according to St. John. But as an historical living system he holds that it must be sought in the Church of Rome. It is, he declares, identical with the Papal theocracy, with that "Ultramontanism " (I borrow his word) which the Popes have proclaimed from Gregory VII. to Pius IX. He admits that it has controlled European civilization. Except this, in Von Hartmann's view, there is no Christianity; if you desire to see the thing as it lived and moved, you must turn to Rome and the Middle Ages. No Jesuit, no Monsignore of the Rota, no Cardinal Inquisitor could be more explicit on this head than the great German pessimist; and he remarks with saturnine good humor that Catholics should feel themselves much in his debt for telling the truth about them. He does not love Rome; but it seems to me that on this point he has caught the right perspective in history. I will suffer him to argue that the ancient religion is dead if he will grant me that when it was living its habitat was the Roman communion and its outward form a theocracy culminating in the Holy See. But, he says, it was to come to an end, nor yet suddenly: A dissolving principle must therefore be introduced into the medieval system. That principle was Protestantism. Von Hartmann, with a perspicacity that does him credit, has long been aware of the inward meaning of the Reformation. Upon this point he is clear, candid, and irresistible. As we study the task set before itself by the Unconscious, and its large discernment in the methods of assailing the ancient faith, we find ourselves yielding more and more to "the instinct of personification," and, parodying Agrippa, are tempted to cry out, "In a little while, O Unconscious, thou wilt almost persuade me to call thee Satan." It is well known that Von Hartmann's impersonal deity has many personal, not to say malignant, qualities which fit him for the high office of guiding things to their ruin-and he, or it, proposed to ruin the Gospel by means of Protestantism. This is so important, and it seems to me so true and so necessary for these times, that I should be glad to enlarge on Von Hartmann's powerful arguments had I room enough. But it must be understood that he is speaking, and so am I, of a principle, not of the persons who find themselves by the accident of birth or race strangers to Rome. Evidently there are Protestants who do not share in the tendencies of Protestantism, men and women whose moral and intellectual traits stamp them as Catholics out of their element and captives in a strange land. I am not now registering statistics or judging any man's conscience, but quoting what seem to me valuable criticisms upon that movement which has brought Christendom into close neighborhood with Atheism, Pantheism, and Unbelief. The dogmatic system before Luther was the outcome of principles which may be traced back century by century till we come within sight of the Gospels, and this not by the obscure winding ways of literature, but along the high road of historic institutions and to the accompaniment of marching nations. From the end of the second to the beginning of the sixteenth century there can be no doubt as to the contents and ethos of that system. It is otherwise now. When a man tells you he is a Christian, he tells you nothing. His Christianity and your unbelief may differ hardly by a single hair. But unless he is a Catholic his notion of God, the Bible, and religion at large may be such as would appal the saints, the fathers, the believing multitude of those many ages that preceded the Reformation. Such is the fact, and we cannot alter it by refusing to look it in the face. "Are we Christians? was the challenge flung out to Liberal Protestants-to the Stanleys, the Jowetts, the Arnolds of Berlin-by Friedrich Strauss in his disquieting Confessions. Very much to the point they felt it. But they resented his unceremonious treatment, and were scandalized at his publishing their secret on the housetops. The fulness of time had not arrived, and it seemed a breach of decorum to put off the name of Christian till the thing had been decently buried. Yet to this name in a sense admitted by theologians, or metaphysicians, or saints, what title have such men? They profess Theism, but unbelieving science must determine how much or how little they shall mean by it. Nay, as I have had occasion to point out elsewhere, when driven to extremities they confess that Theism in their eyes is nothing but "symbolizing," "subjective personification," and poetry. They do not believe in the religious language they employ, for that would be the great sin of "anthropomorphism." It is best they think to use the symbols they find and reserve their meaning. So it has come to pass that not a few even of the Anglican clergy administer the sacrament and bap tize in the name of One whom they esteem only the greatest of the prophets, and inspired as Shakespeare or Mozart was inspired. But the language of their sacred rites points to a time when such doctrines were held abominable; the words they utter speak against the convictions they cherish. What is the difference between a Liberal Protestant and an unbeliever? None, in the matter of what they deny. Yet the Liberal Protestant had Christian forefathers and calls himself their son. How comes it that he does not believe as they believed? When Northern Europe fell away from Rome many ancient doctrines were retained; but the spirit that created them, the principles of which they furnished an application, were renounced in favor of private judgment. Now private judgment is fatal to the notion of a society like the Catholic Church, with its objective and | This is the conception of apolegetics which infallible creed. Every one would grant that prevailed within the memory of living men. "free thought" is incompatible with dogmatic But except in the Roman Church it has yielded But what is called free thought in the almost everywhere to another, that, namely, nineteenth century was called private judgment by which reason chooses among the doctrines, in the sixteenth. That is the whole difference. whether of the Bible or the Church, any that Protestantism has kept looking one way and may seem to have a moral significance or to be rowing another. It has moved from point to unassailable by criticism. These it gathers up, point with the old creeds on its lips, but new stamps them with its seal, and affirms that they thoughts, of which even now it does not appre- contain the essence of New Testament teaching. hend the full compass, in its heart. Beginning After such a fashion it is possible to compare with the theology of Luther and Calvin, it has all religions and extract the good in them; and little by little denied every single article they the Gospel itself may have its place in Mr. taught except their denial of authority and his- Max Müller's Comparative Mythology (or whattory. It has dropped Melanchthon and his ever be the name), under the heading of "Semdogmatic symbols, it has disowned the Caro-itic-Alexandrian variety of Monotheism." This linian divines and the elders of the Kirk. Its borders have been gradually enlarged so as to include the Socinian and his species. And Socinians have become Unitarians, and Unitarians have become Liberal Protestants, and Liberal Protestants have subordinated what was left of ancient teaching to the supposed first principles, which are so often the unwarrantable assumptions, of modern science. Now comes Von Hartmann to assure us that a Liberal Protestant is nothing but an unbeliever minus his frankness. Upon these men, the latest seed of the Reformation, he is exceedingly severe. He declares that they are not only illogical, as must be granted, but irreligious too. That is a hard saying, Had he known the late Dean of Westminster or Mr. F. D. Maurice he would perhaps have tempered his harsh discourse. But he is dwelling on the fact that a Liberal Protestant gives to the creed an esoteric or private meaning, and neither does nor can expound its articles as they were intended. He may be penetrated with religious sentiment, but it cannot be Christian, for it is not rooted in the faith. A modern "enlightened" Protestant takes his views from the world of science around him; he cannot tell what a text of Scripture means or a doctrine of the Church implies until he has inquired, not of St. Augustine and the Council of Nicæa, but of Mr. Spencer and the last transactions of the Royal Society. He may be right or wrong in doing so; I am not looking at the matter with a view to blaming him in any way. All I say is that he should grasp the situation and not fancy that he can claim the privileges of free thought and remain in deed and in truth a Christian whom any Church in the past would have acknowledged. The principle of faith is submission to a divinely taught creed; the principle of modern science is admission of all experimentally proved facts. Evidently revealed religion cannot propose her articles as subjects for experiment, and the task of reason must be limited to satisfying itself, not that her doctrines are true, but that her credentials are well warranted. is a long way, as Von Hartmann observes, from the "Universal Religion" and the "Eternal Gospel." Such is the nature of the Protestant principle, which has so nearly done its work, even in England, that one feels a strangeness in speaking of it under the old name. It has developed into Modernism; and the mask of faith which it wore, as the alchemist wore a mask of crystal to protect him in his fiery occupation, is now being laid aside. Church and Bible and God have received a new meaning; the transmutation is effected, and our alchemist glories in the miracle of gold extracted from a baser metal. But let us record the fact. Here is Von Hartmann, a philosopher, speaking with the authority of science, metaphysics, and history, who agrees in these two things with Roman Catholics: first, that theirs alone is the true historical system, and, second, that the Reformation was antichristian in its nature, as all the world now sees it to be antichristian in its results. If the Christian faith be true, Rome was its champion; if the Reformers were right, the Christian faith is not true. Not from any Catholic source have I drawn this proposition; it is an unbeliever who lays down that when Europe ceased to be Catholic it renounced Christianity. The Reformers held that the Pope was Antichrist. How would they be astonished on learning that three centuries and more after their day, the Pope is recognized by their descendants as the one historical representative not of Antichrist but of Christ, and themselves judged to be the beginning of that "great apostasy" spoken of by St. Paul. How utterly confounded would they be on hearing that Lutheran theologies of justification and Calvinist demonologies of predestination raise no echo in their native lands; that if mentioned at all they are resolved into untimely prophecies of Mr. Mill's necessarianism! The logic of facts is great and opinionum commenta delet dies. Nothing, we are told, had lasting worth in the deeds of the Reformation except that spirit of free inquiry which it intensified but did not arouse It was an episode, says Mr. Arnold, in the wider movement of the | amoured of his own opinion, and resolved not Renaissance. It could analyze and destroy, to accept anything but what his private judg says Von Hartmann, but it never built up. Its ment will ratify, then sooner or later he too day was over when science had grown strong will find his place among those who, ceasing to enough to walk alone. The conquering power be Christian, are still Protestant. It is free in every Protestant movement had been liberty. thought that has made the Gospels a legend Thus it was when the High Church party had and the subject of them a myth. And this it explained, or explained away the Thirty-nine is that, having lost rudder and compass, is sailArticles after their manner; for straightway the ing now in quest of an ideal more certain than Broad Church party interpreted them after Christ, and a religion more scientific than theirs, and the Articles became a dead letter. Theism, not in halcyon waters, but, as the The result was not acquiescence in a definite re- Laureate bade us consider some years ago— ligious conception, but an agreement to let each school think as it pleased. So has it been wher- "In seas of death and sunless gulfs of doubt." ever conflicts have arisen (and where have they not arisen?) within the pale of the Reformation. No argument appears more conclusive to the mind of the century than that which arises from the steady tendency in one direction whereby an idea manifests what is contained in it. But | when we review Protestant opinion we must allow that, in the succession of controversies by which it has been carried on, dogmatism has ever given way before liberalism, revelation before rationalism, and authority before private judgment. If Protestantism be, as surely it never more can pretend to be, the true Christian synthesis, then I acknowledge that the end has come, and Von Hartmann's horrible title is an epitaph. Then, indeed, Christianity has committed suicide. But the Roman Church remains. Three times in as many centuries it has been assailed with the whole power of that invisible enemy whom our metaphysician euphemistically names the Unconscious. It has witnessed and it has survived the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution, and if in the eyes of all Roman Church, I do not believe that Catho- The inference is plain; as for the facts I doubt that any man will dispute them who has considered the matter. It is not the High Luthe-men Christianity is thereby identified with the ran or the Ritualist that stands in the advanced posts of Protestantism, or that pretends to be carrying the movement forward. The leading men are those that believe less and less; the successful apologist of the hour is he that can skilfully retreat from an old position under cover of defending it. Belief in the divinity of Christ is fast changing to a tender hope that criticism, however adverse, may not succeed in disproving it. And if there is undeniably some looking back to the past, some desire to restore what was beautiful in it, that reaction, when it does not make towards Rome, may be ascribed to sentiment, religious or national, rather than to clear apprehension of the facts of history. It is unbelief, not conservative Protestantism, that we behold hardening into firm theories and explicit enunciations of which the keynote is "fact before feeling, and the truth at any price." Dogmatic Protestants, of whom I wish to speak with all courtesy, have now before them the alternatives which his enemy offered to the hesitating ruler of France, se soumettre ou se démettre. It is impossible, humanly speaking, that they should remain where they are. If what they value most is the revelation of Christianity, they will be compelled, perhaps in no long time, to seek it where alone it exists inviolate, consistent in all its parts, and a living power. Such it is within the precincts of the Roman Church; who will say that it is such in the distracted Churches of the Reformation? But if, in spite of his apparent devotion to the creed, a man is en Now it was the teaching of the Churches that one personality revealed in human shape never could so vanish, for it was the Ideal. When that ceases to be an article of belief, men who have renounced saint-worship will not care to worship even the greatest of saints. The Master's subduing influence will wax or wane as belief in his incommunicable dignity is strengthened or decays. But whilst it is manifestly decaying in the separated Churches, it is a steady light in that world-wide society | the restoration in politics and social life of which has built up every one of his deeds and the creed upheld by the Holy See. The words into a sacred institution. A recent snake is scotched, not killed, in his opinion, writer has complained that Christ is not for men are timid and ignorant. It is surely preached in the Roman Church. What then plain that, from whatever cause, the multitude are the year-long ritual, the daily mass, the are not yet willing to embrace a system which sacraments, the confraternities, the religious knows nothing of God or a future state. Von orders, if not a most effective preaching of Hartmann asserts again and again that manHim in a way which neither learned nor kind at large needs something more than unlearned can fail to understand? But here philosophy, and that religion alone will conagain the proof is at hand; for when of late tent them. Now religion is before all things years the effort has been made to preach the dogmatic and deals with objects; its purpose life of Christ in England, men have drawn is not to "touch morality with emotion," but nigh to Rome, copying her service, striving to to disclose the truth about our own personal emulate her brotherhoods and sisterhoods of being, and the unseen cause from whom we the love of God, substituting for the letter of come. It is a lifting of the veil of Eternity. the Bible an intelligent teaching of what it If we could allow, in the words of the famous contains, and, in short, not idly discussing the inscription at Sais that no one has lifted that legalities of the atonement, but discovering veil, religion would then be as dead as astrolthe meaning of the work of Christ by endeav- ogy. But whilst we believe that there may oring to live and act in his spirit. Nothing be a way into the unseen, so long will religion, can be pleasanter than to acknowledge this. claiming to embody a revelation, take hold of I will only remark that, as it is the dogmatic the hearts of men. Mr. Arnold looks upon firmness of Rome which makes her daily ser- the metaphysical basis of Christianity as its vice of Christ possible, so that service cannot weakest part. He would get rid of its Theism, long be kept up in the English or other its divine interpositions, its prophecies and Churches without leading sincere people to a apocalypses. But he is mistaken. Chrisunity of the heart which must have its conse- tianity without metaphysics would be a sentiquences. Meanwhile there can be no mistak- ment without an object. Its bold and decided ing which is the well-head, and whence the Theism, its affirmation that it knows the mind streams are derived from it. of the Father through the Son, its conviction that whatsoever it binds on earth will be bound in heaven, these are precisely the explanation of its mighty power in a world where scepti cism and an eternal balancing of probabilities do but lead to destruction. Faith is a conviction about objects, not the record of our experiments; and there can be no religion where there is no faith. In so far then as men and women believe in God, or desire to believe in Him, they will shrink from what is sceptical in Protestantism. The Church's teaching about God, instead of appearing to them its weakest part, will be its strongest, and the first article of the Creed will justify the whole. Rome has not changed; but the Protestant Churches are going their way, and free thought is creating a religion of its own. What will happen when these things become the axioms of European reasoning? Suppose it generally received, as Von Hartmann argues, that Theism, Christianity, and the Roman Church are one. The question is not whether these component elements of the old religion are in themselves true or false. Theism may be unscientific, Christianity a delusion, and Rome a tyranny. I am only considering what may be expected when, as the signs appear to indicate, that formidable sorites is taken to be a piece of sound logic, "If Theist, then Christian, if Christian, why not Catholic?" Imagine that Protestantism, the great compromise, has struck its tent in the night and gone no man knows whither. Can there be the shadow of a doubt that in course of time the tendencies which are now striving against one another will drive men on such different ways as to make the communion, now tolerated, of believer with unbeliever in the same Church impossible? A remarshalling of the ranks must come with disestablishment in England, with the advent of Socialism to power in Germany. What will the consequence be? Mr. Froude, who is not used to looking at things with other men's eyes, has more than once spoken apprehensively of the possible return of the Middle Ages, by which he means taught the way of life, was derived from the Innocents and the Gregories, who bestowed on them both Bible and sacraments. The Liberal tendency is now working its way out of the sanctuary, or rather, is openly pulling it down. And Christians and Theists are turning an anxious gaze towards the only Church wherein dogmatism shows no signs of being weakened. Circumstances, then, have developed the inward strength and logical consistency of the Roman faith in a manner which has impressed unbelievers even more than it has Catholics themselves. The forces of Christianity are little by little drawn towards Rome by a process of concentration not unlike that which, as scientific men believe, is urging the planets upon the sun and will at last unite them with it as at the beginning. To identify the Catholic Church with Theism is to establish her on the deepest foundation of feeling as of reason; it is to assert, for all but a minority of civilized men, that her teaching is in accordance with "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are amiable, whatsoever things are of good report; it is to appal the boldest with a prophecy of what they must expect in disowning her and plunging themselves into a darkness where they have but their own poor genius and resources from which to draw forth a second "Let there be light." Christianity, says Von Hartmann, is but the development of Theism in history; and in the Catholic Church the Christian idea is incarnate. The living God of Theism has become flesh and blood, has established an ideal society, made himself outwardly its visible pattern, inwardly its sustaining grace, and continues His presence therein from age to age. It is not.pretended that men can be rescued and saved against their will; but such help is offered to Catholics, such an atmosphere of the supernatural created round about them, that unbelievers to whom the cause seems illusory cannot deny that the effects are most real and beneficent. Granting therefore that Christianity will stand or fall with the Roman Church, thus reinforced and known to be the stronghold of Theism, why should it not stand? "Because," we are told, "it has no power over the progressive elements of society. These, indeed, have just been denounced as Protestant, Liberal, unbelieving. Therefore the only power which Catholicism is ever likely to wield will be the power of reaction, and this no one expects to last long." Catholics are "reactionary," that is the fatal objection. But, after reading Von Hartmann, it does not seem so fatal. Is Theism reactionary? In what sense are we to understand this party war-cry? Let us know the good things which belief in God takes away and unbelief has hitherto gained for the world. It is clear enough that, when men believed, they were happy; there has been ample confession of late that with increasing doubt a sense of strange uneasiness is creeping over those to whom life and fortune have given of their best. Whatever the new philosophies have brought, they have not brought happiness. Why, if they agree so well with the nature of things, do they not bear testimony to the agreement by creating in human hearts the feeling of it? Truth and happiness should not stand at odds; if men are miserable the reason is that they have somehow "jarred against nature's chime," and "broke the fair music that all creatures made," taking the fancies of the book-learned for a greater revelation than Christ's. His religion will never cast out the good in sincerely human achievements or desires. But if anything cannot endure his blessing, it must be evil. There is much to change for the better in German thought, in the confused and ill-governed industries of England, and in the vague ideals of republican France. But the change must begin from within; and what sincere Christians have at heart is repentance, not reaction. We shall not go back to medieval forms of government or medieval ignorance of science and literature. The question is of another complexion, whether we will go forward trusting in a God whom we can know and adore. If we are resolved not to be Christians, we shall hardly continue Theists when all is said and done. The alternative will be either Atheism or Pantheism. It is not enough, as Carlyle thought, to keep silence and do our duty in life; silence dwelling in the heart is only another name for Atheism. Religious men must have a religion. What shall it be? The "naked brutishness of La Mettries, content to experiment on the secrets of life and death with a dissecting knife, or to measure the deeps of the universe moral and spiritual with Lagrange's calculus? Or shall it be the Pantheism wherein evil is always taken for good and sometimes for the chief good? Christianity was at least moral; it held by a standard of right and did not amalgamate heaven and hell," or contrast them artistically and to heighten the effect in the painting. Now hear the conclusion of a modern disciple of Spinoza, an adept in the new religion. "Rien," says this elegant teacher," rien ne doit regner ici-bas à l'exclusion de son contraire; aucune force ne doit pouvoir supprimer les autres. L'harmonie de l'humanité résulte de la libre émission des notes les plus discordantes... Lucrèce, et Ste. Therèse, Aristophane et Socrate, Voltaire et François d'Assise, Raphael et Vincent de Paul, ont également raison d'etre ; et l'humantié serait moindre si un seul des éléments qui la composent, lui manquait.” * * Renan. Les Apôtres, Introduction. |