Christian Europe

“ For, in our days, spite of so many deviations in the course of the great European stream, it is truly a matter of wonder what power it has obtained over the globe in its mastery, its control, its unification. What, then, would have been the result had its course remained constantly under Christian guidance!
It is only a short time since the whole earth has become known to us; and we may say that, for Europe, it has been enough only to know it in order to become at once the mistress of it; such power has the Christian religion given her! ”

“ As time went on, a kind fortune preserved it from direct participation in the conquest of other worlds—that event which, more than any other, has been the basis of the development taken by modern world-history, of the fates of peoples, and of the largest part of their ideas and opinions. Since that event, and not before, Christian Europe, which hitherto, without being clearly conscious of it, had been one, and by joint enterprises had shown itself to be one—Christian Europe, I say, split itself into various separate parts. ”

“ What has Europe, with its divided peoples, its worn-out kings, its indolent Church, and exhausted fields, to oppose to this compact phalanx of united blood, burning with fanatical faith, submissive to one rule, and supported by all the wealth of Asia and Africa; whose fleets sweep the sea, and whose myriads are every day increased by the accession of fresh nations of Berbers, Mauritanians, and the nameless children of the desert?
This is the hopeless century. Manhood, patriotism, [168] Christianity itself, are all at the lowest ebb. ”

“ That the Church conferred incalculable benefits upon western Europe, few will question. To say nothing of its chief mission,—the moral uplifting of mankind through the Christian religion,—we have seen how, under its auspices, the barbarians were civilized and brought into the family of nations, how violence was checked by the "Truce of God," and how an educated class was maintained during the centuries when few laymen could either read or write. These are only the more obvious of its achievements ”

“ Europe was reorganized, after the fall of the Roman Empire, by the Papacy, and consequently on a Christian basis—the independence of the spiritual order, and the freedom of religion from secular control or intermeddling, the rights of conscience, and the supremacy of truth and justice in the mutual relations of individuals and of nations. No doubt the Christian ideal was far from being practically realized in the conduct of men or nations; there were relics of heathen barbarism to be subdued, old superstitions to be rooted out, and fierce passions to be quelled. ”

“ If you travel throughout the United States and through the nations of Europe in which Christianity prevails, and talk with the people about their institutions, they will boast of them as being the most permanent, indestructible and progressive of any institutions existing upon the earth; yet it is a fact well known to historians, that the Christian nations of Europe are the youngest nations on the globe. ”

“ But under Christian faith and culture, the various nations of Europe became assimilated, and the peculiar national characteristics under Gentilism were in a measure obliterated. They also revive as the nations under Protestantism recede from Christianity and return to Gentilism, and are held in check only by the reminiscences of Catholicity, and by the mutual intercourse of nations kept up by trade and commerce, literature and the arts. ”

“ Europe have been men without faith and without conscience, who, with the help of Protestant governments, have sapped and undermined and utterly destroyed even the remnants of the faith in Christianity and a divine Creator of this world that still lingered here and there about the old homes of Christian learning; and literature may be said to have been given over to the service of the enemies of Christ and of his church. ”

“ We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two-thirds of Europe are, in fact, Catholics; are they all perjured? For the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were Catholics ”

“ When the glories of the patristic age were waning, and the East seemed to fail the church, through whose influence alone she had become famous, there arose in the West, among the half-barbarous races of Goths, Franks, Celts, and Teutons, other champions of monasticism and pioneers of learning. The raw material of Christian Europe was being moulded into the heroic form it bore during mediæval times by poet, philosopher, and legislator-monks. ”

“ We shall find that the one definite and unswerving tendency of the traditional thought of Europe has been, first, to establish on earth that equality between men which from the outset Christianity had promised them in Heaven; secondly, to assail the prestige of man by proving that other tenet of the Faith which maintains the general depravity of human nature; and thirdly, to insist upon truth in the Christian sense; that is, as an absolute thing which can be, and must be, made common to all. ”

“ In this essay he writes as follows:—"These were happy, glorious days, when Europe was still a Christian continent, the home of the one, undivided Christian religion.... The wise head of the Church rightly set himself against the bold cultivation of the human mind at the cost of religious faith, and against untimely and dangerous discoveries in the domain of science. ”

“ In the heart of Europe runs the purest stream of human love, of love of justice, of spirit of self-sacrifice for higher ideals. The Christian culture of centuries has sunk deep in her life's core. In Europe we have seen noble minds who have ever stood up for the rights of man irrespective of colour and creed; ”

“ Now, after a bitter experience, the soul must come to its rights. Europe and Europe's Church have not henceforth to think two different thoughts, but one and the same, and this one thought has not to be a bodily one but a spiritual one. The aim of the Church as well as of Europe has to be God, Christ, saintliness. If this thing is given to the Church and Europe, everything else will be easily given. A Holy Church in Holy Europe!
A holy Europe only can be a missionary Europe. No other mission has Europe on other continents but a Christian one. ”

“ These different races of Europe and the United States, constituting the body of the most civilized nations of the world, united in an intelligent appreciation of the divine character of the church, with their varied capacities and the great agencies at their disposal, would be the providential means of rapidly spreading the light of faith over the whole world, and of constituting a more Christian state of society. ”

“ But it can be safely asserted, when all debits and credits of baneful and beneficial are given just consideration, that the mighty Church at its height was the most powerful force in Europe for justice, for mercy, for charity, for peace among men, for honesty, for temperance, for human rights, for social service, for culture, for domestic purity, for obedience to law and order, and for a noble, helpful Christian life both for individuals and states. ”

“ Europe was imagined to be at last achieved, and that ineradicable dream of a permanent and satisfactory society seemed to have taken on flesh and to have come to live forever among Christian men.
No such permanence and no such good is permitted to humanity ”

“ For no one fully cognisant of the events of the last forty years can allege that any Christian European nation could have shown itself readier to acknowledge its former errors, more teachable in all the arts of civilisation, franker and more moderate in diplomacy, more chivalrous and humane in war. ”

“ Happy Europe! how has God favoured the sons of Japheth, by causing them to embrace the gospel! How dignified are all the nations of Europe compared with this nation! Yet the people are clever and intelligent, and more calculated to become great and powerful [Pg 158] than any of the nations of the east, had they a good government, and the Christian religion.”
“Oct. 1st.—Thousands every day assemble at the mosque; it is quite a lounge with them. Each, as soon as he has said his prayers, sits down and talks to his friend. The multitude press to hear Hagi Mohammed Hasan. ”

“ The basis of Europe’s progress and civilization was actually laid in the fifteenth century of the Christian era, and from that time on, all her present evident culture has been, under the stimulus of great minds and as a result of the expansion of the frontiers of knowledge and the exertion of energetic and ambitious efforts, in the process of development. ”

“ By the tenth century Christianity was fully organised, and all the peoples of Europe were Christian; by the thirteenth century the power of the Church was enormous and the nations of Europe were settled and civilised. ”

“ Whereas Europe has, through the unsearchable judgments of God, suffered a more bloody and obstinate war than ever yet was seen, to the ruin of the people and provinces, the rage of which no human means have been able to extinguish, till this present time, when, by the grace of the Divine goodness, manifest signs have been given of a certain disposition to restore peace and quiet so much desired by the whole Christian world, but more especially by us, for the sake of what our dominions have reflectively suffered. ”

“ There can, indeed, be little doubt that, for nearly two hundred years after its establishment in Europe, the Christian community exhibited a moral purity which, if it has been equalled, has never for any long period been surpassed. Completely separated from the Roman world that was around them, abstaining alike from political life, from appeals to the tribunals, and from military occupations; ”

“ If ever there was a quarter of the globe distinguished by its quarrels, its jealousies, its everlasting wars and bloodshed, it is Europe. Since these soi-disant Christian nations have risen into any degree of strength, what single evidence of Christian3ity have they, as nations, exhibited? ”

“ Catholic Church things are tending,—with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age,—to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this day! and not only Europe, but every government and every civilization through the world, which is under the influence of the European mind! Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of England, France, and Germany! ”

“ Arise, then, men of Germany and of France; men of Great Britain, Italy, and Spain, arise! Men of Europe and America! let us unite with our governments in the noble enterprise! To the work, like men—the work of peace and freedom! The hour is come! let us break the yoke of faith and conscience—drag down lying priesthood and the Hierarchy—annihilate disdainful Jesuitism, insulting God and man—and usher in the glorious reign of truth, and light, and righteousness—of virtue, of freedom, and of love! ”

“ There appeared throughout Europe in the last century of united Europe, breaking out here and there, sporadic attempts to revivify the common life, especially upon its spiritual side, by a return to the primitive communal enthusiasms in which religion necessarily has its historical origins. ”

“ It does not indeed help them to prove that our civilization is bad or that the Faith is untrue, but it permits them to despair of, or to despise, the unity of Europe, and to regard the present Protestant world as something which is destined to supplant that unity. ”

“ We have so many that one the less—perhaps the biggest of all—makes a real difference in one’s comfort. The one in question—of course you have it—is that there’s no salvation but through Europe. Our salvation is here, if we have eyes to see it, and the salvation of Europe into the bargain; that is if Europe’s to be saved, which I rather doubt. ”

“ This institution was first known among men as Republica; we call it today "The Roman Empire." The Religion which informed and saved it was then called, still is called, and will always be called "The Catholic Church."
Europe is the Church, and the Church is Europe. ”

“ The spirit of any civilisation is inspired by its religion, but the spirit of modern Europe was not inspired by Europe's religion at all. A terrific effort was made in many quarters to liberate Europe from the spirit of her religion. ”

“ The nation calls you now to a great and holy work. 'You must,' such is its call, 'cast off the degrading and unchristian despotism of the Roman Bishop; you must, in union with your fellow-citizens, the laity, restore, without fear of men, the Christian-Catholic religion, in all its purity and simple elevation; you must establish a German-Catholic (i. e. universal) Christian Church; you must be no longer Romish, but honest German priests and teachers. Such is the voice of your people,—the call of your country! Will you obey the call? Will you begin the work without fear of men? ”

“ Will the laity of Europe long remain under their illusion in face of this great fact? Already the State Churches of Europe are placed in imminent peril by the controversies which, since religious life has reawakened among us, rend them from within, and by their manifest inability to satisfy the craving of society for new assurance of its faith. ”

“ Instead of taking an undisguised pleasure in prophesying the downfall of Christianity, how I wish you would consider what a measureless debt of gratitude European humanity owes to it, how greatly it has benefited by the religion which, after a long interval, followed it from its old home in the East. Europe received from Christianity ideas which were quite new to it, the Knowledge, I mean, of the fundamental truth that life cannot be an end-in-itself, that the true end of our existence lies beyond it. ”