Herr von Sybel then quoted numerous instances of the Pope arrogating to himself the power of interfering with the constitution and administration of various States, all these instances being taken from the history of the last few years. He likewise quoted German, English, and Italian papers in the Ultramontane interest, which had recently revived the claim of the Pope to depose Kings; and having cursorily alluded to the influence of Rhenish village curates, who would not allow the Emperor's portrait to be distributed among school children, passed on to an amusing critique upon a Catholic work of fiction just published at Mayence. In this novel, entitled "Die Reichsfeinde" (the Enemies of the Empire), by Conrad von Bolanden, the persecution of the Christians under the Emperor Diocletian is made the vehicle for inculcating the moral that Christians are no better off now in Germany than they were 1,500 years ago in Rome. In drawing the characters of the Emperor and his leading Minister, the author, it appears, pourtrayed modern Berlin rather than ancient Rome. The Premier more especially, a man of six feet high, with very little hair, whose name is Marcus, but who generally goes by the significant abbreviation of Mark, is too much like the Bismarck of the present day to be mistaken for a Roman by any intelligent reader. To punish him for his misdeeds this atrocious criminal is at last satisfactorily drowned in a swamp, when the Emperor, acknowledging the finger of God in the catastrophe, sces the evil of his ways and makes restitution on all hands.

Thus far had Herr von Sybel spoken, when Prince Bismarck himself happening to enter the House, the Liberals, struck by the coincidence, rose in a body, and received him with a deafening round of cheers, in which the Strangers' Galleries joined. The Chancellor, hearing the story of wicked Mark from his colleagues on the Ministers' bench, was not a little amused, and laughed heartily at his submerged prototype. But a more serious scene was soon to ensue. Herr von Gerlach, an old Conservative and strict Lutheran, who had occupied a leading position in the last reign, took up the cudgels against the Liberals, declaring their anti-Papalism to arise from an inveterate addiction to infidelity. The supreme authority of God, the pious ex-Judge contended, was henceforth to be superseded by a Pagan divinity called the State. Upon this Prince Bismarck fiercely rose, and in an energetic speech expressed himself to the following effect :-"I have no intention of giving a general reply, but only of answering a single expression which I fear other speakers may repeat, for it has already been too often used. I refer to the misuse of the axiom, in itself perfectly sound—one ought to serve God rather than man. The previous speaker, Dr. von Gerlach, has known me long enough to be aware that I accept that maxim in its integrity, and that I believe I am obeying God if I serve the King, who he himself formerly served with God for King and Fatherland.' The three parts of the device now seem to him a

little sundered, and he sees God separated from King and Fatherland. I cannot follow him in that course as in so many others. I hold that I serve God in serving my King for the protection of the community whose monarch he is by God's grace, and in helping to defend the independence of his people against every foreign attack. That is the duty imposed upon him by God, in that duty, like all the other Ministers, I serve the King. The previous speaker, if he will be perfectly candid (which doubtless he need not be at the Tribune, though he is in private), is bound in honour to acknowledge that we do not believe in the God State. He has, nevertheless, allowed himself-he should have remembered on this point his eighty years to which he referred in his speech-so to misrepresent the truth as to assert that we who sit here believe in a Holy State Godhead, and are in the same error as those Roman Emperors who were worshipped as gods, but were far from believing in their own divinity. He only employs the word God to exalt the dominion which the masters whom he now serves want to exercise, and for that purpose it is necessary to represent us as heathens. The real question is, ought one to obey the Pope rather than the King? Now, I see a vast difference between the Pope and God; so did the last speaker in former times. The question is not one of serving God more than men, but whether in temporal matters, not affecting our soul's welfare, we should serve the Pope rather than the King. Those who allege that they are injured in their spiritual welfare do not reflect that the May Laws go nothing like so far as the Landrecht, under which they admit that their fathers died in the odour of sanctity. All that the last speaker has said was not intended to convince the House or to be believed, but was addressed to the public. What otherwise would be punishable if printed, can, in this manner, be printed with impunity; and hence this fertility of oratory. Well, you have an audience, but you have no hope by speeches of such a kind of gaining votes. He has used another common argument. He has twitted the Minister of Worship with his success. I wonder that when he was so lavish of his laurels in another direction he took no heed of success. Has the attitude of the bishops improved the position of the Catholic Church in Prussia? If so, why the hypocritical complaints with which we are arraigned before Europe, as though we had destroyed the Church? Now, how does the matter stand? Either the complaint of persecution is a pretence, or you have not had brilliant successes. That, however, is not the question. The previous speaker and myself are quite agreed on serving God rather than man, each in accordance with his belief. Each man thinks he knows God better than others. I, for instance, think I know him better than the previous speaker. Well, I expect no result from this law. That is immaterial. We are simply doing our duty in guarding the independence of the State and the nation against the oppression of Rome and the universal

[1875. supremacy of the Order of Jesuits, and we are doing it with God for King and Fatherland."

The Chancellor's speech was greeted with loud cheers from the majority of the Chamber, and hisses from the centre party.

This speech of Prince Bismarck's received its colour partly from a diplomatic incident which had just occurred in connection with the attitude of the Papacy. The audacious step taken by Pius IX. in the matter of the Encyclical of February 5 had led the Chancellor to make some diplomatic inquiries of the Italian Government. Herr von Keudell, the German Minister, held several conferences at Rome with Signor Visconti Venosta, the object of which was to ascertain whether the Italian Government was disposed to side with Berlin or with the Vatican in the warfare which now seemed to be so positively declared between them. The reply of the Italian Minister, though guarded, was reassuring.

The "Disestablishment Bill" thus introduced into the Prussian Diet was seized upon by the Roman Catholic Bishops as an occasion for presenting a petition direct to the Emperor, attacking the ecclesiastical policy of Prince Bismarck. Their remonstrance, dated from Fulda, on the 2nd of April, was skilfully drawn up. The declaration demanded by the Disestablishment Bill required the Roman Catholic Clergy to promise that they would "unconditionally" obey the State laws. If they should refuse to accept this declaration, the Bill withdrew from the recalcitrant ecclesiastics of every grade the subvention heretofore annually granted by the State. The Bishops in their remonstrances urged, in the first place, that the unconditional allegiance demanded "is incompatible with the conscience of a Christian." This proposition they supported by a reference to the example of "the Apostles and innumerable Christian martyrs who suffered death rather than submit to State laws and public ordinances which prohibited them from proclaiming the Divine truth." The State grants to the clergy were undertaken, they urged, " in compliance with a legal obligation," they were assumed at the same time with "the secularized church property," and "under a pledge of the honour of Prussia" they "by no means sprang from a mere liberality of the State towards the Church," but have "a legal basis." Then the Bishops contrasted the stringent treatment of the Catholic Church with the "gracious liberality" of the State towards the Clergy of other denominations. The difference in their treatment they felt "most painfully," because "it is expressly described as a punishment for the attitude of the Catholic Bishops and Clergy with regard to the May Laws, although they are unable to co-operate in the execution of these laws without violating the most sacred duties and the Divine Constitution of the Catholic Church." The petitioners sharpened their demand by telling the Emperor that they considered it impossible it could be the intention of His Majesty "to demand such an infidelity and violation of duty on the part of the

appointed guardians of ecclesiastical order." To the Emperor himself, not to the Houses of the Diet, "where the proportion of Christian feeling begins to vanish more and more," the prelates assembled at Fulda addressed themselves. They appealed to the "true loyalty" of the Catholics to the Prussian Crown, and called on the Emperor to "deny his sanction" to the proposed law.

In answer to this, the Ministry, replying in the name of the Emperor, expressed astonishment and regret that the petitioners should assert it to be incompatible with Christian faith to comply with laws which in other States had been obeyed for centuries. The petitioners were at the same time told that they must have known that the measure to which they asked His Majesty to refuse his sanction could only have reached the Diet with His Majesty's consent. The grants would never have been made if in the first instance the bishops and clergy had reserved to themselves the right to obey the laws of the State or not, as they thought fit, according to the Papal will. With regard to the confusion likely to be caused by the law, those prelates, who in 1870, before the proclamation of the Vatican resolutions, saw that such confusion would arise from those resolutions, were asked whether, by remaining true to the convictions they then expressed, they might not have saved the Fatherland from the troubles which had since occurred.

The Roman Catholic Bishops continued the war of words, and, in answer to the Imperial Rescript of the 9th of April, wrote a long remonstrance declaring that the May or " Falck" laws contained a whole series of provisions which conflicted with the existence and constitution of the Church founded by Christ, robbed it of the independence which God designed for it, and converted it into a mere State institution. They endeavoured to prove that the statements which the Ministry reproached them with having made in their petition were in reality not to be found in that document at all, and that, therefore, these reproaches were inapplicable. They said that they merely maintained that the declaration required of the clergy by the State of unconditional obedience to State Laws was in that unconditional form incompatible with the rights of Christian consciences, and they added that a whole list of provisions contained in the May Laws showed the accuracy of this view. As regarded the attitude which they were reproached with having adopted at the Vatican Council in reference to the dogma of Papal Înfallibility, the Bishops pointed out that in accordance with the decision of the Council the truth enunciated by it existed with the absolute certainty of faith. To refuse submission to such a decision would be equivalent to forsaking the Catholic religion. In conclusion, they expressed their conviction that the Papal See had never been unwilling to act in conformity with all proper decisions of the State Government.

But in spite of argument and remonstrance, litigation ruthlessly went on its way, and the Ministerial policy gained ground. The

P

Centre party became more and more isolated, a large portion of the Conservatives of the Upper House joining the ranks of the Government, and only a few Irreconcileables of the Extreme Right taking part with the Ultramontanes. The Third Reading of the States Grant Bill took place on April 6th, in the Lower House, and was triumphantly carried. On this occasion Herr Jung said that in enlightened Catholic circles the Bill was considered the only suitable answer the State could give to the recent Papal Encyclical. Dr. Falck, the Minister of Public Worship, communicated to the House a letter he had received from Bishop Rüdiger, of Linz, dated the 17th of March, in which the Bishop endeavoured to prove that he neither asked for nor received the authorization of the Pope to submit to the Austrian ecclesiastical laws. The Minister thereupon read a passage from the Papal Decree in question, showing that his Holiness had really given such permission in special cases. Shortly afterwards the Bill passed the Upper House, after a debate during which Baron Maltzahn, the leader of the Pomeranian "Junkers," made an important recantation. He said that he had voted against the Falck laws because he believed that they would damage the Evangelical Church, the only rampart against Rome. The Government had hitherto done very little for the Evangelical Church, nay, had even weakened its power by strengthening liberalism in Church matters instead of drawing the sword of the Reformation. Nevertheless, with respect to the Bill now before the House, he was bound to say that, after the Encyclical of February 5th, the measure had become an absolute necessity. The Encyclical even exceeded in arrogance the dogma of infallibility; the Pope demanded in it a concession for a direct railway from Berlin to Canossa! A great many laws had been quoted for the necessity of the new Bill; he found sufficient reason for it himself in the old Prussian law, that a Prussian must not provide the fortress of an enemy with ammunition. "The Conservatives," the Baron added, "have been taunted with being Papists; but I contend that the more Conservative one is, the more will he be bound henceforth to support the Government." Prince Bismarck spoke after Baron Maltzahn, and said:

"My present remarks shall be more those of a member of this House than of a Minister of the Crown. I cannot refrain from expressing openly and heartily my sincere pleasure at the fact that at last I have heard from the Conservative side of this House. a free and joyful acknowledgment of the Evangelium of our Reformation. If that acknowledgment had been made as distinctly several years ago in this Chamber-if this House, or at least its Evangelical Conservative leaders, had voted accordingly --the first painful beginning of the conflict between me and the Conservative party at the time of the debates on the May Laws might, perhaps, not have taken place. Even the struggle with the Roman Catholic party might, perhaps, not have assumed its