Four Distinguished Men Predict a European War.
FATHER HYACINTHE and Victor Hugo have joined Mr. Disraeli and the pope in prophesying the approach of a tremendous war, which shall rage all over Europe and elsewhere. Mr. Disraeli predicted that the war would be a religious one, and that it would convulse the globe. The pope described the impending struggle as one between the armies of the Archangel Michael and the hosts of Satan. According to the prognostication of Father Hyacinthe, the coming war will be three-fold, and will include a fearful conflict between popular rights and the power of capital, in which the combatants will tear each other to pieces. According to the vaticination of Victor Hugo, the great and inevitable encounter is to be “between two principles, republic and empire.” He says that “we have before us—in Europe—a series of catastrophies which engender each other, and which must be exhausted;” that “we can get a glimpse of peace only across a shock of arms;” that “between the present and the future there is a fatal interposition;” that “kings must expiate their crimes;” and that the separation of the people will result in federation and fraternity. He thus closes his prophecy of the “Universal Fatherland:” “The solution is this: The United States of Europe. The end will be for the people—that is to say, for liberty and for God—that is to say—for peace.” There must surely be something in the atmosphere of Europe that leads so many prophets to prophesy the approach of war—war about religion, republicanism, and the rights of human nature.