FAITH AND REASON.
The various religions in existence were founded by men of different
nations to suit their own character.
The French, impressionable and fond of pompous pageants, adopted a
mystical religion, which addresses itself to their senses; the English,
cool and argumentative, preferred a religion which addresses itself to
their reason. This is why churches in France savor of the theater, and
churches in England savor of the lecture-room.
* * * * *
Calvinism did not take root in France, and never will, because it is not
amiable. Romanism will never flourish in England again, because it says:
"Believe, without seeking to understand."
The Roman Catholic religion aims at gaining a hold over the heart, the
Protestant religion aims at gaining a hold over the mind. The first
attracts women by its poetry and mysticism and governs through them; the
second attracts men by sometimes offering them food for their
intellectual appetites.
Finally, the first is under the control of a foreign power, the second
is national.
* * * * *
We French people worship a tender, merciful, almost familiar, God, whom
we are wont to call _sweet_ Savior.
The English worship the God of the Jews, that God Who commanded His
chosen people to exterminate their enemies, and spare neither man,
woman, or child, and Whom they call _awful_ God.
The manner in which we speak of the Divinity shocks the English; the
manner in which the English worship Him leaves us cold and indifferent.
To the Frenchmen who say that religion is incompatible with liberty, I
would simply reply: England and America are the freest nations in the
world, and at the same time the most religious--I mean the most
church-going.
To the English who say that there is no religion in France, I would
reply: Our churches are not, like yours, full only from eleven to
half-past twelve; they are thronged from six o'clock in the morning to
one in the afternoon by a crowd whose fervor is second to that of no
other church-goers, and this French piety is all the more admirable
because, in our country, religion is not an indispensable garment, as it
is in England.
* * * * *
It would be as imprudent to judge the religion of the English from the
French point of view, as it would be to judge the religion of the French
from the English point of view. This being granted, something more is
requisite, if we would judge fairly, and that is to start with the
principle that all convictions that are dictated by conscience are
worthy of respect.
But such is not the usual manner of setting about it. To call one's
neighbors "idolaters," and hear one's self called "marchand de Bible"
in return, is certainly much more lively.
* * * * *
The English have given the name of Mariolatry to the homage paid to the
Mother of Christ, and it is a deep-rooted belief in England that the
French pay to Mary a worship equal to that which they pay to God.
Like ourselves, they too often judge by appearances.
The divine honors paid to the Virgin Mary have nothing to do with
adoration; the prayers addressed to her are for intercession. It is a
poetical homage rendered chiefly by women, who would fain have the
holiest of women plead with a beloved son on their behalf. It is to her
that the young girl turns who has just engaged her heart; it is to her
that the young mother prays as she bends over the cradle of her child.
"Horrible!" cry the Protestants, "as if God were not just, as if He
wanted to be told what He should do!"
But since you pray to Him yourselves, it is clear that you think it
advisable to remind Him sometimes of your needs.
Then the Frenchman (excuse a comparison which, to my mind, appears to be
strikingly true), the Frenchman, I say, who has the love and respect for
his mother inborn in him, cannot help believing that God could not find
it in His heart to refuse him anything, if Mary, His mother, would only
undertake to intercede on his behalf.
The homage paid to the Virgin is nothing short of a worship to Purity,
and the most ignorant Irish peasant girl has the conscience of her value
when she feels she can kneel down before the white-robed statue. The
influence of this worship on morality is enormous.
Take figures.
In Scotland, the proportion of illegitimate children is 16 per cent. In
Protestant Ireland (County of Antrim, etc.) it is 7 per cent. In the
poorest parts of Roman Catholic Ireland, the proportion is only 1/2 per
cent.
* * * * *
A religion is materialized that is practiced in temples adorned with
statues and pictures, images of the dwellers in the realms of the blest.
The uncultured mortal does not know what abstraction is. He believes in
what he sees. When our peasant folk think of God, they picture Him to
themselves as an august personage in a blue robe with flowing sleeves,
who keeps the accounts of our good and bad actions and receives in
private audience every morning certain saints, dressed in various colors
(St. Peter invariably in bottle-green), who come to talk of their
_proteges_, and recommend them to His mercy.
This materialism of the other world helps the ignorant to understand,
and explains why the poor crowd our churches, in the provinces at all
events. I say _in the provinces_ especially, for it would be as wrong to
judge France by Paris, as it would be to judge England by Regent Street
and the Haymarket. This is a remark that I should like to repeat at
every page.
"What is it that these English people worship?" is the question
invariably asked by the French who visit English churches and chapels.
The fact is, there is nothing to be seen there but whitewashed walls,
benches, an organ, and an enormous Bible. Tell them that, in the eyes of
the English, a crucifix is a profane object, that would be looked upon
with as much horror as a statue of Vishnu, and they will have their
doubts whether the name of Christian really ought to be applied to an
English person.
In religion, everything is spiritualized in England and America. A
crucifix recalls the fact that Christ became man.
The English will have neither crucifix, statue, nor picture in their
churches, because they adhere to the Bible, and there they find, among
the commandments of God, given on Mount Sinai:
"Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, or any likeness of
anything that is in the heaven. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor
worship them."
The Roman Catholic Church has suppressed this commandment. It is not for
me to criticise her; but as she has adopted a certain number of
commandments, which she has even translated into verse in order to fix
them more easily in the minds of the faithful, she would have perhaps
done better to adopt them all. At any rate she has done wisely in
interdicting discussion among her followers, and in telling them:
_Ce que je dis tu croiras
Sans raisonner auparavant._
* * * * *
The Protestant religion is more practical and better adapted to modern
life than the Catholic one; but if the Protestant faith may help you to
live, I believe the Catholic faith may better help you to die.
Whereas the materialization practiced by the Roman Church attracts the
lower classes, the spiritualization of the Anglican Church tends to
estrange them. The great unwashed of England would not understand the
service of the Anglican Church. This is partly why cornets and drums are
being resorted to, to draw them out of their slums.
Everyone takes his religion where he finds it.
* * * * *
Does not the frequentation of French cemeteries show how attached we are
to the body? Does not the solitude of English cemeteries show how little
our neighbors share this feeling?
* * * * *
The Catholic is no theologian. He does not discuss the sermons that are
preached to him; he may criticise the language of the preacher, but
dogma is not in his line. All that is spoken from the pulpit is gospel
to him.
The Protestant is essentially a theologian. He sifts most carefully all
that he hears in church. He is not of opinion that man was made for
religion, but that religion was made for man. I have seen more than one
storm in a teacup aroused, in little country towns, by a certain sermon
that had appeared to the congregation to be unorthodox. The local
newspapers would be full of letters containing the bitterest and most
violent recriminations. The clergyman, attacked like a mere politician
who had changed his colors, would defend himself by writing letter after
letter to the paper. Bible in hand, he refuted the arguments of his
adversaries, who were his own flock, be it understood.
No demi-gods in England; everyone has to pass through the Caudine Forks
of criticism.
A young country curate, finding that his tradesmen's bills were taking
larger proportions than his modest income could stand, resolved one day
to thunder from the pulpit against the thirst for riches.
He prepared his thunderbolts.
Never did Horace or Bourdaloue utter such anathemas against the vices of
the day.
"My dear brethren," he cried, "is it possible that you can thus place
the love of filthy lucre above the love of virtue?"
And, after a few generalities, he came straight to the point; he accused
the tradesmen of making too large profits, and of caring more for the
things of this world than for the things of the next.
A few days later, it being the 5th of November, the curate was burnt in
effigy.
His parishioners having rendered his life not worth living in the pretty
little town of X----, the young reverend gentleman lost no time in
packing up his traps and quitting the neighborhood, with the firm
resolution never to preach any more sermons _ad hominem_.
The Anglican, or State Church of England is a Tory institution, that is
to say, an eminently Conservative one. It is also a great school of
discipline for the people. As an Englishman of much good sense said to
me one day, the clergyman of a small town advantageously replaces half a
dozen policemen.
The Anglican Church is the Church of English good society.
In my quality of Frenchman, I confess to having a partiality for this
church, and of dreading the time when she will be separated from the
state.
This is why.
If we have many sympathizers in England, they must not be looked for, as
a rule, among the bigots of all the little conventicles, who vie with
one another in presenting the most striking appearance of virtue and
piety.
By these pretentious, narrow-minded folk, the French are more or less
looked upon as children of the Evil One. The intelligent Englishmen of
good society, who know and often admire us, generally belong to the
Anglican Church, which takes care of their future "by special
appointment," and allows them to relax a little from their natural
austerity.
Nature has made the Englishman a Puritan. Churchman or not, stir him up,
and it is the Puritan which rises to the surface. The day on which the
Church of England is disestablished, England will be all Puritan.