THE Catholics are suffering today, in the very heart of Europe, a persecution which, if less bloody, is not less cruel or unjust, than that which afflicted the Christian Church in the beginning of the IVth century, under the reign of the brutal old emperor, Diocletian. The prisons of Germany are filled with confessors of the faith, who, in the midst of every indignity and outrage, bear themselves with a constancy and heroism not unworthy of the early martyrs. And it is strange, too, that this struggle should be only a renewal of the old conflict between Christ and Cæsar, between the Son of Man and the prince of this world. In fact, anti-Christian Europe is using every exertion to re-create society on the model of Grecian and Roman paganism. This tendency is manifest in all the various realms of thought and action.

We perceive it-and we speak now more particularly of Germany in literature, in science, in the man

ner of dealing with all the great problems which concern man in his relations with both the visible and the unseen world; and it looms up before us, in palpable form and gigantic proportions, in the whole attitude of the state toward the church. There has never lived on this earth a more thorough pagan than Goethe, the great idol of German literature, to whom the very sign of the cross was so hateful that in his notorious Venetian Epigram he put it side by side with garlic and vermin. The thought of self-sacrifice and self-denial was so odious to his lustful and all-indulgent nature that he turned from its great emblem with uncontrollable disgust, and openly proclaimed himself a "decidirter Nichtchrist." "Das Ewig Weibliche "—sensualism and sexualism-were the gods of his heart, in whose praise alone he attuned his lyre. And Schiller, in his Gods of Greece, complained sorrowingly that all the fair world of gods and god

desses should have vanished, that one (the God of the Christian) might be enriched; and with tender longing he prayed that "nature's sweet morn might again

return.

Both the religion and the philosophy of paganism were based upon the deification of nature, and were consequently pantheistic. Now, this pagan pantheism recrudescent is the one permanent type amid the endless variations of modern German sophistry. It underlies the theorizing of Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, as well as that of Feuerbach, Büchner, and Strauss. They all assume the non-existence of a personal God, and transfer his attributes to nature, which is, in their eyes, the mother of all, the sole existence, and the supreme good. This pantheism, which confuses all things in extricable chaos, spirit with matter, thought with sensation, the infinite with the finite, destroying the very elements of reason, and taking from language its essential meaning, has infected all non-Catholic thought in Germany. When we descend from the misty heights of speculation, we find pantheistic paganism in the idolatry of science and culture, which have taken the place of dogma and morality. It is held to be an axiom that man is simply a product of nature, who knows herself in him as she feels herself in the animal.

The formulas in which the thought is clothed are of minor importance. In the ultimate analysis we find in all the conflicting schools of German infidelity this sentiment, how ever widely its expression may vary: that nature is supreme, and there is no God beside. The cosmos, instead of a personal God, is the ultimate fact beyond which science professes to be unable to proceed;

and therefore the duality of ends, aims, and results which underlies the Christian conception of the universe must necessarily disappear. There is no longer God and the world, spirit and matter, good and evil, heaven and hell; there is not even man and the brute. There is only the cosmos, which is one; and from this it necessarily follows that the distinction between the spiritual and the temporal power is unreal and should cease to be recognized.

Now, here we have discovered the very germ from which the whole Prussian persecution has sprung. In the last analysis it rests upon the assumption that the spiritual power has no right to exist, since the truths upon which it was supposed to be based-as God, the soul, and a future life are proven to be myths. Hence the state is the only autonomy, and to claim authority not derived from it is treason. Thus the struggle now going on in Prussia is for life or death. It rages around the very central citadel of the soul and of all religion. The Catholics of, Germany are to-day contending for what the Christians of the first centuries died-the right to live. To understand this better it will be well to consider for a moment the attributes of the state in pagan Greece and Rome.

Hellenic religion, in its distinctive forms, had its origin in the deification of nature and of man as her crowning work, and both were identified with the state. Hence religion was hero-worship; the good man was the good citizen, the saint was the successful warrior who struck terror into the enemies of his country, and thus the religious feeling was confounded with the patriotic spirit. To be a true citizen of the state, it was neces

sary to profess the national religion; and to be loyal to the state was to be true to its protecting gods. The highest act of religion was to beat back the invader or to die gloriously on the battle-field. Indeed, in paganism we find no idea of a non-national religion. The pagan state, whether imperial, monarchical, or republican, was essentially tyrannical, wholly incompatible with freedom as understood in Christian society. To be free was to be, soul and body, the slave of the state. Plato gives to his ideal Republic unlimited power to control the will of the individual, to direct all his thoughts and actions, to model and shape his whole life. He merges the family and its privileges into the state and its rights, gives the government absolute authority in the education of its subjects, and even places the propagation of the race under state supervision.

The pagan state was also essentially military, recognizing no rights except those which it had not the power to violate. Now, the preaching of Christ was in direct contradiction to this whole theory of government. He declared that God and the soul have rights as well as Cæsar, and proclaimed the higher law which affirms that man has a destiny superior to that of being a citizen of any state, however glorious; which imposes upon him duties that transcend the sphere of all human authority. Thus religion became the supreme law of life, and the recognition of the indefeasible rights of conscience gave to man citizenship in a kingdom not of this world. It,

in consequence, became his duty as well as his privilege to obey first the laws of this supernatural kingdom, and to insist upon this divine

obligation, even though the whole. world should oppose him.

This teaching of Christ at once lifted religion above the control of the state, and, cutting loose the bonds of servitude which had made it national and narrow, declared it catholic, of the whole earth and for all men. He sent his apostles, not to the Jew, or the Greek, or the Gentile, but to all the nations, and in his church he recognized no distinction of race or social condition-the slave was like the freeman, the beggar like the king.

This doctrine, the most beneficent and humanitarian that the world has ever heard, brought forth from the oblivion of ages the allforgotten truth of the brotherhood. of the race, and raised man to a level on which paganism was not able even to contemplate him; proclaiming that man, for being simply man, irrespective of race, nationality, or condition, is worthy of honor and reverence. Now, it was precisely this catholic and non-national character of the religion of Christ which brought it into conflict with the pagan state. The Christians, it was held, could not be loyal citizens of the empire, because they did not profess the religion of the empire, and refused to sacrifice to the divinity of Cæsar. They were traitors, because in those things which concerned faith they were resolved not to recognize on the part of the state any right to interfere; and therefore were they cast into prison, thrown to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre, and devoured under the approving eyes of the worshippers of the emperor's divinity. This history is repeating itself in Prussia to-day.

Many causes have, within the present century, helped to strengthen the national feeling in Germany.