Our Paris Letter.

Manawatu Herald, 18 June 1895, Page 3

Our Paris Letter.

« Paris, 2nd May, 1895. The recent Papal epistle to the English people, calling upon them to return to the holy Catholic Church from which they have strayed, is a most extraordinary document. The Pope seems to have imagined, tbat the English people were on the brink of conversion, or he would never have committed himself to a pious exhortation to oome over to the Roman Church. Probably he bas been misled by the English Catholics, a small but influential and aristocratic body, who fancied that they saw signs of rapprochement in the vitualistic tendencies of a portion of the Anglican Church. How completely the Pope is out of touch with the vealities of tbe situation, is shown by his offer of a liberal series of indulgences to penitent English -converts, oblivious of the faot, that this assumed Power of the Roman Catholio Churoh, represented by the Pope, to issue indulgences, was the primary cause of the great Lutheran secession, and the birth of Protestantism. Moreover, the secession of the Anglican Churoh from Rome is not only religious, but political, and the English people will never consent i^be placed spiritually under the jurisdiction of a foreign priest, f The terms of the treaty between China and Japan bave created quite a consternation among certain European Powers, and three of them — Russia, France and Germany — are anxious, that Japan should be made to disgorge her conquests. The pretensions of two countries ftt least are put forth in a very open manner, Russia considers, that Gorea and Manohuria are destined to form, at no distant date, Russian possessions, and Franoe olaims Formosa and the Archipelago of the Pescadores. In this way, there would be, of course, nothing left to Japan, except the honour of baying gamed a rapid series of victories over China. It is not likely, however, that Japan will consent to be deprived of her conquests without a strangle to keep them, and if the two Powers persevere in their demands, serious complications may be expeoted.