622 



OLD CATHOLICS. 



ORDNANCE. 



This increase was constant throughout. The 

 largest gain was, as usual, in Baden, but also 

 Bavaria produced 770 more members. The 

 numbers were thus divided : Prussia, 35 con- 

 gregations, and 21,797 souls; Baden, 44 congre- 

 gations, and 18,866 souls ; Bavaria, 34 congre- 

 gations, and 11,338 souls ; Hesse, 5 congrega- 

 tions, and 1,155 souls; Oldenburg, 247 souls; 

 Wtirtemberg, 237 souls. The number of priests 

 was 59, of whom 55 were actively engaged in 

 parochial work ; since the last synod there 

 were five accessions (two newly ordained), and 

 as many departed. In Prussia, 25 priests are 

 at work, in Baden 18, in Bavaria 12. The 

 sixth Old Catholic Congress of Germany was 

 held at Mentz, in September. The president 

 of the former congresses, Dr. von Schulte, being 

 absent on account of ill-health, Herr Schwartz- 

 mann, the president of one of the high state 

 courts of the grand-duchy of Baden, was elected 

 president. It had been previously arranged 

 that no reference should be made to the two 

 controversies which mostly divide the new 

 church, the abolition of priestly celibacy and 

 the liturgical question. The congress adopted 

 resolutions denouncing the efforts made by 

 Rome to obtain a controlling influence upon 

 the state schools as injurious to the best inter- 

 ests both of the school and the state ; but at the 

 same time expressed a decided opinion that re- 

 ligion should continue to be an obligatory part 

 of public instruction. Other resolutions recom- 

 mended an active interest in the wider circula- 

 tion of the Old Catholic papers, especially the 

 Deutsche Mercur and the Altkatholische Bote, 

 and the support of sick clergymen and the stu- 

 dents of Old Catholic theology. Like its prede- 

 cessors, the congress received letters expressive 

 of cordial sympathy from representative men 

 of other religious denominations, in particular 

 from bishops of the Old Catholic churches of 

 Switzerland and the Netherlands, and of the 

 Church of England. 



In Switzerland, the third synod of the Chris- 

 tian Catholic Church was held in Berne, in 

 May. The attendance of the synod was more 

 numerous than that of the German synod, 51 

 priests and 89 lay delegates being present. The 

 ritual proposed by the liturgical commission 

 was adopted provisionally for one year. The 

 German Catechism of the late Catholic Bishop 

 Salzmann, revised by Bishop Herzog,was recom- 

 mended to the German-speaking parishes. The 

 revision of the missal and the reestablishment 

 of the communion in both kinds was also dis- 

 cussed, but the synod voted to defer action 

 until its next meeting. The synodal council 

 consisted of three priests, Abbe Michaud, the 

 bishop's vicar - general, Pfarrer Schroter, of 

 Rheinfelden, and Pfarrer Hassler, of Olten, and 

 five laymen, among whom were Herr Keller, 

 formerly Landammann of the canton of Aarau, 

 and Herr A. Vigier, formerly Landammann of 

 the canton of Solothurn. The number of the 

 students of Old Catholic theology at the Uni- 

 versity of Berne was 17. 



In Austria, the Old Catholics obtained on 

 October 18th, by the rescript of the Minister of 

 Public Worship and Education, the legal recog- 

 nition as an independent organization, under 

 the name "Old Catholic Church." At this 

 time three congregations were fully organized, 

 at Vienna, Warnsdorf, and Ried, with an ag- 

 gregate membership of about 36,000. 



In Italy the Bishop-elect of the National 

 Catholic Church, Luigi Prota-Giurleo, had not, 

 up to the end of the year, received the episco- 

 pal consecration. It was reported from St. 

 Petersburg that he had applied for consecra- 

 tion to the Russian Church, expressing his full 

 concurrence with the doctrines of that Church. 



In France a paper was established for pro- 

 moting the interests of Old Catholicism, en- 

 titled La Reforme CatJiolique, but no progress 

 was made toward the establishment of Old 

 Catholic congregations. 



ORDNANCE. Within a generation the me- 

 chanical improvements in the instruments of 

 warfare have been so great as to revolution- 

 ize all the established principles of military 

 tactics, and to almost reduce war to a trial of 

 the excellence of the rival inventions of en- 

 gines of destruction. It is a physical impossi- 

 bility for soldiers armed with the best small- 

 arms known a few years ago to stand in battle 

 against a force provided with weapons of pre- 

 cision of the newest device. The artillery cast 

 in the workshops of Krnpp and Armstrong, 

 and in arsenals of the different Governments, 

 can pierce any armor yet found out that will 

 not sink a ship, and render fortifications prac- 

 tically useless. The employment of gun-cotton 

 and the compounds of nitroglycerine, whose 

 efficacy as secret and terrible agents of de- 

 struction was first proved to the world by 

 their employ of offensive torpedoes in the 

 American civil war by the Confederates, has 

 been so perfected in the Harvey, Whitehead, 

 Thorn eycroft, and Lay systems of torpedoes as 

 to make the question of an adequate defense 

 against them the great problem in marine war- 

 fare. Contrary to expectations there were 

 few examples of the successful use of the new 

 torpedoes in the Russo-Turkish war, and none 

 of the latest methods of torpedo defense. (See 

 TORPEDOES.) The frequent and costly improve- 

 ments in weapons impose greater expenses for 

 war materials, on the Governments who keep 

 their military resources on a war-footing in 

 time of peace, than formerly; but the actual 

 burden of wars of the same magnitude is doubt- 

 less less exhaustive than in other times, be- 

 cause the same military objects can be more 

 rapidly accomplished with the deadlier and 

 more irresistible engines of modern warfare ; 

 so that modern wars are generally fought in a 

 single campaign, and great conflicts, expensive 

 and enormous in their preparations, are ended 

 in a few weeks or months, which might once 

 have spread their debilitating effects over many 

 years of time and through all the provinces of 

 an invaded country. 



