It may be remarked that by this evolution, and under its Protestant form, the Christian principle was only returning to its pure essence and its primitive expression. It could only recognise itself, take cognisance of its true nature, separate itself from that which was not itself; it could only disencumber itself of every material, temporary, or local element, of all by which it had become surcharged in the course of ages, and which was neither religious nor moral, by remounting to its source, and by renewing its strength, through reflection and criticism, at its original springs. That is why Protestantism has taken the form of this return to the past, for in it Christianity does not surpass itself; it simply tries to know itself better and to become more faithful to its principle. In the consciousness of Christ, what did we find was the essence of the perfect and eternal piety? Nothing more than moral repentance, confidence in the love of the Father and the filial sense of His immediate, active presence in the heart: the indestructible foundation of our liberty, of our moral dignity, of our security, in face of the enigmas of the universe and the mysteries of death. Is it not to this eternal gospel that we must always return? To finish its course and complete its work, will humanity ever discover another viaticum that will better renew its courage and its hope?
5. Conclusion
Here I must stop. At the outset I spoke of a personal confession, and it seems to me as if it were nearly complete. In sketching the broad outlines of the religious history of humanity, I have had but one object; I have wished to show the men of my generation why I remain religious, Christian, and Protestant. I am religious because I am a man and do not desire to be less than human, and because humanity, in me and in my race, commences and completes itself in religion and by religion. I am Christian because I cannot be religious in any other way, and because Christianity is the perfect and supreme form of religion in this world. Lastly, I am Protestant, not from any confessional zeal, nor from racial attachment to the family of Huguenots, although I thank God daily that I was born in that family, but because in Protestantism alone can I enjoy the heritage of Christ—that is to say, because in it I can be a Christian without placing my conscience under any external yoke, and because I can fortify myself in communion with and in adoration of an immanent Deity by consecrating to Him the activity of my intellect, the natural affections of my heart, and find in this moral consecration the free expansion and development of my whole being.
Under this new form, divested of the swaddling-clothes by which at first it was bound, Christianity always seems to me to be best as it is, a spiritual and eternal principle, which brings peace to the soul, and which alone can give harmony and unity to the world. Nothing can contradict it except evil and error; everything serves and strengthens it. It is this principle which to my eyes manifests itself with ever-growing clearness in that heroic love of Science which, in our time, has created so many marvels and made so many martyrs; this it is which reveals itself to me in the works of all the great artists, in that ideal of beauty which enraptures them and brings such generous tears into our eyes; it is this which I honour and bless in the efforts of men who interest themselves in the future of humanity, and who in the political direction of their country or in the work of social education seek and find some means of raising and ameliorating the condition of the people: I salute it in the illustrious apostles of all great causes and in the obscure workers at all humble tasks, from the mother who teaches her children to join their hands and bend their knees before the Father in Heaven, to the preacher and the missionary who faithfully distribute to the hungry soul the bread of the Gospel, from the sister of charity who devotes her life to the solace of the sick and suffering, to the thinker who fathoms the mysteries of the heart and of the universe in order that he may shed on the paths of erring humanity some rays of light and joy.
Amid the twilight that envelopes us you predict the threatening night; I see the day that is about to dawn with a new century. Where you see nothing but discords, conflicts, and confusion, I see a concourse of forces which, coming from all points of the horizon, are still ignorant of each other, and, because ignorant, conflicting, but which, by these very conflicts and collisions, are labouring together in the common work of elevation and salvation: the mysterious work whose nature Christ defined in His Gospel, and whose motive-power he created by breathing into the human heart His own fraternal love. Since then there has been a secret inquietude at the heart of all egoisms, a sentence of condemnation on the brow of all abuses and all tyrannies. The modern world can never settle down again into repose, or fall asleep in evil and in slavery; it has had a vision it cannot forget; it has been touched with a flame that cannot be quenched. Many who are often the best collaborators in this work of redemption know not whence it comes and whither it tends; they even blaspheme the Christ who inspires it and the God who maintains it. They know not what they do, nor what they say: in their ignorance they calumniate that which is best both in their life and in themselves.