New-York tribune., 1882-04-09
TIE HATRED or RELIGION IN FRANCE.
From The London Spec.ator.

From The London Spectator.
For our own parts, we believe that the Catholic
Church in France must take to herself very heavy
portion of the blame OF the horrible state of things
represented by the popular Free Thinkers Cate
chlsm, and that those political alliances which the
Catholic Church has so often and so unwsey ar
ranged with political reactionaries, must take the
rest of The blame IL is simply incredible that II
the Christian religion had been resented truly 70
the French peOple-as truly even as it has often
been presented by genuinely Roman Catholic
teachers OF the higher type-the popular hatred of
it. the popular craving for worship even of mud.
as an alternative for lt,-could be what il is We
find it impossible to belreve that Paganism could
be paSsionatey preferred to Christianity by large
proportion of the people of a great and great
country, If the teachers of Christianity had not
mistaught and travestied it, and dsiigured 1t by
habltual association with mschlevOus allies To
the practical it is all but certain that the evil
popular OdOr in which Christianity appears to be in
France must be less due to the evil Odor of
tho sentiments words and actions Of great number
OF sO-called Christians. France Is the last coontry
to be regarded incapable OF high ideal enthusl-
asn. And If France has really revolted so far as
she appears to have revoted against Christ it must
be because Christ has been or less generally
becd by those who have felt, and thought. and
spoken, and lived in His name 1t is at least per
In dlsusOnizlng France completely in relation TO
that belief in mud which the most thorough-gong
Republicans take as the basis OF their system, as
the Catholic Church has succeeded in disilluson-
izing France with the doctrines of that Church
But though sincerely believe that great deal
of the passionate hatred of religion which see in
some of the Government schools must be IN great
measure due in the last resort, to the shortcomings
of French Roman Catholic priests and laymen IL Is
hardly possible to doubt that there something left
in the religious rather lrreligiOus phenomena of
the present day in France hich this hypot hesis.
even if true, viii. not adequately explain. Nowhere
ese,-nether Italy, nor in Spaln nor in Ger
many, nor IN Switzerland, nor in any other Catholic
Protestant countrywide you see anything at all
approaching to the violent propagaDdlst spirit which
Atheism appears 10 have assumed IN France. In
other countries, scepticsm takes the inert, the
secuarstic form. Italians who sceptlcs, unless
they be like Leopardi-a sort OF Italian Shelley
poets and men of genius, are usually content to
ignore the subject of religion If they are not be-
levers, if they unbellcvers they are none the
less far from delig GIFTED with their unbelef They
gnze honestly enough that unbeliet Is no help
to the heart; that if there he such thing as disin
tercsted duty and self-sacrltce unbellef IarayZes
for 1t that the look out for the old who live in
honest unbelief is grim; that it takes great
deal ont of the energy and stamina OF nation TO
have lost its belief in short, that the days of ear
nest belief hacyon days, even if they be past
never to return. But there IL hardly any trace OF
this sullen acquescence IN unbelIef as necessary
evil in France. On the contrary NJ. MOnteil, the
author OF the Athestic CatechSm and most of the
other French atheists, want to their atheism
down your throat al the point of the sword,-for
your own good The difficult thing to understand
~ this want of reason, this passion, about French
atheism, which Is like no other atheism that the
world ever knew. 1t burns itself into the French
mind, us the phosphorus. by the aid of which the
French naturalists explain the brain, wOnld burn
itself into the skin. Atheism seems to be held not
so much good because 1t is true, as true because
il is good. There seems to be a mixture of the feel
ing about French atheism that there is about the
faith in inspiration as held by Christians. The
atheism itself is held with the force of an inspiration
of an almost diaboc inspiration. Does not all
this imply that the French atheists while they are
certainly among the most savage of the foes of
Christianity are also among those who recognize,
with sort of wild despair. the extraordinary moral
force of which it disposes If there be any truth in
the assertiOn-and we think there IS much truth IN
t.-that hatred, even the widest hatred, Is "a
better preparation for love than indifference
tempt is not this wild self-devotion to atneistic
propa yandism which we find amongst the French
scepics real indication that they feel the spell of
the religion which they denOunce as no other set of
sceptics in Europe feel it I