t here also God has caused much good as well as
much evil to proceed from the errors of men, from the contests and
passions of the sixteenth century; that the anxiety of the German
nation to see the intolerable abuses and scandals in the Church
removed was fully justified, and sprang from the better qualities of
our people, and from their moral indignation at the desecration and
corruption of holy things, which were degraded to selfish and
hypocritical purposes.

We do not refuse to admit that the great separation, and the storms
and sufferings connected with it, was an awful judgment upon Catholic
Christendom, which clergy and laity had but too well deserved--a
judgment which has had an improving and salutary effect. The great
conflict of intellects has purified the European atmosphere, has
impelled the human mind on to new courses, and has promoted a rich
scientific and literary life. Protestant theology, with its restless
spirit of inquiry, has gone along by the side of the Catholic,
exciting and awakening, warning and vivifying; and every eminent
Catholic divine in Germany will gladly admit that he owes much to the
writings of Protestant scholars.

We must also acknowledge that in the Church the rust of abuses and of
a mechanical superstition is always forming afresh; that the
spiritual in religion is sometimes materialised, and therefore
degraded, deformed, and applied to their own loss, by the servants of
the Church, through their indolence and want of intelligence, and by
the people, through their ignorance. The true spirit of reform most,
therefore, never depart from the Church, but must periodically break
out with renovating strength, and penetrate the mind and the will of
the clergy. In this sense we do not refuse to admit the justice of a
call to penance, when it proceeds from those who are not of us,--that
is, of a warning carefully to examine our religious life and pastoral
conduct, and to remedy what is found defective.

At the same time it must not be forgotten that the separation did not
ensue in consequence of the abuses of the Church. For the duty and
necessity of removing these abuses has always been recognised; and
only the difficulty of the thing, the not always unjustifiable fear
lest the wheat should be pulled up with the tares, prevented for a
time the Reformation, which was accomplished