The New Zealand TABLET THURSDAY, MARCH 14,1907. II. THE FRENCH PERSECUTION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 14 March 1907, Page 21

The New Zealand TABLET THURSDAY, MARCH 14 , 1907. 11. THE FRENCH PERSECUTION

t'N April 7, 1778, there took place in 'the Gilded 1 Ciiamiber at Westminster one of the most pathetic spectacles ever witnessed in the Mother of Parliaments. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, tottered into the House to protest against what he 'considered a national surren- "> der to France. And in the midst of that, his last discourse, he raised his voice^-the voice of a dying .Christian statesman — against the' employ--meoi't of savages and of savage methods of warfare in an armied conflict between civilised nations. Some minor Chathami might well have raised his voice in ' like rebuke and protest against the ex-president who, the recent Methodist Conference in Christchurch, welcomed French atheists, infidels, and Radical-Socialists as allies and brothers in titie conflict against 'Rome. There ane, -accocrf&ing to Newman, some who would no more dreams of investigating the value of a weapon which they intend to use against ' Rome ', than they would think of examining the geological formation of the stone which they pick up to throw at a dog. They are willing to see Christianity suffer, so long as Catholicism suffers thereby ; and they welcome the alliance of aggressive atheistic enemies of ' Romanism,' just as Lord Suffolk in 1778 weloomed^-in the name of * God and nature '—the alliance of ' those horrible- hounds of war' (as Chatham^ -designated them),^ the savage red 'men with their scalping-Jcnives and their other barbarous means of mangling their hapless victims. • The Methodist Conference evidently felt that Christ can enter into no league with Belial. They, met with a stony silence the' lone hosanna' that was sung "tty. one of their brethren to the praise of the pigmy Rabe^spierres and Dantons who are the plumed marshals "of •the present atheistic campaign against religion in

France. Here are r the leaders of tfae new allies whom a minister of the Gospel of Christ welcomes with a fraternal emlbirassade and a pulpit benison : Premier Clemenceau, whose blasphemous attack on' Christianity, on June 19, 1906, caused a sensation even in the hardened French Chamber of Deputies. One of the greatest ♦ charms ' of Clemenceau's character is ' his ufiscrsupuilousness, his intoonsiistency '. Thus, with less than faint praise did his friend Mr.- Laurence Jerrold (author and journalist) damn him -" in the ' Contemporary Review '. Then there is the rawer and less experienced, 'biut by no means less aggressively atheistical, Minister Briand. .This interesting personage it was who declared to the teachers in congress' at Amiens : 'We must put an 1 end to Christianity ' ('II faut en flnir avec ll 11I 1 idee chrelienne '), and who boasted at Lisieux (in words quoted in our last issue) that - they had hunted Christ out of the army, the navy, the schools, etcC, and that • now we must hunt Him out of the Government '. Another leader of the new allies is Viviani (Minister of Labor), who recently vaunted in the Chamber of Deputies that c the work of irreligion '—the work of destroying ' faith in a future life '—now carried on* by himself and his fellows, was ' only beginning.' Says the ' Quarterly Review ' for January, 1907 :— •'" The quasi-official boast of the Minister of- Labor, in spite of its rhetorical form, expressed a plain truthr- that the Radical-Socialists wish not merely to check the pretensions of clericalism and to assert the superiority of the temporal over the spiritual power, but to stamp out the influence cf revealed religion within the nation '. We prefer not to quote here the blasphemous defiance of the Almighty uttered in the Chamber of De~ ' puties by the Socialist leader, . Jaures,- one of the framers of the new law of proscription and confiscation. 'To do these atheists justice,' says the. « Saturday Review ', ' they have for thirty' years shouted their beliefs in the market-place.' . ' They have ', says the same non-Catholic journal in its issue of December 15, • marched steadily on to their goal, which is the ■hransflo'i'miation of their country into not only a nonChristian, but an anti-Christian, nation . Such are the new allies. As to the methods of their warfare ' against the Lord and His Christ '] we prefer, as less uncivilised, the scalping knife and the fire-stick of the red savage tribesman. The atheist^ war against religion is a war without quarter. Its' searching thoroughness is sufficiently evidenced by the recent erasure of the name of God (' God protect France ') from the coinage of the Third Republic. Under the pretext of disestablishment or the separation of Church and State, the Radical-Sc'jCialist ' machine' that Tammanies the country has adopted the following means in the hope of ' putting an end to Christianity ' in France :— • 1. The abolition of the bilateral treaty called the Concordat, to which the honor and fidelity of the nation was solemnly pledged — the contract being repudiated without consultation of, or notification to, the other party to it.' 2. The seizure, plunder, and confiscation of the whole of the material resources of the Church in Francelands, funds, buildings of every sort, and chattels down to the pokers and tongs in the presbyteilies and the iron spoons in the convent kitchens. 3. The abolition of the religious Orders. 4. The abolition of the Christian schools. 5. Rending, by. schjsm, of what the ' Saturday Review ' calls • the only form of Christianity that practically counts in France '. 6. The gradual abolition of the parochial clergy. 7. The gradual abolition of public worship.

(In subsequent issues we will point out in detail . i how the legislation of the past few years has provi- M ded,~ on the brojud lines indicated above, for the abo- ' lition of religious faith and worship in- lodge-ridden France). "We are ready ', said the Pope, — and tine hierarchy, clergy, and faithful of France are in full accord with him— ' to submit to separation from , the State, but it must be a fair separation— such as obtains in- the United^States, Brazil, Great Britain, and Hjolland— not subjection". But ' a fair separation 'i is just what the leaders of French Atheism do not desire. The obiect of these persecutors is not— as was the "case with Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, Julian, and Diocletian— the supremacy of one form of religion over another.. The object t>f the Radical-Socialist ' Bloc ' is the destruction of all religion. But / persecution,' says Sir Thomas Browne, ' is a bad and indirect way to plant religion ,'. In an article on the French tyranny, the ' Bombay Gazette ', a secular paper, said in - its issue of December 29 (we quote from the Bombay ( Examiner ') :— ' Never, in any recorded 'instance, has persecution fulfilled the hopes of its perpetrators. The persecution of the first three centuries of the Christian era shows this in . particular. Again and again nations and Churches arose and cast off the yoke. And always the oppressors go down before that vital resurrection. . •. All -have to confess, sooner or later, that " the Nazarene 'has conquered "•. Persecution, totaraftkoi, adoption, are the steps to permanency. Constantine was glad to make a policy of Christianity, and Philip of Spain was glad of a " Pax " with Holland. It is astonishing how the lessons of history seem for ever unlearned t . . All struggles for liberty appeal to the human heart. The struggle for religious liberty most. Martyrs' blood vitalises.' • The modern anti-religious movement in • France ', says the same paper, 'is now a war, neither against priests nor Cfhurch, but against God '. Time and human feeling are, however, on the side of the persecuted. The eld pagan persecutors are gone. The Church remains. Greater and more masterful men than Clemenceau have gone to Canosjsa. The" Nazarene will again- conquer. . ~~