Lastly, we must ask whether institutionalism is really a spiritual and moral force.  Of the advantages of esprit de corps I have spoken already.  No one can doubt that unity is strength, or that Catholicism has an immense advantage over its rivals in the efficiency of its organisation.  But is not this advantage dearly purchased?  Party loyalty is notoriously unscrupulous.  The idealised institution becomes itself the object of worship, and it is entirely forgotten that a Christian Church ought to have no ‘interests’ except the highest welfare of humanity.  The substitution of military for civil ethics has worked disastrously on the conduct of Churchmen.  Theoretically it is admitted by Roman casuists that an immoral order ought not to be obeyed; but it is not for a layman to pronounce immoral any order received from a priest; if the order is really immoral, ‘obedience’ exonerates him who executes it; in all other cases disobedience is a deadly sin.  The result of this submission of private judgment is that the voice of conscience is often stifled, and unscrupulous policies are carried through by Churchmen, which secular public opinion would have condemned decisively and rejected.  The persecution of Dreyfus is a recent and strong instance.  If all France had been Catholic, the victim of this shocking injustice would certainly have died in prison.  It is extremely doubtful whether the presence of a highly organised Church is conducive to moral and social reform in a country.  The temptation to play a political game seems to be always too strong.  In Ireland the priesthood has probably helped to maintain a comparatively high standard of sexual morality, but it cannot be said that the Irish Catholic population is in other respects a model of civilisation and good citizenship.  In education especially the influence of ecclesiasticism has been almost uniformly pernicious, so that it seems impossible for any country where the children are left under priestly influence to rise above a certain rather low level of civilisation.  The strongest claim of institutionalism to our respect is probably the beneficial restraint which it exercises upon many persons who need moral and intellectual guidance.  It is the fashion to disparage the scholastic theology, and it has certainly suffered by being congealed, like everything else that Rome touches, into a hard system; but it is immeasurably superior to the theosophies and fancy religions which run riot in the superficially cultivated classes of Protestant countries.  The undisciplined mystic, in his reliance on the inner light, may fall into various kinds of Schwaermerei and superstition.  In some cases he may even lose his sanity for want of a wise restraining influence.  It is not an accident that America, where institutionalism is weakest, is the happy hunting-ground of religious quacks and cranks.  Individualists are too prone to undervalue the steadying influence of ancient and consecrated tradition, which is kept up mainly by ecclesiastical institutions.  These probably prevent many rash experiments from being tried, especially in the field of morals.  Even writers like Dr. Frazer insist on the immense services which consecrated tradition still renders to humanity.  These claims may be admitted; but they come very far short of the glorification of institutionalism which we found in the authors quoted a few pages back.