CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 
I4I 
it depicts the situation. A real understanding is impossible 
between the Social Democrats, who preach atheism with a view 
to upsetting the throne, the Church, and all established 
authority, and the Ultramontane Socialists, who desire to 
strengthen authority with a view to concentrating it in the 
hands of the bishops and the Pope. But both parties address 
themselves to the working men, tell them their grievances, 
propose remedies for the ills from which they suffer, and put the 
responsibility for all their wrongs upon the shoulders of the 
Liberal middle classes, “who exploit the people without pity or 
mercy.” They are thus found together in opposition and give 
their votes for each other. 
The associations created under the influence of Catholic 
Socialism are veritably innumerable, without, of course, counting 
convents, which are their ideal type. Dr. Rudolf Meyer has 
taken a great deal of trouble for the purpose of obtaining, not 
full statistics, but merely an enumeration of their different 
species, and he avows that he has found it impossible to draw 
up a complete list. Nevertheless, his classification, as it 
stands, is of considerable length. It embraces the following 
institutions :—Catholic journeyman associations {^Katholische 
Gesellenvereine) after Kolping’s model. They count more than 
eighty thousand members, and exist in almost all Catholic 
towns. Their meetings take place on Sundays, and aim at 
intellectual and moral culture. They sometimes include 
savings banks, and, at Berlin, they have founded an academy 
for the cultivation of taste in artistic manufactures.—Catholic 
apprentice associations. They are connected with those of the 
journeymen. They have usually schools on Sundays ; that of 
Cologne, for example, having more than six hundred pupils. 
—Catholic associations of master-workmen. For the'purpose 
of keeping up good feeling, these are pledged to take the 
sacrament together at least once a month.—Catholic associa 
tions of factory girls, under the patronage of St. Paul.—Catholic 
associations of mining operatives. These are very numerous 
in the coal-basin of the Roer. They usually possess a mutual 
aid fund. Meetings take place for the discussion of their 
interests. The object is the cultivation of religious and social