'Renaissance,' applied in France to the
new direction which art took about the age of Francis the First, is
another question-begging word. Very many would entirely deny that the
bringing back of an antique pagan spirit, and of pagan forms as the
utterance of this, into Christian art was a 'renaissance' or new birth
of it at all.
But inaccuracy in naming may draw after it more serious mischief in
regions more important. Nowhere is accuracy more vital than in words
having to do with the chief facts and objects of our faith; for such
words, as Coleridge has observed, are never inert, but constantly
exercise an immense reactive influence, whether men know it or not, on
such as use them, or often hear them used by others. The so-called
'Unitarians,' claiming by this name of theirs to be asserters of the
unity of the Godhead, claim that which belongs to us by far better
right than to them; which, indeed, belonging of fullest right to us,
does not properly belong to them at all. I should, therefore, without
any intention of offence, refuse the name to them; just as I should
decline, by calling those of the Roman Obedience 'Catholics,' to give
up the whole question at issue between them and us. So, also, were I
one of them, I should never, however convenient it might sometimes
prove, consent to call the great religious movement of Europe in the
sixteenth century the 'Reformation.' Such in _our_ esteem it was, and
in the deepest, truest sense; a shaping anew of things that were amiss
in the Church.
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