THE COMING BATTLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 72, 12 September 1874, Page 14

THE COMING BATTLE.

Tins Paris cfirreapondent of the London • Times' states the question fully and fairly :—": — " The two great forces in Europe are not Catholicism and Protestantism, but Catholicism and * Revolution.' " It is by these powers, not by Catholicism or any other phase of Christianity, that the battle has to be fought. Protestantism, considered as a positive religious system, is effete, and no one thinks of taking it into account. But what is the Revolution, thi* great antagonistic to Catholicism ? In the religious order it implies the denial of God, or Atheism ; in the political order, the negation of authority, or anarchy ; in the social order it menns Communism. The triumph of these will be I ♦he defeat of Catholicism in the battle now waging in Europe, and of -which the dull thunder has already reached oxir ears from across the broad Atlantic. It is the ' Times ' that states the condition of the iight : "The two great forces in Europe are, not Catholicism and Protestantism, but Catholciism and Revolution." Never were truer •words pnplished by the 'Times;' would that all who read would ponder ; well would it be if Conservative journals would bear in mind that every blow dealt at Catholicism is a blow at those institutions of •which tlney profess to be the defenders ; that every loss to the Catholic Church, is so much gain to the revolution of which they profess to be the opponents. By force of arms, and at the point of the bayonet, after a short war unjustly waged against him, unjust because undertaken without the shadow of a pretext, and in direct violation «f the most solemn treaties, the Sovereign Pontiff has been deposed and xobbed of his dominions. Is it possible that out of the lunatic asylum there is any one so insane as not to perceive that the stability of every throne in Europe is thereby menaced ; that the principle that might -alone constitute right, has been thereby formally adopted as the basis of the European international code. The property of the religious Orders has, by a dishonest and despotic government, been confiscated, and the inmates of the convents have been driven from their quiet homes by a licentious soldiery ; is there any such a fool to believe that thereby the rights of property have been secured ? Or that when their turn comes, as come it will, the Communists will not profit by the robber government of Italy ? What is good law for nuns and monks is good law for proprietors of every description, and for all manner of capitalists. Confiscation is a game that others besides the accomplices of Victor Emmanuel can, and will play at. It is, in a ■word, the Revolution, not Protestantism, as it is commonly understood, that has gaiued because the attack by recent events in Europe. It has gained because the attack upon the Podo justifies an attack upon every sovereignty, upon every political authority in the world ; it has gained because the forced confiscation of the property of every landholder, of every merchant, of every capitalist in Europe. The principle that all ecclesiastical property belongs to the nation, is capable of being applied to all property of every description. It, too, is national, and when the day of their triumph arrives, will be nationalized, i.e., confiscated by the Communists — as has been the ecclesiastical property by the robber government of Italy. The latter is but fighting the battle of the Commune, or, as the Times puts it, of the revolution. la Germany, as in Italy, the battle has fairly begun, and the two antagonistic forces — Catholicism and the Revolution headed by Bismarck — are locked in deadly embrace. And here we find a striking instance of the truth of the • Times' ' definition of the terms of the combat. Biamarck has hitherto been the man of the Conservative party, and noted for his opposition to the Democratic party of Germany. But the necessities of the strife in which he now finds himself engaged forces; him to seek other allies and to contract new «ngagements. His friends and supporters are now the men from whom hith«rto he has been estranged ; and by an infallible instinct of the exigencies of his position as leader of the anti-Catholic forces, he finds himself compelled to take his stand at the liead of the Revolution. — , * Montreal True Witness.'

Crematory Age. — " O ma ! ma ! Johnny's got the urn and is spilling pa's ashes over the floor ! " O, what a naughty Johnny ! Get the feather duster and sweep your poor father right up ! " Composition by Little Boy. — Subject " The horse." " The horse is a very useful animal 5 it has four legs — one on each corner."