Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/288

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS views are acted out, not likely to be concluded. I am not at this moment at liberty to speak for the federal council of the empire on the subject under discussion, but I may tell the preceding speaker that as far as Prussia is concerned the Prussian cabinet are determined to take measures which shall henceforth make it impossible for Prussians who are priests of the Roman Catholic church to assert with impunity that they will be guided by canon law rather than by Prussian law. We shall maintain the legislative power against all comers. We shall bring it home to those not acknowledging our laws that by obeying foreign law in preference to our own, they are placing themselves beyond the pale of Prussian law.

Having said this to Herr Windhorst in my capacity as Prussian minister, it remains for me to answer his taunts as to the stability of the Protestant Church as a Protestant and an evangelical Christian. If he fancies that the Protestant Church would not survive separation from the State, all that I can tell him is that to my sincere regret he has not realized the true spirit of the Gospel. 248