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By RALPH ALBERT DORNFELD OWEN 1924 DEDICATION TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER SYLVESTER ALBERT OWEN SopuH1A DORNFELD OWEN ~~ CHRISTIAN BUNSEN AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY Various have been the lines of energy by which literary and cultural influences have traveled from nation to nation,—travel, commerce, foreign study, personal friendship, diplomatic service. The magnetic field of thought is rarely in equilibrium,—energy is passing either one way or both ways most of the time between two such poles as the English and German nations. Herford has shown the influence of German literature upon English during the Sixteenth century, Waterhouse during the Seventeenth. Cohn and others have shown the influence of Shakspere ‘‘misunderstood”’ upon German literature during the Seventeenth century. Various writers, notably Gundolph, have traced the re-generative influence exercized by Shakspere “understood” upon German literature after 1750. These reciprocal currents: have not been restricted to litera- ture; they have been quite as strong in the field of religious thought. The current which traveled from England to the old German Empire, when Richard II sought a bride in Bohemia, returned from the Empire to England when Coverdale brought back the New Testament in English and the first volume of English hymns, which he had translated at Wittenberg. ‘The influence of the Augsburg Confession upon the Second Prayer Book and the Forty-two Articles of the reign of Edward VI has been traced by Jacobs. The great religious movement of the last century in Germany is the liberal movement identified with the name of Schleiermacher. It is the purpose of this study to show that in Christian Bunsen, scholar and diplomat, of keen intellect and magnetic personality, the new movement ha‘ a personal, authoritative representative in England. YEARS OF PREPARATION Christian Bunsen was born 25th August 1791 in the principal- ity of Waldeck, Germany, as the son of a professional soldier who, after thirty years of service in the Dutch army, had retired to his 4 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN little free-hold and was earning a scant living as a notary. His mother had been companion to the Countess of Waldeck. Soit happened that thelatter consented to become the boy’s godmother. Having distinguisht himself at school and having a good reading knowledge of both French and English, young Bunsen set out for Goettingen in 1809. The Countess recommended him to the distinguisht philologist Heyne. Within half a year Bunsen had earned an appointment as assistant in Latin. From October 1810 till Easter 1811 he lived with and tutored a young American, William B. Astor, son of John Jacob Astor of New York. In November 1812 Bunsen won a prize for a Latin disertation on “The Athenian Law of Inheritance’, and in February 1813 he received from the University of Jena the degree of doctor of philo- sophy. During the year 1815 he and a friend, Christian Brandis, spent six months in Copenhagen, studying Icelandic. In Novem- ber they returned to Germany and went to Berlin, where the newly founded university was the center of brilliant intellectual life. He formed the friendship of Schleiermacher and of Niebuhr. These two men thenceforth exerted great influence upon his intellectual life. In January 1816 Bunsen went to Paris to study Arabic under Silvestre de Sayce. Here he met Alexander von Humboldt. Bunsen was eager to go to London and thence to India to study Sanskrit, and Humboldt gave him a letter of introduction to Wilhelm von Humboldt, Prussian minister at London. But instead of going to London, Bunsen went to Florence to study Persian and Arabic manuscripts. After four months of research in Florence, he proceeded to Rome, in order to continue his studies near Niebuhr, who was Prussian minister at the Papal Court. In Rome Bunsen met the family of an English country gentleman, Mr. B. Waddington, from Llanover, Monmouthshire. The oldest daughter, Frances, was a girl of brilliant intellectual gifts. Thru reading Madame De Stael’s De L’Allemagne she and her mother had been led to study German with enthusiasm. Dur- ing the winter of 1816-17 Bunsen was their guide in the study of Roman antiquities and of German literature. On Ist July 1817 he and Frances were married in the chapel of the German embassy. They spent the summer at Frascati, overlooking the Campagna. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 5 In November Niebuhr offered Bunsen the position of legation- secretary and he gladly accepted it. Let us stop to look back at Bunsen’s career: Without any visible means of support he had gone to the University of Goettin- gen and won honors. Without knowing whence he should take his next month’s livelihood he had gone from one seat of learning to another, earning his way thru tutoring, mastering in a short time the subject he had come for, and gaining the friendship of distin- guisht men. ‘‘Man can achieve what he has a mind to, and hindrances only increase his power’’, he wrote to his sister in Holland. Like her and like their father, he had a vivid sense of God’s providence. His friends admired him and credited him with unusual ability at reading human nature, deal ing with it, and leading it. His emotional way of expressing his thoughts and feelings in letters enables us to see that he had a great deal of self- confidence but also the saving grace of modesty and democracy. Some years later, his friend, Christian Brandis, wrote about their student-organization: “Very soon I recognized that Bunsen was the moving spirit of the society, and that he surpassed all the rest in breadth of vision, quickness of perception, and energy of will. Yet he was entirely free from all arrogance, and so—without knowing it—he was the soul of the organization, for he was able to feel the liveliest and most intimate interest in what each one was striving to do, to elicit the very best from every member, to appreciate unselfishly and impartially each member according to his own individuality.’”” Two great interests dominated Bunsen’s life,—politics and religion. He yearned for German national unity and freedom. In 1812 he had refused a position in the Westphalian Lyceum founded by Jerome Bonaparte. After the battle of Leipsig, he wrote to his father that had Goettingen remained in the hands of the French, he would never have returned.® He and his university friends dis- cust earnestly the problem of securing constitutional government, Note: all quotations from the German edition are translations by R. D. Owen The German edition is more complete than the English. 1 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I. p. 41. 2 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I, p. 55 8 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I, p. 43. 6 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN and their criticisms of German rulers were severe. They saw clearly that a host of petty states with merely nominal unity could not resist foreign aggression or guarantee internal progress. So they turned from Austria to Prussia for leadership in a united German nation which should have a Parliamentary form of government like that of Great Britain. Bunsen was strengthened in these views by Niebuhr. In 1816 he became a Prussian citizen. For New Year’s Day 1818 at Rome Bunsen wrote the follow- ing apostrophe: ‘“‘Germany free under a constitutional government. My heart is with thee, my beloved Fatherland, with thy hopes, thy blessings, thy perils! and with you, my dear friends, who with me in dark days besought God for help for the hardprest Fatherland,—you who now devote your united efforts and wishes to the recovering Fatherland.’ Bunsen’s interest in religion was equally strong. His home influences had been pietistic, rather than orthodox. At Goettingen he and his fellows strongly opposed the prevalent tone of unspirit- ual rationalism. During the winter of 1812-13 he conceived of the plan to write a philosophy of history. It was to prepare himself for this opus magnum that he went to Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, Florence, studying the language, literature, culture of each people that had contributed to our civilization. In a letter to a friend he described the conception thus: “Everything that emanates from spirit is a revelation of the Divine, unfolding itself according to eternal laws. This divine source conditions the origin, progress, and decay of every human phenomenon in the fields of speech, art, science, government, religion. To trace this development thru the milenniums and to discover its laws, I recognize as the dark background of my present life and as the bright center of my subsequent life’”’.? When Bunsen accepted the secretaryship, both he and Niebuhr thought that it would be a temporary position, that Bunsen should secure a professorship before long and eventually 1 Memoirs, German edition Vol. I p. 140. * Memoirs, German edition Vol. I. p. 81. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY fi write his book. But circumstances decreed that he should remain at his post in Rome for twenty years and in diplomatic work a life- time. YEARS OF SERVICE Bunsen acted as secretary to Niebuhr for six years. So faith ful and successful was he in his new calling that Niebuhr, when he resigned in 1823, askt the home government to appoint Bunsen, first, charge d’affaires and, finally, in 1827, minister resident. Bunsen acepted both against his own wishes and only because he considered them divine calls to duty. He wrote to his sister: “T cannot tell you with what longing I am looking forward to the time, when I shall be able to devote all energies to the subject which is on my mind day and night (i. e. his philosophy of history), altho people would not think for a moment that I would give up a diplomatic career. However, until I can secure my release I hope to manage the affairs of my King with earnestness and dignity. Surely God knows why it is good for me.’” Important events in his official life were the visits of Baron von Stein in 1819-20, of King Frederick William III and two sons in 1822, of the Crown Prince (the future Frederick William IV) in 1828. The latter and Bunsen became intimate friends for life. However, the chief business of Bunsen, as it was of Niebuhr, was to negotiate with the Papal Court a compromise enabling Roman Catholic clergy in Prussia to give the full sanction of the Church to mixt marriages. On several occasions he seemed to have succeeded only to find out that inefficient or disloyal officials at home were frustrating his efforts. At his request he was recalled in April 1838, and before the end of the month he and his family had left the Eternal City, which they had learned to love. His friend George Ticknor of America wrote, “Bunsen loves Rome as few Ro- mans do, but he sees clearly its present degraded state and coming diasters’’.” | Altho his chief and most trying task in Rome was fruitless, Bunsen accomplisht many things of lasting value. He secured a 1 Memoirs, German edition Vol. I. 2 Life and Letters of George Ticknor, Vol. II. 8 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN charter for the Protestant cemetery—dear to all English-speaking people because it contains the remains of John Keats. On the Tarpeian Rock he establisht a Protestant Hospital. He directed the attention of the British government to the valuable manuscripts referring to British history, in the Vatican library. He founded and was the first general secretary of the first international archae- ological association,—the Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeolog- ica. The Instituto regularly publisht its Annali from 1829 til 1853 and from 1857 til 1886. In the latter year they were replaced by the Mitteilungen des Kaiserlichen deutschen archaeologishen Institus. Roemischer Abteilung. George Ticknor has interestingly described the work of the Instituto in his letters.’ Bunsen publisht a book ‘Roman Topography” of which E. H. Banbury, an English authority a generation later said, ‘“Mr. Bunsen’s name will ever be remembered by future historians as the restorer of the Roman Forum.’” In 1817 the Bunsens least the Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitol. Here they lived thruout their score of years in Rome. Here they entertained that innumerable caravan of German, English, American, and other pilgrims who laid claim to their hospitality, so that they virtually became international hosts, mediators between the thoughts of nation and nation. It was natural that the Bunsens should welcome English visitors. Bunsen wrote to Niebuhr ‘‘My refreshment from general society is, as always that of the English.”* Madame Bunsen wrote,— “To his English friends and acquaintances, many of whom became cherished friends, he ever looked up with more especial sympathy, and from them he sought and received that great amount of knowledge of men and things with which he came pro- vided, to everyone’s surprise, when at last he reached the shores of England.’”* Among the notable people that enjoyed the hospitality of the Palazzo Caffarelli were George Ticknor and George Bancroft of ‘Life and Letters of George Ticknor, Vol. II p. 58. In Classical Museum, London, 1846~47, Vol. III-IV. * Memoirs, German edition Vol. I p. 261. “Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 339. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 9 New England, John Stuart Blackie of Edinburgh, Henry Crabb Robinson, William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, Connop Thirl- wall (later bishop of St. David’s in Wales), Julius Charles Hare (later archdeacon of Lewes), Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, Richard Monckton Milnes, and William Evart Gladstone. YEARS OF REWARD After a brief stay in Munich the Bunsens went to England’ While his wife and children visited at the home of her parents in Monmouthshire, Bunsen was the guest of his old friend Philip Pusey in London. He regularly attended the sessions of Parlia- ment. He recorded his impressions of the House of Commons in the following words: “TI saw before me the Empire of the world governed and the rest of the world controlled and judged by this assembly; I had the feeling that had I been born in England I would rather be dead than not sit among them and speak among them. I thought of my own country, and I was thankful that I could thank God for being a German and being myself. But I felt that we are all children in this field as compared with the English ie oe ee oe 0 @ During these months in London he met Gladstone, Hallam, Macaulay, Lockhart, Lord Greville, Thomas Carlyle. With Philip Pusey he went to Oxford and met Pusey’s famous brother, Dr. Edward Bouverie Pusey, and his associates, John Henry Newman, and W.G. Ward. In June 1839 his wife and he went to Cambridge. Dr. Thomas Arnold and wife also were there to honor the occasion when two of their friends, Bunsen and William Wordsworth received the honorary degree of doctor of canon law. In the autumn of 1839 Bunsen brought his stay in England to a close by accepting the Prussian ambassadorship to Switzerland. The friendships begun or renewed during the visit were not broken off by the change. He carried on an active correspondence with various people, notably with Gladstone on the subject of church- government. He received a number of visitors, among them Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Denison Maurice, and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. 1 Memoirs, English edition I p. 500. 10 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN He was destined not to remain long in Switzerland. In June 1840 the Prussian King died and was succeeded by Bunsen’s friend, Frederick William IV. Like many other Germans, Bunsen felt that the year 1840 was most auspicious for the beginning of the new reign. Had not Frederick William the Great Elector ascended the throne in the year 1640? Had not Frederick the Great begun his brilliant reignin 1740? Surely the year 1840 must mark the beginning of a reign that should unify all German-speak- ing peoples. In this patriotic work Bunsen hoped to play a part. Only a month before his accession Frederick William IV had written Bunsen a letter twenty-eight pages long entitled ‘“My Confession of Faith concerning Church Polity.” In April 1841 Bunsen went to London as special envoy to negotiate the establishment of the Jerusalem Bishopric. In November 1841 Lord Aberdeen informed Bunsen that King Frederick William IV had written to Queen Victoria, suggest- — | ing three candidates to succeed the retiring Prussian ambassador von Buelow, and that the Queen had selected Bunsen.’ He wrote to his wife,— : : “T am writing rhapsodies. My heart is so moved, when I consider that you, dear creature, who gave your hand and heart to me, an unknown, poor, wandering youth, are to be conducted back to your native land, by the man of your choice, in order with to him represent the noblest of kings before your Queen and nation. Of all that is delightful about the appointment, this thought delights me most....’” | In January 1842 he assumed his new duties and his family joined him, taking a house at Carlton Terrace. A few weeks later King Frederick William IV came to be sponsor for the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, (the late King Edward VII). Madame Bunsen was invited to spend two days at Windsor Castle. The King consented to have luncheon at Bunsen’s home to enable a number of literary and public people to meet him,—among them Thomas Carlyle, whos Heroes had recently appeared. In June the Bunsens were grieved at the death of their friend, Dr. Thomas * Memoirs, English edition I p. 629. ® Memoirs, German edition Vol. II. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 11 Arnold. In the summer they moved out to Hurstmonceaux Place in Kent to be near their friends, the Hares. In March 1843 Bunsen was summoned to a conference in Berlin. He had the opportunity to have a long conversation with Prince William (Later Emperor William I) about England and the German Constitutional question. InJuly 1844 Prince William came to England for a visit. He toured England and, Scotland under Bunsen’s guidance. Together they visited the Duke of Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, and Sir Robert Peel. Bunsen wrote, “The journey was both a means of recreation and a great event. The Prince of Prussia has learned to love England; he admires her greatness and understands that this is the result of her political and religious institutions. As for me he has resumed the old intimacy of 1822. He broke the ice and discussed all the im- portant questions, also the question of questions (Constitutional government)... .He listeried to me quietly, sympathetically, often approvingly.’ In 1845 Bunsen was summoned to Stolzenfels, to be present when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert paid their return visit to King Frederick William. Bunsen was created ‘*Real Privy Counselor”. Queen Victoria gave 500 pounds sterling toward the completion of the cathedral of Koeln. The King and Queen of Belgium, uncle of the English Queen were also present. Bunsen wrote, ‘King Leopold is steadily winning firmerground”.? During the festivities there came the news of a riot over political and reli- gious matters in Saxony, in which thirteen people had been killed, The King declared, ‘‘Only complete liberty can check the unrest’, Bunsen characterized them as golden words. But soon he realized that they were merly words. He wrote,—‘‘The King’s heart is toward me like that of a brother. But our paths are parting. The die is cast. He reads on my face that I lament it. He too fulfills his destiny, and we with him. I shall return home ten years older but with unbroken courage and faith, which God has given me and which I pray He will preserve’” 1 Memoirs, German edition Vol. II p. 272. 2 Memoirs, German edition Vol. IT p. 324. 12 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN Bunsen felt that after all the King did not share his belief in constitutional government. In February 1847 Bunsen wrote to his friend Baron Stockmar expressing his satisfaction at the fact that the Royal Commission had had finisht its work of drafting a constitution for Prussia. Three years previous, he himself had submitted a draft of one at the King’s request and personally discust it before the Commission. But in Berlin there were endless delays, so that in July, when he was at Cambridge to attend the installation of Prince Albert as Chancellor of the University, the feeling came over him that he would like to resign and retire to Bonn. But his sense of duty pre- vented his doing so.’ The February Revolution in France distrest Bunsen very much. On 18 March 1848 the revolutionary wave reacht Berlin. For several days Bunsen was ill with grief. A week later Prince William came to Bunsen’s house as a fugitive and stayed two months. In July Bunsen was summoned to Berlin. On the way he stopt off at Koeln and wrote his wife that he found there great enthusiasm for German unity.” All this time his intimate friend Baron Stockmar had been at Frankfort as a delegate from Coburg to the National Assembly. Bunsen tried to incline King Frederick William to the plans of the Assembly, but in vain. He returned to London after four weeks. In November the King dissolved the Prussian National Assembly and imposed a constitution on the nation. In spite of this arbitrary act, Bunsen declared that the King had saved Prussia. In January he was back in Berlin trying to persuade the King to accept the imperial crown offered him by the Frankfort Assembly. He took an active part in the negotia- tions til the King’s final refusal on Easter Sunday 1849. During the next few years Bunsen found comfort in speculat- ing with his friend Stockmar about the prospects of German unity. He kept his mind refresht with his studies in theology and history. In 1850 he and his friend Philip Pusey served together on the com- mission that carried out Prince Albert’s idea of an International Exhibition. At that time Bunsen took occasion to voice the desire for international peace.’ In August he made a flying trip to Bonn * Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 140-143. ? Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 190. 3 Memoirs English edition Vol. II p. 241-242. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 13 but avoided having to wait on the King at Berlin. Prince William made three more visits to England. Bunsen grew more and more hopeful that the future king and emperor would be more democratic than his brother. In April 1854 the Crimean War broke out. Bunsen had always urged upon his government the need andthe wisdom, of maintaining colser relations with Great Britain, because it repre- sented liberal government, and an avoidance of alliance with Russia and Austria, bedause these represented absolute govern- ment. So now he urged his home government to take a stand with Great Britain against Russia. But it completely ignored his plea and issued a proclamation of neutrality. Bunsen felt that he was justified in resigning. It was accepted, and he retired to Heidelberg. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Mr. Gladstone, and many others exprest their regret at the Bunsens’ leaving. Bunsen wrote,— ‘I leave England, as I hope to leave the world, loving and beloved, but willing ¢nd cheerful.’ Just outside Heidelberg his children had leased a beautiful villa named Charlottenberg. Soon after his arrival there he wrote ‘“My books are placed far more within my reach and arranged more according to my inclination than was possible in London... . The rooms look so home like that one cannot admit the possibility of ever quitting them. I live as ina state of enchantment and can as yet scarcely comprehend how happy Iam. I can now read books that I have longed to read for years, and at the same time I can write to my heart’s content. But I miss John Bull, the Times in the morning, and besides some dozens of fellow-creatures.’”” A visit to the University of Goettingen in October 1854 after an absence of twenty-five years gave him the feeling that he was being restored to spiritual communion with his fellow countrymen. A year later he took a hand in current political affairs by publishing a pamplhet entitled ‘Signs of the Times” (Zeichen der Zeit), consisting of ten letters addrest to the poet Arndt and protesting against the prevalent spirit of religious intolerance. By October 1855 he was so deep in literary work that he had to engage a secretary. He also carried on an active correspondence with 1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 352. * Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 354-55. 14 . CHRISTIAN BUNSEN numerous English friends. Thus in J uly 1856 he wrote a letter to Richard Cobden on international peace.’ In September King Frederick William IV invited Bunsen to come to Berlin and be his guest during the meeting of the Evangeli- cal Alliance, an international assembly of delegates from all Protestant churches of all nations. The last official act of the King, before suffering from the stroke that deprived him of the use of his mind, was to sign a patent of nobility for Bunsen.” In spite of failing health Bunsen went to Berlin again in Octo- ber 1858 to sit in the Prussian House of Lords. The following winter he spent in Cannes, France. After an active summer in Heidelberg he spent another winter in Cannes. He was planning to lecture at the university in the Spring of 1861 on the ‘‘Theory and history of the consciousness of God’’. But that was not to be. After a protracted illness he died in November 1860 and was buried in Bonn. Thus to the very end, his dominant interests were politics and religion. 1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 399. * Memoirs, English editions Vol. II p. 460. BUNSEN AND HIS FRIENDS Bunsen’s personality was so vibrant with sympathy, so radiant with good-will and tolerance, so compelling in intellectual force and moral earnestness that he made friends instantly. Many are the testimonials of this fact recorded by his English friends. However tempting it is to discuss his friendships with Ameri- cans, such as George Ticknor, Edward Everett, George Bancroft, William Backhouse Astor, or his literary friendships, such as those with Carlyle, Wordsworth, George Grote, Mrs. Austin, Mrs. Gaskell, or his decisive influence upon the career of Florence Nightingale, the writer will confine his attention to the group of people who felt his influence in the field of religious thought. With the exception of John Stuart Blackie* of Edinburgh, these all belonged to a rather closely—knit group, having some bonds of kinship or friendship even before Bunsen entered it. Hence this chapter will deal with Connop Thirlwall, Julius Charles Hare, Thomas Arnold, F. D. Maurice, A. P. Stanley, Benjamin Jowett, Susanna and Catherine Winkworth. Connop Thirlwall (1797-1875) attended Charter House and there became the friend of Julius Charles Hare. Later he attended Cambridge and again was intimate with Hare. Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855), son of Francis Hare-Naylor and his wife Georgeanna (Shipley), was the grandson of a bishop and of a canon. His parents were people of literary and artistic ability who on account of financial difficulties spent most of their life abroad. Thus they spent the winters of 1804-05 and 1810-11 at the court of Weimar. Mrs. Hare, believing strongly in teaching children several languages while they are little, had her older son, Francis, learn French and Italian before he was four, and during the next few years learn German thoroly. Francis later became the tutor of Julius: The latter spent the winter of 1810-11 with his parents at Weimar. He conceived an ardent love of crt literature, which he carried with him through life. Hare, no doubt, inspired Thirlwall with the desire to learn: German. Together they read Niebuhr’s History of Rome. In 1818 they were both elected fellows of their college. They went to *Bunsen’s friendship for Blackie will not be discussed in this paper. 16 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN the Continent for nearly a year. They spent most of their time in Italy, but here they separated, Hare staying at Pisa to visit Walter Savage Landor, and Thirlwall going on to spend the winter in Rome. Having a letter of introduction to Madame Bunsen from Professor James Monk of Cambridge, Thirlwall was sure of a welcome at the Palazzo Caffarelli from the outset. . Madame Bunsen wrote: “Charles (Bunsen) in their first interview heard enough from him to induce him to believe that Mr. Thirlwall had studied Greek and Hebrew in good earnest, not merely for prizes; also, the fact that he had read Mr. Niebuhr’s History of Rome proved him to possess no trifling knowledge of German; and as he expressed a wish to improve himself in the language, Charles ventured to invite him to come to us on a Tuesday evening... . . seeing that many Germans were in the habit of calling on that day . . and Mr. Thirlwall never has missed a Tuesday evening since... . . . He comes at eight and never stirs to go away till giniheaed else has wished good night, often almost at twelve O'Clock) ..),.7 We can readily surmise what topics and persons figured in the conversation of Bunsen and Thirlwall,—first, the work of Niebuhr, the man who had laid new foundations for the study of history, whom Bunsen honored as master; second, the re-setting of the foundations of the Christian faith which Schleiermacher had begun with his “Essays on Religion addrest to the cultured among those People who Despise it’’, and which he and his associ- ates were carrying on. Bunsen regarded Schleiermacher as an older brother. Under date of 1 July 1818 he had written to his friend Luecke,” I have begun to read Schleiermacher on St. Luke and acknowledge myself by no means ready to admit all that he premises by way of general axioms, but I will study the book thoroughly. The preface is admirably written, with the wisdom of Christian freedom and fearlessness’’.? Thirlwall may have exprest the wish to translate the works of one or both, for years later Thirlwall wrote to Bunsen, in connection with the appearance *A. J.C. Hare: Life and Letters of Baroness Bunsen, Vol. I pp. 138-141. * Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 146. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 17 of his and Hare’s translation of Niebuhr’s History,—‘“I do not know whether you remember that on the evening when I took my last leave of you, you predicted that I should live to be attacked in the Quarterly Review. I little imagined that your prophecy would be literally fulfilled, and you yourself can scarcely have anticipated the occasion’’.* Another topic that Thirlwall and Bunsen must have discust was the choice of a profession. His critical attitude toward history extended to the authority of the Church, and he hestitated about taking orders. Madame Bunsen in the Memoir of her husband writes,—‘‘The conversation of Bunsen may not have been without influence upon the choice of a profession in the case of Thirlwall, who was far from having decided upon taking orders, when he came to Rome in 1818-19, and was probably struck by the higher interest taken by Bunsen in theology compared with every other subject, and his admiring preference of much in the Anglican system”’.” Professor J. W. Clark, in his biographical sketch of Thirlwall, takes issue with her.* He asserts it quite unlikely that Bunsen, who at this time was a passionate Tory could have exerted any influence upon the calm Whig. But the correspondence of Thirlwall with Bunsen gives evidence to the contrary. He referred repeatedly to the difficulties connected with his entering the Church, implying that they had been a subject of discussion. When Thirlwall had returned to England, he wrote to his brother that he decided to go into Law, because it would leave him free to hold his own opinions without having to subscribe to those of others.* Later he wrote to Bunsen, implying that Bunsen had recommended the Law,— “Tt would be impossible for me not feel the force of your remarks on the dignity and importance of the study of law....(But Law in its highest and philosophical aspect is impossible for most men in the present slavery to precedents and form,)...... and hence it is, to revert to my own partic ular case, that I can perceive here no link of connection with any other pursuits and inquiries, far 1J. J. Stewart Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol I. 2 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 339-340. 3J, W. Clark: Old Friends at Cambridge p. 100. 4J. J. Stewart Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwail, Vol. I.. 18 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN less any central point to which to refer them all. Thus is the unity of my intellectual life broken utterly, and I find myself in the painful and unnatural necessity of devoting the greater part of my time and attention to that which to me appears petty and un- - interesting, and making the great business of my thoughts an ac- cidental and precarious appendage to it. Some kind of employ- ment at the University to which I belong would—as you rightly suppose—be infinitely more congenial to my inclinations, but in order to fill my station there which would be more than temporary, it would be necessary to enter into the Church, a condition which would deprive such a situation of that which constitutes its chief attraction for me” (20 January 1823.)? What Thirlwall really wanted to be was a scholar, and the way to his goal lay thru the Church. He had conscientious scruples about taking holy orders. He exprest his difficulties to Bunsen, and Bunsen, knowing these difficulties from personal experience—was able to point him to the line of thought which would clear them away eventually. It was a slow process for Thirwall, for he had not yet overcome his difficulties by January 1823. Eventually Thirlwall did overcome his difficulties. It is not necessary to try to determine how far Bunsen’s influence extended in the matter. That it was an influence for good can be seen from Thirlwall’s words in a letter of November 1831,—”’ a time to which I shall always look back with pleasure and gratitude, that in which I enjoyed your society in Rome.’” Professor Clark admits,— “Tt is certain that the friendship which began in Rome was one of the strongest and most abiding influences which shaped Thirlwall’s character, and just half a century afterwards we find him referring to Bunsen as a sort of oracle much in the style of language that Dr. Arnold was fond of employing.’”® For several yearsafter Thirlwall’s return to England he carried on an active correspondence with Bunsen. His first letter addrest to him was written in German and testifies to his admiration for both Bunsen and his wife. It is all the more human for its many *J. J. Stewart Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I p. 64. * Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. “J. W. Clarke: Old Friends at Cambridge, p. 102. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 19 grammatical errors. Doubtless he found it too difficult, and his later letters are written in English. Julius Hare, too, was having scruples about entering the Church. His mother’s sister, the widow of the famous orientalist Sir William Jones, was quite out of patience with him about it. She ascribed it to his study of German literature. She declared, she wisht that all his German books might be burnt. To this he replied with a confession of faith under date of January 1820,— “As for my German books, I hope from my heart that the day will never arrive when I shall be induced to burn them, for I am convinst that I shall never do so, unless I have first become a base slave of Mammon and a mere vile lump of selfishness. I shall never be able to repay an hundredth part of the obligation I am under to them, even though I were to shed every drop of my blood in defence of their liberties. For to them I owe the best of all my knowledge, and if they have not purified my heart, the fault is my own. Aboveall, to them I owe my ability to believein Christianity, with a much more implicit and intelligent faith than I otherwise should have been able to have done; for without them I should only have saved myself from drear suspicions by a refusal to allow my heart to follow my head, and by a self-willed determination to believe, whether my reason approved of my belief or not. This question has so often been a subject of discussion, that I have determined once for all to state my reasons for remaining firm in my opinion.’” In 1820 both Hare and Thirlwall were studying law. Hare soon found it uncongenial and in 1822 returned to Cambridge as tutor in his college. He remained in that position til 1832. In May 1823 when Professor James Monk resigned his professorship of Greek at Cambridge, Hare wrote to Thirlwall and urged him to become a candidate for it, but Thirlwall refused. During these years both found recreation in translating contemporary German literature. Hare publisht Fouque’s Sintram in 1820; Thirlwall _publisht two tales of Tieck’s in 1825. According to the publisher German tales were all the vogue with the English public. 1A. J.C. Hare: Memorials of a Quite Life, Am erican edition p. 20. 20 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN During the winter of 1823-24 Thirlwall was deep in the study of contemporary German theology in order to translate Schlei- ermacher’s Essay on St. Luke and write an adequate introduction. He got a great deal of help from Hare. Their correspondence at this time is unusually active and it is full of references tothesubject. Under date of 31 October 1824 he makes the following acknowledg- ment “Of the ‘Schleiermacher’ nobody certainly has so ood a right to dispose as yourself, to whom I am indebted for both the knowledge of the book itself and for almost all the materials for the Introduction.’”’ Hare exprest the fear that Thirlwall’s reputation would suffer if he exprest Schleiermacher’s opinions ‘‘unsoftened”. Thirlwall courageously assumed the risk. Under date of 26 November 1824 he wrote, ‘‘Your remark about softening the doubt expressed by Schleiermacher as to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel is of consequence. But the suppression of it is a liberty which I feel a scruple in taking.” 29 November,‘‘....Schleiermacher’s doubt about Matthew is irrevocable and if it is likely to do mischief I hardly know how to remedy it”... .30 November,. . . . ““Onlooking over Schleiermacher I have the satisfaction to find that he fully justifies his doubt as to Matthew, and that no one who reads him through, will charge him with having thrown out a random para- Gox: .i00" The translation and introduction were completed in 1825. The publisher paid Thirlwall 100 guineas, but the latter had paid out fifty guineas in gathering his materials! Hare’s fears were realized, —the appearance of the book cast a shadow on Thirlwall’s ortho- doxy that twenty years could hardly dispel. This was made up for by the satisfaction of having opened up a new field to such English theologians as were ready for it. Bunsen could not but be pleased to see his friend’s work translated into English. Schleiermacher himself was so much pleased that in 1829 he visited Thirlwallin London. One wonders what kind of impression Thirlwall got from that physical dwarf and mental giant, His printed Remains give us no clue. Another friend of Bunsen’s George Bancroft, wrote of Schleiermacher,— *Perowne: Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I p. 78. ? Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. 95. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 21 “T honor Schleiermacher above all the German scholars with whom it has been my lot to become acquainted. He abounds in wit and is inimitable in satire; yet he has a perfectly good heart, is generous and obliging. I think he is acknowledged to be the greatest pulpit-orator in Germany.’” In 1825 Thirlwall was admitted to the bar. But his real interests lay in the field of scholarship. So in 1827 he returned to Cambridge, shortly before his fellowship would have expired, and prepared himself for ordination. In the following year he became a priest. He received a lecturership and remained in the university til 1834. - In 1827 Julius Charles Hare with the assistance of his brother Augustus William publisht a collection of aphorisms called ‘“‘Guesses at Truth’ ,—thoughts about religion, philosophy, liter- ature, and life, showing how thoroly he had studied German literature. Crabb Robinson, who had met him at Cambridge in 1825, wrote enthusiastically, ‘I had great pleasure in looking over his library of German books,—the best collection of modern German authors I have ever seen in England. He spoke of Niebuhr’s ‘Roman History’ as a masterpiece; praised Neander’s ‘St. Bernard’, ‘Emperor Julian’, ‘St. Chryststom’, and ‘Denkwuer- digkeiten’; was enthusiastic about Schleiermacher.’” At this point it becomes necessary to mention Augustus William Hare, older brother of Julius. He studied at Oxford and was an intimate friend of Thomas Arnold. After spending two years in Italy he became a tutor at New College, Oxford, in 1818. Thomas Arnold was living at Laleham, not far way. Julius Hare was in London, pretending to study law. It was thru Augustus that Thomas Arnold and Julius Hare became acquainted. The latter directed Arnold to the study of German as the open sesame to historical information. Arnold’s biographer says, “‘It was through the recommenda- tion of Archdeacon Hare that Arnold first became acquainted with Niebuhr’s History of Rome. In the study of this work, whith was the first German book which he ever read and for the sake of which he learned the German language, a new intellectual world dawned 1 Life and Letters of George Bancroft, Vol. I p. 146. ?Diary of H. Crabb Robinson, Vol. II p. 19. 22 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN upon him, not only in the subject to which it is related but in the disclosure to him of the depth and reach of German literature, which from that moment he learned more and more to appreciate, and as far as his own occupations would allow him, to emulate.’’* Arnold himself, under date of 30 September 1824, wrote to W. W. Hull,—I am now working on German in good earnest, and I have got a master who comes down here once a week. I have read a good deal of Julius Hare’s friend Niebuhr and have found it to abundantly overpay the labor of learning a new language, to say nothing of some other valuable books with which I am becoming acquainted, all preparatory to my Roman history....... un By Easter 1827 Arnold had made such progress in his studies that he was eager to see Rome for himself. It was natural that he should get a letter of introduction to Bunsen,—possibly from Thirlwall. Madame Bunsen wrote,—‘‘Arnold’s stay was restricted to a few days, during great part of which Bunsen, with great zeal and pleasure, accompanied him in his inspection of historical monuments, and communicated to him his own store of topogra- phical information.....Arnold and Bunsen considered each other as friends from the first and parted with the expressed hope and — purpose of not losing sight or knowledge of each other.” Arnold’s biographer publishes seventeen letters from Arnold to Bunsen, and Madame Bunsen publishes twenty from Bunsen to Arnold. Their correspondence continued till Arnold’s death in 1842. Under date of 7 March 1828 Arnold wrote to his friend Augustus Hare,—‘“‘I was completely overpowered with admiration and delight at the matchless beauty and solemnity of Rome and its neighborhood. But I think my greatest delight after all was in the society of Bunsen... .his entire and enthusiastic admiration of everything great and excellent and beautiful. ...’” Arnold’s more intimate relations with Julius Hare also began at this time. In the same letter to Augustus, he wrote,—‘“I have derived great benefit from sources of information that 1A. P. Stanley : Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 33. 7A. P. Stanley : Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 58. $ Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 315-16. *A. P. Stanley: Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, p. 70. ‘AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 23 your brother has at different times recommended to me, and the perusal of some of his articles in the Guesses at Truth has made me exceedingly desirous of becoming better acquainted with him, as Iam sure that his conversation would be really profitable to me, in the highest sense of the word, as well as delightful. And I have a double pleasure in saying this, because I did not do him justice formerly in my estimate of him, and I am anxious to do myself justice now by saying that I have learned to judge more truly... .”’.* In the meantime Hare and Thirlwall were together at Cam- bridge. Theyimprovedtheir time by translating Niebuhr’s History of Rome. The first volume appeared in print in 1828. Their rapid accomplishment of the task may be due to the fact that Julius had done some preliminary work, as we infer from a letter of Thirlwall’s in October 1823, in which he askt, ‘““Howis Niebuhr coming on?’’. The second volume appeared in English before the third volume had appeared in German. In fact, Niebuhr’s untimely death left it to be publisht posthumously. The translators sent copies of the first English volume to Niebuhr. He was very much pleased and wrote about it to Bunsen. This was the occasion for a renewal of correspondence between Thirlwall and Bunsen. Thirlwall wrote to him under date of November 1831, telling of the attacks which their publication had called forth,—‘“In Germany, I hear, most persons were at a loss to conceive on what grounds Niebuhr could have been assailed in England as ir- religious. But our irreligious atmosphere is a very peculiar one, as may be supposed when it is known that we are beginning to be very fluent in unknown tongues, which are now attracting crowds to one of our meeting-houses. The millenarian persuasion is be- come so universal that any man who doubts the certainty of the Messiah’s appearance on earth being now near at hand is de- nounced by—I am afraid I may say—a majority of the persons who claim the epithet religious by way of eminence, as a downright infidel. That persons of this description would be scandalized by Niebuhr’s divergency from the book of Genesis I knew to be an avoidable misfortune, and I only hoped that his speculations might not fall into their hands. But I had scarcely imagined that the Quarterly Review would have degraded itself by such a stupid 14. P. Stanley: Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 70. 24 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN and bestial attack as that with which it evaded the more difficult task of reviewing the book...... at Hare and Thiriwall wrote a vindication of Niebuhr which they publisht in 1829. Hare wrote the greater part of it, about sixty pages Thirlwall contributed about six. Their friends said that the latter were the more effective; that their respective parts in the vindication well illustrated their characters,—Hare impetuous, Thirlwall calm, but irresistible. They sent a copy of the pamphlet to Arnold, who wrote under date of 30 March 1829, ‘‘I am much obliged to you for sending me your Defence of Niebuhr and still more for the most kind and gratifying manner in which you have mentioned me in it.....’” Arnold had visited Niebuhr on his way home from a second trip to Italy in 1828. “TI am satisfied from my own ears, if I had any doubts before, of the grossness of the slander which called him an unbeliever. I was every way delighted with him and liked very much of what I saw of his wife and children.’ Another subject in which they were all interested was Catholic Emancipation. Bunsen who was used to seeing Catholics and Prosestants enjoying equal political and civil rights, was urged by English Catholic friends to write in their behalf to the Duke of Wellington. Accordingly he wrote two memorials on the subject which were presented to the Duke by Mr. Wilmot Horton. Arnold also wrote a pamphlet in support of Emancipation. There are several references to it in the correspondence between Arnold and Julius Hare. In 1829 Bunsen had begun publishing the Annali of the Archaeological Society. There are several references to it in his correspondence with Arnold. In 1831 he sent to Thirlwall a copy of the first volume of his topographical work, Description of Rome. Under date of 21 November 1831 Thirlwall sent him a copy of a review of it which Thirlwall had publisht in the Journal of Educa- tion. He wrote,—“I seize an opportunity which very rarely offers itself of sending you a few lines to keep alive the remembrance of a time to which I shall always look back with pleasure and 1 Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I p. 101. * Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 227. * Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, I p. 260. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 25 gratitude,—that in which I enjoyed your society at Rome. In my mind the recollection of that interesting period of my life was revived with redoubled freshness by the perusual of your work on Rome...... The article (review) is, I am very conscious, in a literary point of view, quite undeserving of your notice, and if you should take the trouble to read it, I hope you will remember that in writing it I had no other object than to make the work known in England by a general account and a slight specimefi of its con- Penta sis 2. 4: But as a token of personal regard I send it with greater ponngenve that it will not prove wholly unacceptable to WAL 944 02": He goes on to tell that he and Hare have founded a new philological journal called the Philological Museum. A year later, in a letter dated 16 December 1832, he reminds Bunsen that it was he who aroused in Thirlwall an interest in philology. On the 10 October 1833 he sends Bunsen the sixth and last number of the Museum, explaining that, since Hare has left Cambridge, the burden of furnishing material has fallen wholly on himself. (They invited Arnold to join them but he pleaded his lack of pro- ficiency in philology). He laments that the English public is so indifferent to the scientific study of the ancient languages. It is due to the artificial way in which these languages are being taught in the universities,—divorced from their philological and archae- ological background. But before the system of teaching can be changed, the system of government of the universities must be changed. Other letters of Thirlwall to Bunsen deal with reform of Church government, just as do Arnold’s letters to Bunsen. Inter- esting is Thirlwall’s of 5 May 1833, referring to reform of the liturgy,—’”’ Beside your two letters, I have to thank you for pro- curing me the pleasure of perusing that (Bunsen’s) to Dr. Nott, to which I am indebted for many new conceptions and for a clearer view of the whole subject than I had ever attained before. It has made me very eager to see your liturgy and the Gesangbuch, which I have not yet received. (Bunsen publisht the results of his 1 Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. ? Life and Correspondence of Thomas Anold, Vol. I p. 108-110. 26 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN extensive studies in Liturgics in 1828 and his remarkable collection of German hymns in 1831.) The letter concludes, ‘‘Before this letter reaches you, you will, I suppose, have become acquainted with my friend Hare, a person like whom we have very few to produce. Would that I could be present at your conversations! When I left Rome I thought it was impossible I should never see it again. Now I hardly venture to cherish the hope.’” | In 1832 Hare had received the offer of the family living of Hurstmonceaux in Kent. He accepted it but planned to spend a year abroad before settling down. (His leaving Cambridge has been mentioned.) He spent the winter of 1832-33 in Rome. His presence there was a source of great pleasure to the Bunsens. He wrote in January 1833 to his brother Augustus,—‘‘ You have heard something of Bunsen and know that I expected to like him very much. Ilike him far more than I expected, and I hardly know any other man who unites so many merits, without, so far as I can see, a single defect. He is one of the friendliest, most amiable, liveliest, most sensible, best informed, most entertaining of human beings, overflowing with kindness, good humor, with high spirits, most actively and unweariedly benevolent; and I have never discovered, the least spark of ill-nature in him, or of selfishness,. or of vanity, though we are constantly together. Over and above: all, he is a man of the strongest, purest, most fervent piety... .’” Concerning this visit F. D. Maurice in his memoir of Hare: wrote,—“‘One there was too living in the Capitol, whose presence stirred the thought and warmed the heart of many an English traveler and lent an additional charm even to the glory of the Seven. Hills and the treasures of the Vatican. It was the beginning of his life-long intimacy with Bunsen; an intimacy confirmed and’ cemented, when in after years the Prussian ambassador took up: his residence for a year in the parish of his friend. . . .’” From that. time on Hare and Bunsen exchanged letters,. probably not frequently, but regularly. Madame Bunsen reprinted’ twenty of Bunsen’s to Hare, but all of them are dated after * Letters of Connop Thirlwall, Vol. I. * Memorials of a Quite Life. °F. D. Maurice: Introduction to Hare’s Victory of Faith, edited by Plumptre- page C. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 27 Bunsen’s first visit in England. However, the friendship must have had some means of continuance from 1833 till 1838, for Hare was one of the first who—by appointment—greeted Bunsen on his arrival in England. Returning to the correspondence of Bunsen and Arnold we find Bunsen writing a long letter, dated ‘‘Idibus Martiis’” 1833. The first half deals with the agitation for Parliamentary reform; the second half with Church reform. Bunsen cautions against sweeping changes “in these excited times’’; he deplores the necessity of Parliament’s legislating for the Church, he thinks the Church should govern itself thru Convocation.’ Under date of 6 May 1833 Arnold wrote to Bunsen,—‘“‘I thank you heartily for two most delightful letters. They both make me feel more ardently the wish that I could see you again and talk over instead of writing the many important subjects ‘which interest us both and not only us but the whole world. ..’” He went on to say that he detested as heartily as Bunsen the revolutionary movement which they were living thru, because of ‘its godlessness. In October 1833 he wrote to his college friend Justice J. T. ‘Coleridge,—‘“‘I love your letters dearly and thank you for them greatly... .First of all you will be glad to hear of the birth of my eighth living child, a little girl to whom we mean to give the unreasonable number of names,—‘Frances Bunsen Trevelyan ‘Whately Arnold; the second after my valued friend, the Prussian minister at Rome, of whom, as I know not whether I shall see him -again, I wished to have a daily present recollection in the person of -one of my children. I wish I could show you two of his letters, one ‘to me on the political state of Europe and one sent to Dr. Nott on ‘the perfect notion of a Christian liturgy. Iam sure that you would love and admire with me the extraordinary combination of piety -and wisdom and profound knowledge and large experience woe breathes through every line of both.’ Under date of 7 October 1833 Arnold wrote to Julius Charles ‘Hare, “In Italy you met Bunsen, and now you can sympathize ‘with the all but idolatry with which I regard him. So beautifully 1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I. p. 388. *2 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 291. *3 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, p. 463. 28 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN good, so wise, and so noble-minded. I do not believe that any man can have a deeper interest in Rome than I have, yet I envy you nothing so much in your last winter’s stay there as your continued intercourse with Bunsen... .’” | In January 1834 Augustus William Hare and his wife went to Rome. He was sinking fast with tuberculosis, and he died there in March. At this time Mrs. Lucy Stanley Hare, wife of another brother, Marcus, wrote concerning Bunsen,—‘‘He is like no one I ever met with. One has seen pious men, and learned men, and admirable men, but he unites them all. In going with him through the museum of the Capitol and over the sites of the ancient temples, you see all the accuracy of the antiquarian and scholar explaining things with the simplicity of a child....’” Not all of Arnold’s and Bunsen’s correspondence of this period isin print. In January 1833 Arnold publisht a pamphlet entitled, “Principles of Church Reform’’. The plan of the pamphlet, as given by his biographer, Stanley, was threefold: a defence of the national Establishment, a statement of the extreme danger to which it was exposed at that time of political agitations, and a proposal of what seemed to Arnold the only means of averting this danger,—first, by a design for comprehending the Dissenters within the pale of the Establishment, without compromise of principle on either side; secondly, by various details intended to increase its actual efficiency. The pamphlet aroused a great deal of discussion; Arnold was attackt by the clergy of the Established Church as being a latitud- inarian, by the Dissenters as having accused them of narrowness. This was a subject in which he might expect to get strong sympathy from Bunsen. The latter had all along been indefatigu- able in his efforts to promote the union of the Lutheran and Calvin- istic churches of Prussia. He had prepared a new and historic- ally justifiable liturgy for the united church. He had prepared an epoch-making collection of hymns for its use. In 1833 he corres- ponded with Arnold, Whately, and Nott, about the reform of the Liturgy. His letter to Dr. Nott on the conception of a perfect litury was read by all the group including Thirlwall. Under date 1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, I p. 321. * Memorials of a Quiet Life. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 29 of 21 January 1834 Bunsen wrote to Arnold what he thought of his pamphlet. He stated that he thought reform of the Anglican liturgy and the Thirty-nine Articles was urgent, but that any change should be made by ‘“‘wisely connecting the future with the past’’, proceeding on historical principles. ‘I could not, in Church matters, feel confidence to alter a straw, if I did not stand firm on a scriptural basis, and had not the conviction that the alteration or reform proposed was a higher development of the Divine religion of Christ, and, therefore, also a calling to a higher life than that which it might seem to abrogate or modify; and finally, if I was not convinced that the time is come, when that institution or Church must either be reformed or perish, by that same right which it justly claims for its existence;’’....Again he said, ‘Let me state explicitly that a union with the Dissenters ‘who worship Christ’ is what I bear in mind these fifteen years as to my own country and the Church in general. We must come to that, if God will save us and our countries.”’.... As to the form of government ‘‘the Episcopal Church in the United States of America is an exemplary Church”, for the laymen are represented in its legislative body. ‘‘I must protest against the tyranny and destructive despotism of political (Parliamentary) legislation over the Church. ...No, my dear friend, infuse new life into the veins of your aged Church, but sell her not to Parliament ....Establish a third House of Convocation consisting of lay representatives, elected by Christian congregations, or rather by their presbyteries, as we call them... .”’ “T have received Archbishop Whately’s letter, and such a one as makes me ashamed of myself, when I consider the partial opinion which your kindness and his own have given him of my person, but which it would be hypocricy to say had not given me high gratification, and I trust, also edification, because it has increased my consciousness of the spiritual communion of all members of Christ’s Church, and my courage to devote all I have and am to the service of Him who unites us.’”’ Connected with this matter of reforming the Articles and the Liturgy was that of subscription at the universities. Oxford re- quired subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles for admission and 1 Memoirs, Vol. I p. 388-93. 30 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN Cambridge required it for graduation. This kept many young men from going to either, witness Robert Browning. In the Spring of 1834 a petition was signed by a number of fellows of both univer- sities memorializing Parliament to remove the obstacle. The | excitement it caused is well known. Thirlwall was drawn into the controversy. He asserted that not only were the universities no theological seminaries but even their compulsory chapel-attendance was not desirable. This drew down upon him the censure of the Master of his college and a request that he resign his tutorship. He complied, altho in the opinion of his friends too hastily. Arnold wrote to Hare on the subject of admission: “T would admit Unitarians like all other Christians, if the university system were restored and they might have halls of their own. Nay, I would admit them at all colleges, if they would attend chapel and the divinity lectures, which some of them, I think, would do....’” So Arnold was willing to go beyond the action called for by the petition, but he was not willing to go quite as far as Thirlwall. In the main point they agreed heartily. The bill infavor of admit- ting dissenters was killed by an overwhelming majority in the House of Lords on 1 August 1834. Thirlwall soon retired to a living in Yorkshire, where he remained for five years, working almost like a recluse at his Greek history, a work that applied Niebuhr’s methods of research to Greek history. In 1840 he was appointed bishop of St. David’s in Wales. Inthe mean time, there was probably very little corres- pondence between him and the others of this group. It is worth noting that during the winter of 1831-32 a favorite pupil of Thirl- wall’s was in Rome, Richard Monckton Milnes, and that thru letters of introduction from Thirlwall he was made welcome by the © Bunsens. His biographer writes, ‘It followed that the months he spent in the city were full of intellectual enjoyment and activity, and bore fruit in friendships which distinctly influenced his later years. “In fact he became a life-long friend of Bunsen’s and in spite of a year or two of hesitating he became quite distinctly an adherent of the liberal group in church-matters. * Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 333. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 31 The correspondence of Arnold and Bunsen contains many references to Arnold’s plan of writing what might be called a popular edition of Niebuhr’s history. Thus in January 1834 Bunsen wrote, ‘I hail your ‘Roman History’ with all my heart,— pray give it your best years and hours. It is a general want in Europe; even had Niebuhr accomplished his grand work such a history as you can write and intend to write, would remain a desi- deratum; now it is a necessity....’’ Then he launcht forth into a discussion of sources. In September Arnold replied, ‘Your encouragement of my purpose of writing a Roman history is the most cheering thing I ever have had to excite me to work upon it. I am working a little on the materials... But I am stopped at every turn by ignorance.’ And then there follow a lot of questions. The next three letters allude to the isolation in which Arnold felt himself at the time, as a result of his support of Catholic Eman- cipation and of Church Reform. Under date of 5 December 1834 Bunsen wrote,—‘‘Your friendship is a treasure of which I am not afraid of being deprived, but of which I delight to see new speci- mens, and such are in every line of your letter of September last, only that I always feel how much in me ought to be better than it is, to deserve even a part of what your kindness judges of me. I trust that I shall only be strengthened and not spoiled by such friend- ship.”....He hopes shortly to see his final volume of the Descrip- tion of Rome in print after that he hopes to work at real history. He tells of the death of “our great scholar and divine Schleier- macher.’” Arnold replied under date of 10 Feburary 1835,—“I know not how adequately to answer your last delightful and most kind letter, so interesting to me in all its parts, so full of matter for the expression of so many thoughts and so many feelings. I think you can hardly tell how I prize such true sympathy of heart and mind as I am sure to find in your letters, because I hope and believe that it is not so rare to you as it is to me...... I find in you that exact combination of tastes which I have in myself from philological, historical, and philosophical pursuits, centering in moral and spiritual truths... .’” 1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, I p. 341. 2 Bunsen’s Memoir, English edition I 407-410. 5 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 352-55. 32 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN He continued by telling Bunsen that he was sending him the third volume of his edition of Thucydides and the third volume of his sermons.,—‘“‘It is one of my most delightful prospects to bring my two older boys and, I hope, their dear mother also, to see you and Mrs. Bunsen, whether it be in Rome or in Berlin. I only wait for the boys to be old enough to derive some lasting benefit from what they would see and hear on the Continent. The oldest (Mat- thew, born 1822) is just twelve years old, the second is eleven. Your little namesake is the smallest creature I ever saw, a mere doll, walking about the room, but full of life and intelligence and the merriest of the merry.” To this Bunsen replied from his summer home at Frascati under date of July 1835,—“‘You also, my dear friend, have gone through a hard time, having experienced one-half of what you ex- pected, the abuse and mistakes of those whom you oppose in politics; the other half, the ingratitude or perversness of those with whom we act, being generally reserved to the latter part of every honest public life in troubled times: the more bitter cup, indeed. I rejoice in hearing from all sides that you have borne it nobly, with that tranquility of mind which a Christian alone can have, and to which, as far as it flows from Christian charity, the victory over the world is assured.’ He continued, devoting a paragraph to Newman’s Arians, strongly disagreeing with Newman’s methods of argument, He told of studying Neander’s Apostolic Church, ‘‘Which needs nothing but to be re-written, having as yet noplastic form, or what the French call redaction. ‘He replied to Arnold’s discouraged feeling about the neglect of Hebrew studies that Gesenius and Ewald were intro- ducing the historical principle into them. He thought the Angli- can Church could learn from the Episcopal Church of America, in which the laymen have a voice in Church government. While Arnold and Hare felt that the English Church needed to be awakened from lethargy, and while they hoped to do it by emphasizing the responsibility and freedom of the individual, there were other men, equally earnest, trying to achieve the same thing by emphasizing the authority of the church. In 1833 the Tractarian movement definitely began, with an affirmation 1 Memoirs I p. 413-418. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 33 of the Apostolic Succession and the sacerdotal character of the ministry. This doctrine was the chief cause of difference between Arnold’s group and Keble’s group. Yet Arnold hardly realized in 1835 how far apart they would drift. At this time Hare and Thirl- wall suggested to Arnold that they should found a Theological Review which should impartially analyze the writings of the early Christian writers and thus make the beginnings of New Testament criticism in England. Arnold wrote to Hare about it, under date of 26 January 1835,— “T cordially ‘enter into your view about a Theological Review, and I think the only difficulty would be to find an editor. I do not think that Whately would have time, but I can ask him, and un- doubtedly he would approve of the scheme. Hampden occurs to me as a more likely man than Pusey.” “My notion of the main objects of the work would be: first, to give really fair accounts and analyzes of the works of the early Christian writers, giving also as far as possible a correct view of the critical questions relating to them, as to their genuineness and the more or less corrupted state of the text; second, To make some beginnings of Biblical Criticism, which as far as relates to the Old Testament isin England non-existent; third, To illustrate in a really impartial spirit, with no object but the advancement of the Church of Christ and the welfare of the Commonwealth of England, the rise and progress of Dissent; to show what Christ’s Church and this nation have owed tothe Establishment, and what to the Dissenters; and, on the other hand, what injury they have received from each; with a view of promoting a real union between them. These are matters particular, but all bearing on the great philosophical and Christian truth....that Christian unity and the perfection of Christ’s Church are independent of theological articles of opinion, consisting ina certain moral state and moral and religious affections. which have existed in all good Christians of all ages and all com- munions along with an infinitely varying proportion of truth and error; that thus Christ’s Church has stood on a rock and never failed, yet has always been. marred with much intellectual error, and also, of practical error resulting from the intellectual error....’7! 1 Life and Leiters of Arnold, I p. 317. 34 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN In July 1835 Bunsen wrote to Arnold how he had been apply- ing Niebuhr’s critical method to the construction of a chronology for the life of Christ, and how he was trying to take middle ground between the unbelieving Neologists who can recognize no prophecy in the Old Testament, and the stubborn conservatives who can recognize no historical facts where theyscent a Messianic prophecy. To this Arnold replied under date of 21 September, “I have been working at two main things, the Roman history and the interpretation of prophecy....I read with greatest in- terest all that you say about Hebrew and the Old Testament, and your researches into the chronology and composition of the books of the New. It is strange to see how much of ancient history consists apparently of patches put together from various quarters without any redaction Is this not largely the case in the books of. Bunsen wrote again, under date of 20 December 1835,— “T hailtheidea of writing about the prophecies. . . . The subject is, perhaps ripe in your mind, but what I am certain of is that the English mind is not ripe for it. Your divinity, your literature, your worship, your devotion,—nothing is prepared for it. I say this, on the supposition that you give up entirely the ancient system as untenable, but think it right not to do so before giving at the same time the new, positive system. .. .O how I wish I might have some days and nights to converse with you on the subject! even in Germany I have not many with whom! am conscious of agreeing entirely on both parts of the question....’ (The opportunity came in September 1838) Arnold kept up an active correspondence with Bunsen and a somewhat irregular correspondence with Hare. Under date of 1 February 1836 he wrote to Bunsen about Roman history,— “Let me thank you again and again for your dedication of the Article on the Sabine Cities, for it roused me to work in good earnest....I believe I have never written without thinking of you and wishing to be able to ask you questions....I need not tell you how entirely I have fed upon Neibuhr; in fact I have done little more than to put his first volume into a shape more fit for 1 Life and Letters of Arnold, I p. 372-74. ® Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 419. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 35 general, or at least, for English readers... .assuming his conclusions as proved, where he thought it necessary to give proofs in detail’. Then there follow questions about the chronology of St. Paul’s pastoral epistles and a reference to the fact that Bunsen’s oldest son, Henry, is to come to Rugby to spend a year in Arnold’s home preparatory to entering Oxford.’ Bunsen’s reply was dated 4 March 1836. He congratulated Arnold on having made substantial progress with the history. He discust a national university and a national church. As to the latter he wrote, One Church might receive ten sects, but ten sects are ten times ten negations of a Church, when you would induce them to coalesce among themselves. I could at any moment live and preach, if called to do so, in the Churchof England, but not, a year in any one of the sects; besides they would drive me out with all speed. With the XX XIX articles, or the Con- fession of Augsburg, well understood, but not as enforced creeds, you may embrace the whole world’” Arnold and Bunsen were discussing the writings of Pusey and Newman at this time. They exchanged numerous letters, not all of which have been printed. In July Bunsen wrote to Arnold on the nature of the Eucharist, and ‘“‘the oldest interpretation of it, that of Irenaeus’’.® | Arnold’s intervening letter is not available. Under date of 13 February 1837 Bunsen wrote to Arnold, asking him to become godfather to his daughter Matilda. He discust university reforms again, and national church unity, saying that he had more hopes from the liberal Anglicans that from the Dissenters. Most of the letter is devoted to Strauss’ life of Jesus and means of answer- ing it,—Neander’s answer and Tholuck’s answer. He urges Arnold to read Schleiermacher’s ‘On the Christian Faith” ,— Things divine and supernatural cannot be treated as those of common nature, objects of what may be called the philosophy of common sense. Being ideal by their nature, they require an ideal treatment; and in this respect Schleiermacher has begun a new period’”’....I wish you would read the chapter on Justifi- cation, to see how Schleiermacher sets at rest the distinction 1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 30. 2 Memoirs, English edition Vol, I p. 420-422. 3 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 422. 36 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN which was thought paramount in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between the Reformers and the Council: and shows how in this doctrine is the cardo of our Churches. The same may be said about the difference between Luther and Calvin on the doctrine of grace’’.’ In the summer of 1837 Bunsen was again summoned to Germany on official business. In October he wrote a hasty letter from Berlin, urging Arnold to carry out his intentions of spending Christmas with the Bunsens. ‘‘Let me only hope to celebrate a German Christmas eve with you and yours on the Capitol, no imperator will ever have been happier....”* The rest of the letter deals with theological matters, he recommends Rothe’s new book to Arnold, praying that he may not be angry with the introduction, full of Hegelianism, but to begin with the research — portion of the book. Arnold replied under date of 27 January 18388 giving his impressions of Rothe‘s book. ‘‘ His first position that the State, and not the Church, is the perfect form under which Christianity is to be developed—entirely agrees with my notion. But his second position (accepting Apostolic succession) seems to me utterly groundless....I am convinced that the whole mischief of the great Antichristian apostacy has for its roots the tenet of ‘a priestly government transmitted by a mystical succession from the Apostles’ ’’.® As noted in the preceding chapter, Bunsen and his family left Rome in May 1838 and spent several months in Muenchen, preparatory to going to England on a visit to Madame Bunsen’s home. On 1 August 1838, the day before beginning their journey to England Bunsen wrote to Arnold, congratulating him on the ap- pearance of his first volume of the Roman History. But he con- tinued by saying that he, as well as Schelling and others, did not understand Arnold’s statement in the Introduction, that the Church should merge into the State. ‘You know how heavily the matter has weighed upon my heart for some time; and had I not come to England for anything else, I must have met you to have a 1 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 425-27. * Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 448. 8 Life of Arnold Vol. II p. 103. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 37 full communication and discussion on the subject’”’.... He wrote that he had askt Julius Hare to come to London to see him. He concluded,—”’ I can scarcely master the storm of feeling, when I think that I am really on the direct road to my Ithaca, my island fatherland, the bulwark of religion and civil liberty.’ In September Bunsen and his wife and daughter spent a week at Rugby with Dr. and Mrs. Arnold. Bunsen now realized his wish “to have some days and nights to converse with Arnold on a con- sistent system of explanation of prophecy’”’. In November 1838 Arnold wrote to Bunsen thanking him for the valuable notes and criticism the latter had given him on his manuscript on the Church *He admits that he differs with Bunsen as to the intrepetation of the words, ‘‘My Kingdom is not of this world’. He sees that Bunsen and Whately, both of whom he re- gards highly, do agree on it. ‘“‘Another point on which I do not seem as yet to enter into your views, relates to what you have to say of the Sacraments. I do not quite understand the way in which you seem to connect the virtue of external ordinances with the fact of the Incarnation. My own objection to laying a stress on the material elements... .is very strong, because I think that such a notion is at variance with the essential character of Christianity. I am sure that in this we agree; but yet I think that we should express ourselves differently about the Sacraments, and here I believe that you have got hold of a truth which is as yet dark to me just as I cannot understand music, yet nothing doubt that it is my own fault and not that of the music.’” About this time he wrote to his younger friend, W. Kerr Hamilton (later Bishop of Salisbury) whom he had given a letter of introduction to Bunsen in 1832-33, talking of contemporary con- ditions in the Anglican Church,—‘‘I cannot find what I most crave to see, and what still seems to me no impossible dream, inquiry and belief going together, and the adherence to truth growing with in- creased affection, as follies are more and more cast away. But I have seen lately such a specimen of this, and of all other things that are good and wise and holy,as I suppose can scarcely be match- ed again in the world. Bunsen has been with us for six days, with 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 453. *Fragments on Church and State printed posthomously. 2 Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II p. 133-34. 38 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN his wife and (son) Henry. It was delightful to find that my im- pression of his extraordinary excellence had not deceived me; that the reality even surpassed my recollections of what he was eleven years ago.” To the Rev. J. Hearn he wrote, “‘I could not express my sense of what Bunsen is without seeming to be exaggerating; but I think if you could hear and see him, even for one-half hour, you would understand my feelings toward him. He is a manin whom God’s graces and gifts are more united than in any other person whom I ever saw. I have seen men as holy, as amiable, as able: but never one who has all three in so extraordinary a degree, and combined with a knowledge of things new and old, sacred and profane, so rich, so accurate, so profound that I never knew it equalled or approached by any man.’” In December 1838 Madame Bunsen wrote to their friend Abeken in Rome, ‘‘The time spent with the Arnolds will remain among the brightest in my recollection, and the whole state and order of their house and family the spirit that movesthemselves and their children, that regulates their plans of education and of life, is of ideal excellence: it does one good to think that such a family exists, and the pleasure is increased by the thought that we are allowed to call them friends.’””? Arnold’s biographer, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, declares that during the years 1838 to 1841 Arnold seemed to gain new interest, due to several causes, one ‘‘the renewed personal intercourse with his friend the Chevalier Bunsen after an interval of eleven years.’ In December 1838 the atmosphere already heated by the Oxford disputes was further disturbed by the publication of William Evart Gladstone’s book, ‘‘On the Relations of Church and State”. We get a picture of Arnold’s first impressions from the Diary of Crabb Robinson. 7 : Robinson was spending the holidays with the Wordsworths’. They were together with Dr. Arnolda great deal. ‘2 Jan. 1839—Dr. Arnold talked freely about the religious controversies of the time; he does not like the Oxford Tract-men; Wordsworth is rather 1 Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II p. 121-22. * Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II. p. 131. * Life of Baroness Bunsen, Vol. I p. 497. *Life of Arnold, Vol. II p. 124. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 39 friendly toward them. 22 January—I am glad to know that neither Arnold nor Wordsworth can accompany Gladstone in his Anglo-papistical pretensions. Indeed, of the two, the Doctor is the less of a Churchman. I find that he considers the whole claim of Apostolic Succession idle.’”? Bunsen wrote to his wife under date of 13 December 1838 “It is the book of the time, a great event—the first book since Burke that goes to the bottom of the vital question; far above his party and his time. .. .Gladstone is the first man in England as to intellectual power, and he has heard higher tones than anyone else in this island.’”” But Bunsen differed with Gladstone in many points, chiefly in regard to Apostolic Succession, which Bunsen regarded provided for in the ‘‘duly ordered presbyterial order, of which the episcopate is a branch’. Under date of 24 February 1839 Bunsen wrote that he was preparing his third letter to Gladstone on the points in which he disagreed with his book. Gladstone had met Bunsen in Italy in 1832. So Bunsen felt quite free to take up the matter. On 1 March they had breakfast together at Gladstone’s home and spent all forenoon discussing the matter. Bunsen’s objections were stated in a letter to Arnold under date of December 1838.... “You will see, my thoughts run in the same channel with Gladstone’s; his Church is my Church, that is, the divine consciousness of the State,....I have no doubt that the Church of England as she is and may be, according to her nature and history, is this consciousness for England... .So far I go with Gladstone, But I add: precisely then because such is the position of the Church and the condition of Christ’s Kindgom in this realm of England, let us see who represents her most fairly—your friends or who? What is her ideal and what her real state?....Do the clergy form the Church? are ‘the Fathers’ fetters or wings? Is tradition and Church-government to be understood in a Judaic sense or not? Is the Church of Scotland only to be supported as a necessary evil? Is she really no Church? These and similar ques- tions I have a mind to ask him, in one way or another... .’” 1 Diary of Crabb Robinson, Vol. II p. 211-215. 2 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 490. 3 Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 492. 40 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN At Bunsen’s suggestion Gladstone read Professor Stahl’s Kzr- chenrecht der Protestanten.’ As the guest of Phillip Pusey, Bunsen met the Oxford group,— Wilson, Newman, and Edward Pusey in January 1839. He wrote, “This morning I have had two hours at breakfast with New- man QO, it is sad—he and his friends are truly intellectual people, but they have lost their ground, going exactly my way, but stopp- ing short in the middle. It is too late. There has been an amic- able interchange of ideas, and a Christian understanding. Yesterday he preached a beautiful sermon. ...’” Under date of 25 February 1839 Arnold wrote to a friend,— “T read and have got Gladstone’s book, and quite agree with you in my admiration of its spirit throughout; I also like the substance of about half of it; the rest of course appears to me © erroneous... .’”° In April Bunsen visited Dr. Arnold at Rugby. Arnold gave him the continuation of his work on the Church, “which furnished ample materials for conversation. Bunsen proposed that several stalls be detacht from cathedrals and attacht to either or both of the universities to furnish endowment for divinity professorships.’ During the summer the Arnolds made a journey thru France. During their absence Bunsen wrote to Dr. Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, a close friend of Arnold’s, beseeching him to find a position for Arnold, such as a deanery,— in which he could do more productive scholarly work. Dr. Stanley did secure him the offer of a deanery, but the salary was so much less that Arnold could not accept it. Arnold wrote a letter of congratulation to Bunsen on the occasion of his birthday, 25 Aug. 1839, hoping that Bunsen‘‘may be long spared to Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, in whose cause I know you are ever laboring and which at this hour needs the utmost service of all her true members amidst such various dangers as now threaten her from within and from without”’.® * Memoirs, German edition, Vol. II p. 153. * Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 497-98. ’Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 137. “Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 517. ° Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 147. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 41 In the autumn of 1839 the Bunsens settled in Switzerland. Under date of 4 October 1839 Arnold wrote to him,‘‘....When I think of you as really going to leave England, it makes me think how much there still is on which I want to talk to you more fully....’’ (He asks questions about the Eucharist)? In January 1840 Bunsen wrote to Arnold,—‘“‘Let us write to each other once a month, a la fortune du pot whatever subject just offers itself. I cannot live without regular communication to and from you”.” Arnold replied under date of 25 February 1840,— “It rejoices me indeed to resume my communication with you, and it is a comfort to me to think that you are at least on our side of the Alps, and on a river which flows to our side, in the very face of Father Thames. May God’s blessing be with you and yours in your new home, and prosper all your works, public and pri- vate, and give you health and strength to execute them, and see their fruits beginning to show themselves... .’”° Under date of 22 April 1840 Bunsen informed Arnold that he was working on a project “‘begun at dear Fox How, the order for Scripture Reading or Annus Dei’’. He warned Arnold, not to work too hard,— “I feel sure as of my existence that you will sink under it, if you overstrain and divide your energies, as you must do now, for a longer period. Forgive the boldness of a friend,—but what can I give you but the conviction of my soul?! a5 32" | Arnold replied with a cheerful letter under date of 26 May, assuring his friend that he was not overworking, and continued,— “T went up to one of our levees about three weeks ago and was presented to the Queen. I believe that one of the principal reasons which led me to go was to be enabled hereafter, if it may be, to be presented by you at Berlin.”..He told of a projected journey to Italy.° Bunsen replied immediately with detailed suggestions about the journey. 1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 158. 2 Memoirs, English edition I p. 559. 3Life and Letters of Arnold, Vol. II p. 182-83. “Memoirs, English edition I p. 561-62. 5 Life and Letters of Arnold II p. 193-95. 42 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN Upon his return from the Continent Arnold wrote to Julius Hare, under date of 28 October 1840,—I have read your Sermons with very great pleasure and ought long since to have thanked you for them. The Notes I hope will not be delayed. It is a great delight to me to read a book with which I agree so generally and so heartily. Universally one can never expect to agree with anyone, but one’s highest reasonable hope is fulfilled, when one sympathizes cordially with the greatest part of a book, and feels sure, where there is a difference that the writer would hear our opinions patiently, and if he did not agree with them, would at least not quarrel with us for holding them. “Tt was no small delight to me to tread the ground of the Forum once more, and to see the wonders of the Campania and to penetrate into the land of the Samnites and Sabines. I missed Bunsen sadly, but his friend Abeken was a worthy substitute and was hardly less kind than Bunsen himself would have been... .” He continued with a discussion of the move to alter the Lit- urgy of the Anglican church. “I would give anything in the world to destroy that disastrous fiction by which the minister has been made “Personam Ecclesiae gerere”, and which the Ox- ford doctrines are not only upholding but aggravating. Even Maurice seems to me to be infected in some measure with the same error in what he says respecting the right of the Church.... meaning the Clergy—to educate the people....’” At Christmas-tide 1840 Bunsen wrote to Julius Charles Hare “First let me thank you for the kindness and honor you have done me by the dedication of your invaluable sermon on the Third Sunday in Advent (one of the series on faith, preached before the University of Cambridge in 1839) I shall be stimulated thereby to go on the more joyfully towards the goal I have set before me. I may seem to wander in devious or various ways, and others will think in ways of error; but I cannot do otherwise than follow my path, which winds in such a tortuous course through the domain of reality and of knowledge that I need to seek light to the right and to the left....’” * Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold, Vol. II p. 206. * Memoirs, English edition I p. 589-90. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 43 In June 1841 Bunsen arrived in London as special envoy from the new King of Prussia to negotiate the establishment of the joint Bishopric of Jerusalem. These negotiations immediately made Bunsen’s relations to England no longer those of private friendship but of public import. His influence was greatly ex- tended. He became indentified with a party. For a year or so he had been corresponding with Gladstone about the nature of the Church, and with Lord Ashley about extending the influence the Church in the near East. Now two younger men, Maurice and Stanley, enter into intimate personal relations with him. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815--1881) was connected with the Hares. His mother’s sister, Maria Leycester Hare, was the wife of Augustus William, older brother of Julius, and she made her home near Julius at Hurstmonceaux. From 1829 to 1834 Stanley was a pupil of Dr. Arnold’s at Rugby. In 1834 when he was completing his work there and was most subject to Arnold’s influence, the controversy over the latter’s Principles of Church Reform and over the question of Subscription raged. Stanley shared Arnold’s views and all thru life was a champion of an all-inclusive church. While he was at Balliol, Oxford, he corres- ponded with Arnold. We find Arnold writing to him on the con- troversy between his own party and that of the Oxford men, Under date of 27 February 1839 Arnold wrote to him,—‘“I will neither write nor talk, if I can help it, against Newmanism, but for the true Church and Christianity....”' Stanley, who thru his personal friendship for Ward, was attracted to the Oxford move- ment, undoubtedly was much influenced by Arnold in the other direction. In 1836 during the Hampden dispute he tried to weigh- out justice scrupulously between both parties. In 1838 he became fellow of University College. He hesitated to take orders, for he felt that he could not conscientiously subscribe to the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed. In June 1839 he won a prize for a Latin Essay, which he had the honor of reciting at Commence- ment. On this occasion he first met Bunsen, for on the same day Bunsen and Wordsworth received honorary degrees. In December 1839 he applied for examination for ordination. He exprest his doubts about damnatory clauses to the examiner, and 1 Life and Letters of Dr Arnold, II p. 138. 44 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN the latter dispelled them by declaring that he need not consider them a part of the creed. During the long vacation of 1840 he spent several weeks with Julius Hare at Hurstmonceaux. In the autumn he and Jowett made a trip to Germany to study university organization at Bonn. Next he spent a week in the home of Bunsen in Switzerland, and wrote very detailed accounts of his visit to his sister. ‘Bunsen flowed like a fountain’’, discussing among other topics the matter of subscription at the English universities. After an extended journey thru Italy and Greece be returned home in May 1841. He found the controversy at Ox- ford greater and grown more bitter thru the appearance in Feb- ruary 1841 of Newman’s Tract No. 90. In June the Jerusalem Bishopric came up. We must interrupt our narrative for the moment and describe how Frederick Denison Maurice, (1805-72) became acquainted with Bunsen. Maurice’s friend, Tom Acland wrote to Maurice from the Continent, in July 1834—‘‘The personof whomI saw most at Rome was the Prussian Minister, Bunsen. He is almost as learned as Niebuhr, whose private secretary he was for some time; and withal a most lively Christian. He is deeply concerned about the state of the Church in Germany; indeed it occupies his whole thoughts. He is very intimate with the King (Frederick William III), and still more with the Crown Prince—himself an excellent man—and is labouring, by their means, as the best means for the revival of the faith, to introduce a Liturgy, embodying the truths which are recognized in the forms of the Catholic Church, but utterly lost sight of by the Protestants of Germany. He has suc- ceeded in bringing it into use in the King’s own chapel, and he is now compiling a profoundly learned Corpus Liturgiae, containing the Liturgies of all the ancient Churches...... " Maurice wrote Acland to furnish to Maurice’s friend Richard Trench a letter of introduction to Bunsen. Acland did so. Maurice wrote to Acland under date of 12 March 1835. ‘...... Not by reading but by some bitterly painful experience, I seem to have been taught that to aim at any good to myself while I con- template myself apart from the whole body of Chirst, is a kind of * Life af F. D. Maurice, told chiefly in his own Letters, Vol. I p. 171. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 45 contradication; to which belief I think we shall all by degrees be brought. You told me your German friend had arrived at a much deeper realization of the same truth. I had a letter from Trench yesterday, who has become acquainted with him, and admires him greatly. ...’” In January 1836 Maurice secured thru the good offices of Hare, Sterling, and Rose the chaplaincy of Guy’s Hospital. It is clear from Hare’s letter of recommendation that they were not intimate even at this time. But in 1838 his correspondence with Hare became more frequent. In March 1839 Tom Acland and Richard Monckton Milnes took Bunsen to hear Maurice preach. Bunsen wrote to bis wife,—‘‘Nothing could be more touching than all I saw and heard there: the preaching of Gospel- truth in simplicity, by one of the finest and deepest minds of the most learned men in England, to Christ’s own congregation, viz., cripples, blind, lame, even insane, aged men and women, invalids, convalescent, half-dying. The sermon was admirable; the latter half extempore, as [heardafterward, although seemingly read. .”.? Bunsen was so much imprest that he went again the following Sunday and in May he wrote,—‘‘Mr. Maurice did not perform the service, he did not read the prayers, but he prayed with an intensity of seriousness which would make it hard not to pray with him... .”’ In June.1840 Maurice was elected professor at King’s College and his friends insisted that he take a rest before assuming his duties. So he made a two months trip to the Continent, visiting Bunsen for a week in Switzerland. Bunsen found that both Mr. and Mrs. Maurice were well versed in German. (Maurice later told his son that: his first impulse to study German had come from Coleridge and Madame De Stael.) His wife had spent a year in Germany. He himself was familiar with some German theological books. Under date of 3 August 1840 Maurice wrote to his friend, R. C. Trench,—“‘We saw much of the Bunsens at Berne, and found them even more kind than we expected. I do not know exactly the measure of his intellect, and have no proper gauge for ascertaining it; but his hearty affection and sympathies enable him to appro- 1 Life of F. D. Maurice, told chiefly in his own Letters, Vol. I p. 167. 2 Memoirs, English edition I p. 512. 46 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN priate a vast number of subjects and to make others to take an interest in them, of which, he has not, in a strict logical sense, the mastery. I fancy it is a ketter kind of conquest than that which the mere understanding achieves...... He is rather cut off from society in Switzerland, having the compensation of nearly the pleasantest house, with the noblest prospect, in the neighborhood of Berne; and therefore is still more ready than in former days to entertain strangers....... Bunsen seems more than ever to scout the notion of any Catholicism appearing in the heart of Romanism to subvert it, and expects no good except from a decidedly evangelical influence. At the same time he is convinced, and apparently on good grounds, that the Protestants in Germany are feeling after Catholic principle, and will not be content till it is incorporated with their personal Christianity.’’! Under date of 30 September 1840 Maurice wrote to Julius Hare, “I did not tell you how much our meeting with Bunsen had divided our affections with the Alps. We enjoyed both together, and his beautiful garden, which seems almost to recompense him for the loss of Rome and of almost all society.’ In April 1841 Bunsen arrived in London as Special Emissary to negotiate the establishment of a Joint Bishopric of Jerusalem. In 1839 the British Society for Missionwork among the Jews had succeeded in buying land and erecting a school, a hospital, and a church at Jerusalem. King Frederick William proposed that the Anglican Church take over the establishment by creating a bishop- ric for Palestine, and that, in order to secure protection for its German-speaking Jews and missionaries in Turkish territory, the Prussian Church co-operate with it. In order to effect such co- operation, the Prussian Church would have to recognize the author- ity of the Anglican bishop and the Anglican Church would have to recognize the validity of the Augsburg Confession.* The Arch- bishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, the Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield, the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Kaye, and Dr. McCaul, head of the Mission Society, all favored the project. Lord Ashley, head of the Evangelical party, also favored it, for he and Bunsen had been corresponding about it. The Newman group was opposed to it. 1J. F. M: Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. I p. 286-87. 2J. F.M: Life of F. D, Maurice, Vol. I p. 291. 3 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 164. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 47 Dr. Newman later stated that it was one of the events that drove him out of the Anglican Church.’ Gladstone was not friendly to it at first, but Bunsen and others won him over. By September 1841 the matter was settled and Dr. Alexander waselected the first Bishop of the Church of St. James of Jerusalem. But discussion did not end with the election of the new bishop. The question at issue was the nature of the Church. Is it Catholic, representing and continuing in unbroken line the traditions of the Apostles? Does the Church of Germany do so? The absence of an episcopal system of government to the minds of many, such as the High-Church party, made the German church defective. Bunsen himself admired the episcopal system, and in fact was suspected by many in Germany of trying to introduce it there. If he had suc- ceeded, in establishing it there, doubtless the Apostolic Succession would have been secured by inviting Swedish Lutheran bishops to consecrate the new German bishops. But Bunsen asserted that the Apostolic Succession was preserved in the presbytery or clergy, hence also in the Lutheran clergy. Most of his English friends supported him. Thirlwall had just assumed the episcopal office in Wales and, being hard at work to acquaint himself with his new duties and to acquire the Welsh language, he took no active part in the discus- sion. Stanley took no part in it for he feared that it would widen the existing breach in the Church. Arnold wrote under date of 23 September 1841, ‘The first Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem is to be consecrated at Lambeth next Wednesday. He isto be the legal protector of all Protestants of every denomination toward the Turkish government, and he is to ordain Prussian clergymen on their signing the Augsburg Con- fession and adopting the Prussian Liturgy, and Englishmen on their subscribing to our Articles and Liturgy. Thus the idea of my Church Reform pamphlet, which was so ridiculed and so condemned is now carried into practice by the Archbishop of Canterbury him- self. For the Protestant Church of Jerusalem will comprehend persons using different Liturgies, and subscribing different Articles of Faith; and it will sanction these differences, and hold both parties to be equally its members. Yet it was thought ridiculous 4Quotation in R. W. Church: Oxford Movement p. 317. 48 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN in me to conceive that a national church might include persons using a different ritual and subscribing different articles. Of course it is a grave question what degrees of difference are compatible with the bond of Church union; but the Archbishop of Canterbury has declared in the plainest language that some differences are compatible withit, and this is the great principle which I contended for.’”! In his Memoirs Augustus J. C. Hare wrote, ‘It must have been in 1841 that Bunsen inoculated my uncle and my mother with the most enthusiastic interest in the foundation of the Bishopric of Jerusalem, being himself perfectly convinced that it would be the Church thus founded which would meet the Savior at his second coming. Esther Maurice (whom Hare later married) by a sub- scription among the ladies of Reading, provided the robes of the new Bishop”’.” Maurice’s position toward the Church question was this: the Church is Catholic, having a divine, invisible head,—Christ. His biographer writes,“It was a peculiar satisfaction to him that the King of Prussia should recognize the order of bishops, for Maurice thought it an essential part of the Church. Hence, he threw himself into eager co-operation with Hare, Bunsen, Abeken, and indirectly with Lord Ashley, the leader of the Evangelical party, to promote the cause of the Jerusalem Bishopric.”’ Under date of 20 December 1841 he wrote to R. C. Trench,— “My own greatest anxiety at this time is to bring out the highest form of Catholicism (not of Anglicanism) as the direct opposite of Popery, and to show that Popery is not the excess of everything good, but simply the denial of it...... I do not like meddling in these wretched controversies, which seem becoming every hour more vulgar, personal, and trifling, destructive of all calm and spiritual life, filling the soul with vanity and wind... .’* Early in the summer of 1842 Maurice publisht a pamflet in defence of the Bishopric, comprising three letters addrest to Mr. Palmer of Magdalen College, Oxford, who had publisht two brochures against it, (1. on the Bishopric, 2. on Protestantism) *A. P. Stanley ; Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 247. 7A. J.C. Hare: Story of my Life, Vol. I p. 129. ®Maurice: Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. p. 322. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 49 Maurice’s letters dealt with 1. the name Protestant, 2. the English Church, 3. the Jerusalem Bishopric. Maurice himelf summarized his pamphlet thus: ‘‘The object of it is to show that the turning-point of modern controversies is the question respecting the center of unity, and whether there is one for the whole Church; whether, if there be, it is a visible center. ~ As I maintain the necessity of a real center and affirm the doctrine of a visible center to be a monstrous ‘practical heresy, the evil effects of which upon the order and unity of the Church all ecclesias- tical history is manifesting, I find Protestantism to contain a great positive witness needful to the support of Catholicism, and never more needful than in our day. I then proceed to consider the position of the English Church as enabling us, if we will, to unite ourselves with any part of the Eastern or Western Church which will meet us on the ground of our Catholic institutions—|for Maurice these included the order of bishops] provided it recog- nizes the true Centre of Unity; as enabling us, on the other hand, to unite with any Protestants on the ground of our recognition of that true centre, provided they do not refuse to adopt the Catholic institutions which connect us with that centre, and with each OGRER hie. 4 “Then upon this ground I defend the course which the rulers of the Church have taken in reference to the Jerusalem Bishopric; maintaining that no principle has been sacrificed in it, and a great principle asserted.’” His biographer points out that the mode of dealing with those outside of the pale of the English Church was one of the main issues between himself and Dr. Pusey, at the time of the ‘Letters to a Quaker’. Also that the second edition of the ‘Kingdom of ‘ Christ’ is influenced by the dispute concerning the Bishopric. Under date of 20 July 1842 Maurice wrote to his wife, “The Archbishop wrote to the King of Prussia last month, stating the terms of the relation between the Bishop of Jerusalem and the German Protestants. He gives up the Thirty-nine Articles and the Augsburg Confession and merely requires the three Creeds. This was the plan I always maintained to be the right one. The King had adopted the proposal and published an Ordinance about 1 Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. I p. 321. 50 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN it. As these documents have not yet found their way into any En- glish paper Bunsen is very anxious that I should insert them in in my pamphlet, and though it is published, Parker (the most accommodating of publishers) has consented to add some fly- leaves. I am therefore translating, and should be very glad of your help, though I can manage pretty well.””” Bunsen’s studies in Liturgics were turned to practical account when the King ordered him to prepare a liturgy for the German churches of Palestine. He had one ready, that which he had used for years in the chapel of the Prussian embassy at Rome. Maurice helpt him translate it into English.” On the 15 of October the friends of the Bishopric attended a dinner in honor of the newly elected bishop, Dr. Alexander. Among them were Gladstone, Maurice, Hare, Lord Ashley, Dr. McCaul. Bunsen wrote in his Memoir, he had rejoiced to see “Ashley and Gladstone shaking hands cordially, whereas hitherto held asunder by the spectres of High and Low Church.’” In November Gladstone again had scruples about the matter but Bunsen and the Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield, dispelled them, so that he accepted a trusteeship for the Bishopric. Altho the Jerusalem Bishopric was not received enthusiasti- cally in either England or Prussia, and altho it was destined to last only a generation, it was a remarkable experiment in co- operation between two great churches. In November 1841 Bunsen was offered the permanent am- bassadorship . He assumed his duties in January 1842. During the summer of 1841 Arnold had been appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford by Lord Melbourne. He was so happy about it that he wrote,‘..To get a regular situation at Oxford would have tempted me, I believe, had it been accompanied by no salary at all.’ Under date of 22 November 1841 Arnold wrote to Bunsen,— “T rejoice very deeply at the prospect of your remaining in England, not only on personal grounds, because we shall keep you among us and have Mrs. Bunsen here with you, but also publicly, because 1 Life of F. D, Maurice, Vol. I. p. 327 ? Memoirs, English edition Vol. I p. 628. 3 Memoirs, English edition I p. 625. *Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, II p. 253. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 51 I delight to think that the relations between Prussia and England, most important now to the whole world, will be watched by one, to whom the peace and mutual friendship of both countries are so precious as they are to you.....‘‘I go up to Oxford on the 2nd of December, Thursday week, to read my Inaugural Lecture. I suppose it is too much to hope that you could be there, but it would give me the greatest pleasures to utter my first words in Oxford in your hearing.’”? — Arnold’s Inaugural Lecture was a great event at Oxford, and Arnold was thoroly pleased with the kind reception accorded him. Early in February 1842, when King Frederick William IV was in London Arnold, Maurice, Hare, and Thomas Carlyle met at Bunsen’s luncheon in honor of the King.” In the Spring of 1842 Julius Hare wrote to Arnold on the proposal to create bishopries in the colonies. He also sent him a copy of his recently publisht Charge to the clergy. Arnold replied,—‘“‘I thank you very much for your Charge, and for the kind mention of my name, and the sanction given to what I have said, which you have added in the notes’’; he continued to say that he was apprehensive about the creation of bishoprics in the colonies, lest it perpetuate a wrong notion of the Church.® He wrote to his friend Justice Coleridge in the same vein. Arnold’s health was becoming precarious and he had a premonition of his end, in spite of determined preparations for continued work. He wrote to Bunsen under date of 3 May 1842,—‘....Since our return from Oxford, we have been living in a quiet which offers a curious contrast to your life in London. We have seen fewer people than usual; and as I hardly ever read a newspaper, our thoughts have been very much kept within the range of our little world here, and of my subjects of writing. My lectures will be published in a few days and you shall have a copy im- mediately; and I hope to give another lecture in Oxford in about a month, on the Life and Times of Gregory the First. Is there any good German work on that special subject? I am 1 Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, II p. 269. 2 Memoirs, English edition II p. 7. 3 Life and Correspondence of Arnold, II p. 271. 52 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN continually wanting to apply for information to you, but I know that you have no time to answer me.....’” The Hampden matter was to come up again. Arnold offered — to vote for the repeal of the censure that had been passed upon Hampden. Arnold’s health made it impossible to go down to- lecture at Oxford. He died suddenly of heart failure on the 12 June 1842. Just a week later Bunsen returned from Rugby and wrote to Hare about their common friend, ‘‘My heart has been with you, as I am sure, yours has been with me. I returned last night from Rugby. O, what is the death of a great and good man! What distraction (humanly) and yet what consolation! Read the enclosed—I add nothing more... .”” Bunsen proposed to Hare that they complete the favorite pro- jects of Arnold, under Hare’s editorship, first, a new edition of Arnold’s work on the Church, which he and Bunsen had been dis- cussing for the past four years; second, a critical and orthodox editionof the Greek New Testament. Bunsen declared himself will- ing to contribute what he had promised Arnold, namely, the epistle of St. James, the two of St. Peter, and that of Jude, ‘“‘of which I have written out the text and sketched the commentary and in- troduction’. In April Stanley had become a public tutor at Oxford. In July he workt at the home of Julius Hare, completing the third volume of Arnold’s Roman History. He devoted a large share of the next two years to writing the life and editing the corres- spondence of his revered teacher. In the autumn of 1842 Bunsen moved his family out to Hurstmonceaux, to be near Julius Hare. Thus each compensated the other for their common loss. Bunsen assisted by Maurice, was still working at the revision of his Liturgy for Palestine. About the time of Arnold’s death Bunsen wrote from Cam- bridge, ‘‘The Duke of Cambridge is here and almost all the world. My chief object is Thirlwall* with whom I have had earnest conversations about the Church.’ 1 Life and Correspondence of Arnold, II p. 274. 9 Memoirs Vol. II p. 18. 3 Memoirs, English Edition Vol. II p. 17. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 53 In May 1843 Dr. Pusey preacht his famous sermon on the Eucharist. Bunsen’s comment was that it exprest the Roman doctrine. But Bunsen and his friends could not but regret the arbitrary manner in which Dr. Pusey was suspended from preach- ing in the University for a period of two years. Maurice wrote under date of 26 July 1843 to Archdeacon Hare, deploring that their recent associate, Lord Ashley, had presided over a meeting to memorialize the Duke of Wellington against the Tractarians. He also wrote to Lord Ashley on the ‘“‘right way and the wrong way of supporting Protestantism’ In August 1844 Stanley and Jowett made a six weeks tour of Germany. In Berlin they met Bunsen, who had gone thither on official business. Under his guidance they met everybody ° of note “except the King and Schelling’. Stanley reported that of the eminent theologians he met, Neander at Berlin and Ewald at Dresden imprest him most. Returning to Oxford, Stanley settled down to work, setting up the following guiding principles: We ought to admire the 19th century as much as the first. 2. We ought to study German theology as well as English. 3. The University must not follow but lead in all matters of knowledge. 4. No good can come to the University til the scandalous plan of voting on college or personal feelings is abandoned.” The adoption of these principles marks the end of a period in which Stanley ‘tried to be neutral between the Tractarians and the Liberals. Henceforth, while he avoids doctrinal dis- cussions, he is unmistakably in sympathy with the Liberals. In 1846 he was made “‘select preacher’ at the University and he openly acknowledged his indebtedness to German theology.® He declared that the traditions of the fourth century were not sufficient substitutes for the authority of the New Testament; that written records of the latter were ligitimate subjects for in- vestigation as to authenticity and authority. The sermons were 1 Life of F. D. Maurice Vol. I p. 344. 2 Life and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol. I p. 325. 3 Life of Stanley, Vol. I p. 373-81. 54 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN published the following year. They pleased neither Evangelical not High Churchman, but they exerted great positive, influence to make Oxford more liberal. In the meantime, since the death of Arnold, Hare had urged Maurice in the fall of 1843 to stand for the principalship of King’s College. But Maurice had two reasons for hesitating,—one, he felt himself unfit for executive work, another, he felt bimself too much out of sympathy with the existing order to accept patronage from the Church. In their correspondence the two friends discust the Tractarian movement. Under date of the 4 November 18438 Maurice wrote,—‘‘What a monstrous note that is of Ward’s in his article on Mill respecting Lutheranism. The notion of Luther believing that the Gospel required a lower form of righteousness than the Law! What havoc we must have made of his (Luther’s) teaching before an intelligent and pious man could have produced such a conception of it. Iam afraid we have to learn Protestantism again as well as Catholicism. Remember me affectionately to Mrs. Augustus Hare and to the Bunsens.”” Hare replied under date of 14 November,—‘“‘....Ward’s notion of Lutheranism is taken, I feel pretty sure, from Mohler’s very gross misrepresentation; but how scandalous it is that a man should thus anathematize and rail at one of the best branches of the Church, without so much as looking at its symbolic books, or at any of its great teachers, on the mere credit of an avowed rancorous enemy. .”.” In April 1845 Hare and Bunsen both wrote to Maurice urging him to stand for election tothe Mastership of the Temple (head- chaplain of the law school). He did, andayearlater was appointed. About the same time he received several lecturerships, among them a professoship of Theology at King’s College. About 1 September 1844 Julius Hare announced his engage- ment to Esther Maurice, the sister of Frederick Denison Maurice. He requested Bunsen to attend the ceremony. Bunsen wrote a letter of congratulation, “On November 12, or any other day, will I gladly come to Reading (for the ceremony). Under date of 5 November he wrote again about it, saying that he would be 1 Life of Maurice, I p. 357. ? Life of Maurice, I p. 362. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 55 happy. to participate in Holy Communion with the bride and groom. In the same letter he refers to some of the reviews of Stanley’s Life of Arnold,—‘‘The article in the ““Times’ on Arnold was very malicious and insidious. Not venturing to ignore his book and not daring to trample bim under foot, the Tractarians do after the man- ner of their brethren the Jesuits,—they praise the school-master, declaring him to have been the greatest that ever lived, but of course nobody ever failed so signally as a controversialist...... vy Again under date of 27 November he wrote to Hare about the controversy in the Church,—‘‘I have often told you I was sure there was an Anti-Tractarian fermentation in the bulk of the na- BRO oF the deep seated forces in opposition must in their turn come up in sight, and then people will see that there is no power but in Christ, the living Son of God, and in the faith which grasps divine grace,—in which we live, as our atmosphere,—with that awful free will by which we can choose to die rather than tolive, by refusing to inhale it. Arnold’s words will become every year more prophetical.’” Under date of 30 December 1844’ It is exactly as you say— there is the Church in flames, and nobody sees that her members originally set fire to her themselves, in sacrifising to their idol Uniformity. I found this bugbear in my way when I was treating about Jerusalem; it now stares men in the face everywhere, proudly proclaiming itself to be Unity.” “T thank you for the hint to speak of our German philosophy. I had, indeed, a great mind to say something on the text, ‘That it cannot be a heresy to try to prove that which is delivered to us as an historical fact, to be also true, independently, in its ideas’. And that seems to me the connecting idea of whatever has been said on the subject since Kant. As to Hegel, I confess that I think every year more highly of his power to embrace reality, although the method remains to me unpalatable.’’ _In the summer of 1845 Bunsen publisht his book ‘“The Church of the Future’. Toa friend he wrote concerning it, ‘In my letters to Mr. Gladstone I have maintained the lawfulness and the aposto- 1 Memoirs, English edition II 75. 2 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 77. 56 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN lic character of the German Protestant Church. You will find the style different in this work, bolder and more free; I hope also easier to understand.” In December Bunsen wrote several letters to Hare and paid him a week’s visit at Horstmonceaux. Their conversation was about Bunsen’s edition of and commentary on the Epistles of Ignatius and about his Calendar of Scripture reading, ‘‘an apology for the critical German school, and an attempt to carry through, in perfect orthodoxy, the new formula of inspiration and prophecy which is at bottom of all that has been doing in that field from the time of Kant to Ewald, who has been more inspired by the high ethical dignity and character of the prophets than any of his predecessors.””” After his return to London Bunsen wrote to Hare,—“‘In these concluding hours of a year which has been full of blessings to me, I feel the want of conversing with you, at least in writing, and of dwelling upon some of the happiest hours which were spent under your hospitable roof. They have been arealrefreshment to me, and I hope will be a lasting benefit. I delight to reflect upon all the affection, and charity, and piety, and thought, which I there be- held, and pray that your happiness may be long preserved. I thank you for all the affection you bear to me; of which I had a new proof on my arrival here, where I found yours and your dear wife’s corrections of my letter to Gladstone, which make me say exactly what I wished, but had failed to express exactly.’’* Several causes were co-operating at this time to cast upon Bunsen suspicion and dislike from both Evangelical and High- church clergy. His publishing “Egypt’s Place in History”, a work which first presented to the general reader the new light thrown upon Egyptian history by the discoveries of Champollion, was bound to shake the traditional authority of Bishop Usher’s chron- ology of biblical events. So certain Evangelicals were alarmed. On the other hand his editing a critical text of the Epistle of Ignatius and a commentary showing how it had been falsified by interpola- ~ tions “for thesake of procuring something like divine honors for the hierarchy” aroused the enmity of the Oxford party. The former 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. IT p. 84. ? Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 101. * Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 102. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 57 work received unfavorable comment in the ‘‘English Review” but commendatory reviews in the ‘‘Edinburgh Review’’ and in the ‘Journal des Savants’”. For the latter he was attackt in the “‘Christian Remembrancer’’. This called forth a ‘‘Vindication of Bunsen ’’ by Archdeacon Hare, insisting on the right of free in- quiry. It was at this time that the story originated, quoted by Crabb Robinson under date of 18 June 1847,—‘‘Talking with Mrs.T. —of Archdeacon Hare, she said, in reply to my remark that he was prone to idolatry, ‘O yes; he acknowledges that. He says he has five Popes,—Wordsworth, Niebuhr, Bunsen, F. D. Maurice, and Archdeacon Manning.’—But how when the Popes disagree?’ But Hare was not the only one to champion Bunsen. The Jerusalem Bishopric becoming vacant thru the death of Dr. Alexander, the King of Prussia had appointed Dr. Gobat to the office. This stirred up the old wound of the opponents of the pro- ject. But in May 1846 the Literary Fund askt Bunsen to preside as toast-master at its annual dinner. On this occasion Dr. Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, in proposing Bunsen’s health, eulogized him as “fone of the ablest divines of the day’’. Bunsen felt indeed that he had a right to be interested in the English Church, for not only did he have an English wife, but at this time his oldest son took an English wife and became vicar of Lilleshall in Shropshire. In September 1846 Bunsen wrote to a German friend, ‘‘Among the latest events nothing interests me so nearly as the Evangelical Alliance... .the fact that 150 to 180 dissenting ministers, of both hemispheres, and of all colors, should have knelt at the communion- table of the English Church, on two successive Sundays, to receive the elements from the hands of Baptist Noel, speaks for itself. About 200 clergymen of the Church of England were among the 500 British... .’” In 1847 the Hampden controversy broke out again. Eleven years previous when Lord Melbourne had appointed Hampden Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, there had arisen a great outcry against him on the ground that in his Bampton Lectures he had made heterodox statements,—apparently placing the 1 Diary of H. C. Robinson, Vol. II p. 357. 2 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 112. 58 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN authority of the Bible above that of the Church—. At that time Dr. Arnold had warmly defended him, both because he agreed with him and because he felt that the opposition was attempting to use “Lynch law’.! Now Sir John Russell had offered him the episcopal honor and diocese of Herford. Hundreds of clergymen, who, according to Stanley, had never read the Bampton lectures, petitioned against his appointment. Thirlwall refused to sign the petition of bishops against it. Maurice and Stanley felt no great admiration for Hampden but defended him. Hare publisht a “Vindication of Dr. Hampden’”’. Bunsen was an intimate friend of Sir John Russell. So the story got started that Bunsen had “‘pre- vailed upon the Queen tolay her commands up on Sir John to nomin- ate Hampden.” This preposterous story aroused Bunsen’s interest, so that he began to read Hampden’s writings, and he found nothing objectionable in them.” Under date of 20 May 1848 Madame Bunsen recorded that they had entertained at breakfast “the Duke of Argyll, to meet Archdeacon Hare, Mr. F. D. Maurice, and Mr. R. Cavendish.’’ Under date of 2 June, ‘‘Connop Thirlwall and Archdeacon Hare’’ dined with them. In July 1848 Bunsen was suddenly called to Germany. Madame Bunsen wrote to Hare expressing her hus- band’s regret at not having been able to take leave of him. Bun- sen returned after four weeks. In November he wrote to Hare,— “T have been long silent, but you will never have doubted that my soul is continually with you, as I know—to my inexpressible com- fort—that yours is with me. But I suppose that there was little correspondence in the time of the Deluge. I feel that I have entered into a new period of life (as a result of the revolutions of 1848). I have given up all private concerns, studies and researches of my own, and live entirely for the present political concerns of my country, to stand or to fall by or with it... .’” In 1849 there was excitement over the publication of J. A. Froude’s ““Nemesis of Faith”. Under date of 22 April 1849 Bunsen wrote a long letter about it to his friend Max Miller. “I cannot describe the power of attraction exercised upon me by this deeply searching, noble spirit; I feel the tragic nature of his position, and 1 Life and Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 37, p. 44 * Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 153. * Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 198. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 59 have long foreseen that such tragical combinations await the souls of men in this island-world. Arnold and Carlyle, each in his own way, had seen this long before me. In the general world, no one can understand such a state of mind except so far as to be enabled to misconstrue it...... (People fail to judge the book as a work of art); otherwise many individuals would at least have been moved to @ more sparing judgement upon it, and in the first place they would take in the import of the title ....... But here the author has disclosed the inward disease, the fearful hollowness, the spiritual death, of the nation’s philosophical and theological forms, with resistless eloquence; ....I wish you could let him know how deeply I feel for him, without ever having seen him; and how I desire to admonish him to accept and endure this fatality, as, in the nature of things, he must surely have anticipated it; and as he has pointed out and defended the freedom of the spirit, so must he now (and I believe he will) show in himself, and make manifest unto the world, the courage, active in deed, cheerful in power, of that free spirit”’....Bunsen went on to say that he would advise Froude to spend a year or two in a German university... By June the matter was settled, Bunsen had secured a fellowship for Froude at Bonn, and Froude had accepted. But forother reasons (his engage- ment and imminent marriage) he resigned it and remained in England.” f It was in the year 1849 that Bunsen’s friendship with Susanna (1825-84) and Catherine Winkworth (1829-84) of Manchester be- gan. Both the sisters had studied German, had been in Ger- many, and were very much interested in German literature. Altho Anglicans by family, they belonged to a group of Unitarians, with whom a number of German merchants in Manchester associated. In January 1849 Catherine wrote to her friend Mrs. Gaskell, asking whether the Life of Niebuhr might not prove worth translating. Mrs. Gaskell was invited to the home of Bunsen that evening, and she told him about her young friend. He took up the matter with enthusiasm and suggested that Susanna try it. In September, Bunsens made their visit to Fox How with Mrs. Arnold, and to Manchester, as guests of the German merchant Schwabe. At this 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 217-19. 2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 46. 60 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN time Susanna Winkworth was invited to meet Bunsen. She was very much excited and embarrast, as her amusing letter recounting the event to her sister, testifies: Manchester, September 20th, 1849—‘‘Be it known unto you that I have this day seen, heard, talked, and shaken hands with— BUNSEN, in propria persona. and that our interview wound up with his asking me to come and see him when I came to London!!! Hurrah! O if you were but here to have a skip with me.’” Under date of 22 September 1849 Susanna wrote to her sister Catherine, ‘‘ After having seen Chevalier Bunsen I can quite under- stand Dr. Arnold’s enthusiastic love for him. At least heard him, for seeing only would give one very little idea of him...... His con- versation is about the most constant and rapid pouring forth of facts, ideas, and feelings in a loud crackling, inflexible voice, that I ever heard. I do not mean by constant, that he preaches, like Carlyle or Mr. Ellis. No; he converses,—listens to others as well as talks himself,—only that his mind never seems still for an instant. And when he talks it is with such rapidity, that the attention of the ordinary person cannot keep up with the flow of his thought. This you will believe, when I tell you that even Lily (Mrs. Gaskell) cannot always keep up with him, and complains that he talks so fast she cannot recollect what he says. It cannot bea sinecure to be his secretary, and I fancy his sons have to be considerably on the alert to execute his behests if they mean to satsify his demands. I should think he would keep half-a-dozen people going in double- quick time. He speaks too (though not in the least pompously) as one accustomed to command, but withal with such extreme kind- ness, and every now and then with such unmistakable signs of feel- ing that I should think those around him would usually feel the strongest inclination to obey his commands.’” The Winkworth sisters knew several of Bunsen’s friends and about this time met F. D. Maurice, Archdeacon Hare, and R. M. Milnes, so that they became active mebers of the immediate circle of Bunsen’ associates. By November 1849 Bunsen was so disappointed in regard to political reform in Germany that he turned again to his studies. * Memorials of Two Sisters,p.49. * Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 49. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 61 He wrote to his mother-in-law about his working at a life of Christ,— according to a chronology he had been working on for some time,— “When I have done, I shall go to Hurstmonceaux, to read all to Hare....I am anxious to publish the Greek Gospel in harmony with a revised German translation, and shall try to persuade Hare to make the revision of the English text for the English edition. But whether I shall publish it during my life time or not, must depend on circumstances. This age in which we live is so pro- foundly sick and diseased at heart, that I often feel little disposed to write for it. But what is true will prove to be true, in time. There is no hurry”’.’ In March 1850 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council rendered its famous decision in the Gorham case. The bishop of Exeter had refused to institute the Rev. G. C. Gorham into a vicarage that had been offered him, on the grounds that he suspected the latter of holding unsound views of the doctrine of Regeneration accompanying baptism. He subjected Gorham to an eight day examination, and found him unsound. When he refused to institute him, Gorham appealed to the Court of Arches. The Court found for the Bishop. Gorham appealed to the Privy Council. The dispute attracted much attention. Many pamphlets were written for and against Gorham. Bunsen’s friends sympathized with Gorham. Hare wrote and publisht. ‘‘A Letter on the Recent Judgment of the Court of Appeal”. Under date of the 8th March 1850 Bunsen wrote to his son Henry, who was an Anglican clergyman,“I am this moment come from the Privy Council, and have heard the most remarkable judgment pro- nounced, which since the Reformation and the civil wars ever has been given in this country on a great point of faith. The judgment of the Lower Court is reversed; Mr. Gorham’s opinions not being heretical he has the right to be inducted. The con- trary opinion would be against the clear principles of the Church of England, and dangerous to all subjects of Her Majesty, both for their spiritual and temporal interest. The Articles were to be taken as the doctrinal expression of the Church; the Liturgy as the devotional expression. The Burial Service would alone suffice to prove that the expressions of a Liturgy ought to be interpreted 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 237. 62 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN with restrictions, not unconditionally. The judgment goes be- sides through the Baptismal Service itself, and, abstaining from all theological opinions, comes on legal grounds to the decision”... .* During the year 1851 Bunsen workt on his Egyptian His- tory and his Hippolytus. The latter appeared in 1852. Under date of 22 March 1852 he wrote to Archdeacon Hare.... I am afraid that when you come to see the index to my ‘Hippolytus, you will say, with a smile, that I have crammed into it an Un- wersal and Church History cum quibusdam aliis. Still you will find that I have done justice to the title within the smallest com- pass possible... .”” Under date of 13 August 1852 he wrote to his friend Lucke, “T have just completed ‘Hippolytus and his Age’ after thirteen months hard work, both in English and in German. To the - German edition I have prefixed a Preface, armed at all points for the governments and the Nation. One of my practical ob- jects was and is, to stir up the English out of their spiritual slumber and materialistic tendencies, before the great conflict of minds, and perhaps, of nations, begins; and so far my book is a contest for Germany—for our only indestructible and peculiar property, I mean inward religious instinct and freedom of spirit. My En- glish friends were at first alarmed on my account, at the matter I addressed to their country-men: but I know the English nation better than they do, and have more Christian courage, because my convictions are stronger than theirs. When after a life of serious enquiry one has reached one’s sixtieth year, one must have attained to convictions instead of opinions, and also to the courage necessary for expressing them, even to the pretension of being wiser than the ‘raw recruits of the present generation... .””° Following Bunsen’s advice Susanna Winkworth had spent several months in Bonn, workingat her biography of Niebuhr. She was able to publish it in 1851, and a second edition of it in 1852. Immediately she began to work at a translation of “‘Deutsche Theologie’”’ an anonymous work that Luther had admired and which Bunsen wisht to see translated. When she completed the preliminary study of the various German editions, he wrote * Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 245. ? Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 279. * Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 287. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 63 her,—“‘Accept my heart felt thanks anent the Deutsche Theologie. You have given me great pleasure by it. Only, dear friend, go forward on this path, and a greater light will arise to you upon Christ and Christianity than is contained in any English formu- laries whatever. You ought also to read Tauler, his Life and Sermons, which I will send you... .’”? In May and June Susanna made a long visit at Carlton Terrace, helping Bunsen with literary work and continuing with her translation of the Theologie. Thru this visit she became better acquainted with Bunsen’s friends, Mr. F. D. Maurice, Archdeacon Hare, Dr. Max Muller, Richard Monckton Milnes, Mr. and Mrs. William Ewart Gladstone. Bunsen also invited her sister Catherine to visit them. Discovering her interest in German poetry he presented her with a copy of his collection of German hymns. From that time on she wisht she might trans- late some of them. A year later the opportunity came, when Susanna was arranging to publish the sermons of Tauler accord- ing to the Christian year and she suggested that Catherine prepare a companion volume of translations of hymns. Bunsen’s approval ‘brought Catherine’s floating ideas to the crystalizing point’ In 1853 Bunsen publisht the first volume of “Christianity and Mankind’’, dedicating it to Hare. About the same time Maurice published his volume of ‘“Theological Essays’’. Cather- rine Winkworth wrote about the latter, “I have read a little in it and of course I like it. It puts me a good deal in mind of Bunsen in his way of looking at things, also it seems to me clearer and more decided than what I have read of his (Maurice’s) before’”* She had recently read Bunsen’s Hippolytus. Late in 1853 occured the difficulty between F. D. Maurice and Dr. Jelf, Master of King’s College. In his Theological Essays he had argued that Future Punishment cannot be Eternal. The Council of the College voted that Mr. Maurice’s serving as professor of Theology henceforth would be contrary to the in- terests of the college. Bunsen sympathized with Maurice. In a long letter, brimming with interesting details, Susanna Wink- worth who was staying with the Bunsens, wrote about it to her 1 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 96. 2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 119. 3 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 107. 64 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN sister Catherine urder date 20 December 1853,—‘‘Tuesday we had a party at dinner and some more people in the evening. At dinner there were Mr. Maurice, Archdeacon and Mrs. Hare, Mr. Trench, Professor Green, Mr. Cottrell, Drs. Max Muller, Pauli, and Boetticher, Mr. Philip Pusey, etc. (also Charles Kings- ley) Mr. Maurice took me in and I sat between him and Mr Pusey .... They discussed University Reform, Mr. Pusey thinking some reform was needed, but there was such a good spirit at Oxford that they would reform themselves, if let alone, which Mr. Maurice evidently did not agree with.... After dinner I was introduced to Mrs. Hare, who gave me the delightful intelligence that the Lincoln Inn’s Benchers had refused to accept Mr. Maurice’s resignation, and done so in a most satisfactory letter...”* From her letter we gather that Kingsley went out the next day to secure ~ signatures for an address from the clergy to Maurice. He was at Bunsen’s again for dinner that evening and showed what he had secured; but it was so unsatisfactory that the friends agreed it better not to publish it. Arthur Stanley, too, felt strong sympathy for Maurice, not so much because he agreed with Maurice’s reasoning, but because he felt that the right of private judgment was at stake. To quote his biographer, “The Articles were silent upon the point. It was there- fore an open question, which no one had a right to close. Where the formularies of the Church refused to speak, the Council of King’s College had attempted to force upon their most distinguished pro- fessor a rigid definition of the word eternal and of the the theory of punishment.’ ’” Further testimony of Bunsen’s continued friendship for Maurice is found in the Life of Baronness Bunsen, in which her biographer reproduces a passage from a letter of the Baroness to one of her daughters,—‘‘Yesterday, Sunday, 8 May 1853, we were turned upside down by your father’s determination to go and hear Mr. Maurice preach at Lincoln’s Inn—so we drove to Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, and I was glad tosee the building, and hear good chant- ing, and aboveall that real praying of the service, which one scarcely ever hears, but from Mr. Maurice and Archdeacon Hare. But as to 1 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 109-111. Life and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol.I p. 486. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 65 the sermon, I can give no account of it. I heard so little, that I only made out the dashing at a difficult problem, without perceiving the solution: there may have been such; though it is too like Mr. Maurice to start difficulties, which he leaves one to get out of as one can’? The Bunsens left England in May 1854. In the summer Susanna Winkworth traveled on the Continent and before return- ing home in the autumn she visited them at Heidelberg. She and Bunsen had a great deal of discussion about her translation of Tauler’s Sermons. Her Memoirs bear interesting testimony to the close relations existing between Bunsen, Hare, Maurice, and Kingsley at this time. She wrote, ‘‘In December I paid a visit to Archdeacon Hare, in order to consult him as to my selection from the eighty-four sermons of Tauler and to read to him several passages I had translated. Bunsen and Kingsley had strongly advised my omitting every passage which only a Roman Catholic would have written: saying they would both give offence and detract from the usefulness of the book for Protestants. I demurred to this as injuring the historic truthfulness of the work, but was anxious to have the opinions of Maurice and Hare, both on this point and also as to the style I had adopted for the translation’. To her extreme delight the Archdeacon and Mr. Maurice quite differed from Bunsen and Kingsley. Mr. Maurice thought it point of con- science to retain them, and the Archdeacon, when she showed him the passage about purgatory, exclaimed: ‘‘Why this is splen- did; it would be a thousand pities to leave it out.” In January 1855 Julius Hare died at Hurstmonceaux. Thirl- wall had been there to visit him during his last illness. He came again for the funeral. Stanley preacht the sermon. A year later Thirlwall wrote to a friend that he had been requested to act as judge in selecting a suitable memorial volume to Hare’s memory. A few years later Maurice, Plumptre, and Stanley combined to edit an edition of Hare’s sermons ‘“The Victory of Faith” with a memoir of his life. According to Madame Bunsen’s statement, Mrs. Hare had burned most of Hare’s papers, so that the materials for a de- tailed life were lacking. 1 Life of Baroness Bunsen, Vol. II p. 154. 2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 123. 66 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN As to Hare’s friendship Madame Bunsen wrote, ‘And thus was a relation closed, more inward and more intimate than any of the kind, still remaining to Bunsen. This had been a friendship ‘without cataract or break’, which had flowed on in an ever-increas- ing current of sympathy and mutual estimation from its first com- mencement....’?! In February Maurice, who was doubly related to Hare, wrote to Bunsen, sending him a volume of his on “‘Sacrifice.”” The chief interest of the letter is the fact that Maurice calls attention to the differences in opinion between himself and both Hare and Bunsen. Speaking of Hare, he says: ‘Great as is the satisfaction of speak- ing of him to those who loved him and will not mistake (my) gratitude and affection for party sympathy, I believe it is as great a duty for me to be silent, or almost silent, about him publicly... . You and others may have had a natural fear that, as the English public absurdly mixed me up with him as if we were of the same school, I should try to bring him down to the level of my notions and put him forth as the champion and representative of them. I think I may promise you that you shall have no cause to make this complaint. In immeasurably the largest portion of his treasures of thought and knowledge I had not even the slightest share... .I heartily rejoice with you that you havefound a home where you can pursue all the studies that are most congenial to you. But those who have received continual and undeserved kindness from you may be permitted to look back upon past days, and to wish, for the sake of their country as much as for their own, that you were not separated from us. Our spiritual battles are likely to be at _ least as serious as our material ones, and God knows how serious they are’’....? Hare had left half done a Life of Luther, for which he was under contract to Longmans. His wish was that Susanna Wink- worth should complete it under Bunsen’s guidance. Maurice transmitted the wish to her. She consulted Bunsen, and he replied in his characteristic way, “Specially do I rejoice that my beloved Julius Hare has bequeathed you so noble a legacy, and through the medium of his worthy brother-in-spirit Maurice. He could not 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 370. * Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. II p. 257-58. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 67 have given you a more emphatic proof of his respect and affection. For, after the Apostle Paul, Luther was and always remained the first hero in his Pantheon of Christian Humanity; and I feel just the So Susanna put aside her work on Tauler and set resolutely about finishing Hare’s Life of Luther, and tho it was no small task, she completed it within the same year. Catherine Winkworth’s first series of about one hundred transa lations from Bunsen’s ““Gesangbuch”’ publisht as ‘Lyra Germanic- ica’”’ met with great success; the first edition, appearing in August 1855 was at once exhausted, and a second edition appeared at Christmas time. It was dedicated to Bunsen and his letter of acknowledgment was printed by way of preface. During the summer of 1856 Catharine and Susanna Wink- worth spent two months with the Bunsens at Heidelberg. They translated his Zeichen der Zeit, letters on religious tolerance in Germany at that time. When'they had completed it, Susanna sent a copy to Maurice. He wrote her thanking her forit and setting forth how his mind workt differently from Bunsen’s; he felt it to be a fundamental difference between the English and the German way of approaching the matter of religion; the German began with the individual’s sense of sin; the English began with God; hence the German emphasized the importance of the ‘“Gemeinde”’ made up of individuals, the English emphasized the source of authority in God. To another common friend of Bunsen’s and himself he had written in a similar vein, that he could not join the ‘“anti-English school of theology.’”” Maurice was not prepared to go as far as Bunsen, or Jowett and Stanley, or Hare, in the critical study of the Bible or process of rendering the doctrines of the Church in philosophical terms. Some years later, in 1865, Catherine Winkworth wrote ‘Mr. Maurice is entirely honest and with the most absolute convictions of the reality of spiritual things.... But there is a certain set of questions connected with the Bible which are puzzling men’s 1 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 125. 2 Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 139. also Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. II, p. 251-53. 68 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN minds now that he leaves on one side, and we want some one to grapple with them as well....’” At Christmastide 1856 Susanna Winkworth was at last able to see her “Life and Sermons of Dr. John Tauler” in print. She wrote of it, ‘That is a book which I love very dearly, because the original has done more for me than almost any other book in the world; taught and guided me more; besides, it was that which gave the principal shock to my Unitarianism, and, as I trust, was the means of introducing me to a higher life.” It was in 1856 also, but in June, that Stanley and Jowett simultaneously publisht their edition of the Espistles of St. Paul with critical commentaries. Bunsen saw in this a fulfil- ment of the plan that he and Arnold had conceived in 1836 and which he had urged upon Hare at Arnold’s death, the com- pletion of the “Edition Rugbiana”’ of the New Testament in Greek. Jowett’s biographers say “There can be no reasonable doubt that the work of Jowett and Stanley had some reference to this unfulfilled plan of the great headmaster’. Nine years elapsed before the publication in part of what they had projected in 1846, when Stanley published his Life of Arnold.° Under date of 12 July 1855 Bunsen wrote to one of his sons,— “Jowett’s publication of the Epistlesof St. Paul is a great event,— his commentary capital and honest, with truly original dissertations. He is the right man, There is so much work spared me. It will form an epoch: it is a masterly work, of great freedom of judg- ment and of Christian wisdom: the text of Lachmann appealed to; the English translation well revised; there are paraphrases and philological explanations; also excellent treatises. I am over- joyed.’* But the young editors were notso charitably treated in all quarters. Stanley’s commentaries were justly criticized by Light- foot on account of philological and typographical errors. The great merit of his work was that he poured illuminating light from history and geography upon the text and made it seem alive. But his critics censured him for ignoring doctrinal discussions. Jowett was a better scholar and could not be shown up in 1 Memorials of Two Sisters p. 239. ? Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 164. 3 Abbott and Campbell: Life of B. Jowett, Vol. I, p. 100. “ Memoirs, English Edition, Vol. II p. 380. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH. THEOLOGY 69 philological errors, but his metaphysical treatment of such doctrinal points as the Atonement aroused bitter criticism. The incident did not prevent his getting a professorship of Greek but for years it made him a lonesome man at Oxford. Late in the year Bunsen publisht in German his ‘“‘God in History” the realization of his youthful ambition. In January 1857 Susanna Winkworth wrote thanking for acopy. He wrote her that he was working with the help of two scholars to produce a revision of Luther’s translation of the Bible and a commen- tary with it.’ Somewhat later Bunsen wrote to the Duchess of Argyll, under date of 1 July 1857, about this undertaking: ‘‘We in Germany may be said to have been at this work of revision for 87 years, say 100. For in 1770 Michaelis at Goettingen publisht his great translation and commentary of the Old Testament. And yet the German nation has ‘still the least correct of all Bible translations, although it is marked by the greatest genius, and in spite of the fact that our men of learning have made un- paralleled exertions to effect a revision. But as to England, it is more than a hundred years since you have given up all really exegetical study of the Bible. Jowett’s and Stanley’s and Alford’s work are, however, excellent beginnings,—at least as far as the New Testament is concerned....’” Under date of 22 April 1857 Bunsen took note of the work of Rowland Williams, Christianity and Hinduism. This was a volume of 500 pages on which Williams had workt for ten years and for which he received a prize. The donor, Mr. Muir, sent a copy of the work to Bunsen. ‘Imagine to my surprise to find under the form of a perfect Platonic dialog a representation more nearly similar to my own than any other that had been made in England or in Germany’”.® Williams was not per- sonally known to Bunsen,—at least there is no evidence in the Memoirs. But we do know that Williams was an admirer of Julius Hare and of the kind of thought for which Bunsen and Hare stood for in religion. 1 Memorials of Two Sisters. ? Memoirs, English edition Vol. II p. 429. 3 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 429. 70 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN Bunsen attended the sessions of the Evangelical Alliance which had an international convention in Berlin. He was there as the special guest of the King. Bunsen was very much interested in the purpose of the Alliance, yet he could not join it, because it had too weak a platform, as he expressed it. A group of Bunsen’s English friends drew up a more positive one, recognizing the his- torical development of the Church, altho remaining silent on such disputed matters as the sacraments, affirming belief in “salvation through faith in the all-sufficient atonement for sin made by the son of God who had taken upon Himself human flesh’’, This would have satisfied him. But it was rejected. Nevertheless he attended the meetings and participated in the communion service with “Englishmen, Americans, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Germans, and others’. Arthur Stanley was there. They had dinner together with other old friends, Bunsen wrote “Stanley was delightful’’. In July 1858 Susanna Winkworth paid her last visit to Bunsen. She wrote to an Anglican friend, ‘‘ The work on which the Baron is especially occupied just now would interest you much. It is the second volume of ‘‘God in History’’, in which he hopes to re- view the leading religions that have prevailed among the nations of antiquity, showing how far each nation has attained to a per- ception of God’s moral government of the world. There seem to me few things more calculated to strenghten faith than thus to be able to trace the gradual unfolding of God’s revelations to man, and the unity of His teachings everywhere, and at the same time to see the enormous and generic superiority of the Jewish and Christian revelations. Jt makes infidelity appear so thor- oughly unhistorical and unphilosophical. I only wish I felt equal to the task of translating it... .’’ Mark Pattison considered translating it but decided not to. Bunsen succeeded in convincing Susanna that she was equal to the task. But it was almost ten years later before she completed it. It finally appeared in three volumes with a preface by Dean Stanley in 1868 and 1870. 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 449. ? Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 186. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 71 In September 1859 Bunsen wrote to one of his sons about Susanna Winkworth’s Tauler, “I have read her translation of Tauler—in which labor she sacrificed her health, but truly not in vain. Her historical treatment of the subject is admirable; she had, one may say, as good as no forerunner, and for information as to primary sources of intelligence, only a book in old German (the secret correspondence of the ‘Friends of God’) and a Ms lent her by Schmidt of Strassburg, who contributed nothing besides but a preface.’ In February 1860 there appeared—that conflict-provoking book Essays and Reviews. Fortunately Bunsen never saw it or heard of the trouble it caused, for it appeared during his last illness. Among the seven writers there were at least several who had ad- mired Hare and Arnold and Bunsen; all of them were in sympathy with what the three stood for, earnest faith combined with fearless inquiry. Temple and Jowett, friends of Stanley, had urged him to contribute an essay, but he, fearing that its publication would stir up controversy and serve no good end, had refused. Bishop Wilberforce attackt the volume in the Quarterly Review and that gave the signal for a general onslaught. Stanley was askt to write an article on it for the Edinburgh Review. But before he could do so, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the name of the bishops, had publisht a denunciation of all the essays and all seven writers. In 1862 there appeared a volume entitled Replies to Essays and Reviews. F.D. Maurice, who like Stanley felt that the publication of the Essays had been injudicious but that the Replies were uncharitable, united with anumber of others to publish a volume called Tracts for Priests and People, in which they took middle ground and asserted the right of freedom and individual judgment within the Church. Maurice’s own essay is an excellent appeal for genuine faith coupled with charity. Kegan Paul’sessay on “The Boundaries of the Church” is remarkable for the clear and dignified manner in which it sets forth the broad and comprehensive character of the Church of England. Of all the writings called forth this essay has lost least by a lapse of sixty years. Stanley declared of Temple’s essay on ‘““‘The Education of the World’, Pattison’s on “Tendencies of Religious Thought in Eng- 1 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. II p. 510. 72 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN land from 1688 to 1750”, and Jowett’s on ‘‘The Interpretation of Scripture” that any one ‘‘who reads them, not with a desire to find falsehood in them, but truth, will not only derive from them most valuable help to the study of history and of the Bible, but will also have this faith confirmed and his charity increased with- out unsettlement of his mind whatsoever.’”’ Maurice and Stanley agreed that Dr. Rowland Williams in discussing Bunsen’s Biblical Researches had made the grave mis- take of stating Bunsen’s conclusions without going into his evi- dences. Maurice took Williams’ opponent in the Replies to task for merely opposing Hengstenberg to Bunsen, for being merely destruc- tive in his reply, and in the last analysis arguing that one should not study the Bible critically. Maurice pleads, ‘“May we not learn something of Mr. Williams without adopting his ‘sneers,’ or his mere negation... . { Dr. Rowland Williams and Rev. H. B. Wilson were tried for heresy. The Court of Arches found them guilty. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed the decision, just as it had in the Gorham case. It found, in Stanley’s words, ‘‘that the Church of England does not hold Verbal Inspiration, Imputed Righteousness, Eternity of Torment.” Stanley wrote, “I hope that all will now go smoothly and that the Bible may be read with- out those terrible nighmares. Thank God.’ It had been a trial of the right of private judgment and critical inquiry, and fortun- ately they had been vindicated, Maurice wrote in a letter publisht in the Spectator. Susanna Winkworth wrote,—“I cannot but believe that all the controversy to which ‘Essays and Reviews’ has given rise will do good in the end. Outspoken doubts and objections seem to me so much less dangerous than passive latent unbelief; andthen, too, outspoken disbelief calls forth outspoken belief, and at all events it is better for people to know where they are.’’* In 1868, after some five years of preparation, Madame Bunsen publisht the Memoirs of her husband. Thirlwall wrote toa friend, 1 Life and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol. II p. 32. *Tracts for Priests and People, p. 108. ° SLife and Letters of Dean Stanley, Vol. II p. 44. * Memorials of Two Sisters, p. 223. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 73 *T find the interest of the Memoir of Bunsen quite absorbing. I cannot recollect ever having enjoyed anything of the kind so deeply. IT am really thankful to have lived to read it. Nothingindeed could raise Bunsen higher than he stood in my estimation. But just on that account the more intimate acquaintance which the book gives with the details of his life and work is to one who had the privilege of knowing him, unspeakably interesting... .’”* In 1875, when Thirlwall was buried in Westminster Abbey, Stanley preacht the funeral sermon, declaring, ‘‘He was the chief of that illustrious group of English scholars who first revealed to this country the treasures of German research, and the insight which that research had opened into the mysterious origin of the races, institutions, and religions of mankind.’” In the spring of 1876 Madame Bunsen wrote the last letter of a long life when she wrote to Arthur Stanley to express her grief . and sympathy at the loss of his wife. Thus, to the very end, the members of this group remained in close personal sympathy. 1Thirtwall: Letters to a Friend, p. 181. 2Thirlwall: Letters to a Friend, Preface, p. VIII. 74 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN AN ESTIMATE Having traced the relations of Bunsen to his English friends thru a period of forty years, let us consider their religious views in topical order. THE BASIS OF FAITH Like Schleiermacher, Bunsen accepted the Christian religion because it answers a human need. He went thru a period of questioning until he arrived at the point where he could write to his sister in 1818, ‘Christianity and real faith is a fact of the inner man, far above all erudition and outer knowledge, which can only originate in an inward consciousness of our fallen nature, and of the impossibility, without God’s help and without the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, to do anything good. Out of this when it is genuine proceeds inward sanctification and true illumination of mind. .’”? A year later he wrote to her that he had... .‘‘attained to a clear consciousness, by inward experience, that there is no way of satisfy- ing the needs of the soul, or tranquilizing the heart’s longings, but. by the inner lifein Christ—aspiration after eternal blessedness, and consequent direction of the mind and all its powers toward God?) 07 It was a similar line of thought that Julius Hare was referring. to, when in his famous letter to his aunt he declared that if it had not been for his German books, he could not have believed in. Christianity. ‘‘Without them I should only have saved myself from drear suspicions by a refusal to allow my heart to follow my head, and by a self-willed determination to believe, whether reason. approved of my belief or not... .’° Dr. Arnold’s biographer tells how his religious views took. permanent form during his lifeat Lalham. Then there disappeared “intellectual doubts which beset the first opening of his mind tothe: realities of religious belief, when he shared at least in part the state of perplexity which in his later sermons he feelingly describes: as the severest of earthly trials, and which so endeared to him throughout life the story of the confession of the Apostle Thomas, 1 Memoirs, Vol. I p. 143. 2 Memoirs, Vol. I p. 167. 3A. J.C. Hare: Memorials of a Quiet Life, Vol. I p. 20. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 75 From this time foreward no careful observer can fail to trace that deep consciousness of the invisible world, and that power of bring- ing it before him in the midst and titel the means of his most active engagements... .’”* In a letter to Be Fiawkinn in September 1840 Arnold wrote, “T have always supposed it to be a mere enemy’s caricature of our Protestant doctrine, when any are supposed to maintain that it is the duty of each individual to make out his faith de novo, from the Scriptures alone, without regard to any other authority living or dead...... It has always seemed to me that the substance of Revelation is a most essential part of its evidence; and that miracles wrought in favor of what was foolish or wicked, would only prove Manicheism. We are so perfectly ignorant of the unseen world, that the character of any supernatural power can only be judged of by the moral character of the statements which it sanctions: thus only can we tell whether it be a revelation from God, or from the Devil. If his father tells a child something which seems to him monstrous, faith requires him to submit his own judg- ment, because he knows his father’s person, and is sure, therefore, that his father tells it him. But we cannot thus know God, and can only recognize His voice by the words spoken being in agree- ment with our idea of His moral nature...... " That Thirlwall, too, had his period of religious difficulties is to be inferred rather than to be proved by his own statements. His was a much more reserved nature than those of Bunsen, Hare, or Arnold. A.J.C.Haredescribesitascold. Henever revealed himself so completely as they. His hesitation to enter the Church and his work at Schleiermacher’s Essay both imply that he did have to overcome intellectual difficulties. Maurice’s religious difficulties, grew out of the conflicting views of his parents, causing him ‘‘years of moral confusion and contradiction’’, as he wrote to his son. He workt his way out of them and was able to be received into the Anglican Faith and take holy orders. In 1849 he wrote about the matter, ““‘When I began in earnest to seek God for myself, the feeling that I needed a deliverer from an overwhelming weight of selfishness, was the pre- 1 Stanley: Life ond Letters of Thomas Arnold, Vol. I p. 40. 76 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN dominant one in my mind. Then I found it more and more im- possible to trust in any being who did not hate selfishness and who did not desire to raise His creatures out of it. Such a Being was altogether different from the mere image of good nature which I had seen among Universalists. He was also very different from the mere Sovereign whom I heard of amongst the Calvinists. ..... But I thought He was just that Being who was exhibited in the cross of Jesus Christ...... oe Young Stanley in 1834, visiting at the home of Julius Hare, reading Coleridge and Schleiermacher, writes to a friend, that he is thinking seriously about the problem of Christianity; it is his conviction that while the avowed belief in the Godhead and Man- hood of Christ is essential to the idea ofa Christian Church, it is not essential in all cases to individual salvation, or ‘to the admission of hearts that have an earnest longing for good, to the communion of Saints.” Neither Stanley nor Jowett accepted matters of faith merely in a perfunctory manner; they too had to make them their own by thinking them thru. Rowland Williams wrote, ‘“‘Revelation is an unveiling of the true God, especially as Love and Spirit to the eyes of our mind. Much of the evidence of revelation consists in its conformity to. whatever is best in the moral nature given and kept alive in us by our Maker. .. The best evidence of Christianity is a Christian life’ This closely resembles Bunsen’s words, ‘‘Let it never be forgotten that Christianity is not thought but action, not a system but a life.’”* To all of the men in this group faith was an intensely personal matter. All tried, some more, some less, to make Christianity seem reasonable; they felt that the moral or practical aspect of it made it acceptable to reason. Hare emphasized in his sermon on “Faith the Victory that overcometh the World” that the moral action of the Will is a stronger element in Faith than the judicial exercise of the Understanding’’.° 1 Life of F. D. Maurice, Vol. II p. 15-16. * Life of Dean Stanley, Vol. I p. 118. 80. K. Paul: Biographical Sketches. “Diary of Crabb Robinson, Vol. II p. 359. ®Victory of Faith, p. 45. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 77 FREEDOM OF RESEARCH Having accepted Christianity on the basis of its moral appeal and its answering a personal need, they did not have to look upon its truth as depending upon external proofs. They believed that research in matters pertaining to the Bible was not only justified but necessary. “Human learning is and must be for man’s benefit; for God himself directs us to cultivate the intelligence He has given,’ wrote Bunsen. Thus the men of this group believed it right to apply the same . historical methods to the study of the Bible as to any other book. It was in this spirit that Thirlwall, with Hare’s counsel, translated Schleiermacher’s Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, that Arnold and Bunsen planned to publish a work onthe interpretation of Prophecy, that Stanley and Arnoldeditedthe Epistles of St. Paul, that Stanley and Williams contributed to “Assays and Reviews’. Williams exprest the belief of all when he wrote,—...... The books of Holy Scripture are written by different authors in different ages, and will be understood better in proportion as their authorship is correctly known....If any bad consequences should hence arise (from a dis- covery that certain book or portions of books are not by the authors whose names they bear), it will not be from the facts, but from unwise concealment of them. Jesus Christ came into the world to bear witness to the Truth. All other hindrances to his religion have not been so great, as those from the inconsistency of persons who defend it by falsehood’’.’ NATURE: OF REVELATION, INSPIRATION, PROPHECY Bunsen always held that God’s revelation was not limited to the Bible. From the time he was in the university he planned to write his work, ‘“‘God in History”’, which was to show that God had revealed Himself in a measure to pagan nations, making possible their moral advance and preparing them for the fuller knowledge of Himself as revealed in Christianity. Similarly we find Hare writing in Guesses at Truth. ‘‘Many learned men, Grotius, for instance, and Wetstein, have taken pains to illustrate the New Testament by quoting all the passages they 1C. K. Paul: Biographical Sketches, p. 103. 78 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN could collect from the writers of classical antiquity, expressing sentiments in any way analogous to the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel. This some persons regard as a disparagement to the honor of the Gospel, which they fain would suppose to have come down all at once from heaven, like a meteoric stone from a volcano in the moon, consisting of elements wholly different from anything upon earth. But surely it is no disparagement to the wisdom of God, or to the dignity of Reason, that the development of Reason should be preceded by corresponding instincts, and that something analagous to it should be found even in inferior animals... . . If there had been no instincts in man leading him to Christianity, no yearnings and cravings, no stings of conscience and aspirations, for it to quiet and satisfy, it would. have been no religion for man. Therefore, instead of shrinking from the notion that anything at all similar to any of the doctrines of Christianity may be found in heathen forms of religion, let us seek out all such resemblances diligently, giving thanks to God that He has never left Himself wholly without a witness. When we have found them all, they will only be single rays darting up here and there, forerunners of the sunrise...... 6s Similarly Maurice studied the religions of the world, with a view to discover both how they were partial revelations of God and how they fell short of the perfect revelation of Christianity. In his essay on Inspiration, one of the Theological Essays publisht in 1853, he asserts that the peculiar manifestations of “inspirations” among the ancient Greeks were the workings of God.” Rowland Williams wrote, ‘‘There was a preparation of the Gos- pel of Christ, not only amongst Jews, but among Gentiles. God left himself nowhere without a witness, but fashioned the hearts of the heathen, and put a scripture in their conscience.’”® Again, the popular notion of verbal inspiration was untenable to these men. Arnold wrote to his friend, the Rev. John Tucker in 1827, that he could not assert the infallible inspiration of the Bible in either points.of physical science or matters of history, yet that his love for the Gospel was as strong and sincere as that of others who did. His biographer tells us that Dr. Arnold approached the 1Guesses at Truth, p. 421. 2 Maurice: Theological Essays, p. 280. 3C. Kegan Paul: Biographical Sketches, p. 101. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 79 human side of the Bible in the same real historical spirit, with the same methods, rules, and principles as he did Thucydides; that he recognized in the writers of the Scriptures the use of a human instrument—language, which he would ascertain and fix, asin any other authors, by thesame philological rules; furtherthat hestudied the historical element of the Bible by the established rules of history substantiating the general veracity of the Scriptures, even am- idst occasional inaccuracies of detail.’ This statement holds for all the group. Witness the works of Bunsen, Thirlwall, Stanley, Jowett, and Rowland Williams. Early in 1838 Arnold preacht two sermons on Prophecy, and he later publisht them. In September 1838 Arnold entertained Bunsen at his home in Rugby and they planned to write a treatise setting forth their common views of the nature of prophecy. This they were never able to carry out. But in Bunsen’s own hand- writing there is preserved an outline which sets forth their ideas: ‘Real prophecy must have a human and earthly substratum. It proceeds not from an exalted state of nervous excitement, but from a clearer view of things human, than what is proper to the judgment of the understanding, as directed only to the things visibile and tangible. The prophet views both the past and the future from his station in the present. It is essentially not a revelation of things external and acciden- tal (connected with) time, space, or name. What is generally called a real fulfilment of prophecy, as rela- ting to single temporal events, is the lowest degree of prophecy, but it exists. (for instance the seventy years’ captivity, the destruc- tion of Jerusalem.) All prophecy is conceived and understood only in the kingdom of God, which is the reign of Spirit.” In his sermons Arnold exprest the thought that generally whatever specific references to time there are in the utterances of Old Testament prophets refer to their own times; that the prophets are not consciously and specifically predicting things for the remote future. ‘Cyrus, is said, by many commentaries, to be a type of Christ, by which I understand that the language applied to him is hyperbolical, and suits properly only Him who is the real deliverer 1 Stanley: Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold, Vol. I p. 197. 3 Memoirs, English edition, Vol. I p. 470. a | CHRISTIAN BUNSEN’ of Israel, and conqueror of Babylon.”* This in a letter from Arnold to Justice Coleridgé, who had remonstrated on the Sermons. In 1840 he wrote to his friend, Dr. Hawkins, “If you put, as you may do, Christ for abstract good, and Satan for abstract evil, I do not think that the notion is so startling that they are the main and only perfect subjects of Prophecy, and that in all other cases the languageis hyperbolical in some partor other; hyperbolical, Imean, and not merely figurative. Nor can I conceive how, on any other supposition, the repeated applications of Old-Testament language to our Lord, not only by others but by Himself, can be understood to be other than arbitrary.’”” The position taken by Arnold and Bunsen is substantially that of allthe group. They agreed that as far as the human element in the Bible was concerned its writers were limited by the range of ideas common to their times. If there were differences in opinion between the members of this group they grew out of the particular statements of the general principle rather than differences as to the principle itself. THE BASIS OF UNITY They believed that the central point of Christian faith, as of the Bible, was the revelation of God in Christ, and they deemed that acceptance of this central point was sufficient basis for unity among all believers. They deprecated the use of the Bible as a legal document from which to draw arguments for or against dogmas, for that was transforming Christianity into a schoolmen’s syllogism. Bunsen wrote to his sister, —“It is my conviction that all com- munion consists essentially in a common belief in the facts of the redemption of the human race through Christ...... The inquiry into the philosophical and historical foundations of our faith, on the other hand, is only for a few, and leads rather to disunion than to peace.”® The wretched strife between the orthodox Lutheran and the Calvinistic theologians in Germany and the resulting loss in religious and moral life among the people had driven this home to him. He longed to see Christians unite in worship of a present 1 Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 177. ? Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Vol. II p. 192. 3 Memoirs, German edition, Vol. I p. 180. AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 81 Christ, for that would awaken Christian charity and righteous living. Bunsen and his friends felt that a theologian has the right to differ from another in his understanding of and explanation of such a doctrine as Justification, but that such difference should never lead them to become uncharitale toward oneanother. This explains the broad tolerence of the group; thus they defended Hampden and Ward equally; Pusey and Gorham; without committing themselves to their doctrinal positions. This explains why they defended Catholic emancipation and the removal of difficulties for Unitarians. It enables us to understand why Stanley and Jowett avoided doctrinal discussions. They illustrated the principle within their own group, for they did not all agree as to certain doctrines,—Arnold, Hare, Bunsen lookt upon the Episcopal system of government as admirable but non-essential. Maurice on the other hand held the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. Yet they all united in supporting the Jerusalem Bishopric which recognized the equality of the Prussian Church with that of the Anglican. To their way of thinking, co- operation between the latter and the Lutheran Church in Germany or Scandinavia would be quite as permissible and more fruitful than between it and the Greek Orthodox Church of Russia. In practice Bunsen demonstrated it by worshipping with and participating in the Lord’s Supper with Anglicans, Calvinists of the Continent, and with English Dissenters. Stanley demonstrated it when he delivered his memorable sermon in the Old Grey friars’ Presbyterian) Church in Edinburgh in 1872. A COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL CHURCH All genuine believers are members of the Church Universal but Invisible. Unfortunately the visible Church is broken up into many contending and uncharitable parts. It was the ideal of these men that each nation should have a national Church broad enough to include all divergent views. This ideal Bunsen wished to see brought about in Germany, and therefore he constantly held up to his countrymen the organization of the Anglican Church and especially its Liturgy. Apart from certain reforms which they thought necessary, Arnold and Hare and Thirlwall, and their younger friends shared this ideal. Surely it is a rational ideal, for 82 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN so long as men differ in their views and remain far apart, issuing challenges to each other thru the press, they willnever be united in Christian charity. But if they belong to the same Church, attend the same conference, have to speak face to face, they are likely to temper both their speech and their feelings, with a blessed effect on both. Bishop Thirlwall expressed the thought of his friends, when late in life he wrote,—‘‘Our Church has the advantage—such —I deem it—of more than one type of orthodoxy: that of the High Church, grounded in one aspect of its formularies, that of the Low Church grounded on another aspect; that of the Broad Church striving to take in both in its own way. Each has a right toa standing-place;none to the exclusive possession of the field... .’” With such views, naturally they desired to see the formularies of the Church made broader, so that the Dissenters could join the Established Church, so that the religious and moral force thus liberated would contribute to the betterment of social conditions and to the deepening of religious life thruout the nation. Thus we have reviewed the main positions of this group of men with whom Bunsen was in close communion for a life-time. In attempting to estimate the extent of Bunsen’s influence upon them, we must remember that the flow of thought from mind to mind cannot be measured like the flow of an electric current. Most intimate were the relations: between him and the three older members of the group, Thirlwall, Arnold, and Hare. It would be presumptious to assert that Bunsen directed any one of the three to German theology. This clearly was Hare’s work in the first place. But all three at various times acknowledged his helpfulness in the field of religious and historical study which was their com- mon field. When we consider that Stanley was the disciple of Arnold, that Maurice was the student and brother-in-law of Hare, that both considered themselves pupils of Thirlwall; when we think of the close intellectual companionship of Stanley and Jowett, when we remember that Rowland Williams was a disciple of Hare, we begin to realize how Bunsen’s influence penetrated to the younger men, in spite of less personal contact. Then, when we consider what great influence Hare and Arnold and Thirlwall exerted in the 1Thirlwall: Letters to a Friend, p. 57 AND LIBERAL ENGLISH THEOLOGY 83 Church and the country at large, we can get some conception of how Bunsen’s influence was communicated. Certainly few men of foreign birth ever played so prominent a part in the religious dis- cussions of the nation, certainly, none in the nineteenth century. His influence outside of the Anglican Church is testified to by Crabb Robinson, in 1865,—‘‘There are three men whose loss is to be especially lamented in this critical age,—Robertson, Donaldson, and Bunsen.’’* Also by John Stuart Blackie,—‘“He died without finishing his People’s Bible, but no man ever left behind him the memory of a more fully perfected life, lived in the constant sense of the Divine presence, in untiring love of men, in reverent fulfil- ment of all duty.”” As to their own verdict concerning Bunsen, Bishop Thirlwall— who had known him the longest—was best qualified tospeak. In 1868 he wrote to the Bishop of Argyl: “I hope when you go to London, if not sooner, you will fall in with the Memoirs of Baron Bunsen, which have just come out. I do not know whether you were at all acquainted with that admirable man. If not you cannot imagine the interest which the book has for one whose privilege it was to know him intimately, as I did, for half a century. But in much of his correspondence, especially his letters to Arnold, there isagreat deal that bears on the present state of the Church and on the questions of the day. We want some one like him,—standing aloof from all party-strife, yet with the deepest interest in the subject, and taking a comprehensive view of the whole field and of all the movements that are taking place in it, to give us a timely word of warning and guidance’’.® That the friends of Bunsen do represent the Liberal movement in the Church is admitted by other writers on the subject. Fre- quently they mention Whately. True, he was a very close friend of Arnold’s; he helpt oppose the Oxford movement; he had some correspondence with Bunsen; but he was less interested in research; he felt little need of rebuilding the grounds of faith. Again they ascribe great influence to Thomas Erskine of Linlathen.* It is 1Diary, Vol. II p. 488. 2A Stoddard: Life of J. S. Blackie, p. 221. 8 Letters of C. Thirlwall, Vol. II p. 284. 4See Article “The Growth of Liberal Theology’? By the Rev. F. E. Hutchin- son, in Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. XII. p. 1. 84 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN true that he exerted personal influence upon Maurice. But neither he nor Maurice felt any interest in the scientific research of the group. It may have been his influence which caused Maurice to repudiate membership in the “‘un-English school.” It must be strest that the Liberals had two chief points,— the right of the individual to discover the truth of revelation thru personal experience, not as a matter of logical or historical truth, and the right of free research to discover the historical facts per- taining to the origins of Christianity. Thus they combined as Arnold had said of Bunsen, “inquiry and belief going together’. All of them were stimulated by the study of contemporary German theological and historical writers, most of them stimulated by personal contact with Bunsen, the authoritative representative of the new German movement in England. For fifty years or more the ordinary observer has seen in the Anglican church only the dominance of the High Church move- ment. But tho the Liberal movement may have been over- shadowed, it has never died out. The Liberals of today recognize their spiritual descent from Jowett and Stanley, Hare and Arnold. They continue to wish and pray for a church broad enough to include all shades of Christian belief, they continue to search for historic and scientific light with reference to religion, they continue to assert with Bunsen that “Christianity is not thought, but action; not a system, but a life’. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRINCIPAL WORKS OF BUNSEN Versuch eines Allgemeinen Gesang—und Gebetbuches fur Kirchen— und Hausgebrauch. 1833; reprinted 1841. Die Kirche der Zukunft, 1845 The Church of the Future, Letters addressed to W. E. Gladstone, Ignatius von Antiochien; Sieben Sendschreiben an Neander, 1847 Egyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, 1845-57, Egypt's Place in History, 5 vols., tr by Cottrell and Birch, 1848-67. Hippolytus and his Age, 4 vols., 1852. Christianity and Mankind, 7 vols., 1854. (Volumes One and Two are a re-print of the Hippolytus) Gott in der Geschichte, oder der Fortschritt des Glaubens an die Sittliche Weltordnung, 3 vols., 1857-58. God in History, or the Progress of Man’s Faith in the Moral Order of the World, 3 vols., tr by Susanna Winkworth, with a preface by A. P. Stanley, 1868-70. Vollstandiges Bibelwerk fiir die Gemeinde, 9 vols, 1868-70 BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE PRECEDING PAGES: FRANCES, BARONESS BUNSEN: A Memoir of Baron Bunsen, 2 vols. London, 1868. FRANCES, BARONESS BUNSEN: same, German translation, enlarged, 3 vols. edited by F. Nippold, Leipzig, 1868-70. A. J. C. Hare: Life and Letters of Baroness Bunsen, N. Y. 1879. A. J. C. Hare: Memorials of a Quiet. Life (biography of Mrs. Maria Leycester Hare, widow of Augustus William Hare) J.J. Stewart PEROWNE: Remains, Literary and Theological, of Con- nop Thirlwall, 2 vols., London 1877. J.J. SreEWwarT PERownse: Letters of Bishop Thirlwall, 2 vols. London 1881. 86 CHRISTIAN BUNSEN A. P. Stanuey: Thirlwall’s Letters to a Friend, American reprint, Boston, 1883. A. P. Stanuey: Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Ameri- can reprint, N. Y. 1887. E. H. Ptumprre, editor: The Victory of Faith by J. C. Hare, with introductory notices of Hare by F. D. Maurice and A. P. Stanley, 3d ed. L., 1874. J.C. Hare: Guesses at Truth, reprint of 5th London ed, Boston, 1861. Henry Crass Rosinson: Diary and Correspondence, 2 vols., Boston, 1871. C. KeGan Pau: Biographical Sketches, London, 1883. FrepEeRIcK Maurice: Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, Chiefly Told in his Own Letters, 2 vols., N. Y. 1884. F. D. Maurice: Theological Essays, 4th ed. London, 1881. R. E. PRotHERO anp G. G. Brapuey: Life and Correspondence of Dean Stanley, 2 vols. London, 1894. E. ABBoTT AND L. CAMPBELL: Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, 3 vols. London, 1899. MarGARET SHAEN: Memorials of Two Sisters, Susanna and Cath- erine Winkworth, London, 1908. H. B. WILSON AND OTHERS: Essays and Reviews, London, 1860. E. M. GoULBURN AND OTHERS: Repliesto Essays and Reviews, N. Y. 1862. Tuomas HuGHES AND OTHERS: Tracts for Priests and People, Boston, 1862. R. W. Cuurcn: The Oxford Movement, London 1892. Anglican Liberalism, by twelve Churchmen, London, Williams and Norgate, 1908. VITA I, Ralph Albert Dornfeld Owen, was born 4 July 1884 at Watertown, Wisconsin, the son of Sylvester Albert and Sophia Dornfeld Owen. On my father’s side I am descended from John Owen who came from Wales and settled in Windsor, Connecticut, before 1650; on my mother’s from Christian Dornfeld who came from Germany and settled near Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1848. I graduated from the public high school in 1901 and from the Northwestern College at Watertown in 1905, having taken a classical course and received the B. A. degree with honors in English. After three years of high-school teaching I did graduate work in English and in Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin 1908-1910and at Harvard University 1910-11. I was professor of English and Public Speaking at Carthage College, Car- thage, Illinois, 1911-138. NextI was professor of English Methods in the National Teachers Seminary in Milwaukee for six years, 1913- 19. During the years 1919-22 I was superintendent of schools at Mayville, Wisconsin. Having completed my dissertation, ‘‘Chris- tian Bunsen and his English and American Friends” I received my _ degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Wisconsin in the summer of 1922. Since then I have revised it and have changed the title to “Christian Bunsen and Liberal English Theology’. 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