The Home Rule Bill.
The Home Rule Bill has been placed on the statute book, though an assurance has been given that it “will not and cannot come into operation until Parliament has had the fullest opportunity by an Amending Bill of altering, modifying, or qualifying its provisions in such a way as to secure at any rate the general consent both of Ireland and of the United Kingdom.” We trust that this promise is not as worthless as that made by the Prime Minister when he gave the assurance that “he would not present the Home Rule Bill to His Majesty for assent until the Amending Bill had been finally disposed of in the House of Commons.” It is all very well to deliver eloquent speeches denouncing the breaking of treaty obligations. It might comport more with the dignity of a great statesman that even stress of circumstances and pressure would not turn him aside from his pledged word.
The Tortuous Policy of the Vatican.
The October number of the Contemporary Review has an article on Benedict XV., the new Pope, by Dr. Giovanni Pioli, which throws a flood of light on the tortuous diplomacy of the See of Rome. In referring to the Secretariate of Merry del Val, Pius X.’s Secretary of State, he says:—”But the unscrupulous, cynically dishonest behaviour of the new Secretariate of State proved to be more than the upright, honest conscience of Monsignor Della Chiesa could bear: it was not so much owing to a different policy as to a different standard of morality that he had in the long run to sever his connection with the Secretariate of State. Those who know what a forge of Machiavellism the Secretariate of State had become under Pius X., when the struggle against adversaries was conducted by all available means—from corruption by money in order to induce the delation of friends and the misuse of Confession in order to discover Modernists, to the systematic disfigurement of truth, the habitual belying of public utterances and private engagements, the misrepresentation of the intentions even of such respectable bodies as that of the Assembly of the French Bishops in the question of the ‘Cultuelles’—they will admit that it is the greatest honour of Monsignor Della Chiesa (the new Pope) that he could not long collaborate under such a master with the Benignis and the Montagninis.” Such is the manner in which one conversant with the inner working of the so-called Holy See writes, and Protestants may be pardoned if they think that such a diplomacy is more in keeping with the policy of Antichrist than of Christ.
How a Pope is Elected.
The simple-minded Roman Catholic is led to believe that the so-called Vicar of Christ owes his election to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, but those of them conversant with the real workings must have tremendous difficulties in squaring their religious beliefs with the facts. Dr. Pioli throws some light on the recent election of Pope Benedict XV. “On the other hand,” he says, “while the gigantic European struggle was pending, those Cardinals who, like Agliardi, Gasparri, Ferrata, had shown a constant open preference for France were disqualified, even if Austria had not, as is reported, made it clear in the Conclave that such an election would spell the alienation of Austria from the Church. So it was that the candidature of Mons. Della Chiesa was launched among the Cardinals, and, a week before the Conclave began, became so popular that the Tribuna could write on 25th August that, even if another Cardinal were elected, Della Chiesa would be asked to act as Secretary of State. When the more liberal wing of the Conclave saw that the candidature of Maffi, a scientist and a democrat, could not secure two-thirds of the votes, and the right wing could not secure a majority for Ferrata, both the parties acceded to a candidature of ‘compromise’ between the two wings of the opposition, and Cardinal Della Chiesa was elected, with Cardinal Ferrata as Secretary of State. That day, 3rd September, the first decisive battle was won by France and lost by Austria and Germany.” Pius X.’s sympathies were pro-German and pro-Austrian.
Germany’s Dream of a new Religion.
In these notes reference was made last month to Treitschke and Nietzsche, whose teaching has had such an influence on German thought. An extract from Professor Cramb’s Germany and England will give some idea of the utter paganism and daring blasphemy on which the culture of Germany was being fed and nourished. Here is Heinrich von Treitschke’s programme:—”It is reserved for us to resume in thought that creative rôle in religion which the whole Teutonic race abandoned fourteen centuries ago. . . . The seventeenth century flung off Rome; the eighteenth undermined Galilee itself; Strauss completed the task that Eichhorn began; and with the opening of the twentieth century Germany, her long travail past, is reunited to her pristine genius, her creative power in religion and in thought. And what is the religion which on the whole may be characterised as the religion of the most earnest and passionate minds of young Germany? What is this new movement? The movement, the governing idea of the centuries from the fourteenth to the nineteenth, is the wrestle of the German intellect not only against Rome but against Christianity itself. Must Germany submit to this alien creed derived from an alien clime? Must she for ever confront the ages as the borrower of a religion, her own genius for religion numbed and paralysed? Hence the significance of Nietzsche. . . . Strauss, whilst denying and rejecting the metaphysic of Christianity, clings to its ethic. But Nietzsche? Nietzsche clears away the ‘accumulated rubbish’ of twelve hundred years; he attempts to set the German imagination back where it was with Alaric and Theodoric, fortified by the experience of twelve centuries to confront the darkness unaided, unappalled, triumphant, great, and free. Thus, while preparing to found a world-empire, Germany is also preparing to create a world-religion.”
The New Religion and the War Spirit.
In continuation of the foregoing extract we give the following, though owing to its blasphemy we hesitated at first in doing so. But, perhaps, it is just as well that our readers should have some idea of the principles that are governing so many of the Germany military classes. This is the extract:—”You have heard how in old times it was said: ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’; but I say unto you, Blessed are the valiant, for they shall make the earth their throne. And ye have heard men say: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’; but I say unto you, Blessed are the great in soul and the free in spirit, for they shall enter into Valhalla. And ye have heard men say: ‘Blessed are the peace-makers’; but I say unto you, Blessed are the warmakers, for they shall be called if not the children of Jahve (Jehovah) the children of Odin who is greater than Jahve.” It is such a religion as this which explains the ruthless and barbaric methods of German warfare. The uncivilized savages of Alaric and the heathen devotees of Odin are set up as examples by these teachers to be the beau ideal of culture for the German military caste.
A Scrap of Paper.
Much has been written and more spoken about the flippant words uttered by the German Chancellor to the British Ambassador, but it should be borne in mind that for decades the accredited religious teachers of Germany were playing fast and loose with more solemn and binding engagements than the treaties of nations. The attacks made on the Scripture were bound to bear bad fruit some day. If a man told us that the ten commandments are forgeries and are binding on no one, we should not express any surprise if he turned out a blasphemer, an adulterer, or a murderer. Any step after the first was but a natural sequence.