as an attack upon faith.  The emperor sustained his minister.  The organ of the infallible party threatened the emperor with the opposition of all good Catholics, and told him that, in a contention with the pope, systems of government can and must change.  It was now plain to every one that the question had become, “Who is to be master in the state, the government or the Roman Church?  It is plainly impossible for men to live under two governments, one of which declares to be wrong what the other commands.  If the government will not submit to the Roman Church, the two are enemies.”  A conflict was thus forced upon Prussia by Rome—­a conflict in which the latter, impelled by her antagonism to modern civilization, is clearly the aggressor.

Action of the Prussian government.  The government, now recognizing its antagonist, defended itself by abolishing the Catholic department in the ministry of Public Worship.  This was about midsummer, 1871.  In the following November the Imperial Parliament passed a law that ecclesiastics abusing their office, to the disturbance of the public peace, should be criminally punished.  And, guided by the principle that the future belongs to him to whom the school belongs, a movement arose for the purpose of separating the schools from the Church.

The church A political power.  The Jesuit party was extending and strengthening an organization all over Germany, based on the principle that state legislation in ecclesiastical matters is not binding.  Here was an act of open insurrection.  Could the government allow itself to be intimidated?  The Bishop of Ermeland declared that he would not obey the laws of the state if they touched the Church.  The government stopped the payment of his salary; and, perceiving that there could be no peace so long as the Jesuits were permitted to remain in the country, their expulsion was resolved on, and carried into effect.  At the close of 1872 his Holiness delivered an allocution, in which he touched on the “persecution of the Church in the German Empire,” and asserted that the Church alone has a right to fix the limits between its domain and that of the state—­a dangerous and inadmissible principle, since under the term morals the Church comprises all the relations of men to each other, and asserts that whatever does not assist her oppresses her.  Hereupon, a few days subsequently (January 9, 1873), four laws were brought forward by the government:  1.  Regulating the means by which a person might sever his connection with the Church; 2.  Restricting the Church in the exercise of ecclesiastical punishments; 3.  Regulating the ecclesiastical power of discipline, forbidding bodily chastisement, regulating fines and banishments granting the privilege of an appeal to the Royal Court of Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs, the decision of which is final; 4.  Ordaining the preliminary education and appointment of priests.  They must have had a satisfactory education, passed a public examination conducted by the state, and have a knowledge of philosophy, history, and German literature.  Institutions refusing to be superintended by the state are to be closed.