It seems pretty celtain that, much as Prince Bismarck wished
for a modes vivendi with Rome, the folly of his Roman opponents and the bigotry of his Liberal supporters, have pretty well re- moved the hope of all understanding into the far distance. Prince Bismarck's paper, the Provincial Currespondenz, has inserted a reply to the Pope's foolish wish for a stone from Heaven to break "the feet of the Colossus," which seems very like an official declaration that the time for conciliation is past, and that open war with Rome is declared. In it the official organ declares that in repelling the attacks of Rome, "the German Government will not only have to punish individual offenders living under its own jurisdiction, but will also have to remember that the ecclesiastical movement in this country is connected with foreign interests adverse to our own, and that it is opposed to the position and national independence of Germany. Whatever we do, we shall henceforth remember that our adversaries aim at smashing the feet of the Colossus." The Pope could hardly have expected a differ- ent reply ; at the same time, the German Empire could hardly have expected, except from that dissimulative worldly wisdom of which the Curia seems to have forgotten the tradition, that Rome would fail to accept publicly the challenge which had been so publicly thrown down. The history of the thing seems to have been that the " Particularista" of Bavaria, who were also Ultra- montanes, first set up the cry against the Empire, out of Particu- larist motives ; that Berlin took this up, and, stimulated by Liberal haters of Catholicism, chose to regard it as the work of Rome, and then that Rome in her turn resented the attacks made upon her at Berlin. Now it seems likely to end in persecution, or something very like it, and persecution, unless extremely thorough, is apt to play into the Church's hands.
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