310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



tianity in so many countries of Europe, seems to have been principally 

 caused by the feeling of some courts, particularly the imperial court, 

 that they could not afford to forfeit the support of the great Catholic 

 organization, and by the corresponding disposition in Catholicism to 

 ally itself with governments. The principle of saving the Church by 

 the help of governments was avowed Ranke tells us by Pope Pius 

 IV., and it was by this means that Catholicism was restored upon a 

 new and strengthened foundation at the Council of Trent. What the 

 Church owed to the state for protection against the Reformation it 

 repaid two centuries later in assistance against the Revolution. A 

 time had come round when the state was threatened as the Church 

 had been, and now kings became faithful churchmen as the church- 

 men of Pius IV.'s school had before become faithful royalists. For 

 half a century kings had coquetted with free-thought, and free-thought 

 had flattered kings. But when the crisis came, and royalty was in 

 danger, it hurried back to find shelter in the Church. Napoleon, 

 Charles X., and the Emperor Francis, formed the new alliance by 

 which theology was called in to drive out revolution in the state, just 

 as Pius IV. formed the older alliance with royalty against Reforma- 

 tion in the Church. The natural effect of this coalition is to incline 

 the Revolution to attack the Church at the same time that it assails 

 Government. Atheism has become the creed of revolution because 

 theology has been the traditional creed of monarchy and of privilege. 



But is it true that theology is necessarily conservative or mo- 

 narchical, because it happens to be true of the Christian Church, or the 

 most prominent part of it, at this particular time ? At particular 

 times and places theology has been revolutionary. The earliest 

 Christians must have seemed the most revolutionary party of the 

 Greek and Roman world. Mohammedanism was so violently revolu- 

 tionary that it completely transformed the Eastern world, and has 

 caused almost the whole East to look back upon the ages preceding 

 it as iipon " times of ignorance." The same may be said of Buddhism 

 in Asia. And certainly one form at least of Protestantism I mean 

 Puritanism was revolutionary in spirit, and led either to an abridg- 

 ment of royal power or to positive republicanism. 



Hereditary royalty and aristocratic privilege were the institutions 

 which, in the last century, the Revolution attacked. It was histori- 

 cally in the names of skepticism, and sometimes of atheism, that the 

 attack was conducted. But there was no reason at all in the nature 

 of things why the same attack should not have been made in the name 

 of theology. In France, theology has been on the side of privilege, 

 and equality has been associated with opposition to theology. But, 

 in Turkey the opposite has happened ; the equality of mankind has 

 been preached, and successfully, in the name of theology. If a Chris- 

 tian preacher had been inspired to do so, he might with perfect war- 

 rant from his religion have proclaimed equality in France. Indeed, 



