V.

Another cause of inferiority among Catholic populations lies in the fact that the religious sentiment is weaker amongst their intelligent and governing classes than in Protestant countries. This fact is, I think, denied by no one. The episcopal writings affirm it daily, and claim for religion the same respect which she enjoys in England and America. The enemies of all religion upbraid the Americans and the English with what they call their narrow bigotry: page 52 the strict observance of Sunday rest, the public prayers and fasts, and lastly their rigid piety.

Two causes explain why religion preserves more life and authority among the enlightened classes of Protestantism.

First, Catholicism, by reason of its multiplied dogmas, its occasionally puerile ceremonies, its miracles, and its pilgrimages,^* places itself outside the atmosphere of modern thought, while Protestantism, by reason of its simplicity, and its various forms, capable as they are of indefinite improvement, can adapt itself thereto. M. Renan says very well, "The formation of new sects, which Catholics bring as a mark of weakness against Protestants, proves on the contrary that the religious sentiment still lives amongst the latter, since it is creative. There is nothing more dead than that which is motionless."

The apathy with which two new dogmas have recently been accepted, which formerly would have roused the strongest opposition and have led to schism, is a sign of an incredible enfeeblement of all

^* Agassiz, in his 'Voyage an Brésil,' writes thus on the subject of the influence of Catholicism in that country: "The priest is the instructor of the people. He must cease to believe that the mind can be contented to be nourished exclusively on grotesque processions, with coloured saints, lighted tapers, and cheap nosegays. As long as the people do not demand another sort of religious instruction, they will continue in their downward course, or will not be able to improve."

page 53 intellectual life in the bosom of Catholicism. The excesses of superstition lead inevitably to infidelity. The challenge thrown down to reason by the Church leads those who refuse to abdicate their use of it, to reject all religious worship. A French writer, M. Géruzet, has pourtrayed this situation in an incisive sketch: "The father of a family, who believes in God without believing in St. Cupertin, is in great difficulty between his religious daughters and atheistic sons. The Lord deliver us from atheism and from the worship of St. Cupertin!"^* Evidently "the worship of St. Cupertin" engenders Atheism, and the two have brought France to the position in which we behold her, because there is no longer room for a reasonable religion.

Catholicism produces such complete indifference in religious matters, that even the strength requisite honestly to leave the Church is wanting. We see Protestants becoming Catholics, because, preserving some religious faith, they seek the true religion and believe that Rome offers it to them. Few Catholics become Protestants, because they have become hostile or indifferent to every species of religion. This indifference again is useful to the Church, because it prevents

^* In tracing the biography of Géruzet, Prévost-Paradol quotes an irreverent but striking saying of his: "The nations which neglect themselves are covered with monks—they are the vermin of the social body." On this point, however, some reserve might, perhaps, be called for.

page 54 men from withdrawing themselves completely from her authority, and she always ends by recovering the children of her adversaries.

The second motive which leads Catholic populations to infidelity and priestophobia is, that, as the Church^* shows herself to be hostile to modern ideas and liberties, all those who are attached to the latter are led, often against their own wishes, to hate and resist her. Voltaire's cry of hatred, "Écrasons l'infâme," becomes logically and everywhere the avowed or unavowed word of command of liberalism. The liberal attacks, and must attack, priests and monks without intermission, because they wish to enslave society to the Pope, and to his delegates, the Bishops. He cannot respect the dogma by means of which he is to be deprived of liberty.

We have established the fact and its causes, let us now see its consequences.

The first is, that the efforts to free from Roman dominion the countries which have revolted from her, in the name of a simple negation or of a reasoning scepticism, cannot be successful. No nation has ever made a more violent effort to succeed in this enterprise than France. She has employed all the means in her power with incomparable vigour and brilliancy: the reasoning of philosophy and the banter of fiction, the satire of comedy and the eloquence of the Forum, the

^* See letter to the Editor of the Times, printed at the end.

page 55 torch of the incendiary, the stealthy sap of the miner, and the guillotine.

At this moment clericalism reigns in France; it hands over all instruction to the Jesuits, and prepares the return of a monarchy wholly devoted to the Church. Her influence increases rapidly, and, as in Belgium, seems to become irresistible. This follows from the fact that, in religious matters, we can destroy nothing but what we replace. If, in politics, as in natural science, reverence were paid to the lessons of experience, this truth would be admitted as an axiom by all unprejudiced people. Free-thought will not break down the dominion of the Church; on the contrary, it will rather strengthen it by the terror which it inspires, for it does not satisfy the deep desires of the human heart.

Thus the attempt to destroy Catholicism without replacing it does not attain its end, but gives rise to the revolutionary spirit. See how this spirit characterises all Catholic populations, in America as in Europe, whilst observers are struck by its absence even among the radical democracies of the United States. Protestants respect both law and authority. Catholics, unable either to found liberty, or to do without it, make despotism necessary, and yet will not submit to it. Hence arises an ever active leaven of rebellion. When the evil reaches its final limit, the country oscillates between anarchy and despotism, consuming all its strength in this struggle of irreconcilable parties. This is the picture presented to our page 56 eyes by Spain, and by other States which are arriving at a similar condition. Whence comes the evil? I believe the cause to be as follows.

Regulated liberty is not possible without good morals. Now the ministers of public worship are in reality the only persons who speak of morality and of duty to the people. If these men be discredited in the minds of the great mass of the population, who will replace them in this, their indispensable office? Certainly it will not be the free-thinkers. Guizot has admirably said, that Christianity is a great school of respect. If, in order the better to defend liberty, the spirit of liberal Voltairianism shakes the authority of Catholicism, as it must do, the respect even for legitimate authority disappears, and gives place to a spirit of opposition, of disparagement, of hatred and insurrection. Thus is produced the revolutionary temperament of Catholic populations.^* Only by complete submission to Rome, as was formerly the case with Spain, and now with the Tyrol, do they live in peace. If they attempt to emancipate themselves, they escape with difficulty from anarchy.