Churches of France, Switzerland, Hungary, and Holland. French
Protestantism could not but be intellectually moved by the intense
ferment of the Revolution; and, when finally secured against
active oppression from the Catholic side, could not but develop
an intellectual opposition to the Catholic Reaction after 1815. In
Switzerland, always in intellectual touch with France and Germany,
the tendencies which had been stamped as Socinian in the days
of Voltaire soon reasserted themselves so strongly as to provoke
fanatical reaction. [1750] The nomination of Strauss to a chair of
theology at Zürich by a Radical Government in 1839 actually gave rise
to a violent revolt, inflamed and led by Protestant clergymen. The
Executive Council were expelled, and a number of persons killed in
the strife. [1751] In the canton of Aargau in 1841, again, the cry of
"religion in danger" sufficed to bring about a Catholic insurrection
against a Liberal Council; and yet again in 1844 it led, among the
Catholics of the Valais canton, to the bloodiest insurrection of
all. Since these disgraceful outbreaks the progress of Rationalism
in Switzerland has been steady. In 1847 a chair was given at Berne
to the rationalistic scholar Zeller, without any such resistance
as was made to Strauss at Zürich. In 1892, out of a total number
of 3,151 students in the five universities of Switzerland and in
the academies of Fribourg and Neuchâtel, the number of theological
students was only 374, positively less than that of the teaching
staff, which was 431. Leaving out the academies named, which had
no medical faculty, the number of theological students stood at
275 out of 2,917. The Church in Switzerland has thus undergone the
relative restriction in power and prestige seen in the other European
countries of long-established culture. The evolution, however, remains
negative rather than positive. Though a number of pastors latterly
call themselves libres penseurs or penseurs libres, and a movement
of ethical culture (morale sociale) has made progress, the forces of
positive freethought are not numerically strong. An economic basis
still supports the Churches, and the lack of it leaves rationalism
non-aggressive. [1752]
A somewhat similar state of things exists in Holland, where the
"higher criticism" of both the Old and New Testaments made notable
progress in the middle decades of the century. There then resulted not
only an extensive decay of orthodoxy within the Protestant Church,
but a movement of aggressive popular freethought, which was for a
number of years well represented in journalism. To-day, orthodoxy
and freethought are alike less demonstrative; the broad explanation
being that the Dutch people in the mass has ceased to be pietistic,
and has secularized its life. Even in the Bible-loving Boer Republic
of South Africa (Transvaal), in its time one of the most orthodox of
the civilized communities of the world, there was seen in the past
generation the phenomenon of an agnostic ex-clergyman's election to
the post of president, in the person of T. F. Burgers, who succeeded
Pretorius in 1871. His election was of course on political and not on
religious grounds; and panic fear on the score of his heresy, besides
driving some fanatics to emigrate, is said to have disorganized a
Boer expedition under his command; [1753] but his views were known
when he was elected. In the years 1899-1902 the terrible experience of
the last Boer War, in South Africa as in Britain, perhaps did more to
turn critical minds against supernaturalism than was accomplished by
almost any other agency in the same period. In Britain the overturn
was by way of the revolt of many ethically-minded Christians against
the attitude of the orthodox churches, which were so generally
and so unscrupulously belligerent as to astonish many even of their
freethinking opponents. [1754] As regards the Boers and the Cape Dutch
the resultant unbelief was among the younger men, who harassed their
elders with challenges as to the justice or the activity of a God
who permitted the liberties of his most devoted worshippers to be
wantonly destroyed. Among the more educated burghers in the Orange
Free State commandos unbelief asserted itself with increasing force
and frequency. [1755] An ethical rationalism thus motived is not
likely to be displaced; and the Christian churches of Britain have
thus the sobering knowledge that the war which they so vociferously
glorified [1756] has wrought to the discredit of their creed alike
in their own country and among the vanquished.