The Irish standard., 1905-08-12


escape them great numbers have re-
nounced their connection with the
Lutheran State church. After notify
ing the officer of that deparement that
they have ceased to belong to the
church, they are compelled to pay one
years taxes in advance; and after
that time, if they still persevere in
their determination, they are stricken
from the rolls of rate apyers. In
some cases whole villages give notice
at the same time. Marriages and fun
erals are very costly affairs here, as
they are everywhere on the Continent
l could wish that they were less ex-
pensive in Catholic countries. 1t scan
dalizes the poor, and the rich are
sometimes taxed beyond their means.
We can we'll understand the low es-
innate placed upon female chastity,
and church affiliation in Saxony, when
we remember that it is honey-combed
with Socialism. Of the thirty-six
members in the Reichstag from Sax
ony thirty-fve are Social-Democrats
These men have some respect for the
government of the state; but only
scorn and contempt for state church
and state religion. God and the
church cut no figure in their program
of social reform. The Socialists of
Saxony are integrally united with the
Socialists of Germany; and when the
Social Republic, for which all Social
lists sigh, is established in Germany
all state lines will be blotted out; and
Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Austria,
Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Holland,
Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
France, Italy, Spain and Russia will
, form one grand European republic,
with it's capital in Berlin and it's flag
T, of peace, fraternity, equality and lib.
, erty floating over every town hall
! from the North sea to the Mediterran-
, can and the Danube to the Atlantic
ocean. And with the rank and file of
F., Socialists, it is not a wild dream, but
: a stolid and thoroughly realizab1e
/ proposition. When the great cata-
! clysm comes the king, the priest and
! the soldier will be cast in the same
! pile of rubbish. This program takes
man as it finds him, and releasing
/ him from every restraint, gives free
rein to all his human propensities,
| under the fundamental law of social
! perfection, that the way of enjoyment
! is the way of progress, and the perfect
; man is the man who gets most out OF
this life at least cost to his natural
| appetites.
Before coming here 1 spent few
days in Berlin, where found a great
bustling modern city and the throb-
| bling heart of Pan-Germandom. 1t did
not interest me. It's ideals are too
new; it's heroes are too we'll known,
| and look too much like cheap actors
| in their bronze coats and heroic pose.
The present emperor has done much
for Berlin and before long it will be
the greatest city in the world; the
| fairest paradise of the flesh, and the
strongest citadel of the devil. 1 found
religious and social conditions there
very much what they are here in Dres-
den. 1t is an adage there that people
| do not go to church on Sunday in Ber-
lin; they go to the theater. The mid.
die classes are still devoted to conser.
vative home life, and go to church;
but the upper and lower classes have
given up all religion. 1t is strange
that in the two cities where for four
hundred years all the energies of the
state and all the passions of the peo.
pie were directed towards the extirpa.
ton of Catholicity, the Catholic re.
ligion should be the only one to sur
vive. In Berlin and Dresden, if you
hear church bell on Sunday or any
other morning you may depend upon
it, it is either the Angelus or a call to
mass. I visited the new Evangelical
Cathedral of Britain dedicated by the
emperor the other day, and proclaim