In the great industrial conflict now reaching its height, one may safely prophesy Protestantism will perish--or be transformed.
She has taught her children to think; she has taught them to cherish freedom; she has not taught them to love.
Since by far the most of any readers this little book may be fortunate enough to find will be Protestant, it may be fitting and useful to point out more specifically the defects of Protestantism than the defects of other forms of Christianity among whose adherents, probably, the writer can scarcely hope to find many readers.
The Protestant Reformation, so far as it was not a struggle for liberty, national and intellectual and religious, was a doctrinal reformation. There was not much more of the spirit of Jesus, His gentleness, meekness, love, on one side than on the other. Erasmus understood Christianity on the whole better than Luther. Sir Thomas More was more Christian than John Calvin.
The Protestant Reformation was in its successful forms marked by little sympathy with the poor and the oppressed. It declined to recognize any duties to the serf except that of giving him the Gospel. Luther washed his hands of the peasants and calmly abandoned them to the savage vengeance of the princes when they refused to be satisfied with the liberty of Gospel preaching.
Protestantism has been, except in a few despised sects, militant, dogmatic, self-reliant, in a word, masculine. The gentler feminine characteristics of Christianity it has very slightly recognized.
When we think of the genius of Protestantism, we think of a humble monk, in the majesty of a conscientious conviction defying the two most powerful rulers of Europe, the Pope and the Emperor; we think of the indomitable sea-beggars of Holland and the heroic defence of Leyden; of the white-plumed Henry of Navarre and the battles of the League; of the splendidly audacious execution of Charles I., of Jenny Geddes' stool, the solemn League and Covenant and the bloody field of Drumclog; of the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, singing Luther's great hymn, Ein'feste Burg ist unser Gott, as they moved on to the glorious but dear-bought victory of Lützen; we think of the massacre of Drogheda and the undying defence of Derry; and of that typical Protestant and superb fighter, the rugged, dour, and unconquerable Ulster man whose unrelenting opposition and deep-rooted passion for domination have been so great an obstacle to Irish peace and the unity of the English-speaking world. Protestantism has had a great and a beneficent and a heroic history, but it has reproduced only imperfectly the Christianity of Jesus.
Meekness and long-suffering were outstanding characteristics of Jesus and of His early followers; they have rarely been outstanding characteristics of Protestantism. Perhaps Protestantism has been of necessity a man of war from its youth. Yet primitive Christianity encountered fiercer persecution and did not take the sword. Protestantism did not suffer long before she grasped the sword. She has, on the whole, followed Christ's precepts of non-resistance never when she had a fighting chance.
Primitive Christianity by patience and love conquered and Christianized the Roman Empire in three hundred years. Protestantism in more than three hundred years has gained not a foot beyond the territory won in the first rush of evangelical enthusiasm, and has lost territories she at first held. It is the demonstration of the futility of a fighting Christianity. Nowhere has the interaction of the two religions been associated with more fighting than in Ireland, and nowhere has Protestantism as an evangelical missionary force been more of a failure.
Gentleness, patience, humility have not been the strong points of Protestantism. She has been proud, vigorous, masterful, impatient of control, and to her have been given the kingdoms of the world. But not to her has been given the Kingdom Jesus promised to the meek.