GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 46, 14 March 1874, Page 10

GENERAL NEWS.

(Compiled from our exchanges.) EINJiAJTD.. It is in coßtemplation to form a Celtic Society in Leeds-. JDoJnican" 11 * 11 GaZ6tte ' CnUB F&ther Burke " the American ? ir^ P S! Dgt ? n>B /? aki ? gatHereford ' said his if he had without hit. J ° f f2"Bl^f 2 " 81^ did DOt P° int to hoßtile attack » witnout, but to schisms from within. In Great Britain and Ireland* them are 48» convents, the sanctuJthew 11 W ° Ut W ° men ' liTO| "^ify^ff tlwoiselves and We extract from the 'Melbourne Telegraph' the following interesting scrap :-Mr Thomas Carlyle has receked the Prussian orde? of merit. He must be held to have deserved it. His curious whitewashing of King Frederick William entitled him to some such relognition. The anecdotes, of the capricious tyranny of this monarch are endless, and they excite but one emotion-disgust. The darker crimes bid to his door one may be willing to believe, are without foundation, though few other people besides Mr Carlyle,. can see their way to an acquittal. Our common humanity shudders when a name is given to C-ne reason for the Hnpopularity of confession to Anglican clergymen » supplied by an Anglican lady, in a letter to the 'Church Review ' She says:--" Mr A. would hear my confessions, where I occasionally stay, but his wife is jealous of his being alone with ladies in the vestry even though the door be ajar. Mr B. would do the same, but h* is afraid of the squire getting to know that such a practice goes on. Mr C. would attend me but I know he would despise me for my confesston and I should shrink from meeting him afterwards. The last time I went to an Anglicaa he told me that he would hear my confession but he was afraid it was very much against the blessed reformationwhatever that might be. I fear that there is much spurious AngUoanism afloat, as your last issue denotes." c The Home Rule London Election Committee has agreed upon an address to the Insh elects of the London- Metropolitan constituent «es. It states : " There are ten constituencies iv this metropolis, and they send twenty-two members to parliament. In each of the* constituencies the Irish vote now on the register offerfus a most encouraging basis for future opeiations. The total number of the electoral votes of the metropolis was 268,606, and of these the approximate estimate of the number of Irish electors was 44 000 This shows how great a power the Irish enters are in the metropolis of England. Therefore ,t was stated that a definite policy should be laid ou for them, so that afc the day of reckoning they mi-ht know whom to support and whom te reject " ° Chivalry to the Isle of Dogs .— J. 8. writes to a London paper :- Millwall *as visited by twe Cathohe nans, who solicited alms from house to house for the support of the institution to which they belong, ' and although they met with considerable kindness from many of the residents, they were on one part of the Isle of Dogs surrounded by a gang of scoundrels .who pelted them *hh mud aud every sort of street filth that they could pick up ; indeed, one was so badly\truck with a ■tone that she staggered, sick and faint, into the nearest house for protection. Ido not and will not beliere that party feeling or religious animosity had anything to do with this cowardly and? unprovoked outrage j I even doubt if any one of the wretches- who took part in it could repeat the lord s- Prayer correctly ; but granting this, t is d^ffieult to understand «hat could induce aucli a/un warrant able dispky of brutality except ou the hypothesis of wanton ignorance, encouraged by non-resistance. Be this a 3 it may, it is sa d to think that such°an occurrence could take place in open day in a populous neighborhood These women (many of whom are tke daughters of noblemen) have devoted their liv«s to the broadest a*d most practical Christ amtv They feed and main am more than three hundred helpless people without regard to their theological views-Cat hoiio, ProteSant, SS?S Infidel find them as impartial as the grave, the only condition of admission being that they are helpless and destitute. onQlUon ot _ A very simple occurrence in Ireland is- sufficient for an English journal to manufacture into a terrible agrarian crime. But the hombte discovery which, has jusfc been made in the Thames exceeds m brutality and savageness anything which ever disgraced thisoomntrj. The remains of a woman, cut and hacked to pieces, have

X^FASS&W,^ ri ™ Thi3 is a *"■•-"• « wßnS}^JouTna.honw Bn S}^JouTna.hon Home ßule— The • Dublin Freeman ' says r— We pointed some time since to the -ltered tone in which English indication, of the increasing importance of that question. It is not ZfZ*,.*™^* BmCe th - e r&tio^ »«"* demonstrations which occurred in this country in favor of Domestic Legislation furnished matter for mere splenetic jocularity to the organs of opinion attht other side of the Channel. But then the agitation ha* assumed dimensions winch can no longer be laughed at. «*nuuew The Irish Vote in England.— The Irish Tote in Eneland i* unquestionably one of the great political powers of the fuX and £ was only right ar,d natural that Mr Butt and the other speakers at the Home Rule meeting at Newcastle-on-Tyne should urge uCn the IrSt K'/S countrymen io the old land. There are, perhaps in England at the present moment a couple of millions of Irishmen-that birth * PerBODB b ° m W IfelaDd ° r deSCended from Parents of Irish ,t> •?*% T eek \ h ? Home Buk n»Tement was, accordin* to th P S;rbeSr7fon g O , Well ' *" *" * »"* mJ «*J££ Birmlr 006^ °- 10 ?' , une^ uiTOcal *"«* was achieved at the "Thel&^T^^T? 1 '^ 6112^ 1 - Arthup Sullivan's Orato £J fhe Light of the World," was produced for the first time The finlrhT X eCßtaßlC 5 OVe T th - 6 W ° rk ' thau whi *. the y asserrnothing «Ekh^r rt PrOdU vu d KBmCeK BmCe the «"»°»M« day on which thf Jlhjah took the world by storm. Mr Sullivan, who has thus added. atreafttrth^?^? 11 * k B y< T g IrishmaQ "™ *** abreast with all modern composers, and threatens to dispute the BT" 7 ? 1^ 11 ?! *ho» controlled the Uaiverse of SoWd." in 2f.h y 7 ? de Waß reßping famein and Beethoven was brooding over his immortal symphonies. PnnflT^'TfS^'v.T 8 in , J; evi , ewin g a work entitled: "Jesuits in £, S\ 1 lhe .i Mt0 F of England, since the so-called Reformation, And H\ b v mtten £ , tfae aiuhcr ia his p reface this bS: T^l,/,f during the long reign of terror which the Penal fT*f? dUCed ' "° C » thohc literature was possible. The oppression faKM^TH **.»<» the publication of tIJKKK? forbidden, lhej might suffer j. but prejudice and hatred, ignorance and bigotry, rendered sympathy with then- sufferings a crime. Even we can remember when to- sympathise with Papists- was considered 011 " 88 * 1^ J ti8 »ot forty years since the whYsper rf TSCLIfa. * ! VlCtime ° f "n*" l6 " of wfy ™* first permitted Ittr^f 0 ', 1^ * ears Blnce intellectual equality was conceded to Catholics by Protestant Things- are now changing. Some Protestants have grown just, even generous ; and such a work as that we now notice has a ehuoe of b.m^ received with respect On the text of t'.e suppoied desire for a rehgious war.The • Times ' cr oo r v« c8 X, 8 foll r.r < ;? in J ding Itai^ and tempo^ coverable, and the kingdom so far departed, the Court of Rome is concentrating its powers on renewal of its old warfare a-ninst civil ioe is only equalled by the naivete of the supposition that now for the toL^b.So^sr iuitiate " a cmsadc>> against -^ which was sa,d to be rolliog from Germany towards England mtht be stemmed m time to avert its ill e ff,cts upon the Englsh pe?i!e defeated the ministerial Liberal in Green * L-h. Iv Dundee three' can VV eekly News pointed thi 9 out. The Irish electors of Kundee thereupon declared for Mr Yeaman, and on the day of the polling that gent eman wa 8 found to have a majority om- Mr Jefis flmos exactly equal to the strength of the Lush party of Dundee. The Home Rulers of Great Britain have been busy «uh the Par'iameuiry register; and it is quite evident that if they do as well iv everr ista. feaii^oftower 11 aud Daadee ' they hoid -

The English papers have discussed at great length the resolutions adopted by the Bishops at their recent conference. The article in the 'Times ' was most unfair, but the writer seasons his criticism with a confession that the scheme of welding Irish Catholic education into a majestic whole, with the Catholic University for a centre, is a remarkable one, and likely to attain its objects." The article in the ' Daily Telegraph 1 is mainly remarkable for one of those laughable blunders which -show that the gentlemen who "do " the Irish artioles for our London contemporaries know as little about this country as they do about Khiva or Ashantoe. The writer in the ' Telegraph* declares that " he might say that the proposal to found a Catholic University, and to place the house for the residence of the students under the supervision of the ' Jesuit Fathers' is a Home Rule movement driven to an extreme, which must be distasteful to many faithful Catholics. Even Mr Martin and Mr Butt cannot be supposed to contemplate with equanimity a plan which would consign their children absolutely to priestly care. But that is their own concern. They are free, tike other folk, to choose instructors and masters where they please." This ia delightful. Mr Martin and Mr Butt are very good Irishmen, but that they are " faithful Catholics " is a new revelation, which will, we imagine, astonish both themselves and their friends. The English ' Churchman ' soys : — Philosophers and politicians pass over with a comparative indifference the thoughts, opinions, and sentiments of the elder generation, and outvie each other in a keen, jealous, vigilant, and ever active contest for the possession, direction, and guidance of the young. This is the secret root of the heat of these School Board contests, this is the source of their unappreciable importance. " Give me the hymns of a people," said a French reformer, " and my work is done." Give me the youth of a kingdom, is the virtual request of the Secularist and demagogue, and from the next generation I will effectually root out every principle of loyalty to the Queen, or of reverence for religion. We could have wished that the " Times ' newspaper had printed the Pope's Encyclical in the same sheet with its article upon it. We are afraid that the article will go throughout Germany, but the Encyclical, which is on the separate sheet, will be dropped like a parachute from the balloon before it crosses the Thames. We say this because we heard the- other day that the publication of the Encyclical had been forbidden in Germany. We hoped that the journals of a free country like ours would have carried it over the Cordon Sanitaire of gagging press laws. '• Borne was never so low as she lies to-day." Such is the Io Paan of the 'Timed' in its article on the Encyclical of Pius the Ninth. Our reading of history is this : The Church was never so wide-spread, sever so united in itself and to its head as now. The world has indeed been robbing and stripping it of everything on which it can lay its finger. But the Catholic and Roman Church was never so manifest as the one only Church of God in the midst of dead schisms and dying heresies as to day. The 'Pall Mall Gazette' has done a good and timely service in behalf of the honor of English journalists. It has commented with just severity upon a passage from the ' North German Gazette,' which has happilyfound its way to London. "As regards the support given to Germany in her struggle against Ultramontanism, the journal above-mentioned (i c. the 'North German Gazette') 'dismisses as absurd the suspicion expressed in some quarters, that the articles in this sense published by some leading English newspapers were due to influence exercised by the Press-department of Pr'nce von Bismarck's admistration.' Here the Prussian semi-official journal distinctly recognises the existence of a ' Press-department,' and intimates that a portion at least of its functions consists in influencing the press of England." We thank the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' for writing the following words: — "What does concern us and every newspaper of respectability in England is to know, which are the journals that derive their inspiration from the Berlin Press-department. It would be interesting to hear hosr it ia communicated and on what terms." tiast week we gave our reasons for believing that some of our English newspapers are under the influence of Prince Von Bismarck's " Press Department." About the date of the Danish War the 'Kreuz .Zdtung' stated that in the Prussian Budget there appeared an item of £70,000 for 'Newspaper service in England and elsewhere." We do not venture to surmise that the " Press Department" has any such vote now to dispose of and that this is what the 'Pull Mall Gazette' intended by speaking of " terms." It is strange to see how familiar people become with acts of violence, when these are not directed against themselves; and though a tithe of what, is going on in Germany would, if it were British Protestants who wu-e suffering, iaiae a perfect whirlwind of indignation in the English n.ind, yet as it is v persecution of Catholics, people are glad to shut their eyes to the facts. It cannot be to often repeated that the only act of the Church has been to maintain her imprescriptible and immemoiul and essential right, herself to determine what is Catholic doctrine and what is not, who are Catholics and who are not, and consequently who arc and who are not fit to be appointed pastors and teachers. The ' Spectator' remarks -.—Archbishop Manning has had a controversy wiih the 'Times' on the subject of the Prussian ecclesiastical legislation, in which he has got much the beet of the battle. The ♦Times' cannot assert^that anj one Prussian priest has been indicted for political conspirac-y or treason, much less convicted, by way of justification f~r the new policy. It cannot deny that the State has taken power to fine, imprison, and otherwise persecute Roman Catho io priests at almost every step in their lives, simply for doing acts which no faithful priest of tu;.t Church could leave undone ; nor that it ia using this pov* er with increasing severity day by day. The' Westminister Gazette' on the Pope and the Emperor of Germary: In this controversy between the Pope and Emperor one great point is gained hj iho establishment of the fact that the recent laws in Prussia aim at the destruction of the Catholic religion. The Pope has clearly, and bei'oio the face of Europe, affixed to these laws their true character. To foreo upon the Catholics, who form one-third of the population of the Empire, laws destructive of their religion, is to enact

on German soil the Tudor tyranny which three hundred years ago disgraced England. This is the march of liberty — this the boasted progress of the nineteenth century, that ends after all, at least in enlightened and Protestant Prussia, in a return to religious persecution. •• The ever- watchful Dr Cumming is warning " the Church " of a ntw danger. Prince Bismarck hating driven about 4000 Jesuit priests from Germany, 2000 of them have come to England. These, says the Doctor, are permeating all classes of society in this country, and are doing their utmost to forward the cause they have in hand. The Churches of England and Scotland are warned to be on the alert to oppose a danger that 4i threatens our common humanity." Professor Max Muller has turned preacher in the interests of Protestantism. This distinguished gentleman was engaged one day in the delivery of a discourse on missions to a Westminister Abbey audience. It was strange that the day selected by this lay preacher was, above all others, that on which the Catholic Church all over the world celebrates the feast of St. Francis Xavier, the apostle of India, and the most succesiful beyond all comparison of all missionaries who hare labored since the beginning of Christianity ; yet that gifted professor made no allusion whatever to so remarkable a chapter in the missionary history, ignorant of the services to Christianity rendered by St. Francis. It will be somewhat startling to ordinary humanity, which is usually content to commence its classical studies between ten and twelve years of age, to find that Mr J. S. Mill's study of Greek began at the mature age of three. When his eighth birthday came round he had read all Herotodus, ond the greater part of Xenophon, Lucian, and Plato ; and had, besides, begun the study of Latiu and English literature. Between his eleventh and twelvth year he wrote a history of the Roman Constitution which would have filled an octavo volume, and as in this production he ardently defended the -Agrariaa Laws and the Plebeian party, we can see that the democratic tendencies he exhibited during his political career were as much the result of his training and his early surroundings, as of his own independent thought. Fbatjcb. Galignani states that Father Hyacinthe has finally abandoned the clerical garb. Time for him : we are glad to hear it. President MacMahon favors placing on the Vendome column** statae of Napoleon 1., addressed in the legendary costume of light overcoat and a small cocked hat. Three Paris journalists, M. Edward Herve, editor of the ' Journal de Paris,' and Messrs Joubert and Mitchell have been decorated for " exceptional services in the Press," M. Herve's services having been especially rendered during the periods of the war and the Commune. There are signs that the coming winter will bejmost eevere, commerce is languishing, the manufactories are being closed ; upwards of 20,000 workmen are without work, certain quarters of the city present the frightful spectacle of the deepest misery. Such is the state of Paris, once so bright and fco-daj so very sad. Milliaery aad outfitting establishments in Paris give employment on an average to 30,000 men and women, the number has dwindled down to 10,000, and two-thirds of them are .content t© receive 30 per cent, less than their ordinary wages. A French Society has been established at Paris for diffusing amongst the working classes small tracts written in a Catholic tone. The Society is now in operation. The Abbe Daile, vicar-general in the diocese of Paris, is s« seriously ill as to be sent to a maison-de-sante. He was taken as a hostage under the Commune with Mgr. Darboy, and when, on the 24.th of May, 1871, the prisoners were taken from La Roqnetto to the place of execution, he escaped in private clothes, with another ecclesiastic, who, being unable to disguise himself, was taken back by the Insurgents and shot. The Abbe's health has ever since been affected. In French Protestantism a new schism shows itself: on the one hand the " Orthodox " who preserve a certain number of Christian tenets, and profess to pay obedience to the decisions of the Synods ; ou the other hand, the "Liberals," who deny the supernatural and have no more of religion than a kind of philosophical Deism. To everyone who is versed in religious questions, it is clear that this division is a very important one, and that the events which are taking place in the pale of French Protestantism are calculated to exercise a decisive influence on its destinies. The Religious Revival in France. — The Paris correspondent of the 'New York Nation,' a leading Protestant paper, says: — The Liberals cannot but see that tliere is a religious revival in Frarce, and they can hardly object to it, as it springs from some of the noblest sentiments. I have spoken to you on various occasions, of the numerous pilgrimages, of the perpetual flow of travellers to holy shrines which had long been deserted. There is no doubt that this religious phenomenon is a sort of protestation of the national sentiment ; when everything has failed ou earth, men's eyes turu naturally to heaven. The mystic light which guides many a humble heart to Lourdes, to .Notre Uamo de Fourveres, to Peray-le-Moaial, and such places, ii the same which once guided Joan of Arc to Blois and to Orleans. We may find also in this religious revival a protest against the crimes of the Commune. How was it that the fury of the Communists was chiefly directed against old and disarmed priests ? It is a etrango mystery j but is there anybody, whatever be hid philosophical or religious opinions, who can meet v priest in the streets of Paris without seeing in hu soutane the livery of martyrdom, and without feeling a sort of involuntary pity ? IXT3TBIA. The twenty-fifth anniversary of Francis Joseph's accession has been celebrated in a dignified manner. A general amnesty has been proclaimed lor all offences against the emperor's own person, which id to be eventually extended to all those sentenced to imprisonment ou political grounds. Or. the eve of the anniversary liis Mujesty rei e.ved a deputation of the bishops, who presented an address, in reply to which ho said, "that he sincerely hoped God's blessing wouli attend tlia lalora of the clergy in the mission they had to accomplish,

and which should tend to promote among the people the peace which takes its root in religion ." The special pastoral issued by the CardinalArchbishop of "Vienna for the occasion has been published by the ' Wiener Zeitung, 1 whereat the " Liberal " papers are fearfully wrath ; and well they may be, for the eminent prelate speaks his miud very plainly in this document, and tells them plenty of unpleasant truths. phussia. It is slated that the Queen Dowager of Prussia loses 700,000 thalers by the failure of the famous banking house of Quistorp at Berlin, and that a prince of the royal family will suffer to a greater extent. As an illustration of what the Lutheran Church is to come to uuder the present Government of Prussia, we notice the following quite recent occurrence : — The law court at Cassel has sentenced a Lutheran clergyman to two months' imprisonment in a fortress for asserting from the pulpit that by the naw ecclesiastical laws government has banished roligion from the schools. At Cologne the police se'zed the electoral address of the Catholic parly to the electors of the Rhine. The " liberals " have held a meeting at Bonn, with the famous Professor Sybel for president. He insulted tho Catholics. A despatch from Posen announces that Mgr. Ledochowski is suffering from a dangerous attack of typhoid fever and from erysipelas in tho head. The ' Natioml Gazette ' is infamous enough to write that it would be very fortunate if the Archbishop died. The boys' Seminary at Neu6S near Aix la-Chapelle, has just been olosed. Don't laugh; the Prussian Officials have been informed by a confidential circular, that ultramontane agents, especially Jesuits, are busily engaged in organising an international Association of the Sacred Heart for the purpose of fanaticizing the masses with a view to bring aboiit the re- establishment of " the Pope's temporal power." The ' Berlin Provincial Correspondence,' a semi-official organ, speaking of the continuation of the struggle of the Catholic Bishops with the Statr, says that " the government will employ, if necessary, the severest and most thorough measures either to bend or break the arrogance of the Roman hierarchy. But the Catholic population, whose consciences are not wounded by the ecclesiastical laws, and who aie anxious for the preservation of peace, should take care not to increase at tho elections the number of Ultramontane deputies, whose efforts under the leadership of Rome are directed to fighting the State and destroying the peace of the country." Mgr. Kott, Bishop of Fulda, who died in his Cathedral city on the 14th August last, was one of the most distinguished members of the German Episcopate, and, under the rule of the late Elector of Hesse, had repeatedly shown nn amount of true apostolic courage worthy of a Christian martyr, in his communications with the temporal government. At the time of Hassenpflug, the Hessian Bismarck's ministry, about 1851, when the Catholic Church was threatened with similar measures of coercion to those recenily adopted in Prussia, Mgr. Kott refused to submit to the demands of the temporal rulers, and upon the minister's attempting to (lighten him into submission, the prelate is reported to have exclaimed : " I will rather beg my bread from door to door tlinn give way to your unjust demands." Hassenpflug soon caved in. Mgr. Kott died at the age of 73, and his loss will be regretted throughout the- Catholic j world.— R.l.P. I The Nuns of the Most Holy Sacrament who are being driven out ' of Gnosen arc, it seems, all foreigners ; that is to say, most of them, though Polos, are not natives of Prussian Poland, and some are French from Tioyes. Ihey were therefore ordered to depart under the clause which permits th.? expulsion of aliens ; but they are a purely contemplative order, and it could not be pretended that they were doing the State any harm. There was, therefore, some hope that the order would be rescinded; but it appears that the authoiities laid tl.enhands upon a collection of hymns which the Nuns had made - hymns in honor of the Sacred Heart. It has been decided that this In mnbook is calculated to propagate " a super s titous belief" — a belief, that is, in the Real Presence. " This will appear incredible," says a letter from Posen, " but it is strictly true, and the nuns will have to quit their convent in a few days, to <=eek refuge at leopol in Galicia." Tho Bishop of Culm, Mgr. Marwiu, an old officer of llussars who fought at Quatre Bias, in 1813, is being prosecuted for illegal nomination of ecclesiastics ; and his attitude has caused as much joy among Catholics as it has vexation in the Minister of Worship. He had hoped that this prelate, so well known for his affectionate attachment to tho royal family, would sub.nit to the new laws. Happily, tho Bishop has given the preference to duty before personal feelings. 20,0C0 faithful from the BanUs of the Rhine, fro it Belgium and Holland, took part iv the pilgi image to Kevelaer. The Prussian police forbad then- uitr> into the town with banners. The Rhenish Catholic nobihtj was reprf -ented by many of its members ; Holland had sent Dominicans, Cimelitc«,%nd Pon'iiicial Zouaves in uniform. There were as many as 400 priests, a-id for fiv<* hours the Holy Couiisiumon was bi ing distiibutcd to the laicbful. A Pontifical Mass was cclebiated, and Mgr. KctU-kr delivered a sermon with his wonted eloquence. The go\einor's decree iui bidding the procession produced deep indignation atnuiig the nihalitants. GERMANY. The Archbishop of 'laytnce, Mgr. Ketteler, lias published it magnificent letter to the G«" m»in Emperor, challenging him to prove tha assertions made in Ins lei cr to the Pope. The letter was lepiinled in the -Times' ut tho request of our Archbishop. Mgr. Ketteler s.ns : — -•' Your Majesty has uhaiged us iv the face of Europe w it h_ disloyal iutri"iic3. JSow. our agitation has either been conducted within the limits of'the law's, and in that case jou wcio not justified in bringing this charge against, v?, or our conduct has transgressed the laws, and acTordiM-'iy we have committed the crime ot treason." On tho latter u*suti ption, then, he challenges the Emperor to the proof, and asks him "on the ground of the iacts which must be at your disposal, in pieaeiiceof sucli a charge, to indict our leaders as traitors. After \uur Wi.iosty has uttered bo frightful an accusation against our honor, itite»ntj, aud loyalty, at least allow us to psovo to you how ill-

informed you hare been." There are two courses open to the Government, and they will follow the dishonest one, and ignore the challenge. However, even reticence will convict them of having slandered an innocent body of men. The spirited letter to the Emperor in the ' Mainzer Journal' places the pitiful tyranny of Prussia in the moat clear and open light. The Emperor had accused the German clergy of disloyalty. "If we have transgressed the law, why have we not been prosecuted ? if there be no ground for prosecution, how venture to brand us as disloyal ? " The dilemma is inevitable. The bishops were either traitors or lawabiding citizens. If the former, why have no proofs, no trials, been forthcoming ? If the latter, then his Imperial Majesty has been imposed upon by the mendacity of some deliberate slanderers behind the scenes. Not that we nbsolve tho Emperor from a heavy sha»e of responsibility. He ought not to have brought such a charge without evidence, and when he knew that there was no evidence forthcoming, he should have been silent. The present persecution oi the Catholics cannot even plead the poor excuse of concession to popular pressure. The unlooked-for increase of the Parliamentary power of the Catholics of Prussia, in spite of the unscrupulous measures which have been directed against them, is the result; of the Prassian elections which has struck dismay into that phalanx of servile tyrants, and misnamed Liberals of Germany, and their backers and admirers at home and abroad. The Archbishop of Posen, who is li-iblo to forty-three suits, has had a second carriage and pair seized in satisfaction of a fresh fine of 200 thalers imposed on him for neglecting to institute to Filehue a parish priest acceptable to the Government. He has further been sentenced to six months' imprisonment in satisfaction of lines to the amount of 900 thalers inflicted on him for other infractions of the persecufeii g laws. The Posen coi respondent of tho 'Cologne Gazette' telegraphs that on Nov. 22 the bailiffs attached to the Kreisgericht of that place made their way into Archbishop Ledochwski's private ) evidence, and, on a warrant of that court, seized his furniture and goods in three rooms for distress. The Archbishop was deeply affected by the violation of his private house, not having expected so severe a measure, but is said to continue firm in his resistance to tho temporal power. Since that a fresh sentence has beosn pronounced against him for the unlawful institution of nine priests. The fine inflicted is 5100 thalers, or in default two ye'rV imprisonment The Emperor of Germany and the Pope. — The 'Cologne Gazette' states the German Emperor's letter to the Pope to have been penned bj his Majesty himself. A few additions were made by his Ministers, but none of them amounted to much, and, on the whole, the letter may stmd for the Emperor's own mind expressed in his own words. Among Ihe champions of the Catholic cause in Germany the distinguished Archbishop of Posen and Gnesen, Mgr Count L<?dochowiski, holds at the present moment ouo of the raO3t prominent places. In his manly opposition to the execution of the baneful livws for suppressing time-honoured prescriptive rights of the Church he has the whole of the people of ancient Poland at his back, who are anxious t» resist the encroachments perpetrated by the 'renums on Polish soil ever since the first dismemberment of the realm of the Jagellons and Piasts. While the Polish papers published in Prussia are prevented from speaking their mind by the arbitrary measures Bismarck's police now hesitate in adopting against them, those appearing in Galicia are vicing with one another in espousing the cause so brilliantly advocated by ihe eminent prelate. Whatever Bismarck's friends tell us of " premonitory symptoms of approaching submission," as they term it, only shows that the wish is the father of the thought. They must grow m good deal older before the w ite flag is hoisted on tho walls of the Catholic Church. We are told that the Pope is an enemy of civilisation and a friend of barbarism, and the apostles of civilisation nuui h->ld congress at Berlin to rescue the world from barbarism and Pius IX. Strange civilisation is that which employs the plot, the sword, petroloum, and the dagger. It is a curious band of civilisers which consists of those who have broken tieaties and forsworn their oaths. The political purity of Bismarck is of course spotless as that of Miughetti, a,ud their plighted vows to each other arc about us valuable as the oaths of fidelity sworn by the luiter to tho Popo. But perjury ij doubtless a virtue of civilisation. The German papers havo, without exception, been speakiii4 veiy disrespectfully of their late visitor, the King of Sardinia. Ifc appears that Victor Emmanuel neglected to visit Any of the grand things at Berlin — n-useums, monuments and cm iosities— and the intellectual Utes carries have taken great offence thereat. But what would they have? He cures for nothing but soldiers, hunting and debauch; lie would be quite out of place in a museum, unless he would cousent ta be kept there for the amusement and instruction of posreritv. However, he has left them, and is back once more among his usual elevati ing pursuits. What a, King ! But is possible that his ministers (when I they sent him into Germany) were so filly as to suppose that the world j would not at once apprehend their mo ive ? Did they think wo should ! imagine that it was intense love for the Emperor William, and not rather I i'ltensc fear ot the Catholic pirty in Italy, whom it sees, with dismay, 1 looking in t lie direction of Franco for holp and deliverance? After ! all, the pro-pects ot the Sardinian are not very blight. The perspective I ot un armed peace is anything but pleas int to the eyes of tho usurper. j The sta'e of liis finances all tiie wot hi knows ; the mass of hii people 1 are ripe lor revolt, and on tho stock exchange of Europe it is a m.ttt.r \ of wager whether the stala quo of Italy will last five or six years. -Mca wUI live, see, and learn. As for the Church, she can watt.