The European Outlook

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 20, 1874

The European Outlook.

The following is translated from a letter dated August 3, written by one who occupies a very high station in the political, literary, and religious sphere of Europe—a man of long experience, extensive knowledge, and sound observation:—

“In England, ritualism threatens the Established Church. Should a schism take place, which is most likely, a great part of the Episcopalians would soon after be thrown into the arms of the Roman church. The fear of such a revolution paralyzes the hands of statesmen, who dare not oppose a dam to the encroachment of the inner foe, and who leave the matter to laymen and the parishes. Bismarck is waging with the Roman clergy a war by far more dangerous than that against France. The strongest power in Europe is wrestling hand in hand with the Roman church, which commands her battalions, and maneuvers them as one man. Much doubt must be entertained as to whether the people of Bavaria, the Rhenish provinces, Westphalia, and Silesia, will ever be detached from their clergy, and should I be mistaken, would it be beneficial to the gospel? Bismarck encroaches on the rights of the church by closing the seminaries, which, he maintains, is necessary, on the ground that any government is impossible with the Syllabus. “This proceeding gives an immense power to the government in Switzerland. These have united with the view of destroying the church, which is to be broken up in each canton into a multitude of parishes, which, isolated as they will be and are, will have no resisting power. The struggle toward that direction has begun in every canton. In France, Henry V. will ascend the throne; the Ultramontane fanaticism will elevate him in order to persecute, every way and every where, both Protestants and free-thinkers. The fanatic party has lost all control over itself. It multiplies false miracles and solemn processions; by means of a hypocritical piety it galvanizes the masses, both ignorant and superstitious. It will be successful. But the Internationals will soon after throw down Henry V., whose reign will then be very short, and then will commence the days of horror, when the blood of the Ultramontanes will flow in torrents. Italy is marching on pretty well. The only trouble with her is her enormous taxation. As to the pope’s ever recovering his temporal power, this is out of the question. Spain presents a spectacle never witnessed before, viz., that of a society in such a state of complete dissolution that no one thinks about stopping or conquering her.”—N. Y. Witness.