religious life. This will, on the contrary, be found by her
remaining faithful to herself in the new position frankly
accepted. This position is worthy, strong, favorable to the
progress of faith and fervour. It possesses towards the state a
fair measure of liberty and alliance, towards the faithful the
suitable independence as well as the needful intimacy; no evil
hopes, no worldly distractions, nothing which can render zeal
impure or even suspected; but nothing, on the other hand, which
attacks the traditions or customs of the Church, nothing which
tends to deprive it of the august character of elevation and
stability. The Catholic Church is thus placed in constitutional
France; and success, religious and social, belong to the use of
proper measures, as by proper measures success is certain.
{93}
The situation of Protestantism is more simple: some persons even
affect to consider it more favourable. The general feeling which
prevails in our days, our political and domestic alliances, the
analogy of principle between constitutional France and Protestant
England, all seem to say that Protestantism is in favour. There
are some even who pretend to the discovery of a plot to make
France Protestant.
This does not deserve even a passing remark.
There was a time, not very distant, when Protestantism did not
seem so well placed in France. I do not speak of the Restoration;
even under the empire it was often said that Protestantism had a
republican tendency, that her maxims were contrary to stability
and power. The spirits of Protestantism and revolution were
considered as related.
This is still repeated. It has become a party theme; and
Protestantism is perseveringly represented as incompatible with
social order, peaceful dispositions, and monarchy.
Happily, Protestantism is not a thing of yesterday in Europe; it
appeals to history and facts for a reply.
If there be any where three countries which, for fifty years,
amidst the overthrow of ideas, states, and dynasties have given
striking proofs of affection for their institutions and princes,
for the conservative and monarchical spirit, they are assuredly
England, Holland, Prussia--three Protestant countries,
_the_ three Protestant countries _par excellence_ in
Europe; countries, too, wonderful for order, for industry, and
for prosperity; countries which greatly conduce to the power and
glory of modern civilization. There can be no more decisive
answer to the worn out declamations of ancient party spirit, nor
do they deserve more ample discussion.
{94}
French Protestantism is peculiarly free from this ridiculous
reproach. It has not been remarkable for receiving too much
protection or justice. It enjoys them as a new acquisition, with
modesty and gratitude. Never was a religious society disposed to
evince towards the civil power greater deference and respect.
Protestantism, by a singular amalgamation, has been blamed for
too much deference even in this respect. It has been accused of
lowering religion, and making the church subservient to the
state. This, it is said, is the consequence of the fall of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, the great governing power of the
Catholic church, which Protestantism has attacked. Thus the
division between spiritual and temporal has disappeared; the
spiritual has fallen under the yoke of the civil power.
I have already said sufficient of the separation of spiritual and
temporal, to avoid the suspicion of thinking ill of it. It is one
of the most glorious forms which, in modern Europe, the
independence of thought and faith has assumed. It is the
principle in virtue of which Catholicism must, in the midst of
modern institutions and ideas, assume a worthy and secure place.
{95}
But in spiritual as in temporal order, it is necessary that
liberty have but one aspect and be exclusively attached to this
or that combination. Religion has more than one method of
preserving her dignity and independence; God plants it and causes
it to prosper in more than one soil, in more than one climate.
In fact, taking things together, faith has been strong, and
conscience has displayed itself with energy in Protestant
countries, in spite of the doubtful lines of demarcation between
the two domains, and the too frequent intervention of the civil
power in religious matters.
This is because the civil power has never made religious matters
its chief concern. Politics, governments, properly so called,
have absorbed its attention and power. Sooner or later, it has
ended by leaving consciences to themselves; it has, at all
events, left the reins more loose and the field more free than
has been the case in Catholic countries, where there has been a
power devoted to the sole task of ruling spiritual society.
Thus, too, there is in every society, political or religious, a
certain intimate and permanent tendency which gets the better of
all forms of organization and all accidents of situation.
Protestantism sprang from free enquiry. It is her standard. It
has never been abandoned by her, whatever share she may have
taken in the civil rule; I will go so far as to say, the civil
despotism. In short, human thought, in religion as in every other
matter, has displayed itself with infinite activity and freedom
in Protestant countries.
{96}
Do we forget, besides, the first and most powerful cause of
spiritual independence? It is that Protestantism,--she cannot
avoid it,--admits into her bosom great differences of faith and
practice, dissents, separations, sects in short. She may have
often condemned and persecuted them, but she has never deemed
herself obliged to curse and extirpate them. They have lived and
multiplied under Protestantism, in the teeth of the national
church; ill-treated, humiliated, but never forced from some last
retreat; always, to a certain degree, protected by the spirit of
free enquiry, its examples and recollections. This affords a
strong pledge for liberty of conscience, and opens an asylum to
all who may have been attacked or vexed on account of their faith
by the civil power. If the Anglican church has, with some
justice, though much exaggeration, been accused of complaisance
towards the temporal sovereign, the English dissenters have, on
the other hand, unceasingly proclaimed their haughty independence
of her. The shield which the Catholic church has found in the
separation of the spiritual and temporal, has been found by
Protestantism in the freedom, even though incomplete, of
religious dissent and the multiplicity of sects.
And as a just reward for this dawn of liberty, the Protestant
sects are not so widely severed as they appear to be from the
national Church and the State. Persecuted, irritated, even
rebellious, they have nevertheless strongly adhered, with hidden
yet deep feeling, to the common centre of belief and the public
destiny. An ardent Puritan was, under Queen Elizabeth, sent to
the pillory and condemned to have his hand cut off.
{97}
The hand falls; with his left, he raises his large hat, crying
"God save the Queen!" Almost invariably in critical
circumstances, when the vital interests of the national religion
or of the country appeared to be compromised, the English
dissenters have rallied round the state, and though forsaking her
religious banner, have still served her with exemplary devotion.
I have little taste for sectarian spirit, but never should
Protestantism when in power set up as a national church, and
treat dissenters with rigour or disdain; for it owes in part to
them the maintenance of its dignity, as well as the fervour of
faith and the progress of liberty of conscience. Above all, never
should our constitutional monarchy trouble itself about dissent,
should it one day arise, in French Protestantism. It could not
possess political importance, or tend to weaken the tie which
binds the Protestants of France to the new social condition and
its governing power.
Protestantism, while free from political danger, has, in a purely
religious point of view, much good to do in France; not by
drawing France to her standard, by converting her, to use the
customary phrase. Conversions on either side are and will
henceforward be few, and the importance which some persons attach
to them as a matter of joy or regret is somewhat puerile. It is a
step and a most important step for the individuals, but one of no
social moment. France will not become Protestant. Protestantism
will not become extinct in France. One reason among many is
decisive.
{98}
The struggle of these days of ideas and empire is not between
Catholicism and Protestantism. Impiety and immorality are the
enemies which both have to resist. To restore the spirit of
religion is the work to which both are called. The work, like the
evil, is immense. A slight probing of the wound, a short but
serious glance at the moral state of the masses of men, whose
minds are so fluctuating, whose hearts so empty, who desire so
much and hope so little, who pass so rapidly from the excitement
of fever to mental torpor,--and the observer will be penetrated
with sadness and alarm. Catholics or Protestants, priests or
laymen, be ye whom ye may, do not, if believers, be uneasy about
each other; reserve that for those who believe not. There is the
field for work, there the harvest. The field is open to
Protestantism as to Catholicism; work will not be wanting to
either; each has the aptitude and peculiar qualities to enable it
to labour with success.
We suffer from very different moral complaints.
Some are above all things wearied and disgusted with the
uncertainty and disorder of men's minds. They need a harbour
sheltered from every point, a light which is ever steady, a
guiding hand which never trembles. They ask from religion rather
support to weakness than aliment for activity. They require her,
while elevating, to sustain them; while touching their hearts, to
keep down their understandings; while animating their inward
life, to give them at the same time, and above all else, a deep
sense of security.
{99}
Catholicism is wonderfully adapted to this frame of mind, now so
common. She has gratifications for desires, remedies for
suffering. She knows how at once to subdue and to please. Her
grasp is strong, her prospects full of charm for the imagination.
She excels in occupying while soothing the soul, which she suits
after periods of great fatigue; for without leaving it cold or
idle, she saves it much trouble, and undertakes for it the burden
of responsibility.
For another class of minds, though also suffering and separated
from religion, more intellectual and physical activity is
required. They too feel the need of returning to God and the
faith; but they are used to examine everything themselves, and
only to receive that which they acquire by their own labour. They
wish to shun incredulity, but liberty is dear to them; there is
in their religious tendency more thirst than lassitude. To such,
Protestantism may gain access, for while it speaks to them of
piety and faith, it encourages and invites them to make use of
their reason and liberty. It has been accused of coldness. That
is a mistake. In ceaselessly appealing to free and personal
examination it takes deep root in the soul, and becomes easily an
inward faith, in which the activity of the understanding keeps up
instead of extinguishing the fervour of the heart. And hence its
connexion with the modern spirit, which formerly in its youth was
at the same time reasoning and enthusiastic, eager for conviction
as for liberty, and which, despite its momentary quiescence, has
retained its old nature and will infallibly resume its double
character.
{100}
Catholicism and Protestantism must never lose sight of our system
of society, for it is on this that they must work. Let each of
them appeal to it in its own way, looking for and attending to
the wounds or wants for the cure or satisfaction of which they
are best calculated. That is their true, their efficacious and
disinterested mission, not looking at each other and seeking a
renewal of controversy.
In general, I believe controversy is but of little use, and has
little religious effect. In every age it has taken but a small
part in the triumph of great moral truths. They establish
themselves, especially at their first appearing, by direct and
dogmatic exposition. We have in the gospels the most remarkable
and august example. From their earliest day, neither motive or
occasion of controversy was wanting with Jew or pagan. Yet we
scarcely meet with it in the preaching either of Jesus Christ or
of the apostles. They lay down their rule of faith, their
precepts; they knock without ceasing at the doors of the hearts
which they desire to enter. They do not trouble themselves to
argue with their adversaries. Controversy arises later, and when
it does, it soon disfigures the truth, for it distributes it in
fragments among parties, sects, men; and each holds fast, with
the intractable blindness of self-love, to the fragment which has
fallen to his lot, in which he wishes to see, and that others
should see, truth in her entirety.
{101}
Let them keep clear of controversy; let them attend little to
each other, much to themselves and their task. Catholicism and
Protestantism will then dwell peaceably, not only within its new
state, but together.
I know that this peace will not be that spiritual unity which has
been so talked of. Spiritual unity, beautiful in itself, is in
this world chimerical; and from chimerical it becomes tyrannical.
As finite and free beings, that is to say, incomplete and
fallible, unity escapes us, and we constantly miss it.
Harmony in liberty is the only unity to which men here below can
pretend. Or, rather, it is for them the best, the only mode of
elevation towards that true unity which all violence, all
constraint,--that is, every invasion of spiritual by material
order,--throws back and obscures, under the pretext of attaining
it.
Harmony in liberty is the spirit of Christianity. It is charity
united with zeal. It is also the object of philosophy, for it is
the true, the moral sense of the principle of toleration and
equal protection of the rites of worship; a principle which
impiety has violated by trying to set it up as the standard of
indifference and contempt for religion, but which allies itself
wondrously with zeal and faith, for on _their_ right it is
itself founded.
The alliance must be ratified. I say _must_ in concluding,
as I did when beginning. Peace between religious creeds is now
imposed on all alike by our social condition. Harmony in liberty
is their legal condition, their charter. Let them yield to it in
spirit as in act; let them love it while obeying it. I fear not
the fate of a false prophet, when I predict that religion will be
thereby as great a gainer as society.
{102}
As to Philosophy, she has in our days the glory of not having
remained a Utopia. From discoveries she has proceeded to
conquests. She has metamorphosed her ideas into facts and
institutions; a formidable change, as it reveals not only the
errors of the first thought, but for a time misleads and corrupts
it by plunging it into the vortex of human passions; nevertheless
a great glory, and one which assigns to philosophy a high
position in the new social state.
It is a rare privilege to be able, without embarrassment,
worthily to acknowledge and abjure error. Philosophy can do this,
for, politically speaking, victory belongs to her, and not only
victory but power. Though much self-deceived, she has done much.
She has reason for pride as well as for modesty. She can afford
to show herself just, benevolent, and respectful to her former
adversaries. She cannot be charged with weakness or cowardice.
Practically, experience has enlightened her. She knows better
than she did the true condition of morality and human society.
She knows that she herself is not all-sufficient, that she
suffices not entirely for souls or nations, that in human nature
and in the general course of affairs the share due to religion is
immense, and that philosophy should not contest it with her.
{103}
To go still deeper, philosophy herself is about to become
seriously and sincerely religious. Like Catholicism, like
Protestantism, she cannot change her nature, she must remain
philosophy, that is to say free and independant thought, whatever
her field of action. But as regards religious questions, she sees
that she has often been short-sighted and hasty, that neither
impiety nor indifference constitutes true knowledge, that the
proudest spirit may humble itself before God, and that there is
philosophy in faith itself.
All this is still very vague, and I speak but vaguely of it.
However, so it is. It is on this slope that philosophy is now
placed, and along it that she must hereafter advance. Her future
must be great in the midst of that society which she has formed.
The future must be great for spiritual order as a whole,
religious and philosophical. May this destiny be accomplished!
May spiritual order recover her activity and renown, with a peace
and harmony hitherto unknown. Therein consists the dignity of
man! therein the strength of society.
End.
[Transcriber's note: The following text is not part of the
originals book, but seems worthy of inclusion.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Meditations And Moral Sketches, by François Guizot