DISESTABLISHMENT IN FRANCE.
By Editor
THE following setting forth of what has been accomplished by recent legislation in France, we take from the British Weekly: In the first words of the Bill [presented by M. Grunebaum-Ballin, Minister of Public Worship] the Republic guarantees liberty of conscience, with complete freedom of public worship. M. Briand reminds us that this marks a step onward in the path of Liberalism, for certain restrictions have hitherto hampered the work of all religious bodies. He also says that as disputes must inevitably arise in the working of the Act, the magistrates will understand from this declaratory clause placed at the head of it, that they must seek the solution most favorable to liberty of conscience and freedom of worship. Next follows the vital section on which the whole Act depends—the declaration that the Republic neither recognizes, nor pays, nor supports any form of worship. All expenses connected with the exercise of public worship will disappear after January 1 from the budgets of the state and the communes. The Ministry of Public Worship will be suppressed. The state, as M. Grunebaum-Ballin remarks, will henceforth keep within its own sphere, which concerns the things of earth alone. "All that lies above or outside this earthly life, all things supernatural and divine, in other words the essential elements in every religion, in every worship, in every metaphysic, are beyond its ken. The state is not hostile or indifferent to these things; it knows nothing of them. Its kingdom is of this world and this world alone." That appears to be a full and complete separation of church and state; but France is an overwhelmingly Catholic country, and it is certain that the separation of the Catholic Church from a state composed almost wholly of Catholics is not a Catholic ideal. Apparently a telling blow for genuine religious freedom has been struck in France; but they who know the policy of the Church of Rome know full well that she will never permit that condition of things to persist. It is not at all improbable that one day the head of that church will speak to the laity of France in every department; and when she does, that laity will respond and do her bidding.