of so purgative and drastic a nature that, in the general process of sloughing of religious thought which it brings on, it is itself finally carried away into the vacuum of nihilism.
This became evident as soon as the attempt was made to agree upon articles of belief. New heresies sprang up day after day, and complete chaos would have ensued from the beginning had not the different states taken hold of one or other of the sects and “established” it, thus, by the aid of the temporal power, giving to it a kind of consistency, but at the same time depriving it of vitality. Thus what Macaulay regarded as so remarkable—that no Christian nation which did not adopt the principles of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth century should ever have adopted them—and he might as well have made the proposition universal, since there was no reason why he should limit it to Christian nations, since it is well known that in nothing has Protestantism given more striking proof of its impotence than in its utter failure to convert the heathen,—this, we say, far from surprising us, seems so natural that we cannot understand how an observant mind should think it strange.
Protestantism was, in the main, the product of the peculiar political and social condition of Europe during the last period of the middle ages, and to expect Catholic nations, or indeed individual Catholics of any intellectual or moral character, to become Protestant in our day argues a total want of power to grasp this subject. As well might one hope to see the pterodactyls and ichthyosauri of a past geologic era swimming in our rivers. Catholics there are, indeed, now, as in the eighteenth century, who become sceptics, who abandon all belief in
Christianity, but none who become Protestants; for we cannot consider such persons as Achilli or Edith O’Gorman as instances of conversion of any kind. A very limited acquaintance with Catholics and Catholic thought will suffice to convince any reflecting mind that for us there is no alternative but to accept the doctrine of the church or to renounce faith in Christ. Was there ever fairer field for heresy to flourish in than that which opened up before Old Catholicism at its birth? But it was still-born. To this day its sponsors have not dared define its relation to the pope; and until this is done it remains without character. At any rate, it does not claim to be Protestant.
Turning to view the present condition of Protestantism, we are struck by the contrast. The very word “Protestant” is without meaning when applied to two-thirds of the non-Catholics of Germany, England, and the United States. Their mental state is one of disbelief in, or indifference to, all forms of positive religion; and if occasionally they are roused to some feeling against the church, it is through an association of ideas, traditional with them, which places her in antagonism with their political theories and national prejudices. Among earnest and reflecting Protestants who are united with one or other of the sects, there are two opposite currents of religious thought of a strongly-marked and well-defined character. Those who are borne on the one are being carried farther and farther away from the historic teachings of Christ, and are busied in trying to dress out in Biblical phraseology some of the various cosmic or pantheistic philosophies of the day. They very generally assume that religion has nothing to do with
theology, nor, consequently, with doctrines and dogmas. As its home is the heart, its realm is the world of sentiment; and so it matters not what we believe, provided only we feel good. Opposed to this current, which is bearing with it all the distinctive landmarks of the Christian religion, is another which is carrying men back to the church. In fact, all great minds among Protestants who have been strongly impressed by the objective character of Christian truth have been drawn towards the Catholic Church. Who can have failed to perceive, for instance—to mention only the three greatest who have occupied themselves with religious questions—how Leibnitz, Bacon, and Bishop Butler, in their intellectual apprehension of the Christian system, were, in spite of themselves, attracted to the church? Or who that is acquainted with the English Catholic literature of our own day is ignorant of the divine illumination which many of the most intellectual and reverent natures from the sects of Protestantism have found in the teachings of the one Catholic Church? In this way, by a process of supernatural or natural selection, the fragments of Protestantism are being assimilated to the church or are disappearing in the sea of unbelief in which even now they are seen only as barren islands in the wild waste of waters.
These considerations must be borne in mind by whoever would take a comprehensive view of the question which we propose now to discuss. In the first place, by reflecting upon them we shall find no difficulty in accounting for the marked difference in tone and character between Catholic and Protestant controversy, by which no attentive observer can have failed to be struck. Taking for granted the existence
of God and the divinity of Christ, as admitted by the earlier Protestant sects, the logical position of the church is unassailable, which, as we have already stated, is generally conceded by impartial non-Christian thinkers.
As a consequence, Catholic controversialists, assured of the absolute coherence of their whole system with the fundamental dogma of the divine mission of Christ, have been chiefly concerned with showing the logical viciousness of the essential principles of Protestantism. They have, indeed, not omitted to remark upon the moral unfitness of such men as Henry VIII., Luther, Knox, and Zwingli to be the divinely-chosen agents of a reformation in the religion of Christ; but such observations have been incidental to the main course of the argument, and this is alike true of our more learned discussions and of our popular controversies.
Catholic writers—allowing for individual exceptions—have not felt that, to show the falsity of Protestantism, it was necessary to denounce Protestants or to stamp upon them any mark of infamy. They have treated them as men who were wrong, not as men who were wicked. Protestant controversy, on the other hand, presents for our consideration characteristics of a very different nature. In the consciousness of their inability to settle upon a fixed creed, which has been shown by history, and from the necessarily feeble manner in which articles of faith could be held by them, on account of the disagreement and conflict of opinion among themselves, Protestant writers were forced to treat their religion, not as a doctrine, but as a tendency; and for this reason,