ostile to the religion
which brought civilization to the Scandinavian nations, and which have
been accumulating for three centuries and a half.

(M37) Denmark followed in the wake of Sweden. Within the first two years
after the abrogation of the cruel Danish penal code, there were six
hundred conversions to the Catholic faith.

(M38) The Catholic church in the recently-erected kingdom of Greece was
governed by vicars-apostolic. It grieved King Otho, who, as is well known,
was of the Catholic royal family of Bavaria, to see his country treated as
if it were a heathen land. It was not, however, till the time of his
successor, who is a son of the King of Denmark, that Pius the Ninth was
able to establish a hierarchy in Greece. There is now an archbishop of
Athens as well as an archbishop of Corfu.

(M39) At a time when crime abounded, the governments of certain petty
States of Germany, instead of directing their energies towards its
repression, and so fulfilling one of the chief duties incumbent on the
State, employed all the authority with which they were invested to
disorganize the church and destroy its salutary influence. As is usual,
when States, forgetting the great objects for which they are entrusted
with the sword of justice, follow such a course, they attacked the
ministers of the church, banishing, imprisoning, thwarting and molesting
them in every possible way. In the Grand Duchy of Baden the civil
authorities arrogated the right to appoint parish priests and other
members of the sacred ministry. They went so far as to endeavor to poison
religious instruction at its source, and declared that the students in
Catholic seminaries must undergo, before ordination, an examination by
civil officials. This tyrannical law was courageously opposed by the
venerable archbishop, Vicary, of Friburg. (M40) Although eighty years of
age, he was dragged before the courts, and placed like a criminal under
charge of the police. The faithful clergy were banished, imprisoned and
fined. The Holy Father, with his usual zeal, remonstrated. It was to no
purpose. At length the Catholics of Germany were roused. They could no
longer be indifferent. The day was come when the church, in her utmost
need, could not dispense with their assistance. All must now be for her or
against her. The great majority flocked around her standard. Meanwhile,
the public offices in the churches were suspended. The bells and organs
were heard no more. Silence