These considerations bring us to the root of the question.
This marvellous German empire, this more than a nine days' wonder, has been convulsed into life; and sudden convulsions are liable to as sudden relapses. Bismarck's heart is in it; he is the corner-stone; it is built upon him; and he of all men knows on what a rocking foundation it is built. Listen to his mouthpiece once more, Minister Delbrück, in his speech on the third reading of the bill against the Jesuits:
"We live under a very new system of government, called into existence by mighty political convulsions: and I hold that we should commit a great error in abandoning ourselves to the delusion that everything is accomplished and perfected because the Imperial German constitution has been published in the official organ of the empire. For a long time to come we shall have to keep carefully in mind that the constitution--the new creation--has enemies not only abroad but at home; and if the representatives of the empire arrive at the conviction that among these internal enemies an organ is to be reckoned which, while furnished with great intellectual and material means, and endowed with a rare organization, steadily pursues a fixed inimical aim, it has a perfect right to meet and frustrate the anticipated attack."
We have shown how nobly they met and frustrated the anticipated attack--a rather summary mode, we submit, of dealing with those who _may_ be enemies, for it has grown into only an "anticipated attack" now. Worse and worse for the wielders of law. It may be as well to note also that the Chancellor lets nothing slip. He allows the "great intellectual means" to go; but the "great material means" is a far more important thing. He sticks to that. There must be something of the Israelite nature in him. He out-Shylocks Shylock. As in France, so here; he is not content with the "pound of flesh," he will have in addition the "monies." After all, what is there to surprise us in this? The great Chancellor, who coldly wrung such griping terms from bleeding France, could scarcely be expected to leave to the church the great material possessions, that is to say, the schools, seminaries, and churches, which belonged to her children.