we for hope and encouragement! Moments of crisis are the most
painful, but they are not the least fruitful. Sow we do, indeed,
with tears; what matters, after all, that no hymn of triumph
attends our harvest. The thing essential is that we sow. Behold,
how magnificently the ground is in many respects prepared for the
Christian preacher. The mere fact that religious questions are
the fashion of the day gives us an immense advantage, and one by
which we may profit. Is it not very encouraging to know that in
discussing such subjects we are answering to serious demands of
general interest?
{lxxiii}
The contest which divides our churches has been certainly hurtful
to the growth of piety; but has it not also shaken many a soul
from its torpor? Has it not impelled many persons to search after
the truth who were before indifferent? Is it not better to have
to address ourselves to souls troubled if only by doubt, than to
souls plunged in the heavy torpor of indifference?
"After all, our age has its grandeur. Let us not underrate it: we
are not to imitate that ready and vulgar pessimism, which sees
everything dressed in the livery of woe, and which delights to
note the vices and shortcomings of an epoch, without admitting
the virtue to which it can lay just claim, or its generous
aspirations. It is certain that, even where rejecting the dogmas
of Christianity, our age has made immense progress in the social
application of Christianity, and especially in philanthropy. The
age passionately loves liberty, equality, tolerance, and peace;
it insists upon respect for all consciences; it dreams of the
union of all nations; it occupies itself with the material
happiness and the amelioration of all classes in society.
{lxxiv}
Not so rich as other ages in men of a high temper of character,
men really original, our age has nevertheless contributed, more
than others, perhaps, to the general awakening of men to their
rights as individuals, and of _self-government_, and
consequently, to the sentiment of personal responsibility. Here
assuredly we have noble tendencies; precious _points
d'appui_ for the preachers of the Gospel. Let us feel no dread
for this breath of Liberalism which is passing over nations.
Liberty rightly understood leads to the Gospel, as the Gospel
leads to Liberty.
"And now what have we to say to this age so tormented? What ought
we to say to these souls who have confidence in us, and who
demand from us Light and Peace? How often has this question
overwhelmed the Gospel preacher with the sentiment of his
weakness and insufficiency? How often has it made him prostrate
himself in his agony at the feet of the Lord? How often torn from
him the cry of the prophet--'Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot
speak, for I am a child!'
{lxxv}
"Let Christian Science proceed with its work! She has, assuredly,
much to do in these days. In the teeth of the affirmations of
Positivism and of Materialism let her make her own affirmation.
Hers the task to show that the biblical dogmas respecting the
origin of the world and of man are infinitely more rational and
more scientific than all that in these days men seek to
substitute in their place. Hers the task to prove that the
supernatural, far from being antagonistic to the science of
Nature, is as much called for by Nature as by the sentiment of
Religion itself.
"Let Christian Philosophy also accomplish her task. Hers it is to
establish the profound harmony which exists between Reason and
Faith; hers to show that the systems by which men seek to replace
Christianity present to the thought as many difficulties, if not
more, than any which follow from the evangelical dogmas.
{lxxvi}
Hers the task to lay the foundation of a new philosophy with the
materials furnished by Revelation, and by the Christian
Conscience.
"Let Christian Literature equally accomplish her mission! Let her
spread the truth by the means, infinitely diverse, which the
progress of the press has placed at her disposal! Let her make
herself popular; let her put on all forms to combat error; let
her oppose Journal to Journal, Review to Review; and, if it must
be so, Novel to Novel! Let her make herself everything to
everybody; and follow the adversary upon every field, and seize
all his arms.
"And for us Preachers, what have we to do? What this day is our
special mission in the special position in which God has placed
us?"
{lxxvii}
Having come to this, the particular object of his study and of
his Report, made by him to the Evangelical Conference of Nérac,
M. Decoppel enters, as to the Mission and actual work of the
preachers, into details which although they are full of life, and
evince the greatest practical knowledge, apply more especially to
the Protestant Churches of France. Finally, he reverts to the
general question of Christianity by a concluding remark of
general application, but announcing a truth of both practical and
urgent importance for all the Christian Churches.
"What is most essential," says he, "is not so much to defend
Christianity, as to present it to our age, not as an enemy that
comes to anathematize and to combat it, but as a friend that
comes to raise it and save it. Beyond a doubt, we must not fear
to lay stress upon Christian Truth, and to present it with its
most salient angles and its austerest face in advance; but with
anathemas and declamations we must have done. What most is
necessary is, that we address a word of sympathy to the Age; we
must show to it Christianity, I do not say so much in the aspect
fitted to inspire love as in the aspect in which it is loving.
{lxxviii}
Regard St. Paul at Athens. He does not consider himself bound to
confound the idolatry of his auditors; he does quite the
contrary; he knows how to find in their idolatry itself a
_point d'appui_ for the Gospel. Let us do as he did; let us
strive, we also, to find these _points d'appui_, those
keystones upon which the edifice of faith may in these days be
made safely repose. It is more especially true in our country
that Christianity is not known for what it is, and the remark
applies not only to the lower classes of society, but even to the
educated classes, so that when they attack Christianity it is, as
it were, an attack upon a thing unknown. The Age is liberal: let
us show it that the Gospel is still more liberal, and that its
liberality is of the genuine kind. The Age loves science, and
demands a rational faith: let us show it that faith is sovereign
reason, and cannot but profit by every conquest achieved by
science.
{lxxix}
The Age aspires to make progress in every branch of human
activity: let us show it that all genuine progress is contained
in the principles of the Gospel."
I make no more citations. I neither examine nor discuss any of
the particular ideas, or phrases, or words which these two
documents contain: I would solely draw attention to their main
and common characteristic. These writings are not only Christian,
but uncompromisingly Christian; at the same time, they aim at
leading Christianity and Modern Society to understand each other,
to accept each other mutually and freely, and to exercise, the
one upon the other, such an action as shall be salutary to both.
The authors are not authors, or orators, or amateurs in religion,
or in philosophy; they are ecclesiastics by profession, belonging
to different churches who are entering upon this war, regarded by
each both as legitimate and necessary; who are labouring to draw
to it the populations placed naturally under their influence; and
are hoping, without doubt, that their efforts will be successful.
{lxxx}
I think that they are right both in their hope and their
endeavours, and knowing that outside of the groups of persons
pledged to particular opinions or sides in the contests of
religion and politics, there exists a vast population, uncertain
and vacillating, now indifferent, now anxious upon the subject of
religious questions and the relations of Christianity to Modern
Society, I think that this population, which is, in effect,
France, is capable of feeling religious emotions, of being
informed and brought back to the great beliefs of Christianity as
well as to a sentiment of the natural and necessary agreement
between Christian faith and the principles of public Liberty. The
profound desire which I feel, and the hope from which I will not
part, of this great result, have induced me to give still greater
development to these Meditations, and to risk them amidst the
events, the issue of which is obscure, which are now crowding
upon each other, and amidst questions, passions, and interests,
to which such subjects are all very strange.
{lxxxi}
The more I consider the matter, the more I feel persuaded that
France is not so little busied as she would appear to be with
religious questions, and that in the midst of her languor and
fluctuations she has a secret sentiment of their imperishable
grandeur and their practical importance. If this, as I think, is,
at bottom, the public disposition, I may consider myself well
entitled to command attentive listeners. In the course of my long
life, I have seen much and have done somewhat. I have taken part
in the world's affairs. I have quitted it, and am no longer
anything more than a spectator. For twenty years I have been
essaying my tomb. I have gone down into it living, and have made
no effort to issue forth again. Not only have I experience of the
world, but nothing attaches me to it.
{lxxxii}
Could I be still of some service to the two great causes, in my
eyes but one, the cause of Christian Faith in men's souls, and
the cause of Political Liberty in my country, I should await with
thankfulness, in the bosom of my seclusion, the dawn of that
eternal day which "fools call death," says Petrarch:--
Quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi.
Guizot.
Paris, _April_, 1868.
{lxxxiii}
Contents.
Page
Preface v
I. -- Christianity and Liberty 1
II. -- Christianity and Morality 52
III. -- Christianity and Science 93
IV. -- Christian Ignorance 128
V. -- Christian Faith 153
VI. -- Christian Life 190
Appendix. -- Observations upon the Work
called "Ecce Homo" 213
{lxxxiv}
{1}
Meditations On Christianity
in its
Relation To The Actual State
Of Society And Opinion.
First Meditation.
Christianity And Liberty.
The passionate longing both of men and of nations in these days
for Liberty and Equality, is a fact not only evident but dominant
in modern civilization. Sometimes this desire has for its object
Liberty only, sometimes Equality only, sometimes both
simultaneously. Sometimes the desire is at once intelligent and
respectable, sometimes nothing more than a blind and
ill-regulated impulse.
{2}
Sometimes the feeling displays itself in revolutions, in which it
develops itself in all its intensity; sometimes it fades away,
and subsides amidst the reactions which those very revolutions
have, by their calamities and excesses, called forth. At one time
men vaunt that the problem is solved, at another they are
discouraged, and pronounce it to be insolvable. But whether they
vaunt or are discouraged, the passionate desire continues to
exist, and the problem ever reappears. Such a state of opinion
may be applauded or may be deplored; it may have incense showered
upon it or it may be visited with malediction; but to escape from
it is an impossibility. It remains a trial which humanity is
condemned to pass through; it furnishes it with a task which it
is bound to perform.
But it is not only this fact and this problem with which our
epoch has to deal; at their side there is another not less
important, the solution of which also falls within the mission of
the age. Many of the friends of Liberty and Equality regard
Christianity, and especially Roman Catholicism, as their greatest
enemy.
{3}
In his moments of perverseness and angry waywardness, Voltaire so
treated it. Thousands of men, not only men of intelligence, but a
multitude of others, obscure enough, still not deficient in
activity, speak and act under the empire of the same idea; at one
time brutal, at another hypocritical, the anti-Christian
sentiment is at once ardent and far-spread. Is it well founded?
Is Christianity, after all, the obstacle to the progress of
Liberty and of Equality? Or is it not, on the contrary, rather
true that both already owe much to Christianity, and that both
require its sanction and its support to ensure their legitimate
and durable triumph? The great question of the 19th century
remains in suspense, and social order in peril, so long as that
other question is not solved.
I meet at every step in the Gospels words such as these--"What
shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
[Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Mark viii. 36, 37.]
{4}
"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell." [Footnote 6] "Go ye into all the world, and preach
the Gospel to every creature." [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 6: Matthew x. 28.]
[Footnote 7: Mark xvi. 15.]
The dominant idea in the Gospels is the infinite worth of the
human soul, of every human soul. Jesus came to influence and to
save souls, all souls without exception,--souls of the powerful
and of the obscure, of the rich and poor, learned and ignorant,
happy or afflicted. The condition and the salvation of souls is
the foundation of the Christian Religion.
The human soul is no mere word, no mere abstraction, no mere
hypothesis; the soul is the human being himself, the individual
being who feels and thinks, enjoys and suffers, wills and acts,
who observes and knows himself, in the complexity of his actual
condition, and to whom his destiny in remote futurity is an
object of present solicitude.
{5}
To those who confound soul and body, and see in man only a
product, an ephemeral form of matter, I have nothing to say. What
have they to do with the words of the Gospel--with the immense
value attached to a fugitive shadow, deceived according to them
as to its own reality, and only appearing to lose itself
forthwith in nonentity? It is Spiritualists and Christians who
speak with propriety when they discourse in grand and elevated
tones of the human soul; and if they so discourse it is because
they see in every human soul a true being, a real and individual
man, with the grandeur of man's nature and of man's destiny. What
constitutes the essential worth of the human being, of every
human being, is, that he is free to act or not to act, and that
he is morally responsible how he acts. Man believes essentially
in the distinction of moral good and evil and in the obligation
which this entails; he believes that he is at liberty to act up
to it or not as he pleases, that he is responsible for the use
which he makes of his liberty. It is because such is the nature
of man, whether his own conduct is in conformity to it or not,
that the Gospel exalts man so nigh, and accords to him so sublime
a destiny.
{6}
Philosophers, Christian and anti-Christian too, have made great
efforts, in my opinion ill-judged efforts, to solve the problem
of man's liberty in relation to God's prescience; the Gospel
recognises and proclaims human liberty without troubling itself
about the problem of philosophy. The Christian Religion entirely
rests upon the fact which it assumes, that man is a free and
responsible being. Man's liberty is the point from which
Christianity starts in all that she says to humanity, and in
every command that she gives to humanity.
Christianity, then, is essentially liberal, in favour of all men,
and of them as men; by her elementary and fundamental idea of
man's nature, she founds his liberty upon the most solid basis
and the broadest right that human thought can conceive. The most
daring of the writers on public law never carried to so high a
point as the Gospel has done either the native universal dignity
of man's nature or the consequences derivable from this fact.
{7}
Christianity does not confine itself to this;--after having laid
down the principle of Liberty, it gives to it the practical
sanction which Liberty requires: it establishes the right of
resistance to oppression. The priests and the chiefs of the
synagogue at Jerusalem "commanded them (Peter and John) not to
speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus;" but Peter and John
answered them and said unto them, "Whether it be right in the
sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
[Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Acts iv. 18,19.]
Having been again summoned before the high priest, who says to
them, "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach
in this name?" Peter replies, "We ought to obey God rather than
men." [Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9: Acts v. 28, 29.]
The multitude joins its acts of violence to the injunctions of
the authorities. Stephen, the first Christian Deacon, avows his
faith before the multitude, and falls the first martyr to the
principle of Christian resistance. [Footnote 10]
[Footnote 10: Acts vii. 59.]
{8}
The most zealous of the persecutors of Stephen, Paul of Tarsus,
who had become Christian, is, in his turn, stoned and left for
dead by the multitude of Lystra and Iconium; in his turn he
resists the multitude, and returns again to Lystra and Iconium,
"confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to
continue in the faith," and representing to them that it is by
much tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of God.
[Footnote 11] Resistance to oppression is an essential principle
of Christianity, and the definitive guarantee of Liberty.
[Footnote 11: Acts xiv. 19, 22.]
It is the peculiar characteristic and honour of Christianity that
it derives both the right of resistance to oppression, and the
principle of even Liberty itself, not from the temporal and
transitory interests of earthly life, but from the moral and
eternal interests of the soul. At the same time that it affirms
the principle of Liberty and proclaims its consequences, it
equally affirms and proclaims the principles and rights of
Authority.
{9}
I have referred to this upon another occasion; when Jesus made
that reply to the question of the Pharisees whether it was
permissible or not to pay tribute to Caesar, "Render unto Cæsar
the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are
God's," he established in principle the distinction between the
religious life and civil life, between the Church and the State.
Cæsar has no right to intervene with his laws and material force,
between the soul of man and his God; and on his side the faithful
worshipper of God is bound to fulfil towards Cæsar the duties
which the necessity of the maintenance of public order imposes.
[Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: Meditations upon the Essence of Christianity,
p. 278. London: 1864.]
It was by affirming and defending religious liberty, the highest
and proudest of all liberties, that modern civilization
commenced. The principle and right of liberty once deeply rooted
in the soul, the flower and the fruit of this potent germ have
strongly developed themselves in the course of ages, and expanded
with more or less of promptitude and fecundity, according as the
seasons were favourable or unfavourable; but upon the whole,
history has confirmed the Gospel.
{10}
Of all the Religions which have appeared in the world,
Christianity is the only one which conquered by means of Liberty,
and which was founded upon Liberty; the only one which has been
able to assume and keep her place amidst the greatest diversity
of social institutions, and which in them all, as exigencies
required, accepted and supported at one time authority, at
another liberty.
Even if I wished, it would be impossible for me in this place to
refer to more than the general and evident facts of history. If I
remount to the origins of the different religions, I observe that
Christianity was the only one which did not appeal to force; she
was the only one which did not employ force to issue forth from
her cradle and to grow. During more than three centuries she
alone combated and conquered her adversaries by vanquishing souls
in the name of truth and by the arms of truth.
{11}
If I interrogate the results, I find that three great religious
establishments--Paganism, Bouddhism, and Mahometanism--have
held, and, with Christianity, still hold a great place in the
world. Paganism, after some fair but brief moments of progress,
attained to nothing but the anarchy of the Greek and Roman
Republics, and the despotic decay of the Roman Empire. Bouddhism
did nothing but generate the fantastic superstitions and the
enervating abstractions of a pantheistic mythology, amidst the
immobility of the castes and the stagnation of absolute power.
Mahometanism carried into every quarter to which she penetrated
only the yoke of force, the incurable animosity of races, the
sterility of conquest. Christianity alone accepted the spirit of
Liberty and Progress where she found it already existing in the
soul of man and in human societies, and where she did not find it
she awakened it.
Let me not be accused of forgetting that since the triumph of
Christianity, oppressive tyrannies and odious persecutions have
occurred in, different Christian societies in the name of the
Christian faith.
{12}
No one more than I deplores and detests such facts. They were the
work of the sins of men, not of the principles of Christianity,
which, far from authorising them, condemns them. Water from the
purest source is changed and polluted in its course over the
surface of the earth, after it has been exposed to the stormy
atmospheric influences. In creating man free, God left him a part
and a share in his own destiny and in the events which determine
it. Christianity, emanating from God, marks out and combats
uncompromisingly all evil desires and bad motives, all the
excesses and all the weaknesses of man's selfishness: she has not
destroyed them; she did not at once restore innocence to man nor
make him a present of virtue: he is bound to labour in the work
of his own control and of his own reformation; the Gospel is a
Mirror in which, if he looks at himself, he may, it is true,
behold the stains upon his soul and upon his life, but those
stains proceed from himself, and not from the mirror, which only
enables him to see them.
{13}
When we lay to the charge of the Christian Religion the fatal
errors, the unlawful passions and actions which have appeared
under its name in the history of Christian Societies, we acquit
without reason men, whether princes or nations, learned or
ignorant, of the responsibility that weighs upon them; we ignore
what Christianity commands and what she forbids; we demand from
her that which she has not promised.
Of history thus far. I now confine myself to the present epoch
and to the problems which the actual relations of Christianity to
Liberty present. What are the principal obstacles at the present
day in the way of the establishment of a real and lasting
Liberty, and what are the means within our reach to surmount
them? In other terms, which express my meaning more exactly, What
are our infirmities to retard, what our strength to accelerate,
the establishment of a free government? Is Christianity an
obstacle to us in this work or a help, an ill or a remedy?
{14}