The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-08-19
OLDEST PROTESTANT
CITY IN THE WORLD
Continued from Page ~

Saxonv. when we remeNnber that it is honeycombed
with socialism Of the thirty-six members IN the
Reichstag from SaXony thirty-fve Social
Democrats These men have some respect for the
government of the state, but only scorn and COZ
tempt for state church and a state religion. God
and the Church cut figure in their programme
OF social reform. The socialists or SaXony are
integrally united with the socialists of Germany;
and when the social republic. for whcn all social
lists sigh is established IN Germany, all state lines
will be botted out; and Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony,
Austria. Hungary, Bohemia. Poland, Holland, Bel
gium Denmark Sweden, Norway, France, Italy,
Spain and Russia will form one grand European
republic with It's capital III Berlin and its flag of
peace fraternity, equality and liberty floating
every town hall from the North sea to the Med
iterranean and the Danube to the Atlantic ocean.
And with the rank and file of socialists Il is not
wild dream, but a solid and stoid and thoroughly
realizable proposition. When the great catacysm
comes the king the priest and the soldier will be
cast in the same pile OF rubbish. This programme
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 nat
ural appetites.
Predictions Concerning Berlin.
Before coming here | spent a few days Ill Ber-
lin, where | found great busting modern city
did not interest me- Its ideals are too new; its
heroes are too well 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. [ found religious
and social conditions there very much what they
are here in Dresden. 1t is an adage there that
people do not go to church on Sunday in Berlin;
they go to the theatre. The middle classes are still
devoted to conservative home life and 90 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 people were directed
towards the extirpaton of CathOcity the Catholic
religion should be the only one to survive In Ber-
lin and Dresden if you hear church bell on Sun
day or any other morning you may depend upon it,
1t is either the Angelus a call to mass visited
the new Evangelical Cathedral of Berlin dedicated
by the emperor the other day and proclaimed the
st. Peters of the Protestant world. 1t was closed
l asked the reason, and the guard told me it was
open week days from 10 till 6. but on Sundays it
was open only one hour and half In the forenoon
and hour in the afternoon. On week days stran-
gers visited it; on Sundays nobody. On the other
hand the Catholic churches are thronged with wor-
shippers at every mass. 1t is so in Berlin it is so
/ also in Dresden. The presence of the great and
unbendlng Centrum has made Cathoicity respect
ed IN Berlin, and has given courage to Catholics
everywhere in the empire. Nothing is too good for
a Catholic in the eyes of the emperor and no place
or post too high for the aspiration of a German
Catholic, The effect of persecution is here every
where evident in bold and demonstrative Cath
ocity. Catholics take off their hat to a priest in
Berlin and Dresden, as they take off their hat to
| an old soldier in Paris. And for the same reason
The priest has been in the thickest of the fight and
bore the brunt of the battle during the Kultur
| Kampf. The people visit the churches and pay
respect to the blessed sacrament There is live,
active, virile Catholicity in the most Protestant
sections of Germany that speaks volumes for the
future of the Church in that country Ii is becom-
ing palmer and palmer to all thinking people in
this country that religion spells morality: and
Catholicity is synonymous with Christianity. Stub
born, irresistible truth!