PROTESTANTISM
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PROTESTANTISM
church-going population in many of the largest cities:
San Francisco (81-1 per cent); New Orleans (79-7 per
cent); New York (76-9 per cent); St. Louis (69 per
cent) ; Boston (liS-7 per cent) ; Chicago (68-2 per cent);
Philadelphia (51-8 per cent).
Great Britain and its colonies have a Catholic population of over twelve millions. Holland and Switzerland have powerful Catholic provinces and cantons; only the small Scandinavian kingdoms have succeeded in keeping down the old rehgion. A further question suggests itself: granting that some states are more prosperous than others, is their greater pros- perity due to the particular form of Christianity they profess? The idea is absurd. For all Chris- tian denominations have the same moral code — the Decalogue — and believe in the same rewards for the good and punishments for the wicked. We hear it asserted that Protestantism produces self-reliance, whereas Catholicism extinguishes it. Against this may be set the statement that Catholicism produces disciplined order — an equally good commercial asset. The truth of the matter is that self-reliance is best fostered by free political institutions and a decen- tralized government. These existed in England be- fore the Reformation and have survived it; they like- wise existed in Germany, but were crushed out by Protestant Csesaropapism, never to revive with their primitive vigour. Medieval Italy, the Italy of the Renaissance, enjoyed free municipal government in its many towns and principalities: though the coun- try was Catholic, it brought forth a crop of undis- ciplined seU-reliant men, great in many walks of life, good and evil. And looking at history, we see Catho- lic France and Spain attaining the zenith of their national grandeur, whilst Germany was undermining and disintegrating that Holy Roman Empire vested in the German nation — an empire which was its glory, its strength, the source and mainstay of its culture and prosperity.
England's grandeur during the same epoch is due to the same cause as that of Spain: the impulse given to all national forces by the discovery of the New World. Both Spain and England began by securing religious unity. In Spain the Inquisition at a small cost of human life preserved the old faith; in England the infinitely more cruel penal laws stamped out all opposition to the innovations im- ported from Germany. Germany itself did not recover the prominent position it held in Europe under the Emperor Charles V until the coastitution of the new empire during the Franco-German War (1871). Since then its advance in every direction, except that of religion, has been such as seriously to threaten the commercial and maritime supremacy of England. The truth of the whole matter is this: religious toleration has been placed on the statute books of modern nations; the civil power has severed itself from the ecclesiastical; the governing clas.ses have grown alarmingly indifferent to things spiritual; the educated classes are largely RationaHstic; the working classes are widely infected with anti-re- ligious socialism; a prolific press daily and period- ically preaches the gospel of Naturalism overtly or covertly to countless eager readers; in many lands Christian teaching is banished from the public schools; and revealed religion is fast losing that power of fashioning politics, culture, home life, and personal character which it used to exercise for the benefit of Christian states. Amid this almost general flight from God to the creature, Catholicism alone makes a stand: its teaching is intact, its discipline stronger than ever, its confidence in final victory is unshaken.
E. The Test of Vilnlity.—A better standard for comparison than tlie glamour of worldly progress, at best an accidental result of a religious system, is the power of self-preservation and propagation, i. e. vital energy. What are the facts? "The anti-
Protestant movement in the Roman Church" says a
Protestant writer, "which is generally called the
Counter-Reformation, is really at least as remarkable
as the Reformation itself. Probably it would be no
exaggeration to caU it the most remarkable single
cjiisode that has ever occurred in the history of the
Christian Church. Its immediate success was
greater than that of the Protestant movement, and
its permanent results are fully as large at the present
day. It called forth a burst of missionary enthu-
siasm such as has not been seen since the first day of
Pentecost. So far as organization is concerned, there
can be no question that the mantle of the men who
made the Roman Empire has fallen upon the Roman
Church; and it has never given more striking proof
of its vitality and power than it did at this time, im-
mediately after a large portion of Europe had been
torn from its grasp. Printing-presses poured forth
literature not only to meet the controversial needs of
the moment but also admirable editions of the early
Fathers to whom the Reformed Churches appealed —
sometimes with more confidence than knowledge.
Armies of devoted missionaries were scientifically
marshalled. Regions of Europe which had seemeci
to be lost for ever [for example, the southern portion
of Germany and parts of Austria-Hungary] were re-
covered to the Papacy, and the claims of the Vicar
of Christ were carried far and wide through countries
where they had never been heard before" (R. H.
Maiden, classical lecturer, Selwyn College, Cam-
bridge, in "Foreign Missions", London, 1910,
119-20).
Dr. G. Warneck, a protagonist of the Evangelical Alliance in Germany, thus describes the result of the Kulturkampf: "The Kulturkarapf [i. e. struggle for superiority of Protestantism against Catholicism in Prussia], which was inspired by political, national, and liberal-religious motives, ended with a complete victory for Rome, 'tt'hen it began, a few men, who knew Rome and the weapons used against her, fore- told with certainty that a contest with Romanism on such lines would of necessity end in defeat for the State and in an increase of power for Romanism. . . . The enemy whom we met in battle has brilliantly conquered us, though we had all the arms civil power can supply. True, the victory is partly owing to the ability of the leaders of the "Centre party, but it is truer still that the weapons used on our side were blunted tools, unfit for doing serious harm. The Roman Church is indeed, like the State, a political power, worldly to the core, but after all she is a Church, and therefore disposes of religious powers which she invariably brings into action when contending with civil powers for supremacy. The State has no equivalent power to oppose. You cannot hit a spirit, not even the Roman spirit ..." (Der evangelische Bund und seine Gegner", 13-14). The anti-re- ligious Government of France is actually renewing the Kulturkampf; but no more than its German models does it succeed in "hitting the Roman spirit". En- dowments, churches, schools, convents have been con- fiscated, yet the spirit lives.
The other mark of Catholic vitality — the power of propagation — is evident in missionary work. Long before the birth of Protestantism, Catholic missionaries had converted Europe and carried the Faith as far as China. After the Reformation they reconquered for the Church the Rhinelands, Bavaria, Austria, part of Hungary, and Poland; they estab- lished flourishing Christian communities all over North and South America and in the Portuguese colo- nies, wherever, in short. Catholic powers allowed them free play. For nearly three hundred years Protes- tants were too intent on self-preservation to think of foreign missionary work. At the present day, how- ever, they develop great activity in all heathen coun- tries, and not without a fair success. Maiden, in the
