THE CONFESSIONAL.

411

at schools must not only do the same thing themselves, butkeep no servant in their family wlio absents herseif fromchurch Service.

Now, all this extreme religious rigour is reported tobe owing to a letter that was addressed by the Pope tothe various crowned heads of the Continent, after thekingdom-panics of 1848, and in which his Holiness is said tohave informed the monarchs that the several national dis-turbances had arisen from the lack of religious care for thepeople throughout the various governments : though surely hisfar-seeing Saintliness might have called to mind, that it wasonly in those countries where priestcraft was rampant thatrevolutions had broken out, and that England—where therewere fewer pricsts, and soldiers, and police agents, than in anyother European State—was aboutthe only throne that escaped.Nevertheless, Prussia, in its wisdom, became immediately(letermined to employno one in the administration of its publicaffairs who was not a devout Christian (or what would wellpass muster as a profoand hypocriU) ; and the consequence is,we meet German professors and government officers on theirway to church, who whisper to you, as they wink their eye, tolet you see they have no faith in the mockery, that they aregoing to " eat their god" according to law. Moreover, it is arule that every true Cafholic must confess at least at Easter,(if not oftener throughout the year), under pain of excom-munication—whilst excommunication brings loss of office, andfriends, and living. Hence, at Easter you are freely informed,by those whom you know to be merely official devotees, thatthey teil all manner of lies to the priests in order to obtaintheir license to play the Christian for the ensuing twelvemonth.

The religious tyranny of Prussia, however, is not merelypart and parcel of the government institutions, but it extends