RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION 761 



and then let them take care of themselves in a large pond or lake 

 of suitable temperature, and, if the water is not infested with 

 sunfish, perch, and other enemies which are beginning to look for 

 food in the spring when the young trout is also looking for its 

 first food, there is every prospect of success. 



RECENT RECRUDESCENCE OF SUPERSTITION. 



By Prof. E. P. EVANS. 



"FN 1879 a Catholic professor of theology in the University of 

 -L Bonn, Dr. Heinrich Reusch, published a little volume entitled 

 Die deutschen Bischofe und der Aberglaube (The German Bish- 

 ops and Superstition), in which he called attention to the vast in- 

 crease of superstitious beliefs and observances within the Catho- 

 lic Church since the middle of the present century, and to the 

 official approval and promulgation of them by the highest eccle- 

 siastical authorities. He animadverted severely on the extent to 

 which this tendency had tainted the religious literature most 

 widely diffused by the clergy among the masses of the people, and 

 censured especially the pious pamphlets and periodicals issued by 

 the Jesuits, such as Monat-Rosen zu Ehren der Unbefleckten 

 Gottes-Mutter Maria, and Der Sendbote des gotthichen Herzens 

 Jesu, both of which are edited by disciples of Loyola at Inns- 

 bruck under the auspices of the Bishops of Salzburg, Brixen, and 

 Trent, and with the benediction of Pope Pius IX. In these 

 monthly sheets one would seek in vain for a moral maxim or 

 practical precept inculcating kindness, truthfulness, and honesty 

 in the common relations of life, but their pages are filled with 

 records of miracles wrought and demons discomfited by conse- 

 crated medals, chrisms, holy waters, sacred scapularies, seraphic 

 girdles, and relics of the saints. 



During the fifteen years that have elapsed since Prof. Reusch 

 uttered his earnest protest against this gross abuse of sacerdotal 

 functions and spiritual power, the evils which he lamented and 

 endeavored to correct have grown decidedly worse. In Germany 

 the most important of the influences and events that have con- 

 tributed to this deplorable result was the so-called Kulturkampf, 

 or antagonism of the state to the Church in the interests of modern 

 culture as opposed to the arrogant claims of a mediseval hier- 

 archy. The inevitable effect of this conflict was to consolidate 

 the forces of ultramontanism and to render them supreme in the 

 papacy, to bind priests and people more firmly together, and to 



VOL. XLVII. 62 



