Reformation or Deformation—Part I: History

George E. Fifield • July 26, 1900 • American Sentinel, Vol. 15, No. 29

To all readers of the Sentinel it must be plain that it is impossible to legislate either genius or piety into any people. Hence all attempts by legal methods, to produce a renaissance in art or literature, or to foster religion, must inevitably fail. It may not be as clear to all why such attempts are not only useless but harmful, and that they invariably work backwards, producing not a new birth but a death, not a reformation but a deformation. This, however, is true, and that it is true, and why it is true, this paper will seek to show.

In the fourth century, it was the effort made by the church fathers to Christianize the Roman State that paganized the church, and built up the papal despotism. We may not question the sincerity of many of those men. Certainly, too, there was no lack of religious enthusiasm; for the Christian citizenship leaders of the time, in their imaginative zeal, saw visions of angels in the sky leading on the victorious armies of the Christian (?) prince. Those men were simply mistaken, and their mistake was twofold. Their method of reformation was by human law instead of by the power of the divine love. This was the first and great mistake, and the second mistake was like unto it, and inevitably followed from it,—it was that they were more anxious to Christianize the state, than to Christianize the individual. They sought to reach the individual through the state instead of the state through the individual.

All this was a complete reversal of Jesus' methods.

Jesus repudiated all legal methods and worked by the power of the divine love alone, knowing well that only that power could reach the heart. Before his penetrating gaze, all forms of human organization were as naught. He saw only the naked human soul, sinning, and so needing a Saviour. His method so succeeded as to permeate the whole heathen world with the power of redeeming faith and love. Before its triumphal progress even the mighty despotism of the Roman empire could not stand; and this the most philosophical of the emperors saw very well, and so, against their better natures, and almost against their wills, they became persecutors. But persecution could not stop the progress of Christianity; on the contrary, it was a common saying that "The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church."

Constantine saw all this, and well knew that the progress of Christianity meant the destruction of imperial power. He determined to subvert Christianity into the use of force, and so bring it into alliance with Imperialism. To the Christians who had been persecuted for years, and many of whose leaders even then were maimed as the result, the thought of utter security and immunity from persecution by alliance with a Christian (?) state was too intoxicatingly fascinating to be resisted. So the plan of Constantine succeeded, and the Christian Citizenship movement of the fourth century began. What was the result?

As soon as the movement had progressed far enough to make it evident to the politicians and office seekers that the road to political preferment lay through the church, they all practiced looking and acting pious until they could do so successfully; and then they sought and gained admission to the church. Draper says, "A way was thus opened through the church for the lowest men to reach the highest office"; and the great church historian, Neander, remarks that, "All that was corrupt in the Byzantine court thus found its way into the bosom of the church." Thus the church, the representative of the only power that can purify the hearts of men and so uplift the world, was itself corrupted and its efficiency for good almost entirely destroyed. What wonder that the world darkened down into that night of a thousand years known now as the Dark Ages."

Men were taught to deny their own consciences, and the sovereignty of God over the individual soul, and to submit, in slavish fear, to the dictation of the organic church backed by the power of the allied state.

Thus repeatedly outraged, conscience ceased to manifest its power, and the voice of God in the soul was hushed. The effort to save the world by law, however sincerely made, had resulted only in ruin and utter defeat.

It were easy to produce many such illustrations from history, showing how all efforts to produce religious reformations by law not only inevitably fail, but produce deformation and destruction instead. Men are, however, often so controlled by religious prejudices as to be unable to see clearly the force of such illustrations. Let us, therefore, seek to free ourselves from all such hampering prejudices by taking an illustration apart from religion entirely,—an illustration of the same principles as applied to literature.

The age of Louis XIV. of France has been glorified as an age of literature and of art. A perverse and short-sighted history, forgetting that we reap to-day not what we sow to-day, but instead, what we sowed yesterday and long before, has given much of the credit of this glory to Louis himself, and to his method of subsidizing literature.

A little careful study of the chronology of the time will show how great is this mistake. Whenever the attempt is made to name the men upon the success of whose work the literary and scientific glory of the age depends, invariably the names are given of Descartes, Pascal, Fermat, Gassendi, Mersenne, Pecquet, and Riolan, and perhaps also of Belon, Rondelet, and Rey. But the work of every one of these men was practically finished, and most of the men were in their graves before Louis XIV. assumed the government of France in 1661. Surely, not to anything in his administration of the Government of France can the merit of their work be due. The truth is that the half century immediately preceding the reign of Louis was one of progress and of genius. The Reformation had broken the shackles from the human mind. Everywhere men were thinking. For the first time in centuries, they were asking not only the question, How? but also the question, Why? Draper well says of this age, "On the ruins of its ivy-grown cathedrals, Ecclesiasticism, surprised and blinded by the breaking day, sat solemnly blinking at the light and life about it." Under the inspiration of this spirit of freedom and inquiry France produced men of merit in almost every department of human thought and effort. Prominent among them were the men already named,—men who added to the sum of human knowledge and left their imprint on the thought of the race. Seeing all this, Louis was vain or ambitious enough to want to get to himself some of this honor. He thought to set his crown with the stars of genius, and emblazon his name forever in a galaxy of glory. He was foolish enough to think concerning literature as many even to-day think concerning religion, that he could forward its interests by governmental methods. For fully half a century during his long reign he adopted the practice of rewarding literary men with large sums of money, and with many marks of personal favor. What was the effect of this method upon literature itself? Instead of to advance its interests, the effect was to paralyze its power. Any government, even a monarchy, to be operative at all, must have back of it the sympathy and support of a majority of its subjects. All governments, therefore, must be conservative, while truth is ever progressive. Literature is the repository of truth, as true religion is the worship of Truth. Truth always enters the world by a minority of one, born in a manger, crucified between thieves. After a time there are two who believe in it, then three, but the journey is long and perilous before the majority opinion, or the governmental opinion is on its side. Ere then it has ceased to be the advanced truth and there are farther glimpses on the horizon of thought. Whenever, therefore, government touches religion or literature its inevitable effect must be to paralyze it. The age of Louis XIV. was no exception. After the system of subsidies inaugurated by Louis had had time to bear its fruit, France for half a century produced not one independent thinker of note. All the talent of France that could be bought was chained to the chariot wheels of state, and turned aside from progressive lines into merely decorating the old idea. There was much that was elegant and attractive, even artistic, but nothing progressive. The senses of men were soothed and satisfied by palaces, paintings and poems, but the intellect and heart were left fallow.

Even art itself, lacking the inspiration of lofty, bold, and progressive thought, soon began to decay. It was as if the sum of genius and of progress, that had arisen gloriously, and mounted grandly toward the zenith, had suddenly paused midway in the heavens, and slowly descending, had set in the east. Buckle, in his "History of Civilization", says, "In other countries vast progress was made; and Newton in particular, by his immense generalizations, reformed nearly every branch of physics, and remodeled astronomy by carrying the law of gravitation to the extremity of the solar system. On the other hand, France had fallen into such a torpor, that these wonderful discoveries which changed the face of knowledge, were entirely neglected, there being no instance of any French astronomer adopting them until 1732, that is, forty-five years after they were published by their immortal author." . . .

"In no age have literary men been rewarded with such profusion as in the age of Louis XIV.; and in no age have they been so mean-spirited, so servile, so utterly unfit to fulfill their great vocation as the apostles of knowledge and the missionaries of truth. . . . To gain the favor of the king, they sacrificed that independent spirit which should have been dearer to them than life. They gave away the inheritance of genius; they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage." (Buckle's Hist. of Civilization, Vol. I. Pages 498 and 501.)

Such was the effect of government patronage upon literature, which it sought by its favors to benefit, but this was by no means all the evil. That money which was bestowed so lavishly upon literature, was taken by taxation from the toilers. Thus labor was degraded, and he who produced the necessities of life, was made to feel his inferiority to him who only ministered to its luxuries. Nor was even this the worst. Literature, being the representative of truth, should ever be on the side of the rights of the people, and against all despotism. It should act as a check upon the selfishness of monarchy and the corruption of republics. But by this means literature was chained to the throne and made to soothe and quiet the conscience of the king in his evil way.

Again I quote from Buckle, "It behooves, therefore, every people to take heed that the interests of literary men are on their side rather than on the side of their rulers. For literature is the representative of intellect, which is progressive; government is the representative of order, which is stationary. As long as these two are separate, they will correct and react upon each other, and the people may hold the balance. If, however, these powers coalesce, if the government can corrupt the intellect, and the intellect will yield to the government, the inevitable result must be despotism in politics, and servility in literature." "Then it is, that there comes one of those sad moments in which no outlet being left for public opinion, the minds of men are unable to find a vent; their discontents, having no voice, slowly rankle into a deadly hatred; their passions accumulate in silence, until at length, losing all patience, they are goaded into one of those terrible revolutions, by which they humble the pride of rulers, and carry retribution even into the heart of the palace."

Thus it is seen that this effort of Louis XIV. to advance the interests of literature by governmental methods, resulted not only in ruin to literature, but almost, also, in ruin to France, it being one of the causes of the French Revolution and of the terrible reign of terror.

People should think soberly of this warning in these days, when leading journals pass over in silence, or boldly uphold all the misdeeds of the party that may chance to be in power, and when even magazines of high literary merit are so subsidized by wealth as to publish long articles in defense of the trusts as a blessing to the people.

Such illustrations from history to prove the point in question, might easily be multiplied. The moral is, that God made the mind and heart of man free, and government, however good and pure its intentions, cannot touch them by its methods, without producing slavery, paralysis, and ruin.

G. E. FIFIELD.