Part 6

"I learnt in the army what one learns no where else--respect;" said an old retired non-commissioned officer of the Imperial Guard, in 1820.

{91}

Catholicism is the greatest, the most holy school of respect that the world has ever seen. France was brought up in this school, in spite of the ill use which human passions have often made of her precepts. The abuse is now little formidable; the benefit ought to be great, for we have great need of it.

Catholicism itself is suffering at present from a grievous malady.

This is the prevailing coldness and routine, the predominance of form over foundation, of external practice over internal feelings.

This arises from the often hypocritical incredulity of the eighteenth century, not very distant from the nineteenth; and also from the preponderance, which has long been excessive, in the church, of the government over the vital principle, of ecclesiastical authority over religious life.

Some analogy existed in this respect between the church and state in the last century. On both sides power was afoot with its old organization, in the hands of its former possessors; but amongst the subjects there was little faith and little love.

What is it, nevertheless, that has saved Catholicism from shipwreck? It is that it was a popular religion and faith. The Catholic government yielded, the Catholic people survived. M. de Monlosier was right; in our days, too, it was the cross of wood which saved the world.

{92}

The safety is yet incomplete. The church has risen, but many a soul languishes. Catholicism needs faith, a more inward and lively faith.

It is the vague and ill-regulated feeling of this want, which has for some time inspired those dreams of absolute independence, of rupture between church and state, those shiverings of the fever of democracy, which, under the name of M. l'Abbé de Lamennais, have scandalised the faithful and made the indifferent smile.

Mad, shameful dreams which urge Catholicism to abjure her principles and history, to hand herself over to the contagion of modern evil and to dishonour while she destroys herself.

It is not in such devious ways that Catholicism will find 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.

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2005

Preservation Technologies

A World Leader In Paper Preservation

111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724) 779-2111]

End of Project Gutenberg's Meditations And Moral Sketches, by François Guizot