“Looking through the distorted medium of their Saxon prejudices, grown stronger with time, and freshly stimulated by the recent definition of Papal Infallibility, they have worked themselves into the belief—seeing the church only on the outside, as they do—that she is purely a human institution, grown slowly, by the controlling action of the Latin-Celtic instincts, through centuries, to the present formidable proportions. The doctrines, the sacraments, the devotions, the worship of the Catholic Church, are, for the most part, from their stand-point, corruptions of Christianity, having their source in the characteristics of the Latin-Celtic races. The papal authority, to their sight, is nothing else than the concentration of the sacerdotal tendencies of these races, carried to their culminating point by the recent Vatican definition, which was due, in the main, to the efforts and the influence exerted by the Jesuits. This despotic ecclesiastical authority, which commands a superstitious reverence and servile submission to all its decrees, teaches doctrines inimical to the autonomy of the German Empire, and has fourteen millions or more of its subjects under its sway, ready at any moment to obey, at all hazards, its decisions. What is to hinder this Ultramontane power from issuing a decree, in a critical moment, which will disturb the peace and involve, perhaps, the overthrow of that empire, the fruit of so great sacrifices, and the realization of the ardent aspirations of the Germanic races? Is it not a dictate of self-preservation and political prudence to remove so dangerous an element, and that at all costs, from the state? Is it not a duty to free so many millions of our German brethren from this superstitious yoke and slavish subjection? Has not divine Providence bestowed the empire of Europe upon the Saxons, and placed us Prussians at its head, in order to accomplish, with all the means at our disposal, this great work? Is not this a duty which we owe to ourselves, to our brother Germans, and, above all, to God? This supreme effort is our divine mission!”
It would be impossible to enter into the idea of the Bismarckian policy in a manner more ingenious, more exact, and more striking.
It is by presenting to Germany this monstrous counterfeit of the church that they have succeeded in provoking its hatred of her, and the new empire proposes to be itself the resolution of a problem which can be only formulated thus: “Either adapt Latin Christianity, the Romish Church, to the Germanic type of character and to the exigences of the empire, or we will employ all the forces and all the means at our disposal to stamp out Catholicity within our dominions, and to exterminate its existence as far as our authority and influence extend.”
This war against the Catholic religion is formidable, and ought not to leave us without alarm and without terror.
Truth is powerful, it is said, and it will prevail. But truth has no power of itself, in so far as it is an abstraction. It has none, except on the condition of coming forth and showing itself living in minds and hearts.
What is to be done, then?
No thought can be entertained for a moment of modifying Catholic dogmas, of altering the constitution of the church, or of entering, to ever so small an extent, on the path of concessions. What is needed is to present religious truth to minds in such a manner as that they shall be able to see that it is divine. It is to prove to them that our religion alone is in harmony with the profoundest instincts of their hearts, and can alone realize their secret aspirations, which Protestantism has no power to satisfy. For that, the Holy Spirit must be invoked in order that he may develop the interior life of the church, and that this development may be rendered visible to the persecutors themselves, who hitherto see nothing in her but what is terrestrial and human. Already a certain ideal conception of Christianity exists amongst non-Catholics of England and of the United States, and puts them in the way of a more complete conversion. As to the Saxons, who, in these days, precipitate themselves upon an opposite course, we should try to enlighten their blindness. Already we have seen the persecutors, whether Roman or German, become themselves Christian in their turn. We shall see the Germans of our days exhibiting the same spectacle. It is a great race, that German race. Now, “the church is a divine queen, and her aim has always been to win to her bosom the imperial races. She has never failed to do it, too.”
Already we can perceive a very marked return movement amongst the demi-Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons. It is a great sign of the times.
At different epochs there have been movements of this kind in England. But none exhibited features so serious as that of which we are witnesses in these days. Conversions to the church multiply without number, above all amongst the most intelligent and influential classes of the nation; and that in spite of the violent cry of alarm raised by Lord John Russell, and in spite of the attacks of the ex-minister Gladstone, who has the reputation of being the most eloquent man in England.
The gravitation towards the Catholic Church exhibits itself in a manner still more general and more clear in the bosom of the United States.