In the Revue des Deux Mondes of October 15, 1860, M. Renan wrote a remarkable article on the "Future of Religion in Modern Society." This paper of course dealt largely with questions that were interesting at that time, but it also contains very acute observations on the whole subject, which are of universal concern. His conclusions are that neither Judaism nor Romanism nor the established forms of Protestantism will constitute the coming faith, which must be spiritual (that is, free of space and time), undogmatical, and enfranchised. "The religious question," he says, "finds its solution in liberty.... The liberal principle pre-eminently is that man has a soul, that he is to be reached only through the soul, that nothing is of value save as it effects a change in the soul. An inflexible justice, granting with inexorable firmness liberty to all, even to those who, were they masters, would refuse it to their adversaries, is the only issue that reason discovers for the grave problems raised in our time." This essay, along with that of Emile de Laveleye of LiÈge in Belgium, on the "Religious Future of Civilized Communities," written in 1876, sums up the whole question. It only remains to apply their principles to America.

Many dread the prevalence of Roman Catholicism. I confess I never could share in that apprehension. For if there is anything certain it is the unchangeableness of the lines of division that separate the three great regions of the earth, each having its own faith. There is the Greek Church, which rules in Asia; the Latin Church, which is confined to the Latin races, and is strongest in Southern Italy, where the people are most ignorant and supine; and the Protestant Church, which prevails in Northern Europe among the Germanic nations. As Renan says:

Moreover, the Roman Catholic faith is essentially Italian, and as such can have no permanent influence in Germany, England, or America. The great popes of the Middle Ages, whose genius raised the papacy to power and splendor, were Italians. Italy, until a few years ago, was isolated; not a great political power, as it is now, among other powers of Europe, nor drawn by political affiliations into the schemes of other dominions. Besides, the Catholic Church had the advantages of the Italian genius for organization, command, wisdom in practical affairs. Then, too, it had the immense benefit of the old Roman treasures of art, which gave a glory to the system. These considerations alone would make it impossible that Romanism, in its foreign form, should ever become the religion of the United States. There may be another kind of ecclesiasticism, but without the ancient authority; an ecclesiasticism which stands for pomp, ornament, display, beauty, but not for anything more. There is evidence that every form of religion here is disposed to take on elements of decoration,—architecture, music, stained glass, drapery, pictures, and monuments; but this is only a sign of increasing wealth, not of increasing subjection.

In addition to all this, the genius of the American people is strongly against anything like submission to authority. The love of liberty is exceedingly powerful. It is claimed that Romanism is not committed to any form of government, that it is as favorable to republican institutions as to monarchical; but this is not the opinion of Renan, who was born and trained in the church, and who is therefore entitled to speak with knowledge; nor is it the opinion of other scholars, Martineau for instance, who says in his article on the "Battle of the Churches" (Westminster Review, January, 1851):

But whether this charge of absolutism be just or not, Romanism has been so long associated as a polity with monarchical governments that it has contracted a habit of domineering, and the people can never be persuaded that the papacy is democratic in its constitution.

Americans are very suspicious, too, of any interference on the part of the government. If a system demands an army, a palace, lands, it must pay for them out of its own private means. A generation or more ago it was possible for an administration to give for a merely nominal sum, in the very heart of a large city, great estates to one denomination. This is possible no longer. Every sect must vindicate itself, and stand on its own feet; this alone would make it impossible for a church so poor as the Catholic to establish itself in this country on any terms of supremacy.

The desire for change which is inherent in the American mind must also prove fatal in the end to any claim of absolute stability. Protestantism is therefore better for Americans than Romanism is, because it is more portable, more various, more accommodating to popular tastes and inclinations.

There is no disposition to undervalue the work of the Catholic Church. Its great saints, its heroic martyrs, its stupendous missions, its enormous philanthropy, its influence in educating and controlling masses of people, cannot be exaggerated; and still it is destined to wield an immense influence as a spiritual power over the human race; but it never again can be the absolute system it once was. However it may commend itself to certain classes in our population, it must always be simply one department in the universal church.

But it will be said that the Catholic Church may accommodate itself to republican institutions. M. Renan doubts whether any radical change can be made. He says:

But supposing that such an alteration is possible, that the church can abase its pretensions to supremacy over all other sects, that Romanism simply melts into our society,—in this case, the papacy, as usually understood, becomes simply a form of church government like Presbyterianism or Congregationalism or Episcopacy; Catholicism becomes a purely spiritual faith, and, as such, is not only harmless but beneficent.

The religion, therefore, of America cannot be ecclesiastical; neither can it be dogmatic. I was on the point of saying theological; but there is a great difference between theological and dogmatical. Dogmatism is theology raised to power. Theology there always must be; some account of the Supreme Power in the world; some report of the contents of the Divine Mind. The present indifference to theology is hardly a good sign, unless it be an indifference to theology as usually regarded—that is, to the old systems of theology. The future religion, for this reason, cannot be Protestantism. For Protestantism is essentially dogmatical. It claims superiority to Romanism on the one hand and to infidelity on the other. Furthermore, it is identified with the Bible. Now, modern scientific criticism has so riddled the Bible, that it no longer can serve as a foundation. And this foundation being taken away, Protestantism must lose its corner-stone, and rest entirely on a rational basis. Likewise, Protestantism encourages sectarianism. It exists, in fact, only in numerous parties, each jealous of the rest and seeking to build up its own establishment without regard to the well-being of opposing bodies. There is a dream of unity amid all this diversity. But such unity can be gained only by the sacrifice of the very peculiarity of division, and the admission of certain things which all have in common; and such a reconciliation, besides the tyranny it engenders, cannot be desired, as it would be fatal to all activity. Sectarianism itself, apart from the "hatred, malice, and uncharitableness" which accompany it, may not of necessity be an evil; but sectarianism as it exists now is an evil of very great moment, and yet, without something of this alienation between sects Protestantism would decline.

Is Unitarianism then to be the coming religion? I cannot think so. Unitarianism is but a form of Protestantism; the most attenuated form. It is committed to the Bible; held to it indeed by a very fine thread, but still held to it. No doubt it has gained greatly in the last years. The annual circulation of its tracts has risen in twenty-five or thirty years from fifteen thousand to three hundred thousand copies. A quarter of a century ago there was but one Unitarian church on the Pacific coast, now there are eighteen. A generation since it had, in the whole region from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, only fourteen churches, now there are ninety; and in the same period, sixty-three new societies have come into being in the New England and Middle States. Still, as compared with the great sects, it is very small, and never can be their rival. And this because, however interesting and precious it may be to some people, it lacks, and must ever lack, owing to its critical character, the elements of a great religion, the passionateness that charms the people, and the moral enthusiasm that catches up the few men of genius. The period of "pale negations" is past; but in proportion as the system becomes positive it tends more and more towards the principle that animates the ethical societies, namely, its supreme devotion to the moral law. Thus it stands at the beginning, not at the end, of the line of advance, and has all the work of building up to do, before it can grow in general influence.

No, the religion of the future in America must be of the spirit; not merely as being independent of form and dogma, but as cherishing a great hope for the soul, and a great aspiration after perfection. No doubt every spirit must have a form of some kind, but it need not be a fixed, established, dominant imposition. M. Renan touched the matter exactly when commenting on the interview of Jesus with the woman of Samaria: "Woman, the hour is coming and now is, when men shall worship neither on this mountain nor at Jerusalem, but when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." Renan says:

The coming religion must also be humane and social. Intellectual it must certainly be, but it must, too, be emotional and adoring. There are three implications in it—a spiritual nature in man, a living power in the universe, an eternal life of progress and attainment, and these are assured only by reason.

The coming religion, we may add, must be Christian in name, because Christianity as an ideal faith has worked itself into our common life. It is the soul of our laws, of our customs, of our institutions. All assume its authority; all respect its sanction. The great thinkers of the world conspire in thinking so. Thus Goethe says:

Strauss, in his essay on "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity," declares that humanity never will be without religion; and Laveleye says:

Ours is a scientific age. There is a general demand for knowledge, a desire for demonstrated truth. Many will believe nothing that they cannot see with their eyes. In this sense, and in this sense alone, it is true that facts count for nothing in the domain of religion. But there are facts of the inner world that are quite as important as any facts in the outer world,—facts of the imagination; facts of love; facts of faith. Nothing is truer than that we are saved by hope. Science has enlarged the world; has beautified it; has made it look orderly, harmonious, poetic; but the realm of the known is very small indeed as compared with the realm of the unknown, and the more we discover, the more we find that there is to discover. The realm of the inner world is immensely large; and thousands of years must elapse before we discover its contents, if we ever do. The language of James Martineau is as true to-day as it was when the words were spoken, more than fifty years ago:

Shall I say that some form of theism will be the religion of America in the future? Not the literal theism of a generation or more ago, with its individual God, its contriving Providence, its supplicatory prayer, its future of retribution; nor yet the theism of Theodore Parker, of an infinite God revealed in consciousness, "the Being, infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely loving, and infinitely holy." It well may resemble the system described by Francis W. Newman in his book called "Theism," published in London in 1858. In this work he describes a religion based on conscience, without regard to any form of professed faith, yet covering in its theory and practice the whole region of ideal ethics. Different minds approach the problem from different directions. Mr. F. E. Abbot ("Scientific Theism," 1885) appeals to science; Josiah Royce printed a volume in 1885 entitled "The Religious Aspect of Philosophy," wherein he pursues the line of sympathetic thought; James Martineau in his "Study of Religion" (1888), bases his system on the moral sense; but all three arrive at the same point—a supreme mind in creation.

We must be careful not to confound Theism with Deism, for though both are the same word—one Greek and one Latin—and mean the same thing, yet they stand for entirely different conceptions. Deism is a purely negative system, weighed down with denials. It is content when it has rejected what it calls all supernatural adjuncts—miracles, revelations, an inspired Scripture. Its face is set towards the past, not toward the future, and it is simply what is left of the old systems of belief, having no positive philosophy of its own. But Theism is a positive, fresh, original faith. It gazes forward, and builds on the natural consciousness of man, making no criticism on previous modes of belief. It is full of hope and enthusiasm, looking towards something that is before it, not scorning but believing. All that it needs in order to become a popular faith is a poetical element, something imaginative, symbolical, picturesque. The intellectual requirements it already possesses. It is affirmative; it is universal.

Neither must this kind of theism be identified with natural religion, unless natural religion be made to comprehend facts of the inner as well as the outer world—facts of psychology as well as of physiology; facts of mind as well as of body. Such a theism is not a mere reminiscence, either, of an ancient faith; for every form of mediatorial religion, however modified, simplified, "enlightened," as it is called, leaves something of its temper behind it. The intellect is haunted by old modes of truth; the heart lingers around the ancient places of reverence; the conscience refers to some antique authority; the soul cannot pray except in the language of a pater-noster or a psalm. A scent as of roses may hang round the human mind; but the roses will be grown in some garden of the East, not in ours. Such a theism as I am thinking of will be grounded in Ethical Law. You may call it "Christian," if you will, because the word Christian expresses the highest form of the moral sentiment, and carries a supreme authority to the human conscience; but on the human conscience it must rest. It will be a noble, pure faith, giving a welcome to all knowledge, bright with anticipation, warm with enthusiasm. As John Weiss has said so much better than I can what I mean, I will quote a passage from him. It occurs in "American Religion" (page 67):

The Dignity of Human Nature must be our watchword; of human nature, not of human character. For human nature denotes the capacities of man, what he ought to be and shall be, not what he is. Human character expresses only the undeveloped condition of man, and is therefore not to be taken as a final stand. This doctrine does not belong to a sect or a church, but to all mankind. It assumes an entirely new conception of the basis of religious faith; it makes a new beginning; it starts a new system; it exactly reverses the ancient order of thought, and builds up from a completely original foundation.

The weightiest objections proceed from the undeveloped character of man. For example, the common saying that conscience is crude, confused, either does not exist at all, or erects inconsistent standards of right and wrong. But if a high criterion of morality is established, as it is, it has an educating and sustaining power. Every saint attests it; all the bibles of the world voice it; revelation owes to it its authority. Great souls do but raise the common level on which common souls tread; as the discovery of the ancient pavements in the Forum at Rome opens to ordinary feet the way that statesmen and heroes went. When I was in Salem, a young man who was very much addicted to drink, being remonstrated with, urged that he could not help it, that he was born so, just as another was born to praise and pray. His appetite for ardent spirits was just as natural to him as the preacher's appetite for spiritual things. His argument could not be refuted, but I always thought that in his hours of reflection, if he had any, he must have despised himself. At all events, the outside observer would class him with a lower order of humanity; the fixed rule of conscience being a universal judge.

Again, the slowness of moral advance is flung in our teeth; the stubbornness of vice and evil. But we must give time for improvement and cultivation. All good things must wait—coal, petroleum, gas, electricity; the fertilizing qualities of guano were known and announced a full generation before the industrial world acted on the discovery; now millions of dollars are made by its importation. We are so used to thinking of the globe as round, and of men as living at the antipodes just as we live here, that we cannot believe that once it was deemed impossible for human creatures to live with their heads downward and their feet upward, and to walk like flies upon a ceiling. None but hopelessly crazy or foolish people were supposed to entertain such a notion. So the time will come when it shall be as natural for men to do right as to breathe; when all kinds of injustice, cruelty, and tyranny will be instinctively abandoned. When that time does come, men will be unable to believe that the ages ever were when men could make brutes of themselves or brutally treat each other. An eminent divine, commenting on a passage in Matthew, xviii., 15—"Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican,"—said: "This is equivalent to saying, 'You must begin all over again; must start fresh from the beginning.'" This was very bad exegesis, but it was excellent morality; even the "heathen man and the publican" holds in his bosom all the possibilities of human nature; and we are bound to believe that in time the like of him may be saintly.

The decline of faith in religion, the passion for material things—money, fame, luxury,—is often cited as a proof that man is going downward; but may not this be a simple return to honesty and a rudimental integrity; a disposition to depend on one's self, and not on any mediator or redeemer? Let us build then in hope and faith, for, after all, these are the great architects. A listener to an eminent divine once said that when he got up to speak a radiance seemed to grow round his head; the great walls of a temple seemed to rise above him; the audience was composed of all nations, all sorts and conditions of men, and a choir of seraphs made the music; and yet this man spoke in a small, low-browed hall to a scanty audience, and the hymns were badly sung by a voluntary company. Such power has a great conviction; and when a deep conviction like that is extended and confirmed, the visible church will match the invisible, and shepherds will again hear the songs of angels.