PROTESTANTS AND THE PRINCIPLE OF
AUTHORITY IN RELIGION.

THE statement that the religion of most of us, of those espet

cially whose faith has remained unchanged, is, to a great extent, hereditary, is, we suppose, somewhat of a truism. If so, it is, like most truisms, apt to be overlooked, and will most certainly bear repetition. In the case of Catholics the child passes, almost imperceptibly, from the authority of the parent-generally of the mother-to that of the priest, and finds the teachings learned in his earliest infancy confirmed by him whom he has been taught to recognize as entrusted with Divine authority. The bias of hereditary training being, moreover, far stronger than most of us imagine, this unbroken succession of authority tends, in the majority of persons, to a firm, if somewhat unreasoning, faith. That it is as well that it should be so, who can doubt? That such a faith approximates, very nearly, to that of the "little children" of whom our Lord bade us take example, is surely self-evident. A faith like this, even if assailed-as assailed it is almost sure to be -will be strong in the fact that there has never been any conflict of authority, never any contradiction between the lessons learned in infancy and those learned in later years.

That such a faith is, however, not altogether complete is also undeniable. We need, in order to be able to "give a reason for the hope that is in us," to fulfil that other apostolic injunction, Examine yourselves whether ye be in the Faith." That is to say, that the mere fact that priest and parent have taught us exactly what our parents and theirs in turn and ever backwards have believed, does not, of itself, prove that teaching true. The "tradition" thus inherited may be, and doubtless is, a valuable witness to the sincerity of our belief, but is not necessarily an evidence of its truth.

All this, however, may be regarded as beyond the province of a layman, who can lay no claim whatever to any knowledge of theology. The point of principal importance in the present instance is the fact that the faith of Catholics being, as it must be, to a great extent hereditary, and deriving from that very circumstance a large measure of its hold upon the great mass of men and women, also gains a very material assistance from the absence of any conflict of authority, of any contradiction in its teachings. That which we learned at our mother's knee, which we learned more

fully at our first communion, again, and yet again, as life drew on, must, and does, influence us by the mere fact that it is utterly and entirely consistent with itself. It is for this very reason that we know it to be true. Not for this reason only, but certainly for this among many others. This self-consistency, so manifest, so unquestionable, entirely satisfies that ultimate court of appeal— humanly speaking-the inward conviction of the individual. Beyond that, how is it possible for us to go? "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God."

But it is this principle of authority in matters of religion as it concerns Protestants—that is, devout Protestants in good faith— that we have at present to deal with. Missions to non-Catholics, to those particularly known as "evangelicals,” have been prosecuted of late years with much zeal and fervor, and, doubtless, with a large measure of success. The Bull of our Holy Father Leo XIII., pronouncing Anglican orders null and void has for the present, at least, made the Anglican question of less immediate moment. Our would-be "Catholic" friends in that communion must be allowed a reasonable space of time in which to recover from their very natural soreness of disappointment. They expected the impossible, and have got nothing. It was, therefore, only fitting that at the last Catholic Truth Society's conference in England, the question, "How to reach the Nonconformists," should have received practically more attention than any other.

If among Nonconformists-our Anglican brethren style them dissenters"-you include the small remnant of the once powerful "evangelical" party in the Church of England-their sympathies being much more with the former than with those of their own communion who incline to "sacerdotalism"-we may, possibly, as being ourselves an ex-" evangelical," be allowed to discuss, as briefly as may be, some aspects of this question with which we are familiar. It is, of course, perfectly true that the main facts of the relations between Catholics and Nonconformists have become generally known to those who have studied them, but it is also none the less true that, inasmuch as the experience of each individual convert must, of necessity, differ from that of every other, so that experience, though chiefly of interest to the person most concerned, may serve to throw some fresh ray of light on what still remains, and must continue a difficult problem. In other words, every one who has been either an " Evangelical " or a Nonconformist, before the grace of God led him or her into the true Church, may help to make the inner workings of the Protestant mind more clear to Catholics, who must needs know them in order to win them to the Faith.

Having simply stated the fact that, though now a Catholic, by

the grace of God, we were for many years a strict "Evangelical," and the further fact that of all our immediate relations, we are, so far, the only Catholic, let us deal, to the best of our poor ability, with the principle of authority in religion as it concerns devout Protestants.

Their religion-it has many by-names, but it is, to all intents and purposes, one and the same in what they love to call "fundamentals "—is, to a greater extent, if possible, than that of Catholics, a matter of inheritance. How else account for their true devoutness combined with an intense hatred of all that savors of " Popery," to take no other instance? Were it not for the strength of hereditary bias how many would remain Protestants in an age of disintegration such as this is? It is, as a simple matter of fact, the force of habit, of training, which enables men and women who must otherwise, one would think, yield of very necessity to the assaults made upon their faith from all sides, to remain true to the lessons learned in their early years. That is to say, that the principle of authority in religion, so far as it influences Protestants, is dependent for its very existence upon the force of hereditary training. In other words, the religious authority of Protestants is, as to its origin, parental authority.

Herein consist both its strength and its weakness. Its strength, inasmuch as the force of habit is immeasurably greater than we are inclined to concede; also, for the reason that parental training, aided by parental example, and acting on the mutual affection of parents and children, tends, as it must naturally tend, to strengthen the force of habit. With many persons, in the case of women especially, the fact of living in constant association with a pious mother, or, after her death, in constant, loving memory of her, of itself makes that mother's creed something sacred, something which it would be an insult to her, an insult to God Himself, to question or to doubt. How can that be erroneous which she believes and practices, the faith in which she lived and died? Would it not pain her, even in Paradise-the thought is illogical, unreasoning, if you will, but very natural, even if half-unconsciouswere we to forsake the faith that to her was all in all? This is, I admit, but a faint shadowing of the reality; but it is, I maintain, a true description, so far as it goes, of a fact of daily experience; of a fact, moreover, which constitutes not, by any means, the least bitter part of that sacrifice which every convert makes.

But, herein, also consists its weakness. Setting aside the responsibility which it lays upon the parent-in which Catholics, of course, have a very full share; setting aside, also, the dangers arising from any personal inconsistencies, which, of itself, constitutes the gravest part of parental responsibility, for Catholic as

well as for Protestant-there arises, in the case of the latter, a menace to this authority from which that of the former is happily free, the danger, I mean, of contradiction between what is taught by the parent-both by word and example-and what is learned in later life. The child, in each case, is told, "This is the truth of God;" but, as an ultimate issue, the Protestant parent-were the question asked in words, as it must be, at times, in thought—“How do you know that is truth?" must, necessarily, answer in some such phrase as this, "Because I am convinced that it is so." Beyond that appeal to personal conviction, to personal spiritual experience, what other answer can there be? The weakness, therefore, lies in this, first, that should either the experience of the child, which invariably precedes conviction, or the conviction itself, which is the outcome of a long series of uniform experiences, fail for any reason (of which there may be many) to correspond to that of the parent, there ensues, as an inevitable consequence, a weakening of the authority of religion itself (as taught), that authority having been hitherto identified with that of the parent.

This does not, however, by any means constitute the sole weakness of the Protestant principle of authority, dependent, as it must be, on the authority of the original individual teacher. Difference of temperament alone may cause that want of correspondence between the spiritual experiences (and consequent conviction) of the child and those of the parent, but such a divergence may be, and has been, overcome by the working of a stronger, or purer, or more concentrated will on one less trained, less certain of itself. The failure to see things spiritual in the same light as the parent, may be, will doubtless be, regarded as an evidence of an "unconverted" state; the emotions aroused by affectionate entreaties, by the prayers and tears of a fond mother, will be mistaken for the wished-for convictions, and all will be peace again for a while.

The weakness, therefore, chiefly consists in the possibility of a conflict of authority. That of the first teacher-the parent-is accepted during childhood, not only as a necessity, but as a matter of course, with simple, unquestioning faith. That of the next teacher, schoolmaster, minister, as the case may be, will be accepted at the outset very much in the same way; coinciding, as it most probably will, with that of the parent, the teacher being of the parent's choosing. But as the years go on there must, sooner or later, come a time when the boy-the girl is less exposed to the danger, but it exists even for her-must choose his own teacher in things spiritual. Should his temperament closely resemble that of the parent who trained him, that is, should a special maternal or paternal phase of hereditary bias be unusually strong in him, he will in all probability choose one whose teachings conform, in

"fundamentals" at least, with those with which he has always been familiar. This familiarity in such a case would naturally have made those teachings dear to him for their own sake, as well as for the sake of her from whom he first learned them. If not, if there has been that want of correspondence of which I have spoken, a gulf bridged over by illusory feelings and emotions, then no familiarity can make such teachings more than simply tolerable, at best, for fear of paining the parent whom he loves.

But the choice, be it for good or for ill, must be made, and he who can honestly choose the path wherein his parents walked with God is surely to be accounted happy. But there is no strong probability, amounting almost, if not altogether, to a moral certainty, that he will do so. He does not pass, like the Catholic child, from the teachings of his mother to those of the priest, to find that both speak the same language, that the living, visible authority of the Church to which both mother and priest appeal is ever one, invariable and divine. The teacher whom he may choose, or whom circumstances stronger than ourselves, that mock our wisest plans, may choose for him will either teach him the same lessons that his mother taught him or cause him to unlearn them slowly but surely. It depends on so many things, trifles we are apt to call them, accident, temperament, want of filial affection; Protestants give the causes many different names, and judge those harshly by whom they are influenced, but there is, after all, only one cause, the inherent weakness of the Protestant principle of authority.

Thereafter, the choice once made, who may foretell the issue? In this, at last, we reach the chief danger that menaces this principle of authority, namely, that such a conflict must, of its very nature, and does, as a matter of fact, lead to a denial of all authority in religion. If the first teacher chosen contradicts, in certain well-defined points, the lessons inculcated by the parent, it follows by an unavoidable sequence that, should these new teachings fail to correspond to the boy's experiences and to the conviction which springs from them-his only tribunal of ultimate appealfor any of the various reasons that led to the same results in earlier life, there must ensue a refusal, more pronounced this time, since there is little or no affection involved, and the influence of inherited tendencies (which always retain some influence as regards his relations to his parents) is wanting, to accept the teachings themselves. That is to say, that if he follows out his course to a logical conclusion, which but few of us do, he will pass from teacher to teacher until he ends either in utter unbelief or in the fold of the Catholic Church.

In this very weakness, then, of the Protestant principle of

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