/d., 37^ ,1 m mmimct ^, #>^^''' ^'% PRINCETON, N. J. SAe// \ BR145 .S45 1890 Sell, Karl, 1854-1914. Church in the mirror of histo ry : studies on the progress of Ch ristianity / by :ih.' ''' •i'*^. K! ian Kin^s, which soon extended to the Medi- terranean Sea in Roman Gaul, and included Southern and Middle Germany, as far as Westphalia. By accepting the Catholic faith, the Frankish Empire had at once entered into alliance with Eonie, while the Visigoths, who were converted when Arianism ]-)revailed, and after tliem the Ostrogoths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians (for a time) were Arians. The Frankish Empire did not only support the Church, it also domineered over it. The Bishop of Eome was by no means Lord over the Western Church from the beginning. The very Pope who gave the most distinct utterance to the idea of a priestly domination of the yS The Church in the Mirror of History. laity by an immaculate and ascetic clergy, who in- troduced the dogma of purgatory, who perfected the service of the mass, and therewith gave to the Eomish ritual the stamp wdiich it still bears, — Gregory the Great, — ^had much to endure at the close of the sixth century and at the beginning of the seventh from the attacks of Arian Lombards. This confirmed him in the conviction that the Church could only hope to subdue the barbarians — the Germanic nature seemed barbaric to every Catholic Eoman — by making use of the barbarians. As the Eoman Emperors carried on their wars with German auxiliaries, so did he establish Catholic missions among the Anglo-Saxons, and, by the agency of this English ecclesiastical pro- vince, which very soon became entirely submissive to Itome, the more ancient Iro-Keltic Church was sup- planted in England and in its native land. The Anglo-Saxon monk Winfred — Boniface — rendered Eome the same service in the Prankish Empire, very specially in Germany. Long after the Gospel liad been preached on the Ehone and on the Main, in the Black Forest and on the shores of the Lake of Constance by Scottisli monks, Boniface constituted a regular Church system by which Germany was subor- dinated to tlie Tatriarch of Eome, as an archiepiscopal The Middle Ages. 79 province. This was incident to the progress of civilisa- tion at the period, and we need not blame the narrow but upright man for it. His monastery of Fulda was, in sooth, the Christian heart of Germany. The monas- teries of Western Germany founded by Benedictines, such as Hersfeld, Weissenburg, Eeichenau, and St. Gall were Christian agricultural colonies. They were hospi- tals and also hospices for poor wayfarers as well as being schools and universities for the higher classes. There, under protection of the Saint, who was regarded as perpetual regent of the monastery, mead and field tilled by monks, who had some idea of scientific agriculture, blossomed and brought forth abundantly ; there the arts of war and peace found a welcome and fostering care ; there the literary treasures of antiquity were preserved and multiplied. In the monasteries, also, an ecclesiastical style in architecture and in art began to be evolved giving special expres- sion to the Germanic spirit and the new requirements of its Christian development, within the framework of the traditional Eomanesque forms. In them, side by side with the dawning spiritual poetry, the old heroic epic found shelter and fostering care ; the Waltharilied was composed in Latin ; and the fast vanishing scanty remnants of the popular heroic 8o The Church in the Mirror of History. "ballads in early High German were preserved by the monks. Tlie sword of Charles Martel, who beat back the Arabs into Spain, saved the West from an inundation of Islam. The Carlovingian sword rescued the Pope from the Lombards, and thus the modern Koman Empire arose through the alliance of the Pope with the Prankish kings. The imperial crown with which Charlemagne was crowned at Eome in the year 800 was something totally different from that already worn ])y the Sovereign of the Pranks, the Alemanni, the Bavarians, and the Saxons. It was symbolic of his supremacy over the nations, whom he governed for the protection and propagation of Christianity, as leader in war and peace ; it was a counterpart to the Mohammedan Caliphate. Its claim to recognition was coextensive with the Church of the West. The lieroic age of the Germanic races ends with Charlemagne, wlio is the first lieroic figure seen by us in the clear light of history. Tlie favourite mediaeval legend of St. Christopher — who was determined to serve none but the miglitiest lord, and who sought some high emprise to whicli lie might dedicate himself in all his heroic strength — expresses, to my thinking, the vague impulse wliich swayed the Germanic races The Middle Ages. 8i in the times of barbarian invasions, in the days of the heroes. This emprise was found in the service of Christianity, as presented by the Church, in combina- tion with the civilisation transmitted from antiquity. Charlemagne was St. Christopher ; and the sword of the German monarchs of the Frankish and Saxon dynasties protected the Church's progressive career during two centuries and a half. The conversion of Scandinavia was undertaken by Carlovingian Germany. The military expeditions of the Saxon kings into Sclavonia had the Christianising of the frontier lands in view as well as the maintenance of political security. The missions of the monks followed the military expeditions (often preceded them like those of the Archbishop — Adalbert of Prague — in Prussia, and of Bishop Otto of Bamberg in Pomerania). The Sovereignty of the Ottos and of the Salic Franks secured Middle and Northern Germany for the all- conquering Church, and more than once rescued tlie Papacy out of the mire of moral degradation. Only at that period were there German popes. In their alliance with the most powerful rulers of tlie West the Piomish bishops gave up attempting to influence the Christianity of the East ; but, instead of tliat, 82 The Church in the Mirror of History. they were silently preparing to oust the German Empire, even from the secular supremacy. The first step towards this end was the creation of a legal hasis, which was effected by fabricating " The Donation of Constantine." This was probably done in the Carlovingian age, during the reign of Pepin. This document set forth that Constantine the Great had given the " Western Provinces " — what a wide word — to Sylvester, Bishop of Eome, for his own possession. The Prankish kings did not contest this deed of gift, but neither did they show any desire to make it valid. Another forgery, the most unblushing known to history, that of the 'pseudo - Isidorian Decretals, had greater immediate results. A Spanish collection of Catholic Church laws, called after Isidore, Bishop of Seville, made its first appearance in Prance in the ninth century. It was afterwards used by Pope Nicholas I. in a materially expanded form ; about one hundred letters of the earliest popes, a few writings of other leaders of the Church, and the acts of some synods (till then never heard of) were published in it. They were each and all forged, and, indeed, so clumsily forged that they could not have passed unchallenged but for the ignorance of that century. The immediate The Middle Ages. 83 aim of the promoters of the forgery was to secure the bishops against the influence of the archbishops and the temporal lords. In order to attain that end, however, the papal power had to be so enhanced that these decretals made out the Pope of Eome to be the sole and infallible head of the whole Church — the universal bishop. During the whole of the Middle Ages this collection passed for genuine. It constitutes the basis of the ecclesiastical — the canon law. As a matter of course, such forgeries could only be effective weapons in a determined hand, and such a hand grasped them in the eleventh century. It was monastic influence that succeeded in carry- ing out the Mediaeval Church ideal into actual fact. The resolution to seize the universal supremacy ripened in the ascetic mind. A reformation of the Benedictine Order had proceeded from the Bur- gundian Monastery of Clugny, with the ulterior design of thoroughly renovating the ranks of the seculiir clergy likewise. Hildebrand, chaplain of the anti-Bope, Gregory YL, was a monk there ; and he carried on the Cluniac Church reform during the years from 1049 to 1073, when he was leader of the papal polity for twenty- four years, as well as during his own pontificate of twelve years. 84 The Clmrch in the Mirror of History. As leader of the papal polity, he made vast, wary, and determined use of the confusions which had resulted in Germany from the death of the great Emperor Henry for the rendering of tlie papal throne independent of the German Empire. Afterwards, as Gregory VIII., he promulgated the new statutes of the canon law, by means of which he transformed the whole body of secular clergy into a species of mon- astic order, placing them under the central directorate of the Eoman Curia. His reform consisted in intro- ducing celibacy for the whole body of the clergy ; in prohibiting simony — the sale of spiritual offices — and the laic investiture, — the collation of Church dignities by the laity, — which he declared to be analogous with the sin of simony. He executed his schemes in every conceivable way, making use even of popular riots to serve his ends. He inflicted the extremest penalties of the Church on the refrac- tory nobles, and promoted a revolution of the princes against the imperial power in Germany. In consequence of the predominance of the feudal system, which made the hereditary liolders of tlie <'reat imperial principalities more and more inde- pendent, the German sovereigns depended materially upon the spiritual princes of the Empire, upon The Middle Ages. 85 whom, until this period, they had bestowed Church dignities, combined with extensive dynastic rights, without having this privilege called in question. The Pope's assumption of the right to withdraw this power of investiture from the crown was tanta- mount to a revolution in civic law ; but it was finally effected by subsequent popes, although only in a very mitigated form, and ratified by the Con- cordat of Worms, 1122. Still, the imperial power, which till then had been clothed with the glory of tlie headship of the Church, had found a rival, who drove it ruthlessly back into the ranks of the laity, and forced it to feel the overweening miglit of the Augustinian ideas, which demanded the sub- jugation of all mundane power to tlie spiritual authority of the Church. The pseudo-Isidorian law was an accomplished fact, amplified by the under- standing that all mundane authority required to be legalised by the spiritual powers. For this, Bernard of Clairvaux found the symbol of the two swords held by Peter, — the Church understood, — one of which was to be wielded by the secular arm, but only at the papal beck. Bernard of Clairvaux was tlie oracle of medi- seval Christendom. He was born of a noble Bur- S6 The Church in the Alirror of Histoiy. gundian family in the year 1091, and was dedicated by his pious mother to the service of God, which meant to the cloister. When he entered upon the monastic life he did not choose the powerful, rich community of Clugny, already secularised by its wealth, but that of Citeaux (Cistertium), which had been reformed after the strictest code of discipline. Among the Cistercians no decoration was allowed, even in the churches — not so much as towers. The crucifix was of wood ; the great candlestick, instead of being gold or silver, was iron ; the censers were iron or copper ; gold and silver were reserved solely for the communion chalice. The young noble, aged twenty-two, announced his arrival with thirty companions of his own age and rank (who had been won over by his influence) to the much surprised abbot of this unpopular monas- tery. Two years later, its cloisters could not con- tain the many aristocratic enthusiasts who sought admission to them, fired with the determination to renounce the w^orld, and to follow in tlie footsteps of the notable novice. A new monastery had to be founded. Bernard became its abbot. It was planted in a robber-haunted ravine, and was named Clairvaux — "the vale of light." Ere long, there The Middle Ages. 87 were thirteen Cistercian convents ; and before St. Bernard's death, there were no fewer than five hun- dred abbeys under the rule of the Superior of Citeaux, and his monks were reckoned by the thousand. Wherever a monastery is found amid sweet, silent woodlands and green vales in this region of ours, such as Erbach, in the Ehine valley ; Arnsburg, in Upper Hesse ; Maulbronn, Bebenhausen, or Lichten- thal, we may take for granted that it has been Cistercian.^ Whence this enthusiasm for the cloister ? we may ask. It sprang from the same source as every other genuinely religious movement — from anxiety for the soul's salvation. If the Church, consonantly with her doctrines and worship, could only tell the seeking soul that the more it separated itself from the world and from every earthly care and labour so much the more would it become capable of attaining everlasting salvation, those who were determined to sacrifice everything for this ideal would find utter breach with the world and entrance into a religious order the only sure way of gaining their end. Tliose ^ This remark applies to our own country also : witness the lovely sites of Fountains, Tintern, Kievaulx, ^lelrose, Xe^Ybattle, and Sweetheart Abbeys. — Tranalators Note. SS The CJmrcJi in the Mirror of History. who could not or would not go so far could at least purchase the intercession of the monks on their behalf by the expenditure of money. St. Bernard threw the radiant lioht of a glowin^ enthusiastic spirit around this life of utter renunciation, although he did not believe, nor encourage the belief, that eternal bliss was guaranteed by the white or grey habit of the Cistercian; for all the temptations and sins, peculiar to the monastic life, could not escape his psychological penetration. His earnest, yet mild, monastic discipline was masterly ; and he was also the creative poet of the system. From the solitudes, to which he often retired for secret soul communion with God and nature, he brought back the perfect flowers of his Latin hymns. ' ' Ah wounded head that Ijearest Such bitter shame and scorn " is simply a translation of one of his hymns. His exegetics and preaching were likewise masterly, whether addressed to the narrow circle of the cloistered brethren, to whom he communicated his most profound speculations, or to the great masses of the people. The key-notes given by him in those cloister sermons are still followed in all devotional literature. He it was who rendered the contemplation of mortality The Middle Ages, 89 and of the suffering Saviour the central point of devout meditation. He was one of the fathers of western mysticism, of that theory, according to which the soul, through the medium of prayer and devout medi- tation, can actually be united to God, and freed from the fetters of the flesh, as water returns to the ocean. But while the vision ineffable (which he was con- vinced had been granted to him on more than one occasion) was his supreme ideal of bliss, he yet declared it to be better to break off the most blissful ecstacies, if love for others demanded the sacrifice. The foretaste of heavenly blessedness in this life was for him, and for all mediaeval spirits, the highest good, but he was the first to find the soaring utterances to express its joys. The more closely any vocation attained that ideal so much the more was it esteemed. Those of laymen in the world, of princes and kings, of merchants and peasants, were considered lowest ; practical life within the pale of the Church, such as that of the secular clergy, ranked higher ; and the contemplative existence of the monk was the very highest. This world-weary mystic, nevertheless, exerted a very decided influence on political aftairs. At the time of a disputed pontifical election he obtained, by means of his persuasive eloquence, the 90 The Church m the Mirror of Histo7y. recognition of Pope Innocent II. by the sovereigns of France, England, and Germany ; he conducted that Pope to Italy, and finally re-established the unity of tlie Church after the death of the Antipope. During that journey he repeatedly proved the wondrous power of his personality. He reconciled princes who were at deadly enmity, he reduced rebellious towns to regretful penitence, and he was credited with the cure of multitudes of sick folk. The people would scarcely suffer him to leave a place where he had preached, and they fought over scraps torn from his habit that they might at least get possession of some benign relic — of something that had been worn by him. When Eugenius III., a Cistercian monk and one of his disciples, was afterwards elected to the Ponti- ficate, the people said, " Bernard is Pope." Eugenius liad to evacuate Home, where Arnold of Brescia, a follower of the sagacious thinker, Peter Abelard, demanded a reform of the clergy and curia which would have led to tlieir renunciation of w^orldly pos- sessions and powers, and which would have relegated them to their own sphere of spiritual work, and to apostolic poverty and humility. This was Bernard's own ideal life, but he opposed this insurrectionary The Middle Ages. 9 r movement because of its revolutionary tendencies, and because it offered the sovereignty of Eome to the secular power of the empire. He was thus the advocate of papal supremacy, but in one of his epistles to his disciple Eugenius, " On Meditation," he attempted to prove, from his own vast experience of men and things, that it was possible to combine the perfect sublimity of the ideal conception of the apostolic office with multifarious and dangerously secular concerns. It was, likewise, in the interest of liis Pope that Bernard advocated the second crusade. After arousing the enthusiasm of the chivalry of France, at Vezelay in Burgundy, he proceeded to Germany. The Germans, who did not understand his language, and only gathered his meaning through an interpreter, were captivated by the unassuming appear- ance of the man. There was such a glow of devotion in his countenance that many imagined they saw a halo of glory around him. But he had still Conrad III., a cool Swabian, to win over, and his first three attempts were fruitless ; but at last his powerful preaching, after High Mass in the Cathedral of Speyer, resulted in the Emperor being moved to tears, throw- ing himself down before the monk, and receiving from him the cross, sign of his acceptance of the chivalric 92 The CJmrch in the Mirror of History. pilgrimage to the Orient. It is well known that this crusade did not meet with the success which Bernard had foretold for it witli all the confidence of a prophet. The stamp of his spirit was likewise impressed on the most remarkable creation of the Middle Ages — the Spiritual Knightly Orders. He wrote the rules for the Templars, and several Spanish and Portuguese Orders of Knights subjected themselves to the rule of Citeaux. The noble passions of high - born chivalry were combined with the old monkish vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They were commissioned to wield the sword against the unbelievers, and, as knightly monks could not fail to take heaven by storm, either by prayers or prowess. But for the difference made by their oath of allegiance, which enjoined meekness and patience, the Military Orders might be considered a phenomenon akin to Islam, which they were created to confront, for they employed the sword in the service of the faith after the fashion of Islam. The vast domains acquired by those knights in the East have all vanished away ; only one acquisition remains intact, that of Prussia, made by the Teutonic knights, — die Brilder vom Deutschcn Hause. So the foundation stone of the Prussian monarchy was laid by one of the Military Orders, and it has The Middle Ages. 93 proved to be one of the strongest foundations in the German empire. The iron cross — the German soldier's liighest badge of honour — is the very black cross on a white field of the Teutonic knights. The whole mighty crusading movement — that pilgrimage of the chivalry of Europe, united under the leadership of the Normans, the descendants of the ancient Vikinirs, who, as last converted sons of the Church, were the Pope's most zealous servants — had been despoiled of all its conquests before Bernard had been dead a hundred years. The kingdom of Jerusalem and the Latin Empire of Constantinople had vanished ; the Saracens held Egypt and Palestine with a tight grip ; Venice alone had managed to secure some advantage for her Eastern commerce. P>ut these knights- errant had possessed themselves of another realm ; not on this earth did it lie, but in the fabulous regions of the far away, and yet, not so very far away, for it was the realm of romantic poetry. The old heroic ballad, rooted in heathen tradition, had been reduced to duml)ness in all the Christian nations. The Church had ousted it, and for centuries poetry in the Latin and in the vulgar tongue, too, had been left solely in the hands of the clergy. With 94 T^^^^ Church in the Mirroj" of History. the political power which devolved upon the knightly nobility under the feudal system, a particular develop- ment of culture arose in keeping with their manners and customs ; national so far as language went, but common to all nations in other respects. The laws and the code of honour of chivalry were the same in all regions as were its ideals and passions. France, where the chivalric ideal was first developed, was also the birthplace of the material and style of the new poetry. Northern France and Brittany were the homes of romance, — of the narratives of romantic adventures in glorification of chivalry and beauty, — such as the legends of Arthur and the Ptound Table, of the Holy Graal, and of Tristram and Isolt. Minstrelsy was born in Southern France, " in the vales of Provence," as Uhland says. In this poetic development tlie vulvar tongue awoke to the consciousness of its own power and musical beauty. Amidst the mingled strains which celebrated the one chivalric ideal in every land of Christendom and paid homage to the fairest of all ladies — the Queen of the Heavenly Court — the Virgin, audacious notes of mockery and of assault on the stately structure of the hierarchy were also to be heard. The Aliddle Ages. 95 This structure was practically perfect and complete when Innocent III. assumed the regency over the kingdom of the Two Sicilies — when the Crusaders had taken temporary possession of Constantinople ; when a Patriarch of the Eastern Church had been nominated in Eome ; when the kings of Arragon, Portugal, Hungary, and England received their crowns from the Pope in fief ; and when he placed the crown of the Eoman Empire on the head of a submissive Guelf. Then he could write to the Patriarch of Con- stantinople, not without a semblance of truth, " Christ has committed to St, Peter the dominion of the whole world in addition to that of the universal Church," That was just the time, however, which heresy chose for shaking the pillars of the Church in Southern France and in Northern Italy, the very countries which were most spiritually enlightened. The sanguinary crusade, promulgated against the Catharists, Albi- genses, and Waldenses, by order of Innocent in I*ro- vence, did certainly stifle the rebellion against the Church in blood, and the Inquisition, which was estab- lished as a permanent institution by that time, carried on the work of persecution, although the popular movement of the mendicant friars was a much more effectual antidote to the heretical tendency. g6 The CImrch in the Mirroi" of History, A legend tells how Pope Innocent once dreamt that the Lateran Church — the greatest in Eome at that time — was about to fall, when a man clothed in a beggar s gown came forward and propped it up with his back, and how the very man appeared before him on the following day, — Francis of Assist, — the founder of the Order of Minorites. That son of the Umbrian Highlands, child of a wealthy father and probably of a French mother, had been aroused like many another from a joyous, worldly youth, spent in sonc and tournament, to take the resolution to re- nounce the world. He had separated himself from his father and had lived as a hermit, as a beggar, as a scullion, as the nurse of lepers, until the true mean- ing of the Gospel story of Jesus sending forth His disciples on their preaching tour with the order, " Provide neither silver nor gold nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves," dawned on him and convinced him that his vocation was to set out after their example, and in utter poverty to preach repent- ance and peace to the whole world. For this truly evangelic life, followed in exact imitation of the poverty of Christ and His disciples, he gained re- cruits, who joined him in his wanderings, after selling The Middle Ages. 97 all their possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. Although they were only laymen, they preached the Gospel in the vulgar tongue as " Brethren of Penitence." Francis requested and received the oral authority of the Pope for this lay - preaching, which had been formally forbidden to the Waldenses. His society was not originally a religious order ; it only became so, at a later period, when its gradually developed organisation received official papal sanction as a special monastic order. The advent of the new prophets made a very deep impression in Italy. It was something to see people possessed of faith strong enough to enable them to commit themselves literally to the care of Him who feeds the fowls of the air. They kept nothing for themselves — neither house, nor roof, nor money, nor provisions. They lived on alms or by manual labour, as circumstances required ; they burdened no one ; they were always contented and even joyful. They did all the good they could, and in their sermons they required nothing save repentance from the people, and only insisted upon their being reconciled with each other, keeping the peace and exercising a spirit of love. This made the people feel that the Gospel had indeed come to life 98 The Chtcrch in the Mirror of History. again in the toiicliing primitive style of its first advent on earth. The results reaped by the founder of this mixed fraternity bordered on the miraculous. His speech, simple and unstudied, but glowing with the fire of a poetic imagination, and permeated by faith and child - like kindliness, attracted every one to him. His meekness and cheerfulness, his ability and activity, in spite of the fragility of his frame, over- came every difficulty. He undertook to preach the Gospel in Egypt, and even to the Saracens ; he sent forth his friars into every land ; and results, as suc- cessful as the first, were reproduced in every quarter. Vast numbers were incited to more holy living, and crowds of adherents from every class joined the friars and adopted their system of Gospel poverty. The constitution which Francis gave his society reckoned upon its dissemination throughout Christen- dom. A guardian presided over each settlement, an elected provincial minister — servant — over the chapter of each province, and a general minister, elected from the general chapter — often Francis himself — over the whole. It may be remarked, incidentally, that this was a sample of a representative republic, and mili- tary and civic dignitaries have since then borne The Middle Ages, 99 the titles invented by poor Francis — " General and Minister." It was a master-stroke of curial diplomacy to keep this order under its own control. The Minorites or Franciscans were placed under the immediate super- vision of the Holy See, they were obliged to vow personal obedience to the Pope, and were relieved by that from Episcopal supervision and jurisdiction. They were permitted to preach and to hear confessions everywhere, and thus they marched, like flying columns of the Papacy, into every region. The secret of their importance for the Church was this : In those mendicant friars that which had always been held by the Church to be the ideal of a truly evangelic and apostolic life was actually carried out in the very midst of the people among whom tlie Franciscans laboured, with the design of reforming the whole of Christendom, especially the laity. Meditation and revelling in ecstatic devotion were no longer put in the highest place, but the influence tliat could be exercised upon all classes of the community. This order appeared just at the time when the burglier or middle class was coming into existence, and it was the means of bringing it into touch with the Christian ideal. lOO The CJmrch in the Mirror of Histoiy. St. Bernard was the cultivated theologian, the acute thinker and the great politician, who exercised his chief influence over the higher classes ; hut St. Francis was the son and darling of the people — a troubadour of the love of (Jod and a knight of poverty. He had chosen poverty — the bride of Christ — for his lady, after the manner of the knights who dedicated them- selves to the service of one fair dame. The great master, Giotto, painted Poverty in the Cathedral of Assisi exactly according to the ideal which St. Francis had expressed in his fervid, symbolic style : A noble, grave woman, clothed in ragged raiment, stands amid thorns, barked at by a dog and stoned by a man, whilst she is being united in wedlock with Francis by Christ Himself. An extravagant veneration of poverty became the rage, scarcely conceivable by us common- sense people of the nineteenth century. What did this enthusiasm for a condition, by no means desirable in itself, signify ? It signified a practical faith, through whose influence men gave themselves up unreservedly, without will or care of their own, to the providence of God ; retaining neither choice nor care for themselves. It was the strongest proof of the independence of true religious peace and joy of all outward circumstances, and it The Middle A ores, loi ^t> manifested boundless sympathy with all who were poor or sick or needy. Thenceforth the monkish ideal of poverty marched all-conquering through the world, side by side with the chivalric ideal of honour ; and as the ideal of the people it gained predominance over the chivalric ideal. A female order, that of the Nuns of St. Clare, was attached to the Minorites, and besides that, during the excitement aroused by the preaching of penitence, societies were formed, first of all in Italy, but after- wards in other countries, whose members pledged themselves to live as quietly and temperately as possible, and to give themselves up to the exercise of benevolence and philanthropy, while retaining their worldly station and following their ordinary callings, without forsaking the wedded state or even giving up their wealth. These were the so-called third order of St. Francis, the Tertiaries ; St. Elizabeth of Marburg is the type of this life, devoted to deeds of penance and charity. The Tertiaries were ere long reckoned by tens of thousands in every country. Pier dell.\ ViGNE, Chancellor of the Emperor Frederick II., wrote thus : " There is scarcely one person to be found who is not connected with the lay orders of St. Francis or St. Dominic." The order of preaching friars, instituted I02 The Church in the Mirror of History. by the Spanish priest, Dominic, had also become a mendicant order after the Franciscan model, and those two orders divided the dominion of the Church between them. Only two years after his death Francis was canon- ised. When one of his brethren once asked him why (lod had committed so great a trust to him, he an- swered : " The eyes of God never looked upon a greater sinner on this earth than me ; therefore He chose me for His instrument to accomplish a wonderful work upon the earth, for God often chooses the foolishness of the world to put its wisdom to shame." The legend, which soon gained currency after the death of Francis, but which is not even referred to in the bull of canonisation, that Christ had impressed him with the stigmata on Mount Alverno, made him a perfect counterpart of Christ, in the opinion of his brethren and of the credulous people. The first Gothic church of Italy arose over his grave in Assisi. In other towns, where the afllux of the masses to the Minorites created the necessity, other great Franciscan churches were built. The churches of the mendicant friars liad a style of their own, and became the homes of a new art and monuments of the renaissance of national life, which had its source in The Middle Ages. 103 Franciscanism. The Franciscans gave the Church the grand Latin Stanzas of the Dies Irce, Stahat Mater, etc. ; they also produced religious poetry of incompar- able fervour in the Italian language. The poetic and devout meditation on special passages in the life of our Saviour, cultivated by St. Francis, probably gave rise to the first popular passion plays in the Church, and these again furnished material for the return of Italian art to nature, and to the animated portrayal of his- torical scenes, by means of which Giotto, the great leader of the artistic renaissance in Italy, broke through the fetters of the stiff Byzantian style. Giotto's renderings of the legends of St. Francis, and of scenes from the life of Christ in the Church of Assisi were the dawning rays of the incomparable historical painting of Italy. Germany had to thank Franciscanism for the awaken- ing of an independent religious spirit among the laity, as well as for the finest vernacular preaching of the Middle Ages, in which Friar Berthold of Eatisbon excelled all his compeers. At a later period, the Popes, in collusion with a powerful party within its own ranks, forced the Fran- ciscan Order into the acquisition of worldly property, rousing those who clung to the early primitive 1 04 The C/mrc/i in the Mirror of History. Franciscan veneration of poverty to a revolt which brought many of those enthusiasts to the stake. Through abundance of wealth, through the powerful influence which the friars had obtained as confessors of kings and princes and as the spiritual directors and good friends of the people, en masse, their institu- tion, like every similar association, very soon became demoralised. The complete working out of the scientific concep- tion of the universe which obtained in the Middle Ages — that is to say, of the scholastic and mystic theology — was directly related to the position which the mendicaut friars had attained. Both orders soon became rivals in the sphere of philosophy, although the Dominicans managed to retain sole possession of the theological faculty in the University of Paris. Their greatest philosopher, — the leading scholastic, — Thomas Aquinas, a disciple of the German Albekt THE Great, was professor there. Scholasticism worked up the materials transmitted by the Patristic theology into a unified system of God and the world. It conceived of the kingdoms of grace and of nature as a unity, and undertook to prove their connection to the reason. Proceeding from the proof for the being of a God, advanced by The Middle Ages, 105 Anselm of Ca^sTEKBURY, it went on to demonstrate the Divine creation of the universe, its mode of con- struction, and its various spheres and degrees of existence, the necessity for tlie incarnation of God, and for the redemption, for the mission of the Church, its hierarchy and its means of grace, and for the political and social orders. It proved the immortality of the soul, and its progressive purification or ever- lasting damnation ; and the logic of Aristotle was employed to bolster up this hierarchical conception of the universe. This complete mundane system, as conceived by faith, has been pictured in a most graphic style in the work of a poet, who wrote, as Uhland says, " in characters of fire, as the lightning writes upon the rocks," by Dante Alighieki, whose Divine Comedy is, to my thinking, the most perfect literary monu- ment of an entire cultural epoch. There we find the little earth, under it the Inferno, with the place of cleansing and purification in Purgatory towering over it, surrounded by the nine circles of the Heavenly Paradise. This work aimed at being much more than descriptive. When the poet described his visionary pilgrimage tlirough the three kingdoms of the unseen world, — Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, — he intended, io6 The Church in the Mirror of History. as a prophet, to call his age to repentance and reflec- tion, even as he himself had been called through the intervention of Divine grace, symbolised by Beatrice. No mere description can convey the faintest idea of the power of the poetic conception through whose medium the torments of the lost are portrayed with merciless vividness, and yet with a sublime sense of justice, nor of the presagefulness of the pilgrimage up the Hill of Cleansing towards the Earthly Paradise ; nor of the ascent into Heaven, up even to the abodes of the blessed, and to the vision of the Trinity. There, in the highest heaven, St. Bernard guides him to the presence of heaven's queen; there, from the lips of the greatest teacher of the Church, he hears the praise of St Francis celebrated — as a sun that had arisen over his fatherland. In Gothic art this ideal world of the Middle Ages found yet another embodiment, visible and tangible to all. As the language of the whole Church, its methods of thought, its legal standards and its forms of procedure were similar throughout Christian Europe ; so likewise did one architectural style — that of the pointed arch — become universally prevalent. One conception and one model or form were followed from Drontheim to Florence, from Dantzig to Paris The Middle Ages. 107 and Seville. The peculiar modifications found within the limits of this uniform architectural principle are to be attributed rather to the nature of the various materials employed than to any idiosyncrasies of national or popular taste. In the gigantic construction of its masses, by mathematically exact articulation of its parts, this style is a species of counterpart to the structure of the philosophical works of the period. It was no mere parallel, however, for it was in itself the artistic incarnation of the mediaeval era. It symbolised the Church, which, although constructed from earthly materials, enshrined a Divine mystery, and soared upwards into an ethereal region, even as the Gothic minster — the house of God — rose above the mingled masses of the crowded city's roofs and gables, as if built for eternity in its vast dimensions. The w^alls, with their curbs and buttresses, were like a irrand forest in stone, with its branches and lofty heads and interwoven stems, within which a whole world lived and moved, and from which the towers — but few — as if glorified and etherealised, soared up into the empyrean. Even the wide portals, with their rich adorning of saints and prophets, and their representa- tions of the last judgment, or of scenes from Christian io8 The Church in the Mirror of History. history, seemed to invite entrance to the paradise within. There was room for every grade of the people within the broad vaulted portico ; room, too, for processional services, and for pious pilgrimages from shrine to shrine. There was provision made for every case, and an ear for every prayer in the countless chapels, with saints waiting to help in every variety of need. The whole sacred story, in every form and phase, was painted, cut, carved and moulded on the altars, pillars, stained windows and ceilings ; on the choir stalls, too, and on the oro-an lofts ; and, in the midst of all this splendour, there was enthroned on the high altar, in every church, where He was daily raised again in the consecration, the invisible but ever- present Saviour — the Corpus Domini — the palpable pledge of peace with heaven and of life eternal. There every prayer was sure of being answered that was offered in the right way and accompanied by the proper offerings. There the priesthood reigned, — the keepers of heaven's gate, — even though they might not always be esteemed in the outer world. There the soul, full of longing for the life eternal, might imagine itself already within the heavenly home when the thunders of the organ pealed forth amid the golden The Middle Ages, 109 clouds of incensG, and when, on the days of high festival, a whole people united in the singing of heart- stirring: haruionies. The world became the dream and heaven the realised vision described by multitudes of devout souls, by none with more beauty and power than by Dante. Dante, himself a Tertiary, was also full of the ideal of evangelic poverty, he disapproved of the Church possessing worldly property, and of the Pope being entrusted with political supremacy. With the wrath of a prophet he broke his* rod over the statecraft of the Popes who had overthrown the imperial line of Hohenstaufen ; but, in spite of all that, he considered the Papacy a perfectly Divine ecclesiastical institution. He saw clearly enough, however, that the secular power also was ordained by God, and a portion of the everlasting harmony of the universe. In one allegory of his poem he pictures the awful fate of the Church of his age, in which the King- dom of Christ had been supplanted by the reign of iniquity, through the insatiable avarice of the Roman Curia. He looked for the salvation of the Church and of Italy from a fast approaching reformation, which would carry out the principles of evangelic poverty, 1 1 o The Church in the Mir7^or of History. and from the reappearance of a powerful Emperor. Dante believed that the independence of the State would ensue upon the acceptance of the dogma of poverty ; but while he was writing thus, Pope Boniface VIII. was anathematising this dogma of the secular power being independent of the spiritual, in his famous bull — " Unam Sanctam " — promulgated in the year 1302, and declaring it to be nothing short of Manichseism. This bull likewise proclaimed that every human being was made subject to the Pope for his soul's welfare. This w^as the old watch- word, but as battle-cry it aroused no responsive echoes. The Papal power, which had just succeeded in crushing the house of Hohenstaufen and its suprem- acy in Italy, fell utterly under the ascendency of the crown of Prance. It was forced to make its headquarters in Avignon, hedged in on every side by Prench rule. In the contest, which, at the beck of Prance, it was compelled to wage, by ban and inter- dict, against the (lerman King, Louis of Bavaria, the Pranciscau monks entered the lists of its opponents, and used the weapons of a brilliant scholasticism to fight the battle for the King's independence and against the Pope. This was afterwards ratified by the golden bull as a statute of the CJerman Empire. The Middle Ages. 1 1 1 At the same period, the Englisli Wycliffe was protesting against the reckless exercise of the papal right of nominating to spiritual offices as well as against the financial spoliation of England by the Curia and the corruption of the mendicant orders. He demanded reform for the Church, reform of its constitution, and a renewal of its efficacy among the laity. Like the Waldenses he appealed to the Gospel, from which he also deduced doubts con- cerning certain details in the doctrines of the Church. Although the seed of his teaching was choked in England, it sprang up afresh in Bohemia, where the Wycliffite Czeck, John Huss, in conjunc- tion with the germs of a national radical opposition, made similar demands. These were foiled, however, by the resistance of the aristocratic potentates of the Church, and by the diplomacy of the Emperor, who, becoming reconclied to the Church, took the work of reform into his own hand. The attempt to re-establish the Pontificate in Itome on an independent footing, ended in two popes — one Italian, the other French — struggling for the supremacy of Christendom. Each of them had cardinals of his own, eacli of tliem claimed full supremacy. Neither would yield. The unity of the 1 1 2 The Church in the Mirror of History. Church, for the sake of which war had been waged on heresy by the tribunals of the Inquisition and the autos da fe, was rent in sunder by tlie Popes. The hour had come when the Episcopate, which had been ground down into a mere vicariate of the Pope of Eome for five hundred years, could secure a position of power by allying itself with the newly-awakened national and political spirit. It achieved its purpose in the tlircc great Church Councils of Fisa, Constance, and Basle, where, during a whole generation, from 1409-1443, negotiations were carried on for the reform of the constitution of the Church. The tenet of the Council of Constance — " that the Pope is sub- ject to the Council " — did not long hold valid. The quondam secretary of the Council of Basle, — the wary humanist, Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini. — as Pope Pius IL, laid a ban upon any who should in future appeal to an (Ecumenical Council. The Papacy came off victorious, although it was by means of certain concessions granted to various sovereigns. In the year 1512 it was re-established in the fulness of its former power at the fifth Lateran Council of Pope Leo X., and all the complaints of the German nation against papal abuses died away on the winds. This Council, nevertheless, presided The Middle A^es. 1 1 ^3 over by the Medicean Pope, addressed a changed world. The Eastern Empire had vanished, Constanti- nople was in the hands of the Turks, and Islam menaced the peace of Europe. Besides that, in France, in Spain, in Portugal, and in England, am- bitious national monarchies were asserting them- selves, and the peninsula of Italy was the battle-field of the French and Spanish powers, which wei'e struggling for the mastery in Western Europe. Even the Popes wielded the sword to gain worldly dominions for their sons or kinsmen. In the far East and West the outlines of a new world were becom- ing visible. The enterprising Portuguese had already sailed around Africa, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and found the ocean way to India. The Genevese Columbus, provided with ships by Spain, had discovered a new India in the West. Another empire, an ancient intellectual sphere, had been rediscovered ; for the epoch of the discovery of the New World was that in which the eyes of the learned in every land were dazzled by the re- velation of antiquity. The Greeks, who had fled after the fall of Constantinople, had brought the knowledge of the early Grecian literature to Italy, where the traditions of antiquity had never quite 1 1 4 The CJmrch in the Mii-ror of History. disappeared, and where art had been led on from the study of nature to that of the antique. The newly - kindled zeal for the intelligent study of ancient learning spread thence throughout Europe. The learned classes of Christendom still formed a republic, the headquarters of which were Florence, Eome, and Basle, where dwelt Erasmus of Eotterdam — " that world's wonder." Scholars felt that they were now hearing the language of Cicero for the first time (although Latin had been the language of the Church for eleven hundred years), and they were intoxicated with joy when any antique statue was excavated from the ruins of Eome. It seemed as if a veil had been torn away which had covered their eyes and concealed the world. It was not the doctrine of the Church that had been guilty of drawing that veil, for it remained intact, although an insolent humanist here and there might proclaim a renascent heathenism ; it had been drawn by the ascetic sentiment of contempt for the world — by the dogma of renunciation. Even art, which had reached its acme through the study of the antique, in the hands of the great masters, — the brilliant constellation, Leonardo, Eaphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian need only be mentioned, — dealt The Middle Ages. 1 1 5 chiefly with religious material. Yes, following out the Augustinian conception of sublime beauty being a Divine attribute, art, humanly speaking, reached perfection, while embodying and symbolising the Divine with the utmost beauty of form. The easy joyousness with which those scholars and artists of the Eenaissance moved in a world, basking in the radiance of this newly-risen sun, led to their concerning themselves less and less about reform. The science of philological criticism had also ap- peared, and, in a work dedicated to a Pope, Lauren- Tius Valla had proved the donation of Constautine to be an imposture. Erasmus had issued a new, although it might not be the best Greek text of the New Testament, and scholars were beginning to read the Old Testament in the original. The concurrence of all this learned research, under the enlightened Pontificate of a patron of science and art fostered the idea of superseding tlie mediicval church by a catholicity of classic mould. The learning of antiquity, science and art, united under the fostering care of the Pope, — that is the idea to which liapliael gave expression in his paint- ings in the galleries and chambers of the Vatican, 1 1 6 The Church in the Mirror of History. and over which Michael Angelo raised the grandest dome in the world — the cupola of St. Peter's. The culture of the Renaissance was aristocratic ; but since the second period of the Middle Ages, the people — citizens and peasants — had attained to a consciousness of their own power, and that had led to national distinctions becoming more sharply defined. This incipient democratic tendency was not solely the result of such spiritual movements as the creation of the mendicant orders, but was in great measure brought about by an economical revolution, which created a people with cities, with commerce and with colonies, out of an agricultural people, by transforming the old methods of business — paying in kind — into a financial and credit system, first of all in Germany and afterwards in the other countries. Germany was the first colonial power which had possessions and factories in England and Denmark, in Sweden and in Eussia, as well as colonies in tlie territory of the Teutonic order and on the ]>altic Sea, extending as far as to the Gulf of Finland. It appears to have been tlie wealthiest country in Europe. The commercial highway from the Mediterranean passed through Augsburg, Niirn- berg, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Antwerp to the sea. The Middle Ages. 1 1 7 A prosperous, brilliant, richly coloured, joyous religious art sprang up along tliis highway, and was soon diffused in all directions. The same subjects were painted with endless variations and with an ever-increasing mastery of technique and more sharply - defined characteristics. This whole system of religious art arose on the basis of the insti- tutions which were being founded for the spiritual good of the community. The multiplication of schools and alms-houses, of hospitals and soul haths, of prayer-unions and of the sacramental confraternities, owed their origin to the same source. Certain great catastrophes and calamities, like the black death, had engendered an epidemic terror throughout Europe, and had called fortli phenomena like the pilgrimage of the Flagellants. The craving for closer religious union had been growing in intensity. It had led vast numbers into the secret conventicles of the heretical sects since the beginning of the thirteenth century, and it had also given rise to a multitude of religious associa- tions under the patronage of the Church, or at least of the clergy. Eeligious and lay, men of the world and of the cloister, devoted themselves to lives of mutual edification, adhering to the precepts of the Church, while holding themselves spiritually free. 1 1 8 The Church in the Mirror of History, They were, as a rule, grouped under some illustrious preacher, or members of some order. Such were "The Friends of God" on the Upper Khine, disciples, for the most part, of Master Eckhart, the great Dominican monk, and the first philosopher who wrote in German, or of his followers, Tauler and Suso ; such, also, were the Beguines and Beghards, who were scattered all over Germany at a later period. And these circles, which were thus closely identified with the community, watched the leading actions of the ecclesiastical government in the Euro- pean embarrassments and dissensions; and they criti- cised, in no friendly spirit, the broad papal policy, which, in times of interdict, could sacrifice the spiritual welfare of a whole nation to the over- weening insolence of the Pope. Even while they abhorred every form of heresy with a horror that had waxed in intensity since Middle Germany had been laid waste by the Hussites, they maintained that a much more radical reformation of the Church was requisite than what had been attempted by the Councils of Constance or Basle. They believed that a terrible reckoning was in store for the clergy, both high and low, and for every class in Christen- dom, besides, that had been unfaithful to its ideals. The Middle Ages. 1 1 9 This conviction may be said to have permeated Western Christendom since the thirteenth century, when the predictions of a Calabrian abbot, Joachim, had been diffused throughout the Church. They foretold a new age of the Church — the final dispensation, that of the Holy Ghost — the Johannine, in which the papal power would be overthrown by the imperial, and even that supreme imperial power would meet with due punishment. Finally, when all its ecclesiastical abuses were abolished, the restored, united Church, gathered from all Christian nations under faithful shepherds, and converting all Jews and unbelievers, was to advance towards the eternal Sabbath. Dreamers and enthusiasts, rebellious monks and thinkers opposed to the papal power, developed and elaborated these prophecies. The downfall of the Church was pictured in imagery taken from the Revelation of St. John ; and almost every one of the great popular prophets who appeared subsequently made use of one or other feature of those symbols of the coming awful judgment and of the latter glory of the Church, which w\as only to be attained through repentance and the renunciation of worldly honour. In Italy, Katherine of Sienna, the friend I20 The Church in the Mirror of History. of popes and republics, did so ; and Bridget of Sweden also, whose revelations received the ponti- fical approval in the fourteenth century. So like- wise, at the close of the fifteenth century, did Savonarola, the most celebrated prophet of Italy, the Dominican Prior, and the temporary political ruler of the republic of Florence which he had himself created. His prophecies led to his being burned as a heretic, at the instigation of the Pope ; and yet he was painted by Eaphael among the great theologians in the Vatican. In all those soothsayers, apart from what might be fantasy or imagination, or perhaps even real clairvoyance, there existed a deep instinctive feeling that the Church and the world were on the eve of a great revolution, in which the Papacy, before all other ecclesiastical institutions, and, after it, the whole body of the clergy and monks, would be visited with punishment for their sins. It was no abatement of the religious spirit, but rather its quickening, some- times to fever heat, that secured the space for this quiet criticism of the existing order granted to it, espe- cially in Germany, in the pamphlets and illustrated literature of the waning fifteenth century. All tliis was contemporaneous with the greatest industry in The Middle Ages. 1 2 1 the production of devotional books for the use of the laity, with a thirst for popular preaching, with the discovery of new shrines and pilgrim resorts, with zeal in the building of churches and the founding of institutions, even with incipient efforts at dissemin- ating the German translation of the printed Bible. This dissatisfaction with the existing order did not lead to doubt or to despair, but to the expectation of something that was to be no mere restoration of the discipline of a monkish order, but rather the readjust- ment of the whole world — in one word, the Reforma- tion. In the year 1495, the young Albrecht Diirer began his series of woodcuts illustrative of the Apo- calypse of St. John. The first of these portrayed the fall of tlie great city Babylon, as described in Bev. xviii. ; and he used the literal Borne of the period to represent Babylon. From the open heaven above, the armed Word of God rides down upon a white horse, followed by the heavenly hosts, to estab- lish the New Jerusalem. This vision was realised as literally as most pro- phetic dreams. IV. t^c (gteformatton. 123 IV. THE REFORMATION. A FTEK negotiations liad been carried on for five years at Osnabriick and Miinster, the West- plialian Peace, wliicli })ut an end to the Thirty Years' War, was concluded on the 24th of October, 1648. Torn, trampled upon, bleeding and impoverished, Germany lay prostrate. The mouths of all her rivers w^ere in the hands of foreigners ; she v^^as hemmed in by three great powers — Hapsburg, Sweden, and France ; and the Low Countries and Switzerland were severed from the Emi)ire ; but, notwitlistanding all that, the Catholic imperial ])ower had not at- tained the end for which it had drawn the sword from the scabbard a hundred years before — the restoration of the l*r()testant German States to the ancient Church. Germany had lost all else; that makes a nation great 125 126 The Church in the Mirror of History. — authority, power, honour, and wealth — but it had maintained the Keformation. The Lutheran lieforination had become supreme in Northern and Middle Germany, and in Wurtemberg. Besides some of the free cities in Upper Germany the Keformed Church only claimed the princes of the lihine valley territories, and the Brandenburgers as individuals. Protestantism had been violently eradi- cated in Austria, Styria, and Bohemia ; and Catholicism had held its own in Bavaria, in the domains of the spiritual electoral Princes of Rhineland, and in the other spiritual principalities. Other countries, where Protestantism had taken firm root, were gathered around Germany, — the cradle of the lieformation, — viz., Poland, Moravia, Hungary, and Transylvania. Lutheranism prevailed in the ])uchy of Prussia and in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; while the greater part of German and Eomansch Switzerland adhered to tlie Keformed Church, as did also the German Netherlands, and England and Scotland with their colonies in tlie new world, licformed Protestant- ism was still tolerated in France. The Germanic nations were to a large extent protestantised, while tlie Komance nations continued to be almost exclusively Catholic. The media3val unity of the world had been The Reformation, 1 2 7 rent in sunder, and Protestantism and Catholicism con- fronted each other as two distinct religions, while the power of the Crescent reached unchecked to the very walls of Vienna, and a still more radical readjustment of the affairs of Europe and of the world at large w^as about to be made. All that had been brought about by a religious revolution, and, if we trace it to its source, we shall find its germs in the struggles of conscience, and the resulting action of a German monk Like the greatest and most potent conceptions of the ]\Iiddle Ages the Eeformation was born in the cloistered cell. A mendicant monk — an Augustinian friar — had tor- tured himself with the question, " What must I do to be saved ? " He had turned his back on the world with no intention of ever seeing it again, his only desire hav- ing been to find peace with God, and die. But after he had found this answer to his question, " Your part is to do nothing but humbly to accept by faith the salvation freely bestowed by the mercy of God, and then to live like a faithful child of this gracious God," a new view of ecclesiastical and of secular things unfolded itself in his process of reasoning, which was intuitive rather than systematic. He had obtained 128 The Church in the Mirror of History. that answer from his study of the Scriptures. It is a mistake to look upon Luther as the discoverer of the Bible, for it had been widely disseminated before his day, even in a printed German translation, but he had found a key which opened its deepest mysteries, and that was his intense realisation of the unconditional mercy of God and of the absolute moral duty incum- bent on Christian men. In its religious aspect the lieformation of Luthek, like that of Zwingli, was based upon the strictest Augus- tinian tenets — on the belief in the absolute sovereignty of God over man. " Man is not independent of God, but owes an unqualified submission to (jod." That conception had lost its force by reason of the Church often putting its own ordinances in tlie place of God. The Reformation rectified the balance by declaring " that man existed wholly and solely for God ; " hence his moral obligation, hence also his moral freedom ; for the man who belongs altogether to God is by that very reason set free from every other claim on him than that of God ; and God's claim on him is simply moral duty, in the lofty sense in whicli the Gospel interprets it. " This right and duty are alike for all. There is no longer a privileged religious order, or ecclesiastical laws which can exempt from moral The Reformation. 129 obligations — in matters of duty and religion all men are equal." The results of Luther's long-continued conflict can now be summed up in such brief phrases. He had not had the faintest idea or desire of bringing his views into great publicity. He had expounded them to his students in Wittenberg from the professorial chair, and to his parishioners from the pulpit, and he liad only meant to serve the Church when he cited the abuses of the papal indulgence commissioners and the danger of certain theories of indulgence before the bar of an academical debate. The infatuation of his opponents, who were unable to discriminate between the voice of outraged con- science and the snarling of a pettifogging monk, first confirmed him in his opposition. The attempt to intimidate him by threats aroused his manly spirit, and brought him to the conviction that he had a cause to plead for the Church and for eternal truth. When the Church repelled him he was set free, and carried his supporters with him into that opposition from which a new Church system — a new development of religious culture — subsequently sprang. For Protest- antism and Catholicism do not differ as varieties of one and the same religion, but as two distinct religions, 130 The Church iji the Mirror of History. inasmuch as they define in diverse ways what is the basis of all religion — the relation of man to God and the duties depending upon that relation. Towards the close of the Middle Ages reform had been attempted on early Catholic lines by the great Church Councils, but in vain ; no other resource remained but that of return to primitive Christianity. And while all previous reforms had only aimed at constitutional reorganisation and had left the doctrinal system unassailed, or had only sought to improve it in detail, the doctrines of the Church and its very basis were made the subject of attack by the lieformers. The Gospel was brought forward as a different — as tli& true theology, in contradistinction to the mediaeval scholastics — the theology of the Councils — the juris- prudence of the Canon Law. Even in the Middle Ages the Gospel had been brought forward as a life-giving power, but then, as we have seen from the Franciscans, it was " the evan- gelic life," the imitation of Christ, that was striven after. The excommunicated Waldenses and Wycliffe had attempted a new method of circulating tlie l>ible among the people, but doubts had never been mooted of the Church's having and holding the truth ; the important question had been the bringing of its The Reforviation. 1 3 1 influence to bear aright on the people. But Luther carried the controversy with the collective authorities of CI lurch, Tope, scholastics, doctors, and monks to such a pass that he was forced to doubt the integrity of the Church, and the conviction — so terrible for a Catholic heart — was borne in upon him that its doc- trine was faultv. The agonies of soul torturincj him in the midst of his most valorous deeds, and ascribed by him to Satiinic agency, must have been connected with the question w^hich perpetually vexed him, " Can I be justified in entering into conflict with an ecclesiastical system which has lasted for a thousand years ? If so, how is it possible that God should have permitted His light to be so completely quenched within tlie Church ? " He strove to silence these voices that warred within him by appealing to the oath that he had taken as " Doctor in the Holy Scriptures." There he found a sure standing ground to retire ujx)!!. In the Holy Scriptures there was more than a mere " dogma," in the sense held by the Church and affirmed in its creeds. It contained the (iospel — a living, real, actual, all-sufficient revelation of Cod, an ever active Divine power, in lieu of the impotent rationalistic triflings and subtleties of the schoolmen. Tlir (Jospel became his theology, and 132 The Chiuxh in the Mirror of History. tliis theology was no system but an inspiration, the ardent breathings of a soul filled to overflowing witli the assurance of the grace of God, as manifested in -fesus Christ the Saviour. He knew that he was at one with the nniversal Church in his acknowledg- ment of the Divine and human natures of Christ, but he was perplexed tliat the Church had made almost no use of this acknowledgment. How could it have allowed the Saviour to be thrust into the background, behind His mother, beliind the sacrifice of the mass ; even behind the saints and all the sacred relics ? He saw that it was of vital importance that Christ should be found again and made known to men. Luther did not dwell exclusively on tlie details of the Saviour's life and the human traits of His person- ality, as the devout of the Middle Ages had done, and as every meclianically constructed religious system must do. In Jesus Christ lie laid hold of and realised the mercy of (Jod towards lost and ruined sinners; in Him the terrible jucb'cial wralli of Cod was appeased — the Divine message, " 1 will forgive," was uttered by ]Hs streaming blood. Vox tliese reasons the Gospel of St. John and the l^]])istles of St. Paul were in Luther's estimation the true Xew Testament inter- preters of the Saviour's mission. From tliis point of TJie Reformation. 133 view the whole Bible was transformed into a llowing river of Divine deeds and words and lively symbols, all conspiring to publish the one message in various ways. The Bible had been, at the best, a mine of texts proving certain verities for the previous theo- logical systems ; for Luther, it became again the one and all in theology. When he translated the Bible into German every distinction between the ages in which the revelation had been given and his own epoch vanished, and everything appeared to him in the light of the immediate contemporaneous present. That was tlie case with the other Protestant nations also, who soon had the Bible translated into their own languages — Swiss, German, Low German, Danish, Swedish, English, and Dutch. The Scriptures gave such direct testimony to their own inspiration by the Holy Spirit, that the Eeformers did not feel the necessity of seek- ing further proofs ; they required no doctrine of inspira- tion with all its issues, even respecting tlie transmission of the text of Scripture. A sense of gratitude that the light of primitive Christian doctrine had again arisen after centuries of Egyptian darkness was the motive power of tlie Reformation movement. That alone accounts for its 134 T^he CJmrch in the Mirror of History, uniting hearts instead of driving them asunder like a storm. The majority of those devout circles which had previously carried on the work of revival allied themselves with the new Gospel. Luther had sought peace with God in the peculiar sanctitude of the monastic life, but had not found it tliere. The error involved in that system and in all others which had been instituted by the Church, witliout Divine authority and regarded as conditions of surpassing merit, was next recognised. Men had been relieved from the most important and immediate moral duties that they might assume self-chosen duties which were considered more spiritual. The man who had out- rivalled all his compeers in monkish asceticism now declared these to be forced and unnatural vows, and maintained that the various domestic and social conditions ordained by God — marriage and the family, the offices of ruler and subject, every honest trade or profession, every ministry, from that of the prince to that of the servant who sweeps the room — were the true sacred orders of tlie Christian religion. One code of morals for the religious orders and another for the laity was to be endured no longer. The Eeformer had learned to regard tlie Church in a totally diflerent light, and he felt as if he were rediscovering it and The Reformation, 135 breaking its bonds. He found that what had formerly been supposed to be the Church — the pope, the hier- archy, the clerical and monastic orders, the canon law and ecclesiastical possessions — were not the real Church at all, but a worldly, despotic power, founded upon fraud and robbery, a violent and tyrannous reign of the popes, permitted in the anger of God for the chastisement of the Christian nations, a supremacy of Antichrist, a snare set for Christ's kingdom by the devil. What was left intact after subtraction of this utterly illegal and anti - Christian or, at least, not purely Christian constitution — the rites and ceremonies of the Church — might be retained or not as was found expedient. The Word and Sacrament of God, which had been preserved throughout the ages, under the name of the Church, although often obscured and concealed, were the Church's wellspring of life, indeed the very Church. Seeing that all the so - called ecclesiastical orders had succumbed to papal despotism, the reformation of the Christian State had to be confided to the secular authorities. Luther appealed to the princes of the Empire, and primarily to " that noble young hero " — tlie Emperor Charles — in his epistle addressed 1^6 The C/mrch in the Mirror of History. to "The Christian Nobility of the German Nation;" and an exalted conception of the free, divinely con- ferred moral dignity of the political magistracy was made the basis of the whole mundane theory of the ethical system of the Reformation. This new theory was only developed step by step. It differed from that of the Middle Ages chiefly in that having possessed a finished, flawless system of cogni- tions embracing the whole world, visible and invisible, connected by a rational logic, and warranted safe by the Church which had transmitted it. The mouth of the Church spoke, and its utterances were matters of faith, which the intellect of the Church was bound to accept ; in the Eeformation theory, faith confessed the truth of whose redeeming power it had personal experience. It did not accept mere tenets of cognition, but rather historical truths, divine facts, which were exalted above mere rational proof. In the old theory, the Church propounded a dogmatic system; while in the new, indi- vidual faith bowed submissively before a historical fact, made a certainty for it by its internal evidence. Luther's greatest achievements were accomplished almost unconsciously. He entered upon the indul- gence controversy without foreseeing how vastly it might develop, Init in the course of three years he had The Rcfonuation. 01 deduced all the consequences involved in it, and his three pamphlets, written in the year 1520 — " To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation on the Amendment of the Christian State," " On the Baby- lonish Captivity of the Church," " On the Freedom of Christian ]\Ien " — contain the negative and positive programme of the lieformation. An affirmation was set over against every negation. The assumption of the hierarchic, ecclesiastical system, even that of the Early Catholic Church constitution, being essential to salvation was denied ; and the re- establishment of the Church, and of political, social, communal and family life, upon their divinely appointed basis, was demanded — in short, a reformation of the Christian world. Luther declined the assistance of the sword of chivalry for his Eeformation enterprise, which had been offered by Franz von Sickingen and Hutten. Although supported by the publications of his adherents, and protected, to the utmost of his ability, by his own Electoral Prince in his own dominions, he stood practi- cally alone — he had no party. When the papal anathema of his doctrine and the sentence of excommunication reached him, he publicly burned the Bull, sealing his breach with the dominant Church by that act. 138 The Chitrch in the Mii'^^or of History. He fearlessly accepted the invitation to the Diet of Worms, and there he defended his cause humbly and firmly. From the hiding-place on the Wartburg, whither the Elector had conveyed him — an outlaw lying under the ban of the Empire — for security, he suddenly reappeared in Wittenberg to exorcise the ecclesiastical revolution that had broken out there. Our history has no parallel to such heroism save that of Frederick the Great when he was surrounded by three hostile forces all numerically superior to his own. In the strength of God, Luther bade defiance to the whole world. After the Diet of Worms the Eeformation became the dominating and fundamental question of the German commonwealth. Its destiny was affected by the relations of the Germanic Imperial States towards the Spanish policy of Charles Y. on the one hand, and by the conflicting interests of the secular and spiritual princes of the Empire on the other. Often enough its prospects were very dark — as, for instance, after the Diet of Worms in 1521, after that of Speyer in 1529, and after that of Augsburg in 1530. Sometimes, too, it seemed probable that the whole of Germany would side with the movement ; this was specially the case after the publication of the Ninety - five The Reformation. 139 Theses, and towards the close of the Thirty Years' War. The goal towards which all the restless elements of the community were eagerly striving loomed very vaguely in Luther's horizon, so far as its political and social aspects w^ere concerned. He was compelled to set his face against the radical revolution of the fanatics and peasants, in order to save the religious system which he had created ; and at a later period to express disapproval of the radical social reform attempted by the Anabaptists, which, even at that date, comprised the characteristic features of the pre- sent socialistic and communistic programme ; and for that he was stigmatised as a reactionary, even in his own day. Such is not my opinion of Luther. I am certain that he did not perceive the possible political bearing of his ideas, for he opposed every deduction from them, however logical it might be, that could prove detrimental to the positive and conservative religious constitution which he had built up, with the same fearlessness of animadversion from below witli which he had defied the wrath of Pope and Emperor. He was not the man to do anything for the sake of popularity, consequently his immediate work of reform was confined to the establishment of a new faith and an 140 The CJmrch in the Mii-ro}^ of History. order of Divine service. Neither he nor Melanchthon created a particular system of theology ; they merely set forth the leading conceptions of tlie new aspect of the doctrines of salvation, with Christ for their centre, and the Bible, in lieu of the Fathers, for their source. Only tlie rudiments of the new system, destined to supersede the mundane theory of the Middle Ages, can be found in the doctrinal teaching of the Eeformation. The greatest testimony to its value is the fact that it made a continuous development possible within the sphere of Christian religion, which left the essentials of religion intact. The meditcval theory of the uni- verse was exploded, but Christianity had been pre- served, proving that the point of view from which men regard the mysteries of the universe may alter without affectin^: religion. A great social revolution was involved in the closing of the monasteries and the establishing of parsonages with a married clergy. That led to a new and very fruitful element of culture being grafted into the Germanic commonwealth ; for, vi^hatever may occasion- ally be said against the pastors, it must be acknow- ledged that the pastor's wife has been an unqualified blessing. The Reformation. 141 The reversion of Church property in some measure into secular liands, the stoppage of some branches of ecclesiastical industries for wliich the demand had ceased, the end put to the founding of religious houses, and the very embittered struggle waged, with reckless roughness, between man and man over the most essen- tial principles of life, were naturally followed by detrimental consequences. The lamentations of the ]{eformers over the increasing rudeness and wildness of the people and the violence of the aristocracy must have had some foundation, and yet a new force of religious and moral earnestness had been then com- municated to the nation from which even the Catholic section derived some benefit. Its special organ was the Bible in the vernacular, which became tlien, for the first time, a household book among burghers and peasants. Moral progress manifested itself in the new system of poor relief. Poverty had been a necessity in the Middle Ages, for how could benevolence have been exercised with empty purses ? We have endeav- oured to understand the cult of poverty wlien it was venerated as a condition of truly Divine l)lessedness. The reformed doctrine looked u])oii wcaltli as a gift of Cod, but considered that the government, as Cod's 1 4 2 The Chii7^ch in the Mirror of History, executor, was bound to relieve poverty by a regular aid-system, and by training its victims to work, as the exercise of charity was a duty incumbent on tlie social community, now synonymous with the ecclesiastical. The educational system, the primary as well as the higher, took a prominent place among the communal and political concerns. The universities, which had been fostered by the Humanists before, had an ecclesi- astical stamp impressed upon them ; and many others were founded with an ecclesiastical aim, such as Mar- burg, Jena, Giessen, Herborn, and Duisburg ; for all the sciences, and languages too, were only esteemed as a means for paving the way for the Word of God. This led to a fresh cementing of the alliance between Christianity and antiquity, which thus became the basis of our civilisation as well as of that of the Middle Ages. Even though its primary purpose was polemical, the scientific study of history was fairly established, and the new Church arose on the founda- tions of the ancient Church. " The new Church ! " To found a new Church was what Luther had least of all desired, but circumstances had brought that about. Luther's idea was, that the Gospel which had created the Church at the first would re-establish it in its rightful place if TJie Reformation. 143 the unrighteous supremacy of tlie Pope were only abolished. During the whole era of the German Eeformation the confident hope was cherished that religious unity might he restored by an independent German national council. For this reason all ques- tions of Church constitution and order were left undecided by the Confession. But circumstances imperatively demanded some such arrangements as those made simultaneously in all the Evangelical States, after the Diet of Speyer in 1526, in which Hesse took the initiative, followed by Electoral Saxony, Prussia, Wlirtemberg, Pomerania, the Duchy of Saxony, the Palatinate, Brandenburg, and the whole of North Germany. What thus originated as a new ecclesiastical arrangement was a national ecclesiastical state, in virtue of its establishment by the political authorities. It was not looked upon as the organisation of a new Church. The Church was something spiritual and subjective in the opinion of the lie formers, the living power, whose formula was contained in their Confession of Faith. The various States held one Confession of Faith, which was subscribed by the different princes, who signed it as the representatives of their subjects. 144 '^^^^ CJmrch in the iMirror of History. This faith was the truth, acknowledged by the whole body of the people ; not merely by the official teachers — it had become the possession of all. That embodied the essential advance made on the early Catholic position. Every individual member of tlie Christian people was granted the right to partici- pate in all the gifts of the Holy Spirit ; a universal priesthood was recognised, beyond the ranks of the ordained teachers of the Church ; every man was allowed the riglit of immediate approach to God. If we consider the division of the adherents of the evangelical faith into Churches of the various States from this standpoint, w^e shall see that the arrangement had its advantages. It gave rise to numerous religious congregations in the various States (for there was no organisation of the congregations save in Hesse and in the principalities belonging to the Reformed Church), and the existing characteristic features of our German races were developed in these State congregations. Tlie foundation of that stubborn German particularism, whose ultimate source is reli- gious idiosyncrasy, was thus laid, and that has been an element of German strength, in spite of all its defects. The Confession was the bond of union between these congregations, and it reached far beyond the bound- The Reformation, 145 aries of Germany, to Scandinavia and Switzerland, and even to Hungary and Transylvania. About the beginning of the twentieth year of the Keformation, while it was advancing victoriously northwards, a schism took place in Germany, excited by controversy on the doctrine of the Sacrament, and not by any question relating to the ritual of the Holy Supper. If we consider that controversy now, we must wonder that there was only one such schism. There is really no stronger refutation of tlie Catholic assump- tion, that " as many creeds may be derived from the Bible as tlie number of its readers," than the fact that only those two were derived from it; and even that bisection was primarily due to individual, personal, political, social and territorial differences. Zwingli shared all Luther's fundamental ideas, and the dif- ferent views they held regarding the Sacrament may be accounted for by their respective idiosyncrasies. Luther found in it the pulsing heart of the living body of the Church, while Zwingli saw in it only one portion of the organism of Divine worship. A dif- ference of principle was only developed when Luther imagined, as he contended for his own conception of the Sacrament, that he was striving against Rationalism, T 46 The CJmrch in the Mir^^or of History. of which he unduly suspected his opponents. They, on the other hand, could not comprehend how Luther could lay the stress of his faith on the miracle-working word of power in his doctrine of the Sacrament. This gave rise to two distinct types of the German Eeforma- tion, the Lutheran predominating in the principali- ties and the Zwinglian in the urban republics. Like all men of genius, Luther was autocratic in disposition ; but he was monarchic in principle. He believed in a certain supernatural adaptation of princes and of magistrates for their vocation. Zwingli, on the contrary, was an aristocratic republican. He had grown up in a totally different school of political life ; and as he had contended against the abuses of the indulgence, independently of Luther, and had drawn his own weapons from the Holy Scriptures as well as he, so had his Eeformation been laid out on a different plan from the outset. Its de- sign was political as well as religious. He was anxious to make the Confederacy independent of foreign in- fluence, and to reform it politically ; and he entered upon his office at Zurich in that spirit. The change of religion was to bring about a change in the whole conduct of life. He attempted to carry out in his smaller sphere what Luther had only suggested The Refomiiation. 147 as a visionary claim of righteousness. Zvvingii was thus at once a political reformer and the moving spirit of an aristocratic republic, and therefore the political constitution formulated by him makes no distinction between the ecclesiastical and political spheres, and it may justly be styled a Theocracy, a government of God. Although he did not proclaim Christ King of Zurich, in the ecstatic manner of Savonarola, Christ was practically made King ; for His Word, revealed in the New Testament, was the special standard of judicial procedure followed by the authorities of Zuricli. This is the point of most profound divergence between the Lutheran and the Eeformed Churches. The former draws a distinction between the spiritual and secular spheres ; it looks upon the spiritual sphere in which faith reigns supreme as infinitely exalted above earth : Zwinglianism and Calvinism hold the same view in theory, but practically both spheres are amalgamated in their systems. Zwingli even made politics serviceable in religious matters; it had to be so, because, not merely the maintenance, but likewise the prosperous carrying- out of the Eeformation was a question of political existence for the little State which had gained, under Zwingli's administration, the spiritual leadership of the greater cantons of the Confederacy. In proportion 148 The Church in the Mirror of History. to the greater prudence and slowness with which Zvvingli carried out his proceedings was the result attained ; his reformation struck root more deeply and spread more widely. For Luther the Bible was simply the source of all Christian dogma, but for Zwingli it was likewise the norm of all Christian living. Politics were the cause of Zwingli's early death. Just after he had made out the long and perilous journey to Marburg, to attend the conference on reli- gion in 1529 (where he won the lieart of the Land- grave Philip, who advocated the cause of political Protestantism with like faith and courage), the conflict between the forest cantons, which clung to the ancient religion, and the reformed border cantons, resulted in embarrassments which could only be settled by a short and decisive war. That was deferred, and then entered upon by the surprisal of Zurich, when the flower of its citizens fell before the enemy. Zwingli, among others, died like a hero on the battle-field of Cappel in the year 1531. That war decided the confessional separation of Germanic Switzerland, even as to its ultimate range, so early as 1531, while Protestantism continued to make fresh conquests in Germany till the death of Luther. The Reforfnation. 149 When Luther died in 1546, just before the com- mencement of the religious war, he left, in his transla- tion of the Bible, the written language of High Ger- man as his legacy to the whole German people. Jacob Grimm has called it " the Protestant dialect." He bequeathed his doctrine to them also, and his example of invincible fortitude, which would submit to no compulsion in matters of faith. That example was splendidly followed after the inglorious war of Schmal- kald, where defeat was a foregone conclusion, owing to the want of a united policy among the Protestants, when the Interim, which the emperor attempted to force upon them, was resisted in an almost utterly defeated Germany, which yet stood true to its colours. At that time none were more indomitable in the faith than the clergy of Hesse. The diplomatic feat of the Elector Maurice of Saxony (of perfidious memory) compelling the Emperor to grant the treaty of Passau, brought about the religious peace, which led to the establishment of the system of Confessional States — the ecclesiastical government which still exists. Comparisons readily suggest themselves between Luther and Augustine, the Church father to whom he owed most, and who may therefore be regarded as one 150 The Church in the Mirror of History. of the fathers of the Eeformation, as Luther himself is a father of our modern age. They shared the fundamental religious assumption of the free grace of God being the one saving power for man, and the conviction that man's chief end is the glory of God. But while these views led Augustine to subject himself humbly to the Church — the servant of God — Luther soared aloft with an incomparable fervour of faith to the very heart of God. Faith was for him what it was for St. Paul, what it is in the words of our Saviour — that powxr which enables a man to throw himself into the arms of the Almighty God, with Whom all things are possible. It was a confident, stedfast trust reach- incf into the unseen; not the ineffable vision so eac^erlv longed for in the Middle Ages ; not ocular demonstra- tion, but rather moral certitude of Divine realities ; and since Luther's time this has been the religious ideal of Protestantism. Eeligious conviction, instead of tradi- tion, became the central idea of the Churcli. Along with all this, however, there was an indiffer- ence about political maters, a combination of supine- ness and of wrangling stubbornness, whicli hindered any great united action, even among the Lutherans, not to speak of a united Protestant policy ; and brought German Protestantism to the brink of ruin. The Reformation. 1 5 1 from which it was only rescued by GusTAVUS Adolphus. Lutheranism has not proclucecl any specially dis- tinguished princes and statesmen, save the Swedish king and his chancellor Oxenstjerna. Its strong point has been patient endurance. The energetic Landgraves of Hesse-Cassel and the Princes of the Palatinate and of Brandenburg belonged to the Pieformed Church. On the other hand, not a few of its princes were exemplary types of the patriarchal ruler. George, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, Christopher of Wur- temberg, Duke Ernest the Pious of Gotha, were all men who nnderstood the art of training and disciplin- ing their people and of fortifying their lands in times of either moral or political disturbance. The whole strength of Lutheranism can be better seen, therefore, in its spiritual productions, in which a subjective sense of the assurance and bliss of faith finds vivid utterance, as in the German hymns and devotional literature, and also in the exuberant wealth of church music developed from the hymns. Something of Luther's spirit may be found in Paul Gerhardt, with his mystic depth and childlike piety ; in Johann Sebastian P>ach, too, with his church music, taken, more than any otlier, from the words of Scripture, and 152 The Church in the Mirror of History. containiDg in itself a revelation of wondrous depth. What is this music, with its chaste, profound serious- ness, its troubles of conscience and its agonies of soul, with the confident joyousness of its trust in God, with its fervent devotion to the Person of the Saviour, with its noble melancholy and its childlike cheerfulness, but Luther born again in harmony ? The Fkench Calvin was a new element in the Eeformation movement. His work of disseminating the Gospel in the southern Eomance regions, for which he was peculiarly fi.tted, was stopped by the incipient counter Eeformation, but his creation, " the Protestant Eome " in Geneva, became the centre and headquarters of the struggling Protest- antism of Prance, of the Netherlands, and of Scotland and England. Without him the progress of the Eefor- mation would have been checked. Geneva became the heroic mother of the Huguenot Church, and aroused the peoples of the Netherlands and of Scotland and England to take the place which they were destined to occupy in the world's history. Calvin based his system out and out upon that of Luther. In the first edition, his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion was only a systematic elabora- tion of Luther's lesser catechism. It is evident from The Reformation. 153 it that the free grace of God in Clirist is the foundation stone of his dogmatic system, and not predestination, as is so often maintained. A new type of reformer appeared in Calvin. He organised the Eeformed Church for its struggle with the hostile powers; he constituted the Protestant polity, and he was the father of that blood-besprinkled French martyr church — the cross-bearer, 'par eminence, among her compeers. His policy and his church system were of the aristocratic republican type. Calvin was the first to organise the Church as a distinct association within the State, while in Luther's view it was simply one department of the State, governed by the sovereign and his theological advisers through the individual pastors. From the independent organism of the individual congregation, Calvin built up the Church general. The individual congregation was not autonomous ; it was the province in which the Word of God reigned supreme, as administered through the combined exe- cutive power of clergy and elders. This Word of God was not merely preached ; it was carried out practi- cally by a corresponding communal discipline. The Church became the disciplinarian of the State ; the position held by the clergy and elders was that of 154 The CJmrcJi in the Mi7^ror of History, the propliets of ancient Israel. Elected representa- tives of these congregational courts composed the higher directory of the Synod. This gave rise to the Presbyterial and Synodic Constitution — an inde- pendent counterpart of the Early Catholic ecclesias- tical constitution. Calvin was convinced that that was the constitution prescribed by the Bible, and consequently the only sound one, and an indispens- able agency for bringing the community under the discipline of God's Word. That, along with its dog- matic system, gives its peculiar stamp to Calvinism. Tt is the source of the energetic, practical and pain- fully conscientious type of piety which may be found, even at the present day, in the reformed churches of Scotland, England, and America. The national church system was retained by Calvinism, but beyond that it recognised a legally constituted general council, in which deputies from the various countries could be united in one synod, like the famous Dutch synod held at Dort in 1617. Calvin preserved the strictest union between Church and State, for the State of Geneva was influenced by religious motives in its political actions. It was a Theocracy. That little stronghold on the hill above the Ehone, with its handful of men and its .cfaunt, The Reformation. 1 5 5 earnest, distinguished pastor ruling over it and im- printing it with the stamp of his genius for a century and a half, is a spectacle unparalleled in history. For the countless fugitives who streamed thither, it was a New Jerusalem, like the city of God set upon a hill; it was the fortress of the Israel of God, which was fighting and suffering for the faith. Calvin himself viewed it in that lidit. Although he never felt perfectly at home in Switzerland, and never belied his French breeding, only some great pope or ecclesiastical prince could have been so thoroughly cosmopolitan in far-reaching thought as he was. The establishment of the kingdom of Christ in oppo- sition to that of Antichrist at Rome — an actual reiofu o of God over the Christian peoples of the world — with political freedom, moral discipline and universal peace, was his aim and hope ; while Luther only ex- pected such a reign of right in the world to come after the destruction of the present world, which he regarded as imminent. As preliminary condition of his scheme, Calvin required a Genevan Eepublic, freed from the tyranny of Savoy ; and for that end he became Master-General of Ordnance, Secretary of State, and Chief of Police 156 The Church in the Mirror of History. in Geneva. He was the prophet of the French Hugue- nots. They accepted the Genevan Creed, were organ- ised after its principles, and preserved its indomitable spirit during the Thirty Years' War. Intolerant despotism had compelled the Huguenot nobility to grasp the sword, and they used it for the maintenance of a position which made the Huguenot Church a State within the State. Theirs was a struggle of the nobility against absolute monarchy and for the preservation of the most sacred rights of conscience. The typical heroes of Calvinism shine pre-eminent in that struggle — the devout, brave, re- sourceful Admiral Coligny, the martyr of St. Barth- olomew, and Du Plessis Mornay, the most chivalrous figure of the Eeformation century, the theological states- man, and the incorruptible, honourable, private counsellor of Henry IV. before he ascended the throne of France. Even when Henry, the darling of the Huguenots, thought Paris " worth a mass," and abjured his faith for a second time, the party that had conduced to his triumph hold fast to its rights with unflinching firm- ness, and the France of Henry IV. granted practical toleration of creed, the first case of the kind occur- ring in a country still predominantly Catholic. The Huguenots had full political liberty conferred on them. The Reformation, 1 5 7 and although tlieir freedom of worship was circum- scribed they enjoyed perfect religious liberty. Al- though Luther certainly approved of that, Lutheranism had not afforded it. In adding to those heroic names, that of Agrippa d'Aubigne, the leader of the poetic school of the Huguenots, and one of the most influential authors of his day, whose powerful pathos stimulated the great poets of the golden age of French literature, I would simply point in passing to the notable share that austere and sublime Calvinism had in the most brilliant development of French genius. The heroic struggle of the Teutonic Netherlands for their political and religious liberation from Spanish despotism had a still more successful issue. There is a certain compensation for the inglorious defeat of the German Protestants by Spanish mercenaries in the fact that this struggle was carried on under the leader- ship of the greatest German prince of the Eeformation century, William of Orange, born at Dillenburg, — a scion of the Protestant family of Nassau- Orange and a noble and heroic man, who showed himself even greater in defeat than in victory. A powerful mari- time Protestant Eepublic was established on the estu- aries of the Pihine ; and while Germany was tearing 158 The CImrch in the Mirror of History. itself to shreds in the great wars, realism in art and in thought was developing in the Netherlands on the basis of Calvinism, and under the influence of genuine individual religious liberty and perfect freedom of scientific inquiry. This open eye for the actual and the present has been an element of incalculable value in the Protest- ant system of thought, although it is neither its first nor last manifestation. In the year 1648 that branch of the empire was declared independent, just at the period when the last war waged for the Reformation was reaching its climax in England. In England's " great Eevolution " the subjects of controversy were — the privileges of the Parliament versus those of the Crown, and perfect religious free- dom versus Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. In the year 1648 King Charles I. was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary army, under command of the great Independent General, Oliver Cromwell. He had organised and disciplined that army, and had led it on from victory to victory by the might of his genius. The Independents were the inspired men of that age. They were Calvinistic in principle, but they abjured the ecclesiastical constitution of Presby- The Reformation. 159 terianism. They demaDded perfect independence for every congregation, great or small. They saw no necessity for an ecclesiastical function, as every one who would submit himself to the teaching of the Bible might learn from it, by the Spirit's help, all that was needful for him. They were, if one may express it so, English Lutherans, in a more enthusiastic guise. They decided the destiny of England. It is true that neither the political nor religious ideal of the Independents, which were swallowed up in the socialistic and millenarian fanaticisms of their offshoots, were permanently realised ; but Cromwell, through his potent personality, put an end to the Civil War. He established peace and order in revolted Ireland, he maintained the Union with Scotland, and ensured the maritime supremacy of England, besides being the protector of Protestanism throughout the world. The simple country gentleman became the greatest field-marshal and statesman of his nation ; and invincible faith lay at the root of all his successes. Since the publication of his most private papers it has been evident to what a large extent his political greatness was dependent on his religious enthusiasm. Cromwell had the courage of faith. He took upon i6o The Church in the Mirror of History. himself the prodigious responsibility of carrying out, Avith iron hand, the issues of a Ee volution which was direfully complicated and embittered by the perfidies of the King, and by the strife of parties in the opposi- tion camp — even to the point of the judicial arraign- ment and execution of King Charles. He then suppressed every Stuart conspiracy, and re-established and maintained peace, order, security, and civil and religious liberty for all peaceful subjects, under the solemn conviction that he bore God's com- mission for that end. His policy was based throughout on the conviction that the duty of a Christian government is to guard the rights and liberties of the redeemed people of Christ. As Protector of England, he conducted the government in the King's stead, confiding in the God- given strength which true, earnest religion had infused into his people. He did not abolish the Church Con- stitution of Presbyterianism, although it was not in accordance with his own convictions, and he opposed all constraint of conscience, satisfied with having secured liberty for his own people. Thomas Carlyle, who was the first to rediscover this man, says of him : " Wliere is there another like him, carrying on the business of the world with a The Refonnation, i6i heart filled with the Idea of the Most High. Like the eternal forces, which nothing can withstand, he strides across the battle-field of time." We thus find, at the close of the Eeformation movement — certainly only for a historical moment — a return to the primitive state of Christianity. We see a nation confident that it is the Peoiole of God, and therefore bound to live in brotherly unity wdth all the redeemed, and to extend the Kingdom of Christ upon earth ; a people who need no specific Church organisation or functions, because they are all taught of God. It was the reign of inspiration, if but for a brief moment, and that moment was the greatest and the most fundamental in the history of England's evolution. The Stuart reaction could not blot out the traces of this epoch, despotically as it carried itself towards the Puritans. When William of Orange gained the supremacy of England with such ease, it was under the spell of these words, which he caused to be inscribed on the banner of England, " For the Protestant Religion and England's Liberty." With this incident of the year 1688 the history of the Ptcformation closes. England had been the pre- dominating Protestant power for a hundred years, and 1 62 The Church in the Mirror of History. the Puritan faith persecuted there, in its native land, had laid in North America the foundations of the great Eepublic, which (not actuated by any indif- ference, but rather stimulated by an impulse of faith) has taken the initiative in carrying out the principle of perfect religious liberty and the entire independence of the Church from the State. The Eeformation did not contend for liberty in the first instance, but for truth. Her heroes met death in the cause of truth. They strove for liberty only for the sake of truth, for freedom is only valuable, is only a good — the highest good — in alliance with truth ; truth of which men are convinced, and with which they are permeated. And the sublimest truth is found in faith — in that assurance which unites the soul with God, which draws mortal man with the forces of Eternity. To advance religion as the dominating and motive power of a new period of history — the most prolific in areat men and in world-stirrino- events — was the mission of the Eeformation. V. Z^c Countet^(Refotmcitton. V. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. TTN my endeavour to convey a general idea of the -*- progress of Christianity in the world, by a series of studies, too great a gap would be left in addition to the many lesser ones, which are unavoid- able, if a brief outline of the Catholic Keformation did not follow the sketch of the Protestant movement. It has been called the Counter- Reformation, from its having originated in great measure as a counterpoise to the Protestant Keformation. The great nations of Europe have, each in their turn, contributed their quota to religious and ecclesiastical ideas. France and Italy led the van in the Middle Ages, Germany and England in the Reformation era, and Spain became the birth-place of the Counter- lieformatioii. Two movements originated there, one of which aimed at the reform of Catlwlicisiu, and 165 1 66 The Church in the Mirror of History. the otlier at the restoration of tlie full power of the Papacy. Both were prosecuted during the reign of the Spanish King, Charles V., who, in his capacity of German emperor, materially checked the spread of the lieformation throughout Germany. In Spain, the Hapsburg dynasty revived Charlemagne's dream of founding a universal empire. It was to be under the supremacy of Castille and Arragon, in whose domains the Catholic Church reigned from the rising to the setting sun. At the close of the fifteenth century, the Confessor of the great Queen Isabella — Cardinal XlMENES — a Franciscan monk, was looked upon as the lieformer of the Spanish Church, in the sense in which the religiously zealous and ascetic prelates, who were hostile to the encroachments of the Papacy, desired reform. Eeformers, in that sense, were to be found in every country, and the Abbot Staupitz, well known from his connection with Luther's history, is a typical example of that school. Every fibre of chivalry in the Spanish people was strained and quivering from the struggle waged by tliem nine hundred years long with the Crescent. No great time had elapsed since the last of the Moors had been driven out of Granada; and the spirit of the nation, which was permeated by the most The Counter- Reformation. 167 highly strung sense of honour with a tendency to extrava- gant fantasy and religious enthusiasm, kept the aristo- cratic crusading sentiments of the Middle Ages longer alive in Spain than in any other land. The almost fabul- ous political events of the closing years of the fifteentli and the opening years of the sixteenth centuries, in whicli a new India had been discovered in the West, and vast treasures had been seized by a mere handful of soldiers in Mexico and Peru, lent impetus to a faith to which nothing appeared impossible. The Spanish Church was reformed in the spirit of a religious-believing but thoroughly national and patriotic Catholicism. While the Churches of all the other countries had been compelled to relinquish to the papal power that right of reservation which they had acquired in the great councils, that of Spain had succeeded in maintaining and multiplying hers. The nomination to spiritual offices was in the hands of the ruling powders, Spaniards alone were eligible for the higher ecclesiastical dignities. Pontifical mandates were sub- jected to the royal approval, and the financial spoiling of the country by the Curia was made impossible by restrictive law^s. Even the crusade tax, imposed by the Church, flowed into tlie coffei'S of the State. The Inquisition was a department of tlie State. The i68 The Church ifi the Mirror of History. monasteries were reformed aud pains were bestowed upon the higher culture of the clergy. New universi- ties were founded, and an alliance was made between the Augustinians, the Thomists, and the Humanists. Ximenes himself published a new letterpress edition of the Bible in the originals, with the old versions and expositions {the Complutensian Polyglot). In one word, such a reformation was effected as every prelate at the Council of Basle had desired to see carried out in his own country. Eespect was paid to the Pope, as spiritual head of the Catholic Church, but in his capacity of Italian sovereign he was no more to the King of Spain than any other European monarch — simply a pawn on the political chess-board, to be used as his caprices and calculations required. German and Spanish troops stormed and sacked Eome in the year 1527. This Spanish Catholic Eeformation was represented on the pontifical throne in the person of Adrian VI. — a Netherlander. He had been the tutor of Charles V., and he was elected from a Spanish bishopric, in 1552, as the successor of Leo X., in spite of the opposing Medicean vote. Although the result was not great lie immediately began to pursue those measures for the reform of the pontifical court which had been demanded The Co2inter-Reforiuatio7i. 169 by Luther. Even after his death, which came all too soon, the spirit of earnest piety — with the Bible for its standard — remained as a living power in the best section of the higher clergy of Italy. In Eome, Venice, Florence and Naples, there were numerous circles — both lay and clerical — interested in the revival of religion who answered the questions that had been raised by Luther in the spirit of his teaching. These were questions of paramount importance to mankind, such as this : " Is the reconciliation of man to God the result of free grace or of personal merit ? " Michael Angelo composed sonnets in which the doctrine of justi- fication by faith is plainly acknowledged, and Italy w^as deluged w^ith tracts promulgating Bible doctrines in the form in which Luther had issued them before assuming his definite position of Eeformer — that is to say, without deducing from them any consequences perilous to the constitution of the Church. A papal legate — the Venetian Contarini — could con- scientiously state his approval of the Eeformer's doctrine of justification by faith, at the Conference on religion which was held at liatisbon in 1541. The hierarchy, even, began to purge themselves from their most crying iniquities, and, since the middle of the sixteenth century, zealous ecclesiastics of irreproachable 1 70 The Church in the Mi7'ror of History. morals have filled St. Peter's chair, and the abuses agaiust which Luther contended, with the moral indig- nation of an honest Christian man, have never again ventured to brave the light of day. The Emperor was anxious to direct this revival movement into the channel of a conference in council, whose ultimatums should be binding upon the Pope ; and this long promised council was convened at Trent in the year 1545. During the three periods of its conferences, extending over eighteen years in all, Catholic dogma was formulated, under the ever-waxing influence of the papal legates, in the manner in which it is still preserved, so that the present phase of Catholicism is really of a later date than the Evan- gelical doctrinal system, having been promulgated expressly as a counterpoise to it. The mundane theory of the Middle Ages was retained, but it was presented in a new aspect, dictated by the adversary. This system was not the achievement of one or more skilful tliinkers, nor even the utterance of a popular movement, but the laboured work of a diplo- matic compromise — a work of necessity and prudence, inspired by dread of Protestantism. Even so, the decisions of the Council were not accepted by France and Spain, the most zealous of The Counter- Reformation. 171 Catholic States, because the ruling powers deemed them perilous to their own authority in their national Churches. In the Council much plain speaking was adminis- tered by zealous brethren to the assembled fathers. The monstrous declension of the Church, the secular- isation of the whole body of the clergy, the greed of the Curia, the ignorance, laziness and lewdness of the secular clergy, the corruption of the monks — in short, of the official Church — being laid by them at the Church's own door. One member was specially solicitous for the due training of an able priesthood in the path of reform which had been already entered upon in Spain. After this there followed a remark- able revival of monasticism in Italy. This reformed monasticism was of an essentially different character from the primitive type ; it had special aims in view. Primitive monasticism had been an end in itself, a realistic demonstration of the ideal Christian life, while the modern type aimed at the education of the clergy and dedicated its powers to home and foreign missions, to the conversion of heretics and to works of charity. Many of these orders were simply communities of priests, for the special representatives of the clerical 172 The Church in the Mir7'or of History, office had to be decked out with the virtues of monas- ticism ; and thus the previous distinction between priest and monk began to vanish — the monk, to a certain extent, being merely ultra - priestly and no longer representing a special order collateral with the priesthood. The orders of nuns, which were formed with the same designs, also acquired a very different standing from their predecessors. The Sisters of Mercy may be taken as a typical instance. They were created by the French Vincent de Paul on a perfectly new system. They were to go about freely, acting as missionaries in labours of love for the sick. St. Vincent gives this graphic description of his creation: "Their chamber is their cell, the parish church is their chapel, the streets of the town and the hospitals are their convents, obedience is their cloister, the fear of God is their girdle, and holy chastity is their veil." The fountainhead of what we call home mission 'work, the energetic Christian philanthropy which goes out to seek those who have lapsed from the Church and from Christianity, is therefore to be found in those Catholic societies. Only, according to the Catholic view, those lapsed and lost comprise heretics as well as the irreligious and the morally de- The Counter- Reformation. i ^i^^ praved. This has led the very greatest men of this reformed Catholicism, whose purity of soul, devotion and charity, we cordially acknowledge — a Carlo Borromeo, a Francis de Sales, and a Fenolon — to treat people, steadfastly settled in the healthy life of the evangelical faith, with the same restoratives that might be applied to perishing souls — a procedure necessarily offensive to Protestants. Orders were also founded with scientific aims, specially for research in the department of Church History. The most important of these was the Bene- dictine community in the Convent of St. Maur, near Paris, called the Maurites. They were the origin- ators of the scientific study of documents and of chronology, and they have been pioneers in essentially useful departments of historical criticism. The restoration of those who had become estranged from the Church was not to be effected, however, solely by spiritual agencies, where, as in Italy, a powerful cultured class was not merely indifferent to the Church, but had actually assumed an attitude of defiance towards it. The Inquisition had to be brouglit forward as an ally. It was, as is well-known, a particular form of ecclesiastical procedure, introduced by Innocent III. 1 74 The C/mrch in the Mirror of History, for the hunting out of heretics. Cardinal Caraffa, one of the most zealous Catholic reformers, counselled its re-adoption at a sitting of the Curia, and its notorious judicial crusade ensued, resulting in the eradication of every vestige of the spirit of the evangelical reforma- tion from Italy within the space of a few decades. The assistance of the secular arm was depended upon for its effective working, and this was readily lent in the Papal States, in Spanish Naples, in Venice, and in the lesser principalities. The far - reaching plenary powers of the Inquisition made it possible to seize people of the highest rank ; so in cultured Italy, where an often unbridled licence of thought and speech had prevailed at the beginning of the century, a truly slavish fear of transgressing against the pre- cepts of the Church predominated towards its close. The index of forbidden books, published by Caraffa in 1559, inflicted the same summary treatment on books as the Inquisition did on life and limb. It has been remarked that even the free creations of poetry suc- cumbed to this influence, and that a Torquato Tasso, even, became gradually more timid and narrower and more fanatical. That growing narrowness may, how- ever, be ascribed still more to the influence of Spanish models; for Spain superseded Italy as the representative The Cotinter-Refoiination, 175 of Catholic culture about the close of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth centuries. The three great Spanish poets of that age, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon, need only be particul- arised. Their superabundant creative power and their joy in production point to a correspondingly great intellectual demand on the part of a people whose national life was moved and stimulated to the utter- most by grand ideas. All three began life as soldiers, and served with distinction — Cervantes against the Turks and Corsairs, Lope in the Spanish Armada, and Calderon in the Netherlands. They could occasionally refer to Lutherans in respectful terms, but they con- sidered separation from the one strong rock of the Church to be the height of madness, especially when a public life full of passion and verve, and all aglow with the brilliant hues of southern enthusiasm was seething around it. Cervantes became a Franciscan monk in his later years, while Lope and Calderon entered the priesthood. Their passionate, ardent aban- donment to the joy of life, with its affairs of love and lionour, its varied adventures, its perils and disillusions its proud national glory, and its outlook on wondrous zones ended in their turning with the same intense devotion to the contemplation of the life beyond. 176 The Church in the Mirror of History. The same extremes meet in the great Spanish painters. Simple realism and an extremely acute ap- prehension of fact in their portraits and genre pictures come into contrast with the magnificent chiaroscuro of their renderings of enthusiastic, ecstatic emotions and heavenly visions. Murillo, the greatest among them, was master of both styles. The life of the arch little beggars, as happy as kings in their rags, is reproduced by him with the same elemental power which conceived his Ascension of the Virgin. Ignatius Loyola, by whom Catholicism was estab- lished on its modern basis of unlimited papal supre- macy, was a product of this rich and profound national spirit, which exerted its full power for the preservation of mediaeval Catholicism. He planned the crusade of the Catholic Church for the recovery of the spiritual and temporal domains lost to heresy, and his Society — his " Company " of Jesus, as it has been aptly called, the Order of Jesuits — marched in the van of that crusading army into which ho had endeavoured to mould the Church militant. In order to annihilate Protestantism he adopted, as far as was possible, the means and motives that had been set in motion by Protestantism. The Order of The Counter- Reformation. 177 Jesuits was not a reconstruction but a new creation, in which a changed condition of the Church was reflected, as in a mirror. Ignatius had vaguely recognised that Protestantism was the strength and source of a new era of civilisa- tion, and he was resolved that his institution, also, should become influential in the department of culture. He perceived that the spirit of private judgment and of individual faith was the backbone of the Eeforma- tion, and he determined to exorcise that spirit by evoking its antidote through a system of careful training. It had been clearly shown what a strong weapon learning was in the hands of the Protestants, so he determined to meet that with learning in another aspect. Ignatius is no longer a problem or monster to us. Protestant research has taught us to recognise what is peculiarly great and estimable even in his character. As wounded officer, he lay on his sick-bed, revelling in chivalrous romances and in legends of the saints, till the conviction was forced upon him — bitterly dis- appointing to his ardent ambition — that his incurably stiff leg meant ruin to his hopes of preferment as soldier and courtier. Then he determined to become M 178 The Church in the Mirroi" of History. what St. Francis and St. Dominic had been. Like another Don Quixote he hung up his arms at Monser- rat and dedicated his life to the Blessed Virgin. He attained to full and clear knowledge of his own heart through sore discipline and inward struggles in the Dominican Convent at Manresa, and finally became assured of his own salvation. He forthwith deter- mined to make the path of terror and remorse and dread of hell, by which he had been led to assurance of his heavenly election, into a rule of spiritual direction for all who should long for the same assur- ance. That was the origin of his Spiritual Exercises — his system for ensuring complete mastery over the will and for making it the devoted servant of Christ, or rather of the spiritual director, as His earthly representative. This result was to be obtained by a systematic soul-training continued for weeks, under the superintendence of an experienced spiritual drill- master. While Luther brought the gift of liberty to Christians out of the depths of his soul agonies, directing seeking souls thenceforth to the well-spring of grace in Holy Scripture wherein they might wash and be clean, Ignatius brought from his the dogma of subjection of The Counter- Reformation. 179 the will to a ghostly superior. The end of this sub- jection was the service of God and the Church — or, of God in the Church ; for the Church was infallible in his eyes. He did not conceive of its teachings as a dogmatic system, but rather as a series of representa- tions — actual pictures. A striking antithesis to Luther, who had also per- sonally experienced the terrors of conscience and of judgment. Tlie realisation of the Saviour of God, speaking pardon by His Word, had brought comfort to Luther ; whereas, Ignatius found it in the contem- plation of Christ's life on earth. Truth had to present itself to Him through vision ; imagination was his organ of faith. This was the method by which lie brought home to himself the realities of hell and heaven, of Christ's life and death, and of the past and future of the Church ; and this carefully regulated and disciplined conduct of the imagination communicated tenacious and unbending force to his will. He became a begging hermit — but instead of adopting the usual filthy garments, he dressed with scrupulous neatness. He made a pilgrim- age to Jerusalem and beheld all the holy places with enthusiasm ; and then, the mature man, began tlic tedious studies of philology and theology at Alcala and 1 80 The Church in the Mirror of History. Salamanca. His influence over his fellow-students (suspected to be demoniacal) led them to group them- selves around him in conventicles and brought him to the dungeons of the Inquisition. He gained his first recruits for his special scheme in Paris, whither he next repaired to go through a five years' theological course ; and he proved the efficiency of his Spiritual Exercises on them. In 1534 ten of tbem — five of whom were Spaniards — agreed to set out upon a missionary expedition among the infidels, who held the promised land ; and they resolved to place their services at the disposal of the Pope, if their own design proved im- practicable. They met at Venice in 1537, but the war that had commenced between the Venetians and the Turks prevented their departure for the East, and they turned towards Eome. The noble Cardinal Contarini espoused their cause, and Pope Paul III. granted them his sanction, under the condition — which was soon set aside — that the order should never comprise more than sixty members. In addition to the three monkish vows, they took upon them a fourth — subjection to the Pope — dedicating their lives to the perpetual service of Christ and of tlie Pope, volunteering as soldiers under the banner of the Cross, and resolving to serve the Lord alone, and the The Coimter- Reformation. i8i high priest of Rome as His vicar upon earth. They held themselves ready, in fact, to carry out whatever should be ordered by the existing Pope or his successors in matters relating to the salvation and welfare of souls or the propaganda of the faith. Whenever it was physically possible, they were to set out without hesitation or ex- cuse or delay, to whatever region they might be sent, though it should be at the ends of the earth. In this we recognise the soldierly character — the military organisation — of the new order, and that for it the Pope was synonymous with the Church. The Jesuits marched forward into the world as the Pope's train-bands. A passage from a document, published by them at the first centenary celebration of their order, contains this summary of their position, drawn up by one of their number : — " It is undeniable that we have undertaken a great and uninterrupted war in the interests of the Catholic Church against heresy. Heresy need never hope that the society will make terms with it, or remain quiescent. So long as a vital spark is left within us shall we clamour against the wolves and defend the Catholic sheepfold. No peace need be expected, for the seed of hatred is born within us. What Hamilcar was to Hannibal, Ignatius 1 8 2 The Chirch in the Mir^'or of History. is to us. At his instigation we have sworn eternal war upon the altars." Their methods were in keeping with their warlike aims. They had the mobility of the mendicant orders, and the initiated members were pledged to utter poverty. They were likewise ordained as priests, they all studied theology, and had to go through the Spiritual Exercises. The oath of the order, which was only administered after long probation, did not suffice to unite the members to the society. As a prepara- tion for that they had to be moulded by searching exer- cises and training, continued during a course of years. The aim of this spiritual drill was the attainment of perfect self-control, rendering them totally indifferent to all earthly considerations. According to Ignatius, the vow of poverty was merely intended to make the members as impassive as statues, which care as little whether they are dressed or undressed, swathed in rags or bedizened with precious stones. The possession of property by tlie society was therefore not incon- sistent with that vow. The Jesuits aimed at making the whole man into a tool, just as military dis- cipline is designed for making a thoroughly depend- able and trustworthy weapon for the defence of the country from the individual recruit. The true Jesuit The Counter- Reformation. 183 was only complete when he lay will-less in the hands of his superiors, who stood for him in Christ's stead. He was required to adapt himself to any role, to meet all emergencies, to avoid all that might cause offence or be insulting, to be always composed, and as silent as the grave. The agencies at their disposal were preaching (mainly to cultivated audiences), hearing confession, and acting as professors of the higher education. The spirit of the upper classes was to be brought back to the stronghold of the Church by a regulated system of spiritual fostering. The society comprised various circles. The inner- most and smallest was that of the fully initiated Jesuits, Tlie Professed of the four vows. Next to them were The Coadjutors, spiritual and temporal, bound only by three vows, and subject to dismissal. The widest circle was composed of The Affiliated, whose relations to the society were not perceptible to the outer world. Ministers, government officials, judges and ecclesiastical dignitaries belonged to it. Besides these, were the Noviees, who might rise gradually to the higher grades or inner circles after a probation of years, during which they were tested by ever changing trials. A whole hierarchy governed the several circles — 184 The Church in the Mirror of Hist 07 j. Masters of the Novices, Eectors, Superiors, and Provin- cials — each of whom had a sort of adjutant, and all of whom controlled and spied upon one another. A General of the Order, elected for life, was at its head, and even he was watched over by two assistants or admonitors. His government was chiefly carried on by a system of compulsory correspondence of the whole order, regular reports being sent in monthly, giving details of character or conduct concerning individuals, and chronicling all events that transpired within the society. Obedience was esteemed their cardinal virtue. Obedience was sacrifice ; and the sacrifice of action, of will, even of opinion was required. Ignatius thought that the same system might be adopted with rational beings as that of the heavenly bodies, where all conjoined form one great mechanism, in which the movement of the secondary stars is regu- lated by the primary. But perfect uniformity of judg- ment between subordinate and superior was requisite for that, as the organ of will is not likely to submit itself unless the organ of judgment has been pre- viously subjected to the superior. Christ Himself was to be seen in the person of the superior, rather than a mere man liable to sin and err. The Counter- Reformation. 185 The privileges obtained by the society were most comprehensive. They enjoyed all the rights of the secular clergy, but were exempted from all ecclesiasti- cal organisation, and from the penal and inspecting jurisdiction of the episcopal functionaries, as well as from all burdens and taxes, and the necessity of appearing at synods and taking part in processions. The greatest indulgences were granted to them and to their penitents, and their opponents were put under the ban of excommunication. Their universities re- ceived equal rights with the others, and the General could appoint professors at his own discretion. All their universities had prescribed courses of study and manuals of instruction, and they entered into competition with the schools founded by the Eeformers. Their educational method, in which great stress was laid upon mental polish, elegance of Latin pronunciation, and refinement of manners ; and which cultivated mathematics 'and natural science in prefer- ence to history, combined, as it was, with frequent brilliant exhibitions, found favour with the nobility, and every such establishment was an outpost of the almost omniscient General. The Society of Jesus, which had obtained a firm footing in the chief cities of Italy so early as the year 1 86 The Church in the Mirror of History. 1550, met with scant approval in Spain. Charles V. was suspicious of it, Philip II. showed it no favour, and Melchior Cano, the most illustrious of Spanish theologians, protested against it with honest indigna- tion, saying, " They do not make better Christians, but bad knights. I have always considered that the natural powers were perfected rather than destroyed by grace, and that Christian discipline should not annihilate the knightly temperament, but should make ruler and king into still better ruler and king. They, however, convert the knights whom they get into their hands from lions into pullets, and from pullets into timid chicks." This criticism makes the point conspicuous in which Jesuitism differs from all the previous orders. It severs religion from all natural ties, from language and customs, and from national and family life. It aims at making a tool of the whole man — a means to an end — neither understand- ing or requiring to understand ; he must dedicate himself with religious devotion to every task imposed upon him, careless of results, because it is for God's glory. It annihilates individuality, in order that the Divine Sun may shine through a human being as through colourless glass ; but that is a cold light, for it shines through empty space. What can it enkindle The Counter- Reformation. 187 but the desire to rule over others after being thus ruled ? The Jesuits managed to acquire a footing in Ger- many in 1549, when they reorganised the Uni- versity of Ingolstadt, and, by the year 1616, they had already formed twenty-three settlements in that country. They restored Austria, which had been almost protestantised, and also Bohemia, to the Catho- lic Church. Catholicism was maintained in Bavaria and in the spiritual principalities of Germany solely through their influence, and they were the main- springs of the anti-Protestant policy in Switzerland. In France they inspired " The League " in the Hugue- not war. They stole into England in disguise during Elizabeth's reign, and were accessories to the Gun- powder Plot. In Poland, where the nobility had been mainly Protestant, they got the higher education into their hands in 1565, and thus ruined the national culture, according to the opinion of a Polish historian. The Thirty Years' War was essentially their work. When Ferdinand II., one of their pupils, assumed the govern- ment in Styria there were, including himself, four Catholics in Graz, and he had guaranteed religious liberty to the Estates. When he died there were no 1 88 The Church in the Mirror of History. Protestants left. He had violently uprooted Pro- testantism at the instigation of the Jesuits. When Ignatius died in 1556, the order reckoned more than 1000 members, in 100 settlements and 12 provinces. The number of The Professed, however, was only 35 ! Four of these provinces lay beyond the seas, for Francis Xavier, the first adherent of Igna- tius, with aid from Portugal, had begun his foreign mission to the East Indies as early as 1542. From that he had gone on to Japan, and he died when he was about to break ground in China. In Brazil the Jesuits organised a state which was governed by themselves in patriarchal style. " They forced their way into all the lands which had been opened up to European enterprise by the great dis- coveries of the former generation. They were to be found in the depths of Peruvian mines, in the markets of the African slave caravans, on the coasts of the Spice Islands, and in the observatories of China. They made proselytes in regions into which none of their compatriots could be tempted to venture, even by avarice or the lust of spoil. They preached and dis- puted in tongues utterly unknown to all the other natives of Europe." The position of confessors and directors of princes, The Counter-Reformation. 189 taken by the mendicant orders towards the close of the Middle Ages, was attained by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, and held by them till well on into the eighteenth. The perversion to Catholicism of many individuals belonging to princely houses (which is going on even at the present day) must be laid to their account. Jesuitism is the extreme antithesis of Lutheranism. Luther believed in the all-subduing power of God's Word, even where no earthly means were visible. The Jesuit believes, too (we have no right to refuse credence to his conviction), that his is a cause bound to triumph, but only when he has used all possible means, when he has secured all the mines and gear for blowing up the enemy. He is out and out a poli- tician. That is his strong point, and the secret power wherewith he fascinates politicians ; but it is also his limitation. There is no place left for the living God in such a religion ; it takes for granted that He lias abdicated in favour of His earthly vicar and his adju- tants, who imagine that they direct the destiny of nations by invisible threads. In the France of Louis XIV., which had assumed the place long held by Spain as intellectual leader of Catholicism, violent contests were waged between the I go The Church in the Mirror of History. papal power, which was then representative of the Jesuit interest, and Catholicism. The important privileges of the French Crown were maintained in opposition to the Church, and were multiplied during Louis's splendid regime. A thoroughly national clergy, led by their bishops, supported the king, who sacrificed his most industrious and faithful subjects, the Hugue- nots, to the exigencies of the unity of the faith. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, celebrated by Bossuet, the greatest bishop of France, as an act of faith, was certainly a proof of intense Catholic feeling. At the time of its promulgation, nevertheless, the French episcopate, under Bossuet's leadership, entered the lists in the interests of the French monarchy against the Pope. This opposition was not a religious movement, like that of the great councils, but alto- gether political and national. The following were the privileges which the Gal- lican Church maintained to be the basis of her consti- tution, and which were defended with enthusiasm in France : " The Pope has no power in secular matters. The decrees of the Council of Constance concerning Oecumenical Councils are still valid. The Pope in his own person, and apart from the authority of the Church, is not infallible." Louis XIV. was only forced to The Counter- Reformation. 191 make terms with the Pope at a later period, and to retract these propositions, more or less expressly, through the stress of political embarrassments. They fell into oblivion along with the ancient regime. Bossuet was the most brilliant personality of seven- teenth century Catholicism, the most thorough embodi- ment of the placidly aristocratic and victoriously progressive Church. He looked down upon the strife of parties in the Protestant camp with a mixture of contempt and compassion, but yet he deigned to con- fute their doctrines, entering into the subject very thoroughly, considering the man and his position. In view of the impotence of the existing Protestant historical criticism, his History of the Changes in Pro- testant Doctrine, to which he opposed the immutability of Catholic truth, touched the sore. His Statement of tlie Catholic Faith, a little book of sixty pages, written in classic French and without polemical intent, is said to have won two of the grandsons of Du Plessis- Mornay, the Huguenot leader, and Marshall Turenne, for the Church. He revived the Augustinian mode of viewing history, at a period when that method of confronting the Church and the world had been left far behind, and wlien Pro- testantism had proved that there is a religious element 192 The Church in the Mirror of History. in all moral duties, and likewise a moral obligation in all pertaining to religion to react npon the world. Along with the Christian renaissance of Eoman rhetoric, as exhibited on the classic French stage, there came a revival of the early Latin Christianity, both of French development. Bossuet only appeared once in the guise of ally of the Pope, and that was in the controversy with his great colleague, Archbishop Fenelon. That greatest of the spiritual fathers of France, for a time the darling of the Court, who had proved himself a bold prophet of the truth, even towards Louis XIV. (as has been shown by the famous letter, first published in 1825), had taken part in a mystical movement of Spanish origin. This mysticism recalls that of the German Master Eckhardt of the fourteenth century, and, like it, was suspected of depre- ciating the means of grace instituted by the Church. Fenelon taught that God was to be loved for His own sake, not for the blessedness He was expected to bestow. The whole theory connected with that idea was declared erroneous by the Pope, who took action on the instigation of Bossuet. Fendlon submitted to that verdict, and himself announced the decretal from his own archiepiscopal throne, and presided over the burning of his book in his palace court. The Counter- Reformation. 193 The Jansenitic controversy followed these disputes in order of time, but preceded them in importance ; and that most intense of all the internal conflicts which the French Church has undergone lasted till well on into the eighteenth century. The spirit of Augustine permeated the Church once more. A Netherlandish bishop, Jansenius, after ear- nest study, had written a full statement of Augustine's doctrine of irresistible grace, which was published after his death. This statement w^as received with approval by many of the illustrious theologians and thinkers of France. That party name for Augustine was not confined to his more profound speculations, but also embraced the ideal of the early Catholic Church system, as opposed to that of the Jesuitical papacy. The Jesuits managed to gain a section of the bishops for their side, and to obtain a papal anathema against five propositions of Jansenius. The Jansenists maintained that those propositions were not to be found in the book ; and they would not dis- cuss the legal question of the papal verdict till that simple matter of fact was disposed of ; yet the State authorities ordered all ecclesiastical functionaries to submit to the Pope's decree. In the beginning of the year 1656, "Letters to a 194 ^/^^ CJmrch in the Mirror of History Provincial Friend," treating of this controversy in lively dialogues, sometimes with irony and scorn, sometimes with profound seriousness, began to appear under the pseudonym of Louis de Montalte. They proceeded to attack the system of the Jesuits, and to hold up its principal weak points to the ridi- cule and moral indignation of cultivated Europe. Their author was the great mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who, after sore conflict with scepticism, had attained to a believing con- viction of the truth of the Christian religion from studying the Bible and the apostolic fathers. The Jesuits have never rallied from these assaults on their weak points. The moral conscience — we may say the moral logic even — of the rest of the world, not merely of its Protestant portion, was elevated by Pascal above the stage at which it was morally possible to do a deed forbidden by the individual conscience, if authority could be pled for it and if a good intention were its main motive, or, that could deem an act, reprehensible in itself, a permis- sible sin if it could be proved to serve a good end. This exposure of the ethics of Jesuitism, which were amassed in countless folios, this branding of a worldly- minded, accommodating moral system, which thus The Counter- Reformation. 195 strangled all individual conscience, made the world aware of the dangerous tendencies of the order ; but, in spite of that, it survived all attacks. Jansenism was stamped out by violent measures ; but when the last traces of its theology and scriptural exegesis which were so inimical to Jesuitism, were being eradicated from France, a still more terrible foe had reached maturity, and was waiting to grapple with it — that was the spirit of the Aufklctrung, or Illu- minism, in face of which it could no longer hold the field. lUuminism was an intellectual movement per- meating Europe, and opposed to the close con- nection between clericalism and political life. It proceeded either on the assumption that religion is an innate property of liuman nature, or on the hypo- thesis that it is based solely upon reason, not upon a positive revelation as maintained by the Church. It made its appearance after the great religious wars, permeating the higher classes in every quarter, and being considered a symptom of superior intelli- gence and of a well-balanced mind. It was a mani- fest token of the new demand for some comfort in life, apart from that which the Church had at its disposal, and it proved to what a great extent the ideas 196 The Chtcrch in the Mir7vr 0/ History. of the new philosophy and of natural science had taken possession of what is called " good society." Fed by countless rivulets and streamlets, it ex- panded into a torrent, which surged impetuously over the whole system of Church and State. Where a course was cut for it nothing essential was changed in the ecclesiastical and political organisations, although it entirely submerged them for the time being ; but where its flow was hemmed by ecclesiastical or political monopolies, it was stemmed till that terrible breaking of the dykes came — the Bevohition. Even Illuminism had its positive religious aspect (which must be touched upon at another time), but it first appeared in history as a campaign led by some brilliant spirits against ecclesiastical superstition — church dogma and morals — and political aristocratic privileges. It originated in Protestant England, thence found its way to France, and subsequently to Germany, Its influence did not reach beyond the limits of literary culture,^the cities had a mono- poly of culture, — and its manifestations differed vastly in the various countries. The conflict against the Catholic Churcli and its intolerance, against political despotism, and last, but not least, against Jesuitism, was carried on in France The Counter- Reformation, 197 under the leadersliip of Voltaire, once a pupil of the Jesuits and the greatest of French authors. He made use of all sorts of weapons — of poetry, satire, sarcasm, and ric(hteous indication. Illuminism be- came the prevailing tendency in all literature and the modish style in cultivated society, even in that of the higher clergy. In the new encyclopaedia it made itself serviceable to general knowledge, as if knowledge and Illuminism were one and the same thing ; and thus it paved the way for that intellectual condition in which the theories of a new system of human life, more closely conformable to nature, were accepted as the ready- made programme of a political social revolution. These theories were poured forth with the fervid elo- quence of a prophet by the Genevan Kousseau, who had been bred a Calvinist ; and fanatical atheism, which had grown to maturity under the influence of a withering- up Jesuitism, finally undertook to put them into practice. Since that period the fever of revolution has be- come endemic in the states and countries which had the greatest alloy of Jesuitical Catholicism. A consequence of the prevailing Illuminism, and of the ever-increasing absorption in commerce and in 198 The Church in the Mirror of History. financial business, was the suspension of the Jesuit Order. This was first brought about by the rational- istic rulers of the despotic states of Portugal, France, Spain, and Austria, and ratified finally by Clement XIV., the Pope of Illuminism, on 16th August 1773. The reason given by him for his action was : " That the Society was no longer producing good fruits, or fulfilling the useful end for which it had been founded; and that it was scarcely possible, or rather quite im- possible, to hope that the true and lasting peace of the Church could be restored as long as it existed." There immediately followed a revival of the early Catholic ideas ; but, as religious feeling was at an even lower ebb in the Catholic than in the Protestant Church at that time, it devoted itself exclusively to the emancipation of the Episcopal power from the Papal supremacy. The Napoleonic Eevolution, which made away with all the spiritual principalities, closed that chapter of history. The religious revival of the nineteenth century (which will be the subject of our concluding study) has also been the means of elevating the ideals of the Catholic Church, and the world has scarcely ever been so favourably situated for the re-establishment of a general universal Church, independent of all national The Coitnter- Reformation, 199 and political conflicts, during the history of Christ- ianity as then. This idea was the expression of the profound yearning of the enthusiastic spirits who, at the beginning of the century, longed for a universal religion and a universal peace. That its realisation was made more impossible than ever, and that the spirit of Protestantism had new vigour infused into it, was the consequence of an ecclesiastical development which Catholicism under- went under tlie direction of the restored papal power. On that occasion it was Napoleon wlio saved the Pope. He did certainly treat Pius VII. very badly when he was his prisoner, but through the French Concordat with him the old Gallican Church was annihilated and the formula was drawn up, in accordance with which the transactions between the Government and tlie papal power are now generally carried into effect. Terms were made with the Pope with a view to the regula- tion of Church influence in France. The Pope let it be known, however, that he held himself bound by no treaty, and when there is a sufficient weight of popular opinion on his side he can checkmate the political powers. The restoration of the States of the Church in the year 1814 became an episode of the past on 22nd 200 The Chtirch in the Mirror of History. September 1870. As the Curia was utterly incap- able of govern ing a modern State, this emancipation from secular rule has proved extremely advantageous to the papal power. For in this modern world and with the methods of this modern world, which almost absolutely ignore questions of creed, and which, with its political emancipation of the people, so frequently leaves the most fateful decisions in the hands of majorities or in the power of the press, the Papacy has succeeded in regaining the fulness of power in- volved in its privileges and a resulting influence on political life, unknown even in Catholic countries since the Eeformation era. The most effective agent in attain- ing this position has been the order of Jesuits, restored by Pius VII. immediately after his return to Eome. Even the Jesuits seem to have gained experience from their fall ; they have been tempered by the sharp supervision of Protestantism, whose moral principles govern the modern world, and by their struggle with spiritual opponents. The spiritual history of Catholicism during this cen- tury has been defined for us by opponents of Jesuit- ism, but with the concurrence of its friends, as a substitution of the idea of the Papacy for that of Early Catholicism. The Counte}'- Reformation. 201 The ideal conceptions of the Catholic Church which were first set afloat by the school of German Eoman- ticism were supplanted by a new programme, the work of the Sardinian Count de Maistre, establishing the dogma of papal supremacy on rational principles. These views assumed a strange aspect in the greatest religious spirit that France has produced in the pre- sent century — the Abbe de Lamennais — according to which the infallible Pope is held to represent the collective wisdom of the Cliurch. To give them effect the so-called liberal programme of separation of Churcli and State was accepted along with all other liberalisms. This theory of the Papal Infallibility has now become dominant in the Catholic Church. It celebrated its triumph in 1870, when it was promulgated as a dogma of the Churcli. This was proof positive that Early Catholicism had been finally set aside in favour of the Papacy. Since the secular rule of the Popes ceased their spiritual power has increased. The Kultur-Kampf^ ^ The struggle between State and Churcli, on the part of the former for supremacy, on that of the latter for practical independence. The Church in this case means the Roman Catholic establishment, for the Protestant State Church of Germany has long been delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the political rulers of the country. The filling of the vacant see of Cologne with a nominee of Rome, and the measures taken by the Prussian Government to nullify the 202 The Church in the Mirror of History, came opportunely to its aid in Germany — the country from which it had most to fear ; for the threatened internal conflict among the enlightened German Catho- lics, who were greatly agitated by the declaration of the Papal Infallibility, was warded off when Eome succeeded in convincing the Catholic public that their existence as a Church was menaced. Only then was Germany at one with the Pope. The astute leaders of Catholic policy will see to it, in the future, that some such external contest is at hand, over which the in- ternal dissensions may be forgotten. These, of course, always exist — as, for instance, disputes between the Jesuits and the other orders. The ideal of a Papal Catholic nation, in which the interests of the Church predominate over those of the nation, appears to have been attained in Germany, and if the tokens are not misleading, Germany may now be looked upon as the centre of the Eoman Catholic world. Catholic foreign missions are also being developed, and precisely in those regions which have the grandest future before them — in China and the East Indies. The empire of the Pope, formerly confined to the West, appointment, were the first trial of strength between the contending powers, and marked the beginning of the Kultur-Kampf — the struggle of modem culture, as represented by the civil power against the privileged position of the Church — Note by Monsieur Charles Federer. The Counter- Re/or 7nai{on. 203 has now become a spiritual cosmopolitan power in the five divisions of the globe, the like of which has never before been known in the world's history. Two hundred and eighteen millions of Catholics, scattered over the whole world, obey the spiritual and often also the political mandates of the Bishop of Rome. A vast tribute in money and valuables flows freely into his coffers. He is one of the richest men in the world, and he has only to tremble lest a diminution of his subjects' faith in him should diminish his revenues — the Peter's pence. All the secrets of the world stream into his private chambers, and he has at his disposal an astute and silent diplomatic force with which that of no other monarch can compare. He is a mystery to his subjects — controlled by none, accountable to none, known by none. We must keep these facts in view, in order to understand aright what impression it must have made on the Catholic world when the German Empire — the adversary he had to dread most, with the exception of Russia — accepted the Pope as umpire in the disputed question of the Caroline Islands ; ^ and when all the ^ The question of the sovereignty over the Caroline Islands, lately in dispute between Spain and Germany, and which was submitted to the arbitration of the Pope. 204 The Clnwch in the Mirror of History. sovereigns of Christendom, save the king of Norway and Sweden, did homage to the present Pope on the occasion of his priestly jubilee — a purely ecclesiastical celebration. The Catholic mind can scarcely have come to any other conclusion than that pronounced by Windhorst : " The Pope governs the world." Thinking of Him who said, " My Kingdom is not of this world," we come to a very different conclusion : " The world governs the Pope." This universal power is interesting to us, but it does not inspire us witli awe. We know how entirely this structure, which has attained to such a giddy height, is dependent not merely on political conditions, but, before all, on the existence of a spiritually powerful Protestantism. We may challenge Catholicism to point to any reli- gious fervour, moral power, or philosophical acumen in Catholic thought, which has not grown in Protestant soil or been first fostered into bloom therein. This leads us on to our final subject — that of the living power of Christianity in the last century. VI. 206 VI. CHRISTIANITY DURING THE LAST CENTURY. TN April 1788 — a century ago — the world had -*- entered the sign of the French Eevolution, but knew it not. In France, that ministry of Necker was in power which was about to open the sluices of the revolu- tionary movement by convening the Estates of the Kealm; but the rest of Europe was sunk in pro- foundest peace under absolute monarchies. In Hol- land, Prussia had just secured an easy victory for the House of Orange, and it had also concluded an alliance with England, which united the chief powers of the Protestantism of the period. Germany was utterly engrossed with its literary affairs. Goethe was writing from Eome, announcing his speedy return from Italy. The German Eenais- 207 2o8 The Church in the Mirror of History. sance — the reversion of our poetry to the antique — was dawning. Ipldgenia and Don Carlos had been published, and Kant's Critique of Practical Reason was coming out. The cultured community was revelling in the enjoyment of iiesthetic pleasures. Rationalism was beginning to make itself heard in the Churches, the old hymns were being altered past recognition, and the fashionable sentimentality was affecting even the sermons and the prayers. Humanity and Cosmo- politanism had become the religious ideals of the thoughtful. The Deity was conceived of as the Archi- tect of the Universe (as the order of Freemasons styled it) — a conception idealised by Mozart in the exquisite music of his Magic Flute. He juctures the Divine Being enthroned on the highest platform, in a temple of Wisdom, and surrounded l)y philosophically cultured clierubim ; while all the peoples of the earth, "from the Mongol to the Greek Seer," toil upwards, by a series of countless steps, towards His throne, becoming purified as they ascend. The goal which, it was hoped, might be attained in the nineteenth century, was universal peace, brought about by general culture and philanthropy. With all tliis, it was imagined that tlie kernel of Christianity was being preserved, for the Sage of Nazareth was Christianity during the Last Century, 209 granted even by those believers (for believers, in a way, they were) the supreme place in the hierarchy of virtuous spirits, who ruled over the world in fraternal unity from their dwelling 'mid the stars. This dogma made no distinction between Catholic and Protestant. Confessional controversies were at an end, and it was only for the pleasure of outwitting the Pope that any interest was taken in the Confer- ence of German Archbishops, held at Ems in 178G, with the object of founding a German National Church, independent of the Pope. The cultured classes felt that they had got a stage beyond Churches. Toleration was the universal creed, and idyllic delight in nature was esteemed the true Divine worship. The Church of history existed only for the theologians. The religious orator, who came upon the stage in 1799 — the theologian ScHLEiEEMACiiEii — could only appeal to " the cultured scorners of religion." The rage for the antique in the plastic arts was turning all heads. If a church were built it had to resemble a Doric or Corinthian temple. Instead of the cross, the sphinx, the obelisk, the broken column, the urn stood guard over tlie graves. That was how matters stood with the great majority of the cultivated classes. 2IO The Church in the Mirror of History, The country people were abiding patiently in their oppressed, unfree condition, still learning their old catechisms and the grand old hymns, and still praying with the aid of such devotional books as Habermann, Starck, and Arndt ; feeling themselves uncomprehended, in their inmost being, by the aristocracy of intellect, they were gathering in conventicles, where a pietistic revival was preached to them. If we look around us to-day — a century later — we find the Church system, in its historical form, re- established in every quarter; the Confessions living a healthy separate existence, and combating each other as valiantly as in the Eeformation era ; while the Protestant Churches occupy a prominent place among the authorities, which are again treated with respect. We are building again in the Gothic and Romance styles, with profuse decoration. The ancient Church style is revived in the language of hymns and prayers, and the devotional books of the age of Illuminism have been supplanted by others which make use of the old phraseology. The old Church music is restored, and the chefs-cVmuvres of a Bach are performed with a perfection and a devoutness such as he himself never experienced. The restoration movement is making headway in every quarter; originating with the cultured Christianity during the Last Century. 2 1 1 classes, it is filtering down to the lower grades. This restoration of the Church and of religion is most per- ceptible in the concrete influence which it brings to bear upon national culture in Protestant countries. The negative tendencies which have to be combated are, as a rule, more powerful in Catholic than in Protestant spheres. The popular piety, which mani- fests itself by occasional outbursts, is decidedly stronger in the Evangelical Churches. That is how matters stand near the close of this century. My task is to sketch in outline the various steps which have led up to such a changed condition. The two religious movements into which the eighteenth century divides itself, as it were, are Pietism and Illuminism {The Aufkldrung). Pietism has left the structure of the State Church system ^ uninjured, even when it was uncongenial to it ; but it has pitted the religious sentiment of the laity against the dogmas of the theologians. It has permeated the higher classes of Northern and Middle Germany, by means of conventicles and private societies (bearing some resemblance to the old religious orders), and even among the people it has gained a firm footing in South Germany and in the Baltic l^rovinces. In ^ This applies to Germany exclusively. — Translator h Xote. 2 1 2 The Church in the Mirror of History. the Moravian community, founded by Zinzendorf, it has not so much organised a particular Church as improved upon the Church, by gathering the people of the Lord from the various Churches, and making a union of believers, whose sole end and aim in life is love to the Saviour and the propagation of faith in Him, by missionary work in the world. Pietism has also had a very fruitful influence upon English Methodism, first uniting those two tendencies which have continued to walk hand in hand during the nine- teenth century. Upon Pietism, which had evidently paved the way for it in great measure, Illuminism followed with mar- vellous celerity. It found its way into ecclesiastical German Protest- antism as an orthodoxy of Rationalism and Optimism. I mean by Illuminism the following : — Till that period the main element of the German Protestant Church system had been steadfast adherence to the theology of the Confessions. I use orthodoxy in the simple sense of the word, without underlying sugges- tions. Pietism had made membership of the true Church — the converted being understood — to depend on the perfectly novel condition of inward piety, especially on the undergoing of pessimistic religious Christianity dimng the Last Century. 2 13 euiotions. As a counterpoise to that, Protestant Ecclesiastical Illuminism decided anew that the acknowledgment of a doctrine was the essential thing, and this was the doctrine introduced by Leibnitz, and elaborated by Wolff — the reasonableness of the Christian dogmas. From this standpoint of the reasonableness of dogma the way led of itself to the dogma of reason, to the worship of reason as the high- est court of appeal in the religious life. The rose-coloured view of life pervading the Theo- dicaea of Leibnitz — a pliilosophy of Optimism — became the concomitant religious sentiment of Eationalism in contrast to Pietistic Pessimism. Ojjposition to ecclesiastical formula or to the con- fession was not suspected here. Anyone may be con- vinced of that by considering the poetry of Gellert, which is perfectly correct in doctrine, although per- meated by the spirit and tone of Illuminism. This intellectual tendency, which swayed almost the whole sphere of theology and culture, was the cradle of modern classic poetry and of German science, and it thus gave a new aspect to life, which was not without effect, even on such opponents of Illuminism, as Hamann and Lavater. Even the poetry of Klop- STOCK, which was designedly based on the religious 2 1 4 The Church in the Mirror of History. and ecclesiastical traditions of the Eeformation, speaks from the platform of a new ideal of life. This ideal of life held itself aloof from the authority of the Church. It had forgotten how closely the life of Church and State had been intertwined since the Re- formation. The ecclesiastical sentiment had vanished, and the national was still unborn. The new ideals of humanity, cosmopolitanism, and toleration seemed to illumine a higher stage of human life from which distinctions of nationalities and creeds had vanished. Everyone was by nature primarily man — secondarily German, French, or whatever he might be ; thirdly, Lutheran, Calvinist, or Catholic ; and lastly, a citizen of some special State. Even in Prussia the State was looked upon as a kind of strait-jacket in which the " man " had to be confined for some hours daily, by way of discipline. Those are certainly the views that form the background of our classic poetry. Without their idealism, which soared far above the actualities of life, neitlier that art nor philosophical and historical sciences of such elevation and independence could have been developed in the utter vacuity of the public life of that epoch. Tlie German Illuminism,which had been introduced by Leibnitz, came to an end with Kant — the philosopher of Konigsberg. Christianity dtcring the Last Century . 215 Illuminism was consummated in Kant. Himself a rationalist, he conquered Eationalism, and thus inaugu- rated the intellectual life of the nineteenth century. The kernel of Kant's Critique of Reason — the investigation into the bases of all knowledge — was the separation between faith and knowledge. He maintains that the outwardly or inwardly cognisable can alone be object of knowledge, in so far as these alone fall within the range of certain innate conceptions of the understanding. But precisely in this our natural organisation lies the limit to all knowledge. We do not know the world as it is, but only as it appears to us. Our knowledge of it is purely relative. We simply make pictures of things for ourselves. Beyond this phenomenal knowledge, however, there is a moral certitude by the aid of which we can be convinced even of things which we cannot cognise. As object of this moral faith, Kant specified the rationalistic triad : God, freedom, immortality — the ideas postulated by the moral reason. It is evident that totally opposite conclusions may be drawn from this premiss. The theologian Schleiermacher drew the conclusion in favour of religion, and designated the susceptibility to the mystery of the universe, inherent in greater or less degree in man, as the 2 1 6 The Church in the Mirror of History. source of religious emotion from which a religious conception of the world is developed, which nowhere collides with science, because it moves in the fourth dimension, if I may use that expression by way of explanation. While the foundations of a new Science of the Eeal were being laid, room was thus left, even in the sphere of thought, for the peaceable existence of religion, en- tirely apart from science. In the first place, however, it must be allowed, Kant's reform of philosophy gave rise to the most daring attempt that has ever been made by men to comprehend in their philosophy the entire universe in all its heights and depths. Soaring on the wings of the ingenious conceptions of the universe, contained in the modern poetry, the philosophers attempted to emulate the medi?eval philosophy of faith — scholasticism — without borrowing any ideas from the Church, and to conceive of tlie loorld as a Universe of Reason {ein Ganzes der Vernunft). By combining the acquisitions of poetry and art with those of positive historic science and even with religious views, the semblance of a " science of the sciences " was produced, which was destined to embrace all knowledge, and, for a generation, the problem of the world was supposed to have been solved. Illumin- Chidstianity duririg the Last Century. 2 1 7 ism again became supreme. The death of the great philosopher Hegel (1831) marked the close of that Alexandrian universal empire of science. From its ruins the practical sciences of Nature and History have arisen and developed vigorously. But that last and most brilliant blossom of Eational- ism had already been influenced most profoundly by another movement — that of Romanticism — which, towards the close of the century, surged through civi- lised Europe like a mighty river, simultaneously with the transformation of the cosmopolitan French lievolu- tion into a nation-murdering Caesarism. Eomanticism was the restoration of the belief in the mystery that envelops the existence of man, which had been assailed by the self-analysis of a rationalising philosophy. It was a recognition of religion as the mysterious fundamental basis of all human life. It recognised the creative, fruitful, natural forces in art, language, law, and national life, which produce uncon- sciously and involuntarily and by inherent tendencies the grammar and jurisprudence, the ideals and charac- teristics of nations. The modern development of the philological, historical, and legal sciences have pro- ceeded from Eomanticism ; the revival of music and the plastic arts and the renascent sentiment of 2 1 8 The Church in the Mirror of History. nationality have also been fostered by it; creative fantasy took the place of constructive reason, nationality that of humanity, the Fatherland that of the world. The political War of Liberation was preceded by spiritual emancipation from the yoke of Illuminism. After establishinfT the reicjn of reason above the shattered privileges of the two dominant orders, after abolishing: throne and altar, the French Pievolution had entered upon a warlike propaganda, akin to that of Islam, for the new universal ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The new C?esar borne aloft on its wave — Napoleon, the greatest condotticrc ever produced by Italy — sought to make France, as the incarnation of humanity, and, through France, his own will, a law to Europe. For this end he acted the part of executioner to all the rotten State systems of Cen- tral Europe; and he carried out his providential function so despotically that he lashed the latent national spirit into life, which stretched him in the dust in the end. A general revival of religion, which could scarcely have been expected in a Church that had fallen a prey to Illuminism, was combined with the German "War of Liberation, as well as with those of Spain, of Chinstianity during the Last Century, 219 tlie Tyrol and of Kussia. Neither the few pietistic sects, nor the special strongholds of Eomanticism — the universities of Halle, Berlin and Heidelberg — can be credited with that revival, for it really welled up from the nation's heart ; it was a movement of the unlearned people, who hailed the new manner of speech used in the utterances of the cultivated classes, out of benevolent consideration for the people, as something comprehensible. The people had always held fast by the old-fashioned Church system, and thus the Protestant State Church system came safe and sound out of that Napoleonic revolution, which had ruined the Catholic Church system with the universal secularisation. More than that, a resur- rection awaited it. The transformation of the old Christian State of the Reformation into the absolute Territorial State, of the " Ruler hy the grace of God " into the Police, had converted the Church too into a portion of the police system. That liberation from the tyrant's yoke, which had been made possible by appealing to the latent national forces, made the restoration of that species of despotism, as of every other pre-Napoleonic despotism, an impossibility. The construction of a new Church was out of the question, for tlie okl Churcli had not been annihilated ; there 2 20 The CJmrch in the Mirror of History. was no other plan possible save reconstruction, — reform from within, — and that was carried out. The whole religious and ecclesiastical system was expanded within the frame of the old State Church, just as the living body expands by that gradual transformation which we call growth, in which new particles are perpetually replacing the old. This may indeed be specified as the noteworthy religious fact of our cen- tury ; evangelical Protestantism, deducible in part from the Eeformation movement, but still more from the Bible, has become a civilising principle throughout the world, bound up with the national or racial life of the various countries. The present German, Scandi- navian, and English Protestantisms are totally different from the old Lutheranism, Calvinism, or Puritanism. Each of these concrete forms is a not easily definable, but powerful individuality. In these phases of Protestantism, however, the motive powers of Pietism, Illuminism, and Eomanti- cism are more predominant than those of the Eeforma- tion. The eighteenth century lives on in a singular way in the nineteenth. To these forces another has been added — a turning again to the Bible. It must be confessed that (leaving some private religious circles out of consideration) this return to the Bible exists, as Christianity during the Last Centnry. 221 yet, to any large extent, only among theologians. The German nation is still unaffected by it. The concep- tions of the Bible still await resurrection in the reli- gious national life of German Protestantism. We have still to look for a modern Luther who will reveal the Gospel to us again in such familiar and homely style that it will once more touch the hearts of the humblest, as of the highest, with convincing power. All the issue of our Biblical studies is, as yet, merely the pitiful product of theological ingenuity. We know now that the Eeformation only restored to us the Pauline — the Apostolic Christianity ; we are waiting for a revelation of the Gospel, for the perfect under- standing of the person of our Saviour, even in the midst of the modern world ! The life of Protestant Christianity is enacted, so to say, on three stages. The first is the sphere of the inner life, into whose depths the eye of the historian may not reach. Here is the well-spring of the movements which rule it as a whole. The second is the sphere of national Church life ; the third is the sphere of the general Christian life of the world. The flourishing system of Church alliances, as well as the more intellectual development of ecclesiastical art and science, belong to this com- 2 22 The Church in the Min-or of History. mon Christian province, which extends far beyond the boundaries of countries and creeds. The State Church system of Protestantism consists in the relation between Church and State. The restoration of this relationship is the most difficult of political questions, because a formula has not yet been found which will suit two such different systems as the " Catholic Church," which is a State within and supreme above all States, and the Evan- gelical Church, which was the State itself till the present century. It is mainly in that aspect that the peculiar power of Protestantism continues to exist in the State. The Prussian State is the most remarkable creation erected on its basis. The adoption of the Reformed Confession by the reigning dynasty of an essentially Lutheran country led to the granting of equal rights to the adherents of both of the Evangelical Confessions ; and the acquisition of Catholic territories led to the toleration of Catholicism. Notwithstanding this, the Prussian State continued to be instigated by the theocratic ideal of the Eeformation era — to attempt to impose a uniform political religious system upon its subjects. The King considered himself the head of all the Churches in his land, and demanded from all alike self-sacrificing readiness in all affairs of Christianity during the Last Centniy. 223 State. This was really the old ideal of " ruler by the grace of God," without the name, in accordance with which the State, as a Divine ordinance, demands the unconditional submission of all, even to the extent of military service being binding upon all. In this spirit, but strengthened by timely reforms, Prussia entered on the War of Liberation, and these ideas have affected her subsequent development. According to them, the German empire must be an ordinance of God for us Protestants, while it is only an artificial product of political diplomacy for Ultramontane Catholics. The political philosophy of Hegel has only attempted to construct theoretically and in ideal dimensions what already existed in fact. None of the Prussian kings failed to recognise that this political principle was rooted in Protestantism, and yet Frederick William III., inspired by the admiration for the old ecclesiastical forms, aroused by Eomanticism, and by his own gentle devout nature, which discerned the deep community of spirit between Christians of different creeds, approached the Catho- lics with open arms. He also united the Protestants in his domains into one Church — that is to say, in one communion as regarded public worship and the Holy Sacrament, without detriment to their confes- 2 24 ^'^^ Chuixh in the Mirror of History. sional divergences : this was the Prussian Union. The discovery of the Eomanticists that religion was an entity distinct from confessions and theologies was made the organising principle of the Church and of public worship by a king who, himself a member of the Eeformed Church, was yet justified in esteeming himself one of Luther's truest admirers and discerners. He believed that the Church would gain a fresh development of power through union ; he therefore interested himself personally in the reform of public worship. The exercise of liturgical and dogmatical prerogatives, which had been obsolete for a century, by the Sovereign, aroused a storm. It is quite con- ceivable that the opposition of the Old Lutherans looked like rebellion to the king, and as such he crushed it by untimely military measures. The very man who had the most intense longing for religious peace, by thus asserting his sovereign supremacy over both Churches, stirred up the Con- fessional controversy in the Evangelical Churches, and stimulated Ultramontanism in the Catholic Church, by the dispute about the Cologne bishopric. When we look more narrowly at the Old Lutheran opposi- tion, we see the spirit of Pietism, with its hand grasping the Confession of Faith, confronting this Christianity durijig the Last Centtcry. 225 claim of the ruler of the land to be Summus Upisco- piis, and also the reconstruction of history, as applied to the Confessional dogma, introduced by Piomanticism. Dogma again became a power in theology, if not in the life of the people. The Union proved a success in a few West German territories where the popula- tion contained an admixture of both confessions ; in Nassau, in the Bavarian and Hessian Palatinates, and in Baden. In those States it was by no means solely the product of Romanticism, it was also the result of Rationalism, which had created a spirit of indifference to confessional divergences, and was therefore mainly theological in its origin. The reign of Frederick William IV. was even less fruitful of benefit to the Church than that of his father and brother. He may be styled even more appropriately the Royal Theologian than the '• Royal Romanticist," for the connecting link of all the many- sided spiritual and artistic interests of this most gifted of the Hohenzollerns was intense religious life and a certain intellectual trend towards theological specula- tion. The Catholic Church, alone, liad liim to thank for the nobly-conceived Ijut fatal emancipation, which afterwards called fortli the repressive measures of the ecclesiastical and State contest (dcr Kultar Kampf). 2 26 The Church in the Miin-or of History. His " Midsummer Night's Dream " of a church con- stitution (which he sketched in a letter to Bun sen)/ is woven from New Testament conceptions, interpreted by him in the early Catholic spirit. He wished to re-establish the episcopate, leaving it free to develop itself naturally — a plan proved by history to be impracticable — without creating the vari- ous subordinate offices of the hierarchy, and his design did not include the liberation of the Church from the State. In this sense he sympathised with the consti- tution of the Anglican Church, and this led him to give expression to the idea of a possible constitutional union of the two greatest Protestant Churches, besides their practical union for a common evangelisation of the East, in the founding of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric in Jerusalem. The dislike of Liberalism for Eomanticism, as well as the opposition of the German Pastorate, proved an insurmountable obstacle to an idea which has been quietly buried in our days ; for the pastorate is more oligarchic than hierarchic in its leanings, and recog- nises no other ecclesiastical function save that of the almost unlimited sway of the pastor over the congre- ^ Correspondence oj Frederick William IV. with Bunsen, edited by Ranke. Christianity diiriiig the Last Century. 227 gation. Since the outburst of 1848 political liberal- ism has solved the Church constitution question, which was raised by Frederick William HI., by the intro- duction of the presbyterial and synodical constitution, which is less an imitation of the old system of the Reformation than an application of political-constitu- tionally limited monarchy to ecclesiastical affairs. Its results are not to be despised, because no use worth mentioning has been made of the liberty of leaving the Evangelical Church, since it has, in almost every part of Germany, given up playing the role of compul- sory institution, to which all had to belong, will or nil. The most powerful ecclesiastical province of Protest- antism in Europe is that of England and Scotland, after Germany, with which Lutheran Scandinavia on the one side and the Reformed Churches of Switzer- land and Austria on the other, may be combined, forming as they do an almost homogeneous develop- ment. (I do not speak of America for lack of reliable information.) In England all religious movements have issued from Methodis7n, which, within narrower compass, has again revived the suppressed Puritanic spirit. The ({uestion of personal salvation and redemption is the one and all in Methodism. For that it subjects itself 2 28 The Church in the Mirro7' of History. to a soul discipline akin to that prescribed by Jesuit- ism. It advances its claims in the same propagandist spirit. It recks not to whom it turns, let him be a member of a Christian Church or an utter heathen. In its estimation, a man has only so much religion as he carries ready for use in his hands or on his tongue. It possesses no psychologically matured certainty of Divine grace, like Lutheranism or Calvinism, but rather a mathematically ascertained assurance of salvation, like that of Jesuitism. It therefore manifests itself in sudden conversions by such drastic measures as street, field, and lay preaching. Its last phase is the Salvation Army, which seeks, by all sorts of concessions to the liking of the English mob for noisy public demonstrations, to attain the great end of saving souls, without any Church training. Methodism has not merely the merit of having put new life into Foreign Mission enterprise, but it has also exerted a paramount influence on the phenomenal philanthropy of England. It procured the abolition of slavery, and it agitates for the reform of poor laws and prisons. The circles in which it finds footing are the same in which Puritanism flourished — the middle classes of the towns and of the rural districts. A Eomanticist revival among the higher classes Christianity duj^tng the Last Century. 229 issued from Oxford, where some eminent theologians were brought under the guidance of Newman, and, through the study of the older English Church history and the Patristic writers, to the conviction that the English Church was not a branch of the Protestant, but rather of the Catholic Church. For some the movement ended in the Church of Piome, others became leaders of the so-called High Church party in the Anglican Church, which has gone so far as to accept the mass, the celibacy of the clergy, con- vents, and masses for the dead. It is only distin- guishable from the Church of Pome by its non-recog- nition of the Pope, and from the Oriental Church by its ritual. In opposition to it, an intellectually powerful Pro- testant Anglo -National party arose, led by the great teacher and historian, Thomas Arnold, which sought to animate the English National Church and the national consciousness with the spirit of political and social reform. In the course of half a century the High Church movement has led thousands over to the Catholic Church, among whom professors, clergymen, scholars, and military men may be reckoned. Its influence has been great on the higher classes, even on the very highest, notably among aristocratic ladies. 230 The Church in the Mirror of History. The social reform, or Broad Church movement, has produced, among other fruits, the Anglo - Christian socialism which attempted to bring about a reconcilia- tion of the Fourth Estate with the Church during the Chartist disturbances, by stirring up the Church and clergy to agitate for legislative measures in favour of the working classes. Eobertson, Maurice, and Charles KiNGSLEY, the poet and parson, — familiar names even in Germany, — belonged to the various branches of that party. Keligion in Scotland has had a totally different development from that of England ; for there the national Presbyterianism has held its own as the religion of the people, unshaken by Illuminism ; and the influences of Eomanticism were also resisted by the democratic character of the Church and nation ; whilst the didactic spirit, inherent in Calvinism, had, from the beginning of the century and onwards, grasped and enforced the idea of the Christian community being bound to care for the poor, and also to make use of industrial progress for the elevation of the intellectual and spiritual condition of the masses. This vigorous, intense enthusiasm burned with a wondrous glow in men like the philanthropic Dr. Chalmers, who created the new system for the relief Christianity during the Last Century. 231 of the poor at the beginning of the century, as well as in the greatest of Scottish thinkers, Thomas Caklyle ; and it was combined with a strikingly common sense way of seeing into the real state of matters. The Disruption of a Scottish Free Church from the body of the State Church was purely the result of constitu- tional questions. Both Churches emulate each other in labours of love. From Scotland, too (we may remark in passing), came Edward Irving, who strove to draw down the Holy Spirit, by restoring the ancient system of the Apostolic Church, and to equip the Ark of Noah for the salvation of the elect at the impending dis- solution of the world. His system was a mixture of sound realistic scriptural exegesis and of turbid fantasies. The principle of religious liberty has been practi- cally realised during the past generation, even in Catholic and liomance countries, in Austria, Italy, and Spain ; and, so far as it has gone, it may be said that the star of toleration presides over this century. That lias made a mucli more marked development of indi- viduality possible, and it has also greatly increased the mutual influence of man over man. The Christian spirit goes its way, through the spiritual forces, now ^ -> o T/ie Clm^'ch i7i the Mhn'or of Histoiy, politically enfranchised, aggressive like them, and like them, also, dependent on the efficiency of prominent personalities. While the ecclesiastical condition of Protestantism seems, externally, to be dividing and splitting more and more as the individual Churches more and more differentiate themselves, instead of uniting into one great body, he who studies the inner connection will perceive the most remarkable reciprocal action of an ever-deepening concord. It resembles the historical development of Greece. When the Grecian States were dissolved and made subject to foreign dominion the Hellenic spirit and language began to dominate the world. While the Protestant Churches are breaking themselves into fracjments. Protestantism is becominoj the dominatins^ spirit of the world. There are no great outstanding reformers, recognised as authorities, beyond the bounds of country and nation, like the founders of Pietism and Methodism of last century, but, on the other hand. Christian movements in one country are immediately re-echoed in another. Foreign and home missions, provision for needy Christian brethren, and evangelising agencies (especially those in Pomance lands) are pursued in an essential oneness of spii'it and with mutual considera- Christianity during the Last Century. 2 JO tion, even where there is no common organisation. These are the four fields in which the influence ot Protestant Christianity on the ethical culture of the world is most perceptible, and it is the conception of the Brotherhood of Humanity, revealed by Illuminism, which, in the hands of Pietism, has produced the most striking results in these fields. The conception of Humanity has two roots — one in heathenism, in the Stoic philosophy, where it was the expression of a pantheistic monadism ; the other in Christianity, where it infers the obligation to treat all men as such as are of the called to the Kingdom of God. Illuminism adopted the conception from Christ- ianity, but it interpreted it philosophically and gave it the signification of cosmopolitanism. The Cosmo- politan Humanity, the doctrine of the rights of man, was made the banner of the Eevolution. The revival of the national spirit has superseded the cosmopolitan ideal of humanity, but the Christian ideal of the brotherhood of man has been left intact, because it can be reconciled with tlie national conception ; for the love of man (philanthropy) is not merel}^ love of tlie brother in Cln^ist, but love of every man, with the aim of winning him for Christ. That is the Pietistic conception. In it a vision of a new world 234 ^-^^ Church in the Miri^or of Histo7y. looms up, composed of those who have been won for Christ — in its phraseology, " the Kingdom of God." Pietism in the nineteenth century was at first a lay movement, originating in certain religious coteries, belonging mainly to the more cultivated classes. It only found a wider field in West and South Germany and in Switzerland. It permeated certain universities at a later period, where it waged war on Illuminism with theological weapons, over which it gained a prac- tical victory 5^ adopting its etldcal onotives. Since Christianity and the Church had a being there have been no such vast enterprises as those which are now conducted, practically by Pietism, in the home and foreign mission fields. These enter- prises have no subsidiary aims, no worldly, selfish, or political ends in view — their sole object is to elevate and bless biother-man for the sake of God, and to win him for the Kingdom of God. The founding of the Bpjtish and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, just in the beginning of the century, proved to be the pioneering of many enterprises. It has a typical significance, for all Protestant denomina- tions have taken part in it from its commencement. Its aim is limited to disseminating the Bible in all possible languages, and, in fulfilling that, it has given Christianity during the Last Centtcry, 235 a written language to more than a Inmdred aboriginal races, thus makino- the oldest and best of books the foundation stone of their civilisation. It does not propagate the Church, but the " Word of God," in sowing the seed given by the Saviour. That it sows broadcast, in the grandest confidence that, as the Word of God, it will prove its own efficiency. This primary and world-embracing Protestant enter- prise is carried on irrespective of creed, and in the firm faith that nothing save the spirit of the Gospel can be imbibed by the heathen peoples from the Bible. The Pope's regularly recurring anathema of the Bible Society is a decided proof that this work does not merit the meagre esteem in which it is held by many cultivated Protestants, who consider the Bible in itself too difficult of comprehension to be productive of great blessing. The Protestant missionary sallies forth all alone into heathendom with his Bible. The Catholic missionary carries the Church with him as the first and essential thing, whereas the Protestant gathers individual souls and lets the Church develop gradually. All the Prostestant churches, sects, and denomina- tions, take their share in the work of foreign missions. They devote labour unspeakable and vast offerings 236 The Church in the Mirror of History. to that cause. The yearly budget now amounts to £1,500,000. The fields laboured in have, as a rule, no organic connection with the home Churches from which the missionaries are sent, The missionary societies are, ecclesiastically speaking, perfectly in- dependent associations. They are church - founding powers. The diffusion of Christian civilisation among aboriginal races is combined with more direct mis- sionary effort. Their aim (if I understand it aright) is to develop the peculiar characteristics of these races on Christian lines, without attempting to fashion them after an Indo-Germanic type. The distinction between these missions and those of the early Middle Ages is that these are almost entirely free from any political by-ends, as they do not act as political pioneers for the countries which send them forth. Nevertheless, as the most numerous and important missionary societies are English and American, their missions do tend, indirectly, to pave the way for the Anglo- Saxon race throughout the world. In spite of the importance attained by individual personality in Protestanism, the great labours of the missionary societies appear to be almost impersonal. The workers who fall in the field or become incapa- citated are quietly replaced by others, and their Chrislianity during the Last Centitry. 237 memory is only preserved within a limited circle. The most meritorious conduct excites little sensation, and the grandest heroism is looked upon as a matter of course. In the eager forward march there is no time to spare for describing in detail the full history of the opening up of perfectly new regions by the mission pioneers. The Home Mission enterprises in Christian lands are equally important in their own sphere. These comprise all efforts for redeeming and for training, however diverse their origin may be. Pestalozzi, O BERLIN in Steinthal, Falk in Weimar, voN Kott- wiTZ in Berlin, may be specified as the chief in- augurators of home mission work in Germany. It was only gradually that the inner bond connecting the houses of refuge, industrial schools, asylums, and hospitals was recognised, and then all were embraced in a homogeneous system of religious work, organised in behoof of the morally degraded and for the restora- tion of the lapsed and of such as could only be won by religious influences to the bosom of the Church and nation. WiciiERN was the first in Germany to identify this subsidiary national idea with the work of redemption. Fliednek, founder of the Deaconess Institute, kept the upholding of the Church specially 238 The Church in the Mirror of History. in view, while Wicherii aimed rather at the healing of national and social sores by means of the Gospel of the grace of God, which not only blots out sin, but also subdues it. Von Bodelschwingh keeps both of these ends before him in his work. Every Pro- testant country has its own special hero in this field. England has its George MiJLLER in Bristol, Holland its Heldring, France its BosT, etc. etc. This work strikes right down into the socio-political sphere. Tlie transformation of the methods of the poor laws into education of the poor, the amelioration of prison life, and the treatment of the wounded in the field (all originating in England), owe their dissemina- tion to the stimulating force of such Christian agencies. It is no small thing that the Red Cross of the Genevan Convention is now, at last, planted on the battle-field, bringing with it brotherly love, and love even for the enemy, into the very midst of the horrors of war. Under the pressure of this philanthropic movement, thus reproducing itself in a series of purely humane associations which are neither religious nor ecclesiastical, but which, as a rule, leave the finding out of specially necessitous claims to the sagacity of Christian love, the State has advanced (and nowhere more decidedly so than in Germany) to a system of legislation, which Christianity ditring the Last Ceittury. 239 adopts direct Christian principles as the motives of its actions. Protestant Christianity exhibits new traits in this department. It never demands primary acknowledg- ment of the Church ; it does not aim at any pro- selytising or gaining converts for a creed ; it seeks nothing more than room for tlie exercise of its teaching powers. The propaganda of love takes pre- cedence of that of religion, and this latter consists in simply pointing to the Gospel — the fountain whence love flows. It is from no lack of toleration, but rather from an efflux of delicate feeling, — which forbids all attempts at proselytising, where no desire for our help is expressed, — that the home mission efforts of Protestantism are expended mainly on Protestants. The reluctance of Protestantism to give up any of its baptized members, however degenerate they may be, is evidence, at any rate, of stronger faith, than if economic necessities, say in the case of Catholics, were taken advantage of to secure conversions at an easy rate. In spite of their being no ecclesiastical pressure to stimulate them, frequently, too, in face of public disfavour, these home mission agencies are continually extending and sending forth new shoots. 240 The Chtu^ch in the Mirror of History. If in this connection I merely refer (without enter- ing into special details) to the succour which Germany extends to needy brethren in the faith through the Gustav-Adolfsverein (Gustavus-Adolphus Association), my reason is that I am addressing its most devoted adherents, who require no detailed description of its aims. It builds churches, in the literal sense of the word, and the stimulus it has thus given to ecclesiastical architecture has brought about a revival of ecclesiastical and indeed of plastic art in all its branches. Catholics and Protestants emulate one another in this sphere, and it is characteristic of the Catholic Church that it employs more heads and hands here than the Evan- gelical Church does. And yet the Bible, and along with it the great national poets, have been the real well-spring of this enthusiasm, which flowed from the fountain-head of modern German art — the colony of German artists resident in liome in the first decades of the century. Although it is true that our great classic musicians, who flourished at the close of the last century, were all Catholics, the Eomanticists were chiefly North German Protestants, and it is to them that we owe the revival of the ancient Church music and of the popular German Christianity during the Last Centtiry. 24 1 melodies. There has never before been such a renais- sance in any department of art of seemingly lost creations of genius as that of tliis music, which has been caused to ring forth again in our midst. The greatest intellectual fellowship prevails in Pro- testantism in the sphere of science — tlieology — and for that Germany is the central point. The collective theologies of the Protestant countries can be compre- hended from a German standpoint, but it requires no knowledsje of foreio-n theolo!vo, i)rice 21s. 'Dr. Schajfs ' History of the Christian Church" is the most valuable contribution to Ecclesiastical /history that has euer been published in this country. When com- pleted it will have no riual in point of comprehensiveness, and in presenting the results of the most advanced scholarship and the latest discoveries. Each division covers a separate and distinct epoch, and is complete in itself.' 'In no other Avork of its kind with which I am acquainted will students and general readers find so much to instruct and interest them,' — Eev. Prof. Hitchcock, D.D. 'A work of the freshest and most conscientious i-esearch.' — Dr. Joseph Cook, in Boston Monday Lectures. Just published, in post 8vo, price 9s., THE TEXT OF JEREM/AH; OH, A Critical Investigation of the Greek and Hebrew, with the Variations in the LXX. Retranslated into the Original and Explained. By Professor G. C. WORKMAN, M.A., VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, COBURO, CANADA. "With ax Introduction by Professor F. DELITZSCH, D.D. Besides discus.sing the relation between the texts, this book solves the difficult problem of the variations, and reveals important matter for the hi.story, the interpretation, the correction, and the reconstruction of the present Massoretic text. 'A work of valuable and lasting service.' — Professor Dkutzsch. 'The most painstaking and elal)orate illustration of the application of his principles to this end that has yet been given to the world. . . . Scholars will hail it with gratitude, and peruse it with \utcvvsV—Guardia7i. T. and T. Clark's Publications. NEW WORK BY PROFESSOR DELITZSCH. Just published, in post 8vo, price 6s., /R/S: Bintim in ffi^oloxir antJ Calks about Jlolxters. By Professor FKxVNZ DELITZSCH, D.D. Tkanslated by Rev. ALEXANDER CUSIN, M.A., Edinburgh. CONTENTS:— Chap. I. The Blue of the Sky.— II. Black and White.— III. Purple and Scarlet. — IV. Academic Official Robes and their Colours. — V. The Talmud and Colours. — VI. Gossip about Flowers and their Perfume.— VII. A Doubtful Nosegay.— VIII. The Flower-Riddle of the Queen of Sheba. — IX. The Bible and Wine. — X. Dancing and Criticism of the Pentateuch as mutually related. — XI. Love and Beauty. — XII. Eternal Life: Eternal Youth. EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE. ' The subjects of the following papers are old pet children, Avhich have grown up with me ever since I began to feel and think. ... I have collected them here under the emblematical name of Iris. The prismatic colours of tlie rainl)()w, the brilliant sword-lily, that Avonderful jmrt of the eye which gives to it its colour, and the messenger of heaven who beams with joy, youth, beauty, and love, are all named Iris. The varied contents of my book stand related on all sides to that wealth of ideas which are united in this name.'— Franz Delitzsch. ' A series of delightful lectures. . . . The pages sparkle with a gem-like light. 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THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS. ^'^' JOHN'S GOSPEL Volume HI. ACTS OF raE APOSTLES. ROMANS to PHILEMON. HEBREWS to REVELATION. 'A useful, valuable, and instructive commentary. The inferpri't.'ition is sot forth with clearness and cogency, and in a manner calonlated to commend the volumes to the thoughtful reader. The book is beautifully got np, and reflects great credit on the publishers as well as the writers.' — The Bishop of Glouce.ffer. 'There are few better commentaries having a similar scope and object ; indeed, within the same limits, we do not know of one so good upon the whole of the New Testament.' — Literary World. 'External beauty and intrinsic worth combine in the work here completed. Good paper, good type, good illustrations, good binding please the eye, as accuracy and thoroughness in matter of treatment satisfy the judgment. Everywhere the workmanship is careful, solid, harmonious.' — Methodist RfCOrder. T. and T. Clark's Publications. GRIMM^S LEXICON . lu demy 4to, price 36s., A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. BEING GRIMM'S 'WILKE'S CLAVIS NOVI TESTAMENTI.' STranslatcli, i^cbiscU, nnti one of the most perj)l('xing (piestions of tlie day. It is impossible to read it without obtaining larger views of theology, and more accurate opinions respecting its relations to science, and no one will rise from its perusal without feeling a deep sense of gratitude to its author.' — Scottish Rcvieiv. T. and T. Clark's Publications. PROFESSOR GODET'S WORKS, (Copyriglit, by arrangement witli the Author.) In Two Volumes, demy 8vo, price 21s., COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. By F. GODET, D.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, NEUCHATEL. ' A perfect masterpiece of theological toil and thought. . . . Scholarly, evangelical, exhaustive, and able.' — Evangelical Review. ' To say a word in praise of any of Professor Godet's productions is almost like "gilding refined gold." All who are familiar with his commentaries know how full they are of rich suggestion. . . . This volume fully sustains the high reputation Godet has made for himself as a biblical scholar, and devout expositor of the will of God. Every page is radiant with light, and gives forth heat as well.' — Methodist New Connexion Magazine. In Three Volumes, 8vo, price 31s. 6d., A COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. A New Edition, Revised throughout by the Author. 'This work forms one of the battle-fields of modern inquiry, and is itself so rich in spiritual truth, that it is impossible to examine it too closely, and we welcome this treatise from the pen of Dr. Godet. We have no more com- petent exegete ; and this new volume shows all the learning and vivacity for which the author is distinguished.' — Freemari. In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s.. A COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. ' Marked by clearness and good sense, it will be found to possess value and interest as one of the most recent and copious works specially designed to illustrate this Gospel.' — Guardian. In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s., A COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 'We prefer this commentary to any other we have seen on the subject. . . . We have great pleasure in recommending it as not only rendering invaluable aid in the critical study of the text, but affording practical and deeply suggestive assistance in the exjDosition of the doctrine.' — British arid Foreign Evangelical Review. In crown 8vo, Second Edition, price 6s., DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. TRANSLATED BY THE HON. AND UEV. CANON LYTTELTON, M.A., HECTOR OF IIAGLEY. ' There is trenchant argument and resistless logic in these lectures ; but withal, there is cultured imagination and felicitous eloquence, which carry home the appeals to the heart as well as the head.' — Sivord and Trowel. ^ 14 * / Date Due V ■ Afi „ .. -1 J f ) Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 00080 3355