Chapter XI: A Morning with St. Peter (9)

“2. But suppose this claim, for the sake of argument, to be admitted; what, then, are the ecclesiastical courts to whose judgment the Ritualists would be willing to defer? Unless every clergyman is to settle the form of worship for himself, and there are to be as many forms of worship as there are parishes in the land, who is it that, in his opinion, is to determine what the rubrics of the prayer-book enjoin?—for we suppose him to consider himself bound by the directions of the prayer-book. What is the court to which he is willing to render obedience? Is it the court of his bishop? If so, he must surely be aware that by the ecclesiastical law of this country, as well before the Reformation as since, an appeal from the bishop’s court lies, and has always lain, to the court of the archbishop, this Court of Arches, whose jurisdiction he now denies. What question, therefore, is there of a secular court, or an invasion of the rights of the Church of England?[24]” And the judgment passed by Lord Penzance was contained in the following words: “Applying these powers as I am bound to do, I have no hesitation in pronouncing Mr. Tooth to be contumacious, and in contempt for disobeying the inhibition pronounced by this court, and I direct the same to be signified to the queen in chancery, with a view to his imprisonment.”

Footnote 24:

A writer in the London _Times_ gives the following answer to the
ecclesiastical assumptions of Mr. Tooth: “I will enumerate some of the
acts on ecclesiastical matters which have become law without the
consent of the priesthood, and which therefore the present agitators
bind themselves to disallow and disobey: The act of Edward VI. on the
Sacrament, on Chantries, on Images, on Fasting; the Acts of
Uniformity, both of Edward VI. and Elizabeth; the Act of Toleration;
the act abolishing the burning of heretics, under William III.; the
acts, both of Charles II. and William III., for the observance of
Sunday; the various Marriage Acts of William III., George II., and
Queen Victoria; the various acts both for the repression and the
relief of Roman Catholics during the same range of time; the acts
during the late and present reigns against pluralities and against
non-residence; the acts suppressing the Irish bishoprics, suppressing
half the cathedral dignitaries in England, and, finally,
revolutionizing the Irish Church; the act for abolishing the services
drawn up by Convocation for the political anniversaries of the
seventeenth century. These and many other laws, many of them of
unquestioned beneficence, most of them of unquestioned obligation, all
of them passed by Parliament, and by it alone, must be set aside by
those who make it a point of conscience to disobey any law which has
been imposed on the church by secular authority.”

And now the strife of tongues which preceded this climax was comparative calm to that which at present rages. All the winds of Æolus, each trying which can blow the hardest, seem let loose at once in the distracted Establishment. By the Ritualist party the confessor for disobedience in Horsemonger Lane jail is already dubbed “the martyr, Tooth”; while another party rejoices that, by the contumacy of this “parson in revolt,” the state church is “forced into a clear, practical assertion of her old and hitherto unquestioned right to restrain and punish disobedient and delinquent 'clerks.’” Further, the London _Times_, dilating after its own infallible fashion upon Mr. Tooth and “his pranks,” dares to aver that “to parade a banner calling the Virgin Mary the 'Mother of God’ is little less than sheer blasphemy.”

At a large meeting of the “English Church Union” it became evident that the changes in law procedure produced by the Public Worship Regulation Act are producing a murmur in favor of “disestablishment” within the Church of England herself. One of the reverend speakers at this meeting said that “the issue had now merged from one about the color of a stole to a question of church and state,” and the honorable chairman agreed that “establishment might cost too dear.” Archdeacon Denison declared that this case of “dear Arthur Tooth” would prove to be “a life-and-death struggle with Protestantism,” thus making the old mistake of putting mere ritualism in the place of the Catholic Church. Canon Carter moved that “the Church Union denies that the secular power has authority in matters purely spiritual,” upon which a journal reminds him that, from the days of the Reformation, it has been one of the conditions on which the state church enjoyed the emoluments and privileges of establishment that her clergy should perform certain duties in a way laid down by law. Whether, as in the case of Mr. Tooth, they have or have not done so is a matter which the law leaves a particular court to decide. If Mr. Tooth does not relish the action of these tribunals, two courses are open to him, and only two. Either he may give up those practices which they declare obnoxious within the pale of the Established Church, or he may leave the Establishment and continue them elsewhere. The latter step would entail the sacrifice of the endowment, or, as the Ritualists would say, it would involve the guilt of schism; in which case the whole matter resolves itself into a choice of sins: the clergyman must either commit the sin of obeying Lord Penzance, and so retain the endowment, or he must commit the sin of “schism” and fling the endowment away. Thus the Church Unionists are by no means logical in comparing their present position to that of Chalmers, Buchanan, Guthrie, Cunningham, and other leaders of the Free Kirk of Scotland previously to 1843; for these men gave up all thought of state endowment, or even of ministering in buildings dependent on the state, and purchased the independence of their ministrations at the cost of all state temporalities. This is a very different matter from attempting to have the temporalities and the independence together.[25]

Footnote 25:

Certain evicted Ritualists, however, do not appear to be much affected
by the measures taken to repress them, if it be true that the Rev. R.
P. Dale, who has been suspended for three years, and his former parish
merged into another, takes the matter very philosophically, and, in
default of his own parish, finds every Sunday in one place or another
a complaisant brother-clergyman, who lends him his church and his
pulpit, from which he braves the pseudo-episcopal thunders.

Another observation made by Canon Carter was, though not in itself more true, yet, for him, much more to the point—namely, that “the only persecution now carried on in England is against the High-Church party.” It is on this fact that the Ritualists stand triumphant. They can honestly plead that they, the High-Church party, have done more than all the other parties put together for the revival of faith and devotion in England. They can also plead that they are men of education, of courage and energy and self-denying zeal, and that to them is due whatever residuum is left of Catholic sentiment and tradition in the Establishment. The marvel is that any of these really earnest men should continue so blind to their anomalous position.

On the same day that the English Church Union held its assembly a meeting of the ultra-Protestant school took place at the Wellington Hall, Islington, where about one hundred and twenty clergymen and laymen partook of breakfast, after which they proceeded to deliver themselves of a large amount of the peculiar and incoherent insipidities with which the readers of the _Rock_ must be painfully familiar. One specimen will suffice, which, as our readers will perceive, is not lacking in the unctuous accusations in which the “Evangelicals” are apt to excel: “As in Germany,” they said, “the Jesuits devoted all their self-denying energies to opposing the spread of the true doctrines, so here in England there was an able and resolute body of men who opposed themselves to the true principles of religion, and who, by services rendered attractive to the eye and ear, appealed by the senses to the understanding. Many of these men were no doubt sincere, and were thus unconsciously doing the work of Satan. This was the powerful opposing force with which the Evangelical body of the Church of England had to contend.”

Now, we must beg leave to observe that for these “Evangelical” gentlemen to talk of Ritualists as unconsciously doing the work of Satan is simply absurd. Did not the “beam in their own eye” blind them, we would ask them to take a glance backward and think of forty years ago, when, through the length and breadth of the land, they locked up their churches from Sunday afternoon to the following Sunday morning, and sometimes even longer; for the writer can recall three villages (there may or may not have been many more) in Leicestershire alone where, less than forty years ago, there was only one service on the Sunday, and that alternately in the morning and afternoon. We have heard of the wag who chalked on the church door of an Evangelical rector, “_Le Bon Dieu est sorti: Il ne reviendra que dimanche prochain_.” And truly, if the good God _did_ come back, it would not be, in many instances, to find his house “swept and garnished.”

Forty years ago! Sitting in the old family pew in the chancel of A ... stone church, through the long, monotonous sermons of the worthy rector, whose favorite subjects were “saving faith” and abuse of popery, what a help it was to patient endurance to watch the merry, loud-voiced sparrows fluttering in and out of the broken diamond panes of the chancel windows, through which long sprays of ivy crept and clung lovingly up the poor old walls, bare of everything but whitewash, of the once Catholic church—walls that the damp of many an autumn and winter had dyed with streaks of green, deeper and brighter in hue than the faded, ink-stained rag of moth-eaten green baize that covered the rickety wooden table standing where, in old days, the most holy Sacrifice had been offered upon a Catholic altar. Childhood, before opportunities for comparison have been afforded, is not hard to please, and we used to think that that verdant chancel might have been in the mind of the sweet Psalmist of Israel when he sang, “The sparrow hath found her a house, and the swallow a nest, where she may lay her young: even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts!” And yet our worthy rector (a rich pluralist with a large family) was a kind-hearted, easy, amiable man, and not in any way addicted to the hunting and drinking practices of certain of his clerical neighbors; his house was the perfection of refined not overloaded luxury, and the well-kept gardens of that most pleasant of rectories were a paradise of smooth lawns, gay parterres, and shady shrubberies sloping down to the banks of the winding Soar. The rector led a mildly studious life when in the country (for half his year was spent in London), visited much among the “county families,” and shyly and rarely entered the cottages of the village; but religion in that village was well-nigh dead. If amiable clergymen of this stamp are not “unconsciously doing the work of Satan” themselves, they at any rate give Satan plenty of time and opportunity to do his own work himself among their flock, and to do it very effectually, too.

Yet it is the descendants of men like these who are foremost in groaning down and persecuting the self-denying, hard-working clergy who are always at their posts! The preachers of sentiment are furious against the upholders of the necessity of dogmatic truth. The idlers in family and social circles are desperate against enthusiasts who at least _try_ to hear confessions and to be priests. We cannot admire the consistency of the Ritualists—for unhappily it does not exist—but the inconsistency of their “Evangelical” accusers is simply “the impeachment of energy by twaddle.”

A correspondent of the London _Times_ calls attention to the fact that while Mr. Tooth, who is perfectly orthodox as regards the creeds of the church, is prosecuted for extremes in ritual, a brother clergyman is allowed to preach open infidelity from the pulpit unmolested. “The Public Worship Bill,” he writes, “has been passed to repress crimes so grave as over-magnificence in the services, but does not deign to meddle in so small a matter as that of vindicating the Divinity of our Saviour, which is fearlessly impugned in a pulpit which the Bishop of London himself has condescended to occupy.”

It is much to be doubted whether the Anglican bishops, when they obtained from Parliament the Public Worship Regulation Act, had the remotest idea of the tempest which, Prospero-like, they were summoning around them, but which, unlike Shakspere’s magician, they would be powerless to allay. And if this is the result obtained by the act just mentioned, a still more recent one, the “Scotch Church Patronage Act,” another measure intended by Lord Beaconsfield as an additional buttress to ecclesiastical establishments, has produced similar storms in the North. It has led to proceedings in connection with the “settlement” of a parish clergyman at New Deer in Aberdeenshire which recall the furious battles between the “intrusion” and non-intrusion parties that split the Established Church of Scotland into fragments thirty-four years ago, and has besides almost succeeded in uniting three-fourths of Scotland into a solid disestablishment phalanx. The Presbyterian Kirk, moreover, in addition to subjects of contention presented from without, has certain characteristic squabbles of its own. A question having recently arisen on the subject of unfermented wines in the celebration of what is called communion, the session has maintained that it “has a right to change the elements of communion, and in so doing is discharging its proper functions.” Why not? If local churches can make their own doctrines, what, we should like to know, is to hinder them from making their own sacraments as well?

Our object in this article has been merely to sketch the present condition of affairs in the English Establishment; but as we have in concluding taken a momentary glance at Scotland also, we cannot leave unnamed the Green Isle of the West, whose centuries of suffering and oppression have at last, we earnestly trust, given place to times of peace and long prosperity.

Should the reviving hopes of many hearts be realized, and the Green Tree of England’s ancient church again spread its vigorous branches over the land that was once “Our Lady’s Dowry”; and should the grand old northern abbeys, Melrose, Jedburgh, Paisley, and even, it may be, Iona, receive again as in past ages their cowled and consecrated sons, still England and Scotland will have but returned to the faith which Ireland has never lost, and which no human or Satanic power has been able to wrench from her. No! For, rather than let the cross be torn from her bleeding embrace, she suffered herself to be nailed upon it.

THE ASHES OF THE PALMS.

THE DISCIPLE.

“Are ashes scarce that palms must burn,
Those sweet memorials of the only day
Of triumph that thou hadst, my Prince,
Upon this woeful earth?”

THE MASTER.

“All glory unto ashes, child, must turn,
Of which this deathly world can make display.
These ashes on proud heads convince
Proud hearts of glory’s worth.”

THE DISCIPLE.

“If palms to ashes must,
So be 't. _I_ still will live to praise,
Though glory’s gage should burn.”

THE MASTER.

“E’en thou art naught but dust.
The mark thy forehead bears betrays
To what thou shalt return.”

ASH WEDNESDAY

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AN OLD WORLD AS SEEN THROUGH YOUNG EYES; OR, TRAVELS AROUND THE
WORLD. By Ellen H. Walworth. New York: Sadlier & Co. 1877.

Every school-girl who reads this book will wish that she had an uncle who would send for her one day, while she is dreaming over her lesson-book, and invite her to accompany him around the world. This is what happened to Miss Ellen Walworth in June, 1873, and the volume before us is composed of the letters which she wrote home during her tour, and which were published as they were received in an Albany newspaper, attracting at the time considerable attention. They are the production of a school-girl of fifteen, but slightly altered from their original form, and this makes their peculiarity and their special interest. The course of her travels was through Scotland, Ireland, England, Belgium, the country of the Rhine, Switzerland, Italy, Egypt, China, Japan, and home by way of San Francisco. The letters are just what they should be—natural, lively, juvenile descriptions of the little incidents of travel and the scenes witnessed, with the freshness and vividness of letters written at the time and on the spot to which each one successively belongs. Two extremely interesting letters of Father Walworth, written with his well-known charm of style and minute accuracy of statement, are included in the collection. One of these contains a description of the Coptic rite, the other an account of the present state of the mission in Japan, with many interesting historical particulars. Our young folk will find this a very entertaining volume, and older people may read it with pleasure. It is a book very creditable to the young author, and also an evidence of the kind of culture which is given to young girls by the accomplished ladies at Kenwood. We subjoin one specimen of the style in which the letters are written, not at all childish, although suffused with a childlike gayety:

“I remember what dispute arose among the passengers the day we went
down Lake Zurich. There were mountains all around us, but from the
end of the lake towards which we were steering rose quite a high
range. Over their summits the clouds extended up some distance, and,
strange to say, a succession of peaks were to be seen above the
clouds, suspended, as it were, in the sky, and having no connection
with the peaks below, except a close resemblance in form. Their
outlines were distinctly marked against the clear blue sky, but they
had a strange, chalky, light appearance, as if they could be blown
away by a breath. Some of the passengers said they were merely
unusual forms taken by the clouds; others insisted that they were a
reflection of the peaks below—a species of _Fata Morgana_. A few old
Alp frequenters, among them our friend of the gravel acquaintance,
ventured to assert that they were real mountains, but their idea was
laughed down as ridiculous. While the dispute was the hottest, the
wind, by a strange freak, dispersed the clouds almost in an instant,
and we had before us one of the mighty ranges of Switzerland, beside
which our mountains of the lake shore were mere hillocks.

“From the foot of Lake Zurich we took the railroad carriages for
Ragatz and Chur. This journey is among my most vivid recollections
of Switzerland: for we were following the courses of the valleys and
streams through that wonderful range of mountains that we had seen
from the lake. We twisted ourselves into every possible position to
see the snow-capped summits directly above us, and our
fellow-travellers—English, French, and Germans—became so excited
over the scenery that they would call out to each other—for, though
the language might not be understood, the gestures were
unmistakable—and they would rush from one side of the cars to the
other, even dropping down on the floor, to get a sight from the
car-windows of the very tip-top of the mountains. The enthusiasm
seemed contagious; there were haughty Englishmen, stolid Germans,
fashionable young ladies, and confirmed dandies equally forgetful of
appearances. Indeed, as we passed peak after peak, now clustered
together, now opening and showing beautiful valleys between, or
dark, shaded chasms, the jagged rocks taking new shapes and hues
every instant, it was like watching a grand and ever-varying
kaleidoscope.”

MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA. A collection of Masses, Vespers, Hymns,
Motets, etc., for the service of the Catholic Church. New York: J.
Fischer & Bro.

Of this publication the Part 16 sent us, containing motets for singing at the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, is a collection well suited for use at that function. But we must object to the title of the general work, as neither this nor any figured _music_ can be sung by ecclesiastics, as such, officiating in any service of the Catholic Church. The only melody properly styled _musica ecclesiastica_ is the Gregorian chant. Definitions are always of grave moment. Suppose that some one of our enterprising publishers should present the public with a manual of prayers such as the _St. John’s Manual_, the _Key of Heaven_, or the _Mission Book_ under the title of “Manual for the Clergy, consisting of prayers, litanies, hymns, and other devotions _for the service of the Catholic Church_”; it is plain that it would not receive the imprimatur of a Catholic school-boy.

Under a proper title we give our hearty encouragement to the work which our German Catholic brethren abroad and here in the United States have within the last few years pursued with such praiseworthy zeal in the composition of music for the use of our choirs, which, if we do not think it to be the most suitable and most consistent in tone with the letter and spirit of the Catholic ritual, is decidedly a vast improvement upon the sensual, operatic style of music whose melodies and harmonies have emasculated the devotion and vitiated the taste of, we regret to say, almost the majority of Catholics in modern times.

THE COMPREHENSIVE GEOGRAPHY. Nos. 1, 2, and 3. New York: P. O’Shea,
37 Barclay St. 1876.

We are inclined to think that this series is the best of the many which have of late years been presented to the public, and certainly do not know of any which are superior to it in any respect except in the department of physical geography; and it is as complete even in this as it could well be without an additional volume specially devoted to that subject.

The feature which should particularly recommend it to Catholics is the prominence which it gives to facts connected with religion. There is no branch of study for the young in which it is so important that religion should be prominent as geography, with the exception, of course, of history. Even the best text-books hitherto published are perhaps a little too reticent in this respect. The desire to accomplish this object has in the present work led to the introduction of some rather unnecessary details; but this is a fault on the right side.

We hope that this series will become popular, as it deserves to be, in Catholic schools.

THE COMPLETE OFFICE OF HOLY WEEK ACCORDING TO THE ROMAN MISSAL AND
BREVIARY. In Latin and English. New edition. Revised and enlarged.
18mo, pp. 563. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1877.

This edition of _Holy Week_ is a new and corrected one; it is printed from large type on good paper, and is well and substantially bound. Moreover, it is complete, containing all the offices of the church from Palm Sunday to Easter Tuesday, inclusive. This edition is the only correct one now published in this country. It has been carefully read by persons competent to guarantee against the gross blunders that are apt to disfigure Catholic works of the greatest importance. The price is so low that the book is within the reach of every one, thus enabling them to follow easily the services of the church during Holy Week.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXV., No. 146.—MAY, 1877.

THE PRUSSIAN CHANCELLOR.[26]

Footnote 26:

_Two Chancellors, etc._ By Julian Klaczko. Translated by Frank P.
Ward. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

_Pro Nihilo_ and other pamphlets on the Arnim question.

M. Julian Klaczko is by birth a Polish Jew and is a convert to the Catholic Christian faith. He was for a time employed in the office of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was afterwards a member of the imperial parliament. He has, however, generally been a resident in France, where his numerous essays on political topics have been published, all of which have attracted much attention and won for their author a high reputation. We have already, in our number for last March, made some observations on the career and policy of one of the two chancellors, whose lives and public actions, so far as they had progressed at the time of its publication, were sketched in the work whose title is given below. This work is one of the most interesting political _brochures_ of our time, and we propose to continue in the present article the review of it commenced in our previous one, confining our attention chiefly to the chancellor of the German Empire.

Prince Bismarck has been characterized by M. Thiers as “a savage full of genius.” He is one of Carlyle’s “heroes”—an expression synonymous with that of the clever French statesman, and denoting a giant in whom is embodied intellectual and physical force, irrespective of any moral direction. To this native strength, which has remained through life to a great extent rude and uncultivated, and not in any way to a regular and careful education, Otto von Bismarck is indebted for the success he has achieved. His studies were finished on his entrance at the university, and never resumed. It is doubtful whether he ever passed the legal examination required before entering the civil service in Prussia. Nevertheless, such a man is always a sort of extraordinary professor to himself. He has read literature and studied men and events. It is absurd to call such a man uneducated; and, although he does not possess the art of speaking or writing according to rule, he is able to use both his tongue and pen with an original power which sometimes rises to the highest level of eloquence, and to coin expressions which, once uttered, can never be forgotten. We have quoted one in our former article, about the “iron dice of destiny,” and we will give one more, which we think is unsurpassed in the annals of modern speech:

“One of his most happy, most memorable inspirations he suddenly drew
one day from the libretto of the _Freischütz_.

“In this opera of Weber, Max, the good and unfortunate hunter,
borrows a cartridge from Robin, the evil spirit, and immediately
kills an eagle, one of whose feathers he proudly sticks in his cap.
He then asks for some more cartridges, but Robin tells him that they
are 'enchanted balls,’ and that, in order to obtain them, he must
surrender himself to the infernal spirits and deliver his soul to
them. Max draws back, and then Robin, sneering, tells him that he
hesitates in vain, that the bargain is made, and that he has already
committed himself by the ball he made use of: 'Do you think, then,
that this eagle was a free gift?’ Well! when in 1849 the young
orator of the Mark of Brandenburg had to implore the Prussian
chamber not to accept for the King of Prussia the imperial crown
which the parliament of Frankfort offered him, he ended by crying
out: 'It is radicalism which offers this gift to the king. Sooner or
later this radicalism will stand upright before the king, will
demand of him its recompense, and, pointing to the emblem of the
eagle on that new imperial flag, it will say: _Did you think, then,
that this eagle was a free gift?_’”

The suggestion will doubtless present itself immediately to the minds of many of our readers that the poetic myth of the _Freischütz_ is likely to be fulfilled in sober, actual reality when the German imperial drama is played out, and that Bismarck will prove to have been the Robin of William I. But this is an anticipation, and we return to our sheep and our young wolf. An equally marked and well-known trait of Bismarck’s style in speech and writing is a cold, biting, ironical humor, which often assumes the outward guise of frankness, sometimes ferocious, sometimes farcical, but always dangerous and often deadly when the master of the weapon is wielding it in a real fight. The general tone of his disposition is contemptuous and misanthropical, as of one who alternately sneers and laughs at mankind in general, on the whole despising the game of life, yet going in for deep play with all his soul when the chance presents itself, for mere occupation and amusement; just as he plunged into the Burschen-life in his youth and hunted bears at a later period in Russia. There is no trace of philanthropy in his character; as an enemy he is relentless, and no gentle or noble sentiments hamper his progress in the way of his policy of “blood and iron.” Yet there is a most tender and devoted affection manifested in his letters to his sister, Malvina von Arnim—“Maldewinchen”; so far as we know he has been a kind husband and father; there seems really to be something genuine in his long friendship for Prince Gortchakoff; and all the world knows that he risked his life to rescue a servant from drowning. The impression we have received from all we have ever read or heard about him is, that his natural disposition, like that of Napoleon, is generous and noble, but, like his, has been perverted by ambition.

His early life did not promise any great achievements. He went by the name of “Mad Bismarck,” and was always restless, unsettled, without steady application to any definite aim. What his real inward convictions are or have been, in religion, philosophy, and the higher sphere of political ethics, is very difficult to determine, at least for us who are at a distance; or even to decide how far he has ever formed and cherished any deep and settled convictions at all. Practically, he has been a Pyrrhonist and Epicurean, a heathen and a materialist, using all things and all ideas as so many counters of no value except for his own game. The opinions which he professed at the outset of his political career were those of “the party of the cross,” that old-Prussian, religious, monarchical, conservative party represented by the illustrious Baron von Gerlach, which has been in opposition to the administration of the chancellor, and is now in a quasi-alliance with the Catholic party.

“'I belong—' such was the defiant declaration of Herr von Bismarck
in one of his first speeches in the chamber—'I belong to an opinion
which glories in the reproaches of obscurantism and of tendencies of
the middle age; I belong to that great multitude which is compared
with disdain to the most intelligent party of the nation.’ He wanted
a _Christian state_. 'Without a religious basis,’ said he, 'a state
is nothing but _a fortuitous aggregation of interests, a sort of
bastion in a war of all against all; without this religious basis,
all legislation, instead of regenerating itself at the living
sources of eternal truth, is only tossed about by human ideas as
vague as changeable_.’”

What can be finer or truer than this statement, in which the whole of his own policy as chancellor of the German Empire is condemned in advance out of his own mouth? In every important respect his avowed opinions and political action were diametrically opposite to those of a later date. In fact, his bold and even extravagant advocacy of the cause of the house of Hapsburg, at a moment when (1850) the attitude of Prussia towards Austria was most humiliating, was the first occasion of launching him into the career of foreign affairs. He was sent, with much misgiving on the part of the king and his minister, as Prussian plenipotentiary to the Diet of Frankfort; and here he began to go to school to Prince Gortchakoff, now commenced that world-renowned friendship between these two statesmen which has altered the course of history and for whose _dénoûement_ we are at this moment intently watching.

It would be idle to suppose that these two men traced out beforehand the common policy which they have since pursued in concert. It was impossible for any human sagacity to foresee the conjunctures which have since arisen, and have furnished to Bismarck the opportunities of which his genius has availed itself to destroy and to upbuild great political fabrics. They could only plan, in general, the aggrandizement of Russia and Prussia, by the breaking down of the traditional policy of coalition and balance among the European powers. All that we can see clearly respecting the incipient working of Bismarck’s mind at this period is, that he contracted an aversion for Austria, a contempt for the German confederation, and a mean opinion in general of the diplomats who had the management of the European state-craft. The idea of a new era of absolutism in a few great, conquering nations—an absolutism “tinged with popular passions,” or, according to his favorite expression,“spotted with red”—dawned on his mind and became gradually more distinct. Some extravagant projects were at times bubbling in his restless brain, and he often threatened to abandon the career of regular diplomatic service and go into politics “in his swimming-drawers.” But when the Prussian administration proposed to him to go to Russia as resident ambassador, with a view, as he expressed it, of “putting him on ice” to cool him down, he consented to don a “bear-skin” instead of the aforesaid habiliments of a _sans-culottes_.

On the 1st of April, _his birth-day_, 1859, Herr von Bismarck arrived in the capital of the Russian Empire, of which his former colleague at Frankfort was already the chancellor. Among the Russians he was extremely popular; for he took extraordinary pains to make himself agreeable to them, and seemed to have turned himself into a Russian, for the time being, in donning the bear-skin. Notwithstanding his outward hilariousness, he was inwardly morose, dissatisfied with the course which Prussian and European politics were following, and feeling himself condemned to honorable exile and inaction. He was once so severely ill through chagrin that his life was in danger. He said on his recovery that he had gone “half-way to a better world,” and expressed regret that he had not completed the journey. He thought of abandoning politics altogether, and with difficulty overcame his impatience sufficiently to bide his time a little longer. Gortchakoff said that Russia “did not sulk, but meditated.” Bismarck sulked and meditated. But meanwhile the course of events was preparing for him his opportunity. The strange and mixed drama in which Napoleon III., destined to be its principal victim, was the chief actor—whose critical moments were Sebastopol, Solferino, Sadowa, Sedan—was going on. This great actor, once regarded as a sphinx of political wisdom, but now designated by no more honorable title than the “dreamer of Ham,” holds a conspicuous place in the group of those apparently and temporarily great men to whom belongs the epitaph sadly composed for himself by the expiring Joseph II., Emperor of Austria: “Here lies the man who failed in all his undertakings.” More than this, he is a signal instance of that blind fatuity by which those men who set themselves to counteract the order of divine Providence are seduced, as the King of Israel was by the “lying spirit” in the mouth of his prophets, to ruin themselves and become the executioners of divine vengeance on their own persons.

If Louis Napoleon had had good sense and moral principle enough to imitate Charlemagne, he might have confirmed his dynasty, established France in solid power and prosperity, and earned true glory as a benefactor of Christendom. But he was not “of the seed of those men by whom salvation was brought to Israel.” He aspired to imitate Cæsar and Napoleon without possessing their genius. He imitated the profligacy of Cæsar in his youth, the perfidy of Napoleon in his old age. His early vices avenged themselves in the pain and disease which unmanned and incapacitated him for action in the last eventful crisis of his career. His criminal alliance with Carbonari and conspirators in his youth entangled him afterwards in a mesh which he had not courage, even if he had the wish, to break. By his alliance with the Turk he prepared an enemy in Russia, who became one principal cause of his final downfall and the humiliation of France, while he gained nothing beyond a momentary prestige of glory for his army. By his Italian campaign, and his subsequent support of Prussia against Austria, he weakened the power which would otherwise have befriended France in her dire distress; and he built up a kingdom which abandoned and betrayed him, at the cost of incurring the malediction which falls on all betrayers and oppressors of the Holy See.

By his greed of territory in annexing Savoy he alienated for ever his former ally, England. By the war above alluded to and his miserable Mexican _fiasco_ he used up the splendid army of France, and was found _minus habens_ when the day of destiny came on him unprepared. He deliberately fostered the military and political increase of Prussia, and then madly dragged down upon France that terrible power which, having first outwitted, in the second place crushed him.

We have read of some one who drew an enigmatical figure, in which a crowned serpent is represented twining from his tail upward through a combination of four letters S, and strangled by the upper crook of the topmost letter. In this figure is strikingly symbolized the course of events in Europe from the Crimean war to the Prussian conquest. During Bismarck’s residence in Russia, which followed Sebastopol, came the day of Solferino. The immediate effect of this battle was an attempt to mobilize the Prussian army, which disclosed to the crown-prince, now Emperor of Germany, its miserable condition, and suggested to him the plan of its entire reformation. This plan he afterwards carried out, accomplishing it with unprecedented rapidity and skill by the aid of Von Moltke and Von Roon, against the violent opposition of the parliament and the whole people. Thus was Bismarck’s great instrument of making force bring right under subjection prepared for him in advance, without his concurrence. The connivance and concurrence of Russia were already secured, most cordially so far as further designs on Austria were concerned, and at least conditionally and passively in respect to ulterior projects of improving Prussia’s position.

The “Iron Count” is now about to try the strength of his Thor’s hammer on the head of the sphinx. Bismarck is about to become the head of the Prussian state, and try his craft and strength in a contest for supremacy with Louis Napoleon. He was called home toward the end of 1861 for consultation and to assist at the coronation of King William, and returned to St. Petersburg only to close up the affairs of his mission and take farewell. In May, 1862, he was at Berlin, and evidently destined for the post of Chief Minister. He was, however, _ad interim_ sent on the mission to Paris, _to take the measure of Louis Napoleon_ and study more nearly the position of European affairs, which all centred at that time in the Tuileries. We should rather say that he went to Paris to _complete_ these studies and observations. Already, in 1858, he had sounded the French emperor in respect to his sentiments towards Prussia, and found them most encouraging. During the same year Louis Napoleon had sent this singular message by Count Pepoli to the court of Berlin: “In Germany Austria represents the past, Prussia represents the future; in linking itself to Austria Prussia condemns itself to immobility; it cannot be thus contented; it is called to a higher fortune; _it should accomplish in Germany the great destinies which await it, and which Germany awaits from it_.” Consider this language, and then think of the prison of Wilhelmshöhe and of the reflections which must have passed through the mind of the unfortunate dreamer so rudely awakened by the thunder of Von Moltke’s guns! King William had had an interview with Louis Napoleon at Compiègne, for which Bismarck had aided him in preparing, and it was partly the result of this interview which had determined him to call the bold cavalier of the Mark to his side. The dreamer’s vague and scheming mind revolved vast projects of Pan-Latin, Pan-German, Pan-Sclavonian combinations, uniting the three great races and the three great churches, with their respective centres at Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, in a triple alliance of universal monarchies, to dominate the world, to inaugurate a new era, to bring on the millennium of civilization, and to place the name of Louis Napoleon at least on a par with those of Moses, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Constantine, and Charlemagne.

We have read in the autobiography of some German philosopher that in his youth he was ravished with ecstasy in thinking of “_the wheels of the eternal essences_”! The visionary projects of this unfortunate imperial seer remind us forcibly of this boyish philosopher. While he was letting France drift on towards the _Où allons nous?_ of Mgr. Dupanloup, he was driving his imaginary chariot, on the “wheels of the eternal essences,” through airy regions, casting an occasional undecided glance on Belgium and the frontiers of the Rhine. Bismarck was not long in taking his measure, and it appears that Prince Gortchakoff had long since learned the passes by which he could magnetize him at pleasure. With his own peculiar, knavish frankness, Bismarck avowed his own objective aim—the rectification of the Prussian frontiers—and found it easy to amuse the decaying emperor with vague hints of compensation to France by allowing the annexation of Belgium and the territory on the left bank of the Rhine. As for the opinion which was formed respecting Bismarck himself, at this time and during the first period of his administration, by the emperor and the diplomats, it appears now strangely comical. They could not bring themselves to regard him as serious, and were thrown completely off their guard by his consummate acting. As late as 1865, when he visited the French emperor at Biarritz, the latter, while listening to his harangues during the promenades which they took together on the beach, would slyly press the arm of Prosper Merimée, and even whispered once in his ear: “He is crazy.” M. Benedetti in the following year told General Govone that he considered Bismarck to be “a maniacal diplomat,” adding that he had _long known his man_, and had _followed him up_ for fifteen years. There is something grimly amusing in this play of the cat and the mice, notwithstanding its tragical results and the pity we must feel for the victims who thought themselves so extremely astute, but were lured on by one deeper in craft than they were, as easily as the meditative, solemn bruin was enticed by Reynard the fox to go after honey.

Bismarck left Paris, convinced of three things as the result of his studies: First, that Louis Napoleon was a “great unrecognized _incapacity_.” Second, that “liberalism is only nonsense which it is easy to bring to reason; but revolution is a force which it is necessary to know how to use.” Third, “that England need not enter into his calculations.” He returned to Berlin to assume the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs and commence the work of rounding off Prussia. Austria was the one decided antagonist whom he had to meet in the critical struggle for supremacy in Germany. He was not afraid of her single power unaided by allies, but he was anxious to make doubly sure of the neutrality of France and Russia. Circumstances favored him most remarkably in producing an alienation between these two powers, which was an efficacious preventive of any amicable concord between the two to check his plans, and in persuading each one more decisively to connive at them. The Polish insurrection, encouraged by France and Austria, embroiled Alexander II. with Louis Napoleon, and renewed all the former rancor of St. Petersburg against Vienna. Bismarck was cunning enough to make secret preparations for taking advantage of the insurrection, if it proved too strong for Russia to quell, by occupying Poland with Prussian troops, and securing the final disposition of the whole Polish question for himself. At the same time he so managed as to strengthen the bond between himself and Gortchakoff, and, in the actual event, to bind Russia and Prussia closely together by an open common policy in respect to Poland. Favored by fortunate circumstances, by the co-operation of military chiefs who showed a genius in organizing and leading the Prussian army which astonished the world, by a fatuity in Louis Napoleon and a complaisance in the Russian chancellor beyond his most sanguine expectations, he played during the next four years, like a Paul Morphy of politics, four or five games at once with masterly skill. King William of Prussia and all the other rulers and statesmen of Europe were but pieces or pawns to be played with, taken, or checkmated; and on the day after the battle of Sadowa he was really master of the situation.

The objective point at which Bismarck aimed in the year 1862 was to make Prussia the most powerful state in Europe and completely independent of every other state or coalition of states. For this end it was necessary to destroy the German _Bund_, to deprive Austria of all power in Germany, to increase the Prussian territory, and to establish its hegemony in Germany. All this was accomplished, before the close of the year 1866, by means of the imbroglio of the Schleswig-Holstein succession. When Christian IX. succeeded to the throne of Denmark, his right to the succession in the duchies was disputed, because it came through a female line debarred from inheriting by the ancient law of Schleswig and Holstein. The designs of Prussia upon these duchies were, however, of a much earlier origin, and had their birth from the liberal party and its revolutionary movements in 1848. In a speech delivered in the Prussian chambers, April 21, 1849, Herr von Bismarck declared that the war provoked in the duchies of the Elbe was “an undertaking eminently iniquitous, frivolous, disastrous, and revolutionary.” We will not pretend to determine the question of the validity of King Christian’s title, as between himself and the people of the duchies. It is evident enough, however, that the matter was one which interested all Europe, and ought to have been calmly, justly determined, in a manner consonant with the interests of the kingdom of Denmark, of the people of the duchies, of the confederated states of the German _Bund_, and of Europe. In fact, the doubt respecting Christian’s title was seized upon by Bismarck as a mere pretext for absorbing the disputed territory, _with its fine Baltic sea-port of Kiel_, into Prussia. The Prince of Augustenberg, the chief claimant against Christian, had been induced, a short time before the accession of the latter to the Danish throne, by the influence of Bismarck himself, to sell his claim on Holstein to the government of Copenhagen. No sooner was the old king dead than Bismarck declared that this same prince was the rightful duke. At a later period he brought forward several other claimants, that these rival claims might neutralize each other. How he cheated Lord John Russell; how he used the German _Bund_ as a tool for his own purposes and then scornfully pushed it aside; how he drew Austria into a war against Denmark, followed by a joint occupation of the duchies, and then commenced a quarrel against her for their sole possession; and how England, the declared protector of Denmark, looked tamely on while it was despoiled and maimed, we have not time to relate in detail. It was a great blunder in France, England, and Russia to permit what they could easily have prevented. On the part of Austria it was a stupendous and suicidal folly to make itself an accomplice in a conspiracy for destroying the bulwarks of its own power. This was soon made manifest, but too late to escape the consequences of a fatal blunder. Prussia being ready for action, the _Bund_ and the claimants of the duchies were summarily shoved aside. The question of the right of succession in the duchies was referred to a high Prussian court for adjudication. It was decided that _the King of Denmark alone_ had possessed the right of sovereignty in Schleswig and Holstein, and that, by the cession which he had been forced to make after being conquered in war, this right was now vested in Prussia and Austria. Austria was politely requested to sell her share to Prussia, which she declined to do, and the next step was to wrest it from her by force.

The dark intrigues—at the time so hidden from sight and so almost desperate, even in the view of the “maniacal diplomat” who held their threads in his hand and wove them into a mesh around his victim—by which Bismarck planned the ruin of Austria, have since been fully disclosed. With the government of Victor Emanuel a strict and secret treaty was contracted. At the same time, and for several years after, a correspondence was kept up with Mazzini, looking to the overthrow of Victor Emanuel in case of any action on his part unfavorable to the schemes of the arch-conspirators. Arrangements were made for fomenting an insurrection in Hungary under the leadership of Garibaldi. The neutrality and connivance of Louis Napoleon were secured by playing upon his Italian sympathies and holding before him vague expectations of compensation for France.

Prince Gortchakoff lent an underhand but most valuable help to his friend all through, beginning with the attack on Denmark. It was Louis Napoleon, whose incapacity and weakness were not yet fully revealed even to Bismarck’s keen eye, who was most feared and distrusted. Enfeebled as he was in respect to whatever capacity he had really possessed in his prime, and weakened as was the power of France, yet, with the help of the statesmen and soldiers who were at his disposal, he still retained the power of determining the main issue in the politics of Europe, and Bismarck knew it. He would not stir in any decisive action until well assured that he had mastered the French emperor by his superior craft. He had less difficulty in this than he anticipated. Louis Napoleon, like most other European observers, overrated the military strength of Austria, and underrated the new Prussian army with its almost untried leaders, Von Roon and Von Moltke; which even Bismarck himself somewhat distrusted up to the last moment. The French emperor desired and hoped for the liberation of Venetia. But he expected the defeat of the Prussian army in Germany, and for himself the _rôle_ of a mediator, an umpire, a general referee for settling all things on the basis of a new treaty of peace. He let Bismarck play his game out, with what result is known to the world. Although victorious in Italy, Austria nevertheless ceded Venetia to Louis Napoleon, who handed it over to Victor Emanuel. The victory of Sadowa agreeably surprised the victor, brought despair to the vanquished, and astonished the world. If all the other great powers had not been alienated from each other, and under a fatal spell of the arch-fiend, Robin’s master, whose enchanted balls had brought down the Austrian eagle, they might have intervened to prevent the grave ulterior consequences of this fatal day of Sadowa. If Louis Napoleon had not been paralyzed and demoralized to the extent of utter imbecility, he might have interfered alone, and successfully, in this his last opportunity for saving his dynasty and saving France. Nobody interfered. There was a weak show of negotiations, but Bismarck had his own way in everything. Before the end of the year 1866 his spoils were all gathered in and safely garnered, and the centre was shifted from Paris to Berlin.

The area of Prussia had been increased, by the annexation of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Frankfort, and the duchies of the Elbe, from 108,000 to 135,000 English square miles, and its population from 19,000,000 to 23,000,000. It was, moreover, the head of a North German Confederation, and practically had control of the South German States, with the certainty of having all Germany outside of Austria to co-operate with it and follow its lead in case of hostilities with France. These were the “moral conquests of Prussia in Germany” which the king, as prince-regent, had announced to the nation when he assumed the reins of government. This was the fulfilment of “the federal obligations toward the Emperor Francis Joseph,” so much talked of at Potsdam, while the future chancellor was hunting bears in Russia. Such was the sequel of the protest of Berlin against the Piedmontese annexation. The prophecy of Cavour was fulfilled: that “Prussia would one day, thanks to Piedmont, profit by the example which had been given to it.”