and vivid manner, thus writes of the peoples who threw off their allegiance to Rome, in contrast with those which rejected the Reformation: "Once risen into this divine. white heat of temper, were it only for a season, and not again, the nation is thenceforth considerable through all its remaining history. What immensities of dross and cryptopoisonous matter will it not burn out of itself in that high temperature in the course of a few years! Witness Cromwell and his Puritans making England habitable, even under the Charles-Second terms, for a couple of centuries more. Nations are benefited, I believe, for ages, for being thrown once into divine white heat in this manner; and no nation that has not had such divine paroxysms at any time is apt to come to much." "Austria, Spain, Italy, France, Poland - the offer of the Reformation was made everywhere, and it is curious to see what has become of the nations that would not hear it. In all countries were some that accepted; but in many there were not enough, and the rest, slowly or swiftly, with fatal, difficult industry, contrived to burn them out. Austria was once full of Protestants, but the hide-bound Flemish-Spanish Kaiser-element presiding over it, obstinately for two centuries, kept saying, 'No; we, with our dull, obstinate, Cimburgis under-lip, and lazy eyes, with our ponderous Austrian depth of Habituality, and indolence of Intellect, we prefer steady darkness to uncertain new Light!' and all men may see where Austria now is. Spain still more; poor Spain going about at this time, making its pronunciamentos.' Italy too had its Protestants; but Italy killed them-managed to extinguish Protestantism. Italy put up with practical lies of all kinds, and, shrugging its shoulders, preferred going into Dillettantism and the Fine Arts. The Italians, instead of the sacred service of Fact and Performance, did Music, Painting, and the like, till even that has become impossible for them; and no noble nation, sunk from vir

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INFLUENCE OF PROTESTANTISM UPON LIBERTY. 513

tue to virtù, ever offered such a spectacle before." "But sharpest-cut example is France, to which we constantly return for illustration. France, with its keen intellect, saw the truth, and saw the falsity, in those Protestant times, and, with its ardor of generous impulse, was prone enough to adopt the former. France was within a hair'sbreadth of becoming actually Protestant; but France saw good to massacre Protestantism, and end it in the night of St. Bartholomew, 1572." "The Genius of Fact and Veracity accordingly withdrew, was staved off, got kept away for two hundred years. But the Writ of Summons had been served; Heaven's messenger could not stay away forever; no, he returned duly, with accounts run up, on compound interest, to the actual hour, in 1792; and then, at last, there had to be a Protestantism,' and we know of what kind that was."1

Exception may, perhaps, be taken to some particulars in the foregoing extract; but still the spectacle of the physical power, the industry and thrift, the intelligence, good government, and average morality of the Protestant nations, is in the highest degree significant and impressive.

The influence of Protestantism upon civil and religious liberty is one point of importance in the present inquiry. Since Protestantism involves an assertion of the rights of the individual in the most momentous of all concerns, we should expect that its effect would be generally favorable to liberty. In considering this question, it is proper to glance at the political consequences of the Reformation.2

The first period after the beginning of the Reformation (1517-1556), is marked by the rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. Neither espoused the Protestant cause; but their mutual enmity left it room to exist and to de

1 Hist. of Frederick the Second (Harpers' ed.), i. 202 seq.

2 Heeren, Historical Treatises, Oxford, 1836. The chronological divisions of Heeren are followed above.

velop its strength. Notwithstanding the religious division, a new energy and vitality were infused into the constituent parts of the German Empire. The second period (1556-1603) is signalized by the revolt of the Netherlands. France, a kingdom divided against itself, was reduced for a time to a subordinate position. Spain and England were now the contending powers; the Protestant interest in Europe being led by Elizabeth, and the Catholic interest being marshaled under Philip II. Elizabeth herself was jealous of her prerogative and had no love for popular rights; but the Protestant party was, nevertheless, identified with the cause of liberty, and the Roman Catholic party with political absolutism. She was obliged, for her own safety, to give aid to the insurgents in the Netherlands and in Scotland. During her long reign, in England itself, under the inspiring influence of Protestantism, there was an agitation of constitutional questions, which augured well for the future. The great Protestant commercial Republic of Holland arose, as it were, out of the sea. In the third period (1603-1648) France, under Henry IV., for a while regains its natural position in Europe, but loses it by his untimely death. England, on the contrary, under the Stuarts, with their reactionary ecclesiasticism and subserviency to Spain, sacrifices in great part her political influence. It is the era of the Thirty Years' War; at first a civil war of Austria against Bohemia; then acquiring wider dimensions by the conquest of the Palatinate; and finally, upon the renewal of the contest between Spain and the Netherlands in 1621, interesting all Europe. The restored coöperation and religious sympathy of Austria and Spain, involved peril not only for Protestantism, but for the balance of power in Europe, which was now an object of pursuit. France, resuming its position under the guidance of Richelieu, joined hands with Sweden in lending support to the German Protestants. Sweden, by the part

POLITICAL EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION.

515 which it took in this great war, and by the treaty which followed it, acquired a political standing which it had not before possessed. By this war, the northern powers were brought into connection with the rest of Europe, so that Europe, for the first time, formed one political system.1 The Treaty of Westphalia is the monument of this event. It established a balance of power and terms of peace between the religious parties in Germany. During the fourth period (1648-1702), Louis XIV. appears as the champion of absolutism, and William III. comes forward as the leader of Protestantism and of the cause of liberty. Under his auspices, constitutional freedom is finally established in England. Prussia, which began its political career at the Reformation, rose in importance under "the Great Elector" (1640-1688), and at length took the place of Sweden, as the first of the northern powers. It was in the seventeenth century, during the reign. of the Stuarts, that the English colonies in North America were planted, and the foundations were laid for the future Republic of the United States. Without the victory of constitutional liberty in England, and without the political example of Holland, the North American Republic could not have arisen. Among the political effects of the Reformation, must be reckoned the upbuilding of Sweden and of Prussia. But when we are inquiring into the influence of Protestantism upon political liberty, it can be said with truth, that the Reformation made the free Netherlands; the Reformation made free England, or was an essential agent in this work; the Reformation made the free Republic of America. "The greatest part of British America," says De Tocqueville," was peopled by men who, after having shaken off the authority of the Pope, acknowledged no other religious supremacy. They brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe than by styling it 1 Heeren, p. 88.

a democratic and republican religion. This contributed powerfully to the establishment of a republic and a democracy in public affairs; and from the beginning, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."1 The town system and the "town spirit," in which this sagacious writer recognizes the germ of our political institutions, stood in intimate connection with the control of the laity in Church affairs, and with the religious polity of the early colonists. It is true, as this same writer has remarked, that the Roman Catholic system is not unfriendly to democracy, in a certain sense of the term; in the sense of an equality of condition. But this equality of condition is the result of a common subjection of the high and the low to the priesthood; and it is attended, therefore, with two dangers: first, that a habit of mind will be formed, which is unfavorable to personal independence, and therefore to the maintenance of political freedom; and secondly, that the ecclesiastical rulers will be impelled to fortify their sway by an alliance with absolutism in the State.

In opposition to the claim that Protestantism is friendly to religious liberty, an appeal is sometimes made to facts. It is said that the history of Protestant States contains many instances of religious intolerance and persecution. This must be conceded. The first effect of the Reformation was to augment the power of princes. The clergy stood in an altered relation to the civil authority, and were deprived of a shield which had given them a measure of protection against its encroachments. The old idea that there should be, in a political community, substantial uniformity in the profession of religion and in worship, was at first prevalent, and has slowly been abandoned. Catholic has been persecuted by Protestant; among Protestants, Lutheran has been persecuted by Calvinist, and Calvinist by Lutheran; Puritan by Church

1 Democracy in America, 1. ch. xvii.