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 PROTESTANTISM

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PROTESTANTISM

better. Here the grip of Protestantism on the masses was much tighter than in Germany, the Wesleyan revival and the High Church party among Anghcans did much to keep some faith ahve, and the deleterious teaching of English Deists and Ra- tionalists did not penetrate into the heart of the peo- ple. Presbyterianism in Scotland and elsewhere has also shown more vitality than less well-organized sects. "England", says J. R. Green, "became the people of a book, and that book was the Bible. It was as yet the one English book which was familiar to every Englishman; it was read in the churches and read at home, and ever>T\-here its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened, kindled a startling enthusiasm. ... So far as the nation at large was concerned, no history, no romance, hardly any poetry, save the little-known verse of Chaucer, existed in the English tongue when the Bible was ordered to be set up in churches. . . . The power of the book over the mass of Englishmen showed itself in a thou- sand superficial ways, and in none more conspicuously than in the influence exerted on ordinary speech. . . . But far greater than its effect on literature or social phrase was the effect of the Bible on the character of the people at large . . . (Hist, of the English People, chap, viii, § 1).

X. Protestantism and Progress. — A. Preju- dices. — The human mind is so constituted that it colours with its ovra previous conceptions any new notion that presents itself for acceptance. Though truth be objective and of its nature one and unchange- able, personal conditions are largely relative, de- pendent on preconceptions, and changeable. The arguments, for example, which three hundred years ago convinced our fathers of the existence of witches and sent millions of them to the torture and the stake, make no impression on our more enlightened minds. The same may be said of the whole theological contro- versy of the sixteenth century. To the modern man it is a dark body, of whose existence he is aware, but whose contact he avoids. With the controver- sies have gone the coarse, unscrupulous methods of attack. The adversaries are now facing each other like parliamentarians of opposite parties, with a com- mon desire of polite fairness, no longer like armed troopers only intent on killing, by fair means or foul. Exceptions there are still, but only at low depths in the literary strata, ^\^lence this change of behaviour, notwithstanding the identity of posi- tions? Because we are more reasonable, more civil- ized ; because we have evolved from medieval darkness to modern comparative light. And whence this progress? Here Protestantism puts in its claim, that, by freeing the mind from Roman thraldom, it opened the way for religious and political liberty; for untrammelled evolution on the basis of self- reliance; for a higher standard of morality; for the advancement of science — in short for every good thing that has come into the world since the Reformation. With the majority of non-Catholics, this notion has hardened into a prejudice which no reasoning can break up: the following discussion, therefore, shall not be a battle royal for final victory, but rather a peaceful review of facts and principles.

B. Progress in Church and Churches. — The Catholic Church of the twentieth century is vastly in advance of that of the sixteenth. She has made up her loss in political power and worldly wealth by increased spiritual influences and efficiency; her adherents are more widespread, more numerous, more fervent than at any time in her history, and they are bound to the central Government at Rome by a more filial affection and a clearer .scii.se of duty. Religious education is abundantly provided for clergy and laity; religious practice, morality, and works of charity are flourish- ing; the Catholic mission-field is world-widi^ and rich in harvest. The hierarchy was never so united, never

so devoted to the pope. The Roman unity is success- fully resisting the inroads of sects, of philosophies, of politics. Can our separated brethren tell a similar tale of their many Churches, even in lands where they are ruled and backed by the secular power? We do not rejoice at their disintegration, at their falling into religious indifference, or returning into political parties. No, for any shred of Christianity is better than blank worldliness. But we do draw this con- clusion: that after four centuries the Catholic prin- ciple of authority is still working out the salvation of the Church, whereas among Protestants the principle of Subjectivism is destroying what remains of their former faith and driving multitudes into religious indifference and estrangement from the supernatural.

C. Progress in Cinl Society. — The political and social organization of Europe has undergone greater changes than the Churches. Royal prerogatives, like that exercised, for instance, by the Tudor dynasty in England, are gone for ever. "The prerogative was absolute, both in theory and in practice. Govern- ment was identified with the will of the sovereign, his word was law for the conscience as well as the con- duct of his .subjects" (Brewer, "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic etc.", II, pt. I, 1, p. ccxxiv). Nowhere now is persecution for conscience' sake inscribed on the national statute-books, or left to the caprice of the rulers. Where still carried on it is the work of anti-religious passion temporarily in power, rather than the expression of the national will; at any rate it has lost much of its former bar- barity. Education is placed within reach of the poorest and lowest. The punishment of crime is no longer an occasion for the spectacular display of human cruelty to human beings. Poverty is largely jjrevented and largely relieved. Wars diminish in number and are waged with humanity; atrocities like those of the Thirty Years War in Germanj', the Huguenot wars in France, the Spanish wars in the Netherlands, and Cromwell's invasion of Ireland, are gone beyond the possibility of return. The witch- finder, the witehburner, the inquisitor, the disbanded mercenary soldier have ceased to plague the people. Science has been able to check the outbursts of pesti- lence, cholera, smallpox, and other epidemics; human life has been lengthened and its amenities increased a hundredfold. Steam and electricity in the ser\'ice of industry, trade, and international communication, are even now drawing humanity together into one vast family, with many common interests and a tendency to uniform civilization. From the sixteenth to the twentieth century there has indeed been prog- ress. \\Tio have been its chief promoters? Catho- lics, or Protestants, or neither?

The civU wars and revolutions of the seventeenth century which put an end to the royal prerogatives in England, and set up a real government of the people by the people, were religious throughout and Prot- estant to the core. " Liberty of conscience " was the cry of the Puritans, which, however, meant liberty for themselves against established Episcopacy. Tyran- nical abuse of their victory in oppressing the Episco- palians brought about their downfall, and they in turn were the victims of intolerance. James II, himself a Catholic, was the first to strive by all the means at his command, to secure for his subjects of all the denominations "liberty of conscience for all future time" (Declaration of Indulgence, 1688). His premature Liberalism was acquiesced in by many of the clergy and laity of the Established Church, which alone had nothing to gain by it, but excited the most violent opjiosition among the Protestant Non- conformists who, with the exception of the Quakers, preferred a continuance of bondage to emancipation if shared with the hated and dreaded "Papists". So strong was this feeling that it overcame all those principles of patriotism and respect for the law of