Will There Be a Religious War in Europe?
THE complications in the politics of Europe are becoming very grave. France, burning to avenge her humiliation, seeks for the aid of the church. The church has been humbled with her by the destruction of the temporal power of the papacy. It is natural for the two heads to join hands, and they have joined hands already. The pilgrimages of Frenchmen to sacred shrines have a political as well as a religious meaning; Rome and France are inseparably connected in their devotions. But the France thus bound to Rome is France with a republic destroyed and a monarchy restored. The religious revival means a political reaction. Already French pilgrims have appealed to the Pope to direct them in the path traced by the Syllabus. France seems to turn back on her history since 1830, and to assume, under a Bourbon monarch, the championship of the church. The taking of such a position by France implies the taking of a position equally grave by Italy. The pope and Italian king are irreconcilable. Assured by the moral support of the faithful, and by the abundant contributions poured into his treasury, Pius becomes daily more defiant. Excommunication of the king and his ministry follows upon excommunication. In every brief or allocution, the pope pours out the story of his griefs. He studies to keep up the irritation between the government and himself, and succeeds. There cannot forever be two hostile powers in the same city. If these cannot be reconciled, one of them must go; that is inevitable. Nor is Germany all this while asleep. Her position is one of watchfulness. The conflict now going on between the empire and the church grows continually more bitter. Bishops defy the law, and are mulcted by the courts; priestly seminaries are closing, but still the church will not yield. The claim of the old Catholics to the possession of church benefices must soon come up for adjudication. The parties grapple each other even more closely, and soon the struggle must be one of life or death. Does all this mean war? If France should be so insane as to restore the Bourbon monarchy, there is no telling what may come. One thing is certain, that if the church stirs up the war that it may recover its lost prestige, it will itself meet a speedy doom. Having then declared its undying hostility to the age, it must take the consequences.—Methodist.