Church History Part 15

-- 195. Bavaria.

Catholic Bavaria, originally an electorate, but raised in 1806, by Napoleon's favour, into a royal sovereignty, to which had been adjudged by the Vienna Congress considerable territories in Franconia and the Palatine of the Rhine with a mainly Protestant population, attempted under Maximilian Joseph (IV.) I., after the manner of Napoleon, despotically to pa.s.s a liberal system of church polity, but found itself obliged again to yield, and under Louis I. became again the chief retreat of Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism of the most p.r.o.nounced ultramontane pattern. It was under the n.o.ble and upright king, Maximilian II., that the evangelical church of the two divisions of the kingdom, numbering two-thirds of the population, first succeeded in securing the unrestricted use of their rights.

Nevertheless, Catholic Bavaria remained, or became, the unhappy scene of the wildest demagogic agitation of the Catholic clergy and of the Bavarian "Patriots" who played their game, whose patriotism consisted only in mad hatred of Prussia and fanatical ultramontanism. Yet King Louis II., after the brilliant successes of the Franco-German war, could not object to the proposal of November 30th, 1870, to found a new German empire under a Prussian and therefore a Protestant head.

1. _The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian I., 1799-1825._-Bavaria boasted with the most unfeigned delight after the uprooting of Protestantism in its borders as then defined (-- 151, 1), that it was the most Catholic, _i.e._ the most ultramontane and most bigoted, of German-speaking lands, and, after a short break in this tradition by Maximilian Joseph III. (-- 165, 10), went forth again with full sail, under Charles Theodore, 1777-1779, on the old course. But the thoroughly new aspect which this state a.s.sumed on the overthrow of the old German empire, demanded an adapting territorially of the civil and ecclesiastical life in accordance with the relations which it owed to its present political position. The new elector Maximilian Joseph IV., who as king styled himself Maximilian I., transferred the execution of this task to his liberal, energetic, and thoroughly fearless minister, Count Montgelas, 1799-1817. In January, 1802, it was enacted that all cloisters should be suppressed, and that all cathedral foundations should be secularized; and these enactments were immediately carried out in an uncompromising manner.

Even in 1801 the qualification of Protestants to exercise the rights of Bavarian citizens was admitted, and a religious edict of 1803 guaranteed to all Christian confessions full equality of civil and political privileges. To the clergy was given the control of education, and to the gymnasia and universities a considerable number of foreigners and Protestants received appointments. In all respects the sovereignty of the state over the church and the clergy was very decidedly expressed, the episcopate at all points restricted in its jurisdiction, the training of the clergy regulated and supervised on behalf of the state, the patronage of all pastorates and benefices usurped by the government, even public wors.h.i.+p subjected to state control by the prohibition of superst.i.tious practices, etc. But amid many other infelicities of this autocratic procedure was specially the gradual dying out of the old race of bishops, which obliged the government to seek again an understanding with Rome; and so it actually happened in June, 1817, after Montgelas' dismissal, that a concordat was drawn up. By this the Roman Catholic apostolic religion secured throughout the whole kingdom those rights and prerogatives which were due to it according to divine appointment and canonical ordinances, which, strictly taken, meant supremacy throughout the land. In addition, two archbishoprics and seven bishoprics were inst.i.tuted, the restoration of several cloisters was agreed to, and the unlimited administration of theological seminaries, the censors.h.i.+p of books, the superintendance of public schools and free correspondence with the holy see were allowed to the bishops. On the other hand, the king was given the choice of bishops (to be confirmed by the pope), the nomination of a great part of the priests and canons, and the _placet_ for all hierarchical publications.

After many vain endeavours to obtain amendments, the king at last, on October 17th, ratified this concordat; but, to mollify his highly incensed Protestant subjects, he delayed the publication of it till the proclamation of the new civil const.i.tution on May 18th following. The concordat was then adopted, as an appendage to an edict setting forth the ecclesiastical supremacy of the state, securing perfect freedom of conscience to all subjects, as well as equal civil rights to members of the three Christian confessions, and demanding from them equal mutual respect. The irreconcilableness of this edict with the concordat was evident, and the newly appointed bishops as well as the clerical parliamentary deputies, declared by papal instruction that they could not take the oath to the const.i.tution without reservation, until the royal statement of Tegernsee, September 21st, that the oath taken by Catholic subjects simply referred to civil relations, and that the concordat had also the validity of a law of the state, induced the curia to agree to it.

But the government nevertheless continued to insist as before upon the supremacy of the state over the church, enlarged the claims of the royal _placet_, put the free intercourse with Rome again under state control, arbitrarily disposed of church property and supervised the theological examinations of the seminarists, made the appointment of all clergy dependent on its approbation, and refused to be misled in anything by the complaints and objections of the bishops.

2. _The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Louis I., 1825-1848._-Zealous Catholic as the new king was, he still held with unabated tenacity to the sovereign rights of the crown, and the extreme ultramontane ministry of Von Abel from 1837 was the first to wring from him any relaxations, _e.g._ the reintroduction of free intercourse between the bishops and the holy see without any state control. But it could not obtain the abolition of the _placet_, and just as little the eagerly sought permission of the return of the Jesuits. On the other hand the allied order of Redemptorists was allowed, whose missions among the Bavarian people, however, the king soon made dependent on a permission to be from time to time renewed. His tolerant disposition toward the Protestants was shown in 1830, by his refusing the demand of the Catholic clergy for a Reverse in mixed marriages, and recognising Protestant sponsors at Catholic baptisms. But yet his honourable desire to be just even to the Protestants of his realm was often paralysed, partly by his own ultramontane sympathies, partly and mainly by the immense influence of the Abel ministry, and the religious freedom guaranteed them by law in 1818 was reduced and restricted. Among other things the Protestant press was on all sides gagged by the minister, while the Catholic press and preaching enjoyed unbridled liberty. Great as the need was in southern Bavaria the government had strictly forbidden the taking of any aid from the _Gustavus Adolphus Verein_. Louis saw even in the name of this society a slight thrown on the German name, and was specially offended at its vague, nearly negative att.i.tude towards the confession. Yet he had no hesitation in affording an asylum in Catholic Bavaria to the Lutheran confessor Scheibel (-- 177, 2) whom Prussian diplomacy had driven out of Lutheran Saxony, and did not prevent the university of Erlangen, after its dead orthodoxy had been reawakened by the able Reformed preacher Krafft (died 1845), becoming the centre of a strict Lutheran church consciousness in life as well as science for all Germany. The adoration order of 1838, which required even the Protestant soldiers to kneel before the host as a military salute, occasioned great discontent among the Protestant population, and many controversial pamphlets appeared on both sides. When finally the parliament in 1845 took up the complaint of the Protestants, a royal proclamation followed by which the usually purely military salute formerly in use was restored. In 1847 the ultramontane party, with Abel at its head, fell into disfavour with the king, on account of its honourable att.i.tude in the scandal which the notorious Lola Montez caused in the circle of the Bavarian n.o.bility; but in 1848 Louis was obliged, through the revolutionary storm that burst over Bavaria, to resign the crown.

3. _The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian II., 1848-1864, and Louis II._ (died 1886).-Much more thoroughly than his father did Maximilian II. strive to act justly toward the Protestant as well as the Catholic church, without however abating any of the claims of const.i.tutional supremacy on the part of the state. In consequence of the Wurzburg negotiations (-- 192, 4), the Bavarian bishops a.s.sembled at Freysing, in November, 1850, presented a memorial, in which they demanded the withdrawal of the religious edict included in the const.i.tution of 1818, as in all respects prejudicial to the rights of the church granted by the concordat, and set forth in particular those points which were most restrictive to the free and proper development of the catholic church. The result was the publication in April, 1852, of a rescript which, while maintaining all the principles of state administration hitherto followed, introduced in detail various modifications, which, on the renewal of the complaints in 1854, were somewhat further increased as the fullest and final measure of surrender.-The change brought about in 1866 in the relation of Bavaria to North Germany led the government under Louis II. to introduce liberal reforms, and the offensive and defensive alliance which the government concluded with the heretical Prussia, the failure of all attempts on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war to force it in violation of treaty to maintain neutrality, and then to prevent Bavaria becoming part of the new German empire founded in 1871 at the suggestion of her own king, roused to the utmost the wrath of the Bavarian clerical patriots. In the conflicts of the German government, in 1872, against the intolerable a.s.sumptions, claims and popular tumults of the ultramontane clergy, the department of public wors.h.i.+p, led by Lutz, inclined to take an energetic part. But this was practically limited to the pa.s.sing of the so-called _Kanzelparagraphen_ (-- 197, 4) in the _Reichstag_. Comp. -- 197, 14.

4. _Attempts at Reorganization of the Lutheran Church._-Since 1852, Dr.

von Harless (-- 182, 13), as president of the upper consistory at Munich, stood at the head of the Lutheran church of Bavaria. Under his presidency the general synod at Baireuth in 1853 showed a vigorous activity in the reorganization of the church. On the basis of its proceedings the upper consistory ordered the introduction of an admirable new hymnbook. This occasioned considerable disagreement. But when, in 1856, the upper consistory issued a series of enactments on wors.h.i.+p and discipline, a storm, originating in Nuremberg, burst forth in the autumn of that same year, which raged over the whole kingdom and attacked even the state church itself. The king was a.s.sailed with pet.i.tions, and the spiritual courts went so far in faint-heartedness as to put the acceptance and non-acceptance of its ordinances to the vote of the congregations.

Meanwhile the time had come for calling another general synod (1857). An order of the king as head of the church abolished the union of the two state synods in a general synod which had existed since 1849, and forbad all discussion of matters of discipline. Hence instead of one, two synods a.s.sembled, the one in October at Ans.p.a.ch, the other in November at Baireuth. Both, consisting of equal numbers of lay and clerical members, maintained a moderate att.i.tude, relinquis.h.i.+ng none of the privileges of the church or the prerogatives of the upper consistory, and yet contributed greatly to the a.s.suaging of the prevalent excitement. Also the lay and clerical members of the subsequent reunited general synods held every fourth year for the most part co-operated successfully on moderate church lines. The synod held at Baireuth in 1873 unanimously rejected an address sent from Augsburg inspired by "Protestant Union" sympathies, as to their mind "for the most part indistinct and where distinct unevangelical."

5. _The Church of the Union in the Palatine of the Rhine._-In the Bavarian _Palatine of the Rhine_ the union had been carried out in 1818 on the understanding that the symbolical books of both confessions should be treated with due respect, but no other standard recognised than holy scripture. When therefore the Erlangen professor, Dr. Rust, in 1832 appeared in the consistory at Spires and the court for that time had endeavoured to fill up the Palatine union with positive Christian contents, 204 clerical and lay members of the Diocesan Synod presented to the a.s.sembly of the states of the realm, opportunely meeting in 1837, a complaint against the majority of the consistory. As this memorial yielded practically no result, the opposition wrought all the more determinedly for the severance of the Palatine church from the Munich Upper Consistory.

This was first accomplished in the revolutionary year 1848. An extraordinary general synod brought about the separation, and gave to the country a new democratic church const.i.tution. But the reaction of the blow did not stop there. The now independent consistory at Spires, from 1853 under the leaders.h.i.+p of Ebrard, convened in the autumn of that year a general synod, which made the _Augustana Variata_ of 1540 as representing the consensus between the _Augustana_ of 1530 and the Heidelberg as well as the Lutheran catechism, the confessional standard of the Palatine church, and set aside the democratic election law of 1848. When now the consistory, purely at the instance of the general synod of 1853, submitted to the diocesan synod in 1856 the proofs of a new hymnbook, the liberal party poured out its bitter indignation upon the system of doctrine which it was supposed to favour. But the diocesan synods admitted the necessity of introducing a new hymnbook and the suitability of the sketch submitted, recommending, however, its further revision so that the recension of the text might be brought up to date and that an appendix of 150 new hymns might be added. The hymnbook thus modified was published in 1859, and its introduction into church use left to the judgment of presbyteries, while its use in schools and in confirmation instruction was insisted upon forthwith. This called forth protest after protest. The government wished from the first to support the synodal decree, but in presence of growing disturbance, changed its att.i.tude, recommended the consistory to observe decided moderation so as to restore peace, and in February, 1861, called a general synod which, however, in consequence of the prevailingly strict ecclesiastical tendencies of its members, again expressed itself in favour of the new hymnbook. Its conclusions were meanwhile very unfavourably received by the government. Ebrard sought and obtained liberty to resign, and even at the next synod, in 1869, the consistory went hand in hand with the liberal majority.

-- 196. The South German Smaller States and Rhenish Alsace and Lorraine.

The Protestant princely houses of South Germany had by the Luneville Peace obtained such an important increase of Catholic subjects, that they had to make it their first care to arrange their delicate relations by concluding a concordat with the papal curia in a manner satisfactory to state and church. But all negotiations broke down before the exorbitant claims of Rome, until the political restoration movements of 1850 led to modifications of them hitherto undreamed of. The concordats concluded during this period were not able to secure enforcement over against the liberal current that had set in with redoubled power in 1860, and so one thing after another was thrown overboard. Even in the Protestant state churches this current made itself felt in the persistent efforts, which also proved successful, to secure the restoration of a representative synodal const.i.tution which would give to the lay element in the congregations a decided influence.

1. _The Upper Rhenish Church Province._-The governments of the South German States gathered in 1818 at Frankfort, to draw up a common concordat with Rome. But owing to the utterly extravagant pretensions nothing further was reached than a new delimitation in the bull "_Provida sollersque_," 1821, of the bishoprics in the so-called Upper Rhenish Church Province: the archbishopric of Freiburg for Baden and the two Hohenzollern princ.i.p.alities, the bishoprics of Mainz for Hesse-Darmstadt, Fulda for Hesse-Ca.s.sel, Rottenburg for Wurttemberg, Limburg for Na.s.sau and Frankfort; and even this was given effect to only in 1827, after long discussions, with the provision (bull _Ad dominicae gregis custodiam_) that the choice of the bishops should issue indeed from the chapter, but that the territorial lord might strike out objectionable names in the list of candidates previously submitted to him. The actual equality of Protestants and Catholics which the pope had not been able to allow in the concordat, was now in 1880 proclaimed by the princes as the law of the land. Papal and episcopal indulgences had to receive approval before their publication; provincial and diocesan synods could be held only with approval of the government and in presence of the commissioners of the prince; taxes could not be imposed by any ecclesiastical court; appeal could be made to the civil court against abuse of spiritual power; those preparing for the priesthood should receive scientific training at the universities, practical training in the seminaries for priests, etc. The pope issued a brief in which he characterized these conditions as scandalous novelties, and reminded the bishops of Acts v. 29. But only the Bishop of Fulda followed this advice, with the result that the Catholic theological faculty at Marburg was after a short career closed again, and the education of the priests given over to the seminary at Fulda.

Hesse-Darmstadt founded a theological faculty at Giessen in 1830; Baden had one already in Freiburg, and Wurtemberg had in 1817 affiliated the faculty at Ellw.a.n.ger with the university of Tubingen, and endowed it with the revenues of a rich convent. In all these faculties alongside of rigorous scientific exactness there prevailed a n.o.ble liberalism without the surrender of the fundamental Catholic faith. The revolutionary year, 1848, first gave the bishops the hope of a successful struggle for the unconditional freedom of the church. In order to enforce the Wurzburg decrees (-- 192, 4), the five bishops issued in 1851 a joint memorial. As the governments delayed their answer, they declared in 1852 that they would immediately act as if all had been granted them; and when at last the answer came, on most points unfavourable, they said in 1853, that, obeying G.o.d rather than man, they would proceed wholly in accordance with canon law.

2. _The Catholic Troubles in Baden down to 1873._-The Grand Duchy of Baden, with two-thirds of its population Catholic, where in 1848 the revolution had shattered all the foundations of the state, and where besides a young ruler had taken the reins of government in his hands only in 1852, seemed in spite of the widely prevalent liberality of its clergy, the place best fitted for such an attempt. The Archbishop of Freiburg, _Herm. von Vicari_, in 1852, now in his eighty-first year, began by arbitrarily stopping, on the evening of May 9th, the obsequies of the deceased grand-duke appointed by the Catholic Supreme Church Council for May 10th, prohibiting at the same time the saying of ma.s.s for the dead (_pro omnibus defunctis_) usual at Catholic burials, but in Baden and Bavaria hitherto not refused even to Protestant princes. More than one hundred priests, who disobeyed the injunction, were sentenced to perform penances. In the following year he openly declared that he would forthwith carry out the demands of the episcopal memorial, and did so immediately by appointing priests in the exercise of absolute authority; and by holding entrance examinations to the seminary without the presence of royal commissioners as required by law. As a warning remained unheeded, the government issued the order that all episcopal indulgences must before publication be subscribed by a grand-ducal special commissioner appointed for the purpose. Against him, as well as against all the members of the Supreme Church Council, the archbishop proclaimed the ban, issued a fulminating pastoral letter, which was to have been read with the excommunication in all churches, and ordered preaching for four weeks for the instruction of the people on these matters. At the same time he solemnly protested against all supremacy of the state over the church. The government drove the Jesuits out of the country, forbad the reading of the pastoral, and punished disobedient priests with fines and imprisonment.

But the archbishop, spurred on by Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz, advanced more boldly and recklessly than ever. In May, 1854, the government introduced a criminal process against him, during the course of which he was kept prisoner in his own house. The attempts of his party to arouse the Catholic population by demonstrations had no serious result. At the close of the investigation the archbishop was released from his confinement and continued the work as before. The government, however, still remained firm, and punished every offence. In June, 1855, however, a provisional agreement was published, and finally in June, 1859, a formal concordat, the bull _aeterni patris_, was concluded with Rome, its concessions to the archbishop almost exceeding even those of Austria (-- 198, 2). In spite of ministerial opposition the second chamber in March, 1860, brought up the matter before its tribunal, repudiated the right of the government to conclude a convention with Rome without the approbation of the states of the realm, and forbad the grand-duke to enforce it. He complied with this demand, dismissed the ministry, insisted, in answer to the papal protest, on his obligation to respect the rights of the const.i.tution, and on October 9th, 1860, sanctioned jointly with the chambers a law on the legal position of the Catholic and Protestant churches in the state. The archbishop indeed declared that the concordat could not be abolished on one side, and still retain the force of law, but in presence of the firm att.i.tude of the government he desisted, and satisfied himself with giving in 1861 a grudging acquiescence, by which he secured to himself greater independence than before in regard to imposing of dues and administration of the church property. Conflicts with the archbishop, however, and with the clerical minority in the chamber, still continued. The archbishop died in 1868. His see remained vacant, as the chapter and the government could not agree about the list of candidates; the interim administration was carried on by the vicar-general, Von Kubel (died 1881), as administrator of the archdiocese, quite in the spirit of his predecessor. The law of October 9th, 1860, had prescribed evidence of general scientific culture as a condition of appointment to an ecclesiastical office in the Protestant as well as the Catholic church. Later ordinances required in addition: Possession of Baden citizens.h.i.+p, having pa.s.sed a favourable examination on leaving the university, a university course of at least two and half years, attendance upon at least three courses of lectures in the philosophical faculty, and finally also an examination before a state examining board, within one and half years of the close of the university curriculum, in the Latin and Greek languages, history of philosophy, general history, and the history of German literature (later also the so called _Kulturexamen_). The Freiburg curia, however, protested, and in 1867 forbad clergy and candidates to submit to this examination or to seek a dispensation from it. The result was, that forthwith no clergymen could be definitely appointed, but up to 1874 no legal objection was made to interim appointments of parochial administrators. The educational law of 1868 abolished the confessional character of the public schools. In 1869 state recognition was withdrawn from the festivals of Corpus Christi, the holy apostles, and Mary, as also, on the other hand, from the festivals of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In 1870 obligatory civil marriage was introduced, while all compulsion to observe the baptismal, confirmational, and funeral rites of the church was abolished, and a law on the legal position of benevolent inst.i.tutions was pa.s.sed to withdraw these as much as possible from the administration of the ecclesiastical authorities. On the subsequent course of events in Baden, see -- 197, 14.

3. _The Protestant Troubles in Baden._-The union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches was carried out in the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1821. It recognised the normative significance of the _Augustana_, as well as the Lutheran and Heidelberg catechisms, in so far as by it the free examination of scripture as the only source of Christian faith, is again expressly demanded and applied. A synod of 1834 provided this state church with union-rationalistic agenda, hymnbook, and catechism. When there also a confessional Lutheran sentiment began again in the beginning of 1850 to prevail, the church of the union opposed this movement by gensdarmes, imprisonment and fines. The pastor Eichhorn, and later also the pastor Ludwig, with a portion of their congregations left the state church and attached themselves to the Breslau Upper Church Conference, but amid police interference could minister to their flocks only under cloud of night. After long refusal the grand-duke at last in 1854 permitted the separatists the choice of a Lutheran pastor, but persistently refused to recognise Eichhorn as such. Pastor Haag, who would not give up the Lutheran distribution formula at the Lord's supper, was after solemn warning deposed in 1855. On the other hand the positive churchly feeling became more and more p.r.o.nounced in the state church itself. In 1854 the old rationalist members of the Supreme Church Council were silenced, and Ullmann of Heidelberg was made president. Under his auspices a general synod of 1855 presented a sketch of new church and school books on the lines of the union consensus, with an endeavour also to be just to the Lutheran views. The grand-duke confirmed the decision and the country was silent. But when in 1858 the Supreme Church Council, on the ground of the Synodal decision of 1855, promulgated the general introduction of a new church book, a violent storm broke out through the country against the liturgical novelties contained therein (extension of the liturgy by confession of sin and faith, collects, responses, Scripture reading, kneeling at the supper, the making a confession of their faith by sponsors), the Heidelberg faculty, with Dr. Schenkel at its head, leading the opposition in the Supreme Church Council. Yet Hundes.h.a.gen, who in the synod had opposed the introduction of a new agenda, entered the lists against Schenkel and others as the apologist of the abused church book.

The grand-duke then decided that no congregation should be obliged to adopt the new agenda, while the introduction of the shorter and simpler form of it was recommended. The agitations these awakened caused its rejection by most of the congregations. Meanwhile in consequence of the concordat revolution in 1860, a new liberal ministry had come into power, and the government now presented to the chambers a series of thoroughly liberal schemes for regulating the affairs of the evangelical church, which were pa.s.sed by large majorities. Toward the end of the year the government, by deposing the Supreme Church Councillor Heintz began to a.s.sume the patronage of the supreme ecclesiastical court. Ullmann and Bahr tendered their resignations, which were accepted. The new liberal Supreme Church Council, including Holtzmann, Rothe, etc., now published a sketch of a church const.i.tution on the lines of ecclesiastical const.i.tutionalism, which with slight modifications the synod of July, 1861, adopted and the grand-duke confirmed. It provided for annual diocesan synods of lay and clerical members, and a general synod every five years. The latter consists of twenty-four clerical and twenty-four lay members, and six chosen by the grand-duke, besides the prelate, and is represented in the interval by a standing committee of four members, who have also a seat and vote in the Supreme Church Council.-Dr. Schenkel's "_Leben Jesu_" of 1864 led the still considerable party among the evangelical clergy who adhered to the doctrine of the church to agitate for his removal from his position as director of the Evangelical Pastors' Seminary at Heidelberg; but it resulted only in this, that no one was obliged to attend his lectures. The second synod, held almost a year behind time in 1867, pa.s.sed a liberal ordination formula. At the next synod in 1871, the orthodox pietistic party had evidently become stronger, but was still overborne by the liberal party, whose strength was in the lay element. Meanwhile a praiseworthy moderation prevailed on both sides, and an effort was made to work together as peaceably as possible.-In Heidelberg a considerable number attached to the old faith, dissatisfied with the preaching of the four "Free Protestant" city pastors, after having been in 1868 refused their request for the joint use of a city church for private services in accordance with their religious convictions (-- 180, 1), had built for this purpose a chapel of their own, in which numerously attended services were held under the direction of Professor Frommel of the gymnasium. When a vacancy occurred in one of the pastorates in 1880, this believing minority, anxious for the restoration of unity and peace, as well as the avoidance of the separation, asked to have Professor Frommel appointed to the charge. At a preliminary a.s.sembly of twenty-one liberal church members this proposal was warmly supported by the president, Professor Bluntschli, by all the theological professors, with the exception of Schenkel and eighteen other liberal voters, and agreed to by the majority of the two hundred liberals const.i.tuting the a.s.sembly. But when the formal election came round the proposal was lost by twenty-seven to fifty-one votes.

4. _Hesse-Darmstadt and Na.s.sau._-In 1819 the government of the Grand Duchy of _Hesse_ recommended the union of all _Protestant_ communities under one confession. Rhenish Hesse readily agreed to this, and there in 1822 the union was accomplished. In the other provinces, however, it did not take effect, although by the rationalism fostered at Giessen among the clergy and by the popular current of thought in the communities, the Lutheran as well as the Reformed confession had been robbed of all significance. But since 1850 even there a powerful Lutheran reaction among the younger clergy, zealously furthered by a section of the aristocracy of the state, set in, especially in the district on the right bank of the Rhine, which has eagerly opposed the equally eager struggles of the liberal party to introduce a liberal synodal representative const.i.tution for the evangelical church of the whole state. These endeavours, however, were frustrated, and at an extraordinary state synod of 1873, on all controverted questions, the middle party gave their vote in favour of the absorptive union. The state church was declared to be the united church.

The clause that had been added to the government proposal: "Without prejudice to the status of the confessions of the several communities,"

was dropped; the place of residence and not the confession was that which determined qualifications in the community; the ordination now expressed obligation to the Reformation confessions generally, etc. The members of the minority broke off their connection with the synod, and seventy-seven pastors presented to the synod a protest against its decisions. The grand-duke then, on the basis of these deliberations, gave forthwith a charter to the church const.i.tution, in which indeed the Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches were embraced in one evangelical state church with a common church government; but still also, by restoring the phrase struck out by the synod from -- 1, the then existing confessional status of the several communities was preserved and the confession itself declared beyond the range of legislation. Yet fifteen Lutheran pastors represented that they could not conscientiously accept this, and the upper consistory hastened to remove them from office shortly before the shutting of the gates, _i.e._, before July 1st, 1875, when by the new law (-- 197, 15) depositions of clergy would belong only to the supreme civil court.

The opposing congregations now declared, in 1877, their withdrawal from the state church, and const.i.tuted themselves as a "free Lutheran church in Hesse."-The _Catholic_ church in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, had under the peaceful bishops of Mainz, Burg (died 1833) and Kaiser (died 1849), caused the government no trouble. But it was otherwise after Kaiser's death. Rome rejected Professor Leopold Schmid of Giessen, favoured at Darmstadt and regularly elected by the chapter (-- 187, 3), and the government yielded to the appointment of the violent ultramontane Westphalian, Baron von Ketteler. His first aim was the extinction of the Catholic faculty at Giessen (-- 191, 2); he rested not until the last student had been transferred from it to the newly erected seminary at Mainz (1851). No less energetic and successful were his endeavours to free the Catholic church from the supremacy of the state in accordance with the Upper Rhenish episcopal memorial. The Dalwigk ministry, in 1854, concluded a "provisional agreement" with the bishop, which secured to him unlimited autonomy and sovereignty in all ecclesiastical matters, and, to satisfy the pope with his desiderata, these privileges were still further extended in 1856. To this convention, first made publicly known in 1860, the ministry, in spite of all addresses and protests, adhered with unfaltering tenacity, although long convinced of its consequences. The political events of 1886, however, led the grand-duke in September of that year to abrogate the hateful convention. But the minister as well as the bishop considered this merely to refer to the episcopal convention of 1850, and treated the agreement with the pope of 1856 as always still valid. So everything went on in the old way, even after Ketteler's supreme influence in the state had been broken by the overthrow of Dalwigk in 1871. Comp. -- 197, 15.-The Protestant church in the Duchy of _Na.s.sau_ attached itself to the union in 1817. The conflict in the Upper Rhenish church overflowed even into this little province. The Bishop of Limburg, in opposition to law and custom, appointed Catholic clergy on his own authority, and excommunicated the Catholic officers who supported the government, while the government arrested the temporalities and inst.i.tuted criminal proceedings against bishop and chapter. After the conclusion of the Wurttemberg and Baden concordats, the government showed itself disposed to adopt a similar way out of the conflict, and in spite of all opposition from the States concluded in 1861 a convention with the bishop, by which almost all his hierarchical claims were admitted. Thus it remained until the incorporation of Na.s.sau in the Prussian kingdom in 1866.

5. In _Protestant Wurttemberg_ a religious movement among the people reached a height such as it attained nowhere else. Pietism, chiliasm, separatism, the holding of conventicles, etc., a.s.sumed formidable dimensions; solid science, philosophical culture, and then also philosophical and destructive critical tendencies issuing from Tubingen affected the clergy of this state. Dissatisfaction with various novelties in the liturgy, the hymnbook, etc., led many formally to separate from the state church. After attempts at compulsion had proved fruitless, the government allowed the malcontents under the organizing leaders.h.i.+p of the burgomaster, G. W. Hoffman (died 1846), to form in 1818 the community of Kornthal, with an ecclesiastical and civil const.i.tution of its own after the apostolic type. Others emigrated to South Russia and to North America (-- 211, 6, 7). Out of the pastoral work of pastor Blumhardt at Mottlingen, who earnestly preached repentance, there was developed, in connection with the healing of a demoniac, which had been accompanied with a great awakening in the community, the "gift" of healing the sick by absolution and laying on of hands with contrite believing prayer. Blumhardt, in order to afford this gift undisturbed exercise, bought the Bad Boll near Goppingen, and officiated there as pastor and miraculous healer in the way described. He died in 1880.-After the way to a synodal representation of the whole evangelical state church had been opened up in 1851 by the introduction, according to a royal ordinance, of parochial councils and diocesan synods, the consistory having also in 1858 published a scheme referring thereto, the whole business was brought to a standstill, until at last in 1867, by means of a royal edict, the calling of a State Synod consisting of twenty-five clerical and as many lay members was ordered, and consequently in February, 1869, such a synod met for the first time.

Co-operation in ecclesiastical legislation was a.s.signed to it as its main task, while it had also the right to advise in regard to proposals about church government, also to make suggestions and complaints on such matters, but the confession of the evangelical church was not to be touched, and lay entirely outside of its province. A liberal enactment with regard to dissenters was sanctioned by the chamber in 1870.

6. _The Catholic Church in Wurttemberg._-Even after the founding of the bishopric of Rottenberg the government maintained strictly the previously exercised rights of sovereignty over the Catholic church, to which almost one-third of the population belonged, and the almost universally prevalent liberalism of the Catholic clergy found in this scarcely any offence. A new order of divine service in 1837, which, with the approval of the episcopal council, recommended the introduction of German hymns in the services, dispensing the sacraments in the German language, restriction of the festivals, ma.s.ses, and private ma.s.ses, processions, etc., did indeed cause riots in several places, in which, however, the clergy took no part.

But when in 1837, in consequence of the excitement caused throughout Catholic Germany by the Cologne conflict (-- 193, 1), the hitherto only isolated cases of lawless refusal to consecrate mixed marriages had increased, the government proceeded severely to punish offending clergymen, and transported to a village curacy a Tubingen professor, Mack, who had declared the compulsory celebration unlawful. Called to account by the nuncio of Munich for his indolence in all these affairs and severely threatened, old Bishop Keller at last resolved, in 1841, to lay before the chamber a formal complaint against the injury done to the Catholic church, and to demand the freeing of the church from the sovereignty of the state.

In the second chamber this motion was simply laid _ad acta_, but in the first it was recommended that the king should consider it. The bishop, however, and the liberal chapter could not agree as to the terms of the demand, contradictory opinions were expressed, and things remained as they were. But Bishop Keller fell into melancholy and died in 1845. His successor took his stand upon the memorial and declaration of the Upper Rhenish bishops, and immediately in 1853 began the conflict by forbidding his clergy, under threats of severe censure, to submit as law required to civil examinations. The government that had hitherto so firmly maintained its sovereign rights, under pressure of the influence which a lady very nearly related to the king exercised over him, gave in without more ado, quieted the bishop first of all by a convention in 1854, and then entered into negotiations with the Roman curia, out of which came in 1857 a concordat proclaimed by the bull _c.u.m in sublimi_, which, in surrender of a sovereign right of the state over the affairs of the church, far exceeds that of Austria (-- 198, 2). The government left unheeded all protests and pet.i.tions from the chambers for its abolition. But the example of Baden and the more and more decided tone of the opposition obliged the government at last to yield. The second chamber in 1861 decreed the abrogation of the concordat, and a royal rescript declared it abolished.

In the beginning of 1862 a bill was submitted by the new ministry and pa.s.sed into law by both chambers for determining the relations of the Catholic church to the state. The royal _placet_ or right of permitting or refusing, is required for all clerical enactments which are not purely inter-ecclesiastical but refer to mixed matters; the theological endowments are subject to state control and joint administration; boys'

seminaries are not allowed; clergymen appointed to office must submit to state examination; according to consuetudinary rights, about two-thirds of the benefices are filled by the king, one-third by the bishops on reporting to the civil court, which has the right of protest; clergy who break the law are removable by the civil court, etc. The curia indeed lodged a protest, but the for the most part peace-loving clergy reared, not in the narrowing atmosphere of the seminaries but amid the scientific culture of the university, in the halls of Tubingen, submitted all the more easily as they found that in all inter-ecclesiastical matters they had greater freedom and independence under the concordat than before.

7. _The Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine since 1871._-After Alsace with German Lorraine had again, in consequence of the Franco-Prussian war, been united to Germany and as an imperial territory had been placed under the rule of the new German emperor, the secretary of the Papal States, Cardinal Antonelli, in the confident hope of being able to secure in return the far more favourable conditions, rights and claims of the Catholic church in Prussia with the autocracy of the bishops unrestricted by the state, declared in a letter to the Bishop of Stra.s.sburg, that the concordat of 1801 (-- 203, 1) was annulled. But when the imperial government showed itself ready to accept the renunciation, and to make profit out of it in the opposite way from that intended, the cardinal hasted in another letter to explain how by the incorporation with Germany a new arrangement had become necessary, but that clearly the old must remain in force until the new one has been promulgated. Also a pet.i.tion of the Catholic clergy brought to Berlin by the bishop himself, which laid claim to this unlimited dominion over all Catholic educational and benevolent inst.i.tutions, failed of its purpose. The clergy therefore wrought for this all the more zealously by fanaticizing the Catholic people in favour of French and against German interests. On the epidemic about the appearance of the mother of G.o.d called forth in this way, see -- 188, 7. In 1874 the government found itself obliged to close the so-called "little seminaries," or boys' colleges, on account of their fostering sentiments hostile to the empire. Yet in 1880 the newly appointed imperial governor, Field-marshal von Manteuffel (died 1885), at the request of the States-Committee, allowed Bishop Ra.s.s of Stra.s.sburg to reopen the seminary at Zillisheim, with the proviso that his teachers should be approved by the government, and that instruction in the German language should be introduced. Manteuffel has endeavoured since, by yielding favours to the France-loving Alsatians and Lorrainers, and to their ultramontane clergy, to win them over to the idea of the German empire, even to the evident sacrifice of the interests of resident Germans and of the Protestant church. But such fondling has wrought the very opposite result to that intended.

-- 197. The so-called Kulturkampf in the German Empire.(106)

Ultramontanism had for the time being granted to the Prussian state, which had not only allowed it absolutely free scope but readily aided its growth throughout the realm (-- 193, 2), an indulgence for that offence which is in itself unatoneable, having a Protestant dynasty. Pius IX. had himself repeatedly expressed his satisfaction at the conduct of the government.

But the league which Prussia made in 1866 with the "church-robbing Sub-alpine," _i.e._ Italian, government, was not at all to the taste of the curia. The day of Sadowa, 3rd July, 1866, called from Antonelli the mournful cry, _Il mondo cessa_, "The world has gone to ruin," and the still more glorious day of Sedan, 2nd September, 1870, completely put the bottom out of the Danaid's vessel of ultramontane forbearance and endurance. This day, 18th January, 1871, had as its result the overthrow of the temporal power of the papacy as well the establishment of a new and hereditary German empire under the Protestant dynasty of the Prussian Hohenzollerns. German ultramontanism felt itself all the more under obligation to demand from the new emperor as the first expiation for such uncanonical usurpation, the reinstatement of the pope in his lost temporal power. But when he did not respond to this demand, the ultramontane party, by means of the press favourable to its claims, formally declared war against the German empire and its governments, and applied itself systematically to the mobilization of its entire forces. But the empire and its governments, with Prussia in the van, with unceasing determination, supported by the majority of the States' representatives, during the years 1871-1875 proceeded against the ultramontanes by legislative measures. The execution of these by the police and the courts of law, owing to the stubborn refusal to obey on the part of the higher and lower clergy, led to the formation of an opposition, commonly designated after a phrase of the Prussian deputy, Professor Virchow, "_Kulturkampf_," which was in some degree modified first in 1887. The imperial chancellor, Prince Bismarck, uttered at the outset the confident, self-a.s.sertive statement, "We go not to Canossa,"-and even in 1880, when it seemed as if a certain measure of submission was coming from the side of the papacy, and the Prussian government also showed itself prepared to make important concessions, he declared, "We shall not buy peace with Canossa medals; such are not minted in Germany." Since 1880, however, the Prussian government with increasing compliance from year to year set aside and modified the most oppressive enactments of the May laws, so as actually to redress distresses and inconveniences occasioned by clerical opposition to these laws, without being able thereby to obtain any important concession on the part of the papal curia, until at last in 1887, after the government had carried concession to the utmost limit, the pope put his seal to definitive terms of peace by admitting the right of giving information on the part of the bishops regarding appointments to vacant pastorates, as well as the right of protest on the part of the government against those thus nominated.

1. _The Aggression of Ultramontanism._-Even in the revolution year, 1848, German ultramontanism, in order to obtain what it called the freedom of the church, had zealously seconded many of the efforts of democratic radicalism. Nevertheless, in the years of reaction that followed, it succeeded in catching most of the influential statesmen on the limed twig of the a.s.surance that the episcopal hierarchy, with its unlimited sway over the clergy and through them over the feelings of the people, const.i.tuted the only certain and dependable bulwark against the revolutionary movements of the age, and this idea prevailed down to 1860, and in Prussia down to 1871. But the overthrow of the concordat in Baden, Wurttemberg and Darmstadt by the states of the realm after a hard conflict, the humiliation of Austria in 1866, and the growth in so threatening a manner since of the still heretical Prussia, produced in the whole German episcopate a terrible apprehension that its. .h.i.therto untouched supremacy in the state would be at an end, and in order to ward off this danger it was driven into agitations and demonstrations partly secret and partly open. On 8th October, 1868, the papal nuncio in Munich, Monsignor Meglia, uttered his inmost conviction regarding the Wurttemberg resident thus: "Only in America, England, and Belgium does the Catholic church receive its rights; elsewhere nothing can help us but the revolution." And on 22nd April, 1869, Bishop Senestray of Regensburg declared plainly in a speech delivered at Schwandorff: "If kings will no longer be of G.o.d's grace, I shall be the first to overthrow the throne....

Only a war or revolution can help us in the end." And war at last came, but it helped only their opponents. Although at its outbreak in 1870 the ultramontane party in South Germany, especially in Bavaria, for the most part with unexampled insolence expressed their sympathy with France, and after the brilliant and victorious close of the war did everything to prevent the attachment of Bavaria to the new German empire, their North German brethren, accustomed to the boundless compliance of the Prussian government, indulged the hope of prosecuting their own ends all the more successfully under the new regime. Even in November, 1870, Archbishop Ledochowski of Posen visited the victorious king of Prussia at Versailles, in order to interest him personally in the restoration of the Papal States. In February, 1871, in the same place, fifty-six Catholic deputies of the Prussian parliament presented to the king, who had meanwhile been proclaimed Emperor of Germany, a formal pet.i.tion for the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, and soon afterwards a deputation of distinguished laymen waited upon him "in name of all the Catholics of Germany," with an address directed to the same end. The _Bavarian Fatherland_ (Dr. Sigl) indeed treated it with scorn as a "belly-crawling-deputation, which crawled before the magnanimous hero-emperor, beseeching him graciously to use said deputation as his spittoon." And the _Steckenberger Bote_, inspired by Dr. Ketteler, declared: "We Catholics do not entreat it as a favour, but demand it as our right.... Either you must restore the Catholic church to all its privileges or not one of all your existing governments will endure." At the same time as the insinuation was spread that the new German empire threatened the existence of the Catholic church in Germany, a powerful ultramontane election agitation in view of the next Reichstag was set on foot, out of which grew the party of the "Centre," so called from sitting in the centre of the hall, with Von Ketteler, Windthorst, Mallinkrodt (died 1874), and the two Reichenspergers, as its most eloquent leaders.

Even in the debate on the address in answer to the speech from the throne this party demanded intervention, at first indeed only diplomatic, in favour of the Papal States. In the discussion on the new imperial const.i.tution A. Reichensperger sought to borrow from the abortive German landowners' bill of 1848, condemned indeed as G.o.dless by the syllabus (-- 185, 2), principles that might serve the turn of ultramontanism regarding the unrestricted liberty of the press, societies, meetings, and religion, with the most perfect independence of all religious communities of the State. Mallinkrodt insisted upon the need of enlarged privileges for the Catholic church owing to the great growth of the empire in Catholic territory and population. All these motions were rejected by the Reichstag, and the Prussian government answered them by abolis.h.i.+ng in July, 1871, the Catholic department of the Ministry of Public Wors.h.i.+p, which had existed since 1841 (-- 193, 2). The _Genfer Korrespondenz_, shortly before highly praised by the pope, declared: If kings do not help the papacy to regain its rights, the papacy must also withdraw from them and appeal directly to the hearts of the people. "Understand ye the terrible range of this change? Your hours, O ye princes, are numbered!"

The Berlin _Germania_ pointed threateningly to the approaching _revanche_ war in France, on the outbreak of which the German empire would no longer be able to reckon on the sympathy of its Catholic subjects; and the _Ellw.a.n.ger kath. Wochenblatt_ proclaimed openly that only France is able to guard and save the Catholic church from the annihilating projects of Prussia. And in this way the Catholic people throughout all Germany were roused and incited by the Catholic press, as well as from the pulpit and confessional, in home and school, in Catholic monasteries and nunneries, in mechanics' clubs and peasants' unions, in casinos and a.s.semblies of n.o.bles. Bishop Ketteler founded expressly for purposes of such agitations the Mainz Catholic Union, in September, 1871, which by its itinerant meetings spread far and wide the flame of religious fanaticism; and a Bavarian priest, Lechner, preached from the pulpit that one does not know whether the German princes are by G.o.d's or by the devil's grace.

2. _Conflicts Occasioned by Protection of the Old Catholics, 1871-1872._-That the Prussian government refused to a.s.sist the bishops in persecuting the Old Catholics, and even retained these in their positions after excommunication had been hurled against them, was regarded by those bishops as itself an act of persecution of the Catholic church. To this opinion they gave official expression, under solemn protest against all encroachments of the state upon the domain of Catholic faith and law, in a memorial addressed to the German emperor from Fulda, on September 7th, 1871, but were told firmly and decidedly to keep within their own boundaries. Even before this Bishop _Krementz of Ermeland_ had refused the _missio canonica_ to Dr. Wollmann, teacher of religion at the Gymnasium of Braunsberg, on account of his refusing to acknowledge the dogma of infallibility, and had forbidden Catholic scholars to attend his instructions. The minister of public wors.h.i.+p, Von Muhler, decided, because religious instruction was obligatory in the Prussian gymnasia, that all Catholic scholars must attend or be expelled from the inst.i.tution. The Bavarian government followed a more correct course in a similar case that arose about the same time; for it recognised and protected the religious instructions of the anti-infallibilist priest, Renftle in Mering, as legitimate, but still allowed parents who objected to withhold their children from it. And in this way the new Prussian minister, Falk, corrected his predecessor's mistake. But all the more decidedly did the government proceed against Bishop Krementz, when he publicly proclaimed the excommunication uttered against Dr. Wollmann and Professor Michelis, which had been forbidden by Prussian civil law on account of the infringement of civil rights connected therewith according to canon law.

As the bishop could not be brought to an explicit acknowledgment of his obligation to obey the laws of the land, the minister of public wors.h.i.+p on October 1st, 1872, stripped him of his temporalities. But meanwhile a second conflict had broken out. The Catholic field-provost of the Prussian army and bishop _in partibus_, Namszanowski, had under papal direction commanded the Catholic divisional chaplain, Lunnemann of Cologne, on pain of excommunication, to discontinue the military wors.h.i.+p in the garrison chapel, which, by leave of the military court, was jointly used by the Old Catholics, and so was desecrated. He was therefore brought before a court of discipline, suspended from his office in May, 1872, and finally, by royal ordinance in 1873, the office of field-provost was wholly abolished.

3. _Struggles over Educational Questions, 1872-1873._-In the formerly Polish provinces of the Prussian kingdom the Polonization of resident Catholic Germans had recently a.s.sumed threatening proportions. The archbishop of Posen and Gnesen, Count _Ledochowski_, whom the pope during the Vatican Council appointed primate of Poland, was the main centre of this agitation. In the Posen priest seminary he formed for himself, in a fanatically Polish clergy, the tools for carrying it out, and in the neighbouring Schrimm he founded a Jesuit establishment that managed the whole movement. Where previously Polish and German had been preached alternately, German was now banished, and in the public schools, the oversight of which, as throughout all Prussia, lay officially in the hands of the clergy, all means were used to discourage the study of the German language, and to stamp out the German national sentiment. But even in the two western provinces the Catholic public schools were made by the clerical school inspectors wholly subservient to the designs of ultramontanism. In order to stem such disorder the government, in February, 1872, sanctioned the _School Inspection Law_ pa.s.sed by the parliament, by which the right and duty of school inspection was transferred from the church to the state, so that for the sake of the state the clerical inspectors hostile to the government were set aside, and where necessary might be replaced by laymen. A pastoral letter of the Prussian bishops a.s.sembled at Fulda in April of that year complained bitterly of persecution of the church and unchristianizing of the schools, but advised the Catholic clergy under no circ.u.mstances voluntarily to resign school inspection where it was not taken from them. By a rescript of the minister of public wors.h.i.+p in June, the exclusion of all members of spiritual orders and congregations from teaching in public schools was soon followed by the suppression of the Marian congregations in all schools, and it was enjoined in March, 1873, that in Polish districts, where other subjects had been taught in the higher educational inst.i.tutions in the German language, this also would be obligatory in religious instruction. Ledochowski indeed directed all religious teachers in his diocese to use the Polish language after as they had done before, but the government suspended all teachers who followed his direction, and gave over the religious instruction to lay teachers. The archbishop now erected private schools for the religious instruction of gymnasial teachers, and the government forbad attendance at them.

4. _The Kanzelparagraph and the Jesuit law, 1871-1872._-While thus the Prussian government took more and more decided measures against the ultramontanism that had become so rampant in its domains, on the other hand, its mobile band of warriors in ca.s.sock, dress coat, and blouse did not cease to labour, and the imperial government pa.s.sed some drastic measures of defence applicable to the whole empire. At the instance of the Bavarian government, which could not defend itself from the violence of its "patriots," the Federal Council asked the Reichstag to add a new article to the penal code of the empire, threatening any misuse of the pulpit for political agitation with imprisonment for two years. The Bavarian minister of public wors.h.i.+p, Lutz, undertook himself to support this bill before the Reichstag. "For several decades," he said, "the clergy in Germany have a.s.sumed a new character; they are become the simple reflection of Jesuitism." The Reichstag sanctioned the bill in December, 1871. Far more deeply than this so-called _Kanzelparagraph_, the operation of which the agitation of the clergy by a little circ.u.mspection could easily elude, did the _Jesuit Law_, published on July 4th, 1872, cut into the flesh of German ultramontanism. Already in April of that year had a pet.i.tion from Cologne demanding the expulsion of the Jesuits been presented to the Reichstag. Similar addresses flowed in from other places.

The Centre party, on the other hand, organized a regular flood of pet.i.tions in favour of the Jesuits. The Reichstag referred both to the imperial chancellor, with the request to introduce a law against the movements of the Jesuits as dangerous to the State. The Federal Council complied with this request, and so the law was pa.s.sed which ordained the removal of the Jesuits and related orders and congregations, the closing of their inst.i.tutions within six months, and prohibited the formation of any other orders by their individual members, and the government authorised the banishment of foreign members and the interning of natives at appointed places. A later ordinance of the Federal Council declared the Redemptorists, Lazarists, Priests of the Holy Ghost, and the Society of the Heart of Jesus to be orders related to the Society of Jesus. Those affected by this law antic.i.p.ated the threatened interning by voluntarily removing to Belgium, Holland, France, Turkey, and America.

5. _The Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1873-1875._-In order to be able to check ultramontanism, even in its paedagogical breeding places, the episcopal colleges and seminaries, and at the same time to restrict by law the despotic absolutism of the bishops in disciplinary and beneficiary matters, the Prussian government brought in other four ecclesiastical bills, which in spite of violent opposition on the part of the Centre and the Old Conservatives, were successively pa.s.sed by both houses of parliament, and approved by the king on May 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th, 1873. Their most important provisions are: As a condition for admission to a spiritual office the state requires citizens.h.i.+p of the German empire, three years' study at a German university, and, besides an exit gymnasial examination preceding the university course, a state examination in general knowledge (in philosophy, history, and German literature), in addition to the theological examination. The episcopal boys' seminaries and colleges are abolished. The priest seminaries, if the minister of wors.h.i.+p regards them as fit for the purpose, may take the place of the university course, but must be under regular state inspection. The candidates for spiritual offices, which must never be left vacant more than a year, are to be named to the chief president of the province, and he can for cogent reasons lodge a protest against them. Secession from the church is freely allowed, and releases from all personal obligations to pay ecclesiastical dues and perform ecclesiastical duties. Excommunication is permissible, but can be proclaimed only in the congregation concerned, and not publicly. The power of church discipline over the clergy can be exercised only by German superiors and in accordance with fixed processional procedure. Corporal punishment is not permissible, fines are allowed to a limited extent, and restraint by interning in so-called _Demeriti_ houses, but only at furthest of three months, and when the party concerned willingly consents. Church servants, whose remaining in office is incompatible with the public order, can be deposed by civil sentence. And as final court of appeal in all cases of complaint between ecclesiastical and civil authorities as well as within the ecclesiastical domain, a royal court of justice for ecclesiastical affairs is const.i.tuted, whose proceedings are open and its decision final.-But even the May Laws soon proved inadequate for checking the insolence of the bishops and the disorders among the Catholic population occasioned thereby. In December, 1873, therefore, by sovereign authority there was prescribed a new formula of the episcopal Oath of Allegiance, recognising more distinctly and decisively the duty of obedience to the laws of the state. Then next a bill was presented to the parliament, which had been kept in view in the original const.i.tution, demanding obligator