IX.
We have now reached the end of our task. The Revolution of 1848 has as yet exercised no considerable action upon the Reformed communion, taken as a whole. If during the past three years the Protestants of France have held assemblies whereat new projects of ecclesiastical organization have been framed, nothing has as yet been actually accomplished.
The provisional government, pre-engaged with so many other matters, did not touch religious affairs. It only passed a decree declaring that all citizens detained in prison for acts relating to the free exercise of their religion, should be immediately set at liberty, and that all fines which they had been condemned to pay, should be remitted. This was a homage rendered, as the preamble expressed, to the most precious and the most sacred of all liberties.
The only question at the same time religious and political, which was discussed after the Revolution by the press and in the popular assemblies, respected the separation of Church and State. A placard posted on the walls of Paris, on the 24th of February, demanded as the wish of the people, absolute liberty of conscience, and complete independence of the two powers. It was known that M. de Lamartine, then at the summit of popularity, approved of this system, and M. de Lamennais maintained it with the utmost energy in his new journal, Le Peuple Constituant.
Those of the Protestants who were in favour of the principle of independence, formed a society for the application of Christianity to social questions, and published a placard declaring that—“It is unjust to compel a citizen to contribute to the expense of a worship, which he does not follow. That the support of religious creeds should no longer be borne by the public exchequer, but that every one should be left to provide for the form of worship he shall have freely chosen.... Thus, religious creeds would be propagated by those who accepted them, and there would be no more privileged religions. Thus, the State would no longer have its attention engaged by questions full of embarrassment or danger. Thus, the budget would be relieved to the extent of more than forty millions of francs. Thus, in short, the whole French people would be as free and equal in religious matters, as they are [were] in political matters.”
Nothing was impossible in the midst of the universal confusion of minds and institutions. The defenders of the communions officially recognised were kept in a state of anxious expectation, ready to submit to separation if it were pronounced by the Constituent Assembly, but showing their preference for the maintenance of the union of Church and State.
Some delegates of the Reformed churches assembled spontaneously at Paris, in the month of May, 1848. They had been in a manner convoked by the common necessities and apprehensions. There was no regularity in the origin of their mandates; some had been appointed by universal suffrage, others by the consistories, or even by the presidents of the consistories. Nor was there any proportion in the representation: certain churches, in the neighbourhood of Paris, reckoned five or six delegates for a single consistorial circuit; while on the other hand, some churches had only sent one deputy for three or four consistories. There, lastly, was no uniformity in the powers of the delegates: some were authorized to enter fully into a discussion of ecclesiastical questions, and others were not. Such an assembly could only prepare the way for a body more regularly chosen by the members of legal Protestantism.
The meeting first debated the question of the relations between Church and State, and the great majority were in favour of preserving the alliance, reserving expressly the dignity and liberty of the Church. An electoral regulation was then framed for the formation of an assembly, which might consider the affairs of the communion, with an established title.
This new assembly commenced its session on the 11th of September, 1848. The members were elected by suffrage of two degrees, the body of the flocks having chosen the electors intrusted with the appointment of the delegates. Each of the ninety-two consistorial churches was invited to nominate an ecclesiastical or a lay deputy. Only three consistories abstained, beside the two theological facilities of Montauban and Strasbourg, which sent no representatives. The number of members present at the assembly was not more than from seventy to eighty. It was, for the rest, an entirely non-official assembly. It received no authority from any legal text; the government did not recognise it, and the churches were quite free to accept its resolutions or to reject them.
Long and serious questions were agitated regarding the confessions of faith. Finally, the assembly decided, almost unanimously, that in accordance with the wish of the generality of the churches, it would not touch upon dogmatical subjects, and that the question should be deferred until a more opportune time. An address was drawn up, in which the majority expressed its common belief, without resolving the controverted points of doctrine in one sense or another.
Some of the members protested against this decision, and withdrew. They have since formed, with the independent congregations already in being, a new religious society, under the name of the Union of the Evangelical Churches of France. Their particular synod was opened on the 20th of August, 1849, and drew up a profession of faith, and an ecclesiastical constitution for the flocks it represented.
Having avoided the questions of dogma, the general assembly of September discussed a scheme of organization for a legal establishment. Universal suffrage, under certain restrictions, lay at the base of the plan; the individual church was reconstituted as an essential element of the Presbyterian system; the institution of the general consistories was preserved, but made subordinate to the particular synods; finally, as the centre and crown of the ecclesiastical edifice, there was to be a general synod, which should meet at regular intervals.
The minister of public worship, to whom this project was communicated, applied to the churches for their opinions upon it. The consistories, while they were unanimous in asking for important modifications in the law of the 18th Germinal, did not agree upon the articles of the new plan of organization, and it is uncertain whether it will become the object of a legislative measure.
While Protestantism endeavoured to modify its internal government and its relations to the civil authority, the national assembly discussed the constitution. It adopted the two following articles: “Every one professes his religion freely, and receives from the State an equal protection for the exercise of his creed. The ministers of creeds actually recognised by the law, and of those which shall be recognised in future, have a right to receive support from the State.”
It will be remarked that the (Roman) Catholic religion is no longer named in the fundamental law. Not only has it ceased to be the State religion, but it has not even preserved the distinction given to it in the Concordat of Napoleon, and the Charter of 1830, namely, that of being the religion of the majority of the French people. There is no privilege, then, for (Roman) Catholicism; but a full, perfect, and absolute equality among all the recognised creeds, in such a manner that the constitution would be violated if the government granted to the Romish church any pre-eminence whatsoever. It has exhausted three centuries of efforts and struggles to gain the inscription of this great rule of justice upon the laws, and perhaps it has to be still better learned and applied by the manners of the people. A nation educated in (Roman) Catholicism practises with greater difficulty than any other, the complete equality of religious communions.
It is to be further observed, that this equality exists only for the creeds which are, or shall be recognised by the State. The advocates of the system of separation have not been satisfied with it, and the question of the suppression of the budget for the creeds continues to be mooted by some organs of the religious and political press. It is a problem for the future to resolve.
The conduct of the different governments that have presided over the destinies of France since the Revolution of 1848, has given rise to more than one dispute, whether on the part of the independent societies and churches, or whether on the part of official Protestantism. But we will not dwell upon facts that date only from yesterday. The country is in a period of crisis and transition; nothing is settled; and this fluctuating position explains many things, without, however, justifying them. Let us hope that the freedom and equality of creeds will eventually succeed in establishing themselves in the minds of the nation, as they have in the laws, and that they will become a sovereign maxim of conduct for the governing and the governed.[149]
French Protestantism has written nearly nothing within the last three years. It collects itself in the presence of the great political events that are passing; it observes, it waits. New ideas are commencing there as elsewhere. What will be the issue? God alone knows; for us, it is sufficient to know that God reigns. He has given to the Reformed churches of France days of faith and of triumph; He has protected them during long generations, against the blows of the persecutor; and His hand, that hath guarded the fathers, will not forsake the children.
THE END.
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