Any person who will pause for a moment will realize the difficulty of conceiving what the present state of the world would have been had the movement towards a high material development, which preceded Protestantism, been conducted under Catholic auspices alone. Of course, such a conception is impossible to the common ignorant Protestant; but even enlightened minds outside the Catholic Church must acknowledge that it is not easy to acquire a full sympathy with the intellectual epoch which preceded Protestantism. Wherever the new religion became dominant, a thorough break was effected between past and present. The American freeman resembles his English great-grandfather far more closely than the Protestant of the seventeenth resembles the Catholic of the fifteenth century. The French communist still speaks the language in which the feudal tenant addressed the seigneur of the last century; but it would be rash to affirm his capacity to understand the sentiments of his peasant grandfather.

The change wrought by the sixteenth century extends throughout the world, and affects the deepest, most powerful, and most mysterious range of sentiment. This change occurred just as the literature of modern times had begun to take shape and form. Everything has borne the stamp either of its action or of the reaction against it. It was a veritable Lethe; and those who passed through it forgot the images, expressions, and thoughts of preceding generations.

The results of this tendency were entirely overlooked by the partisans of Luther and Calvin. But the most superficial student of history nowadays perceives in them irrefragable proof of two things: first, that the movement of the sixteenth century was something altogether new in the world; and, secondly, that it was completely subversive of the entire order which preceded it. To deny either of these propositions is to bid defiance to truth and farewell to reason. And whereas Catholics have been abused for predicting these facts, there are not wanting Protestants who glory in acknowledging them, now that they can no longer be controverted.

However, we do not wish to bring them forward in our condemnation of Protestantism, but simply to illustrate another fact which is equally true.

Protestantism, amongst other evils, has brought a spirit of scepticism into historical research which is one of the most ghastly symptoms of its present stage of dissolution. We do not mean a spirit which demands proof, but a spirit which no amount of proof can satisfy—which denies facts unquestionably true, and endeavors to cast discredit upon the most authentic records.

It is not hard to perceive the cause or to trace the development of this spirit.

After practically demonstrating that Protestantism is a denial of Christianity, we might expect the age to pause in its career of denial. This, however, at present seems to be expecting too much. Having denied the authority which Christ has commissioned, the revolution soon came to deny Christ. Having denied him, it has proceeded to deny him from whom Jesus was sent.

It only remains to deny every other fact which conflicts with the negative theory. It is, therefore, considered necessary to express doubt with regard to every historical fact connected with Christianity. A notable instance of this is before our eyes in Mr. Hare’s Walks in Rome, a book quite free from the more offensive forms of Protestant vulgarity. Mr. Hare has spent many years in Rome, and learned from its antiquarians the history of its secular traditions. He knows that the scene of St. Peter’s imprisonment is as well attested as any other which he describes in his work. In the course of his remarks on the Mamertine Prison, he says:

“It was by this staircase that Cicero came forth and announced the execution of the Catiline conspirators to the people in the Forum by the single word Viverunt—‘they have ceased to live!’ Close to the exit of these stairs the Emperor Vitellius was murdered.”

He discusses the age of the structure, and cites Ampère to prove it to be the oldest building in Rome. The author further says: “It is described by Livy and by Sallust, who depicts its horrors in his account of the execution of the Catiline conspirators. The spot is shown to which these victims were attached and strangled in turn. In this dungeon, at an earlier period, Appius Claudius and Oppius the decemvirs committed suicide (B.C. 449). Here Jugurtha, king of Mauritania, was starved to death by Marius. Here Julius Cæsar, during his triumph for the conquest of Gaul, caused his gallant enemy Vercingetorix to be put to death. Here Sejanus, the friend and minister of Tiberius, disgraced too late, was executed for the murder of Drusus, son of the emperor, and for an intrigue with his daughter-in-law Livilla. Here, also, Simon Bar Givras, the last defender of Jerusalem, suffered during the triumph of Titus.”

“The spot is more interesting to the Christian world as the prison of SS Peter and Paul, who are said to have been bound for nine months to a pillar, which is shown here.” A little further on: “It is hence that the Roman Catholic Church believes that St. Peter and St. Paul addressed their farewells to the Christian world” (pp. 94-96).

The testimony of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is unquestioned. The most fabulous antiquity is readily admitted for Indian and Chinese history. It is gratuitously assumed that the time of stone implements was not coincident with the use of metals in other nations, though the contrary may be witnessed on our own frontiers. If human remains are found along with those of extinct animals, it is assumed that they died together. No demand upon belief is too great unless it be in connection with Christianity. This tendency is to make men imagine that the era of our Saviour’s advent was purely mythical, and that the events of his time are as obscure as those of the siege of Troy.

We think that we have accounted for the existence of this tendency in the nature of Protestantism, as developed in Strauss and the “more advanced” German speculators. But after having created this artificial cloud in history, the same parties seek to give the impression that Christianity was but a natural development out of the union of Eastern with Western thought. Having endeavored to reduce it to a myth by denying or questioning history, the process is reversed, and history is appealed to in order to prove that Christianity was a purely natural phenomenon which can be readily explained.

This whole process of doubting the records, misstating the origin, and denying the real nature of early Christianity, is a fraud which will not bear scrutiny; it is maintained by men who avow their willingness to accept any hypothesis which conflicts with the ancient faith, and to lend the prestige of their talents to any effort against it.

The historical warfare has been vigorously carried on in Germany by both sides. The movement has penetrated into the English universities. Its echoes have been heard in our own midst, in the utterances of certain writers who, being possessed by the spirit of snobbishness, cleave to outlandish modes of thought because of their foreign or novel character.

Mr. Allies’ work is a thoughtful and profound exposition of facts, and brushes away the cobwebs with which hostile criticism has sought to envelop the history of Christianity. The author does not aim at a connected narrative. The chapters of his work are lectures, each one of which is an essay, complete in itself. The reader is presumed to be acquainted with the general outlines of history, and the author directs his efforts to answer such questions as naturally arise with regard to the introduction of Christianity and the foundation of that order which appeared under the title of Christendom in the Middle Age.

Accordingly, after giving his idea of the philosophy of history, Mr. Allies draws a graphic picture of the state of the Roman world. The civil polity of the Augustan age, the majesty of the Pax Romana, appear in their splendid proportions. The reader is brought face to face with all that is known of that epoch. Its ideas of manhood and morality are set forth from the testimony of eye-witnesses. Then follows a sketch of the work to be accomplished by Christianity, entitled the New Creation of Individual Man. This is succeeded by a series of lectures viewing the results which were to be expected from the influence of Christianity upon human character. Here we find also the testimony of eye-witnesses of the growth of the new religion, and an instructive comparison between Cicero and St. Augustine, illustrative of two most important ages of history. The fifth lecture of this first volume is on the New Creation of the Primary Relation between Man and Woman; and the seventh lecture deals with an equally Christian doctrine, viz., the Creation of the Virginal Life.

The second volume, which appeared in 1869, treats of the developments of that spiritual society which sprang into existence with the original ideas of Christianity and from the same source. The peculiar characteristics are traced of that hierarchical order which, after three centuries of bloody persecution, came forth from its hiding-place in perfect organization, to receive at once the homage of Constantine and to become the guide of civilization and the supreme ruler of nations for more than a thousand years.

The position of the church at the time of Constantine was that of complete victory. The portent in the sky which appeared to that emperor was not more miraculous than the spectacle afforded by Christianity. Starting from a distant point in an obscure race, without means, without facilities of communication, it had not only revolutionized the pagan world but it had maintained its own unity as a corporate body in the face of wholesale treason from within, and intense intellectual opposition, accompanied with three centuries of proscription, from without. Three centuries ago another movement started in our modern world. It had all the prestige of the civilization which germinated along with it. It has had the support of the civil power. It has had the best blood and most vigorous races to work for it. No earthly element of success has been refused to it. What is the result? Where is its unity? The very idea is abandoned. Where are its original convictions? Not one remains. What is its present influence? It has none. What is its prospect in the future? Entire destruction.

Nothing is better calculated to give us a correct idea of the difference between Protestantism and Christianity than this sort of a comparison. Such, however, is not Mr. Allies’ design. He aims, in his second volume, to show that Christianity had a definite theory and constructive spirit with regard to society. As he contrasts in his first volume the pagan notion of individual man with the Christian ideal, and shows a creative power in the latter producing results undreamed of in the heathen character, so the author traces, in his second volume, the social ideas brought in by Christianity.

The unity of the church, as taught and described by the fathers, was an idea no less remarkable in its marvellous working than in its utter novelty. This conception was based on the fundamental principle of Christianity, that its divine Founder had authorized a corporate body to teach the world those truths which he came to bring, and that the power of God was pledged to the infallibility of his church. This doctrine is the only constructive idea that has ever been broached with regard to society. Protestantism was a direct assault upon the very nature of Christianity, and is to be held responsible for the absence of this idea in modern civilization.

That Christianity produced a type of character wholly distinct and peculiar, is a fact of which there can be no doubt on the part of those who have the slightest disposition to consult authentic records. That it possessed a vitality and organizing power of which there is no other instance, is equally certain. But we often hear the sayings of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and the later Stoics quoted, as exhibiting a tone of thought almost equal to that of Christianity, and by the enemies of religion vaunted as something far above the morality of the Gospel. No reader of Plutarch can escape the impression of his gentle and refined philosophy. Though full of grievous errors, it has a flavor of truth, a respect for purity, and an appreciation of virtue which are not to be found in the earlier historians.

The great error of those who would make Christianity a development of heathen thought is simply, then, mistaking the cause for the effect. A great change was undoubtedly to be expected from the blending of Greek and Roman speculation with the Jewish and Egyptian religions. This change actually took place. But its product was acted upon by Christianity, and did not become a factor of the new religion. Mr. Allies gives us the summary of ancient philosophy, which he traces down to its contact with Christian truth. We are able to see the vanity of that false reading of history which seeks to represent Christianity as a mendicant receiving crumbs from Plato, Pythagoras, Philo, and the Stoics. We perceive from their writings and the tone of their disciples the barrenness and emptiness of Attic thought, up to the time when it received the few corrections and additions from Christian doctrine which enabled it to appear for a short time as a rival of heavenly truth.

Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Allies for the labor bestowed upon his history of the actual development of the philosophy of Greece in the Roman Empire. He has traced each school of thought from year to year, and reproduced a correct summary of its beliefs. The Neo-Stoic philosophy, which is especially vaunted by the enemies of Christianity, is studiously delineated. The points of agreement and difference are clearly noted between its four great chiefs—Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The analogies and contrasts between the developed Stoic school and the Christian teachers who were its contemporaries, are also brought into relief.

In order to portray the effect of the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines and the revived Platonism, the author gives a complete analysis of that most singular and interesting character, Philo the Jew—singular, in that he was the only one of the ancient Hebrew race who became a great philosopher; interesting, because he shows us the precise difference between Platonism and Jewish belief, and the immeasurable superiority of the unreasoning Jew, who believed only that which he had received by tradition, over the highest flight of heathen genius unaided by revelation. The lecture on Philo closes with a summary of the interval between his time and Plutarch’s, and the change during that epoch from the old Roman world of Cicero, together with the cause of this change.

Following this, another lecture presents the state of the pagan intellect and the common standing ground of philosophy, from the accession of Nero to that of Severus.

With this lecture, which seems to foreshadow the contents of a fourth volume, Mr. Allies’ work stops for the present. Its publication in parts has placed it at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as ten years have passed since the first volume appeared. It may seem premature to review a work not yet complete, but enough has been published to establish the claim of the author to a most useful and successful contribution to the needs of the time. He has grown into his task, and has accumulated both facts and reflections. There is little reason to fear that the remaining volume will not be equal to the three which have preceded it.

The style is unpretending, and the whole work extremely modest. In this respect, it will not meet the approval of those who prefer rhetoric to exact truthfulness. Historical works must be plentifully illustrated, either by the engraver or the imagination of the author, to make them popular nowadays.

But the intelligent reader who will take pains to examine carefully Mr. Allies’ volumes will be well repaid, and the author himself can rest in the conviction that he has written a solid and useful book, which deserves a place in every library.