This "History" was not only a great literary success, it was more. It produced a decided revolution in historical science. The effect of it in Switzerland, Germany, and in fact the whole of Europe, was immense. The extraordinary part enacted by that great Pope was seen for the first time in its proper light. By the irresistible logic of facts, Hurler demonstrated how the august institutions of the papacy accomplished its mission with a success which, up to his time, had never been conjectured. Every one became convinced that it was the papacy alone that had mastered and tempered the overwhelming forces of the half-civilized nations of Europe, in order to more eternal and spiritual ends. "Since then," says Hurter himself, in his preface to the third German edition of his first volume, page 21, "a great number of inveterate errors were corrected, many traditional prejudices dissipated, many doubts removed; certain minds drew light therefrom, others found a guide in it, and others attained conviction from its pages. Comparing the present with the past, people became more circumspect in their judgments and less inconsistent in their conclusions, and at last an answer was found to the famous question of the Roman governor, "What is truth?" (Quid est veritas?) "Truth is what is based on the indisputable proofs of history and agrees with the nature of all things." Sebastian Brunner, a distinguished German writer, after reading the "History of Innocent III.," gave the following opinion of its author: "I hold Mr. Hurter to be the greatest of historians; no one previous to him embraces a whole century in so admirable a picture. Hurter is the apostolic historian of the nineteenth century." This apostleship of Frederick Hurter was the more efficient, being exercised by a Protestant, and, what was more, by the president of a consistory. And beside, who would not yield to the testimony of a man whose loyalty and integrity were above all suspicion, and who had made it the rule of his life to observe the most rigid impartiality in all his own views; to seek nothing but the truth, and to honor virtue and merit wherever met, without excepting those who differed from him, so as to neglect nothing in the accomplishment of his task in the most perfect possible manner? His indeed were admirable qualities, particularly when we consider how history was written in those times by writers looked upon as models and masters. But let us not enlarge on this topic; the "History of Innocent" is found in every library; let us rather show how that book earned for its author a reward far greater than mere worldly reputation.
His literary success, and, what was more, the undeniable services he had rendered to the Catholic cause, could not but excite the jealousy and dislike of his fellow Protestants. His "Excursion to Vienna and Presburg," which was published soon after he visited Austria, in 1839, excited their anger to the highest degree. Blinded by their passions, they resolved to put him on trial, so as to find him guilty and so depose him. In his "Exposé of the Motives of his Conversion" he states that they put him the unfair question, "Are you a Protestant at heart?" "This question," he continues, "had no relation whatever with the alleged facts bearing on my public office, but only with my 'History of Innocent III.' and with a visit to Vienna. I refused to answer, because they wanted rather to discover what I disbelieved than what I believed." This refusal excited a violent storm of indignation against him. After trying many times to avert it, and after suffering the most unworthy attacks with patience and fortitude, he seized his pen and fulminated his defense under the following title, "President Hurter and his Pretended Colleagues."
More painful trials still awaited him. Two of his daughters, one immediately after the other, became afflicted with [{118}] a malady which was soon to deprive him of them, and, while prayers for their recovery were being offered up in all the Catholic convents of Switzerland, his puritanical opponents exhibited the most uncharitable joy, thrusting the dagger of grief still further into a parent's heart. A less energetic character would doubtless have succumbed to such cruel wounds, but Hurter remained true to the maxim of the poet:
"Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor, prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida. . ."
"The race of those tyrants is not yet extinct," he somewhere says. "I find still men who desire every one to bow before them, and that everything they do against those who dare discard such a miserable servitude should be commended." [Footnote 21] Hurter did better than to imitate the ancient philosopher; he accepted his trials with truly Christian resignation, perceiving in them the call of God to newer and higher duties. "I discovered in them," he writes, "the means of my salvation and my sanctification. I look upon the storm which has burst over me as a signal on the road I have to follow. At the same time I received the deep conviction that no peace was to be expected with such people. My choice was therefore made. I threw off titles, offices, and incomes, and went back to private life because I was disgusted with a sect which, through rationalism, upset all Christian dogmas, and, through pietism, tramples morals under foot." [Footnote 22] What hearty frankness, what Noble feelings, and what a true sense of justice!
[Footnote 21: Third ed., 1st vol. (Pref. P. V.)]
[Footnote 22: "Life of Fr. Hurter," by A. de Saint Cheron, p. 120. Some of the details of this article are extracted from this work, as well as from an article published in "Le Catholique" of Mayence, of September, 1865.]
Justice he demanded as well for others as for himself; therefore he did not fear to defend the Catholic cause in his books. In his work on the "Convents of Argovia and their Accusers" (1841), and on the "Persecutions of the Catholic Church in Switzerland" (1843), he denounces the tyranny of his Protestant compatriots in unmeasured terms. For this reason, also, he went to Paris in 1843 to plead, although in vain, the cause of the Catholics in Switzerland.
Having, as we have seen, resigned his position, he had ample leisure to devote himself to the more profound study of the Catholic doctrine, the dogmas of which he had already inwardly admitted. The "Symbolism" of Moehler he found of great utility, and the "Exposition of the Holy Mass," by Innocent III., served greatly to strengthen his religious convictions.
Hurter, however, was not precipitate. He desired that in taking so important a step conviction should be preceded by mature deliberation. About this time he writes: "He would certainly be mistaken who should think that I entered the interior of the Catholic Church because I was solely led away by its external forms. I was neither a wanderer nor hair-brained. Undoubtedly the exterior impressed me; but I was not, however, therefore relieved from examining its fundamental principles with due care, or from studying the interior with proper caution. I entered it first through curiosity, a mere visitor, as it were, and I examined everything that I saw like one who, wanting to purchase a house, first looks closely at every part of it before closing the bargain. In that way I think I acquired, on many points, truer and more complete ideas than the frequenters of the house, and those who have spent their lives in it. I have too long postponed my free decision not to have earned the right to be able to decide whether the house suits me or not, or if any changes be required."