§ 197.6. =Opposition in the States to the Prussian May

Laws.=--Bishop Martin of Paderborn had even beforehand refused

obedience to the May Laws of 1873. After their promulgation, all

the Prussian bishops collectively declared to the ministry that

“they were not in a position to carry out these laws,” with the

further statement that they could not comply even with those

demands in them which in other states, by agreement with the pope,

are acknowledged by the church, because they are administered

in a one-sided way by the state in Prussia. On these lines also

they proceeded to take action. First of all, the refractoriness

of several of the seminaries drew down upon them the loss of

endowment and of the right of representation; and in the next

place, the refusal of the bishops to notify their appointment of

clergymen led to their being frequently fined, while the church

books and seals were taken away from clergymen so appointed,

all the official acts performed by them were pronounced invalid

in civil law, and those who performed them were subjected to

fines. But here, too, again Bishop Martin, well skilled in church

history (he had been previously professor of theology in Bonn),

had beforehand in a pastoral instructed his clergy that “since

the days of Diocletian there had not been seen so violent

a persecution of the name of Jesus Christ.” Soon after this

Archbishop Ledochowski, in an official document addressed to

the Chief President of Poland, compared the demand to give

notification of clerical appointments with the demand of ancient

Rome upon Christian soldiers to sacrifice to the heathen gods.

And by order of the pope prayers were offered in all churches for

the church so harshly and cruelly persecuted. And yet the whole

“persecution” then consisted in nothing more than this, that a

newly issued law of the state, under threat of fine in case of

disobedience, demanded again of the bishops paid by the state

what had been accepted for centuries as unobjectionable in the

originally Catholic Bavaria, and also for a long while in France,

Portugal, and other Romish countries, what all Prussian bishops

down to 1850 (§ 193, 2) had done without scruple, what the

bishops of Paderborn and Münster even had never refused to

do in the extra-Prussian portion of these dioceses (Oldenburg

and Waldeck), as also the Prince-Bishop of Breslau, since the

issuing of the similar Austrian May Laws (§ 198, 4) in the

Austro-Silesian part of his diocese, what the episcopal courts

of Württemberg and Baden had yielded to, although in almost all

these states the demand referred to broke up the union with the

papal curia. Yet before a year had passed the cases of punishment

for these offences had so increased that the only very inadequate

fines that could be exacted by the seizure of property had to

be changed into equivalent sentences of imprisonment. The first

prelate who suffered this fate was Archbishop Ledochowski, in

February, 1874. Then followed in succession: Eberhard of Treves,

Melchers of Cologne, Martin of Paderborn, and Brinkmann of

Münster. The ecclesiastical court of justice expressly pronounced

deposition against Ledochowski in April, 1874; against Martin in

January, 1875, and against the Prince-Bishop Förster of Breslau

in October, 1875, who alone had dared to proclaim in his diocese

the encyclical _Quod nunquam_ (§ 197, 7). But the latter had

even beforehand withdrawn the diocesan property to the value

of 900,000 marks to his episcopal castle, Johannisberg, in

Austro-Silesia, where with a truly princely income from Austrian

funds he could easily get over the loss of the Prussian part

of his revenues. Martin, who had been interned at Wesel, fled

in August, 1875, under cloud of night, to Holland, from whence

he transferred his agitations into Belgium, and finally to

London (died 1879). Ledochowski found a residence in the Vatican.

Brinkmann was deposed in March, and Melchers in June, 1876,

after both had beforehand proved their enjoyment of martyrdom

by escaping to Holland. Eberhard of Treves anticipated his

deposition from office by his death in May, 1876. Blum of Limburg

was deposed in June, 1877, and Beckmann of Osnabrück died in

1878.--In the Prussian parliament and German Reichstag the Centre

party, supported by Guelphs, Poles, and the Social Democrats, had

meanwhile with anger, scorn, and vituperation, with and without

wit, fought not only against all ecclesiastical, but also against

all other legislative proposals, whose acceptance was specially

desired by the government. And all the representatives of the

ultramontane press within and without Europe vied with one

another in violent denunciation of the ecclesiastical laws, and

in unmeasured abuse of the emperor and the empire. But almost

without exception the Roman Catholic officials in Prussia, as

well as the Protestants and Old Catholics, carried out “the

Diocletian persecution of Christians” in the judicial and police

measures introduced by the church laws. A number of Catholic

notables of the eastern provinces of their own accord, in a

dutiful address to the emperor, expressly accepted the condemned

laws, and won thereby the nickname of “State Catholics.” The

great mass of the Catholic people, high and low, remained

unflinchingly faithful to the resisting clergy in, for the most

part, only a passive opposition, although even, as the Berlin

_Germania_ expressed it, “the Catholic rage at the Bismarckian

ecclesiastical polity could condense itself into one Catholic

head” in a murderous attempt on the chancellor in quest of health

at Kissingen, on July 13th, 1874. It was the cooper, Kullmann,

who, fanaticised by exciting speeches and writings in the

Catholic society of Salzwedel, sought to take vengeance, as

he himself said, upon the chancellor for the May Laws and “the

insult offered to his party of the Centre.”--In the further

course of the Prussian _Kulturkampf_, however, fostered by

the aid of the confessional, the insinuating assiduity of

the clerical press, and the all-prevailing influence of the

thoroughly disciplined Catholic clergy over the popish masses,

the Centre grew in number and importance at the elections from

session to session, so that from the beginning of 1880, by the

unhappy division of the other parties in the Reichstag as well

as Chamber, it united sometimes with the Conservatives, sometimes

and most frequently with the Progressionists and Democrats

renouncing the _Kulturkampf_, and was supported on all questions

by Poles, Danes, Guelphs, and Alsatian-Lorrainers, as clerical

interest and ultramontane tactics required, in accordance with

the plan of campaign of the commander-in-chief, especially of

the quondam Hanoverian minister, Windthorst, dominated far more

by Guelphic than by ultramontane tendencies. The Centre was thus

able to turn the scale, until, at least in the Reichstag, after

the dissolution and new election of 1887, its dominatory power

was broken by the closer combination of the conservative and

national liberal parties.

§ 197.7. =Share in the Conflict taken by the Pope.=--=Pius IX.=

had congratulated the new emperor in 1871, trusting, as he

wrote, that his efforts directed to the common weal “might bring

blessing not only to Germany, but also to all Europe, and might

contribute not a little to the protection of the liberty and

rights of the Catholic religion.” And when first of all the

Centre party, called forth by the election agitation of German

ultramontanism, opened its politico-clerical campaign in the

Reichstag, he expressed his disapproval of its proceedings upon

Bismarck’s complaining to the papal secretary Antonelli. Yet

a deputation of the Centre sent to Rome succeeded in winning

over both. In order to build a bridge for the securing an

understanding with the curia, now that the conflict had grown

in extent and bitterness, the imperial government in May, 1872,

appointed the Bavarian Cardinal Prince Hohenlohe to the vacant

post of ambassador to the Vatican. But the pope, with offensive

recklessness, rejected the well-meant proposal, and forbade

the cardinal to accept the imperial appointment. From that time

he gave free and public expression on every occasion to his

senseless bitterness against the German empire and its government.

In an address to the German Reading Society at Rome in July, 1872,

he allowed himself to use the most violent expressions against

the German chancellor, and closed with the prophetic threatening:

“Who knows but the little stone shall soon loose itself from

the mountain (Dan. ii. 34), which shall break in pieces the foot

of the colossus?” But even this diatribe was cast in the shade

by the Christmas allocution of that year, in which he was not

ashamed to characterize the procedure of the German statesmen

and their imperial sovereign as “_impudentia_.” And after the

publication of the first May Laws he addressed a letter to the

emperor, in which, founding upon the fact that even the emperor

like all baptized persons belonged to him, the pope, he cast in

his teeth that “all the measures of his government for some time

aimed more and more at the annihilation of Catholicism,” and

added the threatening announcement that “these measures against

the religion of Jesus Christ can have no other result than

the overthrow of his own throne.” The emperor in his answer

made expressly prominent his divinely appointed call as well as

his own evangelical standpoint, and with becoming dignity and

earnestness decidedly repudiated the unmeasured assumptions of

the papacy, and published both letters. In the same style of

immoderate pretension the pope again, in November, 1875, in one

encyclical after another, gave vent to his anger against emperor

and empire, especially its military institutions. In place of

the deposed and at that time imprisoned archbishop, Ledochowski,

he appointed in 1874 a native apostolic legate, who was at last

ascertained to be the Canon Kurowski, when he was in October,

1875, condemned to two years’ imprisonment. But the pope took

the most decided and successful step by the =Encyclical _Quod

nunquam_, of 5th February, 1875=, addressed to the Prussian

episcopate, in which he characterized the Prussian May Laws as

“not given to free citizens to demand a reasonable obedience,

but as laid upon slaves, in order to force obedience by fears of

violence,” and, “in order to fulfil the duties of his office,”

declared quite openly to all whom it concerns and to the

Catholics throughout the world: “_Leges illas irritas esse,

utpote quæ divinæ Ecclesiæ constitutioni prorsus adversantur_;”

but upon those “godless” men who make themselves guilty of the

sin of assuming spiritual office without a divine call, falls _eo

ipso_ the great excommunication. On the other hand he rewarded,

in March, 1875, Archbishop Ledochowski, then still in prison, but

afterwards, in February, 1876, settled in Rome, for his sturdy

resistance of those laws, with a cardinal’s hat, and to the not

less persistent Prince-Bishop Förster of Breslau he presented

on his jubilee as priest the archiepiscopal pall. In the next

Christmas allocution he romanced about a second Nero, who, while

in one place with a lyre in his hand he enchanted the world by

lying words, in other places appeared with iron in his hand,

and, if he did not make the streets run with blood, he fills

the prisons, sends multitudes into exile, seizes upon and with

violence assumes all authority to himself. Also to the German

pilgrims who went in May, 1877, to his episcopal jubilee at Rome,

he had still much that was terrible to tell about this “modern

Attila,” leaving it uncertain whether he intended Prince Bismarck

or the mild, pious German emperor himself.

§ 197.8. =The Conflict about the Encyclical _Quod nunquam_ of

1875.=--By this encyclical the pope had completely broken up the

union between the Prussian state and the curia, resting upon the

bull _De salute animarum_ (§ 193, 1); for he, bluntly repudiating

the sovereign rights of the civil authority therein expressly

allowed, by pronouncing the laws of the Prussian state invalid,

authorized and promoted the rebellion of all Catholic subjects

against them. The Prussian government now issued three new laws

quickly after one another, cutting more deeply than all that went

before, which without difficulty received the sanction of all the

legislative bodies.

I. The so called =Arrestment Act= (_Sperrgesetz_) of

April 22nd, 1875, which ordered the immediate suspension

of all state payments to the Roman Catholic bishoprics and

pastorates until those who were entitled to them had in

writing or by statement declared themselves ready to yield

willing obedience to the existing laws of the state.

II. A law of May 31st, 1875, ordering the =Expulsion of

all Orders and such like Congregations= within eight

months, the minister of public worship, however, being

authorized to extend this truce to four years in the case

of institutions devoted to the education of the young,

while those which were exclusively hospital and nursing

societies were allowed to remain, but were subject to

state inspection and might at any time be suppressed by

royal order.

III. A law of June 12th, 1875, declaring the formal =Abrogation

of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Eighteenth Articles of

the Constitution= (§ 193, 2).

And finally in addition there came the enforcement during this

session of the Chamber of laws previously introduced on the

rights of the Old Catholics (§ 190, 2), and, on June 20th, 1875,

on the administration of church property in Catholic parishes.

The latter measures aimed at withdrawing the administration

referred to from the autocratic absolutism of the clergy, and

transferring it to a lay commission elected by the community

itself, of which the parish priest was to be a member, but not

the president. Although the Archbishop of Cologne in name of

all the bishops before its issue had solemnly protested against

this law, because by it “essential and inalienable rights of

the Catholic church were lost,” and although the recognition

of it actually involved recognition of the May Laws and the

ecclesiastical court of justice, yet all the bishops declared

themselves ready to co-operate in carrying out the arrangements

for surrendering the church property to the administration

of a civil commission. They thus indeed secured thoroughly

ultramontane elections, but at the same time put themselves

into a position of self-contradiction, and admitted that the

one ground of their opposition to the May Laws, that they were

one-sidedly wrought by the state, was null and void.

§ 197.9. =Papal Overtures for Peace.=--=Leo XIII.=, since 1878,

intimated his accession to the Emperor William, and expressed his

regret at finding that the good relations did not continue which

formerly existed between Prussia and the holy see. The Emperor’s

answer expressed the hope that by the aid of his Holiness

the Prussian bishops might be induced to obey the laws of the

land, as the people under their pastoral care actually did;

and afterwards while in consequence of the attempt on his life

of June 2nd, 1873, he lay upon a sickbed, the crown prince on

June 10th answered other papal communications by saying, that

no Prussian monarch could entertain the wish to change the

constitution and laws of his country in accordance with the

ideas of the Romish church; but that, even though a thorough

understanding upon the radical controversy of a thousand

years could not be reached, yet the endeavour to preserve a

conciliatory disposition on both sides would also for Prussia

open a way to peace which had never been closed in other states.

Three weeks later the Munich nuntio Masella was at Kissingen and

conferred with the chancellor, Prince Bismarck, who was residing

there, about the possibility of a basis of reconciliation.

Subsequently negotiations were continued at Gastein, and then

in Vienna with the there resident nuntio Jacobini, but were

suspended owing to demands by the curia to which the state could

not submit. Still the pope attempted indirectly to open the way

for renewed consultation, for he issued a brief dated February

24th, 1880, to “Archbishop Melchers of Cologne” (deposed by

the royal court of justice), in which he declared his readiness

to allow to the respective government boards notification

of new elected priests before their canonical institution.

Thereupon a communication was sent to Cardinal Jacobini that the

state ministry had resolved, so soon as the pope had actually

implemented this declaration of his readiness, to make every

effort to obtain from the state representatives authority to

set aside or modify those enactments of the May Laws which were

regarded by the Romish church as harsh. But the pope received

this compromise of the government very ungraciously and showed

his dissatisfaction by withdrawing his concession, which besides

referred only to the unremovable priests, therefore not to

_Hetzkaplane_ and succursal or assistant priests, and presupposed

the obtaining the “_agrément_,” _i.e._ the willingly accorded

consent, of the state, without by any means allowing the setting

aside of the party elected.

§ 197.10. =Proof of the Prussian Government’s willingness to be

Reconciled, 1880-1881.=--Notwithstanding this brusque refusal

on the part of the papal curia, the government, at the instance

of the minister of public worship, Von Puttkamer (§ 193, 6),

resolved in May, 1880, to introduce a bill which gave a wide

discretionary power for moderating the unhappy state of matters

that had prevailed since the passing of the May Laws, throughout

Catholic districts, where 601 pastorates stood wholly vacant and

584 partly so, and nine bishoprics, some by death and others by

deposition. Although the need of peace was readily admitted on

both sides, the Liberals opposed these “Canossa proposals” as far

too great; the Centre, Poles, and Guelphs as far too small. Yet

it obtained at last in a form considerably modified, through a

compromise of the conservatives with a great part of the national

liberals the consent of both chambers. This law, sanctioned on

=July 14th, 1880=, embraced these provisions:

1. The royal court shall no longer depose from office

any church officers, but simply pronounce incapable of

administering the office;

2-4. The ministry of the state is authorized to give the

episcopal administrator charged by the church with

the interim administration of a vacant bishopric a

dispensation from the taking of the prescribed oath;

further, an administration by commission of ecclesiastical

property may be revoked as well as appointed; also state

endowments that had been withdrawn are to be restored for

the benefit of the whole extent of the diocese;

5. Spiritual official acts of a duly appointed clergyman by

way merely of assistance in another vacant parish are to

be allowed;

6. The minister of the interior and of public worship are

empowered to approve of the erection of new institutions

of religious societies which are devoted wholly to the

care of the sick, as to allow revocably to them the care

and nurture of children not yet of school age; and more

recently added were

7. The particular, according to which Articles 2, 3, and 4

cease to operate after January 1st, 1882.

The government was particularly careful to carry out the

provisions temporarily recognised in Article 3, for the

restoration of orderly episcopal administration by regularly

elected episcopal administrators in bishoprics made vacant by

death. Fulda, which was longest vacant, from October, 1873, had

to be left out of account, since in that case there was only

one member of the chapter left and so a canonical election

was impossible. But without difficulty in March, 1881, the

Vicar-General Dr. Höting for Osnabrück and Canon Drobe for

Paderborn, without taking the oath of allegiance, succeeded in

obtaining independent administration of the property as well as

the restoration of state pay for the entire dioceses, though they

did not give the notification required by the May Laws for the

interim administration. In October, 1881, the deposed Prince

Bishop Förster of Breslau died, and the suffragan bishop, Gleich,

elected by the chapter, undertook with consent of the government

the office of episcopal administrator.--Meanwhile the pope,

by a hearty letter of congratulation to the emperor on his

birthday, March 22nd, had given new life to the suspended

peace negotiations. And now also, when the respective chapters

transferred their right of election to the pope, the orderly

appointments of the Canon Dr. Korum of Metz, a pupil of the

Jesuit faculty of Innspruck [Innsbrück], very warmly recommended

by Von Manteuffel, governor of Alsace and Lorraine, to the

episcopal see of Treves, in August, 1881, of Vicar-General

Kopp of Hildesheim to Fulda in December, 1881, of the episcopal

administrators Höting and Drobe, in March and May, 1882,

respectively to Osnabrück and Paderborn, were duly carried

into effect. For Breslau the chapter drew up a list of seven

candidates, but the government pointed out the Berlin provost,

Rob. Herzog, as a mild and conciliatory person. The chapter now

laid its right of election in the hands of the pope, and in May,

1882, Herzog was raised to the dignity of prince-bishop. There

now remained vacant only the sees of Cologne, Posen, Limburg

and Münster, which had been emptied by the depositions of the

civil courts.--Meanwhile, too, the negotiations carried on at

the instance of the government by privy councillor Von Schlözer,

with the curia at Rome for the restoration of the embassy to the

Vatican had been brought to a close. The chamber voted for this

purpose an annual sum of 90,000 marks, and Schlözer himself was

appointed to the post in March, 1882.

§ 197.11. =Conciliatory Negotiations, 1882-1884.=--With January

1st, 1882, the three enactments of the July law of 1880, which

might be enforced at the discretion of the government, ceased to

operate. Von Gossler, minister of public worship since June, 1881,

on behalf of government, introduced a new bill into the Chamber

on January 16th, 1882, for their re-enactment and extension,

which by a compromise between the Conservatives and the Centre,

after various modifications secured a majority in both houses.

This second revised law embraced the following points:

1. Renewal of the three above-named enactments till

April 1st, 1884;

2. Restoration of the “Bishop’s Paragraph,” lost in 1880, in

this new form: If the king has pardoned a bishop set aside

by the ecclesiastical court, he becomes again the bishop of

his diocese recognised by the state;

3. The setting aside of the examination in general knowledge

(_Kulturexamen_) for those who bring a certificate of

having passed the Gymnasium exit examination, or have

attended with diligence lectures on philosophy, history

and German literature during a three years’ course at a

German university, or at a Prussian seminary of equal rank,

and have given proof of this by presenting evidence to the

chief president;

4. The setting aside of the rights of the patron and

congregation of themselves filling the vacant pastorates

during a vacancy in the episcopal see.

The new law obtained royal sanction on =May 31st, 1882=. But its

two most important articles, 2 and 3, remained for a long time

a dead letter, and even Article 1 was only carried out by the

resumption of the state emoluments for the Hohenzollerns and the

five newly instituted bishoprics (§ 197, 10), but not for the

other seven. But the ill humour of the ultramontane Hotspurs was

raised to the boiling point by the fate of the bill introduced by

the Centre into the Reichstag to set aside the Expatriation Law

of May 4th, 1874, which seemed to the government indispensable

on account of its applicability to the agitations against the

empire of the Polish clergy. This bill, after violent debates,

was carried on January 18th, 1882, by a two-thirds majority;

but it was cast out by the Federal Council on June 6th, almost

unanimously, only Bavaria and Reuss _jüngere Linie_ voting in

its favour. This was the result mainly of the failure of all the

attempts of Von Schlözer to render the government’s concessions

acceptable to the papal curia.--On the other hand, the government

of its own accord brought in a third revision scheme in June,

1883, by which it sought to relieve as far as possible the

troubles of the Catholic church. By adopting this law:

1. The obligation of notification on the part of the bishops

and the right of the state to protest on the change of

temporary assistants and substitutes into regular spiritual

officers, were abolished; as also

2. the competence of the court for ecclesiastical affairs in

appeals against the protest of the chief president, which

now therefore, according to the generally prevailing rule,

are referred to the minister of worship, the whole ministry,

the parliament, the king;

3. the immunity from punishment in the execution of their

office guaranteed in Article 5 of the July law of 1880

(§ 197, 10) was extended to all spiritual offices whether

vacant or not;

4. the ordaining of individual candidates in vacant dioceses

by bishops recognised by the state was declared to be legal.

In spite of repeated declarations of the curia that it could and

would agree to the notification only after a previous sufficient

guarantee of perfectly free training of the clergy and free

administration of the spiritual office, the king while residing

at the Castle of Mainau on Lake Constance, on July 11th, 1883,

sanctioned the so-called Mainau Law that had passed both houses,

and on the 14th, the minister of public worship demanded that

the Prussian bishops, without making notification, should fill up

vacancies in pastorates by appointing assistants, and should name

those candidates who were eligible for such appointment under

the conditions of the May Law of the previous year (§ 197, 3).

The pope at last, in September, 1883, allowed the dispensation

required, but for that time only and without prejudice for the

future. By the end of May, 1,884 applications had been made to

the senior of the Prussian episcopate appointed to receive such,

Marnitz of Kulm, by 1,443 clergymen, of whom the government

rejected only 178 who had studied at the Jesuit institutions of

Rome, Louvain, and Innsbrück.--In December, 1883, Bishop Blum of

Limburg, and in January, 1884, Brinkmann of Münster were restored

by royal grace, and for both dioceses, as well as for Ermeland,

Kulm and Hildesheim, and at last also on March 31st, shortly

before the closing of the door, even for Cologne, in this case,

however, revocably, the arrest of salaries ceased, so that only

the two archiepiscopal sees of Cologne and Posen remained vacant,

and only Posen continued bereft of its endowments. On the other

hand the government allowed the three discretionary enactments

that were in operation till April 1st, 1884, to lapse without

providing for their renewal. Also the proposal for abolishing

the Expatriation Law of November, 1884, introduced anew by the

Centre and again adopted by the Reichstag by a great majority,

was thrown out by the Federal Council; but in the beginning

of December, on the opening of the new Reichstag, it was again

brought in by the Centre and passed, but was left quite unnoticed

by the Federal Council. The repeated motions of the Centre for

payment of the bishops’ salaries from the state exchequer, as

well as for immunity to those who read mass and dispensed the

sacraments, were again thrown out by the House of Deputies in

April, 1885.

§ 197.12. =Resumption on both sides of Conciliatory Measures,

1885-1886.=--The next subject of negotiation with the curia was

the re-institution of the archiepiscopal see of Posen-Gnesen.

In March, 1884, the pope had nominated Cardinal Ledochowski

secretary of the committee on petitions, in which capacity he

had to remain in Rome. He now declared himself willing to accept

Ledochowski’s resignation of the archbishopric if the Prussian

government would allow a successor who would possess the

confidence of the holy see as well as of the Polish inhabitants

of the diocese. But of the three noble Polish chauvinists

submitted by the Vatican the government could accept none. Since

further no agreement could be reached on the question of the

bishop’s obligation to make notification and the state’s right

to protest, the negotiations were for a long time at a standstill,

and were repeatedly on the point of being broken off. But from

the middle of 1885, a conciliatory movement gained power, through

the counsels of the more moderate party among the cardinals.

Archbishop Melchers, who lived as an exile in Maestricht, was

called to Rome, and as a reward for his assistance was made

cardinal, and the pope consecrated as his successor in the

archbishopric of Cologne, Bishop Krementz of Ermeland (§ 197, 2),

who also was acknowledged by the Prussian government and

introduced to Cologne on December 15th, 1885, with great pomp,

with 20,000 torches and twenty bands of music. After a long

list of candidates had been set aside by one side and the other,

some here, some there, the pope at last fell from his demand for

one of Polish nationality, and in March, 1886, appointed to the

vacant see Julius Dinder, dean of Königsberg, a German by nation

but speaking the Polish language.--Meanwhile at other points

advance was made in the peaceful, yea, even friendly, relations

between the pope and the Prussian government. The diplomatist

Leo showed his admiring regard for the diplomatist Bismarck

by sending him a valuable oil-painting of himself by a Münich

[Munich] master, and the latter astonished the world by making

the pope umpire in a threatening conflict with Spain on the

possession of the Caroline islands. His decision on the main

question was indeed in favour of Spain, but not unimportant

concessions were also made to Germany. The pope sent the prince

two Latin poems as _pretium affectionis_, and conferred upon

him, the first Protestant that had ever been so honoured, at

the close of 1885 or beginning of 1886, the highest papal order,

the insignia of the Order of Christ, with brilliants, after the

cardinal secretary of state Jacobini as president of the papal

court of arbitration had been rewarded with the Prussian order

of the Black Eagle, and the other members of the court with other

high Prussian orders; and at the end of April, 1886, the German

emperor sent the pope himself thanks for his mediation, with an

artistic and costly Pectoral (§ 59, 7) worth 10,000 marks.--The

government had, meanwhile, on February 15th, 1886, brought in

a new proposal of revision of church polity, the fourth, and in

order to secure the advice of a distinguished representative of

the Prussian episcopate, called Bishop Kopp of Fulda to the House

of Peers. But as his demands for concessions, suggested to him,

not by the pope, but by the Centre, went far beyond what was

proposed, they were for the most part decidedly opposed by the

minister of worship and rejected by the house. The law confirmed

by the king on May 24th, 1886, made the following changes:

Complete abolition of the examination in general culture;

freeing of the seminaries recognised by the minister as suitable

for clerical training, as well as faculties established in

universities, seminaries and gymnasia from any special state

inspection (as laid down in the May Laws), and subjecting such

to the common laws affecting all similar educational institutions.

Removal of restrictions requiring ecclesiastical disciplinary

procedure to be only before German ecclesiastical courts;

Abolition of the Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs and

transference of its functions partly to the ministry of worship,

which now as court of appeal in matters of church discipline

dealt only with those cases which entailed a loss or reduction

of official income, partly to the Berlin supreme court, which

has jurisdiction in case of a breach of the law of the state by

a church officer as well as in case of a refusal to fulfil the

oath of obedience; The discretionary enactments of the government

of 1880 (§ 197, 10) are again enforced and the modifications

of these in Article 6 of that law are extended to all other

institutions engaged on the home propaganda; All reading of

private masses and dispensing of sacraments are no longer

subjected to the infliction of penalties.--Some weeks before

royal sanction was given to this law, Cardinal Jacobini had,

at the instance of the pope, expressed his profound satisfaction

with the success of the advice in the House of Peers, as also

particularly at the prospect of other concessions promised by the

government. In an official communication to the president of the

House of Deputies, he proposed the addition that the notification

of new appointments to vacant pastorates should begin from that

date. In August there followed, on the part of the government,

the hitherto refused dispensation for those trained by the

Jesuits in Rome and Innsbrück, and in November, with consent of

the minister of public worship, the re-opening of the episcopal

seminaries at Fulda and Treves.

§ 197.13. =Definitive Conclusion of Peace, 1887.=--In February,

1887, the state journal published a new form of oath for the

bishops, sanctioned by royal ordinance, in which the obligation

hitherto enforced “to conscientiously observe the laws of the

state,” was omitted, and the asseveration added, “that I have

not, by the oath, taken to his Holiness the pope and the church,

undertaken any obligation which can be in conflict with the oath

of fidelity as a subject of his Royal Majesty.”--The promised

fifth revision, meanwhile accepted by the pope in its several

particulars and acknowledged by him as sufficient basis for

a definitive peace, was on February 13th, 1887, contrary to

precedent, first laid before the House of Peers. Bishop Kopp

proposed a great number of changes and additions, of which

several of a very important nature were accepted. The most

important provisions of this law, which was passed on =April

29th, 1887=, are the following: The obligation on bishops to

make notification applies only to the conferring of a spiritual

office for life, and the right of protest by the state must

rely upon a basis named and belonging to the civil domain;

All state compulsion to lifelong reinstatement in a vacant

office is unlawful; The previously insured immunity for reading

mass and dispensing the sacraments is now applied to members

of all spiritual orders again allowed in the kingdom; The

duty of ecclesiastical superiors to communicate disciplinary

decisions to the Chief President is given up. Those orders and

congregations which devote themselves to aiding in pastoral work,

the administering of Christian benevolence, and, on Bishop Kopp’s

motion, those which engage in educational work in girl’s high

schools and similar institutions, as well as those which lead

a private life, are to be allowed and are to be also restored

to the enjoyment of their original possessions; The training of

missionaries for foreign work and the erection of institutions

for this purpose are to be permitted to the privileged orders

and congregations.--Bishop Kopp, and also the pope, with lively

gratitude, accepted these ordinances as making the reconciliation

an accomplished fact; but they also expressed the hope that

the success of this peaceful arrangement will be such as shall

lead to further important concessions to the rightful claims

of the Catholic church. After this conclusive revision, besides

the extremely contracted obligation of notification by the

bishops and the almost completely insignificant right of civil

protest, there remain of the _Kulturkampf_ laws only: the

_Kanzelparagraph_, the Jesuit and the exile enactments (all

of them imperial and not Prussian laws), and the abrogation

of the three articles of the Prussian constitution (§ 197, 8).

Insignificant as the concessions of the papal curia may seem

in comparison to the almost complete surrender of the Prussian

government, it can hardly be said that Bismarck has been untrue

to his promise not to go to Canossa. With him the main thing

ever was to restore within the German empire the peace that

was threatened by thunderclouds gathering from day to day in

the political horizon in east and west, and thus, as also by

nurturing and developing the military forces, to set aside the

danger of war from without. But for this end, the sovereignty

of the Centre, which hampered him on every side, allying itself

with all elements in the Chamber and Reichstag hostile to the

government and the empire, must be broken. But this was possible

only if he succeeded in breaking up the unhallowed artificial

amalgamation of Catholic church interests for which the Centre

contended with the political tendencies of the party hostile

to the empire, by recognising those interests in a manner

satisfactory to the pope and to all right-minded loyal German

Catholics, and so estranging them from the political schemes of

the leader of the Centre. This indeed would have scarcely been

possible with Pius IX., but with the much clearer and sharper

Leo XIII. there was hope of success. And the statesmanlike

insight and self-denial of the prince succeeded, though at first

only in a limited measure, and this was a much more important

gain for the state than the papal concessions of episcopal

notification and the state’s right of protest.--When in the

beginning of 1887, at the same time that the fear was greatest of

a war with France and Russia, the renewal and enlargement of the

military budget, hitherto for seven years, was necessary, and its

refusal by the Centre and its adherents was regarded as certain,

Bismarck prevailed on the pope to intervene in his favour. The

pope did it in a confidential communication to the president

of the Centre, in which he urged acceptance of the septennial

act in the Reichstag for the security of the Fatherland and the

conserving of peace on the continent, expressly referring to the

friendly and promising attitude of the imperial government to

the papacy and the Catholic church. But the president kept the

communication secret from the members of his party, and they

continued strenuously and unanimously opposed to the Septennate.

The Reichstag was consequently dissolved. The pope now published

this correspondence with the leaders of the Centre, thirty-seven

Rhenish nobles separated from the party, and the new elections to

the Reichstag were mainly favourable to the government. Although

the Deputy Windthorst as chief leader of the Prussian _Ecclesia

militans_ had on every occasion protested his and his party’s

profoundest reverence for and conditional submission to every

expression of the papal will, and shortly before (§ 186, 3) had

styled the pope “Lord of the whole world,” he opposed himself,

as he had done on the Septennate question, on the fifth revision

of the ecclesiastical laws, to the will of the infallible pope

by publishing a memorial proving the absolute impossibility of

accepting this proposed law, which, however, this time also he

failed to carry out.

§ 197.14. =Independent Procedure of the other German Governments.=

1. =Bavaria’s= energy in the struggle against ultramontanism

(§ 197, 4) soon cooled. Yet in 1873 the Redemptorists were

instructed to discontinue their missionary work (§ 186, 6),

and all theological students were forbidden to attend the

Jesuit German College at Rome (§ 151, 1). Also in 1875,

the jubilee processions organized by the episcopate without

obtaining the royal _Placet_ were inhibited.

2. =Württemberg=, which since 1862 possessed more civil

jurisdiction over Catholic church affairs and exercised it

more freely (§ 196, 6) than Prussia laid claim to in 1873,

could all the more easily maintain ecclesiastical peace,

since its peaceful Bishop Hefele (§ 189, 3, 4; 191, 7)

avoided all occasion of conflict and strife.

3. In =Baden= the _Kulturkampf_ that had here previously

broken out (§ 196, 2) was continued all the more keenly.

In 1873 public teaching, holding of missions and assisting

in pastoral work, had been refused to all religious orders

and fraternities. But the main blow, followed by the

comprehensive church legislation of February 19th, 1874,

which closed all boys’ seminaries and episcopal institutions,

allowed none to hold a clerical office or discharge any

ecclesiastical function without a three years’ course

at a German university and a state examination in general

culture (§ 196, 2), strictly forbad all influencing of

public elections by the clergy, and made deposition follow

the second conviction of a church officer. The expedient

hitherto resorted to of appointing mere deputy priests so

as to avoid the examination, was consequently frustrated.

The rapid increase of vacant pastorates, after five years’

opposition, at last moved the episcopal curia to sue for

peace at the hands of the government, and when the latter

showed an exceedingly conciliatory spirit, the curia

with consent of the pope in February, 1880, withdrew its

prohibition of the request for dispensation from the state

examination, and the government now on its part with the

Chambers passed a law, by which the obligation to undergo

this examination was abolished, and the certificate of

the exit examination, three years’ attendance at a German

university, and diligent attention to at least three

courses of the philosophical faculty, was held as sufficient

evidence of general culture. The Baden _Kulturkampf_ seems

to have been definitely concluded by the election and

recognition of Dr. Orbin to the see of Freiburg, vacant for

fourteen years, when he without scruple took the oath of

allegiance. This, however, did not check, far less put an

end to the tumults of the fanatical ultramontane Irredenta.

§ 197.15.

4. =Hesse-Darmstadt= in 1874 followed the example of Prussia

and Baden in excluding all spiritual orders from teaching

in public schools, and on April 23rd, 1875, issued five

ecclesiastical laws which were directed to restoring under

penal sanctions the state of the law, which before 1850

(§ 196, 4) had been unquestioned. Essentially in harmony with

the Prussian May Laws of 1873 and 1874, they go beyond these

in several particulars. All clergymen receiving appointments,

_e.g._, must have gone through a full university course;

all religious orders and congregations were to be allowed

to die out; public roads and squares could be used

for ecclesiastical festivals only by permission of the

government to be renewed on each occasion. The “contentious”

Bishop Ketteler of Mainz, who stirred up the fire to the

utmost with the Prussian brand, and had kindled also a

similar flame in Hesse over the proposal of this law, held

still that to view martyrdom at a distance was the better

part, and carefully avoided any overt act of disobedience.

But he immediately refused to co-operate in restoring the

Catholic theological faculty at Giessen, and the government

consequently abandoned the idea. The Mainz see after

Ketteler’s death in 1877 remained long vacant, as the

government felt obliged to reject the electoral list

submitted by the chapter. A candidate satisfactory to the

Vatican and the government was only found in May, 1886, in

the person of Dr. Haffner, a member of the chapter. After

Prussia had concluded its definitive peace with Rome, the

Hessian government, in May, 1887, laid before the house of

representatives a revision of ecclesiastical legislation of

1875, like that of Prussia, only not going so far, for which

meanwhile the approval of the papal curia had been obtained.

It agrees to the erection of a Catholic clerical seminary,

and Catholic students’ residences in this seminary and

in the state-gymnasia; erection of independent boys’

institutions preparatory to the seminary for priests is,

however, still refused; the existing duty of bishops to

make notification, and the right of the state to protest

in regard to appointments to vacant pastorates are also

retained. There is no word of rehabilitating religious

orders and congregations, nor of any limitation of the law

about the exercise of ecclesiastical punishment and means

of discipline.

5. Last of all among the German states affected by the

_Kulturkampf_, the kingdom of =Saxony=, with only 73,000

Catholic inhabitants, at the instance of the second Chamber

in 1876, came forward with a Catholic church law modelled

upon the Prussian May Laws, with its several provisions

modified, in spite of the contention of the talented heir

to the throne, Prince George, that the power of the state

in relation to the Catholic church could only be determined

by a concordat with the Roman curia.

§ 198. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

To the emperor of Austria there was left, after the re-organization

of affairs by the Vienna Congress, of the Roman empire, only the

name of defender of the papal see, and the Catholic church, and the

presidency of the German Federal Council. The remnants of the Josephine

ecclesiastical constitution were gradually set aside and Catholicism

firmly established as the state religion; yet the government asserted

its independence against all hierarchical claims, and granted, though

only in a very limited degree, toleration to Protestantism. The

revolution year 1848 removed indeed some of these limits, but the

period of reaction that followed gave, by means of a concordat concluded

with the curia in 1855, to the ultramontane hierarchy of the country

an unprecedented power in almost all departments of civil life, and

prejudicial also to the interests of the Protestant church. After the

disastrous issue of the Italian war in 1859, and still more that of the

German war in 1866, the government was obliged to make an honest effort

to introduce and develop liberal institutions. And after an imperial

patent of 1861 had secured religious liberty, self-administration, and

equal rights to the Protestant church, the constitutional legislation

of 1868 freed Catholic as well as Protestant civil, educational, and

ecclesiastical matters from the provisions of the concordat that most

seriously threatened them, and by the declaration of papal infallibility

in 1870 the government felt justified in regarding the entire concordat

as antiquated and declaring it abolished. In its place a Catholic church

act was passed by the state in 1874. But the _Kulturkampf_ struggle

which was thus made imminent also for Austria was avoided by pliancy on

both sides.

§ 198.1. =The Zillerthal Emigration.=--In the Tyrolese

=Zillerthal= the knowledge of evangelical truth had spread

among several families by means of Protestant books and Bibles.

When the Catholic clergy from 1826 had pushed to its utmost

the clerical guardianship by means of auricular confession, an

opposition arose which soon from the refusal to confess passed on

to the rejection of saint worship, masses for the dead, purgatory,

indulgences, etc., and ended in the formal secession of many to

the evangelical church in 1830, with a reference to the Josephine

edict of toleration. The emperor Francis I., to whom on the

occasion of his visit to Innsbrück in 1832 they presented their

petition, promised them toleration. But the Tyrolese nobles

protested, and the official decision, given at last in 1834,

ordered removal to Transylvania or return to the Catholic church.

The petitioners now applied, as those of Salzburg had previously

done (§ 165, 4), by a deputation to the king of Prussia, who,

after by diplomatic communications securing the emperor’s

consent to emigration, assigned them his estate of Erdmannsdorf

in Silesia for colonization. There now the exiles, 399 in number,

settled in 1837, and, largely aided by the royal munificence,

founded a new Zillerthal.

§ 198.2. =The Concordat.=--After the revolution year 1848,

the government were far more yielding toward the claims of the

hierarchy than under the old Metternich _régime_. In April, 1850,

an imperial patent relieved the papal and episcopal decrees of

the necessity of imperial approval, and on August 18th, 1855,

a concordat with the pope was agreed to, by which unprecedented

power and independence was granted to the hierarchy in Austria

for all time to come. The first article secured to the Roman

Catholic religion throughout the empire all rights and privileges

which they claimed by divine institution and the canon law.

The others gave to the bishops the right of unrestricted

correspondence with Rome, declared that no papal ordinance

required any longer the royal _placet_, that prelates are

unfettered in the discharge of their hierarchical obligations,

that religious instruction in all schools is under their

supervision, that no one can teach religion or theology without

their approval, that in catholic schools there can be only

catholic teachers, that they have the right of forbidding all

books which may be injurious to the faithful, that all cases

of ecclesiastical law, especially marriage matters, belong to

their jurisdiction, yet the apostolic see grants that purely

secular law matters of the clergy are to be decided before a

civil tribunal, and the emperor’s right of nomination to vacant

episcopal sees is to continue, etc. The inferior clergy, who

were now without legal protection against the prelates, only

reluctantly bowed their necks to this hard yoke; the liberal

Catholic laity murmured, sneered, and raged, and the native press

incessantly urged a revision of the concordat, the necessity of

which became ever more apparent from concessions made meanwhile

willingly or grudgingly to the “Non-Catholics.” But only after

Austria, by the issue of the German war of 1866, was restricted

to her own domain, and finally freed from the drag of its

ultramontane Italian interests, found herself obliged to make

every effort to reconcile the opposing parties within her own

territories, could these views prove successful. But since the

government nevertheless held firmly by the principle that the

concordat, as a state contract regularly concluded between two

sovereigns, could be changed only by mutual consent, the liberal

majority of the house of deputies resolved to make it as harmless

as possible by means of domestic legislation, and on June 11th,

1867, the deputy Herbst moved the appointment of a committee for

drawing up three bills for restoring civil marriage, emancipation

of schools from the church, and equality of all confessions

in the eye of the law. The motion was carried by a hundred and

thirty-four votes against twenty-two. The Cisleithan (_i.e._

Austrian excluding Hungary) episcopate, with Cardinal Rauscher

of Vienna at their head, presented an address to his apostolic

majesty demanding the most rigid preservation of the concordat,

denouncing civil marriage as concubinage, and the emancipation

of schools as their dechristianizing. An imperial autograph

letter to Rauscher rebuked with earnest words the inflammatory

proceedings of the bishops, and at the same time the ultramontane

ambassador to Rome, Baron Hübner, was recalled. After the

arrangement with Hungary was completed, the first Cisleithan, the

so-called Burger, ministry was constituted under the presidency

of Prince Auersperg, composed of the most distinguished leaders

of the parliamentary majority. All the three bills were passed

by a large majority, and obtained imperial sanction on =May 25th,

1868=. The papal nuncio of Vienna protested, the pope in an

allocution denounced the new Austrian constitution as _nefanda

sane_ and the three confessional laws as _abominabiles leges_.

“We repudiate and condemn these laws,” he says, “by apostolic

authority, as well as everything done by the Austrian government

in matters of church policy, and determine in the exercise of

the same authority that these decrees with all their consequences

are and shall be null and void.” But all Vienna, all Austria

held jubilee, and the Chancellor von Beust rejected with energy

the assumptions of the curia over the civil domain. The bishops

indeed issued protests and inflammatory pastorals, and forbad the

publication of the marriage act, but submitted to the threats of

compulsion by the supreme court, and Bishop Rudigier of Linz, who

went furthest in inciting to opposition, was in 1869 taken into

court by the police, and sentenced to twelve days’ imprisonment,

but pardoned by the emperor. Toward the Vatican Council Austria

assumed at first a waiting policy, then in vain remonstrated,

warned, threatened, and finally, on July 30th, 1870, after the

proclamation of infallibility, declared that the concordat was

antiquated and abolished, because by this dogma the position of

one of the contracting parties had undergone a complete change.

§ 198.3. =The Protestant Church in Cisleithan Austria.=--Down to

1848 Protestantism of both confessions in Austria enjoyed only a

very limited toleration. The storms of this year first set aside

the hated official name of “Non-Catholics,” and won permission

for Protestant places of worship to have bells and towers.

But the repeated petitions for permission to found branches

of the _Gustavus Adolphus Union_, the persistently maintained

law that Catholic clergymen, even after they had formally become

Protestants, could not marry, because the _character indelibilis_

of priestly consecration attached itself even to apostates, and

many such facts, prove that the government was far from intending

to grant to the Protestants civil equality with the Catholics.

But the unfortunate result of the Sardinian-French war of 1859,

and the fear thereby increased of the falling asunder of the

whole Austrian federation, induced the government to address

itself earnestly to the introduction of liberal institutions,

and also to do justice to the Protestant church. The presidency

of the two Protestant consistories in Vienna, hitherto given to

a Catholic, was now assigned to a Protestant; meetings of the

Gustavus Adolphus Union were now allowed, and a share was given

to the Protestant party in the ministry of public worship by

the appointment of three evangelical councillors. After the

entrance on office of the liberal minister Von Schmerling,

an imperial patent was issued on April 8th, 1864, by which

unrestricted liberty of faith, independent administration of

all ecclesiastical, educational, and charitable matters, free

election of pastors, even from abroad, full exercise of civil and

political rights, and complete equality with Catholics was given

to the Protestants of the German and Slavonian crown territories.

Also in 1868, under the reactionary ministry of Belcredi,

on the expiry of the legal term of the Evangelical Supreme

Church Council, it was reorganized, two evangelical school

councillorships were created, and the pecuniary position of

the evangelical clergy considerably improved. But in spite of

all privileges legally granted to the evangelical church, it

continued in many cases, in presence of the concordat, which

down to 1870 still remained in force, exposed to the whims and

caprice, sometimes of the imperial courts, sometimes of the

Catholic clergy.

§ 198.4. =The Clerical Landtag Opposition in the Tyrol.=--In the

=Tyrol=, after the publication of the imperial patent of April,

1861, a violent movement was set on foot by clerical agitation.

The Landtag, by a great majority, pronounced the issuing of it

the most serious calamity which the country, hitherto honest,

true, and happy in its undivided attachment to the Catholic faith,

could have suffered, and concluded that Non-Catholics in the

Tyrol should only by way of dispensation be allowed, but that

publicity of Protestant worship and formation of Protestant

congregations should be still forbidden. The Schmerling ministry,

indeed, refused to confirm these resolutions. The agitation

of the clergy, however, which fanned in all possible ways the

fanaticism of the people, grew from year to year, until at last

the Belcredi ministry of 1866 came to an agreement with the

Landtag, sanctioned by the emperor, according to which the

creation of an evangelical landed proprietary in the Tyrol was

not indeed formally forbidden, but permission for an evangelical

to possess land had in each case to be obtained from the Landtag.

The ecclesiastical laws of 1868 next called forth new conflicts.

Twice was the Landtag closed because of the opposition thus

awakened, until finally in September, 1870, the estates took

the oath to the new constitution with reservation of conscience.

But now, when in December, 1875, the ministry of worship

gave approval to the formal constituting of two evangelical

congregations in the Tyrol, at Innsbrück and Meran, the clerical

press was filled with burning denunciations, and the majority

of the Landtag meeting in the following March thought to give

emphasis to their protest by leaving the chamber, and so bringing

the assembly to a sudden close. In June, 1880, the three bishops

of the Tyrol uttered in the Landtag a fanatical protest against

the continuance of the meanwhile established congregations, which

the Landtag majority renewed in July, 1883.

§ 198.5. =The Austrian Universities.=--Stremayr, minister

of public worship, introduced in 1872 a scheme of university

reorganization, by which the exclusively Catholic character which

had hitherto belonged to the Austrian universities, especially

those of Vienna and Prague, should be removed. Up to this time

a Non-Catholic could there obtain no sort of academical degree,

but this was now to be obtainable apart from any question of

confession. The office of chancellor, held by the archbishops

of Prague and Vienna, was restricted to the theological faculty,

to the state was assigned the right of nominating all professors,

even in the theological faculty, and the German language

was recommended as the medium of instruction. Candidates of

theology have to pass through a full and comprehensive course

of theological science in a three years’ university curriculum,

before they can be admitted into an episcopal seminary for

practical training. In spite of the opposition of the superior

clergy, the bill passed even in the House of Peers, and became

law in 1873.--In Innsbrück, where according to ancient custom

the rector was chosen from the four faculties in succession, the

other faculties protested against the election when, in 1872,

the turn came to the theological (Jesuit) faculty, and they

carried their point. The new organization law gave the choice

of rector to the whole professoriate, and a subsequent imperial

order withdrew from the general of the Jesuits the right of

nominating all theological professors.--Much was done, too, for

the elevation of the evangelical theological faculty in Vienna

by bringing able scholars from Germany, by giving a right to

the promotion to the degree of doctor of theology, etc. But its

incorporation in the university, though often moved for, was

hindered by the continued opposition of the Catholic theologians

as well as philosophers, and in 1873 it did not meet with

sufficient support in the House of Peers. Even the use of certain

halls in the university buildings, promised by the minister,

could not yet be obtained.

§ 198.6. =The Austrian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1874-1876.=--At last

the government in January, 1874, introduced the long-promised

Catholic church legislation into the Reichstag, intended to

supply blanks occasioned by the setting aside of the concordat.

Its main contents are these:

I. The concordat, hitherto only diplomatically dealt with,

is now legislatively annulled; the bishops have to present

all their manifestoes not before but upon publication to

the state government for its cognisance; every vacancy of

an ecclesiastical office, as well as every new appointment

to such, is to be notified to the civil court, which

can raise objections against such appointment within

thirty days; the minister of worship then decides on the

admissibility or inadmissibility of the candidate; legal

deposition of a church officer involves withdrawal of the

emoluments; the performance of unusual practices in public

worship of a demonstrative character can be prohibited by

the civil court; any misuse of ecclesiastical authority in

restraining any one from obeying the laws of the land or

from exercising his civil rights is strictly interdicted.

II. The ecclesiastical revenues and the income of the

cloisters are subjected to a progressive taxation on

behalf of a religious fund, mainly for improving the

condition of the lower clergy, for which the episcopate

hitherto, in spite of all entreaties, had done practically

nothing.

III. Newly formed religious societies received state

recognition if their denomination and principles contain

nothing contrary to law and morality or offensive to those

of another faith.

IV. The state grants or refuses its approval of the

establishment of spiritual orders, congregations, and

ecclesiastical societies; institutions and legacies for

them amounting to over three thousand gulden require

state sanction; any member is free to quit any order;

all orders must report annually on the personal changes

and disciplinary punishments that have taken place; at any

time when occasion calls for it they may be subjected to

a visitation by the civil court.[551]

In vain did the pope by an encyclical seek to rouse the

episcopate to violent opposition, in vain did he adjure the

emperor in a letter in his own hand not to suffer the church

to be put into such disgraceful bondage; the House of Deputies

approved the four bills, and the emperor in =May, 1874=,

confirmed at least the first three, while the fourth was being

debated in the House of Peers. The bishops now issued a joint

declaration that they could obey these laws only in so far as

they “were in harmony with the demands of justice as stated

in the concordat.” But it did not go to the length of actual

conflict. Neither to the pope and episcopate, nor to the

government was such a thing convenient at the time. Hence the

attitude of reserve on both sides, which kept everything as

it had been. And when notwithstanding Bishop Rudigier of Linz,

threatened with fines on account of his refusal to notify the

newly appointed priests, appealed to the pope, he obtained

through the Vienna nuncio permission to yield on this point,

“_non dissentit tolerari posse_.” But all the more urgently did

the nuncio strive to prevent the passing of the sweeping cloister

law. In January, 1876, it was passed in the House of Peers with

modifications, to which, however, the emperor refused his assent.

Also the revised marriage law of the same date, which removed

the hindrances to marriage incorporated even in the book of civil

law, and no longer recognised differences of religion, Christians

and non-Christians, the remarriage of separated parties of whom

at the time of the first marriage only one party belonged to the

Catholic church, higher consecration and the vows of orders, did

not pass the House of Peers.

§ 198.7. =The Protestant Church in the Transleithan

Provinces.=--In =Hungary= since 1833 the Reichstag had by bold

action won for the Protestants full equality with the Catholics,

but in consequence of the revolution, the military lordship

of the Protestant Haynau in 1850 again put in fetters all

independent life in both Protestant churches. The Haynau decree

was, indeed, again abrogated in 1854, but full return to the

earlier autonomy of the church, in spite of all petitions and

deputations, could never be regained, all the less as Hungary in

all too decided a manner rejected the constitutional proposals

submitted by the Government in 1856. The liberal imperial patent

of September 1st, 1859, which secured independent administration

and development to the Protestant church in the crown possessions

of Hungary, got no better reception. In the German-Slavonian

districts of North Hungary, as well as in Croatia, Slavonia, and

Austrian Servia, it was greeted with jubilation and gratitude,

but the Magyar Hungarians declined on many, for the most part

frivolous, grounds, mainly because it emanated from the emperor,

and did not originate in an autonomous synod. When the government

showed its intention of going forward with it, the opposition was

carried to the utmost extreme, so that the emperor was obliged

temporarily to suspend proceedings in May, 1860. Still the

ecclesiastical joined with the political movement continued

to increase until in 1867 the imperial chancellor, Von Beust,

succeeded in quieting both for a time by the Hungarian Agreement.

On June 8th of that year, the emperor, Francis Joseph, on

ratifying the agreement, was solemnly crowned King of Hungary.

The hated patent had been shortly before revoked by an

imperial edict, with the direction to order church matters

in a constitutional way. After a complete reconciliation, at

a General Protestant Convention in December, 1867, with the

Patent congregations, hitherto denounced as unpatriotic, it was

concluded that to the state belonged only a right of protection

and oversight of the church, which is autonomous in all its

internal affairs, but to all confessions perfect freedom in law,

and that there should be not a separate religious legislation

for each, but a common one for all confessions. A committee

first appointed in 1873 for this purpose, with the motto, “A

Free Church in a Free State,” constituted, and then adjourned

_ad kalendas Græcas_.

§ 199. SWITZERLAND.

The Catholic church of Switzerland, after long continued troubles,

obtained again a regular hierarchical organization in 1828. Since that

time the Jesuits settled there in crowds, and assumed to themselves in

most of the Catholic cantons the whole direction of church and schools.

The unfortunate issue of the cantonal war of 1847 led indeed to their

banishment by law, but, favoured by the bishops, they knew how still to

re-enter by back doors and secretly to regain their earlier influence.

The city of Calvin was the centre of their plots, not only for

Switzerland, but also for all Cisalpine Europe, until at last the

overstrained bow broke, and the Swiss governments became the most

decided and uncompromising opponents of the ultramontane claims. In

1873 the papal nuncio, in consequence of a papal encyclical insulting

the government, was banished.--In Protestant Switzerland, besides the

destructive influence of the Illumination, antagonistic to the church,

and radical liberalism, there appeared a soil receptive of pietism,

separatism, and fanaticism, whose first cultivation has been ascribed

to Madame Krüdener (§ 176, 2). In the Protestant church of German

Switzerland the religious and theological developments stood regularly

in lively connexion with similar movements in Germany, while those in

the French cantons received their impulse and support from France and

England. From France, to which they were allied by a common language,

they learned the unbelief of the encyclopædists (§ 165, 14), while

travelling Englishmen and those residing in the country for a longer

period introduced the fervour and superstition of Methodism and other

sects.

§ 199.1. =The Catholic Church in Switzerland till 1870.=--The

ecclesiastical superintendence of Catholic Switzerland was

previously subject to the neighbouring foreign bishoprics.

But for immediate preservation of its interests the curia had

appointed a nunciature at Lucerne in 1588. When now, in 1814, the

liberal Wessenberg (§ 187, 3), already long suspected of heresy,

was called as coadjutor to Constance, the nuncio manœuvred with

the Catholic confederates till these petitioned the pope for the

establishment of an independent and national bishopric. But when

each of the cantons interested claimed to be made the episcopal

residence negotiations were at last suspended, and in 1828 six

small bishoprics were erected under immediate control of Rome.

At the end of 1833 the diocesan representatives of Basel and

St. Gall assembled in Baden to consult about the restoration

of a national Swiss Metropolitan Union and a common state

church constitution for securing church and state against the

encroachments of the Romish hierarchy. But Gregory XIV. condemned

the articles of conference here agreed upon, which would have

given to Switzerland only what other states had long possessed,

as false, audacious, and erroneous, destructive of the church,

heretical, and schismatic, and among the Catholic people a revolt

was stirred up by ultramontane fanaticism, under the influence

of which the whole action was soon frustrated. On the occasion of

a revision of the constitution of the canton of Aargau, a revolt,

led by the cloisters, broke out in 1841. But the rebels were

defeated, and the grand council resolved upon the closing of all

cloisters, eight in number. Complaint made against this at the

diet was regarded as satisfied by the Aargau Agreement of 1843

restoring three nunneries. An opposition was organized against

the revision of the constitution of Canton =Lucerne= in 1841.

The liberal government was overthrown, and the new constitution,

in which the state insisted on its _placet_ in ecclesiastical

matters and the granting of cantonal civil rights to those

only who professed attachment to the Roman Catholic church, was

submitted to the pope for approval. At last, in 1844, the academy

of Lucerne was given over to the Jesuits, for which Joseph Leu,

the popular agitator, as member of the grand council, had wrought

unweariedly since 1839. In Canton =Vaud= the parties of old or

clerical and young Switzerland contended with one another for

the mastery. The latter suffered an utter defeat in 1844, and the

constitution which was then carried allowed the right of public

worship only to the Catholic church. In consequence of this

victory of the clerical party Catholic Switzerland with Lucerne

at its head became a main centre of ultramontanism and Jesuitism.

At the diet of 1844, indeed, Aargau, supported by numerous

petitions from the people, moved for the banishment of all

Jesuits from all Switzerland, but the majority did not consent.

The Jesuit opponents expelled from Lucerne now organized twice

over a free volunteer corps to overthrow the ultramontane

government and force the expulsion of the Jesuits, but on both

occasions, in 1844 and 1845, it suffered a sore defeat. In face

of the threateningly growing increase of the excitement, which

made them fear a decisive intervention of the diet, the Catholic

cantons formed in 1845 a =separate league= (_Sonderbund_) for

the preservation of their faith and their sovereign rights. This

proceeding, irreconcilable with the Act of Federation, led to

a civil war. The members of the _Sonderbund_ were defeated, the

ultramontane governments had to resign, and the Jesuits departed

in 1847. The new Federal constitution which Switzerland adopted

in 1848, secured unconditional liberty of conscience and equality

of all confessions, and the expulsion of the Jesuits in terms

of the law. But since that time ultramontanism has gained the

supremacy in Catholic Switzerland, and in spite of the existing

law against the Jesuits all the threads of the ultramontane

clerical movements in Switzerland were in the Jesuits’ hands.

These were never more successful than in Canton =Geneva=, where

the radical democratic agitator Fazy leagued himself closely with

ultramontanism to compass the destruction of the old Calvinistic

aristocracy, and by bringing in large numbers the lower class

Catholics from the neighbouring France and Savoy he obtained a

considerable Catholic majority in the canton, and in the capital

itself made Catholics and Protestants nearly equal.

§ 199.2. =The Geneva Conflict, 1870-1883.=--The Catholic church

of Canton Geneva, on the founding of the six Swiss bishoprics

by a papal bull, had been incorporated “for all time to

come,” after the style of the concordat, with the bishopric of

Freiburg-Lausanne. But the government made no objection when the

newly elected priest of Geneva, Mermillod, a Jesuit of the purest

water, assumed the title and rank of an episcopal vicar-general

for the whole canton. But when in 1864 the pope nominated him

bishop of Hebron _in partibus_ and auxiliary bishop of Geneva, it

made a protest. Nevertheless, when, in the following year, Bishop

Marilley of Freiburg by papal orders transferred to him absolute

power for the canton with personal responsibility, and in 1870

formally renounced all episcopal rights over it, so that the pope

now appointed the auxiliary bishop independent bishop of Geneva,

it was evident a step had been taken that could not be recalled.

The government renewed its protest and made it more vehement, in

consequence of which, in January, 1873, by a papal brief which

was first officially communicated to the government after it

had already been proclaimed from all Catholic pulpits, Mermillod

was appointed apostolic vicar-general with unlimited authority

for Canton Geneva, and the district was thus practically made

a Catholic mission field. A demand made of him by the state

to resign this office and title and divest himself of every

episcopal function, was answered by the declaration that he

would obey God rather than man. The _Bund_ then expelled him

from Federal territory until he would yield to that demand.

From Ferney, where he settled, he unceasingly stirred up the

fire of opposition among the Genevan clergy and people, but the

government decidedly rejected all protests, and by a popular vote

obtained sanction for a Catholic church law which restricted the

rights of the diocesan bishop who might reside in Switzerland,

but not in Canton Geneva, and without consent of the government

could not appoint there any episcopal vicar, and transferred the

election of priests and priests’ vicars to the congregations. The

next elections returned Old Catholics, since the Roman Catholic

population did not acknowledge the law condemned by the pope and

took no part in the voting. By decision of the grand council of

1875 the abolition of all religious corporations was next enacted,

and all religious ceremonies and processions in public streets

and squares forbidden. Leo XIII. made an attempt to still

the conflict, for in 1879 he gave Bishop Marilley the asked

for discharge, and confirmed his elected successor, Cosandry,

as bishop of Freiburg, Lausanne, and Geneva, without however

removing Mermillod from his office of vicar apostolic of Geneva.

But this actually took place after the death of Cosandry in 1882

by the appointment of Mermillod as his successor in 1883. As

he now ceased to style himself a vicar apostolic, the Federal

council removed the decree of banishment as the occasion of

it had ceased, but left each canton free as to whether or not

it should accept him as bishop. Freiburg, Neuenburg, and Vaud

accepted him, and Mermillod had a brilliant entry into Freiburg,

which he made his episcopal residence. But Geneva refused to

recognise him, because it had already officially attached itself

to the Old Catholic Bishop Herzog of Berne, and Mermillod went so

far in his ostentatious love of peace as to declare that he would

not in future enter Genevan territory.

§ 199.3. =Conflict in the Diocese of Basel-Soleure,

1870-1880.=--Bishop Lachat of Soleure, whose diocese comprised

the Cantons Bern, Soleure, Aargau, Basel, Thurgau, Lucerne, and

Zug, had been previously in conflict with the diocesan conference,

_i.e._ the delegates of the seven cantons entrusted with the

oversight of the ecclesiastical administration, on account of

introducing the prohibited handbook on morals of the Jesuit Gury

(§ 191, 9), which ended in the closing of the seminary aided

by the government, and the erection of a new seminary at his

own cost. Although the diocesan conference next forbad the

proclamation of the new Vatican dogma, the bishop threatened

excommunicated Egli in Lucerne in 1871, and Geschwind in

Starrkirch in 1872, who refused. The conference ordered the

withdrawal of this unlawful act, and on the bishop’s refusal,

deposed him in January, 1873. The dissenting cantons, Lucerne and

Zug, indeed declared that after as well as before they would only

recognise Lachat as lawful bishop, the chapter refused to make

the required election of administrator of the diocese, the clergy

in Soleure and in =Bernese Jura= without exception took the

side of the bishop, as also by means of a popular vote the

great majority of Catholics in Thurgau. But amid all this the

conference did not yield in the least. Lachat was compelled by

the police to quit his episcopal residence, and withdrew to a

village in Canton Lucerne. The council of the Bernese government

resolved to recall the refractory clergy of the Jura, took their

names off the civil register and forbad them to exercise any

clerical functions. The outbreaks incited by rebel clergy in

the Jura were put down by the military, sixty-nine clergymen

were exiled, and, so far as the means allowed, replaced by

liberal successors introduced by the Old Catholic priest Herzog

(§ 190, 3) in Olten. In November, 1875, permission to return home

was granted to the exiles in consequence of the revised Federal

constitution of 1874, according to which the banishment of Swiss

burghers was no longer allowed. The Bernese government felt all

the more disposed to carry out this enactment of the National

Council, as it believed that it had obtained the legal means for

checking further rebellion and obstinacy among those who should

return. On January, 1874, by popular vote a law was sanctioned

reorganizing the whole ecclesiastical affairs of the =Canton

Bern=. By it all clergy, Catholic as well as Protestant, are

ranked as civil officers, the choice of whom rests with the

congregations, the tenure of office lasting for six years. All

purely ecclesiastical affairs for the canton rest in the last

instance with a synod of the particular denomination, for the

several congregations with a church committee, both composed of

freely elected lay and clerical members. But if a dispute in a

particular congregation should arise about a synodal decree, the

congregational assembly decides on its validity or non-validity

for the particular congregation. All decrees of higher church

courts and pastorals must have state approval, which must never

be refused on dogmatic grounds. If a congregation splits over any

question, the majority claims the church property and pastor’s

emoluments, etc. And this law was next extended in October 31st,

1875, in the matter of penal law by the so-called Police

Worship Law. It imposes heavy fines up to 1000 francs or a

year’s imprisonment for any clerical agitation against the law,

institutions or enactments of the civil courts, as well as for

every outbreak of hostilities against members of other religious

bodies, refuses to allow any interference of foreign spiritual

superiors without leave granted by government in each particular

case, forbids all processions and religious ceremonies outside

of the fixed church locality, etc. In the same year the first

Catholic Cantonal Synod declared its attachment to the Christian

or Old Catholic church of Switzerland. But it was otherwise

after the newly elected Grand Council of the canton of its

own accord, on September 12th, 1878, granted the returned Jura

clergy complete amnesty for all the past, and on the assumption

of future submission to existing laws of state, recognised

them again eligible for election to spiritual offices which had

previously been denied them. Not only did the Roman Catholic

people regularly take part in elections of priests, church

councils, and synods, undoubtedly with the approval of the new

pope Leo XIII., who had in February addressed a conciliatory

letter to the members of the Federal Council, but also the

extremest of the Jura now submitted without scruple to the new

election required by the law, and won therein for the most part

the majority of votes. In the Catholic Cantonal Synod convened in

Bern, in January, 1880, were found seventy-five Roman Catholics

and only twenty-five Old Catholic deputies. The latter were

naturally defeated in all controversies. The synod declared

that the connexion with the Christian Catholic national bishopric

was annulled, that auricular confession was obligatory, that

marriages of priests were forbidden, etc. Since now the law

assigns the state pay of the priest as well as all the church

property in the case of a split to the majority for the time

being, the inevitable consequence was that Old Catholics of the

Jura district were deprived of all share in these privileges,

and had to make provision for their own support. Also in Canton

=Soleure=, the law that all pastors must be re-elected after

the expiry of six years, came in force in 1872, and then the

thirty-two Roman Catholic clergymen concerned were with only two

exceptions re-elected, while, on the other hand, the Old Catholic

priest Geschwind of Starrkirch was rejected.--But all efforts

to restore the bishopric of Basel-Soleure came to grief over the

person of Bishop Lachat, whom the curia would not give up and the

Federal Council would not again allow, until at last a way out of

the difficulty was found. The canton Tessin, which previously in

church matters belonged to the Italian dioceses of Milan and Como,

was, in 1859, by decree of the Federal Council, detached from

these. But Tessin insisted on the founding of a bishopric of its

own, while the Federal Council wished to join it to the bishopric

of Chur. Thus the matter remained undecided, till in September,

1884, the papal curia came to an understanding with the Federal

Council that Lachat should be appointed vicar-apostolic for

the newly founded bishopric of Tessin, and that to the vacated

bishopric of Basel-Soleure the “learned as well as mild” Provost

Fiala of Soleure should be called. In this way all the cantons

referred to, with the exception of Bern, were won.[552]

§ 199.4. =The Protestant Church in German Switzerland.=--Among

all the German cantons, =Basel= (§ 172, 5), which unweariedly

prosecuted the work of home and foreign missions, fell most

completely under the influence of rationalism and then of the

liberal Protestant theology. While pietism obtained powerful

support and encouragement in its missionary institutions and

movements, and there, though developing itself on Reformed soil,

assumed, in consequence of its manifold connection with Germany,

a colour almost more Lutheran than Reformed, the university by

eminent theological teachers of scientific ability represented

the Mediation school in theology of a predominantly Reformed type.

In the Canton =Zürich=, on the other hand, the advanced theology,

theoretical and practical, obtained an increasing and finally

an almost exclusive mastery in the university and church. But

yet, when in 1839 the Grand Council called Dr. David Strauss

to a theological professorship, the Zürich people rose to a man

against the proposal, the appointment was not enforced, the Grand

Council was overthrown, and Strauss pensioned. The victory and

ascendency of this reaction, however, was not of long continuance.

Theological and ecclesiastical radicalism again won the upper

hand and maintained it unchecked. In the other German cantons the

most diverse theological schools were represented alongside of

one another, yet with steadily increasing advantage to liberal

and radical tendencies. The theological faculty at =Bern=

favoured mainly a liberal mediation theology, and an attempt

of the orthodox party in 1847, to set aside the appointment of

Professor E. Zeller by means of a popular tumult, miscarried.

From 1860 ecclesiastical liberalism prevailed in German

Protestant Switzerland, frequently going the length of

the extremest radicalism and showing its influence even in

the cantonal and synodal legislation. The starting of the

“_Zeitstimmen für d. ref. Schweiz_,” in 1859, by Henry Lang,

who had fled in 1848 from Württemberg to Switzerland, and died

in 1876 as pastor in Zürich, marked an epoch in the history of

the radical liberal movement in Swiss theology. In Fred. Langhans,

since 1876 professor at Bern, he had a zealous comrade in the

fight. During 1864-1866, Langhans published a series of violent

controversial tracts against the pietistic orthodox party in

Switzerland, which zealously prosecuted foreign missions, and in

1866 he founded the _Swiss Reform Union_, while Alb. Bitzius, son

of the writer known as Jer. Gotthelf (§ 174, 8) started as its

organ the “_Reformblätter aus d. bernischen Kirche_,” which was

subsequently amalgamated with the _Zeitstimmem_.--After more or

less violent conflicts with pietistic orthodoxy, still always

pretty strongly represented, especially in the aristocracy, the

emancipation of the schools from the church and the introduction

of obligatory civil marriage were accomplished in most cantons,

even before the revised Federal constitution of 1874 and the

marriage law of 1875 gave to these principles legal sanction

throughout the whole of Switzerland. In almost all Protestant

cantons the re-election or new election to all spiritual offices

every six years was ordained by law, in many the freeing of

the clergy from any creed subscription with the setting aside

of confessional writings as well as of the orthodox liturgy,

hymnbooks and catechisms was also carried, and the withdrawing

of the Apostles’ Creed from public worship and from the baptismal

formula was enjoined. The Basel synod in 1883, by thirty-six to

twenty-seven votes, carried the motion to make baptism no longer

a condition of confirmation; and although the Zürich synod in

1882 still held baptism obligatory for membership in the national

church, the Cantonal Council in 1883, on consulting the law of

the church, overturned this decision by 140 against 19 votes.

§ 199.5. =The Protestant Church in French Switzerland.=--The

French philosophy of the eighteenth century had given to the

Reformed church of =Geneva= a prevailingly rationalistic tendency.

Notwithstanding, or just because of this, Madame Krüdener, in

1814, with her conventicle pietism, found an entrance there,

and won in the young theologian Empaytaz a zealous supporter and

an apostle of conversion preaching. In the next year a wealthy

Englishman, Haldane, appeared there as the apostle of methodistic

piety, and inspired the young pastor Malan with enthusiasm for

the revival mission. Empaytaz and Malan now by speech and writing

charged the national church with defection from the Christian

faith, and won many zealous believers as adherents, especially

among students of theology. The _Vénérable Compagnie_ of the

Geneva clergy, hitherto resting on its lees in rationalistic

quiet, now in 1817 thought it might still the rising storm by

demanding of theological candidates at ordination the vow not to

preach on the two natures in Christ, original sin, predestination,

etc., but thereby they only poured oil on the fire. The adherents

of the daily increasing evangelical movement withdrew from

the national church, founded free independent communities and

_Réunions_ under the banner of the restoration of Calvinistic

orthodoxy, and were by their enemies nicknamed _Momiers_, _i.e._

mummery traders or hypocrites. The government imprisoned and

banished their leaders, while the mob, unchecked, heaped upon

them all manner of abuse. The persecution came to an end in

1830. Thereafter settling down in quiet moderation, it founded

in 1831 the _Société évangélique_, which, in 1832, established

an _Ecole de Théologie_, and became the centre of the Free church

evangelical movement. From that time the _Eglise libre_ of Geneva

has existed unmolested alongside of the _Eglise Nationale_, and

the opposition at first so violent has been moderated on both

sides by the growth of conciliatory and mediating tendencies.

Since 1850, two divergent parties have arisen within the bosom

of the free church itself, which without any serious conflict

continued alongside of one another, until in May, 1883, the

majority of the presbytery resolved to make a peaceful separation,

the stricter forming the congregation of the _Pelisserie_, and

the more liberal that of the _Oratoire_. At the same time a

committee was appointed to draw up a confession upon which both

could unite in lasting fellowship. But when this failed, a formal

and complete separation was agreed upon at the new year.--From

Geneva the Methodist revival spread to =Vaud=. The religious

movement got a footing, especially in Lausanne. The Grand

Council, however, did not allow the contemplated formation of

an independent congregation, and in 1824 forbad all “sectarian”

assemblies, while the mob raged even more wildly than at Geneva

against the “_Momiers_.” The excitement increased when, in 1839,

by decision of the Grand Council, the Helvetic Confession was

abrogated. When in 1845 a revolutionary radical government came

into office at Lausanne, the refusal of many clergymen to read

from the pulpit a political proclamation, caused a thorough

division in the church, for the preachers referred to were in

a body driven out of the national church. A Free church of Vaud

now developed itself alongside of the national church, sorely

oppressed and persecuted by the radical government, and spread

into other Swiss cantons. It owed its freedom from sectarian

narrowness mainly to the influence of the talented and thoroughly

independent Alex. Vinet, who devoted his whole energies and

brilliant eloquence to the interests of religious freedom and

liberty of conscience and to the struggle for the separation

of church and state. Vinet was from 1817 teacher of the French

language and literature in Basel, then from 1837 to 1845

professor of practical theology at Lausanne, but on the

reconstruction of the university he was not re-elected. He died

in 1847.[553]--In the canton =Neuchatel= the State Council in

1873 introduced a law, which granted unconditional liberty of

conscience, freedom in teaching and worship without any sort

of restriction on clergy, teachers and congregations. The Grand

Council by forty-seven votes to forty-six gave it its sanction,

notwithstanding the almost unanimous protest of the evangelical

synod, and refused to appeal to a popular vote. When an appeal

to the Federal Council proved fruitless, somewhere about one half

of the pastors, including the theological professors and all the

students, left the state church, and formed an _Eglise libre_;

while the other half regarded it as their duty to remain in the

national church so long as they were not hindered from preaching

God’s word in purity and simplicity. Both parties had a common

meeting point in the _Union évangélique_, and a law originally

passed in favour of the Old Catholics, which secured to all

seceders a right to the joint use of their respective churches,

proved also of advantage to the Free church.--The canton =Geneva=

issued, in 1874, a Protestant law of worship, which with dogma

and liturgy also threw overboard ordination, and maintained that

the clergy are answerable only to their conscience and their

electors. Yet at the new election of the consistory in 1879,

at the close of the legal term of four years, the evangelical

and moderate party again obtained the supremacy, and a law

introduced by the radical party in the Grand Council, demanding

the withdrawal of the budget of worship and the separation of

church and state, was, on July 4th, 1880, thrown out by universal

popular vote, by a majority of 9,000 to 4,000.

§ 200. HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.

Among the most serious mistakes in the new partition of states at

the Vienna Congress was the combining in one kingdom of the United

Netherlands the provinces of Holland and Belgium, diverse in race,

language, character, and religion. The contagion of French Revolution

of July, 1830, however, caused an outbreak in Brussels, which ended in

the separation of Catholic Belgium from the predominantly Protestant

Holland. Belgium has since then been the scene of unceasing and

changeful conflicts between the liberal and ultramontane parties, whose

previous combination was now completely shattered. And while, on the

other hand, in the Reformed state church of Holland, theological studies,

leaning upon German science, have taken a liberal and even radical

destructive course, the not inconsiderable Roman Catholic population has

fallen, under Jesuit leading, more and more into bigoted obscurantism.

§ 200.1. =The United Netherlands.=--The constitution of the

new kingdom created in 1814 guaranteed unlimited freedom to all

forms of worship and complete equality of all citizens without

distinction of religious confession. Against this the Belgian

episcopate protested with bishop Maurice von Broglie, of Ghent,

at their head, who refused, in 1817, the prayers of the church

for the heretical crown princess and the _Te Deum_ for the

newborn heir to the throne. As he went so far as to excite

the Catholic people on all occasions against the Protestant

government, the angry king, William I., summoned him to answer

for his conduct before the court of justice. But he eluded

inquiry by flight to France, and as guilty of high treason

was sentenced to death, which did not prevent him from his

exile unweariedly fanning the flames of rebellion. The number

of cloisters grew from day to day and also the multitude of

clerical schools and seminaries, in which the Catholic youth

was trained up in the principles of the most violent fanaticism.

The government in 1825 closed the seminaries, expelled Jesuit

teachers, forbad attendance at Jesuit schools abroad, and founded

a college at Louvain, in which all studying for the church were

obliged to pass through a philosophical curriculum. The common

struggle for maintaining the liberty of instruction promised by

the constitution made political radicalism and ultramontanism

confederates, and the government, intimidated by this combination,

agreed, in a concordat with the pope in 1827, to modify the

obligatory into a facultative attendance at Louvain College.

The inevitable consequence of this was the speedy and complete

decay of the college. But the confederacy of the radicals

and ultramontanes continued, directing itself against other

misdeeds of the government, and was not broken up until in 1830

it attained its object by the disjunction of Belgium and Holland.