studies of Von Hutten, Reimarus, and Lessing’s “Nathan,” feeling
that the researches of the Tübingen school had antiquated his
“Life of Jesus,” and stimulated by Renan’s “Life of Jesus,”
written with French elegance and vivacity, in which he described
Christ as an amiable hero of a Galilæan village story, undertook
in 1864 a semi-jubilee reproduction of his work, addressed to
“the German people.” This was followed by a severe controversial
pamphlet, “The Half and the Whole,” in which he lashed the
halting attempts of Schenkel as well as the uncompromising
conservatism of Hengstenberg. He now pointed out cases of
intentional romancing in the gospel narratives; the resurrection
rests upon subjective visions of Christ’s disciples. His
“Lectures on Voltaire” appeared in A.D. 1870, and in A.D. 1872
the most radical of all his books, “The Old and the New Faith,”
which makes Christianity only a modified Judaism, the history
of the resurrection mere “humbug,” and the whole gospel story
the result of the “hallucinations” of the early Christians. The
question whether “we” are still Christians he answers openly
and honourably in the negative. He has also surmounted the
standpoint of pantheism. The religion of the nineteenth century
is _pancosmism_, its gospel the results of natural science
with Darwin’s discoveries as its bible, its devotional works
the national classics, its places of worship the concert rooms,
theatres, museums, etc. The most violent attacks on this book
came from the _Protestantenverein_. Strauss had said, “If
the old faith is absurd, then the modernized edition of the
‘_Protestantenverein_’ and the school of Jena is doubly, trebly
so. The old faith only contradicts reason, not itself; the
new contradicts itself at every point, and how can it then
be reconciled with reason?”[534]
§ 182.9. =The Mediating Theology.=--This tendency originated
from the right wing of the school of Schleiermacher, still
influenced more or less by the pectoralism of Neander. It adopted
in dogmatics a more positive and in criticism a more conservative
manner. It earnestly sought to promote the interests of the
union not merely as a combination for church government, but as
a communion under a confessional consensus. Its chief theological
organs were the “_Studien und Kritiken_,” started in A.D. 1828,
edited by Ullmann and Umbreit in Heidelberg, afterwards by
Riehm and Köstlin in Halle, and the “_Jahrbücher für deutsche
Theologie_” of Dorner and Leibner, A.D. 1856-1878.--Although the
mediating theology sought to sink all confessional differences,
denominational descent was more or less traceable in most of its
adherents. Its leading representatives from the =Reformed church=
were: =Alexander Schweizer=, who most faithfully preserved the
critical tendency of Schleiermacher, and, in a style far abler
and subtler than any other modern theologian, expounded the
Reformed system of doctrine in its rigid logical consistency.
In his own system he gives a scientific exposition of the
evangelical faith from the unionist standpoint, with many pious
reflections on Scripture and the confession as well as results of
Christian experience, based upon the threefold manifestation of
God set forth without miracle in the physical order of the world,
in the moral order of the world, and in the historical economy
of the kingdom of God.--=Sack=, one of the oldest and most
positive of Schleiermacher’s pupils, professor at Bonn, then
superintendent at Magdeburg, wrote on apologetics and polemics.
=Hagenbach= of Basel, A.D. 1801-1874, is well-known by his
“Theological Encyclopædia and Methodology,” “History of the
Reformation,” and “History of the Church in the Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries,” all of which are translated into
English.--=John Peter Lange= of Bonn, A.D. 1802-1884, a man
of genius, imaginative, poetic, and speculative, with strictly
positive tendencies, widely known by his “Life of Christ” and the
commentary on Old and New Testament, edited and contributed to by
him.--=Dr. Philip Schaff= may also be named as the transplanter
of German theology of the Neander-Tholuck type to the American
soil. Born in Switzerland, he accepted a call as professor to the
theological seminary of the German Reformed church at Mercersburg
in 1843. He soon fell under suspicion of heresy, but was
acquitted by the Synod of New York in 1845. In 1869 he accepted
a call to a professorship in the richly endowed Presbyterian
Union Theological Seminary of New York. Writing first in German
and afterwards in English, his works treat of almost all the
branches of theological science, especially in history and
exegesis. He is also president of several societies engaged
in active Christian work.
§ 182.10. Among those belonging originally to the =Lutheran
church= were Schleiermacher’s successor in Berlin, =Twesten=,
whose dogmatic treatise did not extend beyond the doctrine of
God, a faithful adherent of Schleiermacher’s right wing on the
Lutheran side; =Nitzsch=, professor in Bonn A.D. 1822-1847, and
afterwards of Berlin till his death in A.D. 1868, best known by
his “System of Christian Doctrine,” and his Protestant reply to
Möhler’s “Symbolism,” a profound thinker with a noble Christian
personality, and one of the most influential among the consensus
theologians. =Julius Müller= of Halle, A.D. 1801-1878, if we
except his theory of an ante-temporal fall, occupied the common
doctrinal platform of the confessional unionists. His chief work,
“The Christian Doctrine of Sin,” is a masterpiece of profound
thinking and original research. =Ullmann=, A.D. 1796-1865,
professor in Halle and Heidelberg, a noble and peace-loving
character, distinguished himself in the domain of history by his
monograph on “Gregory Nazianzen,” his “Reformers before the
Reformation,” and most of all by his beautiful apologetical
treatise on the “Sinlessness of Jesus.”--=Isaac Aug. Dorner=,
A.D. 1809-1884, born and educated in Württemberg, latterly
professor in Berlin, applied himself mainly to the elaborating
of Christian doctrine, and gave to the world, in his “Doctrine of
the Person of Christ,” in A.D. 1839, a work of careful historical
research and theological speculation. The fundamental ideas of
his Christology are the theory favoured by the “German” theology
generally of the necessity of the incarnation even apart from sin
(which Müller strongly opposed), and the notion of the archetypal
Christ, the God-Man, as the collective sum of humanity, in whom
“are gathered the patterns of all several individualities.” His
“System of Christian Doctrine” formed the copestone of an almost
fifty years’ academical career. Christ’s virgin birth is admitted
as the condition of the essential union in Him of divinity and
humanity; but the incarnation of the Logos extends through the
whole earthly life of the Redeemer; it is first completed in
his exaltation by means of his resurrection; it was therefore
an operation of the Logos, as principle of all divine movement,
_extra carnem_. His “System of Christian Ethics” was edited
after his death by his son.[535]--=Richard Rothe=, A.D. 1799-1867,
appointed in A.D. 1823 chaplain to the Prussian embassy at Rome,
where he became intimately acquainted with Bunsen. In A.D. 1828
he was made ephorus at the preachers’ seminary of Wittenberg,
and afterwards professor in Bonn and Heidelberg. Rothe was one
of the most profound thinkers of the century, equalled by none
of his contemporaries in the grasp, depth, and originality of
his speculation. Though influenced by Schleiermacher, Neander,
and Hegel, he for a long time withdrew like an anchoret from the
strife of theologians and philosophers, and took up a position
alongside of Oetinger in the chamber of the theosophists. His
mental and spiritual constitution had indeed much in common with
that great mystic. In his first important work, “_Die Anfänge
der chr. Kirche_,” he gave expression to the idea that in its
perfected form the church becomes merged into the state. The same
thought is elaborated in his “Theological Ethics,” a work which
in depth, originality, and conclusiveness of reasoning is almost
unapproached, and is full of the most profound Christian views
in spite of its many heterodoxies. In his later years he took
part in the ecclesiastical conflicts in Baden (§ 196, 3) with
the _Protestantenverein_ (§ 180, 1), and entered the arena of
public ecclesiastical life.[536]--=Beyschlag= of Halle, in his
“_Christologie d. N. T._,” A.D. 1866, carried out Schleiermacher’s
idea of Christ as only man, not God and man but the ideal of
man, not of two natures but only one, the archetypal human, which,
however, as such is divine, because the complete representation
of the divine nature in the human. From this standpoint, too,
he vindicates the authenticity of John’s Gospel, and from Romans
ix.-xi. works out a “Pauline Theodicy.”--=Hans Lassen Martensen=,
A.D. 1808-1884, professor at Copenhagen, Bishop of Zealand
and primate of Denmark, with high speculative endowments and
a considerable tincture of theosophical mysticism, has become
through his “Christian Dogmatics,” “Christian Ethics,” in three
vols., etc., of a thoroughly Lutheran type, one of the best known
theologians of the century.
§ 182.11. Among =Old Testament exegetes= the most distinguished
are: =Umbreit=, A.D. 1795-1860, of Heidelberg, who wrote from
the supernaturalist standpoint, influenced by Schleiermacher
and Herder, commentaries on Solomon’s writings and those of the
prophets, and on Job; =Bertheau= of Göttingen, of Ewald’s school,
wrote historico-critical and philological commentaries on the
historical books; and =Dillmann=, Hengstenberg’s successor in
Berlin, specially distinguished for his knowledge of the Ethiopic
language and literature, has written critical commentaries on
the Pentateuch and Job.--Among =New Testament exegetes= we may
mention: =Lücke= of Göttingen, known by his commentary on John’s
writings; =Bleek=, the able New Testament critic and commentator
on the Epistle to the Hebrews; =Meyer=, A.D. 1800-1873, most
distinguished of all, whose “Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on the New Testament,” begun in A.D. 1832, in which he was
aided by Huther, Lunemann, and Düsterdieck, is well-known in its
English edition as the most complete exegetical handbook to the
New Testament; =Weiss= of Kiel and Berlin, author of treatises
on the doctrinal systems of Peter and of John, “The Biblical
Theology of the New Testament,” “Life of Christ,” “Introduction
to New Testament,” revises and rewrites commentaries on Mark,
Luke, John, and Romans, in the last edition of the Meyer
series.--A laborious student in the domain of New Testament
textual criticism was =Constant. von Tischendorff [Tischendorf]=
of Leipzig, A.D. 1815-1874, who ransacked all the libraries
of Europe and the East in the prosecution of his work. The
publication of several ancient codices, _e.g._ the _Cod.
Sinaiticus_, a present from the Sinaitic monks to the czar on
the thousandth anniversary of the Russian empire in A.D. 1862,
the _Cod. Vaticanus N.T._, a new edition of the LXX., the most
complete collection of New Testament apocrypha and pseudepigraphs,
and finally a whole series of editions of the New Testament (from
A.D. 1841-1873 there appeared twenty-four editions, of which the
_Editio Octava Major_ of 1872 is the most complete in critical
apparatus), are the rich and ripe fruits of his researches.
A second edition, compared throughout with the recensions of
Tregelles and Westcott and Hort, was published by =Von Gebhardt=,
and a third volume of Prolegomena was added by C. R. Gregory.
As a theologian he attached himself, especially in later years,
to the Lutheranism of his Leipzig colleagues, and on questions
of criticism and introduction took up a strictly conservative
position as seen in his well known tract, “When were our Gospels
written?”
§ 182.12. Among the university teachers of his time =John Tob.
Beck=, A.D. 1804-1878, assumed a position all his own. After
a pastorate of ten years he began in A.D. 1836 his academical
career in Basel, and went in A.D. 1843 to Tübingen, where he
opposed to the teaching of Baur’s school a purely biblical and
positive theology, with a success that exceeded all expectations.
A Württemberger by birth, nature, and training, he quite ignored
the history of the church and its dogmas as well as modern
criticism, and set forth a system of theology drawn from a
theosophical realistic study of the Bible. He took little
interest in the excited movements of his age for home and foreign
missions, union, confederation, and alliances, in questions about
liturgies, constitution, discipline, and confessions, in all
which he saw only the form of godliness without the power. Better
times could be hoped for only as the result of the immediate
interposition of God. His “Pastoral Theology” and “Biblical
Psychology” have been translated into English.
§ 182.13. =The Lutheran Confessional Theology.=--=Sartorius=,
A.D. 1797-1859, from A.D. 1822 professor in Dorpat, then from
A.D. 1835 general superintendent at Königsberg, made fresh and
vigorous attacks upon rationalism, and supported the union as
preserving “the true mean” of Lutheranism. He is best known by
his “Doctrine of Divine Love.” =Rudelbach=,--a Dane by birth and
finally settled in Copenhagen, occupying the same ground, became
a violent opponent of the union.--=Guericke= of Halle, beginning
as a pietist, passed through the union into a rigorous Lutheran,
and joined Rudelbach in editing the journal afterwards conducted
by Luthardt of Leipzig.--Alongside of these older representatives
of Lutheran orthodoxy there arose a =second generation= which
from A.D. 1840 has fallen into several groups. Their divergencies
were mainly on two points:
1. On the place and significance of the clerical order, some
viewing it as based on the general priesthood of believers
and resting on the call of the congregation for the orderly
administration of the means of grace, others regarding it
as a divine institution, yet without adopting the Romanizing
and Anglican theory of apostolic succession; and
2. On the more important question of biblical prophecy, where
one party maintained the spiritualistic, widely favoured
since the time of Jerome, and another party, attaching
itself to Crusius and Bengel, insisted upon a realistic
interpretation.
At the head of the =first group=, which maintained the old
Protestant theory of church and office and looked askance
at chiliastic theories, supporting the old doctrines by all
available materials from modern science, stands =Harless=,
A.D. 1806-1879, professor in Erlangen and Leipzig, the chief
ecclesiastical commissioner in Dresden, and finally at Munich.
His theological reputation rests upon his “Commentary on
Ephesians,” A.D. 1835, his “Christian Ethics,” A.D. 1842.
Alongside of him =Thomasius= of Erlangen, A.D. 1802-1875, wrought
in a similar direction.--=Keil=, A.D. 1807-1888, from A.D. 1833
professor in Dorpat, since A.D. 1858 living retired in Leipzig,
of all Hengstenberg’s students has most faithfully preserved
his master’s exegetical and critical conservatism. He began
in A.D. 1861 in connexion with Delitzsch his “Old Testament
Commentary” on strictly conservative lines. We have an English
translation of that work, and also of his “Introduction to the
Old Testament” and his “Old Testament Archæology.”--=Philippi=,
A.D. 1809-1882, son of Jewish parents, during his academic
career in Dorpat, A.D. 1841-1852, exercised a powerful influence
in securing for strict Lutheranism a very widespread ascendency
among the clergy of Livonia. From A.D. 1852 till his death in
A.D. 1882 he resided in Rostock. As exegete and dogmatist, he
has, like a John Gerhard and Quenstedt of the nineteenth century,
reproduced the Lutheran theology of the seventeenth century,
unmodified by the developments of modern thought. He is known to
English readers by his “Commentary on Romans.” His chief work is
“_Kirchl. Glaubenslehre_,” in six vols.--Alongside of him, and
scarcely less important, stands =Theodosius Harnack=, who went
from Dorpat in A.D. 1853 to Erlangen, but returned to Dorpat
in A.D. 1866, and retired in A.D. 1873. He has written upon
the worship of the church of the post-apostolic age, on Luther’s
theology, and practical theology.
§ 182.14. At the head of the =second group=, characterized
by a decided biblical realism and inclined to a biblical
chiliasm, stands =Von Hofmann= of Erlangen, A.D. 1810-1877, whose
“_Weissagung und Erfüllung_,” 1841, represents the very antipodes
of Hengstenberg’s view of the Old Testament, placing history and
prophecy in vital relation to one another, and studying prophecy
in its historical setting. In his “_Schriftbeweis_” we have
an entirely new system of doctrine drawn from Scripture, the
doctrine of the atonement being set forth in quite a different
form from that generally approved, but vindicated by its author
against Philippi as “a new way of teaching old truth.” In his
commentary on the New Testament, he takes up a conservative
position on questions of criticism and introduction.--=Franz
Delitzsch=, in Rostock, A.D. 1846, Erlangen, A.D. 1850,
in Leipzig since A.D. 1867, more intimately acquainted with
rabbinical literature than any other Christian theologian, became
an enthusiastic adherent of Hofmann’s position. His theology,
however, has a more decidedly theosophical tendency, while
his critical attitude is more liberal. He is well known by his
“Biblical Psychology,” commentary on Psalms, Isaiah, Solomon’s
writings, Job, Hebrews, and a new commentary on Genesis in
which he accepts many of the positions of the advanced school
of biblical criticism.--=Luthardt= of Leipzig in the domain of
New Testament exegesis and dogmatics works from the standpoint of
Hofmann. His “Commentary on John’s Gospel,” “Authorship of Fourth
Gospel,” and “Apologetical Lectures on the Fundamental, Saving
and Moral Truths of Christianity,” are well known.--Hofmann’s
conception of Old Testament doctrine is admirably carried out
by =Oehler=, A.D. 1812-1872, with learning and speculative
power, in his “Theology of the Old Testament,” and in various
important monographs on Old Testament doctrines.--The most
important representatives of the =third group=, which strongly
emphasizes the extreme Lutheran theory of the church and office,
are =Kliefoth= of Schwerin, liturgist and biblical commentator;
and =Vilmar=, who opened his academic career at Marburg, in
1856, with a controversial programme entitled “The Theology
of Facts against the Theology of Rhetoric.” Vilmar’s lectures,
able, though sketchy and incomplete, were published after his
death in A.D. 1868 by some of his disciples. To the same school
belonged =Von Zezschwitz= of Erlangen, A.D. 1825-1886, whose
“_Catechetics_” is a treasury of solid learning.
§ 182.15. Among Lutheran theologians taking little or nothing to
do with these controversial questions, =Kahnis=, A.D. 1814-1888,
from A.D. 1850 professor at Leipzig, occupied a strict Lutheran
confessional standpoint, diverging only in the adoption of a
subordinationist doctrine on the person of Christ, a Sabellian
theory of the Trinity, and a theory of the Lord’s supper in
some points differing from that of the strict Lutherans. His
historical sketches are vigorous and lively.--=Zöckler= of
Giessen and Greifswald has made important contributions to
church history, exegesis, and dogmatics, and especially to the
theory and history of natural theology. In 1886 he began the
publication of a short biblical commentary contributed to by the
most distinguished positive theologians, he himself editing the
New Testament and Strack the Old Testament. It is to be in twelve
vols., and is being translated into English.--=Von Oetingen=
of Dorpat has devoted himself to social problems and moral
statistics.--=Frank= of Erlangen has proved a powerful apologist
for old Lutheranism, and in his “System of Christian Evidence”
has introduced a new branch of theology, in which the subjective
Christian certitude which the believer has with his faith is
made the basis of the scientific exposition of the truth set
forth in his “System of Christian Truth,” a thoughtful and
speculative treatise on doctrine, followed by “The System
of Christian Morals” as the conclusion of his theological
work.--Lutheran theology had also zealous representatives in
several distinguished jurists: =Göschel=, president of the
consistory of Magdeburg, who wrote against Strauss, sought
to derive profound Christian teaching from Goethe and Dante,
and wrote on the last things, and on man in respect of body,
soul, and spirit; =Stahl=, A.D. 1802-1861, professor of law at
Erlangen and Berlin, leader since A.D. 1849 of the high-church
aristocratic reactionary party in the Prussian chamber, supported
his views by reference to the Scripture doctrine of the divine
origin of magisterial authority.
§ 182.16. As zealous representatives of =Reformed
Confessionalism= who set aside the dogma of predestination
and so show no antagonism to the union, may be named: =Heppe=,
opponent of Vilmar in Marburg, who devoted much of his career
as a historian to the undermining of Lutheranism, then wrought
upon the histories of provincial churches, of Catholic mysticism
and pietism, etc.; and =Ebrard=, A.D. 1818-1887, a brilliant
believing theologian who combated rationalism and Catholicism,
professor from A.D. 1847 of Reformed theology at Erlangen, known
by his “Gospel History: a Compendium of Critical Investigations
in Support of the Historical Church of the Four Gospels,” his
“Apologetics,” in 3 vols., “Commentary on Hebrews,” etc.
§ 182.17. =The Free Protestant Theology.=--This school originated
in the left wing of Schleiermacher’s following, and has as its
literary organs, Hilgenfeld’s _Zeitschrift_ and the _Jahrbücher
für prot. Theologie_.--The distinguished statesman, =Von Bunsen=,
A.D. 1791-1860, ambassador at Rome and afterwards at London, at
first stood at the head of the revival of the church interests
and life; but in his “Church of the Future,” conceived a
constitutional idea on a democratic basis, for which he sought
support in historical studies on the Ignatian age, etc., and
the historical refutation of the orthodox Christology and
trinitarianism. His elaborate work on “Egypt’s Place in the
World’s History,” full of arbitrary criticism, negative and
positive, on the chronological and historical data of the
Old Testament, seeks to show that, by restoring the Egyptian
chronology, we for the first time make the Bible history fit
into general history. “The Signs of the Times” comprise glowing
philippics against the hierarchical pretensions of Papists
and even more dangerous Lutherans, insists on Scripture being
translated out of the Semitic into the Japhetic mode of speech,
to which end he devoted his last great works, “God in History”
and his “Bible Commentary,” the latter finished after his
death by Kamphausen and Holtzmann.--=Schenkel=, A.D. 1813-1885,
professor at Heidelberg from A.D. 1851 till his resignation in
A.D. 1884, from the right wing of the mediating school, through
unionism and Melanchthonianism advanced to the standpoint of his
“_Charakterbild Jesu_,” which strips Christ of all supernatural
features, yet proclaims him the redeemer of the world, and
strives to save his resurrection as a historical and saving
truth, and explains his appearances after the resurrection as
“real manifestations of the personality living and glorified
after death.” In later years he sought to draw yet more
closely to positive Christianity. =Keim= of Zürich and Giessen,
A.D. 1825-1878, the ablest of all recent historians of the
life of Jesus, and with all his radicalism preserving some
conservative tendencies, is best known by his “Jesus of Nazareth,”
in six vols.--=Holtzmann= of Heidelberg and Strassburg, passed
from the mediating school over to that of Tübingen, from which in
important points he has now departed.--To the same rank belongs
=Hausrath= of Heidelberg, whose “History of the New Testament
Times” is well known. Under the pseudonym of George Taylor he
has composed several highly successful historical romances.--The
organs of this school are Hilgenfeld’s _Zeitschrift_, and since
1875 the Jena “_Jahrbücher für protest. Theologie_.”
§ 182.18. =In the Old Testament Department= a liberal critical
school has arisen which has reversed the old relation of “the law
and the prophets,” treating the origin of the law as post-exilian,
and as in not coming at the beginning, but at the end of the
Jewish history. =Reuss=, whose “History of the New Testament
Books” marked an epoch in New Testament introduction, was the
first who moved in this direction, in his lectures begun at
Strassburg in A.D. 1834, the results of which are given us in
his “History of the Theology of the Apostolic Age” and in his
“History of the Canon.” Meanwhile =Vatke= of Berlin had, in
A.D. 1835, undertaken to prove that the patriarchal religion was
pure Semitic nature worship, and that the prophets were the first
to raise it into a monotheistic Jehovism. Little success attended
his efforts. Greater results were obtained by Reuss’ two pupils,
=Graf= in A.D. 1866, and =Kayser= in A.D. 1874. The most brilliant
exposition of this theory was given by =Julius Wellhausen=
of Greifswald, transferred in A.D. 1882 to the Philosophical
Faculty of Halle, in his “History of Israel.” In his “Prolegomena
to History of Israel,” and article “Israel” in “_Encyclopædia
Britannica_,” he gives expression with clearness and force to
his radical negative criticism, and develops a purely naturalist
conception of the Old Testament. Professor Kuenen of Leyden
transplanted these views to the Netherlands, and Robertson Smith
has introduced them into Scotland and England, while in Germany
they are taught by a number of the younger teachers, Stade in
Giessen, Merx in Heidelberg, Smend in Basel, etc. And now at last
in A.D. 1882 the venerable master of the school, =Edward Reuss=,
has himself in his “_Geschichte d. h. Schr. d. A. Test._” given a
brilliant and in many points modified exposition of these radical
theories. The history of Israel, according to him, divides itself
into the four successive periods of the heroes, of the prophets,
of the priests, and of the scribes, characterized respectively
by individualism, idealism, formalism, and traditionalism. Even
before the close of prophetism the priestly influence began
to assert itself, but it was only in the post-exilian period
under the domination of the priests that the construction and
codification of the law began to make impression on the Jewish
people. So too in the age of the kings there existed a Levitical
tradition about rites and worship, which traced back its first
outlines to the time of Moses, though at this period there could
have been no written official codex of any kind. In regard to
Moses, we are to think not only of his person as historical,
but also of his career as that of a man inspired by the
divine spirit and recognised as such by his contemporaries and
fellow-countrymen.--Also =Wellhausen=, who has hitherto concerned
himself only with the critical introduction to the Old Testament
books, not with their historical or theological interpretation,
supplied this defect to some extent by his “Prolegomena to the
History of Israel.” He admits that much of the history of Israel
related in the Old Testament is credible. He even goes so far as
to allow that this history was a preparation and forerunner of
Christianity, but without miracle and prophecy, and without any
immediate interposition of God in the affairs of Israel.
§ 182.19. Among the most distinguished free-thinking =dogmatists=
of recent times, =Biedermann= of Zürich, A.D. 1819-1885,
has occupied the most advanced position. His principal work,
“_Christliche Dogmatik_,” A.D. 1869, defined God and the origin
of the world as the self-development of the Absolute Idea
according to the Hegelian scheme, recognises in the person of
Christ the first realization of the Christian principle of the
divine sonship in a personal life, then proceeds with free
exposition of the Scripture and church doctrines, and combats
openly the doctrines of the church and through them also those
of Scripture, as setting religion purely in the domain of the
imagination.--=Lipsius= of Leipzig, Kiel, and Jena, in his
earliest treatise on the Pauline Doctrine of Justification in
A.D. 1853, held the position of the mediating theology, but under
the influence of Kant, Hegel, and Baur has been led to adopt
the standpoint of the “Free Protestant” school. His history of
gnosticism and his researches in early apocryphal literature
are important contributions to our knowledge of primitive
Christianity. His “_Lehrbuch d. ev. prot. Dogmatik_,” 1876,
2nd ed., 1879, on the basis of Kant and Schleiermacher, fixing
the limits of science with the former, and maintaining with the
latter the necessity of religious faith and life, not rejecting
metaphysics generally, but only its speculations on God and
divine things lying quite outside of human experience, seeks
from the common faith of the Christian church of all ages, as
it is expressed in the Scriptures and in the confessions, by
the application of the freest subjective criticism of the letter
of revelation, to secure a theory of the world in harmony with
modern views.--=Pfleiderer=, Twesten’s successor in Berlin,
in his “Paulinism,” “Influence of Paul on Development of
Christianity” and “History of the Philosophy of Religion,”
occupies more the Hegelian speculative standpoint than that
of Kantian criticism.
§ 182.20. =Ritschl and his School.=--=Ritschl=, 1822-1889, from
A.D. 1846 in Bonn, from A.D. 1864 in Göttingen, on his withdrawal
from the Tübingen party, applied himself to dogmatic studies
and founded a school, the adherents of which, divided into
right and left wings, have secured quite a number of academical
appointments. After the completion of his great dogmatic work
on “Justification and Reconciliation,” Ritschl resumed his
historical studies in a “History of Pietism,” which he traces
back through the persecuted anabaptists of the Reformation age
to the Tertiaries of the Franciscan order and the mysticism
of St. Bernard. He earnestly maintains his adherence to the
confessions of the Lutheran church, and regards it as the task
of his life to disentangle the pure Lutheran doctrine from the
accretions of scholastic metaphysics. Even more decidedly than
Schleiermacher, he banishes all philosophy from the domain of
theology. The grand significance of Kant’s doctrine of knowledge,
with its assertion of the incomprehensibility of all transcendent
truth except the ethical postulates of God, freedom and
immortality, as set forth in a more profound manner by Lotze,
is indeed admitted, but only as a methodological basis of all
religious inquiries, and with determined rejection of every
material support from Kant’s construction of religion within the
limits of the pure reason. Ritschl rather pronounces in favour
of the formal principle of Protestantism, and declares distinctly
that all religious truth must be drawn directly from Scripture,
primarily from the New Testament as the witness of the early
church uncorrupted by the Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysic, but
also secondarily from the Old Testament as the record of the
content of revelation made to the religious community of Israel.
The truthfulness of the biblical, especially of the New Testament,
system of truth, rests, however, not on any theory of inspiration,
but on its being an authentic statement of the early church of
the doctrine of Christ, inasmuch as to this witness the necessary
degree of _fides humana_ belongs. Ritschl’s Christology rests on
the witness of Christ to himself in the synoptists, through which
he proclaims himself the one prophet who in the divine purpose
of grace for mankind has received perfect consecration, sent by
God into the world to represent the founding of the kingdom of
God on earth foreshadowed in the Old Testament revelation; but
no attempt is made to explain how Christ became possessed of
the secrets of the divine decree. To him, as the first and only
begotten Son of God, standing in essential union with the Father,
belongs the attribute of deity and the right of worship. But of
an eternal pre-existence of Christ we can speak only in so far
as this is meant of the eternal gracious purpose of God to redeem
the world through him by means of the complete unfolding of the
kingdom of God in the fellowship of love. Whatever goes beyond
this in the fourth gospel, its Johannine authenticity not being
otherwise contested, as well as in Paul’s epistles and in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, resulted from the necessity felt by their
writers for assigning a sufficient reason for the assumption of
such incomparable glory on the part of Christ. As the archetype
of humanity destined for the kingdom of God, Christ is the
original object of the divine love, so that the love of God to
the members of his kingdom comes to them only through him. And
as the earthly founding, so also the heavenly completion, of
the kingdom of God is assigned to Christ, and hence after his
resurrection all power was given to him, of the transcendent
exercise of which, however, we can know nothing. The universality
of human sin is admitted by Ritschl as a fact of experience,
but he despairs of reaching any dogmatic statement as to the
origin of sin through the temptation of a superhuman evil
power. But that sin is inherited and as original guilt is
under the condemnation of God, is not taught or pre-supposed
by the teaching either of Christ or of the apostles. Redemption
(reconciliation and justification) consists in the forgiveness of
sins, by which the guilt that estranges from God is removed and
the sinner is restored into the fellowship of the kingdom of God.
Forgiveness, however, is not given on condition of the vicarious
penal sufferings of Christ, whose sufferings and death are of
significance rather because his life and works were a complete
fulfilment of his calling, and witnessed to as such by God’s
raising him from the dead. Justification secures the reception
of the penitent sinner into the fellowship of the kingdom of
God, preached and perfectly developed by Christ, and the sonship
enjoyed in its membership, prefigured in Christ himself, which
contains in itself the desire as well as the capacity to do good
works out of love to God.--The school of Ritschl is represented
in Göttingen by its founder and by =Schultz= and =Wendt=,
in Marburg by =Herrmann=, in Bonn by =Bender=, in Giessen by
=Gottschick= and =Kattenbusch=, in Strassburg by =Lobstein=,
in Basel by =Kaftan=, formerly of Berlin.[537]
§ 182.21. Opponents and critics of the school of Ritschl,
especially from the confessional Lutheran ranks, have appeared in
considerable numbers. Luthardt of Leipzig in A.D. 1878 opened the
campaign against Ritschilianism, followed by Bestmann, charging
it with undermining Christianity. The Hanoverian synod of
A.D. 1882 decided by a large majority that the scientific results
of theological science must be ruled by the confessions of the
evangelical church. The chief theme at the following Hanoverian
Pentecost Conference was the “Incarnation of the Son of God,” the
discussion being led by Professor Dieckhoff of Rostock, against
whom no voice was raised in favour of the views of Ritschl.
Not long after, Professor Fricke of Leipzig published a lecture
given by him at the Meissen Conference, on the Present Relations
of Metaphysics and Theology, followed by utterances of Kübel of
Tübingen, Grau of Königsberg, Kreibig and H. Schmidt at Berlin,
all unfavourable to Ritschl’s theology.--The main objections
are, according to =Bestmann=: idolatry of Kant, depreciation
of the religious factor in Christianity in favour of the ethical
by laying out a moral foreground without providing a dogmatic
background, reducing the objective fundamental truths of the
confession into subjective ethical ideas, etc.; according to
=Luthardt=: Ritschl’s position that it does not matter so much
what the facts of the Christian faith are in themselves, as what
they mean for us, makes his whole dogmatic system hang in the
air, if in Christianity we have to do not with what God, Christ,
the resurrection are, but only what significance we attach to
them, Christianity is stript of all importance, the significance
of a thing must have its foundation in the thing itself, etc.;
according to =Dieckhoff=: Ritschl on his accepting the divinity
of Christ lays down the rule that the special content of what is
meant by the term divinity must be transferable to the believer,
and so for Ritschl, Christ is a mere man who in his person was
the first to represent a relation to God which is destined for
all men in like measure, etc.; according to =Fricke=: new Kantian
scepticism with regard to ideals and transcendentals, reducing
religious elements to moral, with Ritschl’s removal of all
metaphysical facts the chief verities of our Christian faith
are taken away, at least in the scientific form in which we have
them, _e.g._ the doctrine of the Trinity, our Christology, our
theory of satisfaction, in place of which comes the Catholic
_justitia infusa_, etc.; according to =Münchmayer=: “the object
of justification with Ritschl is not the individual but the
community, it is no act of God upon the individual but an eternal
purpose of God for the community, its effect on the individual
is not objective divine forgiveness of guilt but a subjective act
of incorporation of the individual into the redeemed community;
Christ and his work are not the ground of justification,
but only the means of revealing the eternal justifying will
of God, and therefore finally a continuation of the historical
work of Christ by means of his church takes the place of the
personal intercession of the exalted Redeemer for the penitent
sinner.” Kreibig and Schmidt express themselves in a similar
manner.--Ritschl has not himself undertaken any reply, but
his disciples have sought to remove what they regard as
misunderstandings, and generally to vindicate the system of
their master.
§ 182.22. =Writers on Constitutional Law and History.=--The most
distinguished writers on the constitutional law of the church
are Eichhorn and Dove of Göttingen, Jacobsen of Königsberg,
Wasserschleben of Giessen, Richter and Hinschius of Berlin,
Friedberg of Leipzig, who belong to the unionist party; while
Bickell of Marburg, Mejer of Göttingen and Hanover, Von Scheuerl
of Erlangen, and Sohm of Strassburg belong to the confessional
Lutherans.--Of ecclesiastical historians (§ 5, 4, 5) the number
is so great that we cannot even enumerate their names.--The
“_Theologische Literaturzeitung_” of Schürer and Harnack
is a liberal scientific journal, distinguished for its fair
criticisms by writers whose names are given.
§ 183. HOME MISSIONS.
In regard to home mission work, the Protestant church long lagged
behind the Catholic, which had wrought vigorously through its monkish
orders. England first entered with zeal into the field, especially
dissenters and members of the low church party, and subsequently also
the high church ritualistic party (§ 202, 1, 3), which now takes an
active interest in this work. Germany, in view of the scanty means at
the disposal of the pietists and the church party, made noble efforts.
In other continental countries, but especially in North America, much
was done for home missions. Soon the whole Protestant world began
to organize benevolent and evangelistic institutions. The laborious
Wichern, in A.D. 1849, went through all Germany to arouse interest
in home missions, and started a yearly congress on the subject in
Wittenberg. Till his death in A.D. 1881, Wichern continued to direct
this congress and further the interests which it represented.
§ 183.1. =Institutions.=--The earliest charity school was that
founded at Düsselthal by Count Recke-Volmarstein, in A.D. 1816,
followed by Zeller’s at Beuggen in A.D. 1820. One of the most
famous of these institutions was the =Rauhe Haus= of Wichern,
at Horn, near Hamburg, A.D. 1833.[538] Fliedner’s Deaconess
Institute at Kaiserswerth is the pride of the evangelical church.
It has now 190 branches, with 625 sisters, in the four continents.
There are many independent institutions modelled upon it in
Germany, England, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, and France.
In A.D. 1881 there were in Germany 31, and in the cities of other
lands 22, principal deaconess institutions of this German order,
with 4,751 sisters and 1,491 fields of labour outside of the
institution. The original institute of Kaiserswerth comprises
a hospital with 600 patients, a refuge for fallen women and
liberated prisoners, an orphanage for girls, a seminary for
governesses, and a home for female imbeciles.[539] Löhe founded
the deaconess institute of =Neuendettelsau=, on strict Lutheran
principles, with hospital, girls’ school, and asylum for imbecile
children. In France a most successful institution was founded by
pastor Bost of Laforce, in A.D. 1848, for foundlings, imbeciles,
and epileptics. In England, George Müller, a poor German student
of Halle, a pupil of Tholuck, beginning in A.D. 1832, founded at
Bristol five richly endowed orphanages after the pattern of that
of A. H. Francke, in which thousands of destitute street children
have been educated, and for this and other purposes has spent
nearly £1,000,000 without ever asking any one for a contribution,
acting on the belief that “the God of Elijah still lives.”
The London City Mission employs 600 missionaries. In New York,
since A.D. 1855, about 60,000 street children have been placed,
by the Society for Poor Children, in Christian families, and
21 Industrial schools are maintained with 10,000 scholars.--Tract
Societies in London, Hamburg, Berlin, etc., send out millions
of tracts for Christian instruction and awakening. The Society
for North Germany successfully pursues a similar work; the Calw
Publication Society circulates Christian text-books with woodcuts
at a remarkably small price. In Berlin the Evangelical Book
Society issues reprints of the older tracts on practical divinity.
Christian women, like the English Quakeress Elizabeth Fry, the
noble Amalie Sieveking of Hamburg, Miss Florence Nightingale, the
heroine of the Crimean war, and the brave Maria Simon of Dresden,
who organized the female nursing corps of the wars of 1866,
1870, 1871, helped on the work of home missions in all lands,
especially in the departments of tending the poor and the sick.
§ 183.2. The =Order of St. John=, secularized in A.D. 1810,
was reorganized by Frederick William IV. in A.D. 1852 into
an association for the care of the sick and poor. Under a
grand-master it has 350 members and 1,500 associates. Its
revenues are formed from entrance fees and annual contributions.
It has thirty hospitals. In A.D. 1861 it founded a hospital for
men in Beyrout during the persecution of Christians in Syria, and
in A.D. 1868 gave aid during the famine that followed the typhus
epidemic in East Prussia, and did noble service in the wars of
A.D. 1864, 1866, and 1870.
§ 183.3. =The Itinerant Preacher Gustav Werner in
Württemberg.=--Abandoning his charge in A.D. 1840, Werner began
his itinerant labours, and during the year formed more than a
hundred groups of adherents over all Württemberg. His preaching
was allegorical and eschatological, and avoided the doctrines of
satisfaction and justification. On his repudiating the Augsburg
Confession, the church boards refused to recognise him, and
he went hither and thither preaching a Christian communism. In
A.D. 1842 he bought a site in Reutlingen, built a house, and
founded a school for eighty children. In order to develop his
views of carrying on industrial arts on a Christian basis, he
bought, in A.D. 1850, the paper factory at Reutlingen for £4,000,
and subsequently transferred it to Dettingen on a larger scale,
at an outlay of £20,000. By A.D. 1862 he had established no less
than twenty-two branches, in which manufacturing was carried
on, with institutions of all kinds for education, pastoral work,
rescuing the lost and raising the fallen. Each member lives and
works for the whole; none receives wages; surplus income goes
to increase the number and extent of the institutions. Vast
multitudes of sunken and destitute families have been by these
means restored to respectable social positions and to a moral
religious life.
§ 183.4. =Bible Societies.=--The Bible societies constitute
an independent branch of the home mission. Modern efforts to
circulate Scripture began in England. As a necessary adjunct to
missionary societies, the great British and Foreign Bible Society
was founded in London in A.D. 1804, embracing all Protestant
sects, excepting the Quakers. It circulates Bibles without note
or comment. The Apocryphal controversy of A.D. 1825-1827 resulted
in the society resolving not to print the Apocrypha in its
issues. In consequence of this decision, fifty German societies,
including the present society of Berlin, seceded. The New York
Association, founded in A.D. 1817, is in thorough accord with
the London society. The Baden Missionary Society revived the
discussion in A.D. 1852 by making it the subject of essay
for a prize, which was won by the learned work of Keerl, who,
along with the stricter Lutherans, condemned the Apocrypha.
The other side was taken by Stier and Hengstenberg, and most
of the consistories advised adherence to the old practice,
as all misunderstanding was prevented by Luther’s preface and
the prohibition against using passages from the Apocrypha as
sermon texts.--Bible societies altogether have issued during
the century 180,000,000 Bibles and New Testaments in 324
different languages.[540]
§ 184. FOREIGN MISSIONS.
Protestant zeal for missions to the heathen has gone on advancing
since the end of last century (§ 172, 5). Missionary societies increase
from year to year. In A.D. 1883 there were seventy independent societies
with innumerable branches, which contribute annually about £1,500,000,
or five times as much as the Romish church, and maintain 2,000 mission
stations, 2,940 European and American missionaries, and 1,000 ordained
native pastors and 25,000 native teachers and assistants, having under
their care 2,214,000 converts from heathenism. In missionary enterprise
England holds the first place, next comes America, and then Germany.
Among Protestant sects the Methodists and Baptists are most zealous
in the cause of missions, and the Moravian Brethren have wrought
most successfully in this department. The missions also did much to
prepare the way for the suppression of the slave trade by the European
powers in A.D. 1830, and the emancipation of all slaves in the British
possessions in A.D. 1834, at a cost of £20,000,000. The noble English
philanthropist, William Wilberforce, unweariedly laboured for these
ends.--Also in England, Germany, Russia, and France new associations
were formed for missions to the Jews, and the work was carried on with
admirable patience, though the visible results were very small.
§ 184.1. =Missionary Societies.=--The great American Missionary
Society was founded at Boston in A.D. 1810, the English Wesleyan
in A.D. 1814, the American Methodist in A.D. 1819, the American
Episcopal in A.D. 1820, and the Society of Paris in A.D. 1824.
The new German societies were on confessional lines: that of
Basel in A.D. 1816, of Berlin in A.D. 1823, the Rhenish with the
mission seminary at Barmen in A.D. 1829, the North German, on
the basis of the Augsburg Confession, in A.D. 1836. The Dresden
Society, which resumed the old Lutheran work in the East Indies
(§ 167, 9), founded a seminary at Leipzig in A.D. 1849, in order
to get the benefit of the university. Lutheran societies, mostly
affiliated with that of Leipzig, were started in Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, Russia, Bavaria, Hanover, Mecklenburg, Hesse, and America.
The Neuendettelsau Institute wrought through the Iowa Synod among
the North American Indians, and through the Immanuel Synod among
the aborigines of Australia. The Hermannsburg Institute under
Harms prosecuted mission work with great zeal. In A.D. 1853,
Harms sent out in his own mission ship eight missionaries and as
many Christian colonists. It has been objected to this mission,
that endeavours after social elevation and industrial training
have driven to the background the main question of individual
conversion.--The advanced liberal school in Switzerland and
Germany sought in A.D. 1883 to start a mission on their own
particular lines. They do not propose any opposition to existing
agencies, and intend to make their first experiment among the
civilized races of India and Japan.
§ 184.2. =Europe and America.=--The Swedish mission in Lapland
(§ 160, 7) was resumed in A.D. 1825 by Stockfleth. The Moravians
carried on their work among the Eskimos in Greenland, which had
now become a wholly Christian country, and also in Labrador,
which was almost in the same condition. The chaplain of the
Hudson Bay Company, J. West, founded a successful mission in
that territory in A.D. 1822. Among the natives and negro slaves
in the British possessions, the United States, and West Indies,
Moravians, Methodists, Baptists, and Anglican Episcopalians
patiently and successfully carried on the work. Among the natives
and bush negroes, descendants of runaway slaves, in Guiana, the
Moravians did a noble work.--Catholic South America remained
closed against Protestant missions. But the ardent zeal of
Capt. Allen Gardiner led him to choose the inhospitable shores of
Patagonia as a field of labour. He landed there in A.D. 1850 with
five missionaries, but in the following year their corpses only
were found. The work, however, was started anew in A.D. 1856, and
prosecuted with success under the direction of an Anglican bishop.
§ 184.3. =Africa.=--The Moravians have laboured among the
Hottentots, the Berlin missionaries among the wild Corannas,
and the French Evangelical Society among the Bechuanas. Hahn
of Livonia is the apostle of the Hereros. On the East Coast the
London Missionary Society has wrought among the warlike Kaffirs,
and other British societies are labouring in Natal among the
Zulus. On the West Coast the English colony of Sierra Leone was
founded for the settling and Christianizing of liberated slaves,
and farther south is Liberia, a similar American colony; both in
a flourishing condition, under the care of Methodists, Baptists,
and Anglican Episcopalians. The Basel missionaries labour on the
Gold Coast, Baptists in Old Calabar, and the American and North
German Societies on the Gaboon River.--The London missionaries
won Radama of Madagascar to Christianity in A.D. 1818, but his
successor Ranavalona instituted a bloody persecution of the
Christians in A.D. 1835, during which David Jones, the apostle
of the Malagassy, suffered martyrdom in A.D. 1843. In the island
of Mauritius, where there is an Anglican bishop, many Malagassy
Christians found refuge. After the queen’s death in A.D. 1861,
her Christian son Radama II. recalled the Christian exiles
and the missionaries. He soon became the victim of a palace
revolution. His wife and successor Rosaherina continued a heathen
till her death in A.D. 1868, but put no obstacle in the way of
the gospel. But her cousin Ranavalona II. overthrew the idol
worship, was baptized in A.D. 1869, and in the following year
burned the national idols. Protestantism now made rapid strides,
till interrupted by French Jesuit intrigues, which have been
favoured by the recent French occupation.
§ 184.4. Livingstone and Stanley have made marvellous
contributions to our geographical knowledge of =Central Africa=
and to Christian missions there. The Scottish missionary, David
Livingstone, factory boy, afterwards physician and minister,
wrought, A.D. 1840-1849, under the London Missionary Society in
South Africa, and then entered on his life work of exploration
in Central Africa. During his third exploring journey into the
interior in A.D. 1865 as a British consul, he was not heard of
for a whole year. H. M. Stanley, of the _New York Herald_, was
sent in A.D. 1871, and found him in Ujiji on Lake Tanganyiká.
Livingstone died of dysentery on the southern bank of this lake
in A.D. 1873. Still more important was Stanley’s second journey,
A.D. 1874-1877, which yielded the most brilliant scientific
results, and was epoch-making in the history of African missions.
He got the greatest potentate in those regions, King Mtesa of
Uganda, who had been converted by the Arabs to Mohammedanism, to
adopt Christianity and permit a Christian church to be built in
his city. Stanley’s letters from Africa roused missionary fervour
throughout England. The Church Missionary Society in A.D. 1877
set up a mission station in the capital, and put a steamer
on the Victoria Nyanza. The church services were regularly
attended, education and the work of civilization zealously
prosecuted, Sunday labour and the slave trade prohibited, etc.
French Jesuits entered in A.D. 1879, insinuating suspicions
of the English missionaries into the ear of the king, and the
machinations of the Arab slave-dealers made their position
dangerous. Missionaries arrived by way of Egypt with flattering
recommendations from the English foreign secretary in the name
of the queen. But the traders, by means of an Arabic translation
of a letter purporting to be from the English consul at Zanzibar,
cast suspicion on the document as a forgery, and represented its
bearers as in the pay of the hostile Egyptians. Mtesa’s wrath
knew no bounds, and only his favour for the missionary physician
saved the mission and led him to send an embassy of three chiefs
and two missionaries to England in June, A.D. 1879, to discover
the actual truth. His anger meanwhile cooled, and the work of
the mission was resumed. He was preparing to put an utter end
to the national heathenism, when suddenly a report spread that
the greatest of all the Lubaris or inferior deities, that of
the Nyanza Lake, had become incarnate in an old woman, in order
to heal the king and restore the ancient religion. The whole
populace was in an uproar; Mtesa, under threat of deposition,
restored heathenism, with human sacrifice, man stealing, and the
slave trade. Then the Lubari excitement cooled down. Mtesa, moved
by a dream, declared himself again a Mohammedan, and converted
the Christian church into a mosque. The English missionaries,
stripped of all means, starved, and subjected to all sorts of
privations, did not flinch. At last, in January, A.D. 1881,
the embassy, sent eighteen months before to England, reached
home again, and, by the story of their reception, caused a
revulsion of feeling in favour of the English mission, which
again flourished under the protection of the king. But Mtesa died
in 1884. His son and successor, Mwanga, a suspicious, peevish
young despot, addicted to all forms of vice, began again the
most cruel persecution, of which Bishop Hannington, sent out
from England, with fifty companions, were the victims. Only
four escaped.
§ 184.5. =Asia.=--The most important mission field in
Asia is =India=. The old Lutheran mission there had great
difficulties to contend against: the system of caste distinctions,
the proud self-sufficiency of the pantheistic Brahmans, the
politico-commercial interests of the East India Company, etc.
The Leipzig Society has sixteen stations among the Tamuls, and
alongside are English, American, and German missionaries of
every school. The Gossner Society works among the Kohls of Chota
Nagpore, where a rival mission has been started by the puseyite
bishop of Calcutta, Dr. Milman, to which, in A.D. 1868, six
of the twelve German missionaries and twelve of the thirty-six
chapels were transferred. The Basel missionaries labour in Canara
and Malabar. The military revolt in Northern India in A.D. 1857
interrupted missionary operations for two years; but the work was
afterwards resumed with great vigour. The Christian benevolence
shown during the famine of A.D. 1878, in which three millions
perished, made a great impression in favour of the Protestant
church. In the preceding years throughout all India only between
5,000 and 10, 000 souls were annually added; but in A.D. 1878 the
number of new converts rose to 100,000, and in A.D. 1879 there
were 44,000.--The island of =Ceylon= was, under Portuguese and
Dutch rule, in great part nominally Christianized; but when
compulsion was removed under British rule, this sham profession
was at an end. Multitudes fell back into heathenism, and in the
first ten years of the British dominion 900 new idol temples
were erected. From A.D. 1812 Baptist, Methodist, and Anglican
missionaries have toiled with small appearance of fruit. In
=Farther India= the American missionaries have wrought since
A.D. 1813. Judson and his heroic wife did noble work among the
Karens and the Burmans. Also in Malacca, Singapore, and Siam
the Protestant missions have had brilliant success. The work in
Sumatra has been retarded by the opposition of the Malays and
deadly malarial fever. The preaching of the gospel was eminently
successful in =Java=, where since A.D. 1814 Baptist missionaries
and agents of the London Society have wrought heroically.
In Celebes the Dutch missionaries found twenty Christian
congregations of old standing, greatly deteriorated for want
of pastoral care, but still using the Heidelberg Catechism. At
Banjermassin, in A.D. 1835 the Rhenish Society founded their
first station in Borneo, and wrought not unsuccessfully among
the heathen Dyaks. But in A.D. 1859 a rebellion of the Mohammedan
residents led to the expulsion of the Dutch and the murder of all
Christians. Only a few of the missionaries escaped martyrdom, and
subsequently settled in Sumatra.
§ 184.6. The work in =China= began in A.D. 1807, when the London
Missionary Society settled Morrison in Canton, where he began the
study of the language and the translation of the Bible. Gutzlaff
of Pomerania, in A.D. 1826, conceived the plan of evangelizing
China through the Chinese converts, but, though he continued his
efforts till his death in A.D. 1854, the scheme failed through
the unworthiness of many of the professors. The war against the
opium traffic, A.D. 1839-1842, opened five ports to the mission,
and led to the transference of Hongkong to the English. The
Chinese mission now made rapid strides; but the interior was
still untouched. The conflict between the governor of Canton
and the English, French, and Americans, and the chastisement
administered to the Chinese in A.D. 1857, led the emperor, in
A.D. 1858, to make a treaty with the three powers and also with
Russia, by which the whole land was opened up for trade and
missions, and full toleration granted to Christianity. Popular
hatred of strangers, and especially of missionaries, however,
occasioned frequently bloody encounters, and in A.D. 1870 there
was a furious outburst directed against the French missionaries.
During a terrible famine in North China, in A.D. 1878, when more
than five millions perished, the heroic and self-sacrificing
conduct of the missionaries brought them into high favour.
Throughout China there are now 320 organized Christian
congregations with 50,000 adherents under 238 foreign
missionaries.--After seclusion for three centuries, =Japan=,
about the same time as China, was opened by treaty to European
and American commerce, notwithstanding the opposition of the
old feudal nobility, the so-called Daimios. In A.D. 1871 the
mikado’s government succeeded in overcoming completely the power
of the daimios and setting aside the shiogun or military vizier,
who had exercised supreme executive power. European customs were
introduced, but the rigorous enactments against native converts
to Christianity were still enforced. A cruel persecution
of native Christians was carried on in A.D. 1867, but the
Protestant missionaries continued to work unweariedly, preparing
dictionaries and reading books. The Buddhist priests sought
to get up a rival mission to send agents to America and Europe,
whereas many of the leading newspapers expressed the opinion that
Japan must soon put Christianity in the place of Buddhism as the
state religion.
§ 184.7. =Polynesia and Australia.=--The flourishing Protestant
church of Tahiti, the largest and finest of the Society Islands
(§ 172, 5), suffered from the appearance of two French Jesuits
in A.D. 1836. When Queen Pomare compelled them to withdraw,
the French government, resenting this as an indignity to
their nation, sent a fleet to attack the defenceless people,
proclaimed a French protectorate, and introduced not only
Catholic missionaries, but European vices. Amid much persecution,
however, the Protestants held their own. In December, 1880,
Pomare V. resigned, and the Society Islands became a dependency
of France.--In the south-east groups great opposition was shown,
but in the north-west Christianity made rapid progress. The
island of Raiatea was the centre of the South Sea missions. There
from A.D. 1819 John Williams, the apostle of the South Seas,
wrought till he met a martyr’s death in A.D. 1839. He went from
place to place in a mission ship built by his own hands. The
Harvey Group were Christianized in A.D. 1821, and the Navigator
Group in A.D. 1830. The French took the Marquesas Islands in
A.D. 1838, and introduced Catholic missionaries. The attempt
to evangelize the New Hebrides led to the death of Williams
and two of his companions. Missionaries of the London Society,
A.D. 1797-1799, had failed in the Friendly Islands through the
savage character of the natives, but in A.D. 1822 the Methodists
made a successful start. The gospel was carried thence to Fiji,
which is now under British rule. Both groups have become almost
wholly Christianized. The =Sandwich Islands= form a third mission
centre, wrought by the American board. Kamehameha I. gladly
adopted the elements of Christian civilization, though rejecting
Christianity: while his successor Kamehameha II. in A.D. 1829
abolished tabu and overthrew the idol temples. In A.D. 1851
Christianity was adopted as the national religion. The work was
more difficult in =New Zealand=, where the Church Missionary
Society, represented by Samuel Marsden, the apostle of New
Zealand, began operations in A.D. 1814. For ten years the
position of the missionaries was most hazardous; yet they held
on, and the conversion of the most bloodthirsty of the chiefs
did much to advance their cause. In New Guinea the London Society
has been making steady progress. Among the stolid natives of the
continent of New Holland, the so called Papuans, the labours of
the Moravians since A.D. 1849 have not yielded much fruit. Since
A.D. 1875 the German-Australian Immanuel Synod, supported by
Neuendettelsau, has laboured for the conversion of the heathen
in the inland districts.
§ 184.8. =Missions to the Jews.=--In A.D. 1809 the London Society
for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (§ 172, 5) was formed
by a union of all denominations, but soon passed into the hands
of the Anglicans. By the circulation of the Scriptures and
tracts, and by the sending out of missionaries, mostly Jewish
converts, the work was persevered in amid many discouragements.
In A.D. 1818 Poland was opened to its missionaries, and there
some 600 Jews were baptized. The society carried on its operations
also in Germany, Holland, France, and Turkey. The work in Poland
was interrupted by the Crimean war, and was not resumed till
A.D. 1875. In Bessarabia Faltin has laboured successfully among
the Jews since A.D. 1860. He was joined in the work in A.D. 1867
by the converted Rabbi Gurland, who had studied theology at Halle
and Berlin. In A.D. 1871 Gurland accepted a call to similar work
in Courland and Lithuania, and since A.D. 1876 has been Lutheran
pastor at Mitau. In A.D. 1841 the evangelical bishopric of
St. James was founded in Jerusalem by the English and Prussian
governments conjointly, presentations to be made alternately, but
the ordination to be according to the Anglican rite. The first
bishop was Alexander, a Jewish convert. He died in A.D. 1845 and
was succeeded by the zealous missionary Gobat, elected by the
Prussian government. He died in A.D. 1879 and was succeeded
by Barclay, who died in A.D. 1881. It was now again Prussia’s
turn to make an appointment. The English demand to have Lutheran
ministers ordained successively deacon, presbyter, and bishop
had given offence, and so no new appointment has been made. In
June 1886 the English-Prussian compact was formally cancelled
and a proposal made to found an independent Prussian Evangelical
bishopric.
§ 184.9. =Missions among the Eastern Churches.=--In A.D. 1815
the Church Missionary Society founded a missionary emporium in
the island of Malta, as a tract depôt for the evangelizing the
East; and in A.D. 1846 the Malta Protestant College was erected
for training native missionaries, teachers, physicians, etc., for
work in the various oriental countries. In the Ionian islands, in
Constantinople, and in Greece, British and American missionaries
began operations in A.D. 1819 by erecting schools and circulating
the scriptures. At first the orthodox clergy were favourable, but
as the work progressed they became actively hostile, and only two
mission schools in Syra and Athens were allowed to continue. In
Syria the Americans made Beyrout their head quarters in A.D. 1824,
but the work was interrupted by the Turco-Egyptian conflicts.
Subsequently, however, it flourished more and more, and, before
the Syrian massacre of A.D. 1860 (§ 207, 2), there were nine
prosperous stations in Syria. The founding of the Jerusalem
bishopric in A.D. 1841, and the issuing of the Hatti-Humayun
in A.D. 1856 (§ 207, 2), induced the Church Missionary Society
to make more vigorous efforts which, however, were afterwards
abandoned for want of success. Down to the outbreak of the
persecution of Syrian Christians in A.D. 1860, this society
had five flourishing stations. From A.D. 1831 the Americans
had wrought zealously and successfully among the Armenians in
Constantinople and neighbourhood, but in A.D. 1845 the Armenian
patriarch excited a violent persecution which threatened
the utter overthrow of the work. The British ambassador,
Sir Stratford de Redcliffe, however, insisted upon the Porte
recognising the rights of the Protestant Armenians as an
independent religious denomination, and since then the missions
have prospered. Among the Nestorians in Turkey and Persia the
Americans, with Dr. Grant at their head, began operations in
A.D. 1834; but through Jesuit intrigues the suspicions of the
Kurds and Turks were excited, and in A.D. 1843 and 1846 a war
of extermination was waged against the mountain Nestorians,
which annihilated the Protestant missions among them. Operations,
however, have been recommenced with encouraging success. Among
the deeply degraded Copts in Egypt, and extending from them into
Abyssinia, the Moravians had been working without any apparent
result from A.D. 1752 to A.D. 1783. In A.D. 1826 the Church
Missionary Society, under German missionaries trained at Basel
(Gobat, Irenberg, Krapf [Krapff], etc.), took up the work, till
it was stopped by the government in A.D. 1837. In A.D. 1855
the Basel missionaries began again to work in Abyssinia with
the approval of King Theodore. This state of things soon changed.
Theodore’s ambition was to conquer Egypt and overthrow Islam.
But when in A.D. 1863 this scheme only called forth threats from
London and Paris, he gave loose rein to his natural ferocity
and put the English consul and the German missionaries in chains.
By means of an armed expedition in A.D. 1868, England compelled
the liberation of the prisoners, and Theodore put an end to his
own life. After the withdrawal of the English the country was
desolated by civil wars, and at the close of these troubles in
A.D. 1878 the mission resumed its operations.