Rome has again been sacked, this time not by the rude Lutheran Landsknechte, but by a more ruthless and more insidious foe, the Garibaldini, the enemies of all forms of revealed religion, the men who swear on the dagger and the bowl because they have no God to swear by. The sovereign pontiff is virtually a prisoner in his Vatican; monks and priests, passing along the streets to comfort the afflicted or administer the sacraments to the dying, are set upon and slain at noon-day; weak and delicately nurtured ladies are turned out of their peaceful retreats into the highways, to be insulted and derided by a crowd of vagabonds gathered from every quarter of Europe; the libraries, statuary, paintings, castings, and all the treasures which made Rome the centre of Christian art, and the depository of the world's store of classic literature, lie at the mercy of a horde of ruffians, the very offscourings of Italian society, called together to that devoted city by the hope of plunder and the certainty of immunity for their crimes. All this and more is matter of public notoriety, yet no word of execration, no wail of sorrow, at this worse than vandalism rises up from a country that boasts its love of civilization, its chivalry to women, its respect for sacred things, and its patronage of the arts and letters. Why? They are only priests that are assassinated, only helpless nuns that are jeered at, only Catholic treasures that are stolen, shattered, or destroyed; right, justice, liberty, and even ordinary humanity, can afford to suffer and be forgotten, so that Catholicity be thereby weakened and checked in its onward course. The force of bigotry can go no further.
Late European mails bring us an account of a general election throughout “United Italy” on the universal suffrage plan—that supposed panacea for all political ills. The Catholics in certain portions of the country, it seems, who had hitherto abstained from voting, resolved this time to take part in the contest. As soon as this became known to the ministry, a circular was sent to even the local government officials, mayors of cities, magistrates, police captains, poll-clerks, returning officers, etc., warning them of the danger, and threatening the severest penalties if steps were not immediately taken to prevent the Catholics from electing their candidates. The result was what might have been expected. The officials have done their duty to the government, and now feel secure in their places. The Catholics of one city, and that the largest, Naples, did, however, despite of all official precautions to the contrary, carry their election by an overwhelming majority; but, being only Catholic voters, the election has been set aside without even the mockery of an investigation or the least show of reason. Now, if such a thing had occurred in France, or any other country governed under Catholic auspices, we would be treated by nine-tenths of the press of this country to a dissertation on the inability of the Latin nations to understand free institutions, and the folly of expecting [pg 300] an ignorant and slavish multitude to be able to appreciate the right of suffrage; but, as this gigantic fraud was perpetrated by a government in direct hostility to the head of the church, it is passed over in dignified silence. Not a syllable of remonstrance is uttered by our freedom-shrieking friends—our Beechers, Fultons, and Bellowses—who are so fond of interlarding their sermons with political appeals against ballot-stuffing and intimidation at the polls.
Let us turn for a moment to the present sad condition of Germany, the cradle and the victim of religious dissent and doubt. Prussia emerged from the late war not only the victor of France, but the conqueror of the several independent states and cities of the late Germanic Confederation. Her capacious maw has engulfed them all. Prince Bismarck, whose absolutist tendencies have long been recognized, not content with his success in creating an empire one and indivisible, desires to found a German church, to be conducted on strictly military and autocratic principles. Having disposed of a good many of the bodies, and taken possession of a large share of the property of the subjects of the new empire, he is now anxious to take care of their souls, and, whether they will or not, guide them in the way of salvation and the Gospel—according to Bismarck. Obedience to the central civil head in Berlin is to be the leading feature in his new religious system, and the emperor, like his brother of Russia and the Grand Lama, is to unite in himself absolute political and spiritual power, tempered by Bismarck.
A large portion of the Germans, having great doubts as to whether or not they have such things as souls to be saved, feel philosophically indifferent; the sects, being weak and without popular support, can make little resistance to the encroachments of the state; but the Catholic body, powerful not less from its intelligence and independence than from its numbers, utterly refuses to recognize the right or the authority of the chancellor to interfere in their spiritual affairs. That astute statesman first tried to frighten them by abolishing the denominational schools, then by patronizing a few dissatisfied professors who call themselves “Old Catholics,” but without avail; and now, like a genuine follower of the teachings of Luther, he is resorting to expatriation and persecution. He has already attacked the religious orders, and, as is generally known, has procured a law to be passed expelling the Jesuits and all religious in affiliation with them from the empire. It is not pretended that the members of that illustrious body, individually or collectively, have committed any offence against the state, nor is it even proposed that a semblance of a trial should be granted them before condemnation; but they have been guilty of opposing the designs of a confirmed despot, and their removal from home, country, and the sphere of their duties is forthwith decreed, and effected with all that mean malignity which subordinates who hope for future favor so well know how to exercise towards the victims of official oppression. The summary expulsion of so many learned and studious men from their schools and colleges has filled Europe with disgust and amazement; and even the more enlightened class of German non-Catholics, who at least know the value of their acquirements and wonderful skill in training youth, have denounced, in the most forcible terms, an act so detrimental to the true interests of their country.
In England, a meeting of prominent [pg 301] Catholics was lately held, to protest, in the name of religion and learning, against this exhibition of high-handed authority; but Protestantism, true to its instincts, took the alarm, and, lest the Prussian Government might in the slightest degree be influenced, hastened to send an address to Berlin to assure Bismarck of English sympathy and support. This precious document was signed by fifty-seven persons, including the Marquis of Cholmondeley, the Bishops of Worcester and Ripon, Lord Lawrence, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Moderators of the Established Church of Scotland, of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, of the English and Irish Presbyterian Churches, and the President and Secretary of the Wesleyan Conference. The reply of Bismarck, who is not remarkable for his “religiosity,” is full of sanctimonious cant and what, under the circumstances, seems to us very like grim irony:
“Most warmly do I thank you and the gentlemen who were co-signatories of the address you were good enough to present to me for this encouraging mark of approval. Your communication, sir, possesses a greater value, coming as it does from a country which Europe has learnt for centuries to regard as the bulwark of civil and religious liberty. Rightly does the address estimate the difficulties of the struggle which has been forced upon us contrary both to the desire and expectation of the German governments. It would be no light task for the state to preserve religious peace and freedom of conscience, even were it not made more difficult by the misuse of legitimate authority and by the artificial disturbance of the minds of believers. I rejoice that I agree with you on the fundamental principle that in a well-ordered community every person and every creed should enjoy that measure of liberty which is compatible both with the freedom of the remainder, and also with the independence and safety of the country. God will protect the German Empire in the struggle for this principle, even against those enemies who falsely use his holy name as a pretext for their hostility against our internal peace; but it will be a source of rejoicing to every one of my countrymen that in this contest Germany has met with the approval of so numerous and influential a body of Englishmen.”
Now, all this simply means that the man who controls the affairs of Germany for the present is determined to destroy or to subject the spiritual order to the state; to enforce compulsory education, and prescribe forms of faith according to his ideas of what the “independence and safety of the country” demand; the penalty of resistance, as in the case of the Jesuits, being banishment, persecution, and perhaps worse, should the necessities of the case, in his individual judgment, require it. In this as in every other respect his word is all-powerful in the empire. Still, we have yet to learn that one advocate of the higher law in America, one enemy of the union of church and state, one stickler for the rights of conscience, one believer in private judgment and religious freedom, has raised his voice against this violation of every right said to be so dear to the Protestants of the United States. Not one Protestant has protested against this assumption of absolute power over the minds and consciences of forty millions of people. Why? The answer is simple: the blow, in this instance, is aimed at Catholicity. Yes, the Republic is silent when even monarchical England feels herself constrained to speak. In a late number of the Manchester Examiner, a paper, we believe, anything but favorable to Catholics on general grounds, we noticed a very pertinent article on the address alluded to, of which the following is an extract, and we recommend it to the serious consideration of the conductors of the sectarian newspapers:
“We cannot understand why bishops and deans of the English Church should go into ecstasies over a united Germany, or why it should furnish a theme for the pious applause of Wesleyan presidents and Presbyterian moderators. Political changes concern politicians and political societies. When the kingdoms of this world adopt a different principle of grouping, all who take an interest in the political concerns of mankind may find in the altered arrangements abundant reason for gratulation or for dismay, but theological creeds and spiritual interests have no direct concern in the matter. If the unity of Germany were likely to give a great impetus to Roman Catholic doctrine, and aid the extension of Papal authority, Mr. Kinnaird would hardly have found in it a subject of thanksgiving, though, as a political change, it might have been equally desirable. Is it Prince Bismarck's assumed hostility to the dogma of papal infallibility, and the trenchant steps he has taken with the Jesuits, that constitute the real merit of his policy in Protestant eyes? Well, then, to begin with, it is not at all clear that Prince Bismarck has any absolute aversion either to papal infallibility or to the Jesuits. If the pope had only thrown his influence into the scale of German unity, and employed it to further the new political policy in Fatherland, he might have made himself as infallible as he pleased without provoking any hostility from Prince Bismarck. If the Jesuits, instead of fighting against him, had fought for him, he would have made them welcome to as much power as they liked to grasp. At present, he finds them in his way, and he sends them off about their business; but our Protestant friends must not make too sure of him. He has fourteen millions of Catholics to govern, and he has no wish whatever to be at variance with the Pope. Besides, the necessity for getting rid of the Jesuits by depriving them of their civil rights is a thing to be deplored; since, so far as it does not spring from political considerations, the acts to which it leads are acts of persecution, and entitled to our regret, if not to our reprehension. We like the Jesuits just as little as the Germans do, but we allow them to settle amongst us, feeling sure that the law is strong enough to keep them in order. The thing really to be deplored is that Germany cannot afford to do the same, and it is a proper subject for commiseration rather than for eulogy.”
We have said more than enough to convince the most supine Catholic that Protestantism in this country has lost little if any of its anti-Christian renown, and, if it cannot persecute here, it is in full sympathy with those in Europe who can; that, while it has lost much of its capacity, it has given up none of its desire for proscription. Split, as it is, into so many antagonistic sects, and constantly losing large numbers who are following out its teachings logically and gliding into indifferentism and infidelity, it is comparatively powerless to work us new injuries; but it is for us, by continued harmony, labor, and self-sacrifice, to put beyond peradventure the question of our right to full and unqualified religious liberty and perfect impartiality in the administration of the laws.