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. { 97} 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. { 98} 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.