I see there manifold associations, enterprises supposing a long duration of existence, unremitting efforts for the moral development of men; for the bodily solace of their earthly condition; for the propagation and the defense of freedom of opinion in religious matters; for the support and diffusion of the faith itself: all these objects, at once so various and so analogous, are being laboriously worked out both by the independent Protestant Churches, and by the Protestant Church established from the State. M. Edmond de Pressensé and M. Eugène Bersier devote their talents and their zeal to the same forms of Christian belief as were advocated by M. Alexandre Vinet and M. Adolphe Monod. In spite of the free divergence of sentiment and the diversity of ecclesiastical government in French Protestantism, we may observe in its bosom a progress of Christian Faith, a progress in works of Christian Charity, a progress in Christian Science, and a progress in Christian Influence. {206} I use the same terms employed by me in speaking of the contemporary Catholic Church of Rome, because I find before me similar facts. These facts do not announce the reconciliation of the two Churches--profound differences of opinion continue to separate them; but these facts are, in both Churches, signs of the Awakening of Christianity. --------------------------------------- III. Awakening Of Christianity In France. But the world has not changed since God at its creation delivered it up to the disputes of mankind; nor have the diversity and conflict of ideas and of passions ever ceased to be the condition of humanity. By the side of the movement of Christianity to which I refer, a movement in the contrary direction is manifesting itself, and is pursuing its course. Christianity at its Awakening is challenged to ruder combats. Philosophy refuses to its fundamental dogmas the marks and the rights of rational truth. {207} An erudite criticism contests its historical evidence. The natural sciences proclaim that they do not require its aid to account for man and for the world. It is affirmed as a principle, and maintained in learned societies, that morality is entirely independent of religion. Man in his aspirations for liberty, that generous passion of the age, retains a profound resentment for the chains and the sufferings which, under pretext of Christianity, human conscience and human thought have so long been made to endure. The influence of these bitter reminiscences is manifesting itself in the different Christian Churches under various forms, and with different effects. Many liberals so dread the prospect of the Church of Rome obtaining power over civil society that they hardly accord to this Church the rights of common liberty; or, if they do so at all, they do it reluctantly and little by little. {208}