The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-06

who is in the future TO be cock Of the school,
the future cock will have enormous power
over the development of the European
races. 1t is, indeed, already evident that
besides the immediate cause of
quarrel there are questions at stake
which we could wish to have been decided by
different means, but which are great enough
to be proportionate to the magnitude of the
machinery brought into play by the comba-
tants. And yet, great as are theSe issues, it
may be disputed whether they are really of
much more importance than those which are
effected by the Gcumenical Council The
Church of Rome undoubtedly exercises and
will for an indefinite period con-
tinue to exercise, an enormous influence
throughout the world. Both in Europe
and America it is difficult to say how much
may depend upon the spirit by which it is
animated. II has been said by intelligent
observers, though we do not profess to give
an opinion upon a remote future, that the
next great struggle in America will turn upon
religion; and that the Roman Catholic power,
growing by emigration and by the amazing
powers of multiplication of its Irish subjects,
will some day come into violent conflict with
the tendencies of the Democratic republic.
Already there are symptoms of such a
danger in the battle against the common
school system which has begun in
some of the States. Obviously, it cannot be
without significance in regard to such dis
putes that the Church should openly and
avowedly declare war upon all modern intel
ligence; that it should say in substance to its
adherents, You must believe on the authority
of the Pope doctrines which are demonstra-
bly, false, and within a certain sphere aban-
don all the principles which you specially
boast of maintaining in politics and science.
So, again, it is not trife that in a country
like Germany, which, as we have been re-
Gently assured, is already inclined to consider
the Christian theology generally as a collec-
tion of old fables, the ablest and most learned
believers should be informed that in future
all compromise is impossible, and that sci
ence and Roman Catholicism are to be at
deadly and open war. 1t is needless to go
into detail, or to speculate how far liberal
Catholics will manage by skillful modes
selves to the dogma, or how far
they may be driven into open schism
The meaning of the new dogma is that the
purely reactionary party has gained a new
weapon of great power, and will have more
exclusive command of the Roman Catholic
Church than ever. The greatest religious
force in the world is to be given over more
completely than ever to the hands of its
most superstitious section, and the results of
modern thought to be more emphatically de-
nounced. The present day seems to be one
both of religious and political Capitalization.
The political tendency is to gather all nations
more decidedly than ever under two
or three great powers, and to diminish
the safety of the smaller neutral bodies !;
and it seems that the same
process is taking place in theological sense,
aud that as every nation over vast area
must be either French or Prussian, so every
believer must be either an infallibilist or an
ipfdel. That, at least, is the natural ten
dence of the warfare which is going on in
the two spheres, and which would tend, in
defiance of all moderate counsels, to collect
all mankind into one of two camps. 1t might
be difficult to say which tendency will have
the greatest results in the long run, though
there is no doubt as to which makes the
greatest noise at the present moment.