the French people and a
subject of the French crown. Again, not long after, the Hussite
revolution sprang from the union of a new doctrine with the old
antipathy of the Bohemians for the Germans, which had begun in times
when the boundaries of Christianity ran between the two nations, and
which led to a strictly national separation, which has not yet exhausted
its political effects. Though the Reformation had not its origin in
national feelings, yet they became a powerful instrument in the hands of
Luther, and ultimately prevailed over the purely theological elements of
the movement.

The Lutheran system was looked on by the Germans with patriotic pride as
the native fruit, and especial achievement of the genius of their
country, and it was adopted out of Germany only by the kindred races of
Scandinavia. In every other land to which it has been transplanted by
the migrations of this century, Lutheranism appears as eradicated from
its congenial soil, loses gradually its distinctive features, and
becomes assimilated to the more consolatory system of Geneva. Calvinism
exhibited from the first no traces of the influence of national
character, and to this it owes its greater extension; whilst in the
third form of Protestantism, the Anglican Church, nationality is the
predominant characteristic. In whatever country and in whatever form
Protestantism has prevailed, it has always carried out the principle of
separation and local limitation by seeking to subject itself to the
civil power, and to confine the Church within the jurisdiction of the
State. It is dependent not so much on national character as on political
authority, and has grafted itself rather on the State than on the
people. But the institution which Christ founded in order to collect all
nations together in one fold under one shepherd, while tolerating and
respecting the natural historical distinctions of nations and of States,
endeavours to reconcile antagonism, and to smooth away barriers between
them, instead of estranging them by artificial differences, and erecting
new obstacles to their harmony. The Church can neither submit as a
whole to the influence of a particular people, nor impose on one the
features or the habits of another; for she is exalted in her catholicity
above the differences of race, and above the claims of political power.
At once the most firm and the most flexible institution in the world,
she is all things to all nations--educating each i