Further, in their address with reference to the approaching elections, the Deputies of the Centre party in Germany say, in September 1884:

The so-called Culturkampf is by no means at an end it is true that its waves are calmed down, but its waters remain as they were. Let the Catholics beware if those waters become stagnant: they would poison the national life much more than they did when the tempest was at its height. This is the real wound, the most dangerous wound, from which Germany suffers. To close and heal it, is our chief and most patriotic task.

Still later, the actual condition of the Church in Prussia, in March 1885, is described as follows by the Episcopate, in their reply to the letter of sympathy addressed to them by the Prelates of the late Plenary Council of Baltimore, on the persecution they endured. That reply, signed, on behalf of his venerable brethren, by Paul, Archbishop of Cologne, and dated March 10th 1885, says :

"Unfortunately we are far from seeing the end of our afflic tions. The chain of the May Laws, which fetters the rights and the liberty of the Church, still weighs upon us; our seminaries and our monasteries still remain suppressed; thousands of parishes are still desolate or deprived of their pastors. The Religious Orders and Congregations are still expelled and banished from their native land. The discipline of the church, the discharge of the episcopal office, and the administration of ecclesiastical property are subject, in many respects, to the management and control of the Government, which claims, moreover, to manage the schools. Ecclesiastics and even priests are bound to serve in the army. The Archbishops of Prussia still languish in exile under a foreign sky. We are thus deprived of many precious graces, which, in the midst of the struggle and the danger, we need, to aid us to preserve intact and inviolable our unity and constancy to the end."

In addition to their united Parliamentary action, and with a view to render that action still more effective, because more thoroughly identified with popular feeling, the Catholic party in Germany hold great annual meet

ings, in which are discussed all topics, religious, civil, economic, and political, bearing on Catholic interests. Last year's meeting (September 1884) was held at Amberg, in Bavaria; and the chair was occupied by Herr von Heune, a member of the German Parliament. The Archbishop of Salzburg and several other prelates were present. The principal speaker was Herr von Windthorst; and it is hardly necessary to observe, that his eloquent, wise, and patriotic utterances are watched with the deepest interest by the whole Empire. The utilization for Catholic purposes of the well-known system of the German "Burschenschaften" or student societies, and the condemnation of State socialism and of secularized public instruction, were among the leading subjects under discussion; and, as might well have been expected, the Catholic population of every province of the German Empire was represented in that great meeting.

Throughout their struggle, the German Catholics have had the sympathy and cordial co-operation of a great number of enlightened Protestants, themselves sufferers by the culturkampf. The following account of the disastrous effect of such legislation on the Protestant Church of Prussia, taken from one of the leading German Protestant papers, the Reichsbote,1 contains a lesson well worthy of the attention of the statesmen of every land:

The Evangelical Church has suffered grievously from the culturkampf... Indifference and hatred towards the Church and Christianity have increased to an astounding degree, and the unchristianized masses of the humbler classes have ranked themselves in tens of thousands in the army of social democracy. As a result of the putting aside of the Church and of Christianity, and of the impious doctrine that "everything is nature," which has been the outcome, immorality has increased, and the number of crimes is being multiplied to an appalling extent. The bonds

1 October 1878.

of social order are being dissevered, because the moral factors, authority and religion, have been long since put on one side, and replaced by rationalistic commercialism, so that we find ourselves in face of the most serious complications in the social, moral, and ecclesiastical order. Of all the promises which were made at the commencement of the culturkampf, not only has not one of them been realized, but the reverse has happened in every direction. Instead of peace, there are everywhere disorder and disunion.

Unhappily, it cannot be denied, that the twelve years' persecution of the Church in Prussia has operated somewhat similarly, but, let us hope, not to so great an extent, among the Catholic population. The two metropolitan sees vacant, the bishops of other sees discharging their duties in daily apprehension of being superseded, a large number of parishes without an adequate supply of priests, the ecclesiastical seminaries closed, the number of ecclesiastical students alarmingly diminished, the expulsion of the religious orders, and all Catholic education most seriously interfered with -these causes combined, as we are assured by well qualified witnesses, have necessarily driven many Catholics into the ranks of Indifferentism or Unbelief.

On the other hand, however, there is much that is reassuring in the gallant bearing and position of the Centre party in Parliament, sustained as it is by the fifteen million Catholic subjects of the German Empire and by many sympathizers of other creeds. That party and its supporters have thus far successfully asserted, against formidable odds, the freedom of their altars and their inalienable right to educate their children in the religion of their fathers; and there is good reason to hope for the ultimate triumph of their loyal and constitutional efforts. They have moreover afforded an invaluable example to Catholic populations oppressed, wronged, and despoiled by well-organized minorities in other Continental states, and they have practically demonstrated how Catholic France and Catholic Italy, if only

true to themselves, can, by combined constitutional action, accomplish the same results as are now being achieved by a Catholic minority in Fatherland.1

1 The success of Belgium in this respect, which, notwithstanding some passing demonstrations of angry feeling on the part of the defeated minority, appears to be permanently assured, and the satisfactory results of united Catholic action in the Municipal elections in Rome and other cities of Italy are fully referred to in the concluding chapter. In Holland, the Catholic members, heretofore divided, have now resolved to unite in one compact body, and, combining with the Right or Conservative party, they will constitute a majority in the Lower House.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE ART OF PRINTING AND THE BIBLE BEFORE THE

REFORMATION.

HERE, it will not be out of place to refer to the off-hand assertions of certain Protestant writers, that, for the great activity and extension of the newly invented art of Printing, the world was mainly indebted to the Reformation, and that Luther was the first to give the Bible, in their own language, to the people.

We have seen that it was on the 10th of December 1520 that Luther publicly burned the Pope's Bull at Wittenberg, and that he completed his German version. of the New Testament in 1522, and of the Old Testament in 1530. The art of Printing was invented, some seventy-five years before, by John Gutenberg at Mentz, and was rapidly perfected by him, in conjunction with John Fust and Peter Schoeffer, Fust's son-in-law. The three partners appear to have contributed, each his own. share, to the completion of the invention. Gutenberg's first attempt, about A.D. 1440, was cutting out types from blocks of wood. Schoeffer, ere long, invented the casting of metal type and punches, and also the manufacture of printer's ink; and Fust, a goldsmith of considerable wealth and great skill in working metals, effectively co-operated by his means and experience. They published three editions of Donatus, said to have been the first books printed entirely with movable type, probably in 1450; and, five years later, bearing the

1 Sometimes written "Schoiffer."