§ 203.7. In the future course of the French “Kulturkampf” the

most important proceedings of the government were the following:

The abolition of the institute of military chaplains, highly

serviceable in ultramontanizing the officers, was carried out

in 1880, as well as the requirement that the clergy and teachers

should give military service for one year, and subsequently also

military escorts to the Corpus Christi procession were forbidden.

In 1880 the Municipal Council of Paris, with the concurrence of

the prefect of the Seine, forbad the continuance of the beautiful

building of the church of the Heart of Jesus begun in 1875 on

Montmartre (§ 188, 12), confiscating the site that had been

granted for it. In 1881 the churchyards were relieved of their

denominational character, and the following year the right of

managing them, with permission of merely civil interment without

the aid of a clergyman, was transferred from the ecclesiastical

to the civil authorities. By introducing in 1880 high schools

for girls with boarding establishments an end was put to the

education of girls of the upper ranks in nunneries, which had

hitherto been the almost exclusive practice. Far more sweeping

was the School Act brought in by the radical minister of worship,

Paul Bert, and first enforced in October, 1886, which made

attendance compulsory, relegated religious instruction wholly to

the church and home, and absolutely excluded all the clergy from

the right of giving any sort of instruction in the public schools,

and demanded the removal of all crucifixes and other religious

symbols from the school buildings. In December, 1884, a tax was

imposed on the property of all religious orders, also the state

allowance for the five Catholic seminaries with only thirty-seven

students was withdrawn, and many other important deductions made

upon the budget for Catholic worship, which at first the senate

opposed, but at last agreed to. The Divorce Bill frequently

introduced since 1881, which permitted parties to marry again,

and gave disposal of the matter to the civil court, got the

assent of the senate only in the end of July, 1884. The clericals

were also greatly offended by the decree passed in May, 1885,

which closed the church of St. Genoveva, the former Pantheon,

as a place of worship and made it again a burial place for

distinguished Frenchmen. This resolution was first carried out

by placing there the remains of Victor Hugo. Amid these and many

other injuries to its interests the Roman curia, concentrating

all its energies upon the German “Kulturkampf,” endeavoured to

keep things back in a moderate way. Yet in July, 1883, the pope

addressed to president Grévy a friendly but earnest remonstrance,

which he treated simply as a private letter and, without

communicating it officially to his cabinet, answered that apart

from parliament he could not act, but that so far as he and

his ministry were able they would seek to avoid conflict with

the holy see. And in fact the government, especially after the

overthrow of the Gambetta ministry in 1882, often successfully

opposed the proposal of the radical chamber, _e.g._ the

separation of church and state, the abrogation of the concordat,

the recall of the embassy to the Vatican, the abolition of

religious oaths in the proceedings of the courts, the stopping of

the state subvention of a million francs for payment of salaries

in seminaries for priests, etc.

§ 203.8. =The Protestant Churches under the Third

Republic.=--Since the French Reformed began to emulate their

Catholic countrymen in wild Chauvinism, fanatical hatred of

Germany and unreasoning enthusiasm for the _Revanche_, they

were left by the advancing clerical party unmolested in respect

of life, confession and worship during the time of war. The

Lutherans on the other hand, consisting, although on French

territory, mainly of German emigrants and settlers, even their

French members not so disposed to Chauvinistic extravagance,

were obliged to atone for this double offence by expulsion from

house and home and by various injuries to their ecclesiastical

interests. After the conclusion of peace, especially under

Thiers’ moderate government, this fanaticism gradually cooled

down, so that the expelled Germans returned and the churches and

institutions that had been destroyed were restored, so far as

means would allow. By the decree of Waddington, the minister

of instruction, of date March 27th, 1877, instead of the

theological faculty of Strassburg, now lost for the French

Lutheran church, one for both Protestant churches was founded

in Paris.--The =Lutheran Church=, in consequence of the cession

of Alsace-Lorraine, had only sixty-four out of 278 pastorates

and six out of forty-four consistories remaining. At the general

synod convened at Paris, in July, 1872, by the government for

reorganising the Lutheran church it was resolved: To form two

inspectorates independent of each other--Paris, predominantly

orthodox, Mömpelgard, predominantly liberal; the general assembly,

which meets every third year alternately at Mömpelgard and Paris,

to consist of delegates from both. The two inspectorates are to

correspond in administrative matters directly with the minister

of public instruction, but in everything referring to confession,

doctrine, worship and discipline, the general assembly is the

supreme authority. In regard to the confessional question they

agreed to the statement, that the holy Scripture is the supreme

authority in matters of faith, and the Augsburg Confession

the basis of the legal constitution of the church. An express

undertaking on the part of the clergy to this effect is not,

however, insisted upon. Only in 1879 could this constitution

obtain legal sanction by the State, and that only after

considerable modification in the direction of liberalism,

especially in reference to electoral qualification. In

consequence of this the first ordinary general assembly held

in Paris in May, 1881, found both parties in a conciliatory

mood.--=The Reformed Church=, with about 500 pastorates and

105 consistories, summoned by order of government a newly

constituted General Assembly at Paris, in June, 1872. Prominent

among the leaders of the orthodox party was the aged ex-minister

Guizot; the leaders of the liberals were Coquerel and Colani.

The former supported the proposal of Professor Bois of Montauban,

who insisted on the frank and full confession of holy Scripture

as the sovereign authority in matters of faith, of Christ as

the only Son of God, and of justification by faith as the legal

basis of instruction, worship and discipline; while the latter

protested against every attempt to lay down an obligatory and

exclusive confession. The orthodox party prevailed and the

dissenters who would not yield were struck off the voting lists.

When now in consequence of the complaint of the liberal party

the summoning of an ordinary general assembly was refused by

the government, the orthodox party repeatedly met in “official”

provincial and general assemblies without state sanction. The

council of state then declared all decisions regarding voting

qualifications passed by the synod of 1872 to be null and void,

the minister of worship, Ferry, ordered the readmission of

electors struck from the lists, and his successor Bert legalized,

by a decree of March 25th, 1882, the division of the Parisian

consistorial circuit into two independent consistories of Paris

and Versailles, moved for by the liberal party but opposed by the

orthodox. But upon the elections for the new consistory of Paris,

ordered in spite of all protests, and for the presbyteries of the

eight parishes assigned to it, contrary to all expectation, in

seven of these the elections with great majorities were in favour

of the orthodox, and the first official document issued by the

new consistory was a solemn protest against the decree to which

it owed its existence. Under such circumstances the government

as well as the liberal party had no desire for the calling of an

official general assembly, and the latter resolved at a general

assembly at Nimes, in October, 1882, to institute official

synods of their own for consultation and protection of their

own interests.

§ 204. ITALY.

In Italy matters returned to their old position after the

restoration of 1814. But liberalism, aiming at the liberty and unity

of Italy, gained the mastery, and where for the time it prevailed, the

Jesuits were expelled, and the power of the clergy restricted; where

it failed, both came back with greatly increased importance. The arms

of Austria and subsequently also of France stamped out on all sides

the revolutionary movements. Pius IX., who at first was not indisposed,

contrary to all traditions of the papacy, to put himself at the head of

the national party, was obliged bitterly to regret his dealings with the

liberals (§ 185, 2). Sardinia, Modena and Naples put the severest strain

upon the bow of the restoration, while Parma and Tuscany distinguished

themselves by adopting liberal measures in a moderate degree. Sardinia,

however, in 1840 came to a better mind. Charles Albert first broke

ground with a more liberal constitution, and in 1848 proclaimed himself

the deliverer of Italy, but yielded to the arms of Austria. His son

Victor Emanuel II. succeeded amid singularly favourable circumstances

in uniting the whole peninsula under his sceptre as a united kingdom of

Italy governed by liberal institutions.

§ 204.1. =The Kingdom of Sardinia.=--Victor Emanuel I. after

the restoration had nothing else to do but to recall the Jesuits,

to hand over to them the whole management of the schools, and,

guided and led by them in everything, to restore the church and

state to the condition prevailing before 1789. Charles Felix

(1821-1831) carried still further the absolutist-reactionary

endeavours of his predecessor, and even Charles Albert (1831-1849)

refused for a long time to realize the hopes which the liberal

party had previously placed in him. Only in the second decade

of his reign did he begin gradually to display a more liberal

tendency, and at last in 1848 when, in consequence of the French

Revolution, Lombardy rose against the Austrian rule, he placed

himself at the head of the national movement for freeing Italy

from the yoke of strangers. But the king gloried in as “the sword

of Italy” was defeated and obliged to abdicate. Victor Emanuel II.

(1849-1878) allowed meanwhile the liberal constitution of his

father to remain and indeed carried it out to the utmost. The

minister of justice, Siccardi, proposed a new legislative code

which abolished all clerical jurisdiction in civil and criminal

proceedings, as also the right of asylum and of exacting

tithes, the latter with moderate compensation. It was passed

by parliament and subscribed by the king in 1850. The clergy,

with archbishop Fransoni of Turin at their head, protested with

all their might against these sacrilegious encroachments on the

rights of the church. Fransoni was on this account committed for

a month to prison and, when he refused the last sacrament to a

minister, was regularly sentenced to deposition and banishment

from the country. Pius IX. thwarted all attempts to obtain a

new concordat. But the government went recklessly forward. As

Fransoni from his exile in France continued his agitation, all

the property of the archiepiscopal chair was in 1854 sequestered

and a number of cloisters were closed. Soon all penalties in

the penal code for spreading non-Catholic doctrines were struck

out and non-Catholic soldiers freed from compulsory attendance

at mass on Sundays and festivals. The chief blow now fell on

March 2nd, 1855, in the Cloister Act, which abolished all orders

and cloisters not devoted to preaching, teaching, and nursing

the sick. In consequence 331 out of 605 cloisters were shut up.

The pope ceased not to condemn all these sacrilegious and church

robbing acts, and when his threats were without result, thundered

the great excommunication in July, 1855, against all originators,

aiders, and abettors of such deeds. Among the masses this indeed

caused some excitement, but it never came to an explosion.

§ 204.2. =The Kingdom of Italy.=--Amid such vigorous progress

the year 1859 came round with its fateful Franco-Italian war.

The French alliance had not indeed, as it promised, made Italy

free to the Adriatic, but by the peace of Villafranca the whole

of Lombardy was given to the kingdom of Sardinia as a present

from the emperor of the French. In the same year by popular vote

Tuscany, including Modena and Parma, and in the following year

the kingdom of the two Sicilies, as well as the three provinces

of the States of the Church, revolted and were annexed, so that

the new kingdom of Italy embraced the whole of the peninsula,

with the exception of Venice, Rome and the Campagna. Prussia’s

remarkable successes in the seven days’ German war of 1866 shook

Venice like ripe fruit into the lap of her Italian ally, and the

day of Sedan, 1870, prepared the way for the addition of Rome

and the Campagna (§ 185, 3).--In Lombardy and then also in

Venice, immediately after they had been taken possession of, the

concordat with Austria was abrogated and the Jesuits expelled.

Ecclesiastical tithes on the produce of the soil were abolished

throughout the whole kingdom, begging was forbidden the mendicant

friars as unworthy of a spiritual order, ecclesiastical property

was put under state control and the support of the clergy

provided for by state grants. In 1867 the government began

the appropriation and conversion of the church property; in

1870 all religious orders were dissolved, with exception for

the time being of those in Rome, wherever they did not engage

in educational and other useful works. In May, 1873, this law

was extended to the Roman province, only it was not to be applied

to the generals of orders in Rome. Nuns and some monks were

also allowed to remain in their cloisters situated in unpeopled

districts. The amount of state pensions paid to monks and nuns

reached in 1882 the sum of eleven million lire, at the rate

of 330 lire for each person. The abolition of the theological

faculties in ten Italian universities in 1873, because these

altogether had only six students of theology, was regarded by

the curia rather as a victory than a defeat. The newly appointed

bishops were forbidden by the pope to produce their credentials

for inspection in order to obtain their salaries from the

government. The loss of temporalities thus occasioned was made

up by Pius IX. out of Peter’s pence flowing in so abundantly from

abroad; each bishop receiving 500 and each archbishop 700 lire in

the month. Leo XIII., however, felt obliged in 1879, owing to the

great decrease in the Peter’s pence contributions, to cancel this

enactment and to permit the bishops to accept the state allowance.

In consequence of the civil marriage law passed in 1866 having

been altogether ignored by the clergy, nearly 400,000 marriages

had down to the close of 1878 received only ecclesiastical

sanction, and the offspring of such parties would be regarded

in the eye of the law as illegitimate. To obviate this difficulty

a law was passed in May, 1879, which insisted that in all cases

civil marriage must precede the ecclesiastical ceremony, and

clergymen, witnesses and parties engaging in an illegal marriage

should suffer three or six months’ imprisonment; but all

marriages contracted in accordance merely with church forms

before the passing of this law might be legitimized by being

entered on the civil register.--Finally in January, 1884, the

controversy pending since 1873 as to whether the rich property of

the Roman propaganda (§ 156, 9) amounting to twenty million lire

should be converted into state consols was decided by the supreme

court in favour of the curia, which had pronounced these funds

international because consisting of presents and contributions

from all lands. But not only was the revenue of the propaganda

subjected to a heavy tax, but also all increase of its property

forbidden. In vain did the pope by his nuncios call for the

intervention of foreign nations. None of these were inclined to

meddle in the internal affairs of Italy. The curia now devised

the plan of affiliating a number of societies outside of Italy to

the propaganda for receiving and administering donations and

presents.

§ 204.3. =The Evangelization of Italy.=--Emigrant Protestants

of various nationalities had at an early date, by the silent

sufferance of the respective governments, formed small

evangelical congregations in some of the Italian cities;

in Venice and Leghorn during the seventeenth century, at Bergamo

in 1807, at Florence in 1826, at Milan in 1847. Also by aid of

the diplomatic intervention of Prussia and England, the erection

of Protestant chapels for the embassy was allowed at Rome in 1819,

at Naples in 1825, and at Florence in 1826. When in 1848 Italy’s

hopes from the liberal tendencies of Pius IX. were so bitterly

disappointed, Protestant sympathies began to spread far and

wide through the land, even among native Catholics, fostered by

English missionaries, Bibles and tracts, which the governments

sought in vain to check by prisons, penitentiaries and exile.

Persecution began in 1851 in Tuscany, where, in spite of the

liberty of faith and worship guaranteed by the constitution of

1848, Tuscan subjects taking part in the Italian services in the

chapel of the Prussian embassy at Florence were punished with

six months’ hard labour, and in the following year the pious pair

Francesco and Rosa Madiai were sentenced to four years’ rigorous

punishment in a penitentiary for the crime of having edified

themselves and their household by reading the Bible. In vain did

the Evangelical Alliance remonstrate (§ 178, 3), in vain did even

the king of Prussia intercede. But when, stirred up by public

opinion in England, the English premier Lord Palmerston offered

to secure the requirement of Christian humanity by means of

British ships of war, the grand-duke got rid of both martyrs by

banishing them from the country in 1853. In proportion as the

union of Italy under Victor Emanuel II. advanced, the field for

evangelistic effort and the powers devoted thereto increased.

So it was too since 1860 in Southern Italy. But when in 1866 a

Protestant congregation began to be formed at Barletta in Naples,

a fanatical priest roused a popular mob in which seventeen

persons were killed and torn in pieces. The government put down

the uproar and punished the miscreants, and the nobler portion of

the nation throughout the whole land collected for the families

of those murdered. The work of evangelization supported by

liberal contributions chiefly from England, but also from Holland,

Switzerland, and the German _Gustav-Adolf-Verein_ (§ 178, 1),

advanced steadily in spite of occasional brutal interferences

of the clergy and the mob, so that soon in all the large cities

and in many of the smaller towns of Italy and Sicily there were

thriving and flourishing little evangelical congregations of

converted native Catholics, numbering as many as 182 in 1882.

§ 204.4. The chief factor in the evangelization of Italy as far

as the southern coast of Sicily was the old =Waldensian Church=,

which for three hundred years had occupied the Protestant

platform in the spirit of Calvinism (§ 139, 25). Remnants

consisting of some 200,000 souls still survived in the valleys

of Piedmont, almost without protection of law amid constant

persecution and oppressions (§ 153, 5), moderated only by

Prussian and English intervention. But when Sardinia headed

Italian liberalism in 1848 religious liberty and all civil

rights were secured to them. A Waldensian congregation was then

formed in the capital, Turin, which was strengthened by numerous

Protestant refugees from other parts of Italy. But in 1854 a

split occurred between the two elements in it. The new Italian

converts objected, not altogether without ground, against the old

Waldensians that by maintaining their church government with its

centre in the valleys, the so-called “Tables” and their old forms

of constitution, doctrine and worship, much too contracted and

narrow for the enlarged boundaries of the present, they thought

more of Waldensianizing than of evangelizing Italy. Besides,

their language since 1630, when a plague caused their preachers

and teachers to withdraw from Geneva, had been French, and

the national Italian pride was disposed on this domain also to

unfurl her favourite banner “_Italia farà da se_.” The division

spread from Turin to the other congregations. At the head of the

separatists, afterwards designated the “_Free Italian Church_”

(_Chiesa libera_), stood Dr. Luigi Desanctis, a man of rich

theological culture and glowing eloquence, who, when Catholic

priest and theologian of the inquisition at Rome, became

convinced of the truth of the evangelical confession, joined

the evangelical church at Malta in 1847 and wrought from 1852

with great success in the congregation at Turin. After ten years’

faithful service in the newly formed free church he felt obliged,

owing to the Darbyite views (§ 211, 11) that began to prevail

in it, to attach himself again in 1864 to the Waldensians, who

meanwhile had been greatly liberalised. He now officiated for

them till his death in 1869 as professor of theology at Florence,

and edited their journal _Eco della verità_. This journal was

succeeded in 1873 by the able monthly _Rivista Cristiana_, edited

at Florence by Prof. Emilio Comba.--After Desanctis left the

_Chiesa libera_ its chief representative was the ex-Barnabite

father Alessandro Gavazzi of Naples. Endowed with glowing

eloquence and remarkable popularity as a lecturer, he appeared

at Rome in 1848 as a politico-religious orator, attached himself

to the evangelical church in London in 1850, and undertook the

charge of the evangelical Italian congregation there. He returned

to Italy in 1860 and accompanied the hero of Italian liberty,

Garibaldi, as his military chaplain, preaching to the people

everywhere with his leonine voice with equal enthusiasm of Victor

Emanuel as the only saviour of Italy and of Jesus Christ as

the only Saviour of sinners. He then joined the _Chiesa libera_,

and, as he himself obtained gradually fuller acquaintance

with evangelical truth, wrought zealously in organizing the

congregations hitherto almost entirely isolated from one another.

At a general assembly at Milan in 1870, deputies from thirty-two

congregations drew up a simple biblical confession of faith,

and in the following year at Florence a constitutional code was

adopted which recognised the necessity of the pastoral office,

of annual assemblies, and a standing evangelization committee.

They now took the name “=Unione della Chiesa libere in Italia=.”

The predominantly Darbyist congregations, which had not taken

part in these constitutional assemblies, have since formed a

community of their own as =Chiesa Cristiana=, depending only on

the immediate leading of the Holy Spirit, rejecting every sort of

ecclesiastical and official organization, and denouncing infant

baptism as unevangelical.--Besides these three national Italian

churches, English and American Methodists and Baptists carry on

active missions. On May 1st, 1884, the evangelical denominations

at a general assembly in Florence, with the exception only of the

Darbyist _Chiesa Cristiana_, joined in a confederation to meet

annually in an “Italian Evangelical Congress” as a preparation

for ecclesiastical union. When, however, the various Methodist

and Baptist denominations began to check the progress of the work

of union, the two leading bodies, the Waldensians and the Free

Church party, separated from them. A committee chosen from these

two sketched at Florence in 1885 a basis of union, according to

which the Free Church adopted the confession and church order

of the Waldensians, subject to revision by the joint synods,

their theological school at Rome was to be amalgamated with the

Waldensian school at Florence, and the united church was to take

the name of the “Evangelical Church of Italy.” But a Waldensian

synod in September, 1886, resolved to hold by the ancient name

of the “Waldensian Church.” Whether the “Free Church” will agree

to this demand is not yet known.

§ 205. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

No European country has during the nineteenth century been the

scene of so many revolutions, outbreaks and civil wars, of changes

of government, ministries and constitutions, sometimes of a clerical

absolutist, sometimes of a democratic radical tendency, and in none

has revolution gone so unsparingly for the time against hierarchy,

clergy and monasticism, as in unfortunate Spain. Portugal too passed

through similar struggles, which, however, did not prove so dreadfully

disordering to the commonwealth as those of Spain.

§ 205.1. =Spain under Ferdinand VII. and Maria Christina.=--Joseph

Bonaparte (1808-1813) had given to the Spaniards a constitution

of the French pattern, abolishing inquisition and cloisters.

The constitution which the Cortes proclaimed in 1812 carried

out still further the demands of political liberalism, but still

declared the apostolic Roman Catholic religion as alone true to

be the religion of the Spanish nation and forbad the exercise of

any other. Ferdinand VII., whom Napoleon restored in December,

1813, hastened to restore the inquisition, the cloisters and

despotism, especially from 1815 under the direction of the

Jesuits highly esteemed by him. The revolution of 1820 indeed

obliged him to reintroduce the constitution of 1812 and to banish

the Jesuits; but scarcely had the feudal clerical party of the

apostolic Junta with their army of faith in the field and Bourbon

French intervention under the Duke of Angoulême again made his

way clear, than he began to crush as before by means of his

Jesuit Camarilla every liberal movement in church and state.

But all the more successful was the reaction of liberalism in

the civil war which broke out after Ferdinand’s death under

the regency of his fourth wife, the intriguing Maria Christina

(1833-1837). The revolution now erected an inquisition, but it

was one directed against the clergy and monks, and celebrated

its _autos de fe_; but these were in the form of spoliation of

cloisters and massacres of monks. Ecclesiastical tithes were

abolished, all monkish orders suspended, the cloisters closed,

ecclesiastical goods declared national property, and the papal

nuncio sent over the frontier. A threatening papal allocution

of 1841 only increased the violence of the Cortes, and when

Gregory XVI. in 1842 pronounced all decrees of the government

null and void, it branded all intercourse with Rome as an offence

against the state.

§ 205.2. =Spain under Isabella II., 1843-1865.=--Ferdinand VII.,

overlooking the right of his brother Don Carlos, had, by

abolishing the Salic law, secured the throne to Isabella, his

own and Maria Christina’s daughter. After the Cortes of 1843

had declared Isabella of age in her thirteenth year, the Spanish

government became more and more favourable to the restoration.

After long negotiations and vacillations under constantly

changing ministries a concordat was at last drawn up in 1851,

which returned the churches and cloisters that had not been

sold, allowed compensation for what had been sold, reduced the

number of bishoprics by six, put education and the censorship of

the press under the oversight of the bishops, and declared the

Catholic religion the only one to be tolerated. But although

in 1854 the Holy Virgin was named generalissima of the brave

army and her image at Atocha had been decorated by the queen

with a band of the Golden Fleece, a revolution soon broke

out in the army which threatened to deal the finishing stroke

to ultramontanism. Meanwhile it had not fully permeated the

republican party. The proposal of unrestricted liberty to all

forms of worship was supported by a small minority, and the new

constitution of 1855 called upon the Spanish nation to maintain

and guard the Catholic religion which “the Spaniards profess;”

yet no Spaniard was to be persecuted on account of his faith, so

long as he did not commit irreligious acts. A new law determined

the sale of all church and cloister property, and compensation

therefore by annual rents according to the existing concordat.

Several bishops had to be banished owing to their continued

opposition; the pope protested and recalled his legates. Clerical

influence meanwhile regained power over the queen. The sale of

church and cloister property was stopped, and previous possessors

were indemnified for what had been already sold. Owing to

frequent change of ministry, each of which manifested a tendency

different from its predecessor, it was only in 1859 that matters

were settled by a new concordat. In it the government admitted

the inalienability of church property, admitted the unrestricted

right of the church to obtain new property of any kind, and

declared itself ready to exchange state paper money for property

that had fallen into decay according to the estimation of the

bishops. The queen proved her Catholic zeal at the instigation

of the nun Patrocinio by fanatical persecution of Protestants,

and hearty but vain sympathies for the sufferings of the pope

and the expatriated Italian princes. Pius IX. rewarded Isabella,

who seemed to him adorned with all the virtues, by sending her

in 1868 the consecrated rose at a time when she was causing

public scandal more than ever by her private life, and by her

proceedings with her paramour Marforio had lost the last remnant

of the respect and confidence of the Spanish nation. Eight months

later her reign was at an end. The provisional government now

ordered the suppression of the Society of Jesus, as well as

of all cloister and spiritual associations, and in 1869 the

Cortes sanctioned the draught of a new civil constitution, which

required the Spanish nation to maintain the Catholic worship,

but allowed the exercise of other forms of worship to strangers

and as cases might arise even to natives, and generally made all

political and civil rights independent of religious profession.

§ 205.3. =Spain under Alphonso XII., 1875-1885.=--When Isabella’s

son returned to Spain in January, 1875, in his seventeenth

year, he obtained the blessing of his sponsor the pope on his

ascending the throne, promised to the Catholic church powerful

support, but also to non-Catholics the maintenance of liberty

of worship. How he meant to perform both is shown by a decree

of 10th February, 1875, which, abolishing the civil marriage law

passed by the Cortes in 1870, gave back to the Catholic church

the administration of marriage and matters connected therewith;

for all persons living in Spain, however, “who professed another

than the true faith,” as well as for “the bad Catholics,” to whom

ecclesiastical marriage on account of church censures is refused,

liberty was given to contract a civil marriage; but this did not

apply to apostate priests, monks, and nuns, to whom any sort of

marriage is for ever refused, and whose previously contracted

marriages are invalid, without, however, affecting the legitimacy

of children already born of such connections.--Against the

draught of the new constitution, whose eleventh article indeed

affords toleration to all dissenting forms of worship, but

prohibits any public manifestation thereof outside of their place

of worship and burial grounds, Pius IX. protested as infringing

upon the still existing concordat in its “noblest” part, and

aiming a serious blow at the Catholic church. The Cortes, however,

sanctioned it in 1876.

§ 205.4. =The Evangelization of Spain.=--A number of Bibles

and tracts, as well as a religious paper in Spanish called _el

Albo_, found entrance into Spain from the English settlement at

Gibraltar, without Spain being able even in the most flourishing

days of the restoration to prevent it, and evangelical sympathies

began more or less openly to be expressed. Franc. Ruat, formerly

a lascivious Spanish poet, who was awakened at Turin by the

preaching of the Waldensian Desanctis, and by reading the Bible

had obtained knowledge of evangelical truths, appeared publicly

after the publication of the new constitution of 1855 as a

preacher of the gospel in Spain. The reaction that soon set in,

however, secured for him repeated imprisonments, and finally in

1856 sentence of banishment for life. He then wrought for several

years successfully in Gibraltar, next in London, afterwards in

Algiers among Spanish residents, till the new civil constitution

of 1868 allowed him to return to Spain, where, in the service

of the German mission at Madrid, he gathered around him an

evangelical congregation, to which he ministered till his death

in 1878. While labouring in Gibraltar he won to the evangelical

faith among others the young officer Manuel Matamoros, living

there as a political refugee. This noble man, whose whole career,

till his death in exile in 1866, was a sore martyrdom for the

truth, became the soul of the whole movement, against which

the government in 1861 and 1862 took the severest measures. By

intercepted correspondence the leaders and many of the members

of the secret evangelical propaganda were discovered and thrown

into prison. The final judgment condemned the leaders of the

movement to severe punishment in penitentiaries and the galleys.

Infliction of these sentences had already begun when the

queen found herself obliged, by a visit to Madrid in 1863 of a

deputation of the Evangelical Alliance (§ 178, 3), consisting of

the most distinguished and respected Protestants of all lands, to

commute them to banishment.--After Isabella’s overthrow in 1868,

permission was given for the building of the first Protestant

church in Madrid, where a congregation soon gathered of more than

2,000 souls. In Seville an almost equally strong congregation

obtained for its services what had been a church of the Jesuits.

Also at Cordova a considerable congregation was collected, and

in almost all the other large cities there were largely attended

places of worship. Several of those banished under Isabella,

who had returned after her overthrow, Carrasco, Trigo, Alhama,

and others, increased by new converts who had received their

theological training at Geneva, Lausanne, etc., and supported

by American, English and German fellow-labourers, such as the

brothers F. and H. Fliedner, wrought with unwearied zeal as

preachers and pastors, for the spreading and deeper grounding

of the gospel among their countrymen. With the restoration of the

monarchy in 1875, the oppression of the Protestants was renewed

with increasing severity. The widest possible interpretation

was given to the prohibition of every public manifestation

of dissenting worship in Article XI. of the constitution. The

excesses and insults of the mob, whose fanaticism was stirred up

by the clergy, were left unpunished and uncensured. Even the most

sorely abused and injured Protestants were themselves subjected

to imprisonment as disturbers of the peace. No essential

improvement in their condition resulted from the liberal ministry

of Sagasta in 1881. Nevertheless the number of evangelical

congregations continued steadily though slowly to increase, so

that now they number more than sixty, with somewhere about 15,000

native Protestant members.--Besides these an _Iglesia Española_

arose in 1881, consisting of eight congregations, which may

be regarded to some extent as a national Spanish counterpart

to the Old Catholicism of Germany. Its founder and first bishop

is Cabrera, formerly a Catholic priest, who, after having

wrought from 1868 in the service of the Edinburgh (Presbyterian)

Evangelization Society as preacher in Seville, and then in Madrid,

received in 1880 episcopal consecration from the Anglican bishop

Riley of Mexico (§ 209, 1), then visiting Madrid. Although thus

of Anglican origin, the church directed by him wishes not to be

Anglican, but Spanish episcopal. It attaches itself therefore,

while accepting the thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church,

in the sketch of its order of service in the Spanish language,

more to the old Mozarabic ritual (§ 88, 1) than to the Anglican

liturgy.[562]

§ 205.5. =The Church in Portugal.=--Portugal after some months

followed the example of the Spanish revolution of 1820. John VI.

(1816-1826) confirmed the new constitution, drawn up after the

pattern of the democratic Spanish constitution of 1812, enacting

the seizure of church property and the suppression of the

monasteries. But a counter revolution, led by the younger son of

the king, Dom Miguel, obliged him in 1823 to repudiate it and to

return to the older constitution. But he persistently resisted

the reintroduction of the Jesuits. After his death in 1826, the

legitimate heir, Pedro I. of Brazil, abandoned his claims to the

Portuguese throne in favour of his daughter Donna Maria II. da

Gloria, then under a year old, whom he betrothed to his brother

Dom Miguel. Appointed regent, Dom Miguel took the oath to

the constitution, but immediately broke his oath, had himself

proclaimed king, recalled the Jesuits, and, till his overthrow

in 1834, carried on a clerical monarchical reign of terror. Dom

Pedro, who had meanwhile vacated the Brazilian throne, as regent

again suppressed all monkish orders, seized the property of

the church, and abolished ecclesiastical tithes, but died in

the same year. His daughter Donna Maria, now pronounced of age

and proclaimed queen (1834-1853), amid continual revolutions

and changes of the constitution, manifested an ever-growing

inclination to reconciliation with Rome. In 1841 she negotiated

about a concordat, and showed herself so submissive that the pope

rewarded her in 1842 with the consecrated golden rose. But the

liberal Cortes resisted the introduction of the concordat, and

maintained the right of veto by the civil government as well as

the rest of the restrictions upon the hierarchy, and the _Codigo

penal_ of 1882 threatened the Catholic clergy with heavy fines

and imprisonment for every abuse of their spiritual prerogatives

and every breach of the laws of the State. In 1857 a concordat

was at last agreed to, which, however, was adopted by the

representatives of the people not before 1859, and then only by

a small majority. Its chief provisions consist in the regulating

of the patronage rights of the crown in regard to existing and

newly created bishoprics. The relation of government to the curia,

however, still continued strained. The constitution declares

generally that the Catholic Apostolic Romish Church is the

state religion. A Portuguese who passes over from it to another

loses thereby his civil rights as a citizen. Yet no one is to be

persecuted on account of his religion. The erection of Protestant

places of worship, but not in church form, and also of burial

grounds, where necessary, is permitted.--Evangelization has

made but little progress in Portugal. The first evangelical

congregation, with Anglican episcopal constitution, was founded

at Lisbon by a Spanish convert, Don Angelo Herrero de Mora, who

in the service of the Bible Society had edited a revision of the

old Spanish Bible in New York, and had there been naturalized

as an American citizen. Consisting originally of American and

English Protestants, about a hundred Spanish and Portuguese

converts have since 1868 gradually attached themselves to it,

the latter after they had been made Spanish instead of Portuguese

subjects. After the pattern of this mother congregation, two

others have been formed in the neighbourhood of Lisbon and one

at Oporto.

§ 206. RUSSIA.

The Russian government since the time of Alexander I. has sought

amid many difficulties to advance the education and enlightenment of

the people, and to elevate the orthodox church by securing a more highly

cultured clergy, and to increase its influence upon the life of the

people; a task which proved peculiarly difficult in consequence of the

wide-spread anti-ecclesiastical spirit (§ 210, 3) and the incomparably

more dangerous antichristian Nihilism (§ 212, 6).--The Catholic church,

mainly represented in what had before been the kingdom of Poland, had,

in consequence of the repeated revolutionary agitation of the Poles,

in which the clergy had zealously taken part by stirring up fanaticism

among the people and converting their religion and worship into a

vehicle of rebellion, so compromised itself that the government, besides

taking away the national political privileges, reduced more and more

the rights and liberties granted to the church as such.--The prosperous

development of the evangelical church in Russia, which, through the

absolutely faultless loyalty of its members, had hitherto enjoyed the

hearty protection of the government, in 1845 and 1846, and afterwards

in 1883, in consequence of numerous conversions among Esthonian and

Livonian peasants, was checked by incessant persecutions.

§ 206.1. =The Orthodox National Church.=--The evangelical

influences introduced from the West during the previous century,

especially among the higher clergy, found further encouragement

under Alexander I., A.D. 1801-1825. Himself affected by the

evangelical pietism of Madame Krüdener (§ 176, 2), he aimed at

the elevation of the orthodox church in this direction, founded

clerical seminaries and public schools, and took a lively

interest in Bible circulation among the Russian people. But under

Nicholas I., A.D. 1825-1855, a reaction proceeding from the holy

synod set in which unweariedly sought to seal the orthodox church

hermetically against all evangelical influences. Also during

the reign of Alexander II., A.D. 1855-1881, a reign singularly

fruitful in civil reforms, this tendency was even more rigidly

illustrated, while with the consent and aid of the holy synod

every effort was put forth to improve the church according to its

own principles. Specially active in this work was Count Tolstoi,

minister of instruction and also procurator of the holy synod. A

committee presided over by him produced a whole series of useful

reforms in 1868, which were approved by the synod and confirmed

by the emperor. While the inferior clergy had hitherto formed

an order by themselves, all higher ranks of preferment were

now opened to them, but, on the other hand, the obligation

of priests’ sons to remain in the order of their fathers was

abolished. The clamant abuse of putting mere clerks and sextons

to do the work of priests was also now put a stop to, and

training in clerical seminaries or academies was made compulsory.

Previously only married men could hold the offices of deacon and

priest; now widowers and bachelors were admitted, so soon as they

reached the age of forty years. In order to increase the poor

incomes many churches had not their regular equipment of clergy,

and instead of the full set of priest, deacon, sub-deacon, reader,

sexton, and doorkeeper, in the poorer churches there were only

priest and reader. Order was restored to monastic life, now

generally grown dissolute, by a fixed rule of a common table

and uniform dress, etc. In 1860 an Orthodox Church Society for

Missions among the peoples of the Caucasus, and in 1866 a second

for Pagans and Mohammedans throughout the empire, were founded,

both under the patronage of the empress. The Russian church

also cleverly took advantage of political events to carry on

missionary work in Japan (§ 184, 6). A society of the “Friends

of Intellectual Enlightenment,” founded in St. Petersburg

in 1872, aimed chiefly at the religious improvement of the

cultured classes in the spirit of the orthodox church by means

of tracts and addresses, while agreeing with foreign confessions

as to the nature and characteristics of the true church.

Under Alexander III., since A.D. 1881, the emperor’s former

tutor Pobedownoszew, with the conviction of the incomparable

superiority of his church, and believing that by it and only

by it could the dangerous commotions of the present be overcome

(§ 212, 6) and Russia regenerated, as procurator of the holy

synod has zealously wrought in this direction.--But meanwhile a

new impulse was given to the evangelical movement in aristocratic

circles by Lord Radstock, who appeared in St. Petersburg in 1870.

The addresses delivered by him in French in the salons of the

fashionable world won a success scarcely to be looked for. The

most famous gain was the conversion of a hitherto proud, worldly,

rich and popular Colonel of the Guards, called Paschcow, who now

turned the beautiful ball-room of his palatial residence into a

prayer-meeting room, and with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte

proclaimed successfully among high and low the newly won saving

truth in a Biblical evangelical spirit, though not without a

methodistic flavour. The excitement thus created led to police

interference, and finally, when he refused to abstain from

spreading his religious views among the members of the orthodox

church by the circulation of evangelical tracts in the Russian

language, he was, at the instigation of the holy synod and its

all powerful procurator, banished first from St. Petersburg and

then in 1884 from the empire, whereupon he withdrew to London.

§ 206.2. =The Catholic Church.=--After the Greeks in the old

West Russian provinces (§ 151, 3), who had been forcibly united

to Rome in 1596, had again in 1772, in consequence of the first

partition of Poland, come under Russian rule, the government

sought to restore them also to the orthodox national church.

This was first accomplished under Nicholas I., when at the synod

of Polosk in 1839 they themselves spontaneously expressed a wish

to be thus reunited with the mother church. Rome thus lost two

million members. But the allocution directed against this robbery

by Gregory XVI. was without effect, and the public opinion

of Europe saw a case of historical justice in this reunion,

though effected not without severe measures against those who

proved obstinate and rebellious. Yet there always remained a

considerable remnant, about one-third of a million, under the

bishop of Chelun, in the Romish communion. But even these in 1875,

after many disturbances with the prelate Popiel at their head,

almost wholly severed their connection with the pope, and were

again received into the bosom of the orthodox national church.

In a memorial addressed to the emperor for this purpose, they

declared they were led to this on the one hand by the continual

endeavour of the curia and its partisans, by Latinizing their old

Greek liturgy and Polandizing the people, to overthrow their old

Russian nationality, and on the other hand, by their aversion to

the new papal dogmas of the immaculate conception of Mary and the

infallibility of the pope.--The insurrection of the Poles against

Russian rule in 1830, which even Pope Gregory XVI. condemned,

bore bitter fruits for the Catholic church of that country.

The organic statute of 1832 indeed secured anew to the Poles

religious liberty, but the bishops were prohibited holding

any direct communication with Rome, the clergy deprived of all

control over the schools, and the Russian law regarding mixed

marriages made applicable to that province. By an understanding

with the curia in 1847 the choice of the bishops was given to the

emperor, their canonical investiture to the pope. The mildness

with which Alexander II. treated the Poles and the political

troubles in the rest of Europe fostered the hope of restoring

the old kingdom of Poland. Reckless demonstrations were made in

the beginning of 1861, pilgrimages to the graves of the martyrs

of freedom were organized, political memorial festivals were

celebrated in churches, a general national mourning was enjoined,

mourning services were held, revolutionary songs were sung

in churches, etc. The Catholic clergy headed the movement and

canonized it as a religious duty. In vain the government sought

to put it down by making liberal concessions, in vain they

applied to Pius IX. to discountenance it. When in October the

country lay in a state of siege, and the military forced their

way into the churches to apprehend the ringleaders of rebellion,

the episcopal administrator, Bialobezeski, denounced that as

church profanation, had all the Catholic churches in Warsaw

closed, and answered the government’s request to reopen them by

making extravagant demands and uttering proud words of defiance.

The military tribunal sentenced him to death, but the emperor

commuted this to one year’s detention in a fortress, with loss

of all his dignities and orders. Meanwhile the eyes of the pope

had at length been opened. He now confirmed the government’s

appointment of Archbishop Felinsky, who entered Warsaw in

February, 1862, and reopened the churches. After the suppression

of the revolt in 1864, almost all cloisters, as nurseries of

revolution, were abolished; in the following year the whole

property of the church was taken in charge by the State, and

the clergy supported by state pay. The pope, enraged at this,

gave violent expression to his feelings to the Russian ambassador

at Rome during the New Year festivities of 1866, whereupon the

government completely broke off all relations with the curia.

Consequently in 1867 all the affairs of the Catholic church

were committed to the clerical college at St. Petersburg, and

intercourse between the clergy and the pope prohibited. Hence

arose many conflicts with Catholic bishops, whose obstinacy was

punished by their being interned in their dioceses. In 1869 the

Russian calendar was introduced, and Russian made the compulsory

language of instruction. But in 1870 greater opposition was

offered to the introduction of Russian in the public services by

means of translations of the common Polish prayer and psalm-books.

Pietrowitsch, dean of Wilna, read from the pulpit the ukase

referring to this matter, but then cast it together with the

Russian translations into the flames, with violent denunciations

of the government, and gave information against himself to the

governor-general. He was agreeably to his own desire imprisoned,

and then transported to Archangel. The same sentence was

pronounced against several other obstinate prelates and clergy,

among them Archbishop Felinsky, and thus further opposition was

stamped out.--Leo XIII. soon after entering on his pontificate

in 1878 took the first step toward reconciliation. His efforts

reached a successful issue first in February, 1883. The deposed

prelates were restored from their places of banishment, with

promise of a liberal pension, and were allowed to choose their

residences as they pleased, only not within their former dioceses.

In their stead the pope consecrated ten new bishops nominated

by the emperor, who amid the jubilation of the people entered

their episcopal residences. With reference to the Roman Catholic

seminaries and clerical academies at Warsaw, the curia granted

to the government the right of control over instruction in

the Russian language, literature and history, but committed

instruction in canonical matters solely to the bishops, who,

after obtaining the approval of the government, appointed the

rector and inspector and canonical teachers. Vacant pastorates

were filled by the bishops, and only in the case of the more

important was the approval of the government required. As to the

language to be used, it was resolved that only where the people

speak Russian were the clergy obliged to employ that language in

preaching and in their pastoral work.

§ 206.3. =The Evangelical Church.=--The Lutheran church in Russia,

comprising two and a half millions of Germans, Letts, Esthonians

and Finns, is strongest in Livonia, Esthonia and Courland, is the

national church in Finland, and is also largely represented in

Poland, in the chief cities of Russia, and in the numerous German

colonies in South Russia. In 1832 it obtained, for the Baltic

provinces and the scattered congregations in central Russia, a

church constitution and service book, the latter on the basis of

the old Swedish service book, the former requiring all religious

teachers in church and school to accept the Formula of Concord.

Annual provincial synods have the initiative in calling in,

when necessary for legislative purposes, the aid of the general

synod.--In Poland the Reformed and Lutheran churches were in 1828

united under one combined consistory. By an imperial ukase of

1849, however, the independent existence of both churches was

restored. Protestants enjoyed all civil rights and had absolute

liberty in the exercise of their religion; but in central Russia

down to recent times, when a more liberal spirit began to prevail,

they were prohibited putting bells in their churches. The old

prohibition of evangelical preaching and the teaching of religion

in the Russian tongue also continued; but the attempt made for

some decades in St. Petersburg and the surrounding district to

preach the gospel to Germans who had lost their mother tongue, in

the Russian language, has been hitherto ungrudgingly allowed by

the government. Quitting the national church or returning from

it to a church that had been left before, is visited by severe

penalties, and children of mixed marriages, where one parent

belongs to the national orthodox church, are claimed by law for

that church. Only Finland counts among her privileges the right

of assigning children of mixed marriages to the church of the

father. The Lutheran church in Livonia, with the island of Oesel,

suffered considerable, and according to the law of the land

irreparable, loss by the secession of sixty or seventy thousand

Letts and Esthonians to the orthodox church under the widespread

delusion that thereby their economic position would be improved.

Disillusions and regret came too late, and the ever increasing

desire for restoration to the church forsaken in a moment

of excitement could only obtain arbitrary and insufficient

satisfaction in Lutheran baptism of infants seemingly near death,

and in permission at irregular intervals and without previous

announcement to sit at the Lord’s Table according to the Lutheran

rite. In 1865, not indeed legislatively but administratively,

the contracting of mixed marriages in the Baltic provinces

was permitted without the enforcement of the legal enactment

requiring that the children should be trained in the Greek

church. In Esthonia, however, in 1883 there was a new outbreak

of conversions in Leal, where five hundred peasants went over to

the orthodox church, declaring their wish to be of the same faith

as the emperor and the whole of the Russian people. By imperial

decree in 1885 the suspension of the law against withdrawing

again from the national church, which had existed for twenty

years, was abolished. At the instigation of Pobedownoszew the

Imperial Council granted an annual subsidy of 100,000 roubles for

furthering orthodoxy in the Baltic provinces. No evangelical

church could be built in these provinces without the approval of

the orthodox bishop of the diocese, and any evangelical pastor

who should dissuade a member of his church from his purpose

of joining the orthodox church, was liable to punishment.--In

order to supply the want of churches and schools, preachers

and teachers in the Lutheran congregations of Russia, a society

was formed in 1858 similar to the _Gustav-Adolfs-Verein_, under

the supervision of the General Consistory of St. Petersburg,

which has laboriously and zealously endeavoured to improve the

condition of the oppressed church.[563]

§ 207. GREECE AND TURKEY.

In the spirited struggle for liberty Greece freed herself from the

tyranny of the Turkish Mohammedan rule and obtained complete civil

independence. But the same princes representing all the three principal

Christian confessions, who in 1830 gave their sanction to this

emancipation within lamentably narrow limits, in 1840 conquered again

the Holy Land for the Turks out of the hands of a revolting vassal.

And so inextricable were, and still are, the political interests of

the Christian States of Europe with reference to the East, that in

the London parliament of 1854 it could be affirmed that the existence

of Turkey in a condition of utter impotence was so necessary, that

if it did not exist, it would require to be created. On two occasions

has Russia called out her whole military force to emancipate from the

Turkish yoke her Slavic brethren of a common race and common faith,

without being able to give the finishing blow to the “sick man” who

had the protection of European diplomacy.

§ 207.1. =The Orthodox Church of Greece.=--Deceived in their

expectations from the Vienna Congress, the Greeks tried to

deliver themselves from Turkish tyranny. In 1814 a _Hetairia_ was

formed, branches of which spread over the whole land and fostered

among the people ideas of freedom. The war of independence broke

out in 1821. Its first result was a fearful massacre, especially

in Constantinople. The patriarch Gregorius [Gregory] with his

whole synod and about 30,000 Christians were in three months

with horrid cruelty murdered by the Turks. The London Conference

of 1830 at last declared Greece an independent state, and

an assembly of Greek bishops at Nauplia in 1833 freed the

national church of Greece from the authority of the patriarch of

Constantinople, who was under the control of Turkey. Its supreme

direction was committed to a permanent Holy Synod at Athens,

instituted by the king but in all internal matters absolutely

independent. The king must belong to the national church, but

otherwise all religions are on the same footing. Meanwhile the

orthodox church is fully represented, the Roman Catholic being

strongest, especially in the islands. The University of Athens,

opened in 1856 with professors mostly trained in Germany, has not

been unsuccessful in its task even in the domain of theology.

§ 207.2. =Massacre of Syrian Christians, 1860.=--The Russo-Turkish

war ending in the beginning of 1856, in which France and England,

and latterly also Sardinia took the part of the sick man, left

the condition of the Christians practically unchanged. For though

the Hatti Humayun of 1856 granted them equal civil rights with

the Moslems, this, however well meant on the part of the Sultan

of that time, practically made no improvement upon the equally

well meant Hatti Sherif of Gülhane of 1839. The outbreak of 1860

also proved how little effect it had in teaching the Moslems

tolerance towards the Christians. Roused by Jesuit emissaries

and trusting to French support, the Maronites of Lebanon indulged

in several provoking attacks upon their old hereditary foes the

Druses. These, however, aided by the Turkish soldiery were always

victorious, and throughout all Syria a terrible persecution

against Christians of all confessions broke out, characterized by

inhuman cruelties. In Damascus alone 8,000, in all Syria 16,000

Christians were murdered, 3,000 women taken to the harems, and

100 Christian villages destroyed. After the massacre had been

stopped, 120,000 Christians wandered about without food, clothing,

or shelter, and fled hither and thither in fear of death. Fuad

Pasha was sent from Constantinople to punish the guilty, and

seemed at first to proceed to business energetically; but his

zeal soon cooled, and French troops, sent to Syria to protect

the Christians, were obliged, yielding to pressure from England,

where their presence was regarded with suspicion, to withdraw

from the country in June, 1861.

§ 207.3. =The Bulgarian Ecclesiastical Struggle.=--The Bulgarian

church, with somewhere about two and a half million souls, was

from early times subject to the patriarch of Constantinople

(§ 73, 3), who acted toward it like a pasha. He sold the Bulgarian

bishoprics and archbishoprics to the highest bidders among

the Greek clergy, who were quite ignorant of the language of

the country, and had only one end in view, namely to recoup

themselves by extorting the largest possible revenue. No thought

was given to the spiritual needs of the Bulgarians, preaching

was wholly abandoned, the liturgy was read in a language unknown

to the people. It was therefore not to be wondered at that the

Bulgarian church was for years longing for its emancipation and

ecclesiastical independence, and made every effort to obtain this

from the Porte. Turkey, however, sympathized with the patriarch

till the revolt in Crete in 1866-1869 and threatening political

movements in Bulgaria broke out. Then at last in 1870 the sultan

granted the establishment of an independent Slavic ecclesiastical

province under the designation of the Bulgarian Exarchate, with

liberty to attach itself to the other Slavic provinces upon a

two-thirds majority of votes. The patriarch Gregorius [Gregory]

protested, but the Sublime Porte would not thereby be deterred,

and in May, 1872, Anthimos the Exarch elect was installed. The

patriarch and his synod now stigmatized _Phyletism_, the struggle

for a national church establishment, as accursed heresy, and

excommunicated the exarch and the whole Bulgarian church. Only

the patriarch Cyril of Jerusalem dissented, but he was on that

account on his return home treated with indignity and abuse and

was deposed by a synod at Jerusalem.

§ 207.4. =The Armenian Church.=--To the Gregorian-Armenian

patriarch at Constantinople (§ 64, 3), equally with his orthodox

colleague (§ 67, 7), had been assigned by the Sublime Porte

civil jurisdiction as well as the primacy over all members

of his church in the Turkish empire. When now in 1830, at the

instigation of France, an independent patriarchate with equal

rights was granted to the United Armenians (§ 72, 2), the

twofold dependence on the Porte and on the Roman curia created

difficulties, which in the meantime were overcome by giving the

patriarch, who as a Turkish official exercised civil jurisdiction,

a primacy with the title of archbishop as representative of the

pope. The United Armenians, like the other united churches of

the East, had from early times enjoyed the liberty of using their

ancient liturgy, their old ecclesiastical calendar, and their

own church constitution with free election of their bishops and

patriarchs, and these privileges were left untouched down to 1866.

But when in that year the Armenian Catholic patriarch died,

the archbishop Hassun was elected patriarch, and then a fusion

of the two ecclesiastical powers was brought about, which was

expected to lead to absolute and complete subjection under

papal jurisdiction and perfect assimilation with the Romish

constitution and liturgy, at the same time Hassun with a view

to securing a red hat showed himself eager and zealous in this

business. By the bull _Reversurus_ of 1867 Pius IX. claimed the

right of nominating the patriarchs of all united churches of

the East, of confirming bishops chosen by these patriarchs, in

cases of necessity even choosing these himself, and deciding

all appeals regarding church property. But the Mechitarists of

St. Lazzaro (§ 164, 2) had already discovered the intriguing

designs of France and made these known among their countrymen

in Turkey. These now, while Monsignore Hassun was engaged

combating the infallibility dogma at the Vatican Council of

1870, drove out his creatures and constituted themselves into

a church independent of Rome, without however, joining the

Gregorian-Armenians. The influence of France being meanwhile

crippled by the Prussian victory, the Porte acquiesced in

the accomplished fact, confirmed the appointment of the newly

chosen patriarch Kupelian, and refused to yield to the pope’s

remonstrances and allocutions. In 1874, however, it also

recognised the Hassun party as an independent ecclesiastical

community, but assigned the church property to the party of

Kupelian, and banished Hassun as a fomenter of disturbance, from

the capital. The hearty sympathies which on the outbreak of the

Russo-Turkish war the Roman curia expressed so loudly and openly

for the victory of the crescent over the schismatic Russian cross,

made the Sublime Porte again regard the Hassunites with favour,

so that Hassun in September, 1877, returned to Constantinople,

where the churches were given over to his party and a great

number of the Kupelianists were won over to his side. He was

eagerly aided not only by the French but also by the Austrian

ambassador, and the patriarch Kupelian, now sorely persecuted

from every side, at last resigned his position and went in March,

1879, to Rome to kneel as a penitent before the pope. By an irade

of the sultan, Hassun was now formally restored, and in 1880 he

was adorned with a red hat by Leo XIII. Shortly before this the

last of the bishops of the opposing party, with about 30,000

souls, had given in his submission.

§ 207.5. =The Berlin Treaty, 1878.=--Frequent and severe

oppression, refusal to administer justice, and brutal violence

on the part of the Turkish government and people toward the

defenceless vassals drove the Christian states and tribes of

the Balkan peninsula in 1875 into a rebellion of desperation,

which was avenged, especially in Bulgaria in 1876, by

scandalous atrocities upon the Christians. When the half-hearted

interference of European diplomacy called forth instead of actual

reforms only the mocking sham of a pretended free representative

constitution, Russia held herself under obligation in 1877 to

avenge by arms the wrongs of her brethren by race and creed, but

owing to the threats of England and Austria could not fully reap

the fruits of her dearly bought victory as had been agreed upon

in the Treaty of San Stefano. By the =Berlin Conference=, however,

of 1878 the principalities of Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro,

hitherto under the suzerainty of Turkey, were declared

independent, and to them, as well as to Greece, at the cost of

Turkey, a considerable increase of territory was granted, the

portion between the Balkans and the Danube was formed into the

Christian principality of Bulgaria under Turkish suzerainty, but

East Roumelia, south of the Balkans, now separated from Bulgaria,

obtained the rank of an autonomous province with a Christian

governor-general. To Thessaly, Epirus, and Crete were granted

administrative reforms and throughout the European territory

left to the Porte it was stipulated that full religious and

political rights be granted to members of all confessions.

The administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina was given over

to Austria, and that of Cyprus, by means of a separate treaty,

to England. The greater part of Armenia, lying in Asia, belongs

to Russia.

§ 208. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.[564]

The Republic of the United States of America, existing since the

Declaration of Independence in 1776, and recognised by England as

independent since the conclusion of Peace in 1783, requires of her

citizens no other religious test than belief in one God. Since the

settlers had often left their early homes on account of religious

matters, the greatest variety of religious parties were gathered

together here, and owing to their defective theological training

and their practical turn of mind, they afforded a fruitful field

for religious movements of all sorts, among which the revivals

systematically cultivated by many denominations play a conspicuous

part. The government does not trouble itself with religious questions,

and lets every denomination take care of itself. Preachers are therefore

wholly dependent on their congregations, and are frequently liable to

dismissal at the year’s end. Yet they form a highly respected class,

and nowhere in the Protestant world is the tone of ecclesiastical

feeling and piety so prevailingly high. In the public schools, which are

supported by the State, religious instruction is on principle omitted.

The Lutheran and Catholic churches have therefore founded parochial

schools; the other denominations seek to supply the want by Sunday

schools. The candidates for the ministry are trained in colleges and

in numerous theological seminaries.

§ 208.1. =English Protestant Denominations.=--The numerous

Protestant denominations belong to two great groups, English

and German. Of the first named the following are by far the most

important:

1. =The Congregationalists= are the descendants of the Pilgrim

Fathers who emigrated in 1620 (§ 143, 4). They profess the

doctrines of the Westminster Confession (§ 155, 1).

2. =The Presbyterians=, of Scotch origin, have the same

confession as the Congregationalists, but differ from them

by having a common church government with strict Synodal

and Presbyterial constitution. By rejecting the doctrine of

predestination the Cumberland Presbyterians in 1810 formed

a separate body and have since grown so as to embrace in the

south-western states 120,000 communicants.

3. =The Anglican Episcopal Church= is equally distinguished

by moderate and solid churchliness. Even here, however,

Puseyism has entered in and the Romish church has made

many proselytes. But when at the general conference of the

Evangelical Alliance at New York in 1873, bishop Cummins

of Kentucky took part in the administration of the Lord’s

Supper in the Presbyterian church and was violently attacked

for this by his Puseyite brethren, he laid the foundation

of a “Reformed Episcopal Church,” in which secession other

twenty-five Episcopal ministers joined. They regard the

episcopal constitution as an old and wholesome ordinance

but not a divine institution, also the Anglican liturgy

and _Book of Common Prayer_, though capable of improvement,

while they recognise the ordinations of other evangelical

churches as valid, and reject as Puseyite the doctrine of

a special priesthood of the clergy, of a sacrifice in the

eucharist, the presence of the body and blood of Christ in

the elements, and of the essential and invariable connection

between regeneration and baptism.

4. =The Episcopal Methodists= in America formed since 1784

an independent body (§ 169, 4). Their influence on the

religious life in the United States has been extraordinarily

great. They have had by far the most to do with the revivals

which from the first they have carried to a wonderful

pitch with their protracted meetings, inquiry meetings,

camp meetings, etc. They reached their climax in the camp

meetings which, under the preaching mostly of itinerant

Methodist preachers frequently in the forest under the

canopy of heaven, produced religious awakening among the

multitudes gathered from all around. Day and night without

interruption they continued praying, singing, preaching,

exhorting; all the horrors of hell are depicted, the

excitement increases every moment, penitent wrestlings with

sighs, sobs, groans, convulsions and writhings, occur on

every side; grace comes at last to view; loud hallelujahs,

thanksgivings and ascription of praise by the converted

mix with the moanings of those on “the anxious bench”

pleading for grace, etc. In San Francisco in 1874 there were

“=Baby-Revivals=,” at which children from four to twelve

years of age, who trembled with the fear of hell, sang

penitential hymns, made confession of sin, and wrote their

names on a sheet in order to engage themselves for ever

for Jesus. Since 1847 the Methodist church had been divided

into two hostile camps, a southern and a northern. The

first named tolerated slavery, while the members of the

latter were decided abolitionists and excommunicated all

slave-owners as unworthy of the name of Christian. Another

party, the Protestant Methodists, has blended the episcopal

and congregational constitution.

5. =The Baptists= are split up into many sects. The most

numerous are the Calvinistic Baptists. Their activity in

proselytising is equally great with their zeal for missions

to the heathen. In opposition to them the Free-Will Baptists

are Arminian and the Christian Baptists have adopted

Unitarian views.[565]

§ 208.2. =The German Lutheran Denominations.=--The German

emigration to America began in Penn’s time. In the organization

of church affairs, besides Zinzendorf and the Herrnhut

missionaries, a prominent part was taken by the pastor

Dr. Melchior Mühlenberg (died 1787), a pupil of A. H. Francke,

and the Reformed pastor Schlatter from St. Gall; the former

sent by the Halle Orphanage, the latter by the Dutch church.

The Orphanage sent many earnest preachers till rationalism broke

in upon the society. As at the same time the stream of German

emigration was checked almost completely for several decades,

and so all intercourse with the mother country ceased, crowds

of Germans, impressed by the revivals, went over to the

Anglo-American denominations, and in the German denominations

themselves along with the English language entered also English

Puritanism and Methodism. In 1815 German emigration began again

and grew from year to year. At the synod of 1857 the Lutheran

church with 3,000 pastors divided into three main divisions:

1. The American Lutheran church had become in language,

customs, and doctrine thoroughly Anglicised and Americanized;

Zwinglian in its doctrine of the sacraments, it was Lutheran

in scarcely anything but the name, until in its chief

seminary at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in 1850 a reaction

set in in favour of genuine Lutheran and German tendencies.

2. A greatly attenuated Lutheranism with unionistic sympathies

and frequent abandonment of the German language also found

expression in the congregations of the Old Pennsylvanian

Synod.

3. On the other hand, the strict Lutheran church held

tenaciously to the exclusive use of the German language

and the genuine Lutheran confession. The Prussian emigration

with Grabau and the Saxon Lutheran settlers with Stephan

constituted its backbone (§ 194, 1). To them a number of

Bavarian Lutherans attached themselves who had emigrated

under the leadership of Löhe, whose missionary institute

at Neuendettelsau supplied them with pastors. The Saxon

Lutherans were meanwhile grouped together in the Missouri

Synod, which Löhe’s missionaries also joined, so that it

soon acquired much larger proportions than the Buffalo Synod

formed previously by the Prussian Lutherans under Grabau.

But very soon the two synods had a violent quarrel over

the idea of office and church which, owing to the reception

by the Missouri Synod of several parties excommunicated

by the Buffalo Synod, led to the formal breach of church

fellowship between the two parties. The Missouri Synod, with

Dr. Walther at its head, attached all importance to sound

doctrine; the clerical office was regarded as a transference

of the right of the congregation and excommunication as

a congregational not a clerical act. The Buffalo Synod,

on the other hand, in consequence of serious conflict with

pietistic elements, had been driven into an overestimation

of external order, of forms of constitution and worship, and

of the clerical office as of immediately divine authority,

and carried this to such a length as led to the dissolution

of the synod in 1877. Löhe’s friends, who had not been able

to agree with either party, formed themselves into the Synod

of Iowa, with their seminary at Wartburg under Fritschel.

On all questions debated between the synods they took

a mediating position. The Missourians, however, would

have nothing to do with them, while those of Buffalo long

maintained tolerably friendly relations with them. But the

historical view of the symbols taken by the Iowans, their

inclination toward the new development of Lutheran theology,

and above all their attitude toward biblical chiliasm, which

they wished to treat as an open question, seemed to those of

Buffalo, as well as to the Missourians, a falling away from

the church confession, and led to their excommunication by

that party also.

In opposition to all this splitting up into sections a General

Council of the Lutheran Church in America was held in 1866, which

sought to combine all Lutheran district synods, of which twelve,

out of fifty-six, with 814 clergymen, joined it, Iowa assuming

a friendly and Missouri a distinctly hostile attitude. The

ninth assembly at Galesburg in Illinois in 1875 laid down as

its fundamental principle, “Lutheran pulpits only for Lutheran

preachers, and Lutheran altars only for Lutheran communicants.”

The native Americans, however, insisted upon exceptions being

allowed, _e.g._ in peril of death, etc. On the question of the

limits of these exceptions, however, subsequent assemblies have

not been able to agree.

§ 208.3. But also in the Synodal Conference founded and

led by the Missouri Synod, embracing five synods, doctrinal

controversies sprang up in 1860. A large number with Dr. Walther

at their head held a strict doctrine of =predestination= which

they regarded as the mark of genuine Lutheranism. God has,

they taught, chosen a definite number of men from eternity to

salvation; these shall and must be saved. Salvation in Christ

is indeed offered to all, but God secures it only for His elect,

so that they are sure of it and cannot lose it again, not indeed

_intuitu fidei_ but only according to His sovereign grace.

Even one of the elect may seem temporarily to fall from grace,

but he cannot die without returning into full possession of it.

Prof. Fritschel protested against this in 1872 as essentially

Calvinistic, and opposition also arose in the Missouri Pastoral

Conference. Prof. Asperheim, of the seminary of the Norwegian

Synod at Madison in Wisconsin, who first pronounced against it

in 1876, was deprived of his office and obliged to withdraw from

the synod. The controversy broke out in a violent form at the

conferences of about 500 pastors held at Chicago in 1880 and

at Milwaukee three months later in 1881, at the former of which

Prof. Stellhorn of Fort Wayne, at the latter Prof. Schmidt

of Madison, offered a vigorous opposition. Walther closed the

conference with the words: “You ask for war, war you shall have.”

The result was that the whole of the Ohio Synod and a large

portion of the Norwegian Wisconsin Synod, broke away from

communion with the Missouri Synod.--Walther and his adherents

went so far in their fanaticism as to pronounce not only their

American opponents but all the most distinguished Lutheran

theologians of Germany, Philippi as well as Hofmann, Luthardt

as well as Kahnis, Vilmar as well as Thomasius, Harms as well

as Zöckler, etc., bastard theologians, semipelagians, synergists

and rationalists, and to refuse church fellowship not only with

all Lutheran national churches in Europe, but also with German

Lutheran Free Churches, which did not unconditionally attach

themselves to them. These Missouri separatist communities, though

everywhere quite unimportant, are in Europe strongest in the

kingdom of Saxony; they have also a few representatives in Nassau,

Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse.

§ 208.4. =German-Reformed and other German-Protestant

Denominations.=--The German-Reformed church has its seminary

at Mercersburg in Pennsylvania. Its confession of faith is

the Heidelberg Catechism, its theology an offshoot of German

evangelical union theology, but with a distinctly positive

tendency. Although the union theology there prevailed among the

Reformed as well as the Lutherans, a German Evangelical Church

Union was formed at St. Louis in 1841 which wished to set aside

the names Reformed and Lutheran. It established a seminary at

Marthasville in Missouri. The Herrnhuters are also represented in

America. Several German Methodist sects have recently sprung up:

1. The “United Brethren in Christ,” with 500 preachers, founded

by a Reformed preacher Otternbein (died 1813).

2. The “Evangelical Communion,” commonly called

_Albrechtsleute_, founded by Jac. Albrecht, originally a

Lutheran layman, whom his own followers ordained in 1803,

with 500 or 600 preachers working zealously and carrying

on mission work also in Germany (§ 211, 1).

3. The Weinbrennians or Church of God, founded by an

excommunicated Reformed pastor of that name in 1839. They

carry the Methodist revivalism to the most extravagant

excess and are also fanatical opponents of infant baptism.

§ 208.5. =The Catholic Church.=--A number of English Catholics

under Lord Baltimore settled in Maryland in 1634. The little

community grew and soon filled the land. There alone in the whole

world did the Roman Catholic church though dominant proclaim

the principle of toleration and religious equality. Consequently

Protestants of various denominations crowded thither, outnumbered

the original settlers, and rewarded those who had hospitably

received them with abuse and oppression. The Catholics were

also treated in other states as idolaters and excluded from

public offices and posts of honour. Only after the Declaration

of Independence in 1783 was this changed by the sundering of the

connection of church and state and the proclamation of absolute

religious liberty. The number of Catholics was greatly increased

by numerous emigrations, specially from Ireland and Catholic

Germany. They now claim seven million members, with a cardinal

at New York, 13 archbishops, 64 bishops, about 7,000 churches and

chapels. A beautiful cathedral was erected in New York in 1879,

the immense cost of which, exceeding all expectation, was at last

defrayed by very unspiritual and unecclesiastical methods, _e.g._

lotteries, fairs, dramatic exhibitions, concerts, and even dearly

sold kisses, etc. The Roman Catholics have also a university at

St. Louis, 80 colleges, and 300 cloisters.

§ 209. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC STATES OF SOUTH AMERICA.

To the predominantly Protestant North America the position of the

Roman Catholic states of South America forms a very striking contrast.

Nowhere else was the influence and power of the clergy so wide-spread

and deeply rooted, nowhere else has the depravation of Catholicism

reached such a depth of superstition, obscurantism, and fanaticism.

During the second and third decades of our century the Spanish states,

favoured by the revolutionary movement in the mother country, one

after another asserted their independence, and the Portuguese Brazil

established herself as an independent empire under the legitimate

royal prince of Portugal, Pedro I. in 1822. Although the other new

states adopted a republican constitution, they could not throw aside

the influence of the Catholic clergy and carry out the principles of

religious freedom proclaimed in their constitutions. The Catholicism of

the Creoles, half-castes, and mulattoes was of too bigoted a kind and

the power of the clergy too great to allow any such thing. Mexico went

furthest in the attempt, and Brazil, under Dom Pedro II. from 1831,

astonished the world by the vigorous measures of its government

in 1874 against the assumptions of the higher clergy.--In spite of

all hindrances a not inconsiderable number of small evangelical

congregations have been formed in Romish America, partly through

emigration and partly by evangelization.

§ 209.1. =Mexico.=--Of all the American states, Mexico, since its

independence in 1823, has been most disturbed by revolutions and

civil wars. The rich and influential clergy, possessing nearly

a half of all landed property, was the factor with which all

pretenders, presidents and rulers had to reckon. After most

of the earlier governments had supported the clergy and been

supported by them, the ultimately victorious liberal party

under president Juarez shook off the yoke in 1859. He proclaimed

absolute religious freedom, introduced civil marriage, abolished

cloisters, pronounced church possessions national property and

exiled the obstinate bishops. The clerical party now sought

and obtained foreign aid. Spain, France and England joined in

a common military convention in 1861 in supporting certain claims

of citizens repudiated by Juarez. Spain and England soon withdrew

their troops, and Napoleon III. openly declared the purpose of

his interference to be the strengthening of the Latin race and

the monarchical principle in America. At his instigation the

Austrian Grand-Duke Maximilian was elected emperor, and that

prince, after receiving the pope’s blessing in Rome, began

his reign in 1864. Distrusted by all parties as a stranger,

in difficulties with the curia and clergy because he opposed

their claims to have their most extravagant privileges restored,

shamefully left in the lurch by Napoleon from fear of the

threatening attitude of the North American Union, and then

sold and betrayed by his own general Bazaine, this noble

but unfortunate prince was at last sentenced by Juarez at a

court-martial to be shot in 1867. Juarez now maintained his

position till the end of his life in 1872, and strictly carried

out his anticlerical reforms. After his death clericalism again

raised her head, and the Jesuits expelled from Guatemala swarmed

over the land. Yet constitutional sanction was given to the

Juarez legislation at the congress of 1873. The Jesuits were

driven across the frontiers, obstinate priests as well as a great

number of nuns, who had gathered again in cloisters and received

novices, were put in prison.--Also =Evangelization= advanced

slowly under sanction of law, though regarded with disfavour

by the people and interfered with often by the mob. It began

in 1865 with the awakening of a Catholic priest Francisco

Aguilar and a Dominican monk Manuel Aguas, through the reading

of the Scriptures. They laid the foundation of the “_Iglesia

de Jesus_” of converted Mexicans, with evangelical doctrine and

apostolic-episcopal constitution, which has now 71 congregations

throughout the whole country with about 10,000 souls. This

movement received a new impulse in 1869, when a Chilian-born

Anglican episcopal minister of a Spanish-speaking congregation

in New York, called Riley, took the control of it and was in 1879

consecrated its bishop. Besides this independent “_Church of

Jesus_” North American missionaries of various denominations

have wrought there since 1872 with slow but steady success.

§ 209.2. =In the Republics of Central and Southern America=, when

the liberal party obtained the helm of government through almost

incessant civil wars, religious freedom was generally proclaimed,

civil marriage introduced, the Jesuits expelled, cloisters shut

up, etc. But in =Ecuador=, president Moreno, aided by the clergy,

concluded in 1862 a concordat with the curia by which throughout

the country only the Catholic worship was tolerated, the bishops

could condemn and confiscate any book, education was under the

Jesuits, and the government undertook to employ the police in

suppressing all errors and compelling all citizens to fulfil all

their religious duties. And further the public resolved in 1873,

although unable to pay the interest of the national debt, to hand

over a tenth of all state revenues to the pope. But Moreno was

murdered in 1875. The Jesuits, who were out of favour, left Quito.

The tithe hitherto paid to the pope was immediately withheld,

and in 1877 the concordat was abrogated. As Ecuador in Moreno,

so =Peru= at the same time in Pierola had a dictator after the

pope’s own heart. The republic had his misgovernment to thank for

one defeat after another in the war with Chili.--=Bolivia=

in 1872 declared that the Roman Catholic religion alone would

be tolerated in the country, and suffered, in common with Peru,

annihilating defeats at the hand of Chili.--When at St. Iago in

Chili, during the festival of the Immaculate Conception in 1863,

the Jesuit church La Compania was burnt and in it more than 2,000

women and children consumed, the clergy pronounced this disaster

an act of grace of the blessed Virgin, who wished to give the

country a vast number of saints and martyrs. But here, too,

the conflicts between church and state continued. In 1874 the

Chilian episcopate pronounced the ban against the president and

the members of the national council and of the Lower House who

had favoured the introduction of a new penal code which secured

liberty of worship, but it remained quite unheeded. When then the

archiepiscopal chair of St. Iago became vacant in 1878, the pope

refused on any condition to confirm the candidate appointed by

the government. After the decisive victory over Peru and Bolivia,

the government again in December, 1881, urgently insisted upon

their presentation. The curia now sent to Chili, avowedly to

obtain more accurate information, an apostolic delegate who

took advantage of his position to stir up strife, so that the

government was obliged to insist upon his recall. As the curia

declined to do so, his passports were sent to the legate in

January, 1883, and a presidential message was addressed to the

next congress which demanded the separation of the church and

state, with the introduction of civil marriage and register of

civil station, as the only remaining means for putting down the

confusion caused by papal tergiversation. The result of the long

and heated debates that followed was the promulgation of a law

by which Catholicism was deprived of the character of the state

religion and the perfect equality of all forms of worship was

proclaimed.--=Guatemala= in 1872 expelled the Jesuits whose power

and wealth had become very great. In 1874 the president Borrias

opened a new campaign against the clergy by forbidding them to

wear the clerical dress except when discharging the duties of

their office, and closing all the nunneries.--In =Venezuela=, in

1872, Archbishop Guevara of Caracas, who had previously come into

collision with the government by favouring the rebels, forbade

his clergy taking part in the national festival, and put the

cathedral in which it was to be celebrated under the interdict.

Deposed and banished on this account, he continued from the

British island of Trinidad his endeavours to stir up a new

rebellion. The president, Guzman Blanco, after long fruitless

negotiations with the papal nuncio, submitted in May, 1876, to

the congress at St. Domingo the draft of a bill, which declared

the national church wholly independent of Rome. The congress

not only homologated his proposals, but carried them further,

by abolishing the episcopal hierarchy and assigning its revenues

to the national exchequer, for education. Now at last the Roman

curia agreed to the deposition of Guevara and confirmed the

nomination of his previously appointed successor. But president

Blanco now asked congress to abolish the law, and this was agreed

to.--In the United States of =Colombia= since 1853, and in the

=Argentine Republic= since 1865, perfect liberty of faith and

worship have been constitutionally secured. From the latter state

the Jesuits had been banished for a long time but had managed

to smuggle themselves in again. When in the beginning of 1875

Archbishop Aneiros of Buenos Ayres addressed to the government

which favoured the clerical party rather than to the congress

which was the only competent court, a request to reinvest the

Jesuits with the churches, cloisters, and properties held by them

before their expulsion, a terrible outbreak took place, which

the archbishop intensified to the utmost by issuing a violent

pastoral. A mob of 30,000 men, convened by the students of the

university, wrecked the palace of the archbishop, then attacked

the Jesuit college, burnt all its furniture and ornaments on

the streets and by means of petroleum soon reduced the building

itself to flames. Only with difficulty did the military succeed

in preventing further mischief. In October, 1884, the papal

nuncio was expelled, because, when the government decidedly

refused his request to prevent the spread of Protestant teaching

and to place Sunday schools under the oversight of the bishops,

he replied in a most violent and passionate manner. About the

same time the republic of =Costa-rica= issued a law forbidding

all religious orders, pronouncing all vows invalid, and

threatening banishment against all who should contravene these

enactments, and also an education act which forbade all public

instruction apart from that provided by the State.

§ 209.3. =Brazil.=--In Brazil down to 1884, the “Catholic

Apostolic Roman Religion” was, according to the constitution,

the religion of the empire. But from 1828 there was a Protestant

congregation in Rio de Janeiro, and through the inland districts,

in consequence of immigration, there were 100 small evangelical

congregations, with twenty-five ordained pastors, whose forms

of worship were of various kinds. In earlier times Protestant

marriage was regarded as concubinage, but in 1851 a law was

passed which gave it civil recognition. But the bishops held

to their previous views and demanded of married converts a

repetition of the ceremony. Since 1870, however, the government

has energetically opposed the claims of the clergy who wished

only to acknowledge the authority of Rome. Protestant marriages

were pronounced equally legitimate with Catholic marriages,

no civil penalties are incurred by excommunication, all papal

bulls are subject to the approval of the government, and it was

insisted that announcement should be made of all clergy nominated.

The clergy considered freemasonry the chief source of all this

liberal current, and against it therefore they directed all their

forces. The pope assisted by his brief of May, 1873, condemning

freemasonry. At the head of the rebel prelates stood Don

Vitalis Gonsalvez de Oliveira, bishop of Olinda and Pernambuco.

He published the papal brief without asking the imperial

permission, pronounced the ban upon all freemasons and suspended

the interdict over all associations which refused to expel

masonic brothers from their membership. In vain the government

demanded its withdrawal. It then accused him of an attack

upon the constitution. The supreme court ordered his detention,

and he was placed in the state prison at Rio de Janeiro in

January, 1874. The trial ended by his being sentenced to four

years’ imprisonment, which the emperor as an act of grace

commuted to detention in a fortress, and set him free in a

year and a half. In consequence of this occurrence the Jesuits

were, in 1874, expelled from the country. The increasing advent

of monks and nuns from Europe led the government, in 1884, to

appoint a commission to carry out the law already passed in 1870,

for the secularization of all monastic property after providing

pensions for those entitled to support. In the same year all

naturalized non-Catholics were pronounced eligible for election

to the imperial parliament and to the provincial assemblies. The

members belonging to the evangelical churches now number about

50,000, of whom 30,000 are Germans.[566]