The law of “Separation,” as it is called, was passed December 5th, 1905, by which annual stipends, previously guaranteed by the state to bishops and priests were abolished, and the churches, parochial residences, and buildings used for religious purposes, including monasteries, convents, seminaries, all, should fall under the authority of the state to be regulated by civil corporations known as “associations of worship.” The law provided twelve months from its passage, that it should be ratified by the church. The civil associations are to hold the church property and have the right to dictate the mode and manner of the worship therein, even the uses for which the property shall be employed. Is it any wonder that Pius X, speaking for Rome, should have rejected such a law? To confiscate one’s property is one thing—to have the power to dictate one’s form of worship is quite another thing. Any gendarme with the order in his hand issued by any upstart official could disperse at pleasure the worshippers at any sanctuary in the republic. The French law is not a mere separation of church and state; far more, it is a subjection of the church to the state. In France the seats of the mighty in the main are filled now by the disciples of Voltaire—men of the type of Jaures, Delpech, and Clemenceau. M. Briand, the Minister of Education, the reputed author of the “Associations” bill, is charged with declaring in a public speech to the educational authorities under him: “The time has come to root up from the minds of French children the ancient faith which has served its purpose, and replace it with the light of free thought. It is time to get rid of the Christian idea. We have hunted Jesus Christ out of the army, the navy, the schools, the hospitals, the insane asylums, the orphan asylums and the law courts; and now we must hunt him out of the state altogether.” In such a fight Christendom itself ought to have a sympathy. The chief Rabbi of France, M. Lehmann, one of a religion long persecuted, of this action of the French Assembly, says: “How could one think on the one hand that the state should suppress establishments which had been guaranteed by nearly every constitution since 1791, and protected by every law, and, by means of the same act, should seize the property they have acquired with its approbation?... What we want is that places of worship should belong to those who have built them and who pray in them, and that every religious denomination should preserve the form of organization which is the most conformable to its traditions and aspirations.”