They not only do not agree with, but they do
not even realize, Is it only a heretic publicist, eager for evidence against the the idea familiar to many minds on the Continent, and always faith which restrains publicists, who has collected and exag- present to that of Napoleon, that the character of the next gerated these stories of Papal decay ? Nay, we have but con- Pope may affect the very existence of the Pontifical power, densed the ideas of the monarch whose single will at this that the organized system which has been reared on the basis moment protects the Roman system ; who is the only aggres- of the Catholic faith is at this moment, and has been for sive force at this moment at the Propaganda's disposal, and years, in the most serious peril. So enormous have been the who is doubting now and always whether it would not pay losses sustained by the Papacy within the last thirty years, his dynasty better to break at once and for ever with the that but for the protection of France it might become suddenly Papacy. Let those who doubt read the last section of M.. powerless, and France, if M. Chevalier is as trustworthy as Chevalier's last pamphlet, compare it with the Emperor's own usual, is imposing conditions of friendship nearly as fatal as writings, and comprehend the extent of the menace which her hostility could be. the Emperor therein conveys. There they will find, unless The power which to most Englishmen seems so great, and we misread entirely the mode in which the Emperor conveys to Evangelicals so terrible, appears to many minds on the his thoughts to the world, that Louis Napoleon believes the ideas Continent tottering to its base. Unless the Papacy claims to which are prevailing in Europe and the ideas which govern guide and sway all Christendom, its existence has no meaning, the Papacy to be absolutely at variance, that the one set of and if events march on in the direction they seem to be follow- thoughts will totally destroy the other, that reconciliation is ing not only will it not rule all Christendom, but it will not impossible unless the theolooic authority will accept the civil be obeyed by a section of any appreciable extent. Every dogmas. Opinion must be left free, persecution in all forms Power now visibly growing is either anti-Papal or based upon must cease, miracles must cease to be invented,—there is principles which are fatal not, indeed, necessarily to the whole chapter against Our Lady of La Salette,—the claim to Catholic faith, but to Ultramontane authority. Already infallibility must be concealed, and the Papacy must become three of the five great Powers which avowedly regulate a purely spiritual Power. In other words, it must as an or- Europe are openly anti-Catholic, two of them as bitterly so ganized despotism over thought cease to exist, or—well, at all as if they had just seceded. Neither England nor Russia, the events the Emperor will declare war on it in Mexico. There one from religious feeling and the other from a dynastic the struggle between him and Rome, concealed in Europe policy, will ever make terms with Rome, and though Prussia partly by the tact of the Roman Court, partly by the Vol- is a little less hostile its influence can never be reckoned tairian contempt with which Paris regards all priests, rages on by the Camarilla' except when Berlin happens for some openly, and can end only in the victory of one side or the momentary end to be in accord with Vienna. The most other. He himself, through M. Chevalier, acknowledges that powerful of all new States, the American Union, though the result is doubtful, that he may be beaten, that Rome in without a State religion, is at heart hostile to Catholicism Mexico governs the masses, that if Rome is finally to declare even as a faith—it is the only belief candidates for the Presi- war battle in Mexico will be too costly, and he may be forced dency have ever had to deny—and its political organization to retire, leaving the country in anarchy worse than that is of itself fatal to that " discipline " and "authority," and which he has for the hour suspended. But if he is forced, the "loving obedience" which the Papacy hopes to enforce. battle may be transferred to Europe, and the temporal power Wherever men can say what they will, and write as they triumphant in Mexico may be placed under secular rule in please, and read what seems to them interesting, schism is Rome. So long as Pio Nono reigns the Emperor will not sooner or later as certain as difference of opinion. On the abandon the hope of a possible compromise to be found in the other hand, the great Catholic nations, so far from advancing, wisdom, or moderation, or patriotic feeling of his next sue- have declined till, with the exception of France, they are cessor ; but there is a limit to patience with a sovereign fifty- scarcely living influences, have certainly no propagandist force, six years of age. Should the next Pope be a Sanfedist, or a Spain has sunk to the third rank ; Austria, though still strong, man devoted to Hildebrand's ideas, or even a man incapable is powerful only because she is giving up the ideas which made of arranging a compromise between the lay and the her acceptable to Rome ; Poland has disappeared ; the Catholic Pontifical power, Napoleon may commence the most dan- population of Ireland is disappearing ; the bishoprics on the gerous struggle through which the Papacy has ever yet Rhine are ruled by a Protestant House ; Bavaria has entered passed. That power has a trick of surviving; it out- the path of scientific inquiry, and the single State in Europe lived the Hohenstauffens, and may hope to see also the which is at once new, and great, and Catholic, is at open and end of the Bonapartes ; but after all it did not outlive Eliza- irreconcileable war with Rome, disbelieves in infallibility, and beth in England, or the House of Orange in Holland, and declares that ecclesiastics must obey a law made by civilians should the Emperor be driven to war may yet lose over the who need not as a matter of course belong to the faith. remainder of Christendom the power it has forfeited over Throughout the world, indeed, the Papacy wins the game Northern Europe. Montalembert is an advocate for Catho- only in Belgium and Spain, and even there its authority is Rehm, but the Ultramontane theory and Montalembert can- denied by sections of the population whom its utmost strength not co-exist, and if the next Pope is another Pius it is with is taxed to keep from open revolt. Two facts, indeed, will thrones exclusively occupied by Montalemberts that the Papacy reveal the full extent of its weakness. There is not a coun- may have to contend. The succession to the chair of St. try in Europe save Belgium and Austria where the whole Peter, one perceives, will not this time involve merely a strength of the Papacy, exerted with almost frantic energy, change of persons. has availed to avert the secularization of the mass of Church lands. There is not one, Austria included, in which the THE WEAKNESS OF THE OPPOSITION. Papacy can claim a rapidly increasing population. In AsiarE evidences of growing weakness in the Administration the Portuguese adhere to their concordat with a pertinacity are becoming, as we tried to show last week, all but which makes them practically independent, and though irresistible; but yet the Ministry lasts, for the Opposition the Philippines are still Spanish, and the agents of the which seems so dangerous is almost the weaker of the two. Propaganda are protected in Anam, still English autho- With every advantage in its favour, except a cause, numbers rity rules India, and English influence dominates China, and eagerness, discipline and youth, the right of choosing its and the future in those regions belongs to a colony in point of attack, and the power of selecting the most favourable which Catholics may be numerous but Ultramontanism moment, the Conservative army still halts, expending its no way in Algeria, while Protestant Europe is filling _TOPICS OJLi' 'HIE DAY. up the Cape, and in America every. State south of the Rio Grande has quarrelled more or less a r outrance with the LOUIS NAPOLEON AND THE PAPACY. Papacy and its agents, quarrelled till Pius himself has thundered THE apparently excessive importance attached by intelligent out allocutions which are only removed by their technical Ultramontanes to the health of the present Pope some- form from sentences of excommunication. Every one now what surprises Englishmen. They are so accustomed to think tries the clergy before civil tribunals, seizes or taxes Church of the Papacy as an unchanging, usually aggressive, and lands, and insists upon civil sanction as requisite to the always formidable Power, that the life of a single Pope seems validity of Papal bulls. If it were not for the arm of Napo- to them scarcely more important to the Papacy than the life leon, the dominion of the Papacy, the region within which of a King to one of the more ancient dynasties. Any change the Church is an organization as powerful as the State and all must involve new chances of danger to any old institution, faiths save one proscribed, would be reduced to Spain. A tide but the balance of probabilities is that Clement will succeed which never attacks but never ceases to rise threatens the Pius as Pius succeeded Gregory, and the Papacy remain, Papal Church as a great organization " with a gradual sub- except in small details of government, entirely unaffected. mergence." They not only do not agree with, but they do not even realize, Is it only a heretic publicist, eager for evidence against the the idea familiar to many minds on the Continent, and always faith which restrains publicists, who has collected and exag- present to that of Napoleon, that the character of the next gerated these stories of Papal decay ? Nay, we have but con- Pope may affect the very existence of the Pontifical power, densed the ideas of the monarch whose single will at this that the organized system which has been reared on the basis moment protects the Roman system ; who is the only aggres- of the Catholic faith is at this moment, and has been for sive force at this moment at the Propaganda's disposal, and years, in the most serious peril. So enormous have been the who is doubting now and always whether it would not pay losses sustained by the Papacy within the last thirty years, his dynasty better to break at once and for ever with the that but for the protection of France it might become suddenly Papacy. Let those who doubt read the last section of M.. powerless, and France, if M. Chevalier is as trustworthy as Chevalier's last pamphlet, compare it with the Emperor's own usual, is imposing conditions of friendship nearly as fatal as writings, and comprehend the extent of the menace which her hostility could be. the Emperor therein conveys. There they will find, unless The power which to most Englishmen seems so great, and we misread entirely the mode in which the Emperor conveys to Evangelicals so terrible, appears to many minds on the his thoughts to the world, that Louis Napoleon believes the ideas Continent tottering to its base. Unless the Papacy claims to which are prevailing in Europe and the ideas which govern guide and sway all Christendom, its existence has no meaning, the Papacy to be absolutely at variance, that the one set of and if events march on in the direction they seem to be follow- thoughts will totally destroy the other, that reconciliation is ing not only will it not rule all Christendom, but it will not impossible unless the theolooic authority will accept the civil be obeyed by a section of any appreciable extent. Every dogmas. Opinion must be left free, persecution in all forms Power now visibly growing is either anti-Papal or based upon must cease, miracles must cease to be invented,—there is principles which are fatal not, indeed, necessarily to the whole chapter against Our Lady of La Salette,—the claim to Catholic faith, but to Ultramontane authority. Already infallibility must be concealed, and the Papacy must become three of the five great Powers which avowedly regulate a purely spiritual Power. In other words, it must as an or- Europe are openly anti-Catholic, two of them as bitterly so ganized despotism over thought cease to exist, or—well, at all as if they had just seceded. Neither England nor Russia, the events the Emperor will declare war on it in Mexico. There one from religious feeling and the other from a dynastic the struggle between him and Rome, concealed in Europe policy, will ever make terms with Rome, and though Prussia partly by the tact of the Roman Court, partly by the Vol- is a little less hostile its influence can never be reckoned tairian contempt with which Paris regards all priests, rages on by the Camarilla' except when Berlin happens for some openly, and can end only in the victory of one side or the momentary end to be in accord with Vienna. The most other. He himself, through M. Chevalier, acknowledges that powerful of all new States, the American Union, though the result is doubtful, that he may be beaten, that Rome in without a State religion, is at heart hostile to Catholicism Mexico governs the masses, that if Rome is finally to declare even as a faith—it is the only belief candidates for the Presi- war battle in Mexico will be too costly, and he may be forced dency have ever had to deny—and its political organization to retire, leaving the country in anarchy worse than that is of itself fatal to that " discipline " and "authority," and which he has for the hour suspended. But if he is forced, the "loving obedience" which the Papacy hopes to enforce. battle may be transferred to Europe, and the temporal power Wherever men can say what they will, and write as they triumphant in Mexico may be placed under secular rule in please, and read what seems to them interesting, schism is Rome. So long as Pio Nono reigns the Emperor will not sooner or later as certain as difference of opinion. On the abandon the hope of a possible compromise to be found in the other hand, the great Catholic nations, so far from advancing, wisdom, or moderation, or patriotic feeling of his next sue- have declined till, with the exception of France, they are cessor ; but there is a limit to patience with a sovereign fifty- scarcely living influences, have certainly no propagandist force, six years of age. Should the next Pope be a Sanfedist, or a Spain has sunk to the third rank ; Austria, though still strong, man devoted to Hildebrand's ideas, or even a man incapable is powerful only because she is giving up the ideas which made of arranging a compromise between the lay and the her acceptable to Rome ; Poland has disappeared ; the Catholic Pontifical power, Napoleon may commence the most dan- population of Ireland is disappearing ; the bishoprics on the gerous struggle through which the Papacy has ever yet Rhine are ruled by a Protestant House ; Bavaria has entered passed. That power has a trick of surviving; it out- the path of scientific inquiry, and the single State in Europe lived the Hohenstauffens, and may hope to see also the which is at once new, and great, and Catholic, is at open and end of the Bonapartes ; but after all it did not outlive Eliza- irreconcileable war with Rome, disbelieves in infallibility, and beth in England, or the House of Orange in Holland, and declares that ecclesiastics must obey a law made by civilians should the Emperor be driven to war may yet lose over the who need not as a matter of course belong to the faith. remainder of Christendom the power it has forfeited over Throughout the world, indeed, the Papacy wins the game Northern Europe. Montalembert is an advocate for Catho- only in Belgium and Spain, and even there its authority is Rehm, but the Ultramontane theory and Montalembert can- denied by sections of the population whom its utmost strength not co-exist, and if the next Pope is another Pius it is with is taxed to keep from open revolt. Two facts, indeed, will thrones exclusively occupied by Montalemberts that the Papacy reveal the full extent of its weakness. There is not a coun- may have to contend. The succession to the chair of St. try in Europe save Belgium and Austria where the whole Peter, one perceives, will not this time involve merely a
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