THE FUTURE OF PROTESTANTISM AND CATHOLICITY.[144]
SECOND ARTICLE.
The Abbé Martin divides his treatise into nine books, each of which he subdivides into several chapters. In the first book he labors to prove that Protestantism is imperishable; in the second, he discusses the Protestant revival and its effects; in the third, he treats of the Protestant propaganda, or Protestant missions and their results; in the fourth, of the wealth and well-being of Protestant as compared with Catholic nations; in the fifth, of Catholic and Protestant tolerance and intolerance; in the sixth, of liberty and its influence on the future of Protestantism; in the seventh, of religious liberty in its relations with Protestantism; in the eighth, of the decline of Catholic nations and governments, and the progressive march of Protestant nations and governments; and in the ninth and last, of the union or alliance of Protestantism with the revolution, or the revolutionary spirit so active in nearly all modern society.
In our former article we reviewed the subjects treated in the first, second, and part of the third books, and reserved for our present article two of the three causes the author assigns for the partial success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations, namely, the prestige which Protestant nations enjoy of surpassing Catholic nations in wealth and well-being, and of having founded and sustained civil and religious liberty. But these two causes, though treated by the author in his third book, really embrace the subject of the remaining six books. We cannot say that the author has so digested and arranged his ample materials as to avoid repetitions, or so as to bring all that belongs to the same topic under one head; but treats it partly under one head and partly under another. A glance at the titles of the last six books will satisfy the reader as well as the reviewer, that the subjects treated fall under two general heads. First, civil and religious liberty; second, the comparative wealth and well-being of Catholic and Protestant nations; and under these two heads we shall arrange our summary of the views of the author, and our own comments. We begin with the last.
I. The author assigns, as we have seen, as one of the causes of the success of Protestant missions in old Catholic nations, the prestige which Protestant nations enjoy of surpassing Catholic nations in material wealth and well-being. That this prestige attaches to Protestant nations is a fact not to be disputed; but is it well founded? The author seems to concede that it is, and maintains that "there is in Protestant nations and Protestant individuals a superior aptitude and a greater eagerness and tenacity in the pursuit and acquisition of the goods of this world" than there is in Catholic nations and individuals.
"Place," he says, "Catholics and Protestants side by side on the same territory, in conditions perfectly equal, and leave each to act under the influence of their respective principles, and not a half-century will elapse before the Protestants will have taken in the material order a marked superiority. The Protestants will have the finest vineyards, the best cultivated fields, the greenest meadows, the most elegant mansions, and the freshest shade. They will have almost the monopoly of industry, commerce, large capital, the bourse, the bank, money at interest, and own all the mills and factories, if any there are. If you doubt it, consult Alsace and Strasburg, Nimes, Montpellier, the environs of Bourdeaux, the mixed Swiss cantons, and the conquests the American Union has made of the Spaniards of Mexico.... Wherever Protestants plant themselves, they are able to attain a preponderating influence in all civil affairs. With only a fourth of the population they will hold three fourths of the public offices, have the majority in the municipal council, the mayor of the commune, if not the adjunct, the highest grades in the national guard, the member of the conseil-général, the deputy, sometimes the senator, and the most widely circulating journal of the district, daily filled with eulogiums on their merit.
"It is the same on a large scale among nations. Who knows not that there are more wealth, more well-being, more comfort, eleganter houses, softer couches, more sugar and coffee, in England, Scotland, Holland, Prussia, at Zurich, Berne, Geneva, New York, than in Spain, Portugal, Austria, at Rome or Rio Janeiro?
"It would seem that there is a sort of preëstablished harmony between Protestantism and the earth, that they know and attract each other. Where the earth is most smiling and wears the richest decorations, it naturally becomes Protestant. In Switzerland, the richest and most fertile districts are Protestant, the rugged and barren are Catholic. The former, with their facile enjoyments, seem to invite to very forgetfulness of heaven; the latter only to raise and fix the affections above the earth, and can be made or become Protestant possessions only by force or violence." (Pp. 186-188.)
We are not prepared to make quite so large concessions. Protestants do not monopolize all the pleasant, rich, and fertile spots of the earth. The fact may be true of Switzerland, but it is not true of the Italian peninsula nor of the Iberian, in which are the richest and most fertile districts of Europe; nor, in point of climate, soil, and productions, does Protestant Germany surpass Catholic Germany. The preëstablished harmony alleged has no foundation in fact, and we have heard the contrary more than once maintained by well-informed Catholic prelates. Nor are we prepared to concede that, if you speak of the whole population, there is more comfort and well-being in Protestant than in Catholic nations. The peasantry of Italy, before the late political changes, had as much comfort and well-being as the peasantry of Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, or even Great Britain and Holland, and the peasantry of Austria proper are in the same respects better off than those of Prussia or Hanover. In no countries in the world is there to be found such squalid wretchedness as in those under the British crown, and governed by the head of the Protestant church. There may be more wealth in Great Britain than in France, but there is also more and far deeper poverty. France, by a war with all Europe, was prostrated in 1815; her capital was held by foreign invaders, and she was forced to pay millions by way of indemnification to the invaders, and to support an allied army cantoned on her territory to compel her to keep the peace; and yet she met her extraordinary expenses, greatly reduced her national debt, reasserted her freedom of action and her position as a great European power, and extended her territory by the conquest of Algiers, in less than fifteen years, under the restoration and under a Catholic government. No nation under a Protestant government can be named that has ever carried so heavy a burden so easily, or done so much in so short a time to lighten it. We have seen nothing like it in England, the model Protestant nation. Since 1830, France has ceased to be a Catholic nation, under a Catholic government, and has to a great extent adopted the British industrial and commercial system. She has shown nothing since of that marvellous recuperative energy she showed under the Bourbons. She is burdened now with a constantly increasing national debt, her people are taxed for national and municipal expenses to the last cent they can bear, and there can be no doubt that she is relatively poorer and weaker to-day than she was during the last years of the Restoration.
Our experience in this country does not warrant the concessions of the author. Placed side by side and in equal conditions with Protestants, Catholics have shown themselves in no sense inferior to Protestants in their aptitude to get on in the world. Their progress here in wealth, in comfort, and ease has been relatively greater than that of the older Protestant population; for they started from an inferior worldly position, and with far inferior means. To be convinced of it, we need but look at the schools and colleges they have founded, at the costly and splendid churches they have erected, and at the large sums they have contributed for the support of Catholic charities and their friends in Ireland and other countries, from which the majority of them have emigrated. With an intense Protestant prejudice against them, they have, in a very few years, risen in the social scale, gained a respectable standing in the American community, carried away the first prizes in law and medicine, and secured their full share of public offices both civil and military.
The United States have proved themselves too powerful for the Mexicans, we concede, and they well might do so, with vastly greater resources and a population three times as large. The Mexicans are only about one in nine of pure Spanish blood; the rest are pure-blooded Indians, or a mixed race of whites and Indians, and of Indians and negroes. Yet if our officers who served in the Mexican war may be believed, braver, hardier, more enduring or energetic soldiers than the Mexicans cannot easily be found. The feebleness of Mexico is not due to her Catholicity, but to her lack of it; to her mad attempts to establish and maintain a republican form of government, for which her previous training, manners, and habits wholly unfitted her. Had she, on gaining her independence of Spain, established monarchical institutions, and not been influenced by our example and intrigues, and the insane theories of European revolutionists, she would not have fallen below her non-Catholic neighbor. No Protestant people surpass in bravery, boldness, enterprise, energy, national or individual, the Spaniards of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and they were far better Catholics then than they or Spanish-Americans are now.