The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-06-28

priest nor bishop, nor cardinal nor teache,
no proclamation, nor public act. nor penalty
nor anything that men can hear, do or say 70
the souls good of man in Germany, withou
| the proper authorization, mark and livery, o
| the Emperor"
I The most remarkable circu instance connected
with this persecution is, that it emanate'
solcly from the State in the name of Protest
antism. but it is not sectarian, it is not Protest
ant. The Catholic opposition is supported by
q portion of the Evangelical clergy, and sec
tion of the Protestant sristocracy.
| 1t is alleged that the State resorted to those
measures because the German Catholics were
hostile to German unity. II the allegation
were true. why did the Catholic German State,
join Prussia ard spend their treasure and blood
in q terrible warf Why did not the Catholic
clergy, and Bishops, and the Pope, use the
vast political power they are supposed to pos
ssss in preventing the fatal alliance between
Prussia and the Catholic States
The Catholic Bishop Ketteler long ago pro.
nounced for the unity of the German Empire
the Catholic Germans behaved admirably dur
Rhenish troops earned honor and glory; the
priests and religious on the battlefield, in the
ambnlances and hospitals, showed heroic
devotedness, and many of these religious went
their breasts the iron cross which they had
earned during the war. What, then, is the
meaning of this German persecution 1t means
an alliance between Bismarck and the Nation al
Liberal party--liberalism, which is infdel, and
recognizing nothin. but brute force, organ
lied absolute power.
We'll may the London Spectator say: "Aa
age of the world in which few men know what
is truth, or whether there be truth, Is not one
in which you would ask statesmen to deter
mine its limits.
ave suspect that race of statesmen,
armed with such power as Prussia is now
giving to her officials, would soon cease to
show their present temperance and sobriety,
aud grow into a caste Of civilian ecclesiastics
of harder, drier and lower mould than any of
the ecclesiastics they had to put down.
"To our mind. the absolutism of the Vatican
Council Is a tIifling danger compared with the
growing nbsoutsm Of the democratic temper
which 10 now being pushed into almost every
department of human conduct"
The Marquis of Salisbury. in O speech on the
abolition of tho test acts in England. thus
speaks of German society: fear the danger
Oxford may in the future play a.part similar
to that disastrous part hich the German uni
versites have played 10 the Standardization
of the upper aud middle classes" q.
This alliance with Liberalism was the resalt
of the alliance of Prussia with Italy. At the
very hour the Italian alliance was concluded
at Rome, the National Liberal party in the
German Parliament commenced it's assaults on
the Papacy.
Both these alliances, one In toIIor, the other
exterior, rest on the sanre revolutionary and
anti. christian principle; war on Rome aud the
Papacy is the condition of the alliance with
Italy; war on the Catholics in Germany is the
condition of the alliance with the pseudo
liberalism of the National Liberal party.
The alliance With Italy proved fatal to Ma.
poleou III and to France; 1t may prove fatal
to the unity of the German Empire.
Until this alliance was effected, Bismarck
followed in the footsteps of the illustrious
Stein, to whom he has caused q statue to be
erected, and whose successor he considers him
self to be. But he has strayed away from the
path of Stein, who like Burke and Pitt com
bated the principles of the French RevoIu-
1ppn had AT ia nj naR nf IA
last century, invaded Germany. Stein a
mortal foe to the French Revolution he re-
stored the liberty of his country by withdraw
ing Germany from the fatal path into which
she had Strsyed by following France. He could
not save Prussia at Jena, bat he trained her
for revenge at Waterloo aud Sedan. He it was
who formed Schornhorst, the organizer of mil
itary Prussia, Whose system Count Won Moltke
perfected he it was who stood tho distin-
guished protector of the German historical
school, that was the antithesis of the French
revolutionary school.
He fought against the abstract philoSophic
method of Franco, destructive of her national
tradition; that spirit of exclusive and narrow
equality, in the pursuit of which she lost her
liberty that a6solutism, whether in demo-
cFacy Cesarism, that ObliUeratIon OF the
individual, that indifference to rights, that
extiDguishment of ali local and provincial
life that exaggerated idea of the State, that
oppression OF religious liberty of Christian
teaching and of the Catholic Church, all of
which characterized the French revolution.
Stein wanted Germany to be the reverse of
revolutionary France. Bismarck is seeking TO
reverse STEMS policy, Notwithstanding the
warning to be derived from the history of
FTaLce. At the very moment that II. Renan
says the French revelation "is an expert
mental failure" and the Revue des Deux
Mohdes proclaims :" that the revolution 10
politically bankrupt" and on the very morrow
Of the final miscarriage of that revolution,
under its two formS of government, tho EN-
pire fallen at Sedan, and the Social Republic
fallen under the ruins Of the Paris Commune,
RtamaFek inGFOduc into (IermRnV thu rayOln.
tiOnary system of France. The French rejoice
and say France need not be considered lost
if We can believe that Germany will be in her
turn drawn into that witches dance in which
all our virtue has been lost"
Prince Won Metternich, it is we'll known,