If, instead of comparing the crimes, we should consider the respective virtues of Catholic and Protestant nations, we should at once be struck by the difference in their standards of morality. The most practical way of determining the real standard of morality of any religion is to study the character of its saints. There we find religious ideals made tangible and fully discernible. Here at once we perceive that there is an essential difference between the Catholic and the Protestant standard of morality. The lives of our saints, even when understood by Protestants, generally repel them. They are, in their eyes, useless lives, idle lives, superstitious lives, unnatural and inhuman. We take the words of Christ, “If thou wouldst be perfect, go sell what thou hast, give it to the poor, and come and follow me,” in their full and complete literal meaning. The highest life is to leave father and mother, to have nor wife nor children, nor temporal goods except what barely suffices, and to cleave to Christ only with all one’s soul in poverty, chastity, and obedience. Now, this life of prayer in poverty, chastity, and obedience is an offence to Protestants. They do not believe in perfect chastity, they hold religious obedience to be a slavery, and poverty, in their eyes, is ridiculous. Inasmuch as the monks tilled the earth, transcribed books, and taught school, they receive a partial recognition from the Protestant world; but inasmuch as they were bound by religious vows they excite disgust. We should say, then, that the distinctive trait of Catholic morality is ascetic, while the Protestant is utilitarian. The one primarily regards the world that is to be, the other that which already is. The one inclines us to look upon this as a worthless world to lose or win; the other is shrewd and calculating—this is the best we have any practical experience of; it is the part of wisdom to make the most of it. The one seems to be more certain of the future life, the other of the present. It is needless to prolong the contrast, and we shall simply confess that we have always been inclined to the opinion of those who hold that Protestantism, in its aims and direct tendencies, is more favorable to what is called material progress than Catholicism. In fact, one cannot realize the personal survival of the soul through eternity, and at the same time be supremely interested in stocks or the price of cotton.