so that Vienna could be reached by the victorious army within a few days and without the interference of any military body. At that juncture the Emperor of Austria asked for peace. He gave up Venetia to Italy, and again it was the ingenuity of Beust, who took matters in hand, that Bismarck contented himself with a war indemnity, with the annexation of Hanover and Nassau, and a few other principalities, and with the permission of forming a North German alliance reaching down as far as the river Main. Beust left Saxony now, being called upon to take charge of the Austrian affairs. Demoralized as this country was after the defeat, and divided as it is by the different nationalities that form it, the great statesman succeeded in building it up again, a task which under the same conditions Bismarck would never have been able to perform. If Beust had been so fortunate as to have a military leader at his back as ingenious as was General von Moltke, or if he had had an army at his command as powerful as the Prussian army, he would have been the hero of to-day, and as far as popularity is concerned he would have deserved it. Bismarck was now made a count, and the Prussians, intoxicated by the glory of the successful war, forgave him all his former sins. They now began to see that the army against which they had protested so frequently had been their safeguard, and they were satisfied to appropriate the money for its support which they had formerly refused. A North German Parliament was formed, and appealing to the liberal sentiments of the people, Bismarck succeeded not only in cementing the union, but even in convincing Southern Germany that an alliance with the North could be only beneficial. Nor did his star of success yet wane. Napoleon III., who had been disappointed in the results which he expected from a war between Prussia and Austria, and endeavoring to win for himself popularity, appealed to the hatred which the French people had ever borne against the Germans, and which now, since Germany had grown stronger, had become coupled with a feeling of envy. There is a secret history which perhaps never will be published as to the intrigues which Bismarck applied, on the one hand, to mislead France, on the other hand, to inform himself concerning the actual strength of his opponent. He undertook to place Germany in such a position that she appeared to be the innocent party and thus he won for her the sympathy of the world. In July, 1870, the war broke out suddenly. France expected to see Southern Germany turn against Prussia but these States rather joined their former opponents. It is not my intention at present to write the history of this war and the results, which are doubtless well known to every reader of THE ARENA. A great many events were crowded within the space of this one year. France was defeated; Napoleon made a prisoner at the head of an army of several hundred thousand men; Paris was besieged and captured after the French people had established a republic, and had defended the city with unparalleled heroism; Germany, on the other hand, was made an empire and William I. was tendered the crown of Germany at Versailles by the king of Bavaria; a huge war indemnity was demanded and paid by France, and Alsace and Lorraine were annexed to the German empire. All this is said to have been the work of Bismarck, but when we come to examine it more closely we find again that it was rather the work of General Moltke than that of Bismarck. Whenever he undertook something he was outwitted. Jules Favre and Thièrs were much shrewder statesmen than he, and while he expected that France would never be able to pay the monstrous war indemnity in gold, these shrewd statesmen paid it within a short time, and what is more, they paid it with German money, leaving their notes. instead in the hands of German bankers who had now to use their influence to keep Germany at peace with France, if they were not to lose their investment. Another and greater blunder was made by him when he annexed Alsace and Lorraine, and in spite of all efforts to Germanize these formerly German provinces, they have remained faithful to France during these twenty years, and are still a thorn in the flesh of Germany. Bismarck was now made a prince, and holding the ear of his overjoyed master, he was all-powerful in Europe. Still, he made blunder after blunder. His crusade against the Catholic Church ended with his defeat, and had he not had the support of a stubborn monarch, he would, at that time, have been obliged to resign. It was on account of the prosperity which naturally followed the growth of Germany that his commercial policy did not ruin the people. Again we find him in constant conflict with the new German Parliament and compelled to ask each year, for new appropriations for the enlargement of the army. His colonial policy, in which he was not successful at all, served him only as a means to divert public opinion from his many mistakes. Instead of making use of the prosperous condition of Germany to relieve the people of their burden, he rather irritated the laboring classes, and when Socialism spread more and more as a consequence of the discontent of the people, he endeavored to crush it by force. Yet all his steps to suppress this popular movement remained futile. When William I. was dying, Bismarck's efforts were directed to prevent the ascendency of the sick Frederick II. to the throne. He, as well as his wife, had been aware of the blunders which Bismarck had made. They were not his admirers, and having the welfare of the people at heart, Frederick II. intended to introduce an entirely new policy. Alas, he died after having reigned only ninety-nine days, during which, sick as he was, he removed a great many evils and inspired the people with hope for better times to come. His son, who ascended the throne as William II., was believed not to have shared his father's opinions and to have rather been a tool in the hands of Bismarck; still, blood is thicker than water, and the education which he had received from his parents could not have remained without some good results. The young emperor had learned to see that a new time was approaching and that a new time requires new men. Who will blame him that he finally got tired of the stubbornness with which the old chancellor endeavored to carry on the government, and of his constant dwelling upon the services which he had rendered to his father and to the country? He had grown too old to value the important part that Socialism played in Germany, while the young man, who had grown up in a different atmosphere, and who had inhaled the ideas of the day, was open to conviction. Thus the two men could not work in sympathy with each other and finally they separated. The one resigned his position in the hope that his resignation would not be accepted, and with the intention thus to force his young master to uphold him in his policy; the other gladly accepted it, fully assured that the time for a change had come. Only a few weeks have elapsed since the chancellor laid down his office, and we cannot yet judge whether his successor will be the right man in the right place or not. But in fact it was not Bismarck who founded the new empire, the creation of which is rather to be credited to favorable conditions which brought about the result, and especially to the strong and well-disciplined army which remains a guarantee to the safety of Germany, hence there need be no fears for her security. In any other country except Prussia, Bismarck would have never met with such a success, and under another monarch than William I., he would have never been able to hold office for any length of time. Though Baron von Beust was not as successful as Bismarck, he was still his superior in statesmanship; though Jules Favre, Thièrs, Gambetta, and other French statesmen, were regarded as lesser lights, they were surely his equals. The late Disraeli and Gladstone have done better work than Bismarck, though on account of circumstances and conditions they have not become so conspicuous. These latter two have not alone served England but through their writings the whole world, and if their renown as statesmen should ever fade, the fame which they have gained in the field of literature will be sufficient to immortalize them. Without the confidence of William I.; without the aid of so great a genius in military tactics as is General Moltke; without an army composed of the very flower of the German people, Bismarck would never have been able to rise by his own merits to the position which he has filled for so many years, and to win for himself the fame of being the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century. CHURCHIANITY VS. CHRISTIANITY. BY CARLOS MARTYN, D. d. CHURCHIANITY may be defined as Christianity formalized. It is like counterfeit coin-current but false. Defoe wrote: "Wherever God erects a house of prayer, Churchianity is this devil's chapel. When Christianity marries the State, the natural, the almost inevitable product of the incestuous mésalliance is Churchianity. The church is secularized. It is a department of the government. And, as every bargain presupposes a quid pro quo, in return for governmental alliance it makes itself a prop of the powers that be. Thus religion is transformed from a principle into an institution. What should be inward feeling and motive runs outward and freezes into mere profession. Christianity is a business. The divine element evaporates. God is Deus ex machina. The ministry ceases to be a calling and becomes a profession. Men are preferred to this and that sacred office. The clergy are in form servants of heaven, in fact officials of the State. Handling money, controlling patronage, dealing in sacred things for secular purposes, Christianity is hocuspocused into Churchianity. In this country we have no State Church. Nevertheless Churchianity is a naturalized resident. Because Churchianity Wherever -it is a state of mind. is more than a system form is put for substance, whenever the medium is regarded as the essence, Christianity crystallizes into Churchianity. We have a religious establishment, but no longer religion. We look for Christ and find a church. We ask for bread and are given a stone. In so far as the State is concerned, we have nothing to |