171

CHAPTER VI

PROTESTANTISM AND MODERN RELIGIOUS FEELING

WE, have now followed the influence of Protestantism through the various departments of the Family, Law, the State, Economics and Society, Science and Art. Everywhere our investigation has yielded a twofold result: while Protestantism has furthered the rise of the modern world, often largely and decisively, in none of these departments does it appear as its actual creator. What it has done is simply to secure for it greater freedom of development---and that, moreover, in the various departments in very various ways; and besides, the action of the different Confessions and groups has differed

172

in strength and direction. All it has anywhere done is to favour, strengthen, colour, and modify the course of the development, while in some cases it maintained and even reinforced the opposing influences drawn from the Late-medieval view of life. The modern State, its freedom and constitutional form, its officialdom and military system, modern economics and social stratification, modern science and art, are everywhere, to a greater or less extent, already arising before and apart from it. They have their roots in Late medieval developments; above all, in the growth of town life and the Territorial State, and the great activity in the formation of new ideas and forces which characterised the fruitful centuries from the fifteenth to the seventeenth. The really leading power in respect of civilisation during the Confessional Period was the centralised French State, in which the Renaissance, Catholicism, and modern politics all united. Protestantism, when all is said and done, only, in its own

173

domain, did away with the hindrances which the Catholic system for all its splendour, opposed, by its essential nature, to the rise of the modern world, and, above all, it gave to the mass of new, free, secular ideas, the firm foundation of a good conscience, and an impulse towards progress. But even within the Protestant domain the new world did not come into being without much conflict and opposition. The English Revolution, and the American War of Independence, and the German Illuminist movement, were all revolutions. But all the Protestant revolutions differed in character from the great French Revolution; they did not need to make a complete breach of continuity, nor to dethrone religion, because Protestant civilisation, by the religious transformation which it produced, had already accomplished the revolution on it inward side. That is the main and essential point. But, on the whole, the important political and economic results of Calvinism were produced against its will. Religious

174

toleration and liberty of conscience are mainly the work of the mystical Spiritualism; the formation of Churches on the basis of voluntary association, and the independence of the religious community in relation to the State, are the work of the Anabaptists and of the aspect of Calvinism which was allied to them; while the philological and historical understanding of Christianity and its archives is due to the humanistic theology.

But where, then, is to be sought the independent, central, unique, and immediate influence of Protestantism in the production of the modern spirit? In view of the preceding investigation, there is one thing that can be said with certainty in answer to this question, viz. that if any such influence exists at all, it is to be sought in the actual central domain of Protestantism, that of religious thought and feeling, for in the more peripheral regions of civilisation it is certainly not to be found. And, taking everything into consideration, it is surely entirely natural and

175

probable that they are only to be found here. Protestantism is, after all, in the first place a religious force, and only in the second or third place a civilising force in the narrower sense. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that its really revolutionary effects are in the main to be found only in the religious sphere. To understand this we only need to grasp the elementary truths, that religious forces really only proceed from religious motives, and that, conversely, all the proper and immediate influence of religious innovations is confined to the sphere of religion. That can only be forgotten by an Apologetic which cannot summon up courage to deal directly with religious ideas, and therefore only ventures to praise religion for its influences in the sphere of civilisation; or by an irreligious philosophy of history which cannot believe in the spontaneity and originality of religious ideas, and supposes that the only way to understand them is to unmask behind them the profane forces-preferably political or economic-to

176

which the action is really due. But for every unprejudiced observer the matter really stands exactly as it appears to do: religion is really derived from religion, and the results of its influence are really, in the first place, religious. Religion becomes a power in ordinary life only by taking up civilisation into itself and giving it a special direction. But it always itself remains distinct from this civilisation; it is always more a formative than a creative force. The effects produced by it in the field of civilisation may be illogical, fragmentary, having the character of compromise, but in itself it is self-consistent and definite; and just for that reason it possesses the capacity to mould other things without becoming identified with them, and to adapt itself to their changes without losing its character. The relation of a religious system to civilisation is always very complicated. Even the civilisation of the Middle Ages was special in its character strongly influenced by non-religious circumstances; and if through the spiritual influence

177

of the Church it became a specifically ecclesiastical civilisation, that was due to the peculiarly complete and logical way in which absolute, saving truths were built up into an all-embracing hierarchic power. Since Protestantism renounced the latter, its relation to civilisation necessarily became a much looser one, and its centre of gravity necessarily lay in its religious spirit, which was not directly connected, either by Organisation or ideas, with civilisation. The real and ultimate question regarding the significance of Protestantism for the modern world is, therefore, in what relation its religious energy and fundamental principle stand to the religious character of the modern spirit, whether this, possessing, as it still does even in the present, a relative independence of the special forms of civilisation, is essentially rooted in it and determined by it. The question regarding its significance for the modern world as a whole is not, in fact, identical with that regarding its significance for modern civilisation. For the latter is not identical with the

178

religious life which forces its way up within its pale. The ultimate question remains that regarding the relation of the Protestant religious spirit to modern religion-to the religion which, closely bound up with the modern system of civilisation, is not completely represented by it. Since the question concerns the present, that is to say, a complex of circumstances of which the outcome and the complete extent are still unknown, the question has a twofold sense. It may have the sense of a simple question of fact: whether, namely, the religious life which has its being amidst, and is intimately connected with, the complex of the world of to-day, actually bears the features of Protestantism. Or it can be taken in the sense of a question of opinion-whether in face of all the confusions and perversities of the actual state of things, a rallying of the present round the standard of an essentially Protestant Christianity would not be intrinsically desirable, possible, and necessary, if the present is to find any religious rallying-point or centre of

179

consolidation. Only in the --former sense does the question belong to purely historical thought. In the second sense, it arises out of historical thought, but goes beyond it, and works out into the problem of the present day as it presents itself to ethics and the philosophy of religion.

Here we can only attempt to answer the question in the former sense. But precisely in this sense the question is extraordinarily difficult to come to close quarters with. Here the possibility of exact investigation ceases, and in its place we have to be content with a general impression based on a host of detailed impressions-a general impression which may be correct, but whose correctness can never in the strict sense be proved. First and foremost, the question takes for granted that there actually exists a religious spirit peculiar to the modern world for a question regarding its relation to Protestantism to be raised about! And that is just what a first and most general impression will incline one to deny.

180

What is the picture that here presents itself to us?

So long as the modern world is thought of purely in its political, social, economic, and technical aspects, it can reconcile itself well enough, especially among the Anglo-Saxon Calvinistic, or quasi-Calvinistic, nations, with a somewhat softened form of Protestant orthodoxy, whereas Catholic orthodoxy constantly opposes it with a new Syllabus, and cancels again such accommodations as had already taken place, and even orthodox Lutheranism tends to be reactionary. Indeed, the industrial, professional, and business classes in these Calvinistic countries, drawing their strength from trust in God, and reserving for the private life a depth of inward feeling and a generous philanthropy, constitute perhaps even in the purely numerical aspect-the most important body of Protestantism at the present day, while the more outward industrial, social, and political forces of modern civilisation are also mainly in their hands. On the other

181

hand, this same modern system is also effectively without any religious foundation, and instead of that is underpinned with a utilitarian and individualistic philosophy of life, which resembles religious faith only in its belief in the harmony of interests, but supports even this belief rather on a universal law of nature than on a religious conviction. When, as a further stage, the natural law of the harmony of interests is in turn replaced by that of the struggle for existence, similar views are placed on the basis of natural selection and adaptation to environment, in which, again, only the optimism associated with the idea of development survives as a weak remnant of religious faith in the meaning and purpose of the world. Often enough, moreover, the modem Organisation of life becomes simply a gloomy, tyrannical fate, devouring all a man's working powers, which leaves no time for reflection, and is accepted as a matter of course without any thought of its reasons and aims, while recreation from its toilsomeness is sought

182

by any means that offer. Where, on the other hand, the spiritual elements of the modern world, the principle of thought contained in its whole system of natural science and technical development, its Organisation of State and Society, are followed out more deeply, then there naturally appear marked deviations from the old beliefs, or completely new ethico-religious ideas. These deviations show themselves especially in the idealist philosophy and literature, and find their strongest expression in what is usually described as German Idealism, though neither in origin nor in influence is it confined to Germany. In this philosophy and literature appear the evidences of deep inner modifications of religious feeling, but only like the peaks of submarine mountains showing above the surface; they have their being in the dark and unexplored depths of the psychic life of the nations. What is meant is most clearly indicated by the names of Kant, Fichte, Carlyle, and Emerson, with which we may associate the ripe wisdom of

183

Goethe, which one would fain point to as the expression of modern humanity in general. Here the essentially Protestant basis of this movement is clearly evident, the transformation of the idea of freedom and grace into the ideas of the self-directing personality and a spiritual fellowship having its roots in history, all on the basis of a theism which has taken up into itself the idea of immanence. Moreover, this modern religious temper, in a thousand various modifications, has been so thoroughly absorbed by large portions of modern Protestantism, that the latter can scarcely be distinguished from the former. But it is equally unmistakable that modern religious feeling is in other cases dissatisfied with this, after all, ultimately Personalistic idea, and under the sense of the iron uniformity of natural law, of the world as a monster devouring all humanity, or, on the other hand, of the Aesthetic glorification of the world and cult of individuality, tends towards ideas and feelings which are radically

184

pantheistic, pessimistic, or, again, absolutely revolutionary, aiming blindly at producing some change or other. And where this spirit prevails, all relation to the practical, political, economic, and technical side of our civilisation is often entirely forgotten. In addition to this we have, finally, the tendency which naturally arises in such conditions towards scepticism and weariness-the vague pressure of longing and restlessness, which, discontented with the religious content of the life of the period, desires something different without seriously seeking or working for it. Now that is certainly a picture of very confused circumstances. An answer to our question based simply on the facts seems impossible. Nevertheless, I believe that such an answer may be ventured on; at least if one holds it to be an established fact of historical experience, that without a religious basis, without a metaphysic and an ethic, a strong self-consistent spirit of civilisation cannot exist. If we confine our attention to the actual religious life of the

185

modern world and not to those portions of it which are religiously atrophied, it is, after all, unmistakable that, as a simple matter of fact, on the one hand an essentially practical Protestantism, conservative in doctrine but not intensely dogmatic, forms the backbone of the great Anglo-Saxon portion of our modern world, and that, on the other hand, along with it, the influences of German idealism, which are closely connected with Protestantism, are the directive forces. All other kinds of religious aspiration and imagination are rather a flight from the modern world than an inner religious conquest of it, a flight, in general, from the practical and the real. Thus, on grounds of pure fact, we are warranted in saying that the religion of the modern world is essentially determined by Protestantism, and that this constitutes the greatest historical significance of Protestantism. The Protestantism in question is, it must be said, not simple and uniform. It is a Protestantism which has undergone deep and inward changes,

186

and takes the most divergent forms. On the one hand there is a Calvinism which has come to terms with democracy and capitalism; on the other, there is a Lutheranism which has become possessed and altered by the spirit of modern philosophic speculation, and between the two there lie various modifications and compromises. But religious uniformity in the modern world is simply inconceivable, and Protestantism is quite reconcilable with this multiplicity of separate formations. Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked that this religious life has not found for itself a social Organisation fitted to the modern world. But beginnings in the direction of a new organisation, leaving Early Protestantism completely behind it, are present. Within the Anglo-Saxon domain they are already in being, and if they cannot simply be transferred thence to Germany, the impulse to a recasting and new development of the life of the religious community-both inwardly and in relation to the State is being irresistibly communicated

187

from that quarter, and is constantly being reinforced by our own continental developments.

To trace clearly this development of Protestantism and throw into relief the problems which arise out of it, is the task of Church History and the History of Dogma, which are concerned with the real inner development of Protestantism as a religion and Organisation. Of course this development must always be closely associated or, at any rate, kept in touch with that of literature, philosophy, and society; as, conversely, they on their part have to remember the religious factors in the modern development. Unfortunately, modern Protestant Church History and History of Dogma are still in a rather unsatisfactory condition. They fail to set clearly before them definite objects of research, or to disentangle the strands of other material which have become interwoven with their own; they have no feeling for the new thing which is here struggling into being,

188

and fail to perceive the breach which has taken place in the development of Protestantism. Generally speaking, the straight lines which run through the older Protestantism are simply produced in the same direction, though partially obscured by a motley collection of observations on the history of civilisation. Little attention has, in fact, been given to this department of research. It is only in quite recent times that a need has been felt to gain a clear understanding, not only of the Early Church and the Reformation period, but also of the present.

189

For all that, certain fundamental features are already clearly apparent. Since Hundeshagen, we know the special characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon development, the adaptation of Protestantism to the political and economic bases of modern life which has there been accomplished. A growing practical knowledge of English and American circumstances, the extension of our range of vision beyond German Lutheranism, will make this fact and its significance constantly clearer. We also feel the reaction of this system of life upon our own circumstances, and in many directions we are applying to them socioethical theories and methods of Organisation similar to those which have there been worked out. That is one of the most important facts in the whole of modern religious and social history. How it has come about we have described in a general way above. What practical influence is exercised by Calvinism, the Baptist Churches, Methodism, etc., as thus altered and adapted to modern life,

190

needs, it is true, a more exact and detailed investigation than has yet been given to it.

The adaptation which has taken place is, of course, a somewhat external one. The ideas which underlie the industrial and political groundwork of life have not been inwardly adopted and mastered. But it is only in some points of detail that the real inner opposition shows itself. On the other hand, in the other main line of development, the Protestantism which stands under the influence of German Idealism, this inner opposition is keenly felt and has necessitated an inner adjustment of differences. Here has been formed what may be called the main body of distinctively modern religious thought. And Church History has not been willing to take due note of this development either, in its full importance. It was left to the

191

philosopher Dilthey to lay down the fundamental ideas which should here direct investigation. And it is a point which still stands in need of further elucidation.

In order to make this clear, I must take as my starting-point the characterisation given earlier of the religious ideas of Luther. What he laid all emphasis upon was the certainty of attaining the end for which he had always striven, assurance of salvation, complete assurance of deliverance from the condemnation entailed by original sin, by the grace which is revealed in Christ and made available by Him. That was his main interest, but that main interest was not something new, but only a vastly simplified and vividly realised form given to the old. The new thing that he introduced was a new means of reaching this goal, a means free from the uncertainties attaching to human contributory merit, to alien, uncomprehended

192

authorities and purely material sacramental communication, a means which laid hold on the whole inner man to its very centre with absolute certainty and permanence, and could bring him directly into the closest touch with the Divine spiritual action. If to the Catholic it was precisely the external authority and the substantiality of grace which seemed to guarantee salvation, for Luther's feeling it was just that authority which was uncertain and alien, and that substantiality which was unintelligible and elusive. He needed for the personal life something purely personal. The means was therefore faith, sola fides, the affirmation, by the complete surrender of the soul to it, of that thought of God which has been made clear and intelligible to us in Christ. The assurance of salvation must be based on a miracle in order to be certain; but this miracle must be one occurring in the inmost centre of the personal life, and must be clearly intelligible in its whole intellectual significance if it is to be a miracle which guarantees complete assur-

193

ance. Religion is completely transferred from the sphere of the substantial sacramental communication of grace, and , of ecclesiastical, sacerdotal authority, to the psychologically intelligible sphere of the affirmation of a thought of God and of God's grace, and all the ethico-religious effects arise with psychological clearness and obviousness from this) central thought. The sensuous sacramental miracle is done away with, and in its stead appears the miracle of thought, that man in his sin and weakness can grasp and confidently assent to such a thought. That is the end of priesthood and hierarchy, the sacramental communication of ethico-religious powers after the manner of a sensible substance, and the ascetic withdrawal from'-the world,' with its special merits.

In all this Luther's sole object was the attainment of complete assurance of grace, which for him, while he followed the way of

194

merit and the monastic life, of sacraments and sacerdotal authority, had threatened to become ever more alien and external, more human and conditional, and therefore more uncertain. The goal was the same as before, but the way to it was entirely new. But with this set of ideas it happened as it often does happen-that the new way to the old goal became more important than the goal itself; from that which was at first a new means there developed a new end and a new association of ideas. When, with the growth of Confessional wrangling, the tyranny of authoritative dogma became unbearable, and consequently dogma itself suspect, the centre of gravity was shifted from the doctrine of salvation and justification, which was closely bound up with the main Trinitarian and Christological doctrines, to personal subjective conviction, to the emotional experience of a sense of sin and of peace of heart. That, however, gave free scope for the establishment of the idea of faith on a purely subjective inward foundation, and consequently also for the

195

possibility of its taking various forms not bound up with any official dogma. The Bible became, instead of the infallible rule of faith, a spiritual entity and power of a more fluid character, a witness to historical facts from which psychologically mediated religious energies streamed forth; in support of this view appeal was made to the living conception of the Bible, which Luther's religious instinct had always maintained alongside of the legalistic. Thus an approach was made to the Spiritualists, who from the first had drawn this inference, but who, repulsed on all sides and cleaving to the mystical tradition, had gradually withdrawn into an individualism which was without the power of creating social forms. Then follows that amalgamation of Protestantism with the subjective individualistic representatives of a religion of feeling and conviction, which now makes Protestantism as a whole appear as the religion of conscience and conviction, without compulsorily imposed dogma, and with a free Church-organisation independent of the State,

196

and a certainty based on inner feeling independent of all rational proofs. When Lessing appeals to Luther, "the Great Misunderstood," to take under his protection this genuine Protestantism, he is identifying 'Protestantism, in a manner which was to be imitated by a host of followers, with the old Sectarian doctrine of the "Inner light," as Dilthey justly observes; and yet at the same time he is expressing an essentially Protestant idea, as he himself was convinced that he was doing. He has simply treated Luther's way as more important than his goal.

Indeed, the consequence of this development goes still further. For Luther, the being of God, the curse of sin, the existence of hell, were beyond question. What was problematical was only the application of grace and deliverance to one's own selffiducia specialism For the modern world, confronted with the new cosmology of the natural sciences, and the modern anti-anthropomorphic metaphysics, it was precisely the being of God which was

197

the problematical point, while, on the other hand, it was beyond question that to be once certain of the being of God would be to have found the meaning and goal of life, salvation and grace. In these circumstances, the general principle of the "new way" discovered by Luther was infinitely more important than his special dogmatic goal. This "way" contained in itself the actual goal, assurance of the existence of God, escape from finitude into infinitude and the super-earthly in general -to have found the way was to have found the goal, the gaining of which brought with it necessarily everything else. All stress was now laid on the intuitive certainty of faith, on the inward movement and impulsion, on the inwardly necessary attainment of the idea of God in general, on the winning of a purely personal conviction of His real existence, for then everything further might be left to Him and His mysterious wisdom, if only this main decisive point was won. Thus Protestantism became the religion of the search for God in

198

one's own feeling, experience, thought, and will, the seeking of an assurance of this supreme centre of all knowledge by the concentration of all personal convictions on this one point, while trustfully leaving open all the further obscure problems about which the Dogmatics of the earlier Protestantism had so much to say. Here, again, it was Lessing who, in his famous saying that the search for truth was preferable to the unsought possession of it, gave a typical characterisation of modern religious feeling, and in doing so picked out just that thread in the web of Protestantism which the modern world is still eagerly weaving into its fabric. Individual personal seeking, personal experience of pain of conscience and pain of doubt, a grasping of the hand of God which is held out in the historic revelation, in order, having done so, to proceed further along the pathway of personal responsibility and decision to the winning of ultimate conviction, with a calm acceptance of all the enigmas which lie un-

199

involved along this path-such is the character of modern religious feeling. And by its strong conviction that this is not the scepticism of weaklings but a manly courageous faith, capable of bearing the burden of life, it is closely connected with Luther's doctrine of faith. In this modern view, fides qua creditor, as that by which God is, at least in general, reached and personally grasped, is held superior to fides qua creditur, as that which? professes to know the unknowable, and trammels too closely the movement of life and knowledge. Everywhere the idea of faith has triumphed over the content of faith, and only escapes weakness and sentimentality because, when all is said and done, the iron of the Protestant conception of faith rings through.

There is still a final point to be added. The Protestantism which has passed through these changes has gained a new relation to science. The important and complicated historical process of which I have spoken above, the inner amalgamation of the religion of in-

200

dividual conviction with scientific truthfulness and critical acumen, the establishment of Protestantism as a religion of culture, in alliance with science and philosophy, is explained by these developments. If Protestantism now feels itself to be a principle, not only of religious, but also of scientific and philosophic truthfulness, that does not mean that Protestantism, as a weaker religion from the point of view of Church-organisation, has been conquered by an alien power, nor that it has forgotten its own nature and fallen into self-deception. Luther, it is true, knew nothing of all this, and cared nothing about it; he banished speculation from the domain of religious, truth, and, for the rest, when particular questions came up used his sound common sense. But once the point was reached in the development of Protestantism at which the "way" of personal conviction became more important than the goal of supernatural salvation, religious conviction could not remain wholly unrelated to scientific

201

conviction. The former had to take on the experimental character of the latter, while the latter assumed the character of sacred religious duty which belongs to the former. Just as Protestantism at this point took back to its bottom the children whom it bad so roughly cast off, the Baptist and Mystic enthusiastic beliefs, it also sent for its other old enemy-and original associate -the humanistic and philologico-philosophical theology, and offered it commercium and connubium. Semler, the father and pioneer of a Protestantism of critical ideas and instincts, could declare, as an unquestionable truth, that everything which the newer theology had painfully won for itself was already to be found in the great and admirable Erasmus. The theology of the Illuminist period was indistinguishable from Socinianism and Arminianism. Kant, Fichte, and Hegel could hold that they were only formulating philosophically the fundamental idea of the Reformation. Goethe at the Reformation

202

Festival [of 1817] could suppose that he was at one with Luther in protesting against all obscurantism and clericalism. It is true that in the present day this opinion has, in many directions, led to results which dissolve all connexion between scientific religion and Christianity, but the combination of religion with a scientific spirit in the religious circles of the modern world-and it is of these only that we are here speaking-is nevertheless something which has really grown out of the development of Protestantism. Inexpressibly difficult as are the problems which this amalgamation has brought upon the men of to-day, and distant as their solution may appear to many who deplore the religious distraction and discouragement of the present, pressingly as we stand in need of a firmer grasp of the objective point of support which is sought in religious subjectivity, dubious as the mixture of the scientific and religious movements in some respects is; if we look simply at the actual causal connexion, Protestantism is

203

certainly an important agency in this transformation of modern religious feeling, with all its struggle and pain.

Taking it all in all, we may fairly say that the religion of personal conviction and conscience, basing itself upon history, but not petrifying history into dogma, is the form of religion which is homogeneous with and adapted to modern individualistic civilisation, without, however, possessing in detail any very close connexion with the creations of the latter. It is true that in the measure in which this homogeneity is recognised and developed its own character is changed, and it becomes involved in the most difficult tasks, the accomplishment of which is still far out of sight.

It may, no doubt, be objected that such a conception of the religious position in the modern world is no longer a real judgment of fact, but a conception bringing into relief those tendencies of the modern development which are held to be the stronger and more valuable. Or, again, it may be said that

204

the actual position is altogether irrelevant; it is not a question to be decided by counting heads; such questions are inherently only capable of being answered by judgments of value which isolate out of the present that element which they regard as the most fundamental and as possessing the best inherent justification, and so offer it as a basis of action, to serve as the central principle by which to shape the situation. It maybe so; but if so, it no longer has a place within the limits of this inquiry.

For this inquiry is only concerned to show the causal connexion between Protestantism and the modern world, so far as such a connexion actually exists. It has not aimed at providing a basis for any judgment of value, whether in reference to modern civilisation or to Protestantism. What we have had to do with is simply the actual significance of Protestantism for the arising of modern civilisation, including its religious elements, not the provision of a norm for its present-

205

day existence, maintenance, or development. Nor do I wish to bring in such a judgment even here at the close. That would be a very far-reaching undertaking, and outside the scope of our present purpose. There is only one thing which I should like to point out in this connexion, and this certainly seems to me to result directly from our investigation. Modern civilisation is certainly characterised by an extraordinary extension and intensification of the thought of freedom and personality, and we regard this as its most valuable feature. This thought has, in consequence of a special conjunction of circumstances, spontaneously developed in all departments of life, and the one thing that Protestantism has contributed to it is an extraordinarily strong religious and metaphysical foundation, which, moreover, exists independently of it. The question arises whether this conjunction of circumstances, with the favourable soil which it provided for the idea of freedom, will be able to maintain

206

itself permanently. That is hardly likely to be the case. Our economic development is rather tending in the direction of a new bondage, and the great military and bureaucratic States, in spite of all their parliaments, are not wholly favourable to the spirit of liberty. Whether our science, which is falling entirely into the hands of specialists, our philosophy, exhausted by a feverish attempt to test all standpoints, and our art, with its tendency to foster over-sensibility, are more favourable to it, there is good reason to doubt. There remains, as a stand-by for the coming days of the oppression and decline of freedom that which has given to the whole fabric a goodly portion of its strength-the religious metaphysic of freedom and of a faith based on personal conviction; which has established freedom upon a foundation which an all too-human humanism cannot destroy, upon

207

faith in God as the power whence freedom and personality come to us; namely, Protestantism. I may therefore be permitted---at least if my personal view of the situation is correct---to offer by way of conclusion this suggestion: Let us jealously preserve that principle of freedom which draws its strength from a religious metaphysic; other-wise the cause of freedom and personality may well be lost in the very moment when we are boasting most loudly of our allegiance to it, and of our progress in this direction.