It is of Catholicism and Protestantism, not of religion or even Christianity in general, that I wish to speak.

I regret that I cannot find a word to suit me better than Philosophy. The nature of things forbids it. But in order to make myself at once and clearly understood, I hasten to say that I here call Philosophy every opinion which disclaims, under whatever name or shape, any faith as restrictive of human thought, and which leaves thought, in religious matters as in all others, free to believe or not to believe, and guide itself by its own authority.

It is also of France, and France alone, that I speak. The condition of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Philosophy is not the same in France and elsewhere, after our moral and social revolutions, as it is in countries which have not undergone such changes. I wish to say nothing but that which results from and applies to precise facts. The time has arrived in such matters for dealing with real facts, and setting aside general terms which avoid the questions they affect to settle.

I am convinced that Catholicism, Protestantism, and Philosophy, in the bosom of the novel state of society in France under the Charter, can live peaceably, both as regards themselves and society; in peace not only material but moral, not only obligatory but voluntary,—without submission, without abasement,—both with truth and with honor.

I wish to prove it.

I repeat my first position. This peace must be established; it is necessary.

Look at the state of things.

Catholicism, Protestantism, Philosophy, and modern French society can neither destroy one another, nor change nor remodel themselves as they wish.

They are facts, old, powerful, living, and indestructible from the remotest times. They have resisted the longest and most severe trials, ages of order and days of chaos.

For ages has new France, the France of the Charter, been forming itself and increasing. Every thing has opposed it, yet everything has contributed to its triumph, the church, nobility, royalty, the court, the greatness of Louis XIV., the inactivity of Louis XV., the wars of the empire, the peace after the restoration. She has surmounted even her own faults, as well as the efforts of her enemies.

Catholicism was born at the same time and in the same cradle as modern Europe. It has associated itself with all the labours of European civilization. It has survived all its transformations. In our own days it has sustained the most terrible shock that has ever been encountered by a creed and a church. It has been raised up again by the hands of the very destroyers themselves. It appears again. Enter the family circle, traverse the country, then will be seen what the power of Catholicism is, in spite of the lukewarmness of many of the faithful members—even of many of the priests.

The lot of Protestantism in France has been hard. It has had against it the king and the people, the literati of the seventeenth, the philosophers of the eighteenth century; at one time it appeared as if extirpated by Catholicism, at another as absorbed by philosophy. It has yielded neither to persecution nor ridicule. It still exists, and is no sooner restored to liberty than it exhibits all its ancient fervour.

As for Philosophy, she has sustained many checks amidst her triumphs. It is easy to set forth her follies and mistakes. She has much to amend in what is past, but nothing to fear for the future. Most of the principles which she proclaimed have become rights. The rights have become facts. The new social condition to which philosophy has given rise will not be more averse to her than the old one which she has overcome.

These are all clearly powers full of life, and which a long futurity awaits. They have struggled roughly but in vain. They have been unable to destroy each other.

They will neither change or perish. No doubt they will modify themselves according to their new position. They will listen to reason. They will bow to necessity, but without renouncing their principles or sacrificing their nature. They can make no such concession. What characteristics and vitality they have must remain. To renounce this would be to die.

Thus, without metamorphosis and as God and time have made them, are these powers called to dwell side by side under the same social roof.

What will happen if they do not live in peace, sincere peace?

Shall we again see the old wars which our fathers have seen?

War between Catholicism and Protestantism? Between religious creeds and philosophy? Between the Church and the new-modelled State? Shall we see a revival of every fanaticism, lay and clerical, philosophic and religious?

It is not likely. Here and there, indeed, in books, in newspapers, even in the gravest publications, hints are given of such a restoration of things: attacks by Catholics on Protestant impiety, by Protestants against popish idolatry, by devotees against reason and its lights, by philosophers against faith and the clergy. A war of words, often sincere, frequently cold, always powerless. Doubtless, the old leaven of hatred and war, deep laid in every human heart, still exists, but it will no more arouse society. Customs as well as laws will prevent this. Even the inclination will soon fail those most anxious for it. The voices which still preach this strife, passionate, radical, and mortal, either of Christian communities between themselves, or of Philosophy against Christianity, are the voices of dying men, already deserted on the battle-field where they persist in staying. This is rather what will happen.

Living neither in peace nor at war, forced to admit vicinity without friendship, and distrust without violence, Catholicism, Protestantism, Philosophy, and in their train society in general, will descend, grow cold, and languish. The dignity and power which spring from truly moral communications will be equally wanting in all. A dry and barren spirit will prevail in relations which are purely official and matters of routine; and we should see spreading and strengthening itself, becoming permanent and in some sort legally consecrated, that spirit of indifference at the same time disdainful yet subordinate, cold yet insecure. This is the lot of societies which are kept together by the bond of administrative regulations alone, void of moral life, that is, of faith and devotion.

Was it then to arrive at this state of things, that for ages human genius displayed itself so gloriously in our country? Was it to end at last in this degradation that all the great creeds, all the moral forces, have contended with so much eagerness and glory for the empire of our society?

They must save it and themselves from this disgraceful peril. They must accept, respect, and loyally serve the new social state; they must learn to live amicably together in its bosom.

I say they must! It is an immense point in a great work to look upon success as indispensable and vital. The feeling of necessity gives to those whom that necessity pleases, much power; to the opposite party much resignation. A passionate desire supports even more than it deceives. And here there is indeed room for such a desire; for, during a long future, the honor and moral repose of society are at stake. It cannot remain in this state of apathy and uneasiness in which the mind languishes and exhausts itself. Man desires for his soul more activity and more security, a firmer ground, a higher flight. The true agreement of the great intellectual powers can alone grant him these.

How can this be accomplished?

I grapple at once with the more notorious and serious of the difficulties,—the nature of Catholicism and the conditions of its agreement with the new state of society which has attacked it, and been in its turn so roughly attacked.

I set aside, too, without hesitation, the questions of religion, properly so called; questions which concern the dealings of God with man, questions about the safety of the human soul.

Not that I look on them with indifference, or that their importance is not now as it has always been, overwhelming and immense. It ought, on the contrary, to be frequently repeated, for in our day it has been too much forgotten, and it is the real object, and substance, nay, the essence of religion. The moral quality, the rule of conduct for man in his relations with man, is important. The mental calm and resignation of men in the trials of life is important. The Christian religion teaches these, and thence its great position upon earth and in society. But it does more, it goes far beyond human society and this world. It binds man to God, it reveals to him the secret of this awful tie, it teaches him what he ought to believe and do in respect to his relation to God and his prospect of eternity. Imperishable things from which man may turn aside his gaze, but which do not disappear from his nature; sublime wants from which he cannot free himself, though he may mistake and deny them—the law of these things, the satisfying of these wants, that is to say, the dogma and its consequences, constitute the Christian religion, the first which has really understood and embraced its object.

But in these questions and in the dogmas which reply to them, nothing can now arouse between Catholicism and civil society either conflict or embarrassment. In this matter, the State proclaims not only the liberty but the right of the church, and declares itself absolutely incompetent to interfere. And here lies whatever truth exists in that deplorable and confused saying which has excited so much comment, "The law is atheistical." Surely not so. The law is not atheistical. How should it be so? Is the law a real living being, a being with a soul which approaches to or recedes from God, which may be lost or saved? "Human societies," says M. Royer Collard, "live and die on the earth, there they fulfil their destinies." But they do not comprehend man as an entire. After he has bound himself to society there still remains to him the noblest part of himself, the high faculties by which he raises himself to God, to a future life, to unknown good in an invisible world. We, as individuals, as beings endowed with immortality, have a different destiny from states.

And it is on this account that the State should not interfere with that other destiny. As its nature and aim are different from her own, as the two have nothing in common, to interfere must produce confusion and usurpation.

That which the state now proclaims was taught to it by the Church, the Catholic Church. During centuries when the state wished to interfere in matters of opinion and salvation, did not the Church distinctly reject such pretensions. And how did she do so? By the distinction of temporal and spiritual, of terrestrial and eternal life, that is, by the incompetence of the state to deal with the relations of the soul with God.

And the Catholic Church was right in sustaining this principle, the forgetfulness of which has cost her much. How did she lose a portion of her empire? How came Henry VIII. amongst others to separate from her? By proclaiming the temporal power competent to matters of faith and salvation. Let Catholicism go back to the sixteenth century, to the history of the reformation. It is by the confusion of the two powers, by this religious competence of the state, that she has suffered the rudest shocks. The Catholic Church has no more dangerous enemies than lay theologians, whether princes or doctors.

They are the more dangerous foes because religious motives are not those which alone may animate them, and lay usurpations in matters of faith have often served as a veil to the most worldly interests. Had the religious incompetence of the state always been acknowledged, the church would not so often have seen her property as well as her power in danger or lost.

She has henceforth nothing similar to fear. Usurpation is on both sides forbidden. Her kingdom belongs to herself alone; she possesses it completely and securely.

On this side, the great side of Christian religion in this world, peace is easy and may be sincere between Catholicism and the new social state.

Let us see where the real difficulty exists.

The government of the Catholic Church is a power invested in her own domain, and in matters of faith and salvation, with the character of infallibility.

I put aside, great as they are, all secondary questions, such as the knowledge of the conditions and limits in which infallibility exists, to whom it belongs, to the Holy Seat or to Councils, or to the Holy Seat and Councils united. I look to the one principle which is found in every combination and form of Catholic belief.

The principle itself is founded on the perpetuity of divine revelation, faithfully preserved in the church by means of tradition, and renewed when needful by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which ceases not to descend on the successor of St. Peter who was placed at the head of the church by Jesus Christ himself.

This is the essential and vital principle, the base and summit, the Alpha and Omega of Catholicism.

Against a power of such a nature and origin, where it really manifests itself, all discussion, resistance, and separation are unlawful.

The new state of society and constitutional France has its principle also, which has become that of its government.

All human power is fallible, and must be controlled and limited.

Every human society has the right of controlling and limiting, directly and indirectly, in such and such measures, and under such or such form, the power which it obeys.

I do not soften the problem. I set forth the two principles. They are essentially different; they are said to be hostile.

They would be so indeed, could they meet and display themselves in the same sphere. But here I find the remedy I sought.

When ages ago the church so loudly and vehemently insisted on the distinction of the spiritual and temporal, she was acting in the interest of her own dignity and founding her own liberty. She was doing more. She thereby maintained the dignity of man, and laid the foundations of liberty of conscience.

The separation of spiritual from temporal, the doctrine of the church; and the separation of the religious and civil state, the doctrine of our constitutional regime; the independence of religious society in matters of faith, conquered by the church in the earlier days of modern Europe; and liberty of conscience, a victory achieved by modern society,—have one and the same principle at the root. The application and form may be different, the origin and moral signification entirely agree.

Hence the means of peace and harmony between Catholicism and our new society.

Suppose that the two principles, the separation of spiritual and temporal, of the religious and civil state, were (and it is possible, since at the root they agree) sincerely and completely allowed, respected and practised by church and state; whence would the conflict spring?

The Catholic church would loudly maintain her infallibility in the religious sphere, that is, as regards the connexion between spiritual power and the faithful. The state would insist upon liberty of conscience and thought in the social sphere, that is, in the relations of the temporal power with the citizens. Each power would advance according to its principles, parallel, and without collision.

What then is the obstacle?

It is rather historical than reasonable. It arises from the passed deeds and ancient life of the two powers, rather than from their essential principles and actual relations.

The separation of the spiritual and temporal originates in the chaos of the middle ages. It sprung from thence, as the sun appears through a dark and stormy sky. Principles and powers, ideas and situations, all have been in our Europe wonderfully obscure, confused, incoherent, incomplete. There has long been a depth of temporal affairs mixed with spiritual, spiritual with temporal, in the existence and constitution of the church and state. Hence the temptations and attempts, both frequent and terrible, at reciprocal usurpation. The confusion of facts and violence of passions struggled incessantly against the principle which strove to restrain them.

That is the lot of truth here. It is boasted of but disdained, invoked yet rejected, at once admitted and proscribed; here supreme, there powerless. Man deserves no better, the world fares no better than that.

However, after many efforts on certain memorable days some truth does detach itself, and rises so high that she shines brightly and commands respect.

The separation of the spiritual and temporal has had this fortune. Church and state, bishops and philosophers, opinion and law have contributed in turn to secure it for her. It is a principle now so well established amongst us, that neither persons nor things, neither mind nor art, could be kept long clear from its influence.

Since the great ambitions which have disturbed the world be but foolish pretensions, it behoves them carefully to avoid the last risk they can run, that of becoming ridiculous squabbles. Let the two powers, instead of painfully lowering themselves to seize though but for a few days, some fragments from the past confusion, admit fully both as regards right and deed their mutual incompetence; let each establish itself firmly in its special sphere, let each loudly proclaim its principle—the Catholic church, its infallibility in religious orders; the State, the liberty of thought in social concerns. Not only will they then live in peace, but they will respect and serve themselves really in spirit and in truth, and not in a superficial appearance which is unworthy of both.

I say they will respect each other in spirit and in truth, and I regret that I can but glance at the subject. Certainly, setting aside all faith and law, the vital principle of Catholicism, the religious infallibility of the church,—and the vital principle of our civil society, the liberty of conscience and thought,—have a right to the respect, the former of the boldest thinkers, the latter of the most pious and the strictest minds. But I have not room here to enter suitably on such a question; I may attempt it some day.

As to the practical benefits of a true pacification to the Catholic Church and to constitutional France, they are immense. What is the prevailing ill of our temporal society?

The weakening of authority. I do not allude to that strength which insists on being obeyed. Never had power greater command of it; never perhaps so much. I allude to that authority recognized beforehand on principle in a general way, received and felt as a right which is not obliged to resort to force; that authority before which the spirit bows without abasement of heart, and which speaks from on high with the influence not of constraint, but nevertheless of necessity.

That is truly authority. It is not the only principle of the social state. It does not suffice for the government of men. But without it nothing will suffice; neither argument unceasingly persevered in, nor well-understood interest, nor the material preponderance of numbers. Where authority is wanting, whatever the force, obedience is precarious or mean, even near the extreme of rebellion or of servility. Catholicism has the essence of authority; it is authority itself, systematically conceived and organised. It lays it down in principle, and puts it in practice with great firmness of teaching, and a rare intelligence of human nature.

Did this spirit prevail in our society, or did it lean towards it, there would be need to seek elsewhere counterbalances and limits. But the danger is clearly not there; and whilst our institutions and manners cherish in us the spirit of individual independence in thought as well as life, it is a great blessing to society, to its morality as well as its repose, that other causes, other methods of teaching maintain the principle of authority and the spirit of internal submission.

"I learnt in the army what one learns no where else—respect;" said an old retired non-commissioned officer of the Imperial Guard, in 1820.

Catholicism is the greatest, the most holy school of respect that the world has ever seen. France was brought up in this school, in spite of the ill use which human passions have often made of her precepts. The abuse is now little formidable; the benefit ought to be great, for we have great need of it.

Catholicism itself is suffering at present from a grievous malady.

This is the prevailing coldness and routine, the predominance of form over foundation, of external practice over internal feelings.

This arises from the often hypocritical incredulity of the eighteenth century, not very distant from the nineteenth; and also from the preponderance, which has long been excessive, in the church, of the government over the vital principle, of ecclesiastical authority over religious life.

Some analogy existed in this respect between the church and state in the last century. On both sides power was afoot with its old organization, in the hands of its former possessors; but amongst the subjects there was little faith and little love.

What is it, nevertheless, that has saved Catholicism from shipwreck? It is that it was a popular religion and faith. The Catholic government yielded, the Catholic people survived. M. de Monlosier was right; in our days, too, it was the cross of wood which saved the world.

The safety is yet incomplete. The church has risen, but many a soul languishes. Catholicism needs faith, a more inward and lively faith.

It is the vague and ill-regulated feeling of this want, which has for some time inspired those dreams of absolute independence, of rupture between church and state, those shiverings of the fever of democracy, which, under the name of M. l'AbbÉ de Lamennais, have scandalised the faithful and made the indifferent smile.

Mad, shameful dreams which urge Catholicism to abjure her principles and history, to hand herself over to the contagion of modern evil and to dishonour while she destroys herself.

It is not in such devious ways that Catholicism will find religious life. This will, on the contrary, be found by her remaining faithful to herself in the new position frankly accepted. This position is worthy, strong, favorable to the progress of faith and fervour. It possesses towards the state a fair measure of liberty and alliance, towards the faithful the suitable independence as well as the needful intimacy; no evil hopes, no worldly distractions, nothing which can render zeal impure or even suspected; but nothing, on the other hand, which attacks the traditions or customs of the Church, nothing which tends to deprive it of the august character of elevation and stability. The Catholic Church is thus placed in constitutional France; and success, religious and social, belong to the use of proper measures, as by proper measures success is certain.

The situation of Protestantism is more simple: some persons even affect to consider it more favourable. The general feeling which prevails in our days, our political and domestic alliances, the analogy of principle between constitutional France and Protestant England, all seem to say that Protestantism is in favour. There are some even who pretend to the discovery of a plot to make France Protestant.

This does not deserve even a passing remark.

There was a time, not very distant, when Protestantism did not seem so well placed in France. I do not speak of the Restoration; even under the empire it was often said that Protestantism had a republican tendency, that her maxims were contrary to stability and power. The spirits of Protestantism and revolution were considered as related.

This is still repeated. It has become a party theme; and Protestantism is perseveringly represented as incompatible with social order, peaceful dispositions, and monarchy.

Happily, Protestantism is not a thing of yesterday in Europe; it appeals to history and facts for a reply.

If there be any where three countries which, for fifty years, amidst the overthrow of ideas, states, and dynasties have given striking proofs of affection for their institutions and princes, for the conservative and monarchical spirit, they are assuredly England, Holland, Prussia—three Protestant countries, the three Protestant countries par excellence in Europe; countries, too, wonderful for order, for industry, and for prosperity; countries which greatly conduce to the power and glory of modern civilization. There can be no more decisive answer to the worn out declamations of ancient party spirit, nor do they deserve more ample discussion.

French Protestantism is peculiarly free from this ridiculous reproach. It has not been remarkable for receiving too much protection or justice. It enjoys them as a new acquisition, with modesty and gratitude. Never was a religious society disposed to evince towards the civil power greater deference and respect.

Protestantism, by a singular amalgamation, has been blamed for too much deference even in this respect. It has been accused of lowering religion, and making the church subservient to the state. This, it is said, is the consequence of the fall of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the great governing power of the Catholic church, which Protestantism has attacked. Thus the division between spiritual and temporal has disappeared; the spiritual has fallen under the yoke of the civil power.

I have already said sufficient of the separation of spiritual and temporal, to avoid the suspicion of thinking ill of it. It is one of the most glorious forms which, in modern Europe, the independence of thought and faith has assumed. It is the principle in virtue of which Catholicism must, in the midst of modern institutions and ideas, assume a worthy and secure place.

But in spiritual as in temporal order, it is necessary that liberty have but one aspect and be exclusively attached to this or that combination. Religion has more than one method of preserving her dignity and independence; God plants it and causes it to prosper in more than one soil, in more than one climate.

In fact, taking things together, faith has been strong, and conscience has displayed itself with energy in Protestant countries, in spite of the doubtful lines of demarcation between the two domains, and the too frequent intervention of the civil power in religious matters.

This is because the civil power has never made religious matters its chief concern. Politics, governments, properly so called, have absorbed its attention and power. Sooner or later, it has ended by leaving consciences to themselves; it has, at all events, left the reins more loose and the field more free than has been the case in Catholic countries, where there has been a power devoted to the sole task of ruling spiritual society.

Thus, too, there is in every society, political or religious, a certain intimate and permanent tendency which gets the better of all forms of organization and all accidents of situation. Protestantism sprang from free enquiry. It is her standard. It has never been abandoned by her, whatever share she may have taken in the civil rule; I will go so far as to say, the civil despotism. In short, human thought, in religion as in every other matter, has displayed itself with infinite activity and freedom in Protestant countries.

Do we forget, besides, the first and most powerful cause of spiritual independence? It is that Protestantism,—she cannot avoid it,—admits into her bosom great differences of faith and practice, dissents, separations, sects in short. She may have often condemned and persecuted them, but she has never deemed herself obliged to curse and extirpate them. They have lived and multiplied under Protestantism, in the teeth of the national church; ill-treated, humiliated, but never forced from some last retreat; always, to a certain degree, protected by the spirit of free enquiry, its examples and recollections. This affords a strong pledge for liberty of conscience, and opens an asylum to all who may have been attacked or vexed on account of their faith by the civil power. If the Anglican church has, with some justice, though much exaggeration, been accused of complaisance towards the temporal sovereign, the English dissenters have, on the other hand, unceasingly proclaimed their haughty independence of her. The shield which the Catholic church has found in the separation of the spiritual and temporal, has been found by Protestantism in the freedom, even though incomplete, of religious dissent and the multiplicity of sects.

And as a just reward for this dawn of liberty, the Protestant sects are not so widely severed as they appear to be from the national Church and the State. Persecuted, irritated, even rebellious, they have nevertheless strongly adhered, with hidden yet deep feeling, to the common centre of belief and the public destiny. An ardent Puritan was, under Queen Elizabeth, sent to the pillory and condemned to have his hand cut off. The hand falls; with his left, he raises his large hat, crying "God save the Queen!" Almost invariably in critical circumstances, when the vital interests of the national religion or of the country appeared to be compromised, the English dissenters have rallied round the state, and though forsaking her religious banner, have still served her with exemplary devotion.

I have little taste for sectarian spirit, but never should Protestantism when in power set up as a national church, and treat dissenters with rigour or disdain; for it owes in part to them the maintenance of its dignity, as well as the fervour of faith and the progress of liberty of conscience. Above all, never should our constitutional monarchy trouble itself about dissent, should it one day arise, in French Protestantism. It could not possess political importance, or tend to weaken the tie which binds the Protestants of France to the new social condition and its governing power.

Protestantism, while free from political danger, has, in a purely religious point of view, much good to do in France; not by drawing France to her standard, by converting her, to use the customary phrase. Conversions on either side are and will henceforward be few, and the importance which some persons attach to them as a matter of joy or regret is somewhat puerile. It is a step and a most important step for the individuals, but one of no social moment. France will not become Protestant. Protestantism will not become extinct in France. One reason among many is decisive. The struggle of these days of ideas and empire is not between Catholicism and Protestantism. Impiety and immorality are the enemies which both have to resist. To restore the spirit of religion is the work to which both are called. The work, like the evil, is immense. A slight probing of the wound, a short but serious glance at the moral state of the masses of men, whose minds are so fluctuating, whose hearts so empty, who desire so much and hope so little, who pass so rapidly from the excitement of fever to mental torpor,—and the observer will be penetrated with sadness and alarm. Catholics or Protestants, priests or laymen, be ye whom ye may, do not, if believers, be uneasy about each other; reserve that for those who believe not. There is the field for work, there the harvest. The field is open to Protestantism as to Catholicism; work will not be wanting to either; each has the aptitude and peculiar qualities to enable it to labour with success.

We suffer from very different moral complaints.

Some are above all things wearied and disgusted with the uncertainty and disorder of men's minds. They need a harbour sheltered from every point, a light which is ever steady, a guiding hand which never trembles. They ask from religion rather support to weakness than aliment for activity. They require her, while elevating, to sustain them; while touching their hearts, to keep down their understandings; while animating their inward life, to give them at the same time, and above all else, a deep sense of security.

Catholicism is wonderfully adapted to this frame of mind, now so common. She has gratifications for desires, remedies for suffering. She knows how at once to subdue and to please. Her grasp is strong, her prospects full of charm for the imagination. She excels in occupying while soothing the soul, which she suits after periods of great fatigue; for without leaving it cold or idle, she saves it much trouble, and undertakes for it the burden of responsibility.

For another class of minds, though also suffering and separated from religion, more intellectual and physical activity is required. They too feel the need of returning to God and the faith; but they are used to examine everything themselves, and only to receive that which they acquire by their own labour. They wish to shun incredulity, but liberty is dear to them; there is in their religious tendency more thirst than lassitude. To such, Protestantism may gain access, for while it speaks to them of piety and faith, it encourages and invites them to make use of their reason and liberty. It has been accused of coldness. That is a mistake. In ceaselessly appealing to free and personal examination it takes deep root in the soul, and becomes easily an inward faith, in which the activity of the understanding keeps up instead of extinguishing the fervour of the heart. And hence its connexion with the modern spirit, which formerly in its youth was at the same time reasoning and enthusiastic, eager for conviction as for liberty, and which, despite its momentary quiescence, has retained its old nature and will infallibly resume its double character.

Catholicism and Protestantism must never lose sight of our system of society, for it is on this that they must work. Let each of them appeal to it in its own way, looking for and attending to the wounds or wants for the cure or satisfaction of which they are best calculated. That is their true, their efficacious and disinterested mission, not looking at each other and seeking a renewal of controversy.

In general, I believe controversy is but of little use, and has little religious effect. In every age it has taken but a small part in the triumph of great moral truths. They establish themselves, especially at their first appearing, by direct and dogmatic exposition. We have in the gospels the most remarkable and august example. From their earliest day, neither motive or occasion of controversy was wanting with Jew or pagan. Yet we scarcely meet with it in the preaching either of Jesus Christ or of the apostles. They lay down their rule of faith, their precepts; they knock without ceasing at the doors of the hearts which they desire to enter. They do not trouble themselves to argue with their adversaries. Controversy arises later, and when it does, it soon disfigures the truth, for it distributes it in fragments among parties, sects, men; and each holds fast, with the intractable blindness of self-love, to the fragment which has fallen to his lot, in which he wishes to see, and that others should see, truth in her entirety.

Let them keep clear of controversy; let them attend little to each other, much to themselves and their task. Catholicism and Protestantism will then dwell peaceably, not only within its new state, but together.

I know that this peace will not be that spiritual unity which has been so talked of. Spiritual unity, beautiful in itself, is in this world chimerical; and from chimerical it becomes tyrannical.

As finite and free beings, that is to say, incomplete and fallible, unity escapes us, and we constantly miss it.

Harmony in liberty is the only unity to which men here below can pretend. Or, rather, it is for them the best, the only mode of elevation towards that true unity which all violence, all constraint,—that is, every invasion of spiritual by material order,—throws back and obscures, under the pretext of attaining it.

Harmony in liberty is the spirit of Christianity. It is charity united with zeal. It is also the object of philosophy, for it is the true, the moral sense of the principle of toleration and equal protection of the rites of worship; a principle which impiety has violated by trying to set it up as the standard of indifference and contempt for religion, but which allies itself wondrously with zeal and faith, for on their right it is itself founded.

The alliance must be ratified. I say must in concluding, as I did when beginning. Peace between religious creeds is now imposed on all alike by our social condition. Harmony in liberty is their legal condition, their charter. Let them yield to it in spirit as in act; let them love it while obeying it. I fear not the fate of a false prophet, when I predict that religion will be thereby as great a gainer as society.

As to Philosophy, she has in our days the glory of not having remained a Utopia. From discoveries she has proceeded to conquests. She has metamorphosed her ideas into facts and institutions; a formidable change, as it reveals not only the errors of the first thought, but for a time misleads and corrupts it by plunging it into the vortex of human passions; nevertheless a great glory, and one which assigns to philosophy a high position in the new social state.

It is a rare privilege to be able, without embarrassment, worthily to acknowledge and abjure error. Philosophy can do this, for, politically speaking, victory belongs to her, and not only victory but power. Though much self-deceived, she has done much. She has reason for pride as well as for modesty. She can afford to show herself just, benevolent, and respectful to her former adversaries. She cannot be charged with weakness or cowardice.

Practically, experience has enlightened her. She knows better than she did the true condition of morality and human society. She knows that she herself is not all-sufficient, that she suffices not entirely for souls or nations, that in human nature and in the general course of affairs the share due to religion is immense, and that philosophy should not contest it with her.

To go still deeper, philosophy herself is about to become seriously and sincerely religious. Like Catholicism, like Protestantism, she cannot change her nature, she must remain philosophy, that is to say free and independant thought, whatever her field of action. But as regards religious questions, she sees that she has often been short-sighted and hasty, that neither impiety nor indifference constitutes true knowledge, that the proudest spirit may humble itself before God, and that there is philosophy in faith itself.

All this is still very vague, and I speak but vaguely of it. However, so it is. It is on this slope that philosophy is now placed, and along it that she must hereafter advance. Her future must be great in the midst of that society which she has formed. The future must be great for spiritual order as a whole, religious and philosophical. May this destiny be accomplished! May spiritual order recover her activity and renown, with a peace and harmony hitherto unknown. Therein consists the dignity of man! therein the strength of society.

End.

[Transcriber's note: The following text is not part of the originals book, but seems worthy of inclusion.
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process.
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide
Treatment Date: April 2005
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