All over Europe this decline is still going on; ecclesiastical establishments are breaking down; other establishments are a-building up. Pius the Ninth seems likely to fulfil his own prophecy, and be the last of the Popes; I mean the last with temporal power. There is a great schism in the north of Europe; the Germans will be Catholics, but no longer Roman. The old forms of piety, such as service in Latin, the withholding of the Bible from the people, compulsory confession, the ungrateful celibacy of a reluctant priesthood—all these are protested against. It is of no avail that the holy coat of Jesus, at Treves, works greater miracles than the apostolical napkins and aprons; of no avail that the Virgin Mary appeared on the nineteenth of September, 1846, to two shepherd-children, at La Salette, in France. What are such things to Ronge and Wessenberg? Neither the miraculous coat, nor the miraculous mother, avails aught against this untoward generation, charm they never so wisely. The decline of piety goes on. By the new Constitution of France, all forms of religion are equal; the Catholic and the Protestant, the Mahometan and the Jew, are equally sheltered under the broad shield of the law. Even Spain, the fortress walled and moated about, whither the spirit of the middle ages retired and shut herself up long since, womanning her walls with unmanly priests and kings, with unfeminine queens and nuns—even Spain fails with the general failure. British capitalists buy up her convents and nunneries, to turn them into woollen mills. Monks and nuns forget their beads in some new handicraft; sister Mary, who sat still in the house, is now also busy with serving, careful, indeed, about more things than formerly, but not cumbered nor troubled as before. Meditative Rachels, and Hannahs, long unblest, who sat in solitude, have now become like practical Dorcas, making garments for the poor; the Bank is become more important than the Inquisition. The order of St. Francis d'Assisi, of St. Benedict, even of St. Dominic himself, is giving way before the new order of Arkwright, Watt, and Fulton,—the order of the spinning jenny and the power-loom. It is no longer books on the miraculous conception, or meditations on the five wounds of the Saviour, or commentaries on the song of songs which is Solomon's, that get printed there: but fiery novels of Eugene Sue, and George Sand; and so extremes meet.
Protestant establishments share the same peril. A new sect of Protestants rises up in Germany, who dissent as much from the letter and spirit of Protestantism, as the Protestants from Catholicism; men that will not believe the infallibility of the Bible, the doctrine of the Trinity, the depravity of man, the eternity of future punishment, nor justification by faith—a justification before God, for mere belief before men. The new spirit gets possession of new men, who cannot be written down, nor even howled down. Excommunication or abuse does no good on such men as Bauer, Strauss, and Schwegler; and it answers none of their questions. It seems pretty clear, that in all the north of Germany, within twenty years, there will be entire freedom of worship, for all sects, Protestant and Catholic.
In England, Protestantism has done its work less faithfully than in Germany. The Protestant spirit of England came here two hundred years ago, so that new and Protestant England is on the west of the ocean; in England, an established church lies there still, an iceberg in the national garden. But even there, the decline of the ecclesiastical form of piety is apparent: the new bishops must not sit in the House of Lords, till the old ones die out, for the number of lords spiritual must not increase, though the temporal may; the new attempt, at Oxford and elsewhere, to restore the Middle Ages, will not prosper. Bring back all the old rites and forms into Leeds and Manchester; teach men the theology of Thomas Aquinas, or of St. Bernard; bid them adore the uplifted wafer, as the very God, men who toil all day with iron mills, who ride in steam-drawn coaches, and talk by lightning in a whisper, from the Irk to the Thames,—they will not consent to the philosophy or the theology of the Middle Ages, nor be satisfied with the old forms of piety, which, though too elevated for their fathers in the time of Elizabeth, are yet too low for them, at least too antiquated. Dissenters have got into the House of Commons; the test-act is repealed, and a man can be a captain in the army, or a postmaster in a village, without first taking the Lord's Supper, after the fashion of the Church of England. Some men demand the abandonment of tithes, the entire separation of Church and State, the return to "The voluntary principle" in religion. "The battering ram which levelled old Sarum," and other boroughs as corrupt, now beats on the church, and the "Church is in danger." Men complain of the decline of piety in England. An intelligent and very serious writer, not long ago, lamenting this decline, in proof thereof, relates, that formerly men began their last wills, "In the name of God, Amen;" and headed bills of lading with, "Shipped in good order, by the grace of God;" that indictments for capital crimes charged the culprit with committing felony, "At the instigation of the devil," and now, he complains, these forms have gone out of use.
In America, in New England, in Boston, when measured by that standard, the same decline of piety is apparent. It is often said that our material condition is better than our moral; that in advance of our spiritual condition. There is a common clerical complaint of a certain thinness in the churches; men do not give their bodily attendance, as once they did; they are ready enough to attend lectures, two or three in a week, no matter how scientific and abstract, or how little connected with their daily work, yet they cannot come to the church without teasing beforehand, nor keep awake while there. It is said the minister is not respected as formerly. True, a man of power is respected, heard, sought, and followed, but it is for his power, for his words of grace and truth, not for his place in a pulpit; he may have more influence as a man, but less as a clergyman. Ministers lament a prevalent disbelief of their venerable doctrines; that there is a concealed skepticism in regard to them, often not concealed. This, also, is a well-founded complaint; the well-known dogmas of theology were never in worse repute; there was never so large a portion of the community in New England who were doubtful of the Trinity, of eternal damnation, of total depravity, of the atonement, of the Godhead of Jesus, of the miracles of the New Testament, and of the truth of every word of the Bible. A complaint is made, that the rites and forms which are sometimes called "the ordinances of religion," are neglected; that few men join the church, and though the old hedge is broken down before the altar, yet the number of communicants diminishes, and it is no longer able-headed men, the leaders of society, who come; that the ordinances seem haggard and ghastly to young men, who cannot feed their hungry souls on such a thin pittance of spiritual aliment as these afford; that the children are not baptized. These things are so; so in Europe, Catholic and Protestant; so in America, so in Boston. Notwithstanding the well-founded complaint that our modern churches are too costly for the times, we do not build temples which bear so high a proportion to our wealth as the early churches of Boston; the attendance at meeting does not increase as the population; the ministers are not prominent, as in the days of Wilson, of Cotton, and of Norton; their education is not now in the same proportion to the general culture of the times. Harvard College, dedicated to "Christ and the Church," designed at first chiefly for the education of the clergy, graduates few ministers; theological literature no longer overawes all other. The number of church members was never so small in proportion to the voters as now; the number of Protestant births never so much exceeded the number of Protestant baptisms. Young men of superior ability and superior education have little affection for the ministry; take little interest in the welfare of the church. Nay, youths descended from a wealthy family seldom look that way. It is poor men's sons, men of obscure family, who fill the pulpits; often, likewise, men of slender ability, eked out with an education proportionately scant. The most active members of the churches are similar in position, ability, and culture. These are undeniable facts. They are not peculiar to New England. You find them wherever the voluntary principle is resorted to. In England, in Catholic countries, you find the old historic names in the Established Church; there is no lack of aristocratic blood in clerical veins; but there and everywhere the church seems falling astern of all other craft which can keep the sea.
Since these things are so, men who have only the conventional standard wherewith to measure the amount of piety, only that test to prove its existence by, think we are rapidly going to decay; that the tabernacle is fallen down, and no man rises to set it up. They complain that Zion is in distress; theological newspapers lament that there are no revivals to report; that "The Lord has withheld His arm," and does not "pour out His Spirit upon the churches." Ghastly meetings are held by men with sincere and noble heart, but saddened face; speeches are made which seem a groan of linked wailings long drawn out. Men mourn at the infidelity of the times, at the coldness of some, at the deadness of others. All the sects complain of this, yet each loves to attribute the deadness of the rival sects to their special theology; it is Unitarianism which is choking the Unitarians, say their foes, and the Unitarians know how to retort after the same fashion. The less enlightened put the blame of this misfortune on the good God who has somehow "withheld His hand," or omitted to "pour out His Spirit,"—the people perishing for want of the open vision. Others put the blame on mankind; some on "poor human nature," which is not what might have been expected, not perceiving that if the fault be there it is not for us to remedy, and if God made man a bramble-bush, that no wailing will make him bear figs. Yet others refer this condition to the use made of human nature, which certainly is a more philosophical way of looking at the matter.
Now there is one sect which has done great service in former days, which is, I think, still doing something to enlighten and liberalize the land, and, I trust, will yet do more, more even than it consciously intends. The name of Unitarian is deservedly dear to many of us, who yet will not be shackled by any denominational fetters. This sect has always been remarkable for a certain gentlemanly reserve about all that pertained to the inward part of religion; other faults it might have, but it did not incur the reproach of excessive enthusiasm, or a spirituality too sublimated and transcendental for daily use. This sect has long been a speckled bird among the denominations, each of which has pecked at her, or at least cawed with most unmelodious croak against this new-fledged sect. It was said the Unitarians had "denied the Lord that bought them;" that theirs was the church of unbelief—not the church of Christ, but of No-Christ; that they had a Bible of their own, and a thin, poor Bible, too; that their ways were ways of destruction; "Touch not, taste not, handle not," was to be written on their doctrines; that they had not even the grace of lukewarmness, but were moral and stone-cold; that they looked fair on the side turned towards man, but on the Godward side it was a blank wall with no gate, nor window, nor loop-hole, nor eyelet for the Holy Ghost to come through; that their prayers were only a show of devotion to cover up the hard rock of the flinty heart, or the frozen ground of morality. Their faith, it was said, was only a conviction after the case was proven by unimpeachable evidence, and good for nothing; while belief without evidence, or against proof, seems to be the right ecclesiastical talisman.
For a long time the Unitarian sect did not grumble unduly, but set itself to promote the cultivation of reason and apply that to religion; to cultivate morality and apply it to life; and to demand the most entire personal freedom for all men in all matters pertaining to religion. Hence came its merits; they were very great merits, too, and not at all the merits of the times, held in common with the other sects. I need not dwell on this, and the good works of Unitarianism, in this the most Unitarian city in the world; but as a general thing the Unitarians, it seems to me, did neglect the culture of piety; and of course their morality, while it lasted, would be unsatisfactory, and in time would wither and dry up because it had no deepness of earth to grow out of. The Unitarians, as a general thing, began outside, and sought to work inward, proceeding from the special to the general, by what might be called the inductive mode of religious culture; that was the form adopted in pulpits, and in families so far as there was any religious education attempted in private. That is not the method of nature, where all growth is the development of a living germ, which by an inward power appropriates the outward things it needs, and grows thereby. Hence came the defects of Unitarianism, and they were certainly very great defects; but they came almost unavoidably from the circumstances of the times. The sensational philosophy was the only philosophy that prevailed; the Orthodox sects had always rejected a part of that philosophy, not in the name of science, but of piety, and they supplied its place not with a better philosophy, but with tradition, speaking with an authority which claimed to be above human nature. It was not in the name of reason that they rejected a false philosophy, but in the name of religion often denounced all philosophy and the reason which demanded it. The Unitarians rejected that portion of Orthodoxy, became more consistent sensationalists, and arrived at results which we know. Now it is easy to see their error; not difficult to avoid it; but forty or fifty years ago it was almost impossible not to fall into this mistake. Sometimes it seems as if the Unitarians were half conscious of this defect, and so dared not be original, but borrowed Orthodox weapons, or continued to use Trinitarian phrases long after they had blunted those weapons of their point, and emptied the phrases of their former sense. In the controversy between the Orthodox and Unitarians, neither party was wholly right: the Unitarians had reason to charge the Orthodox with debasing man's nature, and representing God as not only unworthy, but unjust, and somewhat odious; the Trinitarians were mainly right in charging us with want of conscious piety, with beginning to work at the wrong end; but at the same time it must be remembered, that, in proportion to their numbers, the Unitarians have furnished far more philanthropists and reformers than any of the other sects. It is time to confess this on both sides.
For a long time the Unitarian sect did not complain much of the decline of piety; it did not care to have an organization, loving personal freedom too well for that, and it had not much denominational feeling; indeed, its members were kept together, not so much by an agreement and unity of opinion among themselves, as by a unity of opposition from without; it was not the hooks on their shields that held the legion together with even front, but the pressure of hostile shields crowded upon them from all sides. They did not believe in spasmodic action; if a body was dead, they gave it burial, without trying to galvanize it into momentary life, not worth the spark it cost; they knew that a small cloud may make a good many flashes in the dark, but that many lightnings cannot make light. They stood apart from the violent efforts of other churches to get converts. The converts they got commonly adhered to their faith, and in this respect differed a good deal from those whom "Revivals" brought into other churches; with whom Christianity sprung up in a night, and in a night also perished. Some years ago, when this city was visited and ravaged by Revivals, the Unitarians kept within doors, gave warning of the danger, and suffered less harm and loss from that tornado than any of the sects. Unitarianism seems, in this city, to have done its original work; so the company is breaking up by degrees, and the men are going off, to engage in other business, to weed other old fields, or to break up new land, each man following his own sense of duty, and for himself determining whether to go or stay. But at the same time, an attempt is made to keep the company together; to cultivate a denominational feeling; to put hooks and staples on the shields which no longer offer that formidable and even front; to teach all trumpets to give the same sectarian bray, all voices to utter the same war-cry. The attempt does not succeed; the ranks are disordered, the trumpets give an uncertain sound, and the soldiers do not prepare themselves for denominational battle; nay, it often happens that the camp lacks the two sinews of war—both money, and men. Hence the denominational view of religious affairs has undergone a change; I make no doubt a real and sincere change, though I know this has been denied, and the change thought only official. The men I refer to are sincere and devout men; some of them quite above the suspicion of mere official conduct. This sect is now the loudest in its wailing; these Christian Jeremiahs tell us that we do not realize spiritual things, that we are all dead men, that there is no health in us. These cold Unitarian Thomases crowd unwontedly together in public to bewail the spiritual weather, the dearth of piety in Boston, the "General decline of religion" in New England. Church unto church raises the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us!" The opinion seems general that piety is in a poor way, and must have watchers, the strongest medicine, and nursing quite unusual, or it will soon be all over, and Unitarianism will give up the ghost. Various causes have I heard assigned for the malady; some think that there has been over-much preaching of philosophy, though perhaps there is not evidence to convict any one man in particular of the offence; that philosophy is the dog in the manger, who keeps the hungry Unitarian flock from their spiritual hay, and cut-straw, which are yet of not the smallest use to him. But look never so sharp, and you do not find this dangerous beast in the neighborhood of the fold. Others think that there has been also an excess of moral preaching, against the prevalent sins of the nation, I suppose—but few individuals seem liable to conviction on that charge. Yet others think this decline comes from the fact that the terrors have not been duly and sufficiently administered from the pulpit; that while Catholics and Methodists thrive under such influences, the Unitarian widows are neglected in the weekly ministration of terror and of threat; that there has not been so much an excess of lightning in the form of philosophy or morality, but only a lack of thunder.
This temporary movement among the Unitarians of Boston is natural; in some respects it is what our fathers would have called "judicial." The Unitarians have been cold, have looked more at the outward manifestations of goodness than at the inward spirit of piety which was to make the manifestations; they have not had an excess of philosophy, or of morality, but a defect of piety. They have been more respectable than pious. They have not always quite rightly appreciated the enthusiasm of sterner and more austere sects; not always done justice to the inwardness of religion those sects sought to promote. When their churches get a little thin, and their denominational affairs a little disturbed, it is quite natural these Unitarians should look after the cause and pass over to lamentations at the present state of things; while looking at the community from the new point of view, it is quite natural that they should suppose piety on the decline, and religion dying out. Yes, in general it is plain that, if men have no eyes but conventional eyes, no spirit but that of the ecclesiastical order they serve in, and of the denomination they belong to, it is natural for them to think that because piety does not flow in the old ecclesiastical channel, it does not flow anywhere, and there is none at all to run. Thus it is easy to explain the complaint of the Catholics at the great defection of the most enlightened nations of Europe; the lamentation of the Protestants at the heresy of the most enlightened portion of their sect; and the Unitarian wail over the general decline of piety in the city of Boston. Some men can only judge the present age by the conventional standard of the past, and as the old form of piety does not appear, they must conclude there is no piety.