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Purchased by the Mrs. Robert Lenox Kennedy Church History Fund.
BR 477 .W57 1902 Withrow, W. H. 1839-1908. Religious progress in the century
''■■}'
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SERIES
EDITORS OF THE SERIES:
Rev. W. H. WITHROW, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.C. CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, M.A. J. CASTELL HOPKINS, F.S.S. Rev. T. S. LINSCOTT.
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS
IN THE CENTURY
BY W. H. WITHROW, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.C.
Author 'of " The Catacombs of Rome," " The Romance of Missions" " The
History of Canada," " Our own Country," " The Native Races
of North America," Etc.
THE LINSCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY
TORONTO AND PHILADELPHIA
W. & R. CHAMBERS, Limited
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
igo2
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred, by The Bradley-Garretson Co., Limited, in the Ofince of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Entered, according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred, by the Bradley-Garretson Co., Limited, in the ofiBce of the Minister of Agriculture.
All Bights Reserved.
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION TO THE NINE- TEENTH CENTURY SERIES.
It seems desirable that the Editors of this impor- tant publication should express in a few words their appreciation of the help which has been rendered them in its preparation by many able and eminent men. Before undertaking what appeared to be a task of the greatest difficulty they formed a definite plan of operation in association with the Publishers, and after consultation with various writers of wide expe- rience. The result of this consideration of the posi- tion and of a very large correspondence with hundreds of leaders of thought and literature, in different countries, is the work now being presented to the public.
The twenty-five volumes which follow are devoted to a popular description of the progress of each of the English-speaking nations of the world and of the development during the century of the chief matters, in which these nations are interested — such as religion- temperance, sociology, science, art, literature, educa- tion, commerce, inventions, wars, discoveries, explo- rations, economics, politics, medicine, surgery, hygiene, biography and, in short, the most varied and important of the interests pertaining to human thought and progress. There is also a volume de-
Vi EDITORS' INTRODUCTION.
voted to India, Japan and China, one to the people of South Africa and one to the Continental Rulers, so that the principal elements of the world's progress appear to be covered.
The facts recorded in these twenty-five volumes are stranger than fiction and, in point of interest, read like fairy tales. There seems to have been no diffi- culty in gracing the description of the wonderful events of the century with all the interest of a ro- mance combined with the value of an historical treatment which is at once authoritative and authen- tic. Hence it is that each volume of the Series can be read with delight and then preserved as a book of ready reference, the copious index placing all the facts at the reader's disposal at a moment's notice. The practical usefulness of a book depends in no small measure upon its size ; for many excellent books are but little used because they are too large to handle with pleasure. This defect will not be met with in this Series, whether used as a course of continuous reading or for ready refer- ence. It will also be felt that having a volume for each distinct subject facilitates reference in no inconsiderable degree.
After summing up the subjects to be treated, the Editors believed that twenty-five volumes would be sufficient, that each volume should be complete in itself, and that the entire Series should be written by authors, who would be at once recognised author- ities and eloquent writers. To select and secure the required number of suitable writers from Great Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Aus-
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION. yii
tralia, New Zealand and South Africa took a good deal of time, but men were wanted who would com- mand the confidence of the thinking and reading public, and for this purpose neither time nor expense has been spared. With what degree of success these efforts have been crowned, the Editors leave the names and records of the authors to answer.
In commending the Work, therefore, to the public, as the great final arbiter in such matters, the Editors feel that they have done their best to provide an epitomised and interesting record of the world's prog- ress during the nineteenth century, and that they may, perhaps, be allowed also to express the hope that the enterprise of the Publishers, as well as their own labors, will receive a reasonable measure of popular appreciation.
CONTENTS.
PART ONE.
CONTEASTS AND PHASES OF EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
CHAPTER I.
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN NATIONAL PROGRESS.
PAGE
Failure of Ancient Civilizations. — Dying Nations. — Chris- tianity the Moral Antiseptic of the Age 1
CHAPTER II.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF EUROPE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
French Revolution. — Prevalence of Scepticism. — Outburst of Immorality. — Reign of Terror. — The Irish Rebellion of 1798 10
CHAPTER III.
SOCIAL AND MORAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND.
Prevalence of Intemperance. — Profanity. — Profligacy. — Low State of Religion. — Cruel Penal Code. — Condition of Prisons 17
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT REVIVAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
The Wesleys. — Field Preaching. — Mob Violence. — Im- proved Manners. — The Claphara Sect. —Religion in High Places. — Use of the Press 23
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OP AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY.
PAGB
The Revolutionary "War.— Prevalent Deism and Infi- delity.— Social Immorality. — Bitter Partisanship. — Duelling. — Drunkenness. — Decay of Religion ... .7 31
CHAPTER VI.
THE SABBATH AND ITS OBSERVANCE
The Bulwark of Morality.— The Sunday Paper.— Sabbath Observance at the Beginning of the Century. — Sab- bath Union Formed, 1843.— The Wide Open Sunday.— Moral and Material Benefits of the Sabbath ; 43
CHAPTER VII.
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE.
Growth of Slavery. — The Slave Trade. — Its Abolition. — Crusade Against Slavery. — Abolished by England 50
CHAPTER VIII.
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA.
Abolition Societies. — John Brown and the Fi-ee-Soilers. — The " Underground Railway." — Emancipation. — After the War. — Abolition Leaders 61
PART TWO.
MISSIONS.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY MISSIONS.
Christian Missions a Special Note of the Nineteenth Cen- tury.— Earlier Missions. — Conversion of Central and Northern Europe. — Missions to American Indians and to Eskimo. — Eliot. — Brainerd.— Egede. — The Moravians. — Cook's Discoveries Reveal the Horrors of Paganism. . 75
CONTENTS. CHAPTER X.
WILLIAM CAREY, THE FOUNDER OF MODERN MISSIONS.
PAGB
Carey's Appeal Marks the Epoch of Modern Missions.— Apathy of the Churches.— Opposition of the East India Company.— The Awakening of Christendom.— Carey, Marsh, and Ward in India.— Sydney Smith's Witty Scoffs at Missions.— Carey Lives Down Calumny and Wins Universal Honor 84
CHAPTER XI.
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. —HENRY MARTYN.
The Churches Roused.— Voyages of Missionary Ship " Duff."— Missionary Trials and Triumphs in Tahiti.— Organization of Missionary Societies.— The Romance of India.— Henry Martyn, a Soldier of the New Crusade.— Under Fire.— His Consecrated Zeal.— Failing Health.— Enters into Rest 97
CHAPTER XII.
METHODISM AND MISSIONS.— DR. THOMAS COKE.
Missionary Spirit of Methodism.— Coke, the Father of Methodist Foreign Missions.— His Romantic Story.— A Gospel Ranger throughout America.— In the West Indies.— South African Missions.— Sails for India.— Buried in Indian Ocean.— Missionary Progress in India. —Dr. Alexander Duff.— The Indian Mutiny.— Recent Development ^^^
CHAPTER XIII.
MISSIONS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS.
"Summer Isles of Eden."— ** Only man is vile."— Mis- sionary Trials and Triumphs in the Friendly Islands.— Conversion of Kings George and Tubou.— A Nation Transformed.— Cannibals become Saints and Apostles.. 121
xii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIV.
JOHN HUNT AND THE CONVERSION OF FIJI.
PAGE
Hunt and Calvert Pioneer Missionaries in Fiji. — Canni- bal Orgies. — Bitter Persecutions. — A Moral Miracle. — Marvellous Results 127
CHAPTER XV.
JOHN WILLIAMS, THE MARTYR OF ERROMANGA.
John Williams becomes the Apostle of Polynesia. — Suc- cess in Society Islands. — Among the Samoans. — Three Hundred Thousand Savages Become Christians. — Arouses England. — Visits New Hebrides. — Martyred at Erromanga.
Recent Progress in South Sea Missions. — The Hawaiian Islands. — New Zealand. — Savage Maoris. — New Heb- rides.— Bishops Selwyn and Patteson. — John Geddie. . . 133
CHAPTER XVI.
EARLY AMERICAN MISSIONS.— JUDSON.
First Missionary Society in America Formed at Williams College, "under the lee of a haystack," 1806.— Ro- mantic Story of Adoniram Judson. — Becomes Apostle of Burma. — In Bonds and Imprisonment. — Three Saintly Helpers.— Gospel Triumphs.. 143
CHAPTER XVII.
ROBERT MORRISON AND THE OPENINa OP CHINA.
A Stupendous Problem. — One-Third of the Human Race in China. — Morrison's Preparation. — Masters the Lan- guage.— The Bible Translated into Characters Read by Four Hundred Million Souls. — Eighteen Years' Work. — Revisits England. — Arouses the Nation. — Returns to China. — Dies in Harness, 1834 , 150
CONTENTS. xiii
CHAPTER XVIII.
LATER MISSIONS IN THE FAB EAST.
PAOB
The Opium War in China.— Dr. W. C. Burns.— Second Chinese War.— Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission.— Missionaries to the Million Blind in China. — Gilmour of Mongolia. — Japan Opened to Missions. — Mar- vellous Progress of Christian Religion and Western Thought.— A National Reaction.— McKay of Formosa. . 158
CHAPTER XIX.
AFRICAN MISSIONS.
The Dark Continent.— The White Man's Grave.— Van- derkemp, Moffat, and Livingstone.— Bishops Mackenzie and Hannington.— Mackay of Uganda.
Madagascar.— The Gospel Welcome.— Bitter Persecu- tion.—Buried Bibles.— "The Blood of the Martyrs the Seed of the Church."— A Christian Queen and People.— French Intrigue and Conquest 163
CHAPTER XX.
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLF,M«
Most Stubborn Fields.— Missions in Arabia.— In Turkey.— The Long Conflict of the Crescent and the Cross.— Mis- sionary College at Beyrout.— Robert College, Constanti- nople.—Ancient Churches of Christendom.— Armenian Persecutions.— Missionaries in Persia.— In Egypt 168
CHAPTER XXI.
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS.
Special Claims of the Israelites.— Age-Long Persecution of the Jews.— Rabbi Ben Ezra.— Missions in Jerusalem. —In Germany, Austria, and Hungary.— Anti-Semitism. —The Dreyfus Scandal.— Zionism.— Jews in Palestine. . 178
Xiv CONTENTS.
PART THREE.
PROGEESS OF THE CHUEOHES DUEING THE NIl^ETEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
PAGE
Religious Apathy and Erastianism at the Beginning of the Centiiry. — The Church Reactionary. — Opposed Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, and Ab- olition of Religious Tests.— The Reform Bill Agitation. — Riots in London and Bristol.— The Oxford Movement. — Newman, Pusey, Keble, Arnold, Froude 187
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND (continued),
"Tracts for the Times."— Tract Na 90.— Drift Rome- ward. — Ritualism. — Contributing Causes. — Scott's Ro- mances.— Gothic Revival.— Ornate Worship.— High Ritual.
Low Church Protest.— The Gorham Case.— The High Church.— Its Religious Zeal and Success.— Father Doll- ing.—The Low Church.— Evangelical and Philanthropic. —The Broad Church.— Stanley.— Jo wett.—" Essays and Reviews."— Strong Protests.— Bishop Colenso.
Colonial Branches of the Anglican Church. — Mission- ary Dioceses.
The Protestant Episcopal Church 197
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The Covenanters.— Their Sufferings and Heroism.— Re- volt against Ecclesiastical ** Patronage."—" Moderat- ism."—*' The Secession Church."— The Haldane Broth- ers.—Chalmers.— " The Veto Act."— Contested Ap- pointments.—The Strathbogie Case.—" The Claim of Right." "The Great Disruption."— Heroic Secession.— The
CONTENTS. XV
PAQB
Free Church Born. — Scotland Shaken. — "The Kirk Without a Steeple. "—Church Building.— Missionary Re- vival. — Educational Progress. — The Robertson - Smith Case 211
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHUB.CK (COnUnued) .
The United Presbyterian Church. — Burghers and Anti- Burghers. — Auld and New Lichts. — United Secession and Relief Churches. — Presbyterianism in England. — In Ireland. — In the United States. — In Canada. — Pan- Presbyterian Synods 225
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE METHODIST CHURCH.
The Wesley an Church.— Growth of First Fifty Years.— A Bulwark against Revolution and Infidelity. — Founds a Cheap Press.—" The Deed of Declaration."— Ground of First Secession.
The New Connection Church. — Alexander Kilham. — Kindly Relations with Parent Body. — No Doctrinal Dif- ferences in Methodism.
The Primitive Methodist Church. — Lorenzo Dow and Camp Meeting Controversy. — William Clowes and Hugh Bourne. — Aggressive Zeal. — Missions.
Bible Christian Church. — Its Moral Earnestness.— William Bryan. — Primitive Wesleyans. — Independent Wesley ans. — Wesley an Protestant Methodists. — Wesleyan Protestant Association.
The Parent Church.— Jabez Bunting.— Revolt from "Centralization of Power."— The "Fly Sheet Contro- versy."— Large Losses. — Peace and Prosperity. — Mission- ary Zeal.— Lay Activity.— Flexibility of Methodism... . 232
CHAPTER XXVII.
METHODISM IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.
The Irish Palatines.— Barbara Heck, " Mother of Metho- dism" in the United States and Canada. — Methodist Episcopal Church Formed.— Christmas Conference,
xvi CONTENTS.
PAGK
1784.— Dr. Coke.— Francis Asbury.— His Life of Toil.— Makers of Methodism. — Centenary of Methodism, 1839.
The Slavery Controversy. — Causes First Great Divi- sion of Methodism. — The Methodist Episcopal Church South Organized, 1844.
Methodist Protestant Church. — Wesleyan Methodist Connection. — The Congregational Methodists. — Colored Methodists. — African Methodist Episcopal Church. — African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. — Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. — Americo-German Meth- odism.— Evangelical Association. — United Methodist Free Churches. — Essential Unity of Methodism.
Growth of Methodist Episcopal Church. — Publishing Interests. — Missionary Enterprises. — Educational Insti- tutions.
Growth of Methodist Episcopal Church South. — Pub- lishing, Missionary, Educational Work 247
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CANADIAN AND COLONIAL METHODISM.
United Empire Loyalists in Canada. — The Palatines. — The Hecks. — Losee and Dunham. — Methodist Divisions and Unions. — Recent Growth. Australasian Methodism.— Methodism in South Africa 258
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
The English Independents. — Brownists. — English Puri- tanism.— The Act of Uniformity. — Congregational Union.
Congregational Church in the United States. — Men of the "Mayflower." — Educational and Missionary Work 262
CHAPTER XXX.
THE BAPTIST CHURCH.
Champions of Civil and Religious Liberty. — Bitter Perse- cutions.— Roger Williams. — Missionary Zeal. — Educa- tional Institutions. — Publishing Interests. — Divisions of the Baptist Church 267
CONTENTS. Xyii
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.
PAOB
The Dominant Protestant Church of Teutonic and Scan- dinavian People.— Doctrinal Basis.— The Inner and Outer Missions.
Lutherans in the United States.— The Reformed Church.— The Reformed Dutch Church 272
CHAPTER XXXII.
UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST CHURCHES.
Dr. Priestley, an Advanced Liberal in Politics and Re- ligion.—Persecuted in England, Seeks Liberty in Amer- ica.—James Freeman Clarke.— Dr. Channing.— Dr. James Martineau.— The Universalist Church.— Hosea Ballou 275
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY OP FRIENDS.
George Fox.— Penn and Barclay.— Bitter Persecution.— Mary Fisher.— Anti-Slavery Testimony.— Philanthropic Zeal 278
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MORMONS, OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS.
Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. — His Checkered Career.— The Mormon Bible.- Mormon Migrations.— Nauvoo and Utah.— Conflict with Civil Power 281
CHAPTER XXXV.
SPIRITUALISTS AND MINOR SECTS.
The Fox Sisters.— Daniel Douglas Home.— Scientific Tests. —Christian Science.— Mrs. Eddy and her Followers.— Dr.
Dowie and Faith Healing.— Minor Sects 285
B
xviii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
PAGE
Civil and Religious Disabilities in the United Kingdom.— Catholic Emancipation.— Daniel O'Connell.— Cardinal Wiseman.— Archbishop of Westminster.
The Sovereign Pontiffs of the Century.— Pius VI.— The Prisoner of Napoleon.— Rome a Republic.
Pius VII.— Napoleon Seizes Estates of the Church, 1809.— The Pontiff Restored, 1818.
Leo XII.— Promotes Education.— Suppresses Brigand- age and Pauperism.
Pius VIII.— A Pontiff for only Twenty Months.
Gregory XVI.— Catholic Disabilities in Prussia and Russia.
Pius IX.— The Longest Pontificate.— The Revolution of 1848.— Mazzini.— Garibaldi.— The Pontiff at Gaeta.— The French at Rome.— CEcumenical Council, 1869.— In- tegration of Italy.— Rome the Capital, 1870.
Leo XIII.— Policy of Conciliation.— Sympathy with the Working Classes.
Roman Catholic Church in the United States.— Growth by Louisiana, Florida, and Mexican Cessions.— Growth by Immigration.— Present Status 289
CHAPTER XXXVII.
ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS.
Jesuit Missions.— In New France.— Trials and Triumphs. —Martyr Deaths.— Xavier, "The Apostle of the Indies." —Heroic Toil, Sacrifice, and Suffering.— Visits Japan.— Makes Many Converts.— At the Moluccas.— Dies on the Threshold of China.
"Society for the Propagation of the Faith."— Roman Catholic Missions of the Century.— Cardinal Lavigerie in Algeria.— Crusade against the Slave Trade.— Missions at Timbuctoo and Uganda 298
CONTENTS. xix
PART FOUR.
PEOGEESS OF EELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
CHAPTER XXXVIIL
PROGRESS OF RELiaiOUS THOUGHT IN GERMANY.
PAOB
The Pietists.— Jacob Boehme.— John Gerhard.— Desola- tions of Thirty Years' War.— Spener.— Francke.
Rationalistic Reaction. — Influence of French and Eng- lish Deism.— Frederick the Great.— Semler, Lessing, and Kant.— The Weimar School.— Herder, Goethe, and Schiller. — Napoleon's Conquests.
Evangelical Revival. — Schleiermacher. — Union in Re- formed Church. — Neander. — Strauss's *' Life of Jesus." — Calls Forth Cogent Replies.— The Tubingen School. — Evangelical Scholars ; Dorner, Tholuck, Lange.— Noble Philanthropies.— John Falk.— Immanuel Wichern.— John Gosner. — Louis Harms. — Socialism. — Recent Higher Criticism 305
CHAPTER XXXIX.
PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN FRANCE.
The Huguenots. — National Protestant Church. — Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists. — Monod. — Renan's "Life of Jesus."— Orthodox Replies.— Pressense.—Guizot.— Re- cent Evangelism. — Methodist Missions. — The McAll Mission.— Salvation Army .-....-. 324
CHAPTER XL.
PROGRESS OP RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN HOLLAND AND SWITZERLAND.
Heroic History of Holland. — Arminius and Barne veldt. — Leyden School. — French Scepticism. — Dutch Poets and Jewish Scholars. — Evangelical Activities.
Switzerland the Home of Religious Liberty. — Vol- taire and Rousseau. — Neff and Oberlin. — The Haldanes. —Evangelical Revival 333
jj CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLI.
PROaRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY.
PAOB
Almost Entirely a Creation of the Century.— The Rosetta Stone.— Champollion and Young.— Deciphering Hiero- glyphs and Cuneiform Characters.— Discoveries at Bab- ylon, Nineveh and Nippur by Rawlinson and Layard, Smith, HUprecht, and others.— Creation and Flood Tablets.— Moabite Stone.— Tel-el- Amarna Tablets.— Finding the Pharaohs.— Identification of Rameses H. as the Pharaoh of the Oppression.— Treasure Cities of Goshen.— Discoveries of Maspero, Mariette Bey, Flin- ders Petrie, and others.— The Empire of the Hittites. —Lost Cities of Petra, Bozra, and Tadmor.— Recent Discoveries in Palestine by Warren, Conder, Tristram, Bliss, and the Palestine Exploration Fund.— Gordon's Calvary.— Robinson's and Wilson's Arches.— Aqueduct of Hezekiah.— Royal Quarries.— Exhumation of Lach- ish, etc.— Important Biblical Manuscripts.— The Codex Sinaiticus, the Romance of its Discovery.— The Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve.— The Logia, or Words of Jesus, Syriac Gospel, etc.— Graffiti of the Crucifixion, etc ^S
PART FIVE.
SPECIAL RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES AND PHL LANTHROPIES OF THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XLII.
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
Robert Raikes their Virtual Founder.— Early Adopted by Wesley.— Paid Teachers.— Modern Development.— Uni- form Lessons.— Sunday-School Literature.— Prominent Sunday-School Workers.— Conventions.— The Home Department.— Its Scope and Possibilities 367
CONTENTS. xxi
CHAPTER XLHI.
BIBTJE SOCIETIES.
PAGE
Their Early Origin.—The British and Foreign Bible So- ciety.—Continental Societies.— Controversies Concern- ing the Apocrypha, etc. — Bible Societies in the United States.— Bible Revision.— Great Work Accomplished... 381
CHAPTER XLIV.
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES.
Date from Wycliffe.— Luther and the Reformers.- Wes- ley and the Methodists.— Cheap Literature.— London Rehgious Tract Society.— Religious Periodicals.— Special Organizations.— On the Continent.— In the UnitedStates 389
CHAPTER XLV.
KAISERSWERTH AND THE DEACONESS MOVEMENT.
A Child of Providence.— Pastor Fliedner.— The World Needs Mothering.— Growth of the Organization.— Hospi- tals and Nursing.— The Deaconess in Other Churches. . . 398
CHAPTER XLVI.
SALVATION ARMY.
General Booth.— Providential Leadings.— " The Mother of the Salvation Army."— Meets Social and Religious Need.— Foreign Extension.— Social Schemes 407
CHAPTER XLVII.
CITY MISSIONS.
Lapsed Masses.— Chalmers.— Shafteshmy.—AVanamaker.— Jerry McAuley.— Social Settlements 416
CHAPTER XLVIII.
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS.
Humble Beginning. — Sir George Williams. — Meet Social Needs. — Success in America. — Christian Commission. —
xxii CONTENTS.
PAQB
Engirdle the World.— Relation to the Church.— Chris- tian Police. — Railroad Branches.
Modern Evangelization. — Dwight L. Moody.
Young Women's Christian Associations.— King's Sons and King's Daughters 433
CHAPTER XLIX.
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor.— Dr. F. E. Clark.— Rapid Growth of Societies.— Great Conven- tions.—Religious Enthusiasm.— Girdle the World.
Epworth League.— Under Direction of the Church. — Catholic in Spirit. — Prosperity.
The Baptist Young People's Union. — Its Growth.
Westminster League. — Statistics.
St. Andrew's Brotherhood.
The Luther League.
Students' Volunteer Society.
Concluding Reflections ... 448
EELIGIOUS PRO&RESS O THE CENTUEY.
PART ONE.
CONTRASTS AND PHASES OF THE EIGHT- EBNTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
CHAPTER I.
THE KELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN NATIONAL PROGRESS.
In a review of the progress of the nineteenth cen- tury, no aspect is more important than the religious aspect. Yet the religious element in national prog- ress and development may not at first sight seem the most striking. The great discoveries in science, the subjugation of the forces of nature to the will of man, the achievements in the arts and industries seem the more obvious elements of modern civiliza- tion. The swift trains that rush across the land, the mighty ships that plough the deep, the flashing of thought by electricity around the world,— these triumphs of mechanical skill touch every life and strike every imagination. The enormous develop-
2 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ment of the factory system, the tireless sinews and nimble fingers of machinery, increase the comforts and multiply the luxuries of all men.
" The Tuscan artist's optic tube " has been so in- creased in range of vision as to explore like a search- light the mysteries of the skies. The infinitely little is made to deploy its forces in the field of the microscope. The physical constitution of the re- motest stars can be analyzed. Synthetic chemistry, from the refuse product of the coal mine, can recall the flavors and fragrance and colors stored up by the sun in the plant life of bygone ages. The pes- tilence that walked in darkness, the plague that destroyed its millions, have been robbed of their terrors. The deadly germs that lurked unseen have been tracked to their lair, and, in large degree, rendered innocuous. Countless lives have been saved by the progress of medicine and surgery. Man's physical condition, his housing, his clothing, his food, have been incalculably bettered during the last hundred years.
But has man himself improved ? These external conditions and environments are not the truest measures of progress. A man's life consisteth not in meat and drink and in the abundance of the things that he possesses. He may revel in Sybaritic luxury and yet have all the vices of a Nero or a Heliogaba- lus. He may be poor in this world's goods, as poor as Socrates or St. Paul, and yet share with them the glories of high philosophy, of Christian hope.
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. 3
What constitutes a state ?
Not high raised battlement and labored mound,
Thick wall and moated gate :
Not these, but men, high-minded men.
Who know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.
These constitute a state.
Not the making of money, not the achievements of art, not the discoveries of science, but the making of men, is the truest test of the highest civilization. There have been lands of old renown which reached a great material splendor. In the Athens of Per- icles art attained its consummate flower. The very gods seemed to have come down from high Olympus to live in marble in the temples and the grove.
The exquisite beauty of the Parthenon has never been surpassed. The tragedy of ^schylus, the songs of Pindar, had the verj^ perfection of literary form. The philosophy of Plato, the eloquence of Demosthenes, are among the noblest expressions of human thought.
Yet that old Greek civilization was founded in wrong. The rights of man were denied. For every free man in Athens there were ten slaves. In im- perial Rome was the greatest concentration of ma- terial splendor, pomp and pride the world has ever seen. The Golden House of Nero, the Basilicas of the forum, the temples of the Gods, the gigantic architecture of the Colosseum and the Flavian Am- phitheatre, even in ruins, are the amazement of the nineteenth century. Yet the groans of the victims
4 EELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of man's oppression, the colossal crimes of the age, called down the avenging judgments of Heaven.
The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood and fire, Have dealt upon the Seven-Hilled City's pride.
The disinterred palaces and temples of Babylon and Nineveh, with their sculptured tablets and li- braries of cuneiform literature give evidence of a material civilization that after four thousand years excites our wonder. Yet " How is Babylon become a desolation ! How is she cast up in heaps, and utterly destroyed ! How art thou become an aston- ishment and an hissing ! How art thou made a pos- session for bittern and pools of water! The wild beasts of the desert shall be there."
The still older civilization of Mizraim is but a tradition. The tombs of the Pharaohs in the hearts of the pyramids have been rifled. The Bedouin camps in the great hall of Karnak. The fellah builds his mud hut beneath the columns of Luxor. The colossal statue of Rameses lies prostrate in the desert sand, and his mummied remains awake the curiosity of the chance tourist.
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where are they ?
These old civilizations have passed utterly away. Their gods are dead and kept in memory only by shattered temples or battered torsos. What assur- ance have we that the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century, with its marvellous achieve-
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. 5
ments, its triumphs of art and of science, its mighty cities, its " resonant steam eagles," its steel bridges swung high in air, its mines sunk deep in earth, shall not, like the civilizations of Babylon and Nineveh, of Greece and of Rome, also pass away? What guarantee have we but that, as in the vivid picture of Macaulay, "some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's?" How can we be confident that his companion picture shall not be- come a reality, " when the sceptre shall have passed away from England ; when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple ; and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts ? "
It is not in the material triumphs of the age that this guarantee can be found. It is only by its moral and religious progress that the permanence of our civilization is insured. The vanished empires of the earth, with their worn-out civilizations, have passed away because they have lacked the great conserving element of Christianity. They lacked the saving salt, the great antiseptic agency, of a faith and hope which shall abide when heaven and earth shall have vanished. Being built upon the shifting sand, when the floods came, and the winds
6 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
blew, and stress and strain, the Sturm und Drang assailed them they fell, and great was the fall thereof. The civilization of the nineteenth, or of the ninetieth, century can only be permanent as it is based upon the Everlasting Rock, on the im- pregnable foundation of faith in God and obedience to His will. Hence the great importance of the study of the moral and religious aspect of this most wonderful of all the centuries.
A pessimistic school of philosophers and religion- ists, " apostles of complaint and despondency " as they have been called, hold the view that the world is des- tined to grow woxse and worse instead of better. They affirm that there will be no more religious tri- umphs under the present dispensation, that only after the gr^at battle of Armageddon shall the powers of evil be overthrown, and, under the personal reign of our Lord shall the gospel achieve success. Cassan- dra-like prophets of evil have not hesitated to affirm that amid the materialistic civilization of the times the principles of religion have in large degree lost their regenerative power, that the Word of God is in large degree already discredited and discarded and laid on the shelf as " a queer relic of ancient faith."
Professor Goldwin Smith, in a famous essay on " The Prospect of a Moral Interregnum," wrote in 1879 as follows : '' A collapse of religious belief, of the most complete and tremendous kind, is apparent- ly now at hand. All English literature, even that
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. 7
which is socially and politically most conservative, teems with evidences of a change of sentiment, the rapid strides of which astonish those who revisit Eng- land at short intervals. . . . There is perhaps an increase of church-building and church-going, but the crust of outward piety is hollow, and growing hol- lower every day."
Yet within a few years from the utterance of this prediction we heard Professor Gold win Smith declare in a large assembly that " the forces of materialism were giving way all along the line." Everything depends in an estimate of this kind upon the point of view. We read in one day two letters describing the state of religion in England. One was from a dis- tinguished scholar and clubman, who declared that there was a sad lack of moral earnestness and relig- ious life, in high places and in low, throughout the United Kingdom. The other was from a zealous evangelist, who declared that the churches were in a flame of revival, and gave striking evidences of the ib^cts he alleged.
One of the most striking of these prophecies of evil was that by James Anthony Froude in the JVorth American Review, of December, 1879: "In every corner of the world," he said, " there is the same phe- nomenon of the decay of established religions. In Catholic countries as well as Protestant ; nay, among Mohammedans, Jews, Buddhists, Brahmans, tradi- tionary creeds are losing their hold. An intellectual revolution is sweeping over the world, breaking down
8 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
established opinions, dissolving foundations on which historical faiths have been built up. Science, his- tory, philosophy have contrived to create universal uncertainty." Nevertheless, he adds, " Christianity retains a powerful hold, especially over the Anglo- Saxon race."
The evidences of progress to be adduced in this volume will utterly disprove these astounding as- sumptions. It will be shown that a greatly improved moral sense has been developed throughout the cen- tury ; that, to use the words of Macaulay, while '' we may have heard of nothing but failure, we have seen nothing but progress." Great evils like slavery and intemperance, which were once viewed with tolera- tion or indifference, have come to be regarded with abhorrence, to be fought against with intense and prolonged earnestness, and at last have been swept as before a wave of moral indignation, in large de- gree, or entirely, away.
The great fleets of icebergs from the frozen North, with their glittering peaks and spires, sweep southward extending their chilling and be- numbing influence far and wide through the air and through the sea. As they sail ever onward, amid the tepid lavings of the Gulf Stream and beneath brighter shining of the summer sun, they melt first gradually, and then rapidly, awaj^ and at last are swallowed up and disappear. So the giant sinbergs of society that lift their proud heads in defiance of truth and right, beneath the clear shining of the
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT 9
Sun of Righteousness, and amid the ceaseless lavings of a sea of vitalized Christian opinion, melt first slowly then rapidly away and are swallowed up in the abyss of time.
10 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY,
CHAPTER II.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF EUROPE IN THE EIGHT- EENTH CENTURY.
The closing years of the eighteenth century were marked by great social and political cataclysms which could not fail to have a very adverse influence on the condition of religion and morality. War is always demoralizing. It breaks down many barriers of restraint. It excites many -evil passions. It tolerates much looseness of conduct. A great Amer- ican general has said " War is hell."
In the closing decades of the eighteenth century war, wide-wasting, raged around the world. In America a fratricidal strife for seven long years del- uged its virgin fields, dyed its waters with blood and caused untold sufferings, privations, disasters and deaths. Though from the soil thus furrowed with the stern ploughshare of war there sprung the lilies of peace and the harvest of prosperity, yet there sprung also a heritage of international hatred, alien- ation, bitterness and strife which only after a hun- dred years is passing away.
In Europe the French Revolution had overturned both throne and altar in the dust. It was a besom of
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF EUROPE. IX
destruction which swept away colossal wrongs^ grown hoary with age ; but it was accompanied by orgies of vice and wickedness, by cruelties and slaughters unparalleled in the annals of mankind. It was the most striking example in the history of the world of organized atheism seeking to extirpate the very name of Christianity from the face of the earth. This cataclysm swept away much that was intolerably evil. This lurid storm cleared the at- mosphere of much moral malaria, but its very ex- cesses produced a reaction. The allied nations rose to suppress this outbreak of anarchism and bloodshed, and the closing years of the old and the opening years of the new century were years of wide-wasting and desolating war with all its concomitant social and moral evils.
Small wonder that under these circumstances the moral and religious condition of the people was one of great degradation. The tyranny of the French monarchs and nobles, the oppression and corruption of the court, and the hypocrisy of many of the clergy filled up the cup of iniquity of that unhappy nation.
" All the honest intellect of France," says Lecky, " seemed alienated from the Christian faith.'' " The Church," he adds, " which was so discredited, so cor- rupt, and at the same time so intellectually despic- able, was a persecuting Church connected with a persecuting government. In the full blaze of the
civilization of the eighteenth century, hundreds of
c
12 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
French Protestants were condemned to the galleys or to long periods of imprisonment for the crime of attending their religious worship; women were flogged ; children were torn from their parents, and more than one Protestant pastor was executed."
The Huguenots, who represented the very flower of the industrial population, had fled into exile or hidden in the desert of the Cevennes. The Jansen- ists, who included the finest intellects and purest characters of the nation, had been suppressed. The very foundations of Christian and even theistic belief were giving way. When a starving peasantry de- manded of the profligate nobles, " What shall we eat ? " they were told to " eat grass." The writ- ings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Diderot and the Encyclopaedists sapped the very foundations of morality.
" Atheism," says Lecky, " had penetrated into the monasteries, perhaps even into episcopal palaces. What little devotion remained was of a very sickly character. A skull illuminated with tapers, and adorned with ribbons and pearls, might at this time be commonly found in a devout lady's boudoir. It was called ' La Belle ]\Iignonne,' and the devotee was accustomed to spend a portion of every da}^ in prayer and meditation before it. The Queen was much addicted to this devotion, and the skull before which she prayed was said to be that of Ninon de I'Enclos."
Voltaire boasted that infidel ideas were in the
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF EUROPE. 13'
ascendant from St. Petersburg to Cadiz. Feu-l;il burdens, tithes and taxations which bled the very life out of the peasantry, became intolerable. *' Be- tween ignorance, poverty and oppression, agricul- ture, over a great part of France, was little more advanced than in the middle ages." " In some dis- tricts field labor could hardly be accomplished, for the few remaining peasants were so attenuated by hunger that they could scarcely hold the spade or direct the plough, and gaunt, famine-stricken crowds, shouting for bread, besieged the town halls and followed the Dauphin as he drove to Notre-Dame." Famine and pestilence stalked through the land. Yet the privileged classes, the courtiers and court ladies, — bewigged, patched and painted and per- fumed,— danced on over this seething volcano.
The success of the young Republic of the West in securing liberty rose like a star of hope upon a people almost plunged into despair. But the French had no Washington to become the Father of his country. Over and over again, to use tlie phrase of Burke, the French have shown themselves the ablest "architects of ruin" that have ever existed in the world. Never was this more fully shown than in the excesses, the violence, the orgy of blood which live in history as the Reign of Terror. The very name of God was abolished. His worship was suppressed. The Sabbath was removed from the calendar. All Christian institutions were desti-oyed. A " Goddess of Reason " was installed in the cathe-
14 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
dral of Notre Dame. The churches were converted into barracks. The bells were melted into cannon. The bones of the dead monarchs of France were cast out of their tombs. The guillotine shore off the heads alike of lofty and lowly. The Revolution de- voured its own sons.
The nation, weary of aimless slaughter, welcomed the military dictator who alone seemed able to bring order out of chaos, and a wide-wasting war under the star of Napoleon for twenty years deluged Europe in blood. Small wonder that the very foun- dations of morality in France seemed destroyed and its practice almost abandoned.
In Ireland, the worst of all conflicts, in which the bitterness of civil and religious war were combined, made the last years of the eighteenth century a time of bitterness, wretchedness and wrong.
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was accompanied by acts of cruelty and violence, which within a limited range were akin to the *'fool fury of the Seine." Ricks and houses were burnt, cattle were houghed, loyalists were murdered by rebels, and rebels slain by loyalists. Bloody conflicts occurred. Fanaticism grew by that on which it fed. The massacre of Vinegar Hill was followed by the butchery of Scul- labogue Barn.
Bonaparte, after menacing the invasion of Ireland, sailed to Egypt, and the French fleet encountered Nelson in the battle of the Nile. Years after, in the lonely isle of St. Helena, Napoleon spoke of this de-
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF EUROPE. 15
cision as one of his great errors. " On \Yhat," he said, " do the destinies of empires hang I ... If, instead of the expedition of Egypt, I had made that of Ireland ; if slight deranging circumstances had not thrown obstacles in the way of my Boulogne en- terprise— what would England have been to-day? and the Continent? and the political world?"
The French invaders under Humbert were de- feated, the Irish Rebellion was suppressed with cruelty, and peace for a time was restored to the un- happy island. But the embittered memories con- tinued to poison the relations of Protestant and Cath- olic. The savageries of this civil conflict, how- ever, were relieved by gleams of kindness on the part of both Catholic priest and Protestant preacher. The Methodists especially were, for their loyalty, particularly obnoxious to the rebels, and several were cruelly piked with aggravated barbarity.
"Irish Methodism," writes Dr. Abel Stevens, " was to struggle with the terrible evils of the memo- rable Irish Rebellion, the result of those anarchical tendencies, political and moral, which the French Revolution had spread over Europe. The horrors perpetrated, in the name of liberty, can never be fully recorded. The shrubberies were gleaned for pike- handles ; signal-fires gleamed on the hills at night ; armed ruffians marched to and fro in the country, desolating it with fire and sword; thirty-seven thousand of them encamped near Ross, and on the next day seven thousand were slain on the field."
During this reign of terror the Irish Methodist
16 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Conference met, through the influence of Dr. Coke with the Lord Lieutenant, in the city of Dublin. With the magnanimity of a gospel revenge, that very conference set apart Charles Graham and James McQuigg as Irish evangelists, who, subsequently joined by Gideon Ouseley, preached and prayed and sang the gospel in the Irish tongue into the hearts of thousands of their fellow-countrymen.
The civil war in Ireland reacted disastrously upon the moral tone of English society. Not merely were the soldiery trained in intolerance, but religious partisans in both countries fostered a mutual bitter- ness of spirit which, after a century, has not altogether disappeared. Under such adverse conditions it is not wonderful that society was very much demoralized.
CONDITION OF ENGLAND. 17
CHAPTER III.
SOCIAL AND MORAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND.
Great Britain though the more wealthy and pros- perous part of the kingdom, hay, in large degree, under the blight of religious apathy and moral supineness. Few things are more painful to contemplate than the moral obtuseness of the court. George III., according to his lights, was a well meaning and even religious man, but with this exception, during the whole period of the Georges there seems to have been from the king to the lackey an almost entire absence of moral sense. The card table was the main resource from ennui. Faded dowagers sat late into the night playing the magic cards. The Newmarket races were the haunt of profligacy and vice. So also were the favorite resorts of Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Immense sums were lost and won in bets. The fashionable literature to be found in fine ladies' boudoirs was such as few now care to acknowledge having read. Intemperance was a prevailing vice. J^o class was free from its contam- ination. The ermine of the judge and the cassock of the priest were alike polluted by the degrading practice. The dissipation of the lower classes was
18 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
almost incredible. Smollett tells us that over many of the spirit- vaults in the streets of London might be seen the inscription : " Drunk for a penny ; dead drunk for twopence; straw (to sober off on) for nothing/'
Profane swearing was awfully prevalent. The judge swore upon the bench, the lawyer swore in addressing the jury, the fine lady swore over her cards, and it is even said that those who wore the surplice swore over their wine. " The nation was clothed with cursing as with a garment." The profligacy of the soldiers and sailors was proverbial. The barrack-room and ship's forecastle were scenes of grossest vice, for which the cruel floggings inflicted were an inefficient restraint. Robbers waylaid the traveller on Hounslow Heath, and footpads assailed him in the streets of London. In the northern part of the island, rieving, raiding and harrying cattle still often occurred. On the southwestern coast, before the Methodist revival, wrecking — that is, enticing ships upon the rocks by the exhibition of false signals — was a constant occurrence, and was frequently followed by the murder of the shipwrecked mariners.
Although the mining population of the khigdom was greatly benefited by the labors of the Wesleys and their coadjutors, still their condition was deplorable. Many were in a condition of grossest ignorance, their homes wretched hovels, their toil excessive and far more dangerous than now, their
CONDITION OF ENGLAND. 19
amusements brutalizing in their tendency. Even women and cliildren underwent the drudgery of the mine.
The introduction of gas has greatly restricted mid- night crime in the cities. A hundred years ago they were miserably dark, lit only by oil lamps hung from the houses. Link-boys offered to escort the traveller with torches. Riotous city " Mohawks " haunted the streets at midnight, roaring drunken songs, assaulting belated passengers, and beating drowsy watchmen, who went their rounds with a " lanthorn " and duly announced the hour of the night — unless they were themselves asleep. Bear and badger baiting was a favorite amusement, as was also prize-fighting. Even women, forgetting their natural piti fulness and modesty, fought in the ring.
We have elsewhere described as follows the moral condition of the times : —
" The state of religion previous to the Wesleyan revival was deplorable. Even of professed theologians but few were faithful to their sacred trust, and these bemoaned, with a feeling akin to that of Nehemiah and the exiled Jews, that the house of the Lord was laid waste. One of these, the venerable Archbishop Leighton, of pious memory, in pathetic terms laments over the national Church as ' a fair carcass without spirit.' A sneering scepticism pervaded the writings of Bolingbroke and Hobbes, of Hume and Gibbon. The principles of French philosophy were affecting English thought. In the universities a mediaeval scholasticism prevailed. Even the candidates for holy orders were ignorant of the gospels. A hireling
20
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
priesthood often dispensed the ordinances of the Chiircli, attaching more importance to mere forms than to the spirit of the gospel— to the wearing of a surplice than to the adorning of the inner man. Some of them were more at home at the races, at a cockpit, at a hunting or a drinking party, than in their study or their closet."
It must not, however, be supposed that there were no redeeming features to this dark picture. Such names as those of Bishops Butler and Lowth would cast a lustre over any age. But they, alas, only made the surrounding darkness seem more dark. But even bishops, like Warburton and Lavington, assailed the evangelical teachings of the Wesleys with the coarsest and most scurrilous invective in a manner which, as a historian of the period remarks, indicated " the low standard of religious opinion at that time among the hiffh functionaries of the Church."
The penal code of England in the eighteenth cen tury was of savage ferocity. Its laws, like those of Draco, were written in blood. The death penalty was inflicted, not only for murder, but also for treason, forgery, theft, and smuggling ; and it was often in- flicted with aggravating terrors. Among the causes of the increase of robbers. Fielding lays much stress on the frequency of executions, their publicity and their habitual association in the popular mind with notions of pride and vanity, instead of guilt, degrada- tion or shame.
Boys under twelve were hanged for participation in the Gordon riots of 1780. Mentioning the cir-
CONDITION OF ENGLAND. 21
cumstances to Rogers, Mr. Grenville rather naively added : " I never in my life saw boys cry so." *' When Blackstone wrote," says Mr. Lecky, " there were no less than one hundred and sixty offences in England punishable with death, and it was a very ordinary occurrence for ten or twelve culprits to be hung on a single occasion, for forty or fifty to be condemned at a single assize."
Persons recently living remembered the gibbeting of murderers till the ravens devoured their flesh, and their bones rattled in the wind. Political offenders were still more harshly dealt with. The gory heads of knights and peers were impaled on Temple Bar, and their dismembered limbs on London Bridge.
Suicides were thrown into dishonored wayside graves, transfixed with stakes and crushed with stones. The pillory and stocks still stood on the village green. Flogging was publicly inflicted by the beadle of the parish. The number of executions was enormous. In 1785, in London alone, it was ninety-seven. After a jail-delivery at Newgate, scores of miserable wretches were dragged on hurdles to Tyburn Hill, amid the shouts and jeers of a ribald mob, who either mocked the mortal agonies of the culprits, or exhorted their favorites to " die game," as the phrase was. So far were those exhibi- tions from deterring vice, they actually promoted it. Mountebanks, gamblers and jugglers plied their ne- farious callings under the very shadow of the gal- lows and in the awful presence of death.
22 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
" The condition of the prisons was infamous. Prisoners for debt were even worse lodged than con- demned felons, and both were exposed to the cu- pidity and cruelty of a brutal jailer. In 1773 John Howard was appointed Sheriff of Bedford. The horrible state of the prison pierced his soul. He forthwith burrowed in all the dungeons in Europe, and dragged their abominations to light. They were the lairs of pestilence and plague. Men were sentenced, not to prison only, but also to dysentery and typhus. Howard bearded the fever demon in his den, and fell a victim to his philanthropy. But through his efforts and those of Mrs. Fry, Fowell Buxton and others, a great reform in the state of prisons has taken place. Methodism did much for the prisoners. The Wesleys sedulously visited them, and Silas Told, the sailor convert of John Wesley, gave himself exclusively to this work,"
THE GREAT REVIVAL.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT REVIVAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
Britain and Anglo-Saxon civilization can ne^er be thankful enough for the great revival of the eighteenth century which saved England from the horrors of a revolution like that of France. With all their faults, the English people have a sanity and self-restraint of which the French seem incapable.
"England," says Lecky, "was a richer country than France, but the English court exhibited little or nothing of the ostentatious extravagance of the court of Versailles; and foreigners, who compared the noble proportions of Greenwich and Chelsea hospitals with the palace of St. James, declared that the English lodged beggars in palaces and kings in almshouses."
Yet tlie morality of the court under the First, Second, and Fourth Georges was little better than that of France, and had a coarseness and vulgarity that contrasted with the polished vice of Versailles and Fontainebleau. But the leaven of the Wesley an revival was leavening the mass of society. In hundreds of villages groups of earnest-souled men and women were worshipping God in sincerity and in truth, and training their households in His love
24 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and fear. In higher place, too, in the councils of the nation were some " who wore a coronet and prayed." In the Established Church also, as we shall see, the influence of this revival was felt, and not a few faithful clergymen illustrated in their lives the ideal described in Chaucer's Qood Parson : —
Rich he was in holy thought and work ; The love of Christ and his apostles twelve He taught : but first he followed it himselve.
The moral and political sanity of the English people, too, their sturdy patriotism and loyalty, the wise guidance of their rulers, and the classic elo- quence of Pitt and Burke helped to save the nation from the chaos into w^hich France had fallen.
The violence with which the religious reformers, especially the Wesleys and their fellow-helpers, were treated illustrated the coarseness and cruelty of the age. This new apostolate was not without confessors unto blood and martyrs unto death. They were stoned, they were beaten with cudgels, they were dragged through the kennels, and some died of their wounds. The clergyman and the magistrate of the parish were often the instigators and leaders in this mob violence. But those faithful men, with un- faltering fidelity, with a noble heroism that recked not for danger or death, persisted in their work of faith and labor of love.
Their fervent preaching, their holy lives, their persistent efforts were not unavailing. Inveterate
THE GREAT REVIVAL. 25
opposition was overcome. Hard hearts were touched to tenderness. Savage natures were renewed by di- vine grace. The village bully, or the deep-drinking squire, became not unseldom the champion of the persecuted preachers, and sometimes their lay helper in spreading the new evangel. The tear-washed fur- rows on the grimy faces of the colliers of Durham and of the tin miners of Cornwall attested the power of the divine message.
Where the Wesleys at the beginning of their career were mobbed and maltreated, at its close they were received as angels of God. From being the worst hated they became the best beloved men in the kingdom. At Cork, where John Wesley had been burned in effigy, he was met by a cortege of mounted horsemen. At Falmouth, where he had been taken prisoner by an immense mob, "roaring like lions," high and low now lined the street from one end of the town to the other, " out of love and kindness, gaping and staring as if the king were going by."
Moorfields, which had first raged like pandemonium, became the scene of vast and frequent and orderly assemblies. Coarse villages like Madeley, once the home of drunkenness and vice, became god-fearing, law-abiding communities. The rude fishermen on the Cornish coast, who were wont to lure shipwrecked mariners upon the rocks by false lights in order to plunder or kill them, now risked their lives to succor and save. The rough and reckless smugglers, who lived by defying the laws of the realm, and not
26 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
unseldom added murder to their fraud, abandoned their crimes. The consumption of smuggled liquor greatly decreased, much to the improvement of the manners and morals of the community.
A distinguished literary man, Howitt, in his Rural Life in England thus depicts the condition of the people in the early years of the nineteenth century : *' It is in the rural districts, into which manufactories have spread — that are partly manufac- turing and partly agricultural — that the population assumes its worst shape. . . . The Methodists have done much to check the progress of demoralization in these districts. They have given vast numbers education ; they have taken them away from the pot- house and the gambling-house, from low haunts and low pursuits. They have placed them in a higher circle, and invested them with a degree of moral and social importance. They have placed them where they have a character to sustain, and higher objects to strive after ; where they have ceased to be operated upon by a perpetual series of evil influences, and have been brought under the regular operation of good ones. They have rescued them from brutality of mind and manners, and given them a more refined association on earth, and a warm hope of a still better existence hereafter. If they have not done all that could be desired with such materials, they have done much, and the country owes them much."
All the churches shared the benefits of this religious awakening. In tlie Established Church of the realm
THE GREAT REVIVAL. 27
many godly men, both clergy and laics, aided this moral reform. Among these we may mention the venerable Simeon of Cambridge ; Milner, the dean of Carlisle ; the elder Venn, rector of Clapham ; his son, John Venn, the projector of the Church Mis- sionary Society; the sainted Berridge, vicar of Everton; Grimshaw, the curate of Haworth; Per- ronet, vicar of Shoreham ; the Rev. and Hon. Walter Shirley, grandson of Earl Ferrers; Romaine, the distinguished London clergyman ; Martin Madan, the brilliant advocate turned clergyman ; Thompson, rector of St. Gennis ; the famous and eccentric Rowland Hill ; Toplady, author of the noble hymn, " Rock of Ages, cleft for me " ; Unwin and Newton, the friends and protectors of the gentle poet, Cowper ; and many another devout clergyman helped to awaken the national Church from the spiritual torpor into which she had fallen.
Nor were godly laymen wanting to help on this good work. Henry Thornton, the Christian banker, Member of Parliament, and philanthropist, at his beautiful village of Clapham, once the abode of the great Pitt, furnished a home for the Clapham sect. This coterie of distinguished men gave a new impulse to Christian philanthropy. Thornton himself gave in charity sometimes ten thousand pounds a year. During his thirty years in Parliament he advocated the cause of peace, reform, economy, toleration and African emancipation. In the latter moral crusade William Wilberforce became his active co-adjutor.
28 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
or rather the leader of this great reform. Granville Sharp, the first chairman of the Bible Society ; Zachary Macaulay ; Lord Teignmouth, first president of the Bible Society ; and other men of noble char- acter, became bulwarks of morality and examples of piety.
Religion, long despised and contemned by the titled and the great, began to receive recognition and support by men high in the councils of the nation. The Earl of Dartmouth, a member of the Privy Council and Secretary of State, is commemorated in America by Dartmouth College, of which institution he was a patron. It was to him that Cowper refers in the lines : —
We boast some rich ones whom tlie gospel sways, And one who wears a coronet and prays.
Lord St. John became a convert from the scepticism of the times to the faith of Christ. The wife of Lord Chesterfield and her sister, the Countess of Delitz, received the Gospel, and died in the triumphs of faith. The Countess of Huntingdon became the powerful patroness of the Whitefield Methodists, and converted her castle into a college. Many other elect ladies of high rank became devout Christians. A new element of restraint, compelling at least some out- ward respect for the decencies of life and observances of religion, was felt at court, where too loug corrup- tion and back-stairs inflluence had sway.
One of the most potent agencies for the extension
THE GREAT REVIVAL. 29
of intelligence and religion and the betterment of tlie people was the diffusion of wholesome reading. The most striking feature of the close of the nine- teenth century was the immense development of periodical and cheap literature. A hundred years ago only the beginnings of such a literature had been made. The very appetite for reading had to be created. A people immersed in sordid cares, housed in comfortless homes, amused by coarse sports, found more pleasure drinking in the village ale-house, or in badger-baiting or cock-fighting on the village green than in reading books or periodicals.
Not the least of the benefits conferred upon so- ciety by the great revival of the eighteenth century was the creation of a new taste for good reading, and the supply of books and periodicals for its grati- fication. Early Methodism soon had its own book room and printing house, and made much use of printer's ink. In the old Foundry in Moorfields a press and book dep6t were established, and a tract society instituted.
" Having a desire," writes John Wesley, " to furnish poor people with cheaper, shorter and plainer books than any I had seen, I wrote many small tracts, generally a penny apiece ; and after- ward several larger. Some of these had such a sale as I never thought of : and by this means I unawares became rich." These riches, however, were all in- vested in his printing house and in maintaining his manifold charities.
30 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Not content with books and tracts, Wesley pro- jected in August, 1777, the Arminian Magazine^ and issued the first number at the beginning of 1778. " It was one," says Southey, " of the first four re- ligious magazines which sprang from the resuscitated religion of the age, and which began this species of periodical publications in the Protestant world." This magazine is still published after an interval of one hundred and twenty years, and is the oldest re- ligious periodical in the world.
The list of Wesley's own contributions to litera- ture fills forty-four columns in Stevens' Life, English Edition. They embraced books and booklets of a great variety of subjects, including a " Christian Library " of fifty volumes, beginning with the trans- lations of the Apostolic Fathers ; text-books on English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French gram- mar ; compendiums of logic and rhetoric ; an Eng- lish dictionary; short histories of England and Rome; expurgated editions of classic authors; selec- tions from Corderius and Erasmus, and other works.
The tracts and leaflets, which were scattered by his preachers and people over the kingdom "like leaves in autumn," were like the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nation, and were the precursors of that vast development of cheap litera- ture through the publications of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge and the relig- ious tract and book societies of every civilized land, and, indeed, of many till recently pagan communities.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA. 3I
CHAPTER V.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA IN THE EIGHT- EENTH CENTURY.
In the New World as well as the Old the close of the eighteenth century was one of much religious torpor, and in many cases of sterility and death. For seven long years the Revolutionary War had dragged its weary course. Many productive indus- tries were diverted from their legitimate channels to the preparation of material and equipments of war. Trade and navigation were greatly impeded by ex- posure to capture of American commerce on the high seas. The currency was greatly deranged, and the colonial bills were at a marked discount as compared with coin.
Society was greatly disorganized. Internal strifes and jealousies, which it is difficult now to conceive, widely prevailed. A considerable portion of the population, and these some of the most intelligent, cultured and wealthy members of the community, remained faithful to the mother-country. During the war much ill-feeling and often bickering, strife and hostile outbreak occurred. The conclusion of
32 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
peace was followed by the exodus of many thousands of the United Empire Loyalists, as they were called. Their real estate was abandoned, or sold at a great depreciation, and the removal of their personal effects and money, and especially the loss of their enterprise and energy, depleted the country of one of its most valuable elements.
The long war caused much hardship, suffering, and loss, and, what was worse, much moral and re- ligious deterioration. On the rupture with the mother-country many of the clergy of the Estab- lished Church in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and, to a lesser degree, in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York, returned to Great Britain. The bonds of morality were greatly relaxed, and through- out wide regions there were scant opportunities of religious worship or religious instruction.
Even before the war the state of religion was very low. Bishop Meade, of Virginia colony, wrote: " As to the unworthy hireling clergy of the colony, there was no ecclesiastical discipline to correct or punish their irregularities and vices." The sym- pathy of the French with the revolting colonists and with the young republic had its harmful, as well as its helpful, side. The Voltairian scepticism of France and Prussia, and the cold deism of Hobbes and Bolingbroke in large degree benumbed the pub- lic mind. The coarse infidelity of Paine created a more active antagonism to religion. The West India trade in sugar and molasses led in New Eng-
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA. 33
land to the large manufacture of rum, accompanied by all the debasing, demoralizing and corrupting in- fluences which always result from the wide use of intoxicants.
'* A detailed statement of American manners in the last quarter of the eighteenth century," says Dr. Dorchester, in his valuable work on the " Problem of Religious Progress," " will exhibit a condition of immorality having no later parallel on our shores." " The Revolutionary War," he continues, " had not progressed far before the faithful ministers of the Presbyterian Church, in their synod, deplored the spread of ' gross immoralities,' ' increasing to a fear- ful degree.' In 1779 they lamented * the degeneracy of manners,' and ' the prevalence of vice and immor- ality that obtain throughout the land.' A sentiment of insubordination grew up out of the infusion of French ideas, which declared 'moral obligation to be a shackle imposed by bigotry and priestcraft,' revo- lution a right and duty, and authority usurpation.
" The revolutionizing spirit, serviceable in the war, was so thoroughly diffused among the people that it threatened new trouble. Men had vaunted about rights until many felt that any government was an imposition. Demagogues multiplied, poisoning the minds of the masses, engendering the spirit of domes- tic scuffle, and instiofatinor local rebellions, discontent ■'00 '
and heart-burnings. A relaxation of moral principle, and licentiousness of sentiment and conduct, fol- lowed in the footsteps of liberty — the ofispring of
34 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
her profane alliance with French infidelity. In not a few even of the New England towns desecration of the Sabbath, lewdness, neglect of the sanctuary, profanity and low cavils at the Bible were common, and 'the last vestiges of Puritan morals seemed wellnigh irrecoverably effaced.' "
In few respects has the tone of society more greatly changed than in the increased amenity of public life and courtesy of public discussion. Embittered and sometimes unscrupulous as we maj^ think the parti- sanship of to-day, it is mild compared with that of a century ago. The venerable figure of George Wash- ington is enshrined in the heart of his countrymen. He is enhallovved with the virtues almost of a saint. He is one of the most ideal characters of history. He is revered as the father of his country, a knight " sans peur et sans reproche.''^ But during his life he was bitterly assailed, maligned and abused by the press of the day, and his acts were misrepresented in such gross and flagrant manner, " in such indecent terms," as he said himself, " as could scarcely be applied to Nero, or a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket."
Dr. Dorchester quotes a gentleman of the highest character as writing to Washington at the close of the century, 1796 : '' Our affairs seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution ; something that I cannot fore- see or conjecture. I am more uneasy than during the war. . . . We are going and doing wrong, and therefore I look forward to evils and calamities. We
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA. 35
are woefully and wickedly misled. Private rage for property suppresses public considerations, and per- sonal rather than national interests have become the great objects of attention." Washington replied, " Your sentiments that we are drawing rapidly to a crisis accord with mine. What the event will be is beyond my foresight."
The Rev. Theodore Parker, in a review of this period, states : " The Federal party, composed of men who certainly were an honor to their age, sup- ported Aaron Burr for the office of Vice-President of the United States, a man whose character, both public and private, was notoriously marked with the deepest infamy. Political parties are not very puri- tanical in their virtues at this da}^, but I think no party would now, for a moment, accept such a man as Mr. Burr for such a post."
Dr. Dorchester presents the following severe in- dictment of the manners and morals of the times — an indictment which is amply sustained by contem- porary evidence : —
" Duelling was then not a sectional, but a national, vice. The whole land was red with the blood of duellists, and filled with the lamentations of widows and orphans. It was a common crime of men high in office, and a duellist was elected, by a large majorit}^ Vice-President of the Union, even com- ing within a narrow chance of the Presidential chair.
'' Profanity terribly abounded, and was not tlien regarded as ungentlemanly. The stocks, the pillory
36 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and the whipping-post were common. Slavery ex- isted in all the states.
" Intemperance was an alarming evil. The manu- facture of New England rum commenced in 1730, increasing the home consumption of this fiery stimu- lant ; but the milder liquors, beer and wine, continued in general use, until the war of the Revolution cut off foreign commerce, and gave an impulse to the distillation of rum, when this most vitiating of all beverages became universal. Furnished freely to the soldiers in the army, at the close of the war they went forth with vitiated appetites, increasing the de- mand for distilled spirits throughout the land. In the forty years following the Revolution, drunken- ness fearfully increased, until, in the language of a European traveller in the United States at that time, it became * the most striking characteristic of the American people.'
" Intemperance had not then the weight of public sentiment to struggle against, which has since been raised up. To get drunk did not then injure a man's reputation or influence. Members of churches, the highest church officials, deacons and ministers, drank immoderately, without seriously compromising their positions. Said the Rev. Leonard Woods, D.D. : " I remember when I could reckon up among my ac- quaintances forty ministers who were intemperate.' Another gentleman, living in those times, subse- quently said in a Boston newspaper, 'a great many deacons in New England died drunkards. I have a list of one hundred and twenty-three intemperate deacons in Massachusetts, forty-three of whom be- came sots. ' "
The Rev. Alva Cunningha7:n, in a work on the infidelity of the times, quoted by Dr. Dorchester, described the existence in New York State of a so-
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA. 37
ciety organized for the express purpose of destroying Christianity and civil government. The description of the coarseness, vileness and impiousness of this association almost exceeds belief. " They claimed the right to indulge in lasciviousness, and to recreate themselves as their propensities and appetite should dictate. Those who composed this association," says the writer who describes it, " were my neighbors ; some of them were my schoolmates. I knew them well, both before and after they became members. I marked their conduct, and saw and knew their ends. Their number was about twenty men and seven females. ... Of these, some were shot ; some hung ; some drowned ; two destroyed themselves by intemperance, one of whom was eaten by dogs, and the other by hogs ; one committed suicide ; one fell from his horse and was killed ; and one was struck with an axe and bled to death. . . ." Almost every one of them died a violent, and most of them a shame- ful, death.
Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey presented similar moral phases. *' The infidelity of the age far exceeded any time before or since known in America, and was of the grossest kind." Dr. Dorchester pro- ceeds as follows : —
'* The Rev. Devereux Jarratt gave a dark picture of society in Virginia near the close of the last cen- tury, and Bishop Meade's sketches of the 'old churches and families of Virginia ' deepen the shades. Of a portion of Kentucky, Pester Cartwright, speaking
38 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of the year 1793, said, ' It was called Rogues' Har- bor,' because 'law could not be executed.' Tbe most abandoned and ferocious lawlessness prevailed. It was a desperate state of society. Refugees from justice, murderers, horse-thieves, highway robbbers and counterfeiters settled there, and ' actually formed a majority.' The better elements of society, called ' regulators,' organized, and attempted by arms, to put down the ' rogues,' but were defeated.
" As late as 1803, according to Rev. Joseph Badger, Cleveland, Ohio, had no church, and 'infidelity and Sabbath profanation were general.' A gentleman visiting Western New York in 1798 said : ' Religion has not got west of the Genesee River. Some towns are hot-beds of infidelity.' Of many other sections of the country it was said, 'there was scarcely a vestige of the Christian religion.'
" Rev. Dr. I. N. Tarbox says : ' A sentence from the Andover^ Mass. Manual opens another subject of great significance, as showing the real condition of the churches in the last century. "VVe are told, as a part of the history of that church, that ' the chief causes of discipline for a hundred and twenty-five years were fornication and drunkenness.' And the writer adds : ' He who investigates the records of this or any other church for the same period will be astonished at the prevalence of these vices, as com- pared with the present time.' *
" The pastoral letter issued in 1798 by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was full of alarm and expostulation : 'When formidable innova- tions and convulsions in Europe threaten destruction to morals and religion ; when scenes of devastation and bloodshed, unexampled in the history of modern nations, have convulsed the world ; and when our
* "Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches of Mas- sachusetts from 1776 to 1876." Minutes of the General Associa tion for 1877, p. 33.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA. 39
own country is threatened with similar calamities, insensibility in us would be stupidity ; silence would be criminal. . . . We desire to direct your awakened attention toward that bursting storm, which threatens to sweep before it the religious principles, institutions and morals of our people. We are filled with deep concern and awful dread, wl^ile we announce it as our conviction that the Eternal God has a controversy with our nation, and is about to visit us in His sore displeasure. . . . We perceive with pain and fear- ful apprehension a general dereliction of religious principle and practice among our fellow-citizens ; a great departure from the faith and simple purity of manners for which our fathers were remarkable ; a visible and prevailing impiety and contempt for the laws and institutions of religion ; and an abounding infidelity, which, in many instances, tends to atheism itself.'
'' In this alarming condition of things, they say : 'A dissolution of religious society seems to be threatened by the supineness and inattention of man}'- ministers and professors of Christianity.' ' For- mality and deadness, not to say hypocrisy, a contempt for vital godliness and the spirit of fervent piety, a desertion of the ordinances, or a cold and unprofitable attendance upon them, visibly pervaded every part of the Church.' ' The profligacy and corruption of public morals have advanced with a progress propor- tioned to our declension in religion. Profaneness, pride, luxury, injustice, intemperance, lewdness and every species of debaucliery and loose indulgence greatly abound.'
*' The means for combating these evils were then small. In large sections of the land the people either were not supplied with gospel preaching or the supply was very scant3^ There were no tracts, and very few religious books and Bibles. The age of tract and Bible societies had not dawned. During
40 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the colonial history no Bibles except Eliot's Indian Bible were allowed by the mother country to be printed. They were, therefore, scarce and expensive, and during the Revolutionary War a few were imported, with great difficulty, from Scotland and Holland. The first American edition of the Holy Scriptures was published in 1781, by Robert Aiken, of Philadelphia. So meagre were the means of re- sistance against the evils of that period."
The moral condition of the people at the close of the century will be best illustrated by some concrete examples. Freeborn Garretson, about the year 1780, began his " Gospel Ranging " as a pioneer Methodist preacher from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia, but chiefly in the Middle States. His biography records that "he was menaced by persecutors, interrupted sometimes in his sermons, threatened by armed men, and one of his friends was shot (but not mortally) for entertaining him." " He was attacked by ruffians, smitten on the face, mobbed and summoned to drill as a soldier. Once he was felled from his horse by a blow on the head from a bludgeon and knocked sense- less to the ground. In Delaware he was arrested while preaching and thrown into gaol." *' During a fortnight," he says, " I had a dirty floor for my bed, my saddle-bags for my pillow, and two large windows open, with a cold east wind blowing upon me."
About the same time Jesse Lee became the Methodist "Apostle of New England." While making his way through the land where the Pilgrim Fathers had sought freedom to worship God after
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF AMERICA. 41
the dictates of their conscience — a privilege which they refused to the Quakers and the Methodists — he asked permission to preach under an apple tree in an orchard. His request was denied lest he should "trample the grass." After seven months of in- defatigable toil, the result of Lee's labors was the formation of but two classes, with an aggregate of five members. As the winter came on it was too cold and stormy to preach under the historic Boston Elm, and it was almost impossible to get the use of a house, although continuous efforts were made for four weeks. Such persistent zeal, however, was not without its unfailing reward. Where at first he was received with coldness and disdain, he was at length welcomed with heartiest good-will.
42 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IK THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER VL
THE SABBATH AND ITS OBSERVANCE.
One of the strongest bulwarks of religion and morality is the Christian Sabbath. Where its sacred hours are spent in holy duties and in holy joys the conditions are eminently favorable for the de- velopment of personal and civic righteousness. Where its religious character is invaded and it be- comes a mere holiday instead of a holy day, or where, through a merciless greed for gain, the poor man's best heritage is snatched from him and employed in sordid toil, there the very foundations of moralitj^ are undermined and its structure menaced with destruction.
A great peril of the times is the secularizing of the Lord's Day. Modern society has become so complex, its manifold needs have become so im- perious and so involved that the inroads of the work- day week upon the seventh day of rest have become insidious, persistent and powerful. In the growth of great cities have grown up vast systems of trans- portation of the people by means of electric, steam or other motors. These have too often invaded the sanctity of the Lord's Day and, aided by the greed
THE SABBATH AND ITS OBSERVANCE. 43
of selfish men, have converted the breathing-places of the cities into so-called pleasure resorts. Instead of the quiet restfulness of the old-time Sabbath has come the restless and strenuous " pleasure exertion," that leaves both body and mind flaccid and unnerved. The influx of foreign population accustomed to the Sunday diversions of Prater of Vienna, or of the beer gardens of Hamburg and Berlin, have broken down the barriers of the Sabbath observance in many American and some Canadian cities.
During the American Civil War the eagerness of the people for the latest news from the scenes of conflict led to the enormous development of that greatest enemy of all righteousness, the Sunday newspaper. These papers have grown to enormous proportions. They are utterly secular in character. They have nothing sacred about them except their name and, perhaps, a meagre sermon by some fashion- able preacher, or scrap of religious intelligence. Greater prominence is given to sport, theatrical gossip, scandal, sensation-mongering and coarse and vulgar caricature than in any other issue of the week. Where these papers are read they effect two evils. They engross so much of the Sabbath hours that there is little or no time for religious worship. They so secularize the soul as to leave for it little or no religious desire.
These invasions of the sanctity of the Sabbath were admitted evils of the close of the century. They are a menace to the growth of religion in the in-
44 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
dividual and in the community and to the physical welfare of the working man. The law of God writ- ten in our members as well as in His Word requires the seventh day's rest as well as the six days' work.
Yet we must not hastily conclude that the former times were better than these. There was a great deal of coarse and vulgar Sabbath-breaking at the close of the previous and in the early years of the last century. In Great Britain Sunday was a favorite day for sports upon the village green, and even for cruel amusements of cock-fighting, bull, bear, and badger baiting, and prize-fighting. Till late on in the century it was often spent in orgies of drunken- ness. In the mining and manufacturing districts, the high wages earned in the best of times were largely squandered by the drunken idleness of Mon- day, Tuesday, and often of Wednesday as well.
Even in the rural life of the New World a great amount of Sabbath desecration prevailed. Through- out the older settlements Sunday was often a day of pleasure, gaming and visiting. In the newer settle- ments it was spent in *' amusement, horse-racing and dissipation." " The only distinguishing feature of the day," quotes Dr. Dorchester, " was an excess of wickedness."
We are apt to regard the carriage of the mails and the postal deliveries on the Sunday as a compara- tively recent innovation. This is a mistake. " After 1810," says Dr. Dorchester, " mails were carried on the Sabbath on all the routes in the United States,
THE SABBATH AND ITS OBSERVANCE. 45
and the post-offices were kept open. This practice continued more than twenty years, notwithstanding numerous remonstrances. All the religious bodies repeatedly protested, and memorialized Congress on the subject, from 1812 until after 1830, but with little effect. Matters grew worse instead of better. In 1842, the American and Foreign Sabbath Union was formed, and exerted a powerful influence in securing the enactment of Sunday Legislation. After eight years' labor, Dr. Justin Edwajrds, agent of the society, reported the following result :
" Railroad directors, in an increasing number of cases, have confined the running of their cars to six days in the week ; locks on canals are not opened ; and official business is not transacted on the Sabbath. Stages and steamboats in many cases have ceased to run ; and more than eighty thousand miles of Sab- bath-breaking mails have been stopped. . . . About forty railroad comjianies have stopped the running of their cars on that day, on about four thousand miles of roads."
The liquor traffic, that enemy of all righteous- ness, is the special enemy of the Lord's Day. In England the public houses are still open at certain hours to supply Her Majesty's lieges with that sup- posed indispensable necessity, the daily pot of porter or mug of beer. One of the most flagrant evils of the Sunday night in London, Liverpool, Manchester and other great centres is the glare of the gin palaces at nearly every corner, the more striking by contrast with the almost universal closure of shops and stores.
46 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The Sunday night is too often a high carnival of drunkenness and immorality.
Yet, a great improvement has taken place. In Scotland the Forbes-Mackenzie Act closed inns and taverns from Saturday night till Monday morning. A wonderful improvement in manners and morals followed. From being the noisiest and most quarrel- some day of the week, Sunday became, as it should be, the most quiet and orderly.
Throughout almost the whole of the United States the bars are ostensibly closed on the Sabbath day. Although there may be many " speak-easies " and back-door entrances and many violations of the law, still the bar is under ban on the Lord's Day, and seldom flaunts its vice in the face of the com- munity as was its wont.
Notwithstanding the great influx of foreign im- migrants, it cannot be affirmed that such wholesale defiance of the law and violation of the Sabbath ob- tains to-day. Notwithstanding, too, the enormous increase of population, of travel, of manufacturing industry, of public and private business, still the most significant sign of the times is the marked ces- sation of labor during its lioly hours. A sacred silence falls upon the land, the whirling wheels of machinery stand still, the countless chimneys of myriad factories cease to pour forth their volumes of smoke, the air becomes pure, and the blue sky is seen, unstained by a cloud, a symbol of the holy in- fluence of the Lord's Day. From ten thousand
THE SABBATH AND ITS OBSERVANCE. 47
steeples throughout the land, in crowded city, in town and village and remotest hamlet rings forth the call to praise and prayer, and multitudes wend their way to the house of God and keep holy the Sabbath day.
It is a fact of immense significance that in the metropolis of London, the great heart of tlie world's traffic and travel, Her Majesty's post-office is closed on the Sabbath day and no general letter delivery at the wickets or by the post carriers is made. If this can be done in London without damage to business, it can be done anywhere in the world. In that great centre of printing and publishing it is significant, too, that very few papers attempt any Sunday issue, and these have a very limited patronage.
One of the most striking triumphs of public sen- timent over the Sunday paper occurred in Great Britain during the year 1899. Two of the leading papers of the great metropolis, the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraphy launched elaborate Sunday issues. Not only vras the religious sentiment of the country aroused, but many secular organizations protested strongly against this invasion of the day of rest. A very effective boycott of the obnoxious papers was adopted. Some of the news agents refused to handle even their week-day editions. Many previous pa- trons refused to purchase them, and many advertisers withdrew their advertisements. Where moral con- siderations failed to secure the suppression of the Sunday paper this appeal to the purse of the pub-
4:8 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
lisher proved remarkably effective, and after a few weeks' experiment the Sunday issues of both papers were suspended. It is said that a firm of eminent philanthropists withdrew five thousand pounds* worth of advertisements from one of the seven-day papers.
Even on the continent of Europe, where the Sab- bath is almost unmarked except by the swifter rush of trams and trains, and greater whirl of pomp and pleasure, of military reviews, horse-races and bull- fights, a demand for Sabbath rest has risen. In many of the manufacturing establishments of France, no Sunday labor is done. The workingmen, through their unions, have made the demand for the cessa- tion of public works. Throughout Belgium a little tag is attached to the postage stamps by the reten- tion or removal of which the sender may indicate his desire for the non-delivery of his letter on the Lord's Day.
The very prevalence and power of this oldest in- stitution of the world is a perpetual testimony of the Gfoodness of God and of the needs of man. Its wide and reverent observance is a rebuke to the still too frequent violation of its sanctity by the love of pleasure and the greed of gain. The fact that such untold millions' worth of valuable machinery and manufacturing plant are consigned to idleness for one-seventh of the time is one of the sublimest recog- nitions of the claims of God and tlie duty of man — is a proof that with all its material interests the age
THE SABBATH AND ITS OBSERVANCE. 49
in which we live is one of profound spiritual recog- nition.
The very surcease of labor gives also the oppor- tunity for the ministration to the higher needs of the soul, to the waiting upon God in His own appointed manner, in His house and on His holy day. " The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it." A great host of the most scholarly men, the sanest thinkers, the purest phil- anthropists, the most eloquent preachers week after week expound the oracles of God and seek to lift the people to a higher plane of life and thought. A still greater army of unpaid teachers gather the children by the thousand and the million for instruction in the Word of life.
The Christian Sabbath is the great bulwark of the Christian faith, the great barrier to the tide of world- liness, which, like another deluge, would otherwise drown out the highest interests of mankind.
In certain English coal mines the trickling stream throughout the week is dyed an inky black with coal and leaves its grimy deposit where it flows. But on the Sunday it flows pellucid and pure, leaving a thin white stratum in the growing deposit. So the Sab- bath rest and quiet and holy duties and holy joys leave their mark with pearl-white beauty on this pearl of days.
50 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER VII.
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE.
The page of history on which the record of slavery is written is one of the darkest in the annals of mankind. It has been in all ages the crime of the strong against the weak, of conquerors against the conquered. It appears in the Chinese records of three thousand years ago. The Phoenicians swept the coast of Europe to kidnap slaves, white or black. Slavery was an established institution of the Hellenic "heroic age." In the Greek Republics there were ten slaves for one free man. During the highest civilization of Rome the sound of the lash was heard throughout the vast empira The wayside was often studded thick with crucified slaves, and the wail of the victims pierced the patient skies. Often the slaves, in culture, learning and physical beauty, were far superior to their owners. Sometimes a wealthy master had twenty thousand slaves, and so abso- lutely were their lives at his disposal that Vedius Pollio fed his slaves to the lampreys in his fish-pond, and on his death four hundred of his bondmen were slaughtered.
Besides filling all the more menial offices, slaves
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 51
occupied the positions of librarians, readers, reciters, story-tellers, journal keepers, amanuenses, physicians and surgeons, architects, diviners, grammarians, pen- men, musicians and singers, players, builders, engrav- ers, antiquaries, illuminators, painters, silversmiths, gladiators, charioteers of the circus and many other crafts.
The population of Corinth, one of the most lux- urious cities of Greece, as a result of Roman con- quest were all sold into slavery. So also were those of the great cities of Carthage and Capua. The vic- tories of Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey glutted the slave markets, so that men were sold for four drachmae each, or about sixty-two cents. The Gallic wars of Julius Csesar furnished half a million slaves, and the capture of Jerusalem by Titus ninety thou- sand more. Thieves and debtors were sold as slaves. Parents even sold their children into bondage for gain or to save them from starvation. Slavery ex- isted among most oriental races, even among the Jews ; but the Mosaic legislation concerning servi- tude was very mild, containing important limitations of the rights of masters and providing for the eman- cipation of slaves.
In the early days of the Roman Republic there was one door open to liberty, that of the army. Before a slave could be a soldier he must become free. Man- umission was often practised by wealthy masters, especially at the approach of death. In the reign of Claudius, Gibbon estimates that there were sixty
52 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
million slaves in the empire. Servile wars often broke out, as under Spartacus, which were ruthlessly suppressed and slaves by the thousand crucified.
Slavery brought its unfailing accompaniment of the moral degradation of the slave-owner. It was one of the chief causes of the decline of Rome. The Christian Church did much to mitigate its horrors and on its ruins the feudal serfdom was established.
The rapid development of the power of the Turks in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries greatly in- creased the prevalence of slavery and the wretched- ness of the slaves. The low, light vessels of the mussulman corsairs scoured the coast of Europe and swept off into captivity multitudes of victims who were held for toil or for ransom, or to replenish the harems or man the galleys of the Turks. Cervantes was for five years an Algerine captive, and formed a project to release twenty-five thousand Christian slaves of Algiers. When Charles V. captured Tunis he found twenty thousand Christian slaves, and at the battle of Lepanto twelve thousand manned the Turkish galleys.
The discovery of America and the immense mari- time and commercial enterprise that followed led to the enormous growth of the slave trade. Under ruthless Spanish rule the conquered Indians perished by thousands in the mines and in the fields, and negro slaves were imported to supply the reckless waste of lives. The most enlightened nations in Europe took part in this traffic in the bodies and the
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 53
souls of men. Queen Elizabeth is charged with sharing the profits of Sir John Hawkins, the first Englishman who conducted a regular slave trade. Charles II. and James II. were members of slave- trading companies. The French, the Dutch, tlie Spanish and the Portuguese were engaged whole- sale in this nefarious trade. Many hundreds of thousands of hapless victims were brought from the Guinea coast to supply the plantations of the Antilles and the mainland of North and South America.
One of the first countries to abolish slavery was the Province of Upper Canada. At the very first meeting of its legislature after the organization of the province in 1792 the holding of the bodies of men as slaves was prohibited. In 1776 it was re- solved by the Continental Congress that no more slaves should be imported into the United Colonies, but when the constitution was formed in 1788 Con- gress was prohibited from interdicting the traffic be- fore 1808, at which time it was abolished. The State of Georgia prohibited the slave trade in 1798. America was thus in advance of other countries in fixing a time for the cessation of a traffic which has been as generally condemned as it has been persist- ently pursued for four long centuries.
In England the slave trade was early denounced by a few individuals, but it was regarded by most men as a perfectly legitimate branch of commerce. The last act of the British legislature regulating the slave trade was passed in 1788, the same year that
54: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the first parliamentary movement for its abolition was made. The Quakers were unanimously opposed to the slave trade, and many philanthropists, states- men and especially the British poets, denounced its crime. Among the most noted of the opponents of slavery was Granville Sharp, who for half a century fought for the emancipation of the slave.* Clarkson began his anti-slavery labors in 1T86, soon to be joined by Wilberforce in a moral crusade not to be ended till the slave trade and slavery throughout the British Empire was abolished. The Duke of Clarence in the House of Lords denounced them as fanatics and hypocrites, but Fox and Pitt, the chief of the Ministry and chief of the Opposition, joined their ranks in 1790, and soon the leading members of the House of Commons of both parties became aboli- tionists.
Year after year the act for the abolition of the slave trade was passed by the Commons but thrown out by the House of Lords, till at length, in 1806, under the Fox and Granville ministry, the abolition of the slave trade was brought forward as a government measure and carried in 1807.
The abolitionists then began to labor for the re- moval of slavery itself. A society was formed " for
* Early in the eighteenth century Chief Justice Holt had ruled that " as soon as a negro comes into England he is free ; one may be a villein in England, but not a slave ; " and later : " In England there is no such thing as a slave, and a human being never was considered a chattel to be sold for a price."
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 55
the mitigation and gradual abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions." Clarkson, Wil- berforce, Buxton — immortal honor to their names ! — were leaders of this moral crusade. The philan- thropic sect of the Quakers strongly supported the movement, and one of them, Elizabeth Heyrick, published an epoch-marking pamphlet entitled, " Im- mediate, not Gradual, Abolition." Her appeal fell on sympathetic ears. But the colonial authorities resisted every scheme of amelioration proposed by Parliament. The abolitionists " abandoned the doc- trines and measures of gradualism and adopted those of immediate and unqualified emancipation on the soil."
As was eminently fitting, this humanitarian appeal exerted a controlling influence on the widened franchise in the election of the Reform Parliament in 1832. The government avowed its purpose to bring in a bill for the abolition of slavery. This measure, brought forward in April, 1833, proposed an ap- prenticeship of twelve years for the slaves and tlie payment out of their earnings to their masters of fifteen million pounds. The friends of emancipation vehemently remonstrated against the intolerable in- justice of making these victims of oppression for twelve long years continue to coin their sweat into gold, during which interval many thousands of them must die in bondage. The bill was finally modified by a reduction of the apprenticeship to six years and a provision to pay the masters twent}^
56 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
million pounds out of the national treasury. This bill received the royal assent August 28, 1833.
The day of emancipation was fixed for August 6, 1884. Throughout the British West Indies, on the eve of emancipation day the slaves — there were 600,000 of them held in bondage — assembled in their churches and chapels to spend the night in praise and thanksgiving. We have heard a witness of some of these scenes describe their pathos and their power. With jubilant psalms and hymns, with sobs of emotion and shouts of joy, the slaves wel comed the " Day of Jubilee " — the hour when their shackles fell off and they stood up no longer chattels but men. Throughout the islands the anniversary is still observed as a day of solemn joy and glad- ness.
The apprenticeship system did not work well. Antigua and Bermuda rejected it. In some instances the local legislatures abolished it, and in 1838, two years before its appointed expiration, it was brought to an end by act of Parliament. Britain had still more than twelve millions of slaves in her East Indian possessions, — not men dragged from their homes across the sea, but the serfs of the soil, the subjects of conquest. These, too, she emancipated by parliamentary enactment in 1843.
France was as much committed to negro slavery as England, but on account of her less extended co- lonial possessions had not so many slaves. The French Revolution affirmed the principles of libert}',
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 57
equality and fraternity. In 1791 these rights were extended to the mulattoes of Hayti, but were with- drawn the same year. Under the famous Toussaint rOuverture, the negro patriot, the black population revolted and afiQrmed their liberty. In 1801 Napo- leon Bonaparte resolved to restore slavery. Tous- saint was treacherously kidnapped at midnight and carried to France, where he died in prison in 1803. In attempting to suppress the insurrection the French force was almost destroyed by yellow fever. Hayti had a troubled career as a republic, an empire, and again a republic, with results which fail to de- monstrate the fitness of the negroes for self-govern- ment.
In 1815, during " the hundred days," Napoleon ordered the abolition of the French slave trade, which finally ceased in 1819. Slavery itself was abolished in the French colonies, without indemnity to the masters, in 1848. The same year Denmark abolished slavery in her colonies. Sweden had al- ready done the same the previous year, and the Neth- erlands in 1860. Spain agreed in 1814 to abolish the slave trade in 1820, but long continued to main- tain an oppressive form of slavery in her West Indian and Philippine colonies.
In the United States the slave trade was prohibited by law in 1819, but it was long illegally maintained, although it was declared to be piracy in 1820. Ne- groes were kidnapped in the African villages, driven to the coast in coffles, endured all the horrors of
58 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
*' the middle passage," and were surreptitiously landed in the ports of the slave states. The first conviction for this crime took place in 1861, when Nathaniel Gordon was executed at New York for piracy.
Both Great Britain and the United States made vigorous efforts by means of watchful fleets to sup- press this nefarious trade. Many slavers were cap- tured and their cargoes freed. One of Turner's grandest pictures shows a slave-ship, in a lurid sunset, throwing its human cargo to the sharks in an effort to escape capture. Yet so great were the profits of the accursed trade that numerous cargoes were landed on various parts of the American coast. Upon the breaking out of the War of Secession the slave trade ceased to be profitable, and soon almost entirely disappeared.
In Brazil slavery flourished with considerable vigor till 1871. For years a strong agitation for its abolition had been maintained, with which the ami- able and liberty-loving Emperor Don Pedro sym- pathized. In September, 1871, a law of gradual emancipation was enacted. It is estimated that, before the abolition of slavery, no less than 40,000,- 000 Africans were deported from their own country, chiefly to the mainland and islands of the Continent of America.
At the first census of the United States taken in 1790 the slave population numbered 697,897, every state except Massachusetts having its share. The
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 59
force of public opinion, however, soon led to their emancipation throughout the Northern States.
The great plantation system of the Southern States, the invention of the cotton gin and the reign of King Cotton, the need of black labor in the insa- lubrious rice swamps and cane brakes, and the brand of social inferiority placed upon labor fostered the growth of slavery, till, on the outbreak of the Civil War, there were nearly 4,000,000 persons in bond- age. Many of the fathers of the American Republic, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and many others were opposed to slavery as a system, though some of them themselves holding slaves. They ex- pected it to pass away before the advancing power of civilization.
Societies for the abolition of slavery were early formed in many of the states. Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, founded in 1775. In 1790 he sent a memo- rial to Congress bearing his official signature, pray- ing that body to " devise means for removing the inconsistency of slavery from the American people," and to " step to the very verge of its power for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men.'* Similar associations were formed in other states, chiefly in the North, but in- cluding also Maryland and Virginia.
To their honor be it said, the poets, great writers, and many eminent statesmen of both Great Britain and America were the uncompromising opponents
F
60 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of slavery. Cowper, James Montgomery, Words- worth, the Brownings, Pierpont, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier and others of less name and fame, in many a stirring poem denounced its wrongs, portrayed its evils and demanded its abolition, and those who survived its fall rejoiced in its overthrow.
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA. 61
CHAPTER VIII.
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AISIERICA.
The irrepressible conflict between the North and the South on the question of slavery became more and more acute. The addition of slaveholding states in the South — Mississippi, Louisiana and the territory of Arkansas — widened the field and increased the polit- ical influence of the peculiar institution. The op- ponents of slavery denied that men could be held as property under the jurisdiction of the United States, however the case might be under the laws of partic- ular states. They cited the proviso in the Federal constitution for the government of the territories northwest of the Ohio, framed in 1787, that *' there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than in punishment for crime." The debate on the admission of Missouri as a territory to the Union was long and acrimonious. By the famous Missouri compromise it was decided that tlie clause prohibiting slavery in the territory should be struck out, but that it should be pro- hibited north of latitude 36° 30'.
The anti-slavery agitation was rekindled by the ef- forts chieflj^of Benjamin Lundy, William Lloyd Gar-
62 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
rison and a host of abolition workers. Lundy pub- lished a small paper in Baltimore entitled The Genius of Universal Emancipation, and in 1831 William Lloyd Garrison began the issue of the Liberator, an uncompromising abolition paper.
In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man ;
The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean, Yet there the freedom of a race began.
Garrison declared that slaveholding was a sin against God and a crime against man, and that im- mediate emancipation was the right of every slave, the duty of every master. The American Anti- Slavery Society was formed in Philadelphia in 1833, the famous philanthropist, Arthur Tappan, being its first president. It pronounced all laws admitting the right of slavery to be " before God utterly null and void." It declared that the principles of its members led them " to reject, and to entreat the op- pressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage." Their measures, it said, would be *' such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption, the destruction of error by the potency of truth, and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance." An active propaganda was formed for diffusion of anti-slavery sentiment by means of public meetings, lectures, newspapers, pe- titions to Congress, appeals to Christian and patriotic sentiment.
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA. 63
111 1854 the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were organized. The act of Congress declared that the Missouri Compromise Act, by which slavery was forever prohibited north of latitude 36° 30', was in- operative and void. A large emigration of deter- mined " free-soilers " to the new territories took place from the New England and the Northwestern States. At the same time many settlers from Missouri passed into Kansas, taking tlieir slaves with them. A con- certed movement for the extension of slavery was made. In 1856 armed bands from Missouri took possession of the polls, and pro-slavery delegates, with gross illegality, by fraud and force, were elected to the territorial legislature. This legislature passed an act making it felony to conceal or aid escaping slaves, to circulate anti-slavery publications or to deny the right to hold slaves in the territory. The free-soilers formed a constitutional convention by which slavery was prohibited in Kansas.
The contest between the pro-slavery and abolition parties became so violent that several men were killed on each side. Soon a state of civil war ex- isted, many pro-slavery armed men coming from Georgia, Alabama and other Southern States, and many free-soilers from non-slaveholding states. In Ma}^, 1856, a fight took place at Pottawattomie, where the famous John Brown, who later instigated the raid at Harper's Ferry, was encamped. Five men were killed and subsequently many hostile en- counters took place. In a still more bloody conflict
64 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
at Ossawatomie one of Brown's sons was killed. After a most determined effort to secure the tolera- tion of slavery, a constitutional convention was held at Wyandotte in 1859, which adopted a constitution prohibiting slavery. This was ratified by the people, and under the provision Kansas was admitted into the Union.
On October 16, 1859, John Brown, with three sons and eighteen other persons, made a brave but ill- judged raid upon Harper's Ferry. His purpose was to capture the United States arsenal and rally the slave population of the neighborhood and retreat with them to Canada, or, should that prove impos- sible, to inaugurate a general servile war. The arsenal was seized. John Brown boldly declared that his object was to free the slaves, and that he "acted by the authority of God Almighty." Tlie insurrection was speedily suppressed. Two of Brown's sons were slain. The brave old man was summarily tried, and on December 2d was ignomini- ously hanged. His attempt was futile for the time, but on many a hard-fought field and on many a weary march the chant,
John Brown's body lies mouldering in the gi-ave, But his soul is marching on,
was the presage of the final abolition of slavery.
The chief interest of President Buchanan's admin- istration centred around the slavery controversy. The famous Dred Scott decision largely succeeded
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN xVMERICA. 65
ill ranging the advocates and enemies of slavery in hostile camps. Dred Scott, a negro slave, brought suit to recover his freedom, having been taken into a free state. Judge Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, declared that Scott was not entitled to bring suit in a federal court because he was not a citizen, and declared further that negroes, whether slaves or free, had for more than a century previous to the adoption of the Decla- ration of Independence been regarded " as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political rela- tions; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
At the Republican Convention in Chicago, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was nominated as President, and Hannibal Hamlin as Vice-President. The platform adopted at that convention reaffirmed the principle of personal liberty, of the federal constitution, and asserted " that the new dogma that the constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy." It asserted the normal condition of all the territory of the United States to be that of freedom, and denied the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.
Within six months, eleven of the slave-owning states passed ordinances of secession and appealed to
QQ RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the stem arbitrament of war. President Lincoln gave strong assurance of the purpose of the govern- ment to maintain the status quo of slavery. " My paramount object," he said, " is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery." Soon, however, as a military necessity, the slaves employed in the Confederate armies were declared " contraband of war." In March, 1862, the President recom- mended that the United States, in order to co-operate with any state which may adopt abolition of slaverer, give to such state pecuniary aid. This resolution, however, proved inoperative. On September 22d, the President announced that on the first day of January, 1863, "all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people where- of should then be in rebellion, should be then, thence- forward, and forever free."
Already slavery had been abolished in all the ter- ritories of the United States. On June 23, 1864, all laws for the rendition of fugitive slaves to their masters were repealed. On January 31, 1865, by a constitutional amendment, slavery was formally abolished throughout the entire Union, and the four- teenth amendment of the constitution absolutely forbade compensation being made either by the United States or by any state. " Thus terminated forever in the United States the system of bondage which had been its chief reproach in the eyes of the world and of its own people ; which from the outset had been tlie principal source of solicitude to its states-
ANTI SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA. 67
men ; and the soiuhern defenders of which finally assailed the life of the nation with a power and per- sistency from which it barel}^ escaped, after losses and sacrifices such as few peoples in modern times have been called upon to suffer."
It is estimated that more than 30,000 American slaves, after escaping from bondage, found refuge in Canada. These were helped on their way to the land of liberty by a philanthropic organization known as " The Underground Railway." A large number of the persons so organized were members of the Society of Friends, who, at much cost and no little peril and persecution, conducted the fugitives by night from one Quaker settlement to another, concealing them from the United States marshals till at last tliey suc- ceeded in crossing the Canadian frontier. One of the leaders in this movement was Levi Coffin, who assisted many hundreds to escape. One of these fu- gitives afterwards became a member of the senate of South Carolina.
Harriet Tubman, herself a full-blooded negress and a slave for twenty-five years, aided the escape of nearly three hundred other slaves. Many were the incidents of thrilling interest in these escapes. Sometimes the fuo-itives on reaching Canadian soil would burst into hysterical sobbing and singing. Sometimes they fairly wallowed in the free soil of Canada. One terrified fugitive cowered in the rail- way car for fear of recapture till Harriet Tubman fiercely exclaimed, '' Joe, you've shook de lion's paw ;
68 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Joe, you're free." Sometimes, but seldom, the fu- gitives were kidnapped and returned to the bonds of slavery. Among the fugitives who successfully eluded pursuit was the famous Thomas Henson, the original of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom. Considerable settlements were formed at Chatham, St. Catharine's, and other places in Canada ; but after the war large numbers returned to the more congenial climate of the Middle States.
Strenuous efforts have been made for the moral and intellectual improvement of the freed men of the South since the war. Freedmen's Aid Societies of the different churches have spent large sums in establishing schools, normal and industrial colleges and other institutions of learning. The churches, both North and South, have also expended large sums in the evangelization of the colored people. The colored population has increased since the war from 4,000,000 to 8,000,000. How to secure their best moral and political well-being is one of the gravest problems which confronts the American peo- ple. While many of the negroes exhibit great thrift and industry, and have accumulated large savings, many others are thriftless and indolent and a con- siderable number are idle and vicious.
A passing tribute should here be paid to the noble men and women who labored so strenuously for the abolition of slavery.
Garrison was ably seconded by a band of heroes, who endured ostracism, obloquy and persecution on
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA. 60
behalf of the slave. We have mentioned Benjamin Lundy, who in his little paper with a great name, The Crenius of Universal Umancipation, boldly de- nounced the evil of slavery in the city of Balti- more, one of its chief marts. George Thompson, an earnest-souled abolitionist thrilled with his elo- quence great audiences in the Old World and in the New. He was bitterly denounced in New England as a British emissary sent to destroy American insti- tutions. In the city of Boston the streets were placarded with the announcement that "that infa- mous foreign scoundrel Thompson " was to speak, and a purse of a hundred dollars was offered the person who would first lay violent hands on him " so that he might be brought to the tar kettle.'* After profoundly stirring the country he returned to England, entered the British Parliament, and lived to take part in the raising of the flag of liberty upon the ruined walls of Fort Sumter.
Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant, espoused the unpopular cause of abolition and aroused the bitter hostility of the South. In New Orleans $20,000 was offered for his seizure, and $10,000 for that of the Rev. Amos A. Phelps, another Northern abolitionist. In 1835, the Noyes Academy, in Ca- naan, New Hampshire, was opened to pupils without distinction of color. The whole state was thrown into a fierce commotion. A team of a hundred yoke of oxen dragged the school from its foundations and left it a hopeless ruin. The fires of persecution
70 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
burned fiercely. Orange Scott and George Storrs, Methodist ministers, were publicly assaulted. The latter was sentenced to three months' imprisonment as " a common rioter and brawler."
Elijah P. Lovejoy, editor of a religious paper at Alton, Illinois, espoused the cause of the oppressed, and with a courage not less than that of Luther de- clared : " I am impelled to the course I have taken because I fear God. As I shall answer to my God in the great day, I dare not abandon my sentiments, or cease in all proper ways to propagate them. I am fully aware of all the sacrifice I make in here pledging myself to continue the contest to the last. I am commanded to forsake father and mother, wife and children, for Jesus' sake ; and as his professed disciple, I stand pledged to do it. The time for fulfilling this pledge in my case, it seems to me, has come. I dare not flee away from Alton. Should I attempt it, I should feel that the angel of the Lord, with drawn sword, was pursuing me wherever I went. Before God and you all, I here pledge my- self to continue it, if need be, till death ; and if I fall, my grave shall be made in Alton." His print- ing house was fired, and he was shot to death, as brave a martyr to liberty as Zwingle or Winkel- ried.
James G. Birney, himself a slave-owner of Ala- bama, emancipated his slaves, was persecuted out of the South, and established The Philanthropist at Cincinnati, but his office was mobbed and types
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA. 71
and press destroyed. Amos Dresser, a theological student, received twenty lashes on his bare back from a cowhide in Nashville, Tennessee, for his anti-slavery sentiments. Marius Robinson, " a gentle spirited and self-consecrated man," for the crime of being a missionary to colored people in Cincinnati, was dragged from his bed miles away by a mob of ruffians, stripped of much of his clothing, tarred and feathered, and left in an open field all night. His injuries impaired his health and aggravated the pain of his dying hours. But he gave himself with fresh zeal to the work of reform.
Wendell Phillips deliberately turned his back on name and fame, and espoused oppression and shame for his love of liberty. Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Ellery Channing opened their pulpits to the hated abolitionists. Albert Barnes, Joshua Leavitt, David Lee Child, Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, Gerrit Smith and many others bore with pride the odious name of abolitionist.
Nor were brave-souled women wanting in this moral crusade. Lydia Maria Child, the most popular writer of the country, in 1833 sacrificed her popular- ity, and exposed herself to an overwhelming tide of obloquy and abuse by lending her pen to the cause of the slave. Abby Kelley, a young Quaker lady of Lynn, Massachusetts, was one of the first women to speak on an anti-slavery platform. She encountered vulgar abuse but bore it bravely for the sake of her sisters in bonds, " and thus with bleeding feet broko
72 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
a path through a thorny jungle for those who should come after her."
Lucretia Mott espoused this cause of reproach and was one of those who did the most to break the fetters of the slave. Miss Mary S. Parker, presiding in a woman's anti-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, " the cradle of American liberty," amid the hisses, yells and curses of a mob of rufQans gave thanks that " though there were many to molest there were none that could make afraid." Miss Prudence Crandall admitted a colored girl to her school in Canterbury, Connecticut. For this crime she was thrust into a cell just vacated by a murderer. Her house was fired and her school broken up. Her father, Dr. Reuben Crandall, was thrown into jail in Washington, confined in a damp dungeon, which brought upon him a lingering consumption that caused his death. It was a woman's hand that penned the most tremendous indictment of slavery, and in painting the sorrows of the slave aroused the conscience of Christendom and prepared the way for emancipation.
Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher, two stalwart abolitionists, exercised the nobility of a Gospel revenge by becoming bail for Jefferson Davis, tlie leader of the Southern Confederacy, upon his capture. Together with William Lloyd Gar- rison, George Thompson and a host of once despised and hated abolitionists they assisted in raising the flaGf of freedom on the shattered ruins of Fort Sumter
ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT IN AMERICA. '73
in celebration of the overthrow of the most colossal wrong of all the ages.
" At the beginning of the century," says Dr. Dor- chester, " slavery existed throughout all the world. Hungary numbered nine millions of slaves, and the Russian, Austrian and Prussian peasantry were mostly slaves, or serfs in a low condition." For Alexander II. of Russia it was reserved to enact the greatest decree of emancipation the world has seen. On the third of March, 1861, twenty million peasants were freed from the feudal serfdom to which they were born.
The civilized powers of Europe, instead of being the allies of the slave-dealer as they were at the be- ginning of the century, are now leagued for the ex- tirpation of this nefarious trade. Their gunboats scour the seas to suppress slave-stealing. Their con- suls in the ports and towns of Africa, long the slave marts, to which, from time immemorial, the weary coffle marched, marking its track with the bleaching skeletons, seek sedulously to suppress this traffic in the bodies and souls of men. What Livingstone de- scribed as " the open sore of the world " bids fair to be ere long healed. In few ways has the beneficent character of our holy religion and of the emanci- pating power of the gospel of Christ been more strikingly shown than in the extinction of slavery. Again are the words of our Lord fulfilled in our ears. "Proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to tliem that are bound."
PAKT TWO. MISSIONS.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY MISSIONS .
The very essence of Christianity is its missionary character. It differs widely from the tribal and na- tional religions of mankind. The last mandate of its Divine Author is its watchword and marching or- ders : " Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap- tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to ob- serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
Missionary activity is in these days a cardinal principle of the Christian Church, a test of its vital- ity and sincerity. Missionary effort grandly reacts upon the Church itself ; it increases its spirituality, stimulates its growth and quickens all its energies. This the record of the last hundred years abundantly proves.
76 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Although the nineteenth century is pre-eminently the century of missions, yet it has not the monopoly of that gift and grace. Every period of religious revival has been one of missionary activity. The Apostolic age was one marked by intense and burn- ing missionary zeal. " In this period of its first love," says Dr. Gustave Warneck, " the whole Church was a missionary organization ; and, although the number of the missionaries was not large, their enthusiasm was all-controlling, and the co-operation of the con- gregations was vigorous. The missionaries followed the public roads which God Himself had laid out, and occupied the stations which His hand had indicated. In this divine preparation lies one of the main rea- sons for the relative importance of the results of missionary activity. At the close of the first century there were, perhaps, 200,000 Christians ; at the close of the third, 6,000,000, or one-twentieth part of the entire population of the Roman Empire."
In a few brief years after the ascension of our Lord, in all the great centres of ancient civilization and heathen culture — in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy and Gaul — the new evangel was pro- claimed. The seed of the kingdom was becoming a mighty tree, whose leaves were for the healing of the nations. Even in remotest regions, the Man of Nazareth, who, in an obscure Syrian tetrarchate, had lived a life of poverty and died a death of shame, was honored and adored as very God. " We are but of yesterday," writes Tertullian, at the close of the
EARLY MISSIONS. 77
second century, " yet we fill every town, city and island of the Empire. Even those places in Britain, hitherto inaccessible to the Romans, have been con- quered by Christ."
The names of those early missionaries who first carried the Gospel to the ends of the earth are lost in glorious obscurity. Unrecorded on earth, they are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The tomb of Saint Thomas, indeed, is shown on the Malabar Coast, and Saint Paul is said to have visited Great Britain ; but these legends rest on unverifiable tradi- tions. Probably some of the " strangers of Rome " who witnessed the miracle of Pentecost, or, perhaps, the Gentile converts of the " Italian Band " of Cor- nelius, brought the new evangel to their native city. Certain it is that, as early as A. D. 58, the faith of the Roman Church was *' spoken of throughout the whole world." It is probable that Christian soldiers or civilians accompanied the Roman armies that in- vaded Biitain. The Claudia mentioned by Saint Paul in the year A. d. 66, it is generally admitted, was the daughter of a British king.
The Christian Church was almost the only institu- tion that survived the wreck of the old Roman world. Throughout the long, dark, stormy night of the middle ages it trimmed the lamp of learning, which else had flickered to extinction. "With no small ad- mixture of error, it nourished the germs of undying good. It asserted the dignity of humanity, rebuked the tyranny of nobles and of kings, smote the yoke
78 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
from the neck of the slave, maintained the sanctity of human life, and, in an age of violence and blood, exhibited the immeasurable superiority of moral in- fluence to brute force. The monks were the apos- tles and the saints of mediaeval Europe. St. Guthlac in Lincoln's fens and on Yorkshire wolds ; St. Co- lumba in lone lona and on storm-swept Lindisfarne ; the English monk St. Boniface amid Thuringian for- ests; St. Columbanus in Helvetian vales; Methodius and Cyril amid the recesses of Bohemia and Bul- garia ; and Anskar amid Norwegian glaciers and fiords raised the voice of prayer and hymn of praise, and planted the germsof the new life of Christendom.
The period of the Reformation was one of great religious quickening but not of missionary extension. The Reformers were powerful preachers within the limits of the Church, but of missions to the heathen world they did not think. The Protestant Churches, it must be remembered, were not yet brought into direct contact with the heathen world.
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not without their Protestant as well as Catholic missions. Gustavus Vasa sent missionaries to the Lapps in 1559, and the Huguenot Villegaignon sent others to Brazil in 1555.
In the seventeenth century the hegemony of tlie seas passed from the hands of Catholic Spain and Portugal into the hands of Protestant England, Holland and Denmark. The Dutch made the accept- ance of the Helvetic confession a condition of em-
EARLY MISSIONS. 79
ployment in Java and Ceylon, with the result that half a million received baptism who knew nothing of the spirit of Christianity.
The Puritans in New England and the Royalists in Virginia were too busy fighting the Indians and subduing the wilderness to give much attention to missions among the heatlien. Nevertheless, the men who sought beyond the sea freedom to worship God strove to extend a knowledge of the truth to the na- tives of the soil. The charter of the Massachusetts Company expressed the hope that " the colony would win the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the true God and Saviour of mankind ; " and the colonial seal bore the impression of an Indian, with a label in his mouth bearing tlie words, "Come over and help us."
John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, began a mission to the red men in 1646, and translated the whole Bible into the Indian tongue. Of this Bible Cotton Mather wrote : " Behold, ye Americans, the greatest honor that ever ye were partakers of, — the Bible printed here at our Cambridge ; and it is the only Bible that ever was printed in all America, from the very foundation of the world. "
By the year 1680 well-organized congregations had beeti established among the Indians, with 1,100 mem- bers. In the following century David Brainerd, in a short life of thirty years, accomplished a great work among the Indians on the Delaware and Susquehanna,
England's uncrowned king, the great Protector,
80 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Oliver Cromwell, made a bold proposition in regard to missions. He proposed that a society should be formed for the conversion of the world, which was to be divided into four districts for that purpose. The cares of State, the conflicts at home and abroad, frustrated this great design ; but it shows the awaking conscience of England with reference to her missionary obligation.
Early in the eighteenth century Fran eke, the Ger- man philanthropist, urged Frederick of Prussia to take up the work of converting the heathen, espe- cially the Chinese. But Frederick was a man of war more than of missions, and Francke turned to the Danish sovereign, who provided for the first mission- aries to India, Ziegenbalg and Pliitschau. But the faculty of Wittenberg University declared the mis- sionaries to be false prophets, and missions to be unnecessary. Schwartz, one of the missionaries of this society, labored for nearly fifty years in India, and the visible results before the end of the century were the conversion of 40,000 souls.
One of the most devoted missionaries to the heathen in an inhospitable clime was Hans Egede, the apostle of the Greenlanders. In 1721 he established his mission at Godt-Haab (Good Hope) and labored among them in the gospel for fifteen years. Small- pox broke out among the Eskimo. Three thousand people died, among them Egede's wife. His son, Paul Egede, continued the good work with much success.
EARLY MISSIONS. 81
The most thoroughly missionary church in Chris- tendom is that of the Moravian Brotherhood. In a picture gallery at Diisseldorf the famous Count Zin- zendorf, the modern resuscitator of the Moravian Church, saw an Ecce Homo with this inscription, " Hoc feci pro te ; quid facis pro me ? " "I suffered this for thee ; what hast thou done for me ? " It made a profound impression upon his soul and led him to consecrate himself fully to Christ.
Inspired by the example of Egede, Moravian mis- sionaries from Herrnhut went to Greenland to con- tinue the good work there begun. They labored five years before they had a single convert. They ex- tended their work to Labrador in 1770, and for one hundred and thirty years their missionary vessel " never failed to cross the Atlantic in safety and to reach Labrador with provisions and reinforcements."
For one hundred and seventy years the Moravians have maintained their missionary zeal, sending mis- sionaries to Surinam, Guinea and Cape Colony, the West Indies, the Mosquito Coast, Australia, and India. " Up to 1750," says Dr. Gustave Warneck, the great German authority on missions, " or in twenty years, the United Brethren of Herrnhut had established more missions than the combined Prot- estant Church in two hundred years.
'' The salvation of the heathen lay, day and night, upon the heart of Zinzendorf . Herrnhut became the salt of the earth, and remains to this day the mission- ary church par excellence. The Moravian mission-
82 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
aries started out with the motto, ' Venture in faith/ They were uneducated, but their humility and fidelity gradually overcame all the prejudices against *the illiterate laymen.' They were enjoined to practise rigid economy, and to labor with their hands. They were to use only spiritual means, and to aim at the conversion of individuals. In 1882 the 150th anniversary of Moravian missions was appropriately celebrated in Herrnhut." At that date they had sent out 2,212 missionaries, of whom 604 were then alive. That number has since been greatly increased.
The noble example of the Moravians was not fol- lowed for many a long year by the other churches of Christendom. *' The responsibility for this neglect," adds Dr. Warneck, " lies with the rationalism and the deism which undermined the faith of England and Germany. In rationalistic soil, missions have not flourished, and never will. With the grand oppor- tunities afforded by its colonies, and domination of the seas, England did next to nothing, during the eighteenth century, for missions. The reason is to be found in the low state of religion and the influ- ence of the Deistic movement. Never were such elegant moral sermons preached, and never had im- morality reached so high a point. It was with the dawn of a new era of faith in England, at the close of the century, that the missionary spirit of the nine- teenth century was begotten. The great religious revival, starting with the labors of the Wesleys and Whitefield, gave the impulse to recent modern mis-
EARLY MISSIONS. 83
sions. God was opening the doors to the nations, and the period had dawned which he had chosen for the missionary era."
The voyages around the world and discoveries in eastern and southern seas of Captain Cook revealed at once the opportunity and the need of Christian missions. In these
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea
were all the elements of an earthly paradise, but man alone was vile. Of the fertile island of Tahiti Cap- tain Cook said : " There is a scale of dissolute sensu- ality to which these people have descended wholly unknown to every other people, and which no imagin- ation could possibly conceive." Referring to tlie project of evangelizing these islands, he wrote : " It is very unlikely that any measure of this kind should ever be seriously thought of, as it can neither serve the purpose of public ambition nor private avarice, and without such inducements I may pronounce that it will never be undertaken."
Yet this very degradation and misery was the strongest appeal to the conscience of Christendom for missionary effort. Upon the heart of William Carey, a humble Baptist minister of England, it lay like a burden.
84: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY,
CHAPTER X.
WILLIAM CAREY, THE FOUNDER OF MODERN MISSIONS.
Divine Providence often selects the most seem- ingly inadequate means to accomplish the grandest results. Of this the history of missions furnishes a striking example. William Carey was born amid extreme poverty, and in early life enjoyed only the most meagre educational advantages. In his seven- teenth year we find him earning his living as a shoemaker's apprentice. He was possessed with a thirst for knowledge, and devoted his scanty leisure to the study of birds, plants and insect life. In his twentieth year he married a woman who is described as " querulous, capricious, obstinate," anything but a helpmeet in his exalted life-work. He was subject also to a long period of ill-health and burdened with almost penury. Nevertheless, such was his passion for learning that he acquired an acquaintance by no means meagre with Latin, Hebrew, Greek and French.
Although brought up in the Established Church, he cast in his lot in his twenty-fourth year with a little company of Baptists that he might carry out
WILLIAM CAREY. 85
the letter as well as the spirit of the Scripture, *' Let us go forth unto him without the camp bearing his reproach." His preaching gift soon became apparent, and he was appointed pastor of a small church at Moulton, with a salary of but ^15 a j^ear. To eke out a livelihood shoemaking and school-teaching were added to his occupations.
Great Britain was then ringing with the fame of Captain Cook's famous voyages, with the discoveries of such vast islands at the antipodes as Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea, and of the many scattered groups of the southern seas. "We can scarcely understand," says Dr. Leonard, "the prodigious stir that was made, the boundless enthusiasm that was kindled by Cook's achievements. The explorations of Livingstone and Stanley were received coldly by comparison."
It was the reading of these voyages that aroused the interest of the obscure preaching cobbler at Moulton, " though if ever an idea was originated in any man by the Spirit of God, it was the idea of the evangelization of the world." He brooded and prayed over this great thought by day and night. On the wall of the little shop in which he worked was a roughly sketched map of the world, *' upon which had been set in order all manner of facts and figures, to picture to the eye what needed to be done for the diffusion of the gospel, the redemption of the race."
At the monthly meetings of the Baptist ministers
86 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of Northamptonshire for prayer and religious conver- sation Carey could not but unburden his soul op- pressed with the weight of the world's need. " But he found few to listen with interest, while as for most he seemed to be a dreamer, a teller of idle tales, one gone daft, his conclusions irrational, his plans impracticable, his longings such as never could be met."
At a meeting of the Baptist Association in Leicester he propounded this question : " Whether the com- mand given to the apostles to teach all nations was not obligatory on all ministers, to the end of the world ? " The venerable Pastor Ryland but expressed the common indifference and unbelief of the times when he said, " Sit down, young man, sit down. You are an enthusiast to ask such a question. When God wants to convert the world, he can do it without your help or mine. At least nothing can be done until a second Pentecost shall bring a return of the mirac- ulous gifts."
The young man, however, was not to be suppressed. In spite of this rebuff and rebuke he prepared a tabular statement of the size, population and religious con- dition of the various countries in the world. He argued with great force and clearness the perpetual obligation of our Lord's command to preach the Gospel to every creature, and demonstrated the practical duty of obedience to the divine call. He closed with an appeal for united prayer and for the regular contribution of one penny per week for the
WILLIAM CAREY. 87
conversion of the world. This document has heen described by one of Carey's biographers as the first and still greatest missionary treatise in the English language. From sheer lack of means to print we are told this pamphlet remained for six years in manu- script and unread. But the divine leaven of missionary aspiration and desire, though hidden, was at work. The thought of the world's need and of Christ's cure was as fire in his bones. He must speak whether men would hear or whether they would forbear.
"On the 31st of May, 1792," says Dr. Leonard, "a date to be memorized by every lover of the king- dom, came the life-opportunity for this irrepressible agitator for the opening of a world-wide evangelistic campaign. Carey was chosen to preach before the association of Baptist ministers at Nottingham. With an utter consecration and a stalwart faith he proceeded to enforce the immediate duty of the Church. * Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.' The convictions of years were focussed into the utterance of an hour. Hearts were stirred and swayed, and some souls were moved to tears. But no definite resolve was made to attempt things great or smalL In an agony of earnestness Carey seized his brother Fuller by the arm and said, 'Are you going to again do nothing?' So to pacify the importunate man it was resolved to organize a meeting five months later."
In vivid words Dr. Delavan L. Leonard records the initiation of what proved to be the mightiest move
88 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ment for the conversion of the world since the days of the apostles : —
" In due season, at Kettering in the back parlor of the Widow Beebe Wallis, was formed the ' Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.' How utterly insignificant were the actors for number, or station, or gifts ! Only twelve, belonging to a feeble and despised sect, and unheard of outside of the interior counties in which they lived. Only one London clergyman gave counte- nance to the movement. Kings, statesmen, church- magnates cared nothing, knew nothing. And they made a subscription on the spot for the world's con- version, which amounted to <£13 2s. 6d., over which the brilliant Sydney Smith made merry years after, for its preposterous inadequacy when the souls of 420,000,000 were concerned. Indeed, how sublime was that act of faith, that ventured far beyond the realm of sight. How exceedingly remote were the heathen, and what an uncounted host. The under- taking was vast beyond conception, and the issue ex- ceedingly doubtf>ul. It was like crossing the Rubi- con, like nailing the theses to the church doors, putting forth from Palos upon the untraversed sea, or burning the ships to make retreat impossible."
The question now rose — Where shall this mighty work begin ? The world was all before them, where to choose. Carey's thought had long been centred from the study of Cook's voyages on the Society Islands in the southern seas. But Divine Provi- dence had other purposes. By a remarkable coinci- dence a surgeon in the employ of the East India Company in Bengal, John Thomas by name, was brought to God in that country, and had begun to
WILLIAM CAREY. §9
preach the gospel among the Hindus. He was then in London, and, with Carey as his fellow-laborer, was appointed to go forth to establish missions in the vast presidency of Bengal. "Thus did the Divine hand guide this master-missionary to make assault, not upon one of the comparatively unimportant out- works of heathenism, but directly upon one of the mightiest of its central strongholds."
Many difficulties arose on the very threshold. Carey's wife at first refused to make the fifteen thou- sand miles' journey to India and to encounter the unknown perils of the future. The East India Com- pany held absolute control of the country, and no Englishman could land upon its shores without a license, and missionaries were regarded as especially objectionable. The Company exploited the vast de- pendency purely for monetary gain. The project of sending out missionaries, it declared to be *' the most extravagant, mad, useless and dangerous project that had ever been conceived." This sentiment was echoed even by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. That august body denounced the scheme of foreign missions as "illusive," "vision- ary," " dangerous to the good order of society," and declared it to be improper and absurd to propagate the gospel abroad, so long as there remained a single individual at home without the means of religious knowledge."
At length, despite the prohibition of the Company, the missionaries determined to set forth on their sub-
90 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
lime quest, and to leave the consequences with God. On the 13th of June, 1793, in a Danish East India- man they set forth, and after a voyage of five months reached Calcutta November 9th.
The world was shaking with great events. The great schism of the Anglo-Saxon race had taken place and her fairest possessions had been wrested from Great Britain. That tremendous cataclysm, the French Revolution, had prostrated both throne and altar in the dust. At the very time of the or- ganization of this humble society the allied armies of Europe were marching on the French Republic for the restoration of the Bourbons. A few weeks before Carey sailed the deadly guillotine shore off the head of Louis XVI. That carnival of crime, the Reign of Terror, had begun. The earth was drunk with gore. While '*the destined vessel richly freighted " was on her way to the Indies the crimes of the French Republic were multiplied. The best blood of France flowed like water. The beautiful, high-born, hapless INIarie Antoinette, after shameful indignities, was borne in a tumbrel to the guillotine, and throughout France chaos seemed to come again. Amid these lurid phenomena a better day was dawn- ing on the world. " As God, and angels, and glori- fied saints estimate human affairs, who will dare affirm that the Hackleton cobbler's part in history is not in every way worthy to be compared with that of Chatham and Napoleon, George III. and Burke, Mirabeau and Lafayette? "
WILLIAM CAREY. 01
The mere sailing of two lowly men across the sea to preach the gospel to the heathen was in itself a comparatively insignificant event, but it was the be- ginning of a new era. It was the initiation of a great movement which shall never cease till " the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
We have spoken of the sporadic and feeble at- tempts before this to reach the great dark heathen world, but these were but as the faint glimmering which precedes the dawn. Within five years the churches of Christendom were awakened and an era of missionary enthusiasm and consecrated zeal was begun. Yet the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. *' The first two English missionaries to India seemed, to those who sent them forth, to have disappeared forever. For fourteen months no tidings of their welfare reached the poor praying people of the Midlands who had been emboldened to begin the enterprise."
At last letters from India arrived. We are told :
" The first diflSculties of the mission-party would have beaten back a spirit less brave than Carey's. He was glad of the offer of a native house. His wife, who was out of sympathy with his views, and was with difficulty persuaded to leave England, turned on him with bitter reproaches. He was driven to settle in the marshy Soonderbuns, at the mouth of the Ganges, the home of fever, tigers and alligators, in order to support himself by farming. He afterwards lived in an indigo factory, while
92 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
studying the language. A press was procured for the printing of the Bengalee New Testament, the said press being regarded by the natives as an English idol. It is still preserved as an interesting relic.
*' Soon Carey was joined by Marshman and Ward, who were to be his fellow-laborers for life. Ward had been editor and printer, and took especial charge of the press ; while Marshman, whose reading had been of a higher cast, took most interest in schools and schemes of education. A refuge from attempted suppression by the East India Company was found at the tiny Danish settlement of Serampore, near Calcutta, and thus England lost, and Denmark gained, the honor of being the home of the first Protestant mission in Bengal.
" The missionaries felt the importance of raising up a native ministry. 'It is only,' they wrote, * by means of native preachers we can hope for the univer- sal spread of the gospel through this immense con- tinent. Europeans are too few, and their subsistence costs too much, for us ever to hope that they can possibly be the instruments of tlie universal diffusion of the Word among so many millions.' "
The Marquis of Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) induced Carey to assume tlie professor- ship of Bengalee in the college of Fort William — a post which he accepted only when he found that he could make it help on his missionary plans. "The profits of Carey's government offices, as teacher, professor, and translator in Sanscrit and Bengalee, of Mr. and Mrs. Marshman's flourishinor boardinof- schools, and of Ward's press, amounted in all to not less than .£80,000. This was their contribution to the mission. In fact, they only engaged in these
WILLIAM CAREY. 93
labors to obtain funds for mission-work. They were never indebted to home for anything towards their personal support."
Carey made a powerful appeal for the suppression of the cruel sacrifice of children to the Ganges, and of widows on their husbands' funeral pyres. The former was suppressed, but the tyranny of custom was too strong for the prevention of the latter.
The idolatrous worship of Juggernaut was also in full play, and vexed the souls of the missionaries as the abominations of Sodom did that of righteous Lot. Its seat was the town of Poree — the most holy of the shrines of India, which is still visited by a million pilgrims annually. In 1803 the East India Company took possession of the town, and continued to levy a tax on the pilgrims, which maintained the idol worship.
A storm of persecution burst upon the missionaries in consequence of the Vellore mutiny in 1806. With this the mission had nothing in the world to do. It was the result of official blundering and incapacity. But it was convenient to throw the blame on the spread of Christianity among the natives, just as was done in the case of the greater mutiny of fifty years later.
A second storm of persecution in 1812 was still more fierce. Spies dogged the footsteps of the mis- sionaries, and sham inquirers sought to entrap them in private conversation. One missionary was expelled from the country and obliged to return to England.
94 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
After a time the storm lulled, and Mr. Ward writes — '* Now we shall be tolerated like toads, and not hunted down like wild beasts."
" The next year," says the biographer of Carey, "the Company's charter had to be renewed. The friends of missions resolved not to let the opportunity pass without an effort to break down the monopoly. William Wilberforce led the forces in Parliament. Old Indian after old Indian rose in the House to pro- test against England's tolerating Christian missions in India. Speaker after speaker defended what had never been attacked, denounced measures that were never contemplated, and pleaded in pathetic tones for the virtues of heathenism. One member declared that he had seen Mr. Carey preaching from a tub, and hardly saved from death at the hands of an infuriate people. The 'missionary clause' passed only by a majority of twenty-two ; but the door was open, Christianity in India was free."
With redoubled diligence the little band of mis- sionaries labored on, preaching, writing, translating, till the Word of God was given to the people in forty languages and dialects. Ward was the first of the number to be taken. He died suddenly of cholera in 1823. The survivors were often reduced to serious straits through the heavy expense of their printing operations and college, and through the calumnies on their character and misrepresentations of their work.
For more than forty years Carey labored without
WILLIAM CAREY. 95
surcease for the salvation of India. It lay like a burden upon his soul, and was the subject of his prayers by day and night. He magnified his work, despite the scoffs of the worldling — the sneers of learned reviewers — the persecution of men in high places — as the noblest calling on earth. When his son, who had been a missionary, entered the service of the Burmese King, and came to Calcutta in great state, the father was bitterly mortified at his " sink- ing from a missionary to an ambassador ! "*
" If any one," writes his biographer, " ever wore ' the white flower of a blameless life,' it was Carey. Whatever charges were levelled, baselessly enough, against the mission, Carey was held blameless. For forty years he had toiled unceasingly in the sultry Bengal heats. From the day when he stepped from the deck of the Danish vessel in 1793, he had never left Indian soil. In 1823 he had a dangerous illness, when his life was despaired of. After that time his health never recovered its tone. Feebleness gradu- ally crept over him. The last few months he was confined to a couch. Dr. Marshman came daily to
* The story is well known of Carey's correcting an officer whom he overheard at a government reception in Calcutta re- marking on his having been a shoemaker, by saying, " No, sir, only a cobbler." The eloquent and witty Samuel Brad- burn, one of the early Methodist preachers, had also been a disciple of St. Crispin. Hearing a shallo%v egotist boast that he " had given up all for the Gospel," Bradburn remarked, ♦* Oh, that is nothing ; I gave up for the Gospel two of the best awls in the kingdom."
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cheer him with talk of the past and future. Lady Bentinck often crossed the river to see him, and Bishop Wilson sought his blessing." He quietly passed away, in the seventy-third year of his age, June 9, 1834. His epitaph was prepared by him- self :—
William Carey. Born August, 1761 ; Died
** A wretched, poor and helpless worm, On thy kind arm I fail."
Dr. Marshman lingered three years longer, the last survivor of the little band of pioneer mission- aries in India ; when he, too, entered into rest, and was buried beside his brethren in the cemetery at Serampore. "India has many doubtful places of pilgrimage ; but if holy lives and heroic work gives sacredness to sites, no one doubts that Serampore is holy ground."
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. 97
CHAPTER XL
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. — HENRY MARTYN.
One of the first results of the Carey mission in India was the awakening of a widespread interest in all the churches. *' A great door and effectual " was opened to tlie heathen world. The Macedonian cry was heard speaking with a new power and pathos. Many hearts heard it and responded. A great impulse was given to the missionary spirit and happy co-operation of tlie different churches in the presence of the appalling need of the world was shown. The veiy year that the first letters came from Carey and Thomas, Dr. Bogue made an appeal for funds to support at least twenty or thirty missionaries. Within a month two men stood pledged for £600 to equip the first six volunteers for the mission to the South Seas.
Tn 1795 the London Missionary Society was or- ganized on the broad basis of Catholic Christianity. The following fundamental principle was announced: " The design is not to send Presbyterianism, Inde- pendency, Episcopacy, or any other form of church order or government, but the glorious Gospel of the blessed God to the heathen." " We are called
98 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
together," said Dr. Bogue, "for the funeral of big- otry ; and I hope it will be buried so deep as never to rise again."
Scotland, too, caught the evangelistic fervor, and before many months £12,000 had been forwarded to London. The good ship " DufF" was purchased and fitted out at a cost of £12,000 for a voyage to the Southern Seas. Captain James Wilson, a man con- verted after an almost unparalleled career of ad- venture as a seaman, a soldier at Bunker's Hill, and a chained captive of Hyder Ali in India, offered his gratuitous services as captain. Twenty-nine persons were solemnly set apart as missionaries. Only four of the number were ordained, one was a physician, the others were chiefly artisans.
" Hoisting the mission flag — three white doves with olive branches on a purple field — the 'Duff"' set sail for Tahiti, the crew singing the hymn, 'Jesus, at thy command we launch into the deep ! ' "
Thus, only three years and a half after the de- parture of Carey and Thomas, this much greater expedition was launched. For nearly two years not a word was heard of the " Duff"." After battling with fearful storms ofi" Cape Horn, and then, baffled, facing about to beat her way past the Cape of Good Hope through two hundred and sixty-two degrees of longitude, she at length reached the Island of Tahiti. After a voyage of 51,000 miles, the tempest-driven " Duflf " at last lay at anchor again in the Downs.
Five months after her arrival in the Downs, the
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. 99
" DufF" sailed aorain with a new continorent of mission- aries, forty-six in number, including seven children. But disaster followed her, and the home committee were stunned by the intelligence that she had been captured by a French privateer off Rio Janeiro, and sold as a prize. The missionaries were sent home, and the money lost was £10,000. With the "Duff" sailed Dr. Vanderkemp with three companions in a convict ship to begin the glorious work among the Hottentots in South Africa. In two years recruits of sixteen men had followed.
The missionary wave, meanwhile, spread through- out Britain. Nevertheless, much opposition was encountered. One of the directors of the East India Company declared that he would rather have a band of devils in India than a band of missionaries. In the synod of the Church of Scotland, Mr. Hamilton, of Gladsmuir, affirmed the idea of missions to be highly preposterous. A collection on their behalf would, he said, " no doubt be a legal subject of penal prosecution." Dr. Erskine made a memorable reply, prefaced by the exclamation, '* Moderator, rax me that Bible," and from the Word of God he mightily enforced the obligation to evangelize the world.
In 1799, one of the greatest of missionary organi- zations, that afterwards known as the Church Mis- sionary Society, was organized, and in India, in Ceylon, in Africa, in New Zealand and in the Southern Seas, in the West Indies and in many dark places of the earth, were planted successful missions
100 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and were won notable victories of light against dark- ness, of truth against error.
For twelve years the faith of the missionaries of Tahiti was sorely tried. That long time of trial seemed one of absolute failure. At length, we read, " King Pomare was the first to ask for baptism. The idols were thrown away, the priests even joined in burning them. The heathen party made a desperate stand. They attacked the Christians, and were de- feated. The clemency of the king so impressed them that they too joined the winning side. Within a few years, Tahiti became a Christian islaiid, though much remained to be done for the instruction of the people and for the deepening of their spiritual life."
It will be impossible to give in detail the record of progress throughout the century and characterization of individual missionaries. "We can only select a few types of the chief soldiers of this new crusade.
The country to which many of the early mission- aries turned their thought was the great British de- pendency of India. It was a field presenting the greatest difficulties, but promising the greatest tri- umphs. Under the domination of a great commer- cial Company, nominally Christian, but worshipping mammon more than God, it was a forbidden land, much as Thibet is to-day. Yet then, as now, India was the most interesting mission field in the world. Its 290,000,000 people are the most acute, intelligent and cultured of pagan races. In this field some of
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. IQl
tlie noblest missionary heroes have labored, and some of the grandest missionary triumphs have been won. Macaula}^ has given us, in his essay on Clive, a bril- liant picture of that gorgeous Inde, which^
with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
of its ivory palaces, its stately temples ; " the burning sun ; the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa trees ; the rice-field and the tank ; the huge trees, older than the Mogul Empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the thatched roof of the peasant's hut, and the rich tracery of the mosque, where the Iraaum prayed with his face to Mecca ; the drums, and banners, and gaudy idols ; the devotees swinging in the air ; the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, descending the steps to the river-side; the black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect ; the turbans and the flowing robes ; the spears and silver maces ; the elephants with their canopies of state ; the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady ; the halls where servitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of sovereigns ; the wild moor where the gypsy-camp is pitched ; tlie bazars humming like beehives with the crowds of buyers and sellers ; the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to scare away the hyenas."
Yet the story of the conquest of an empire by a merchant's clerk with a handful of troops, where the
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foot of an Alexander had faltered, is to many an unfamiliar one. Upon this wonderful story we will not now enter, but merely give a single chapter — the record of a short but brilliant life — in the grander story of the conquest of India for Christ and Chris- tianity.
Henry Martyn was the first Englishman to respond to the call of the Church Missionary Society for laborers in this fertile vineyard. He spent only six years in India, and died at the early age of thirty-two. Yet he has been called, not without reason, the first great missionary of the English Church since Boni- face, the Apostle of Germany. His brief life and he- roic death have been an inspiration to missionary effort throughout the world.
Henry Martyn was born at Truro, Cornwall, 1781. His father had been a working miner at Gwenap, but by energy and industry — learning to read, write and cipher in the pauses of his labor — he became in turn mine captain and office clerk. His uncle was a trustee of the Wesleyan chapel, but the boy was brought up as a strict adherent of the Established Church. After an early training at grammar school, he went up to Oxford at fourteen, but failed to pass. A little later he went to Cambridge, and in three years won fame as " senior wrangler." '' I had ob- tained my highest wishes," he wrote, *' but was sur- prised to find that I had grasped a shadow." He found that " fame," he said, " concealed a death's head under a mask of beauty."
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. 103
The sudden death of his father, and the prayers of a pious sister, touched his heart. He began to search the Scriptures and to find a new joy in holy things. The " Imitation of Christ," of old a Kempis, was a stepping-stone to the divine life. He had chosen the study of law, but he now gave it up to become a preacher of the cross. His purpose was to become a diligent worker in the home-field, but a chance men- tion— or was it chance ? — of the labors of Carey in India turned his attention to foreign missionary work.
At length an opportunity occurred to accept a chaplaincy in the East India Company. This was not what he wanted, but active mission work among the heathen ; yet it was a step, and a long one, in that direction. After waiting three months for the fleet — it was a large one of fifty transports and five men-of-war — to make ready, it had no sooner sailed than it was driven into Falmouth and delayed a month longer, and the pang of parting had again to be undergone.
The horror of the long voyage to India cannot be exaggerated. Martyn was mercilessly ridiculed by all the officers on board but one. One service on a Sunday was grudgingly allowed him ; and at this service the poor sickly young priest of twenty-four felt himself compelled by the insolent profligacy of those on board to denounce, for several successive weeks, the judgment of God upon sin. The whole ship was in mutiny against him. The mockery con-
104 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
tinued to the end of the ten months' voyage. His farewell sermon off the mouth of the Hooghly awoke nothing but ribald revilings ; and so, through as ap- palling a fire as ever hero passed, Martyn entered "into the vineyard of St. Bartholomew and Pan- tsenus, of Ziegenbalg and Schwartz."
In October, 1766, he sailed up the Ganges to his station at Dinapore. He maintained at his own ex- pense five schools for native children. He especially studied, late and early, the native languages. After two years he was transferred to the teeming city of Cawnpore— destined to become in after times the theatre of such lurid tragedies. Here he began to preach to the natives, and by the distribution of alms secured congregations of from five to eight hundred beggars. He was often interrupted with groans, hissings, cursings, blasphemies and threatenings ; but to the last he never saw any fruit of his preaching.
Yet this preaching was not entirely barren. One day a clever and learned young Mussulman amused himself and friends with the "foolishness of the Feringhee padre." Yet the Word sank into his soul and led to his conversion, and he was the means of bringing thirty-nine of his countrymen to embrace Christianity. But of this Martyn knew nothing when he died. He had only baptized one aged Hindu woman. " Even if I never should see a na- tive converted," he wrote at Madras in 1806, *' God may design, by my patience and continuance in the work, to encourage future missionaries."
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. 105
Martyn's great work, however, was his translation of the Scriptures, for which his linguistic skill gave him marked advantages. He spoke Italian and French, as well as Bengalee and several Indian dia- lects ; he preached in Hindustani ; he wrote his diary in Greek or Latin ; he said his prayers in Latin or Plebrew ; he read Arabic and Sanscrit. He trans- lated the whole New Testament into Hindustani and Urdu and into Persian twice over. He translated the Psalms also into Persian, and the gospels into Judaeo-Persic. He translated the Prayer-Book into Hindustani. And this does not exhaust the list of his compositions in Oriental tongues.
On September 30, 1810, his work at Cawnpore was crowned by the opening of the church, for which he had long prayed and labored. The bell sounded for the first time over this land of darkness. Martyn was ordered by the doctors to take a sea voyage for his health. He determined to go to Persia, and correct his Persian New Testament, in- tending afterwards to go on to Arabia and make an Arabic version there. In much weakness he made the terrible overland journey through Persia. The thermometer rose at times to 126°. He had to wrap his head and body in wet towels to prevent sunstroke. But he stayed his soul with the thought of the land where " the sun shall not shine on them nor any heat."
At length he reached Shiraz, the " Athens of Persia," but a very Sodom of wickedness. He pro-
106 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ceeded at once, amid much opposition, with the re- vision of his translation of the New Testament, preaching the while its blessed evangel. In a year it was completed, but not a single convert was the result of his labors. For two months Martyn lin- gered on the brink of death, but rallied sufficiently to attempt a ride of one thousand three hundred miles across the highlands of Asia Minor to Con- stantinople. As he crossed the Araxes and passed beneath Mount Ararat, he reflected : " On the peak of that hill the whole Church was once contained. It has now spread far and wide to the ends of the earth, but its ancient cradle knows it no more."
From Erivan to Kars and Chiflik he rapidly trav- eled. His cruel Tartar guide took no notice of his illness, but forced him on. At last, in utter loneli- ness, without a friend to wipe the death dews from his brow, or speak a word of Christian cheer or solace, the peerless missionary entered into rest. Near that very spot, fifteen centuries before, the Golden-mouthed Chrysostom, the greatest preacher of the early Church, in exile and suffering, had ended his life of strange vicissitude. Thus are the severed ages linked together by the bonds of spiritual kinship of Christ's faithful confessors and martyrs :
Still the race of hero spirits Pass the torch from hand to hand.
Over the lonely grave of Martyn is a simple obelisk, inscribed in English, Armenian, Persian and
EARLY PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. 107
Turkish, with a brief record of him who " was known in the East as a Man of God." In the following lines Lord Macaulay commemorates his death :
Here Marty n lies ! in manhood's early bloom
The Christian hero found a Pagan tomb ;
Religion, sorrowing o'er her favorite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won—
Eternal trophies, not with slaughter red,
Not stained with tears of hopeless captives shed ;
But trophies of the cross. For that dear name
Through every form of danger, death, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to a happier shore,
Where danger, death, and shame are known no more.
Of this brave soul, consumed with the zeal of God's House, Sir James Stephen writes : " Martyn's is the one heroic name which adorns the annals of the English Church from the days of Elizabeth to
108 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XII.
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. — DE. THOMAS COKE. — EECENT PROGRESS IN INDIA.
In 1816 the Wesley an Missionary Society was organized to carry on the work begun by Dr. Thomas Coke, who has won the honorable distinction of being the father of Methodist Missions. It was he who inspired Methodism with its special characteristic of missionary zeal. John and Charles Wesley had, as early as 1735, gone as missionaries to Georgia. On shipboard they came in contact with a number of the Moravian Brethren, so notable for their missionary enthusiasm. After a short sojourn in Georgia, John Wesley paid a visit to the Moravian settlement at Ilerrnhut, in Bohemia, and became more deeply imbued with their religious devotion and consecra- tion.
During the rest of the Wesleys' lives their labors were confined chiefly to Great Britain and its sister island, but no foreign missionaries ever exceeded in zeal and devotion and success their sacred ministra- tions. They carried the tidings of salvation to regions where it was before unknown. Amid markets, fair- grounds and coal-pits they boldly proclaimed their
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. 109
message. On the mountains of AVales, among the tin mines of Cornwall, on the chalk downs of Surrey, in the hop-fields of Kent, in the fenlands of Lincoln- shire, in the cornfields of Huntingdon, on the wolds of Wiltshire, and among the lakes of Cumberland they proclaimed the joyful tidings to eager thousands.
They adapted themselves to the capacity of miners and pitmen, of uncouth rustics and rude fishermen. They recognized in the ignorant and embruted the sublime dignity of manhood. From the ranks of those who were rescued from degradation and sin arose a noble band of fellow-workers — earnest- souled and fiery-hearted men : men who feared not death nor danger, the love of Christ constraining them.
True to its providential mission Methodism has ever remembered the exhortation of its founder, not only to go to those who need it, but to those who need it most. It has delighted to remember the forgotten, to visit the forsaken, to succor the neglected, to seek and to save that which is lost. As if prescient of the destined universality of the Church which he planted, John Wesley with prophetic soul exclaimed, " The world is my parish."
On many a field of sacred toil have the ministers of the church which he founded vindicated its title to the distinction of beingpre-eminently a missionary church — amid the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, in tlie crowded bazars or tangled jungles of India, among the teeming populations of China, beneath the feathery
110 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
foliage of the tropic palm in sunny islands of the Southern Seas, in the Zulu's hut and the Kaffir's kraal, and beside the mighty rivers which roll in solitary grandeur through the vast wilderness of the Canadian North- West. With a prouder boast than the Roman poet, they may exclaim, "What place now, what region in the world is not full of our labor?"*
To no man does Methodism owe more its missionary character than to the Rev. Thomas Coke, D. C. L. This marvellous man, of puny form but of giant energy, with a burning zeal kindled at the altar of eternal trutli, like the angel of the Apocalypse flying abroad under the whole heaven with the everlasting gospel, — preached the glad evangel of God's grace in both hemispheres. He became the founder of Wes- leyan missions in the East and West Indies, and the first bishop of American Methodism — a church now boundless as the continent. After crossing eighteen times the stormy sea, he was at last buried in its depths, whose waters, like his influence, encompass the world.
He was born three years before the middle of the century, 1747, and spent his early years amid the ro- mantic surroundings of '* Usk and Camelot," the scene of the legendary exploits of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. In his sixteenth year
* Quis jam locus
QuaB regio in terris uostri non plena laboris ? "
Virg. ^n, vv. 463, 464.
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. m
he was registered as gentleman-commoner at Jesus College, Oxford. The handsome young patrician student was not proof against the seductions of Oxford society. He unhappily fell into evil habits, and even became infected with the infidel principles which were then too much in vogue at the university. He graduated with distinction, and shortly after his coming of age was elected to the chief magistracy of his native town. But, resolved to live a life of active beneficence, he entered holy orders in the humble rank of a village curate. His church became crowded, and to accommodate the increased congregation, he erected a gallery at his own expense. He preached with increasing fervor, and without the " regulation manuscript. " He held special religious services out of church hours, and on week-evenings, in remote parts of his parish. He was no longer the easy- going card-playing parson of his early incumbency, but a *' dangerous fanatic." The over-earnest curate was soon dismissed by his rector, admonished for his *' irregularities " by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and at length expelled from his church.
The sentence of his expulsion was abruptly an- nounced at the close of the morning service in the presence of the congregation. By a preconcerted scheme, as he passed out of the door, the bells rang out a dissonant peal — a sort of ecclesiastical " Rogue's March" — by way of valediction to the expelled pastor.
He resolved to cast in his lot with the despised
112 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and persecuted Methodists, and to espouse the toils and hardships of the life of an itinerant preacher. Providence was opening for him a wider career than addressing a few rustics in an obscure hamlet. He was to become a mighty missionary organizer, whose beneficent influence was to be felt on earth's remotest shores and to the end of time.
John Wesley was now in his eighty-first year, and the care of all the churches and his vast correspon- dence was a burden which he gladly shared with this energetic son in the gospel, now in the vigor of his thirtieth year. He used to say that Dr. Coke was his right hand.
In the course of his itinerations, Coke revisited his former parish, from which he had been so heartlessly expelled. But the simple rustics found that they had lost their best friend, and welcomed him back with joy. The bells that rang him out chimed merrily at his return.
Dr. Coke was soon to enter upon what might be called his foreign missionary work. John Wesley appointed him to be superintendent of the Methodist societies in America. Into the controversy to which that act gave rise, we shall not now enter.
Coke forthwitii began ranging through the Amer- ican continent from Massachusetts to Georgia, a true bishop of souls, feeding the flock scattered through a primeval wilderness. Already he was meditating the vast missionary enterprises which are the glory of Methodism. He opened a correspondence with
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. II3
India and Africa, and visited the Channel Islands as a key to missionary operations in France. The first field for the extension of the gospel, however, that seemed indicated by Providence was Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Canada. Thither, in 1768, Dr. Coke and three fellow-preachers were sent by the English Wesleyan Conference.
The project of reaching Halifax had to be aban- doned, and running before a storm, they reached, on Christmas Day, the port of Antigua, in the West Indies. As Dr. Coke walked up the street of the town, he met a ship-carpenter and local preacher, John Baxter by name, who had under his care a Methodist society of near two thousand souls, all blacks but ten. Twenty-eight years before, an Antigua planter, Nathaniel Gilbert, heard John Wesley preach at Wandsworth, in England. The good seed took root in his heart and he brouglit the precious germs to his island home, where they became the source of West India Methodism, which, in turn, was one of the chief means of Negro emancipation, and the beginning of the great movement of African evangelization. Dr. Coke ranged from island to island, sowing the seed of the kingdom in the good and honest ground of those faithful African hearts.
Again and again the indefatigable evangelist revisited those sunny islands, which seem to have possessed a strange fascination for his soul. Amid privations, pestilence, shipwrecks, and sometimes bitter persecution, the missionaries toiled on till a
114 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
free Christian civilization took the place of slavery, superstition, cruelty and barbarism.
The French Revolution and the fall of the Bastille inspired a hope that the barriers to the gospel had been broken down *' in the white fields of France." Dr. Coke and M. de Queteville, a Guernsey Metho- dist, proceeded to Paris to open, if possible, a mission. In that city of amusements and pleasure, where, as one of its own wits has said, four-fifths of the people die of grief,* they could get a congregation of only six persons, and were warned to depart or tliey would be hanged on a lamp-post. They felt that the oppor- tunity for the evangelization of France had not yet come.
At length Dr. Coke was permitted to see the successful inauguration of an African Mission, the precursor of subsequent glorious moral victories among the Kaffirs, Hottentots, Fingoes, Bechuanas, Zulus and other tribes of that benighted land. On the abolition of the slave trade, the British crown established in Sierra Leone the colony of Free- town, as an asylum for stolen negroes rescued from recaptured slave ships. Here, in 1811, four volunteer missionaries were sent. Notwithstanding the decimation of the missionary ranks by the deadly climate, the work has been maintained, till in thirty chapels assemble more than twenty thousand
♦Paris, ville d'amusements, des plaisirs, ou les quatre- cinquiemes des habitants meurent de chagrin.— Chamfort, ** Caractdres et Anecdotes."
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. II5
native Methodists who have abandoned their vile fetichism for a pure spiritual worship, and five thousand children crowd the mission schools.
Coke was now about to inaugurate his last and great- est missionary enterprise. For many years the spirit- ual destitution of India had lain heavy on his heart. On the banks of the Indus a merchant's clerk had conquered an empire. With three thousand troops, on the plains of Plassey, he routed an army of sixty thousand, with the loss of only two and twenty men, and laid the foundations of Britain's Indian depend- ency of 290,000,000 souls. But, though open to Eng- lish commerce, India, by the decree of the Company of Leadenhall Street, was closed to Christ's gospel. But " India," wrote Dr. Coke, *' still cleaved to his heart ; he could give up all for India."
Friends remonstrated against a man in his sixty- sixth year, worn with toil and heavy cares, braving the perils of a long sea voyage and residence in the torrid zone ; but it was in vain. *' I am now dead to Europe," he wrote, " and alive to India. God Himself has said to me, ' Go to Ceylon,' " and go he would.
In the Indian Ocean Coke's health rapidly de- clined. On the morning of the third of May his servant knocked at his cabin door to awake him at the usual time of half-past five o'clock. He heard no response. Opening the door he beheld the life- less body of the missionary extended on the floor. The same day, as the sun sank below the Indiaa
116 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Ocean, the body of the tireless missionary was buried in its depths.
His comrades in toil with heavy hearts proceeded on their voyage, and after a passage of twenty weeks reached Bombay. But God raised them up friends and opened the way before them. On reaching Ceylon they were hospitably lodged in the Govern- ment House. Lord Molesworth, the commandant, who, with his troops, attended the first service, was so deeply impressed by the sermon that he left a dinner party to kneel in prayer with the missionaries till he found peace in believing. Soon after, return- ing to England, his ship was lost with all on board save two or three. While it was sinking, he walked the deck, pointing the terrified passengers to the Saviour of men. As he embraced Lady Moles- worth they sank into the waves, locked in each other's arms, and thus folded together in death they were washed ashore. Such were the first fruits of the Methodist Mission in Ceylon. Another trophy of that first sermon became the first native mission- ary to Asia.
The death of Dr. Coke was the beginning of a new era in the history of Wesleyan missions. In Ceylon, in India, in China, in South and West Africa, in the West Indies, in Australia and Poly- nesia, multitudes of degraded and superstitious pagans have been raised from most abject depths of degradation to the dignity of men and prepared for the fellowship of saints.
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. 117
The greatest work accomplished by those pioneer Indian missionaries, Carey, Marshman and Ward, the cobbler, weaver and printer, was the translation of the Scriptures into the languages of India. Al- though the oriental learning of these men secured them in time large income from the East India Com- pany, they yet continued to live poor that their great translation might be published. Beside giving their lives to missionary toil, they and their families per- sonally contributed nearly £90,000 to this great work. Eventually there issued from the Serampore press translations of the Bible in forty languages and dialects of India and Central Asia. On the recent centenary of their mission Sir Charles Aitchison thus emphasized the supreme importance of their work : —
" The Bible is the best of all missionaries. Mis- sionaries die ; the printed Bible remains forever. It finds access through doors that are closed to the human foot, and into countries where missionaries have not yet ventured to go. , . . No book is more studied in India now by the native population of all parties than the Christian Bible." ,
Another missionary agency of first importance was the higher education of the natives. To this Carey and his colleagues made a magnificent contribution in the erection of the Serampore College. The great leader of this movement was Dr. Alexander Duff. Trained under Dr. Chalmers at St. Andrews, he be- came the first missionary of the Church of Scotland.
118 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
On his way to India he was twice shipwrecked. At Cape Town he lost all his effects except his Bible, which was picked up on the seashore. In 1829 he reached Calcutta and opened a school with five pupils. In a week he had three hundred. The suc- cess of the school caused a panic among the orthodox Hindus. Many converts were won from the upper classes, and many of these became Christian minis- ters, catechists or college professors. Drs. Duff, Williams and Anderson, in the three great cities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, founded Christian colleges, which have largely moulded the higher classes of India.
The terrible Mutiny of 1857 was a crisis in the history of India and its missions. It superseded the government of John Company, which was opposed to missions, by that of Queen Victoria, who was their friend. One of the first results was a proclamation of political liberty and religious toleration. The Queen returned to Lord Derby the first unsatisfac- tory draft of this proclamation with a message that *' Such a document should breathe feelings of gener- osity, benevolence and religious toleration." With her own hand she inserted these words : " Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of relig- ion ; " and at the close she added : *' And may the God of all power grant to us, and to those in author- ity under us, strength to carry out these our wishes for the good of our people."
METHODISM AND MISSIONS. II9
Since the Mutiny the number of missions has in- creased fourfold. That great crisis made the nation realize the cowardly character of its religious policy in India. Lord Lawrence, one of the best Governor- Generals that Lidia ever had, declares : '* I believe that what more stirred up the Lidian Mutiny than any other thing was the habitual cowardice of Great Britain as to her own religion."
In the early years of the century the Company showed intense opposition to missions and spent im- mense sums in supporting idolatry. To bolster up paganism, it prohibited missionary work in its terri- tories and acted as church- war dens to Juggernaut. But soon the influence of missions was felt. In 1829 Lord William Bentinck put an end to suttee, or the burning of widows on their husbands' funeral pyre. But even as late as 1837 Sir Peregrine Maitland, Commander-in-Chief of the Madras army, resigned his position rather than pay official honor to an idol.
It is only by looking back through a hundred years that we realize the marvellous progress that has been made. At the beginning of the century there were not more than ten missionaries in India. Now over two thousand missionaries, both men and women, are at work throughout almost every district of this great dependency. Great Britain, America, Canada, Australasia, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, are all represented in this work. "The army, too," says a writer on the subject, "is interdenominational — Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists,
120 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Methodists, Congregationalists, Friends, etc., all, with few exceptions, working in harmony, dividing the land between them, and meeting in provincial and general conferences for mutual help. The ecclesias- tical differences which bulk largely at home are at least minimized in face of the great common task."
Though later entering the field than some others, the American Methodist Mission, founded by Dr. Butler, and lately expanded by Bishop Thoburn, has achieved marvellous results.
EARLY MISSIONS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS. 121
CHAPTER XIII.
EARLY MISSIONS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS.
Nowhere have the triumphs of missions been more striking than in the sunny islands of the Southern Seas. The discovery by the gallant Tas- man of those beautiful coral-fringed islands, with their splendid vegetation and their feathery foliage of tropic palms, seemed to the eyes of astonished Europe like the unveiling of a lovely paradise.
When visited by Captain Cook, a hundred years later, the fancied mildness of disposition of the in- habitants of the group to which we refer procured for them the name of the Friendly Islands. But a more intimate acquaintance showed that these lovely islands were truly " dark places of the earth, full of the habitations of cruelty." It turned out that these Friendly Islanders were almost constantly at war among themselves ; that they were cannibals, polygamists and idolaters ; and that they stood in need of the Gospel as much as any people who ever lived on the face of the earth.
When the London Missionary Society was organ- ized in the year 1795, their first enterprise, as we l^ave seen, was a mission to the Friendly Islands.
122 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The strangers were kindly received by the chiefs and people of Tonga, not so much, perhaps, from re- gard to the object of their mission, as from the hope that they might become possessed of some of the goods they had brought with them ; for they were well supplied with various articles of merchandise — iron, edged tools, fish-hooks, and other commodities which were highly prized by the natives.
This transient friendliness, however, soon became changed to virulent hatred and treachery. The mission premises were plundered and destroyed by the savages, and three of the missionaries were cruelly murdered. Not till twenty years later was another attempt made to plant a mission in this un- friendly soil by the Rev. Walter Lawry, a Wesleyan missionary. For a while the kindness of the natives, and their readiness to receive instruction, raised his hope of success, and he wrote home for more mis- sionaries, a surgeon, a printer, teachers, books and articles for barter. Soon the characteristic fickleness and superstition of the people were again mani- fested. After fourteen months of arduous labor, the mission had, for a time, to be relinquished. But two years later it was resumed under brighter auspices. Schools were established, which were soon attended by hundreds of children, who made rapid progress in learning to read, as well as in committing to memory hymns, prayers, and lessons from Scripture.
The King of Hawaii, who afterwards became the
EARLY MISSIONS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS. 12$
celebrated King George of the whole of the Friendly Islands, visited Tonga in person, and begged ear- nestly for a missionary. He had begun to observe the Christian Sabbath by ceasing from work and from amusement, and when he could not procure a missionary, he employed an English sailor to read prayers in a house which was used as a chapel on Sundays.
From this period the missionaries were encouraged by evidences of a deeper spiritual work of grace among the people. The King of Tonga himself be- gan to meet in class, and his voice was heard in the prayer-meetings. Christian marriage was intro- duced, the Sabbath day was kept holy, family wor- ship was generally observed, and the whole deport- ment of the people showed that a genuine work of grace had taken place in the hearts of many. At the first love-feast held in Tonga, one hundred and fifty members were present, and forty-six spoke, in a very simple and affecting manner, of their conversion from heathenism to Christianity.
But the most noteworthy event of this early period was the baptism of King Tubou, 1830. Out of eighteen inhabited islands, all but three embraced Christianity. The king took five of his principal idols and hung them up by the neck in order that the people might see that they were "all dead."
In 1831 a remarkable religious movement took place in the Friendly Islands, a movement which
124 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
has few parallels in the history of the Christian Church. At this time King George of Haabai visited Vavau with twenty-four sail of canoes. He and his people went on business ; but their hearts were warm witli their first love in the service of God; and they were bent on doing good. Many of the objections to Christianity of the chief of Vavau were removed, and his royal guest pleaded so effectually with him that at last he exclaimed, " Well, I will spend the next Sabbath with you in worshipping your God."
The next day the chief gave orders that seven of the principal idols should be brought out and placed in a row. He then said : " If you are gods, run away, or you shall be burned in the fire which I have prepared ! " As none of them ran, the king gave orders that all the sacred houses should be set on fire. His commands were promptly obeyed, and eighteen temples with their gods were burned to ashes. It took three days to complete the work of destruction.
Idol worship was totally abandoned, commodious chapels were erected, churches organized, schools established, and thousands of heathen were brought to a saving knowledge of the truth by the faithful preaching of the gospel. In the course of three months, twelve hundred natives began to meet in a class, most of whom, it is believed, were sincere seekers of salvation. At the opening of a new chapel, which would seat eight hundred persons,
EARLY MISSIONS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS. 125
three thousand natives came together to take part in the services, which were necessarily held in the open air.
The work of conversion spread from village to village, and from island to island, till the whole of the people seemed to be moved by one common impulse. In a single day more than one thousand persons were converted to God. The change was not now from dumb idols merely, but from sin to holiness, and from "the power of Satan unto God." The society in Vavau soon increased to 3,066 members, of which number as many as 2,262 were the fruit of this extraordinary visitation.
Nor were there wanting satisfactory evidences of the genuineness of this remarkable w^ork of grace. The temper and spirit, the walk and conversation of the new converts, was most exemplary. This hallowed work speedily extended to the whole group. Mr. Tucker visited a small island at a short distance, where he found all the adult inhabitants, not one excepted, meeting in a Methodist class. After administering the ordinance of baptism to forty-nine persons, he regarded the whole population as members of the Christian Church.
Soon after his conversion, the king liberated all his slaves, and made known his views with regard to Christian liberty throughout his dominions. He now gave himself up to close study, and was, before long, prepared to pass his examination as a local preacher. He entered upon his new duties with fervent zeal and
126 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
intelligent viev/s of his responsibility to God and His church ; and labored with unwearied diligence to win souls to Christ. It was a pleasing sight to the missionaries to see the royal preacher starting off in his canoe, on a Sabbath morning, to fulfil his appoint- ment at a distant island ; and still more pleasing to hear the song of praise ascending to heaven from the pious sailors and their zealous chief, as they glided along on their errand of mercy.
Soon after his conversion, King George built a beautiful new chapel. It was the largest and most elegant building that had ever been erected in the Friendly Islands, measuring one hundred and ten feet in length by forty-five feet in width. The com- munion rails were made out of the carved shafts of spears, with two large disused war-clubs at the bottom of the pulpit stairs, to remind the people of the happy change which had been brought about by the gospel of peace and salvation.
JOHN HUNT AND THE CONVERSION OF FIJI. 127
CHAPTER XIV.
JOHN HUNT AND THE CONVEKSION OF FIJI.
That a Lincolnshire ploughboy, who grew up to manhood in utter ignorance, should, before his thirty- sixth year, be the chief instrument in. the conversion to Christianity and civilization of one of the most barbarous races of cannibals on the face of the earth, is one of the most remarkable events in the annals of Christian missions.
Young Hunt was put, at ten years of age, to the hard work of a ploughboy. In his seventeenth year he became converted, and, being full of zeal, was soon asked to address a village congregation. In spite of his uncouth appearance and rustic brogue, he became a favorite with the rural congregations which he addressed.
He was still a hard-working farm servant. After walking many miles on Sunday, often not reaching home till midnight, he was in the stables grooming his horses at four o'clock next morning. Being asked if he would like to become a preacher, he confessed that he would like to go as a servant with a missionary to South Africa, and teach in a Sunday-School — so modest was his ambition. The Mission Secretaries
128 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
rather laughed at the idea ; but he was recommended for the ministry, and was sent to the Hoxton training school.
About two years before this, two Wesleyan mis- sionaries, Messrs. Cross and Cargill, had gone as pioneers from Australia to Fiji. Their account of the cannibal orgies of the islands was a revelation of horror to England. The Wesleyan Mission House issued an appeal, " Pity poor Fiji," which stirred the societies throughout the kingdom. Young Hunt and James Calvert, the latter a Yorkshire lad who had recently completed his apprenticeship as printer and bookbinder, were chosen to reinforce that little band among cannibals. In a few weeks Hunt and his young wife were on their way to the scene of their future trials and triumphs at the far antipodes.
" They soon found," says Bishop Walsh, " that so far as the cruelties of the people were concerned, the half had not been told them. The Fijians were, perhaps, the most deeply degraded race of human beings that had ever been met with in any of the South Sea Islands." Two-thirds of all the children were killed in infancy, and every village had an executioner appointed to carry out this deed of blood. Those who survived were early trained to the darkest deeds. Dead bodies were handed over to young children to hack and hew ; living captives were given up to them to mutilate and torture.
Ra Undreundu kept a register, by means of stones, of the bodies which he had eaten, and they numbered
JOHN HUNT AND THE CONVERSION OF FIJI. 129
nine hundred. War canoes were launched on living human bodies, as rollers. It was considered the honorable thing for a wife to be strangled when her husband died. Sometimes a dozen or more wives of a chief were thus put to death and buried with their husband.
In 1840, Commodore Wilkes, of the United States Navy, visited the island, and so deplorable was the condition of the missionaries that he offered to convey them away, but they refused to go, although the chiefs commanded them to depart.
During this time the cannibal feasts were more frequent, and barbarous ceremonies were constantly taking place in the town. The ovens were so near the mission-house that the smell from them was sickening ; and the king furiously threatened to kill the missionaries and their wives if they shut up their house to exclude the horrible stench. Among all these perils and annoyances, Mr. Hunt steadily and earnestly went about his work, always — to use his favorite expression — " turning his care into prayer.**
Such devotion, however, could not fail of its glorious reward. A great religious awakening took place. Among the converts was the queen of Viwa. It was very affecting to see hundreds of Fijians, many of whom were, a few years ago, some of the worst cannibals in the group, and even in the world, chanting, " We praise thee, O God ; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord ; " while their voices were almost drowned by the cries of broken-hearted penitents.
130 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Hunt's arduous toil wore out his life, and at the early age of thirty-six he passed from labor to his endless reward. The next day his coffin was borne by native students to the grave. It had on it no emblazonry, and no record but this :
KEY. JOHN HUNT, SLEPT IN JESUS, OCTOBER 4tH, 1848. AGED 36 YEARS.
In 1874 the islands became, by petition of their inhabitants, a crown colony of Great Britain, and the following year Sir Arthur Gordon was appointed first governor. In 1885 the jubilee of Christianity was celebrated in Fiji. Mr. Calvert, then seventy-two years of age, left England to attend it. Referring to this visit he said : " In 1835, when the mission commenced, there was not a single Christian in Fiji. In 1885 there was not an avowed heathen in all the inhabited islands. Out of a population of one hundred and ten thousand, one hundred and four thousand five hundred and eighty-five were attendants on public worship. Now marriage is sacred, family worship regularly conducted, schools are every wliere established, law and good government firmly laid, and spiritual churches formed and pros- perous. The Fijian church is also continually sending native missionaries to other distant lands to preach Christ in other tongues."
The genuine and sturdy character of the religion of these Fijian converts has proved itself on many
JOHN HUNT AND THE CONVERSION OF FIJI. 131
signal occasions. Manfully have many of tliem endured persecution, exile and death rather than compromise their principles. Forty native Fijians have gone as missionaries to New Guinea, a land more degraded than even their own had been, and through their labors two thousand three hundred of the inhabitants became Christians. The Fijians make good missionaries ; difficulties do not dishearten nor perils affright them. Where one falls under the club of a savage — and many have so fallen — others are ready to take up his work and proclaim to his murderers both tlie law and the gospel.
The good work so auspiciously begun by Hunt and his associates has been carried on with glorious results. The mission band has been reinforced, till, at the close of the century, there were employed, besides about a score of European missionaries, seventy native preachers, 1,126 catechists, 2,081 local preachers, 3,405 class-leaders, with 106,000 attendants on public worship, out of a po^Dulation of 120,000. The people have erected for themselves 079 chapels, which are out of debt, and 381 other preaching places. Every Sunday there are 1,200 pulpits filled by native Fiji preachers, and during the week 1,951 day-schools are conducted for the instruction of over 58,307 scholars, each village supporting its own schools.
Bishop Walsh, a prelate of the Anglican Church, pays this generous tribute to the lowly Lincolnshire ploughman whose life and work we have sketched :
132 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
" Fiji is not only a gem in the British crown, but a precious jewel in the missionary diadem ; and to John Hunt, above all other men, belongs the honor of having placed it there I '*
JOHN WILLIAMS. 133
CHAPTER XV.
JOHN WILLIAMS, THE MARTYR OF EREOMANGA. — RECENT PROGRESS IN THE SOUTH SEAS.
Tottenham Court Road is one of the most crowded and busy thoroughfares of London. In this populous neighborhood the future illustrious mission- ary, John Williams, was born, 1796. From his boyhood he exhibited that mechanical aptitude and manual dex- terity which he afterwards turned to such good ac- count among the barbarous South Sea Islanders.
Already the London Missionary Society was en- deavoring to win from heathenism to Christianity those sunny islands of the southern seas which Cook and his fellow-discoverers had unveiled to the world. These "isles of Eden" appeared to the casual ob- server among the loveliest and most favored spots on earth. The bread-fruit tree and the cocoa palm waved their foliage in the balmy air.
In a halcyon sea 'mid the coral grove The purple mullet and gold-fish rove.
Flowers of brightest hues and fragrance, and fruits of richest flavor abounded. Surely here, if anywhere on earth, were the Islands of the Blessed, and here
134 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
must be found the primeval innocence and happiness of that Golden Age of which poets had sung !
But how different was the reality ! These scenes of fairy loveliness were full of the habitations of cruelty, and were in danger of becoming (Jepopulated through the abominable wickedness of the inhabitants. Chronic wars wasted the islands, and the victors feasted upon the flesh of their conquered enemies. Even woman's heart forgot its pitifulness, and " mothers slept calmly on the beds beneath which they had buried many of their own murdered infants."
Here the gospel of Jesus had already been preached, and had won, as amid the corruptions of Corinth and the cruelties of Rome, its wonted triumphs. In some of the islands the natives renounced their idolatry, and gave up their bloody rites. Across the sea came the cry for more laborers for this field of toil and danger. Among the first to respond was the zealous young convert, John Williams, being then only in his twentieth year. He offered his services to the London Missionary Society, and was accepted for the work to which he gave his life.
With his young and devoted wife, who proved herself a noble helpmeet in many a time of trial, Williams set forth for the scene of his future triumphs and martyrdom. A whole year elapsed before the cocoa groves of Eimeo, one of tlie Society Islands, greeted the eyes of the young missionary, weary with contemplating the wide waste of the melancholy main. Here he remained for some time, acquiring
JOHN WILLIAMS. 135
the native language. His extraordinary mechanical skill commanded the admiration of the islanders, and, gaining their confidence, he soon acquired great facility in adopting their modes of thought and ex- pression.
Soon a place of worship was erected in their midst, capable of containing some three thousand people. The idol houses, which were often the scenes of cruel and cannibal orgies, were pulled down. The gods were committed to the flames, infanticide was abol- ished, cannibalism was at an end, divine service was held three times every Sunda}^ family prayer was universal, and the people, who lately seemed as if possessed by devils, were " sitting clothed and in their right mind."
The zealous missionary organized a society to carry the gospel to the surrounding islands, and these re- cent pagans, at the end of the first year, had given some 15,000 bamboos of cocoanut oil, the value of which was at least |2,500, as a recognition of their own obligations to the gospel, and of their earnest desire to make it known to others.
The missionary had heard among the natives strange songs and traditions of an island, named by them Raratonga, which he was anxious to discover and evangelize. Within twelve months of his visit the whole population, numbering some seven thousand, had renounced idolatry, and were engaged in erecting a place of worship, six hundred feet in length, to accommodate the vast congregations.
136 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Williams resolved also to build a ship of his own, in which he might roam through the great archi- pelago of the Pacific. His account of the building of that ship reads like romance, and has been com- pared to a chapter in Defoe. The builder was soon on board his " Messenger of Peace," which the na- tives called " The Ship of God," and was carrying the glad tidings of salvation to the surrounding shores. From island to island he sailed, preaching everywhere the gospel of the grace of God, till, of sixty thousand natives of the Samoan group, fifty thousand were under religious instruction.
After eighteen years of hallowed labor, this heroic man was able to say : " There is not an island of im- portance within two thousand miles of Tahiti to which the tidings of salvation have not been con- veyed." But the results accomplished he regarded as only stepping-stones to still greater results in the future. He, therefore, resolved to visit England, to tell of the three hundred thousand savages already brought under religious instruction, to get his Rara- tongan version of the Scriptures through the press, and to arouse the hearts of his countrymen to the blessed work of giving the gospel to the heathen. "It is not too much," writes Bishop Walsh, " to say that his visit did more to fan the flame of missionary interest in England than any event which had oc- curred for a century."
Williams had set his heart on the conquest for Christ of the New Hebrides, a group whose inhab-
JOHN WILLIAMS. 137
itants were known to be violent and suspicious. After revisiting all his old stations, he resolved on planting a mission at Erromanga, the key of the New Hebrides group. Having reached the island, Williams with a small party went ashore. The natives were shy and sullen, but the missionary frankly offered his hand and presented some cloth. They accepted his gifts, but while he was speaking to some children the cry of " Danger " from the boats caused the party to run. Two of them escaped, but the heroic Williams and Mr. Harris, another missionary, were pierced with arrows and captured by the natives.
" There can be little doubt," continues the narrator of this tragic event, "that the horrid oro^ies of cannibalism followed closely upon the murder; for when the British ship 'Favorite' visited the island to recover the bodies, a few bones were surrendered as the only remains of the man who had done so much good in his day and generation."
A few years later the saintly Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand, on his first visit to the New Hebrides, touched at Erromanga with a native teacher. They knelt together on its blood-stained shore, and asked God to open a way for his gospel to the degraded in- habitants. At length, in 1852, two native Christians from the Hervey Islands were landed, and one of those chiefs who were most forward in giving them a welcome was the very man who had murdered Wil- liams. "Erromanga, however, was to have other
138 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
associations with the noble army of martyrs before that blessed consummation could be attained. In 1861, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, a devoted missionary pair, were savagely massacred by some of the heathen."
It is the deliberate opinion of Bishop Walsh, the biographer of this devoted missionary, that " since the days of the apostles no one man was the means of winning so many thousands to the true faith of Christ by the preaching of the gospel,** as was John Williams. Yet he sealed his testimony with his blood at the early age of forty- three. His life was short if measured by years, but if measured by re- sults— by noble achievements for God and for man — it was long and grand and glorious ! His undying fame is recorded in his brief but pregnant epitaph : — " When he came there were no Christians, when he left there were no heathen."
In the Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands the missions of the American Board were not less successful than those above described. The very scene of Captain Cook's murder has become the scene of most re- markable missionary triumphs. The story has often been told of Obookiah, a native of the Sandwich Islands, " who was found one day in 1809 sitting upon the steps of one of the buildings of Yale Col- lege and weeping because he longed to gain an edu- cation and knew not how it could be secured." Ten years later the brig Thaddeus sailed with nineteen missionaries for these islands.
Providence had been preparing the way. An
JOHN WILLIAMS. 139
open revolt against idolatry was in progress. The missionaries were received with gladness. In eight years there were twelve thousand hearers of the Word and twenty-seven thousand pupils in the schools. During 1837, under Titus Coan, seventeen hundred and five persons were baptized in one day, and within six years there were twenty-seven thou- sand converts. In 1863 the American Board deemed its work accomplished, and handed over its missions to the native churches.
The Hawaiian Evangelical Association has since managed the native churches. These churches be- came themselves centres of Christian propagandism, and sent earnest native missionaries to the Caroline, Gilbert, Marshall and Marquesas Islands. The mis- sionary labors in the Hawaiian Islands made them the most prosperous in the Pacific and prepared the way for their annexation in 1898 to the United States.
The chief opposition to missions in the Southern Seas has been through wicked men, whose sinful practices were restrained by the spread of the gospel. The malign influence of these men intro- duced among the people the white man's vices in- stead of the white man's virtues, and the white man's diseases which have decimated the native tribes.
New Zealand, under the influence of Christian missions and Christian civilization, has been trans- formed from a habitation of cruelty to one of the most advanced, progressive and prosperous parts of
K
140 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the British Empire. " Samuel Marsden, the apostle of New Zealand, while a convict chaplain in New South Wales, had met some of those fiends incar- nate, the savage Maories. His soul was greatly drawn out in sympathy for them, and, in 1807, while on a visit to England, he urged the Church Mis- sionary Society to undertake the task of preaching Christ in these dark abodes of cruelty." With a little company of artisans and a converted Maori the work was begun. In 1814 Marsden joined them, but not till after eleven dreadful years had passed was a single native baptized. Then five years more elapsed without any further semblance of fruit.
The Wesleyans, meanwhile, under Samuel Leigh, in 1818 established a mission in the Northern Islands. But for twelve years no converts were made. Then a great revival occurred. Soon, on a single Sunday eighty-four converts were baptized, and by 1838 sixteen chapels were built, at one of which a thousand worshippers were wont to gather. In 1840 the unhappy Maori war broke out, and of two hundred thousand natives only forty thousand remained.
In 1842 Bishop Selwyn brought a large reinforce- ment of missionaries, and soon after began a mission in the New Hebrides, a group of thirty islands about a thousand miles north of New Zealand. The people of these islands were among the most degraded, ferocious and treacherous of the Southern Seas. They had suffered cruel wrongs from wicked
JOHN WILLIAMS. 141
white men, and here it was that the heroic John Williams was murdered and became the victim of a cannibal feast. Not till 1848 was a permanent mis- sion established in the New Hebrides by John Geddie and his brave wife, sent out by the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia.
That noble colonial church was destined to add two martyr missionaries to this heroic band. In 1857 it sent the Rev. G. N. Gordon to Erromanga, where Williams gained the martyr's crown, and after four years' labor of love he and his wife were killed. Three years after his brother, the Rev. J. S. Gordon, offered himself for the vacant place, and eight years later became himself the victim of a treacherous native.
The story of Raton's career at Aniwa has become a classic of missionary literature. On another of these islands the saintly Bishop Patteson received the martyr's crown. About twenty of these islands have now been Christianized, and some fourteen thousand of their once savage inhabitants gathered into churches.
Not till 1870 was the gospel carried to New Guinea, the world's largest island, by the London Missionary Society. The early missionaries were chiefly Christian converts from the Loyalty group, which had been evangelized by Raratongan converts. " In the first twenty years of the New Guinea mis- sion one hundred and twenty native teachers died of fever or were poisoned or massacred, yet the ranks
142 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
were never unfilled." The Rev. James Chalmers, the devoted agent in New Guinea of the London Missionary Society, calls them the true heroes and martyrs of the nineteenth century.
Wesleyan missionaries from Australia, with six- teen native missionaries from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, have evangelized New Britain, New Ireland and the Duke of York Island. In Java, Sumatra and the Malayan Archipelago, the Netherlands and Rhenish Societies have had considerable success. But throughout the Dutch East Indies these is still much to be accomplished. In 1890 there were but two hundred and twenty-seven thousand four hundred and ten Christians out of a population of over thirty millions.
EARLY AMERICAN MISSIONS. 143
CHAPTER XVI.
EARLY AMERICAN MISSIONS. — JUDSON AND HIS HELPERS.
The sacred impulse to missionary work early- spread to the New World. We have already referred to the consecrated toil among the Indians of Eliot and Brainerd. In 1774 Ezra Stiles and Samuel Hop- kins had proposed to the Presbyterian Synod of New- York to send two natives of Africa who had been converted in the college of New Jersey to propagate Christianity in their own country. The Synod in- dorsed the scheme, but the Revolutionary War pre- vented its being carried out.
The American Baptists were deeply interested in the mission of William Carey and contributed con- siderable sums to its support, and early in the cen- tury no less than five missionary periodicals were established to difiuse missionary intelligence amono^ the people.
It was, however, through the influence of a band of college students that the first missionary society in America was organized. In 1806 Samuel J. Mills proposed to three fellow-students of Williams College, *' under the lee of a hay stack, where they
144 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
had taken refuge from a thunder storm," that the^ should endeavor to send the gospel to the heathen. Soon after, at Andover Seminary, Adoniram Judson, a name of potent memory, with kindred spirits, took up the sacred cause, and led, in 1810, to the organ- ization of that noble society, destined to be so widely known as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Under its auspices, in 1812, Jud- son, Rice, Newell, Hall and Nott sailed for Calcutta. The British authorities refused them permission to land. The last three ultimately settled at Bombay, and Judson became the Apostle of Burmah.
Judson's story is one of strange power and pathos. At college he acquired free-thinking notions, and avowed himself as a deist. He could confront in argument his pious father, who was a Congregational pastor, but to the prayers and tears of his mother he had nothing to oppose. He was converted to God in his twenty-fifth year. Zeal to preach the gospel in foreign lands took the place of dreams of literary and political ambition. Ann Hasseltine Judson, his wife, was the first American woman to become a missionary to foreign lands, the pioneer of a noble company of women workers for heathen women. During their long voyage their views on baptism underwent a change, and they passed under the care of the American Baptist Missionary Union.
Forbidden by the East India Company to labor in India, Judson obtained admission to the empire of Burmah, Not till after six years of toil was his first
EARLY AMERICAN MISSIONS. 145
convert baptized. During the war between Britain and Burmah the Judsons suffered almost incredible hardships. Mr. Judson was imprisoned for seventeen months in the unutterable misery of an oriental jail, during much of the time being bound with three and sometimes no less than five pairs of iron fetters. His sufferings from fever, from excruciating heat, hunger and the cruelty of his keepers form one of the most thrilling narratives in the annals of missions.
Mr. Judson and Dr. Price, a medical missionary, were confined in a noisome prison, fettered and fast- ened to a long pole to prevent their moving. The jailers confiscated their household goods, but Mrs. Judson had taken the precaution to secrete, in a shabby pillow, which she thought no native would covet, the manuscript of her husband's translation of the New Testament. On this she slept till robbed of it by one of the officials, who soon threw it away because it was so hard. One of the converts picked it up and afterwards restored the precious manu- script to Mrs. Judson intact.
To add to the difficulties of the lonely woman, a little daughter was born, which, as often as she could, she took with her to the prison to bring some ray of pleasure to her husband's heart. While still ill with fever, Mr. Judson and the other white prisoners were driven on foot to Amarapura, a distance of eight or ten miles. This march under the burning sun was so dreadful that one of the number dropped dead. In a filthy hovel Mrs. Judson spent thirteen months
146 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of wretchedness. At length Mr. Judson was re- leased and ordered to the Burmese camp to act as interpreter in the negotiations carried on with Sir Archibald Campbell for peace. Upon the arrival at the English camp, Mrs. Judson writes : " Sir Archi- bald took us to his own table and treated us with the kindness of a father. No persons on earth were ever happier than we were during the fortnight we passed at the English camp. We were crut of the power of the Burmese and once more under English protection."
Judson was now summoned to assist in negotiating a second treaty between the English and Burmese, which should secure toleration for Christianity. This was the final parting between husband and wife. Before his return, that tender, brave soul ex- changed suffering for endless rest. For over sixty years her lonely grave has been eloquent with the echo of our Saviour's last command, '' Go ye," and multitudes of consecrated workers have been raised up to carry on the work, dropped from her hands and left as a legacy to the Christian Church.
A number of new missionaries were by this time in the field. The work of translation went rapidly on; books, tracts and portions of the Bible were printed ; converts were added to the church ; and seven years after Mrs. Judson's death, the num- ber of native Cliristians had increased to five hun- dred and sixteen, and the translation of the Scrip- tures into Burmese was completed.
EARLY AMERICAN MISSIONS. 147
The zealous missionary sought sympathy and aid in his life-work by a second marriage with a saintly woman, the widow of Dr. Boardman, founder of the Karen Mission. After an absence of more than thirty years the veteran Judson, worn with suf- fering, illness and toil, returned to his native land. On the voyage his devoted wife died, and was buried on the lonely rocky island of St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte was so long a prisoner.
Before returning to his beloved labor he was mar- ried to Miss Emily Chubbuck, a young lady of gifts and graces, who wrote much in prose and verse un- der the pseudonym of *' Fanny Forester." The re- mainder of his life was spent in unremitting toil. Sickness, suffering and persecution by the Burmese rendered it almost insupportable. His last great work was the completion of his Burmese dictionary, a colossal monument of his consecrated scholarship. While on a voyage to the Isle of Bourbon in quest of health he died on a French bark and was buried at sea.
Four months of agonizing suspense elapsed before Mrs. Judson received tidings of her crushing bereave- ment. What those four months of anguish cost her, we may feebly gather from her writings penned during that period. A few extracts from her poem entitled " Sweet Mother," the long, pitiful wail of a breaking heart, will convey to us all we need to know of the agony of that terrible suspense.
148 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The wild southwest monsoon has risen On broad, gray wings of gloom,
While here from out my dreary prison
I look as from a tomb, — alas ! My heart another tomb.
Upon the low, thatched roof the rain
With ceaseless patter falls ; My choicest treasures bear its stain, Mould gathers on the walls, — would Heaven
'Twere only on the walls !
They bore him from me to the ship,
As bearers bear the dead ; I kissed his speechless, quivering lip, And left him on his bed, — alas.
It seemed a coffin bed :
** With weary foot and broken wing,
With bleeding heart and sore, Thy dove looks backward sorrowing. But seeks the ark no more, — thy breast
Seeks never, never more.
All fearfully, all tearfully,
Alone and sorrowing, My dim eye lifted to the sky, Fast to the Cross I cling,— O Christ,
To thy dear Cross I cling !
Mrs. Judson afterwards returned to the United States, where she lived to write some of her sweetest poems, to complete her husband's memoirs, and to labor unweariedly for the education of his chil- dren.
Amid the persecutions and trials of the Burmese mission nearly two score of the Baptist missionaries
EARLY AMERICAN MISSIONS. 149
had already died on the field. Judson was a man of unfaltering faith. When asked near his death whether the prospects were bright for the conversion of the world, he immediately replied, "As bright, sir, as are the promises of God."
150 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XVII.
EGBERT MORRISON AND THE OPENING OF CHINA.
China is the great missionary problem of the world. Its enormous extent, its vast population, the immense antiquity of its religious systems, its arrested development, its difficult language, all form formid- able barriers to the spread of the gospel.
It is only by comparison with other countries that we can get an adequate idea of its vast size. It is more than one-third larger than the whole of Europe, and exceeds the area of Great Britain and Ireland forty-four times. It is one hundred and four times as large as England, and one hundred and seventy- six times as large as Scotland. Its coastline, washed by the restless surges of the Chinese Sea, is over 3,000 miles long. It stretches through 2,400 miles from north to south, and nearly 4,500 miles from east to west.
Stupendous as is the size of China, the vastness of its population is still more wonderful. The Chinese ambassador in Paris has stated the population at four hundred millions. Here again mere figures can give but vague ideas. There are in China about eighty times as many persons as in the whole Domin-
THE OPENING OF CHINA. 151
ion of Canada, about six times as many as there are in the United States, and one-third more than in the whole of Europe, or one-third the population of the globe. Dr. Gracey strikingly sets forth this stupendous fact as follows :
" Every third person who lives and breathes upon this earth, who toils under the sun, sleeps under God's stars, or sighs and suffers beneath the heaven, is a Chinese. Every third child born into the world looks into the face of a Chinese mother ; every third pair given in marriage plight their troth in a Chinese cup of wine ; every third orphan weeping through the day, every third widow wailing through the watches of the night, is in China. Every third person who comes to die, is a Chinese. One can but ask. What catechism will this third child learn ? What prosperity will follow this bridal ? What solace will be afforded these widows ? What watch-care will be given these orphans ? With what hopes will these multitudes depart ? "
As early as the seventh century Christianity was introduced into China by the Nestorian Church. It is said that some of the emperors even became converts to the faith. But Nestorian Christianity seems to have been destroyed by the Ming Dynasty (1360-1628). As early as the thirteenth century Roman Catholic missions were begun in China. Not- withstanding severe persecutions, Roman Catholicism has maintained its existence for over five hundred years, and now numbers, it is claimed, over a million adherents. For two centuries the Greek Church, under the patronage of Russia, has been established
152 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
in China, chiefly in Pekin. The Kussianizing of Manchuria and the northern provinces will greatly extend the influences of that church. Protestant missions date only from the great missionary revival of the nineteenth century. To Robert Morrison, a sturdy Northumbrian of Scottish descent, is due the honor of opening this great empire to Protestantism.
It is perhaps scarce too much to say that Morrison was the greatest benefactor of the four hundred millions of China that the teeming population of that vast empire has ever known. He first, almost unaided, translated the Word of God into a vernacular more widely understood than any other in the world,* and opened the gospel to more than one-third of the human race. His labors were the foundation of all future evangelization, and upon this foundation all succeeding missionaries have had to build.
Like the apostolic Carey, Morrison has conferred dignity on a humble origin and on a youth of lowly toil. If not like the former, a shoemaker, he was the next thing to it — a maker of lasts. He was born in 1782, and after scant schooling at New- castle, he was apprenticed to his father at a very early age to learn the trade of last-making. Even when at work at his lowly trade, his Bible or Latin grammar was fastened before him, that he might
* Although there are some two hundred different dialects spoken in China, yet the same written characters are under- stood in all ; as the Arabic numerals, though called by different names, are understood by all the nations in Europe.
THE OPENING OF CHINA. I53
feed the hunger of his mind for sacred and secular knowledge.
Though delighting in books, there came to his soul with irresistible power the imploring wail of the perishing millions of mankind. He felt that he must become a missionary to heathen lands. Friends tried to dissuade him from what they thought the chimerical idea. But he persisted in his resolve, and offered his services to the London Missionary Society.
In the confidence of a divine call, young Morrison pursued for two years special studies preparatory for his life-work. Day after day he walked the wards of St. Bartholomew's Hospital to gain a knowledge of the healing art. Every spare hour was spent in the alcoves of the British Museum. The special attrac- tion in that wilderness of books was a quaint old manuscript, a Harmony of the Gospels, translated into Chinese by an unknown Roman Catholic mis- sionary. At his lodgings, by the help of the almond- eyed Chinese scholar, Young-Sam-Tak, he wrestled with the difficulties of the most difficult language spoken by man.
Owing to British prejudice against missionaries, Morrison was unable to take passage direct to China, but had to sail to America and round Cape Horn. After nine long months he reached Canton, Septem- ber, 1807. He found that his difficulties had but begun. To the perplexities of the language were added the jealousies and oppositions of the natives,
154 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of the British residents and of the Portuguese Catholic priests. But his faith rose above every obstacle. In his willingness to become all things to all men that he might by all means save some, he adopted for a time the garb and customs of the Chinese. He shaved his beard and wore the national queue ; allowed his nails to grow long, and acquired the difficult art of eating with chop-sticks. But, finding that this extreme conformity did not con- ciliate the natives, he soon abandoned it and resumed his European garb. He devoted himself with en- thusiasm to a mastery of the language, conversed constantly in it with the Chinese servants, and even employed it in his private prayers. Such energy would conquer any obstacles, and he soon became, like Carey at Calcutta, translator to the East India Company.
In consequence of the jealousies of the native authorities, Morrison was compelled to pursue his labors as student and translator of the Scriptures with the utmost caution and privacy. '' We get a glimpse," says his biographer, " of the prudent and indefatigable missionary living in a cellar below the roadway, with a dim earthenware lamp lighted be- fore him, and a folio volume of Matthew Henry's Commentary screening the flame both from the wind and from observation."
So, year after year, he toiled on, uncheered by human aid or sympathy in the more than Herculean labor of translating the Scriptures into the Chinese
THE OPENING OF CHINA. 155
tongue. In seven years the whole of the New Testa- ment was translated. At the end of that time, too, Dr. Morrison baptized his first convert, Tsae-Ako, who had been his assistant in his work — the first- fruit of a glorious harvest of souls.
In five years more the whole Bible was translated, and, by the aid of the British and Foreign Bible Society, was published in twenty-one portly volumes — the result of about eighteen years of missionary toil. "During this time," writes Bishop Walsh, " Morrison had to superintend not only the printing, but also the cutting of the blocks from which the copies were to be struck, and often had his patience and perseverance been tried by finding them de- stroyed, sometimes by the ravages of the white ants, sometimes through the error of the workmen, and sometimes through the hostility of the native magis- trates."
The "Honorable Company" feared that they should be compromised by their interpreter being en- gaged in the work of Bible translation, and dismissed him from their service. But not for a moment did Morrison hesitate as to his duty. " The character of a missionary I cannot sink," he said, "no, not if my daily bread depend on it." His services, however, were so valuable that he was again and again em- ployed in offices of the highest trust and importance. The Company's estimate of the value of his linguistic labors may be judged from the fact that it expended the sum of 175,000 in printing his Chinese Diction-
156 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ary, a work which explains some 40,000 characters, and which, next to the translation of the Scriptures, is the great work of the missionary's life.
He never, however, lost sight of what he con- sidered his great missionary obligations, but con- stantly preached and proclaimed the glad evangel of the gospel and in every possible way sought to in- fluence for good the native population. Believing that the Chinese could be most effectually reached through educational means, he procured the found- ing of an Anglo-Chinese college.
In 1824 Morrison revisited his native land to find himself everywhere received with the highest hon- ors. He was presented to the sovereign, to whom he gave a copy of the Chinese Scriptures. His name was received with cheers by the Imperial Parliament, and learned societies and universities became rivals in conferring upon him their highest distinctions.
He remained two years in England, " most of the time," he says, '' in stage-coaches and inns," dili- gently endeavoring to enlist public sympathy in the work to which he had devoted his life — the evangel- ization of China. He then returned to his field of toil, " amid failing health and family afflictions, and manifold discouragements, and by preaching, trans- lating, printing, sought to set up Christ's kingdom in that land of dense, dark heathenism." A little band of Chinese converts were gathered about him, and one of these, Leang-Afa, became the first native preacher of Christianity in the Chinese Empire.
THE OPENING OF CHINA. 157
At the comparatively early age of fifty-two he ceased from his labors, having laid the foundation of a greater work for the heathen world than probably any other man since apostolic times. When Morri- son entered China in 1807 he was alone — the only Protestant missionary among 400,000,000 people. He lived to welcome Dutch, American and English mis- sionaries to that vast field. How it would have re- joiced his soul had he lived till now — how it doubt- less rejoices his soul in heaven — to know that over two thousand Protestant missionaries and twenty thousand native helpers are preaching the gospel in the vast empire to which he was the solitary pioneer.
168 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XVIII.
LATER MISSIONS IN THE FAR EAST.
Morrison was followed by a heroic band of suc- cessors. The Opium War of 1840-1842 led to the treaty of Nanking^ by which Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and five treaty ports thrown open to trade. In 1847, the Rev. W. C. Burns, of the Presbyterian Church, " one of the first saints in the missionary calendar," a man who had already won wide success in Britain and in Canada, went to China and devoted the rest of his life to the evangelizing of its people. He adopted the native customs and diet, and incurred much peril by travelling far beyond the treaty ports on evangelistic tours.
The second Chinese war, occasioned by the illegal seizure of the British ship Arrow, led to the conven- tion of Pekin in 1860, which granted religious tol- eration and liberty to travel about the land. To the American missionaries. Wells, Williams and Dr. Martyn, much credit is due for the terms of this treaty. The following year Dr. Griffith John, a zealous agent of the London Missionary Society, established the first Protestant mission in central China at Hankow.
LATER MISSIONS IN THE FAR EAST. 159
The work of the China Inland Mission, begun in 1866, is unique in its character and history. Its founder is the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, who has been designated the " Loyola of Protestant missions." The principle of this mission is that the workers have no guaranteed salary, but go forth in faith en- tering every open door. The previous missions had been confined chiefly to the sea-coast. The object of the Inland Mission was to press forward towards the central and western portions of the empire, where the spiritual destitution was most appalling. It has now agents in nearly all of the eighteen provinces, and in 1897 its foreign missionaries numbered 720, with 507 paid native helpers. It is interdenomina- tional in its character, and recruits its agents from all parts of Christendom. Its income is about $200,000 a year, received in answer to faith and prayer.
Time would fail to mention the tithe of the noble workers in recent Chinese evangelization. Almost all the Christian churches have their agencies in this great empire. Nor have these ministrations been without their noble company of confessors and martyrs. Not infrequently have the missions been raided and looted and the missionaries scattered. But they have invariably returned to their labors and been crowned with glorious success. More than twenty distinct riots of considerable importance have occurred. In one of these in 1895, at Kucheng, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, of the Church Missionary Society,
160 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
six lady missionaries, a nurse and two children were slain. But in that very district within eighteen months five thousand converts were added to the Church.
There are in China over a million blind persons. For these the Rev. W. H. Murray has accomplished a marvellous work in adopting the Braille system of teaching the blind the complex Chinese language. It has been found, too, that *' the most ignorant peasants, both blind and sighted, can by this purpose learn to read and write fluently within three months."
In Mongolia and Manchuria, the Rev. James Gil- mour for twenty years (1871-1891) pursued a heroic life of lonely wanderings among the nomad tribes of these northern plains. He saw but one or two converts as the result of his labors. But he knew no surcease of his toil to his life's end.
The " Forbidden Land " of Tibet has hitherto been closed to the gospel, but the missionaries of the several churches are pushing forward their lines and trenches for the assault on this last stronghold of Buddhism. Korea, long known as the Hermit Kingdom, has opened its doors to the gospel. Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, the famous traveller, describes the mission work she saw in Korea as the most im- pressive she had seen in any part of the world.
In the remarkable development of Japan from a military feudalism and Asiatic despotism to a con- stitutional monarchy is one of the marvels of modern history. In this the words of the Scripture are ful-
LATER MISSIONS IN THE FAR EAST. 161
filled, " A nation is born in a day." In 1549 Francis Xavier, the heroic Jesuit missionary, took passage in a pirate ship for this Land of the Rising Sun. He visited the great cities of the empire. In thirty years the Jesuit missionaries claimed one hundred thousand converts, and before the final persecution of 1637 the number is said to have reached not less than two millions. Many of these were, doubtless, but super- ficially converted, but multitudes were faithful unto death, and no fewer than thirty-seven thousand were massacred.
For over two hundred years Japan was sealed against Western influence. At length, in 1853, Commodore Perry succeeded in breaking the spell, and soon this long sequestered land was opened to Western powers. A civil war in 1868 overthrew the old feudal dynasty. Soon the decrees against Chris- tianity were abolished, and the Christian Sabbath be- came officially adopted as a day of rest in 1874. A representative government, with two houses of par- liament, was established in 1890.
No sooner was the door to missions opened than missionaries from many lands poured in. In 1874 a Japanese convert, Joseph Hardy Neesima, educated in the United States, returned to his native land to found the celebrated Doshisha, a Christian university. It became a centre of Christian influence, many of its students becoming missionaries. The Protestant missions united in the translation of the Scriptures, which was successfully accomplished in 1888. The
162 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Roman Catholic and Russo-Greek churches have also established vigorous missions.
Since 1890 a national reaction has occurred. The victory of the Japanese in the recent war with China developed an intense national pride. A rationalistic spirit also has sprung up, and the old Buddhism has been galvanized into a sort of renewed life. Never- theless, many Christian missions and schools have been established ; and, above all, the Scriptures are being widely diffused throughout the land. Many thou- sands of copies of the New Testament, accepted by the Japanese soldiers during the late war, are leaven- ing the nation. The close of the century witnesses a deepening of the spiritual life in the Church.
In the great Island of Formosa, the British and Canadian Presbyterian churches have had in Drs. Maxwell and Mackay two of the most devoted mis- sionary agents in the high places. Their achieve- ments in evangelizing a vast field, in building Chris- tian churches and extending Christian missions are among the most striking achievements in the annals of missions.
AFRICAN MISSIONS. 163
CHAPTER XIX.
AFRICAN MISSIONS.
It lies beyond the scope of this book to give in de- tail the history of missions throughout the century. We have been able only to glance at the beginning of this great work in a few of its more important fields. Nowhere have greater triumphs of the gospel been won than in Darkest Africa, and many barbarous and cannibal races have been turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. But many tribes are still in the blindness of heathenism and sunken in the most degrading idolatries.
The slave trade has long been the curse of Africa. Beside the vast multitudes whom it has sent to the two Americas, the West Indies, and to many Moslem lands, it has strewn the highways and byways through the jungles and deserts of Africa with the bones of innumerable victims who have fallen on the way.
At the beginning of this century the unexplored heart of Africa was a vast and unknown region. It has now been traversed through and through by dauntless explorers, and partitioned out among the great powers of Europe. Western Africa had long
164 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
been " the white man's grave," yet it was the scene also of the greatest triumphs of the cross. Of eight German workers of the Basle Mission at Gold Coast, four died within a few weeks, and recently the mis- sion has reported thirteen deaths within ten months. Old Calabar, the Cameroon and Niger missions have also had their glorious roll of heroes and martyrs. Among the trophies of African missions are Samuel Crowther, the slave boy who became the Bishop of the Niger.
South Africa may be called the white man's sanatorium. On its high and healthy plains noble missionary achievements have been won. In the closing year of the eighteenth century Dr. Yander- kemp came to Cape Town as the pioneer of the London Missionary Society. The degraded Hotten- tots, whom the Boers declare to have no souls, came under the power of the gospel. Robert Moffat, the Scottish gardener, began his glorious career in 1817, and for over half a century continued his ministry of grace in benighted Africa.
From Moffat, David Livingstone, the Blantyre spinner lad, caught inspiration, and from 1840 till 1874, when he was found dead upon his knees in a hut at Ilala, he continued to teach and preach and explore the forests and jungles of Central Africa. His faithful black servants conveyed his body a year's march to the coast, and brought it over sea to rest in Westminster Abbey with England's greatest warriors, statesmen and philanthropists.
AFRICAN MISSIONS. 155
Many other heroic missionaries have consecrated with their lives and hallowed with their deaths this dark land. Bishop Mackenzie, Bishop Steere, Dr. Laws, Dr. Clement Scott, whose noble monument is the stately Blantyre Church, Dr. J. Lewis Krapf, Mackay of Uganda, the Martyr Bishop Hannington, Grenfell and Comber, of the Baptist Congo mission, and many another have laid the foundations of Christ's kingdom in those dark places of the earth.
No mission field has a record of greater fidelity under persecution and martyrdom than that of the great island of Madagascar, an island four times as large as England and "Wales. In 1818 two mis- sionaries, with their families, landed in Madagascar, but within two months out of six only one was left alive, and he was compelled to leave. Two years later he returned with a number of preachers, teachers and artisans, and was favorably received by the enlightened king, Radama I., a friend of the British and foe of the slave trade. On his death in 1828, Ranavalona, his widow, an unscrupulous and blood- thirsty woman, ascended the throne. " She feared and hated the Europeans and all their ways, while she was full of superstition and clung to her idols with their wizards and sorcerers. She became alarmed at the spread of the Christian religion among her people. The missionaries were banished, but the Bible in their native tongue remained. Men walked a hundred miles to get a copy of the proscribed book, and hid it in the earth as men hide precious
166 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
treasure. Persecution raged fiercely. The Chris- tians were imprisoned, fettered and slain, burned at the stake, buried alive, stoned to death, or flung from lofty precipices."
During the persecutions the Rev. William Ellis, previously of the South Seas, contrived to smuggle a quantity of Bibles into the country, and on the death of Eanavalona in 1861 he was enabled to enter the capital. Never was more strikingly illustrated the truth, " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." When the missionaries were banished there were but two thousand Christians in the country. When they returned there were seven thousand in the capital, and it was estimated forty thousand in the island.
" Back flocked the thousands from slavery, bonds and long imprisonment, and from various places of concealment. The maimed and half-starved came forth as from the grave. Within a single month eleven places of worship were opened in the capital alone, and many more in the region surrounding. Several memorial churches were built upon spots where martyr blood had most fiercely flowed."
In 1868, a second Ranavalona became queen. At her coronation, at one hand was her crown, and on the other the Bible. The queen and prime minister were baptized and the idols destroyed. Within two years a quarter of a million people had accepted the gospel. To aid in the religious instruction of this great multitude the Church Missionary Society, that
AFRICAN MISSIONS. 167
of the Friends, Norwegians and others took part. Yet it is estimated that more than two-thirds of the population are still pagan. The French, after several bloody conflicts with the natives in which many thousands of lives were lost, assumed the pro- tectorate of Madagascar. They exhibit marked hostility to the Protestant missions, and for the present the sky of Madagascar is overshadowed by sombre clouds.
168 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XX.
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLEMS.
Missions among the Moslems are among the most difficult and discouraging of any undertaken by the Christian Church. While the religion of Islam in its rejection of idolatry was a great advance upon the paganism which it superseded, it yet presents special obstacles to the success of the gospel. " These," says Sir William Muir, are : " First, polygamy, divorce, and slavery are maintained and perpetuated. . . . Second, freedom of thought and private judgment in religion are crushed and annihilated. . . . Third, a barrier has been interposed against the reception of Christianity. The sword of Mohammed and the Koran are the most stubborn enemies of civilization, liberty and truth that the world has yet known."
Arabia, the sacred land of the Moslems, is almost as impenetrable to the Gospel as the Hermit Kingdom of Tibet. Yet a beginning has been made. The Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, a brilliant professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, founded a mission in connection with the Free Church of Scotland at Aden in 1886. After two years he passed away, but the work is still vigorously prosecuted. The Dutch
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLEMS. 169
Reformed Church of the United States planted a medical mission on the east coast of Africa and are overcoming the prejudice and opposition of the natives and widely circulating the Word of God. In the Turkish Empire so great is the intolerance and fanaticism of the Moslems that *' it is almost as much as a Mohammedan's life is worth to become a Christian
in Turkey."
The ancient forms of the Christian religion, the Armenian, Syrian, Maronite and Greek churches, have only a precarious and intermittent toleration, numbering in all over eight millions of souls. The Bulgarian atrocities and Armenian massacres that have harrowed the heart of Christendom proclaim how bitter is Moslem hatred to those churches.
The ancient churches of Christendom, when quickened with the new life of the gospel and bap- tized with power from on high, shall largely mould the life of the Turkish Empire. Their patience un- der persecution, their faithfulness even to heroic martyrdom, show that much of the old power of the gospel still animates their ossified forms of religion. It is chiefly among these and not among the Moslems that missionary success has been met.
A great work has been accomplished in the empire by the American Board of Foreign Missions and by the American Presbyterians. In 1823 the Syrian mission was established in Beyrout by the American Board, and in 1870 transferred to the Presbyterian Church. The college and medical school and girls'
170 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
school at Beyrout have accomplished a wonderful work in educating some of the best minds of Palestine and Syria in modern learning and science, and in training up a heroic band of native missionaries. From the Christian press at Beyrout also has poured forth a great flood of religious teaching which by the missionaries in Mount Lebanon and Syria is scat- tered throughout many Moslem, Druse and Maronite homes.
One of the most potent agencies for moulding the intellectual and religious life of the southwestern principalities of Europe, and in part of the Turkish Empire on both sides of the Bosphorus, is the Robert College at Constantinople.
The life-story of Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, its founder, is one of romantic interest. Early orphaned, he was from boyhood inured to toil. At sixteen he set out to earn his living in Portland, Maine. Here he came under the influence of the saintly Dr. Edward Paysou and experienced the great spiritual crisis of his life. A pious deacon urged him to enter the ministry. He thought much upon the subject but concluded, " No, I can never make a minister. I can make a good mechanic, and I had better stick to that." The Church, however, sustained the call and he deter- mined to become a missionary.
He was appointed by the American Board to Constantinople. The Russian ambassador strongly opposed Protestant missions. '*The Emperor of Russia, who is my master," said the ambassador,
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLEMS. 1^1
" will never allow Protestantism to set its foot in Tur- key." Dr. Scliauffler, the head of the American mission, stoutly replied, '' Your Excellency, the king- dom of Christ, who is my master, will never ask the Emperor of all the Russias where he may set his foot."
Mr. Hamlin took charge of a seminary for Prot- estant youth at Bebek, near Constantinople, and fitted up a lathe and workshop in a stable. Many of the students of the seminary were exceedingly poor, and the Armenian converts were severely boycotted as to emploj^ment by the Orthodox, who were more bitter towards the missionaries than even the Mos- lems. So the ingenious American organized manu- facturing industries for their support, from making stove-pipes and rat-traps to grinding corn and making bread.
Book-binding, printing and other trades were started ; but most successful of all was the bakery. There was in the city one of the best wheat markets in the world, but all the grinding was done by horse- power. It was said that there were 10,000 horse mills and bakeries. Mr. Hamlin discovered that, after the taking of Constantinople in 1453, in order to induce foreigners to settle in the capital, it was decreed that every foreign colony should have the right to its own mill and bakery, free from the inter- ference of the guilds. He therefore resolved to start one. His fellow-missionaries regarded the scheme as atrociously absurd. He began, however, to con- struct his works. Two Turkish police officers came
M
172 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
to arrest the workmen. Mr. Hamlin stood on his treaty rights and was sustained by the American minister, and the desired firman granting permission was issued.
About this time the Russian war broke out. Large barracks at Scutari, built under the direction of the great Moltke while an officer under Sultan Mahmoud, were occupied by the British. The need of bread was urgent, and Mr. Hamlin agreed to furnish it at a price just half what was paid for bread the invalids would not eat.
There had been no mercenary thought in all this work. Not one cent of all the expense, sometimes amounting to 150,000 a month, accrued to himself. A profit of $25,000 was expended in building thirteen churches, with schoolrooms annexed.
Dr. Hamlin's greatest work was yet to be done, — namely, the founding of Robert College. Mr. Christopher R. Robert, a merchant of New York, had promised a large sum for the erection of a college at Constantinople. The story of the shrewd Yankee missionary's success after seven long years' struggle with the Turkish government, and of his evading the fraud and cunning of the Turkish officials, the most corrupt in Europe, and circumventing the Jesuits, the Russians and the Moslems, all alike op- posed to a Protestant college, is a record of extraor- dinary interest. The Turkish Grand Vizier, Ali Pasha, became so irritated that he said in vexation, " Will this Mr. Hamlin never die, and let us alone
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLEMS. 173
on this college question ? " But at length after many obstacles the college was opened and has been ever since a source of intellectual and spiritual illumi- nation.
Admiral Farragut unconsciously proved an impor- tant factor in obtaining the firman or warrant to build. On the admiral's visit to Constantinople, Dr. Seropian, a Greek gentleman, suggested that when dining with the great pashas he should ask why this American college could not be built, but should make no reply to the response whatever it was.
The firman, or rather an imperial irade, the most sacred title to real estate in Turkey, was at length issued. Iron was ordered from Antwerp and Glas- gow, timber from the Danube, brick from Marseilles, and excellent stone was quarried on the spot. After the completion of the college, a distinguished Turkish visitor said : " We would never have given you leave to erect this college had it not been for the insurrection in Crete."
*' What had that to do with it ? " said Mr. Hamlin.
" Ah, when your great Admiral Farragut was here, that insurrection was our great embarrassment. Your admiral asked the Grand Vizier, the pashas, the Ministers of War and of the Navy, why the American college could not be built. We then saw that the United States government was holding that college question over against us. If only an American ' monitor ' should come into the Mediterranean, it would be followed by war with Greece, and " — lifting
174 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
up both hands — " war begun with Greece, Allah him- self only knows where it would end. So, we said, better build a hundred colleges for the Americans without money than to have one of Farragut's mon- itors come into the Mediterranean, and we gave you the imperial iradeT
Dr. Hamlin returned to America in the interest of the new institution, and has since remained in his native land. He is now in his eighty-eighth year, full of life and energy, lecturing and preaching, and serving as missionary editor on the staff of Our Day,*
" The American societies have now 155 organized churches, with 13,528 communicants and 60,000 ad- herents, and the staff of workers includes 223 Amer- ican missionaries and 1,094 native pastors, preachers and teachers. Their magnificent educational work at Constantinople, Beyrout and elsewhere embraces
* In May, 1892, the writer of these pages took steamer at Constantinople and sailed up the Bosphorus to visit Robert College. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the scenery on either bank of this noble strait separating Europe and Asia. For many miles it is bordered by stately palaces and villas, while foliage of richest hue clothes the towering hills to their summit. The college was then at- tended by students speaking fourteen languages. English, however, was the common speech of the playgrounds and lecture-rooms. It is a large iron, fire-proof building, sur- rounding a central square, with admirable libraries, museums and lecture-rooms. It commands a magnificent outlook of the Avinding Bosphorus and far Bithynian hills. Some two hundred Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian and other youth were receiving an admirable classical and scientific training.
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLEMS. 1Y5
five well-equipped colleges, six theological seminaries and 610 schools, with a total of 27,400 students."
The Methodist Episcopal Church has also been car- rying on, amid great difficulties, missionary work in Bulgaria.
After the death of Martyn in 1812 little was ac- complished in Persia for nearly twenty years. In 1829 a mission was established at Baghdad, and by the Basle missionaries at Tabreez in 1833. The work was chiefly among the Moslems with very dis- couraging results. Other points were occupied later, as at Ispahan in 1869 by Bruce, of the Church Mis- sionary Society, and at Baghdad and Teheran in 1872. A college and several high schools have been established and are doing important work in the dif- fusion of light and Christian civilization. In 1834 the American Board established a mission to the Nestorian Christians at Ooromiah in Persia. It is now under the administration of the American Pres- byterian Church and has organized a strong Protes- tant community with over fifty missionaries at work.
In Egypt the American Presbyterian Church has successful missions among the Coptic Christians, and with considerable success also among the Moham- medans. The late Miss Whately also established admirable mission schools in Cairo.
Till 1881 no Protestant mission existed among the Moslem states of Northern Africa extending from Egypt to Morocco. At that date a mission was begun among the Kabyles of Algeria. Mission
176 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
work has since been extended throughout Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli and Egypt, with about 100 mission- aries.
We ought to refer here to the atrocious persecu- tions of the Armenian Christians by the Turks in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
Dr. Lyman Abbott, pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., from that historic pulpit in 1897 uttered the following stern arraignment of the Turk- ish Empire :
" The persecution of Christians in Armenia is the worst, the most cruel, the most barbarous religious persecution the world has ever seen. Those who have perished in Turkish Armenia in the last four years nearly, if not quite, equal the sum total of all those slain in previous persecutions. Eight thou- sand seven hundred and fifty is the number officially reported as massacred in three or four daj^s in Con- stantinople itself, while some estimates put the total number of massacred men, women and children at the present time since 1894 at 100,000. And this is probably an underestimate.
'* This massacre of the Armenians is not a new thing in Turkish history. *In 1822 not less than 50,000 Greeks were massacred in the islands of the iEgean Sea ; in 1850, 10,000 Nestorians were butch- ered around the headwaters of the Tigris ; in 1860, 11,000 Maronites and Syrians perished in Mount Leb- anon and Damascus; in 1876 upwards of 15,000 were slaughtered in Bulgaria.' That is the Turk. That is what he has been doing all the time.
" And this race prejudice, this trade jealousy, have been intensified and embittered by what we are pleased to call his religion. What is religion? If it is consecration, devotion, enthusiasm, regardless
MISSIONS TO THE MOSLEMS. 177
of the One to whom the consecration is made, regard- less of the object of devotion, regardless of that which excites the enthusiasm, then the Turk is religious.
" We have three elements together in the Turkish heart ; first, race prejudice ; second, trade jealousy ; and, third, religious rancor and hate. The Mo- hammedan knows only one way by which to extend his religion— this : kill the men, kill the women, kill the older children, and educate the babes into Mohammedans. Mohammedanism has never varied from its first starting-point in Asia. It has always run this one consistent course ; a persecuting power because it is an aggressive power, believing in a God of indifference, making a worship of lust and cruelty.'^
178 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXI.
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS.
The People of Israel have very special claims upon the followers of Jesus — the consummate flower of the Jewish race. The indebtedness of Chris- tendom to this race can never be computed nor re- paid. Through it came chiefly the oracles of God to man. Through it came the institutions, the jurisprudence, the philosophy which largely mould the thought of all Christian nations to-day.
Yet no race was ever repaid with blacker ingrati- tude for the benefits which it conferred. The tale of its persecution by fire and fagot, by rack and dungeon, is one of the darkest pages in European history. Pillaged and plundered, scattered and peeled, branded and mutilated, smitten by every hand and execrated by every lip, the Jews seemed to bear in all its bitterness of woe the terrible curse invoked by their fathers, " His blood — the blood of the Innocent One — be upon us and our children."
Trampled and beaten to the earth, decimated and slaughtered, they have yet, like the trodden grass that ranker grows, increased and multiplied in spite of their persecution. Those " Ishmaels and Hagars
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS. 179
of mankind," exiled from the home of their fathers, and harried from land to land, have verily eaten the unleavened bread and bitter herbs of bondage, and drunken the waters of Marah. In many foreign lands they have sat beside strange streams and " wept as they remembered Zion."
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire ; Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
All their lives long, with tlie unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears, The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with Marah of their tears.
Anathema Maranatha ! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street : At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went : Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast;
Of patriarchs and prophets rose sublime. And all the great traditions of the past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the v/orld they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a legend of the dead.
With the modern revival of missionary spirit, however, the claims of the Jews upon the sympa-
180 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
thies and good will of Christendom were recognized. The Moravians, the pioneers in mission effort to the heathen, were also the first to send a mission to Israel. From 1728 to 1792 a score of missionaries were sent forth, by whose labors many Jews were converted.
But not till the present century was much organ- ized effort made. In 1801, C. F. Frey, a converted Hebrew, responded to the call of the London Mis- sionary Society, and was destined for Africa. His soul went forth towards his fellow- Jews in the city of London, and he asked permission to work among them. The result was a very successful mission conducted chiefly under Church of England auspices.
By the co-operation of Prussia with Great Britain a Protestant Episcopal see was established in Jerusa- lem under the patronage of these two Protestant states. The first appointment in 1842 was that of Michael Solomon Alexander, a converted Jew, a native of Prussia, who for twenty years had been professor of Hebrew and Arabic in King's College, London. Within three years he died, and was suc- ceeded by Dr. Samuel Gobat, a learned divine. He established twelve congregations in Palestine, and thirty-seven schools, attended by fifteen hundred children.
This mission disappointed the sanguine hopes of its founders as to union of the old historic churches at Jerusalem, but it is doing good missionary work, especially in the education of youth and in Christian
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS. 181
charity to the sick and poor. The London Mission- ary Society has now working in Europe, Asia and Africa, one hundred and seventy-five missionaries, of whom seventy-seven are Christian Jews.
One of the most devoted missionaries to the Jews was Dr. Joseph Wolff, the son of a Bavarian rabbi. He has been called the Protestant Xavier, and preached the gospel to the scattered tribes of Israel in many lands, including Syria, India and the States of Central Asia. He suffered many hardships, was imprisoned, and even sold as a slave, and at Bokhara only escaped while lying under sentence of death. His son became Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, the distinguished diplomat.
The Church of Scotland, in 1840, established mis- sions among the Jewish populations in Jassy, the capital of Moldavia, in Budapesth, and elsewhere. The famous " Rabbi Duncan," a professor of Hebrew in the New College, Edinburgh, exerted a profound influence in the Hungarian capital.
The chief and most successful Jewish missions have been, not in Palestine, but in the great Jewish communities of Switzerland, France, Holland, Russia, Austria and Hungary. The most successful means for the conversion of the Jews has been the transla- tion into Hebrew of the New Testament by Pro- fessor Delitzsch of Leipzig.
As early as 1820 a society for ameliorating the condition of the Jews was organized in the United States, and has carried on successful missions in the
182 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
chief centres of population. There are now, says the Rev. J. A. Graham, over fifty Protestant societies, employing about four hundred missionaries in their evangelistic, medical, educational and philanthropic mission work. The same writer estimates that two hundred and fifty Jews, or sons of Jews, are ordained clergymen of the Church of England, with more than double that number in the non-Episcopal churches of Britain and in the continental and American churches. " Many men of mark in philoso- phy, theology, poetry, music and politics have been proselytes from this gifted race — men such as Neander, Philippi and Caspari, Heine, Beaconsfield, Stahl and Simson, the first president of the German Parliament and of the highest court of justice. In the first three-quarters of the century 100,000 Jews, according to Delitzsch, embraced Christianity and we have exact statistics to show that in Prussia alone nineteen hundred Jews joined the State Church from 1875 to 1888."
The intense and bitter anti-Semitic feeling on the continent of Europe finds its strength in the fact that gifted Jews, freed from their old political dis- abilities, are finding their way into many of the higher and influential positions in society. "Con- sidering their numbers, their influence vastly pre- ponderates; and the power of Jewish capitalists, from the petty money-lender to the financier of king- doms, is so enormous as to lend reasonableness to the complaint of the German anti-Semites that the
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS. 183
fruits of Christian labor are harvested by the Jews ; capital is concentrated in Jewish hands."
The most shameful outbreak of anti-Semitism in recent times is that caused by the Dreyfus scandal in France, which well-nigh wrecked the Republic. In Algiers, the Jews were severely persecuted after the fashion of the Dark Ages. The most truculent and bloodthirsty menaces were uttered by the scurril- ous Parisian press. A new St. Bartholomew was threatened, in which the Jews should be destroyed with fire and sword. This, however, was more po- litical and racial than religious persecution, and a reaction in favor of Dreyfus and his persecuted co- religionists seems taking place.
A considerable emigration of Jews to the land of their fathers has taken place. This is regarded by manj^ as a striking fulfilment of prophecy. Some of these immigrants are agricultural colonists aided by Sir Moses Montefiore and Sir Mendelssohn Roths- child. Others are pensioners of Jewish bounty at Jerusalem. The Turkish Empire presents great ob- stacles to the Jews' return to Palestine. Notwith- standing this, it is estimated that there are about 28,000 Jews in a total population of a little over 45,000 in Jerusalem.
Sir Moses Montefiore expressed intense devotion ,to the theory of a restored kingdom of Israel. " I am quite certain of it," he said, " it has been my con- stant dream ; Palestine must belong to the Jews, and Jerusalem is destined to become the seat of a Jewish
184 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Empire." The epigram of Lord Shaftesbury, " There is a country without a nation, and God now, in His mercy, directs us to a nation without a country," makes a strong appeal to the imagination and sym- pathies of many devout persons. Many Jews them- selves adopt with enthusiasm this idea.
One outcome of this was the Zionist conference held at Basle, Switzerland, in 1897. This was at- tended by some two hundred Jews from various He- brew communities. The following programme was adopted by the conference : —
" The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a publicly, legally assured home in Palestine. In order to attain this object the congress adopts the followins: means :
'*1. To promote the settlement in Palestine of Jewish agriculturists, handicraftsmen, industrialists and men following professions.
" 2. The centralization of the entire Jewish people by means of general institutions agreeably to the laws of the land.
" 3. To strengthen Jewish sentiments and national self-consciousness.
"4. To obtain the sanction of governments to the carrying out of the objects of Zionism."
The visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II. to Palestine in 1898 was the most august demonstration of European interest in the Lord's Land since the days of the crusades. Increased privileges were secured for both Protestant and Catholic churches. The Greek Church, through the influence of the Russian Em- pire, is securing also enlarged land holdings and
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS. 185
erecting great convents and churches, especially in the vicinity of the Holy City. Many thousands of Russian pilgrims visit yearly the sacred places of this Holy Land, and numerous contingents especially of British and American tourists, with devout or curi- ous interest, visit that old historic land,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed For our advantage to the bitter cross.
At Jaffa, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Zahleh, Damascus, Beyrout and elsewhere, are Christian missions and schools. Bethlehem and Nazareth especially are almost entirely Christian, scarce a single Jew being found in either place.
No land in the world is the centre of so much de- vout thought as the Lord's Land. It is the theme of study in all the homes throughout Christendom, and in the many missions of heathendom as well. Li countless pulpits and Sunday schools its sacred scenes are the subject of weekly comment. By maps, models and illustrations its topography, its in- stitutions, its manners and customs are as familiar as those of the land in which we live. Indeed there are multitudes who have never heard of Rome, or London, or Paris to whom the names Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth are associated with the most sacred events in the world's history, or are the sym~ bols of the New Jerusalem on high.
PART THREE.
PROGEESS OF THE CHURCHES DURmG THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXn.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
During the eighteenth century a religious torpor seemed to have fallen upon all the churches. The divine origin and miraculous evidences of Christian- ity were strongly opposed by such writers as Hume and Gibbon, Hobbes and Bolingbroke. Lethargy, if not unbelief, had invaded the Church itself. Even candidates for holy orders were deplorably ignorant of the Scriptures. Of professed theologians but few were faithful to their sacred trust, and these be^ moaned, with a feeling akin to that of Nehemiah and the exiled Jews, that the house of the Lord was laid waste. Still earlier, the venerable Archbishop Leigh- ton, of pious memory, in pathetic terms laments over the Episcopal Church as "a fair carcass without
spirit."
Within the Church of England began that great religious revival which saved Britain from the fate
188 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of France in the Revolution which overthrew both throne and altar in the dust. The Wesleys, White- field, Venn and Berridge, Fletcher and Coke, Simeon of Cambridge, Milner of Carlisle, Grimshaw and Perronet, Shirley and Madan — leaders in a great re- ligious reform — were all clergymen of the Established Church. Through the apathy or opposition, however, of a large section of its clergy and laity that Church as a whole failed, in large degree, to share this pro- found religious awakening. In many cases, indeed, an active opposition and persecution contributed largely to the organization of Methodism as a dis- tinct ecclesiastical body. A distinguished Church of England writer. Dr. Arthur Rogers, writes thus of the condition of the Established Church at the close of the eighteenth century :
"Erastianism reigned almost supreme. The Church was looked upon as the creature of the State. Her spiritual functions were subordinated to her social ones. It is a dismal enough record that most of the dignitaries of the time have to set before us. There were plenty of lords over God's heritage. There were very few ensamples to the flock. We hear of bishoprics of business and bishoprics of ease. Dr. Hoadly held the see of Bangor for six years, ap- parently without ever setting foot in his diocese.'*/
Dr. Watson, who became Bishop of Llandaff, drew from sixteen parishes a salary for duties which he neglected. Dr. Rogers tells us of a Bishop examin- ing his candidates for ordination in a tent on a
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 189
cricket-field, while lie himself participated in the game.
There were some of the clergy to whom fox- hunting was not only a recreation for their leisure hours, but the chief business of their lives. Dean Hole remarks of these that it is charitable to suppose that they mistook the fox for a wolf, and so were anxious to destroy him, like good shepherds of the flock.
The preaching was very monotonous. " Why call in the aid of paralysis to piety?" asks the witty Sydney Smith. " Is sin to be taken from men, as Eve was from Adam, by casting them into a deep slumber?" "On Easter Day in the year 1800," says Dr. Rogers, *' there were only six communicants at St. Paul's Cathedral. There were churches in London which sometimes found themselves on Sun- day without a single individual to form a congre- gation."
Canon Overton remarks that in the eighteenth century Oxford had reached her nadir, and that pro- fessors who never lectured, tutors who never taught, and students who never studied, were the rule rather than the exception. At Cambridge a better state of things prevailed. Under the influence of Charles Simeon it was the seat of the Evangelical revival. .Macaulay declared that his real sway over the Church of England was greater than that of any primate. Yet even in Cambridge we are told there were men whose chief endeavor was to make each other drunk.
190 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
This condition of affairs may have been the exception rather than the rule, but its very existence argues a low state of religion and dull sensibilities of de- corum.
The clergy did not seem to recognize the broaden- ing and more liberal spirit of the times. They op- posed almost to a man the Catholic Emancipation bill of 1829, which removed from the Roman Cath- olics, particularly those of Ireland, the political dis- abilities which had lain upon them. But the majority of Dissenters also adopted the same course.
In 1828 the Test Act, a law which required all officers, civil and military, to receive the sacrament according to the usage of the Established Church, was repealed. This at once placed Dissenters and Catholics upon the same footing with members of the Established Church, and was in itself enough, re- marked Bishop Hurst, to provoke opposition on the part of all who had not united in the Evangelical movement.
The Bishops also became extremely unpopular through their opposition of parliamentary reform. But the Right Reverend Prelates, and the majority of the House of Lords, strenuously opposed the Re- form Bill of 1831. Lord Lyndhurst in his place in Parliament declared that, should it pass, a republic would be established, that the Protestant Church in Ireland would be destroyed and Church property in both kingdoms confiscated. Dr. Howley, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, than whom, says Moles worth,
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 191
" no prelate had ever more worthily filled the throne of Lanfranc, Anselm, Becket and Laud," strongly opposed the Bill, " believing it to be mischievous in its tendency and dangerous to the fabric of the con- stitution." In this he was strenuously supported by the whole bench of Bishops.
The House of Lords by a majority of forty-one threw out the Bill. The excitement throughout the kingdom was intense. In London and in many other towns the shops were closed, and the bells of the churches mufded. " The Bishops," says Molesworth, " especially were objects of popular detestation, and could not appear in the streets without danger of personal violence." Lord Grey, in his place in Par- liament, had admonished the Bishops if the Bill should be thrown out by a narrow majority " to set their houses in order." The Bishop of Exeter replied, " It is true that the noble lord did not conclude the sentence, but it is impossible not to know that he referred to the words in which the prophet had threatened destruction."*
Great tumults and riots took place throughout the kingdom. In London a processsion of sixty thousand persons marched to St. James's to present an address to the king in favor of the Bill. At Nottingham, Colwick Castle was fired, and that of the Duke of . Newcastle was burned to the ground. At Bristol a terrible riot broke out. The palace of the Bishop
*"Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live" (Isa. 38: 1).
192 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and the Mansion House were attacked and the latter fired. Fifty other buildings were assailed. An at- tempt was even made to burn down the cathedral. Not till the cavalry charged on the mob was the riot suppressed. In many of the cathedral towns the Bishops were substituted for Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November. The Bishops of Winchester and Exe- ter were hanged and burned in e^gj close to their own palaces.
"Such," says Molesworth, himself an Anglican clergyman, *'were the disastrous consequences of identifying the Church with a party in the State, and that too the party which was engaged in resisting progress passionately demanded by the mass of the people, and essential to the safety and well-being of the state." Even the popular sailor King lost his popularity, and was received with hoots and groans. The King at length gave authority for the creation of a sufficient number of peers to insure the passing of the Bill. But the Lords who had opposed it withdrew, and it passed its third reading, June 7, 1832, one hundred and six peers voting for it, and only twenty-two against it.
The spirit of the reformed Parliament soon became apparent. The condition of Ireland was extremely lawless and riotous. A grievance which the Koman Catholic population most loudly complained of was the hardship of being obliged to pay tithes for the support of a Church in which they did not believe, and which they regarded as a badge of subjection.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 193
The ministers, so far from desiring to disestablish that Church, were anxious to mitigate the hostility with which it was regarded, by diminishing the bur- dens of which the Catholic population complained. They therefore reduced the number of Bishops in Ireland from twenty-two to twelve, and the number of Archbishops from four to two.
"The Irish Tithe," says Molesworth, "had been collected at the point of the bayonet, and was rapidly becoming uncoUectable even in that way. The clercry who attempted to enforce their rights, and the men who paid what was due, were assassinated or lived in continual dread of assassination. Many of the clergy were reduced to the greatest distress, and in some instances brought almost to the verge of starvation."
In England, too, the Dissenters and many Church- men objected to the impost of Church rates. The stories of the seizures of the poor man's bed and of his Bible awakened much hostility. The agitation did greater damage to the Church than the whole rate could compensate. A Bill for the abolition of ecclesiastical tests upon conferring degrees other than those in divinity at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge was strongly opposed by the univer- sities, but passed the Commons by a vote of one hun- dred and sixty-four to seventy-five, but was rejected in the House of Lords by a vote of one hundred and eighty-seven to eighty-five.
It will be apparent from the above recital that the /^
194: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Church of England had distinctly lost ground as a directing and controlling force in the nation. The most thoughtful and earnest minds in that Church felt the need of a great religious awakening and an aggressive movement to regain its lost influence. Dean Church thus describes the two characteristic forms of Christianity in the Church of England, the High Church, and the Evangelicals, or Low Church. Of the former he says : — " Its better members were highly cultivated, benevolent men, intolerant of irreg- ularities both of doctrine and life, whose lives were governed by an unostentatious but solid and unfaltering piety, ready to burst forth on occasion into fervid devotion. Its worse members were jobbers and hunters after preferment, pluralists w^ho built fortunes and endowed families out of the Church, or country gentlemen in orders, who rode to hounds and shot and danced and farmed, and often did worse things." Of the latter he adds: "It had not been unfruitful, especially in public results. It had led Howard and Elizabeth Fry to assail the brutalities of the prisons. It had led Clarkson and Wilberforce to overthrow the slave trade, and ultimately slavery itself. It had created great Missionary Societies. It had given motive and impetus to countless philan- thropic schemes."
A remarkable group of men, chiefly at Oxford University, became the leaders of the Oxford, or Tractarian, movement. In the first year of the cen- tury were born Newman and Pusey ; shortly before,
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 195
Keble and Arnold ; and shortly after, Hurrell Fronde, Rose, Faber, Williams, Stanley and Tait. These men, with Robertson, Maurice, Kingsley and Light- foot, were destined greatly to change the character of the National Church. The most distinguished of these, perhaps, was John Henry Newman. He is described by Principal Shairp as " A man in many ways the most remarkable that England has seen during the century, perhaps the most remarkable whom the English Church has produced in any cen- tury.''
These were men of intense moral earnestness, of devout lives and of lofty spiritual character. One of the first notes of this religious reform was sounded in John Keble's collection of sweet and tender re- ligious poems, The Christian Year, There is not a village in any English-speaking land where his hymns are not sung. They voice many of the deepest feelings and holiest aspirations of the soul. Keble has been called the George Herbert of the century. Even before this the poetry of Wordsworth and n/" philosophy of Coleridge prepared the way for the Oxford movement.
The year 1833 is the epoch from which it dates. In January of that year Dr. Arnold published his Principles of Church Reform, " His scheme was an ' attempt at the comprehension of all Christians within the pale of a great Church." Dr. Arnold hoped to include all Dissenters except a few Quakers and the Roman Catholics. His plan, however, was
196 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
rejected with contumely by both Churchmen and Dissenters.
The High Church party agreed in the principle announced by Hurrell Froude that the Roman Church had departed from the primitive faith, and so, in a less degree, had the Anglican Church, but that the teachings of the latter admitted of construction in the sense of the primitive Church. He therefore urged the claims of celibacy, fasting, relics and monasticism. The Churchman's Manual, issued in 1833, made prominent points of the exalted idea of the Church, the importance of the sacraments and the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. The Church of England they affirmed was no Act of Parliament Church, no mere creature of the Reformation, but a free and apostolic branch of the Catholic Church.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I97
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND (^continued').
An active propaganda of the new or revised doc- trines of the Oxford Movement was begun in the Tracts for the Times^ as they were called, from which it received its name as the Tractarian Move- ment. The series consisted of ninety pamphlets pub- lished at intervals during the years 1833 to 1841. Of these Newman wrote twenty-four, Keble also a goodly number and others of the Oxford coterie the re- mainder. The Tracts took very high ground on the subject of baptismal regeneration and the real pres- ence in the eucharist, although in a heavenly and spiritual manner. *' The Church," they taught, " is / the only channel of grace in Christ because she is the only dispenser of the means of grace, the only pro- tector and witness to the truth, and the highest au- thority in matters of faith and life."
The success of the Tracts, says Molesworth, was much greater, and the outcry against them far louder and fiercer, than their authors had expected. The Tracts were at first small and simple, but became large and learned theological treatises. Changes, too, came over the views of some of their writers.
198 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Doctrines which probably would have shocked them at first were put forward with a recklessness which success had increased. Alarm was excited ; remon- strances stronger and stronger were addressed to them. They were attacked as Romanizing in their tendency, especially Tract No. 80, on Reserve in Com- municating Religious Knowledge. It advocated a revival of the secret discipline of the early Church ; that is, the ideas that there were doctrines which should not be publicly taught and that the Bible should not be promiscuously circulated.
" The effect of such writing was twofold — the public were dismayed and certain members of the Tractarian party avowed their intention to become Romanists." So decided was the setting of the tide towards Rome that Newman made a vigorous effort to turn it by his famous Tract No. 90. In this he endeavored to show that it was possible to interpret the Thirty-Nine Articles in the interest of Roman Catholicism. This Tract aroused a storm of indig- nation. The violent controversy which it occasioned led to the discontinuance of the series.
Soon men were compelled to take sides between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. In 1845 Newman went over to the Roman Church, of which for forty-five years longer he continued to be a devoted son. (He became, in 1854, Rector of the Roman Catholic University at Dublin, Cardinal Deacon in 1879, and died in 1890.) The same year Frederick William Faber also seceded to the Church
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 199
of Rome, in which he became an earnest and elo- quent preacher. It is interesting to remember that the hymns of these distinguished writers, Lead^ Kindly Light, and There's a Wideness in God's Mercy like the Wideness of the Sea, which breathe the purest Christian charity and love, are favorites in all the Churches.
The Rome ward exodus continued. In 1851 Henry Edward Manning followed, became Archbishop of Westminster in 1865, and ten years later Cardinal. Before 1853 no less than four hundred clergymen and laity had become Roman Catholics. *' They were," says Blunt, " chiefly impressible un- dergraduates, young ladies and young ladies' cu- rates." But many of them were men of rank and eminence. The action of the Church of Rome in dis- tributing England into twelve bishoprics in 1850 aroused strong Protestant feeling, and doubtless checked many from joining the exodus.
This Romeward movement aroused intense antip- athy both within and without the Established Church. The arguments by which it was justified were considered, in many cases, disingenuous, if not Jesuitical. The defence of the doctrines of purga- tory, confession, absolution, images, relics, invocation of the saints, penance and extreme unction by clergy of the Established Church, no matter how ingenious the argument might be, called forth strong protests.
Among the most distinguished leaders of the Ox- ford Movement was Dr. Edward Bouverie Pusey.
200 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
He sympathized strongly with this Angio-Catholic trend. He was Regius Professor of Hebrew, and his commentaries on Daniel and the Minor Prophets are a monument of learning and piety. At the age of sixty he made himself master of Ethiopia for the better prosecution of his biblical studies. After the departure of Newman from the Established Church, Pusey for the rest of his life was recognized as the head of the High Church party. These were often designated Puseyites, an epithet which he earnestly deprecated, maintaining that their doctrines were those of the Primitive Church. Pusey was a man of pure, devout and ascetic type of piety. He was more austere to himself than to others, wearing the hair-shirt, and using other physical means of pen- ance.
The revival of sisterhoods in the Church of Eng- land of a conventual character was largely due to his influence. He attached much importance also to the practice of confession. For many years he made his own confessions to John Keble, and heard also the confessions of many of the clergy. He had an exaggerated regard for the ancient forms and lit- urgies. In the discussion concerning the Athana- sian Creed, with its intellectual subtilties and defini- tions, he declared if this ancient hymn were altered or disturbed he must resign the ministry. When Pusey lay under the suspicion of Romish teaching, Keble wrote: "My own conviction is that he has been the greatest drag upon those who were
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 201
rushing towards Rome, by showing them that all their reasonable yearnings were provided for in the English system, rightly understood."
The revival of Catholic doctrine in the Church of England naturally led to a revival of Catholic practice —to a more ornate ritual; to a more stately and dignified service ; and, in many cases, to the use of religious ornaments, lights, crosses and crucifixes, and the wearing of albs and chasubles, and other ecclesi- astical garbs akin to those used in the Church of Rome. It was this probably more than its theo- logical dogmas that was the most eff'ective influence in propagating the Tractarian doctrines.
" The movement," says the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, " in making this fresh effort, passed from the study to the street : it became practical, missionary, evangelistic. It insisted that its work upon the masses, in their dreary poverty, demanded the bright attraction and relief of outward ornament, and the effective teaching of the eye. The priestly office of the clergy was magnified. The liturgical service was enriched. The theory of a real presence led to the more elaborate decoration of chancel and altar."
A sort of ecclesiastical renaissance took place. The genius of Sir "Walter Scott, who had just passed away in 1832, had awakened a love for the historic past, with its pomp and pride and pageantry, its poetry and romance. " This literary warmth," continues Holland, " mixed itself in with the doctrinal move- ment towards the enrichment of the churches. The emotions were making new demands upon out-
y
202 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ward things : they required more satisfaction. The churches were responding to a real and wide need when they offered a refuge and a relief to the dis- tressed imagination.
" Everywhere began the Gothic revival. The restoration of the disgraced and destitute parisli churches, which had become practically necessary, was taken up by men full of admiration for the architecture which had first built them. The archi- tectural revival deepened into the symbolism of a more rapt sacramentalism."
The public service thus underwent a very marked change. "The psalms and canticles," says Moles- worth, " which had hitherto been read in almost all churches, even in London, began to be chanted. Hymns of a more poetical character gradually sup- planted the religious doggerel of Sternhold and Hop- kins, or Brady and Tate. These changes were not effected without loud and angry protests from those in whose minds the old fashions were associated with ideas of sacredness, and those which replaced them with mediceval doctrine."
A strong antagonism to ritualistic practices was developed both in Parliament and without. The Church Association was organized, chiefly of persons belonging to the Low Church party, for the purpose of putting down ritualism. A large sum of money, amounting, it is said, to fifty thousand pounds, was contributed for taking proceedings against the ritualists in the ecclesiastical courts. Many of the
l^HE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 203
ritualistic clergy made their adherence to these forms a matter of conscience, and suffered serious inhibitions and penalties. Much sympathy was therefore created on their behalf, and ritualism, by this very means adopted for its suppression, became more prevalent.
Ritualistic practices became m.ore and more pro- nounced. The Court of Arches condemned these practices at St. Barnabas, Pimlico. But the com- mittee of the Privy Council sanctioned the use of altar cross, altar lights, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia. " From that moment," says Holland, " the ritualists have acted steadily in the belief that this legal decision was but af&rming that which is the plain, historical sense of the words in the rubric, and have pressed, often with rashness, sometimes with insolence, for the revival of all the ritual which this interpretation justified. In accomplishing this, they have been aided, advised and sustained by the elaborate organization of the English Church Union, formed for the defence and protection of those who, in carrying out the rubric so understood, were menaced by perils and penalties." Popular indignation was aroused by dread of Romish usages and broke out into hideous rioting at St. George's in East London.
Meanwhile marked divergencies of doctrine were
developed within the Church established by Law.
They are thus described by Mr Molesworth, vicar of
Rochdale : " There were no fewer than six distinct
schools or parties in the Church : the old orthodox
High Church party, still embracinof the majority of
o
204: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the clergy, and keeping aloof from the strifes and prosecutions to which we have referred, except when it found itself or its practices interfered with by them: the Evangelical party, the best members of which repudiated the Church Association; the Broad Church party, of which Dr. Arnold and Dr. Hampden had been the first leaders ; the Rationalistic and Ritualistic schools, comprising a large number of young and energetic clergymen and laymen ; and, lastly, the Tractarians, who still adhered to the prin- ciples originally laid down in the Tracts for the Times, without adopting the developments to which they had given rise. These parties shaded away into each other, and each might be subdivided into sev- eral different schools, the ultimate ramifications of which it would be useless and impossible to trace." In popular apprehension these classes may be re- duced to three types, the " High and Dry," the " Low and Slow" and the "Broad" Church. The High Church party we have briefly sketched. Many of its members are staunchly Anglican and anti-Romanist. To the cavil that there was but '* a paper wall " be- tween the High Church and the Church of Rome, a sturdy Churchman replied, " Yes, but the whole Bible is written upon it." " The revival of the High Church party," says Conybeare, " has effected an important improvement among the clergy. Under the name of orthodoxy and the banner of High Church, they have willingly received trutli against which, had it come to them in another shape, they
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 205
would have closed their ears and hearts. A better spirit has thus been breathed into hundreds who but for this new movement would have remained, as their fathers were before them, mere Nimrods, ramrods or fishing-rods."
" The Oxford Movement," says Rogers, " raised -^ the tone of average morality in Oxford to a level which perhaps it never before reached.** *' It has promoted," says Dr. Cadman, " genuine saintliness and has popularized religion. It has crowded empty churches and founded innumerable aids for the bet- terment of life and the relief of the poor."
In the slums of the east end of London, of the great seaports of Bristol, Portsmouth and Plymouth, and in the great manufacturing centres, it has won the hearts and often changed the lives of the poor, living amid the most sordid and squalid surround- ings. By its college settlements, its parochial Visi- tations, its earnest zeal, it has in a vast number of instances converted apathy or aversion into religious devotion and passionate loyalty to the Church and its institutions. It has created a new type in litera- ture, the Father Jinks of " Ian Maclaren."
The Low Church, or evangelical party, had its seat \ /^ at Cambridge, where the Rev. Charles Simeon was one of its most distinguished lights. It chiefly em- phasized the doctrines of justification by faith and the sole authority of Scripture as the rule of life. It was always on the side of philanthropic reform. Wilberforce, Stephen and Buxton, Clarkson and
206 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Shaftesbury, are types of its public benefactors. It was the founder of the Church Missionary Society, which sends forth so many hundreds of zealous evangelistic clergy into all parts of the heathen world. It was cliiefly instrumental in establishing the British and Foreign Bible Society, which has published the Scriptures in over three hundred lan- guages. It has also been exceedingly zealous in establishing Sunday schools, ragged schools, lending libraries, benefit societies, clothing clubs and the like.
'* The Broad Church," sa3^s Bishop Hurst, " corre- sponds in the main with philosophical rationalism." It began with Coleridge, was interpreted principally by Hare, was defended by the chaste and vigorous pen of Arnold, and represented by Maurice, Kings- ley and Stanley. Arnold held that the work of a Christian Church and State is absolutely one and the same. There can be no perfect Church or State without their blending into one.
The genial personality, the wide learning, the stir- ring eloquence of Dean Stanley popularized more than almost any other writer Broad Church views. For the marked latitude of his views on future punishment and the final issues of the Day of Judg- ment, Maurice was relieved of his duties as Profes- sor of Divinity at King's College, London. By his intense sympathy with the poor, his zeal for social reform and his robust and manly novels, Kingsley won wide popularity. Professor Jovvett, late Master
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 207
of Balliol, represented a more extreme type of Broad Church rationalism.
But its most striking expression is that in the volume of Essays and Reviews (1861) — a volume, says Bishop Hurst, which consists of broad gen- eralizations against the authority of the Bible as a standard of faith. Among the writers were Dr. Frederick Temple, now Archbishop of Canterbury, on the Education of the World ; Dr. Jowett, on the In- spiration of Scripture; Professor Baden-Powell, on the Order of Nature ; C. W. Goodwin, on the Mosaic Cosmogony; Rowland Williams and Mark Pattison.
This book created an intense sensation. The press teemed with replies of all sizes from pamphlets to bulky octavos, numbering in England alone nearly four hundred publications. Almost every newspaper in the realm, religious or secular, took part in the contest. Every centre of thought throughout the nation was agitated. High and Low Church alike united in condemnation of the work. One protest against the doctrines of the Essays and Reviews contaiiied the signatures of nine thousand clergymen of the Established Church. The Bishops without a single exception took ground against it. The Convocations of Canterbury and York pledged their influence to protect the Church from the "per- nicious doctrines and heretical tendencies of the book."
Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson were suspended by the Court of Arches from the ministry for departing
208 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
from the teachings of the Thirty-Nine Articles on the inspiration of Holy Scripture, on the Atone- ment and on Justification. The case was appealed to the Privy Council. The decision of the Court of Arches was reversed, and the deposed clergymen were restored to their functions.
The most extreme and outspoken attack on the historical character of the Pentateuch was that by Dr. John William Colenso, who, in 1853, was appointed Bishop of Natal. He denied the Mosaic origin of Pentateuch, revived the theory of its Elohist and Jehovist writers and of its recension in the time of Ezra. Tiie Convocations of York and Canterbury united in condemnation of his work. He was re- quested to resign his office, which he declined to do. He was arraigned by an Episcopal Synod at Cape Town and deposed from his office. He appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which, as in the case of the Essayists, reversed the sentence of the deposition.
The views which were merely hinted at by the Broad Churclimen of 1860 have since been openly avowed by many of the Anglican clergy. Consider- able excitement was produced by the publication of Lux Mundi, edited by Canon Gore, principal of the Pusey House, and containing contributions from many High Church writers. The chief point of offence is Canon Gore's article on Inspiration, which admits " that there may be unhistorical and idealiz- ing elements in the Old Testament, and such ele-
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 209
ments are entirely consistent with its Divine revela- tion." The conclusions of the Higher Criticism, as also of evolution, have been accepted by many devout scholars. Professor Sayce, the distinguished archaeologist of Oxford, at one time held views on a higher criticism which he has since found occasion to largely modify, the archaeology of the Orient havinor shown the art of writinor and the existence of a copious literature at a much earlier date than had previously been supposed.
The Anglican Church throughout the British Em- pire and in the United States has, in large degree, shared the phases of thought of the mother-country. In several of the British Colonies the connection be- tween Church and State was long maintained. This gave a sort of quasi superiority to the Church es- tablished by law, which was often, in large degree, the Church of the crown officers and " landed aris- tocracy." In most of the colonies, however, after strenuous struggle, the absolute equality of all the sects in the eyes of the law was recognized.
The Anglican Church has devoted itself with zeal to missionary and educational work. In the great missionary dioceses a degree of heroism unsurpassed in any age of the Church has been exhibited. Much attention has been given also to educational work. Universities and colleges have been created in the chief centres of population and whole continents and islands have been dotted with churches, from stately metropolitan cathedral to humble rural fane.
210 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The American Revolution was a great blow to the Episcopal Church of the revolted colonies. " It was left," says Bisliop Hurst, " stranded like a wrecked ship on the beach. Thousands of her clergy and laity were loyal to King George. And for this they were exiled from their parishes and their churches broken up. The loyal clergy of the Revolution were whipped, banished and persecuted in every possible way and their churches torn down and burned."
A saving remnant, however, soon organized a dis- tinctively American Episcopal Church. It furnished the first chaplain to Congress, and in an Episcopal Church, St. Paul's, in New York, the first religious services were held after the inauguration of Wash- ington. The President and the houses of Congress attended in their official capacity. A general con- vention was held in Philadelphia in 1785, when a Prayer-Book was drawn up, largely modifying in a more liberal and Arminian sense tliat of the mother- country.
" The later development of the Episcopal Church," says Bishop Hurst, " has given it an honorable part in the sanctification of American life. Its mission- ary spirit has carried it to all parts of the country, and, in always standing for dignity and beauty iu public worship, for an educated clergy, and for con- servative methods of evangelism, it has exercised great influence on the religious tone of the com- munity."
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 211
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland was lieir to some of the most heroic traditions of Christendom. Their resistance of the attempt to force Episcopacy on their country is a part of the civil as well as ecclesiastical history of the Scottish Presbyterians. The Covenanting Church, driven from its altars, be- took itself to the wilderness — to lonely straths and distant vales, where the scream of the eagle and the thunder of the cataract blended with the singing of the psalm and the utterance of the prayer, v/hile armed sentinels kept watch on the neighboring hills. At the rippling burn infants were baptized, and at those mountain altars youthful hearts plighted their marriage vows. " It is something," says Gilfillan, "to think of the best of a nation worshipping God for years together in the open air, the Druids of the Christian faith."
The Covenanters, banned like wild beasts, with- drew with their Bibles and their swords to dark glens, wild heaths, rugged mountains and rocky caves. The preachers, stern eremites, gaunt and haggard, proclaimed, like a New Elijah, the threat-
212 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
enings of God's wrath against His foes. As such live in history and tradition the names of Cargill, Cameron, and Renwick, and such has Sir Walter Scott portrayed in his marvellous creations — Ephraim Macbriar and Habakkuk Muckle wrath.
The moral heroism of these brave men has never been surpassed. In hunger, and peril, and penury, and nakedness, these " true-hearted Covenanters wrestled, or prayed, or suffered, or wandered, or died." Many of Scotland's grandest or loveliest scenes are ennobled by the martyr memories of " the killing time " ; by the brave deaths of those heroes of the Covenant, and by their blood that stained the sod —
On the muirland of mist ^vlle^e the martyrs lay ; Where Cameron's sword and Bible are seen Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green.
The motto of the great seal of the Presbyterian Church — " Nee Tamen Consumebatur " — indicates that, like the burning bush in the desert, though continually exposed to the flames, it nevertheless was not consumed. But the religious torpor which seems to have fallen upon Christendom during the eighteenth century invaded the northern as well as the southern part of the nation. The religious zeal of the Scottish Church languished well-nigh to ex- tinction. Throughout its history the system of patronage has been the bane of that Church. This system consisted in tlie appointment of ministers to parishes by patrons who were supposed to have
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 213
rights of ownership. Interminable conflicts arose between the Church and these patrons. The pat- ronage was twice abolished and was twice restored. The right of the lay lords to nominate ministers was supreme. " l^o matter how unworthy the appointee was, nor how unwilling the people were to receive him, there was no redress."
It was a revolt against this by Ebenezer Erskine that caused the formation, in the middle of the eighteenth century, of the Secession Church, which became the germ of the United Presbyterian Church, and one of the largest and most aggressive bodies in Scotland. At the close of that century religion had reached a low ebb in the Scottish Kirk : Moderatism, or the policy of the shrewd and conservative men who controlled the destinies of the Church, and held to Erastianism (or the doctrine that the State has supreme authority in ecclesiastical affairs), and a Gallio-like indifference to religious matters largely prevailed. This low state of religion is reflected in the biting satires and sarcasm of Robert Burns, with which he denounces the hypocrisy of the times.
At the beginning of last century two brothers engaged in secular business, and that the most un- likely that we can conceive to foster religious re- formers, infused a new evangelical spirit, not only into Scotland, but into England, Switzerland and France as well. These men were Robert and James Haldane. They were both brought up in the navy, not then, nor even now, a favorite school for relig-
214 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ion. But God's Word and His Spirit led them to true conversion, and they became thenceforth apostles of evangelistic zeal. They sought first to engage in foreign missions, but were shut out of India by tlie exclusive policy of John Company. They therefore formed the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel at Home, and with Simeon of Cambridge in 1796 made a tour throughout the country preaching, establishing religious societies and Sunday-schools, and building churches.
In 1800 the General Assembly forbade field preaching and all revival efforts. The Haldanes, who had inherited much property, built large num- bers of tabernacles, as they v^ere called. In fifteen years they had expended nearly half a million dollars in erecting these places of worship and training three hundred ministers of the gospel.
The elder Haldane was himself ordained, and in 1816-1817 opened an evangelical mission in Geneva and Montauban, preaching with apostolic zeal to the students of tlie university. Among the fruit of his labors were the distinguished Evangelical Divines, Merle D'Aubign^, Malan, Gaussen, Monod and others. These labors gave an impulse to religion and missions which has been a benediction to Scot- land and Switzerland to tliis day.
Their labors were reinforced and surpassed by those of the greatest man wliom Scotland has pro- duced since the days of John Knox. At the close of the eighteenth century Thomas Chalmers — born 1780,
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 215
the son of a prosperous ship-owner — was attending lectures at St. Andrews University. He was a big, brawny, buoyant, and even boisterous youth, not fond of books nor study, but destined to be the greatest pulpit orator and religious leader of his time. His intellect was awakened by the study of mathematics, in which he became an expert, and afterwards professor.
In 1803 Chalmers became minister of the little parish of Kilmany, near St. Andrews, but his heart was not in his work. Being invited to con- tribute to the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia he at first chose trigonometry, but at length took Christian- ity. " By studying about Christianity he became a Christian. His congregation quickly became aware that he had not so much resumed his work among them as begun it. His whole soul was on fire, and his culture was now used to make the saving truth of saving power. He cut loose from the moorings of moderatism, and became intensely Evangelical."
In 1815 he became minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow. He was more than an eloquent preacher. He was a faithful pastor, a skilful organizer and in- defatigable worker. His great parish of two thou- sand families was diligently visited and instructed. Two score Sunday schools were established. The care of the poor was so reformed that the cost of maintaining them was reduced from £1,400 to £280 per annum.
216 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
He liatl as yet taken little part in church govern- ment. The friction between Church and State was rapidly developing heat and irritation. The Evan- gelicals claimed that the Church was autonomous in her spiritual affairs. Chalmers eloquen tly proclaimed this doctrine. " There is nothing which the State can do to our independent and indestructible Church but strip her of her temporalities, nee tamen consume- hatur. She would remain a Church notwithstand- ing, as strong as ever in the props of her own moral and inherent greatness. . . . What Lord Chatham said of the poor man's house is true in all its parts of the Cluirch to which I have the honor to belong. * In England every man's house is his castle. Not that it is surrounded with wails and battlements ; it may be a straw-built shed. Every wind of heaven may wdiistle round it, every element of heaven may enter it, but the king cannot — the king dare not.'"
To restrain the evils of patronage, which not sel- dom foisted unworthy men upon a long-suffering parish, the Veto Act of the General Assembly of 1834 was enacted. It provided that a presbytery should not ordain any man presented by the patron to a living, if a majority of the male heads of fami- lies, communicants in the parish concerned, disap- proved of tbe nomination. But such restraints on their privileges of patronage were very distasteful to the Erastian landed aristocracy, and a ten years' conflict ensued between, on the one side, the Evan-
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 217
gelical party of the Clmrcli of Scotland, " fired with the hereditary sentiments and principles of long heroic centuries, and on the other side the formi- dable and determined forces of the moderates, the landed proprietors and the politicians."
The conflict became acute on the presentation of Mr. Robert Young to the living of Auchterarder. The appointment was very obnoxious. Only two men in a parish of three thousand could be induced to sign the call. The presbytery declined, therefore, to ordain Mr. Young as pastor. He, with his patron, applied to the civil courts. After four years' litiga- tion the decision was given adversely to the object- ing congregation.
In the Strathbogie case only one man, the tavern- keeper of the parish, signed the call to a Mr. Edwards, a man universally, and for good reasons, objected to. Edwards appealed to the court and pro- cured a decision in his favor.
The General Assembly in 1842 adopted a " Claim of Right," and appealed to the Queen and Govern- ment for protection of the Church in her spiritual affairs from the encroachments of the State. *' The answer was the final decision of the House of Lords in the Auchterarder case, awarding Mr. Young £10,000 from the presbytery for refusing to ordain him. The situation had surely become intolerable."
A convocation of Evangelical ministers, number- ing 474, resolved to stand by the '' Claim of Right." *' Soon all the land was rife with the old spirit of
218 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the Covenanters." The next act in this history drama was the great Disruption of 1843.
We think this name an unfortunate and mislead- ing one. The movement was not a schismatic act, but one of loyalty to the principles of the old Cov- enanting Church of Scotland. It was a constructive organization that gave new life and power to Evan- gelical principles throughout the world. The Mod- erates could not conceive such intense moral earnest- ness as should make men leave their parishes, their manses and their glebes for " a mere crotchet," as they called it, of an over-scrupulous conscience.
When the General Assembly met in Edinburgh in May, 1843, the religious feelings of the nation were keyed to the highest pitch. The Marquis of Bute, representing the Queen, proceeded from Holyrood to St. Andrew's Church, w4iere the As- sembly was held, amid the tramp of soldiers and the strains of martial music. Dr. Welsh, the Moderator, amid tlie awful hush of a solemn expectancy, read an earnest protest against the invasion of the liber- ties of the Church by the powers of the State, and claimed the right for himself and those who thought with him to separate from the Establishment. His protest closed with these solemn words : —
"And we now withdraw accordingly, humbly and solemnly acknowledging the liand of the Lord in the things which have come upon us because of our manifold sins, and the sins of this Church and na- tion, but, at the same time, with an assured convic- tion that we are not responsible for any consequences
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 219
that may follow from tliis, our enforced separation from an Establishment which we loved and prized, through interference with conscience, the dishonor done to Christ's crown, and the rejection of his sole and supreme authority as King in his Church."
Then followed a dramatic scene. Dr. Welsh, Dr. Chalmers and four hundred and seventy ministers of that assembly of twelve hundred men, with a great crowd of lay elders, marched in procession from the church. The act partook of the morally sublime. These men thus gave up their official position as parish ministers — nowhere so honored as in Scot- land— their beloved churches, their pleasant homes, their means of living — aggregating half a million dollars a year — for conscience' sake. They were greeted by great multitudes in the streets, many of them earnest sympathizers — among them the wives and children of the brave men who thus gave up all for Christ and his cause. A great shout went up. Even the cynical Moderates could not refrain from cheering. All Edinburgh was stirred. Lord Jeffrey, when he heard it, sprang to his feet and cried, " I am proud of my country. There is not another upon earth where such a deed could have been done."
Amid such scenes the Free Church of Scotland was born. No more heroic act has occurred in Eng- lish-speaking lands since the two thousand clergy of the Established Church, in protest against the Act of Uniformity well-nigh two hundred years before, fared forth homeless and shelterless from their roof-
220 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
trees and hearth-stones for no offence save worship- ping God according to the dictates of their con- science.
In a hall at Tanfield, Edinburgh, the first General Assembly of the new Church was held, with Dr. Chalmers as its Moderator. It was a great problem that confronted the Assembly. " Here," says Professor Wallace, " was a great Church, four hundred and seventy-four ministers, among them the greatest and most esteemed of modern Scotland, about two thou- sand elders and a vast body of sympathizers. But not a church building, nor a manse, nor a penny of revenue did this great Church possess : how should order be organized out of this chaos, and a fairer edifice be reared from amid the ruins of the Estab- lishment?"
This movement shook Scotland to its centre, and its vibrations were felt over the civilized globe. The Free Church determined to organize itself over the whole of Scotland, to build plain churches for the people, manses for the ministers and schools for the children. Great hardships were endured. In man}^ places the landed proprietors refused to sell sites for church or school. But, as in the days of the Cove- nanters, great congregations met for the preaching of the Word on strath and moor. The Lord's Supper was celebrated on bleak hillsides or in highland glens. Exposure amid the winter storms proved fatal to some of tlie ministers and some of the people.
In four years more than seven hundred churches
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 221
were erected. Within the same period half a mil- lion dollars were raised for building manses for the ministers, and in the very first year of the Disruption half as much for parish schools. The new churches were often of meagre size and severely plain in structure. They were sometimes satirized as
The Free Kirk, the wee Kirk, the Kirk without a steeple ;
but the Free Churchman was ready with his rejoinder :
The Aiild Kirk, the cauld Kirk, the Kirk without a people.
" Another heavy burden was laid upon the new Church," continues Professor Wallace, " by the grat- ifying, and yet at first sight embarrassing, fact that all the foreign missionaries of the Church of Scotland cast in their lot with the Free Church. Nobly, how- ever, was this responsibility sustained. All the mis- sion money, all the mission buildings were lost. Twenty missionaries, some among the Jews, the most in India, with Duff and Wilson at their head, had to be supported. New buildings for residences, for churches, for schools had to be erected ; the work had to be extended."
More funds were raised for foreign missions by the Free Church in the first year of the Disruption than by the united Church of Scotland the year before. At the end of fifty years the Established Church of Scotland raised for foreign missions some .£35,000, and the Free Church over £60,000. A great home missionary movement was also begun.
" Who cares about the Free Church," were Chal- mers* startling words ; " who cares about the Free
222 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Church, compared with the Christian good of the people of Scotland? Who cares about any Church but as an instrument of Christian good ; for, be assured, the moral and religious well-being of the pop- ulation is of infinitely higher importance than the advancement of any sect." And in the wynds and closes of Glasgow and Edinburgh the mission halls and ragged schools of Chalmers and Guthrie were beacon lights amid scenes of dense moral darkness.
Ample provision was also made for the education of the ministry. The New (Free Church) College in Edinburgh was built and endowed at the cost of half a million dollars, and similar institutions were estab- lished in Glasgow and Aberdeen. In theological scholarship the Free Church is in the very forefront of the English-speaking world. " For all these great and vast religious, educational and philanthropic enterprises," adds Professor Wallace, " the Free Church has raised in fifty years about £25,000,000, marvel- lously demonstrating to the Old World, with its per- vading State churchism, the possibility of the highest and noblest type of church life and work without the alliance and the assistance of the State."
The Free Church has not been unaffected by the great discussions in biblical criticism which marked the times. One of these which attracted great at- tention was the Robertson Smith case. It was con- tended on one side that the Church ought to allow the free discussion of the critical questions raised by Mr. Smith concerning the origin and date of the Old
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 223
Testament books. It was contended on the other that the quasi-indoisa,tion of Mr. Smith's views in- volved in sustaining him in his chair would be tan- tamount to the giving up the authority and inspira- tion of the Scriptures. By the General Assembly of 1881 Mr. Smith was therefore removed from his chair in the New College.
The Free Church movement rapidly spread to the remotest colonies of the empire. In Canada, in Aus- tralia, in New Zealand, at the Cape, in every land where the far-wandering Scot has gone, — and where has he not? — the principles and institutions of the Free Church exist in friendly rivalry with those of the chiefest of the Churches of Christendom. In Italy, in France, in Hungary, in Bohemia, in Swit- zerland, at Malta, and Gibraltar it has also its churches and schools. The jubilee of this Church in 1893 was celebrated throughout the world with glad thanks- giving. The following poem by Dr. Bannerman, of Perth, Scotland, commemorates the providential guidance of half a hundred years: —
It was weel-kent grund in Scotland that we took in the forty- three ;
It was nae new word amang us that Christ's kirk maun be free.
It cam' frae the mosses and muirlands that are flowered wi' martyrs' graves,
It cam' frae the water of Blednoch wi'the sough o' the Sol way- waves.
We read it in deep-cut letters, where the bluid o' God's saints was shed —
Where An worth, an' Ken, an' Caimsmuir have the keeping of our dead.
224: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
"the witnesses and the worthies in the days of the peril and
strife, — They set their seal to the record that we read in the Word of
Life ; That men maun honor the ruler, but first they maun honor
the Lord ; That the laws for the house of God on earth are given us in
His Word ; And not for fear nor favor, nor gowd nor earthly thing, Maun ither voice be hearkened where Christ alone is King ; That His folk behove to serve Him, though they meet on the
mountain sod. And the law of an earthly king is nought when it crosses the
law of God ; That the kirk maun be free to guard the richts that were
bought wi' a bluid unpriced. And that Christian folk in Scotland maun be free to follow
Christ.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 225
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (continued).
The Scottish people have a marked aptitude for speculative thought and for subtile distinctions, a fondness for metaphysics and a stubborn adherence to principles. This Las led to a multiplication of Scottish sects upon grounds of difference often of seeming microscopic character, or at least on grounds so slight that only a mind of Scottish acuteness can perceive them.
We have spoken of the revolt of Ebenezer Erskine against the principle of patronage and of the forma- tion of the Secession Church about the middle of the eighteenth century. This Church was still further divided, on the question of the lawfulness of certain civil oaths, into the Burghers and the Anti-burghers. These were further subdivided into the Old and New Lights, who are so quaintly sketched in Barrie's Auld Licht Idyls, There was also a Relief Church which, more flexible in its methods than others, sanctioned the use of hymns in its service.
The growing activity in foreign missions brought these seceders into more spiritual contact and led to
226 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
a desire for reunion. This was accomplished in 1820 in the formation of the United Secession Church. Its peace, however, was somewhat dis- turbed by a theological controversy resulting in the expulsion from its fellowship of James Morrison, an able exegetical scholar.
In 1847 the more comprehensive union with the Relief Church led to the organization of the United Presbyterian Church, one of the most aggressive re- ligious agencies in Scotland. Overtures for union with the Free Church were begun in 1862, which resulted, however, only in a mutual eligibility scheme, which permitted a congregation of either church to call a minister from the other.
The Presbyterian Church in England had its origin independently of that in Scotland. Its geneal- ogy has been traced back to the Culdees and the Lollards, but more directly it was the offspring of the sturdy Puritanism which was developed in op- position to the Prelatic Church of Queen Elizabeth, with its theory of the absolute supremacy of the sovereign over both Church and State. " The first English presbytery," says Dr. William Graham, '* was organized in 1572 near London. It is interesting to note that fourteen days afterwards John Knox died in Edinburgh. The cradle of English Presbyterian- ism was rocked beside tlie death-bed of the great Reformer, who, twenty years earlier, had sown in England the seeds from wliich came the harvest.'*
Within the Church of England, too, the Puritan
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 227
doctrinal element developed in opposition to the prelatic teachings of Laud. In 1647 the Long Par- liament abolished Prelacy and established Presbyte- rianism. The Westminster Assembly had already drawn up its memorable Confession and Shorter and Longer Catechisms. For twenty years Presbyterian- ism was the national Church. But by the Act of Uniformity on St. Bartholomew's day, 1662, Presby- terianism was disestablished, and two thousand ministers, most of them Presbyterian, were ejected from their churches and manses. Among them were those godly and apostolic men Baxter, Howe and Bates.
Presbyterianism in England, however, did not develop as in the North. Under the torpid religious atmosphere of the eighteenth century it succumbed to practical religious indifference. With the mis- sionary and religious revivals of this century a new spirit was quickened in this old church, strength- ened by the adhesion of many Scottish Presbyterians. Branches of the United Presbyterian and Free Churches in England, in 1876, joined together under the name of the Presbyterian Church of England. This church has developed great missionary zeal and liberality.
Among the sturdy Protestant population of the North of Ireland was a strong Presbyterian element. The system of lay patronage did not exist, but a general religious torpor pervaded most of the churches. The strength of the Presbyterian Church
228 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
is chiefly in Ulster, with its large population of Scottish descent. Its colleges at Belfast and Lon- donderry are vigorous theological institutions. There are also a number of minor remonstrant and secession bodies in Ireland, the mutual antipathies of which have happily given way to more genial sympathies and Christian co-operation.
In the United States Presbyterianism came with the emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland. The persecutions of Presbyterians under the Stuarts compelled many to find refuge beyond the seas. Here, too, the Old and New Light divisions took place, but were less permanent and intense than in the old land. After the Revolutionary War a Gen- eral Assembly was organized, and the Church en- tered upon a period of remarkable development. Great revivals swept over the country, but the doctrinal acuteness and conscientious individualism which seemed inherent in the Presbyterian churches led to the subdivisions into the old and new schools.
Anti-slavery discussions still further divided the Church. It is impossible in our limited space to even outline these divisions. Their relative strencrth will be indicated in our statistical tables. Since the close of the war and of the anti-slavery discussion, many of the causes of difference have passed away, and reciprocity of Christian intercourse and court- esies have followed.
The Church in the South may be broadly con- sidered as theologically more conservative than that
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 229
in the North. It stands more firmly in the old ways, while the Presbyterian churches of the North have a more receptive attitude towards the newer scholar- ship and higher criticism. The discussions, however, led by Dr. Charles Briggs and Dr. Preserved Smith, have, to a considerable degree, divided the Church into the conservative and liberal schools.
The services rendered to religious education, to Christian scholarship, to religious literature, to civic righteousness, to the development of a higher civili- zation by this great Church throughout the Amer- ican commonwealth is one of the brightest pages of its history.
In what is now named the Dominion of Canada, Presbyterianism was introduced with the first settlers. After the Revolutionary War many Pres- byterian United Empire Loyalists contributed to its strength. The early missionaries were chiefly from the secession churches. Among its scattered population were found, too, representatives of the Burghers and the An ti -burghers, the Auld Kirk, the United Presbyterian and the Free Church.
In 1787 the first congregation of a few pious soldiers and civilians was organized in Quebec, and three years later one in Montreal. In 1792 Gabriel Street Church was built, probably the oldest Protes- tant churcli in Canada. The following year the presbytery of Montreal was formed.
Canada has, however, the unique distinction of bringing into one church organization the different
230 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
branches of Presbyterianism throughout the wide Dominion. In this new Presbyterian Church of Canada were embraced seven liundred and seventy- one ministers, about one thousand congregations and four thousand elders. The union was most hearty, only about twenty ministers in all remaining aloof from it.
Since that date the Church has made marked prog- ress in every element of religious prosperity. Its home missions are prosecuted with intense zeal and earnestness. It has more widely distributed foreign missions than any other Church in the country. These include missions in New Hebrides, Central India, China, Formosa, Trinidad and among the In- dians of the Northwest. Some of these we have seen have heroic history. It has for the training of its ministry six strong and well-equipped theological institutions. It is doing most important work in developing the Christian civilization of the great Dominion.
In the month of October, 1899, the pan-Presby- terian council, representing over eighty distinct branches of the Presbyterian Church in all lands, met in the city of Washington. This body has no leg- islative authority, but meets simply for mutual counsel, for the discussion of important themes con- cerning the welfare of the Presbyterian Church and of Christ's kingdom, and for moral inspiration and uplift. The high honor was done the Dominion of Canada of electing as president of the council the
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 231
Rev. Dr. Caven, principal of Knox College, Toronto. For Christian scholarship, for saintliness of spirit, for the high respect in which he is held, the dignity was most fittingly bestowed.
On the 31st October, 1900, was happily accomplished in Edinburgh the union of the United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church of Scotland.
232 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE METHODIST CHURCH.
It is seldom that the life of a single man sees such an extraordinary development of the religious movement of which he was the chief organizer as did that of John Wesley. At the time of his death in 1791 tlie members of the Methodist societies of Great Britain (including the West Indies and British America), numbered 76,968, and in the United States 57,631. The aggregate numbers in both hemispheres were 134,599 members, with five hun- dred and forty travelling preachers, and two hundred and thirty-six " circuits." These are the statistics given by that accurate historian. Dr. Abel Stevens. But these figures represent only the names actually enrolled in the church's membership. They do not include the much larger number, probably five times as great, of sympathizing adherents.
This was the growth of a little more than half a century since John Wesley organized his first society and built his first place of worship. His life was one of intense activity. He preached over 42,000 sermons after his return from Georgia, or more than fifteen a week for nearly fifty-four years. White-
THE METHODIST CHURCH. 233
field, in the thirty-four years of his ministerial life, preached 18,000 sermons, or over ten a week. Wesley travelled, for over fifty years, over ^ye thousand miles a year, chiefly on horseback; equivalent to girdling the earth ten times at the equator. He ex- pended in Christian philanthropy over <£ 30,000, most of which he had earned with his pen, for his stipend as a minister seldom amounted to over £100 a year, and for a long period was only X30.
At the very time that John Wesley passed from his life of toil to his everlasting reward, the throes of the French Revolution were convulsing the world. " The throne, the altar, and social order were pros- trated ; and for a quarter of a century the political foundations of Europe, from Scandinavia to the Ca- labrias, from Madrid to Moscow, were shaken as by incessant earthquakes." The sceptical teachings of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists, and especially the coarse and vulgar infidelity of Thomas Paine's Age of Reason were scattered broadcast among the people. But for the moral antiseptic furnished by Methodism, and the revival of religion in all the churches which it produced, the history of England would have been far other than it was. It would probably have been swept into the maelstrom of revolution and shared the political and religious convulsions of the neighboring nation.
But Methodism had greatly changed the condition of the people. It had rescued vast multitudes from iofuorance and barbarism, and raised them from al-
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most the degradation of beasts to the condition of men and the fellowship of saints. The habits of thrift and industry which it fostered led to the accumulation, if not of wealth, at least to that of a substantial competence ; and built up that safeguard of the commonwealth, a great, intelligent, industrious, religious middle-class in the community.
By the intelligent piety and patriotism thus cre- ated, England was saved from the convulsions which shook all Europe. "John Wesley substituted," says Stevens, " reformation for revolution."
A few years before his death, in 1784, Wesley made provision for the corporate continuance of the organization of which he was under God the author, by the Deed of Declaration, which organized a hun- dred of the Methodist preachers in Great Britain as the legal conference, and by the ordination of Dr. Coke as superintendent or bishop of the Methodist Church in the United States. During his life his administrative ability, " not less," says Macaulay, " than that of Richelieu," together with the love and reverence in which he was held, made his will su- preme, and the annual conferences seasons of har- mony and peace.
He had up to the last regarded with affection the Church wherein he was born and ordained, although it had thrust him out of its pulpits ; and for many years had relentlessly persecuted both himself and his helpers. But toward the close of his life his apostolic character and piety won him the sympathy
l-HE METHODIST CHURCH. 235
and respect of all good men. Many of the churches opened their pulpits to his ministrations. From be- ing one of the worst hated he became one of the best loved men in the kingdom. Where he had been mobbed and maltreated, the people came out in throngs to meet him " out of love and kindness, gaping and staring as if the king were going by."
Wesley had for some time deprecated the adminis- tration of the sacraments to his followers except in the churches established by law. But he conceded this right in many cases, as where his converts had been nonconformists, or where the established clergy were profligate in their lives ; and had ordained sev- eral of his preachers for their administration. In- deed, for a long period, and in many places, the Methodist services were held at such hours as would not conflict with those in the parish churches. Hence the extraordinary phenomena of multitudes of people going to the Methodist preaching by lantern light before dawn in the morning, and late in the evening.
When the strong and firm hand of Wesley was withdrawn divergences of opinion and the growth of parties developed. " There were those," says Stevens, *' who, from their attachment to the Estab- lishment, wished no change unless it might be a greater subordination to the National Church by the abandonment of the sacraments in those cases where Wesley had admitted them ; of such as wished to maintain Wesley's plan intact, with official provisions
which might be requisite to administer it ; and such
Q
236 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
as desired revolutionary changes with a more equal distribution of powers among laymen and preachers."
Out of these differences arose the first division in the ranks of Methodism. Alexander Kilham was, like Wesley, born in Epworth, 1762. 'He became a zealous preacher, enduring hardship and persecution, laboring with great success, especially in the Channel Islands. He was a man of intense zeal and fervent piety. He favored, too, new departures to which Wesley had been opposed : the presence of laymen as representatives of the people in the annual con- ference, and the administration of the sacraments by the Methodist preachers. These he urged by pam- phlets and in the conference. Concessions were made in a plan of pacification in both these regards, but they failed to meet the demands of Kilham and those associated with him.
Kilham, persisting in his agitation, was suspended from the Methodist Connection in 1796. The fol- lowing year, with three other preachers, he founded in Leeds the Methodist New Connection, with which five thousand seceders at once united. This body adopted the Wesleyan teaching and polity in every regard except in claiming for all ordained ministers the right to administer the sacraments, and accord- ing to the laity an equal representation with the ministers in the annual conference. It has main- tained a vigorous existence to the present time. It has had many men of mark among both ministers and laymen. It has established successful missions
THE METHODIST CHURCH. 237
in Ireland, in Canada, and in China. In Canada it was the first of the Methodist bodies to unite with the Canadian Branch of the Wesleyan Church in 1875. It has for many years maintained most kindly relations with the mother church of Methodism, and has responded heartily to the movement in favor of the integration of Methodism in the Old World as well as in the New. It has an excellent theological school at Ranmoor (Sheffield).
The years of ecclesiastical controversy which led to the secession of the New Connection did not seem- ingly impair the spiritual life or retard the progress of the parent body. All the divisions which have arisen in Methodism have arisen from other than doctrinal causes. They all arose from differences of opinion as to ecclesiastical policy and discipline. Thus the parent tree and the vigorous offshoots which sprung from it were nourished by the same great principles and brought forth the same manner of fruit. Notwithstanding their outward divisions, they maintained the spiritual unity of the brother- hood in the bond of peace. Great revivals contin- ued to follow the preaching of the Word. In seven years from the death of Wesley the connection in- creased nearly one-third in the number of members and ministry, and about two hundred and fifty chapels were erected.
Methodism was not without its eminent scholars and commentators. Their studies were not pursued in the cloistered seclusion of college quadrangles or
238 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
academic halls. They were men of affairs even more than men of books. They were busy itinerant preachers ranging through the realm and employing only the spare hours of life — the horoe subsecivoe which many men think not worth saving — in their biblical studies.
Among these were Adam Clarke, the Irish lad who one day digging in a garden found a guinea, with which he bought a Hebrew Bible, and thus laid the foundation of his great oriental scholarship. A faithful itinerant, and thrice President of the Wes- leyan Conference, he labored alone for forty years in the preparation of his great Commentary on the Holy Scriptures.
Dr. Thomas Coke, amid his many journeyings by sea and land, in the crowded cabin of a ship or amid the uncongenial surroundings of a country inn, found time to prepare, besides many other volumes, his Commentary on the Scriptures in six quarto volumes, splendidly printed on the University press at a cost of £10,000.
Joseph Benson, filling the most important stations in Methodism, twice President of the Conference, and editor of the Methodist Magazine, also wrote a commentary on the Scriptures, which is regarded by the "VVesleyans as one of their standard works.
Richard Watson, the carpenter's apprentice, became an accomplished scholar, a profound theologian, an eloquent orator, an indefatigable Missionary Secre- tary and President of the Conference. He wrote a
THE METHODIST CHURCH. 239
Life of Wesley, and a Theological Dictionary, one of the best of its day. His Theological Institutes is still a standard Text-book. With feeble physique and impaired health his herculean labors were performed under a burden of suffering and pain from which he was seldom exempt.
The second secession from Methodism, that of the Primitive Methodists, occurred in 1810. Its cause seemed singularly inadequate, but doubtless the event was overruled by God for the furtherance of His Kingdom. Early in the century Lorenzo Dow, an eccentric but earnest-souled Methodist preacher from America, felt that he had a call from God to range through the English-speaking lands to preach the gospel. His ministrations were accompanied by great power, and under them many persons were turned from their sins. He proposed to introduce into England the American type of camp meetings common in parts of the country where but few chapels of any denomination existed.
A flag was raised at Mow Hill, Staffordshire, and from far and near the people thronged, and the first English camp-meeting was held. William Clowes, and Hugh and James Bourne, prominent laymen, took zealous part in these meetings. Much good was accomplished, but many excesses, it was alleged, attended these services. The Wesleyan Conference declared that " even supposing such meetings to be allowable in America, they are highly improper in England, and likely to be productive of consid-
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erable mischief, and we disclaim connection with them."
Pamphlets and counter pamphlets were issued. At length Bourne and Clowes were expelled for insub- ordination from the Wesleyan Connection. They forthwith organized a new society, namely, the Primitive Methodists. They adopted many of the aggressive modes of the early Methodists, preaching in the highways, in the market-place, on the village common. They are very democratic in their spirit, and their conferences have two lay representatives for each minister. Devout women were permitted to preach and exhort in public. Their zeal and piety attracted a multitude of sympathizers.
The new society was specially successful with the toiling and unlettered classes, among whom Method- ism won its first successes. It spread rapidly throughout the United Kingdom, and through emi- gration and by missionary effort into Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania. *' Methodists, of whatever party," says Dr. Stevens, " may well excuse what they deem objectionable in its early history, and gratefully recognize it as one of the most important results of the revivals in this period of their annals." In Great Britain the Church has a vigorous publishing house, issues a high-class Review and a graded series of magazines and periodicals of much literary merit and instinct with religious spirit. It lias also a successful college and training institution at Sunderland.
THE METHODIST CHURCH. 241
In 1815 still another secession took place, namely, that of the Bible Christians or "Bryanites," so named from William O. Bryan, a local preacher of Cornwall, England, who was their leader. They were characterized by intense religious earnestness. They manifest great plainness and simplicity in dress, and are very zealous in their mode of worship. They, too, have established missions in the United States, Canada and Australia. In the latter country the son of one of the Bible Christian ministers, the Hon. S. J. Way, rose to the distinction of Chief Justice, and since 1891, of Lieutenant-Governor of the colony of South Australia. He maintained in his high place of office the Christian zeal and devotion which characterize this communion. In Canada the Bible Christians, like the Methodists, generally entered the union of all the Methodist bodies in the Dominion in 1883.
In the year 1816 nine thousand of the Methodists of Ireland formed a new organization, under the name of the Primitive Wesleyan Methodists. The leader of the movement was Adam Averill, who revolted against the departure from Wesley's original plan in al- lowing the societies to hold their services at the same time with those of the Anglican Church. In 1877 the body was again united with the Wesleyan Methodists.
The secessions were not at an end. " Every new question," says Dr. Scholl, " admitting of a difference of opinion seemed to carry in it the seeds of dissen- sion and separation."
242 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The independent Wesleyans and the Wesleyan Protestant Methodists in 1828 went out from the main body ; the original occasion being a dispute over the introduction of an organ into a chapel at Leeds against the wish of the class-leaders. Neither of these bodies attained much importance.
*' Of more significance," says Dr. SchoU, " was the Warren Movement in 1834, occasioned by the project of the conference to establish a theological seminary, against which Dr. Samuel Warren protested. Warren was ultimately excluded from the conference, and, with twenty thousand others, constituted the Wes- leyan Methodist Association."
The Wesleyan Church continued to enjoy peace and prosperity for ten years. One of its most notable and influential men was the Rev. Jabez Bunting, D.D. " His history," says Stevens, " is that of Wesleyan Methodism for nearly sixty years," thirty-three of which he spent in London. He became the rec- ognized legislative leader of the Connection. It cannot be denied that Dr. Bunting was somewhat of an autocrat in his way. His great abilities gave him commanding influence ; this he never used self- ishly, but for the good of the Connection, as he understood that phrase. Nevertheless, there were those who resented this autocracy.
This feeling found expression in the so-called Fly Sheets, which, unsigned, were sent to every Wes- leyan minister. In 1817 the conference passed a res- olution '* requiring every minister who had not
THE METHODIST CHURCH. 243
taken part in their dissemination to sign a document to that effect. About one-fourth of the members refused their signatures, rebelling against a demand which they regarded as inquisitorial. The agitation spread, and Messrs. Dunn, Griffith, and Everett, the latter the reputed author of the Fly Sheets, were ex- cluded from the Conference, while others were re- primanded. The excluded preachers were regarded as martyrs.
" The excitement in Methodist circles," says Dr. Scholl, '' was intense, and in a single year, 1850-51, the body lost fifty-six thousand communicants. In 1850 the British Conference in England alone had 358,277 communicants, and in 1855 only 260,858. It continued, however, year after year, to refuse any concessions ; and the agitators, finding their efforts hopeless, ceased agitating.
" Of the one hundred thousand who had left the main body, nineteen thousand in 1857 united with the Protestant Methodists and the Wesleyan Meth- odist Association, numbering twenty-one thousand members, to form the Association of the United Methodist Free Churches."
It required a number of years to allay the irritation caused by this controversy. The constitution of the Wesleyan Church became liberalized by giving its lay membership a larger representation on the com- mittees, and in constituting a Representative Confer- ence in which laymen and ministers are represented in equal proportion. In latter years the bitterness and strife of controversy has entirely disappeared. The Church has steadily advanced in number, in in-
244 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
fluence, in culture and in aggressive zeal. While it maintains the spiritual earnestness and sincerity of its earliest years, it meets the intellectual and the sesthetic needs of the closing decades of the century. It has vigorous theological colleges at Richmond, Didsbury, Manchester, Headingly, Leeds and Bel- fast. Its publishing house sends forth a ceaseless stream of religious literature, issues a high-class Re- view, and maintains the oldest religious periodicalin the world, established by John Wesley one hundred and twenty years ago. There are also several inde- pendent Methodist journals.
As we have seen, the mother church of Methodism early entered upon aggressive missionary work, its successes in the foreign field, in the West Indies, Sierra Leone and South Africa, in Ceylon, in India, in China, and in other foreign lands, as well as in Germany, Italy, France and other countries of Eu- rope, are among its chief glories. One of the great merits of Methodism is that it has emphasized indi- vidual responsibility and aggressive Christian work.
In 1881 the first (Ecumenical Methodist Confer- ence was held in City Road Chapel, London, the principal centre of Wesley's labors. Four hundred delegates from all parts of the English-speaking world and from many foreign lands were present, repre- senting twenty-eight different branches of the Meth- odist family, with an aggregate of over five million church members. It remained in session for a fort- night and greatly strengthened the feeling of unity
THE METHODIST CHURCH. 245
and solidarity among these various subdivisions of this revival Church. So in this great gathering was fulfilled the Scripture : " I will bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.'*
In 1891 a similar oecumenical conference was held at Washington, D. C, with a still larger and more widely representative assembly of distinguished min- isters and laymen. The result of this rapprochement is seen in the overtures for corporate union which have been exchanged between the different branches of English Methodism, which it is hoped the early years of the twentieth century will see accomplished.
The anniversary of the death of Wesley was ob- served with devout religious services throughout the wide Methodist community in all lands. City Road Chapel, the mother church of Methodism, has been beautifully restored with portrait busts, marble columns, stained glass windows, and other memorials contributed by many of the seceding Methodist churches.
While the mission of Methodism has been, in large part, to the poor and lowly, yet the very thrift and industry which it produces has made it largely the church of the great middle-class — the backbone of the British commonwealth. *' It has won for itself," says Dr. Scholl, " in spite of scorn and persecutions, a place of power in the State and Church of Great Britain. It has its representatives in Parliament, and no statesman can afford to trifle witli it any longer. It roused the Anglican Church itself to ac-
24:6 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
tivity and renewed faith a hundred years ago, and has not only a history behind it, but a work before it. The fulfilment of its great aim depends upon its continued emphasis on the practical temper of its founder. It was this which has given it the sway over a constituency of twenty-five million (now thirty million) of souls in all parts of the world."
The flexibility of the Methodist system is such that it adapts itself to the varied needs of humanity in every land and in every condition, gentle or simple, rural or urban. It has inausfurated a Forward Move- ment, under the inspiration of the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, for the evangelization of the masses in such large centres as London, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow and elsewhere. Its London, East, Central and London West missions, with their complete system of district visitation by deaconesses known as " Sisters of the People," and their manifold forms of Christian philanthropy are very successful centres of Christian work.
In the closing years of the century the Wesleyan Church was engaged in raising a twentieth century fund of a million guineas as a thank-offering for the mercies of the past and a consecration to the work of the future.
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CHAPTER XXVn.
METHODISM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The greatest development of Methodism in num- bers, in resources, in aggressive Christian activities has been in the New World. The broad areas of this virgin continent, the rapid creation of great commonwealths and provinces throughout its vast extent, the extraordinary growth by emigration and natural increase, the freedom from the dominance of an Established Church and other conventional limitations have all conspired to give Methodism its prominent position as the leading Protestant body of the North American Continent.
Yet, in the New World as in the Old, its beginnings were of a very humble character. The persecuting zeal of Louis XIV. on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove a number of German refugees from the Rhenish Palatinate to Great Britain and Ireland. Some of these came under the influence of John Wesley in Ireland. On the 10th of August, 1760, a little company of these Irish Palatines reached New York. Among them were Philip Embury, a local preacher, and Paul and Barbara Heck. At the instigation of Barbara Heck, Embury began to
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preach, first in his own house, then in a hired " rig- ging loft."
In 1770 the first Methodist church in America was built on John Street, New York, the first in the world to bear the honored name of John Wesley. Captain Webb, a Methodist military officer, became an active member of the new community. He founded societies in Philadelphia and other parts of the country. In 1769 Richard Boardmanand Joseph Pilmor were sent out by the English Conference to take charge of the new societies. They were fol- lowed by Francis Asbury and other Methodist preachers. The first Methodist Conference in Amer- ica was held in Philadelphia, 1773, with ten preachers and a membership of 1,160. The Revolu- tionary War greatly interfered with the growth of Methodism. But at the close of the war its depend- ent relations to the mother-country ceased and it became an independent church.
In 1784 John Wesley ordained at Bristol Thomas Coke as superintendent of the new church. At the " Christmas Conference " held in Baltimore that year the Metliodist Episcopal Church was organized with Dr. Coke and Francis Asbury as superin- tendents. The growth of the church was so rapid that for several years the membership was nearly doubled annually. This soon made it necessary to limit its chief court to a delegated body meeting every four years.
Of Dr. Coke as a missionary organizer we have
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already spoken. He continued till the end of the century to visit the rapidly growing missions and to attend the constantly enlarging conferences. Two continents were now contending in friendly rivalry for the services of this modern apostle. Alternately president of the English and of the American Con- ference, his presence seemed so manifestly needed in both countries that he was continually crossing the ocean on his missionary voyages, as if either hemi- sphere were too narrow for his energies. At last the American General Conference of 1800 yielded to the request of the British Conference to allow Dr. Coke to remain in England.
Asbury's new ofhce of superintendent, or bishop, increased neither his power nor his influence among his brethren. He already ruled by love in all their hearts. His elevation in office gave him only pre- eminence in toil. In labors he was more abundant than even the apostolic Wesley himself, since the conditions under which he toiled were so much more arduous. He ordained upwards of three thousand preachers. He preached seventeen thousand sermons. He travelled 300,000 miles — from the pine-shadowed 6t. Lawrence to the savannas of Georgia, from the surges of the Atlantic to the mighty Father of Waters — through pathless forests, over rugged mountains and across rapid rivers. He had the care of a hundred thousand souls and the appointment of four hundred preachers.
Bishops Asbury and Coke had worthy comrades
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and successors in the great work of building up the Methodist Church on the American continent. From the plastic state of society, and from the mighty forces which were moulding the age, men of force of character were enabled to leave their impress more strongly on the times than is now possible. They stood near the springs of the nation's history and were able to turn their currents into the deep wide channels in which they now flow. Such men as Freeborn Garrettson, Jesse Lee, William Black, and other plumeless heroes of the Christian chivalry, ranged through the continent from the everglades of Florida to the pine forests of Nova Scotia preach- ing the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
William McKendree, Enoch George, Robert Rob- erts, Joshua Soule, Elijah Hedding and Nathan Bangs were among the Makers of Methodism in the formative period of the early decades of the century. In 1819 its Missionary Society was organized, and its rapid growth beyond the Alleghanies and the Mississippi greatly developed. Our limits of space will prevent anything like adequate treatment of this phenomenal growth. We can only glance at a number of its ramifications and give a brief resume of its principal enterprises.
In 1839 the Centenary of Methodism was cele- brated in Great Britain and the United States with much enthusiasm. The sum of £216,000, or con- siderably over a million dollars, was contributed in Great Britain for religious purposes ; the Methodist
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Episcopal Church in the United States contributed $600,000 more.
The first great division, or bisection, as Dr. Buckle}'- calls it, in the Methodist Episcopal Church, took place in the year 1844. '^ The question of slavery," says Dr. Strong, " had been agitated in the Metho- dist ' societies ' in America, and in the conferences, previous to the formation of the Methodist Episco- pal Church, and still continued as a disturbing element after the organization." At the General Con- ference of 1844, however, the agitation reached a crisis, which resulted in the disruption of the Church. The Rev. Francis A. Harding, of the Baltimore Con- ference, had been suspended from the ministry for refusing to emancipate slaves belonging to his wife ; and he appealed from this decision to the General Conference. Bishop James O. Andrew was also found to be in possession of slaves through marriage and bequest, the laws of Georgia not allowing them emancipation. This state of affairs, and a growing conviction on the part of a majority of the Church that slavery and Christianity are inconsistent, brought the Conference to definite action.
*'The Conference resolved that Bishop Andrew should desist from the exercise of his office so long as this impediment remained. This decision gave severe umbrage to the Southern delegates. A committee of nine, composed of Northern and Southern dele- gates, was appointed to prepare a plan of separation, which they submitted to the Conference, and which was adopted by a nearly unanimous vote. The * plan '
252 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
provided for the voluntary withdrawal of the annual conferences of the slaveholding States, it gave per- mission to ministers and members to adhere to the body of their choice, — the Methodist Episcopal Church, or the Church South, — it arranged for an equitable distribution of the church property, and a formal agreement not to interfere with the work of each other.
*'The Southern delegates issued an address to their constituents, detailing the facts, and calling for a convention, composed of delegates from the annual conferences in the ratio of one to eleven, to meet in Louisville, Kentucky, May 1, 1845. This conven- tion organized the Methodist Episcopal Church South, invited Bishops Soule and Andrew to become itiner- ant general superintendents, and appointed its first General Conference to be held in Petersburg, Vir- ginia, in May, 184G."
Other minor divisions had previously taken place. As early as 1820, William S. Stockton, a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, began the publication of the Wesleyan Repository at Tren- ton, N. J. in the interest of lay representation in the conferences, advocating also the representation of the local preachers. At length a general conven- tion of the dissidents was held at Baltimore in 1830, and the Methodist Protestant Church was organized. The doctrines are the same as those of the parent body. In 1858 the Methodist Protestant Church was divided on the slavery question into two bodies, — the conferences of the North-Western States seced- ing, and forming the Methodist Church ; and those of the Southern States continuing as the Methodist
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Protestant Church. These were reunited in 1877 under the original name. There are two Book- Concerns belonging to this Church, — one at Balti- more, the other at Pittsburg, — several colleges and academies, and a number of church papers.
The Wesleyan Methodist Connection originated in 1839 as an outgrowth of the slavery agitation. This body abolished episcopacy ; adopted lay- representation in the annual and general conferences ; admitted local preachers to membership in annual conferences. After the abolition of slavery a large section of this society returned to the Methodist Episcopal church. It has a publishing house at Syracuse, N. Y., and several institutions of learning. Its government is a slight modification of that of the parent Church. It has two educational institutions, a monthly magazine and a weekly church paper. Its conferences are held all over the Northern States.
*' Methodism was early employed as an agency in the conversion of the Negroes in America, both slaves and free. Vast numbers united with the Methodist societies, and many of them continue as members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A number, how- ever, believing that their spiritual interests would be advanced by a separate organization, assembled in convention in Philadelphia, April, 1816, and organ- ized the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The doctrines are the same as those of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the government is very similar. They have several educational institutions, especially Wilberforce University, Xenia, O.; and,
254 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
seminaries at Baltimore, Columbus (O.), Alle- gheny, and Pittsburg. They have two religious periodicals."
Before the Civil War in America, the colored people in many of the Southern States were forbidden by law to hold meetings among themselves ; and accordingly, the vast majority of them united with the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
" The large influx of Germans to America was the occasion of great solicitude to the leaders of early Methodism ; and measures were adopted, wherever practicable, to give them the gospel. There are now eight annual conferences of German Methodists in the United States, with a membership of about 50,000. Two periodicals, a weekly paper and a monthly magazine, are published by order of the General Conference. Sunday-school supplies and various standard books are also published in German."
The Evangelical Association originated in eastern Pennsylvania, when, about 1790, Mr. Albright felt himself called to promote a religious reform among the German population of that region. He had no thought at first of organizing a denomination, but he was so successful, and his little societies were so multiplied, that at a general meeting called to con- sider what should be done, Mr. Albright was unan- imously elected and ordained by the preachers as their general superintendent or bishop. The epochal year of this church is 1800. They have the same
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conferences or conventions as the Methodist Episcopal Church, with similar powers.
The United Methodist Free Churches and the Wesleyan Reform Union are minor bodies of Metho- dists.
Notwithstanding the manifold divisions of Metho- dism— about sixteen in the United States, and about half as many in Great Britain — still the Methodists are essentially one throughout the world. With the single exception of Whitefield's Calvinistic movement, all these divisions have been on matters of polity only. There have been no doctrinal dissensions sufficient to cause a formal division. " Methodism," said Wesley, " is one throughout the world." This is still true after an unparalleled expansion in num- bers in all lands.
In the broad areas of the New World and in the crowded population of the Old these divisions have not been so harmful as might be anticipated. There has been ample room and verge enough for the activi- ties of them all, and their operations have seldom overlapped or interfered with one another. Most cordial feelings of fraternity and good-will have almost universally obtained between these manifold divisions of the same great army.
From the very beginning, as we have seen, Meth- odism made liberal use of the press for the instruc- tion of the people. In 1789 the " Methodist Book Concern " was established at Philadelphia with |600 of borrowed capital, and John Dickins became Book
256 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Steward. In 1804 this publishing house was re- moved to New York. In 1836 it was destroyed by fire, with a loss of a quarter of a million dollars. Three years later the business which had been grow- ing up in Cincinnati was chartered as the Western Methodist Book Concern. The growth of this com- bined establishment has been phenomenal, till it is now one of the largest institutions in the world. The Methodist Episcopal Church publishes fourteen weekly periodicals, besides a Quarterly Review and an extensive series of Sunday-school and missionary periodicals aggregating about as many more. Be- sides these a large number of independent and un- official Methodist periodicals are published.
The genius of Methodism is essentially mission- ary. Its venerable founder declared, ** The world is my parish." The Methodist Episcopal Church in America felt, too, that its commission was to all na- tions. Its missionary society was formed in 1819. The entire receipts for the first year were ^823.04. It has since girdled the world with its missions. In 1833 it entered Africa. In 1836 it began its pros- perous work in South America. In 18-17 its missions in China were begun, that in Germany two years later. Its marvellous work in India, begun in 1856, was followed by that baptism of blood, the Indian Mutiny. Others have followed in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Bulgaria, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Korea.
The educational institutions of the Methodist
METHODISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 257
Episcopal Church have been one of the most im- portant agencies for the education of its ministers and the diffusing of Christian culture among its people. Methodism in the old world was cradled in a univer- sity. The Holy Club of Oxford, where the Wesleys and some godly students met for the study of the oracles of God, was its real birthplace. In 1787 was opened Cokesbury College at Abingdon, near Balti- more. It commemorated by its name both Coke and Asbury, by whose joint labors it was founded. After eight years of struggling existence it was destroyed by fire. The college was reorganized in Baltimore, but in a year it, too, was consumed.
Undeterred by disaster, schools, academies, col- leges and seminaries were established as the needs of the people and ability of the Church would permit, till now it has 230 colleges, universities, seminaries and mission schools, valued with grounds at $17,132,501, having an endowment of $12,299,- 601, with 3,143 professors and teachers and 46,708 students.
258 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CANADIAN AND COLONIAL METHODISM.
In no part of the British Empire has Methodism made greater relative progress than in the Dominion of Canada. Although about a million and a quarter of the people are of French origin, and of the Roman Catholic faith, yet Methodism numbers one-fifth of the entire population, and in Ontario, the largest and most populous province, it claims one-third of the people.
It is a curious circumstance that the first Metho- dist preachers in both Lower and Upper Canada were British soldiers. In Quebec, Mr. Tuffey, a commis- sary of the 44th Regiment, began in 1770 to preach to the soldiers and Protestant immigrants of that city. Six years later George Neal, major of a British cavalry regiment, began to preach to the settlers on the Niagara frontier.
At the time of the American Revolution a num- ber of British subjects who remained true to the old flag left their homes in the revolting colonies and came to Canada. These were known as the United Empire Loyalists. Among them were Paul and Barbara Heck, Philip Embury and other Pala-
CANADIAN AND COLONIAL METHODISM. 259
tine Methodists from Ireland, who, in 1765, had or- ganized in New York the first Methodist society in the United States. They came to Montreal in 1774, and afterwards formed a Methodist class at Augusta on the St. Lawrence in 1788.
The first Methodist itinerants who visited Canada in 1790 and 1792 were William Losee and Darius Dunham, missionaries from the newly organized Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. These " Gospel rangers " preached their way among the scattered settlements on the banks of the St. Lawrence and on the Niagara frontier. They were true pathfinders of empire, preparing a highway for the Kingdom of God.
The War of 1812-1815 embarrassed the arrange- ment whereby Canada was missioned from a foreign country and many of the American preachers were withdrawn. Methodism had already been planted in Newfoundland, in the Maritime Provinces and in Lower Canada, partly by British and partly by American missionaries. After the war the English Conference appointed ministers to Lower Canada. Their operations gradually extended also to the Upper Province. The Methodist Episcopal Church in Upper Canada was permitted by the General Con- ference of the United States to be organized as an independent body. In course of time branches of the Primitive Methodist, New Connection and Bible Christians came to the country. Thus it was evident that much sacrifice of economy in this overlapping
260 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of work, and sometimes a degree of frictiou, made a union of forces very much to be desired. In 1874 a union of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, numbering 675 ministers, 73,557 members, and of the Methodist New Connection, numbering 113 ministers, 7,449 members, with the Wesleyans in Eastern British America numbering 223 ministers, 20,950 members, took place in 1874, forming a united body of 1,000 ministers and 100,000 members. The resulting body took the title of the Methodist Church of Canada.
The benefits of this union were so marked that nine years later a more comprehensive union of all the Methodist bodies in the country took place, namely, the Methodist Church of Canada, with 1,216 ministers and 128,644 members ; the Methodist Epis- copal, with 259 ministers and 25,671 members ; the Primitive Methodist, with 89 ministers and 8,090 members ; the Bible Christian, with 79 ministers and 7,398 members — total, 1,633 ministers, 169,803 mem- bers.
The seal of the Divine approval on this union of heart and union of effort was shown by the rapid development of the Church in every respect — by the consolidation of its forces, the combination of its publishing houses and periodicals, the a£&liation of its colleges and universities and the strengthening of its missionary and benevolent enterprises. This Church has a vigorous mission in Japan, with 37 ministers and preachers, and more recently one in
CANADIAN AND COLONIAL METHODISM. 261
Chentu, in Western China. It has also extensive missions among the Indian tribes of Canada.
In Australasia, including the Island Continent of the South Pacific, New Zealand and Tasmania, a vigorous Methodism has grown up. This has been strengthened by the emigration from the varying types of British Methodism and by an active internal development. These bodies have sent forth mis- sionaries to many islands of the Southern Seas, and form a highly successful and prosperous Church. Here, too, negotiations for union have been begun, which will probably be forthwith carried into effect.
262 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH-
" English Congregationalism," says John Browne, in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, '* is not merely a development of English Puritanism. It is an inde- pendent system of church government, as fundamen- tally distinct from Episcopacy and Presbyterianism as they are from each other. Amongst the refugees to the continent from the Marian persecution, there were representatives of both the hierarchical and Presbyterian systems. Heylin, in his History of the Reformation, says : ' A new discipline was devised by Ashley, a gentleman of good note among the laity there, and his party, whereby the superintendency of pastors and elders was laid aside, and the supreme power in all ecclesiastical causes put into the hands of congregations.' Thus it is seen that Congrega- tionalism is co-eval with the other forms of church government which exist in England."
Robert Browne, however, it is claimed, is the man who first clearly developed the principles of English Congregationalism in the latter part of the sixteenth century. At first his adherents were called Brown- ists, or Separatists, but their discipline having been
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 263
modified by John Robinson and Henry Jacob they took the name of Independents, and rapidly spread over England. Robinson, with sundry members of Scrooby church, came to Amsterdam, and afterwards to Leyden. " On July 1, 1620, one hundred and one members of this congregation left Leyden, — a pilgrim band ; and on the 11th December in the same year, the first company of them from ' the Mayflower ' landed in America, on Plymouth Rock. Robinson remained at Leyden, intending to follow the pioneers with the residue of the church ; but he died at Ley- den in 1625, before they left."
The English Puritans were not all Separatists, though many of them became Independents, while others continued to be simply Nonconformists to the Church of England. The Act of Uniformity in 1662 excluded nineteen hundred of the Nonconform, ing ministers from office, but, by the Act of Tolera- tion, 1689, they were freed from the pains and penal- ties imposed on the exercise of their worship. It was not, however, till the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 that the English Inde- pendents, with other Dissenters, were freed from all civil disabilities.
" About the middle of the eighteenth century," continues iMr. John Browne, " the churches felt the necessity of more intercourse and communion with sister-churches than they had up to that time been enabled to maintain ; and gradually associations were formed in almost every county, their objects, in ad- dition to the manifestation of fraternal sympathy,
264 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
being, generally, to encourage and sustain home missionary work, and to assist the weaker churches within their bounds.
" ' The Congregational Union of England and Wales ' was, after much consideration and amidst many fears, formed in 1833. It meets to deliberate, not to legislate ; to advise, not to compel ; and its declaration of faith is not a creed to be subscribed. Its professed object is ' to strengthen the fraternal relations of the Congregational churches, and facili- tate co-operation in everything affecting their com- mon interests ; and also to maintain correspondence with the Congregational communities throughout the world. ' "
This body has become exceedingly influential in Great Britain, not merely as a religious, but also as a political, power.
These noblest sons of England, the Puritans, driven into exile by a persecuting power, " turned to the New World," to use the words of Canning, ** to redress the balance of the Old." Dr. Bacon has traced minutely in his interesting volume, "The Genesis of the New England Churches," the devel- opment of those religious principles wliich led to the formation of the Separatist Church of Great Britain, its persecution there, its exile in Holland, its pros- perity in Amsterdam and Leyden, its resolve to plant in the New World the seeds of civil and religious liberty, and to seek in the western wilderness what it found not in the home-land, freedom to worship God.
"The 'Mayflower,'" says Rev. E. C. Smyth, "bore
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 265
to Plymouth, in New England, an organized Christian church, 1620. The colonists organized themselvea as a civil body politic, ' a church without a bishop, a state without a king.' The Puritan contingent in Massachusetts Bay had apparently no intention at the outset of separating from the Church of England, and their ministers were persons who had been epis- copally ordained ; but, once in America, there was, as Robinson had predicted, but slight difference be- tween the Nonconformists and the Plymouth pil- grims. The Congregational ministry has been filled by well-educated men. The earliest of them were graduates of the English universities. Some of them were men of rare attainments and scholarship. Har- vard College was established at an early day, with special reference to the wants of the churches, before 1640, seventy-seven clergymen had left the pastoral office in England for the work of the ministry in New England, and fourteen more, pursuing a course of theological study, had come here to complete it, and to enter the ministry."
In New England by 1648 the number of churches had increased to fifty-one. Under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield and others a great awakening took place in which it is claimed that thirty thousand communicants were added to the churches, chiefly to those of the Congregational com- munion.
The Congregational Church has been greatly suc- cessful in its missionary operations. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was instituted in 1810, and its Home Missionary Society in 1820. Under the leadership of such men as the Cottons, the Mathers, the Edwards, the Beechers, Dr.
266 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Storrs, Dr. Leonard Bacon and many others, it has greatly moulded the life of the nation.
We have seen the influence of these Congregational leaders in the great anti-slavery crusade, and in every social and moral reform they have left their stamp, not merely in New England, but in almost every State of the Union, especially in the northern tier to the Pacific coast. More than twenty important colleges are now wholly or partially under the care of Congre- gationalists, with numerous academies.
In Canada, in Australasia, in the Cape Colony — everywhere where English-speaking men have lived — the sturdy seed of the Puritans has made its influence felt as a power for righteousness, for " soul-liberty," for love of truth. In many of the dark places of the earth it has held aloft the gospel torch, which alone can illumine them who sit in '* the gloom of nature's night."
THE BAPTIST CHURCH. ^^7
CHAPTER XXX.
THE BAPTIST CHURCH.
" The first Confession of the Baptists in England, A.D. 1644," says Dr. Osgood, " antedated the West- minster Confession. When the Westminster Con- fession was published, it was found to agree, for sub- stance of doctrine, in most points, with the earlier Baptist Confession; and in 1689 the General Assembly of Baptists, following the example of the Independents (Savoy, 1658), adopted that Con- fession, with some omissions and changes. Their churches," continues Dr. Osgood, " — ' bodies of bap- tized believers, with pastors and deacons, covenanted together for religious worship and religious work '— are independent of all other human control, and supreme in the government of their own affairs. For the increase of love, for consultation and the furtherance of missions at home and abroad, these churches, by their delegates, unite in councils and associations ; but these councils have no power be- yond advice, or withdrawing the hand of fellowship from an offender."
In the sixteenth century the Baptists were numei^ oiis in Europe, and were persecuted alike by Catho- lics and Protestants. In England they enjoyed a
268 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
greater degree of liberty, and under Cromwell were found in the army, in Parliament and in the Council of State. During the Restoration the Baptists, with all other Dissenters, suffered from the strong hand of oppression and violence. Their piety, their learn- ing, their missionary zeal has made them one of the most aggressive forces of the Nonconformist com- munity. The prisons were filled by their confessors and martyrs, yet their principles gradually gained ground. " The share which the Baptists took," says Dr. Williams, "in shoring up the fallen liberties of England, and in infusing new vigor and liberality into the constitution of that country, is not generally known. Yet to this body English liberty owes a debt it can never acknowledge. Among the Bap- tists Christian freedom found its earliest, its staunch- est, it most consistent and its most disinterested champions."
One of the most notable of these was Roger Williams — "a man well worth knowing," says Bancroft, " as the first person in modern Christen- dom to assert in its plenitude the doctrine of liberty of conscience — the equality of opinions before the law; and in its defence the harbinger of Milton — the precursor and superior of Jeremy Taylor."
In his fortieth year Roger Williams manifested in a singular way his fidelity to the convictions of con- science. He had convinced himself that immersion was the true mode of baptism. But there was no minister in the colonies who would thus baptize
THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 269
him. He solved the question with his usual de- cision, A godly layman, a Mr. Holliman, immersed him, and then Williams immersed Holliman and ten others. Thus was founded the first Baptist church in America. Williams and his friends were promptly cut off from fellowship with the churches of Massa- chusetts. Yet he manifested no spirit of bitterness thereat, and he continued to his life's end to pray and preach and labor for the salvation of souls.
In 1643 he was sent to England to secure a charter for the Rhode Island Colony. This he suc- cessfully accomplished, and was elected by popular vote for two years president of the commonwealth. During his visit to England he was the guest of the patriot statesman, Vane, and became the intimate friend of Milton. To maintain himself he taught Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and Dutch.
His life-work was now well nigh done. He dwelt with his children and his aged wife in peace and happiness. In his eighty-third year Williams ar- ranged by his fireside his written discourses for pub- lication. " I am old, and weak, and bruised," he writes. He was also poor. His substance and his golden opportunities of becoming rich beyond the dream of avarice had been willingly sacrificed to the public good. The following year he died. Of his last hours we have no record, nor need we. The life-long spirit of the man was one of apostolic purity.
In his old days he had many sorrows. His friend,
270 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the stainless patriot Vane, was beheaded on Tower Hill. Peters, the precursor of Whitefield, as a famous preacher,* who voted for Williams' banish- ment, but afterwards became his firm friend, also perished on the scaffold.
He wielded a busy and vigorous pen, and was some- times involved in warm controversies. But he calls even his antagonists to witness that in his books he ever " presses holiness of heart, holiness of life, holi- ness of worship and pity to poor sinners, and patience toward them while they break not the civil peace."
The commonwealth which he founded has honored his memory. Providence is now a busy city of over a hundred thousand inhabitants ; and the spot where he landed, the spring at which he drank, the site of his house, and the grave in which, for two hundred years, his ashes have slept, are shown with reverent regard. His house and church at Salem are among the most venerable relics of American antiquity, and beneath the dome of the great rotunda at Washing- ton, a noble marble monument exhibits the form of the grand old pioneer of liberty, holding in his hand that great charter of human freedom, the Word of God.
In New England as well as in the mother-country the Baptists have been the apostles of religious liberty. " Their history for more than a century, in
* Under his preaching in New England, he writes : " Over a hundred a week were persuaded from sin to Christ ; there were six or seven thousand hearers."
THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 271
most of the colonies, is that of proscribed and ban- ished men. Yet, persecuted themselves, they never persecuted others." " In the code of laws established by them in Rhode Island," says Judge Storey, '* we read, for the first time since Christianity ascended the throne of the Caesars, the declaration that con- science should be free, and men should not be pun- ished for worshipping God in the way they were persuaded He requires."
The Baptist Church is intensely missionary in its character. In the Southern States of the Union and among the colored population the Baptists rival the Methodists in the number and energy of their home missionary operations. Besides the regular Baptists are the Free- Will Baptists, the Seventh-Day Baptists, the Bunkers, the Disciples or Campbellites, the Anti-Mission Baptists and the Winebrennarians.
272 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.
This is the oldest and largest of the churches which have sprung from the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The earliest preference of this church was for the name Evangelical, 1525. Luther strongly disapproved of the name, Lutheran, which was first used by Eck when he published the bull against the great Reformer. In Poland and Austria the official title is the *' Church of the Augsburg Confession." But its more general designation is that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It is the dominant Protestant Church of the Teutonic and Scandinavian people. In Germany, Denmark, Swe- den and Norway, and the Baltic provinces of Russia its entire membership is vaiiously estimated as be- tween thirty and forty millions. It accepts the three oecumenical creeds, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, together with subordinate Prot- estant confessions.
In the period immediately following the Reforma- tion, the theological controversies in which this church was engaged seemingly engrossed its energies to the exclusion of special missionary effort. But
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. 273
during the present century, as we have seen in our record of missionary activities, it has been character- ized by great zeal in both the Inner and Outer, or Home and Foreign, missionary work.
The Lutherans were among the earliest European settlers in the American continent. Their numbers have been greatly increased by large emigration from Germany and Scandinavia. The persecuting wars and religious oppressions of Louis XIV. led many Palatine exiles to seek refuge in Great Britain and America. In both countries they received hospitable welcome, and in the British colonies large territorial grants in Pennsylvania, Georgia, the Carolinas and New York State. In the year 1750 no less than twenty vessels arrived in Philadelphia with 12,000 German Lutherans. At that time the Lutheran pop- ulation of Pennsylvania also was estimated at sixty thousand. It has numerous colleges and an influential press. The American Lutherans, from the manner of their separate colonizations and other causes, exist in numerous subdivisions all marked by the same broad general characteristics.
The Reformed Church traces its origin in part to the rise of Protestant Reformation in Switzerland under Ulrich Zwingle, and in part also to the Ref- ormation in Germany. It is chiefly moulded by the Augustinian theology of John Calvin. The Protes- tant churches in Holland, Hungary and Bohemia are chiefly of this type. It was decimated by relig- ious wars and by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
274: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and still further weakened by the exile of the Hu- guenots upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The Reformed Dutch Church in the United States has an honorable descent from that heroic Protestant Church of the Netherlands, which underwent such cruel persecution under Philip II. and the Duke of Alva. It was introduced into the New Netherlands in the seventeenth century, and largely moulded the religious life of the Dutch colonists. It has grown much less rapidly than the Lutheran Church, but in education and intelligence takes a very high rank.
" The Evangelical Synod of North America was organized in 1840. It represents the State Church of Prussia, which is the union of the Lutheran and Re- formed bodies, and accepts the symbolical books of those bodies.
" The German Evangelical Protestant Church is liberal in doctrinal belief, having no confession of faith. It is opposed to synodical organization, but its ministers are associated in vereine, or district unions."
UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST CHURCHES. 275
CHAPTER XXXII.
UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST CHURCHES.
The Unitarian body has exerted a sti'ong influ- ence in the religious life and social philanthropies of Great Britain and America. This is the more re- markable when its limited numerical strength is con- sidered. Sporadic examples of the Unitarian faith were known in England throughout the eighteenth century. One of the first Unitarian churches in Great Britain formally so called was established in London in 1774 by the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey. But the most conspicuous leader and writer of that body was Dr. Joseph Priestley, F. R. S. He was pastor of an Independent church in Suffolk, and afterwards of a Unitarian church at Birmingham. He was a vigorous champion of Unitarian doctrine in a series of volumes published in Birmingham.
Priestley's chief reputation arises from his discov- eries in chemistry, particularly that of oxygen gas, indeed, of almost all the gases. He was an uncom- promising advocate of liberalism in politics as well as in religion. In July, 1791, while celebrating with some friends the destruction of the Bastille, his house was sacked by a mob. For this he received
276 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
damages to the amount of <£ 2,502. The following year he came to the United States seeking a larger liberty than that afforded by the Old World. His valuable laboratory was given to the Smithsonian Institute, and in 1860 his statue, in recognition of his scientific achievements, was placed in the museum of Oxford University.
In 1813 the Unitarians secured by law the privi- leges accorded to other Dissenting bodies, and in 1844 were confirmed in the possession of Dissenting chapels to which they had acquired a title. The most eminent leader of Unitarian tliouoht was the Rev. Dr. James Martineau, one of the foremost ex- ponents of religious philosophy against materialism and agnosticism.
In the New England colonies Unitarianism arose probably as a revolt from the austere Calvinism of the Puritans. '* In 1783 Dr. James Freeman, of King's Chapel, Boston, the grandfather of Dr. James Freeman Clarke, removed from the Book of Com- mon Prayer all references to the Trinity, or to the Deity, and worship of Christ ; and his church from that time became distinctively Unitarian. In 1801 the Plymouth Church, the oldest of the Puritan faith in America, declared itself, by a large vote, Unitarian. Organized usually on the basis of cov- enants instead of creeds, the New England churches, without any violent change in their articles of union, gradually adopted the new faith. Dr. Henry Ware, a Unitarian, was chosen professor of divinity
UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST CHURCHES. 277
at Cambridge. Dr. Channing, in 1819, in his Balti- more sermon at the ordination of Jared Sparks, gave the Unitarian declaration of independence. From that date he became the foremost leader of this faith."
" The Universalist denomination," says President Capen, " traces its origin directly to James Relly, a London preacher in the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century." In 1770 Mr. INIurray, one of his disciples, preached throughout New England and the Middle States. *' But the doctrine spread somewhat slowly. In the year 1800 there were scarcely more than twenty Universalist ministers in the country. At that time the Rev. Hosea Ballon, who is justly called the Father of Universalism in its present form, was approaching the maturity of his powers. He wrought out a system of theology which he proclaimed with intense vigor and earnest- ness. Universalism, with the rise of Hosea Ballon (although it has undergone many modifications, and made important developments, since his time), en- tered upon a new epoch ; and its growth was rapid, not only in numerical strength, but in organic life and power."
278 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.
"The rise of this body of Christians," says Presi- dent Chase, *' is one of the most noteworthy events in the religious history of England in the seventeenth century. George Fox and his followers announced as their aim the revival of primitive Christianity; the privilege of direct access to God, without the in- tervention of human priest or rite, — and this phrase remains as the best definition of their work."
Fox began his public ministry in 1647, preaching through England on foot. He proclaimed, continues Dr. Chase, "repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and showed that one became a true disciple, not by a bare assent of the under- standing to the truths contained in the Bible, nor by any outward rite, but by a real change of the heart and affections, through the power of the Holy Spirit." All classes flocked to his preaching ; and among his converts were persons of the best families in the kingdom, priests of the Established Church, and min- isters of other societies, and many men of learning.
" Within eight years, ministers of the Friends preached in various parts of Europe, in Asia, and in
THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 279
Africa, and heroically endured persecution in Rome, Malta, Austria, Hungary and other places." Among the distinguished British converts was the courtly and cultured Penn, and Barclay, a member of an ancient family in Scotland. The principles of religious toleration were unknown in that age. Between the years 1650 and 1689 fourteen thousand of the Quak- ers " were fined and imprisoned; and three hundred and sixty-nine, including the majority of the first preachers, died in jail, ' not to mention cruel mock- ings, buffetings, scourgings and afflictions, innumer- able.' " The Revolution of 1688 brought a larger toleration, and the persecution of the Quakers ceased. President Chase of Haverford College thus epito- mizes the record of the Friends in the United States : —
" America was first visited by Friends in 1656, when Mary Fisher and Anne Austin arrived in Boston from Barbadoes, to which islands they had gone to preach the gospel the preceding year. They were charged with holding ' very dangerous, heretical and blasphemous opinions,' and were kept in close con- finement, at first on the vessel, and afterwards in jail. Their books were burned by the common exe- cutioner, and even their persons searched to discover signs of witchcraft. They were then sent back to Barbadoes. In 1660 this same Mary Fisher held an interview with Sultan Mahomet IV., at Adrianople, where he was then encamped with his army.
" Two days after the banishment of the first Friends from Boston, a vessel having on board eight other Friends arrived from London. They were at once imprisoned, and, eleven weeks afterwards, sent back to England. But, nothing daunted, others of the same faith continued to arrive in New England,
280 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
to suffer scourging, imprisonment, banishment and four of their number death by the gallows. When the martyr age had passed, the society became less aggressive, and made fewer converts to its views ; but it devoted itself to the quiet practice of all the Christian virtues, and to an active philanthropy, which have made its praise to be in all the churches. " In the recognition of the equal rights of women, in the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade, in the protection and instruction of the Indians and the Aveaker races of mankind, in the amelioration of penal laws and prison discipline, in tlie adoption of enlight- ened methods for the care and relief of the insane, in testimony against war, intemperance, oaths, corrupt- ing books and amusements, extravagance, insincerity, and vain display, it has been in the forefront of Christian reformers ; while it has maintained the highest standard of integrity and practical virtue, and in the every-day charities of life its bounty has been unstinted."
MORMONS, OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS. 281
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MORMONS, OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS.
The history of the Mormons is the record of one of the most extraordinary delusions of the nineteenth century. The so-called " Church of the Latter Day Saints " is founded upon the pretended revelations of Joseph Smith, who was born at Sharon, Vermont, in 1805. In 1830, the so-called Book of Mormon was published, based, it was alleged, upon certain golden plates discovered by Smith, in a hill near, in Western New York.
The sceptics as to this alleged origin of these mys- terious books aflirm that its real author was Solomon Spalding, who wrote a romance on the American Indians, whom he described as descended from the lost tribes of Israel.
Several members of Smith's family, and some others, about thirty in all, organized themselves as the Church of the Latter Day Saints, April 6, 1830. About 1833 they were joined by Brigham Young, a painter and glazier from Vermont, whose shrewdness and talent caused him to be ordained one of the *' Twelve Apostles " who were sent out to preach the new doc- trine. He was very successful in making converts,
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and the delusion grew apace. At Nauvoo, on the Mississippi, they founded a city, which soon had a large population, and summoned the " saints " from all quarters of the world to build there a temple for the Lord. The Nauvoo Legion was organized, com- prising nearly all the Mormons capable of bearing arms, with Joseph Smith as commander. So great was the arrogance of the " saints " that, in 1843, Joseph Smith was nominated for the office of Presi- dent of the United States.
The same year Smith claimed to have received a revelation authorizing polygamy. Much scandal fol- lowed, the Smiths surrendered and were committed to jail at Carthage. A mob attacked the building and shot the two prisoners. " The martyr-like death of Joseph Smith," says Bishop Tuttle, " threw a mantle of dignity over his person and a halo of con- secration around his character, that could in no other way have been secured." Brigham Young now be- came President of the Twelve Apostles.
In 1845 the charter of Nauvoo was repealed by the legislature of the State of Illinois, and the following year the city was cannonaded for three days and its inhabitants driven out at the point of the bayonet, and the Mormons fled to a new rendezvous at Coun- cil Bluffs, Iowa. In 1847 Brigham Young, with one hundred and forty-two pioneers, pushed westward over the mountains to Salt Lake Valley, Utah. Salt Lake City was founded, and large tracts of alkali desert under skilful irrigation and labor were brought
MORMONS, OR LATTER DAY-SAINTS. 283
under cultivation. Large numbers of converts came from Great Britain, especially from Wales, from Sweden, Norway and other countries of Europe.
Their intolerant and truculent principles followed the Mormons to Utah, and blood-curdling stories are told of the murderous attacks upon the Gentiles, — all who did not accept the doctrines of Mormonism were Gentiles, — by these organized thugs, and of the system of terrorism that prevailed among the Mor- mon community. One of these describes the atro- cious massacre, in the fall of 1857, at Mountain Meadows, of a hundred and twenty men and women, emigrants of Arkansas en route to California.
Bishop Tuttle thus sums up the elements of strength in this strange blending of religious fanati- cism and worldly thrift : —
*' It is a mistake to count the Mormons a mere horde of sensualized barbarians. Sidney Rigdon was a type of the fervent religious enthusiasm which pervaded the belief and obedience of the early con- verts. And the British mission especially has always had, and now has, in it large numbers of devout, God- fearing people. The exodus from Nauvoo presented itself as a winnowing van, and the fair-weather fol- lowers disappeared. It is remarkable how much of contentment, temperance, heroism and strivings after the golden age of a real brotherhood, remained, and pushed hopefully westward.
" In one sense, polygamy is a weakness to Mormon- ism. It arrays woman's nature in rebellion to the system, and arouses the detestation of Christian civil- ization. And since 1862 it has put the Mormons in the attitude of disobedience and defiance to the laws
284 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of their country. In that year Congress enacted a statute prohibiting polygamy in the territories of the United States. Since then, at least, all who have contracted plural marriages in Utah are plain violat- ors of law. With decency, civilization, Christianity and statute law arrayed against polygamy, it may seem strange that it can be rated else than an ele- ment of weakness in the Mormon institution, and destined one day to draw destruction upon the system. In 1882 the Edmunds Bill to legislate polygamy out of existence passed Congress."
In 1894 Utah was recognized as a state, and is now represented in Congress. In 1900 a success- ful effort was made to exclude Mr. Brigham H. Roberts, of Utah, from the Senate on account of po- lygamy. Sporadic Mormon colonies have been planted in the North-West Territory of Canada and are regarded as a menace of the future welfare of that part of the Dominion.
SPIRITUALISTS AND MINOR SECTS. 285
CHAPTER XXXV.
SPIRITUALISTS AND MINOR SECTS.
The organization of spiritualists can hardly be called a church. Nevertheless, as a large number of persons embrace its doctrines, it demands recog- nition in this volume. What is known as mod- ern spiritualism, or spiritism, as it is sometimes called, began with the so-called " spirit-rapping " phenomena at Hydeville, near Rochester, N. Y., in 1848. Margaret and Kate Fox, of the respective ages of twelve and nine, were living with their par- ents in a dilapidated wooden house, when mysterious rappings were heard nightly on the floor of one of the rooms. Kate Fox imitated them by snapping her fingers, and the raps responded by the same number of sounds. Her mother, an illiterate and credulous woman, asked if it was a spirit that was making that noise, and if it was, to manifest it by making the same noise. The raps were accordingly heard.
A few months later the family removed to Roches- ter. The raps accompanied them, and new phenom- ena, including clairvoyance and the movement of ponderable bodies without appreciable agency, were developed. The Fox girls soon exhibited the spirit-
286 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
rapping phenomena in a public hall in Rochester, and afterwards in New York. The phenomena be- came the subject of newspaper discussion, and simi- lar mediums sprang up in many different parts of the country, and were multiplied by hundreds and almost by thousands.
The most distinguished, probably, of the apostles of the new doctrine was Daniel Douglas Home. In 1850 he became known as a medium of remarkable powers; and gave seances, with spiritualistic man- ifestations, in the presence of Napoleon III. in Paris, and of Alexander II. in St. Petersburg. In 1856, while in Rome, he joined the Catholic Church. He was expelled from the city by the papal authority for spiritualistic practices. He exercised a very po- tent influence over many persons, especially over women, one of whom, Mrs. Jane Lyon, conveyed to him by deed and bequest the bulk of her property. She subsequently sued for its recovery, and it was restored to her by law.
The spiritualistic delusion soon spread throughout America, Great Britain and the Continent of Eu- rope. Mediums, male and female, rapidly multi- plied. Almost every town and city in the United States had its spiritualist circle, in which stances were held. Several newspapers were published by the spiritualist propaganda. Professional mediums advertised their stances at a dollar per head. Many persons spent large sums of money in the so-called " search for light," and in seeking communication
SPIRITUALISTS AND MINOR SECTS. 287
with relatives in the spirit world. Wealthy wid- ows were the special victims of this delusion. Not infrequently gross lapses from morality and marital infidelity were the direct result of this delusion or fraud.
Not a few distinguished men of literary or scien- tific reputation became avowed converts of spiritual- ism, " or have admitted the phenomena so far as to believe in a new force not recognized by science, or have testified that the manifestations they have wit- nessed are not capable of explanation on the ground of imposture, coincidence or mistake, or, at least, have considered the subject worthy of serious atten- tion and careful consideration."
On the other hand, such scientific experts as Mr. Huxley and others of the first rank considered the phenomena to be impostures, and Mr. Bishop and others have successfully imitated and explained almost every form of spiritualistic manifestations.
Among the most remarkable phenomena of recent times is the rapid development of the so-called " Christian Science." Its founder and chief pro- mulgator is Mrs. Mary Moss Baker Glover Patterson Eddy, to give her her full name, although there are others who claim priority. The principal feature of her theory seems to be that " mind is all and matter is naught ; " that " flesh is an illusion " and " pain is an imagination ; " that disease can be cured by be- lieving its non-existence. We have no doubt that many cases of nervous affections are so cured, by
288 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
what physicians call expectant attention, just as Schlaghter, the Faith-Curer of Denver, and many others of his class, have been able to effect, for a time at least, remarkable cures. Christian Science incul- cates many devout and religious principles, which give it a favor with many conscientious people.
Christian Scientists, especially in New England, have some costly church buildings. They claim in the last year of the century to have 12,000 " minis- ters," 500 churches, with 80,000 communicants.
A somewhat similar organization is that of Dr. Dowie, of Chicago, who has what he calls a Chris- tian Catholic Church in that city, with offshoots elsewhere. A powerful incentive to the spirit of these delusions, as we deem them, is the natural de- sire of the sick and suffering to find relief by some short and easy method which depends upon their own faith.
There are many minor sects, especially in the United States, some of them so small that, as has been said, they might almost be called " in-sects." One of these is the Altruists, a communistic soci- ety, with a membership in 1900 of only 25 ; the Sep- aratists, with 200. The Shakers and Amana, with 1600 each, are also communistic bodies.
The statistics of the churches furnished by the " Independent," of New York, in January, 1900, embraces no less than 150 denominations or sects.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 289
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE EOMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
This is the largest of the three great divisions of Christendom — the Greek, Latin and Protestant churches. At the beginning of this century the Roman Catholic Church labored under very serious civil and political disabilities in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, especially in Ireland. The later years of the eighteenth century found that country in the throes of civil war. The rebel- lion was suppressed in 1798, but the feeling of wrong and injury by which it was caused continued to rankle. In 1800 the Irish Parliament was abol- ished, and the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were united, with an Irish representation of one hundred members in the House of Commons and thirty-two members in the House of Lords.
A strenuous organized effort for Catholic emanci- pation was begun in Ireland. Its leader, Daniel O'Connell, was one of the most eloquent and accom- plished orators that Ireland ever produced — and that is saying a great deal. In 1828 O'Connell was tri- umphantly elected a member of the British House of Commons, although, on account of being a Roman
290 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Catholic, he was ineligible for a seat. At length, in 1829, Sir Robert Peel introduced into the House of Commons the Catholic Emancipation Bill. It was violently opposed both by the Commons and the Lords, but the Duke of Wellington declared that the only alternatives were emancipation or civil war.
Fresh concessions were made to the Roman Cath- olic people of Ireland by the endowment of the Catholic College of Majaiooth. As we have seen, the abolition of ecclesiastical tithes in Ireland was a fur- ther concession to what was felt to be the rightful ob- jections of the Roman Catholic majority to the main- tenance of a church to which they were conscien- tiously opposed.
The nineteenth century has been very eventful in the history of the Roman Catholic Church and of its sovereign pontiffs. More than once the head of that church has been an exile and a prisoner, and has been deprived of his temporal authority; but these disasters have lessened neither his moral influence nor his spiritual power.
The stormy events of the French Revolution pro- foundly affected the civil rights and status of the reigning pontiff. The venerable Pius VI., then in his seventy-second year, occupied St. Peter's chair, hav- ing been elected Pope in 1775. In 1795 he joined the coalition against France, and raised an army of twelve thousand men. General Bonaparte the fol- lowing year invaded the papal territories and com- pelled the Pope to cede the legations of Bologna and
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 291
Ferrara, to pay an indemnity, and surrender to the French some of the finest works of art in the Vati- can. Meanwhile Republican sympathies began to show themselves in Rome, and in 1798 General Ber- thier occupied the city and declared a republic. The Pope was sent a prisoner to France, where he died at Dijon, August 29, 1799. His successor, Pius VII., was elected Pope on March 14, 1800, being then in his fifty-eighth year. Rome was evacuated by the French, and Pius VII. concluded a concordat with Napoleon whereby the Catholic wor- ship was re-established in France as the State religion. He also consented to go to Paris in 1804 to crown the Emperor Napoleon, remaining several months in that city.
In 1809 Napoleon incorporated the Papal States with France, declaring that he '* deemed it proper for the security of his empire and of his people to take back the grant of Charlemagne."
After Napoleon's disastrous German campaign of 1813 the Pope was restored to Rome, and was re- ceived with the strongest demonstrations of popular satisfaction. During the " hundred days " he was again a fugitive, but by the Congress of Vienna he was reinstated in authority over the papal patrimony. He passed away in 1823 at the venerable age of eighty-one.
Leo XII., his successor, governed the Church with a firmness that involved him in disputes with France and Austria. He did much to promote education
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and literature and to suppress brigandage and pau- perism. The general character of his short reign was one of moderation, but his death, in 1829, after only six years' occupancy of St. Peter's chair, pre- vented the carrying out of certain ecclesiastical and civil reforms which he had projected.
Pius VIII. was Pope for only twenty months. His reign was too short for the exercise of any special influence in either Church or State.
Gregory XVI. was in his sixty-sixth year when he ascended the throne, 1831. His missionary pol- icy was specially energetic. Fifteen new missionary bishoprics and forty-three new missionary colleges were founded. His government of the States of the Church was greatly disturbed by civic revolt, which was suppressed only by the permanent occupation of Bologna by Austria and of Ancona by France.
Pius IX. became Pope at an earlier age than any other pontiff of the century, namely, in his thirty- seventh year. His was also the longest pontificate, from 1846 to 1878, a period of thirty-two years. In the early years of his pontificate his administration was liberal and enlightened. More than six thou- sand political prisoners and exiles were pardoned. Reforms in civil and ecclesiastical administration were introduced. Steps were taken toward a con- stitutional form of government and the harmonizing of the claims of Italian patriotism with papal sover- eignty. The liberals joined him with enthusiasm.
For some years the patriotic revolutionist, Maz-
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 293
zini, had sought to form a league of the " Young Europe of the people, which was to supplant the Old Europe of kings." In 1846 he published in Paris a manifesto, " aiming at a national constituent assem- bly and a united Italian republic, without Pope or state religion." The Pope himself favored a con- federation of the Italian states. Then came the rev- olutions of 1848, which shook almost every country in continental Europe. The Pope promised a liberal constitution, with elective chambers vested with par- liamentary powers. But the still predominant influ- ence of the College of Cardinals and the clergy made these concessions obnoxious to the people.
A wave of revolution swept over Italy. A re- public was proclaimed in Venice. Lombardy and Piedmont were in full revolt. The Pope shrank from a war with Austria, one of the pillars of the Roman Catholic Church. A firmer hand than that of Pius IX. was needed to rule the stormy passions of the times. The Republican party rose in revolt. The Pope was soon a fugitive to Gaeta, November 24, 1848.
The following February the Roman Constituent Assembly declared the deposition of the Pope from his temporal authority and the inauguration of a new republic. Rome, after an obstinate defence under Garibaldi and his fellow-republicans, was restored to Pius IX. by a French army of occupa- tion, 1850.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, long
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held by the Jesuits and opposed by the Jansenists, was proclaimed a doctrine of the Church by an (Ecu- menical Council at Rome in 1854. This was con- firmed by the promulgation of the dogma of the Papal Infallibility of 1869-1870.
The Pope's project of confederation of the Italian states was revived in 1859 by Napoleon III. Tran- quillity was maintained till 1859, when the with- drawal of the Austrians from Bologna and their defeat at Magenta and Solferino were the signal for revolt of the whole of the Romao-na.
The integration of Italy rapidly advanced. Victor Emanuel was proclaimed king of the united penin- sula by the Parliament of Turin, February 26, 1861. The Pontifical government vainly protested against the assumption of this title. It became the fixed purpose of Cavour and the Italian patriots to annex Rome and its territory to the new kingdom, and Victor Emanuel occupied Rome with an Italian army September 20, 1870. A month later Rome was declared the capital of Italy.
By the bill of the papal guarantees, enacted 1871, the Pope is permitted to enjoy the rank of a sover- eign and occupy the palace and basilica of the Vati- can, with a yearly revenue from the Italian treasury of $625,000. All church property in Rome and its immediate territory became the property of the na- tion in 1873, and a large portion of the numerous establishments have since been sold to help pay the heavy public debt. This complete change was vig-
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 295
orously resisted by Pius IX. Refusing to accept any portion of the revenue assigned to him, he depended for his support and that of his court on gifts collected for him among Roman Catholics tlirouo'hout the world.
Meanwhile the CEcumenical Council of the Vati- can had been solemnly opened in St. Peter's, Decem- ber 8, 1869, and indefinitely postponed on October 20, 1870, in consequence of the outbreak of the Franco-German War. The attendance was the larg- est known in the history of these councils, and reached seven hundred and sixty-nine out of one thousand and thirty-seven dignitaries who were enti- tled to a seat and vote in such synods. The doc- trinal results of the Council were embodied in decrees directed against modern rationalism, panthe- ism, materialism and atheism, and a decree on Papal Infallibility. This is regarded as the crowning act of the Council, on which its historical significance rests.
Pius IX., on February 7, 1878, ended his long life of eighty-seven years, and a pontificate of thirty- two years, longer than that of any of his prede- cessors.
Leo XIII., Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci, was born among the Volscian Mountains in 1810. He is a lineal descendant of Rienzi, the last of the tribunes. In 1878 he succeeded Pius IX., being then in his sixty-eighth year.
Although the new pontiff did not succeed to the
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temporal power which had been wielded for many centuries by his predecessors, he yet exerted a moral influence inferior to none of them. His very first encyclical was characteristic of the new spirit of the times. It was an appeal for united effort in reform- ing the moral evils of the age — socialism, commun- ism, nihilism. " Leo's teaching," says Mr. Greene, a recent biographer, " was that not in civil power, not in military force, are we to look for the remedy : we must ' lighten the load of the heavy-laden,' count- ing all men as our brothers, after the precept and example of our Lord Christ."
The present pontiff has ever shown warm sympathy with the working classes, the toiling millions of mankind. His famous encyclical on their condition in 1891 lays emphasis on the fact that " the gospel is the only code in which are found the principles of true justice, the maxims of mutual charity."
In 1898 Leo XIII. observed his eighty-eighth birthday, and the sixtieth anniversary of his ordina- tion in a series of celebrations whose splendor has probably never been surpassed. The contributions of the faithful exceeded over twenty million dollars. The serious illness of the brave old man in 1899, and the courage with which he underwent a severe sur- gical operation in his eighty-ninth year, won the sympathy of great multitudes outside the pale of the Roman Catholic communion.
The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States during the century has been greater
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 297
than in any other country, and it is claimed by Roman Catholic writers compensates for its losses elsewhere. This growth is of a twofold nature first, by natural increase and by immigration, and secondly, by the inclusion of territory largely Roman Catholic within the bounds of the Union. By the cession of Louisiana to the United States in 1803 for the sum of fifteen million dollars, was included a vast region embrac- ing all the country west of the Mississippi, not occupied by Spain, as far north as British territory and west to the Pacific Ocean. The great state of Florida was ceded by Spain in 1819 and the several Mexican concessions from 1848, with the Gadsden purchase of 1853, rounded out the magnificent area of the Union to its present colossal dimensions.
298 KELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS.
The Roman Catholic Church has ever been one of the most zealous in missionary endeavor. The first reaction after the Reformation of the sixteenth cen- tury was one of intense missionary zeal. The Jesuit fathers belted the world with their missions, and by their sufferings and moral and physical heroism won renown in many lands. Their converts were num- bered by the hundreds of thousands in India and the Moluccas, in China, in Japan, in Brazil and Para- guay. They won well-merited fame for attainments in ancient learning, for modern science, for pulpit eloquence, and for subtle statecraft. Under the disguise of a Brahmin, a mandarin, an astrologer, a peasant, a scholar, they had compassed the world to make proselytes to Rome. Deciphering ancient manuscripts or inscriptions, sweeping the heavens with the telescope, or digging the earth with a mattock, editing the classics or ancient fathers, or teaching naked savages the Ave or Credo, they were alike the obedient and zealous servants of their order, to whose advancement their whole being was devoted.
He who reads the story of the self-denying lives
ROMAiS CATHOLIC MISSIONS. 299
and heroic deaths of these Jesuit fathers, although of alien race and diverse belief, however mistaken he may deem their zeal, will not withhold the throb of sympathy for their suiferings and of admiration for their lofty courage and unfaltering faith.
The most distinguished missionary in the bead- roll of the Roman Catholic Church, or indeed of any of the churches of Christendom, was the famous Francis Xavier. The memory of his heroic life and death still stirs the soul to high emprise and com- mands the admiration of mankind three hundred years after his body has returned to dust.
With a faith that never faltered, a zeal that grew not weary, a passionate love for souls that brooked no restraint, and a courage that no dangers could daunt, he eagerly trod the thorny path of the confessor and the martyr.
Xavier, at the time of his death, was in the forty- sixth 3^ear of his age. In his brief but glorious mis- sionary career of ten short years he had traversed, through strange and stormy seas and unknown con- tinents, a distance more than twice the circumference of the earth. His land journeys were mostly made on foot, alone and unprotected, save by the providence of God, and supported by His bounty. Everywhere his infectious zeal kindled kindred enthusiasm. He is recorded to have baptized 700,000 converts, and sometimes as many as 10,000 in a single month. Many, doubtless, followed the example of their rulers through a sort of political constraint without mental
300 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
assent. In many cases, however, a purer form of mo- rality supplanted the social corruptions of paganism.
Roman Catholic missions are administered by the Congregation de Propaganda Fide — the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. This society, as well as the training institute in its palace, and the whole missionary system of the Catholic Church, is called the Propaganda. The Congregation of the Propa- ganda includes all the cardinals, and has the entire missionary work of the Church under its supervision. When it undertakes a missionary enterprise, it confides the new field to the care of some religious order, and sends out missionaries under the charge of an Apos- tolical Prefect — Prsefectus Apostolicus.
In India the Roman Catholic population, including European Catholics, numbers about a million and a half; in Cochin-China and Tonking about half a million more. In China there are also reported about six hundred priests and half a million Roman Catholics. In Japan, where Xavier and his suc- cessors reported 600,000 converts, persecution and exile reduced the number almost to extinction.
The greatest native Catholic population is that in the Spanish possessions of the Philippines, of which about five and a half millions of the people are nominally Roman Catholic. There are about six million Christian Indians in Mexico, but their Chris- tianity is for the most part a nominal profession. The ease is similar in Central America, where there are twelve hundred thousand Catholic Indians.
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In Africa for three centuries there has been an active Roman Catholic propaganda, especially in the Portuguese colonies. In Central Africa the Jesuit missionaries in 1848 occupied Khartoum and Gondo- koro, but the deadly climate and hostility of the natives caused the abandonment of the mission after the sacrifice of over forty of the missionaries.
Probably the most typical Roman Catholic mis- sionary of this century was Cardinal Lavigerie, a suc- cessor in Northern Africa of Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine, and the rival in apostolic zeal of the devoted Xavier himself. Lavigerie was born in the Biscayan town of Bayonne, France, 1825. After thirteen years spent in academic and theological studies he became a professor at the university of the Sorbonne.
The Moslem massacres of the Christians in the Syrian Lebanon, in 1860, in which fifty thousand lives were sacrificed, was Lavigerie's summons to missionary work. He obtained and distributed over $400,000 for the relief of the persecuted Christians, and founded hospices, orphanages and refuges at Cairo, Constantinople, Damascus and Smyrna. In 1867 he was designated Archbishop of Algiers. " France," he wrote, " is calling to thee, O Africa ! For thirty years she has been summoning thee to come from the tomb."
He devoted himself with enthusiasm to the work of his mission. He gathered two thousand orphans, and educated and trained them in industrial pursuits. A
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number became missioners to their fellow-cliildren of the desert. He established Christian colonies and villages. He opened a mission in the Algerian Sahara. In giving a commission to one of his mis- sioners he wrote on the document : " Indorsed for martyrdom." "Read that," he said to the priest, " are you prepared for it ? " " It is for this I have come," was the reply.
In 1875, in establishing a mission at Timbuktu, three of the missioners were murdered in the desert.
" The triple martyrdom," says a Protestant narrator, " but filled the society with holy envy and generous ardor." " The achievement in Franco-Moslem terri- tory," says the same authority, Frederic Perry Noble, " is even more due to the white Sisters than the Algerian Fathers. Almost from the first Lavigerie foresaw the need of women. Under the shadow of his seminary for missions he laid the foundations of a humbler institution, a house to train feminine missioners.
" From the Kongo to Zanguebar even the hostile had to admit that a labor of extraordinary import was being fulfilled thi'oughout Algeria. Now the Sisters are a recognized power. If in any region it were impossible for Fathers and Sisters both to re- main, the men would quit. They are the pioneers or scouts, the women the first settlers who bring a vir- gin soil into productivity. Africa was mapped out in an ecclesiastical partition that led the Mission- Magazine of the Scotch Free Presbyterians to state that whatever one might think about the Papacy he could not but admire the daring of its schemes for the conquest of Africa."
The slave trade, the curse of Africa, was the bane
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of missions. Lavigerie waged a new crusade against this ancient evil. A joint expedition of six pon- tifical zouaves and twelve missioners was sent to Uganda. " After an oration on his crusade against slavery, Lavigerie, in pontifical vestments, knelt be- fore each missioner, and kissed the feet of the youthful apostles starting on their rugged road. The custom is a recognition of the words : ' How beautiful the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, that bring glad tidings of good ! ' Lavigerie spoke of his men offering themselves in ransom for their black brethren. The words were predictive. Less than a year later eight had in heroic devotion laid life aside. Had it not been for Protestant missionaries near Tabora-Unyanyembe, all would have starved."
On the site of Carthage, the scene of the combats and triumphs of the early martyrs, new missioners were consecrated and sent forth in this holy war.
" Persecution unutterable broke out in 1886, and for five years continued with bursts of brutality and long silences of death. The faith and stead- fastness exhibited by the victims of the Negro Nero bear comparison with those of pristine martyrs. The savage persecutors could account for them only as the result of charms and magic. In 1888 the mis- sioners were expelled. In this strait the French priests made common cause with the Protestants. When Mackay died, a papal missionary was hasten- ing as a Good Samaritan to nurse him. The year 1889 saw the return of Christianity, with Mwanga under its control.
" If we wish to behold how goodly and pleasant it
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is for bretliren to dwell in unity, we may look to the Tanganika shores. The Catholic missioners were in the kindest manner welcomed by Captain Hore, the retired naval officer in charge of the mission of the British Conp^T-egationalists. The Catholics and Prot- estants around Lake Tanganika live in friendship. One of the French missioners wrote : * They (the Congregationalists at Ujiji) continue as kind as ever ; the only thing I could wish is that these two excel- lent men were Catholics. ' "
" The death of Lavigerie," continues Mr. Noble, " did not cause his crusade to lapse into casual, disorganized, futile missionism. The spirit of might- iest Caesar walks abroad. The white Fathers are better organized, better directed and more influential than when ardor and hardship w^ere the outcome of his eloquence, enthusiasm and zeal. New work is projected. The order pits its strength against slavery, the trade being still frightful in extent and unutterably ruinous as the generator of the plague and as the unpeopler of large districts. Throughout Algeria and Tunis, thanks chiefly to Rome but largely, too, to Protestantism, the church and college are sup- planting the mosque and mdrasa. Sharp avows that in French North Africa one of the greatest works of contemporary Christianity is being wrought out by missionaries of every nation and denomination."
Cardinal Moran claims that the whole African group of missions numbers about six hundred thou- sand Catholics. But in these are included many Abyssinian proselytes, whose hereditary Christianity is of a very corrupt character.
PART FOUR
PROGEESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN GERMANY.
The controversies which early arose in the Re- formed Churches, we have seen, greatly retarded the development of missionary sympathy and missionary operations. The same causes in time neutralized much of the benefit resulting from the emancipation of men's minds from the doctrines of Romanism and the freer circulation of the Word of God, long im- mured within the walls of cloisters and monasteries. The finer graces of the Christian character are of such delicate growth that they wither in the stormy at- mosphere of disputation and strife. But God is not revealed in the earthquake and the thunder as He is in the still small voice. That voice was never un- heard even in the stormiest days of conflict and con- troversy. The Jansenists in the Roman Catholic Church and the so-called mystics and pietists of Prot- estantism listened to the inner voice and followed the inner light of the Spirit of God.
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These prophets of a revived faith were often men of lowly station. One of these, the " prince of mys- tics," Jacob Boehme, was a shoemaker of Gorlitz. He was born in 1575 of humblest parentage, but he was anointed of God as a seer and sage of Christian faith and hope. " If we consider him merely as a poet," says Schlegel, " and in comparison with other Christian poets who have attempted the same super- natural themes — such as Klopstock, Milton or even Dante — we shall find that in fulness of emotion and depth of imagination he almost surpasses them."
A contemporary, John Arndt, shared this inspira- tion and gave it expression in his celebrated work on True Christianity. " Next," says Bishop Hurst, *' to the Bible and a Kempis' Imitation of Christy it has been circulated more widely on the continent than any other book. It was translated into all the European languages, and missionaries rendered it into heathen tongues. What Thomas a Kempis was to the pre-Reformation age, Fenelon to France, and Jeremy Taylor to England, John Arndt has been to the Protestant countries of the continent for the last three centuries."
His son in the gospel, John Gerhard, was more serviceable. Bishop Hurst maintains, to the interests of the orthodox Church than any other theologian of his time. His love was boundless, his spirit un- ruffled, his piety deep and lasting. Nor were there wanting other devout souls who kept the lamp of piety burning amid the gathering gloom of the
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Thirty Years' War. The Protestant churches, both Reformed and Calvinist, suffered incredible persecu- tion during that long and sanguinary conflict.
Among the theologians of the seventeenth century Philip Jacob Spener was the purest and most spot- less in character. " He was," says Dorner, " the veritable successor of Luther and Melanchthon." Pietism, of which he is the most striking type, went back from the cold faith of the seventeenth century to the living faith of the Reformation. While it has points in common with the mysticism of Boehme and Gerhard, it was aggressive rather than contemplative, practical rather than theoretical. Spener was, in many respects, the most remarkable man in his century. For twenty years he was pastor at Frank- fort. Departing from the dry and barren style of the times he preached with great plainness, simplic- ity and zeal. He appointed meetings for the famil- iar explanation of the gospel. These were called " Collegia Pietatis," or *' schools of devotion," from which came the name of " Pietists." Spener was a man of intense activity, and found time in his busy life to write one hundred and twenty-three volumes, seventy of them ponderous octavos or folios.
The plain speech of the pietists aroused opposition and led to the foundation of the university of Halle, " for the avowed purpose of promoting personal piety, scriptural knowledge, and practical teaching through- out the land." In its theological faculty was the famous August Hermann Francke, who combined
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in beautiful union a deep and earnest piety with an intense and active Christian benevolence. He is chiefly known by his foundation of the Orphan House at Halle. The condition of the poor, especially of the orphan children, appealed to his fatherly sym- pathy. With an endowment of four thalers and six- teen groschen he said : "With this money I will found a school." Two thalers were spent for the purchase of twenty-seven books, and a group of children were gathered in his own house.
From this feeble germ has grown one of the earliest and most noteworthy institutions of its kind in Europe. For nearly two centuries it has furnished inspiration for many similar institutions, and especi- ally for the famous Miiller orphan home, founded by George Miiller, at Bristol, England.
This pietistic revival in time gave way to a ra- tionalistic reaction. The influence of the French and English Deists of the eighteenth century also made its influence felt in Germany. Voltaire, one of the most brilliant litterateurs of France, became the pensioner and literary valet of Frederick the Great of Prussia. That truculent sovereign aspired to be the same monarch in religion and literature that he was in politics. " That thin-visaged man," says Hurst, " in top boots and cocked hat, surrounded by his in- fidels and his dogs at Sans Souci, dictated faith to Berlin and to Europe."
The literary despotism of Berlin did much to re- inforce and spread this German rationalism. Every
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university in the Fatherland was largely under its power. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, playwright and professor, exerted a powerful literary influence on the spread of German rationalism. Immanuel Kant, the famous professor of Konigsberg, exerted a profound philosophical sway. To a bleak northern city the spell of his genius drew students from all parts of Europe. His Critique of Pure Reason still exerts its spell over many minds. "The moral effect of his philosophy," says Farrar, " was to expel the French materialism and illuminism, and to give depth to the moral perceptions; its religious effect was to strengthen the appeal to reason and the moral judgment as the test of religious truth; to render miraculous communication of moral instruction use- less, if not absurd; and to reawaken the attempt which had been laid aside since the Wolfian philos- ophy of endeavoring to find a philosophy of re- ligion." "After every deduction has been made," says Dr Calderwood, "which rigid criticism seems to require, Kant's name stands out as the most noted in the roll of modern philosophy."
Early in the nineteenth century the little town of Weimar came to exercise an extraordinary influence on philosophy and literature. Through the genius of Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Wieland, it became the Athens of Germany, the centre of its intellectual life. Herder, the eloquent preacher, was a man of great learning, trained under the hallowed influence of the early Moravian pietism. He had an impas-
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sioned love of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially of the Hebrew poetry. He interpreted the Bible with keen insight, and brought to his biblical studies a devout and sympathetic soul.
The benumbing effect of the worldly life and sceptical spirit of Weimar were, however, only too strongly marked in the later years of Herder's life. The practical paganism of Schiller and Goethe, the greatest poets of the age, exerted a powerful influence upon the state of religion in Germany and through- out Europe. " Like Kant, they stamped their own impress upon theology, which at that day was plastic and weak beyond all conception. Under the Konigs- berg thinker it became a great philosophical system as cold as Mont Blanc. Then came poetry and romance, which, though they could give a fresh glow to the face, had no power to breathe life into the pros- trate form."
The ancient hymns of the Fatherland, that out- burst of sacred song which accompanied the Refor- mation, are among the strongest bulwarks of the faith. No country is so rich in these hymns, of which there are eighty thousand in existence, many of which are found in all the hymnaries of Christendom. The rationalistic spirit invaded this sacred realm and revised and changed both music and words till they lost their ancient power. "Secular music," says Hurst, ** was introduced into the sanctuary ; an operatic overture generally welcomed the people into church, and a march or a waltz dismissed them.
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Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an element of devotion. The oratorios and cantatas of the theatre and beer-garden were the Sabbath accompani- ments of the sermon. The masses consequently began to sing less ; and the period of coldest scepti- cism in Germany, like similar conditions in other lands, was the season when the congregations, the common people, and the children sang least and most drowsily."
*' The Church," continues this able writer, '* now presented a most deplorable aspect. Philosophy had come, with its high-sounding terminology, and in- vaded the hallowed precincts of scriptural truth. Literature, with its captivating notes, had well-nigh destroyed what was left of the old pietistic fervor. The songs of the Church were no longer images of beauty, but ghastly, repulsive skeletons. The pro- fessor's chair was but little better than a heathen tripod. The pulpit became the rostrum where the shepherdless masses were entertained with vague essays on such general terms as righteousness, human dignity, light, progress, truth and right. The peas- antry received frequent and labored instructions on the raising of cattle, bees and fruit. The poets of the day were publicly recited in the temples where the Reformers had preached. Wieland, Herder, Schiller and Goethe became more familiar to the popular congregations than Moses, David, Paul or even Christ.
" We shall see that the scene of spiritual desolation
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was repulsive enough to make every servant of Christ wish, with Wordsworth, —
'"I'd rather be A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn ; So might I standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn — Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his w^reathed horn ! ' "
The period of Germany's deepest darkness and depression was cheered with foregleams of the dawn. The conquering armies of Napoleon had trampled under foot her ancient liberties, but the fall of the despot of Europe awakened new life. The cold negations of rationalism failed to meet the needs of the human soul. Only the vital truths of evangelical religion could appease its immortal hunger and thirst. The Moses of this new exodus from the bondage of a spiritual Egypt was Friedrich Schleier- macher. Trained under Moravian influence, he strove against a natural scepticism, which he de- scribes as the thorn in his flesh, and reached the rest of faith. A devout life led the way to evangelical preaching. He was one of the founders and first professors of the new University of Berlin, 1810, and gathered around him the most intellectual classes in the community. *' As a theologian," says Dr. SchafP, " he ranks among the greatest of all ages."
The three-hundredth anniversary of the Refor- mation, October 31, 1817, was commemorated by the formal union in Prussia of the Calvinistic and Lutheran branches of the Reformed Church. The
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distinctive names were stricken from official docu- ments, and the united bod}^ was thenceforth known as the Evangelical Church.
One of the most distinguished disciples of Schlei- ermacher was John Augustus Neander. He is one of the purest characters, one of the most learned scholars, and greatest historian of the Christian Church. His father was a Jewish peddler. Under the teaching of Schleiermacher he became a Christian in his seventeenth year. As professor at Heidelberg and Berlin he soon attracted a more numerous audi- ence than his father in the gospel. His great work was his history of the Christian religion and Church. He maintains its supernatural origin, its divine strength, its spiritual power.
In the year 1835 appeared a book which produced an intense rationalistic reaction, the famous Life of Jesus, by David Friedrich Strauss. It was a cold, pas- sionless and pungent piece of sceptical mechanism, published when its author was but twenty-eight years old. " It was," says Hurst, " to the moral sentiment of Christendom, the earthquake shock of the nine- teenth century. Having been multiplied in cheap editions, it was read by students in every university and gymnasium, by passengers on the Rhine boats and in the mountain stages. Even school children, imitating the example of their seniors, spent their leisure hours in its perusal. The most obscure pro- vincial papers contained copious extracts from it, and vied with each other in defending or opposing its
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positions. Crossing the German frontier, it was published in complete and abridged forms in all the principal languages of Europe. Even staid Scotland, unable to escape the contagion, issued a popular edition of the exciting work.
" According to Strauss," continues Bishop Hurst, "the explanation of the mysterious accounts of Jesus of Nazareth can be found in the theory of the myth. He held that the Holy Land was full of notions concerning Christ's speedy appearance. The people were waiting for Him, and were ready to hail His incarnation with rapture. Their opinions con- cerning Him were already formed, owing to the ex- pectations they had inherited from their fathers. There was much in both the character and life of Christ which approached their crude notions of the promised one. The world was already prepared, and since Christ best fitted it, He was entitled to all the honor of being waited for and accepted. Thus Christ did not organize the Church as much as the Church created Him."
Strauss' attack on the very heart of Christianity led to profounder studies of the foundations of the faith, and called forth a whole library of replies. Hengstenberg, Tholuck, Neander, Ullmann, Dorner and many other writers, defended with great learn- ing, cogency and power the fortress of the Christian faith. Twenty-nine years after his first attack upon the bulwarks of Christianity, Strauss wrote a second Life of Jesus to reassert and defend his mythical
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theory. This book, however, met with a cold recep- tion. The tide had turned, and was flowing strongly in the direction of the evangelical doctrines of Christianity.
Another attack on the authenticity of the New Testament Scripture was that of Ferdinand Christian Baur and the Tiibingen School. This school assailed particularly the Epistles of St. Paul, and sought to maintain that " Judaism was the cradle of Christ- ianity, and the latter was only an earnest, restless and reformatory branch of the former." The struggle for supremacy between the Pauline and Petrine party is imagined to be followed by a truce and final union under one banner. This theory was as effectually answered as that of Strauss by such great writers as Dorner, Lange, Schaff and Bunsen. " Their united labors," says Hurst, "constitute a compendium of arguments which will not cease for centuries to be of inestimable value in the controversies of the Church concerning Christ and the divine origin of Christianity." "No sceptic," continues Bishop Hurst, " should forget that the real philosophy of history is the march of Providence through the ages. But the infidel is the worst reader of history. The light shines, but he turns away from it. Or, as Coleridge expresses it:
* The owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscure wings across the noon, Drops his blue-fringed lips and shuts them close ; And, hooting at the glorious sun in heaven, Cries out, " Where is it ? "■' V
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On the ruins of this sceptical school has risen in Germany the goodly structure of evangelical ortho- doxy. Among the master-builders of this temple of truth are the great names of UUmann, Dorner, Tho- luck, Lange, Rothe, Nitzsch, Hengstenberg and many other valiant defenders of the faith. The saintly lives, the moral earnestness, the wide learning of these great writers have created a noble exegetic and apologetic literature of both the Old Testament and the New of the greatest value to the Christian Church.
One of the most important and significant results of the evangelical revival in Germany is the many noble philanthropies of the Outer and Inner Mission which adorn and glorify the history of that country. Conspicuous as organizers of these forms of practical Christianity are the ever memorable names of John Falk, Immanuel Wichern, John Gosner, Louis Harms, Theodore Fliedner, and many others. The wars of Napoleon were sweeping the continent as with a besom of destruction. Upon the Grand Duchy of Weimar, with its population of only one hundred thousand, were quartered for five months nine hun- dred thousand of the enemy's soldiers and five hun- dred thousand horses. " The air was rent with the cries of orphans and poverty-stricken widows."
Goethe and the literati at the summit of Parnassus were indifferent to these cries of distress. But the sympathetic soul of Falk was deeply touched. He remembered the words of the burgomasters of Dant- zic, which had sent him to the university at the ex-
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pense of the town : " One thing only, if a poor child should ever knock at your door, think it is we, the dead, the old, gray-headed burgomasters and coun- cillors of Dantzic, and do not turn us away."
At last the poor child was at his door. Falk's father heart, which had been sore bereft, said to the orphans, " Come in, God has taken my four angels, and spared me that I might be your father." His rule was one of love. These outcast and often wicked lads he treated as his own children. He would have no locks on the doors nor harsh rules in his home. " We forge all our chains on the heart," he said, " and scorn those that are laid on the body ; for it is written ' If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.' " He taught more by example and par- able than by precept. " When one of the boys, on a certain evening, had invoked this divine blessing on their supper, ' Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and bless what thou hast provided,' another boy looked up and asked,
" ' Do tell me why the Lord Jesus never comes ? We ask Him ever day to sit with us, and He never comes.'
" ' Dear child,' replied Father Falk, ' only believe and you may be sure He will come, for He does not despise our invitation.'
" ' I shall set him a seat,' said the boy ; and, just then, a knock being heard at the door, a poor appren- tice came for admission. He was received, and in- vited to take the vacant chair at the table.
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" ' Then,' said the inquiring boy again, ' Jesus could not come, and so He sent this poor man in His place ; is that it ? '
'* ' Yes, dear child, that is just it. Every piece of bread and every drink of water that we give to the poor, or the sick, or the prisoners, for Jesus' sake, we give to Him. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.' "
Falk sent forth many hundreds of boys from his reformatory, saved from a life of poverty and vice to become useful members of society. He almost abol- ished beggary throughout the Grand Duchy. He wrote hundreds of hymns, which are still sung throughout the Fatherland. After a life of singular devotion and a death of Christian triumph he was borne to the grave by the children to whom he had been such a loving, faithful father. The following epitaph, written by his own hand, describes better than a volume the Christly spirit of the man :
Underneath this linden tree Lies John Falk ; a sinner he, Saved by Christ's blood and mercy.
Born upon the East Sea strand, Yet he left home, friends, and land, Led to Weimar by God's hand.
When the little children round Stand beside this grassy mound, Asking, Who lies underground ?
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Heavenly Father, let them say, Thou hast taken him away ; In the grave is only clay.
A man of similar spirit was Immanuel Wichern, founder of the Rough House, near Hamburg. The revolutions in almost all the countries of Europe of 1848 caused great social disaster and distress. The people were already exhausted by famine and fever. " Whole villages were depopulated, not enough in- habitants being left alive to bury the dead." Wich- ern had years before this opened his Rough House, an old thatched cottage for abandoned boys.
From this small beginning, as from that of Falk and Fliedner, grew grand results. The Rough House became a great institution, with many buildings and hundreds of inmates. This was the beginning of the famous Inner Mission of Germany, whose pur- pose is thus described in the words of Wichern : " The propagation of pure evangelical faith and the relief of physical suffering. It aims at a relief of all kinds of spiritual and temporal misery by works of faith and charity ; at a revival of nominal Christen- dom and a general reform of society on the basis of the gospel and the creed of the Reformation. It is Christian philanthropy and charity applied to the various deep-rooted evils of society, as they were brought to light so fearfully in Germany by the rev- olutionary outbreaks of 1848. It comprises the care of the poor, the sick, the captive and prisoner, the laboring classes, the travelling journeyman, the emi-
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grants, the temperance movement, the efforts for the promotion of a better observance of the Lord's Day, and similar reforms so greatly needed in the churches of Europe."
As early as 1856 there were two hundred and sixty of the Rough House reformatories established, and new ones were coming into existence rapidly through- out Europe. They have had a most successful rec- ord in transforming the human waifs, the flotsam and jetsam of society, into useful members of the com- monweal. Some have become clergymen, students of law or theology, teachers, officers in the army, merchants, gardeners, artisans and artists, colonists in America and Australia.
The political revolution of 1848 seriously menaced the religious as well as social condition of the German people. The forces of socialism and revolt menaced the very pillars of the commonweal. The evangelical pastors of Germany felt the need of organizing to promote "denominational unity, to be a mutual defence against rationalism and indifference, to advance social reforms, protect the rights of the Church against the encroachments of civil authority, and secure a more intimate fellowship with evan- gelical bodies outside of Germany."
The first assembly of the Evangelical Church diet was held at Wittenberg in the very edifice on whose door Luther, three hundred years before, had nailed his immortal ninety-five theses, the charter of the German Reformation. Five hundred of the leading
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evangelical pastors and laymen sang together Luther's battle hymn: Eine feste Burg ist unser G-ott.
Already revolutionary riots and bloodshed had taken place in Frankfort and other German cities. " Barricades had been reared in the streets of the larger towns. The universities were pouring forth their hundreds of students and professors to take part in the conflict. The revolutionary crowds were choosing their leaders ; the royalist forces were every- where fortifying ; princes were concealing their plate and strengthening their hiding-places. This was the social and political scene while the five hundred pastors were praying, singing, counselling, and comforting each other over the sleeping dust of Luther and Melanchthon. That assembly contributed more than all other human agencies to save the German states from utter political and social ruin, and the German Church from a longer night and a fiercer storm than any through which it had passed."
" The church diet," continues Bishop Hurst, " has steadily enlarged its sphere of operation and gathered strength and influence. Besides attracting great throngs of spectators from the surrounding states, its members have attained to the number of two thousand on more than one occasion." It has been eminently practical in its methods and has devoted much time and thought and effort to the develop- ment of the Inner Mission, which is one of the glories of German Protestantism.
322 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
As we have already seen, the Outer or Foreign Mission work of the German churches received a great impulse under this evangelical revival.
A typical example of the great result from small beginnings is the work of John Gosner. In his fifty-sixth year he was a devout Roman Catholic priest, but his evangelical earnestness outgrew the swaddling bands of the Church in which he was trained. He was in intense sympathy with missions. Some young men, inspired by missionary zeal, who had been rejected by the seminary as unfit for ser- vice, came to him for counsel. Gosner began to instruct them, and soon their numbers grew till he was the centre of an aggressive missionary institute.
" Though he was then," says Bishop Hurst, ** at that time of life when most men think of bringing their labors to a close, he laid his plans as if he were exempt from death for centuries. He founded his first mission when sixty-five years of age. In 1838 he sent out eleven missionaries to Australia. The following year some were despatched to India ; since which time this zealous servant of God has established missions among the Germans in the American West- ern States ; on the islands of the southern seas ; in central India ; on Chatham Island near New Zealand ; among the wild Khols in Chota Nagpore; on the Gold Coast ; and in Java, Macassar and New Guinea. He employed no agencies ; was his own corresponding secretary; superintended the instruction of all his missionaries ; and died at the age of eighty-five, as full of youthful feeling and perseverance as when a student at Augsburg.
" The instructions he gave to his missionaries
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declare the sources of his own success. * Believe,* said he, 'hope, love, pray, burn, waken the dead; hold fast by prayer. Wrestle like Jacob ; up, up, my brethren ; the Lord is coming, and to every one He will say, " Where hast thou left the souls of these heathen? With the Devil?" Oh, swiftly seek these souls, and enter not without them into the presence of the Lord.' Gosner's beautiful motto, found in his diary, was, ' Pereat Adam ; vivat Jesus!'"
The evangelical revival in Germany was marked also by the organization in Berlin, Hamburg, Frank- fort and many other cities, of societies for the distri- bution of Bibles, tracts and other religious literature.
The Gustavus Adolphus Union, named from the Swedish champion of Protestant faith, is another of those evangelical societies which are the glory of Germany. Its special function is aiding the dispersed Protestants who are living in poverty and often per- secution throughout Roman Catholic countries. It has helped in a single year nearly six hundred churches in Austria, Hungary, Poland and other European countries. The present outlook of evangelical relig- ion in Germany and other continental countries is full of encouragement and hope.
32i BELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN FRANCE.
In no country has the Christian Church, both Cath- olic and Protestant, exhibited greater heroism, or been marked by more of the fervent faith of the primitive ages than in France. The unhappy persecutions of the Protestant Church were more political than re- ligious, and the old Gallican Catholic Church, for the most part loyal to the liberties of France, was itself strongly antagonized by the Jesuits and Ultramon- tanes, and bitterly oppressed by the infidelity and atheism of France's many revolutions.
The story of "the Church in the Desert," God's persecuted flock in the wilderness of the Cevennes, is one which still stirs our pulses like a trump of battle. The heroism of the great Admiral Coligny and the faithful Huguenots gild with immortal light the dark page of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The expulsion of the best blood and brain and brawn of France on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes enriched the Protestant countries of Europe, — England, Prussia, Holland, Switzerland and even the British colonies beyond the sea. Many of the in-
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dustrial, political, literary and social leaders of these nations were of Huguenot ancestry, and were inspired with the brave and godly Huguenot spirit.
That exile from their native land of the Huguenot pastors and people, while it enriched the lands to which they went, impoverished the lands from which they fled. At the time of the revocation in 1685 the Reformed Church had eight hundred edifices and six hundred and forty pastors. When, in the year 1808, the civil and religious rights of Protes- tantism were recognized, that number had decreased to one hundred and ninet}^ churches and as many pastors. Many of these had shared the philosophical deism made popular by the French encyclopaedists. The horrors of the French Revolution and of the Reign of Terror overthrew altar as well as throne in the dust. The bells of the churches were melted into cannon, the lead of their roofs moulded into bullets, the vessels on their altars minted into coin. Their holy teachings were corrupted and debased, with, thank God ! not a few notable examples of fidelity unto death of both Catholic priest and Prot- estant pastor.
It is a notewortliy fact that one of the earliest and most potent influences in reviving evangelical faith in France was a Methodist mission begun by the Wesleyans in the Channel Islands in 1785, after- wards extended to the mainland. After the fall of Napoleon this mission rapidly grew, the Rev. Charles Cook, ** stirring up the sluggish conscience of French
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Protestantism ** as he travelled for forty years from town to town. Of him Merle d'Aubign^ has said, " The work which John Wesley did in Great Britain Charles Cook has done, though on a smaller scale, on the continent."
In the national Protestant Church arose men filled with evangelical zeal. Prominent among these is Adolphe Monod, who by his Sunday schools and other evangelical agencies sowed wide the seed of eternal life in the hearts of the people. " Never will the traces of his labors be effaced," says M. de Pressens^, " for he it is to whom we owe the first furrows in the vast field which now we rejoice to see white unto the harvest."
Among the greatest foes to orthodoxy in France Bishop Hurst considers the critical school of theol- ogy represented by such men as Scherer, Pecaut, Coquerel and Renan. The wide learning, the opulent style, the vivid imagination of Renan made him the most popular and dangerous exponent of sceptical thought. His Life of Jesus rivalled in popularity that of Friedrich Strauss. It was trans- lated into all the European tongues, and had wide cir- culation in all lands. In Renan's view the Prophet of Nazareth was a poetic visionary saturated with the ancient Scriptures, who " lived in a dream life, and his idealism elevated him above all other agita- tors." " The love of His disciples created him into a divinity, clothed Him with wonderful powers, hence Christianity arose. It was love like that of Mary
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN FRANCE. 327
Magdalene, 'a hallucinated woman, whose passion gave to the world a resurrected God.' "
As in the case of Strauss, Kenan's attack upon Christianity called forth a multitude of able replies. Thus the very assaults on the bulwarks of the faith have caused their triumphant defence. The late M. de Pressens^, the ablest of Kenan's critics, has said of his attack : " I am persuaded that the results ac- complished by it will be, in the main, good ; that it will not shake the faith of any true believer ; that it will produce, with many of those who were wavering, a good reaction, which will bring them back to a positive faith; and that the common sense of the people will not fail to see that it is not thus that history is written, and that the problem of the origin of Christianity still remains unexplained in its gran- deur."
Pressens^ stood in the very forefront of the leaders of revived Protestant orthodoxy in France, a man of wide learning, of intensely evangelical spirit and using the French language, which has much of the salt of Attic speech, with rare perspicuity and pic- turesque eloquence. His many books, whether in the original or in translations, form a noble body of Christian apologetics. We know no work which treats its august subject with such vividness and impas- sioned eloquence as his volumes on the history of Christianity.
Another distinguished defender of the faith was, not a philosophical divine, but the distinguished
328 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
scholar and statesman, M. Guizot. His History of Civilization^ and especially his Meditations upon the Christian Religion, were a potent anti-toxin to the virus of French infidelity.
Among the Protestant divines the names of Monod, Vinet, Pressens^ and many others maintain the tra- ditions of the noblest days of the French Protestant Church. In the metropolis of fashion and pleasure, and in many provincial cities and towns, are many hundreds of well equipped Protestant churches with faithful pastors, effective week-day and Sunday schools, and over a million members. There are also active and aggressive philanthropies and char- ities, propaganda of the truth, as the French and Foreign Bible Society, the Protestant Bible and Tract Society, the Paris Missionary Society and others of similar character.
As is ever the case, a revived orthodoxy kindles the sacred flames of charity. Many noble philan- thropies are sustained by Protestant zeal, as orphan homes, schools, asylums for the sick, the infirm, the destitute and the fallen. A vigorous press sends forth on the wings of all the winds the vital truths of the Christian faith.
Two of the most successful agents in disseminat- ing the seed of divine truth in the white fields of France are the McAU Mission and the Salvation Army. " The romantic history of the work of Robert Whitaker McAll in behalf of the people of France and especially of the workingmen of Paris,"
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says the Rev. Theo. J. Parr, B.A., " is replete with interest and instruction for those who care to trace human effort and divine providence in the better- ment of the condition of men."
Mr. McAll was a man of Scottish descent, though of English birth. He was educated to the profes- sion of an architect, and developed great talent and rare artistic skill in church building. In his early manhood he was called of God to the building, not of the material fabric of the Church, but to the edi- fying of God's spiritual temple and the building into its goodly structure of the " living stones " of which that indestructible edifice consists. He became the successful pastor of a Congregational church in Lan- cashire.
At the close of the Franco-Prussian War Mr. Mc- All made a vacation visit to Paris. Before leaving for home he went into a caf^ in the Belleville dis- trict, and, as his manner was, began to distribute religious tracts to all who would accept them. A working-man in his blue blouse grasped his hand, and said : —
"Sir, are you not a Christian minister? You are, at this moment, in the midst of a district inhabited by thousands and tens of thousands of us working- men. To a man, we have done with an imposed religion, a religion of superstition and oppression. But if any one would come to teach us religion of another kind — a religion of freedom and earnestness — many of us are ready to listen."
These words followed the pastor on his homeward
330 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
journey. They were a call of God to his soul. In three months he had given up his church, and be- came an evangelist to the people of Paris. " This was a romance of middle life," says Mr. Parr, " for he was just completing his fiftieth year, and stepped into the new field with the quiet wisdom of age, while, at the same time, full of the sweet and buoy- ant enthusiasm of youth. The supposed ' dead line of fifty ' to this man of hope and courage and love and spiritual ideals, was the threshold of his real life, and the portal to unfading renown. With his zealous and devoted partner, Mrs. McAll, who was gladly willing to co-operate with him, he took up his abode in Belleville, a suburb or faubourg of the city of Paris, containing a population of about a hundred thousand people. This quarter of the metropolis is inhabited by the poorest classes, and is famous for its poverty, wretchedness and crime."
Belleville was the very hot-bed of sedition, turbu- lence and riot. It was the last stronghold of the Commune, where its fiercest fighting and its most glaring crimes were committed. Yet in 1871 to this region came this man of God in the declining years of life, with a very meagre knowledge of the French language, to preach to these turbulent spirits the gospel of God's grace. He hired a hall, invited a number of these social outcasts, and began to sing in his deep rich voice, to which his English accent lent a piquant charm, the gospel hymns which soon
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN FRANCE. 331
found their way to the hearts of the working-men and women of the faubourg.
The gay and pleasure-loving city of Paris would seem to be the last place in the world which offered inducements to establish an evangelical mission. The least promising part of Paris was the heights of Belleville. But the needs of the human soul are the same in every land, and are, perhaps, more keenly felt amid the squalor and wretchedness and sin of the Parisian faubourg than anywhere else. The stirring gospel hymns became the Marseillaise of a new revolution — of a revolt from the tyranny of sin.
The services, like the people, were exceedingly unconventional. Didactic discourse or worship like that of a church would be unsuitable to the sur- roundings. They were properly called *' confer- ences," and consisted of Bible readings, brief ex- hortations, plenty of singing, with freedom of response, and, as occasion offered, exchange of thought. The impulsive French nature warmly responded to the Christian love and sympathy thus manifested. Year after year the work grandly grew. For twenty-one years Dr. McAll continued to administer the grand evangelism which he had begun. In the last year of his life — he died in 1893 — there were held over thirteen thousand meetings, with an aggregate attendance of over eight hundred and eighty thousand persons.
This evanorelistic work soon spread to Lyons,
Marseilles, Havre, Caen, even to Corsica, Algiers
w
332 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and Tunis. A map of its missions is necessarily a map of all France. Before his death one hundred and twenty-five halls had been opened, where night after night the gospel was proclaimed to many thousands of persons. An interesting means of working has been the mission boat, " Le bon Mes- sager," which, fitted up as a comfortable church, has traversed most of the navigable rivers and canals of France.
God has in His providence raised up noble helpers to carry on this good work. Miss Elizabeth R. Beach, an American lady studying in France, the daughter of a New England clergjaiian, declined a professorship in Smith College to share the work of the McAll mission. On her return voyage to Paris she was lost through the wreck of the vessel in which she sailed. But her inspiration led to the inauguration of McAll mission auxiliaries in many parts of her native land and of Canada, and many devoted agents are carrying on this great and noble work.
In a somewhat similar manner the Salvation Army began in the great metropolis of fashion and pleasure its work, which has been prosecuted with great success by the Mar^chele Booth-Clibbern.
THOUGHT IN HOLLAND AND SWITZERLAND. 333
CHAPTER XL.
PROGEESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN HOLLAND AND SWITZERLAND.
No more heroic tale is recorded in history than that of the Dutch Republic. The sturdy little nation owes its existence and independence to the Prot- estant Reformation. It had to fight for its very life against the colossal power of Philip II., with his merciless minions, the cold-blooded Alva and Vargas. It experienced the full brunt of the Spanish fury. It gave up its fairest fields to the dominion of the sea, rather than see them in the possession of the Spaniard. Its women and children starved with a heroism more brave than that which animated the soldier in the imminent deadly breach. In the old prison-museum in Antwerp may still be seen the dungeons and in- struments of torture of the Inquisition. The martyr memories of Egmont and Horn, of the venerable John Barneveldt, of the immortal William the Silent are an inspiration to the end of time.
In Holland as elsewhere the conflicts and con- troversies of the Reformation prepared the way for the barren polemics which are fatal to evangelical religion. The controversy between the Arminians
334 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
and Calvinists reached its crisis in the Synod of Dort, 1619, when the disciples of Arminius, the great theologian, were excluded from the national church. The French Huguenots, driven from their native land for their fidelity to the Protestant faith, received a warm welcome in Holland. They repaid this hospi- tality by the new revived religious life which they awoke among the Dutch people. The university of Leyden, established to commemorate the deliverance of its people from a terrible siege, created a new zeal in the study of the languages and literature of the Bible. But this led also to a worship of the letter that killeth rather than acceptance of the Spirit that giveth life.
On the accession of William and Mary to the British throne, the relations between Holland and England became very intimate. Travel and literary intercourse gave the opportunity for the spread of English Deism. It furnished also opportunities for the influence of orthodox polemics. The fashions and philosophy of France, too, became popular with these liberty-loving and intellectually receptive people. The domination of the Napoleon dynasty completed for a time the subjugation of this people.
" Wherever the French bayonet had won territory to the sceptre of Napoleon, it opened a new and unobstructed sway for the propagation of the scepti- cism taught by the followers of Voltaire. But the same blow that repulsed the armies of France pro- duced an equally disastrous effect upon her infidelity."
THOUGHT IN HOLLAND AND SWITZERLAND. 335
With the fall of the arch despot of Europe, therefore, a better day dawned for the religion as well as liberty of Holland.
God uses diverse means for the revival of His Church. Among the chief instruments in Holland were two distinguished Dutch poets, an eminent statesman and a couple of Jewish scholars. Dr. Bilderdyke was one of the greatest poets whom Holland has produced. He sang stirring songs of patriotism which rekindled a love of liberty in the Dutch heart, and led it back to the purer faith of Reformation days. Two of the most strenuous opponents of rationalism were the learned Jews, Da Costa and Capadose.
Groen van Prinsterer was a distinguished states- man, the Guizot of Holland. Like Guizot, he was a sturdy Protestant and an evangelical believer. He led the reunion of Christian forces in his native country. He was ably supported by Professor van Oosterzee of Utrecht University, which was long the centre of evangelical theology in Holland. He published an able reply to Kenan's popular Life of Jesus, little, if at all, inferior in charm of manner to the work of the French writer, and instinct with evangelical spirit.
In Holland, as in Germany, the revival of evan- gelical faith has been accompanied by a revived zeal in Christian work. Though there have been some distinguished Dutch missionaries, yet while the rest of Europe was stirring with missionary enterprise,
336 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Holland seemed apathetic. At length, in 1851, a great missionary revival began. In twelve years as many missionary societies were established, and great zeal and liberality were shown in their support. One of the most notable religious gatherings of modern times was that of the Evangelical National Mis- sionary Society in 1864, at which ten or twelve thousand persons assembled in a great pine grove for a great missionary assembly. Home missions are also educating many thousands of children, and Sunday-school instruction has been vigorously pros- ecuted throughout the little kingdom.
The position of Switzerland is unique in the con- tinent of Europe. Almost the smallest of its nations, it is one of the most influential. Amid its snow- capped mountains rise great rivers like the Rhine and Rhone, which water wide plains and nourish great cities and busy towns. So streams of hallowed in- fluence have had their source in this land of Alpine grandeur and lovely lakes, which have watered and enriched almost every realm of human experience.
Switzerland has ever been the home of civil and religious liberty. When the Protestant faith was persecuted in other lands — in England, Scotland, France, and Holland, in Bohemia, in Bavaria, in Italy — its towns and cities, its mountains and valleys offered hospitable refuge to many thousands of exiles for conscience' sake. The Protestant Reformation was indigenous in its soil. Zwingle was its author independent of the work of Luther and Melanchthon.
THOUGHT IN HOLLAND AND SWITZERLAND. 337
Geneva, the capital of the Republic, and the mother city of French Protestantism, offered a refuge to Knox and Calvin, Farel and Beza, as well as to the apostles of scepticism, Voltaire and Rousseau.
As Switzerland shared the moral uplift of the great evangelical teachers and divines to whom it offered sanctuary, so it shared also the moral depression of the French Encyclopaedists and sceptics, who so- journed within its borders. Rationalism, Arianism, Socinianism became intrenched in even the Swiss churches and pulpits. "All the religion," says d'Alembert, " that many of the ministers of Geneva have is a complete Socinianism, rejecting everything called mystery, and supposing that the first principle of a true religion is to propose nothing to be received as a matter of faith which strikes against reason."
But again, God by most mysterious providences raised up as in times past prophets and apostles of His holy faith. We liave already recited the strange manner in which Robert Haldane, a Scottish sea cap- tain, became evangelical leader in the universities of Switzerland. The revival thus begun was grandly carried on by such men as Merle d'Aubign^^ Adolphe Monod, Malan, Vinet, and many another, the ferti- lizing stream of whose influence, like that of the Rhine and Rhone, have watered wide lands and blessed vast multitudes of souls.
338 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XLI.
PKOGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
In few respects has the progress of the century been more marked than in the light which has been thrown upon the Scriptures by the explorations and discoveries of modern archEeology. It has been well said that the mattock and the spade have become the best commentators on the Word of God. Many problems, very difficult of interpretation by any other method, have been solved by their means.
The science of Biblical archaeology is almost en- tirely the growth of the present century. In the year 1802 the famous Rosetta Stone was found at Fort St. Julian, near one of the mouths of the Nile. It was brought to England and presented by George III. to the British Museum. It is a rude block of black basalt, on which was a trilingual inscription in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, B. c. 204-181. It was written in Greek in the ancient hieroglyphics of Egypt, hitherto a sealed language, and in the de- motic or popular language of the country. By dili- gent study Dr. T. Young, an Englishman, and M. F.
PROGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. 339
Champollion, a Frenchman, succeeded, independently of each other, — the former in 1819, the latter in 1822, — in deciphering the meaning of the hieroglyphs. Thus a key was found for opening the sealed book of Egypt's mighty past by reading the records of her countless monuments.
A quarter of a century later another important discoTcry was made which unlocked the secrets of the cuneiform or wedge-shaped characters in which were countless inscriptions of the ancient As- syrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires. "Within a few months three distinguished scholars, indepen- dently, discovered the clue to this interpretation. H. E. Rawlinson, of England, in October, 1846 ; the Rev. E. Hincks, of Killyleagh, in Ireland, in October of the same year ; and Julius Oppert, in a work published in Berlin in 1847.
Another event of much importance was the explo- rations on the banks of the Tigris, begun by M. Botta, a French consul, in 1843-1844, and continued for three years by Austen H. Layard at the great mound of Nimrod on the site of Nineveh. Amid great ob- stacles, through the petty persecutions of the Pasha of Mosul, the intractability of the Arab workmen, and the mechanical difficulty of raising the colossal human-headed lions and bulls that adorned the an- cient capital from the earth in which they were im- bedded, Layard at length transferred to the British Museum in London many striking relics of ancient civilization, and the new science of Assyriology was
340 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
born. In 1850 he carried on similar explorations at Babylon, and from that time to the present explorations throughout the whole orient have been diligently carried on. Professor Lepsius, a distinguished Ger- man archaeologist, discovered at Zoan a tablet older than the Rosetta Stone, bearing bilingual inscriptions in Greek hieroglyphics, which afforded fresh infor- mation as to another extinct language.
In 1868 the Moabite Stone, the most ancient mon- ument bearing a Semitic inscription that had yet been discovered, one in praise of King Mesha of Moab, about 920 B. c, was found by the Rev. Mr. Klein, of the Jerusalem Mission Society. The jealousy of the Arabs was excited by the efforts to purchase it. They therefore lighted a fire upon it, and when it was hot threw on water, breaking it into many fragments. These were collected by the French Government at the cost of 32,000 francs, and are now in the Louvre at Paris. They throw considerable light upon the wars between Mesha, king of Moab, and Omri, king of Israel.
The study of oriental archaeology has been pursued with enthusiasm by some of the ablest scholars of Europe. Among these may be mentioned Professor Ebers, Dr. Schweinfurth, Baron Buusen, Emil Brugsch, Dr. Birch, Professor Sayce, Dr. Bliss, Colonel Conder, R. E., Sir Charles Warren, R. E., Major Wilson, R. E., Captain Anderson, R. E., Professor Palmer, Professor Hilprecht, Mariette Bey, Professor Maspero, Flinders Petrie, and many
PROGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. 341
others. To the more important of their discoveries we shall briefly refer.
" Late in the fall of 1887," writes the Rev. G. F. Saltou, Ph. B., '' a peasant woman of the Fellaheen or agricultural class of Egypt, whilst searching in the neighborhood of the modern village of Tel-el-Amarna for nitre with which to enrich the soil of her garden, came upon a number of small clay tablets. Further digging brought to light more, until, including frag- ments, three hundred and twenty were discovered.
*' In this way one hundred and fifty of these tablets found their way to the Berlin Museum, eighty-two to the British Museum in London, and fifty-six to the Gizeh Museum in Cairo, and perhaps twenty more are in the hands of private individuals.
'* These tablets have at last been translated, the translations forming a volume half as large as the Pentateuch. They prove to be letters and despatches from the kings and governors of Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Mesopotamia, eastern Cappadocia, Phoenicia and Palestine. From Palestine there are one hun- dred and seventy-six letters, chiefly from the coast of the Mediterranean. These are, of course, to us the most interesting. These tablets treat of various sub- jects, e. g. of marriages, dowries, presents, social relations, diplomacy and war. The events recorded include the conquest of Damascus by the Hittites; of Phoenicia by the Amorites, and of Judea by the Abiri, whom Colonel Conder, Captain Haynes, Pro- fessor Zimmern and others identify as the Hebrews. The names of Japhia, King of Lachish, mentioned in Joshua X., and Jabin, King of Hazor, mentioned in Joshua XL, and possibly Adonizedek, King of Jeru- salem, occur among those of the writers.
" The gods mentioned are those found in the Bible, including Baal, Baalah, Rimmon, Shamash, Nebo and Dagon, and an expression which corresponds to
342 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the Hebrew word Elohim occurs frequently. A great number of towns and cities, several of which are im- portant biblical places, e. g. Gath, Makkedah, Baal Gad, Enam, Lachish, are mentioned in such a way that their sites are practically settled, and the topog- raphy of the Holy Land is made much more definite than before.
" The earliest despatch is one addressed to Thothmes IV., whose date is 1423 B. C. The whole of the correspondence, covering some fifty years, may be placed between the 3^ears 1415 and 1365, and evidently clusters around the year 1400 B. c.
" These letters give us practically all we know of the closing centuries of the eighteenth dynasty. The Egyptian inscriptions had already informed us of the conquests of the Pharaohs from the reign of Aahmes to that of Thothmes IH.; but for the reigns of Ame- nophis III. and his son we had very little informa- tion. Of the events that took place during this period among the Syrian and Canaanite tributaries we know nothing.
" The Tel-el-Amarna tablets, therefore, create a new chapter, interesting alike to the students of Egyptian history and of Hebrew literature. They also give us important light on the material of the original documents of the Pentateuch. It has been claimed by some, even within the present decade, that Moses lived before the age of writing — that it would, therefore, have been impossible for him to have written any part of the first five books of the Old Testament. But here are three hundred and twenty letters, some of which were written on the plain at the same time as the Ten Commandments were being written on the Mount, possibly on the same kind of ' stone,' in the same language, and with the same cuneiform characters."
"Two or three years ago," says Sayce in his lEgher Criticism and the Monument^ " it would
PROGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. 343
have seemed a dream of the wildest enthusiasm to suggest that light would be thrown by modern dis- covery on the history of Melchizedek. Whatever lingering scruples the critic might have felt about rejecting the historical character of the first half of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, he felt none at all as to the second half of it. Melchizedek, ' King of Salem ' and priest of the most high God, appeared to be altogether a creature of mythology. And yet among the surprises which the tablets of Tel-el- Amarna had in store for us was the discovery that after all Melchizedek might well have been an his- torical personage."
Mr. Salton considers that to the Bible student these tablets are the most important historical records ever found, they touch the Bible at more points than any other of the remarkable finds of the nineteenth century, and their influence on all ques- tions referring to early Hebrew literature is almost exhaustless.*
One of the most striking confirmations of Holy Scripture has been found in the discovery by accident and identification of a number of the Pharaohs of Egypt, among others the great conqueror, Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression of the Israelites. The story is one of those true tales more wonderful than fiction. In March, 1892, the present writer visited the so-called Tombs of the Kings, in the heart of the
* The explorations of Schliemann at Hissarlik on the Bite of Troy, and those at Olympia, in Greece, afford striking confirmation of the historicity of what has some- times been considered the mythical age of Greece.
344 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Libyan hills, near Thebes. The story of the finding of the Pharaohs, as told in broken English, with much dramatic action, by our dragoman, Yousef Mohammed, as he stood in the dim light of our wax tapers, beside the broken sarcophagus of Rameses III., lacked no element of weird romance.
In 1881 from the number of valuable finds brought to light by Ahmed-Abder-Rasoul, an Arab guide, Professor Maspero, director of the Boulak Museum, suspected that he was rifling some royal tomb, and had him arrested. For two months he lay in prison silent and sullen. Then his brother divulged the secret, a search for the lost treasure was made, and in a deep pit in a remote valley, one hundred and eighty-five feet from the light of day, was found a large sepulchral chamber containing the mummies of a score of the kings and queens of ancient Egypt, ranging from 1,750 to 1,100 years before the Chris- tian era, clearly identified by their cartouch names upon their mummy cases. It required three hun- dred Arabs five days to bring to the surface these long-buried dead, and to carry them to Luxor for shipment to Cairo. As the steamer conveying these ancient sovereigns of Egypt sailed down the Nile, the native women ran with dishevelled hair and loud lamentation along the banks, and the men fired off guns as at a royal funeral.
In 1886, in the presence of the Khedive, Professor Maspero unrolled several of these mummies and dis- closed to the light of day, after the lapse of over
PROGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. 345
three thousand years, the faces of the great Rameses, of his father, Seti, of his son, Rameses III., and of other dead Pharaohs whose name and fame once filled the world. In the National Museum at Gizeh we gazed long, face to face, on the stern features of Rameses IL, the Sesostris of the Greeks, the Pharaoh of the Oppression and the Exodus, whose monuments abound throughout the land of Egypt, and whose memory still haunts its mighty tombs and temples like an abiding presence.
We have received from a lady, the daughter of a Presbyterian missionary who was present by invita- tion at the unwrapping of the mummied Pharaohs, an account of this historic event.
On this subject Mr. Weyman, a distinguished archseologist, says : " Here is Pharaoh himself, Rameses II., and Thothmes the Conquerer, long con- quered by death, and other Pharaohs whose names are less familiar to us. The mighty are indeed fallen. The face, which was once the face of a god, conquer- ing good and evil, is shrunken and dead. The hands that governed Egypt are wasted and nerveless. The curious bend over him and gaze into the sight- less sockets, and murmur over the silent lips. How strange it seems ! how incredible, almost, that here, separated from us only by a piece of glass, we have the mortal visage and frame of the man who tasked Israel beyond bearing ; who saw Moses, and lived and ruled and died before David was born or Judah was a people, and from whose thin lips came the
346 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
cruel order that every male child of the Hebrews should be destroyed."
In 1898 M. Loret, Director-General of the Anti- quities Department, while excavating recently near the ruins of ancient Thebes, found a double tomb which had not been disturbed, that of Amenophis I. For the first time on record the body of an Egyptian king has been found in the tomb prepared for him, as previously discovered royal mummies had been removed from their tombs and secreted for safety at Deir el Bahari.
In the great Temple of Karnak, the most impos- ing temple ever erected for the Supreme Being, we have ourselves seen striking confirmation of the nar- rative of Holy Writ. On the temple wall is an in- scription recording the names of the countries con- quered by Thothmes III. " This list," says the distinguished Egyptologist, Mariette Bey, " is noth- ing less than a synoptical table of the Promised Land, made two hundred and seventy years before the Exodus." Indeed, several scholars think that they have found here the names of the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph.
The whole outer wall is covered with reliefs and hieroglyphs recording the conquests of these old Pharaohs. One of these recounts the victories of the " Shishak" of the Bible over Rehoboam, King of Israel. With upraised arm he is about to smite a group of captives at his feet. One of the captives bears the name of Judah Melek, which Champollion
PROGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. 347
interpreted as " King of Judah," but it is probably the name of a place instead of a person. It makes the story of these old kings strangely vivid to see for one's self their contemporary portraits, and fur- nishes a remarkable confirmation of the truths of Holy Writ.
In crossing the land of Goshen, not far from the railway is the ruined site, still known as Tel-el-Yehudi- yeh, '* The Hill of the Jews." In this spot Onia,the high priest of the Jews, aided by Ptolemy Philome- ter, erected a temple for his countrymen, in fulfil- ment, as he alleged, of the prophecy in Isaiah, " In that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the bor- der thereof to the Lord." Every vestige of this temple, which was built after the model of the Tem- ple of Solomon, was lost till 1871, when Brugsch found, under the rubbish, massive structures of Ori- ental alabaster, attributed to the Jewish archi- tects.
The sites of several of the cities of Goshen, men- tioned in the Book of Numbers : Rameses, Succoth, Etham and Pihahiroth, etc., have been identified through the excavations of Dr. Flinders Petrie and others. Stupendous as are the colossal statues of Rameses in Upper Egypt, Mr. Petrie found at Tanis- Zoan, in the delta, the fragments of one very much larger. It was ninety-two feet high from top to toe, or one hundred and twenty-five feet high including pedestal, and weighed twelve hundred tons. This
348 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
was the largest colossus known to history. How this enormous mass was brought from Assouan, eight hundred miles away, carved into shape and erected on its site is difficult to conceive.
In April, 1890, Dr. Flinders Petrie exhumed a ruined city in Southern Palestine, which was subse- quently identified as Lachish, mentioned six times in the Scriptures. In 1892 the work was continued by Dr. Bliss, who found no less than eleven distinct cities, one below the other, the last sixty-five feet from the surface. Here was a striking confirmation of the biblical records and prophecies concerning this long-lost city.
The question : Who were the Hittites ? has hitherto been one of the most difficult problems of biblical archseology. There are in the Scriptures frequent references to the Hittites as a strong foreign people, as where we are told that the Syrians fled away from their siege of Samaria because they heard that the King of Israel had hired against them the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt. In the last quarter of a century, however, much progress has been made in the knowledge of these people, largely through the labors of Prof. A. H. Sayce, Dr. William Hayes Ward, Prof. T. K. Cheyne, and Prof. Jensen, of Marburg.
The Egyptian and Assyrian monuments which have been so thoroughly studied of late years add greatly to our knowledge of these people. They were known by the Egyptians as Khita. They were
PROGRESS OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. 349
already, sixteen years before Christ, described as a powerful people. They were known to the Assyrians as Khatti. These ancient references prove, says Dr. W. H. Ward, that the Hittites penetrated and con- quered the whole of Asia Minor, and at a period before any history known to us of that region. Theirs was the primitive civilization so far as we know of Syria, and of Asia Minor from Smyrna to Lake Van. They are thus, he adds, one of the most important factors in the production of that civiliza- tion of which we have a part. From the Tel-el- Amarna tablets we learn that they had also taken possession of the whole of the middle banks of the Euphrates about Carchemish.
In 1873 Dr. W. H. Ward published copies of four hieroglyphic inscriptions from Hamath. From that time many Hittite remains and inscriptions have been found. They long defied interpretation, till in the closing years of the nineteenth century, to use the words of Prof. Hilprecht, " the stupendous as- siduity and great mental gifts of Prof. Jensen, of Marburg, have forced the Hittite sphinx to surrender her long guarded secret." Dr. Ward concludes that the Hittites belonged to that great primitive, or next to primitive, Mongolian stock, represented by the Iberians and Basques in Europe, by the old Elamites and Sumerians of Media and Babylonia, and by suc- cessive waves of barbaric invasions, the last of which was seen in Europe when the Turks were repulsed from the walls of Vienna, and whose invasion in the
350 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
time of the Huns left a terrible memory, when the populous North poured them forth
From her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barharous sons Came like a deluge on the South, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
One of the most remarkable confirmations of Holy Scripture has been found in the Assyrian and Baby- lonian accounts of the deluge, translated by Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, who about 1866 deciphered a cuneiform tablet containing a Chaldean account of the deluge much older and more full than that of Berosus, a Babylonian historian, which has been handed down to us by early Greek and Christian writers. Smith's subsequent studies revealed the fact that the legends of the flood, the traditions of the creation, the fall, the garden of Eden, of the Sabbath, of sacred trees, and many others were similar among the Assyrians and the Hebrews.
This discovery was of immense interest; but it did not assure us of the age of the deluge story among the inhabitants of the Euphrates valley ; for it was on tablets written in Assurbanipal's reign, that is, scarce six hundred years before Christ. The orig- inal Babylonian tablet, from which the Assyrian copies were made, was much desired.
At length Pere Scheil made the discovery. It is dated in the reign of Ammizaduga, King of Babylon ; and we know that he reigned about 2140 B. c. That is we have here a precious bit of clay on which
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was written a poetical story of the deluge, seven cen- turies before Moses and about the time of Isaac or Jacob. That is enough to make the discovery mem- orable. We learn positively that the story of the deluge was familiar to the common people of Baby- lonia, and, therefore, of all the East from Syria to Persia. Pere Scheil says, this account is only a copy; and no one can say how many centuries one must go back before reaching the historic fact which lies at the base of this cycle of legends and the first narration made of it.
In 1812 was discovered by Burckhardt, the cele- brated oriental traveller, and since frequently visited, one of the lost cities of Edom, to which reference is made under the name Selali in several places in Scripture, which Josephus describes by the Greek translation of the same word Petra. It was evident- ly a place of great wealth, with a rock-hewn amphi- theatre capable of holding four thousand spectators, and palaces, temples and tombs, all hewn from the solid rock. The curse of the Almighty rested upon it, and the prophecy is fulfilled, " Also Edom shall be a desolation : every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof."
An attempt has been made to identify Bosrah with the Bozrah beyond Jordan, mentioned in the Scrip- tures, where remarkable ruins still exist. The stu- pendous ruins of Palmyra modern scholarship identi- fies with the ancient city of Tadmor in the wilder-
352 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ness fortified by Solomon, and the capital of the un- happy Queen Zenobia.
The whole of Hauran, in part the ancient land of Bashan, is still studded with the remains of giant cities whose identification with those mentioned in the Scripture has not yet been complete. There are still, says Porter, at least one hundred deserted cities and villages, many of them built of basalt with basaltic doors.
For long centuries many thousands of pilgrims from all parts of Christendom visited Palestine to worship amid the scenes made sacred evermore by the life and labors of our Lord, and especially to weep and pray upon the site of His passion. The wrongs wreaked upon these pilgrims by the Moslem misbelievers led to that great movement whereby, in the words of the Byzantine Princess, Anna Comnen- na, all Europe was heaped upon Asia, and for two long centuries crusade after crusade was launched against the Saracen for the rescue of the sepulchre of our Lord. It is a remarkable circumstance that very strong doubts — indeed, in the minds of many, positive disbelief — have been felt as to the identity of the traditional Holy Sepulchre with the tomb of our Lord.
About four hundred feet northeast of the Da- mascus Gate is the now famous " Skull Hill," which is by many believed to be the true site of Calvary. Under it on the southeastern side is " Jeremiah's
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Grotto." To the west of the hill is a tomb which General Gordon believed to be the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
While Colonel Conder accepts the new site of Calvary, he locates Joseph's tomb on the side of a mound five hundred feet southwest of the Gordon tomb, and about seven hundred and fifty feet north- west of the Damascus Gate.
Canon Tristram remarks : " Why do we reject the traditional site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ? Because that site must have been within the second wall, which existed in the time of our Lord, unless that wall made a re-entering angle, for the purpose of leaving that site outside. But, if it were outside, the contour of the original surface shows that the wall must have been built so as to be exposed to assault from higher ground immediately outside, which would be contrary to military strategy and common sense. How, then, came the tradition to be established ? It goes no farther back than the time of the Empress Helena, three hundred years after the event, — a most credulous and uncritical age. The empress wished the site to be found, and her servants at once gratified her. A continuous tradi- tion before that time was impossible. From the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus the Christians were driven away, and when, after the revolt of Bar Co- cheba, Hadrian, in 135 A. d., razed Jerusalem again to the ground, he ploughed over the ruins, and established a Roman colony. The new city, ^lia Capitolina, was filled with heathen temples, and no Jew was allowed to enter it on pain of death. The very name of Jerusalem was forgotten. How was it possible that, through all the vicissitudes, the memory of an inconspicuous spot should have been pre- served ? "
354 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The Palestine Exploration Fund was founded in 1865, for the sole purpose of elucidating and illustrat- ing the Bible. Among the more important results of the work up to the present, the following may be enumerated : All that was known of the site of the temple was that it stood somewhere within the vast enclosure now called the Haram esh Shereef, or Noble Sanctuary. Sir Charles Warren, who con- ducted the explorations at Jerusalem, ascertained that the great surrounding walls, undoubtedly those of the temple, are buried from sixty to one hundred and twenty feet deep in the accumulated rubbish of nearly eighteen centuries.
The Turkish authorities were very jealous of these explorations, and prohibited him from digging near the walls. With much difficulty he got permission to sink a shaft, that is, a sort of well, at some distance from the wall. After he had dug down, with the help of a lot of Arab workmen, about eighty feet, he began a horizontal excavation toward the wall, when, what was his delight to find that he had reached part of the old wall of Jerusalem, dating back to the time of Solomon.
Eighty feet of rubbish has accumulated during the many years that Jerusalem has been " trodden under foot of the Gentiles," as was foretold in Holy Scripture. It is found full of relics of the ancient past, — broken tiles, pottery, lamps, vases and many other evidences of the bygone races who have suc- cessively occupied this spot — Jews, Greeks, Romans,
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Moslems and Franks. The great and goodly stones of the temple were each as thick as the height of a tall man, and two or three times as long.
The results of the exploration at the southeast angle of the Haram wall were of the greatest im- portance. On the stones of the wall were found characters in red paint, and others incised. They have been pronounced to be probably Phoenician, and representing numerals. Then, concludes the world at once, we have here the stones of Solomon's temple, with the marks of his Phoenician workmen.
Mejr-ed-Deen, an Arabic writer of the thirteenth century, mentions a subterranean gallery, " which David caused to be made from the gate of the chain to the citadel." This subterranean passage was act- ually found in the course of the explorations at Wilson's Arch. It was evidently intended as a secret way of communication between the citadel and the temple, by which troops could be brought, in case of an emeute, without exciting suspicion.
The excavations of Sir Charles Warren added a mass of information for the reconstruction of the city, which is absolutely inestimable. The shafts opened another and a lost book, so to speak, in the history of the Bible ; they showed the actual works of the Jewish kings ; they proved incontestably the very words of the sacred narrative ; they enabled us to understand with a greater fulness the pride with which a Jew would regard his holy city — the joy of the whole earth.
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The survey, when complete, will give, not only a perfect and accurate map of the Holy Land, whereby the whole history of the Bible can be clearly followed and understood for the first time, but also plans of all the existing ruins, identifications such as those quoted above, and a list of all existing names. It is a work for all ages, and for the whole world.
An accurate survey of western Palestine was begun by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1872. One hun- dred and seventy-two biblical sites were discovered. Out of six hundred and twenty-two biblical names west of the Jordan four hundred and thirty-four have been identified with a reasonable degree of cer- tainty. A great map on the scale of an inch to the mile has been prepared as accurate as the ordnance map of England. The survey of eastern Palestine, begun by the American Exploration Society, has been completed under the auspices of the Palestine Explo- ration Fund for part of the country. The German Palestine Society, and several noted French scholars and explorers have also done admirable work in this direction.
The Royal Quarries or Cotton Grotto under Jerix- salem were discovered by Sir Charles Warren in 1872. They extend a distance of seven hundred feet, reach- ing a width of three hundred. The roof averages about thirty feet in height, supported by large pillars of native rock. This was also a mammoth workshop as well as quarry, as is evident from ihe great blocks detached and partially dressed, and in the heaps of
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stone chippings that litter the floor. The marks of the chisel are as fresh as if the quarry men had only- left their work. It was in all probability the source whence many of the stones used in the substructions of Solomon and in the reconstructions of Herod were obtained.
Thus we have an incidental corroboration of the Scripture : '* And the house, when it was in build- ing, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building " (1 Kings vi. 7).
Dr. Robinson, an eminent explorer, discovered not far from the southwest angle of the temple wall the broken arch of a bridge, which still bears his name. It is fifty feet wide and contains stones from nine- teen to twenty-six feet in length. This was evidently the beginning of a viaduct which led from the tem- ple over the Tyropoeon valley possibly dating from the time of Herod, or in its substructures even from that of Solomon. A similar arch was also discovered by Dr. Wilson, and received his name. It is a well preserved structure twenty-one feet in height with a span of forty-two feet. Dr. Thomson considers it a portion of the same great structure as Robinson's Arch, and Sir Charles Warren has shown that there was a series of similar arches forming a viaduct toward the palace of Herod on the western hill.
The present writer has himself seen in the museum at Constantinople an inscribed stone of peculiar
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interest on which the eyes of the Saviour may have rested. It was one marking the boundary between the court of the Gentiles and the holy place of the temple, and contained a warning to the Gentiles against profaning the sacred enclosure.
One of the most interesting recent discoveries at Jerusalem, that of the " tunnel of Hezekiah '* was made by accident by an Arab boy in August, 1880. It is regarded, says Dr. Laird Stewart, as one of the most important monumental records of Old Testament times. It is conceded by all the leading authorities that its inscription represents the oldest specimen of the Hebrew language that has come down to us, ex- cept the writing on the Moabite Stone. Says Dr. Ward — *' This tunnel was not made later than the time of King Hezekiah, and the inscription must be of that date or earlier ; and it is the only purely Jewish Palestine inscription of any length known, there being nothing else but small seals." This dis- covery confirms, if it does not make certain, the sup- position that the pool and the conduit were made by Hezekiah, as described in 2 Chron. xxxii. 30. This conduit is one thousand seven hundred and eight feet in length. Dr. Edward Robinson, and Dr. Smith of Beyrout, had the hardihood to creep through its whole length, as did also Sir Charles Warren, although the roof was in places only sixteen inches high, and was nearly tilled with water.
The honorable secretary of the Palestine Explora- tion Fund (the late Sir Walter Besant) summed up
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the results of the excavations in and about Jerusalem as follows :
" Our researches — one says it with pardonable pride — have restored the splendors of the holy city. We have proved how the vast walls of the temple — the grandest enclosure of the finest building in the whole world — rose from deep valleys on three sides presenting a long fugade of wall crowned with pillars and porticoes, and how within them rose the gleam- ing white marbles of the inner house with its courts and altars and its crowds of priests who lived by the altar. Our researches have shown the inner valley bridged by noble arches and pierced by subterranean passages. They have shown the city provided with a magnificent water supply, glorious with its palaces, its gardens, its citadel, its ca.^tle, its courts and its villas. It is a great town that we have restored; not a commercial town, but a great religious centre to which, at the Passover season, more than two million people brought their offerings."
One of the most interesting and important discov- eries of the early manuscripts of the Bible was that of the Codex Sinaiticus in 1844. This was found by the distinguished German scholar, Dr. Tischen- dorf, in a very romantic manner. He was visiting the convents of the Orient, says Dr. Antliff, " in the hope of discovering ancient manuscripts that might be of service in the work of biblical criticism, to which he was devoting his life. In his travels he came to the Greek convent of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai. Here he found a large and valuable library, which, however, the resident monks did not seem to appreciate. After surveying the library he noticed
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a basket containing some stray leaves, which his practised eye told him were written in older Greek characters than he had ever before seen. He was informed that the leaves were for lighting a fire, and that two baskets full of similar leaves had already been consumed. He found that the leaves were from a manuscript of the Bible and obtained permis- sion to retain them. They numbered forty-three, and he learned that there were eighty more similar ones, but he had manifested such extreme delight in ob- taining them, that the monks began to surmise that they were of no ordinary value, and consequently refused to part with the others.
" Tischendorf returned to Europe and deposited his treasure in the library of Leipsic University. In 1853 he again visited the convent and endeavored to obtain the remainder of the codex, but the monks were obdurate. In 1856 the subject was brought to the attention of the Greek Court, and eventually, in 1859, Tischendorf again set out for the convent, bearing letters from the Czar, Alexander II., and dignitaries of the Greek Church." For some time after his arrival it seemed as if he was doomed to failure. But just on the eve of his departure the steward of the convent showed him a bulky manu- script which he carefully guarded. " To the glad surprise of the German scholar, he perceived that this was the very codex he had been so earnestly longing to obtain for fifteen years. He subsequently obtained permission to copy it, then to carry it to
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Russia, and finally the monks presented it to the Czar, who placed it in the library of St. Petersburg, where it has since remained as one of the greatest treasures of the empire."
In the year 1883 the very important early Christ- ian document, known as the Didache or " Teaching of the Twelve," was discovered by Philotheos Bryen- nios, Metropolitan Bishop of Nicomedia, in the library of the Most Holy Sepulchre, in the Fanar of Con- stantinople. It is described as "by all odds, the most important writing exterior to the New Testament, now in the possession of the Christian world." It is attributed to the first half of the second century, not later than 140 to 150 a.d. Its full title is " The Lord's Teaching through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations." It begins with the statement that there are two ways, one of life and one of death, and the first six chapters set forth the nature of these ways and the end to which they lead. The ethical teach- ing here is plain and pure, often adopting the very words of Scripture. The remaining chapters teach of baptism, the Eucharist, the Lord's Day, the appointment and character of the ministry, and the duty of watchfulness amid evil times. " The dis- covery of so capital a document," says the Indepenr dent, '* makes the year 1883 an annus miraUlis in Church history."
In 1891 another important biblical discovery was made in the convent of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, that of a manuscript which throws helpful light on
362 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
the sacred text. This manuscript is a version of the old Syriac Gos^Dels and is counted exceedingly valu- able by all the scholars who have examined it. In the winter of 1891, Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis and her sister, Mrs. Margaret Dunlop Gibson, two Scottish ladies of wealth and culture, left their home in Cam- bridge to visit the famous convent of St. Catherine. It was here that Tischendorf had discovered the manuscript which now ranks as one of the four ear- liest and greatest manuscripts for the text of the l^ew Testament ; and here Professor Rendell Harris found the long-lost Apology of Aristides, a document which is prized for apologetical purposes, because it dates back to the first half of the second century.
On the arrival of these ladies at the convent they set to work with determined diligence, copying and photographing everything of value they could lay their hands on. One manuscript in particular caught their attention. It was a palimpsest, which means that it was a manuscript which had been written over twice. First it had been covered with Syriac characters, and when these characters had faded somewhat some scribe had written over them in Greek the doings of certain saints. Its pages were glued together, and had to be separated by steam from a tea-kettle.
Mrs. Lewis suspected that the under writing was of exceptional importance, so she patiently photo- graphed the whole manuscript page by page. Then she took the photographs home to Cambridge, where
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oriental experts proclaimed it to be a copy of the old Syriac Gospels.
'* Egypt, the paradise of the archaeologist," writes Prof. W. W. Davies, Ph. D., in 1897, " has once more surprised the Christian world. Some one hun- dred and twenty miles south of Cairo, on the very edge of the Libyan desert, is the site of ancient Oxyrhyncus, during the early ages of our era an im- portant centre of the Christian Church. It was in this deserted spot that Mr. Grenfell and Mr. Hunt, of England, discovered many baskets full of ancient papyri, for the most part written in Greek, and be- longing to the early centuries of Christianity. The most important thing so far examined is one single leaf, evidently detached from a book, containing what are supposed to be some hitherto unrecorded sayings of our Lord. These new sayings of Jesus at once attracted the attention of Christian scholars all over the world. The Greek text is mutilated in several places : several words have, in the course of ages, been rubbed out, or so defaced as to defy anything like absolute restoration. Some of these ' Sayings ' are very interesting, as this :
" ' Jesus saith. Wherever there are . . . and there is one . . . alone, I am with him. Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find me ; cleave the wood, and there am I.' "
The passage may be a parallel to the well-known words of Jesus to His disciples, " Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world," — not only with the favored few, whose business it is to preach the Gospel, but also with the humble day-laborer, whose business is to handle heavy stones and split and chop wood.
364 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The finding of these sayings shows very conclu- sively that the early Christian Church had some literature which we do not now possess.
The date of the fragment is not absolutely certain ; but those best able to express an opinion agree in placing it prior to 200 A. D.
Some of the most interesting side-lights upon Bible history have been found in the " graffiti," or wall inscriptions, of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of the catacombs and ruins of ancient Rome. Some of these were mere satirical scribblings or caricature pictures. One of these, which was discovered by Father Garrucci in 1857, we have personally exam- ined in the museum of the Collegio Romano. It is thus described by Rev. Samuel Manning, LL. D. : —
" In the chambers which were occupied as guard- rooms by the Praetorian troops on duty in the palace of the Caesars, a number of rude caricatures are found roughly scattered upon the walls, just such as may be seen upon barrack-walls in every part of the world. Amongst these is one of a human figure nailed upon a cross. To add to the ' offence of the cross ' the crucified one is represented with the head of an animal, probably that of an ass. Before it stands the figure of a Roman legionary with one hand upraised in the customary attitude of worship. Underneath is the rude, misspelt, ungrammatical in- scription, 'Alexamenos worships his God.' It can scarcely be doubted that we have here a contempo- rary caricature executed by one of the Praetorian guards ridiculing the faith of a Christian comrade."
In 1898 another graffito of much interest was found in Rome. '^ Not since the discovery pf the * Logia '
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containing some unpublished sayings of Christ," says L* Illustrazione Italiana^ " has anything been found which compares in interest to the student of Christian archaeology with the alleged discovery in the palace of Tiberius, on the Palatine hill in Rome, of a graffito representing the crucifixion.
" It is believed that the picture was drawn by a soldier who took a more or less active part in the crucifixion on Mount Calvary. The figures are about fifteen centimeters — six inches — high. At the right and left are crosses, and soldiers mount ladders placed against them. Each person in the great trag- edy is duly inscribed with his name, and ' Piletus ' was probably intended for Pontius Pilate. The inscrip- tion of twelve or fifteen lines begins with the word ' Crestus,' which is already known as a rough form of the name of Christ. There is considerable doubt as to the meaning of the rest of the inscription. M. Marucchi deciphers part of it : ' Crestus, virgis csesus decretus mori, super palum vivus fixus est,' which is to say, ' Christ, after being beaten with rods having been condemned to die, has been attached living to the cross.' "
We have thus seen that the biblical Archaeology of the nineteenth century has opened a new chapter in apologetic literature. The spade of the explorer has been shown to be one of the best of biblical com- mentators. '* The very stones cry out of the wall." Ancient palimpsests and long forgotten graffiti bear witness to the authenticity and indubitable veracity of Holy Writ.
PART FIVE.
SPECIAL EELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES AND PHIL- ANTHROPIES OF THE CENTUKY.
CHAPTER XLIL
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
One of the most characteristic and comprehensive agencies for the religious instruction of the young in this century is the modern system of Sunday- schools. The consecrated energies of over two mil- lions of teachers have been enlisted in this vast and voluntary unpaid service, and about twenty millions of scholars have been enrolled in their ranks. Sunday- schools, although they have only approached their grandest development in recent decades, are of no recent origin. There were catechumen classes for religious instruction in both the Jewish and the early Christian Church. Several ecclesiastical councils gave instructions as to the management of such classes. During the Reformation period, Luther founded regular catechetical instruction on Sunday as early as 1529, and the exaltation and authority
368 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
assigned to the Holy Scripture by the Reformation led to their general adoption in the reformed churches.
Nor were similar schools unknown in the Roman Catholic Church. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, instituted Sunday-schools throughout his extensive diocese, 1560-1584, almost identical in form and spirit with their modern analogue. The present writer has seen in the cathedral church of Milan, and in other churches of that great city, as well as in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, well con- ducted Sunday-schools under the administration of the members of the Roman Catholic religious orders.
John Knox established Sunday-schools in Scot- land as early as 1560. Joseph Alleine, the author of Alleine's Alarm^ adopted the system in Bath, Eng- land, 1650-1668. The early Puritans established such schools in Plymouth Colony 1674-1680. In Pennsylvania Ludwig Hacker organized a school in 1739, which was continued for thirty years, result- ing in many revivals. Mr. Edwin W. Rice cites numerous other schools existing before the date of Robert Raikes. In 1769 a young Methodist named Hannah Ball established a Sunday-school, says Dr. Abel Stevens, in Wycombe, England.
These sporadic schools, however, do not detract from the merit of Raikes as being the father and founder of the modern Sunday-school system. Raikes was a citizen of Gloucester, England, and proprietor of the Gloucester Journal, In that city many youth of both sexes were em-
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ployed in the pin and other factories. The heart of Raikes was stirred by the Sabbath desecra- tion, profanity and ragged wretchedness of these untaught youth. In 1781 " he engaged," says Mr. E. W. Rice, " four female teachers to receive and instruct in reading and in the catechism such children as should be sent to them on Sunday. The children were required to come with clean hands and faces, and hair combed, and with such clothing as they had. They were to stay from ten to twelve, then to go home ; to return at one, and after a lesson to be conducted to church ; after church to repeat portions of the catechism ; to go home at five quietly, without playing in the streets. Diligent scholars received rewards of Bibles, Testaments, books, combs, shoes and clothing: the teachers were paid a shilKng a day."
Not until November 3, 1783, did Raikes refer in his journal to these schools. The following year he published in his paper an account of his plan. John Wesley reprinted this account in the Arminian Magazine and exhorted the Methodist people to adopt the new system of religious instruction. He speaks of them prophetically : " I find these schools springing up wherever I go ; perhaps God may have a deeper end therein than men are aware of ; who knows but some of these schools may become nur- series for Christians ? " The early Methodists took Wesley's advice, says a contemporary writer, and " laboring, hard-working men and women begaa to
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instruct their neighbors' children, and to go with them to the house of God on the Lord's Day."
John Fletcher, of Madeley, adopted the method, and soon had three hundred children under instruc- tion, and diligently trained them till his last illness. Sunday-schools were introduced into the metropolis by Rowland Hill in 1786. The same year John Wesley states that five hundred and fifty children were taught in the Sunday-school of his society at Bolton, and the next year he found there eight hundred, taught by eighty " masters."
Richard Rodda, one of Wesley's preachers, records that, in 1786, he formed a Sunday-school in Chester, and soon had nearly seven hundred children " under regular masters." Wesley wrote to him in the beginning of 1787 : " I am glad you have taken in hand that blessed work of setting up Sunda3^-schools. It seems these will be one great means of reviving religion throughout the nation. I wonder Satan has not yet sent out some able champion against them." In 1788 Wesley preached at Wigan *' A sermon for the Sunday-schools," and " the people flocked from all quarters in a manner that never was seen before." The year before his death he wrote to Charles Atmore, an itinerant preacher : " I am glad you have set up Sunday-schools at Newcastle. This is one of the best institutions which has been seen in Europe for some centuries."
" Thus," says Dr. Abel Stevens, " is Methodism historically connected with both the initiation and
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 371
outspread of this important institution. Under the impulse of its zeal, the Sunday-school was soon almost universally established in its societies. A similar interest for it prevailed among other religious bodies ; and, in three years after Raikes' published account of it, more than two hundred thousand children were receiving instruction from its thousands of teachers."
As early as 1785 a society was organized for pro- moting Sunday-schools throughout the British do- minions. This society in fifteen years expended about four thousand pounds for teachers' wages. It met with strong support from several of the bishops and clergymen of the Established Church. But, strange as it may seem, the Bishop of Rochester vio- lently attacked the movement, and the Archbishop of Canterbury called the bishops together to see what could be done to stop it. In Scotland, Sabbath- school teaching by laymen was declared to be an in- novation, and a breach of the fourth commandment.
Sunday-schools rapidly multiplied notwithstanding such opposition in Great Britain and Ireland, and on the continent. They were introduced into America by Francis Asbury, first Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1786. In 1791 a society was established in Philadelphia " for promoting tlio relig- ious instruction of poor children on Sunday." It employed paid teachers, in ten years expending about four thousand dollars. This society still coi> tinues its operations.
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These schools all employed paid teachers. Their purpose was to reach chiefly the children of the poor and neglected classes. They were, in fact, simply mission schools or '* Ragged Schools." The system of payment made their maintenance expensive, and greatly limited their usefulness as well as deprived them of their grandest characteristic of voluntary service. Gradually this principle was introduced. John Wesley, in 1787, speaks of Sunday-schools at Bolton, England, "having eighty masters who re- ceived no pay but what they received from the great Master." This method touched fountains of conse- crated zeal before unknown. The system of volun- tary instruction gave a new impulse to this great movement by adapting it to the needs of the poorest community in town or country. The early statistics of Sunday-school progress are imperfect, but in 1827 the number enrolled throughout the world was 1,350,000. In 1851 the number had increased to six millions. On the Raikes centenary in 1880, that number had reached over fifteen millions. At the ninth international Sunday-school convention held in 1899 over twenty-five were reported.
Immense development has taken place also in Sunday-school organization and equipment. The schools founded by Robert Raikes were, as we have seen, chiefly for the poor and neglected classes. Hence reading and writing were taught, and oral instruction in the catechism and Scriptures was given. There was no concerted scheme of lessons.
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Each school selected such portions of Scripture as it chose. About 1826 the American Sunday-school Union introduced a series of uniform lessons for its three or four hundred auxiliaries. " In 1829," says Mr. Edwin W. Rice, " Mr. Gall urged his lesson system upon teachers in England ; and in 1830 regu- lar lessons were furnished, with notes for the use of teachers.
In 1840 the London Sunday-school Union issued a list of lessons for general adoption, adding lesson notes in 1842, which it claims to have continued un- interruptedly till the present time, now using the International Series. '' For the most part, however," continues Mr. Rice, " in America, for a number of years previous to 1872, each school prepared its own scheme of lessons (if it used any), often unsatis- factory, insomuch that this method has been not inaptly termed the ' Babel series ' of lessons.
" Schemes of lessons for Sunday-schools, with notes, were issued in the Sundae/- School Teacher of Chicago, in 1865 ; and in 1867 Mr. B. F. Jacobs suggested uniform lessons anew. The desire for such a series increased, until in 1871 a meeting of Sunday-school publishers was held in New York, at the suggestion of the executive committee of the National Sunday- school Convention, which agreed upon a tentative scheme of uniform lessons for 1872. At the Indian- apolis convention in that year, a lesson committee was appointed to arrange a course of lessons for seven years, covering the whole Bible, which course was
374 RELIGIOUS PE0GRE6S IN THE CENTURY.
recommended for the use of Sunday-schools through- out the country. This committee was re-appointed and enlarged in 1878, and empowered by the conven- tion to select another seven years' course of Bible- lessons for use throughout the world.
"In 1875 the lessons were reported to be in use in America, Great Britain, most of the countries of Europe, in Syria, Hindostan, China and Japan, in Mexico, Australia and the Sandwich Islands; and in 1878 it was added, ' United Bible study has gained many new friends.' Comments on these les- sons have multiplied like the leaves of the forest, publishers issuing notes, questioQS and lesson-leaves, and even many secular papers give regular weekly comments upon the Sunday-school lesson. The most learned professors in colleges and seminaries, and pastors have contributed the results of their ripest study and scholarship in exposition of these lessons. Many publishers vie with each other in securing the ablest comments, and producing the best and cheap- est lesson helps. A different series of Sunday-school lessons are in use in most of the schools connected with the Church of England, and with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.
'* When the modern Sunday-school movement be- gan, a century ago, juvenile religious literature did not exist. The Pilgrim's Progress^ Watts' Divine and Moral Songs, a few catechisms and similar books, comprised the religious works specially prepared for children at that day. Gradually a juvenile religious
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 375
literature was developed by the desire of Sunday scholars for reading, and the circulating library in connection with each school was introduced, owing largely to the earlier work and issues of the American Sunday-school Union. The number of books, period- icals and lesson-helps for Sunday-schools has vastly increased by the introduction of the International lesson system and other improvements, and is so ex- tensive that it would be hopeless to attempt to gather statistics respecting them."
Many of the most eminent and successful business men in the United States are engaged in Sunday- school work. There is, for instance, B. F. Jacobs, a successful real estate agent, of Chicago, one of the originators with Bishop Vincent of the International lesson system more than a score of years ago, who has ever since given to it his best energies. John Wanamaker, late Postmaster-General of the United States, the head of two of the greatest business enter- prises in Philadelphia and New York, has one of the largest Sunday-schools in the world. The late John T. Wattles, the publisher of the Sunday-seliool Times superintended for many years a very large Sunday- school. The late Mr. William Reynolds left a very successful business to devote himself exclusively to Sunday-school work. Dwight L. Moody won his first laurels in this work. Some of the Presidents of the United States, including Mr. McKinley, Chief Justice Brewer and associate justices. Generals and Admirals, Senators and Congressmen, presidents of
376 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
colleges, and great business men, have been Sunday- school teachers.
It must be remembered also that this devotion of two millions of teachers to this work is an entirely unpaid service. Not only is it unpaid, but the teachers and superintendents give large sums of money for Sunday-school equipment, and for Sunday- school literature. In this way many scores of Sun- day-school magazines and papers are sustained, and vast editions of Sunday-school commentaries are called for.
On the value of this voluntary service Mr. B. F. Jacobs says : " A low estimate in money of the services of these teachers would be one dollar per week for each or about $100,000,000 per annum, but much more than money is the power of love and sympathy ; the true teacher gives himself : this is known and ap- preciated by the scholars. Without undervaluing other work, where can we find a parallel ? "
One of the most striking developments of the Sun- day-school system has been the annual county, state and provincial conventions in which these philan- thropic workers have assembled to compare methods of instruction and devise the wisest plans for carry- ing out their great work. For the last twenty-four years triennial international Sunday-school conven- tions have been held for the promotion of Sunday- school work in Canada and the United States. These conventions have elected the international executive and lesson committee. The lesson com-
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 377
mittee serves without payment in selecting the lessons for international study. The denominational pub- lishing houses then procure the preparation of notes, comments and illustrations of these lessons, the les- son committee wisely refraining from deriving any monetary advantage or exercising any denominational control over these notes and comments. The execu- tive committee serves without payment in managing the inter-convention business of the association.
The first world's Sunday-school convention was held in London in 1889. A ship was chartered to convey the delegates going from America. A second world's convention was held at St. Louis, in 1893, and the third was held in London in 1898. In the judg- ment of Mr. B. F. Jacobs, the number of persons en- gaged in the systematic study of the Word of God in Sunday-schools is not less than twenty-five millions.
A recent development of the Sunday-school idea is the Home Department. Like the Sunday school itself it was a child of Providence. Nothing could be more obscure than its beginning. In 1881 a Christian woman in New York State collected a group of boys and girls in a porch to study the Sunday-school lesson. She asked at a Sunday- school convention for " the same recognition and help as a teacher as was accorded to other teachers. But these were withheld because she was not in the same building at the same time with the other teachers, instructing her class under the personal supervision of the superintendent."
378 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Dr. William A. Duncan, a Congregational layman, saw the large possibilities of extending the bounda- ries of the Sunday-school from the narrow walls of the schoolroom to the furthest reach of the parish. Before the New York State Sunday-school Associa- tion he announced the vital truth : " Where there is a parlor, a kitchen, an empty room in the barn ; where there is a tree which God has made to throw shade upon the earth ; where there is a Christian mother who loves her sons and daughters; where there is a Christian sister who feels like doing some- thing for the Master, — there these boys and girls can be gathered in and taught about Jesus."
Gradually the new idea spread like leaven. It was discussed in Sunday-school conventions and Sunday- school papers. The conception was enlarged so as to embrace not merely the young, but those of all ages, the infirm, the sick, the gray-haired grandsire and prattling child.
The movement commended itself to the different churches, and has received the endorsation of the International and World's Sunday-school Conven- tions. " The number," says Dr. Hazard, " is rapidly, even phenomenally, growing, and the suggestion is that soon there will not be a Sunday-school which pretends to be well equipped which will not have its Home Department."
The Home Department is a provision whereby per- sons unable to attend the Sunday-school may have its benefits brought to their homes. In this way the
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 379
" shut-ins," the prisoners of God*s providence, the sick and the afflicted, the aged and infirm, mothers having the care of young children or engrossed in household duties, domestic servants, persons in hos- pitals, asylums and similar institutions, may be reg- ularly visited, supplied with Sunday-school litera- ture, and enrolled with the school. So, too, the " shut-outs," the great army of commercial travellers, the railroad conductors, brakemen, engineers, news- boys, railway postal clerks, telegraph operators, hotel clerks, drug clerks, steamer officers and employees, army officers and soldiers, civil engineers and their assistants, boatmen, and the like*
" Some families are situated so. far from church and Sunday-school that they cannot attend either service, or more than one. Others are in small communities where there are no church or Sunday-school privileges, or live in localities where they are isolated from all tlie benefits of society. To such families the Home Department is an inestimable boon. It brings them into connection with thousands of others. They feel the impulse of the spiritual life which throbs in the church and Sunday-school. This mental and moral stimulus is just what they need. It is like bringing into the home a telegraph wire which connects it with the great world without, though it may be upon some lonely mountain top or in some unfrequented vale."
Nor is this movement confined to the United States and Canada. It has been adopted in Austria, Ger- many, Russia and even in India. To Austria it is peculiarly adapted, for the laws prohibit independent
Li
380 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
or officially unrecognized meetings, so that the Home Department can accomplish what cannot be done through the Sunday-school.
Nor are the prisoners in the jails, penitentiaries and reformatories forgotten in this Sunday-school instruction. In almost all these institutions devoted teachers are seeking to impart instruction week by week in the Word of God. The stranger within the gates, the Chinese, Japanese, Syrians, foreigners of every name and tongue also receive the ministrations of the Sunday-school.
BIBLE SOCIETIES. 381
CHAPTER XLIII.
BIBLE SOCIETIES.
The nineteenth century has been specially char- acterized by the great diffusion of religious literature. The most remarkable form which this has taken has been an enormous multiplication of copies of the Word of God. This is not merely the result of the commercial enterprise of great publishing houses, but also of societies specially organized to print in many hundreds of languages and dialects God's message to men.
While such societies are a special note of this century, long before its dawn similar work was carried on. As early as 1663 the Society for Propagating the Gospel in New England bore the expense of printing Eliot's Indian Bible. In '1698 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was established in Great Britain. An important part of its work was the spread of the Bible and of the Church of England Prayer Book at home and abroad. It published the Bible in English, Welsh, Manx and Arabic.
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, organized in 1701, had special refer- ence to the American colonies. Its main instrument
382 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
for this purpose was the wide diffusion of the Holy Scriptures. The Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, organized in 1709, promoted similar work by similar methods especially in the Scottish islands and highlands, and in those parts of North America chiefly settled by Scottish emigrants. It circulated largely Bibles in the Gaelic tongue.
On the continent of Europe the Canstein Bible Institute, founded in 1712 by the Baron of Canstein, formed a part of Francke's Institute at Halle, Ger- many. It still continues in vigorous operation, and has circulated many millions of copies of the Word of God. The Naval and Military Bible Society was formed in London, in 1780, chiefly to distribute the Scriptures among the soldiers and sailors of the British army and navy. The Society for the Support and Encouragement of Sunday-schools, begun in 1785, distributed gratuitously great numbers of the Bible and New Testament among the schools of the United Kingdom. A similar society, established in Dublin in 1792, did a similar work among the poorer classes of Ireland. The same year a French Bible society was founded in London for the circulation of the Scriptures in France. The French Revolution, however, prevented its successful operation.
The Welsh people were notable Bible readers, and an edition of ten thousand Welsh Bibles, published by the Christian Knowledge Society, was soon exhausted. The Rev. Thomas Charles, of Bala, a leader among the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, after
BIBLE SOCIETIES. 383
vain efforts to obtain a sufficient number of copies of the Scriptures to feed the famine of the Word of God, proposed to organize a society for that purpose.
The suggestion evoked a warm response. The question was raised, " If for Wales, why not for the kingdom and for the world?" A public meeting was held March 7, 1804, at the London Tavern. Three hundred persons were present of various denominations, Churchmen and Dissenters. The re- sult was the organization of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which began operations with a sub- scribed fund of <£700.
Here was a platform on which all denominations could meet and work for a common object, namely, the circulation of the Word of God, without note or comment, at home and abroad. Soon an edition of twentj^ thousand Bibles was published to supply the needs of the principality of Wales. The art of stereotyping had just been invented, which greatly facilitated the printing of large editions. " When, in 1806, the first wagonful of Bibles came into Wales," says Dr. Schoel, " it was received like the ark of the covenant ; and the people, with shouts of great joy, dragged it into the city." In the Highlands of Scotland the society distributed the Bible in an improved Gaelic translation.
" But it has not forgotten that it is a foreign as well as British Bible Society. It has sent its agents everywhere ; it has excited a world-wide interest iil the Word of God, and especially in mission fields is
384 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
supplying the pure water of life unto millions of thirsty souls."
Roman Catholics for a time co-operated with this work, but a society of their own was formed at Ratisbon in 1805 for the circulation of the Scriptures in the German tongue. This was abolished by a Papal bull in 1817. Another at Presburg, for cir- culating the Scriptures in Hungarian, was in like manner suppressed. The' Berlin Bible Society was founded in 1806, and was converted into the Prussian Bible Society in 1814. An important Bible Society was also established in Switzerland, at Basle, in 1812. The Russian Bible Society, authorized by an imperial ukase in 1813, was suspended by the same authority in 1826. A Protestant Bible Society was established in its place. The kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Sweden and Wiirtemberg have been patrons of Bible societies. Such societies have also been established in the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland and in almost all parts of the civilized globe.
Even the excellent objects of the British and For- eign Bible Society were not pursued without opposi- tion. It was thought dangerous to put the Bible, without note or comment, into the hands of the laity, and especially of the heathen. The most seri- ous trouble, however, came in connection with the Apocrypha. At first the Bible printed for the Can- stein Society contained the Apocrypha ; but in 1811 attention was called to this fact, and the committee determined to exclude it. The consequence was
BIBLE SOCIETIES. 385
that the societies upon the continent where the Apocrypha was universally used, and of which the British society had founded over fifty, separated themselves from the parent society.
The refusal of the British society in 1831 to alter its constitution so as to exclude non-Trinitarians, and to withdraw from circulation in France, Spain and Portugal Bibles translated from the Vulgate, led to the formation of the Trinitarian Bible Society, which, however, has been of exceedingly limited operation.
The British and Foreign Bible Society has gener- ously aided the publication of the Scriptures in many lands and many tongues. The lonely missionary or translator, working in isolation and solitude, often reducing the language to writing for the first time, finds the result of his labors adopted, printed and published by this great society, which, without a single missionary of its own, yet proclaims the oracles of God more widely than any other organiza- tion in the world.
One of these Bibles is printed in the S3dlabic char- acter invented by the Rev. James Evans, a Metho- dist missionary in the Hudson's Bay Territory of Canada. By the use of a series of characters repre- senting syllables of the Ojibwa tongue, their lan- guage has been for the first time reduced to writing. So simple are these characters that the missionary, by inscribing them upon a rock or tracing them in the sand, may in a few days teach savage tribes
386 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
to read the oracles of God in their own mother tongue.
Mr. Evans cut his first type from the lead that was wrapped around the tea chests that came to the Hudson's Bay posts. His ink was gunpowder mixed with water, and his paper the inner bark of the birch tree. The Bible society has printed the Scriptures in this syllabic character, which is understood over an area nearly as large as the whole of Europe. Hymn books, the Pilgrini's Progress^ and other re- ligious literature are also published in this tongue. When Lord Dufferin was told of the achievements of this humble and little-known missionary, he de- clared that many a man lies in Westminster Abbey who has not done as much for mankind.
" In 1T77, during the Revolutionary War," says Dr. S. M. Jackson, '* Congress were memorialized to print thirty thousand copies of the Bible in order to supply the demand. Owing to the want of type and paper, they could not be printed. Hence the Com- mittee on Commerce was empowered to import twenty thousand copies from Holland, Scotland or elsewhere, at the expense of Congress. In conse- quence of the embargo prevailing at the time, this scheme could not be carried out ; and in 1782, on another memorial, a committee reported, recommend- ing a Bible printed by Robert Aitken in Phila- delphia.
'* But Bibles were not in those times printed in sufficient quantity, nor at low enough prices, for the poor. In 1808 the first organization for the supply of the Bible was formed in Philadelphia. The idea was quickly taken up everywhere ; so that in June,
BIBLE SOCIETIES. 337
1816, a hundred and twenty-eight Bible societies were reported. The credit of the idea of uniting these societies into one seems due to the Rev. Samuel J. Mills, who reported the spiritual destitution of the West and Southwest in 1815 ; but the first one to take active measures in such a direction was the Hon. Elias Boudinot, President of the New Jersey Bible Society, who, on January 1, 1816, made the first public communication in favor of a national Bible movement."
In 1816 a convention was held for that purpose. Sixty delegates, representing twenty-eight Bible so- cieties of various sections of the country, and of various denominations (Congregational, Presbyte- rian, Protestant-Episcopal, Methodist-Episcopal, Re- formed Dutch, Baptist and the Society of Friends), met, and adopted a constitution and elected the offi- cers and board of managers. It received the title of the American Bible Society.
In 1847 the managers of this society found that their Bibles and those of England had many small discrepancies, which embarrassed the proof-readers. A thorough collation was therefore made. Though the number of variations or discrepancies noted in the text and punctuation of the six copies compared fell but a little short of 24,000, yet not one of the entire number marred the integrity of the text or affected any doctrine or precept of the Bible. " Not one reader in a thousand," says Dr. Hodge, " would notice the alterations, unless they were pointed out." In the fall of 1856 the Rev. A. C. Coxe, then
388 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of Baltimore, afterwards Bishop of Western New York, questioned the right of the society to make these alterations, and it was decided that King James's version must be the standard which they would maintain.
The American and Foreign Bible Society was or- ganized in Philadelphia in 1836 by representatives of the Baptist Church. It translates the Greek words baptismos and haptiso " immersion " and " im- merse," instead of translating them in the words " baptism " and " baptize," like the other Bible soci- eties. It supports Bible readers and distributers in India and among the freedmen in the South.
The American Bible Union was organized in 1850. Its object is "to procure and circulate the most faithful versions of the Sacred Scriptures, in all lan- guages, throughout the world." It, therefore, sought to revise the sacred text in accordance with the latest scholarship in Bible criticism.
Note.— According to trustworthy estimates, 280,000,000 copies of the Bible have been printed by seventy-three Bible societies during the nineteenth century. Of these the British and Foreign Bible Society has issued 160,000,000 copies. The American Bible Society, since its foundation in 1836, has issued 66,000,000 copies.
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES 389
CHAPTER XLIV.
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES.
In addition to the circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment, very great religious enter- prise has been shown in the circulation of short, terse, plain statements of religious truth in the form of tracts. This method is by no means confined to this century, but has been practised in every time of re- ligious awakening, even long before the discovery of the art of printing. It has been asserted, indeed, that John Wycliffe was the greatest tract-writer that ever lived. A continual stream of pamphlets and short religious treatises flowed from his pen. Two hundred of them were in circulation in Bohemia alone. Diligently transcribed and passed from hand to hand by Lollard packmen and preachers, they did much to mould the religious life of Great Britain, Bohemia and other lands long before the period of the Protestant Reformation.
Luther, too, was a diligent writer of tracts. From his castle eyrie at the Wartburg he sent forth in a single year one hundred and eighty- three strong, sturdy pamphlets whose very words were half battles. So also from the pens of Melanchthon, Zwingle, Cal- vin, Knox, Farel, Bucer, (Ecolampadius and many
390 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
others of the Fathers of the Reformation, flowed a continual stream of religious tracts.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was founded to disperse both at home and abroad Bibles and tracts on religion. It is wholly connected with the Church of England, and continues to pub- lish a vast amount of popular literature, reaching an issue of over ten millions in a year.
The famous Puritan Divine, Joseph Alleine, dis- tributed gratuitously thousands of books, catechisms and prayers ; and his Alarm to the Unconverted, of which, in Calamy's time, above seventy thousand copies had been sold, was manifestly written for gratuitous distribution. Richard Baxter's Call to the Unconverted was another tract which was largely cir- culated, some twenty thousand copies being distrib- uted in less than a year.
In 1742 John Wesley began the publication of tracts and books on a very extensive scale. " He not only wrote more tracts than any other man of the age," says Dr. Stevens, " but began their circulation by his preachers throughout the United Kingdom." In 1782 Wesley and Coke instituted the "Society for the Distribution of Religious Tracts among the Poor."
" In 1750," says the Rev. Franklin Noble, '* the ' Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge Among the Poor ' was organized in London, and was the
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES, 391
first publishing society in which members of differ- ent religious denominations were united. In 1756 societies were established at Edinburgh and Glasgow for similar objects, and for several years circulated many religious publications ; but eventually they, as well as the London Society, declined.
'* In 1795 Miss Hannah More commenced at Bath a monthly series of short religious tales which she named the Cheap Repository^ of which two million copies were sold the first year. In it was published the widely popular story of The Shepherd of Salis- bury Plain. Mrs. Rebecca Wilkinson, of Clapham, Surrey, also wrote and publibhed many small books and tracts. The Philanthropic Society printed for her in the course of a few years, commencing with 1792, four hundred and forty thousand two hundred and fifty copies of books and tracts."
In 1793 the " Religious Tract Society," or as it is now called the " Religious Tract and Book Society of Scotland," was founded in Edinburgh by the Rev. John Campbell, a missionary to Africa.
The most comprehensive and successful of all these societies dates from the last year of the eighteenth century. It originated in the labors of the Rev. George Burder, of Coventry, who had begun print- ing tracts on his own account in 1781, of a more di- rectly religious character than those of Miss Hannah More. He continued their occasional issue in con- nection with some friends for several years, and then convened a meeting of ministers by whom the society was established under its present name — '* The Lon- don Religious Tract Society." Its first meeting was held in Surrey Chapel, the Rev. Rowland Hill exert-
392 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
ing much influence in the establishment of the so- ciety.
" At the outset," writes Dr. S. G. Green, for many- years secretary of the society, " the production of tracts was the only aim ; and the value of the method, as well as the appropriateness and interest of the first publications issued, led to a speedy enlargement of the work beyond the anticipations of its early pro- moters. Very early in the history of the society it was adopted as a fundamental rule that its managers should be taken in equal numbers from the Church of England and from the ranks of non-conformity. The experience of a hundred years has shown that it is not only possible, but easy, for all to labor together in this work, without any com- promise of individual opinions, or any entanglement in doctrinal or ecclesiastical dispute."
Nor has this comprehensiveness been evinced only in one special work. It was in the committee room of the Religious Tract Society, at the close of the year 1802, that the British and Foreign Bible Society was originated, and on Tuesday, February 1, 1803, that its rules were finally adopted ; the diffusion of the streams thus naturally leading to the fountain- head. From the first, the two societies have labored together in brotherly union for the evangelization of the world.
'* Every tract," continues Dr. Green, " before adop- tion by the society, is submitted to the whole com* mittee and decided on by vote. It is required that
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES. 393
the narratives in these tracts should be literally true. Fiction, it is held, has its becoming place in litera- ture; but a tract, to win the highest usefulness, should deal with real personages and actual experi- ences. Of the tracts produced under these condi- tions, there are now many thousands on the society's catalogue, from the single page hand-bill to the important series of present-day tracts, in which some of the foremost scholars and thinkers have em- ploved their pens for the defence of the Christian faith."
The work of the society has extended far beyond that of circulating tracts. The publication of books was gradually introduced. These were at first abridg- ments of standard works, as those of the Puritan divines. Subsequently concise commentaries on the Scriptures, Bible dictionaries and Concordance, Bible hand-books and the like, have had a very large cir- culation. Books of piety and devotion have had an enormous sale. The Rev. John Angell James's Anxious Enquirer, for instance, circulated over a million copies. Bunyan's Pilgrirn's Progress has been issued in sixty-five languages, mainly by the society's aid. The juvenile tales, as those of Hesba Stretton, have circulated by the million, many of them in penny editions. The aid of pictorial illustration has been invoked, immensely populariz- ing the books and tracts. The periodicals of the society have also become a very important part of its work and have reached an enormous circula- tion.
394 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
" The Religious Tract Society is also a great mis- sionary institution. For the furtherance of its high- est purposes, the committee make every week large grants of tracts to distributers at home and abroad, either altogether gratuitously or at a con- siderable reduction in price. One circumstance that contributes no little to its usefulness is, that it has at its back, so to speak, a vast army of Christian men and women who are voluntarily engaged in circu- lating publications, often accompanying the silent message with the living voice, and so in a twofold manner acting the part of evangelists. Tracts are supplied in unstinted numbers for missionary efforts of every kind, for hospital and work-house visitation, for emigrant and other ships, for soldiers on service abroad, and for settlers in the British colonies all over the world.
" The society publishes, or aids the publication of, tracts, books and periodicals in nearly two hundred languages and dialects, and is, in fact, an auxiliary to every Protestant missionary society. The methods by which it acts are very various. The societies and missions thus aided are naturally, for the most part, English ; but those of the United States and of Ger- many to a large extent share also in the benefit. Im- portant societies at Paris, Toulouse, Basle, Berlin, Hamburg, Gernsbach (Black Forest), Stockholm, Christiania and other places, carry on their several plans of publication and distribution: the London Tract Society being in various ways the helper of all." " The Religious Tract Society," continues Dr. Green, " has spent for foreign work X 733,933 and its total circulation in all languages thirty-three thousand millions."
The Wesleyans and the Baptists have also special organizations for tract-work. Christian workers con- nected with Mildmay Park in London, and various
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES. 395
sections of Plymouth Brethren, publish many tracts. The Stirling Tracts, at first prepared and printed by the private enterprise of the late Mr. Peter Drum- mond, an enterprising seed merchant in that town, are circulated by millions. A Dublin Tract and Book Repository was, until lately, carried on with a special view to Ireland. Many publishers in Eng- land and Scotland find it remunerative to publish " leaflets " — miniature tracts — or single hymns, chiefly for enclosure in letters. A vast circulation is thus secured in the correspondence of relatives and friends, and much good is accomplished in a quiet way, of which no statistics can be given. The power of the press, indeed, only begins to be under- stood as a means of counteracting error, of diffusing truth, and, in the largest sense of the phrase, of preaching Christ's Gospel.
The most important of the tract societies of Con- tinental Europe is the Hamburg Tract Society, organ- ized in 1836, which has issued many copies of its publications. There are also tract societies sup- ported by all branches of the Protestant Church in Paris, Lausanne, Toulouse, Brussels, Geneva and other continental cities.
The first religious publication society in the United States was the " Methodist Book Concern," originally established in Philadelphia, which issued its first publication in 1789. The Rev. Dr. John Stanford published tracts in New York in 1786. In 1803 the Massachusetts "Society for Promoting
2 a
396 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Christian Knowledge *' was formed. This seems to have been the earliest undenominational tract society organized in America. Subsequently numerous local societies sprang into existence, of which the " Re- ligious Tract Society " of New York, founded in 1812, and the ''New England Tract Society" at Andover, in 1814, seem to have been the most effi- cient. The latter grew rapidly, and in 1823 changed its name to the " American Tract Society," and shortly thereafter its location to Boston, greatly en- larging its operations.
In 1825 the " American Tract Society " was or- ganized in New York, and was intended to unite the local societies then in existence as far as possible as auxiliaries. The Boston Society became a branch of it. This union continued till May, 1859, when, in consequence of the dissatisfaction of a considerable number of the members in New England and else- where at the hesitation of the American Tract Society in New York to publish tracts or treatises on the sub- ject of slavery, the two societies resumed their inde- pendent organizations.
The American Tract Society in New York, own- ing a large building in Nassau and Spruce Streets, called the " Tract House," manufactures its publica- tions, and has become one of the largest of the na- tional benevolent societies of the country. In 1842 the society commenced its colportage system, which it has maintained up to the present time.
*' The foreign work of the society is mainly carried
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETIES. 397
on by the aid of missionaries at seventy different stations in the nominally Christian, Mohammedan and heathen world. At the principal mission cen- tres committees are formed, each member represent- ing one of the several denominations there laboring, and these prepare and recommend the tracts proper for publication by this society ; and to these unde- nominational and soul-saving books the annual grants of the society are devoted." The society has printed more or less, at home and abroad, in over one hun- dred and fifty languages and dialects, a work which has borne a very considerable part in conquering heathendom for Christ.
The American Tract Society, Boston, in 1858, re- sumed for some years its separate organization and work, chiefly for greater freedom of action respect- ing slavery, but since 1878 again co-operates with the national society. The Western Tract and Book Society of Cincinnati also co-operates with the society at New York.
398 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XLV.
KAISERSWERTH AND THE DEACONESS MOVEMENT.
As one sails up the lower Rhine, with its flat banks bordered by green meadows, and fringed with scattered poplars, he may see, a few miles below Diisseldorf, a strange flag floating from the tower of an old windmill. This bright blue flag bears, not the fierce and truculent-looking eagle of Germany, but a white dove with an olive branch. This beautiful emblem of peace tells us that we are approaching the village of Kaiserswerth, in Rhenish Westphalia, the birthplace of one of the most remarkable religious movements of the nineteenth century.
In over seventy of the towns and cities of Germany there are stations of the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. In the poorest parts of these cities and towns the blue gowns, white caps and calm, pure faces of these sisters of the people, going on messages of mercy to the sick and suffering, are a familiar sight. In Alexandria, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beyrout, Smyrna, Bucharest, Buda-Pesth, Florence and elsewhere, there are also Kaiserswerth hospitals or schools.
Kaiserswerth is a small, quaint village, whose stone houses line a clean, well-paved street. The
THE DEACONESS MOVEMENT. 399
Mother-House is a long stone building, three stories high, with many windows in its rather unpicturesque fa9ade. On the pediment are the appropriate words in German : " I was sick and ye visited me."
One is received by a bright-eyed, pleasant-faced sister, in a dark-blue dress and cape, with a white diaphanous cap which is not at all unbecoming. On the wall of the reception-room hangs an engraved portrait of Pastor Fliedner, the founder of the Kaiserswerth institutions, or, as he preferred to be called, the reviver of the apostolic order of deaconesses.
Visitors go first to the chapel, where the deaconesses daily spend a " silent half-hour " in meditation and prayer. One is struck with the pious German inscriptions, not only in the chapel, but within and without most of the buildings. Among these may be noted as suggesting the inspiration of these pious charities the following : " He bare our sicknesses," " I was naked and ye clothed me, I was sick and ye visited me," " I am the Lord that healeth thee," and others of similar character. On one side of the room is a plain communion table, over which is painted an Agnus Dei, with the words, " Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb."
The dormitory contains a number of white-curtained beds, the very picture of neatness and cleanliness. Flowering plants in the windows, which look into a quiet court, and biblical pictures on the walls give it a very homelike feeling. Again the simple German
400 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
piety is shown by the painted text, " The darkness and the light are both alike unto thee."
Another homelike house, which bears the name of " Evening Rest," is a place of refuge and succor for the worn-out deaconesses who return from their distant fields of labor to spend their closing days in quiet in this Mother-House. In one of these rooms is a beautiful fresco of Our Lord, to whom a tired dove is flying for refuge. Below is the inscription, " There remaineth a rest to the people of God."
One cannot fail to be struck with the domestic character of the homes. The motto of the order is "Pray and Work." A most salutary mental and moral tonic is constant employment, especially garden work in the open air.
The touch of poetry in the Kaiserswerth organiza- tion gives it a special charm. For instance, the " Paul Gerhard " home for lonely and invalid women was opened on the two-hundredth anniversary of the death of the pious poet. The rooms are decorated with comforting and inspiring verses of his hymns in gold-colored letters.
When the bell calls to prayer the sisters come trooping from all quarters for the " silent half-hour." Many are young and pretty, with bright eyes and apple cheeks, and all have a look of sweet content on their faces. The conference room, where they meet every week for consultation, has a smoothly sanded floor and like all the apartments is scrupulously clean.
THE DEACONESS MOVEMENT. 401
In the school for probationers every effort has been made to reproduce the conditions of family life. A cottage among the hills near Kaiserswerth, where the overwrought sisters may retreat from time to time, bears the appropriate name of Salem. The schools for training family servants, of which there are several in Diisseldorf, Berlin, and elsewhere, are named ** Martha's Home."
A place of special interest is the small summer- house in the old-fashioned garden. This was really the cradle of the many institutions established by Pastor Fliedner. It is a homely little structure only twelve feet square, with a steep, red-tiled roof and backed by a group of ever-whispering poplars. Here from the prison of Werden came one day, September 17, 1833, a discharged prisoner named Minna, seeking help from the good pastor to live once more an honest life. He had no means of his own but he could not refuse her request, and placed her in this small house. She was soon joined by another penitent. There was no sleeping room except a very small garret to which there was not even a flight of steps. At night a ladder was placed against the attic window and the two women climbed to the room in the roof. This small house is now a sort of memorial chamber, and contains a beautiful bust in bronze of Pastor Fliedner, and an oil portrait of his wife, who died Good Friday, 1892, and who was greatly beloved by the whole sisterhood. These manifold charities are now ably administered by Pastor Disselhoff.
402 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Of pathetic interest is the peaceful " God's Acre," where sleep nearly one hundred of the sisters, many of whom had returned from distant lands to die in the " House of Evening Rest," and to be buried in this quiet spot. The funeral slabs of the sisters are all of uniform size sloping to the east — the silent sleepers thus awaiting the resurrection morning. Each slab bears simply a dove and cross, the name of the deceased, and the text from which her funeral dis- course was preached. The grave of Pastor Fliedner bears the inscription, " Theodore Fliedner, through the grace of God, the reviver of the Apostolic Order of Deaconesses ; Born at Epstein, 1800, Died at Kaiserswerth, 1864. ' Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.' "
There are four large hospital buildings, one a handsome red brick hospital for children, in front of which is a statue of the late Kaiser Frederick III., a patron of the hospital, carrying a child in his arms. Near by is a beautiful children's garden in a glen with an artificial rockery, made, explained a good sister, to give variety to the rather monotonous land- scape of the lower Rhine. There is also a large lunatic asylum for women, with two hundred beds ; and a very interesting orphanage for the chil- dren of deceased missionaries and other clergy- men.
The Kaiserswerth institute is emphatically a child of Providence. Curiously enough the old church seal of the town represents a sturdy tree with the
THE DEACONESS MOVEMENT. 403
inscription, Gran. Sinap. Cres. Arbor, "The mustard seed becomes a tree." The story of its growth is one of fascinating interest. From the small beginning of that rustic summer-house have sprung, not only the many noble charities of the quiet Westphalian village, but nearly two hundred deaco- ness hospitals and institutions in four continents of the globe.
As is well known no vows are taken by the sisters. The deaconess can return to domestic life or to aged or sick parents at any time. She receives no salary — merely her dress and board, and a small sum for pocket money. She is not allowed to accept presents from her patients. But in case of sickness the institu- tion provides for her wants. She has entire control of her fortune, if she have one, which after her death goes to her legal heirs.
The sisters enter the diaconate, after due probation, of their own choice. The written consent of parents or guardian is required from every candidate. She promises to be true to her calling and to live in the fear of God according to His Word. The sisters accept of their own free will the post of labor chosen by the authorities. In case of infectious diseases or other laborious task they are asked if they have any objec- tion to accept the work ; but in no instance has a refusal been known.
The simple theology of the Kaiserswerth deacon- esses has been embodied in a few rough metrical lines, which have been thus rendered :
404: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The only ground whereon we stand Is Christ, and His most precious blood ;
The only aim of all our band Is Christ, our highest, only good ;
The only word we understand Is His own living, mighty Word.
The expenses of the Kaiserswerth Mother-House are nearly one hundred thousand dollars a year. About seventy-five per cent, of this is derived from the patients' fees, the sale of books, and the circulation of the Volks Kalendar, which reaches over one hundred thousand copies a year.
In 1864 Bishop Gobat, of Jerusalem, asked to have some deaconesses sent to him to nurse the sick suffering from an epidemic in that city. The sisters found their first home in the house of a Turk on Mount Zion, and soon hundreds of patients of many nations received treatment within its walls. In the beautiful Talitha Kumi, or Children's Home, on Godfrey's Hill outside the wall, nearly one hundred girls are trained in intelligence and piety.
In that crowded oriental city, Smyrna, the rendez- vous of all nations, where seventeen different lan- guages are spoken, a school and hospital have also been established. Another hospital has been opened in Alexandria. During the bombardment of the city in 1882 the sisters were obliged to escape by night with their sick and feeble patients, making their way in peril four miles through the burning town.
THE DEACONESS MOVEMENT. 405
In 1860 all Europe was roused by the tidings of the massacre of 14,000 Christians at Mount Lebanon, by the Druses, a half-Mohammedan and half-heathen tribe. Thousands of orphans and widows fled from the mountains to Beyrout. In a few weeks ten Kaiserswerth deaconesses were on the spot. Their difficulties were great. They knew not a word of Arabic, but their philanthropic purpose at once pro- cured them friends, a home was soon provided and money raised for the maintenance of the widows and orphans.
The present writer visited with special interest this charming institution, named Zoar, in memory of the escape of some of the Syrian children from a calamity scarce less dreadful than the destruc- tion of Sodom. Here over fifteen hundred Syrian, Arab, Maronite, Greek and Druse girls have been diligently trained by the kind-hearted, sweet-faced deaconess sisters. Through this training a great change has taken place in the women of Mount Lebanon. Nobler ideas of domestic life and duty have been inspired, and from near and far eager requests have come from the best families in Lebanon and Syria for the education of their daughters in Christian learning and culture. Pleasant it was under the escort of one of the sisters to explore the extensive premises, bakehouse, kitchen, laundry, dormitory and schoolroom, all scrupulously clean, and the reception and schoolrooms adorned with mottoes and decorative pictures. There is also at Beyrout a well-
406 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
equipped Kaiserswerth hospital, where deaconesses nurse annually about six hundred patients of different confessions and creeds.
The number of sick patients relieved by the Christ- like charities of the Kaiserswerth deaconesses at their various hospitals are many thousands. In Alex- andria alone, in a single year, over twenty-two thousand indoor and outdoor patients have been relieved. In great national calamities, such as war and epidemics, the sisters have been ever ready with their aid. During the Franco-Prussian War Kaisers- werth sent one hundred and forty-five deaconesses to the battle-fields, besides one hundred and twenty-five to the military hospital at home. During the outbreak of cholera at Hamburg the deaconesses, like angels of mercy, hastened to the scene and ministered with fearless devotion to the sick and dying. They have been an inspiration to Christian charity throughout the world, and many similar sisterhoods on the con- tinent of Europe, in Great Britain, and in the United States, have been organized on similar lines of Chris- tian activity.
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CHAPTER XLVL
SALVATION ARMY.
This active and energetic body has many anal- ogies with the Methodism from which it sprang. Like Methodism, it did not contemplate an existence as a separate church. It was not the result of doc- trinal difference, but of intense evangelistic zeal. The Rev. William Booth, its founder, was a minister of the Wesleyan Church. With his noble wife, Mrs. Catharine Booth, he labored with great acceptance, especially in evangelistic tours. As a local preacher he had been wonderfully successful in out-of-door preaching, in the highways and hedges, reaching the hearts of the people after the manner of the early Methodists.
The restraint of the Wesleyan organization proved irksome to the zealous evangelist, and he sought a larger liberty in the New Connection Church. His special gifts as an evangelist were recognized. He was permitted a sort of ranging commission through the midland counties. The results were extraordi- nary. In seven weeks one thousand seven hundred people professed conversion. In Yorkshire three
408 EELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
thousand in nine months were added to the Church. The conference unwisely wished him to abandon his roving commission and to devote himself to the reg- ular ministry. " I am called of God to this work," he boldly proclaimed, and although he had no pros- pects before him, nor even any security that he would be able to earn bread for his wife and his four little ones, he resigned the ministry and faced the world anew.
Mr. Booth opened his independent work in Corn- wall, where in a short time four thousand persons professed conversion. He found that he had a special call to labor for the lapsed and fallen classes. His method is thus described in Mr. W. T. Stead's graphic sketch of his life :
'* He set to work to get together a company of converted reprobates from all the midlands. At last he got together as motley a crew of reclaimed blackguards as ever mustered on a convict ship, or at a jail delivery of provincial assizes. Poachers, drunkards, wife-beaters, prize-fighters, and jail-birds of every degree of infamy, he eagerly enlisted in the service of the revival. Then he advertised them on every hoarding as the Hallelujah Band, and boldly advanced once more to the attack.
" This novel strategy had an immediate success. The chapel was crowded every night, and convicted sinners cried aloud for mercy at the penitent form. The Hallelujah Band became one of the greatest sensations of the midlands. The converted prize- {fighters attracted men who would not have stirred from their ale-houses to hear the whole bench of bishops, for an ex-jail-bird is more attractive to
SALVATION ARMY. 409
these sinners whom Jesus came to call to repentance than Mr. Spurgeon."
The centripetal attraction of the metropolis brought the evangelist to London in 1864. He began his work in Whitechapel, and after preaching out of doors, amid the rival attractions of the shows and shooting-ranges, led a procession to the tent. The work fascinated him. The wind blew the tent down, but, said the sturdy missioner, " we fell back on our cathedral, the open air." He began meetings in a stable, a warehouse and a theatre.
That which fixed the special character of the army- was its title. "At first," continues Mr. Stead, " there was nothing, or next to nothing, to distin- guish it from the numberless evangelistic movements which from time to time make more or less impress on the indifferentism of the classes which are white- washed with Christianity, and the heathenism of the masses who are more or less frankly pagan. The de- cisive change which stamped the character of the movement occurred in 1878. That which fixed the direction of the army's development was the choice of its title. This was hit upon almost by chance. Mr. Railton writes :
" ' We were drawing up a brief description of the mission, and, in wishing to express what it was in one phrase, I wrote : " The Christian Mission is a volunteer army of converted working people." " No," said Mr. Booth, " we are not volunteers, for we feel we must do what we do, and we are always ©n duty."
410 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
He crossed out the word and wrote " Salvation." The phrase immediately struck us all, and we very soon found it would be far more effective than the old name.'
" From the moment that the army received its title its destiny was fixed. The whole organization was dominated and transformed by the name. To that it owes both its strength and its weakness. As an army it will raise recruits, train soldiers, and over- run many countries, and achieve great victories. But it will always be an army in the midst of a civilian population. What the General does is not to collect permanent congregations, so much as to stir up the whole community and to attract by the magnet of his spiritual enthusiasm the few souls which have it in them to respond to his appeal for soldiers to go forth to proclaim the glad tidings of great joy unto all nations."
In his devoted wife General Booth found his other self, the very complement that he needed. She was a woman of sincerest piety, of intense human sym- pathy, of magnetic eloquence. She swayed the hearts of the people alike in the army barracks at Whitechapel and in drawing assemblies in Belgravia. She inspired, consoled and enbraved her heroic hus- band, and during her too short life was the " Mother of the Salvation Army," and lives in its enthusiastic affection as the Saint Catharine of England.
One conspicuous merit of the army and one marked cause of its success is its employment of gifted and consecrated women. The songs and prayers and ex- hortations of the Hallelujah Lass have carried the gospel to many a heart that would have been imper-
SALVATION ARMY. 411
vious to the most logical argument, and obdurate to the most fervent appeal. The army, with its martial methods, its military uniforms and titles, its drums and brass bands, its stirring music, its direct appeals to the conscience, its assault upon the very bulwarks of Satan's kingdom, made a prodigious sensation in the metropolis and the great cities of the United Kingdom. Its very persecutions — and it received no small share of them — developed the heroic character of its agents and won the sympathies of all who love English fair play.
" Short of the stake," continues their ardent ad- mirer, Mr. W. T. Stead, *' the Salvationists have endured almost every species of persecution. They have been fined and imprisoned in almost every country they have ever visited. They have been kicked, knocked down, stoned, covered with filth and generally treated as the off-scouring of all things. And the net result of it all is that now, as of old, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
" Much as the Salvation Army has been helped by its friends, it would have been at a comparative standstill but for its enemies. They have enabled it to pose as the champion of liberty of speech and liberty of procession ; they have furnished it with a noble company of officers whose university has been the jail, and who have been tempered in the furnace of tribulation before they have been called to the ministry of love for the salvation of the lost. And let it never be forgotten that all these attacks from the outside have been of incalculable service to the organization. They nipped in the bud the tendency to disintegration; they stimulated loyalty, and they bound soldiers and officers together with a bond of
2 B
412 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
affection which made the most iron discipline seem .light. The greatest danger which menaces them to- day is the possibility of their becoming so respectable that they will no longer be exposed to the biting blasts of ridicule and denunciation, which, like Kingsley's ' Nor'-Easter,' has made them the men they are."
The Army has gone into all English-speaking lands, and into many foreign countries. This was not at first of set design, but through an overruling prov- idence of God. " Why did the Salvation Army go to Australia? Because a quondam drunken milk- man, who had been saved at Stepney, emigrated to Adelaide, and sent over an urgent summons for help to start the holy war in Australia. In like manner it was a convert from Coventry who, having settled in Philadelphia, brought over the Salvation Army to the United States. But, when a door is opened, General Booth dare not refuse to go through it to proclaim the glad tidings of a gospel of happiness and love."
Mr. Stead's sympathetic character-study of General Booth is very well, so far as it goes. But it does not go far enough. It points out some of the elements of his success, but it does not sufficiently emphasize the supreme element — the mighty power of God. Again has been gloriously fulfilled the Scripture, " and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." The uplifted Christ has been the great attraction that has drawn the vilest and the worst to the foot of the cross, has renewed fallen natures, changed
SALVATION AR]^IY. 413
degraded lives, and given to outcasts the adoption of sons, the zeal of the martyrs, the marvellous ministry of a new apostleship.
General Booth is one of the ablest organizers the world has ever seen. He inspires enthusiastic devo- tion and is admirably sustained by able lieutenants. The most conspicuous of these are the members of his own family. His sons and daughters, consecrated to God from their birth, have also become energetic leaders in the Salvation Army, as have the wives of his sons and husbands of his daughters.
The largest and most successful branch of the army is that in the United States. It has erected great halls and numerous out-stations. It has a vigorous administrative centre and many hundreds of active agents. Scarce a town or hamlet in the United States or Canada is unfamiliar with the striking uniform, the stirring music, and the fervent appeals of the Salvation Army. This organization exhibits consummate wisdom in the copious use which it makes of printer's ink. The War Cry^ published in London, New York, Toronto, Melbourne and in many foreign lands, reaches millions of readers, is saturated with the vital principles of the army and is an active propaganda of its religious teachings.
Another feature of special importance of adapta- tion to the times is its social schemes. The bitter cry of London awoke a responsive chord in the heart of General Booth. The outcome of it was that remarkable book. Darkest England and the Way
414 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Out. His plan for the redemption of " the sub- merged tenth," and for its moral and industrial training for new citizenship in the Army workshops and on the Army farms won wide sympathy and co- operation. While it has not achieved all that was hoped, it has, nevertheless, accomplished much in the reformation of thousands and their restoration to lives of industry and morality.
Its social work in the United States, Canada, Australia, in the Teutonic, Scandinavian and in some of the Latin countries of Europe is an inspiring chapter in the history of Christian evangelization and social reform. There have not been wanting those who have predicted a rapid disintegration of the Army and revolt from the autocratic and military rule of the General. But his rule has been one of love as well as of authority, and, with a single excep- tion, has been one of hearty concord and good-will. That exception has been in the case of the American branch of the Army. Mr. B ram well Booth, the General's oldest son, seems to have thought that the conditions of the United States of America warranted more flexibility in administration, more recognition of national institutions and spirit than the administra- tion in the old world. Hence, a separation has taken place, with the utmost professions of love and good- will, from the Salvation Army. A vigorous campaign is conducted under the name, the American Volun- teers. The methods are almost identical with those of the Army. They embrace evangelization, social
SALVATION ARMY. 415
reform, especially the visitation of prisoners and of the waifs and estrays of society. The Volunteers command largely the sympathy and financial aid of many who have no other connection with the Army.
The Army may be said to have lived down adverse criticism. Most of those, including some in the churches, who were at first opposed to its extravagant and noisy methods, have been won by its persistent zeal in well-doing. The chief criticism to which it has been subject is that in this time of Christian integration it seems to establish a new church, that, in some places, especially in the rural districts and sparsely settled parts of the country, it introduces a divisive force.
But in reply to this it may be said that most of the work of the Army is in the great congested centres. Here its work does not overlap that of the churches. It finds its special sphere among the lowly and the lost, whom it seeks to raise to the dignity of men and the fellowship of saints. The policy of the Army, it is understood, is to call in its outposts and concentrate in the larger centres of population.
The success of tlie Salvation Army organization has led to the adoption of similar methods in the Church Army and kindred organizations. These, under denominational control and restraint, may be free from some of the irregularities of the Salvation- ists, but for the most part they also have been with- out their marvellous power and success.
414 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
OuL His plan for the redemption of " the sub- merged tenth," and for its moral and industrial training for new citizenship in the Army workshops and on the Army farms won wide sympathy and co- operation. While it has not achieved all that was hoped, it has, nevertheless, accomplished much in the reformation of thousands and their restoration to lives of industry and morality.
Its social work in the United States, Canada, Australia, in the Teutonic, Scandinavian and in some of the Latin countries of Europe is an inspiring chapter in the history of Christian evangelization and social reform. There have not been wanting those who have predicted a rapid disintegration of the Army and revolt from the autocratic and military rule of the General. But his rule has been one of love as well as of authority, and, with a single excep- tion, has been one of hearty concord and good-will. That exception has been in the case of the American branch of the Army. Mr. B ram well Booth, the General's oldest son, seems to have thought that the conditions of the United States of America warranted more flexibility in administration, more recognition of national institutions and spirit than the administra- tion in the old world. Hence, a separation has taken place, with the utmost professions of love and good- will, from the Salvation Army. A vigorous campaign is conducted under the name, the American Volun- teers. The methods are almost identical with those of the Army. They embrace evangelization, social
SALVATION ARMY.
415
reform, especially the visitation of prisoners and of the waifs and estrays of society. The Volunteers command largely the sympathy and financial aid of many who have no other connection with the Army.
The Army may be said to have lived down adverse criticism. Most of those, including some in the churches, who were at first opposed to its extravagant and noisy methods, have been won by its persistent zeal in well-doing. The chief criticism to which it has been subject is that in this time of Christian integration it seems to establish a new church, that, in some places, especially in the rural districts and sparsely settled parts of the country, it introduces a divisive force.
But in reply to this it may be said that most of the work of the Army is in the great congested centres. Here its work does not overlap that of the churches. It finds its special sphere among the lowly and the lost, whom it seeks to raise to the dignity of men and the fellowship of saints. The policy of the Army, it is understood, is to call in its outposts and concentrate in the larger centres of population.
The success of the Salvation Army organization has led to the adoption of similar methods in the Church Army and kindred organizations. These, under denominational control and restraint, may be free from some of the irregularities of the Salvation- ists, but for the most part they also have been with- out their marvellous power and success.
^jj
416 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XL VII.
CITY MISSIONS.
It was not left to the Salvation Army to create these missions. While they have greatly stimulated them, their origin is much more remote. The churches of Christendom working among the con- gested populations of the great cities have felt the need of special efforts to reach the needs of the un- churched masses. If the people would not go to the churches, the churches must go to them. Hence, mission halls, chapels and schools have been formed by almost all the religious denominations in all the large cities.
These share the purpose of social amelioration as well as religious conversion. They employ the agencies of night schools, mothers' meetings, the kindergarten, kitchen gardens, gospel temperance meetings, free breakfasts, savings banks, coal and blanket clubs, model lodging houses, Sunday-schools, Bible classes and above all active religious evangel- ism.
So many have been the laborers in this field that we can select only a few for special characterization. One of the pioneers and most energetic workers in
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this great moral movement was the Rev. Dr. Chal- mers. Of him Dr. Arthur T. Pierson writes :
" At his sixty-fifth year we find this greatest of Scotchmen on fire with all his youthful ardor, in his mission to the masses in Edinburgh, where, as in Ephesus, the gold, silver, and precious stones of the sacred fanes and palaces were in strong contrast to the wood, hay, stubble of the huts and hovels of the poor. With sublime devotion Chalmers at this ad- vanced age, when most men retire from active and arduous toil, entered upon the most difficult experiment of his life, that he might demon- strate by a practical example what can be done for the poor and neglected districts in a great me- tropolis.
" The West Port, in the old town of Edinburgh, was the home of a population whose condition may be described by two words, poverty and misery. He undertook to redeem this heathen district by the Gospel, planting in it schools and a church for the people, and organizing Christian disciples into a band of voluntary visitors. "
He had already proved the power of friendly visit- ation and fellow-organization in his parish work at Glasgow : " Applications for relief," continues Dr. Pierson, " were dealt with systematically, and so care- fully, yet thoroughly, that not a case either of scan- dalous allowance or scandalous neglect was ever made known against him and his visitors. There was a severe scrutiny to find out the fact and the causes
418 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
of poverty, to remove necessary want, and remedy unnecessary want by removing its cause. The bureau of intelligence made imposture and trickery hopeless, especially on a second attempt. And not only was poverty relieved, but at a cost which is amaz- ingly small. While in other parishes of Glasgow it averaged two hundred pounds to every one thousand of the population, and in many parishes of England it averaged a pound for every inhabitant, in St. John's it was but thirty pounds for one thousand people. It was an illustration of heroism in these modern times, when a man, past threescore years, whose public career, both with his pen and tongue, had made him everywhere famous, gave up his latter days to ele- vate the physical, mental, moral and spiritual condi- tion of a squalid population in an obscure part of the modern Athens.
" Another fact unveiled by this effort at city evangelization was that about one-fourth of the in- habitants of this territory were paupers, receiving out-door relief, and one-fourth were habitual, pro- fessional beggars, tramps, thieves and riff-raff. Here was a field, indeed, for an experiment as to what the church could do in her mission among the masses. Chalmers was hungry for such an opportunity ; it stirred all his Scotch blood. So he set his visitors at work. But he did not himself stand aloof. Down into wynds, and alleys, and closes of West Port he went ; he presided at their meetings, counselled the people sympathetically, identified himself with the
CITY MISSIONS. 419
whole plan in its formation and execution, while his own contagious enthusiasm and infectious energy- gave stimulus to the most faint-hearted. He loved to preach to these people, not less than to the most elegant audiences of the capital, or the elect students of the university. He would mount into a loft to meet a hundred of the poorest as gladly as ascend the pulpit of the most fashionable cathedral church, crowded with the elite of the world's metropolis. And those ragged boys and girls hung on his words with characteristic admiration.
"As to his mode of dealing with pauperism, the sagacious Chalmers saw that while a ministry of love to the poor, sick, helpless was a first necessity, it would be unwise and hurtful to their best interests to encourage them to depend on charity. The church must not be an asylum in which indolence and in- competence and improvidence should take refuge. The poorest must be educated to maintain, rather than to sacrifice, self-respect and compelled to form habits of self-help, industry, economy, thrift. Chalmers had no less ambition than to ameliorate and finally abolish pauperism, and his success in St. John's parish, Glasgow, had proved that he was master of the situation ; and no one can tell what results might have followed but for the Poor Law, enacted in 1845, which, by the admission of a statu- tory right to public relief, encourages improvidence, weakens family ties among the poor, conduces to a morbid satisfaction with a state of dependence, and
4:20 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
thus sows the seed of the very pauperism it professes to relieve and reduce."
The example of Dr. Chalmers was contagious, and from that day has been an inspiration to all who would solve the difficult problem of the times — the amelioration of the social, economic and spiritual destitution of the poor.
One of the most successful agents in promoting, not merely religious work among the poor in the way of Ragged Schools, Slum Missions, etc., but also their general social and physical amelioration was that distinguished layman Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, better known as Lord Shaftesbury. Born to hereditary wealth and high station, he yet devoted his whole life to works of manifold philanthropy. He early took an active part in the legislation for the relief of factory operatives, laborers in the mines, the chimney sweeps and costermongers, and lowly toilers in many walks of life.
On Shaftesbury's leaving the House of Commons for the House of Lords, Sir Robert Inglis paid him this generous tribute :
" During the last fifteen years of Lord Ashley's parliamentary life he has been emphatically the friend of the friendless. Every form of human suffering he has, in his place in this house, sought to lighten ; and out of this house his exertions have been such as, at first sight, might have seemed in- compatible Avith his duties here. But he found time for all, and when absent from his place on these
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benches he was enjoying no luxurious ease, but was seated in the chair of a Ragged School meeting, a Scripture-reader's Association or a Young Men's Christian Institution."
The following is a partial enumeration of the many- beneficent social and religious reforms which he insti- tuted, namely :
A free day-school for infants ; an evening school for youths and adults ; a woman's evening school to teach housekeeping and other domestic arts ; indus- trial classes to teach youths tailoring and shoemak- ing ; a home for boys ; a night refuge for the utterly destitute ; a clothing society for the naked ; a dis- tribution of bread to the starving ; baths for the filthy ; Bible-classes through which about ten thou- sand persons were brought to know the gospel story ; a school missionary, who scoured the streets and brought in the wanderers ; and a Ragged Church for the worship of God."
The Refuge and Reformatory Union, which was an outgrowth of the Ragged School movement, ultimately came to have five hundred and eighty- nine homes, accommodating fifty thousand children. Three hundred thousand children were brought under the influence of the society. In that army of law- less, ignorant street arabs was the embryo of an English Revolution, which in development would have turned the peaceful kingdom into a battle-field of terror and bloodshed.
Of his work among the costermongers Miss H. E.
422 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Woodsworth writes : " A class of people in whom he took a lively interest were the costermongers. The highest ambition of a coster was to own a donkej^ and truck, but the little capital necessary must be obtained from money-lenders who charged an ex- orbitant rate of interest. Lord Shaftesbury became for them a sort of banker, loaned them money at a low rate of interest, encouraged them to deal as they would be dealt by, organized a Barrow and Donkey Club, and, that he might himself become a member, bought a barrow and donkey which he loaned to those who were unfortunate. Happy and proud was the man to whom these were entrusted.
" He styled himself ' coster,' delighting to make them feel that he was one of them. He told them to write him if at any time they had grievances that he might be able to redress. ' But where shall we send our letters ? ' asked one. ' Address your letter to me at Grosvenor Square, and it will reach me,' he replied, ' but if after my name you put " K. G. and Coster," there will be no doubt that I shall get it.' Truly it was a strange combination — Knight of the Garter and Coster."
In the New World we select as a typical example a man of affairs, the manager of an immense business, and one of the most efficient Postmasters General the United States ever possessed. Though not like Lord Shaftesbury, born in the purple, but one of the world's busy toilers, John Wanamaker was one of nature's noblemen. His whole life has been devoted
CITY MISSIONS. 423
to the work of doing good. Dr. A. T. Pierson thus describes the beginning of one of his great enter- prises :
" On a February afternoon in 1858, he, with Mr. Toland, a missionary of the Sunday-School Union, began a mission school in a second story back room on Pine Street, Philadelphia. Driven out of this first room by the rowdies of the neighborhood, they tried again on South Street, and at the first session gathered twenty-seven children and two women, be- sides Mr. Wanamaker and Mr. Toland. To-day in that huge Sunday-school building between two thou- sand and three thousand children and adults gather every Sunday afternoon, while Mr. Wanamaker's own Bible class fills the spacious adjoining church. Bethany has a membership of over three thousand, and the people never tire of going there. The gos- pel is preached ; but there is another secret : the people are loved and sought and made at home. They are taught that the whole of this great institu- tional church is for them, their home, and that every- body is there made welcome for his own sake, and not for the sake of his money, his learning, his social status, his business influence, his ability to help, or his external surroundings."
Mr. Wanamaker's Bible class numbers well on to two thousand. This is so subdivided that in case of sickness or need each member is carefully looked after. Bethany church is made the centre of the social as well as the religious life of the people.
424 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
There is scarcely a night on which some meeting is not held. Part of its machinery consists of savings bank, deaconess' homes, book rooms, whatever encourages frugality, charity and service. The neighborhood is transformed. Mr. Wanamaker obtained control of whole blocks of buildings that he might make homes for the people and displace whiskey shops by cheap and neat homes.
As another illustration of the way in which con- secrated effort may lead to great results the Fred Victor Mission in Toronto may be adduced. A few years ago Mrs. Sheffield, a devoted Sunday-school teacher, felt that the children on the street needed her loving care and instruction more than the children in the school. She therefore set out to collect a class of these neglected little nomads. Their con- dition of person and clothing was such that she gathered them into an upper room in the Orange Hall, although nearly all the children were of Roman Catholic parentage. The class soon outgrew the up- per room. The work developed. Helpers came to her aid. The White Rose Tavern was bought out and the bar and bottles were superseded by Bibles and hymn-books. Teaching classes, gospel and tem- perance meetings were held every night in the week. A lodging-house for men " down on their luck " was soon added and well equipped.
Again the work outgrew its accommodation. A philanthropic gentleman, Mr. Hart A. Massey, gener- ously erected, at a cost of over $60,000, as a memorial
CITY MISSIONS. 425
of his son Fred Victor, one of the best equipped city mission institutions on this continent or in the world. It has had for years a minister specially set apart for its oversight, an effective organization of over a hun- dred mission workers, with Sunday-school, gospel and temperance meetings, kindergarten, cooking classes, bank, gymnasium, dormitory, deaconess workers, labor bureau and rescue home, and is a hum- ming hive of Christian activities.
Probably one of the best known of all the city missions in the world is that established by the late Jerry McAuley in Water Street, New York. Jerry McAuley was himself a jail bird who had served a lengthened term at Sing Sing prison. The following is the story of his checkered life as told in his own graphic words :
" Me father was a counterfeiter, an' ran away from justice before ever I can remember him. I'd no schoolin', an' got blows for meat and drink till I wished meself dead many a time. I thought could I only get to me sister in America I'd be near the same as in paradise. I was tall o' my years an' strong, an' had no fear for any man livin', an' a born thief as well, that stealin' came nateral an' easy ; and soon I was in a den on Water Street learnin' to be a prize- fighter, an' with a boat on the river for thievin' at night.
" Now, I'd done enough to send me to prison forty times over, an' I knew it, but that didn't make it any easier to go there for something I hadn't done.
426 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
A crime was sworn on me by some that hated me bad an' wanted me out o' the way. Fifteen years in prison I That was the sentence I got, an' I not twenty years old. I was that desperate I would have killed the keeper, but I saw no chance out even if I did.
" It was one Sunday morning. I'd been in prison five years. I dragged meself into the chapel an' sat down. Then I heard a voice I knew, an' I looked up. There by the chaplain was a man I'd been on a spree with many an' many a time, — Orville Gardner. He stepped down off the platform. ' My men,' says he, ' I've no right anywhere but among you, for I've been one of you in sin,' an' then he prayed, till there wasn't a dry eye there but mine, — I was that 'shamed to be seen cryin', but I looked at him an' wondered what had come to him to make him so different. He said a verse that struck me, an' when I got into me cell again I took down the Bible an' began to hunt for it. I read awhile till I found somethin' that hit the Catholics, I thought ; an' I pitched me Bible down an' kicked it all around the cell. *The vile heretics!' I says. 'That's the way they show up the Catholics, is it ? '
'* ' I'll have a Catholic Bible,' says I, ' an' not this thing that no decent Catholic would touch with a ten-foot pole.' So I got me a Catholic Bible from the library, but it was pretty much the same, only more lumbered up with notes. I read 'em both, an' the more I read the more miserable I was.
CITY MISSIONS. 42Y
" I was in an agony, an' the sweat rollin' from me face in big drops, an' ' God be merciful to me a sin- ner ' came from me lips. Then, in a minute, some- thing seemed to be by me. I heard a voice, or felt I heard one plain enough. It said, ' My son, thy sins, which are many, are forgiven.'
"Then at last come a pardon when I'd been in seven years an' six months just, an' I came back down the river to New York.
"There was never a lonesomer man alive. I wouldn't go back to the Fourth Ward, for fear I'd be tempted, an' so I wandered round tryin' for work, till one day I met a friend, an' he took me to a lager- beer saloon. Lager-beer had come up since I went up the river. I didn't know it was any more hurt than root-beer ; they said it wasn't. But that first night did for me. Me head got in a buzz, an' in a week or two I wanted some thin' stronger. Then I had a boat on the river agin. I'd buy stolen goods of the sailors, an' then make 'em enlist for fear o' bein' arrested, an' I took the bounty. I kept under liquor all the time to head off thinkin', for I said God was done with me, an' I was bound for hell sure an' certain.
" One night, as me partner boarded the ship we were after I slipped an' fell overboard an' went un- der like a shot. An eddy carried me off, and the boat went another way. I knew I was drownin', for I went down twice, an' in me extrimity I called on
God though I felt too mean to do it. It seemed as 2 G
428 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
if I was lifted up an' the boat brought to me. I got hold of it somehow, I don't just know how. The water had sobered me. When I was in it, I heard, plain as if a voice spoke to me, ' Jerry, you've been saved for the last time. Go out on that river agin an' you'll never have another chance.'
" I was mad. I went home an' drank an' drank an' drank. I was sodden with drink, an' as awful- lookin' a case, — more so, than you've ever laid eyes on. An' Oh, the misery o' me thoughts !
"A city missionary came one day to the house where I boarded. He followed me up day after day. He kept on helpin'. At last I prayed once more. There wasn't any shoutin' this time, but there was quiet an' peace.
'*I was married by this time. We were doin' day's work, both of us, an' poor as poor could be. But we said, ' Why have we both been used to filth an' nastiness, an' all else, if not so's to know how to help some others out of it ? ' An' that's the way we begun in an old rookery of a house, in one room, an' a little sign hung out,
THE HELPING HAND EOR MEN.
" From that day to this, — first in the old buildin', an' then in this, the new one, — there's been a meetin' every night in the year, an' now it's hundreds, — yes, thousands — that can say the Water Street Mission was their help to a new life.
CITY MISSIONS. 429
" Day an' night we work, — you know how. My life is slowly but surely goin' from me. I feel it, but livin' or dyin' it's the Lord's. All these years He has held me, but I don't know now but that I'd have fallen again if I hadn't been so busy holdin' on to others. That's why I tell me story an' everythin' right out an' plain. There's times I'm dead sick o' rememberin' it, but I have to do it, an' them very times seem the ones that help most. An' as long as tongue can move, may I never be ashamed to tell what I've been saved from."
So Jerry toiled on for a few years, then " ceased at once to work and live." He had won the con- fidence and esteem of the best men in New York, and at his funeral Broadway Tabernacle was thronged by a vast audience to pay their last tribute of re- spect. Many hundreds of drunkards, and worse, were saved from their sins in Jerry McAuley's Water Street Mission, and at the Cremorne Mission established for more fashionable sinners.
" The Water Street Mission," says Dr. A. T. Pier- son, " early learned that methods commonly in use will not suffice there. The work of saving drunk- ards and thieves and harlots was undertaken, not as a bit of polite philanthropy, nor even of Christian duty, but under the divine impulse of passion for souls. No kid gloves there to act as non-conductors — but a bare hand with holy love to give a sympa- thetic grasp. Front seats and best seats reserved, not for the gold ring and goodly apparel, but for the vile
4:30 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
raiment and sin-scarred face. The fundamental law of soul-saving there is that you must be in close touch with those whom you would reach. And the history of these twenty-five years proves that some men and women, who were apparently not worth the effort to save, who were like the dog and the sow that return to their own vices and wallowings, have by grace, become the most heroic and successful evangelists and missionaries and soul-savers, because they knew and felt what it was to be hopelessly and helplessly lost and know and feel what it is to be both saved and kept.
** The superintendent of the Water Street Mission, Mr. S. H. Hadley, is himself a man gloriously saved from the lowest hell of drunkenness. No wonder he can sympathize. He glories in a Sinners' Club House, where the doors are always open and the work never stops. The devil's castaways are always welcome there. When a man is kicked out of all the dens of infamy and iniquity, because he is of no more use, and nothing more can be got out of him, he is received with open arms. The mission belongs to no church or denomination ; its field is the world, especially the worst part of it, and its working force the whole Church of Christ, especially the best part of it. Go whenever you can, and see how the cross is still the hope for the dying thief and the seven- demoned Magdalene ; and how the Pentecostal fire is the secret still of all holy witness and work with God. Would you like to speak to such men and
CITY MISSIONS. 431
women ? No rhetoric or eloquence is demanded — it would be out of place. Go and tell what Jesus has done for you, and let there be a grip in your testi- mony. You will find men and women who will come and kneel down by those ' tear-stained benches,' and give themselves up to the sinner's Saviour to be cre- ated anew in Christ Jesus. Every night in the year you may find someone over whom heaven is set ringing with new praises and songs of joy."
Another beautiful form of Christian philanthropy is that of the college and other settlements among the poor. This was begun in England by a number of graduates of Oxford University who made a home in the most noisome purlieu of Bethnal Green, and made it a light in a dark place, a centre of social and relig- ious influence. They had many imitators on both sides of the sea. People of gentle blood, of refine- ment and culture, in the spirit of their divine Master, beheld the multitudes as sheep having no shepherd, went to dwell among them, and by the touch of human brotherhood and sisterhood, the daily exhi- bition of love and sympathy, to win them to Chris- tian living and high and holy hopes.
This spirit of philanthropy, this purpose to seek and to save those who are most utterly lost, is one of the most marked characteristics of the times. Every great city has its midnight mission, its prison gate mission, its home for the outcast and the poor. Real- izing that *' the soul of all improvement is the im- provement of the soul," they seek along with the
432 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
betterment of outward circumstances the transform- ing of the character. They feel that washing the outside of the vessel will avail little while it is im- pure within.
There are also manifold manifestations of sympathy for .the suffering in homes for the aged and infirm, orphanages and infants' homes, Magdalene asylums and reformatories, homes for newsboys and boot- blacks, places of succor and help for all sorts and conditions of men, even for the unthankful and the unworthy.
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 433
CHAPTER XL VIII.
YOUNG men's CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS.
Among the most marked manifestations of the spread of Christian principles in the manifold activities of life is the growth during half a century of Young Men's Christian Associations. They began, like many another important enterprise, in a very quiet, un- ostentatious manner. The rivers that water the valleys have their springs far off among the moun- tains, or in some secluded glen ; so this stream of hallowed influence had its humble origin in one of the obscure by-ways of life.
Mr. George Williams, now Sir George Williams, the originator of these associations, was born at Ash- way Farmhouse, in the south of England, in 1821. He was apprenticed in his fifteenth year to a draper at Bridgwater, and in his youth, through the in- fluence of some pious fellow-apprentices, gave his heart to God. In a short time twenty-one of the young men in the establishment became Christians. In 1841 young Williams went to London to push his fortunes in the great metropolis. The temptations to which young men were exposed, to drink, gamble and i-uin both body and soul were very great.
434 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Williams and some pious salesmen met for prayer and Bible study. Before long sixteen young men were converted. In the meantime they heard of a similar movement in another commercial house, and invited its members to unite with them. A meeting of the young men from both houses was, therefore, held at No. 72 St. Paul's Churchyard on the 6th of June, 1844, where it was resolved to form a " society for improving the spiritual condition of young men engaged in the drapery and other trades." Sir George Williams is still living to witness with devout gratitude to God the remarkable growth of that feeble germ which now brings forth its fruits of holiness in almost every land.
To the religious character of the association its members soon added the idea of intellectual im- provement, and for that purpose established a library and instituted debates. They also inaugurated the Exeter Hall lectures to young men, which have since become famous throughout the world. These lectures became a popular institution, enlisting much of the first literary talent in Great Britain, and attracting thousands to their delivery. In their published form they have reached multitudes throughout the English-speaking portion of the world. The society also instituted Sunday Bible- classes, and employed its members in general Sur^ day-school and ragged-school work.
In December, 1851, the first Young Men's Chris- tian Association in America was established at Mon-
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 435
treal, Canada, and on the 29th of the same month the first in the United States in the City of Boston, Mass. Similar societies rapidly sprang up in New York, Buffalo, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, San Francisco and elsewhere, to the number of twenty-five in two years. The felt necessity of some means for the interchange of thought and opinion led to the calling of the first convention at Buffalo, N. Y., on June 7, 1854. Thirty-five delegates were present, and a voluntary confederacy was formed, having a central committee and annual conventions, whose functions, however, were to be merely ad- visory in their character.
The Civil War, though it threatened the very ex- istence of the confederacy of associations, was really the occasion of marvellously developing its energy and usefulness. The convention had been appointed for St. Louis in the spring of 1861, but the outbreak of the war prevented its meeting. The committee, therefore, called a convention at New York, in the month of November, to see if the agencies of the as- sociation could not in some way come to the aid of the country in that fearful struggle. The result was the formation of that noble organization, the Christian Commission. All the world knows the history of its labors, which gleam like golden em- broidery on the ensanguined robe of war — or like the silver lining of the sombre clouds of fate, irradiating the gloom of battle by glimpses of the heavenly light of love and charity.
436 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
The agents of this Commission carried at once the bread that perishes and the bread of life, and healed the wounds both of the body and the soul. They nursed the sick back to life, and by their hal- lowed ministrations quickened in the soul aspirations for that higher life that is undying. The '' Christian Artillery" of the battlefield — the coffee wagons and supply trains of the Commission — succored many a wounded warrior, whose bruised body the deadly enginery of war had well-nigh crushed to death. These plumeless heroes of the Christian chivalry exhibited a valor as dauntless often as his who led the victorious charge or covered the disas- trous retreat. By their gentle ministrations to the stricken and the dying, amid the carnage of the battle-field and in the hospitals, they laid the nation under obligations of gratitude which should never be forgotten.
From November, 1861, to May, 1866, this Commis- sion disbursed both for the benefit of the patriot sol- diers of the Union and for the Confederate wounded the sum of $6,291,107. It employed 4,859 agents, working without recompense an aggregate of 185,- 662 days. These agents held 136,650 religious serv- ices, and wrote 92,821 letters for the soldiers. They gave away 1,466,748 bibles, whole or in part, 1,370,953 hymn-books, 8,603,484 books or pamphlets, 18,189,863 newspapers and magazines, and 80,368,- 998 pages of religious tracts. They also greatly as- sisted the operations of the Sanitary Commission,
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 437
which expended in the same time $4,924,048, mak- ing an aggregate by the two of ill, 215,155 poured out as a free-will offering by a grateful country for the moral and physical welfare of its brave defenders.. The world had never before seen such an example of colossal liberality.
During the long years of the war, wlien the nation seemed convulsed with the throes of a mortal agony, the confederacy of associations was weakened by the loss of its Southern members, and by the destruction of several local branches in the North, but has since far more than regained its former strength. The annual conventions are occasions of especial interest. These conventions concentrate the Christian sympathy of the communities where they are held, and stimu- late their zeal for philanthropic effort. Extensive and powerful revivals of religion are frequently the legacies they leave behind, and the lasting souvenirs of their visit.
Besides the numerous Associations in Great Brit- ain and her North American colonies, kindred in- stitutions have also been organized in Holland, Bel- gium, Germany, France, Italy, at Algiers, Alex- andria, Beyrout, Smyrna and Constantinople ; at Madras and Calcutta; in Australia, New Zealand and Ceylon ; at the Cape of Good Hope, at Natal and Sierra Leone ; in China and Japan, and elsewhere.
One effect of these Associations is to give a nobler moral tone to business — to prove that it is not a mere selfish game of grab. The reproach of the age,
438 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
whether deserved or not, is its intense dollar wor- ship ; its passionate greed of gain ; the eager race for riches, in which all classes of society engage. The tendency of all this is debasing to the intellect and hardening to the heart. The spirit of rash specula- tion and of reckless extravagance fostered by the gold boom and stock exchange are morally antipodal to religious feeling. But business, when ennobled and dignified by a lofty Christian principle, will be- come a high and holy calling. This desirable con- summation will vastly increase the resources of the Church, and will unseal fountains of liberality which will water the earth with the streams of an almost boundless beneficence.
It is young men who now carry on most of the active business of the world, and who will soon con- trol most of the wealth of the world, and it is Chris- tian young men who are the hope of the world. Men who early acquire the habit of Christian activity and of systematic giving, when with the lapse of years their riches increase, will be moved by that second nature, which is stronger than the first, to liberally endow the Christian institutions of the country. The commercial success of Christian men will prove, what seems to be doubted, that religion does not spoil a man for business, nor make him a mere milksop in the active relationships of life ; and these men will carry their business faculties into the religious enterprises of the Church, and give them a new efficiency and success.
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 439
In Germany, the Christlicher Jiinglings-Verein is a sort of Christian club for young merchants and others. It is frequently of an avowedly secular character, furnishing board and lodging, and em- ploying instructors in French, English, drawing and music. The Jongelings Verbond of Holland is a somewhat similar institution.
The relation of this institution to the Church is an important question. It is not the rival of the Church, as some have supposed, but its handmaid. Many ministers and churches at first looked askance at these associations, and turned toward them the cold shoulder ; but they now regard them as their most valued allies. The greater flexibility of their organization makes them most facile and effective instruments by which the Church may carry on much important evangelistic labor. They also utilize a large amount of energy, now lying dormant, by em- ploying lay agency, and causing that energy to flow through a greater variety of channels. The young men who are most active in the Association will gen- erally be the most active in the Church. Of course a young man's first duty is to the Church with which he is connected. But a successful church should be an aggressive missionary agency ; and frequently a portion of its missionary zeal can flow through the channels of the Association more readily than through denominational channels.
The truly catholic character of this institution is one of its most admirable attributes. It brings the
440 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
most ardent spirits of the different churches into intimate relationship and co-operation with each other. It rubs off the acute angles of intense de- nominationalism, and cultivates a spirit of broader catholicity. Christianity is something nobler and more comprehensive than any of man's petty isms, and in some cases has especial facilities for working when freed from sectarian trammels. In certain kinds of evangelistic labor, purely non-sectarian effort disarms prejudice, and is free from every possible suspicion of proselytism — a liability to which sus- picion frequently deters ministers and others from engaging in needed work. Moreover, the non-pro- fessional character of these lay-services renders them acceptable to a class who reject what they consider the perfunctory visitation of the regular clergy.
Again, these Associations form a sort of corps de reserve for recruiting the ranks of the Christian min- istry. They furnish the opportunity for the exercise of Christian activity, and for the development of what- ever " gifts and graces," or special aptness for the work, its members may possess. They are of infinite service by enabling men to grasp the details of social evils, without which no efforts to relieve them can be of much avail. " Things seen are mightier than things heard." The concrete affects us vastly more than the abstract. The sight of a wounded or dying man moves our sympathies more than the report of a thousand slain in battle.
So the personal contact of the members of these
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 441
Associations with the various forms of misery abound- ing in great cities will be their best education in the work of practical philanthropy and social reform.
Many Associations vigorously prosecute evangel- istic labor in street preaching, Bethel services, tract distribution, cottage and noon prayer-meetings, Bible- classes, visitation of the poor, of the prisoner in the jails and of the soldier in the barrack-room, and min- istration to the sick and dying in the hospitals. Their members literally fulfil the command of the Divine Master, " Go out into the highways and com- pel them to come in." They visit the hotels, the boarding-houses, the workshops, to find out strangers coming to the city. They invite them to their rooms, introduce them to Christian families, and throw around them the arms of love and sympathy, to shield them from the snares that surround the path of un- sophisticated youth in a great city.
Many who could not be induced to attend church will join the Association, and thus be led into the paths of temperance and godliness, and eventually into church relations. In providing a cheerful, social rendezvous, and wholesome companionship for young men in lodgings, or for strangers, they save many from the innumerable temptations of city life. It was in such work as this that Dwight L. Moody won his first laurels and received his first training in successful evangelism.
These Associations are a sort of Christian police, watching over the spiritual interests of society, and
442 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
rendering innocuous or useful what were otherwise elements of danger to the common weal. Their members are the Good Samaritans of the friendless strangers who have fallen among the thieves and plunderers who prey upon their fellow-men. Like the mediaeval order of the Confraternita Delia Mise- ricordia, though bound by no conventual vow, the}'- visit continually the sons of want and woe, the sick and those in prison, and minister unto them. Their self-denying labors during the visitation of the cholera at New Orleans, and of the yellow fever at Norfolk, Virginia, will never be forgotten by those who witnessed them. Their work among the fire- men of Philadelphia was productive of great and permanent good.
A new department of Christian work which the As- sociations have recently taken up is that of organ- izing branches in connection with the different rail- ways of the country. There are on the American continent over 800,000 railroad men. Compara- tively few of these have any church relations. From their mode of life they are exposed to great tempta- tions, and many are beyond the reach of the churches. In connection with several roads Christian Associa- tions have been established, and so highly do the rail- way corporations appreciate the improved morale of their employees under these influences that several of them have promoted, by liberal money grants, by furnishing rooms for meetings and reading-rooms, and by other means, the formation of such Associations.
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 443
Many of their financial undertakings are " enter- prises of great pith and moment." The Association Rooms in the large cities are frequently noble and costly buildings. In Chicago the Association erect- ed a magnificent marble hall which would seat three thousand five hundred persons, at the cost of a quarter of a million of dollars. It was no sooner completed than it was burned to the ground, but, before the ruins had ceased to smoke, $125,000 were subscribed for the erection of another, which has since arisen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of its predecessor. In one year that Association circulated one hundred and ninety thousand tracts. It received a donation at one time of ten tons of tracts for dis- tribution from Great Britain.
There are, it is estimated, not less than a million young men, who are thus bound together, in a blessed brotherhood, to toil in the service of the Divine Master for the spiritual welfare of their fellow-men : young men who occupy positions of honor, of trust, of influence, and who will control much of the fi- nancial, and political, as well a^ religious, destiny of the age : a noble band of Christian workers, true soldiers of the holy cross, knights of a loftier chivalry than the steel-cased warriors of old I Upon their banners is inscribed the sublime watchword, " Christ for all the world, and all the world for Christ ! " Their grand purpose is to hasten the time when upon every industry and activity of the age shall be written
*' Holiness to the Lord ; '* and when the sin-stricken 2d
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world, like the demoniac, out of whom were cast a legion of devils, shall sit clothed and in its right mind at the feet of Jesus.
After fifty years the following figures represent the growth of the Y. M. C. A. throughout the world : In the year 1896, Great Britain and Ireland, 1,298 ; Canada, 86 ; India, 78 ; other British possessions, 54; United States, 1,362 ; Germany, 1,320 ; Nether- lands, 812 ; Switzerland, 427 ; Norway, 189 ; Den- mark, 150 ; France, 135 ; Japan, 60 ; Sweden, 58 ; Italy, 47 ; Belgium, 33 ; China, 11 ; Palestine and Syria and other countries, 9. — Grand total, 6,129.
Many of the home and foreign Y. M. C. A. build- ings are of elegant architecture and are centres of great Christian activity. It has been claimed that early in the century a similar society, "Jiinglings- Verein," was organized in Switzerland. But the distinctive Y. M. C. A. cannot be traced further back than the London society of 1844.
There are over forty magazines, chiefly monthly, issued by the Y. M. C. A.'s in Great Britain and its colonies. The principal American and continental Associations also issue local periodicals.
A special development of the Y. M. C. A. in recent years has been in connection with the colleges, especially of the United States and Canada. In many of these institutions admirable buildings have been erected, and incalculable good has been done by the visitations throughout the world by Mr. Mott, and others who, in connection with the Students,
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 445
Missionary Movement, have led many of the brightest young men in the universities and colleges of Chris- tendom to devote themselves to the higher interests of mankind. The late Professor Drummond was especially enthusiastic in this work, and used to write with warmth of his having "landed" or " bagged " certain bright young men for this noble work.
Kindred in aim and methods have been the Bible study and prayer unions in Great Britain of the civil service, lawyers, doctors, commercial travellers, London banks, soldiers' Christian Association and others, numbering 463 centres of operations, with a membership of 8,308.
The fourteenth conference of the Association of all lands was held July 6-10, 1898, in Basle, Switzerland. It was a large and, in every respect, a successful gathering, and the reports from the field at large were of a most encouraging character.
TJie manifest benefit of the Y. M. C. A. soon dem- onstrated a need for similar organizations for young women. Mr. J. P. Cattell writes: "In America this movement dates from the year 1857, when the first association for distinctive work among young women was organized in New York City. Ten years later a general interest in the subject resulted in the formation of associations in many of the large cities of the United States. Many of the associations use their buildings as lodgings or boarding-houses for women, and a few have restaurants ; but there is a
446 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
growing tendency to emphasize such methods of educational, social and religious work for women, as the reading-room, library, educational classes, social receptions, Bible classes and prayer-meetings. Em- ployment offices are also a very general feature in this work. An effort to organize associations among young women in schools and colleges is meeting with considerable success."
In June, 1898, the first ecumenical conference of the world's Young Women's Christian Association was held in London. There were present three hundred and twenty-six delegates from twenty countries, two hundred and four being from Great Britain and Ire- land, nineteen from India, thirteen from Sweden, fourteen from the United States and a less number from Australia, Canada, China, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and other lands. No general statistics of membership are given, but en- couraging reports were made of the advantages con- ferred upon young women by these associations. Council and protection are offered to strangers coming into the great cities, and especially to women and girls exposed to the perils of the cities of the con- tinent of Europe.
Thirty-five thousand girls in the United States, it is affirmed, are working for degrees in universities or colleges, contrasted with one-tenth of that number in Great Britain. In the United States there are three hundred and seventeen associations in the college department, with about five thousand College Associa-
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 447
tion members. Over two hundred have resolved to be foreign missionaries, and over one hundred are al- ready in the field, and hundreds more are studying the history and needs of missions in connection with the mission classes of the Y. W. C. A,
44:8 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
CHAPTER XLTX.
YOUNG people's ORGANIZATIONS.
A STRIKING characteristic of the latter part of the uineteenth century has been the organizing of the young life of all the churches for Christian culture and Christian service. We have already noted the great work in this direction which has been accom- plished by the Sunday-schools and Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, but within a few years a new scope and development has been given to this movement by the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor and similar organiza- tions. This movement is a distinct evolution, a growth from small beginnings to great results.
The Christian Endeavor movement owes its origin to the Rev. Francis E. Clark, D. D., the devoted pastor of the Williston Church, Portland, Maine. On February 2, 1881, Dr. Clark formed, in his own study, the first Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, with essentially the same constitution, pledge and methods of work as the present world-wide movement. So successful was this organization that Dr. Clark announced his methods in an article entitled **How one Church Cares for its Young People." Before
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 449
the end of the year four more societies were formed, and many other churches adopted similar methods.
The first of the annual conventions, which have become such important inter-denominational rallies, was held in June, 1882, at Williston Church, Port- land, when only six societies were recorded. The following year the number had grown to fifty-three ; in 1885 the United Society of Christian Endeavor was incorporated with two hundred and fifty-three local Societies and fourteen thousand eight hundred and ninety-two members.
The following year the Christian Endeavor organ, The Golden Bule, was established. Dr. P. E. Clark resigned his important pastorate in South Boston to become President of the United Society and Editor-in-chief of The G-olden Rule, A special feature of the Christian Endeavor Society is its inter- denominational character, and it rapidly spread to all the Evangelical Churches, local societies retaining their denominational allegiance, while sharing the inter-denominational fellowship.
Soon the movement spread beyond this continent. Dr. Clark made successive visits to Europe in the interest of the Society, and established branches in almost all the European countries. He subsequently made Christian Endeavor journeys around the world, receiving a cordial welcome in the chief centres of population of Australia, China, India, Turkey and other countries.
The annual conventions are the most largely at-
450 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
tended religious gatherings ever held. The largest of these was that at Boston in 1895, when fifty-six thousand four hundred and thirty-five delegates were registered, and eight hundred and twenty-five different meetings, many of them of an evangelical character, were held, with an aggregate attendance of six hundred and forty-three thousand five hun- dred persons.
During the first fifteen years of the Christian En- deavor movement " more than five million Endeav- orers in all have been enrolled, with two million others in denominational societies that are Endea- vorers in all but name. Ten million Endeavor meetings have been held. Five million copies of the constitution have been printed, in forty different languages, and at least fifteen million copies of the pledge. More than one million associate members have joined the Church, and more than two million dollars have been given to denominational causes."
In almost every country in the world the Chris- tian Endeavor Societies have been organized. They have been of vast assistance in promoting Christian work in the mission field. They have been formed also in work-shops and prisons, in insane asylums, work-houses, schools for the deaf and dumb, and on board the ships of the United States Navy. They publish local organs in many different languages. They devote much faithful energy to the study of the Scriptures, to religious testimony and prayer, to ag- gressive Christian work in recruiting members for its
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 45I
organization and for the Church, and other forms of aggressive Christian work.
In 1899 the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor reported fifty-five thousand eight hundred and thirteen local societies, including junior and in- termediate, and a total membership of three million three hundred and fifty thousand.
The Epwortli League was formally organized in 1889, but its real genesis was much further back. As early as 1872 effort was made to organize the young people of Methodism for Christian culture and service. Under the inspiration of Dr. John H. Vincent, now Bishop Vincent, an organization known as the Church Lyceum had been created especially for the intellectual training of the young people of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A copious litera- ture was prepared, giving, in small tracts, a popular statement of the principal facts of science, history and religious progress. The General Conference of 1872 was memorialized to give recognition to this organization. It was cordially adopted by the Gen- eral Conference of 1876.
The Church Lyceum in turn gave place to the Oxford League, a society which retained the idea of intellectual culture, and provided also for greater activity in the social and spiritual life. By the be- ginning of 1889 other Methodist young people's so- cieties had come into being, — the Young People's Methodist Alliance, the Young People's Christian League and two others. Each of these societies was
452 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
pushing its work with zeal. Some of them sought to cooperate upon the same territory. It was seen that some step must be taken to centralize and harmonize the work. Finally a conference of the young people's societies of the Methodist Episcopal Church was proposed, and their leaders met at Cleveland in Cen- tral Church, on May 14, 1889. The formation of the Epworth League from the union of the five so- cieties on the evening of May 15 was the result.
The Epworth Herald, the organ of the League, was established, with the Rev. Dr. J. F. Berry as Editor, May, 1890. In three years the subscription list had crossed the 100,000 line, and in 1900 reached 120,000. In 1891, Dr. E. A. Schell was appointed General Secretary. He was succeeded in ofl&ce by Dr. Thirkield in 1899.
In 1889 the Epworth League was introduced into Canada. It was very widely adopted throughout Canadian Methodism, and the following year received endorsation by the General Conference, being its first official recognition by any Methodist legislation. A provision of the Canadian Leagues, whereby En- deavor Societies might be incorporated with the Church institution as Epworth Leagues of Christian Endeavor, greatly facilitated the extension of both organizations.
The Rev. Dr. Withrow, the Sunday-School Sec- retary of the Methodist Church, served five years also as Secretary to the Epworth League. At the General Conference of 1894 the League was so de-
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 453
veloped that the Rev. A. C. Crews was specially ap- pointed as Sunday-School and League Secretary, and in 1898 as Editor of the League organ, The Canadian Epworth Era,
In the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the Epworth League was also soon organized, with the Rev. Dr. Steele as General Secretary and Editor of The Epworth Era. He was succeeded in 1898 by Rev. Dr. Du Bose.
The Epworth League has also had its great con- ventions like the Christian Endeavor Society, but these are held, not annually, but biennially, and, be- ing denominational in character, they are not such great numerical rallies.
The growth of the Epworth League has been phenomenal. In the Methodist Episcopal Church alone in ten years it has reached 19,800 chapters. In addition to these were 6,900 Junior Leagues, and a total membership of 1,860,000. The membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and in Canada, increased this number to considerably over 2,000,000.
The great purpose of the Epworth League, like that of the Society of Christian Endeavor, is the cultivation of personal piety, the development of Christian activity, the exercise, through its depart- ment of mercy and help, of social philanthropy, and the promotion of intellectual development. For the latter purpose reading courses have been organized, in all of which many thousands of young people have
454: RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
taken up year after year consecutive series of studies in science, history and biblical studies. A forward movement in missions has also characterized all the different young people's societies.
In the Wesleyan Church of Great Britain, a Wes- ley Guild has been formed, with its own literary organ and reading courses, with marked success.
The Brotherhood of St. Andrew in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States grew out of a young men's Bible class in St. James' Church, Chicago, in 1883. On St. Andrew's Day, November 30, that year, a dozen young men of St. James' Church agreed to pray daily for the spread of Christ's King- dom among young men and to make an earnest effort each week to bring at least one young man within the hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These are the two rules of Prayer and Service which have, throughout its history, characterized the Brotherhood. As the object, methods and results of the work be- came known, chapters were multiplied throughout the country, until now they number twelve hundred and twenty-three, with a membership of about thirteen thousand men pledged to pray and work together. The given method of service is simple, and single, but the spirit of the Brotherhood consecrates to the work all the zeal, tact, common sense and experience of its members. A convention is held each year at which every chapter in good standing is entitled to be represented. The convention appoints a Council which is charged with the executive direction of the
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 455
general organization. While the Brotherhood is simply a federation of parochial societies, yet its very name and the whole idea of its mission tend to give its members large conceptions of church life and activity, and the practical value of union and co-operation is forcibly presented to them in all their work. Everywhere, emphasis has been laid upon individual responsibility for individual character, work and influence. This principle has been fixed in naming the Brotherhood after that saint, who, when he had found the Messiah, first sought his own brother and brought him to Jesus.
The organ of the Brotherhood is the St. Andrews Cross, The organization spread to Canada in 1889. It has now 230 chapters, with about 2,000 members. The following year the Brotherhood was organized in Scotland, in 1892 in Australia and New Zealand, in 1896 in England, and the same year in the West Indies and South Africa. A boys' department of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew has also been or- ganized for the spread of Christ's kingdom among boys.
The Baptist Young People's Union of America was organized at a large and representative Conven- tion held in Chicago, 111., July 7-8, 1891. The fol- lowing outline of its general scope and character is abridged from the account prepared by the Rev. E. E. Chivers, D.D., General Secretary and Editor of the official organ of the Baptist Union :
'* In common with other bodies of Christians the
456 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Baptist churches had felt the quickening influences of what has come to be known as the Young People's Movement. Young people's societies which, under different names, had been at work in our churches adopted the watchwords and methods of the new movement. New societies were organized. All felt the thrill of the new enthusiasm. As the great pos- sibilities of this movement became more apparent there sprang up in the minds of many a conviction of the need of a denominational organization. It was felt that the forces of the Baptist young people should be unified and directed toward the attainment of the common interests and ends of the denomina- tional life of the Church. Out of the discussions which ensued the Baptist Young People's Union of America was born."
In April, 1891, a conference was held in Philadel- phia, which framed a general outline of basis of organization. This recommended that the national organization should include all Baptist young peo- ple's societies of whatever name or constitution. " Federation " became the watchword. A form was adopted for national, state, associational and local constitutions.
While the Baptist Young People's Union is thus distinctively denominational, as its name implies, yet within these lines it is broadly inclusive. Its basis is federative. It does not insist upon uniform- ity of name or constitution. It undertakes no legis- lative function over local societies. It simply seeks to
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 457
bring all these societies into helpful fellowship and active co-operation.
The educational plans of the Union have taken form in what are popularly known as the Christian Culture Courses. These Courses are three in num- ber, each extending through four years. The Bible Reader's Course provides for the reading of the entire Scriptures. The Sacred Literature Course aims to give a broader biblical and doctrinal survey. The Missionary Course is designed to present a progres- sive view of Christian Missions.
The Union holds its international Conventions in July of each year.
The Baptist Young People's Union of the South, while maintaining a separate set of officers, is in closest affiliation with the international body and indeed forms an integral part of it. The history of the organization has abundantly justified its being and vindicated the wisdom and foresight of its founders. Its existence and work are perfectly compatible with catholicity of spirit. It does not interfere with that larger fellowship which the United Society of Christian Endeavor seeks to foster while it emphasizes the primary obligation of loyalty to one's own.
The Westminster League is the young people's organization of the Presbyterian Church of the United States. It was first named the Young People's Society of the Presbyterian Church, and afterwards the Young People's Union. Its form of
458 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
Government as outlined by the Rev. Dr. Barldey, of Detroit, one of the chief promoters of the West- minster League, embodies three departments of Christian work.
I. Church and Neighborhood Committee. This has under it such Special Committees as the needs of the parish work of the Young People may require, such as Membership, Devotional, Visiting, etc.
II. Home Mission Committee. This Committee, too, may have Sub-Committees, and through these the League is brought into co-operative touch with all branches of work undertaken by the Church on the Home Field.
III. Foreign Missions Committee.
The name of the organization is historic. It blends the memories of the birth of the "Confession of Faith," in Westminster Abbey, with those of the heroic struggles of the Scottish forefathers against those who would have fastened a grievous yoke of eccle- siastical bondage on their necks. Grey friars and Westminster are bound together in it.
No general organization of local Leagues has yet been effected permanently.
"It is probable," Dr. Barkley intimates, "that steps will soon be taken to effect a broader and more comprehensive organization for the prosecution of League work."
The Luther League is the young people's society of the Lutheran Church. Twelve years ago that Church was divided by doctrinal points into four
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 459
general bodies representing sixty synods. As one means of uniting the Church the organization of the Luther League was proposed. This at first met with considerable adverse criticism, but now numbers among its supporters those who at first were op- ponents. It has an estimated membership at present of about 80,000. Its object is to develop a spirit of assertion in Lutheran Church work, and in this it is doing important service. The Lutheran Church has long contended with the tendency of young people to leave the Church after confirmation. Among Luther- ans this has been apparently a more serious drain than in other denominations, as not only have they lost their proportion of those who forsake the Church entirely, but also a far larger number of those who do not understand the foreign languages, which, as well as English, are used in most of the Churches. These languages are German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Slavonian and Livonian. The object of the Luther League is to retain in the mem- bership of the Lutheran Church as many as possible of those whom it has in large degree hitherto lost.
The Boys' Brigade, the Knights of Temperance, the White Cross Society, the Young Crusaders, are all organizations for the promotion of religion, tem- perance and social purity among boys and young men, the influence of which cannot but be most salutary upon the young life of the nation. Bands of Hope, Bands of Mercy, common to both Great Britain and the United States, are further develop-
460 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
merits of the same important means of leading the youth in the paths of truth and righteousness.
The World's Student Volunteer Society represents a great body of fifty-six thousand students in eleven different nations, of whom one thousand six hundred and eighty-six have volunteered for missionary service, and five hundred and sixty-five have already sailed for mission fields. Among these are three hundred and sixty-six women, one hundred and eight- een of whom are already in the mission field. In seeking especially to enlist student life in Chris- tian service, the Association is securing the very best possible recruits for the moral conquest of the world. These men and women are among the intellectual ^lite of the age, not in natural endowment, but in the opportunity they enjoy. These are they who will largely mould the life and thought and character of the coming century, who will be the teachers and preachers, editors and statesmen, lawyers and physi- cians, engineers and scientists of the future, those under whose hand is placed the lever of more than Archimedean power to raise the world.
At the beginning of the century, and even much more recently, the colleges were honeycombed with in- fidelity. To attend college was the sole privilege of the sons of wealth, who were assailed with special temp- tations to extravagance and vice. To-day there is no class in the community which holds such lofty ideals, of which so many members are pronounced Chris- tians, as college students. The colleges are no
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS. 461
longer the privilege of the rich, but the poor man's son, if he have grace, grit and gumption, can work his way to the very foremost rank.
We have no space left for a general review of the wonderful progress of the most wonderful century in the history of the world. Nor is such needed. The survey we have made in this volume has ill- served its purpose if it has not filled our souls with thankfulness to Almighty God for the wonders He has wrought. It is indeed a great privilege to live in these latter days " the heirs of the ages, foremost in the files of time." We stand on the threshold of what will doubtless be a still more wonderful century in its moral, social, religious and economic progress than the nineteenth. What its issue shall be no man may tell. We may drop a thought into the future as men drop pebbles into a deep well to hear what echo it returns, but we cannot fully interpret its signifi- cance. We know that all things tend to that
• One, far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves.
Nothing in the nineteenth century has been more marked than the growth of God's kingdom in the earth, the progress of Christian missions, the up- building of moral character, the betterment of the condition of mankind. The twentieth century shall doubtless see the still ampler fulfilment of the promise of the nineteenth. Fields white unto harvest wave white on every side, eager volunteers
462 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
from all the lands of Christendom are saying to the Lord of the harvest, " Here am I, send me."
Christian missions throughout the world are sow- ing the seeds of a nobler and loftier type of civiliza- tion. A new Crusade, not of war but of peace, is being waged. The pacific victories of the gospel will unite mankind in the bonds of brotherhood. The drowsy races in the Orient are turning in their troubled sleep. They are arousing themselves from the lethargy of centuries, and are laying aside their scorn and hatred of the Western nations. They are waking up to the activities of the age. They feel the pulses of a new life throbbing and thrilling through all the veins and arteries of society. The night of ages is giving way, and its darkness is being dispersed. A brighter day is bursting on the world. The heralds of the dawn may everywhere be seen. Old and hoary systems of idolatry and priestcraft are crumbling away. Cruel and bloody heathen rites are being abolished.
These glorious trophies of the progress of Chris- tianity are pledges of still grander triumphs in the future. What sublime results may not some who read these pages behold ! Those blind and impotent old lands which so long have struggled with the demons of superstition and idolatry shall eventu- ally accept the mild reign of the Prince of Peace. The day is hastening when, in a world redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled from the power and dominion of sin, the Saviour shall see of the
YOUNG PEOPLE^S ORGANIZATIONS. 463
travail of his soul and be satisfied ; when He shall receive the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession ; when upon all the industries and activities of the world ; upon all its trade and commerce, its art, its science, and its literature, shall be written : " Holiness to the Lord."
To this blessed consummation all the events of history, the growth and decay of empires, the rise and fall of dynasties, are tending. Omniscient power and wisdom are guiding the world, as a skilful rider guides his steed, upward and onward to its glorious goal. With devout as well as philosophic eye let us read the history of the race, and discern amid its strifes and tumults that God by His Providence is reconciling the world unto Himself.
God's greatness flows around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest.
INDEX.
A.
Abolitionists, English, 54 et seq. ;
American, 61 et seq., 60 et seq. Africa, Missions in, 114, 163, 175, 301. American Bible Societies, 386. American Board of Missions, 138, 139,
169, 170 ; originated, 1810, 144. American Methodist Missions, 120. America, Presbyterianism in, 228. America, Protestant Episcopal Church
in, 210. American Revolution, Influence of,
31-33. Ancient Civilizations, 3-4. Anglican Church (see Established
Church of England, and 209). Anglican Church in America, 210. Anti-Semitism, 182, 183. Anti-Slavery Society, American, 1833,
62. Archaeology, Biblical, 338 et seq. Armenians, fidelity under persecution,
176. Asbury, Bishop, 249. Atheism in France, Lecky on, 12 ; in
America, 32 ; Coleridge on, 315.
B.
Baptist Church in England, 267 ; in America, 268.
Baptist Young People's Union organ- ized, 455.
Bible Christians organized, 1815, 241.
Bible the best of missionaries, 117; Translation of, 91-94, 105, 146, 154, 155 ; Manuscripts of, 359.
Bible Societies, 380 et seq. ; British and Foreign originated, 1804, 382 ; other Bible Societies, 383.
Booth, General (see Salvation Army).
Brown, John, his Anti-Slavery Cru- sade, 63, 64.
Bunting, Dr. Jabez, 242.
Burmah, Missions in, 144 et seq.
Calvary, Site of, 352,
Canada abolishes slavery, 1792, 53 ;
Anglican Church in, 209 ; Meth- odism in, 258; Slave refugees in,
67, 68. Carey, William, and missions, 83 ;
Sketch of, 84 et seq. ; preaches
epoch-marking sermon, 1792, 87. Catholic Emancipation Bill, 1829, 190,
289. Chalmers, Thomas, 214 et seq.; 417
et seq. Cheap Literature, 28-30. China, Inland Mission, 159. China, Missions in, 150 et seq. ; 157, 158,
160. Christian Commission, The, 435. Christian Endeavor, Young People's
Society of, organized 1881, 448. Christianity, Conserving element, 5. •' Christian Science," 287. Church Missionary Society organized,
1799, 100. Church of England, Ritualism in, 201,
202. City Missions, 416 ; Dr. Chalmers and,
417 ; College Settlements and,
431. Codex Sinaiticus found, 1844, 359. Coke, Dr. Thomas, and Methodist
Missions, 110 et seq. ; dies at sea,
121 ; 238-248. College Settlements, 431. Colen.so, Bishop, 208. Congregational Church, 262 et seq. ; in
America, 264 ; Missions of, 265. Cook, Captain, his relation to missions,
85, 121. Covenanters, The, 211. Crucifixion, graffiti of, found, 1898,
365. Cuneifform inscriptions interpreted,
1846, 889.
466
INDEX.
D.
Danish Missions, 80.
Deaconess Movement, The (see Kaisers- werth).
Deism, 187 et seq. ; 308, 334.
Deism and Missions, 82.
Disruption in Scottish Kirlj, Causes of, 215 et seq. ; Dramatic consumma- tion of, 1843, 218.
Dorchester, Dr., quoted, 33 and passim.
Dred Scott decision, 64-65.
Duelling, 35.
" Duflf," the Mission Ship, 98-100.
Duff, Dr. A., 117, 221.
E.
East India Company and Missions, 89,
92, 94, 118, 119, 144, 155, 214. England, Social and moral condition
of, 17-30. England, Presbyterianism in, 226
et seq. Epworth League, The, organized 1889,
451. "Essays and Reviews," 207. Established Church of England, 26-
28, 187 et seq. ; Parties in, 194,
203, 204.
F.
Falk, Sketch of, 279.
Fiji, Missions in, 127 et seq.; Degrada- tion of, 129 ; Triumphs of Missions in, 131.
Fliedner, 399.
France, Progress of Religious Thought in, 324 et seq. ; Hugue- nots in, 324 ; Protestant Church in, 328; McAll Mission in, 328 et seq.
Francke and Missions, 80 ; 307.
Free Church of Scotland, organized, 1843, 219 ; Remarkable develop- ment of, 220 et seq.
Freedman's Aid Societies, 68.
French Revolution, The, 10-13, 90, 114, 233, 325.
Friendly Islands, Missions in, 121 et seq.
Friends, Society of, 278 et seq. ; Perse- cutions of, 279.
Froude, J. A., on decay of established religions, 7.
G.
Garretson, 40.
Garrison, W. Lloyd, 62.
Qerniaiiy, Progress of Religious
Thought in, 305 et seq. ; Pietism
in, 307.
Goshen, Cities of, 347.
Gosner, John, 322.
Gospel Ranging in America, 112.
Haldane, Robert and James, 213,
337. Hamlin, Cyrus, Sketch of, 170 et
seq. Hittites, The, 348. Holland, Progress of Religious Thought
in, 333. Holland and Missions, 336. Hunt, John, his work in Fiji, 127 et
I.
India, Missions in, 89-91 ; 100 et seq. ; 115-117; Mutiny in, 118-119.
Indians, Missions to, 79.
Infidelity, 233 ; in America, 36-40.
Inscriptions, Cuneiform, interpreted, 1848, 339.
Intemperance, Prevalence of, in Eng- land, 17 ; in America, 36-46.
Ireland, Rebellion in, 1798, 14-16 ; Catholic Emancipation in, 192- 193, Presbyterianism in, 227.
J.
Japan, Missions in, 160-162. Jews, Missions to, 178 et seq. Judson, Sketch of, 144 et seq.
K.
Kaiserswerth, A visit to, 397 ; its
daughter houses, 404. Kant. 309.
Latter Day Saints organized, 1880,
281. Lavigerie, Cardinal, 301-304. Layard's discoveries, 1843, 339. Lee, Jesse, Apostle of New England,
40-41. Leo XII., 291 ; XIIL, 295. Lincoln on slavery, 65-66. London Missionary Society organized,
1795, 97 ; 133. Lord's Day, Observance of, 42 et seq. ;
in England, 44-47; in America,
44-46 ; in Belgium, 48. Lovejoy, Abolitionist, 70. Luther League. 458. Lutheran Church, The, 272 et seq. Lux Mundi, 209.
INDEX.
467
McAuley, Jerry, Mission in New York, 425.
Madagascar, Missions in, 165-167.
Martyn, Henry, Sketch of, 102 ; his apostolic zeal, 103, 104.
Massey City Mission, Toronto, 424.
Mediaeval Missions, 78.
" Messenger of Peace," 136.
Methodism, Influence of, in England, 23-30 ; Divisions of, 236 et seq. ; Essential unity of, 237-255 ; in United States, 248 et seq. ; in Canada, 258 et seq. ; organizes Sunday Schools in England, 1769, 368 ; in America, 1786,371 ; relations to missions, 108 et seq. ; 244.
Methodists, Early, in England, 24-30 ; 108-109 ; in America, 40-41.
Methodist Church, Tlie, 232-233; Fly Sheet Controversy in, 242.
Methodist Episcopal Church organ- ized, 1784, 248 ; Slavery question causes division in, 1844, 251 ; Minor divisions of, 252 et seq. ; Publishing interests of, 255 ; Mis- sions of, 356 ; Colleges, 257.
Methodist Episcopal Church South organized, 1845, 252.
Methodist Union in Canada, 260.
Missions, 75 et seq. ; History of, 76 et seq. ; 461 ; to the American In- dians, 79 ; City (see City Mis- sions) ; Danish, 80 ; German, 316- 322 ; Moravian, 81 ; Moslem, 168 ; Roman Catholic, 298 et seq.
Missionary Ship (see "Duff").
Missionary Society, London, 141.
Moabite Stone found 1868, 340.
" Moral Interregnum," 6.
Morality, State of, in France in 18th Century, 10-12 ; in England, Howitt on, 23-30, 187 et seq.; in America, 40-41.
Moravian Missions, 81.
Mormons (see Latter Day Saints).
Morrison, the Apostle of China, Sketch of, 150 et seq.
Moslems, Missions to, 168 et seq.
Mutiny, Indian, 118, 119.
N.
New Connection Methodists organized,
1797, 236. New Guinea, Missions in, 141. New Hebrides, Missions in, 136, 140. Newman, John Henry, 195-198. New Zealand, Missions in, 139.
O.
(Ecumenical Council, 1869, 295. Optimism, Christian, 8.
Oxford Movement, The, 194; Causes of, 187 et seq.; Leaders of, 194 et seq. ; Effects of, 205.
Palestine, Missions in, 175 ; Explora- tions in, 352 et seq. ; Exploration Fund in. The, 354 et seq.
Penal Code in 18th Century, 20-22.
Persia, Missions in, 175.
Pessimistic Philosophies, 6.
Petra discovered, 1812, 351.
Pharaohs, Finding the, 1881, 343.
Physical Improvements in the Cen- tury, 2.
Pietism, 307.
Pius VL, 290; VIL, 291; VIIL, 292; IX., 292-295.
Pontiffs, Sovereign of the Roman Catholic Church, 290 et seq.
Popes (see Pontiffs).
Presbyterian Cliurch, The, 211 et seq. ; Divisions of, 213-218 et seq., 225.
Primitive Methodists "organized, 1810, 239.
Prisons, State of, 22.
Pusey, Dr. E. B., 199.
Puseyism (see Oxford Movement).
Quakers (see Friends).
R
Raikes, Robert, organizes Sunday Schools, 1781, 368.
Railway Y. M. C. A., 442.
Rationalism, Growth of, in Germany, 309 et seq. ; Evangelical Revival in Germany, 816 et seq. (see Methodism).
Reform Bill, 1831, 190 et seq.
Religion, State of, in England in 18th Century (see Morality).
Religious Aspect of the Century, Im- portance of, 1.
Religious Thought, Progress of, in France, 324 et seq. ; in Germany, 305; in Holland, 333 et seq.; in Switzerland, 336.
Religious Tract Society organized, 1799, 390 ; other Tract Societies in Europe, 398 ; in America, 895.
Renan, Life of Jesus, 326.
Ritualistic Movement, 201.
Robert College, Constantinople, 170- 172-174.
Roman Catholic Church, 289 et seq.; CEcumenical Council, 1869, 295 ; Growth of Church, 297 ; Missions, 298 et seq.
S. Roaetta Stone found, 1802, 838.
468 + XXII = 490
INDEX.
Sabbath, Observance of, 42-49 ; in England, 44-47 ; in America, 44- 46 ; in Belgium, 48.
Sabbath, The, Boon to Mankind, 48, 49.
Saint Andrew, Brotherhood of, organ- ized 1883, 454.
Salvation Army organized, 1878, 407 et seq. ; Social Work of, 414.
Sandwicli Islands, 138.
"Sayings of Jesus" found, 1897, 363.
Scotland, Kirk of, 211 et seq.
Selwyn, Bishop, 137-140.
Shaftesbury, Lord, 420.
Slavery, 50 et seq. ; in Greece and Rome, 50-51 ; Abolition of, in Canada, 53 ; in England, 1833, 54 ; in United States, 1864, 64; in , Brazil, 1871, 58 ; in Russia, 1861, 73 ; Causes Division of Methodist Episcopal Church, 1844, 251 ; Causes Conflict in United States,
Slave Trade, The, 52 ; Abolition of, in America, 1819, 57 ; in England, 1808, 55 ; in East Indies, 1843, 56 ; in France, 1819, 57.
Smith, Joseph, 281, 282.
Society Islands, Missions in, 134 et seq.
Southern Seas, Missions in, 121 et seq., 133.
Spener, 307.
Spiritualists, 285 et seq.
Strauss, his Life of Jesus, 313.
Switzerland, Progress of Religious Thought in, 336.
Sunday Legislation, 45 ; Newspapers, 43-47.
Sunday Schools, 366 et seq. ; Develop- ment of, 371 ; Uniform Lessons in, 372 ; Home Department in the, 376.
Sunday School Union, American, or- ganized, 1829, 372.
Syriac Gospels found, 1891, 361.
Syria, Missions in, 169.
T.
Tahiti, Missions in, 136. Tappan, Arthur, Abolitionist, 69. "Teaching of the Twelve" found, 1883, 362.
Tel-el-Amarna Tablets found, 1887, 341,
Thompson, George, Abolitionist, 69.
Tractarianism (see Oxford Move- ment).
"Tracts for the Times," 197 et seq.
Tract Societies, 390-395.
U.
Underground Railway, The, 67. Unitarian Church, The, 275. United States (see America) ; Meth- odism in, 248 et seq. Universalist Church, The, 276.
W.
Wanamaker, John, and City Mission- ary Work, 422.
Washington, George, maligned, 34.
Water Street Mission (see McAuley).
Wesleys, The, 24-30, 234.
Wesleyan Missionary Society organ- ized 1818, 108.
Wesleyan Missions (see Coke ; Hunt), 140-142 ; in Fiji, 127 et seq. ; in New Zealand, 140 ; Australia, 142.
Westminster League, 456.
Wichern, 319.
Williams, John, Martyr of Erromanga, 133.
Williams, Roger, 268-270.
World's Student Volunteer Society,
Xavier, Francis, 299.
T.
Young Men's CJhristian Associations
organized, 1844, 433. Young Women's Christian Association,
1857, 445.
Zinzendorf, Count, 81. Zionism, 184.
THE END.
Edinburgh : Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited
The Nineteenth Century Series.
«>o^-
THE aim of the series is to present in a popular way, but with fulhiess and accuracy, the progress of the nineteenth century from every practical standpoint, and to embrace the chief subjects in which English- speaking people are interested.
After conference with many of the best-informed men, and a very large correspondence with hundreds of the leading thinkers and writers of the world, the Editors and Publishers decided that the realisation of their plans would be most successfully carried out by the publication of this Series.
It will be seen that the twenty-five volumes of this work survey the progress of each of the English-speaking states and colonies — Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australasia, New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as of India, China, and Japan; deal with the course of events under the various Continental rulers during the period; and trace developments in causes so near the heart of civilisation as religion, temperance, sociology, science, art, literature, education, commerce, inventions, wars, discoveries, explorations, economics, politics, medi- cine, surgery, and hygiene — in short, all matters pertaining to human thought and well-being. The progress of the world in the century is thus most comprehensively treated, and the Series should prove an important addition to all Public Libraries, besides being a very desirable set of books for the general reader. The aim and scope of each volume can readily be gathered from the contents of " Religious Progress in the Century," which appears in this Volume.
The Nineteenth Century Series.
Titles of the Volumesm
NOW READY.
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN THE CENTURY.
By W. H. WITHROW, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.C.
The following Volumes will be issued at short intervals :—
Literature of the Century. By Professor A. B. de Mille, M.A. Progress of 5outh Africa in the Century.
By George McCall Theal, D.Lit., LL.D., Historiographer to the Cape Govt. Medicine, Surgery, and Hygiene in the Century.
By Ezra Hurlburt Stafford, M.D. Progress of India, Japan, and China in the Century.
By the Right Hon. Sir Richard Temple, Bart., P.C, G.C.S.I., D.C.L. (Oxon.),
LL.D. (Cantab.), F.R.S. Progress of the United States of America in the Century.
By Professor William Peterfield Trent, M.A., LL.D. Continental Rulers in the Century. By Percy M. Thornton, LL.B. British Sovereigns in the Century. By T. H. S. Escott, M.A. Progress of British Empire in the Century. By James Stanley Little. Progress of Canada in the Century. By J. Castell Hopkins, F.S.S. Progress of Australasia in the Century.
By T. A. Coghlan, F.S.S., and Thomas T. Ewing, Member of the Legisla- tive Assembly of New South Wales. Progress of New Zealand in the Century. By a Distinguished Writer whose
Name will be given later. Political Progress of the Century. By Thomas Macknight. Discoveries and Explorations of the Century.
By Professor Charles G. D. Roberts, M.A. Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century.
By Henry de Beltgens Gibbins, D.Lit., M.A., F.R.G.S. Inventions of the Century. By William H. Doolittle. Wars of the Century, and the Development of Military Science.
By Professor Oscar Browning, M.A. Naval Battles of the Century. By Rear-Admiral Francis John Higginson. Naval Development of the Century. By Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, K.C.B. Presidents of the United States in the Century (from Jefferson to
Fillmore). By Francis Bellamy. Presidents of the United States In the Century (from Pierce to
McKinley). By Francis Knowles. The Fine Arts in the Century. By William Sharp. Progress of Education in the Century.
By James Laughlin Hughes and Louis R. Klemm, Ph.D. Temperance and Social Progress of the Century.
By the Hon. John G. Woolley, M.A. Progress of Science in the Century. By Professor J. Arthur Thomson, M.A.
Nineteenth Century 5eries.
PRE-VIEWS OF CANADIAN EDITORS AND OPINIONS OF PUBLIC MEN.
" Presents in a popular way, with fullness and accuracy, the Progress of the Nineteenth Century from every practical standpoint. . . . Destined tO find a place in every good \ihVdiXJ."—Hainiitofi Times.
" Twenty-five volumes in which is admirably arranged a complete history of the Century's progress. . . . To tell the story of all this in a fashion that shall be at once full and accurate and accessible to the average man, is a task of such magnitude as to, one would think, put it out of the question. Precisely this has, however, been accomplished in the production of the Nineteenth Century Series, and the labour entailed must have been prodigious. . . . All in all, the undertaking was unique, and it has been carried out with wonderful success."— Z^w^/^w News.
"An exceedingly valuable work. . . . Writers from all over the world whose names should command the confidence of all readers of the English language. . . . A unique record of the wonders of a wonderful GQXiXMXY."— Saturday Night, Toronto.
" One of the most promising of works. . . . While being a record, this history will be sufficiently critical to interest intelligent and scholarly readers. . . . This Series will be a valuable library in itself and almost a necessity In every house." — British Whig; Kingston.
" Although the list of subjects and authors is a most promising one for the
general reader, yet many of the volumes will, of course, be of special value to
particular classes of the reading public. . . . Every volume of the Series should be interesting to teachers."— Z^^/Zj' Nejvs, Toronto.
"The work will be one of great historical value."— H. F. Gardiner, B.A., Editor of T/ie Times, Toronto.
" Editors of ' Nineteenth Century Series ' :
" Gentlemen, — Permit me to thank you for the privilege of examining your Prospectus of the above-mentioned Series. The conception is admirable, and the mapping-out of its details strikes me as being, in all respects, worthy of the highest commendation. . . . The names of the contributors afford an ample guarantee that tlie execution of the work will be on a par with its programme. . . .It justly merits success."— Rev. D. Macrae, M.A., D.D., President, Morrin College, Quebec.
" I have no doubt the work in question will be a most valuable one. . . . When we see such men as the Rev. W. H. Withrow, D.D., F.R.S.C, and others of the same class, amongst the contributors, ... we can have no hesitation in saying
that the subjects treated will be dealt with in the most scientific manner."— Hon. Hugh John Macdonald, Premier of Manitoba.
"To the Linscott Co.
"Gentlemen, — YOUT design of publishing a series of volumes on the Nineteenth Century seems to me an excellent one. The subjects of the succes- sive volumes are certainly well chosen ; and in the editors and contributors you have a guarantee that the work will be satisfactorily done."— Prof. Wm. Clark, M.A., D.C.L., President of the Royal Society of Canada, Trinity University, Toronto.
"The names of the writers of the different topics abundantly guarantee their educational value. . . . Each of the volumes will appeal to a large class of readers."— Hon. Richard Harcourt, Minister of Education for Ontario.
"The names of the writers and the subjects to be treated are strong guarantees of exceptional ability and the value of the entire Series."— Rev. E, I. Badglev, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy, Victoria University, Toronto.
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