And so this carefully prepared train exploded. It looked such a noble, generous, friendly action to send an ambassador to the Pontiff’s court in the present position of the Pontiff, that, when the ambassador was calmly rejected, the world could not believe its ears; and Prince Bismarck entertains a very high respect for those ears notwithstanding their length. What could we say but that it was too much? There was no conciliating these Romanists and Ultramontanes, do what you would. It was clear that the Pope was altogether out of place in these days; and his obstinacy only served to keep very respectable bodies of men from agreeing and living neighborly together, and so on _ad nauseam_. Thus Bismarck could afford to froth and fume about insult, unprecedented actions, etiquette, and so on; urge upon the German nation that they had been insulted in the person of their august emperor, who seems as touchy on points of etiquette as a French dancing‐master; and ring the changes up and down till he closed with the loud‐sounding twang, “Neither the emperor nor myself are going to Canossa!” Could anything be more theatrically effective? Could anything be more transparently shallow? Well, in the face of this awful outrage and unprecedented provocation, what does the wrathful Chancellor do? March on Rome; declare war against the Catholics; utterly exterminate them; smite them hip and thigh? Nothing of the kind. He not only lets the Pope alone from whom he received the outrage, _but he actually looks about for another ambassador, __“__in the event of unlooked‐for eventualities.__”_ He entertains the greatest possible respect for Catholics. Indeed, he seems to be aware that the small fraction of 14,000,000 of them go to swell his empire; the most Catholic of whom, by the way, bore the brunt of the battle in France. He accepts his rebuff more in sorrow than in wrath. He lets the whole question slip; he has no quarrel with the 14,000,000; but there are 708 of them whom he pounces upon as the policeman on the small boy; and nobody can quarrel with him for letting the steam of his wrath off on this small body, which is at the bottom of every mischief that turns up. Is not this excellent fooling? He says to the Catholics: I will not touch you; you and I are very excellent friends; I will not touch your mother—the church; I will content myself with murdering her eldest son, who is the cause of all the trouble between us. Now, we may fairly ask the question: Is the quarrel confined to these limits? Why does Bismarck turn aside from the church, from the Pope who so angered him, from the bishops who protested against his laws and refused to submit to them, from the Centre in the Reichstag who so boldly, calmly, and logically oppose him?—why does he turn from all these legitimate foes, and fall on the small body of 708 men who compose the Jesuit Order in Prussia?