that the object of the Falck laws is to render impossible the existence of the Catholic Church in Germany,that is, to exterminate it. I say this because no Catholic, without sin against God, can obey these laws. Every man who obeys them ceases in that moment to be a Catholic. Can we, then, for a moment imagine that Prince von Bismarck was not aware of this? That he acted in ignorance, or unconsciously, or on misjudgment? That he so little knows the Catholic doctrine and discipline as to expect obedience? He does not desire it. He wished for a pretext, and has made it. Nobody can doubt that he knew to the full extent the violation of conscience and of faith which he was inflicting. These laws can be no otherwise understood than as a deliberate scheme to render it impossible for Catholics to obey, that they might then be accused and dealt with as resisting the authority of the Empire. But in this the astuteness of the German Chancellor has overreached itself. If the Falck legislation had been such as a Catholic could by any subterfuge obey, even though its injury to the Church were never so great, then the nations of Europe might have been misled into condemning the Catholics of Germany as contumacious and refractory. But at this time not a nation in Europe commends the Falck laws. A handful of strangely - assorted persons about a year ago went on a pilgrimage to offer their incense to Prince von Bismarck on his penal laws. They were peers and gentlemen, Free Kirk men and Liberals, and the preachers of our glorious Revolution' and of civil and religious liberty; and now we are in formed that the delegates of cities and towns in England are to meet this month, under the presidency of Earl Russell, to express sympathy with Prince von Bismarck in his persecution of Catholics and in his violation of religious liberties; which, for half a century, has been the special political cry of the noble Earl. We are a paradoxical people, and somewhat too reckless of what the outside world may think of our political incoherencies. But it is well to see how we are regarded from without. M. de Pressensé, a Frenchman and a Protestant, in denouncing the Prussian persecution, has given to Englishmen a warning which I hope will not be lost upon us. In last May, after detailing the injustice of the ecclesiastical legislation of Prussia, he added: That which is more grave is that (public) opinion is misled even in countries which, like England, are the classic land of religious liberty. The religious policy of the German Emperor receives in England congratulations which we must be permitted to look upon as scandalous. We know that the English Parliament would not allow any one of the laws passed at Berlin to be so much as discussed: but it is not right to applaud that which we would not do. We ought more than ever to rise above sectarian passions, and to remind ourselves that the persecution which strikes our religious adversaries strikes that which is our common good, and our sole guarantee in the conflict of ideas and beliefs-I mean, the liberty of conscience.'15 We have now traced in outline the three Cæsarisms -the Pagan Cæsarism, the Christian, and the modern, VOL. II. 15 Revue des Deux Mondes, Mai 1873. M which I must describe as the Cæsarism of the last age of civil power lapsing or lapsed from Christianity. But it is more than time to make an end. I hope that I have made clear that Christianity has redeemed man and society from Cæsarism-that is, from the unlimited despotism of man over man-and that so long as the two powers, spiritual and civil, are vested in distinct persons, the liberty of conscience and the liberty of religion, as well as the liberty of man in his public and private life, are secured; that wheresoever the civil power or Sovereign usurps upon the spiritual liberty of the Church, and affects to exercise a supremacy over it, all liberties are at stake-the liberty of conscience, the liberty of religion, the domestic liberty of families, and the political liberty of citizens. Under Cæsarism all kinds of freedom alike are violated. The natural antagonist of Cæsarism is the Christian Church, with all its liberties of doctrine and discipline, of faith and jurisdiction; and the vindication of these liberties of the Church in their highest and most sacred form is Ultramontanism. Therefore the world hates it. Therefore it now rails against it in all its tones and with all its tongues. 'Divus Cæsar' and 'Vicarius Christi' are two persons and two powers and two systems, between which there can be not only no peace, but no truce. They have contended for eighteen hundred years. In Germany they are locked once more in conflict. The issue is certain. The same who has always conquered will conquer again. Where, now, are the Emperors of Rome, Germany, and France? But Peter is still in his See, and Peter now is Pius IX. |