XVI.
THE RELIGIOUS FUTURE OF AMERICA.
In the Revue des Deux Mondes of October 15, 1860, M. Renan wrote a remarkable article on the "Future of Religion in Modern Society." This paper of course dealt largely with questions that were interesting at that time, but it also contains very acute observations on the whole subject, which are of universal concern. His conclusions are that neither Judaism nor Romanism nor the established forms of Protestantism will constitute the coming faith, which must be spiritual (that is, free of space and time), undogmatical, and enfranchised. "The religious question," he says, "finds its solution in liberty.... The liberal principle pre-eminently is that man has a soul, that he is to be reached only through the soul, that nothing is of value save as it effects a change in the soul. An inflexible justice, granting with inexorable firmness liberty to all, even to those who, were they masters, would refuse it to their adversaries, is the only issue that reason discovers for the grave problems raised in our time." This essay, along with that of Emile de Laveleye of Liège in Belgium, on the "Religious Future of Civilized Communities," written in 1876, sums up the whole question. It only remains to apply their principles to America.
Many dread the prevalence of Roman Catholicism. I confess I never could share in that apprehension. For if there is anything certain it is the unchangeableness of the lines of division that separate the three great regions of the earth, each having its own faith. There is the Greek Church, which rules in Asia; the Latin Church, which is confined to the Latin races, and is strongest in Southern Italy, where the people are most ignorant and supine; and the Protestant Church, which prevails in Northern Europe among the Germanic nations. As Renan says:
Nothing will come of the mutual struggle of the three Christian families; their equilibrium is as well assured as that of the three great races which share between them the world; their separation will secure the future against the excessive predominance of a single religious power, just as the division of Europe must forever prevent the return of that orbis romanus, that closed circle, which allowed no possible escape from the tyranny that unity has engendered.
Moreover, the Roman Catholic faith is essentially Italian, and as such can have no permanent influence in Germany, England, or America. The great popes of the Middle Ages, whose genius raised the papacy to power and splendor, were Italians. Italy, until a few years ago, was isolated; not a great political power, as it is now, among other powers of Europe, nor drawn by political affiliations into the schemes of other dominions. Besides, the Catholic Church had the advantages of the Italian genius for organization, command, wisdom in practical affairs. Then, too, it had the immense benefit of the old Roman treasures of art, which gave a glory to the system. These considerations alone would make it impossible that Romanism, in its foreign form, should ever become the religion of the United States. There may be another kind of ecclesiasticism, but without the ancient authority; an ecclesiasticism which stands for pomp, ornament, display, beauty, but not for anything more. There is evidence that every form of religion here is disposed to take on elements of decoration,—architecture, music, stained glass, drapery, pictures, and monuments; but this is only a sign of increasing wealth, not of increasing subjection.
In addition to all this, the genius of the American people is strongly against anything like submission to authority. The love of liberty is exceedingly powerful. It is claimed that Romanism is not committed to any form of government, that it is as favorable to republican institutions as to monarchical; but this is not the opinion of Renan, who was born and trained in the church, and who is therefore entitled to speak with knowledge; nor is it the opinion of other scholars, Martineau for instance, who says in his article on the "Battle of the Churches" (Westminster Review, January, 1851):
We are convinced it cannot occupy the scope which English traditions and English usage have secured; that every step it may make is an encroachment upon wholesome liberty; that it is innocent only where it is insignificant, and where it is ascendant will neither part with power nor use it well, and that it must needs raise to the highest pitch the common vice of tyranny and democracy,—the relentless crushing of minorities.
But whether this charge of absolutism be just or not, Romanism has been so long associated as a polity with monarchical governments that it has contracted a habit of domineering, and the people can never be persuaded that the papacy is democratic in its constitution.