Going back to Europe, we find Spain in much the same state as the opening year found her; restless, dissatisfied, and disunited. A Carlist rising was effected in the spring, which at one time threatened to be formidable; but, after showing itself in fitful bursts at different points, it finally died out, for the time being at least, with a greater loss of gunpowder than of life. It was mismanaged. There were and still are a variety of little eruptions here, there, and everywhere. An attempt on the life of King Amadeo was got up for the purpose of arousing some loyalty in his favor. It created a little sensation at first; but people speedily suspected something, and the subject dropped. All parties in Spain are still at daggers drawn. Even if Amadeo could, by his influence, which we very much doubt after his sufficient trial, conciliate them, they would not be conciliated. We do not expect to find Amadeo's name at the head of the Spanish government this day twelvemonth. A good regent, not Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don Alfonso; but where is such a regent? Don Carlos possesses the greatest amount of genuine loyalty to his name and cause, and he would be the winning man, could he only manage his rising in a more efficient manner. Even the Saturday Review, the other day, almost lamented the loss of Queen Isabella.
The state of Italy is perhaps on a par with that of Spain, with the advantage of the utter lawlessness touched upon in our last number. We are now informed that a bill for the suppression of religious orders is introduced. Of course it will pass. A government which shakes hands with the Garibaldini, which is hand and glove with the murderer and assassin whom it fears, is strong when it comes to the spoliation of religious houses and the persecution of Christian men who it knows will not resist. We cannot pass Italy by—alas! what an Italy it has become!—without one word of admiration for the Holy Father. Men, journalists, all sorts of people, would have driven Pius IX. from Rome long ago. But the pilot is still at the helm of the barque of Peter, though pirates tread the decks. And never during the successive storms which have made his long reign so dark with trial [pg 565] has our great pontiff presented to the angry world a more forcible spectacle of a man utterly above all the pettiness, all the trials, all the misery, which human malice can inflict upon humanity, than at this moment in his own person; looking afar over the troubled waters for the calm which shall come from heaven, and bring men back from their insane mood at the old whisper, “Peace, be still!” He stands there the truest and purest living protest of justice shackled by injustice, and around that prisoned throne range the hearts of all true Catholics and all true men in the world.
In England, the Gladstone Ministry after many threatenings has managed to hold its own, in consequence probably of the successful termination of the Alabama claims. The Ballot Bill has at length passed, and in future we hope to be spared the degrading scenes which were wont to accompany English elections. The Irish Church Establishment has falsified Mr. Gladstone's high hopes of new life, vigor, efficiency, and so forth, on being deprived of its “temporalities,” which came into act this year. It has come to a miserable collapse, and is now a pauper asking alms to live. The agitation for the disestablishment of the English Church is gaining ground, as is also the Home-Rule movement in Ireland, which undoubtedly received a fresh impetus from the attack made by a renegade Catholic judge on the Irish clergy and on one of their leaders, Archbishop McHale, whose name is venerated wherever his fame is known. There has been a cry of a coal failure, and a much more serious one, because better founded and more immediate, of a potato failure in Ireland as well as England, which, coupled with the strike of the agricultural laborers and the coming winter, threatens an ugly season. Serious riots incurring a lamentable loss of life and property occurred in Belfast on the repeal of the Parties Processions Act. The rioters held the city in a state of terrorism for days. “Of course the Orangemen began it,” commented the London Spectator; “the worst murder committed, that of Constable Morton, was the murder of a Protestant by Protestants, because he upheld the law.”
In Mexico, the death of President Juarez, the murderer of the unhappy Maximilian, as well as of countless others, whom “people who ought to know” were never tired of calling the saviour of his country, the true patriot, and the like, oddly enough put an end to the internecine strife which was ravaging the country, and everybody suddenly collapsed into peace: “Yet Juarez was an honorable man.”
In the natural order, there have been terrible convulsions, followed, in the closing year, by a succession of tempests on sea and land, productive of dismal disasters. In the spring, an earthquake shook Antioch, and half the city was gone, with a loss of 1,500 inhabitants. In the same month, Vesuvius belched forth torrents of burning lava for days, causing a vast destruction of property and loss of life to a few overcurious sight-seers. Later on came the inundations of the Po, accompanied by losses more grievous still. Then storms swept the country, and, indeed, all Europe, strewing the shores with wrecked vessels and their crews. Fire touched and marred, but, fortunately, did not succeed in destroying, two of the grandest monuments of European art—the Escurial of Philip II. in Spain, and the Cathedral of Canterbury in England, doubly consecrated—the second time by the blood of the martyred S. Thomas. It was more successful among ourselves; and a few hours' blaze in the month of November destroyed the finest portion of our most ancient city, Boston.
Among what might be termed the curiosities of the year figured the Boston Jubilee; an assembling together of European bands and singers, with a native chorus of 20,000. It was called music. A second curiosity was the epidemic which recently broke out among the horses, and brought life in New York to a standstill, or at least to a walking pace, for several days. It is to be hoped that means of transit may be devised to prevent the effects of such a casualty in future. A third curiosity was an assembly of recreant priests and others to the number of 400 at Cologne in order to do something. What the something was never appeared. They dined, quarrelled, and separated; while the world was agape to see something arise which should crush God's Church. Other curiosities were the great trials, civil and military, which took place during the year. Among the former class that of the man known as the “Tichborne Claimant” stands pre-eminent. The story is too well known to be commented on here; [pg 566] the “claimant's” case broke down; he was committed to Newgate prison, bailed out, and is now “starring” the country to procure funds for a new trial. The case was remarkable for the strangest and oddest disclosures of character and hidden life from the highest almost to the lowest classes, not only in England, but in many other countries. The trial of Marshal Bazaine for the surrender of Metz, which is still pending, stands foremost in the rank of military trials. Væ victis! Many of Bazaine's comrades were condemned for premature surrender by the Committee of Inquiry; we shall see whether the once great marshal will be able to come off with a clear escutcheon. Other trials were those of the Communists and the murderers of the Archbishop of Paris and the clergy. As a rule, a more villanous set never stood face to face with justice. They have had full, fair, and exhaustive trials; such as could offer any excuse for their crimes escaped; the others were shot.
Death has been mowing right and left among us with indiscriminating scythe. In Persia he grew weary of his own grim harvest. Eastern Europe was threatened with cholera, but escaped. Some tall heads have fallen among the mean; many whose names are memorable for evil as well as good; many others whose places it would seem hard to fill. The Catholic Church has lost Archbishop Spalding, Bishops McGill and O'Connor in America, Morris and Goss in England, Cardinal Amat in Italy. Their names will live in the church and in her prayers. Anderson and Meade have gone, Seward and Morse, and Bennett, the founder of the New York Herald, and Greeley, the founder of the Tribune. Persigny, and Conti, and Mazzini, each memorable in his way, dropped out during the year. Lever, one of the most genial of Irish novelists, is dead, and his much-lamented countryman, Maguire, of Cork. The only surviving son of the Duc d'Aumale, a promising young man, was snatched away—an important event, as the claims of this branch of the family to the French throne fall now to the Count de Chambord. Bernadotte, Charles XV. of Sweden, has gone, and was succeeded on the throne by his brother Oscar.
And now, passing from the old, we look to the new, not without anxiety. The war against the church, in reality against the rights of man, the freedom of conscience, commenced in Germany, has spread thence to Italy, Switzerland, and Spain, and, under the form of the educational question, wider and further still. If Catholics would save the souls of their children, and of their children's children, from the infidelity and the moral decay which we see around us, even in this free breathing atmosphere, they must be firm and united in their resistance to the encroachment of the state, where states possess no rights—over the dictates of conscience. The uprise of labor against capital, which was the real cause of the first French Revolution and its mad excesses, we have already touched upon. It should be a deep source of anxiety and care to true statesmen. War looms on the European horizon, gathers in silent thunder-clouds all around. A flash is enough to kindle the combustion and make the thunder speak. Who shall say when or whence it comes? Europe is arming, and we have good authority for saying that “the next war will rage over half a century”—Bismarck himself. For the church we foresee an increase of bitter and severe trials. We can only appeal to that enlightenment which the age vaunts; to its common sense and common fairness to allow us the freedom in our own worship which they, if they possess any, claim for themselves. Public opinion is, to a great extent, the lever of the age. We must work at that until we shame it into powerful and persistent action to remove and overthrow the mountain of intolerance, bigotry, and opposition, which rulers, who are neither Protestant nor Catholic, are raising up in order to overwhelm all religion, all right, all freedom.