Year: 1870

The Catholic Messenger a journal published
in New Orleans, takes the following singular
view of the present aspect of foreign affairs:-


zone week ago and Plus TX stood before the
world in the light of a dethroned monarch and
prisoner. Even then Catholic faith foresaw that
his trials would have an end, aud that the tri-
umph of his enemies would not be perpetual,
but no one thought that light would commence
to break upon the darkness SO soon. Scarcely
is the sacrilegious insolence of the Italian King
consummated in the occupation of Rome, when
the first thunder-clap of an avenging storm
breaks upon the guilty ear of Europe. A gene
raj war is imminent, and the very outbreak of
such war must reinstate the Holy Father in
most of his possessions, If not in all the States
so wrongfully wrested from him of late years.
Already the dispatches intimate that Prussia
will intervene in his behalf, and if that power
takes such step her opponents will not dare to
stay behind.


''Why does Prussia act thus? First-Ger-
many comprises an immense Catholic popula-
tion, say from twenty to twenty-five millions.
In the herculean struggle that must ensue If
Germany combines with Russia against the rest
of Europe, every nerve will be strained to the
utmost and the most latent resources must be
brought out. Every sympathy must be ap-
pealed TO and even every prejudice conciiated
How manifest then the policy of gratifying an
immense Catholic population by protecting
their religious Interests and enlisting their re-
ligious gratitude Prussia has already seen
what kind of soldiers the Bavarians make, and
she is quite willing to encourage them and get
some more of the same sort.


81 &"Then again, Prussia being the avowed cham
pion of the Pope, how would the Irish people
stand affected to her in case of war with Eng
land, and how would the Catholic element of
France feel, considering its distrust of the pre-
sent republic? 1t is evident that the French
republic would have to exert its good services
with the Italian republicans in behalf of his
Holiness, and England would be obliged to go
as far as Prussia in securing his temporal
power. Austria would suddenly become very
devout, as do most bad Catholics when they are
seriously sick; and Italy, finding one side as
averse to Ter pretensions as the other, would be
obliged to yield. When thieves fall out honest
men get their dues.


"This general war may possibly not take
place and the result just spoken of may not en-
sue but in some such way it will be easy for
Divine Providence to work its will without any
visible eXertion of a miraculous power. The
world may combine against the children of
light, and in such strength that they will be
oYerpowered. Their rights will be ignored and
their very determination determined on, but just
when all human aid is gone and all human hope
has failed, the Almighty will smite the
strong and deliver His chosen people.
The children of Israel were fully in
the tolls of Pharaoh, who would
not consent to their departure. There was no
one to help them, and they seemed, humanity
speaking, doomed to perpetual seryitude or
final extinction. But without worldly allies and
without feats of arms on their part, the mighty
power which held them in its grasp was glad to
let them go. Ia the same way the great king
dom of Italy may find it expedient to relax It's
grasp upon its sacrilegious spOils and let the
nontedVicar of God enjoy his proper liberty. 1t
is thus that the children of faith learn to rest
not upon the arms of flesh, but upon the deliv-
erance from on high"