In This system dates from Napoleon I., the greatest military genius and despot on a democratic basis. He restored, in a measure, the Roman church in France after its overthrow by the madness of the Revolution. He was too much of a statesman not to see the absolute necessity of religion for society. But he felt no personal interest in it, and viewed it merely from the military and political point of view. Je ne vois pas," he said, “ dans la religion le mystère de l'incarnation, mais le mystère de l'ordre social." Egypt he supported Mohammedanism, and placed the Koran along-side of the New Testament under the heading, "Politics." The priests he viewed as a sort of black policemen and as "professeurs d'obéissance passive." Accordingly he recognized the Roman Catholic religion as the religion of the great majority of Frenchmen, and also the National Reformed and Lutheran Churches.' He made scanty provision for their support from the national treasury, by which he kept them subject to his power. To separate church and state after the American fashion would have limited his sovereignty. He would not listen to it for a moment. He concluded a concordat with Pope Pius VII. (July 15, 1801), and secured his consent to crown him emperor (Dec. 2, 1804); but he deprived him of his temporal power (May 17, 1809), and made him his prisoner at Fontainebleau (1812). His ambition was to rule the whole world from Paris, with the Pope residing there as his humble servant. But the haughty structure collapsed like the tower of Babel. After the fall of Napoleon came the legitimist and papal reaction of the Bourbons, who, like the Stuarts, never forgot and never learned any thing, and who, like the Stuarts, by their reactionary and selfish policy prepared their own second and final overthrow. The reign of the house of Orleans, which succeeded that of the Bourbons, was a limited constitutional monarchy and a compromise between the Revolution and the Restora 1 Against the protest of Pope Pius VII., whose secretary, Consalvi, made during the negotiations with Napoleon the characteristic admission: “Il est de l'esssence de la religion catholique d'être intolerante." Haussonville, "Leglise romaine et le premier empire," vol. i. 308. tion. It acknowledged to a limited extent the principle of religious liberty. The charter of August 14, 1830, signed by King Louis Philippe and his prime minister, Guizot (a Protestant), provides that "each one may profess his religion with equal liberty, and shall receive for his religious worship the same protection" (Article V.), and that "the ministers of the catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion, professed by the majority of the French, and those of other Christian worship, receive stipends from the public treasury" (Article VI.). The constitution of the second Republic of 1848, which followed the dethronement of Louis Philippe, guarantees that "every one may freely profess his own religion, and shall receive from the state equal protection in the exercise of his worship. The ministers of the religions at present recognized by law, as well as those which may be hereafter recognized, have a right to receive an allowance from the state" (Chap. II., Art. VII.). The restoration of the Empire by Napoleon III. returned to the policy of the first Napoleon, but gave greater power to the Pope, and forced a new organization upon the recognized Protestant churches (1852). Like his uncle, he cut his own throat by his overreaching ambition, and went down with his empire at the battle of Sedan (Sept. 2, 1870). His only son and heir perished among the savages in Africa. His widow still lives, a modern Niobe, "crownless and childless in her voiceless woe." A third Republic rose from the ruins of the second Empire (1870), and has lasted much longer than the first and second. The constitution adopted February 25, 1875, and still in force, says nothing on the subject of religious liberty, but the former system of cæsaro-papal rule and state patronage is continued. The Roman Church, the Reformed (Calvinistic), and the Lutheran Churches, and, since 1841, also the Jewish synagogue, and, in Algiers, the Mohammedan religion, are recognized by law and supported from the national treasury, but at the expense of their independence. Under the successful administration of Thiers, chiefly through the influence of Guizot, the Reformed Church was permitted to hold an official synod in 1872, but the government refused to sanction its decisions. The synods held since that time are "unofficial," and have no legislative power. In the meantime free churches have sprung up, which support and govern themselves, and are tolerated. The chief among them (since 1849) is the "Union des églises évangéliques de France," usually called "l'église libre." The M'All "missions" (since 1871) are not organized churches and confine themselves to preaching the gospel; they are required by the police to abstain from politics and from attacks upon the Catholic Church. Other denominations, the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Baptist, etc., are of foreign origin and confined to a few congregations in Paris. The French Republic has manifested a strong anti-clerical spirit and shown no favor to any religion. In this respect it contrasts very unfavorably with the American Republic. The possibilities for the future of France seem to be a conservative republic, or a socialistic revolution, or a restoration of the Orleans dynasty. The sympathies of America are with a conservative republic. We may add from the "Statesman's Year-Book" for 1887 (pp. 66, 67), the following additional information : "The population of France, at the census of December, 1881, consisted of 29,201,703 Roman Catholics, being 78.50 per cent. of the total population; of 692,800 Protestants, or 1.8 per cent. of the population, as compared with 584,757 in 1872; of 53,446 Jews, and 7,684,906 persons who declined to make any declaration of religious belief.' This was the first census at which 'non-professants' were registered as such. On former occasions it had been customary to class all who had refused to state what their religion was, or who denied having any religion, as Roman Catholics. The number of persons set down as belonging to ' various creeds' was 33,042. "All religions are equal by law, and any sect which numbers 100,000 adherents is entitled to a grant; but at present only the Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Mussulmans (Algeria, etc.) have state allowances. In the Budget for 1887 these grants were as follows: Francs. 257,800 44,327, 123 1,551,600 180,900 40,000 216,340 46,573,763 "There are 17 archbishops and 67 bishops; and of the Roman Catholic Church on January, 1884, the secular clergy numbered in all 54,513, besides 10,464 pupils in the ecclesiastical seminaries. The value of the total gifts and legacies made to the Church during the present century, up to 1882, is 23,976,733 francs. The Protestants of the Augsburg Confession, or Lutherans, are, in their religious affairs, governed by a General Consistory, while the members of the Reformed Church, or Calvinists, are under a council of administration, the seat of which is at Paris. In 1884 there were 700 Protestant pastors, with 27 assistant preachers, and 57 Jewish rabbis and assistants.” Belgium. Belgium, which was previously a part of Holland, has formed since 1830 an independent state, and is a constitutional, representative, and hereditary monarchy. Nearly the whole population is nominally Roman Catholic, and divided into six dioceses (Malines, Bruges, Ghent, Liège, Namur, Tournai). There is a constant conflict going on between the ' ultramontane and the liberal Catholics. The Protestants number only 15,000, and the Jews 3,000. The constitution of 1831 guarantees full religious liberty. The government, like that of France, pays a part of the salary to Roman priests, Protestant ministers, and Jewish rabbis. But there is also a free Reformed Church in Belgium similar to that in France. It is partly supported by friends from abroad, and does faithful missionary work among the lower Roman Catholic population. Italy. The year 1848 forms a turning-point in the history of Italy. The fundamental statute of Sardinia (statuto fondamentale del regno), proclaimed by King Charles Albert at Turin, March 4, 1848, declares the Roman Catholic Church to be the only state religion, but grants toleration to other existing forms of worship within the laws.' The unification of Italy, with Rome as the capital, in 1870, extended the force of this statute over the whole kingdom. Since that time the legislature by several acts has diminished the power "La religione Catholica Apostolica Romana è la sola religione dello stato. Gli altri culti ora existenti sono tollerati conformemente alle leggi." See Gabriello Carnazza : Il Diritto Costituzionale Italiano," Catania, 1886, p. 331. of the church and clergy, and subordinated them to the authority of the civil government. Cavour, the statesman; Mazzini, the dreamer; Garibaldi, the hero; and Victor Emanuel, the king, of regenerated Italy, were in favor of full religious liberty, though more from indifference than from an enlightened positive faith. A large number of educated men in Italy, as in all the Latin races, are indifferent and skeptical; but, knowing only the Roman religion, and wishing to be on the safe side in the other world, usually send for the priest on their death-bed. Even Voltaire did so. Although toleration is a poor concession, it marks a great advance beyond the former state of disgraceful intolerance, when as late as 1852 the innocent Madiai family were imprisoned in Florence for no other crime than holding prayermeetings and reading the Scriptures in the vernacular; when the Bible could not pass the custom-house in the Pope's dominions; and when the foreign Protestant residents of Rome were not allowed to worship God except in strict privacy, or in a house behind a barn outside of the city walls. The statute of 1848 emancipated the faithful and much persecuted Waldenses; enabled them to preach in Italian, and to come out of their mountain fastnesses in Piedmont. Since 1870 there have been organized at least a dozen Protestant congregations in the city of Rome itself, which represent the Waldensian, the Free Italian Church (chiesa libera), the English and American Episcopal, the Scotch Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the German Evangelical, and the French Reformed denominations. Such a variety is very confusing to the mind of an Italian Catholic is who discontented with Romanism, and yet used to the idea of the visible unity of the church. The total number of Protestants in Italy at the census of 1881 amounted (in a population of nearly thirty millions) to 62,000, of whom 22,000 belonged to the Waldensian Church, and 30,000 to foreign Protestant bodies. The kingdom of Italy sustains a peculiar relation to the papacy. It has destroyed its temporal power and thereby |