Note 580 — Chapter VII

A writer intimately acquainted with the social condition of the great European countries, says: ‘Ecclesiastical power is almost extinct as an active element in the political or social affairs of nations or of individuals, in the cabinet or in the family circle; and a new element, literary power, is taking its place in the government of the world.’ Laing's Denmark, 1852, p. 82. On this natural tendency in regard to legislation, see Meyer, Esprit des Institut. Judiciaires, vol. i. p. 267 note; and a good summary in Stäudlin, Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. pp. 304, 305. It is not surprising to find that many of the clergy complain of a movement so subversive of their own power. Compare Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, pp. 40, 108–111, 388; Sewell's Christian Politics, pp. 276, 277, 279; Palmer's Treatise on the Church, vol. ii. p. 361. It is thus that everything is tending to confirm the remarkable prediction of Sir James Mackintosh, that ‘church-power (unless some revolution, auspicious to priestcraft, should replunge Europe in ignorance) will certainly not survive the nineteenth century.’ Mem. of Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 67.