In short, in Protestantism there is much of Christianity but there is also much simply of the old Teutonic spirit. Protestantism is not pure or primitive or ultimate Christianity. It is Teutonic Christianity, no more fitted to prevail than Greek or Latin Christianity. It is the faith of the fighter, the wrestler, the individualist.
Perhaps no community calling itself Christian suggests so remotely the tender name Jesus gave His disciples, "my sheep." Who, looking on a prosperous Protestant congregation in town or country, with shrewdness, vigilance, self-reliance written on almost every face, would think of saying, "Fear not, little flock"? Freedom is what Protestantism has demanded and fought for, freedom to think for herself and take her own course and fight her own battles, every kind of freedom but one, the only freedom that need not be fought for, that can never be fought for,--freedom to love and to serve.
Protestantism in its original form is passing away; it has run its course; its day is nearing its close. Where it has not caught the vision of the new and the Great Christianity, its churches are being deserted, its preachers are being seized with stammering lips and despondent heart,[#] Its spirit cannot solve the problems of the new age. It must become meek and lowly in heart. It must learn to love. Rich man and poor man must stand in its churches as they stand in the sight of God. Like medieval Christianity, it calls for a new Reformation--not a new creed but a new heart, the heart of a little child, humble, self-distrustful, not quick to resent, or even to see a slight, eager to love, delighting to serve.
[#] These words are written with reverent recognition of the innumerable forms of ministry to the bodies and souls of men that are being carried on by devoted men and women in the Protestant Churches, but, also, with the full conviction that these are slight and partial compared with the outburst of devotion and service which will be aroused when the vision of the new Christianity seizes great masses of men and women as the passion for freedom seized Germany in the years 1517 to 1524 or France in 1789.
Never were the young men and women of Protestant lands so ready for a great task, but that task must be broadly Christian and broadly human. It must be a spiritual task but of a spirituality interwoven inextricably with politics, business, and sport.
Luther cannot help us here with his callousness to the wrongs and miseries of the peasants, nor Knox with his harshness and his militancy, nor Calvin with his hatred of those whom he thought God's enemies, nor the Puritans nor the Covenanters with their bigotry and their blow for blow and curse for curse.
Another deep lack is in Protestantism. In Isaiah's vision of the seraphim above the throne of God, "each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly." Two wings for service and four for worship! A Roman Catholic, meeting a friend who had become a Protestant, asked him how he liked his new faith. "I like it well," answered the other, "but one thing I miss, and that is the spirit of adoration."
How strange to us in Roman Catholic pictures are the faces of the saints upturned in adoration to the Mother and the holy Child! Protestantism does not produce faces like those. Shrewd, intelligent, alert, at best reliable, frank, kindly, they often are; humble, not often; reverent, adoring, still more rarely. Yet Goethe has said, "The highest thing in life is the thrill of awe." And Carlyle, too, "Thought without reverence is barren and poisonous."
Protestantism tends to be shallow, with the thinness and hardness and tinniness of mere intellectualism. It needs to tap great fountains of tenderness, humility, adoration, to be deepened, mellowed, enriched. Of the two ultra types of worship--the bright church, comfortable with plush cushions and glittering with brass work, where the people sit with wide-open eyes and curiously watch the preacher while he prays, and where the preacher with conscious cleverness clears up all the mysteries of life and coloratura quartettes display their technique (an ultra type, confessedly, and not common, but actual), and the dim church with the drooping Christ on the cross and pictured saints gazing in adoration and the congregation on their knees before the divine Presence in the Sacrament, one may be a convinced Protestant and yet believe the latter form of worship the more fruitful of the two.
American Protestantism needs new inspiration. So far as the past can yield this, it would seem that it should look particularly to three great leaders and saints--St. Francis of Assisi, St. John of England (to use W. T. Stead's deserved designation of John Wesley), and General Booth.