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“ The fierce onslaught of the French republican government on the Church is a very different matter; it means an attack on religion. And its termination depends not so much on the wisdom and statesmanship of the pope as on the survival or decadence of the religious sentiment in France. In Prussia Leo. XIII. has had to deal with the most powerful, practical, and straightforward of living statesmen ”

“ On the accession of the present pope he determined to open negotiations with him, and preferred this course to negotiating with the socalled Catholic party at home. “Pope Leo XIII. has more good will and interest for the consolidation of the German Empire than the majority of the German Parliament ... he is a wise, moderate, and pacific gentleman, which cannot be said of all the members of the Reichstag majority.” In short, the attitude of the late and the present pope reminds one very much of the old fable of the North Wind and the Sun. ”

“ It was at least an intelligible view that the late pope and those who acted with him were desirous of impeding German unity, while there was no ground whatever for assuming that it mattered twopence to the queen and constitution of Great Britain whether the ecclesiastical rulers of the English Roman Catholics chose to call themselves vicars apostolic or diocesan bishops. ”