Church History Part 16

12. _Resumption on both sides of Conciliatory Measures, 1885-1886._-The next subject of negotiation with the curia was the re-inst.i.tution of the archiepiscopal see of Posen-Gnesen. In March, 1884, the pope had nominated Cardinal Ledochowski secretary of the committee on pet.i.tions, in which capacity he had to remain in Rome. He now declared himself willing to accept Ledochowski's resignation of the archbishopric if the Prussian government would allow a successor who would possess the confidence of the holy see as well as of the Polish inhabitants of the diocese. But of the three n.o.ble Polish chauvinists submitted by the Vatican the government could accept none. Since further no agreement could be reached on the question of the bishop's obligation to make notification and the state's right to protest, the negotiations were for a long time at a standstill, and were repeatedly on the point of being broken off. But from the middle of 1885, a conciliatory movement gained power, through the counsels of the more moderate party among the cardinals. Archbishop Melchers, who lived as an exile in Maestricht, was called to Rome, and as a reward for his a.s.sistance was made cardinal, and the pope consecrated as his successor in the archbishopric of Cologne, Bishop Krementz of Ermeland (Par. 2), who also was acknowledged by the Prussian government and introduced to Cologne on December 15th, 1885, with great pomp, with 20,000 torches and twenty bands of music. After a long list of candidates had been set aside by one side and the other, some here, some there, the pope at last fell from his demand for one of Polish nationality, and in March, 1886, appointed to the vacant see Julius Dinder, dean of Konigsberg, a German by nation but speaking the Polish language.-Meanwhile at other points advance was made in the peaceful, yea, even friendly, relations between the pope and the Prussian government. The diplomatist Leo showed his admiring regard for the diplomatist Bismarck by sending him a valuable oil-painting of himself by a Munich master, and the latter astonished the world by making the pope umpire in a threatening conflict with Spain on the possession of the Caroline islands. His decision on the main question was indeed in favour of Spain, but not unimportant concessions were also made to Germany. The pope sent the prince two Latin poems as _pretium affectionis_, and conferred upon him, the first Protestant that had ever been so honoured, at the close of 1885 or beginning of 1886, the highest papal order, the insignia of the Order of Christ, with brilliants, after the cardinal secretary of state Jacobini as president of the papal court of arbitration had been rewarded with the Prussian order of the Black Eagle, and the other members of the court with other high Prussian orders; and at the end of April, 1886, the German emperor sent the pope himself thanks for his mediation, with an artistic and costly Pectoral (-- 59, 7) worth 10,000 marks.-The government had, meanwhile, on February 15th, 1886, brought in a new proposal of revision of church polity, the fourth, and in order to secure the advice of a distinguished representative of the Prussian episcopate, called Bishop Kopp of Fulda to the House of Peers. But as his demands for concessions, suggested to him, not by the pope, but by the Centre, went far beyond what was proposed, they were for the most part decidedly opposed by the minister of wors.h.i.+p and rejected by the house.

The law confirmed by the king on May 24th, 1886, made the following changes: Complete abolition of the examination in general culture; freeing of the seminaries recognised by the minister as suitable for clerical training, as well as faculties established in universities, seminaries and gymnasia from any special state inspection (as laid down in the May Laws), and subjecting such to the common laws affecting all similar educational inst.i.tutions. Removal of restrictions requiring ecclesiastical disciplinary procedure to be only before German ecclesiastical courts; Abolition of the Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs and transference of its functions partly to the ministry of wors.h.i.+p, which now as court of appeal in matters of church discipline dealt only with those cases which entailed a loss or reduction of official income, partly to the Berlin supreme court, which has jurisdiction in case of a breach of the law of the state by a church officer as well as in case of a refusal to fulfil the oath of obedience; The discretionary enactments of the government of 1880 (Par.

10) are again enforced and the modifications of these in Article 6 of that law are extended to all other inst.i.tutions engaged on the home propaganda; All reading of private ma.s.ses and dispensing of sacraments are no longer subjected to the infliction of penalties.-Some weeks before royal sanction was given to this law, Cardinal Jacobini had, at the instance of the pope, expressed his profound satisfaction with the success of the advice in the House of Peers, as also particularly at the prospect of other concessions promised by the government. In an official communication to the president of the House of Deputies, he proposed the addition that the notification of new appointments to vacant pastorates should begin from that date. In August there followed, on the part of the government, the hitherto refused dispensation for those trained by the Jesuits in Rome and Innsbruck, and in November, with consent of the minister of public wors.h.i.+p, the re-opening of the episcopal seminaries at Fulda and Treves.

13. _Definitive Conclusion of Peace, 1887._-In February, 1887, the state journal published a new form of oath for the bishops, sanctioned by royal ordinance, in which the obligation hitherto enforced "to conscientiously observe the laws of the state," was omitted, and the a.s.severation added, "that I have not, by the oath, taken to his Holiness the pope and the church, undertaken any obligation which can be in conflict with the oath of fidelity as a subject of his Royal Majesty."-The promised fifth revision, meanwhile accepted by the pope in its several particulars and acknowledged by him as sufficient basis for a definitive peace, was on February 13th, 1887, contrary to precedent, first laid before the House of Peers. Bishop Kopp proposed a great number of changes and additions, of which several of a very important nature were accepted. The most important provisions of this law, which was pa.s.sed on _April 29th, 1887_, are the following: The obligation on bishops to make notification applies only to the conferring of a spiritual office for life, and the right of protest by the state must rely upon a basis named and belonging to the civil domain; All state compulsion to lifelong reinstatement in a vacant office is unlawful; The previously insured immunity for reading ma.s.s and dispensing the sacraments is now applied to members of all spiritual orders again allowed in the kingdom; The duty of ecclesiastical superiors to communicate disciplinary decisions to the Chief President is given up.

Those orders and congregations which devote themselves to aiding in pastoral work, the administering of Christian benevolence, and, on Bishop Kopp's motion, those which engage in educational work in girl's high schools and similar inst.i.tutions, as well as those which lead a private life, are to be allowed and are to be also restored to the enjoyment of their original possessions; The training of missionaries for foreign work and the erection of inst.i.tutions for this purpose are to be permitted to the privileged orders and congregations.-Bishop Kopp, and also the pope, with lively grat.i.tude, accepted these ordinances as making the reconciliation an accomplished fact; but they also expressed the hope that the success of this peaceful arrangement will be such as shall lead to further important concessions to the rightful claims of the Catholic church. After this conclusive revision, besides the extremely contracted obligation of notification by the bishops and the almost completely insignificant right of civil protest, there remain of the _Kulturkampf_ laws only: the _Kanzelparagraph_, the Jesuit and the exile enactments (all of them imperial and not Prussian laws), and the abrogation of the three articles of the Prussian const.i.tution (Par. 8). Insignificant as the concessions of the papal curia may seem in comparison to the almost complete surrender of the Prussian government, it can hardly be said that Bismarck has been untrue to his promise not to go to Canossa. With him the main thing ever was to restore within the German empire the peace that was threatened by thunderclouds gathering from day to day in the political horizon in east and west, and thus, as also by nurturing and developing the military forces, to set aside the danger of war from without. But for this end, the sovereignty of the Centre, which hampered him on every side, allying itself with all elements in the Chamber and Reichstag hostile to the government and the empire, must be broken. But this was possible only if he succeeded in breaking up the unhallowed artificial amalgamation of Catholic church interests for which the Centre contended with the political tendencies of the party hostile to the empire by recognising those interests in a manner satisfactory to the pope and to all right-minded loyal German Catholics, and so estranging them from the political schemes of the leader of the Centre. This indeed would have scarcely been possible with Pius IX., but with the much clearer and sharper Leo XIII. there was hope of success. And the statesmanlike insight and self-denial of the prince succeeded, though at first only in a limited measure, and this was a much more important gain for the state than the papal concessions of episcopal notification and the state's right of protest.-When in the beginning of 1887, at the same time that the fear was greatest of a war with France and Russia, the renewal and enlargement of the military budget, hitherto for seven years, was necessary, and its refusal by the Centre and its adherents was regarded as certain, Bismarck prevailed on the pope to intervene in his favour. The pope did it in a confidential communication to the president of the Centre, in which he urged acceptance of the septennial act in the Reichstag for the security of the Fatherland and the conserving of peace on the continent, expressly referring to the friendly and promising att.i.tude of the imperial government to the papacy and the Catholic church. But the president kept the communication secret from the members of his party, and they continued strenuously and unanimously opposed to the Septennate. The Reichstag was consequently dissolved. The pope now published this correspondence with the leaders of the Centre, thirty-seven Rhenish n.o.bles separated from the party, and the new elections to the Reichstag were mainly favourable to the government. Although the Deputy Windthorst as chief leader of the Prussian _Ecclesia militans_ had on every occasion protested his and his party's profoundest reverence for and conditional submission to every expression of the papal will, and shortly before (-- 186, 3) had styled the pope "Lord of the whole world," he opposed himself, as he had done on the Septennate question, on the fifth revision of the ecclesiastical laws, to the will of the infallible pope by publis.h.i.+ng a memorial proving the absolute impossibility of accepting this proposed law, which, however, this time also he failed to carry out.

14. _Independent Procedure of the other German Governments._-(1) _Bavaria's_ energy in the struggle against ultramontanism (Par. 4) soon cooled. Yet in 1873 the Redemptorists were instructed to discontinue their missionary work (-- 186, 6), and all theological students were forbidden to attend the Jesuit German College at Rome (-- 151, 1). Also in 1875, the jubilee processions organized by the episcopate without obtaining the royal _Placet_ were inhibited.-(2) _Wurttemberg_, which since 1862 possessed more civil jurisdiction over Catholic church affairs and exercised it more freely (-- 196, 6) than Prussia laid claim to in 1873, could all the more easily maintain ecclesiastical peace, since its peaceful Bishop Hefele (-- 189, 3, 4; 191, 7) avoided all occasion of conflict and strife.-(3) In _Baden_ the _Kulturkampf_ that had here previously broken out (-- 196, 2) was continued all the more keenly. In 1873 public teaching, holding of missions and a.s.sisting in pastoral work, had been refused to all religious orders and fraternities. But the main blow, followed by the comprehensive church legislation of February 19th, 1874, which closed all boys' seminaries and episcopal inst.i.tutions, allowed none to hold a clerical office or discharge any ecclesiastical function without a three years' course at a German university and a state examination in general culture (-- 196, 2), strictly forbad all influencing of public elections by the clergy, and made deposition follow the second conviction of a church officer. The expedient hitherto resorted to of appointing mere deputy priests so as to avoid the examination, was consequently frustrated. The rapid increase of vacant pastorates, after five years' opposition, at last moved the episcopal curia to sue for peace at the hands of the government, and when the latter showed an exceedingly conciliatory spirit, the curia with consent of the pope in February, 1880, withdrew its prohibition of the request for dispensation from the state examination, and the government now on its part with the Chambers pa.s.sed a law, by which the obligation to undergo this examination was abolished, and the certificate of the exit examination, three years' attendance at a German university, and diligent attention to at least three courses of the philosophical faculty, was held as sufficient evidence of general culture.

The Baden _Kulturkampf_ seems to have been definitely concluded by the election and recognition of Dr. Orbin to the see of Freiburg, vacant for fourteen years, when he without scruple took the oath of allegiance. This, however, did not check, far less put an end to the tumults of the fanatical ultramontane Irredenta.

15.-(4) _Hesse-Darmstadt_ in 1874 followed the example of Prussia and Baden in excluding all spiritual orders from teaching in public schools, and on April 23rd, 1875, issued five ecclesiastical laws which were directed to restoring under penal sanctions the state of the law, which before 1850 (-- 196, 4) had been unquestioned. Essentially in harmony with the Prussian May Laws of 1873 and 1874, they go beyond these in several particulars. All clergymen receiving appointments, _e.g._, must have gone through a full university course; all religious orders and congregations were to be allowed to die out; public roads and squares could be used for ecclesiastical festivals only by permission of the government to be renewed on each occasion. The "contentious" Bishop Ketteler of Mainz, who stirred up the fire to the utmost with the Prussian brand, and had kindled also a similar flame in Hesse over the proposal of this law, held still that to view martyrdom at a distance was the better part, and carefully avoided any overt act of disobedience. But he immediately refused to co-operate in restoring the Catholic theological faculty at Giessen, and the government consequently abandoned the idea. The Mainz see after Ketteler's death in 1877 remained long vacant, as the government felt obliged to reject the electoral list submitted by the chapter. A candidate satisfactory to the Vatican and the government was only found in May, 1886, in the person of Dr. Haffner, a member of the chapter. After Prussia had concluded its definitive peace with Rome, the Hessian government, in May, 1887, laid before the house of representatives a revision of ecclesiastical legislation of 1875, like that of Prussia, only not going so far, for which meanwhile the approval of the papal curia had been obtained. It agrees to the erection of a Catholic clerical seminary, and Catholic students' residences in this seminary and in the state-gymnasia; erection of independent boys' inst.i.tutions preparatory to the seminary for priests is, however, still refused; the existing duty of bishops to make notification, and the right of the state to protest in regard to appointments to vacant pastorates are also retained. There is no word of rehabilitating religious orders and congregations, nor of any limitation of the law about the exercise of ecclesiastical punishment and means of discipline.-(5) Last of all among the German states affected by the _Kulturkampf_, the kingdom of _Saxony_, with only 73,000 Catholic inhabitants, at the instance of the second Chamber in 1876, came forward with a Catholic church law modelled upon the Prussian May Laws, with its several provisions modified, in spite of the contention of the talented heir to the throne, Prince George, that the power of the state in relation to the Catholic church could only be determined by a concordat with the Roman curia.

-- 198. Austria-Hungary.

To the emperor of Austria there was left, after the re-organization of affairs by the Vienna Congress, of the Roman empire, only the name of defender of the papal see, and the Catholic church, and the presidency of the German Federal Council. The remnants of the Josephine ecclesiastical const.i.tution were gradually set aside and Catholicism firmly established as the state religion; yet the government a.s.serted its independence against all hierarchical claims, and granted, though only in a very limited degree, toleration to Protestantism. The revolution year 1848 removed indeed some of these limits, but the period of reaction that followed gave, by means of a concordat concluded with the curia in 1855, to the ultramontane hierarchy of the country an unprecedented power in almost all departments of civil life, and prejudicial also to the interests of the Protestant church. After the disastrous issue of the Italian war in 1859, and still more that of the German war in 1866, the government was obliged to make an honest effort to introduce and develop liberal inst.i.tutions. And after an imperial patent of 1861 had secured religious liberty, self-administration, and equal rights to the Protestant church, the const.i.tutional legislation of 1868 freed Catholic as well as Protestant civil, educational, and ecclesiastical matters from the provisions of the concordat that most seriously threatened them, and by the declaration of papal infallibility in 1870 the government felt justified in regarding the entire concordat as antiquated and declaring it abolished. In its place a Catholic church act was pa.s.sed by the state in 1874. But the _Kulturkampf_ struggle which was thus made imminent also for Austria was avoided by pliancy on both sides.

1. _The Zillerthal Emigration._-In the Tyrolese _Zillerthal_ the knowledge of evangelical truth had spread among several families by means of Protestant books and Bibles. When the Catholic clergy from 1826 had pushed to its utmost the clerical guardians.h.i.+p by means of auricular confession, an opposition arose which soon from the refusal to confess pa.s.sed on to the rejection of saint wors.h.i.+p, ma.s.ses for the dead, purgatory, indulgences, etc., and ended in the formal secession of many to the evangelical church in 1830, with a reference to the Josephine edict of toleration. The emperor Francis I., to whom on the occasion of his visit to Innsbruck in 1832 they presented their pet.i.tion, promised them toleration. But the Tyrolese n.o.bles protested, and the official decision, given at last in 1834, ordered removal to Transylvania or return to the Catholic church. The pet.i.tioners now applied, as those of Salzburg had previously done (-- 165, 4), by a deputation to the king of Prussia, who, after by diplomatic communications securing the emperor's consent to emigration, a.s.signed them his estate of Erdmannsdorf in Silesia for colonization. There now the exiles, 399 in number, settled in 1837, and, largely aided by the royal munificence, founded a new Zillerthal.

2. _The Concordat._-After the revolution year 1848, the government were far more yielding toward the claims of the hierarchy than under the old Metternich _regime_. In April, 1850, an imperial patent relieved the papal and episcopal decrees of the necessity of imperial approval, and on August 18th, 1855, a concordat with the pope was agreed to, by which unprecedented power and independence was granted to the hierarchy in Austria for all time to come. The first article secured to the Roman Catholic religion throughout the empire all rights and privileges which they claimed by divine inst.i.tution and the canon law. The others gave to the bishops the right of unrestricted correspondence with Rome, declared that no papal ordinance required any longer the royal _placet_, that prelates are unfettered in the discharge of their hierarchical obligations, that religious instruction in all schools is under their supervision, that no one can teach religion or theology without their approval, that in catholic schools there can be only catholic teachers, that they have the right of forbidding all books which may be injurious to the faithful, that all cases of ecclesiastical law, especially marriage matters, belong to their jurisdiction, yet the apostolic see grants that purely secular law matters of the clergy are to be decided before a civil tribunal, and the emperor's right of nomination to vacant episcopal sees is to continue, etc. The inferior clergy, who were now without legal protection against the prelates, only reluctantly bowed their necks to this hard yoke; the liberal Catholic laity murmured, sneered, and raged, and the native press incessantly urged a revision of the concordat, the necessity of which became ever more apparent from concessions made meanwhile willingly or grudgingly to the "Non-Catholics." But only after Austria, by the issue of the German war of 1866, was restricted to her own domain, and finally freed from the drag of its ultramontane Italian interests, found herself obliged to make every effort to reconcile the opposing parties within her own territories, could these views prove successful. But since the government nevertheless held firmly by the principle that the concordat, as a state contract regularly concluded between two sovereigns, could be changed only by mutual consent, the liberal majority of the house of deputies resolved to make it as harmless as possible by means of domestic legislation, and on June 11th, 1867, the deputy Herbst moved the appointment of a committee for drawing up three bills for restoring civil marriage, emanc.i.p.ation of schools from the church, and equality of all confessions in the eye of the law. The motion was carried by a hundred and thirty-four votes against twenty-two. The Cisleithan (_i.e._ Austrian excluding Hungary) episcopate, with Cardinal Rauscher of Vienna at their head, presented an address to his apostolic majesty demanding the most rigid preservation of the concordat, denouncing civil marriage as concubinage, and the emanc.i.p.ation of schools as their dechristianizing. An imperial autograph letter to Rauscher rebuked with earnest words the inflammatory proceedings of the bishops, and at the same time the ultramontane amba.s.sador to Rome, Baron Hubner, was recalled.

After the arrangement with Hungary was completed, the first Cisleithan, the so-called Burger, ministry was const.i.tuted under the presidency of Prince Auersperg, composed of the most distinguished leaders of the parliamentary majority. All the three bills were pa.s.sed by a large majority, and obtained imperial sanction on _May 25th, 1868_. The papal nuncio of Vienna protested, the pope in an allocution denounced the new Austrian const.i.tution as _nefanda sane_ and the three confessional laws as _abominabiles leges_. "We repudiate and condemn these laws," he says, "by apostolic authority, as well as everything done by the Austrian government in matters of church policy, and determine in the exercise of the same authority that these decrees with all their consequences are and shall be null and void." But all Vienna, all Austria held jubilee, and the Chancellor von Beust rejected with energy the a.s.sumptions of the curia over the civil domain. The bishops indeed issued protests and inflammatory pastorals, and forbad the publication of the marriage act, but submitted to the threats of compulsion by the supreme court, and Bishop Rudigier of Linz, who went furthest in inciting to opposition, was in 1869 taken into court by the police, and sentenced to twelve days' imprisonment, but pardoned by the emperor. Toward the Vatican Council Austria a.s.sumed at first a waiting policy, then in vain remonstrated, warned, threatened, and finally, on July 30th, 1870, after the proclamation of infallibility, declared that the concordat was antiquated and abolished, because by this dogma the position of one of the contracting parties had undergone a complete change.

3. _The Protestant Church in Cisleithan Austria._-Down to 1848 Protestantism of both confessions in Austria enjoyed only a very limited toleration. The storms of this year first set aside the hated official name of "Non-Catholics," and won permission for Protestant places of wors.h.i.+p to have bells and towers. But the repeated pet.i.tions for permission to found branches of the _Gustavus Adolphus Union_, the persistently maintained law that Catholic clergymen, even after they had formally become Protestants, could not marry, because the _character indelibilis_ of priestly consecration attached itself even to apostates, and many such facts, prove that the government was far from intending to grant to the Protestants civil equality with the Catholics. But the unfortunate result of the Sardinian-French war of 1859, and the fear thereby increased of the falling asunder of the whole Austrian federation, induced the government to address itself earnestly to the introduction of liberal inst.i.tutions, and also to do justice to the Protestant church. The presidency of the two Protestant consistories in Vienna, hitherto given to a Catholic, was now a.s.signed to a Protestant; meetings of the Gustavus Adolphus Union were now allowed, and a share was given to the Protestant party in the ministry of public wors.h.i.+p by the appointment of three evangelical councillors. After the entrance on office of the liberal minister Von Schmerling, an imperial patent was issued on April 8th, 1864, by which unrestricted liberty of faith, independent administration of all ecclesiastical, educational, and charitable matters, free election of pastors, even from abroad, full exercise of civil and political rights, and complete equality with Catholics was given to the Protestants of the German and Slavonian crown territories. Also in 1868, under the reactionary ministry of Belcredi, on the expiry of the legal term of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council, it was reorganized, two evangelical school councillors.h.i.+ps were created, and the pecuniary position of the evangelical clergy considerably improved. But in spite of all privileges legally granted to the evangelical church, it continued in many cases, in presence of the concordat, which down to 1870 still remained in force, exposed to the whims and caprice, sometimes of the imperial courts, sometimes of the Catholic clergy.

4. _The Clerical Landtag Opposition in the Tyrol._-In the _Tyrol_, after the publication of the imperial patent of April, 1861, a violent movement was set on foot by clerical agitation. The Landtag, by a great majority, p.r.o.nounced the issuing of it the most serious calamity which the country, hitherto honest, true, and happy in its undivided attachment to the Catholic faith, could have suffered, and concluded that Non-Catholics in the Tyrol should only by way of dispensation be allowed, but that publicity of Protestant wors.h.i.+p and formation of Protestant congregations should be still forbidden. The Schmerling ministry, indeed, refused to confirm these resolutions. The agitation of the clergy, however, which fanned in all possible ways the fanaticism of the people, grew from year to year, until at last the Belcredi ministry of 1866 came to an agreement with the Landtag, sanctioned by the emperor, according to which the creation of an evangelical landed proprietary in the Tyrol was not indeed formally forbidden, but permission for an evangelical to possess land had in each case to be obtained from the Landtag. The ecclesiastical laws of 1868 next called forth new conflicts. Twice was the Landtag closed because of the opposition thus awakened, until finally in September, 1870, the estates took the oath to the new const.i.tution with reservation of conscience. But now, when in December, 1875, the ministry of wors.h.i.+p gave approval to the formal const.i.tuting of two evangelical congregations in the Tyrol, at Innsbruck and Meran, the clerical press was filled with burning denunciations, and the majority of the Landtag meeting in the following March thought to give emphasis to their protest by leaving the chamber, and so bringing the a.s.sembly to a sudden close. In June, 1880, the three bishops of the Tyrol uttered in the Landtag a fanatical protest against the continuance of the meanwhile established congregations, which the Landtag majority renewed in July, 1883.

5. _The Austrian Universities._-Stremayr, minister of public wors.h.i.+p, introduced in 1872 a scheme of university reorganization, by which the exclusively Catholic character which had hitherto belonged to the Austrian universities, especially those of Vienna and Prague, should be removed. Up to this time a Non-Catholic could there obtain no sort of academical degree, but this was now to be obtainable apart from any question of confession. The office of chancellor, held by the archbishops of Prague and Vienna, was restricted to the theological faculty, to the state was a.s.signed the right of nominating all professors, even in the theological faculty, and the German language was recommended as the medium of instruction. Candidates of theology have to pa.s.s through a full and comprehensive course of theological science in a three years' university curriculum, before they can be admitted into an episcopal seminary for practical training. In spite of the opposition of the superior clergy, the bill pa.s.sed even in the House of Peers, and became law in 1873.-In Innsbruck, where according to ancient custom the rector was chosen from the four faculties in succession, the other faculties protested against the election when, in 1872, the turn came to the theological (Jesuit) faculty, and they carried their point. The new organization law gave the choice of rector to the whole professoriate, and a subsequent imperial order withdrew from the general of the Jesuits the right of nominating all theological professors.-Much was done, too, for the elevation of the evangelical theological faculty in Vienna by bringing able scholars from Germany, by giving a right to the promotion to the degree of doctor of theology, etc. But its incorporation in the university, though often moved for, was hindered by the continued opposition of the Catholic theologians as well as philosophers, and in 1873 it did not meet with sufficient support in the House of Peers. Even the use of certain halls in the university buildings, promised by the minister, could not yet be obtained.

6. _The Austrian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1874-1876._-At last the government in January, 1874, introduced the long-promised Catholic church legislation into the Reichstag, intended to supply blanks occasioned by the setting aside of the concordat. Its main contents are these:

I. The concordat, hitherto only diplomatically dealt with, is now legislatively annulled; the bishops have to present all their manifestoes not before but upon publication to the state government for its cognisance; every vacancy of an ecclesiastical office, as well as every new appointment to such, is to be notified to the civil court, which can raise objections against such appointment within thirty days; the minister of wors.h.i.+p then decides on the admissibility or inadmissibility of the candidate; legal deposition of a church officer involves withdrawal of the emoluments; the performance of unusual practices in public wors.h.i.+p of a demonstrative character can be prohibited by the civil court; any misuse of ecclesiastical authority in restraining any one from obeying the laws of the land or from exercising his civil rights is strictly interdicted.

II. The ecclesiastical revenues and the income of the cloisters are subjected to a progressive taxation on behalf of a religious fund, mainly for improving the condition of the lower clergy, for which the episcopate hitherto, in spite of all entreaties, had done practically nothing. III.

Newly formed religious societies received state recognition if their denomination and principles contain nothing contrary to law and morality or offensive to those of another faith. IV. The state grants or refuses its approval of the establishment of spiritual orders, congregations, and ecclesiastical societies; inst.i.tutions and legacies for them amounting to over three thousand gulden require state sanction; any member is free to quit any order; all orders must report annually on the personal changes and disciplinary punishments that have taken place; at any time when occasion calls for it they may be subjected to a visitation by the civil court.(107)-In vain did the pope by an encyclical seek to rouse the episcopate to violent opposition, in vain did he adjure the emperor in a letter in his own hand not to suffer the church to be put into such disgraceful bondage; the House of Deputies approved the four bills, and the emperor in _May, 1874_, confirmed at least the first three, while the fourth was being debated in the House of Peers. The bishops now issued a joint declaration that they could obey these laws only in so far as they "were in harmony with the demands of justice as stated in the concordat."

But it did not go to the length of actual conflict. Neither to the pope and episcopate, nor to the government was such a thing convenient at the time. Hence the att.i.tude of reserve on both sides, which kept everything as it had been. And when notwithstanding Bishop Rudigier of Linz, threatened with fines on account of his refusal to notify the newly appointed priests, appealed to the pope, he obtained through the Vienna nuncio permission to yield on this point, "_non dissent.i.t tolerari posse_." But all the more urgently did the nuncio strive to prevent the pa.s.sing of the sweeping cloister law. In January, 1876, it was pa.s.sed in the House of Peers with modifications, to which, however, the emperor refused his a.s.sent. Also the revised marriage law of the same date, which removed the hindrances to marriage incorporated even in the book of civil law, and no longer recognised differences of religion, Christians and non-Christians, the remarriage of separated parties of whom at the time of the first marriage only one party belonged to the Catholic church, higher consecration and the vows of orders, did not pa.s.s the House of Peers.

7. _The Protestant Church in the Transleithan Provinces._-In _Hungary_ since 1833 the Reichstag had by bold action won for the Protestants full equality with the Catholics, but in consequence of the revolution, the military lords.h.i.+p of the Protestant Haynau in 1850 again put in fetters all independent life in both Protestant churches. The Haynau decree was, indeed, again abrogated in 1854, but full return to the earlier autonomy of the church, in spite of all pet.i.tions and deputations, could never be regained, all the less as Hungary in all too decided a manner rejected the const.i.tutional proposals submitted by the Government in 1856. The liberal imperial patent of September 1st, 1859, which secured independent administration and development to the Protestant church in the crown possessions of Hungary, got no better reception. In the German-Slavonian districts of North Hungary, as well as in Croatia, Slavonia, and Austrian Servia, it was greeted with jubilation and grat.i.tude, but the Magyar Hungarians declined on many, for the most part frivolous, grounds, mainly because it emanated from the emperor, and did not originate in an autonomous synod. When the government showed its intention of going forward with it, the opposition was carried to the utmost extreme, so that the emperor was obliged temporarily to suspend proceedings in May, 1860.

Still the ecclesiastical joined with the political movement continued to increase until in 1867 the imperial chancellor, Von Beust, succeeded in quieting both for a time by the Hungarian Agreement. On June 8th of that year, the emperor, Francis Joseph, on ratifying the agreement, was solemnly crowned King of Hungary. The hated patent had been shortly before revoked by an imperial edict, with the direction to order church matters in a const.i.tutional way. After a complete reconciliation, at a General Protestant Convention in December, 1867, with the Patent congregations, hitherto denounced as unpatriotic, it was concluded that to the state belonged only a right of protection and oversight of the church, which is autonomous in all its internal affairs, but to all confessions perfect freedom in law, and that there should be not a separate religious legislation for each, but a common one for all confessions. A committee first appointed in 1873 for this purpose, with the motto, "A Free Church in a Free State," const.i.tuted, and then adjourned _ad kalendas Graecas_.

-- 199. Switzerland.

The Catholic church of Switzerland, after long continued troubles, obtained again a regular hierarchical organization in 1828. Since that time the Jesuits settled there in crowds, and a.s.sumed to themselves in most of the Catholic cantons the whole direction of church and schools.

The unfortunate issue of the cantonal war of 1847 led indeed to their banishment by law, but, favoured by the bishops, they knew how still to re-enter by back doors and secretly to regain their earlier influence. The city of Calvin was the centre of their plots, not only for Switzerland, but also for all Cisalpine Europe, until at last the overstrained bow broke, and the Swiss governments became the most decided and uncompromising opponents of the ultramontane claims. In 1873 the papal nuncio, in consequence of a papal encyclical insulting the government, was banished.-In Protestant Switzerland, besides the destructive influence of the Illumination, antagonistic to the church, and radical liberalism, there appeared a soil receptive of pietism, separatism, and fanaticism, whose first cultivation has been ascribed to Madame Krudener (-- 176, 2).

In the Protestant church of German Switzerland the religious and theological developments stood regularly in lively connexion with similar movements in Germany, while those in the French cantons received their impulse and support from France and England. From France, to which they were allied by a common language, they learned the unbelief of the encyclopaedists (-- 165, 14), while travelling Englishmen and those residing in the country for a longer period introduced the fervour and superst.i.tion of Methodism and other sects.

1. _The Catholic Church in Switzerland till 1870._-The ecclesiastical superintendence of Catholic Switzerland was previously subject to the neighbouring foreign bishoprics. But for immediate preservation of its interests the curia had appointed a nunciature at Lucerne in 1588. When now, in 1814, the liberal Wessenberg (-- 187, 3), already long suspected of heresy, was called as coadjutor to Constance, the nuncio manuvred with the Catholic confederates till these pet.i.tioned the pope for the establishment of an independent and national bishopric. But when each of the cantons interested claimed to be made the episcopal residence negotiations were at last suspended, and in 1828 six small bishoprics were erected under immediate control of Rome. At the end of 1833 the diocesan representatives of Basel and St. Gall a.s.sembled in Baden to consult about the restoration of a national Swiss Metropolitan Union and a common state church const.i.tution for securing church and state against the encroachments of the Romish hierarchy. But Gregory XIV. condemned the articles of conference here agreed upon, which would have given to Switzerland only what other states had long possessed, as false, audacious, and erroneous, destructive of the church, heretical, and schismatic, and among the Catholic people a revolt was stirred up by ultramontane fanaticism, under the influence of which the whole action was soon frustrated. On the occasion of a revision of the const.i.tution of the canton of Aargau, a revolt, led by the cloisters, broke out in 1841. But the rebels were defeated, and the grand council resolved upon the closing of all cloisters, eight in number. Complaint made against this at the diet was regarded as satisfied by the Aargau Agreement of 1843 restoring three nunneries. An opposition was organized against the revision of the const.i.tution of Canton _Lucerne_ in 1841. The liberal government was overthrown, and the new const.i.tution, in which the state insisted on its _placet_ in ecclesiastical matters and the granting of cantonal civil rights to those only who professed attachment to the Roman Catholic church, was submitted to the pope for approval. At last, in 1844, the academy of Lucerne was given over to the Jesuits, for which Joseph Leu, the popular agitator, as member of the grand council, had wrought unweariedly since 1839. In Canton _Vaud_ the parties of old or clerical and young Switzerland contended with one another for the mastery. The latter suffered an utter defeat in 1844, and the const.i.tution which was then carried allowed the right of public wors.h.i.+p only to the Catholic church. In consequence of this victory of the clerical party Catholic Switzerland with Lucerne at its head became a main centre of ultramontanism and Jesuitism. At the diet of 1844, indeed, Aargau, supported by numerous pet.i.tions from the people, moved for the banishment of all Jesuits from all Switzerland, but the majority did not consent. The Jesuit opponents expelled from Lucerne now organized twice over a free volunteer corps to overthrow the ultramontane government and force the expulsion of the Jesuits, but on both occasions, in 1844 and 1845, it suffered a sore defeat. In face of the threateningly growing increase of the excitement, which made them fear a decisive intervention of the diet, the Catholic cantons formed in 1845 a _separate league_ (_Sonderbund_) for the preservation of their faith and their sovereign rights. This proceeding, irreconcilable with the Act of Federation, led to a civil war.

The members of the _Sonderbund_ were defeated, the ultramontane governments had to resign, and the Jesuits departed in 1847. The new Federal const.i.tution which Switzerland adopted in 1848, secured unconditional liberty of conscience and equality of all confessions, and the expulsion of the Jesuits in terms of the law. But since that time ultramontanism has gained the supremacy in Catholic Switzerland, and in spite of the existing law against the Jesuits all the threads of the ultramontane clerical movements in Switzerland were in the Jesuits' hands.

These were never more successful than in Canton _Geneva_, where the radical democratic agitator Fazy leagued himself closely with ultramontanism to compa.s.s the destruction of the old Calvinistic aristocracy, and by bringing in large numbers the lower cla.s.s Catholics from the neighbouring France and Savoy he obtained a considerable Catholic majority in the canton, and in the capital itself made Catholics and Protestants nearly equal.

2. _The Geneva Conflict, 1870-1883._-The Catholic church of Canton Geneva, on the founding of the six Swiss bishoprics by a papal bull, had been incorporated "for all time to come," after the style of the concordat, with the bishopric of Freiburg-Lausanne. But the government made no objection when the newly elected priest of Geneva, Mermillod, a Jesuit of the purest water, a.s.sumed the t.i.tle and rank of an episcopal vicar-general for the whole canton. But when in 1864 the pope nominated him bishop of Hebron _in partibus_ and auxiliary bishop of Geneva, it made a protest.

Nevertheless, when, in the following year, Bishop Marilley of Freiburg by papal orders transferred to him absolute power for the canton with personal responsibility, and in 1870 formally renounced all episcopal rights over it, so that the pope now appointed the auxiliary bishop independent bishop of Geneva, it was evident a step had been taken that could not be recalled. The government renewed its protest and made it more vehement, in consequence of which, in January, 1873, by a papal brief which was first officially communicated to the government after it had already been proclaimed from all Catholic pulpits, Mermillod was appointed apostolic vicar-general with unlimited authority for Canton Geneva, and the district was thus practically made a Catholic mission field. A demand made of him by the state to resign this office and t.i.tle and divest himself of every episcopal function, was answered by the declaration that he would obey G.o.d rather than man. The _Bund_ then expelled him from Federal territory until he would yield to that demand. From Ferney, where he settled, he unceasingly stirred up the fire of opposition among the Genevan clergy and people, but the government decidedly rejected all protests, and by a popular vote obtained sanction for a Catholic church law which restricted the rights of the diocesan bishop who might reside in Switzerland, but not in Canton Geneva, and without consent of the government could not appoint there any episcopal vicar, and transferred the election of priests and priests' vicars to the congregations. The next elections returned Old Catholics, since the Roman Catholic population did not acknowledge the law condemned by the pope and took no part in the voting. By decision of the grand council of 1875 the abolition of all religious corporations was next enacted, and all religious ceremonies and processions in public streets and squares forbidden. Leo XIII. made an attempt to still the conflict, for in 1879 he gave Bishop Marilley the asked for discharge, and confirmed his elected successor, Cosandry, as bishop of Freiburg, Lausanne, and Geneva, without however removing Mermillod from his office of vicar apostolic of Geneva. But this actually took place after the death of Cosandry in 1882 by the appointment of Mermillod as his successor in 1883. As he now ceased to style himself a vicar apostolic, the Federal council removed the decree of banishment as the occasion of it had ceased, but left each canton free as to whether or not it should accept him as bishop. Freiburg, Neuenburg, and Vaud accepted him, and Mermillod had a brilliant entry into Freiburg, which he made his episcopal residence. But Geneva refused to recognise him, because it had already officially attached itself to the Old Catholic Bishop Herzog of Berne, and Mermillod went so far in his ostentatious love of peace as to declare that he would not in future enter Genevan territory.

3. _Conflict in the Diocese of Basel-Soleure, 1870-1880._-Bishop Lachat of Soleure, whose diocese comprised the Cantons Bern, Soleure, Aargau, Basel, Thurgau, Lucerne, and Zug, had been previously in conflict with the diocesan conference, _i.e._ the delegates of the seven cantons entrusted with the oversight of the ecclesiastical administration, on account of introducing the prohibited handbook on morals of the Jesuit Gury (-- 191, 9), which ended in the closing of the seminary aided by the government, and the erection of a new seminary at his own cost. Although the diocesan conference next forbad the proclamation of the new Vatican dogma, the bishop threatened excommunicated Egli in Lucerne in 1871, and Geschwind in Starrkirch in 1872, who refused. The conference ordered the withdrawal of this unlawful act, and on the bishop's refusal, deposed him in January, 1873. The dissenting cantons, Lucerne and Zug, indeed declared that after as well as before they would only recognise Lachat as lawful bishop, the chapter refused to make the required election of administrator of the diocese, the clergy in Soleure and in _Bernese Jura_ without exception took the side of the bishop, as also by means of a popular vote the great majority of Catholics in Thurgau. But amid all this the conference did not yield in the least. Lachat was compelled by the police to quit his episcopal residence, and withdrew to a village in Canton Lucerne. The council of the Bernese government resolved to recall the refractory clergy of the Jura, took their names off the civil register and forbad them to exercise any clerical functions. The outbreaks incited by rebel clergy in the Jura were put down by the military, sixty-nine clergymen were exiled, and, so far as the means allowed, replaced by liberal successors introduced by the Old Catholic priest Herzog (-- 190, 3) in Olten. In November, 1875, permission to return home was granted to the exiles in consequence of the revised Federal const.i.tution of 1874, according to which the banishment of Swiss burghers was no longer allowed. The Bernese government felt all the more disposed to carry out this enactment of the National Council, as it believed that it had obtained the legal means for checking further rebellion and obstinacy among those who should return. On January, 1874, by popular vote a law was sanctioned reorganizing the whole ecclesiastical affairs of the _Canton Bern_. By it all clergy, Catholic as well as Protestant, are ranked as civil officers, the choice of whom rests with the congregations, the tenure of office lasting for six years. All purely ecclesiastical affairs for the canton rest in the last instance with a synod of the particular denomination, for the several congregations with a church committee, both composed of freely elected lay and clerical members. But if a dispute in a particular congregation should arise about a synodal decree, the congregational a.s.sembly decides on its validity or non-validity for the particular congregation. All decrees of higher church courts and pastorals must have state approval, which must never be refused on dogmatic grounds. If a congregation splits over any question, the majority claims the church property and pastor's emoluments, etc. And this law was next extended in October 31st, 1875, in the matter of penal law by the so-called Police Wors.h.i.+p Law. It imposes heavy fines up to 1000 francs or a year's imprisonment for any clerical agitation against the law, inst.i.tutions or enactments of the civil courts, as well as for every outbreak of hostilities against members of other religious bodies, refuses to allow any interference of foreign spiritual superiors without leave granted by government in each particular case, forbids all processions and religious ceremonies outside of the fixed church locality, etc. In the same year the first Catholic Cantonal Synod declared its attachment to the Christian or Old Catholic church of Switzerland. But it was otherwise after the newly elected Grand Council of the canton of its own accord, on September 12th, 1878, granted the returned Jura clergy complete amnesty for all the past, and on the a.s.sumption of future submission to existing laws of state, recognised them again eligible for election to spiritual offices which had previously been denied them. Not only did the Roman Catholic people regularly take part in elections of priests, church councils, and synods, undoubtedly with the approval of the new pope Leo XIII., who had in February addressed a conciliatory letter to the members of the Federal Council, but also the extremest of the Jura now submitted without scruple to the new election required by the law, and won therein for the most part the majority of votes. In the Catholic Cantonal Synod convened in Bern, in January, 1880, were found seventy-five Roman Catholics and only twenty-five Old Catholic deputies. The latter were naturally defeated in all controversies. The synod declared that the connexion with the Christian Catholic national bishopric was annulled, that auricular confession was obligatory, that marriages of priests were forbidden, etc. Since now the law a.s.signs the state pay of the priest as well as all the church property in the case of a split to the majority for the time being, the inevitable consequence was that Old Catholics of the Jura district were deprived of all share in these privileges, and had to make provision for their own support. Also in Canton _Soleure_, the law that all pastors must be re-elected after the expiry of six years, came in force in 1872, and then the thirty-two Roman Catholic clergymen concerned were with only two exceptions re-elected, while, on the other hand, the Old Catholic priest Geschwind of Starrkirch was rejected.-But all efforts to restore the bishopric of Basel-Soleure came to grief over the person of Bishop Lachat, whom the curia would not give up and the Federal Council would not again allow, until at last a way out of the difficulty was found. The canton Tessin, which previously in church matters belonged to the Italian dioceses of Milan and Como, was, in 1859, by decree of the Federal Council, detached from these. But Tessin insisted on the founding of a bishopric of its own, while the Federal Council wished to join it to the bishopric of Chur. Thus the matter remained undecided, till in September, 1884, the papal curia came to an understanding with the Federal Council that Lachat should be appointed vicar-apostolic for the newly founded bishopric of Tessin, and that to the vacated bishopric of Basel-Soleure the "learned as well as mild" Provost Fiala of Soleure should be called. In this way all the cantons referred to, with the exception of Bern, were won.(108)

4. _The Protestant Church in German Switzerland._-Among all the German cantons, _Basel_ (-- 172, 5), which unweariedly prosecuted the work of home and foreign missions, fell most completely under the influence of rationalism and then of the liberal Protestant theology. While pietism obtained powerful support and encouragement in its missionary inst.i.tutions and movements, and there, though developing itself on Reformed soil, a.s.sumed, in consequence of its manifold connection with Germany, a colour almost more Lutheran than Reformed, the university by eminent theological teachers of scientific ability represented the Mediation school in theology of a predominantly Reformed type. In the Canton _Zurich_, on the other hand, the advanced theology, theoretical and practical, obtained an increasing and finally an almost exclusive mastery in the university and church. But yet, when in 1839 the Grand Council called Dr. David Strauss to a theological professors.h.i.+p, the Zurich people rose to a man against the proposal, the appointment was not enforced, the Grand Council was overthrown, and Strauss pensioned. The victory and ascendency of this reaction, however, was not of long continuance. Theological and ecclesiastical radicalism again won the upper hand and maintained it unchecked. In the other German cantons the most diverse theological schools were represented alongside of one another, yet with steadily increasing advantage to liberal and radical tendencies. The theological faculty at _Bern_ favoured mainly a liberal mediation theology, and an attempt of the orthodox party in 1847, to set aside the appointment of Professor E. Zeller by means of a popular tumult, miscarried. From 1860 ecclesiastical liberalism prevailed in German Protestant Switzerland, frequently going the length of the extremest radicalism and showing its influence even in the cantonal and synodal legislation. The starting of the "_Zeitstimmen fur d. ref. Schweiz_," in 1859, by Henry Lang, who had fled in 1848 from Wurttemberg to Switzerland, and died in 1876 as pastor in Zurich, marked an epoch in the history of the radical liberal movement in Swiss theology. In Fred. Langhans, since 1876 professor at Bern, he had a zealous comrade in the fight. During 1864-1866, Langhans published a series of violent controversial tracts against the pietistic orthodox party in Switzerland, which zealously prosecuted foreign missions, and in 1866 he founded the _Swiss Reform __ Union_, while Alb. Bitzius, son of the writer known as Jer. Gotthelf (-- 174, 8) started as its organ the "_Reformblatter aus d. bernischen Kirche_," which was subsequently amalgamated with the _Zeitstimmem_.-After more or less violent conflicts with pietistic orthodoxy, still always pretty strongly represented, especially in the aristocracy, the emanc.i.p.ation of the schools from the church and the introduction of obligatory civil marriage were accomplished in most cantons, even before the revised Federal const.i.tution of 1874 and the marriage law of 1875 gave to these principles legal sanction throughout the whole of Switzerland. In almost all Protestant cantons the re-election or new election to all spiritual offices every six years was ordained by law, in many the freeing of the clergy from any creed subscription with the setting aside of confessional writings as well as of the orthodox liturgy, hymnbooks and catechisms was also carried, and the withdrawing of the Apostles' Creed from public wors.h.i.+p and from the baptismal formula was enjoined. The Basel synod in 1883, by thirty-six to twenty-seven votes, carried the motion to make baptism no longer a condition of confirmation; and although the Zurich synod in 1882 still held baptism obligatory for members.h.i.+p in the national church, the Cantonal Council in 1883, on consulting the law of the church, overturned this decision by 140 against 19 votes.

5. _The Protestant Church in French Switzerland._-The French philosophy of the eighteenth century had given to the Reformed church of _Geneva_ a prevailingly rationalistic tendency. Notwithstanding, or just because of this, Madame Krudener, in 1814, with her conventicle pietism, found an entrance there, and won in the young theologian Empaytaz a zealous supporter and an apostle of conversion preaching. In the next year a wealthy Englishman, Haldane, appeared there as the apostle of methodistic piety, and inspired the young pastor Malan with enthusiasm for the revival mission. Empaytaz and Malan now by speech and writing charged the national church with defection from the Christian faith, and won many zealous believers as adherents, especially among students of theology. The _Venerable Compagnie_ of the Geneva clergy, hitherto resting on its lees in rationalistic quiet, now in 1817 thought it might still the rising storm by demanding of theological candidates at ordination the vow not to preach on the two natures in Christ, original sin, predestination, etc., but thereby they only poured oil on the fire. The adherents of the daily increasing evangelical movement withdrew from the national church, founded free independent communities and _Reunions_ under the banner of the restoration of Calvinistic orthodoxy, and were by their enemies nicknamed _Momiers_, _i.e._ mummery traders or hypocrites. The government imprisoned and banished their leaders, while the mob, unchecked, heaped upon them all manner of abuse. The persecution came to an end in 1830. Thereafter settling down in quiet moderation, it founded in 1831 the _Societe evangelique_, which, in 1832, established an _Ecole de Theologie_, and became the centre of the Free church evangelical movement. From that time the _Eglise libre_ of Geneva has existed unmolested alongside of the _Eglise Nationale_, and the opposition at first so violent has been moderated on both sides by the growth of conciliatory and mediating tendencies. Since 1850, two divergent parties have arisen within the bosom of the free church itself, which without any serious conflict continued alongside of one another, until in May, 1883, the majority of the presbytery resolved to make a peaceful separation, the stricter forming the congregation of the _Pelisserie_, and the more liberal that of the _Oratoire_. At the same time a committee was appointed to draw up a confession upon which both could unite in lasting fellows.h.i.+p. But when this failed, a formal and complete separation was agreed upon at the new year.-From Geneva the Methodist revival spread to _Vaud_. The religious movement got a footing, especially in Lausanne. The Grand Council, however, did not allow the contemplated formation of an independent congregation, and in 1824 forbad all "sectarian" a.s.semblies, while the mob raged even more wildly than at Geneva against the "_Momiers_." The excitement increased when, in 1839, by decision of the Grand Council, the Helvetic Confession was abrogated. When in 1845 a revolutionary radical government came into office at Lausanne, the refusal of many clergymen to read from the pulpit a political proclamation, caused a thorough division in the church, for the preachers referred to were in a body driven out of the national church. A Free church of Vaud now developed itself alongside of the national church, sorely oppressed and persecuted by the radical government, and spread into other Swiss cantons. It owed its freedom from sectarian narrowness mainly to the influence of the talented and thoroughly independent Alex. Vinet, who devoted his whole energies and brilliant eloquence to the interests of religious freedom and liberty of conscience and to the struggle for the separation of church and state.

Vinet was from 1817 teacher of the French language and literature in Basel, then from 1837 to 1845 professor of practical theology at Lausanne, but on the reconstruction of the university he was not re-elected. He died in 1847.(109)-In the canton _Neuchatel_ the State Council in 1873 introduced a law, which granted unconditional liberty of conscience, freedom in teaching and wors.h.i.+p without any sort of restriction on clergy, teachers and congregations. The Grand Council by forty-seven votes to forty-six gave it its sanction, notwithstanding the almost unanimous protest of the evangelical synod, and refused to appeal to a popular vote.

When an appeal to the Federal Council proved fruitless, somewhere about one half of the pastors, including the theological professors and all the students, left the state church, and formed an _Eglise libre_; while the other half regarded it as their duty to remain in the national church so long as they were not hindered from preaching G.o.d's word in purity and simplicity. Both parties had a common meeting point in the _Union evangelique_, and a law originally pa.s.sed in favour of the Old Catholics, which secured to all seceders a right to the joint use of their respective churches, proved also of advantage to the Free church.-The canton _Geneva_ issued, in 1874, a Protestant law of wors.h.i.+p, which with dogma and liturgy also threw overboard ordination, and maintained that the clergy are answerable only to their conscience and their electors. Yet at the new election of the consistory in 1879, at the close of the legal term of four years, the evangelical and moderate party again obtained the supremacy, and a law introduced by the radical party in the Grand Council, demanding the withdrawal of the budget of wors.h.i.+p and the separation of church and state, was, on July 4th, 1880, thrown out by universal popular vote, by a majority of 9,000 to 4,000.

-- 200. Holland and Belgium.

Among the most serious mistakes in the new part.i.tion of states at the Vienna Congress was the combining in one kingdom of the United Netherlands the provinces of Holland and Belgium, diverse in race, language, character, and religion. The contagion of French Revolution of July, 1830, however, caused an outbreak in Brussels, which ended in the separation of Catholic Belgium from the predominantly Protestant Holland. Belgium has since then been the scene of unceasing and changeful conflicts between the liberal and ultramontane parties, whose previous combination was now completely shattered. And while, on the other hand, in the Reformed state church of Holland, theological studies, leaning upon German science, have taken a liberal and even radical destructive course, the not inconsiderable Roman Catholic population has fallen, under Jesuit leading, more and more into bigoted obsc