Page:History of Freedom.djvu/363

 DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAl.. POWER 319

to convert the Holy See into a possession of the French people and a subject of the French cro\vn. Again, not long after, the Hussite revolution sprang from the union of a new doctrine with the old antipathy of the Bohemians for the Germans, which had begun in times when the boundaries of Christianity ran between the two nations, and which led to a strictly national separation, which has not yet exhausted its political effects. Though the Reformation had not its -origin in national feelings, yet they became a powerful instrument in the hands of Luther, and ultimately prevailed over the purely theo- logical elements of the movement. The Lutheran system was looked on by the Germans with patriotic pride as the native fruit, and especial achievement of the genius of their country, and it was adopted out of Germany only by the kindred races of Scandinavia. In every other land to \vhich it has been transplanted by the migrations of this century, Lutheran- ism appears as eradicated from its congenial soil, loses gradually its distinctive features, and becomes assimilated to the more consolatory system of Geneva. Calvinism exhibited from the first np traces of the influence of national character, and to this it owes its greater ex- tension; whilst in the third form of Protestantism, the Anglican Church, nationality is the predominant charac- teristic. In whatever country and in whatever form Protestantism has prevailed, it has always carried out the principle of separation and local limitation by seeking to subject itself to the civil power, and to confine the Church within the jurisdiction of the State. I t is dependent not so much on national character as on political authority, and has grafted itself rather on the State than on the people. But the institution which Christ founded in order to collect all nations together in one fold under one shepherd, while tolerating and respect- ing the natural historical distinctions of nations and of States, endeavours to reconcile antagonism, and to smooth away barriers between thetn, instead of estranging them by artificial differences, and erecting new obstacles to