Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1870-10-26
THE EUROPEAN CRISIS---LETTER
FROM GERMANY.
TUEBINGEN, GERMANY,
September %, 1870.


man events of the past few days have
confirmed most Of the predictions OF
my last letter.
Germany, under the leadership OF
Prussia, in an uninterrupted success
sion of the most brilliant victories the
history of the world has ever recorded,
has broken, in the short space of six
weeks, the prestige of the French
arms, raised herself to the first mill
tary power Of Europe, and in conduct
ing war exhibited a degree of hu-
manity and benevolence that must
command the admiration and ap-
plause of every civilized people, and
entitle her, in this respect, to the first
rank among European nations.
From Weissenburg on her army has
swept like the storm, striking terror
and confusion into the hosts Of heI
foe. In single day she has captured
an entire army of eighty-four thou.
sand men, compelling the Emperor Of
a proud nation to hand over his sword
as a humiliated prisoner Of war, and
driving the remnants of his other ar
mics either to their forts or to take ref
uge within the walls of the French
metropolis. In a fortnight she has
reversed the relations of all Europe.
/ In an hour she has dashed in pieces
an imperial crown. In night she
changed an empire into a republic
and to-day the political, social, moral
and religious physiognOmy of the old
world is marked with deeper, bolder,
sounder and hOlier lineaments than
at any prior period in her history
Faith and hope, truth and righteous
ness, charity and liberty, seem now for
the first time to be inscribed on her
banners. How wonderful the picture
now passing before the eye of the
world Justice, in her chariot OF
glory, dashes victOriOusly onward f.,
hurting, through the mighty arm of
Prussia, the righteous, terrible judg-
ments of heaven on a nation whose
Impurities, treacheries and blasphe-
mics had so long cried to the aveng-
ing angel TO unsheath his sword
The light is breaking and the day
is fast dawning when the iron hand
of tyranny must cease to strike
from the heart of nations, as well as
individuals, GOd-given principles, and
woe to the monarch or the govern
ment that attempts to retard and OBJ
scure the breaking of this glorious
day. For living examples Of their
inevitable fall, their vagabOnd fate,
we need but look, in these latter days,
to Isabella, Napoleon III. and Plus
TX. a queen-a woman unseXed-
standing at the head of a legaliZed sys-
TEN of despOtism, immortality, prosti-
tuition, hung out her badge to the ma
tiOns and calling them to follow in her
train, Haunted, in her mOdestless ef
forts, her hell-bOrn cOnspiracies to
crush from court and cot, palace and
hOvel, the last germ of virtue and
truth, and to bind the conscience and
tongue of her people to the car Of her
licentiOus tyranny-and behold how
she has been tumbled from her throne.
She wanders to-day, banished by her
own people, rejected and despised by
every European court and home in
which there is any sense OF religion,
modesty or purity. And where is the
man who in 1856, in the Exchange
at Bordeaux, said, L'eHpiTc c,est Ia
pdiE''-the empire is peace. From
his covert of lies, hated and cursed by
the nation over which he had swayed
the scepter Of despotism, he has been
dragged and compelled to ask grace
and protection at the hands of q mag
unanimous king of an honorable peO-
pie, whose hearthstOnes he had started
out to tear down, whose lands he had
boasted he would rob, and whose insti-
tutiOns he would change. Where is
he in the might of his power and the
glory of his ambition tO-day7 A
trembling, pitiable prisoner of war, on
WilhelmshOhe- - Williams Heights
at Cassel. Who will say that the
judgments of God are not terribly
manifest in such an ingloriOus down.
fall? A few weeks ago an old, dot
ing man was homaged in the SiXtine
Chapel, at Rome, as God and King,
and proclaimed from the Vatican Hill
to the four winds of b eaven-Infalli
ble! He had long pretended to carry
the KEYS of life and death. He had
unlocked the gates Of purgatory. He
had hurled sinners into the fires of
publication. By the magic Of his
wand he has exercised devils from
their flames, unlOOsed their chains and
given them a free pass to the joys,
beauties and purities of heaven. He
had sold indulgence without stint TO
rape, adultery, fornication, robbery,
murder and crime of every hue. In
his blushingless grandilOquence he
had even said to great nations, as well
IS to individuals, take these my words,
treasure them up in your hearts, and
We shall lire. Isabella, bloated and
bleared, and Napoleon, unscrupulOus
and vain, had made faithful use Of the
Old Mans benevOlence, and he OF
theirs. They had lived for long years
on the stencil of indulgences from the
hand of the Holy Father, and the
old Pope-King had laughed tears Of
Decentralization over the beautiful
fidelity of his FrancO-Spanish chill
dren. The papal breast begins to
swell with grand, wonderful, ineffable
thought, which gradually begins to
fertilize and develop into an order not
new, but simply galvanized into more
watchful activity. The light must be
shut off from the people. They must
be bound down i'm the thraldom of
ignorance and superstition. Every
noble aspiration-every feeling of in
dependenee-every struggle to rise
to the sphere of intelligent, self-reli
ant, self-regulating existence-must
be checked by jesuistical cunning.
Secret inquisitOrial chains, dungeons,
scOurges, flames, and death if need be,
must terrify-annihilate freedom Of
thought and crush from the heart ali
consciousness of human, individual
identity. Man must be made a bNte,
a tool, a thing to be used in the hands
Of pontifical villainy and priestly in
confluence, to infect the world with
moral pestilence and death. Only
priests and Catholic rulers must be
educated, and only to the end that
they may the better understand how
to dwarf the minds and ruin the souls
Of men, if ROmanism, in its most eff
cient form, can hope to extend its
sway and see the nations bow at its
nod. Such was the advice. such the
plan of UltramOntanism, to be car
ried out by these two liege Catholic
miniOns. Butin order to the full and
successful execution of the policy, In
fallibility must become, in the faith
Of the holy church, the dogma of dog
mas. A capital ideal thought His
Holiness; and no sooner had the
grand old humbug beyOnd the noun