The Protestant pastor had no selfish reason for his profession; he had nothing to hope for; he was lured by no promise of an abbey, nor could he expect to be rewarded for his open revolt against the King's church. Looking at it in its most illusive light, his was a bad business; there was nothing in it to tempt the favourites of the great; not even a lackey could find advantage in appointment to the Protestant ministry, and no man entered upon the painful life of the Protestant pastor unless forced by an all-mastering vocation. The cause of the Reformation was safe because it was in the hands of men who boasted of "a judge that no king could corrupt," and who believed that they had armed themselves with "the panoply of God." The pastors laboured with unfailing zeal, first to kindle the spark of a faith separated from all earthly interests; next to nourish sincere belief in God as the vital principle of religious life. Under their influence the Protestants of the upper middle classes and the Protestants of the lower classes—there were still fewer of the latter than of the former—not only practised, but lived their religion, giving an example of good conduct and of intelligent appreciation of the name and the meaning of their profession. Their adversaries were forced to render them the homage due to their efforts and their sincerity. They, the Protestants, were charitable in the true sense of the term; they loved the brethren; they cared for the bodies as well as for the souls of the poor; they proved their love for their fellows by guarding the public welfare; they kept the laws and, whenever it was possible, enforced them. The pastors knew that they must practise what they preached, and, profiting by the examples of the ignoble priests, they set a guard upon their words and movements, lest their disciples should question their sincerity. They were austere, energetic, and devoted to their people and to their cause. They were convinced that they were warders of the inheritance of the saints, and they patrolled their circuit, and went about in the name of Christ proclaiming the mercy of God and warning men of Eternity and of The Judgment.
Let us be loyal to our convictions and give to those early pastors the credit due to their candour and to their efforts; they surpassed us in many ways. They were learned; they were versed in science, kind to strangers, strict in morality, brotherly to the poor.
François de Sales said of them: "The Protestants were Christians; Catholicism was not Christian."[104]
So matters stood—the churches ruined and abandoned, Religion mocked and the priests despised[105]—when a little phalanx of devoted men arose to rescue the wrecked body of the French Clergy. They organised systematically, but their plan of action was independent. François de Sales was among the first who broke ground for the difficult work. He was a calm, cool man, indifferent to abuse, firm in the conviction that his power was from God. There were many representatives of the Church, but few like him. One of his chroniclers dwelt upon his "exalted indifference to insult" another, speaking of his "supernatural patience," said:
"A Du Perron could not have stopped short in an argument with a heretic, but, on the other hand, a Du Perron would not have converted the heretic by the ardour of his forbearing kindness." Strowski said of de Sales that he "saw as the wise see, and lived among men not as a nominal Christian but as a man of God, gifted with omniscience." By living in the world de Sales had learned that a germ of religion was still alive in many of the abandoned souls; he knew that there were a few who were truly Catholic; he knew that those few were cherishing their faith, but he saw that they lived isolated lives, away from the world, and he believed that the limitations of their spiritual hermitage hindered their usefulness. De Sales believed in a community of religion and Christian love. The few who cherished their religion were a class by themselves. They knew and respected each other, they theorised abstractly upon the prevailing evils, but they had no thought of bettering man's condition. Their sorrows had turned their thoughts to woeful contemplation of their helplessness, and all their hopes were straining forward toward the peaceful cloister and the silent intimacy of monachism. For them the uses of life were as a tale that is told. They had no thought of public service, they were timid, they abhorred sin and shrank from sinners, their isolation had developed their tendency to mysticism, and the best efforts of their minds were concentrated upon hypotheses.
Père François believed that they and all who loved God could do good work in the world. He did not believe in controversy, he did not believe in silencing skeptics with overwhelming arguments. He used his own means in his own way; but his task was hard and his progress slow, and months passed before he was able to form a working plan. His idea was to revive religious feeling and spiritual zeal, to increase the piety of life in community, to exemplify the love which teaches man to live at peace with his brother, to fulfil his mission as the son of man made in the likeness of God, and to act his part as an intelligent member of an orderly solidarity. De Sales's first work was difficult, but not long after his mission-house was established he saw that his success was sure, and he then appointed deputies and began his individual labour for the revival of religious thought. He knew that the people loved to reason, and he had resolved to develop their intelligence and to open their minds to Truth: the strong principle of all reform. His doubt of the utility of controversy had been confirmed by the spectacle of the recluses of the Church. Study had convinced him that theologians had taken the wrong road and exaggerated the spiritual influence of the "power of piety." He believed in the practical piety of Charity, and he accepted as his appointed task the awakening of Christian love. His impelling force was not the bigotry which
proves religion orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks,
nor was it the contemplative faith which, by living in convents, deprives the world of the example of its fervour; it was that practical manifestation of the grace of God "which fits the citizen for civil life and forms him for the world."
In the end Père François's religion became purely practical and he had but one aim: the awakening of the soul.