THE ETHICS OF RELIGION'. 



341 



be unnecessary to say, in a Protestant country, 

 that the Catholic Church and the gospel are two 

 very different things. The moral teaching of 

 Christ, as partly preserved in the first three gos- 

 pels, or — which is the same thing — the moral 

 teaching of the great Rabbi Hillel, as partly pre- 

 served in the Pirke Aboth, is the expression of 

 the conscience of a people who had fought long 

 and heroically for their national existence. In 

 that terrible conflict they had learned the su- 

 preme and overwhelming importance of conduct, 

 the necessity for those who would survive, of 

 fighting manfully for their lives and making a 

 stand against the hostile powers around ; the 

 weakness and uselessness of solitary and selfish 

 efforts, the necessity for a man who would be a 

 man to lose his poor single personality in the 

 being of a greater and nobler combatant — the 

 nation. And they said all this, after their fashion 

 of short and potent sayings, perhaps better than 

 any other men have said it before or since. " If 

 I am not for myself," said the great Hillel, " who 

 is for me ? And if I am only for myself, where 

 is the use of me ? And if not now, when ? " It 

 would be hard to find a more striking contrast 

 than exists between the sturdy unselfish indepen- 

 dence of this saying, and the abject and selfish 

 seivility of the priestridden claimant of the skies. 

 It was this heroic people that produced the mo- 

 rality of the Sermon on the Mount. But it was 

 not they who produced the priests and the dog- 

 mas of Catholicism. Shaven crowns, linen vest- 

 ments, and the claim to priestly rule over con- 

 sciences, these were dwellers on the banks of the 

 Nile. The gospel, indeed, came out of Judea, 

 but the Church and her dogmas came out of 

 Egypt. Not, as it is written, " Out of Egypt have 

 I called my son," but, " Out of Egypt have I 

 called my daughter." St. Gregory of Nazianzus 

 remarks with wonder that Egypt, having so lately 

 worshiped bulls, goats, and crocodiles, was now 

 teaching the world the worship of the Trinity in 

 its truest form. 1 Poor, simple St. Gregory ! it 

 was not that Egypt had risen higher, but that the 

 world had sunk lower. The empire, which in the 

 time of Augustus had dreaded, and with reason, 

 the corrupting influence of Egyptian supersti- 

 tions, was now eaten up by them, and rapidly 

 rotting away. 



Then, when we ask what has been the influ- 

 ence of the Catholic clergy upon European na- 

 tions, we are not inquiring about the results of 

 accepting the morality of the Sermon on the 



1 See Sharpe, "Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian 

 Christianity," p. 114. 



Mount ; we are inquiring into the effect of at- 

 taching an Egyptian priesthood, which teaches 

 Egyptian dogmas, to the life and sayings of a 

 Jewish prophet. 



In this inquiry, which requires the knowledge 

 of facts beyond our own immediate experience, 

 we must make use of the great principle of au- 

 thority, which enables us to profit by the experi- 

 ence of other men. The great civilized countries 

 on the Continent of Europe at the present day — 

 France, Germany, Austria, and Italy — have had 

 an extensive experience of the Catholic clergy 

 for a great number of centuries, and they are 

 forced by strong practical reasons to form a judg- 

 ment upon the character and tendencies of an 

 institution which is sufficiently powerful to com- 

 mand the attention of all who are interested in 

 public affairs. We might add the experience of 

 our forefathers three centuries ago, and of Ireland 

 at this moment; but home politics are apt to be 

 looked upon with other eyes than those of rea- 

 son. Let us hear, then, the judgment of the 

 civilized people of Europe on this question. 



It is a matter of notoriety that an aider and 

 abettor of clerical pretensions is regarded in 

 France as an enemy of France and of French- 

 men ; in Germany, as an enemy of Germany and of 

 Germans ; in Austria, as an enemy of Austria and 

 Hungary, of both Austrians and Magyars ; and 

 in Italy, as an enemy of Italy and the Italians. 

 He is so regarded, not by a few wild and revolu- 

 tionary enthusiasts who have cast away all the 

 beliefs of their childhood and all bonds connect- 

 ing them with the past, but by a great and in- 

 creasing majority of sober and conscientious men 

 of all creeds and persuasions, who are filled with 

 a love for their country, and whose hopes and 

 aims for the future are animated and guided by 

 the examples of those who have gone before 

 them, and by a sense of the continuity of na- 

 tional life. The profound conviction and deter- 

 mination of the people in all these countries, that 

 the clergy must be restricted to a purely cere- 

 monial province, and must not be allowed to in- 

 terfere, as clergy, in public affairs — this convic- 

 tion and determination, I say, are not the effect 

 of a rejection of the Catholic dogmas. Such re- 

 jection has not, in fact, been made in Catholic 

 countries by the great majority. It involves 

 many difficult speculative questions, the profound 

 disturbance of old habits of thought, and the toil- 

 some consideration of abstract ideas. But such 

 is the happy inconsistency of human nature, that 

 men who would be shocked and pained by a 

 doubt about the central doctrines of their reli- 



