Prospects of Protestantism.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2604, 14 May 1877, Page 3

Prospects of Protestantism.

To those who like ourselves hare no expectation of any good coming to us either from politics or science, unless statesmen and philosophers have some • kind of faith in God, the outlook is not a happy one. The reaction towards Romanism, Anglo-Catholicism,^ or whatever it is called, is probably temporary— a mere eddy in the tide. It would not have arisen among us at all, except for the ignorance of modern history, which still accompanies oar highest education. The Calvinistic and Lutheran Reformation agreed on one point - at least—that the magical power supposed to belong to the clergy had no existence. It treated their absolution as imposture. It regarded their sacraments in the form which they had assumed, as mere idolatry; their whole conception of Christianity as false from the root. It is now pretended that in England the priest theory was retained in a modified form, and people who hold that theory maintain that the English Church is a great deal nearer Some, than to the Presbyterians, or continental Protestants. It is certain, nevertheless, that however politicians for state purposes might choose to adjust the Anglican Organization, there .would have been ho such thing as the English Reformation, except for those among us who did hot' believe in priests at all. ###.# *• * # # j#Xt is an old story that men make Godtheir own image. - Their conception ! of his nature reflects only their own passions. , Theological fury in the sixteenth century turned human creatures into fiends, and they in turn made God into a fiend also. The Neo-Catholics of our own day, while they will not disdain the God of Gregory XIIL, have softened the outline. " I had rather be an atheist," says Bacon, " than believe in a God who "'' devours his children." The blackest ogre in a negro fetish is a benevolent angel compared to a God who can be supposed to have sanctioned the massacre of St.

Bartholomew. ' The divinity of the y Hitualistic imagination abandons the world and all its pursuits, cares nothing for the efforts of science to unfold the mysteries of creation, or to remove the primeval curse by the amelioration of the condition of humanity—all these it leaves to the unconverted.man. It takes delight in incense, and ceremonies, and fine churches, and an extended episcopate, and for the rest is occupied in its own world, and in helping priests to work invisible miracles. The Evangelical, far nobler than these, yet embarrassed still with bis doctrines of reprobation, forms a theory which has some lineaments of of superhuman beauty, but unable to rid himself of the savage element left behind by Calvin, offers us a Saviour at once, all merciful, and without mercy—a Saviour whose pity will notreject the darkestsinner from His grace, yet to those whose perplexed minds cannot accept as absolutely and exhaustively true the "scheme of salvation " deals harder measure than the holy

office of Seville. . The heretic, in the auto-da-fe endured but a few moments of agony. The calvinisfc preacher consigns him without a shudder <o an eternity of flame. Faith is the cry of a'l theologians, "Believe with us, and you will l-e saved : refuse to believe, and yon sire lost. Yet they know little of wliat belief means ; they dogmatise, but foil to persuade.

In the present alienation of the higher intellect from religion it is impossible to foresee how soon or from wl.at quarter any better order of things is to be looked for. We spoke of an eddy in the stream, but there are " tides in the affairs of men," which run long and far. The phenomena of spirit-rapping shows us that the halfeducated multitudes in England and America are ready for any superstition. Scientific culture seems inclined to run after the will-o'the-wisp of positivism; and as it is certain that ordinary persons will not live without a belief of some kind, superstition has a fair field before it, and England, if not Europe generally, may perhaps witness in the coming century some great Catholic revival. It is a possibility which the decline of Protestantism compels us to contemplate, and it is more easy to foresee the ultimate result than the means by which its returning influence can be effectually combated. Catholicism has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. It is tolerant how because it has been fighting for a bare existence; and its demands at present are satisfied with fair play. But let it once have numerical majority behind it, and it will reclaim its old authority. It wiil again insist on controlling all departments of .knowledge. The principles on which it persecuted, it still professes, and persecution will grow again as naturally as seed in a congenial soil. Then it will once more come in collision with the secular intelligence which now passes it by with disdain.

We are indulging, perhaps, in visionary fears, but if experience shows that in the long run reason will prevail, it shows also that reason has a hard fight for it; and in the minds even of the most thoughtful rarely holds an undisputed empire. We e"xpect no good from the theory of human .things with which men of intellect at present content themselves. We look for little satisfaction to our souls from sciences which are satisfied with phenomena, or much good to our bodies from social theories of utility. W> believe that human beings can .only live and prosper together on the condition of the recognition of duty, arid duty has no meaning, and no sanction except as implying responsibility to a power above and beyond humanity. As long as the moral force bequeathed to us by Christianity remains, the idea of obligation survives in the conscience.

We have no hope from theologians to whatever school they may belong. They and all belonging to them are given over to their own dreams, and they cling to them with a passion proportionate to the weakness of their arguments. There is yet a hope—it is but a faint one—that the laity, who are neither philosophers nor divines, may take the matter into their own hands. If Catholicism can revive, far more Protestantism can revive, if only it can recover, the spirit which gave it birth. Religion may yet be separated from opinion, and brought back to life. For fixed opinions or questions beyond our reach, we may yet exchange the certainties of human duty, and no longer trusting to so-called economic laws which are no more laws than it is a law that an unweeded garden becomes a, wilderness of stinging nettles, we may place " practical religion " once more on the throne of society. There may be before us a future of moral progress which will rival or eclipse our material splendour, or that material splendour itself may be destined to perish. Which of these two fates lies now before us depends much on the attitude of the laity towards theological controversy in the present and next generation.— Fboude.