French Empire. The Count Montalembert lived long enough to discover, that although Ultramontanism is always consistent with itself—that is, with implicit obedience to the power, which reigns supreme in the person of the Pontiff,-it is incapable of genuine amalgamation with anything else. We leave it to theologians to decide whether its religion, if fanaticism may be called religion, consists in anything dogmatically permanent beyond the last decree of the reigning Pontiff, provided always, that such decree be agreeable to the interests of the Society. However little such mental subjugation may consist with the sense of duty, which inspires those, who hold a different faith, no mistake can be greater than to suppose, that this blind obedience in the least incapacitates the individuals, subject to it, from the most effective action. On the contrary, the intensity of their combination, and the secresy, with which it is enforced, enables the Great Secret Society to grapple with the most powerful Governments of the world. It was at first amicably allied with the Third Empire of France. Then came a period of coldness between the allies, approaching to hostility. At last, the Great Secret Society triumphed over the failing energies of the Emperor, and forced him to a final effort in the interests of the Papacy, which ended in his downfall. Scarcely eighteen months have elapsed, before we find the Government of the Empire, which overthrew that of Napoleon, entering upon a struggle with the agents of the Papacy upon the matter of education in Germany. Is, then, the conclusion at which we invite our readers to arrive, that the Great Secret Society, the director and right hand of the Papacy, a power, with which, as invincible, it is useless to contend? Such a conclusion is condemned by the history of this country, whose freedom, whose prosperity and whose greatness have advanced exactly in proportion to the triumph of her true religion —that of the Bible-over the corruptions of the Christian faith, of which the Papacy and its Great Secret Society are the exponents. While the periods of her comparative weakness have always ensued upon the periodical departures of her Government from the Christian principles, which found their exposition, first in the Church, and then in the Common Law of England. This world is a world of conflict; and although the variations in the prosperity of nations are not sudden as the intermittent phases of a fever-patient's illness, still the changes, from growing strength to weakness are patent to the perception of even the irregular student, and his studies must be limited, if he arrive at any conclusion other than that the periods of national growth and national vigour, whether original or renewed, have always been those at which the nation adhered most closely to the dictates of the morality, which is perfectly developed only by means of an open Bible, the antagonist which even the Great Secret Society has never yet been able finally to overcome. THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT SECRET SOCIETY IN PRODUCING THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. the War. THERE was a remarkable coincidence in the time of the "Declaration" of Papal Infallibility with the commencement of the late war which has resulted in such disaster to France. On the 18th of July, 1870, amidst a scene that was designed by the Papal Curia to be one of peculiar and significant splendour, but which Heaven turned into unwonted and ominous gloom, the prophecy of St. Paul (2 Thess. ii. 4) was literally fulfilled by the Pope, seated on his throne in the Church of St. Peter's. "He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing The Dogma & himself that he is God." On that very same day, the war, which had been declared three days before by France against Prussia, was commenced by the march of the French forces. this an accidental coincidence, or was it design ? is every reason to believe, that the war, which began on the very day of the Papal consummation, had been planned for the purpose of using the sword of France in a new crusade, whereby Ultramontane influence should obtain an enormous expansion, forcing nations to receive the favoured heresy of Papal infallibility now being pressed upon the recreant Bishops by an ultimatum from the Vatican, with all its inseparable tyranny. Was There This war, which has ended in the unprecedented and deserved overthrow of those who appealed to the sword, was expected to achieve far different results. The date of its commencement was chosen so as to excite the idea that Providence had interposed in favour of the new dogma. Jesuits intended, in this way, с Quirinus. Beckx. to answer and silence their opponents, to distract the minds of men from a critical consideration of their proceedings, and to overpower the noble freedom of German thought. "Quirinus" wrote from Rome, in December, 1869, in these remarkable words, which pointed out accurately the programme of those constant plotters, the members of the Society of Jesus:— * "Their Order is now really, and in the fullest sense, the Urim and Thummim and breastplate of the high-priest―the Popewho can only then issue an oracular utterance when he has consulted his breastplate, the Jesuit Order. Only one thing was still wanting for the salvation of a world redeemed and regenerated once again: the Jesuits must again become the confessors of monarchs restored to absolute power. "It is one of the notes of an age so rich in contradictions, that the present General of the Order, Father Beckx, is not in harmony with the proceedings of his spiritual militia. Here, in Rome, he is reported to have said, 'In order to recover two fractions of the States of the Church, they are pricking on to a war against the world: but they will lose all.' But for that reason, as is known, he possesses only the outward semblance of government, while it is really in the hands of a Conference." The sword of France was the instrument which was to open the way to absolutism in Church and in State throughout the world. Jesuits were thus to "become the confessors of monarchs, restored to absolute power," holding the same relation to them that Father La Chaise did to Louis XIV. in his dotage.† The present head of the Romish Church is content to be the puppet of this power-crafty, secret, active, persistent,-a power behind the Papal throne overawing its possessor. Intoxicated with their success, ignoring the former reverses of their Order, and entirely * See "Letters from Rome on the Council," by "Quirinus." London: Rivingtons, 1870. Page 79. + If the reader would gain an insight into what dreadful lengths of crime such "confessors of absolute monarchs' will go in order to achieve their evil purposes, let him read the most important and characteristic letter from Father La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV., to Father Peters, confessor of James II., written in 1688, which will be found at page 221 of the present work. callous to the demands urged for their expulsion in July and September last from Rome, and also virtually from Germany, by the adoption of the sixth resolution in the programme of the Old Catholic Congress, held at Munich in October, they are following in the steps of the most ambitious and unscrupulous of their former chiefs. To arrive at the summit, not merely of spiritual power, but of political and worldly authority, through spiritual pretensions, this is, and ever has been, the object kept in view. To attain this end, they bend all their energies and use every means that promises to secure any degree of success and additional influence to their Society. Empress They acted upon the Emperor of the French through his Empress, Jesuits & the who was devoted to them and obedient to their suggestions, and proved herself their partisan at every risk, by the well-known exclamation: "Better the Prussians at Paris than the Italians at Rome." And, indeed, we find on referring to an entry made by Professor Friedrich in his diary, dated May 2nd, 1870, and kept by him whilst at the Ecumenical Council, that he speaks of a distinct understanding having been arrived at, between the Jesuit party and the Tuilleries, in view of a Franco-Prussian war. The Professor observes, that it was well known in Berlin that such an understanding existed. He adds: "It was no secret, but a notorious fact, that the Empress Eugenie was entirely under the influence of the Jesuits, and in constant communication with Rome, and that she was eager in urging on the war, which she repeatedly spoke of as 'ma guerre,' because she regarded it as a sort of crusade. The Empress and her clerical advisers represented the party, then dominant at the Vatican. And the Jesuits hoped to promote, by war, the policy they had inaugurated by the Ecumenical Council and the Syllabus which had preceded it. The agent employed to conduct the negotiations between the Confessors. Empress (who, after the departure of the Emperor to the army, assumed the supreme power as Regent) and the directors of the Papal policy, was her Majesty's confessor. The participation of other Court confessors, such as those at Vienna and elsewhere, in this affair, was also reckoned upon. EvenItaly would, it was thought, be thus brought over to the cause; and if the victories of Wissemburg, Woerth, and Spicheren had not so rapidly succeeded each |