The final problem of Protestantism is its collective relation to Catholicism; and in the first half of the nineteenth century many Protestants still hoped to gain ground at the expense of the Church of Rome, now that propaganda was free. No such success, however, has taken place. It is found on the contrary that the more devotional types tend to revert from Protestantism to Rome, while those who reject Catholicism rarely become Protestants. In France this is peculiarly apparent. At the Revolution, it was found that proportionally as many Protestant pastors as Catholic priests were ready to abjure their creed. In the religious reaction both Churches alike regained ground; and the Protestant Church in France has always had adherents distinguished for learning and moral earnestness. To-day, however, though its members are relatively numerous in places of political power, by reason doubtless of their serious and practical education, their Church does not make any corresponding gains. Its numbers may not latterly dwindle as steadily as those of the Catholic mass; but there is no prospect that it will recover strength through Catholic defections. In Austria, the anti-Roman movement already mentioned may conceivably give rise to a non-Romish Church; but it is impossible to forecast the issue. § 3. Greek Christianity It is the pride of the Greek Church to call itself Orthodox; and in no part of Christendom has the faith had less to fear from unbelief. Mere sectarian strife, indeed, has never been lacking; and at the very moment of the fall of Constantinople there was deadly schism between the orthodox and those who were politically willing to unite with the Latin Church. But vital heresy never throve. Political vicissitude in the Eastern empire, from Constantine onwards, seems always to have thrown the balance of force on the side of religious conservatism; and so devoid is Greek ecclesiastical history since the Middle Ages of any element of innovating life that the student is tempted almost to surmise a national loss of faculty. Greek intellectual life since the fall of Constantinople, however, is only a steady sequence from that which went before. After the overthrow of the Latin kingdom set up by the Crusaders, and the restoration of Greek rule, the whole nation was very naturally thrown back on its traditions, recoiling from further contact with the West; and the process of fixation was repeated for what of Greek life was left after the Turkish conquest. The extraordinary gift for despotic government shown by the first race of Ottoman Turks brought about a resigned degradation on the Christian side. Allowed a sufficient measure of toleration to make them "prefer the domination of the Sultan to that of any Christian potentate," they paid to him not only their taxes, but, for a time, a large annual tribute of children, with perfect submission; and thus, in the words of the British historian of modern Greece, they