THE INTOXICATION OF POWER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 115, 9 July 1875, Page 14

THE INTOXICATION OF POWER.

HConqtterors sometimes forget that the excess of victory is the promise of ultimate defeat. By humbling the adversary overmuch, they induce an undying animosity j and by stretching their imperium beyond the limits of prudence, they make it very difficult to govern. The first Napoleon added kingdom to kingdom, forgetting that they could not be held together j and almost every other great general has been finally defeated by the very grandeur of his plans or his conquests. Xerxes -was unsuccessful on account of the immenseness of his army, which accomplished its own dire confusion; and Hannibal failed to march, upon Rome, because his soldiers were besotted with viptory. Alexander, who before he was two-and-thirfcy, had conquered the greater part of the known world, left no successor who could hold his empire together. There is a philosophy in conquest as there is in defeat, and to neglect it is to half undo Conquest. We have an example of this truth in the recent victories of Germany, which have so intoxicated the national mind that they will probably bring about a reaction. Having made tributaries of several kingdoms, and annexed a good portion of France, Germany is now dictating to most of the European powers how they should behave themselves towards their superiors. No Cabinet in Europe is safe from the Foreign Office in Berlin. Meanwhile the Catholic Church, which is very powerful in Germany and which is gaining strength and numbers continually, receives homage of Prince Bismarck's hostility, because he respects it and fears it. Materially the Catholic Church has no power whatever ; it has no guns, and cannot put an army into the field ; but it is the greatest moral force in the world, and for that reason unjust men hate it. The Bishops of Germany resent worldly power ; and worldly power detests moral force, because moral force is above it. So, worldly power puts the Bishops into prison ; and the Bishops conquer by going there. Then comes the comic part of the strife, when worldly power tries to plead moral principle, as an excuse for perpetrating injustice. Prince Bismarck tells the Bishops, that they are encouraging disloyalty by the example which they set of disobedience ; and he takes upon himself to instruct these authorities in their duties as Churchmen and subjects- The Bishops are taken to task by Prince Bismarck on their refusal to obey certain laws, those laws being expressly constructed by Prince Bismarck for the crippling and undermining of the Church. Here we have had an example — such as we had a hundred times in history — of the State presuming to fix the limits of that obedience which the Church must render to the Law ; and at the same time, of the presumption which accuses ecclesiastics of misinterpreting Christian dtity. It is the State which dares to dictate to the Church both its principles and its immediate practice. Not long since Prince Bismarck said in the Parliament, he would rather obey his Sovereign Emperor, than obey the Pope misguided by the Jesuits ; but what he meant was, ' he would rather obey the Emperor, guided solely by Prince Bismarck, than obey the Pope who is guided by God/ It is the old story of a statesman obeying himself, while he professes to obey only his superior ascribing influences and side springs to the Church which exist no where but in his own i~n agination. The Pope is no more guided by the Jesuits, than by the Dominicans, Benedictines, or Franciscans ; whereas the Emperor of Germany is mainly influenced by the Chancellor who was the main cause of His Majesty becoming Emperor. The recent protest of the Bishops of Germany, addressed to their persecuting Emperor and the answer of the ' State Ministry,' thereto furnish a painful illustration of the hoplessness of mere justice contending against intoxicated power. The State ministry declines to see the truth, that the Catholics of Germany (who have been the best friends of the Emperor, who have done most by their bravery and fidelity, to consolidate the present order of things, and . whose principles are the only bulwark which is now left to Germany against national scepticism and infidelity) are not precisely the men whom the State ought to persecute, and whose pastors it should put in the common prison. The answer of the ' State Ministry' is evasive yet subtle, offensive yet cunningly worded. The last paragraph is perhaps the most wicked. It tells the Bishops that they foresaw, before the Vatican Council what the new definition must lead to, and that they foretold its contrariety, with the State. This is true, and yet an evident falsehood. The Bishops foretold that there would be contrariety, but they ascribed the blame of it to the world. "What they meant was, that worldly men, like. Prince Bismarck, would make an excuse of a spiritual definition for persecuting the Authorities of the Church. This is exactly what has happened. The Bishops never objected to the dogma ; what they foresaw was the certainty of strife. — ' Catholic Times/