640 Chapter XXVI
Archbishop of Naples accepted the Neapolitan Republic of 1799. The Archbishop
of Scutari was willing to assist in revolutionary agitation in Greece. The German
Catholic clergy produced a number of revolutionary enthusiasts, of whom one of
the most notorious, and probably the most thoroughly de- Christianized, was Eu-
logius Schneider, the terrorist of Alsace. One of the great mysteries of the period is
the activity of the ex- Jesuits, men now middle- aged or older, living in various
countries as individual clerics, who had belonged to the Society of Jesus before its
dissolution by the Pope in 1774. Most ex- Jesuits were apparently counter-
revolutionary, like Feller in Belgium, Barruel among French émigrés, or the ex-
Jesuits at Augsburg who were a center of anti- revolutionary propaganda in Ger-
many. Others went a different way: the ex- Jesuit Cérutti was a political leader and
newspaper editor in the French Revolution until his death in 1792; the Polish ex-
Jesuit Switkowski hailed the revolution in both France and Poland; the ex- Jesuit
Bolgeni, at Rome in 1798, favored democratization of Italy; and we have men-
tioned the unknown ex- Jesuit from Oran, who figured in the Greek agitation.
As for the Protestant world, little seems to be known in accessible form about
the views of the Dutch Reformed clergy. A significant minority of Swiss pastors
showed sympathy for the Revolution in France, and welcomed the Helvetic Re-
public. It is always said that German Lutheran pastors were very conservative, but
one hears of cases among them of sympathizers with republicanism. No bishop of
the Church of England or of Ireland is remembered for anything said in favor of
the Revolution across the channel, or of parliamentary reform in either island. In
England, the inclination to “republicanism” was found among the Dissenting
clergy, many of whom favored Unitarianism, or persons in Anglican orders who
had turned Unitarian, like Thomas Fyshe Palmer, who was convicted of subversive
activity in Scotland in 1793. In Scotland there were various Presbyterians outside
the established Presbyterian Church—“seceders,” New Lights, and others—who
often belonged to democratic political clubs. It was against such people, in large
part, that Professor Robison at Edinburgh, in 1797, wrote his Proofs of a Conspiracy
against all the Religions and Governments of Europe. These New Lights in Scotland,
like the Methodists in England, might or might not sympathize with the Revolu-
tion in France, but they sympathized with the upper levels of British society even
less; and in their demands for itinerant preaching and for Sunday Schools, as a
means of improving the condition of the people, their movement was a competitor
rather than an antithesis to political radicalism. In Ireland, there were Presbyterian
ministers as well as Catholic priests in the ranks of the United Irish.
In the United States the Congregationalist ministers of New England and the
Presbyterians of the Middle States expressed a good deal of tolerance for the
French Revolution as late as 1795. Even Jedidiah Morse, who in 1798 raised up a
scare by spreading Robison’s ideas of revolutionary conspiracy, spoke well of the
French Revolution in his Thanksgiving Day sermon of November 1794. As for
French guillotinings and atheism, he thought that such “irregularities” should “nei-
ther be justified, nor yet too severely censured,” but in the last analysis, in a great
measure, “excused.”^57 In short, contrary to the idea perpetuated by most historians,
57 Morse quotes from his own sermon in his Present Situation of Other Nations of the World Con-