwhelm and engulf the whole in one red ruin. It is simply the evil effect of evil spirits working upon dissatisfied and ill‐governed bodies of men. While over all, in the dim treacherous background, looms the vast giant power of Russia, that seems to slumber, but is only biding the event, and shows itself in dangerous signs from time to time. Europe yearns for something fixed, permanent, and strong. Napoleon held it—failed; and the reins fell into the hands of Bismarck. He commences his reign by declaring war against the only element that can humanize these conflicting masses, and cause this wild chaos of passion to adhere, coalesce, and become one again as its Creator made it: religion. Religion alone can make them bow to law; for religion alone can teach them that there is a law that is above, and gives a reason for that law which _they_ themselves make for themselves. And what has Bismarck done with this power that was given him?

To begin with, he has banished religion from the schools, where it has flourished to the mutual satisfaction of Catholics and Protestants ever since its establishment. He has profaned the sacrament of marriage and handed it over to the civil courts. We will omit the expulsion of the Jesuits now. His empire is the most autocratic and aristocratic in Europe. Almost as a consequence, it is the most military. To make assurance doubly sure, he is making it more military still; not a nation of peaceful men, but a nation of warriors. Instead of allowing the weary nation a rest after a strife where centuries were condensed into a few months, and fabulous armies shattered in days, the military laws are made more stringent than ever. The Prussian system of service is to prevail throughout the empire, notwithstanding Bavaria’s remonstrance. Von Moltke’s declarations in his late speech are very clear and concise. Summed up, they mean discipline, discipline, discipline; and this is Bismarck’s word also. To produce this perfection of discipline, the power of the state must be supreme in every point. Nothing must escape it; nothing must evade it. The state must be religion, the state must be God, and Herr von Bismarck is the state. This sounds like exaggerated language; but Bismarck shall speak for himself:

“I may tell the preceding speaker [Herr Windhorst] that, as far as
Prussia is concerned, the Prussian cabinet are determined to take
measures which shall henceforth render it impossible for Prussians
who are priests of the Roman Catholic Church to assert with
impunity that they will be guided by canon law rather than
Prussian law.”

This referred immediately to the case of the Bishop of Ermeland and others, for excommunicating disobedient priests.