The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-21 00:00:00

of their country. In the year 1857 the revolution
again descended into the streets, and gained a vic-
tory at Brussels over the Government and the
representatives of the people. The revolt was,
however, as all Europe knows, the work o an asso-
ciation which, in Belgium, is no secret one, but
openly professes hostility against Christianity. Those
of a like mind in Germany took fresh courage ; they
began now to take the Mazzinists as models, and as
the latter, in the name of patriotism, these in the
name of Liberalism raised a cry for the revocation
of the Concordat. But this opposition was isolated
and weak, when the year 1859 brought on new
complications. The great majority of Germans
justly recognised that duty, honour, and prudence
forbade the States of the German Confederation to
leave Austria alone in the ensuing struggle. The
leaders of the political and social revolution shared
only in part these views ; but they were unanimous
in seeking to turn the true expression of public
opinion to their own purpose, and demanded, as a
reward for their sympathy, which, however, was not
confirmed by deeds, that Austria should re-model,
according to the views of a part of the South German
press and popular leaders, her institutions, and
especially the relation of the State to religion and
morality. Then it was that the Concordat was made
one of the passwords behind which a whole system
lurks.

The Address then goes on to show that the state
of civil and moral desolation led to the conviction
that a return was necessary to higher religious and
political principles, in order to save the Empire and
society from the storm. Then it was that the
Concordat was concluded. It then goes on to
state : That communication with the Holy See was
permitted in spiritual matters. Protestant Powers
even had already taken this step, for it was uni-
versally recognized that the dangers which were
supposed to attend free communication with the
Pope were mere scarecrows. Moreover, in the pre-
sent state of things it is impossible that a letter
should be sent to Rome and an answer received.
The bishops were empowered to publish their Pas-
toral letters and ordinances without beforehand seek-
ing the permission of the State. Again, by the
provisions of the Concordat, the bishops are at
liberty to perform Divine service and arrange all
spiritual matters simply according to the laws of
the Church, who, however, has a right to complain
that the State has abstained from arranging the
order of Divine service. These petty interferences
bear the impress of a past period, and nobody now
fancies that the public weal is threatened because
a High Mass is celebrated on a week day without
the permission of Government.
On education the Coricordat has instituted no
new arrangement in Austria. The ordinances re-
ferring to education did not go beyond the existing
rights. The management and supervision of popular
schools were always entrusted to the parish priests.
The rights of your Majesty were in nowise dimi-
nished. Your Majesty nominates nearly all the
archbishops and bishops of your vast empire, most
of the canons, very many of the parish priests, and
the professors of the theological faculties. The
property of the Church cannot, without your Ma-
jesty's permission, be either alienated or burdened
with heavy charges, for the Imperial sanction is
requisite for the validity of such acts. Although
ecclesiastical and educational funds are property
of the Church, yet their management is left to the
Government, on condition that it should be con-
ducted with the co-operation and under the super-
vision of the bishops. The rights appertaining
to the Monarch are not weakened but confirmed
by the provisions of the Concordat. Whence, then,
this outcry against the Concordat? The Concordat
is attacked in the same manner as an enemy at-
tacks the bulwark of a fortress, not for the pleasure
of seeing it overthrown, but in order to penetrate
into the city, and to rule there according to good
pleasure. The war against Christianity is nothing
new ; to every one who is not quite ignorant the
arts and passwords of the enemy are familiar ; they
are but repetitions of what has so often happened
before.

The equality of all religions is proclaimed in the
name of religion, and put in practice under invoca-
tion of tolerance. But the initiated have long ago
confessed that the tolerance which they demand
means the destruction of religion. Sensuality
alone is true and real. That is the pith of their
secret belief. Every religion is a dream, and the
manner in which it is to be treated depends mainly
on the power it possesses of opposing the triumph
of a soulless and a godless reason. The Catholic
religion, therefore, must be put down below every
other, because it is the only one which is still to be
feared. This putting down of the Catholic religion
is what is called tolerance, and by virtue of this
tolerance the Catholic Church' is attacked day by
day in Catholic Austria by calumnies and by
popular incitements, the hundreth part of which
no one would dare to utter against Protestants or
Jews. But freedom from the control of religion
is of little value without freedom from the control
of duty. Therefore marriage is to be sacrificed
to the play of the passions ; its dissolubility is
to be decreed. In order to have a people as the
Liberals of Austria desire, they must begin from
the beginning. Therefore they decree the pos-
session of the schools, in order that Catholic youth
shall no more be brought up as Catholics or as
Christians. All this, however, is utterly opposed
to the Austrian laws, even as they existed before
the Concordat. The Liberals believe they can get
rid of the laws if the treaty which the State had
entered into were not in the way ; hence this arti-
ficial outcry is raised against the Concordat.
After producing evidence to show that Austria
granted far more to non-Catholics than any non-
Catholic Government gives to Catholics, the bishops
then pass on to the chief points in dispute—To
mixed marriages and to the education of children
born of such marriages. On mixed marriages
they speak as follolvs :—ln many respects the
ordinances which are now in force on marriage
are almost coeval with Christianity. Even in the
most ancient times it was requisite that marriage
should be solemnized in the presence of the Chris-
tian congregation ; it received its consecration and
was sealed, as it were, by the holy sacrifice of
the Mass. Publicity and the Church's consecration
of marriage were enforced by a long series of laws,
which were to a certain extent very severe. It was,
however, impossible to enforce these ordinances as
a universal and unconditional law of the Church ;

even now it cannot be done ; even now there are
hundreds of thousands of Catholics who are living
dispersed among men of other persuasions, who
with the best will are unable to be married in the
presence of a priest ; and before Christianity had
attained to complete dominion in the whole of
Europe such circumstances prevailed, even in dis-
tricts not far from the centre of Catholic life.
This is the explanation why in the sixteenth cen-
tury these ordinances concerning the publicity and
consecration by the Church of marriage had only
the character of prohibitions, and hence it was that
a simple declaration on the part of a man and a
woman without witnesses of the intention of marry-
ing, in so far as no impediment to its validity
existed, was a true marriage recognized as valid by
the Church. But this state of things was not with-
out lamentable consequences. For a man without
honour or conscience might contract a marriage with
a woman in secret, and then by denying the decla-
ration he had made of his intention to marry,
contract marriage with another. This second
marriage, however solemnly it might have been
contracted and consecrated, was, nevertheless,
invalid, and the man who had broken his faith
was living in adultery. Therefore, after long con-
sultations, the Fathers of the Council of Trent
resolved to make secrecy an impediment to a
marriage, and to declare marriage to be invalid
unless it were contracted in the presence of the
priest of the parish to which one of the parties
to the marriage belonged, or to a priest empowered
by the bishop, and of two witnesses.
It is understood, as a matter of course, that
the bride and bridegroom, who, in the presence
of a priest, have declared their desire to be mar-
ried, are bound devoutly to receive the nuptial
blessing, which is, indeed, expressly prescribed.
Yet its omission, from whatever cause, is not alone
sufficient to hinder the validity of the marriage.
• There is, without doubt, a legitimate right that