"
"Truly," I answered, "the idea is a noble one--But look at the reality! Has
not priestly pandering to tyrants made the Church, in every age, a scoff
and a byword among free men?"
"May it ever do so," she replied, "whenever such a sin exists! But yet,
look at the other side of the picture. Did not the priesthood, in the
first ages, glory not in the name, but, what is better, in the office, of
democrats? Did not the Roman tyrants hunt them down as wild beasts, because
they were democrats, proclaiming to the slave and to the barbarian a
spiritual freedom and a heavenly citizenship, before which the Roman well
knew his power must vanish into naught? Who, during the invasion of the
barbarians, protected the poor against their conquerors? Who, in the middle
age, stood between the baron and his serfs? Who, in their monasteries,
realized spiritual democracy,--the nothingness of rank and wealth, the
practical might of co-operation and self-sacrifice? Who delivered England
from the Pope? Who spread throughout every cottage in the land the Bible
and Protestantism, the book and the religion which declares that a man's
soul is free in the sight of God? Who, at the martyr's stake in Oxford,
'lighted the candle in England that shall never be put out?' Who, by
suffering, and not by rebellion, drove the last perjured Stuart from his
throne, and united every sect and class in one of the noblest steps in
England's progress? You will say these are the exceptions; I say nay; they
are rather a few great and striking manifestations of an influence
which has been, unseen though not unfelt, at work for ages, converting,
consecrating, organizing, every fresh invention of mankind, and which is
now on the eve of christianizing democracy, as it did Mediaeval Feudalism,
Tudor Nationalism, Whig Constitutionalism; and which will succeed in
christianizing it, and so alone making it rational, human, possible;
because the priesthood alone, of all human institutions, testifies of
Christ the King of men, the Lord of all things, the inspirer of all
discoveries; who reigns, and will reign, till He has put all things under
His feet, and the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of God and
of His Christ.
Pages:
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842