Or conversely: What would be the effect of a change in the opposite direction? Suppose that at once every Protestant minister could be changed into a zealous priest, and that the Headship of the Pope could exert its full influence unshackled by those restraints which have hampered him ever since the Reformation—partly, indeed, ever since the large-eyed man of Lutterworth brought into existence that terrible thing the English Bible—and suppose that with all the liberty of power and all the power of liberty he could rule over the whole of Christendom as completely as he formerly ruled over his own States, what would be the practical effect? Would Scotland produce more authors, heroes, and worthies, fewer beggars, thieves, rioters, and assassins, than she does to-day? Would England produce more good landlords, more comfortable tenants, more honest merchants, more bright men of letters and science, more deeds of Christian charity, and fewer civil wars, fewer conspiracies, fewer insurrections, fewer military revolts, fewer beggared nobles, and fewer ill-cultivated estates than she does to-day? Would Germany be more united? Would Holland, Denmark, and Sweden be more stable? Would the United States be more prosperous, more free, and more peaceable? Would the British Colonies be increasing tranquil and enlightened?
With the facts of the past, and the principles of the present which are to be the plastic forces of the future, before him, a calm and wide-minded observer, taking long stretches of time and great varieties of circumstance to illustrate any hypothesis and to test any conclusion, might form an estimate which would not be without a properly scientific value. We are often told by one class of writers that Roman Catholics are as good subjects as Protestants, and by another that in proportion to their numbers they yield a much greater amount of illiteracy, of turbulence, of pauperism, and of offences against the law. These are points which statesmen have no right to leave to theologians, and on which they have no right to remain themselves in doubt. Above all, they have no right if not in doubt about them, but if they have on sufficient grounds a clear opinion, to keep that opinion back, or to cloud it by ambiguities. Both in England and in America there are intelligent and loyal men who believe that they are more burdened and that public law and order are less well observed in proportion as priests have power over any section of the population. These are questions of fact capable of a scientific solution, and it is the duty of statesmen scientifically to solve them. If the authorities, which are clearly natural and Christian, clearly both divine and human, are undermined where priests do not rule and are built up where they do, let statesmen tell mankind that it is so. If the unnatural, the merely artificial authority of the priest is proved, on a test of ages, of various races, and of various polities, to be unfriendly rather than helpful to the stability and vigour of lawful authority, then let all incumbents of that authority—kings, presidents, nobles, lawgivers, magistrates, parents, and husbands—lift up a clear voice, the voice of intelligent conviction, and tell all men how the matter stands. "The sword of the mouth" is the only sword which ought to be drawn in this war; and if they to whom God has given real authority draw that sword against the spurious authority of the priest, it will prevent the call which otherwise will surely come to draw a feebler sword but a bloody one. Priestcraft, mighty against artifice, subtle against force, invincible against compromise and subterfuge, is strangely weak against a calm and Christian denial of its authority.
Long since this chapter was written, we find that the Italian journals while noting the base immorality which week by week is brought to light among the priests, and pointing to their multitude and the low repute of many of them as a moral plague, now (1877) fasten upon them even more than of wont charges of exciting anarchical conspiracies. The Emancipatore Cattolico, the organ of what is called the Italian National Catholic Church, formed by the priests who belonged to the Society for the Emancipation and Mutual Aid of the Clergy, writes as follows—
The red International, in appearance with a different end and program, but in reality in full accord with its black sister, after the stimulus from the Vatican sets itself in motion, and lifts up its head.... We ask, Has the alliance of this double International a probability of success in a future nearer or more remote? We do not hesitate to reply affirmatively if the powers and States in the two hemispheres do not agree rather to overthrow the black international which is the true and efficient cause of the other, than the red which is the effect.... Christian governments of Europe, open your eyes! the international that truly menaces you, and that will undo you if you are not wise, is that of the Vatican. You accept it and smile upon it because you suppose it to be the conservator and champion of order and authority; but the order and the authority which it represents and champions are those of the absorption of all the social powers into the despotic and arbitrary will of a miserable mortal who believes himself to be God, and who as such imposes himself upon the entire universe.[493]
While these last sheets have been passing through the press, events have occurred which illustrate many of the hints contained in this chapter. Many who, when we first began to write this work, would have seen nothing "practical" in that solemn hint of Vitelleschi when, speaking of the frequent occurrence of disturbances at the same time when the Church is pressing some point upon a government, he says that the circumstance is an organic phenomenon deserving of the most serious attention, now begin to feel that it is scarcely rational any longer to be insensible to facts which day after day rise into the view of Europe.
In March 1877, Pius IX delivered a carefully-prepared Allocution, full of bitter attacks on Italy, and manifestly intended to raise once more the Roman Question. A feverish agitation becoming speedily discernible in different countries, none could help noting the coincidence of the two events. In Italy broke out an attempt at insurrection in Benevento, professedly by socialists, but as the Italian papers believed fomented and directed by priests. This was speedily followed by a vote of the Italian Senate, by which that body threw out a Bill, that had been passed by the Lower House, for restraining ministers of religion, of all denominations, from certain abuses of their office. Italian journals of different shades intimated their impression that this event was solely due to the direct action of the Pope upon the king, and of the king upon a number of courtier senators.
Shortly afterwards the Prime Minister of France, M. Jules Simon, explained in debate, with all propriety of language, that the popular idea about the Pope being a prisoner was unfounded. The Pope, in that characteristic style which has never risen to the level even of municipal, much less of national public life, stated that a certain government had said that the Pope was a liar; and as if to rehabilitate any one who might have been so impertinent, he added that he did not know what government it was! Soon afterwards, on May 16, 1877, M. Simon was abruptly dismissed by Marshal MacMahon, and the Assembly, of which a majority supported M. Simon, was silenced by an enforced adjournment. This pale edition of a coup d'état was hailed and claimed by the clerical papers as a direct result of the interference of the Pope. Its ill effects in France forced upon many the reflection, how enviable is the lot of nations in which the influence of the Pontiff is feeble, and how well would it be with any nation in which that influence should be nil!
Strange does it seem that the prophets of reconstruction should for encouragement point more frequently to France and England than to any other countries. To France they look for military service, to England for religious converts. The one is to glorify the Church by a sacred war, the other by an edifying submission. In France they count upon the schoolmasters, the army, the ancient aristocracy, and many of the politicians. In England they count upon that portion of the clergy which they call the Puseyite party, upon a portion of the aristocracy, upon the ceremonies in the churches, and the teaching in the denominational schools. Grossly exaggerating, as they do, the position and the influence of Cardinal Manning, and speaking at times as if the whole English hierarchy, unable to face him, were trembling and falling down before him, they also exaggerate the strides actually made by the Ritualistic party in carrying the whole nation towards submission to Rome. They boast, in the language of Dr. Newman, that the English Church is, through that party, "doing our work;"[494] and they always seem to have taken to heart the principle which he taught them as long ago as 1841: "Only through the English Church can you act upon the English nation."[495] They are not much read in our political literature, and when they meddle with it, often make strange blunders. But some of them are shrewdly aware of the services done to their cause by writers who treat Ritualism as a matter of aesthetics, and treat each particular ceremony as a trifle.
Looking back on the turns and windings of the movement for reconstruction, and remembering how little human foresight would have availed to predict either their successive phases or the results up to the present hour, it is natural to feel that as to those further turns and windings which as yet lie out of ken, hidden behind the veil of an inscrutable Providence, it is not for us presumptuously to divine. Rather would we, in humble hope, await the future, so far as to us it may be permitted to witness its unfolding. In the sixty years since the peace of Vienna the Papacy has passed through two distinct stages, of thirty years each; the one up to the beginning of the present pontificate, the other during the course of it. In the first thirty years the flag displayed was that of Liberal Catholicism. During that time the Papacy gained emancipation in England and Ireland, a footing in the schools of France and Belgium, a repute of liberality and other great advantages; while on the whole it held its ground in Italy, Spain, Austria, and the minor States. But a true instinct taught the Curia that temporary gain was preparing final ruin. Since 1849 the policy has been reversed, and the external results to the Papacy so far have been disadvantageous. "Catholic unity" has been lost in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere. In Poland the losses to the Church have been immense, whether they may be due to the persecuting policy of Russia, as the Catholic party alleges, or to the rebellious excitements of the Pope and the priests, as others allege, or to both these causes united, as seems most probable. In Switzerland and Germany the Papacy has had heavy loss, and its future is gloomy. In France it has made immense gains; in Ireland heavy loss; in England gain, and that of the kind it values most—gain by the help of the clergy, of the aristocracy, and of a great university. But still, while the population of the United Kingdom has much increased, Pius IX cannot count among the thirty millions now inhabiting it so many Roman Catholics as he found among, say, five millions less. He has to note a decrease in Poland concurrently with persecution, and one in the British Isles concurrently with extended political privileges. The Curia, if not unconscious of these losses, never confesses to them, and avers that the increased compactness gained by recent changes far more than compensates for any increased opposition, and in fact insures the overthrow of all resisting forces; while the submission of England—Queen, bishops, lords, and people—is spoken of as a thing nigh at hand to the eye of faith. Firmly, however, do we believe that in mercy to this great empire, within which dwells in peace and with ample privileges a portion of mankind larger than ever before under one sceptre enjoyed the blessings of free government, and in mercy also to the whole redeemed race in the midst of which this empire holds a place so influential and on the whole so beneficent, never will England justify the promises of submission to the Pope wherewith continental priests are wont to cheer the courage of their partisans, albeit they proudly point to men in important places, and boast how the triumph of the Vatican is being prepared under the patronage of both Church and State.
All this notwithstanding, we do not believe that the English commons are to be reduced into a populace without constitutional representation; or that the English aristocracy is to be reduced into an order of nobles without constitutional powers; or that our magistracy, from squire up to chancellor, is to be put under the bishops' courts; or that our chairs of philosophy, science, and literature are to be placed under the tutelage of chairs of theology filled by Jesuits, or by men of whom Jesuits approve; or that our universities are to be placed under Romish canon law; or that the priest, to the exclusion of the State and of the laity, is to be made as completely moral lord of all the schools in England as he is now of his denominational schools; or that the works of our authors are to wait till a Dominican has cut out what he deems amiss, and has written on the remainder Imprimatur; or that our printers are to wait for a licence from the friars; or that our journals and periodicals are to be cut down to the proportions which were allowed to the Press in the Model State; or that our armies are to be composed of men so schooled that to them the word of the priest shall take the lawful command out of the lips of the king. No more do we believe that from these English shores the dear old English Bible is to be driven away as a forbidden book. Neither do we believe that for these fair fields of Britain that dark Saturday night is to come after which will no more dawn the English Sunday morning—a morning when streets thronged and country lanes enlivened with families wending their way to worship God, each as led by the voice of conscience, and each jealous for the religious liberty of its neighbours as well as for its own, present a more Christian-like and more solid display of unity in variety, and of catholicity in charity, than ever can be gained by any preciseness of constrained uniformity. Never will our own happy Sunday morning cease to shine; never instead of it will a dismal day come when the sound of the church-going bell shall be the signal of physical force, and when every one whose conscience will not let him obey the official call shall be spied out by the familiars of the Inquisition.