Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/119

Rh command, in following alone her own worldly interests and caprices.

A portion, however, of the children, who had attained to years of discretion through the teachings of Christ, could neither be destroyed by one means or another. They became more and more numerous (they were called either from the places whence they came, or from the names of their leaders, Waldenses, Albigenses, Hussites, Wickliffites, and so on), until under the guidance of Luther and Calvin, they became mighty in strength and maturity of mind; and, on the grounds of conscience and the word of God, threw off the Papal yoke, and declared themselves free to obey God alone in the light of his gospel. This became the palladium of the Protestant peoples.

When the Church of Rome saw nation after nation separate themselves from her, she sought to reconquer them by all possible means, even by that of self-reformation, by the discontinuance of various abuses, and by degrees, even the stake, the torture—at least in its grossest form—if not from conviction, yet from fear; and some of its noblest members gained souls by the love, the admiration which they inspired. All this, however, was but to little purpose. The two Christian churches continued to be divided, each one claiming to possess the essential of Christianity. And both have it,—and both have it incompletely. But the Catholic requires blind obedience to his authority, and allows no free inquiry, no independent use of the light of reason. And in this respect she is the church of those who are in pupilage, of those who have not faith in the Divine light, in human reason, and the