3. A law dealing with _Emeriti_,

were adopted by the synod and then approved by the king. On the

other hand a series of independent proposals conceived in the

interests of the high-church party remained in suspense. The last

effected elections for the general synod committee resulted in

the appointment of three positive-unionist members, including the

president, two confessionalists, and two of the middle party.[549]

§ 193.7. =The Evangelical Church in the Annexed Provinces.=--In

1866 the provinces of Hanover, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein were

incorporated with the kingdom of Prussia. In these political

particularism, combined with confessional Lutheranism, suspicion

of every organized system of church government as intended

to introduce Prussian unionism, even to the extreme of open

rebellion, led to violent conflicts. The king, indeed, personally

gave assurance in Cassel, Hanover and Kiel that the position of

the church confession should in no way be endangered. “He will

indeed support the union where it already existed as a sacred

legacy to him from his forefathers; he also hopes that it may

always make further progress as a witness to the grand unity of

the evangelical church; but compulsion is to be applied to no

man.” The consistories of these provinces were still to continue

independent of the Supreme Church Council. But the ministerial

order for the restoration of representative synodal constitution

increasingly prevailed, although the wide-spread suspicion and

individual protests against the system of church government,

such as the temporary prohibition of the Marburg consistory of

the mission festival, as avowedly used for agitation against

the intended synodal constitution, helped to intensify the

bitterness of feeling. But on the other hand many preachers by

their unbecoming pulpit harangues, and their refusal to take

the oath of allegiance or service, to pray in church for their

new sovereign, and to observe the general holiday appointed

to be held in 1869 on November 10th (Luther’s birthday),

etc., compelled the ecclesiastical authorities to impose fines,

suspension, penal transportation, and deposition. In the Lutheran

=Schleswig-Holstein= a new congregational constitution was

introduced in 1869 by the minister Von Mühler, as the basis of a

future synodal constitution, which was adopted by the _Vorsynode_

of Rendsburg in 1871, preserving the confessional status laid

down, without discussion. In 1878 an advance was made by the

institution of district or provostship synods, and in February,

1880, the first General Synod was held at Rendsburg. As in Old

Prussia so also here the conservative movement proved victorious.

The laity obtained majorities in all synods, and the supremacy

of the state was secured by the subordination of the church

government under the minister of public worship.

§ 193.8. =In Hanover=, where especially Lichtenberg, president of

the upper consistory, and Uhlhorn, member of the upper consistory

(since 1878 abbot of Loccum), although many Lutheran extremists

long remained dissatisfied, temperately and worthily maintained

the independence and privileges of the Lutheran church, the first

national synod could be convened and could bring to a generally

peaceful conclusion the question of the constitution only in

the end of 1869, after the preliminary labour of the national

synod committee. In 1882 the Reformed communities of 120,000

souls, hitherto subject to Lutheran consistories, obtained an

independent congregational and synodal constitution. Against

the new marriage ordinance enacted in consequence of the

civil marriage law (§ 197, 5), Theod. Harms (brother, and from

1865 successor of L. Harms, § 184, 1), pastor and director of

Hermannsburg missionary seminary, rebelled from the conviction

that civil marriage did not deserve to be recognised as marriage.

He was first suspended, then in 1877 deposed from office, and

with the most of his congregation retired and founded a separate

Lutheran community, to which subsequently fifteen other small

congregations of 4,000 souls were attached. As teacher and pupils

of the seminary made it a zealous propaganda for the secession,

the missionary journals and missionary festivals were misused

for the same purpose, and as Harms answered the questions of the

consistory in reference thereto, partly by denying, partly by

excusing, that court, in December, 1878, forbad the missionary

collections hitherto made throughout the churches at Epiphany

for Hermannsburg, and so completely broke off the connection

between the state church and the institution which had hitherto

been regarded as “its pride and its preserving salt.” A reaction

has since set in in favour of the seminary and its friends on

the assurance that the interests of the separation would not be

furthered by the seminary, and that several other objectionable

features, _e.g._ the frequent employment in the mission service

of artisans without theological training, the sending of them out

in too great numbers without sufficient endowment and salary, so

that missionaries were obliged to engage in trade speculations,

should be removed as far as possible; but since the seminary

life was always still carried on upon the basis of ecclesiastical

secession, it could lead to no permanent reconciliation with the

state church. Harms died in 1885. His son Egmont was chosen his

successor, and as the consistory refused ordination, he accepted

consecration at the hands of five members of the Immanuel Synod

at Magdeburg.

§ 193.9. =In Hesse= the ministry of Von Mühler sought to bring

about a combination of the three consistories of Hanau, Cassel,

and Marburg, as a necessary vehicle for the introduction of a

new synodal constitution. In the province itself an agitation

was persistently carried on for and against the constitutional

scheme submitted by the ministers, which wholly ignored the old

church order (§ 127, 2), which, though in the beginning of the

seventeenth century through the ecclesiastical disturbances of

the time (§ 154, 1), it had passed out of use, had never been

abrogated and so was still legally valid. A _Vorsynode_ convened

in 1870 approved of it in all essential points, but conventions

of superintendents, pastoral conferences and lay addresses

protested, and the Prussian parliament, for which it was not yet

liberal enough, refused the necessary supplies. As these after

Von Mühler’s overthrow were granted, his successor, Dr. Falk,

immediately proceeded in 1873 to set up in Cassel the court

that had been objected to so long. It was constituted after the

pattern of the Supreme Church Council, of Lutheran, Reformed, and

United members with _Itio in partes_ on specifically confessional

questions. The clergy of Upper Hesse comforted themselves

with saying that the new courts in which the confessions were

combined, if not better, were at least no worse than the earlier

consistories in which the confessions were confounded; and they

felt obliged to yield obedience to them, so long as they did not

demand anything contradictory the Lutheran confession. On the

other hand, many of the clergy of Lower Hesse saw in the advance

from a merely eventual to an actual blending of the confessional

status in church government an intolerable deterioration. And so

forty-five clergyman of Lower and one of Upper Hesse laid before

the king a protest against the innovation as destructive of the

confessional rights of the Hessian church contrary to the will

of the supreme majesty of Jesus Christ. They were dismissed with

sharp rebuke, and, with the exception of four who submitted, were

deposed from office for obstinate refusal to obey. There were

about sixteen congregations which to a greater or less extent

kept aloof from the new pastors appointed by the consistories,

and without breaking away from the state church wished to remain

true to the old pastor “appointed by Jesus Christ himself.”--In

autumn, 1884, the movement on behalf of the restoration of a

presbyterial and synodal constitution of the Hessian evangelical

church, which had been delayed for fourteen years, was resumed.

A sketch of a constitution, which placed it under three

general superintendents (Lutheran, Reformed, United) and

thirteen superintendents, and, for the fair co-operation of

the lay element in the administration of church affairs (the

confession status, however, being beyond discussion), provided

suitable organs in the shape of presbyteries and synods, with a

predominance of the lay element, was submitted to a _Vorsynode_

that met on November 12th, consisting of two divisions, like a

Lower and Upper House, sitting together. The first division, as

representative of the then existing church order, embraced, in

accordance with the practice of the old Hessian synods, all the

members of the consistory, _i.e._ the nine superintendents and

thirteen pastors elected by the clergy; the second, consisting at

least of as many lay as clerical members, was chosen by the free

election of the congregation. The royal assent was given to the

decrees of the _Vorsynode_ in the end of December, 1885, and the

confessional status was thereby expressly guaranteed.

§ 194. THE NORTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES.

In most of the smaller North German states, owing to the very slight

representation of the Reformed church, which was considerable only

in Bremen, Lippe-Detmold, and a part of Hesse and East Friesland, the

union met with little favour. Yet only in a few of those provinces did a

sharply marked confessional Lutheranism gain wide and general acceptance.

This was so especially and most decidedly in Mecklenburg, but also in

Hanover, Hesse, and Saxony. On the other hand, since the close of 1860,

in almost all those smaller states a determined demand was made for a

representative synodal constitution, securing the due co-operation of

the lay element.--The Catholic church was strongest in Hanover, and next

come some parts of Hesse, which had been added to the ecclesiastical

province of the Upper Rhine (§ 196, 1), but in the other North German

smaller states it was only represented here and there.

§ 194.1. =The Kingdom of Saxony.=--The present kingdom of Saxony,

formerly an electoral principality, has had Catholic princes

since 1679 (§ 153, 1), but the Catholic church could strike its

roots again only in the immediate neighbourhood of the court.

Indeed those belonging to it did not enjoy civil and religious

equality until 1807, when this distinction was set aside. The

erection of cloisters and the introduction of monkish orders,

however, continued even then forbidden, and all official

publications of the Catholic clergy required the _placet_ of

the government. The administration of the evangelical church,

so long as the king is Catholic, lies, according to agreement,

in the hands of the ministers commissioned _in evangelicis_.

Although several of these have proved defenders of ecclesiastical

orthodoxy, the rationalistic Illumination became almost

universally prevalent not only among the clergy but also

among the general populace. Meanwhile a pietistic reaction

set in, especially powerful in Muldenthal, where Rudelbach’s

labours impressed on it a Lutheran ecclesiastical character.

The religious movement, on the other hand, directed by Martin

Stephan, pastor of the Bohemian church in Dresden, came to a

sad and shameful end. As representative and restorer of strict

Lutheran views he had wrought successfully in Dresden from 1810,

but, through the adulation of his followers, approaching even

to worship, he fell more and more deeply into hierarchical

assumption and neglect of self-vigilance. When the police in

1837 restricted his nightly assemblies, without, however, having

discovered anything immoral, and suspended him from his official

duties, he called upon his followers to emigrate to America. Many

of them, lay and clerical, blindly obeyed, and founded in 1835,

in Missouri, a Lutheran church communion (§ 208, 2). Stephan’s

despotic hierarchical assumptions here reached their fullest

height; he also gave his lusts free scope. Women oppressed or

actually abused by him at length openly proclaimed his shame in

1839, and the community excommunicated him. He died in A.D. 1846.

Taught by such experiences, and purged of the Donatist-separatist

element, a church reaction against advancing rationalism made

considerable progress under a form of church that favoured it,

and secured also influential representatives in members of the

theological faculty of the university of Leipzig distinguished

for their scientific attainments. After repeated debates in

the chamber over a scheme of a new ecclesiastical and synodal

order submitted by the ministry, the first evangelical Lutheran

state synod met in Dresden, in May, 1871. On the motion of

the government, the law of patronage was here modified so that

the patron had to submit three candidates to the choice of the

ecclesiastical board. It was also decided to form an upper or

state consistory, to which all ecclesiastical matters hitherto

administered by the minister of public worship should be given

over; the control of education was to remain with the ministry,

and the state consistory was to charge itself with the oversight

only of religious instruction and ethico-religious training. The

most lively debates were those excited by the proposal to abolish

the obligation resting upon all church teachers to seem to adhere

to the confession of the Lutheran church, led by Dr. Zarncke,

the rector of the state university. The commission of inquiry

sent down, under the presidency of Professor Luthardt, demanded

the absolute withdrawal of this proposal, which aimed at perfect

doctrinal freedom. On the other hand, Professor G. Baur made the

mediate proposal to substitute for the declaration on oath, the

promise to teach simply and purely to the best of his knowledge

and according to conscience the gospel of Christ as it is

contained in Scripture, and witnessed in the confessions of the

Lutheran church. And as even now Luthardt, inspired by the wish

not to rend the first State Synod at its final sitting by an

incurable schism, agreed to this suggestion, it was carried

by a large majority. In consequence of this decision, a number

of “Lutherans faithful to the confession,” withdrew from the

State church, and on the anniversary of the Reformation in 1871,

constituted themselves into an Evangelical Lutheran Free Church,

associated with the Missouri synod (§ 208, 2), from which, on

the suggestion of some of the members of the community who had

returned from America, they chose for themselves a pastor called

Ruhland. There were five such congregations in Saxony: at Dresden,

Planitz, Chemnitz, Frankenberg, and Krimmitschau, to which some

South German dissenters at Stenden, Wiesbaden, Frankfort, and

Anspach attached themselves.

§ 194.2. =The Saxon Duchies.=--The Stephan emigration had

also decoyed a number of inhabitants from Saxe-Altenburg. In

a rescript to the Ephorus Ronneburg, in 1838, the consistory

traced back this separatist movement to the fact that the

religious needs of the congregations found no satisfaction in the

rationalistic preaching, and urged a more earnest presentation

from the pulpit of the fundamental and central doctrines of

evangelical Christianity. This rescript was the subject of

violent denunciation. The government took the opinion of four

theological faculties on the procedure of the consistory and

its opponents, who published it simply with the praise and blame

contained therein, and thus prevented any investigation. Also

in =Weimar= and =Gotha= the rationalism of Röhr and Bretschneider,

which had dominated almost all pulpits down to the middle of

the century, began gradually to disappear, and the more recent

parties of Confessional, Mediation, and Free Protestant theology

to take its place. The last named party found vigorous support

in the university of Jena. A petition addressed to it in 1882

from the Thuringian Church Conference of Eisenach, to call

to Jena also a representative of the positive Lutheran theology,

was decidedly refused, and, in a controversial pamphlet by

Superintendent Braasch, condemned as “the Eisenach outrage”

(_Attentat_). In =Meiningen= the _Vorsynode_ convened there

in 1870 sanctioned the sketch of a moderately liberal synodal

constitution submitted to it, which placed the confession indeed

beyond the reach of legislative interference, but also secured

its rights to free inquiry. The first State Synod, however, did

not meet before 1878. In =Weimar= the first synod was held in

1873, the second in 1879.

§ 194.3. =The Kingdom of Hanover.=--Although the union found no

acceptance in Hanover, after the overthrow of the rationalism of

the _ancien régime_, the union theology became dominant in the

university. The clergy, however, were in great part carried along

by the confessional Lutheran current of the age. The Preachers’

Conference at Stade in 1854 took occasion to call the attention

of the government to the “manifest divergence” between the union

theology of the university and the legal and actual Lutheran

confession of the state church, and urged the appointment

of Lutheran teachers. The faculty, on the other hand, issued

a memorial in favour of liberty of public teaching, and the

curators filled the vacancies again with union theologians.

When in April, 1862, it was proposed to displace the state

catechism introduced in 1790, which neither theologically nor

catechetically satisfied the needs of the church, by a carefully

sifted revision of the Walther catechism in use before 1790,

approved of by the Göttingen faculty, the agitation of the

liberal party called forth an opposition, especially in city

populations, which expressed itself in insults to members of

consistories and pastors, and in almost daily repeated bloody

street fights with the military, and obliged the government at

last to give way.--The negotiations about a concordat with Rome

reached up further in 1824 than obtaining the circumscription

bull _Impensa Romanorum_, by which the Catholic church obtained

two bishoprics, those of Hildesheim and Osnabrück.--In 1886,

Hanover was incorporated with the kingdom of Prussia (§ 193, 8).

§ 194.4. =Hesse.=--Landgrave Maurice, 1592-1627, had forced upon

his territories a modified Melanchthonian Calvinism (§ 154, 1),

but a Lutheran basis with Lutheran modes of viewing things and

Lutheran institutions still remained, and the Lutheran reaction

had never been completely overcome, not even in Lower Hesse,

although there the name of the Reformed Church with Reformed

modes of worship had been gradually introduced in most of the

congregations. The communities of Upper Hesse and Schmalcald,

however, by continuous opposition saved for the most part their

Lutheranism, which in 1648 was guaranteed to them anew by the

Darmstadt Recess, and secured an independent form of church

government in the Definitorium at Marburg. The union movement,

which issued from Prussia in 1817, met with favour also in Hesse,

but only in the province of Hanau in 1818 got the length of a

formal constituting of a church on the basis of the union. In

1821, however, the elector issued the so-called Reorganization

edict, by which the entire evangelical church of the electorate,

without any reference to the confession status, but simply in

accordance with the political divisions of the state, was put

under the newly instituted consistories of Cassel, Marburg,

and Hanau, in the formation of which the confession of the

inhabitants had not been considered. The Marburg Definitorium

indeed protested, but in vain, against this despotic act, which

was felt a grievance, less on account of the wiping out of the

confession than on account of the loss of independent church

government which it occasioned. The government appointed pastors,

teachers and professors without enquiring much about their

confession. In 1838 the hitherto required subscription of the

clergy to the confessional writings, the Augsburg Confession and

its Apology, was modified into a formula declaring conscientious

regard for them. But in this Bickell, professor of law at Marburg,

saw a loss to the church in legal status, an endangering of the

evangelical church; the theological professor, Hupfeld, also

in the further course of the controversy took his side, while

the advocate, Henkel, in Cassel, as a popular agitator opposed

him and demanded a State Synod for the formal abolishing of all

symbolical books. The government ignored both demands, and the

vehement conflict was quieted by degrees. With 1850 a new era

began in the keen controversy over the question, which confession,

whether Lutheran or Reformed, was legally and actually that

of the state. The ministry of Hassenpflug from 1850, which

suppressed the revolution, considered it as legally the Lutheran,

and determined the ecclesiastical arrangements in this sense,

and in this course Dr. Vilmar, member of the Consistory, was the

minister’s right hand. But the elector was from the beginning

personally opposed to this procedure, and on the overthrow of

the ministry in 1855, Vilmar (died 1868) was also transferred to

a theological professorship at Marburg. This, however, only gave

a new impulse to the confessional Lutheran movement in the state,

for the spirit and tendency of the highly revered theological

teacher powerfully influenced the younger generation of the

Hessian clergy. In consequence of the German war, Hesse was

annexed to Prussia in 1866 (§ 193, 9).--On the Catholic church

in this state, compare § 196, 1.

§ 194.5. =Brunswick, Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Lippe-Detmold.=--Much

ado was made also in =Brunswick= over the introduction of a new

constitution for the Lutheran state church in 1869, and at last

in 1871 a synodal ordinance was passed by which the State Synod,

consisting of fourteen clerical and eighteen lay members, was

to meet every four years, so as not to be a too offensive factor

in the ecclesiastical administration and legislation, which

therefore has left untouched the content of the confession. The

first synod of 1872 began by rejecting the injunction to open

the sessions with prayer and reading of scripture. =Oldenburg=,

which in 1849, by a synod whose membership had been chosen by the

original electorate, had been favoured with a democratic church

constitution wholly separate from the state, accepted in 1854

without opposition a new constitution which restored the headship

of the church to the territorial lords, the administration of the

church to a Supreme Church Council and ecclesiastical legislation

to a State Synod consisting of clerical and lay members.--The

prince in the exercise of his sovereign rights gave a charter

in 1878 to the evangelical church of the Duchy of =Anhalt= to

a synodal ordinance which, though approved by the _Vorsynode_ of

1876, had been rejected by parliament, and afterwards it gained

the assent of the national representatives.--In the Reformed

=Lippe-Detmold= there were in 1844 still five preachers who,

wearied of the illuminationist catechism of the state church, had

gone back to the Heidelberg catechism and protested against the

abolition of acceptance on oath of the symbols, as destructive

of the peace of the church. The democratic church constitution

of 1851, however, was abrogated in 1854, and instead of it, the

old Reformed church order of 1684 was again made law. At the same

time, religious pardon and equality were guaranteed to Catholics

and Lutherans. The first Reformed State Synod was constituted

in 1878.

§ 194.6. =Mecklenburg.=--Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1848 was

in possession of a strictly Lutheran church government under

the direction of Kliefoth, and its university at Rostock

had decidedly Lutheran theologians. When the chamberlain Von

Kettenburg, on going over to the Catholic church, appointed

a Catholic priest on his estate, the government in 1852, on

the ground that the laws of the state did not allow Catholic

services which extended beyond simple family worship, held that

he had overstepped the limits. A complaint, in reference thereto,

presented to the parliament and then to the German _Bund_, was

in both cases thrown out. Even in 1863 the Rostock magistrates

refused to allow tower and bells in the building of a Catholic

church.--An extraordinary excitement was caused by the removal

from office in January, 1858, of Professor M. Baumgarten of

Rostock. An examination paper set by him on 2 Kings xi. by which

the endeavour was made to win scripture sanction for a violent

revolution, obliged the government even in 1856 to remove him

from the theological examination board. At the same time his

polemic addressed to a pastoral conference at Parchim, against

the doctrine of the Mecklenburg state catechism on the ceremonial

law, especially in reference to the sanctification of the Sabbath,

increased the distrust which the clergy of the state, on account

of his writings, had entertained against his theological position

as one which, from a fanatical basis, diverged on all sides into

fundamental antagonism to the confession and the ordinances of

the Lutheran state church. The government finally deposed him

in 1858 (leaving him, however, in possession of his whole salary,

also of the right of public teaching), on the ground and after

the publication of a judgment of the consistory which found him

guilty of heretical alteration of all the fundamental doctrines

of the Christian faith and the Lutheran confession, and sought to

prove this verdict from his writings. As might have been foreseen,

this step was followed by a loud outcry by all journals; but even

Lutherans, like Von Hofmann, Von Scheurl [Scheuerl], and Luthardt,

objected to the proceedings of the government as exceeding the

law laid down by the ecclesiastical ordinance and the opinion

of the consistory as resting upon misunderstanding, arbitrary

supposition and inconsequent conclusion.

§ 195. BAVARIA.

Catholic Bavaria, originally an electorate, but raised in 1806, by

Napoleon’s favour, into a royal sovereignty, to which had been adjudged

by the Vienna Congress considerable territories in Franconia and the

Palatine of the Rhine with a mainly Protestant population, attempted

under Maximilian Joseph (IV.) I., after the manner of Napoleon,

despotically to pass a liberal system of church polity, but found

itself obliged again to yield, and under Louis I. became again the

chief retreat of Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism of the most pronounced

ultramontane pattern. It was under the noble and upright king,

Maximilian II., that the evangelical church of the two divisions of

the kingdom, numbering two-thirds of the population, first succeeded in

securing the unrestricted use of their rights. Nevertheless, Catholic

Bavaria remained, or became, the unhappy scene of the wildest demagogic

agitation of the Catholic clergy and of the Bavarian “Patriots” who

played their game, whose patriotism consisted only in mad hatred of

Prussia and fanatical ultramontanism. Yet King Louis II., after the

brilliant successes of the Franco-German war, could not object to the

proposal of November 30th, 1870, to found a new German empire under a

Prussian and therefore a Protestant head.

§ 195.1. =The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian I.,

1799-1825.=--Bavaria boasted with the most unfeigned delight

after the uprooting of Protestantism in its borders as then

defined (§ 151, 1), that it was the most Catholic, _i.e._ the

most ultramontane and most bigoted, of German-speaking lands, and,

after a short break in this tradition by Maximilian Joseph III.

(§ 165, 10), went forth again with full sail, under Charles

Theodore, 1777-1779, on the old course. But the thoroughly

new aspect which this state assumed on the overthrow of the

old German empire, demanded an adapting territorially of the

civil and ecclesiastical life in accordance with the relations

which it owed to its present political position. The new elector

Maximilian Joseph IV., who as king styled himself Maximilian I.,

transferred the execution of this task to his liberal, energetic,

and thoroughly fearless minister, Count Montgelas, 1799-1817.

In January, 1802, it was enacted that all cloisters should

be suppressed, and that all cathedral foundations should be

secularized; and these enactments were immediately carried out

in an uncompromising manner. Even in 1801 the qualification

of Protestants to exercise the rights of Bavarian citizens

was admitted, and a religious edict of 1803 guaranteed to all

Christian confessions full equality of civil and political

privileges. To the clergy was given the control of education,

and to the gymnasia and universities a considerable number of

foreigners and Protestants received appointments. In all respects

the sovereignty of the state over the church and the clergy was

very decidedly expressed, the episcopate at all points restricted

in its jurisdiction, the training of the clergy regulated

and supervised on behalf of the state, the patronage of all

pastorates and benefices usurped by the government, even

public worship subjected to state control by the prohibition

of superstitious practices, etc. But amid many other infelicities

of this autocratic procedure was specially the gradual dying out

of the old race of bishops, which obliged the government to seek

again an understanding with Rome; and so it actually happened

in June, 1817, after Montgelas’ dismissal, that a concordat was

drawn up. By this the Roman Catholic apostolic religion secured

throughout the whole kingdom those rights and prerogatives which

were due to it according to divine appointment and canonical

ordinances, which, strictly taken, meant supremacy throughout the

land. In addition, two archbishoprics and seven bishoprics were

instituted, the restoration of several cloisters was agreed to,

and the unlimited administration of theological seminaries, the

censorship of books, the superintendance of public schools and

free correspondence with the holy see were allowed to the bishops.

On the other hand, the king was given the choice of bishops (to

be confirmed by the pope), the nomination of a great part of

the priests and canons, and the _placet_ for all hierarchical

publications. After many vain endeavours to obtain amendments,

the king at last, on October 17th, ratified this concordat;

but, to mollify his highly incensed Protestant subjects, he

delayed the publication of it till the proclamation of the new

civil constitution on May 18th following. The concordat was

then adopted, as an appendage to an edict setting forth the

ecclesiastical supremacy of the state, securing perfect freedom

of conscience to all subjects, as well as equal civil rights to

members of the three Christian confessions, and demanding from

them equal mutual respect. The irreconcilableness of this edict

with the concordat was evident, and the newly appointed bishops

as well as the clerical parliamentary deputies, declared by papal

instruction that they could not take the oath to the constitution

without reservation, until the royal statement of Tegernsee,

September 21st, that the oath taken by Catholic subjects simply

referred to civil relations, and that the concordat had also the

validity of a law of the state, induced the curia to agree to

it. But the government nevertheless continued to insist as before

upon the supremacy of the state over the church, enlarged the

claims of the royal _placet_, put the free intercourse with

Rome again under state control, arbitrarily disposed of church

property and supervised the theological examinations of the

seminarists, made the appointment of all clergy dependent on

its approbation, and refused to be misled in anything by the

complaints and objections of the bishops.

§ 195.2. =The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Louis I.,

1825-1848.=--Zealous Catholic as the new king was, he still

held with unabated tenacity to the sovereign rights of the crown,

and the extreme ultramontane ministry of Von Abel from 1837

was the first to wring from him any relaxations, _e.g._ the

reintroduction of free intercourse between the bishops and the

holy see without any state control. But it could not obtain the

abolition of the _placet_, and just as little the eagerly sought

permission of the return of the Jesuits. On the other hand the

allied order of Redemptorists was allowed, whose missions among

the Bavarian people, however, the king soon made dependent

on a permission to be from time to time renewed. His tolerant

disposition toward the Protestants was shown in 1830, by his

refusing the demand of the Catholic clergy for a Reverse in

mixed marriages, and recognising Protestant sponsors at Catholic

baptisms. But yet his honourable desire to be just even to

the Protestants of his realm was often paralysed, partly by

his own ultramontane sympathies, partly and mainly by the

immense influence of the Abel ministry, and the religious

freedom guaranteed them by law in 1818 was reduced and restricted.

Among other things the Protestant press was on all sides gagged

by the minister, while the Catholic press and preaching enjoyed

unbridled liberty. Great as the need was in southern Bavaria the

government had strictly forbidden the taking of any aid from the

_Gustavus Adolphus Verein_. Louis saw even in the name of this

society a slight thrown on the German name, and was specially

offended at its vague, nearly negative attitude towards the

confession. Yet he had no hesitation in affording an asylum in

Catholic Bavaria to the Lutheran confessor Scheibel (§ 177, 2)

whom Prussian diplomacy had driven out of Lutheran Saxony,

and did not prevent the university of Erlangen, after its dead

orthodoxy had been reawakened by the able Reformed preacher

Krafft (died 1845), becoming the centre of a strict Lutheran

church consciousness in life as well as science for all

Germany. The adoration order of 1838, which required even the

Protestant soldiers to kneel before the host as a military salute,

occasioned great discontent among the Protestant population,

and many controversial pamphlets appeared on both sides. When

finally the parliament in 1845 took up the complaint of the

Protestants, a royal proclamation followed by which the usually

purely military salute formerly in use was restored. In 1847 the

ultramontane party, with Abel at its head, fell into disfavour

with the king, on account of its honourable attitude in the

scandal which the notorious Lola Montez caused in the circle of

the Bavarian nobility; but in 1848 Louis was obliged, through the

revolutionary storm that burst over Bavaria, to resign the crown.

§ 195.3. =The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian II.,

1848-1864, and Louis II.= (died 1886).--Much more thoroughly

than his father did Maximilian II. strive to act justly toward

the Protestant as well as the Catholic church, without however

abating any of the claims of constitutional supremacy on the

part of the state. In consequence of the Würzburg negotiations

(§ 192, 4), the Bavarian bishops assembled at Freysing, in

November, 1850, presented a memorial, in which they demanded the

withdrawal of the religious edict included in the constitution

of 1818, as in all respects prejudicial to the rights of the

church granted by the concordat, and set forth in particular

those points which were most restrictive to the free and

proper development of the catholic church. The result was

the publication in April, 1852, of a rescript which, while

maintaining all the principles of state administration hitherto

followed, introduced in detail various modifications, which,

on the renewal of the complaints in 1854, were somewhat further

increased as the fullest and final measure of surrender.--The

change brought about 1866 in the relation of Bavaria to North

Germany led the government under Louis II. to introduce liberal

reforms, and the offensive and defensive alliance which the

government concluded with the heretical Prussia, the failure of

all attempts on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war to force

it in violation of treaty to maintain neutrality, and then to

prevent Bavaria becoming part of the new German empire founded in

1871 at the suggestion of her own king, roused to the utmost the

wrath of the Bavarian clerical patriots. In the conflicts of the

German government, in 1872, against the intolerable assumptions,

claims and popular tumults of the ultramontane clergy, the

department of public worship, led by Lutz, inclined to take

an energetic part. But this was practically limited to the

passing of the so-called _Kanzelparagraphen_ (§ 197, 4) in

the _Reichstag_. Comp. § 197, 14.

§ 195.4. =Attempts at Reorganization of the Lutheran

Church.=--Since 1852, Dr. von Harless (§ 182, 13), as president

of the upper consistory at Munich, stood at the head of the

Lutheran church of Bavaria. Under his presidency the general

synod at Baireuth in 1853 showed a vigorous activity in the

reorganization of the church. On the basis of its proceedings

the upper consistory ordered the introduction of an admirable

new hymnbook. This occasioned considerable disagreement. But when,

in 1856, the upper consistory issued a series of enactments on

worship and discipline, a storm, originating in Nuremberg, burst

forth in the autumn of that same year, which raged over the whole

kingdom and attacked even the state church itself. The king was

assailed with petitions, and the spiritual courts went so far in

faint-heartedness as to put the acceptance and non-acceptance of

its ordinances to the vote of the congregations. Meanwhile the

time had come for calling another general synod (1857). An order

of the king as head of the church abolished the union of the

two state synods in a general synod which had existed since 1849,

and forbad all discussion of matters of discipline. Hence instead

of one, two synods assembled, the one in October at Anspach, the

other in November at Baireuth. Both, consisting of equal numbers

of lay and clerical members, maintained a moderate attitude,

relinquishing none of the privileges of the church or the

prerogatives of the upper consistory, and yet contributed greatly

to the assuaging of the prevalent excitement. Also the lay and

clerical members of the subsequent reunited general synods held

every fourth year for the most part co-operated successfully

on moderate church lines. The synod held at Baireuth in 1873

unanimously rejected an address sent from Augsburg inspired by

“Protestant Union” sympathies, as to their mind “for the most

part indistinct and where distinct unevangelical.”

§ 195.5. =The Church of the Union in the Palatine of the

Rhine.=--In the Bavarian =Palatine of the Rhine= the union had

been carried out in 1818 on the understanding that the symbolical

books of both confessions should be treated with due respect, but

no other standard recognised than holy scripture. When therefore

the Erlangen professor, Dr. Rust, in 1832 appeared in the

consistory at Spires and the court for that time had endeavoured

to fill up the Palatine union with positive Christian contents,

204 clerical and lay members of the Diocesan Synod presented

to the assembly of the states of the realm, opportunely meeting

in 1837, a complaint against the majority of the consistory.

As this memorial yielded practically no result, the opposition

wrought all the more determinedly for the severance of the

Palatine church from the Munich Upper Consistory. This was first

accomplished in the revolutionary year 1848. An extraordinary

general synod brought about the separation, and gave to the

country a new democratic church constitution. But the reaction

of the blow did not stop there. The now independent consistory at

Spires, from 1853 under the leadership of Ebrard, convened in the

autumn of that year a general synod, which made the _Augustana

Variata_ of 1540 as representing the consensus between the

_Augustana_ of 1530 and the Heidelberg as well as the Lutheran

catechism, the confessional standard of the Palatine church,

and set aside the democratic election law of 1848. When now the

consistory, purely at the instance of the general synod of 1853,

submitted to the diocesan synod in 1856 the proofs of a new

hymnbook, the liberal party poured out its bitter indignation

upon the system of doctrine which it was supposed to favour.

But the diocesan synods admitted the necessity of introducing

a new hymnbook and the suitability of the sketch submitted,

recommending, however, its further revision so that the recension

of the text might be brought up to date and that an appendix

of 150 new hymns might be added. The hymnbook thus modified was

published in 1859, and its introduction into church use left to

the judgment of presbyteries, while its use in schools and in

confirmation instruction was insisted upon forthwith. This called

forth protest after protest. The government wished from the

first to support the synodal decree, but in presence of growing

disturbance, changed its attitude, recommended the consistory

to observe decided moderation so as to restore peace, and

in February, 1861, called a general synod which, however, in

consequence of the prevailingly strict ecclesiastical tendencies

of its members, again expressed itself in favour of the new

hymnbook. Its conclusions were meanwhile very unfavourably

received by the government. Ebrard sought and obtained liberty

to resign, and even at the next synod, in 1869, the consistory

went hand in hand with the liberal majority.

§ 196. THE SOUTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES AND

RHENISH ALSACE AND LORRAINE.

The Protestant princely houses of South Germany had by the Lüneville

[Luneville] Peace obtained such an important increase of Catholic

subjects, that they had to make it their first care to arrange their

delicate relations by concluding a concordat with the papal curia in a

manner satisfactory to state and church. But all negotiations broke down

before the exorbitant claims of Rome, until the political restoration

movements of 1850 led to modifications of them hitherto undreamed of.

The concordats concluded during this period were not able to secure

enforcement over against the liberal current that had set in with

redoubled power in 1860, and so one thing after another was thrown

overboard. Even in the Protestant state churches this current made

itself felt in the persistent efforts, which also proved successful, to

secure the restoration of a representative synodal constitution which

would give to the lay element in the congregations a decided influence.

§ 196.1. =The Upper Rhenish Church Province.=--The governments

of the South German States gathered in 1818 at Frankfort, to

draw up a common concordat with Rome. But owing to the utterly

extravagant pretensions nothing further was reached than a new

delimitation in the bull “_Provida sollersque_,” 1821, of the

bishoprics in the so-called Upper Rhenish Church Province: the

archbishopric of Freiburg for Baden and the two Hohenzollern

principalities, the bishoprics of Mainz for Hesse-Darmstadt,

Fulda for Hesse-Cassel, Rottenburg for Württemberg, Limburg for

Nassau and Frankfort; and even this was given effect to only

in 1827, after long discussions, with the provision (bull _Ad

dominicæ gregis custodiam_) that the choice of the bishops should

issue indeed from the chapter, but that the territorial lord

might strike out objectionable names in the list of candidates

previously submitted to him. The actual equality of Protestants

and Catholics which the pope had not been able to allow in the

concordat, was now in 1880 proclaimed by the princes as the

law of the land. Papal and episcopal indulgences had to receive

approval before their publication; provincial and diocesan

synods could be held only with approval of the government and

in presence of the commissioners of the prince; taxes could not

be imposed by any ecclesiastical court; appeal could be made to

the civil court against abuse of spiritual power; those preparing

for the priesthood should receive scientific training at the

universities, practical training in the seminaries for priests,

etc. The pope issued a brief in which he characterized these

conditions as scandalous novelties, and reminded the bishops of

Acts v. 29. But only the Bishop of Fulda followed this advice,

with the result that the Catholic theological faculty at Marburg

was after a short career closed again, and the education of the

priests given over to the seminary at Fulda. Hesse-Darmstadt

founded a theological faculty at Giessen in 1830; Baden had one

already in Freiburg, and Würtemberg [Württemberg] had in 1817

affiliated the faculty at Ellwanger with the university of

Tübingen, and endowed it with the revenues of a rich convent. In

all these faculties alongside of rigorous scientific exactness

there prevailed a noble liberalism without the surrender of

the fundamental Catholic faith. The revolutionary year, 1848,

first gave the bishops the hope of a successful struggle for

the unconditional freedom of the church. In order to enforce the

Würzburg decrees (§ 192, 4), the five bishops issued in 1851 a

joint memorial. As the governments delayed their answer, they

declared in 1852 that they would immediately act as if all had

been granted them; and when at last the answer came, on most

points unfavourable, they said in 1853, that, obeying God rather

than man, they would proceed wholly in accordance with canon law.

§ 196.2. =The Catholic Troubles in Baden down to 1873.=--The

Grand Duchy of Baden, with two-thirds of its population Catholic,

where in 1848 the revolution had shattered all the foundations

of the state, and where besides a young ruler had taken the

reins of government in his hands only in 1852, seemed in spite

of the widely prevalent liberality of its clergy, the place best

fitted for such an attempt. The Archbishop of Freiburg, =Herm.

von Vicari=, in 1852, now in his eighty-first year, began by

arbitrarily stopping, on the evening of May 9th, the obsequies of

the deceased grand-duke appointed by the Catholic Supreme Church

Council for May 10th, prohibiting at the same time the saying

of mass for the dead (_pro omnibus defunctis_) usual at Catholic

burials, but in Baden and Bavaria hitherto not refused even to

Protestant princes. More than one hundred priests, who disobeyed

the injunction, were sentenced to perform penances. In the

following year he openly declared that he would forthwith carry

out the demands of the episcopal memorial, and did so immediately

by appointing priests in the exercise of absolute authority;

and by holding entrance examinations to the seminary without

the presence of royal commissioners as required by law. As a

warning remained unheeded, the government issued the order that

all episcopal indulgences must before publication be subscribed

by a grand-ducal special commissioner appointed for the purpose.

Against him, as well as against all the members of the Supreme

Church Council, the archbishop proclaimed the ban, issued a

fulminating pastoral letter, which was to have been read with

the excommunication in all churches, and ordered preaching for

four weeks for the instruction of the people on these matters.

At the same time he solemnly protested against all supremacy

of the state over the church. The government drove the Jesuits

out of the country, forbad the reading of the pastoral, and

punished disobedient priests with fines and imprisonment.

But the archbishop, spurred on by Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz,

advanced more boldly and recklessly than ever. In May, 1854,

the government introduced a criminal process against him,

during the course of which he was kept prisoner in his own house.

The attempts of his party to arouse the Catholic population

by demonstrations had no serious result. At the close of the

investigation the archbishop was released from his confinement

and continued the work as before. The government, however, still

remained firm, and punished every offence. In June, 1855, however,

a provisional agreement was published, and finally in June, 1859,

a formal concordat, the bull _Æterni patris_, was concluded with

Rome, its concessions to the archbishop almost exceeding even

those of Austria (§ 198, 2). In spite of ministerial opposition

the second chamber in March, 1860, brought up the matter before

its tribunal, repudiated the right of the government to conclude

a convention with Rome without the approbation of the states of

the realm, and forbad the grand-duke to enforce it. He complied

with this demand, dismissed the ministry, insisted, in answer

to the papal protest, on his obligation to respect the rights of

the constitution, and on October 9th, 1860, sanctioned jointly

with the chambers a law on the legal position of the Catholic and

Protestant churches in the state. The archbishop indeed declared

that the concordat could not be abolished on one side, and still

retain the force of law, but in presence of the firm attitude

of the government he desisted, and satisfied himself with giving

in 1861 a grudging acquiescence, by which he secured to himself

greater independence than before in regard to imposing of dues

and administration of the church property. Conflicts with the

archbishop, however, and with the clerical minority in the

chamber, still continued. The archbishop died in 1868. His see

remained vacant, as the chapter and the government could not

agree about the list of candidates; the interim administration

was carried on by the vicar-general, Von Kübel (died 1881),

as administrator of the archdiocese, quite in the spirit of

his predecessor. The law of October 9th, 1860, had prescribed

evidence of general scientific culture as a condition of

appointment to an ecclesiastical office in the Protestant as well

as the Catholic church. Later ordinances required in addition:

Possession of Baden citizenship, having passed a favourable

examination on leaving the university, a university course of at

least two and half years, attendance upon at least three courses

of lectures in the philosophical faculty, and finally also an

examination before a state examining board, within one and half

years of the close of the university curriculum, in the Latin

and Greek languages, history of philosophy, general history,

and the history of German literature (later also the so called

_Kulturexamen_). The Freiburg curia, however, protested, and in

1867 forbad clergy and candidates to submit to this examination

or to seek a dispensation from it. The result was, that forthwith

no clergymen could be definitely appointed, but up to 1874 no

legal objection was made to interim appointments of parochial

administrators. The educational law of 1868 abolished the

confessional character of the public schools. In 1869 state

recognition was withdrawn from the festivals of Corpus Christi,

the holy apostles, and Mary, as also, on the other hand, from the

festivals of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In 1870 obligatory

civil marriage was introduced, while all compulsion to observe

the baptismal, confirmational, and funeral rites of the church

was abolished, and a law on the legal position of benevolent

institutions was passed to withdraw these as much as possible

from the administration of the ecclesiastical authorities. On

the subsequent course of events in Baden, see § 197, 14.

§ 196.3. =The Protestant Troubles in Baden.=--The union of the

Lutheran and Reformed churches was carried out in the Grand Duchy

of Baden in 1821. It recognised the normative significance of the

_Augustana_, as well as the Lutheran and Heidelberg catechisms,

in so far as by it the free examination of scripture as the

only source of Christian faith, is again expressly demanded

and applied. A synod of 1834 provided this state church with

union-rationalistic agenda, hymnbook, and catechism. When there

also a confessional Lutheran sentiment began again in the

beginning of 1850 to prevail, the church of the union opposed

this movement by gensdarmes, imprisonment and fines. The pastor

Eichhorn, and later also the pastor Ludwig, with a portion

of their congregations left the state church and attached

themselves to the Breslau Upper Church Conference, but amid

police interference could minister to their flocks only under

cloud of night. After long refusal the grand-duke at last in

1854 permitted the separatists the choice of a Lutheran pastor,

but persistently refused to recognise Eichhorn as such. Pastor

Haag, who would not give up the Lutheran distribution formula

at the Lord’s supper, was after solemn warning deposed in 1855.

On the other hand the positive churchly feeling became more

and more pronounced in the state church itself. In 1854 the old

rationalist members of the Supreme Church Council were silenced,

and Ullmann of Heidelberg was made president. Under his auspices

a general synod of 1855 presented a sketch of new church and

school books on the lines of the union consensus, with an

endeavour also to be just to the Lutheran views. The grand-duke

confirmed the decision and the country was silent. But when in

1858 the Supreme Church Council, on the ground of the Synodal

decision of 1855, promulgated the general introduction of a

new church book, a violent storm broke out through the country

against the liturgical novelties contained therein (extension

of the liturgy by confession of sin and faith, collects,

responses, Scripture reading, kneeling at the supper, the making

a confession of their faith by sponsors), the Heidelberg faculty,

with Dr. Schenkel at its head, leading the opposition in the

Supreme Church Council. Yet Hundeshagen, who in the synod had

opposed the introduction of a new agenda, entered the lists

against Schenkel and others as the apologist of the abused church

book. The grand-duke then decided that no congregation should be

obliged to adopt the new agenda, while the introduction of the

shorter and simpler form of it was recommended. The agitations

these awakened caused its rejection by most of the congregations.

Meanwhile in consequence of the concordat revolution in 1860, a

new liberal ministry had come into power, and the government now

presented to the chambers a series of thoroughly liberal schemes

for regulating the affairs of the evangelical church, which

were passed by large majorities. Toward the end of the year the

government, by deposing the Supreme Church Councillor Heintz,

began to assume the patronage of the supreme ecclesiastical court.

Ullmann and Bähr tendered their resignations, which were accepted.

The new liberal Supreme Church Council, including Holtzmann,

Rothe, etc., now published a sketch of a church constitution on

the lines of ecclesiastical constitutionalism, which with slight

modifications the synod of July, 1861, adopted and the grand-duke

confirmed. It provided for annual diocesan synods of lay and

clerical members, and a general synod every five years. The

latter consists of twenty-four clerical and twenty-four lay

members, and six chosen by the grand-duke, besides the prelate,

and is represented in the interval by a standing committee of

four members, who have also a seat and vote in the Supreme Church

Council.--Dr. Schenkel’s “_Leben Jesu_” of 1864 led the still

considerable party among the evangelical clergy who adhered to

the doctrine of the church to agitate for his removal from his

position as director of the Evangelical Pastors’ Seminary at

Heidelberg; but it resulted only in this, that no one was obliged

to attend his lectures. The second synod, held almost a year

behind time in 1867, passed a liberal ordination formula. At the

next synod in 1871, the orthodox pietistic party had evidently

become stronger, but was still overborne by the liberal party,

whose strength was in the lay element. Meanwhile a praiseworthy

moderation prevailed on both sides, and an effort was made

to work together as peaceably as possible.--In Heidelberg a

considerable number attached to the old faith, dissatisfied

with the preaching of the four “Free Protestant” city pastors,

after having been in 1868 refused their request for the joint use

of a city church for private services in accordance with their

religious convictions (§ 180, 1), had built for this purpose a

chapel of their own, in which numerously attended services were

held under the direction of Professor Frommel of the gymnasium.

When a vacancy occurred in one of the pastorates in 1880, this

believing minority, anxious for the restoration of unity and

peace, as well as the avoidance of the separation, asked to

have Professor Frommel appointed to the charge. At a preliminary

assembly of twenty-one liberal church members this proposal was

warmly supported by the president, Professor Bluntschli, by all

the theological professors, with the exception of Schenkel and

eighteen other liberal voters, and agreed to by the majority of

the two hundred liberals constituting the assembly. But when the

formal election came round the proposal was lost by twenty-seven

to fifty-one votes.

§ 196.4. =Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau.=--In 1819 the government

of the Grand Duchy of =Hesse= recommended the union of all

=Protestant= communities under one confession. Rhenish Hesse

readily agreed to this, and there in 1822 the union was

accomplished. In the other provinces, however, it did not take

effect, although by the rationalism fostered at Giessen among the

clergy and by the popular current of thought in the communities,

the Lutheran as well as the Reformed confession had been robbed

of all significance. But since 1850 even there a powerful

Lutheran reaction among the younger clergy, zealously furthered

by a section of the aristocracy of the state, set in, especially

in the district on the right bank of the Rhine, which has eagerly

opposed the equally eager struggles of the liberal party to

introduce a liberal synodal representative constitution for the

evangelical church of the whole state. These endeavours, however,

were frustrated, and at an extraordinary state synod of 1873, on

all controverted questions, the middle party gave their vote in

favour of the absorptive union. The state church was declared

to be the united church. The clause that had been added to the

government proposal: “Without prejudice to the status of the

confessions of the several communities,” was dropped; the place

of residence and not the confession was that which determined

qualifications in the community; the ordination now expressed

obligation to the Reformation confessions generally, etc. The

members of the minority broke off their connection with the

synod, and seventy-seven pastors presented to the synod a protest

against its decisions. The grand-duke then, on the basis of

these deliberations, gave forthwith a charter to the church

constitution, in which indeed the Lutheran, Reformed, and United

churches were embraced in one evangelical state church with

a common church government; but still also, by restoring the

phrase struck out by the synod from § 1, the then existing

confessional status of the several communities was preserved and

the confession itself declared beyond the range of legislation.

Yet fifteen Lutheran pastors represented that they could not

conscientiously accept this, and the upper consistory hastened to

remove them from office shortly before the shutting of the gates,

_i.e._, before July 1st, 1875, when by the new law (§ 197, 15)

depositions of clergy would belong only to the supreme civil

court. The opposing congregations now declared, in 1877, their

withdrawal from the state church, and constituted themselves as

a “free Lutheran church in Hesse.”--The =Catholic= church in the

Grand Duchy of Hesse, had under the peaceful bishops of Mainz,

Burg (died 1833) and Kaiser (died 1849), caused the government no

trouble. But it was otherwise after Kaiser’s death. Rome rejected

Professor Leopold Schmid of Giessen, favoured at Darmstadt

and regularly elected by the chapter (§ 187, 3), and the

government yielded to the appointment of the violent ultramontane

Westphalian, Baron von Ketteler. His first aim was the extinction

of the Catholic faculty at Giessen (§ 191, 2); he rested not

until the last student had been transferred from it to the

newly erected seminary at Mainz (1851). No less energetic and

successful were his endeavours to free the Catholic church from

the supremacy of the state in accordance with the Upper Rhenish

episcopal memorial. The Dalwigk ministry, in 1854, concluded a

“provisional agreement” with the bishop, which secured to him

unlimited autonomy and sovereignty in all ecclesiastical matters,

and, to satisfy the pope with his desiderata, these privileges

were still further extended in 1856. To this convention, first

made publicly known in 1860, the ministry, in spite of all

addresses and protests, adhered with unfaltering tenacity,

although long convinced of its consequences. The political events

of 1886, however, led the grand-duke in September of that year

to abrogate the hateful convention. But the minister as well

as the bishop considered this merely to refer to the episcopal

convention of 1850, and treated the agreement with the pope of

1856 as always still valid. So everything went on in the old way,

even after Ketteler’s supreme influence in the state had been

broken by the overthrow of Dalwigk in 1871. Comp. § 197, 15.--The

Protestant church in the Duchy of =Nassau= attached itself to

the union in 1817. The conflict in the Upper Rhenish church

overflowed even into this little province. The Bishop of Limburg,

in opposition to law and custom, appointed Catholic clergy on

his own authority, and excommunicated the Catholic officers

who supported the government, while the government arrested the

temporalities and instituted criminal proceedings against bishop

and chapter. After the conclusion of the Württemberg and Baden

concordats, the government showed itself disposed to adopt a

similar way out of the conflict, and in spite of all opposition

from the States concluded in 1861 a convention with the bishop,

by which almost all his hierarchical claims were admitted. Thus

it remained until the incorporation of Nassau in the Prussian

kingdom in 1866.

§ 196.5. In =Protestant Württemberg= a religious movement among

the people reached a height such as it attained nowhere else.

Pietism, chiliasm, separatism, the holding of conventicles,

etc., assumed formidable dimensions; solid science, philosophical

culture, and then also philosophical and destructive critical

tendencies issuing from Tübingen affected the clergy of this

state. Dissatisfaction with various novelties in the liturgy,

the hymnbook, etc., led many formally to separate from the

state church. After attempts at compulsion had proved fruitless,

the government allowed the malcontents under the organizing

leadership of the burgomaster, G. W. Hoffman (died 1846), to form

in 1818 the community of Kornthal, with an ecclesiastical and

civil constitution of its own after the apostolic type. Others

emigrated to South Russia and to North America (§ 211, 6, 7).

Out of the pastoral work of pastor Blumhardt at Möttlingen, who

earnestly preached repentance, there was developed, in connection

with the healing of a demoniac, which had been accompanied with a

great awakening in the community, the “gift” of healing the sick

by absolution and laying on of hands with contrite believing

prayer. Blumhardt, in order to afford this gift undisturbed

exercise, bought the Bad Boll near Göppingen, and officiated

there as pastor and miraculous healer in the way described. He

died in 1880.--After the way to a synodal representation of the

whole evangelical state church had been opened up in 1851 by

the introduction, according to a royal ordinance, of parochial

councils and diocesan synods, the consistory having also in

1858 published a scheme referring thereto, the whole business

was brought to a standstill, until at last in 1867, by means

of a royal edict, the calling of a State Synod consisting of

twenty-five clerical and as many lay members was ordered, and

consequently in February, 1869, such a synod met for the first

time. Co-operation in ecclesiastical legislation was assigned

to it as its main task, while it had also the right to advise

in regard to proposals about church government, also to make

suggestions and complaints on such matters, but the confession

of the evangelical church was not to be touched, and lay entirely

outside of its province. A liberal enactment with regard to

dissenters was sanctioned by the chamber in 1870.

§ 196.6. =The Catholic Church in Württemberg.=--Even after

the founding of the bishopric of Rottenberg [Rottenburg] the

government maintained strictly the previously exercised rights of

sovereignty over the Catholic church, to which almost one-third

of the population belonged, and the almost universally prevalent

liberalism of the Catholic clergy found in this scarcely any

offence. A new order of divine service in 1837, which, with the

approval of the episcopal council, recommended the introduction

of German hymns in the services, dispensing the sacraments in

the German language, restriction of the festivals, masses, and

private masses, processions, etc., did indeed cause riots in

several places, in which, however, the clergy took no part. But

when in 1837, in consequence of the excitement caused throughout

Catholic Germany by the Cologne conflict (§ 193, 1), the hitherto

only isolated cases of lawless refusal to consecrate mixed

marriages had increased, the government proceeded severely to

punish offending clergymen, and transported to a village curacy

a Tübingen professor, Mack, who had declared the compulsory

celebration unlawful. Called to account by the nuncio of Munich

for his indolence in all these affairs and severely threatened,

old Bishop Keller at last resolved, in 1841, to lay before

the chamber a formal complaint against the injury done to the

Catholic church, and to demand the freeing of the church from

the sovereignty of the state. In the second chamber this motion

was simply laid _ad acta_, but in the first it was recommended

that the king should consider it. The bishop, however, and the

liberal chapter could not agree as to the terms of the demand,

contradictory opinions were expressed, and things remained

as they were. But Bishop Keller fell into melancholy and died

in 1845. His successor took his stand upon the memorial and

declaration of the Upper Rhenish bishops, and immediately in 1853

began the conflict by forbidding his clergy, under threats of

severe censure, to submit as law required to civil examinations.

The government that had hitherto so firmly maintained its

sovereign rights, under pressure of the influence which a lady

very nearly related to the king exercised over him, gave in

without more ado, quieted the bishop first of all by a convention

in 1854, and then entered into negotiations with the Roman curia,

out of which came in 1857 a concordat proclaimed by the bull

_Cum in sublimi_, which, in surrender of a sovereign right of

the state over the affairs of the church, far exceeds that of

Austria (§ 198, 2). The government left unheeded all protests and

petitions from the chambers for its abolition. But the example

of Baden and the more and more decided tone of the opposition

obliged the government at last to yield. The second chamber

in 1861 decreed the abrogation of the concordat, and a royal

rescript declared it abolished. In the beginning of 1862 a bill

was submitted by the new ministry and passed into law by both

chambers for determining the relations of the Catholic church to

the state. The royal _placet_ or right of permitting or refusing,

is required for all clerical enactments which are not purely

inter-ecclesiastical but refer to mixed matters; the theological

endowments are subject to state control and joint administration;

boys’ seminaries are not allowed; clergymen appointed to office

must submit to state examination; according to consuetudinary

rights, about two-thirds of the benefices are filled by the

king, one-third by the bishops on reporting to the civil court,

which has the right of protest; clergy who break the law are

removable by the civil court, etc. The curia indeed lodged

a protest, but the for the most part peace-loving clergy reared,

not in the narrowing atmosphere of the seminaries but amid

the scientific culture of the university, in the halls of

Tübingen, submitted all the more easily as they found that in

all inter-ecclesiastical matters they had greater freedom and

independence under the concordat than before.

§ 196.7. =The Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine

since 1871.=--After Alsace with German Lorraine had again, in

consequence of the Franco-Prussian war, been united to Germany

and as an imperial territory had been placed under the rule

of the new German emperor, the secretary of the Papal States,

Cardinal Antonelli, in the confident hope of being able to secure

in return the far more favourable conditions, rights and claims

of the Catholic church in Prussia with the autocracy of the

bishops unrestricted by the state, declared in a letter to the

Bishop of Strassburg, that the concordat of 1801 (§ 203, 1) was

annulled. But when the imperial government showed itself ready

to accept the renunciation, and to make profit out of it in the

opposite way from that intended, the cardinal hasted in another

letter to explain how by the incorporation with Germany a new

arrangement had become necessary, but that clearly the old must

remain in force until the new one has been promulgated. Also a

petition of the Catholic clergy brought to Berlin by the bishop

himself, which laid claim to this unlimited dominion over all

Catholic educational and benevolent institutions, failed of

its purpose. The clergy therefore wrought for this all the

more zealously by fanaticizing the Catholic people in favour of

French and against German interests. On the epidemic about the

appearance of the mother of God called forth in this way, see

§ 188, 7. In 1874 the government found itself obliged to close

the so-called “little seminaries,” or boys’ colleges, on account

of their fostering sentiments hostile to the empire. Yet in

1880 the newly appointed imperial governor, Field-marshal von

Manteuffel (died 1885), at the request of the States-Committee,

allowed Bishop Räss of Strassburg to reopen the seminary at

Zillisheim, with the proviso that his teachers should be approved

by the government, and that instruction in the German language

should be introduced. Manteuffel has endeavoured since, by

yielding favours to the France-loving Alsatians and Lorrainers,

and to their ultramontane clergy, to win them over to the idea of

the German empire, even to the evident sacrifice of the interests

of resident Germans and of the Protestant church. But such

fondling has wrought the very opposite result to that intended.

§ 197. THE SO-CALLED KULTURKAMPF IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE.[550]

Ultramontanism had for the time being granted to the Prussian state,

which had not only allowed it absolutely free scope but readily aided

its growth throughout the realm (§ 193, 2), an indulgence for that

offence which is in itself unatoneable, having a Protestant dynasty.

Pius IX. had himself repeatedly expressed his satisfaction at the

conduct of the government. But the league which Prussia made in 1866

with the “church-robbing Sub-alpine,” _i.e._ Italian, government, was

not at all to the taste of the curia. The day of Sadowa, 3rd July, 1866,

called from Antonelli the mournful cry, _Il mondo cessa_, “The world has

gone to ruin,” and the still more glorious day of Sedan, 2nd September,

1870, completely put the bottom out of the Danaid’s vessel of

ultramontane forbearance and endurance. This day, 18th January, 1871,

had as its result the overthrow of the temporal power of the papacy as

well the establishment of a new and hereditary German empire under the

Protestant dynasty of the Prussian Hohenzollerns. German ultramontanism

felt itself all the more under obligation to demand from the new

emperor as the first expiation for such uncanonical usurpation, the

reinstatement of the pope in his lost temporal power. But when he did

not respond to this demand, the ultramontane party, by means of the

press favourable to its claims, formally declared war against the German

empire and its governments, and applied itself systematically to the

mobilization of its entire forces. But the empire and its governments,

with Prussia in the van, with unceasing determination, supported by

the majority of the States’ representatives, during the years 1871-1875

proceeded against the ultramontanes by legislative measures. The

execution of these by the police and the courts of law, owing to the

stubborn refusal to obey on the part of the higher and lower clergy, led

to the formation of an opposition, commonly designated after a phrase

of the Prussian deputy, Professor Virchow, “_Kulturkampf_,” which was

in some degree modified first in 1887. The imperial chancellor, Prince

Bismarck, uttered at the outset the confident, self-assertive statement,

“We go not to Canossa,”--and even in 1880, when it seemed as if a

certain measure of submission was coming from the side of the papacy,

and the Prussian government also showed itself prepared to make

important concessions, he declared, “We shall not buy peace with Canossa

medals; such are not minted in Germany.” Since 1880, however, the

Prussian government with increasing compliance from year to year set

aside and modified the most oppressive enactments of the May laws, so as

actually to redress distresses and inconveniences occasioned by clerical

opposition to these laws, without being able thereby to obtain any

important concession on the part of the papal curia, until at last in

1887, after the government had carried concession to the utmost limit,

the pope put his seal to definitive terms of peace by admitting the

right of giving information on the part of the bishops regarding

appointments to vacant pastorates, as well as the right of protest

on the part of the government against those thus nominated.

§ 197.1. =The Aggression of Ultramontanism.=--Even in the

revolution year, 1848, German ultramontanism, in order to obtain

what it called the freedom of the church, had zealously seconded

many of the efforts of democratic radicalism. Nevertheless, in

the years of reaction that followed, it succeeded in catching

most of the influential statesmen on the limed twig of the

assurance that the episcopal hierarchy, with its unlimited sway

over the clergy and through them over the feelings of the people,

constituted the only certain and dependable bulwark against the

revolutionary movements of the age, and this idea prevailed down

to 1860, and in Prussia down to 1871. But the overthrow of the

concordat in Baden, Württemberg and Darmstadt by the states of

the realm after a hard conflict, the humiliation of Austria in

1866, and the growth in so threatening a manner since of the

still heretical Prussia, produced in the whole German episcopate

a terrible apprehension that its hitherto untouched supremacy

in the state would be at an end, and in order to ward off this

danger it was driven into agitations and demonstrations partly

secret and partly open. On 8th October, 1868, the papal nuncio in

Munich, Monsignor Meglia, uttered his inmost conviction regarding

the Württemberg resident thus: “Only in America, England, and

Belgium does the Catholic church receive its rights; elsewhere

nothing can help us but the revolution.” And on 22nd April, 1869,

Bishop Senestray [Senestrey] of Regensburg declared plainly in a

speech delivered at Schwandorff: “If kings will no longer be of

God’s grace, I shall be the first to overthrow the throne....

Only a war or revolution can help us in the end.” And war at

last came, but it helped only their opponents. Although at

its outbreak in 1870 the ultramontane party in South Germany,

especially in Bavaria, for the most part with unexampled

insolence expressed their sympathy with France, and after the

brilliant and victorious close of the war did everything to

prevent the attachment of Bavaria to the new German empire, their

North German brethren, accustomed to the boundless compliance of

the Prussian government, indulged the hope of prosecuting their

own ends all the more successfully under the new regime. Even

in November, 1870, Archbishop Ledochowski of Posen visited the

victorious king of Prussia at Versailles, in order to interest

him personally in the restoration of the Papal States. In

February, 1871, in the same place, fifty-six Catholic deputies of

the Prussian parliament presented to the king, who had meanwhile

been proclaimed Emperor of Germany, a formal petition for

the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, and soon

afterwards a deputation of distinguished laymen waited upon

him “in name of all the Catholics of Germany,” with an address

directed to the same end. The _Bavarian Fatherland_ (Dr. Sigl)

indeed treated it with scorn as a “belly-crawling-deputation,

which crawled before the magnanimous hero-emperor, beseeching

him graciously to use said deputation as his spittoon.” And the

_Steckenberger Bote_, inspired by Dr. Ketteler, declared: “We

Catholics do not entreat it as a favour, but demand it as our

right.... Either you must restore the Catholic church to all

its privileges or not one of all your existing governments will

endure.” At the same time as the insinuation was spread that the

new German empire threatened the existence of the Catholic church

in Germany, a powerful ultramontane election agitation in view of

the next Reichstag was set on foot, out of which grew the party

of the “Centre,” so called from sitting in the centre of the hall,

with Von Ketteler, Windthorst, Mallinkrodt (died 1874), and the

two Reichenspergers, as its most eloquent leaders. Even in the

debate on the address in answer to the speech from the throne

this party demanded intervention, at first indeed only diplomatic,

in favour of the Papal States. In the discussion on the new

imperial constitution A. Reichensperger sought to borrow from

the abortive German landowners’ bill of 1848, condemned indeed as

godless by the syllabus (§ 185, 2), principles that might serve

the turn of ultramontanism regarding the unrestricted liberty

of the press, societies, meetings, and religion, with the most

perfect independence of all religious communities of the State.

Mallinkrodt insisted upon the need of enlarged privileges for

the Catholic church owing to the great growth of the empire

in Catholic territory and population. All these motions were

rejected by the Reichstag, and the Prussian government answered

them by abolishing in July, 1871, the Catholic department of

the Ministry of Public Worship, which had existed since 1841

(§ 193, 2). The _Genfer Korrespondenz_, shortly before highly

praised by the pope, declared: If kings do not help the papacy

to regain its rights, the papacy must also withdraw from them

and appeal directly to the hearts of the people. “Understand

ye the terrible range of this change? Your hours, O ye princes,

are numbered!” The Berlin _Germania_ pointed threateningly to

the approaching _revanche_ war in France, on the outbreak of

which the German empire would no longer be able to reckon on

the sympathy of its Catholic subjects; and the _Ellwanger kath.

Wochenblatt_ proclaimed openly that only France is able to guard

and save the Catholic church from the annihilating projects

of Prussia. And in this way the Catholic people throughout all

Germany were roused and incited by the Catholic press, as well as

from the pulpit and confessional, in home and school, in Catholic

monasteries and nunneries, in mechanics’ clubs and peasants’

unions, in casinos and assemblies of nobles. Bishop Ketteler

founded expressly for purposes of such agitations the Mainz

Catholic Union, in September, 1871, which by its itinerant

meetings spread far and wide the flame of religious fanaticism;

and a Bavarian priest, Lechner, preached from the pulpit that

one does not know whether the German princes are by God’s or by

the devil’s grace.

§ 197.2. =Conflicts Occasioned by Protection of the Old Catholics,

1871-1872.=--That the Prussian government refused to assist

the bishops in persecuting the Old Catholics, and even retained

these in their positions after excommunication had been hurled

against them, was regarded by those bishops as itself an act

of persecution of the Catholic church. To this opinion they

gave official expression, under solemn protest against all

encroachments of the state upon the domain of Catholic faith and

law, in a memorial addressed to the German emperor from Fulda, on

September 7th, 1871, but were told firmly and decidedly to keep

within their own boundaries. Even before this Bishop =Krementz

of Ermeland= had refused the _missio canonica_ to Dr. Wollmann,

teacher of religion at the Gymnasium of Braunsberg, on account

of his refusing to acknowledge the dogma of infallibility, and

had forbidden Catholic scholars to attend his instructions.

The minister of public worship, Von Mühler, decided, because

religious instruction was obligatory in the Prussian gymnasia,

that all Catholic scholars must attend or be expelled from the

institution. The Bavarian government followed a more correct

course in a similar case that arose about the same time; for

it recognised and protected the religious instructions of the

anti-infallibilist priest, Renftle in Mering, as legitimate, but

still allowed parents who objected to withhold their children

from it. And in this way the new Prussian minister, Falk,

corrected his predecessor’s mistake. But all the more decidedly

did the government proceed against Bishop Krementz, when

he publicly proclaimed the excommunication uttered against

Dr. Wollmann and Professor Michelis, which had been forbidden by

Prussian civil law on account of the infringement of civil rights

connected therewith according to canon law. As the bishop could

not be brought to an explicit acknowledgment of his obligation

to obey the laws of the land, the minister of public worship

on October 1st, 1872, stripped him of his temporalities.

But meanwhile a second conflict had broken out. The Catholic

field-provost of the Prussian army and bishop _in partibus_,

Namszanowski, had under papal direction commanded the

Catholic divisional chaplain, Lünnemann of Cologne, on pain

of excommunication, to discontinue the military worship in the

garrison chapel, which, by leave of the military court, was

jointly used by the Old Catholics, and so was desecrated. He

was therefore brought before a court of discipline, suspended

from his office in May, 1872, and finally, by royal ordinance

in 1873, the office of field-provost was wholly abolished.

§ 197.3. =Struggles over Educational Questions, 1872-1873.=--In

the formerly Polish provinces of the Prussian kingdom the

Polonization of resident Catholic Germans had recently assumed

threatening proportions. The archbishop of Posen and Gnesen,

Count =Ledochowski=, whom the pope during the Vatican Council

appointed primate of Poland, was the main centre of this

agitation. In the Posen priest seminary he formed for himself,

in a fanatically Polish clergy, the tools for carrying it out,

and in the neighbouring Schrimm he founded a Jesuit establishment

that managed the whole movement. Where previously Polish and

German had been preached alternately, German was now banished,

and in the public schools, the oversight of which, as throughout

all Prussia, lay officially in the hands of the clergy, all means

were used to discourage the study of the German language, and

to stamp out the German national sentiment. But even in the two

western provinces the Catholic public schools were made by the

clerical school inspectors wholly subservient to the designs of

ultramontanism. In order to stem such disorder the government,

in February, 1872, sanctioned the =School Inspection Law=

passed by the parliament, by which the right and duty of school

inspection was transferred from the church to the state, so that

for the sake of the state the clerical inspectors hostile to the

government were set aside, and where necessary might be replaced

by laymen. A pastoral letter of the Prussian bishops assembled

at Fulda in April of that year complained bitterly of persecution

of the church and unchristianizing of the schools, but advised

the Catholic clergy under no circumstances voluntarily to resign

school inspection where it was not taken from them. By a rescript

of the minister of public worship in June, the exclusion of all

members of spiritual orders and congregations from teaching in

public schools was soon followed by the suppression of the Marian

congregations in all schools, and it was enjoined in March, 1873,

that in Polish districts, where other subjects had been taught in

the higher educational institutions in the German language, this

also would be obligatory in religious instruction. Ledochowski

indeed directed all religious teachers in his diocese to use the

Polish language after as they had done before, but the government

suspended all teachers who followed his direction, and gave

over the religious instruction to lay teachers. The archbishop

now erected private schools for the religious instruction of

gymnasial teachers, and the government forbad attendance at them.

§ 197.4. =The Kanzelparagraph and the Jesuit law,

1871-1872.=--While thus the Prussian government took more and

more decided measures against the ultramontanism that had become

so rampant in its domains, on the other hand, its mobile band

of warriors in cassock, dress coat, and blouse did not cease to

labour, and the imperial government passed some drastic measures

of defence applicable to the whole empire. At the instance of

the Bavarian government, which could not defend itself from

the violence of its “patriots,” the Federal Council asked the

Reichstag to add a new article to the penal code of the empire,

threatening any misuse of the pulpit for political agitation

with imprisonment for two years. The Bavarian minister of public

worship, Lutz, undertook himself to support this bill before

the Reichstag. “For several decades,” he said, “the clergy

in Germany have assumed a new character; they are become the

simple reflection of Jesuitism.” The Reichstag sanctioned the

bill in December, 1871. Far more deeply than this so-called

=Kanzelparagraph=, the operation of which the agitation of the

clergy by a little circumspection could easily elude, did the

=Jesuit Law=, published on July 4th, 1872, cut into the flesh

of German ultramontanism. Already in April of that year had a

petition from Cologne demanding the expulsion of the Jesuits

been presented to the Reichstag. Similar addresses flowed in

from other places. The Centre party, on the other hand, organized

a regular flood of petitions in favour of the Jesuits. The

Reichstag referred both to the imperial chancellor, with the

request to introduce a law against the movements of the Jesuits

as dangerous to the State. The Federal Council complied with this

request, and so the law was passed which ordained the removal

of the Jesuits and related orders and congregations, the closing

of their institutions within six months, and prohibited the

formation of any other orders by their individual members, and

the government authorised the banishment of foreign members and

the interning of natives at appointed places. A later ordinance

of the Federal Council declared the Redemptorists, Lazarists,

Priests of the Holy Ghost, and the Society of the Heart of Jesus

to be orders related to the Society of Jesus. Those affected

by this law anticipated the threatened interning by voluntarily

removing to Belgium, Holland, France, Turkey, and America.

§ 197.5. =The Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1873-1875.=--In

order to be able to check ultramontanism, even in its pædagogical

breeding places, the episcopal colleges and seminaries, and at

the same time to restrict by law the despotic absolutism of the

bishops in disciplinary and beneficiary matters, the Prussian

government brought in other four ecclesiastical bills, which in

spite of violent opposition on the part of the Centre and the

Old Conservatives, were successively passed by both houses of

parliament, and approved by the king on May 11th, 12th, 13th,

and 14th, 1873. Their most important provisions are: As a

condition for admission to a spiritual office the state requires

citizenship of the German empire, three years’ study at a German

university, and, besides an exit gymnasial examination preceding

the university course, a state examination in general knowledge

(in philosophy, history, and German literature), in addition to

the theological examination. The episcopal boys’ seminaries and

colleges are abolished. The priest seminaries, if the minister

of worship regards them as fit for the purpose, may take the

place of the university course, but must be under regular state

inspection. The candidates for spiritual offices, which must

never be left vacant more than a year, are to be named to the

chief president of the province, and he can for cogent reasons

lodge a protest against them. Secession from the church is

freely allowed, and releases from all personal obligations

to pay ecclesiastical dues and perform ecclesiastical duties.

Excommunication is permissible, but can be proclaimed only

in the congregation concerned, and not publicly. The power of

church discipline over the clergy can be exercised only by German

superiors and in accordance with fixed processional procedure.

Corporal punishment is not permissible, fines are allowed

to a limited extent, and restraint by interning in so-called

_Demeriti_ houses, but only at furthest of three months, and when

the party concerned willingly consents. Church servants, whose

remaining in office is incompatible with the public order, can

be deposed by civil sentence. And as final court of appeal in all

cases of complaint between ecclesiastical and civil authorities

as well as within the ecclesiastical domain, a royal court

of justice for ecclesiastical affairs is constituted, whose

proceedings are open and its decision final.--But even the

May Laws soon proved inadequate for checking the insolence of

the bishops and the disorders among the Catholic population

occasioned thereby. In December, 1873, therefore, by sovereign

authority there was prescribed a new formula of the episcopal

Oath of Allegiance, recognising more distinctly and decisively

the duty of obedience to the laws of the state. Then next a bill

was presented to the parliament, which had been kept in view in

the original constitution, demanding obligatory civil marriage

and abolition of compulsory baptism, as well as the conducting

of civil registration by state officials. In February, 1874, it

was passed into law. On the 20th and 21st =May, 1874=, two other

bills brought in for extending the May Laws of the previous

year, in consequence of which a bishop’s see vacated by death,

a judicial sentence, or any other cause, must be filled within

the space of a year, and the chapter must elect within ten days

an episcopal administrator, who has to be presented to the chief

president, and to undertake an oath to obey the laws of the

state. If the chapter does not fulfil these requirements, a lay

commissioner will be appointed to administer the affairs of the

diocese. During the episcopal vacancy, all vacant pastorates, as

well as all not legally filled, can be at once validly supplied

by the act of the patron, and, where no such right exists,

by congregational election. Parochial property, on the illegal

appointment of a pastor, is given over to be administered by a

lay commissioner.--The empire also came to the help of the May

Laws by an imperial enactment of May 4th, 1874, sanctioned by the

emperor, which empowers the competent state government to intern

all church officers discharged from their office and not yielding

submission thereto, as well as all punished on account of

incompetence in their official duties, and, if this does not help,

to condemn them to loss of their civil rights and to expulsion

from the German federal territory.--Also in its next session the

imperial house of representatives again gave legislative sanction

to the _Kulturkampf_; for in January, 1875, it passed a bill

presented by the Federal Council on the deposition on oath as

to personal rank, and on divorce with obligatory civil marriage,

which, going far beyond the Prussian civil law of the previous

year, and especially ridding Bavaria of its strait-jacket canon

marriage law enforced by the concordat, abolished the spiritual

jurisdiction in favour of that of the civil courts, and gave it

to the state to determine the qualifications for, as well as the

hindrances to, divorce, without, however, touching the domain of

conscience, or entrenching in any way upon the canon law and the

demands of the church.