Before parting with you, let me add a word about the conclusion of my Speech. Perhaps you think that it had been better suppressed, because now, after several years, it is apparent that I was wrong in adducing as a proof of the power of the religious sentiment that it was in the act of producing new forms. As nothing of the sort has anywhere come to pass, did I not wrongly presume to guess what they would be? If you think so, you have forgotten that prophecy only deserves its name, in so far, as it is the first fore-runner of the future. It is an indication of what is to be, and in it, to the eyes of the prophet’s kindred, the future is already contained. But the more the thing prophesied is great and comprehensive, and the more the prophesying itself is in the genuine lofty style, the less can the fulfilment be near. As in the far distance the setting sun makes, from the shadows of great objects, vast magic shapes on the grey east, prophecy sets up only in the far distance the shapes of the future which it has fashioned from the past and the present. Wherefore, what I said was in no sense to be to you a sign to prove the truth of my Speech, which should rather be clear to you by itself. I had no wish to prophesy, even if the gift had not been wanting, for it would have availed me nothing to point you to a distant future.
All I wished was partly to demand, not of you, but of some others, half in irony, whether they could perhaps produce that of which they appear to boast, and partly I hoped to lead you to trace for yourselves the course of the fulfilment. I was sure you would there find, what I would willingly show you, that, in the very type of religion, which in Christianity you so often despise, you are rooted with your whole knowing, doing and being. You would see that you cannot get away from it, and that you seek in vain to imagine its destruction without the annihilation of all that you hold dearest and holiest in the world—your whole culture and mode of life, your art and science.
From this it follows that, as long as our age endures, nothing disadvantageous to Christianity can come forth, either from the age or from Christianity itself, and from all strife and battle it must issue renewed and glorified. This was my chief purpose, and you can see that I could not have meant to attach myself to some expressions of able and superior men, from which you understand that they wish to re-introduce the Heathenism of Antiquity, or even to create a new mythology, and by it to manufacture a new religion. In my opinion, rather, you can recognize, in the way that everything connected with such an endeavour is void and without result, the power of Christianity.
Above all, it is necessary that you understand what I have said of the fortunes of Christianity. This is not the place to expound and defend or even largely indicate my views, but I shall make a simple explanation that may prevent me from being classed, in the usual way of referring everything to schools and parties, with persons with whom, in this respect at least, I have nothing in common.
From the first there has almost always been some pronounced antithesis in Christianity. As is natural, it always has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The hostile elements gradually separate, the division reaches a climax, and then gradually subsides until it fully disappears in another antithesis that has meantime been developing. This has marked the whole history of Christianity, and at present Protestant and Catholic are the dominant antithesis in Western Christendom. In each the idea of Christianity has characteristic expression, so that, only by conjoining both, can the historical phenomenon of Christianity correspond to the idea of Christianity. This antithesis, I say, is still in operation and persists. Were I to interpret for you the signs of the time, I would say it has reached the turn of the tide, but has not appreciably diminished or disappeared.1 Let no one, therefore, be indifferent, but let every man consider to what side he and his Christianity belong, and in which church he can lead a religious and edifying life. And none who are happy in having a healthy, strong nature, and who follow it, can go astray.2
At present there are some who appear to rescue themselves from the Protestant into the Catholic Church. I am not speaking of those who in themselves are nothing and are dazzled like children by glitter and show, or are talked over by monks. But there are some to whom I myself have formerly drawn your attention who are somewhat-able poets and artists who are worthy of honour; and a host of followers, as is the fashion nowadays, has followed them. The reason given is that in Catholicism alone there is religion, and in Protestantism only irreligiousness, a godlessness growing out of Christianity itself. Let that man be honoured by me who ventures on such a step solely on the conviction that he is following his nature. But if his nature is only at home in that form of Christianity, surely traces of this natural constitution will appear in his whole life. It must be capable of proof that his act has only completed outwardly what inwardly and spontaneously was strictly contemporaneous and anterior.