The Religious Spirit of the Slavs | Page 9

to
establish the Kingdom of God on earth and who was forcibly crucified
by the adorers of darkness!
I have read many Roman Catholic teachers of catechism. I doubt
whether all those teachers did for Christianity as much as an
artist--Sienkiewicz --did with his charming story, "Quo Vadis?" He

aroused so much interest, and so many sympathies even among the
unbelievers; I am sure he converted to Christianity many more than any
propaganda fides working on a half-political, half-scientific foundation.
He put Christianity on a purely religious foundation, and he was
understood not only by the Roman Catholics but by the whole world.
He found the very heart of the "noble catholicity," and he inspired the
world. He showed once more that Christianity is a drama and not a
science.
Sienkiewicz loved Christianity, but he saw that it was still far from
gaining a decisive victory. He knew the horrible injustice done to his
Christian nation by the surrounding Christian nations. He was horrified
looking at Bismarck. He called Bismarck the "true adorer of Thor,"
because he was a true follower of a pagan philosophy expressed in the
Iron Chancellor's sentence--Might over Right. Yet Sienkiewicz
prophesied that "Germany in the future cannot live with Bismarck's
spirit." She must change her spirit, she must expel Thor and again kneel
before Christ, because the "Christian religion of two thousand years is
an invincible power, a much greater power than bayonets."
Mickiewicz hoped that only the Christian religion can save mankind.
Christ is for him the central person in the world's history. Christ never
made concessions to evil. But His Church to-day is making
compromises with all kinds of evil. The official Church is publishing
diplomatic Notes and promoting the publishing of books. That is all.
The Church is afraid of suffering, although "there are even to-day
enough occasions for the Church to suffer." "Prelates wear the purple
which symbolises martyrdom: But who on earth has heard lately of the
martyrdom of a Cardinal?" Mickiewicz bitterly complains that the
"high clergy deserted the way of the Cross. They never would suffer. In
order to escape suffering they fled as refugees to books, theology and
doctrines. But la force ne vient que de la douleur." "The lower clergy,
the Russian as the Polish, conserved the depot of faith intact," but still
they are in a darkness of prejudice and vice. It is remarkable how large
a view of the Christian Church had Mickiewicz. He did not care only
for the Roman Church. He called the Russian Orthodox and the Polish
Roman Church by one name--"the Church of the North." He cared

about Christ's Church, and he believed steadfastly in her Messianic
rôle in the world. "The men of conventions must be defeated," he said.
The pride of the high clergy and the fear of suffering must disappear.
"The first need for a modern man is to be inspired and elevated, de
s'allumer et de s'élever." The Church is the only bearer of inspiration
and elevation; not the official Church, but the Messianic Church of
"men of suffering, intuition and action," i.e., the primitive Church of
Christ, which Sienkiewicz so magnificently described and for which
Jan Huss so heroically fought.
THE SOUTHERN SLAV REVOLUTION.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, a preacher of the Gospel in
Trieste and Laibach, Primus Trubar, published successively the New
Testament, Psalter and Catechism in the vulgar Slovene language. It
produced the greatest imaginable excitement amongst the Slovene
clergy and people. Christ and the Prophets spoke for the first time to
the people in mountainous Carniola and Istria in a language that the
people could understand. A minority of the clergy shared the popular
excitement, whereas the majority was filled with fury against the
innovator. But Trubar went his way courageously and continued to
publish and republish the sacred books in the Slovene tongue. The
affair had the usual ending: the violent persecution of the disturbers of
the semper eadem, and the victory of the persecuted cause. Trubar died
in exile from his country, his books were burnt, the churches in which
his books had been read pulled down, and the people who dared to
speak with Christ and the Prophets in their native language terrified. At
the same time, the Turks, after having devastated Serbia and Croatia,
descended on Slovenia with the sword, burning pulling down, and
terrifying everywhere.
Yet the great question of the ecclesiastical language could not be stifled.
Even before and after Trubar, the Slavs on the Adriatic coast of
Dalmatia and Istria insisted on the so-called Glagoliza as the language
which should be used in the divine service. Glagoliza is not the
common language of the Croats and Slovenes, but it is an old and
sacred form of the same tongue. Rome opposed for a long