THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2038, 4 September 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1880.

Some sort of an understanding has at last been come to between the Jesuits and the Trench Government. We find in yesterday’s telegrams that the leaders of the Jesuits have offered to secularise their colleges and other establishments, and declare that they will abstain from mixing in politics, and it is further stated that the French Government have accepted these proposals. The Government, indeed, are probably very glad to come to some sort of an understanding with the body, for the sake of turning which out of France they revived an obsolete law and proceeded to carry it into force in a manner which did not commend itself to the nation at large. The English journals were almost unanimous in condemning a measure which, they said, revived the spirit of persecution of the middle ages, and entirely ran counter to the idea of freedom of conscience. It was felt to he a stain on the new Republic that it was turning out of its borders men whose principal fault, it was asserted, lay in the fact that their ideas did not tally with those of their persecutors. All this, no doubt, is true, but there are two sides to every question. Englishmen have not been accustomed to look upon religious organisations as weilding political power. Religion is religion, and politics are politics. Not many years ago, when an agitation arose in England respecting the increase of power in that country of Roman Catholicism, and the cry that the State was in danger was raised, the papers were immediately flooded with letters from leading Catholics declaring that their allegiance to the State was in no way altered by their religion, and that they were as good subjects as the most staunch supporters of the Established Church. The idea that had cropped up was foreign

to the general current of English thought, and the agitation fell through. But on the Continent affairs are different. The Catholic Liberals in France have engrained in them the conviction that the Society of Jesus has a vast political significance ; that with them it is the order first, and the State afterwards, and'Zthat,

should the Church and the State come at i any time into collision, the followers of | Loyola will side with the former. It has been the terror of the Liberals that the vast educational power of the Jesuits was training up a race of young men entrusted with principles of this description, that has persuaded the Government to enter into a course of action so repugnant to those who hold the value of a free play of thought as the greatest of boons. The same idea has been very patent in Germany of late years. The Falk laws were passed by Bismark and his following, on the understanding that the "Vatican was wielding a power under the then existing arrangements dangerous to the civil rule. These laws have certainly lately boon modified, but from no change in sentiment on the part of the advanced liberals. The religions idea has been dominated by the political idea. Prince Bismark has been anxious to carry out certain items of the programme, which be considered favorable to the consolidation of the Empire, notably amongst these the policy of protection. But the liberal section of Parliament who had followed meekly at his chariot wheels since the PrussoAustrian war no longer were willing to follow his lead. Free trade was one of their party cries. So that the Prince had to seek for new allies, and he endeavoured to enlist on his side the Ultramontane-Catholics by a promise of the partial remission of the Falk laws. How he has failed in gaining them as friends, although he passed his measure, is now a matter of history. Many of the Ultramontanes indeed assisted him, thinking, no doubt, half a loaf to be better than no bread, and with their aid and that of the Central party the partial remission became law, but Leo XIII., though credited with a liberal spirit and a wish for reconciliation with Germany, is little likely to he satisfied with anything short of the total abrogation of the obnoxious laws, and Prince Bismarck is now in the awkward situation of having fallen between two stools. Of course his enormous popularity with the nation at large enables him, to a certain extent, to laugh at parliamentary combinations, hut his i successor, who will not possess his per--1 sonal influence, will find the situation one of enormous difficulty.

We have turned aside from French politics into those of Germany for the solo purpose of proving the wide-spread feeling that exists on the continent as to the presumed intimate connection between parties ostensibly purely religious and political questions. In both Prance and Germany we find the more advanced Liberal party taking up a stand more or less repugnant to what Englishmen consider to be fair, simply from a fear of the effects of certain religions combinations. This feeling should he taken into consideration whenever judgment is passed on the action of these sections. The circumstance is likely to he overlooked as being ef a sort mostly out of our experience, hut nevertheless, it is a large factor in the political condition of Europe. But the French Government have, in their late action against the Jesuits, strained the logical result of the feeling, and the sympathies of the nation appear to have sided with the victims, and not with the extreme liberal party. The Government are probably, therefore, very glad to come to some sort of an arrangement with the Jesuits. A compromise has been arrived at, and M. Ereycinet no doubt considers that all the objections! portion of their educational programme has been eliminated. Whether he is oversanguine or not, time alone will prove. The Society of Jesus, formed on the failure of the monastic' institutions, to secularise, as it were, religion, or rather to engraft religious society on to secular life, has shewn its usual wisdom and adaptability to circumstances in bending to the present storm. It has, however, weathered many others infinitely more severe, and has afterwards reappeared hut little shorn of its strength.