{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20160/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20160","id":"gutenberg_20160","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20160","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","United States -- Church history","United States -- Religion"],"text":"E-text prepared by Dave Morgan, Daniel J. Mount, Lisa Reigel, and the\nProject Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team\n(http://www.pgdp.net/c/) from digital material generously made available\nby the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (http://www.ccel.org/)\n\n\n\nNote: The digital material used for the preparation of this file,\n      including images of the original pages, are available through\n      the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. See\n      http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bacon_lw/history.html\n\n\nTranscriber's notes:\n\n      Greek words in this text have been transliterated and placed\n      between +marks+.\n\n      Words in italics are surrounded with underscores.\n\n      A list of corrections made is at the end of the text.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe American Church History Series\n\nConsisting of a Series of Denominational Histories Published Under the\nAuspices of the American Society of Church History\n\nGeneral Editors\n\nREV. PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D., LL. D.\nRT. REV. H. C. POTTER, D. D., LL. D.\nREV GEO. P. FISHER, D. D., LL. D.\nBISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D. D., LL. D.\nREV. E. J. WOLF, D. D.\nHENRY C. VEDDER, M. A.\nREV. SAMUEL M. JACKSON, D. D., LL. D.\n\nVolume XIII\n\nAmerican Church History\n\n\nA HISTORY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY\n\nby\n\nLEONARD WOOLSEY BACON\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York\nThe Christian Literature Co.\nMDCCCXCVII\nCopyright, 1897, by\nThe Christian Literature Co.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\nCHAP. I.--PROVIDENTIAL PREPARATION FOR THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA      1-5\n\n     Purpose of the long concealment of America, 1. A medieval\n     church in America, 2. Revival of the Catholic Church, 3,\n     especially in Spain, 4, 5.\n\n\nCHAP. II.--SPANISH CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA                          6-15\n\n     Vastness and swiftness of the Spanish conquests, 6. Conversion\n     by the sword, 7. Rapid success and sudden downfall of missions\n     in Florida, 9. The like story in New Mexico, 12, and in\n     California, 14.\n\n\nCHAP. III.--FRENCH CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA                         16-29\n\n     Magnificence of the French scheme of western empire, 16.\n     Superior dignity of the French missions, 19. Swift expansion\n     of them, 20. Collision with the English colonies, and triumph\n     of France, 21. Sudden and complete failure of the French\n     church, 23. Causes of failure: (1) Dependence on royal\n     patronage, 24. (2) Implication in Indian feuds, 25. (3)\n     Instability of Jesuit efforts, 26. (4) Scantiness of French\n     population, 27. Political aspect of French missions, 28.\n     Recent French Catholic immigration, 29.\n\n\nCHAP. IV.--ANTECEDENTS OF PERMANENT CHRISTIAN COLONIZATION         30-37\n\n     Controversies and parties in Europe, 31, and especially in\n     England, 32. Disintegration of Christendom, 34. New experiment\n     of church life, 35. Persecutions promote emigration, 36, 37.\n\n\nCHAP. V.--PURITAN BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA             38-53\n\n     The Rev. Robert Hunt, chaplain to the Virginia colony, 38.\n     Base quality of the emigration, 39. Assiduity in religious\n     duties, 41. Rev. Richard Buck, chaplain, 42. Strict Puritan\n     regime of Sir T. Dale and Rev. A. Whitaker, 43. Brightening\n     prospects extinguished by massacre, 48. Dissolution of the\n     Puritan \"Virginia Company\" by the king, 48. Puritan ministers\n     silenced by the royal governor, Berkeley, 49. The governor's\n     chaplain, Harrison, is converted to Puritan principles, 49.\n     Visit of the Rev. Patrick Copland, 50. Degradation of church\n     and clergy, 51. Commissary Blair attempts reform, 52.\n     Huguenots and Scotch-Irish, 53.\n\n\nCHAP. VI.--MARYLAND AND THE CAROLINAS                              54-67\n\n     George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, 54; secures grant of Maryland,\n     55. The second Lord Baltimore organizes a colony on the basis\n     of religious liberty, 56. Success of the two Jesuit priests,\n     57. Baltimore restrains the Jesuits, 58, and encourages the\n     Puritans, 59. Attempt at an Anglican establishment, 61.\n     Commissary Bray, 61. Tardy settlement of the Carolinas, 62. A\n     mixed population, 63. Success of Quakerism, 65. American\n     origin of English missionary societies, 66.\n\n\nCHAP. VII.--DUTCH CALVINISTS AND SWEDISH LUTHERANS                 68-81\n\n     Faint traces of religious life in the Dutch settlements, 69.\n     Pastors Michaelius, Bogardus, and Megapolensis, 70. Religious\n     liberty, diversity, and bigotry, 72. The Quakers persecuted,\n     73. Low vitality of the Dutch colony, 75. Swedish colony on\n     the Delaware, 76; subjugated by the Dutch, 77. The Dutch\n     evicted by England, 78. The Dutch church languishes, 79.\n     Attempts to establish Anglicanism, 79. The S. P. G., 80.\n\n\nCHAP. VIII.--THE CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND                            82-108\n\n     Puritan and Separatist, 82. The Separatists of Scrooby, 83.\n     Mutual animosity of the two parties, 84. Spirit of John\n     Robinson, 85. The \"social compact\" of the Pilgrims, in state,\n     87; and in church, 88. Feebleness of the Plymouth colony, 89.\n     The Puritan colony at Salem, 90. Purpose of the colonists, 91.\n     Their right to pick their own company, 92. Fellowship with the\n     Pilgrims, 93. Constituting the Salem church, and ordination of\n     its ministers, 95. Expulsion of schismatics, 97. Coming of the\n     great Massachusetts colony bringing the charter, 98. The New\n     England church polity, 99. Nationalism of the Puritans, 100.\n     Dealings with Roger Williams, Mrs. Hutchinson, and the\n     Quakers, 101. Diversities among the colonies, 102. Divergences\n     of opinion and practice in the churches, 103. Variety of sects\n     in Rhode Island, 106, with mutual good will, 107. Lapse of the\n     Puritan church-state, 108.\n\n\nCHAP. IX.--THE MIDDLE COLONIES AND GEORGIA                       109-126\n\n     Dutch, Puritan, Scotch, and Quaker settlers in New Jersey,\n     109. Quaker corporation and government, 110. Quaker reaction\n     from Puritanism, 113. Extravagance and discipline, 114.\n     Quakerism in continental Europe, 115. Penn's \"Holy\n     Experiment,\" 116. Philadelphia founded, 117. German sects,\n     118. Keith's schism, and the mission of the \"S. P. G.,\" 119.\n     Lutheran and Reformed Germans, 120. Scotch-Irish, 121.\n     Georgia, 122. Oglethorpe's charitable scheme, 123. The\n     Salzburgers, the Moravians, and the Wesleys, 124. George\n     Whitefield, 126.\n\n\nCHAP. X.--THE EVE OF THE GREAT AWAKENING                         127-154\n\n     Fall of the New England theocracy, 128. Dissent from the\n     \"Standing Order\": Baptist, 130; Episcopalian, 131. In New\n     York: the Dutch church, 134; the English, 135; the\n     Presbyterian, 136. New Englanders moving west, 137. Quakers,\n     Huguenots, and Palatines, 139. New Jersey: Frelinghuysen and\n     the Tennents, 141. Pennsylvania: successes and failures of\n     Quakerism, 143. The southern colonies: their established\n     churches, 148; the mission of the Quakers, 149. The gospel\n     among the Indians, 150. The church and slavery, 151.\n\n\nCHAP. XI.--THE GREAT AWAKENING                                   155-180\n\n     Jonathan Edwards at Northampton, 156. An Awakening, 157.\n     Edwards's \"Narrative\" in America and England, 159. Revivals in\n     New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 160. Apostolate of Whitefield,\n     163. Schism of the Presbyterian Church, 166. Whitefield in New\n     England, 168. Faults and excesses of the evangelists, 169.\n     Good fruits of the revival, 173. Diffusion of Baptist\n     principles, 173. National religious unity, 175. Attitude of\n     the Episcopal Church, 177. Zeal for missions, 179.\n\n\nCHAP. XII.--CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL ERA                            181-207\n\n     Growth of the New England theology, 181. Watts's Psalms, 182.\n     Warlike agitations, 184. The Scotch-Irish immigration, 186.\n     The German immigration, 187. Spiritual destitution, 188.\n     Zinzendorf, 189. Attempt at union among the Germans, 190.\n     Alarm of the sects, 191. Muehlenberg and the Lutherans, 191.\n     Zinzendorf and the Moravians, 192. Schlatter and the Reformed,\n     195. Schism made permanent, 197. Wesleyan Methodism, 198.\n     Francis Asbury, 200. Methodism gravitates southward and grows\n     apace, 201. Opposition of the church to slavery, 203; and to\n     intemperance, 205. Project to introduce bishops from England,\n     resisted in the interest of liberty, 206.\n\n\nCHAP. XIII.--RECONSTRUCTION                                      208-229\n\n     Distraction and depression after the War of Independence, 208.\n     Forlorn condition of the Episcopalians, 210. Their republican\n     constitution, 211. Episcopal consecration secured in Scotland\n     and in England, 212. Feebleness of American Catholicism, 214.\n     Bishop Carroll, 215. \"Trusteeism,\" 216. Methodism becomes a\n     church, 217. Westward movement of Christianity, 219. Severance\n     of church from state, 221. Doctrinal divisions; Calvinist and\n     Arminian, 222. Unitarianism, 224. Universalism, 225. Some\n     minor sects, 228.\n\n\nCHAP. XIV.--THE SECOND AWAKENING                                 230-245\n\n     Ebb-tide of spiritual life, 230. Depravity and revival at the\n     West, 232. The first camp-meetings, 233. Good fruits, 237.\n     Nervous epidemics, 239. The Cumberland Presbyterians, 241. The\n     antisectarian sect of The Disciples, 242. Revival at the East,\n     242. President Dwight, 243.\n\n\nCHAP. XV.--ORGANIZED BENEFICENCE                                 246-260\n\n     Missionary spirit of the revival, 246. Religious earnestness\n     in the colleges, 247. Mills and his friends at Williamstown,\n     248; and at Andover, 249. The Unitarian schism in\n     Massachusetts, 249. New era of theological seminaries, 251.\n     Founding of the A. B. C. F. M., 252; of the Baptist Missionary\n     Convention, 253. Other missionary boards, 255. The American\n     Bible Society, 256. Mills, and his work for the West and for\n     Africa, 256. Other societies, 258. Glowing hopes of the\n     church, 259.\n\n\nCHAP. XVI.--CONFLICTS WITH PUBLIC WRONGS                         261-291\n\n     Working of the voluntary system of church support, 261.\n     Dueling, 263. Crime of the State of Georgia against the\n     Cherokee nation, implicating the federal government, 264.\n     Jeremiah Evarts and Theodore Frelinghuysen, 267. Unanimity of\n     the church, North and South, against slavery, 268. The\n     Missouri Compromise, 270. Antislavery activity of the church,\n     at the East, 271; at the West, 273; at the South, 274.\n     Difficulty of antislavery church discipline, 275. The southern\n     apostasy, 277. Causes of the sudden revolution of sentiment,\n     279. Defections at the North, and rise of a pro-slavery party,\n     282. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill; solemn and unanimous protest of\n     the clergy of New England and New York, 284. Primeval\n     temperance legislation, 285. Prevalence of drunkenness, 286.\n     Temperance reformation a religious movement, 286. Development\n     of \"the saloon,\" 288. The Washingtonian movement and its\n     drawbacks, 289. The Prohibition period, 290.\n\n\nCHAP. XVII.--A DECADE OF CONTROVERSIES AND SCHISMS               292-314\n\n     Dissensions in the Presbyterian Church, 292. Growing strength\n     of the New England element, 293. Impeachments of heresy, 294.\n     Benevolent societies, 295. Sudden excommunication of nearly\n     one half of the church by the other half, 296. Heresy and\n     schism among Unitarians: Emerson, 298; and Parker, 300.\n     Disruption, on the slavery question, of the Methodists, 301;\n     and of the Baptists, 303. Resuscitation of the Episcopal\n     Church, 304. Bishop Hobart and a High-church party, 306. Rapid\n     growth of this church, 308. Controversies in the Roman\n     Catholic Church, 310. Contention against Protestant\n     fanaticism, 312.\n\n\nCHAP. XVIII.--THE GREAT IMMIGRATION                              315-339\n\n     Expansion of territory and increase of population in the early\n     part of the nineteenth century, 315. Great volume of\n     immigration from 1840 on, 316. How drawn and how driven, 316.\n     At first principally Irish, then German, then Scandinavian,\n     318. The Catholic clergy overtasked, 320. Losses of the\n     Catholic Church, 321. Liberalized tone of American\n     Catholicism, 323. Planting the church in the West, 327.\n     Sectarian competitions, 328. Protestant sects and Catholic\n     orders, 329. Mormonism, 335. Millerism, 336. Spiritualism,\n     337.\n\n\nCHAP. XIX.--THE CIVIL WAR                                        340-350\n\n     Material prosperity, 340. The Kansas Crusade, 341. The revival\n     of 1857, 342. Deepening of the slavery conflict, 345. Threats\n     of war, 347. Religious sincerity of both sides, 348. The\n     church in war-time, 349.\n\n\nCHAP. XX.--AFTER THE CIVIL WAR                                   351-373\n\n     Reconstructions, 351. The Catholic Church, 352. The Episcopal\n     Church, 352. Persistent divisions among Methodists, Baptists,\n     and Presbyterians, 353. Healing of Presbyterian schisms, 355.\n     Missions at the South, 355. Vast expansion of church\n     activities, 357. Great religious and educational endowments,\n     359. The enlisting of personal service: The Sunday-school,\n     362. Chautauqua, 363. Y. M. C. A., 364. Y. W. C. A., 366. W.\n     C. T. U., 367. Women's missionary boards, 367. Nursing orders\n     and schools, 368. Y. P. S. C. E., and like associations, 368.\n     \"The Institutional Church,\" 369. The Salvation Army, 370. Loss\n     of \"the American Sabbath,\" 371.\n\n\nCHAP. XXI.--THE CHURCH IN THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE                374-397\n\n     Unfolding of the Edwardean theology, 374. Horace Bushnell,\n     375. The Mercersburg theology, 377. \"Bodies of divinity,\" 378.\n     Biblical science, 378. Princeton's new dogma, 380. Church\n     history, 381. The American pulpit, 382. \"Applied\n     Christianity,\" 385. Liturgics, 386. Hymns, 387. Other\n     liturgical studies, 388. Church music, 391. The Moravian\n     liturgies, 394. Meager productiveness of the Catholic Church,\n     394. The Americanizing of the Roman Church, 396.\n\n\nCHAP. XXII.--TENDENCIES TOWARD A MANIFESTATION OF UNITY          398-420\n\n     Growth of the nation and national union, 398. Parallel growth\n     of the church, 399; and ecclesiastical division, 400. No\n     predominant sect, 401. Schism acceptable to politicians, 402;\n     and to some Christians, 403. Compensations of schism, 404.\n     _Nisus_ toward manifest union, 405. Early efforts at\n     fellowship among sects, 406. High-church protests against\n     union, 407. The Evangelical Alliance, 408. Fellowship in\n     non-sectarian associations, 409. Cooperation of leading sects\n     in Maine, 410. Various unpromising projects of union: I. Union\n     on sectarian basis, 411. II. Ecumenical sects, 412. III.\n     Consolidation of sects, 413. The hope of manifested unity,\n     416. Conclusion, 419.\n\n\n\n\nA HISTORY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nPROVIDENTIAL PREPARATIONS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA--SPIRITUAL\nREVIVAL THROUGHOUT CHRISTENDOM, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE CHURCH OF SPAIN.\n\n\nThe heroic discovery of America, at the close of the fifteenth century\nafter Christ, has compelled the generous and just admiration of the\nworld; but the grandeur of human enterprise and achievement in the\ndiscovery of the western hemisphere has a less claim on our admiration\nthan that divine wisdom and controlling providence which, for reasons\nnow manifested, kept the secret hidden through so many millenniums, in\nspite of continual chances of disclosure, until the fullness of time.\n\nHow near, to \"speak as a fool,\" the plans of God came to being defeated\nby human enterprise is illustrated by unquestioned facts. The fact of\nmedieval exploration, colonization, and even evangelization in North\nAmerica seems now to have emerged from the region of fanciful conjecture\ninto that of history. That for four centuries, ending with the\nfifteenth, the church of Iceland maintained its bishops and other\nmissionaries and built its churches and monasteries on the frozen coast\nof Greenland is abundantly proved by documents and monuments. Dim but\nseemingly unmistakable traces are now discovered of enterprises, not\nonly of exploration and trade, but also of evangelization, reaching\nalong the mainland southward to the shores of New England. There are\nvague indications that these beginnings of Christian civilization were\nextinguished, as in so many later instances, by savage massacre. With\nimpressive coincidence, the latest vestige of this primeval American\nChristianity fades out in the very year of the discovery of America by\nColumbus.[2:1]\n\nBy a prodigy of divine providence, the secret of the ages had been kept\nfrom premature disclosure during the centuries in which, without knowing\nit, the Old World was actually in communication with the New. That was\nhigh strategy in the warfare for the advancement of the kingdom of God\nin the earth. What possibilities, even yet only beginning to be\naccomplished, were thus saved to both hemispheres! If the discovery of\nAmerica had been achieved four centuries or even a single century\nearlier, the Christianity to be transplanted to the western world would\nhave been that of the church of Europe at its lowest stage of decadence.\nThe period closing with the fifteenth century was that of the dense\ndarkness that goes before the dawn. It was a period in which the\nlingering life of the church was chiefly manifested in feverish\ncomplaints of the widespread corruption and outcries for \"reformation of\nthe church in head and members.\" The degeneracy of the clergy was\nnowhere more manifest than in the monastic orders, that had been\noriginally established for the express purpose of reviving and purifying\nthe church. That ancient word was fulfilled, \"Like people, like priest.\"\nBut it was especially in the person of the foremost official\nrepresentative of the religion of Jesus Christ that that religion was\nmost dishonored. The fifteenth century was the era of the infamous\npopes. By another coincidence which arrests the attention of the reader\nof history, that same year of the discovery by Columbus witnessed the\naccession of the most infamous of the series, the Borgia, Alexander VI.,\nto his short and shameful pontificate.\n\nLet it not be thought, as some of us might be prone to think, that the\ntimeliness of the discovery of the western hemisphere, in its relation\nto church history, is summed up in this, that it coincided with the\nProtestant Reformation, so that the New World might be planted with a\nProtestant Christianity. For a hundred years the colonization and\nevangelization of America were, in the narrowest sense of that large\nword, Catholic, not Protestant. But the Catholicism brought hither was\nthat of the sixteenth century, not of the fifteenth. It is a most\none-sided reading of the history of that illustrious age which fails to\nrecognize that the great Reformation was a reformation _of_ the church\nas well as a reformation _from_ the church. It was in Spain itself, in\nwhich the corruption of the church had been foulest, but from which all\nsymptoms of \"heretical pravity\" were purged away with the fiercest zeal\nas fast as they appeared,--in Spain under the reign of Ferdinand and\nIsabella the Catholic,--that the demand for a Catholic reformation made\nitself earliest and most effectually felt. The highest ecclesiastical\ndignitary of the realm, Ximenes, confessor to the queen, Archbishop of\nToledo, and cardinal, was himself the leader of reform. No changes in\nthe rest of Christendom were destined for many years to have so great\nan influence on the course of evangelization in North America as those\nwhich affected the church of Spain; and of these by far the most\nimportant in their bearing on the early course of Christianity in\nAmerica were, first, the purifying and quickening of the miserably\ndecayed and corrupted mendicant orders,--ever the most effective arm in\nthe missionary service of the Latin Church,--and, a little later, the\nfounding of the Society of Jesus, with its immense potency for good and\nfor evil. At the same time the court of Rome, sobered in some measure,\nby the perilous crisis that confronted it, from its long orgy of simony,\nnepotism, and sensuality, began to find time and thought for spiritual\nduties. The establishment of the \"congregations\" or administrative\nboards, and especially of the _Congregatio de Propaganda Fide_, or board\nof missions, dates chiefly from the sixteenth century. The revived\ninterest in theological study incident to the general spiritual\nquickening gave the church, as the result of the labors of the Council\nof Trent, a well-defined body of doctrine, which nevertheless was not so\nnarrowly defined as to preclude differences and debates among the\ndiverse sects of the clergy, by whose competitions and antagonisms the\nprogress of missions both in Christian and in heathen lands was destined\nto be so seriously affected.\n\nAn incident of the Catholic Reformation of the sixteenth\ncentury--inevitable incident, doubtless, in that age, but none the less\ndeplorable--was the engendering or intensifying of that cruel and\nferocious form of fanaticism which is defined as the combination of\nreligious emotion with the malignant passions. The tendency to\nfanaticism is one of the perils attendant on the deep stirring of\nreligious feeling at any time; it was especially attendant on the\nreligious agitations of that period; but most of all it was in Spain,\nwhere, of all the Catholic nations, corruption had gone deepest and\nspiritual revival was most earnest and sincere, that the manifestations\nof fanaticism were most shocking. Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic\nwere distinguished alike by their piety and their part in the promotion\nof civilization, and by the horrors of bloody cruelty perpetrated by\ntheir authority and that of the church, at the instigation of the\nsincere and devout reformer Ximenes. In the memorable year 1492 was\ninaugurated the fiercest work of the Spanish Inquisition, concerning\nwhich, speaking of her own part in it, the pious Isabella was able\nafterward to say, \"For the love of Christ and of his virgin mother I\nhave caused great misery, and have depopulated towns and districts,\nprovinces and kingdoms.\"\n\nThe earlier pages of American church history will not be intelligently\nread unless it is well understood that the Christianity first to be\ntransplanted to the soil of the New World was the Christianity of\nSpain--the Spain of Isabella and Ximenes, of Loyola and Francis Xavier\nand St. Theresa, the Spain also of Torquemada and St. Peter Arbues and\nthe zealous and orthodox Duke of Alva.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2:1] See the account of the Greenland church and its missions in\nProfessor O'Gorman's \"History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United\nStates\" (vol. ix. of the American Church History Series), pp. 3-12.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSPANISH CONQUEST--THE PROPAGATION, DECAY, AND DOWNFALL OF SPANISH\nCHRISTIANITY.\n\n\nIt is a striking fact that the earliest monuments of colonial and\necclesiastical antiquity within the present domain of the United States,\nafter the early Spanish remains in Florida, are to be found in those\nremotely interior and inaccessible highlands of New Mexico, which have\nonly now begun to be reached in the westward progress of migration.\nBefore the beginnings of permanent English colonization at Plymouth and\nat Jamestown, before the French beginnings on the St. Lawrence, before\nthe close of the sixteenth century, there had been laid by Spanish\nsoldiers, adventurers, and missionaries, in those far recesses of the\ncontinent, the foundations of Christian towns and churches, the stately\nwalls and towers of which still invite the admiration of the traveler.\n\nThe fact is not more impressive than it is instructive. It illustrates\nthe prodigious impetuosity of that tide of conquest which within so few\nyears from the discovery of the American continents not only swept over\nthe regions of South and Central America and the great plateau of\nMexico, but actually occupied with military posts, with extensive and\nsuccessful missions, and with a colonization which seemed to show every\nsign of stability and future expansion, by far the greater part of the\npresent domain of the United States exclusive of Alaska--an\necclesiastico-military empire stretching its vast diameter from the\nsouthernmost cape of Florida across twenty-five parallels of latitude\nand forty-five meridians of longitude to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The\nlessons taught by this amazingly swift extension of the empire and the\nchurch, and its arrest and almost extinction, are legible on the surface\nof the history. It is a strange, but not unparalleled, story of\nattempted cooeperation in the common service of God and Mammon and\nMoloch--of endeavors after concord between Christ and Belial.\n\nThere is no reason to question the sincerity with which the rulers of\nSpain believed themselves to be actuated by the highest motives of\nChristian charity in their terrible and fatal American policy. \"The\nconversion of the Indians is the principal foundation of the\nconquest--that which ought principally to be attended to.\" So wrote the\nking in a correspondence in which a most cold-blooded authorization is\ngiven for the enslaving of the Indians.[7:1] After the very first voyage\nof Columbus every expedition of discovery or invasion was equipped with\nits contingent of clergy--secular priests as chaplains to the Spaniards,\nand friars of the regular orders for mission work among the Indians--at\ncost of the royal treasury or as a charge upon the new conquests.\n\nThis subsidizing of the church was the least serious of the injuries\ninflicted on the cause of the gospel by the piety of the Spanish\ngovernment. That such subsidizing is in the long run an injury is a\nlesson illustrated not only in this case, but in many parallel cases in\nthe course of this history. A far more dreadful wrong was the\nidentifying of the religion of Jesus Christ with a system of war and\nslavery, well-nigh the most atrocious in recorded history. For such a\npolicy the Spanish nation had just received a peculiar training. It is\none of the commonplaces of history to remark that the barbarian invaders\nof the Roman empire were themselves vanquished by their own victims,\nbeing converted by them to the Christian faith. In like manner the\nSpanish nation, triumphing over its Moslem subjects in the expulsion of\nthe Moors, seemed in its American conquests to have been converted to\nthe worst of the tenets of Islam. The propagation of the gospel in the\nwestern hemisphere, under the Spanish rule, illustrated in its public\nand official aspects far more the principles of Mohammed than those of\nJesus. The triple alternative offered by the Saracen or the\nTurk--conversion or tribute or the sword--was renewed with aggravations\nby the Christian conquerors of America. In a form deliberately drawn up\nand prescribed by the civil and ecclesiastical counselors at Madrid, the\ninvader of a new province was to summon the rulers and people to\nacknowledge the church and the pope and the king of Spain; and in case\nof refusal or delay to comply with this summons, the invader was to\nnotify them of the consequences in these terms: \"If you refuse, by the\nhelp of God we shall enter with force into your land, and shall make war\nagainst you in all ways and manners that we can, and subject you to the\nyoke and obedience of the church and of their Highnesses; we shall take\nyou and your wives and your children and make slaves of them, and sell\nand dispose of them as their Highnesses may command; and we shall take\naway your goods, and do you all the mischief and damage that we can, as\nto vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord; and we\nprotest that the deaths and losses that shall accrue from this are your\nown fault.\"[8:1]\n\nWhile the church was thus implicated in crimes against humanity which\nhistory shudders to record, it is a grateful duty to remember that it\nwas from the church also and in the name of Christ that bold protests\nand strenuous efforts were put forth in behalf of the oppressed and\nwronged. Such names as Las Casas and Montesinos shine with a beautiful\nluster in the darkness of that age; and the Dominican order, identified\non the other side of the sea with the fiercest cruelties of the Spanish\nInquisition, is honorable in American church history for its fearless\nchampionship of liberty and justice.\n\nThe first entrance of Spanish Christianity upon the soil of the United\nStates was wholly characteristic. In quest of the Fountain of Youth,\nPonce de Leon sailed for the coast of Florida equipped with forces both\nfor the carnal and for the spiritual warfare. Besides his colonists and\nhis men-at-arms, he brought his secular priests as chaplains and his\nmonks as missionaries; and his instructions from the crown required him\nto summon the natives, as in the famous \"Requerimiento,\" to submit\nthemselves to the Catholic faith and to the king of Spain, under threat\nof the sword and slavery. The invaders found a different temper in the\nnatives from what was encountered in Mexico and Peru, where the\npopulations were miserably subjugated, or in the islands, where they\nwere first enslaved and presently completely exterminated. The insolent\ninvasion was met, as it deserved, by effective volleys of arrows, and\nits chivalrous leader was driven back to Cuba, to die there of his\nwounds.\n\nIt is needless to recount the successive failures of Spanish\ncivilization and Christianity to get foothold on the domain now\nincluded in the United States. Not until more than forty years after the\nattempt of Ponce de Leon did the expedition of the ferocious Menendez\neffect a permanent establishment on the coast of Florida. In September,\n1565, the foundations of the oldest city in the United States, St.\nAugustine, were laid with solemn religious rites by the toil of the\nfirst negro slaves; and the event was signalized by one of the most\nhorrible massacres in recorded history, the cold-blooded and perfidious\nextermination, almost to the last man, woman, and child, of a colony of\nFrench Protestants that had been planted a few months before at the\nmouth of the St. John's River.\n\nThe colony thus inaugurated seemed to give every promise of permanent\nsuccess as a center of religious influence. The spiritual work was\nnaturally and wisely divided into the pastoral care of the Spanish\ngarrisons and settlements, which was taken in charge by \"secular\"\npriests, and the mission work among the Indians, committed to friars of\nthose \"regular\" orders whose solid organization and independence of the\nepiscopal hierarchy, and whose keen emulation in enterprises of\nself-denial, toil, and peril, have been so large an element of strength,\nand sometimes of weakness, in the Roman system. In turn, the mission\nfield of the Floridas was occupied by the Dominicans, the Jesuits, and\nthe Franciscans. Before the end of seventy years from the founding of\nSt. Augustine the number of Christian Indians was reckoned at\ntwenty-five or thirty thousand, distributed among forty-four missions,\nunder the direction of thirty-five Franciscan missionaries, while the\ncity of St. Augustine was fully equipped with religious institutions and\norganizations. Grave complaints are on record, which indicate that the\ngreat number of the Indian converts was out of all proportion to their\nmeager advancement in Christian grace and knowledge; but with these\nindications of shortcoming in the missionaries there are honorable\nproofs of diligent devotion to duty in the creating of a literature of\ninstruction in the barbarous languages of the peninsula.\n\nFor one hundred and fifteen years Spain and the Spanish missionaries had\nexclusive possession in Florida, and it was during this period that\nthese imposing results were achieved. In 1680 a settlement of Scotch\nPresbyterians at Port Royal in South Carolina seemed like a menace to\nthe Spanish domination. It was wholly characteristic of the Spanish\ncolony to seize the sword at once and destroy its nearest Christian\nneighbor. It took the sword, and perished by the sword. The war of races\nand sects thus inaugurated went on, with intervals of quiet, until the\nTreaty of Paris, in 1763, transferred Florida to the British crown. No\nlonger sustained by the terror of the Spanish arms and by subsidies from\nthe Spanish treasury, the whole fabric of Spanish civilization and\nChristianization, at the end of a history of almost two centuries,\ntumbled at once to complete ruin and extinction.\n\nThe story of the planting of Christian institutions in New Mexico runs\nparallel with the early history of Florida. Omitting from this brief\nsummary the first discovery of these regions by fugitives from one of\nthe disastrous early attempts to effect a settlement on the Florida\ncoast, omitting (what we would fain narrate) the stories of heroic\nadventure and apostolic zeal and martyrdom which antedate the permanent\noccupation of the country, we note the arrival, in 1598, of a strong,\nnumerous, and splendidly equipped colony, and the founding of a\nChristian city in the heart of the American continent. As usual in such\nSpanish enterprises, the missionary work was undertaken by a body of\nFranciscan friars. After the first months of hardship and\ndiscouragement, the work of the Christian colony, and especially the\nwork of evangelization among the Indians, went forward at a marvelous\nrate. Reinforcements both of priests and of soldiers were received from\nMexico; by the end of ten years baptisms were reported to the number of\neight thousand; the entire population of the province was reckoned as\nbeing within the pale of the church; not less than sixty Franciscan\nfriars at once were engaged in the double service of pastors and\nmissionaries. The triumph of the gospel and of Spanish arms seemed\ncomplete and permanent.\n\nFourscore years after the founding of the colony and mission the sudden\nexplosion of a conspiracy, which for a long time had been secretly\npreparing, revealed the true value of the allegiance of the Indians to\nthe Spanish government and of their conversion to Christ. Confounding in\na common hatred the missionaries and the tyrannous conquerors, who had\nbeen associated in a common policy, the Christian Indians turned upon\ntheir rulers and their pastors alike with undiscriminating warfare. \"In\na few weeks no Spaniard was in New Mexico north of El Paso. Christianity\nand civilization were swept away at one blow.\" The successful rebels\nbettered the instruction that they had received from their rejected\npastors. The measures of compulsion that had been used to stamp out\nevery vestige of the old religion were put into use against the new.\n\nThe cause of Catholic Christianity in New Mexico never recovered from\nthis stunning blow. After twenty years the Spanish power, taking\nadvantage of the anarchy and depopulation of the province, had\nreoccupied its former posts by military force, the missionaries were\nbrought back under armed protection, the practice of the ancient\nreligion was suppressed by the strong hand, and efforts, too often\nunsuccessful, were made to win back the apostate tribes to something\nmore than a sullen submission to the government and the religion of\ntheir conquerors. The later history of Spanish Christianity in New\nMexico is a history of decline and decay, enlivened by the usual\ncontentions between the \"regular\" clergy and the episcopal government.\nThe white population increased, the Indian population dwindled. Religion\nas set forth by an exotic clergy became an object of indifference when\nit was not an object of hatred. In 1845 the Bishop of Durango, visiting\nthe province, found an Indian population of twenty thousand in a total\nof eighty thousand. The clergy numbered only seventeen priests. Three\nyears later the province became part of the United States.\n\nTo complete the story of the planting of Spanish Christianity within the\npresent boundaries of the United States, it is necessary to depart from\nthe merely chronological order of American church history; for, although\nthe immense adventurousness of Spanish explorers by sea and land had,\nearly in the sixteenth century, made known to Christendom the coasts and\nharbors of the Californias, the beginnings of settlement and missions on\nthat Pacific coast date from so late as 1769. At this period the method\nof such work had become settled into a system. The organization was\nthreefold, including (1) the garrison town, (2) the Spanish settlement,\nand (3) the mission, at which the Indian neophytes were gathered under\nthe tutelage and strict government of the convent of Franciscan friars.\nThe whole system was sustained by the authority and the lavish\nsubventions of the Spanish government, and herein lay its strength and,\nas the event speedily proved, its fatal weakness. The inert and feeble\ncharacter of the Indians of that region offered little excuse for the\natrocious cruelties that had elsewhere marked the Spanish occupation;\nbut the paternal kindness of the stronger race was hardly less hurtful.\nThe natives were easily persuaded to become by thousands the dependents\nand servants of the missions. Conversion went on apace. At the end of\nsixty-five years from the founding of the missions their twenty-one\nstations numbered a Christian native population of more than thirty\nthousand, and were possessed of magnificent wealth, agricultural and\ncommercial. In that very year (1834) the long-intended purpose of the\ngovernment to release the Indians from their almost slavery under the\nmissions, and to distribute the vast property in severalty, was put in\nforce. In eight years the more than thirty thousand Catholic Indians had\ndwindled to less than five thousand; the enormous estates of the\nmissions were dissipated; the converts lapsed into savagery and\npaganism.\n\nMeanwhile the Spanish population had gone on slowly increasing. In the\nyear 1840, seventy years from the Spanish occupancy, it had risen to\nnearly six thousand; but it was a population the spiritual character of\nwhich gave little occasion of boasting to the Spanish church. Tardy and\nfeeble efforts had been instituted to provide it with an organized\nparish ministry, when the supreme and exclusive control of that country\nceased from the hands that so long had held it. \"The vineyard was taken\naway, and given to other husbandmen.\" In the year 1848 California was\nannexed to the United States.\n\nThis condensed story of Spanish Christianity within the present\nboundaries of the United States is absurdly brief compared with the vast\nextent of space, the three centuries of time, and what seemed at one\ntime the grandeur of results involved in it. But in truth it has\nstrangely little connection with the extant Christianity of our country.\nIt is almost as completely severed from historical relation with the\nchurch of the present day as the missions of the Greenlanders in the\ncenturies before Columbus. If we distinguish justly between the\nChristian work and its unchristian and almost satanic admixtures, we can\njoin without reserve both in the eulogy and in the lament with which the\nCatholic historian sums up his review: \"It was a glorious work, and the\nrecital of it impresses us by the vastness and success of the toil. Yet,\nas we look around to-day, we can find nothing of it that remains. Names\nof saints in melodious Spanish stand out from maps in all that section\nwhere the Spanish monk trod, toiled, and died. A few thousand Christian\nIndians, descendants of those they converted and civilized, still\nsurvive in New Mexico and Arizona, and that is all.\"[15:1]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7:1] Helps, \"Spanish Conquest in America,\" vol. i., p. 234, American\nedition.\n\n[8:1] Helps, \"Spanish Conquest in America,\" vol. i., p. 235; also p.\n355, where the grotesquely horrible document is given in full.\n\nIn the practical prosecution of this scheme of evangelization, it was\nfound necessary to the due training of the Indians in the holy faith\nthat they should be enslaved, whether or no. It was on this religious\nconsideration, clearly laid down in a report of the king's chaplains,\nthat the atrocious system of _encomiendas_ was founded.\n\n[15:1] \"The Roman Catholic Church in the United States,\" by Professor\nThomas O'Gorman (vol. ix., American Church History Series), p. 112.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE PROJECT OF FRENCH EMPIRE AND EVANGELIZATION--ITS WIDE AND RAPID\nSUCCESS--ITS SUDDEN EXTINCTION.\n\n\nFor a full century, from the discovery of the New World until the first\neffective effort at occupation by any other European people, the Spanish\nchurch and nation had held exclusive occupancy of the North American\ncontinent. The Spanish enterprises of conquest and colonization had been\ncarried forward with enormous and unscrupulous energy, and alongside of\nthem and involved with them had been borne the Spanish chaplaincies and\nmissions, sustained from the same treasury, in some honorable instances\nbravely protesting against the atrocities they were compelled to\nwitness, in other instances implicated in them and sharing the bloody\nprofits of them. But, unquestionable as was the martial prowess of the\nSpanish soldier and adventurer, and the fearless devotion of the Spanish\nmissionary, there appears nothing like systematic planning in all these\nimmense operations. The tide of conquest flowed in capricious courses,\naccording as it was invited by hopes of gold or of a passage to China,\nor of some phantom of a Fountain of Youth or a city of Quivira or a\nGilded Man; and it seemed in general to the missionary that he could not\ndo else than follow in the course of conquest.\n\nIt is wholly characteristic of the French people that its entering at\nlast upon enterprises of colonization and missions should be with large\nforecasting of the future and with the methods of a grand strategy.\n\nWe can easily believe that the famous \"Bull of Partition\" of Pope\nAlexander VI. was not one of the hindrances that so long delayed the\nbeginnings of a New France in the West. Incessant dynastic wars with\nnear neighbors, the final throes of the long struggle between the crown\nand the great vassals, and finally the religious wars that culminated in\nthe awful slaughter of St. Bartholomew's, and ended at the close of the\ncentury with the politic conversion and the coronation of Henry\nIV.--these were among the causes that had held back the great nation\nfrom distant undertakings. But thoughts of great things to be achieved\nin the New World had never for long at a time been absent from the minds\nof Frenchmen. The annual visits of the Breton fishing-fleets to the\nbanks of Newfoundland kept in mind such rights of discovery as were\nalleged by France, and kept attention fixed in the direction of the\ngreat gulf and river of St. Lawrence. Long before the middle of the\nsixteenth century Jacques Cartier had explored the St. Lawrence beyond\nthe commanding position which he named Montreal, and a royal commission\nhad issued, under which he was to undertake an enterprise of \"discovery,\nsettlement, and the conversion of the Indians.\" But it was not till the\nyear 1608 that the first permanent French settlement was effected. With\nthe _coup d'oeil_ of a general or the foresight of a prophet,\nChamplain, the illustrious first founder of French empire in America, in\n1608 fixed the starting-point of it at the natural fortress of Quebec.\nHow early the great project had begun to take shape in the leading minds\nof the nation it may not be easy to determine. It was only after the\nadventurous explorations of the French pioneers, traders, and\nfriars--men of like boundless enthusiasm and courage--had been crowned\nby the achievement of La Salle, who first of men traversed the two great\nwaterways of the continent from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of\nMexico, that the amazing possibilities of it were fully revealed. But,\nwhosesoever scheme it was, a more magnificent project of empire, secular\nand spiritual, has never entered into the heart of man. It seems to have\nbeen native to the American soil, springing up in the hearts of the\nFrench pioneer explorers themselves;[18:1] but by its grandeur, and at\nthe same time its unity, it was of a sort to delight the souls of Sully\nand Richelieu and of their masters. Under thin and dubious claims by\nright of discovery, through the immense energy and daring of her\nexplorers, the heroic zeal of her missionaries, and not so much by the\nprowess of her soldiers as by her craft in diplomacy with savage tribes,\nFrance was to assert and make good her title to the basin of the St.\nLawrence and the lakes, and the basin of the Mississippi and the Gulf of\nMexico. From the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the\nMississippi, through the core of the continent, was to be drawn a cordon\nof posts, military, commercial, and religious, with other outlying\nstations at strategic points both eastward and westward. The only\nexternal interference with this scheme that could be apprehended at its\ninception was from the Spanish colonies, already decaying and shrinking\nwithin their boundaries to the west and to the southeast, and from a\npuny little English settlement started only a year before, with a\ndoubtful hold on life, on the bank of the James River. A dozen years\nlater a pitiably feeble company of Pilgrims shall make their landing at\nPlymouth to try the not hopeful experiment of living in the wilderness,\nand a settlement of Swedes in Delaware and of Hollanders on the Hudson\nshall be added to the incongruous, unconcerted, mutually jealous\nplantations that begin to take root along the Atlantic seaboard. Not\nonly grandeur and sagacity of conception, but success in achievement, is\nillustrated by the comparative area occupied by the three great European\npowers on the continent of North America at the end of a century and a\nhalf from the founding of Quebec in 1608. Dividing the continent into\ntwenty-five equal parts, the French claimed and seemed to hold firmly in\npossession twenty parts, the Spanish four parts, and the English one\npart.[19:1]\n\nThe comparison between the Spanish and the French methods of\ncolonization and missions in America is at almost every point honorable\nto the French. Instead of a greedy scramble after other men's property\nin gold and silver, the business basis of the French enterprises was to\nconsist in a widely organized and laboriously prosecuted traffic in\nfurs. Instead of a series of desultory and savage campaigns of conquest,\nthe ferocity of which was aggravated by the show of zeal for the kingdom\nof righteousness and peace, was a large-minded and far-sighted scheme of\nempire, under which remote and hostile tribes were to be combined by\nties of mutual interest and common advantage. And the missions, instead\nof following servilely in the track of bloody conquest to assume the\ntutelage of subjugated and enslaved races, were to share with the\nsoldier and the trader the perilous adventures of exploration, and not\nso much to be supported and defended as to be themselves the support and\nprotection of the settlements, through the influence of Christian love\nand self-sacrifice over the savage heart. Such elements of moral\ndignity, as well as of imperial grandeur, marked the plans for the\nFrench occupation of North America.\n\nTo a wonderful extent those charged with this enterprise were worthy of\nthe task. Among the military and civil leaders of it, from Champlain to\nMontcalm, were men that would have honored the best days of French\nchivalry. The energy and daring of the French explorers, whether traders\nor missionaries, have not been equaled in the pioneer work of other\nraces. And the annals of Christian martyrdom may be searched in vain for\nmore heroic examples of devotion to the work of the gospel than those\nwhich adorn the history of the French missions in North America. What\nmagnificent results might not be expected from such an enterprise, in\nthe hands of such men, sustained by the resources of the most powerful\nnation and national church in Christendom!\n\nFrom the founding of Quebec, in 1608, the expansion of the French\nenterprise was swift and vast. By the end of fifty years Quebec had been\nequipped with hospital, nunnery, seminary for the education of priests,\nall affluently endowed from the wealth of zealous courtiers, and served\nin a noble spirit of self-devotion by the choicest men and women that\nthe French church could furnish; besides these institutions, the\nadmirable plan of a training colony, at which converted Indians should\nbe trained to civilized life, was realized at Sillery, in the\nneighborhood. The sacred city of Montreal had been established as a base\nfor missions to the remoter west. Long in advance of the settlement at\nPlymouth, French Christianity was actively and beneficently busy among\nthe savages of eastern Maine, among the so-called \"neutral nations\" by\nthe Niagara, among the fiercely hostile Iroquois of northern New York,\nby Lake Huron and Lake Nipissing, and, with wonderful tokens of success,\nby the Falls of St. Mary. \"Thus did the religious zeal of the French\nbear the cross to the banks of the St. Mary and the confines of Lake\nSuperior, and look wistfully toward the homes of the Sioux in the valley\nof the Mississippi, five years before the New England Eliot had\naddressed the tribe of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston\nharbor.\"[21:1]\n\nThirty years more passed, bringing the story down to the memorable year\n1688. The French posts, military, commercial, and religious, had been\npushed westward to the head of Lake Superior. The Mississippi had been\ndiscovered and explored, and the colonies planted from Canada along its\nbanks and the banks of its tributaries had been met by the expeditions\nproceeding direct from France through the Gulf of Mexico. The claims of\nFrance in America included not only the vast domain of Canada, but a\nhalf of Maine, a half of Vermont, more than a half of New York, the\nentire valley of the Mississippi, and Texas as far as the Rio Bravo del\nNorte.[21:2] And these claims were asserted by actual and almost\nundisputed occupancy.\n\nThe seventy years that followed were years of \"storm and stress\" for the\nFrench colonies and missions. The widening areas occupied by the French\nand by the English settlers brought the rival establishments into nearer\nneighborhood, into sharper competition, and into bloody collision.\nSuccessive European wars--King William's War, Queen Anne's War (of the\nSpanish succession), King George's War (of the Austrian\nsuccession)--involved the dependencies of France and those of England in\nthe conflicts of their sovereigns. These were the years of terror along\nthe exposed northern frontier of English settlements in New England and\nNew York, when massacre and burning by bands of savages, under French\ninstigation and leadership, made the names of Haverhill and Deerfield\nand Schenectady memorable in American history, and when, in desperate\ncampaigns against the Canadian strongholds, the colonists vainly sought\nto protect themselves from the savages by attacking the centers from\nwhich the murderous forays were directed. But each successive treaty of\npeace between England and France confirmed and reconfirmed the French\nclaims to the main part of her American domain. The advances of French\nmissions and settlements continued southward and westward, in spite of\njealousy in European cabinets as the imposing magnitude of the plans of\nFrench empire became more distinctly disclosed, and in spite of the\nstruggles of the English colonies both North and South. When, on the 4th\nof July, 1754, Colonel George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity,\nnear the fork of the Ohio, to the French, \"in the whole valley of the\nMississippi, to its headsprings in the Alleghanies, no standard floated\nbut that of France.\"[22:1]\n\nThere seemed little reason to doubt that the French empire in America,\nwhich for a century and a half had gone on expanding and strengthening,\nwould continue to expand and strengthen for centuries to come. Sudden as\nlightning, in August, 1756, the Seven Years' War broke out on the other\nside of the globe. The treaty with which it ended, in February, 1763,\ntransferred to Great Britain, together with the Spanish territory of\nFlorida, all the French possessions in America, from the Arctic Ocean to\nthe Gulf of Mexico. \"As a dream when one awaketh,\" the magnificent\nvision of empire, spiritual and secular, which for so many generations\nhad occupied the imagination of French statesmen and churchmen, was\nrudely and forever dispelled. Of the princely wealth, the brilliant\ntalents, the unsurpassed audacity of adventure, the unequaled heroism of\ntoil and martyrdom expended on the great project, how strangely meager\nand evanescent the results! In the districts of Lower Canada there\nremain, indeed, the institutions of a French Catholic population; and\nthe aspect of those districts, in which the pledge of full liberty to\nthe dominant church has been scrupulously fulfilled by the British\ngovernment, may reasonably be regarded as an indication of what France\nwould have done for the continent in general. But within the present\ndomain of the United States the entire results of a century and a half\nof French Catholic colonization and evangelization may be summed up as\nfollows: In Maine, a thousand Catholic Indians still remain, to remind\none of the time when, as it is boldly claimed, the whole Indian\npopulation of that province were either converted or under Jesuit\ntraining.[23:1] In like manner, a scanty score of thousands of Catholic\nIndians on various reservations in the remote West represent the time\nwhen, at the end of the French domination, \"all the North American\nIndians were more or less extensively converted\" to Catholic\nChristianity, \"all had the gospel preached to them.\"[23:2] The splendid\nfruits of the missions among the Iroquois, from soil watered by the\nblood of martyrs, were wasted to nothing in savage intertribal wars.\nAmong the Choctaws and Chickasaws of the South and Southwest, among whom\nthe gospel was by and by to win some of its fairest trophies, the French\nmissionaries achieved no great success.[23:3] The French colonies from\nCanada, planted so prosperously along the Western rivers, dispersed,\nleaving behind them some straggling families. The abundant later growth\nof the Catholic Church in that region was to be from other seed and\nstock. The region of Louisiana alone, destined a generation later to be\nincluded within the boundaries of the great republic, retained\norganized communities of French descent and language; but, living as\nthey were in utter unbelief and contempt of religion and morality, it\nwould be an unjust reproach on Catholicism to call them Catholic. The\nwork of the gospel had got to be begun from the foundation. Nevertheless\nit is not to be doubted that remote memories or lingering traditions of\na better age survived to aid the work of those who by and by should\nenter in to rebuild the waste places.[24:1]\n\nThere are not a few of us, wise after the event, who recognize a final\ncause of this surprising and almost dramatic failure, in the manifest\nintent of divine Providence that the field of the next great empire in\nthe world's history should not become the exclusive domain of an\nold-world monarchy and hierarchy; but the immediate efficient causes of\nit are not so obvious. This, however, may justly be said: some of the\nseeming elements of strength in the French colonization proved to be\nfatal elements of weakness.\n\n1. The French colonies had the advantage of royal patronage,\nendowment,[24:2] and protection, and of unity of counsel and direction.\nThey were all parts of one system, under one control. And their centers\nof vitality, head and heart, were on the other side of the sea.\nSubsisting upon the strength of the great monarchy, they must needs\nshare its fortunes, evil as well as good. When, after the reverses of\nFrance in the Seven Years' War, it became necessary to accept hard terms\nof peace, the superb framework of empire in the West fell to the\ndisposal of the victors. \"America,\" said Pitt, \"was conquered in\nGermany.\"\n\n2. The business basis of the French colonies, being that of trade with\nthe Indians rather than a self-supporting agriculture, favored the swift\nexpansion of these colonies and their wide influence among the Indians.\nScattered companies of fur-traders would be found here and there,\nwherever were favorable points for traffic, penetrating deeply into the\nwilderness and establishing friendly business relations with the\nsavages. It has been observed that the Romanic races show an alacrity\nfor intermarriage with barbarous tribes that is not to be found in the\nTeutonic. The result of such relations is ordinarily less the elevating\nof the lower race than the dragging down of the higher; but it tends for\nthe time to give great advantage in maintaining a powerful political\ninfluence over the barbarians. Thus it was that the French, few in\nnumber, covered almost the breadth of the continent with their\nformidable alliances; and these alliances were the offensive and\ndefensive armor in which they trusted, but they were also their peril.\nClose alliance with one savage clan involved war with its enemies. It\nwas an early misfortune of the French settlers that their close friendly\nrelations with their Huron neighbors embattled against them the\nfiercest, bravest, and ablest of the Indian tribes, the confederacy of\nthe Six Nations, which held, with full appreciation of its strategic\nimportance, the command of the exits southward from the valley of the\nSt. Lawrence. The fierce jealousy of the Iroquois toward the allies of\ntheir hereditary antagonists, rather than any good will toward white\nsettlers of other races, made them an effectual check upon French\nencroachments upon the slender line of English, Dutch, and Swedish\nsettlements that stretched southward from Maine along the Atlantic\ncoast.\n\n3. In one aspect it was doubtless an advantage to the French missions in\nAmerica that the sharp sectarian competitions between the different\nclerical orders resulted finally in the missions coming almost\nexclusively under the control of the Jesuit society. This result insured\nto the missions the highest ability in administration and direction,\nample resources of various sorts, and a force of missionaries whose\npersonal virtues have won for them unstinted eulogy even from unfriendly\nsources--men the ardor of whose zeal was rigorously controlled by a more\nthan martial severity of religious discipline. But it would be uncandid\nin us to refuse attention to those grave charges against the society\nbrought by Catholic authorities and Catholic orders, and so enforced as,\nafter long and acrimonious controversy, to result in the expulsion of\nthe society from almost every nation of Catholic Europe, in its being\nstigmatized by Pope Benedict XIV., in 1741, as made up of \"disobedient,\ncontumacious, captious, and reprobate persons,\" and at last in its being\nsuppressed and abolished by Pope Clement XIV., in 1773, as a nuisance to\nChristendom. We need, indeed, to make allowance for the intense\nanimosity of sectarian strife among the various Catholic orders in which\nthe charges against the society were engendered and unrelentingly\nprosecuted; but after all deductions it is not credible that the almost\nuniversal odium in which it was held was provoked solely by its virtues.\nAmong the accusations against the society which seem most clearly\nsubstantiated these two are likely to be concerned in that \"brand of\nultimate failure which has invariably been stamped on all its most\npromising schemes and efforts\":[26:1] first, a disposition to compromise\nthe essential principles of Christianity by politic concessions to\nheathenism, so that the successes of the Jesuit missions are magnified\nby reports of alleged conversions that are conversions only in name and\noutward form; second, a constantly besetting propensity to political\nintrigue.[27:1] It is hardly to be doubted that both had their part in\nthe prodigious failure of the French Catholic missions and settlements\nwithin the present boundaries of the United States.\n\n4. The conditions which favored the swift and magnificent expansion of\nthe French occupation were unfavorable to the healthy natural growth of\npermanent settlements. A post of soldiers, a group of cabins of trappers\nand fur-traders, and a mission of nuns and celibate priests, all\ntogether give small promise of rapid increase of population. It is\nrather to the fact that the French settlements, except at the seaboard,\nwere constituted so largely of these elements, than to any alleged\nsterility of the French stock, that the fatal weakness of the French\noccupation is to be ascribed. The lack of French America was men. The\npopulation of Canada in 1759, according to census, was about eighty-two\nthousand;[27:2] that of New England in 1754 is estimated at four hundred\nand twenty-five thousand. \"The white population of five, or perhaps even\nof six, of the American provinces was greater singly than that of all\nCanada, and the aggregate in America exceeded that in Canada\nfourteenfold.\"[27:3] The same sign of weakness is recognized at the\nother extremity of the cordon of French settlements. The vast region of\nLouisiana is estimated, at fifty years from its colonization, at one\ntenth of the strength of the coeval province of Pennsylvania.[27:4]\n\nUnder these hopeless conditions the French colonies had not even the\nalternative of keeping the peace. The state of war was forced by the\nmother countries. There was no recourse for Canada except to her savage\nallies, won for her through the influence of the missionaries.\n\nIt is justly claimed that in the mind of such early leaders as Champlain\nthe dominant motive of the French colonization was religious; but in the\ncruel position into which the colony was forced it was almost inevitable\nthat the missions should become political. It was boasted in their\nbehalf that they had taught the Indians \"to mingle Jesus Christ and\nFrance together in their affections.\"[28:1] The cross and the lilies\nwere blazoned together as the sign of French dominion. The missionary\nbecame frequently, and sometimes quite undisguisedly, a political agent.\nIt was from the missions that the horrible murderous forays upon\ndefenseless villages proceeded, which so often marked the frontier line\nof New England and New York with fire and blood. It is one of the most\nunhappy of the results of that savage warfare that in the minds of the\ncommunities that suffered from it the Jesuit missionary came to be\nlooked upon as accessory to these abhorrent crimes. Deeply is it to be\nlamented that men with such eminent claims on our admiration and\nreverence should not be triumphantly clear of all suspicion of such\ncomplicity. We gladly concede the claim[28:2] that the proof of the\ncomplicity is not complete; we could welcome some clear evidence in\ndisproof of it--some sign of a bold and indignant protest against these\ncrimes; we could wish that the Jesuit historian had not boasted of these\natrocities as proceeding from the fine work of his brethren,[29:1] and\nthat the antecedents of the Jesuits as a body, and their declared\nprinciples of \"moral theology,\" were such as raise no presumption\nagainst them even in unfriendly minds. But we must be content with\nthankfully acknowledging that divine change which has made it impossible\nlonger to boast of or even justify such deeds, and which leaves no\nground among neighbor Christians of the present day for harboring mutual\nsuspicions which, to the Christian ministers of French and English\nAmerica of two hundred years ago and less, it was impossible to repress.\n\nI have spoken of the complete extinction within the present domain of\nthe United States of the magnificent beginnings of the projected French\nCatholic Church and empire. It is only in the most recent years, since\nthe Civil War, that the results of the work inaugurated in America by\nChamplain begin to reappear in the field of the ecclesiastical history\nof the United States. The immigration of Canadian French Catholics into\nthe northern tier of States has already grown to considerable volume,\nand is still growing in numbers and in stability and strength, and adds\na new and interesting element to the many factors that go to make up the\nAmerican church.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[18:1] So Parkman.\n\n[19:1] Bancroft's \"United States,\" vol. iv., p. 267.\n\n[21:1] Bancroft's \"United States,\" vol. iii., p. 131.\n\n[21:2] _Ibid._, p. 175.\n\n[22:1] Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 121.\n\n[23:1] Bishop O'Gorman, \"The Roman Catholic Church in the United\nStates,\" p. 136.\n\n[23:2] _Ibid._, pp. 191-193.\n\n[23:3] _Ibid._, p. 211.\n\n[24:1] See O'Gorman, chaps. ix.-xiv., xx.\n\n[24:2] Mr. Bancroft, describing the \"sad condition\" of La Salle's colony\nat Matagorda after the wreck of his richly laden store-ship, adds that\n\"even now this colony possessed, from the bounty of Louis XIV., more\nthan was contributed by all the English monarchs together for the twelve\nEnglish colonies on the Atlantic. Its number still exceeded that of the\ncolony of Smith in Virginia, or of those who embarked in the\n'Mayflower'\" (vol. iii., p. 171).\n\n[26:1] Dr. R. F. Littledale, in \"Encyclopaedia Britannica,\" vol. xiii.,\npp. 649-652.\n\n[27:1] Both these charges are solemnly affirmed by the pope in the bull\nof suppression of the society (Dr. R. F. Littledale, in \"Encyclopaedia\nBritannica,\" vol. xiii., p. 655).\n\n[27:2] Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 320.\n\n[27:3] _Ibid._, pp. 128, 129.\n\n[27:4] The contrast is vigorously emphasized by Mr. Bancroft: \"Such was\nLouisiana more than a half-century after the first attempt at\ncolonization by La Salle. Its population may have been five thousand\nwhites and half that number of blacks. Louis XIV. had fostered it with\npride and liberal expenditures; an opulent merchant, famed for his\nsuccessful enterprise, assumed its direction; the Company of the\nMississippi, aided by boundless but transient credit, had made it the\nfoundation of their hopes; and, again, Fleury and Louis XV. had sought\nto advance its fortunes. Priests and friars, dispersed through nations\nfrom Biloxi to the Dahcotas, propitiated the favor of the savages; but\nstill the valley of the Mississippi was nearly a wilderness. All its\npatrons--though among them it counted kings and ministers of state--had\nnot accomplished for it in half a century a tithe of the prosperity\nwhich within the same period sprang naturally from the benevolence of\nWilliam Penn to the peaceful settlers on the Delaware\" (vol. iii., p.\n369).\n\n[28:1] \"Encyclopaedia Britannica,\" vol. xiii., p. 654.\n\n[28:2] Bishop O'Gorman, pp. 137-142.\n\n[29:1] Bancroft, vol. iii., pp. 187, 188.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nANTECEDENTS OF PERMANENT CHRISTIAN COLONIZATION--THE DISINTEGRATION OF\nCHRISTENDOM--CONTROVERSIES--PERSECUTIONS.\n\n\nWe have briefly reviewed the history of two magnificent schemes of\nsecular and spiritual empire, which, conceived in the minds of great\nstatesmen and churchmen, sustained by the resources of the mightiest\nkingdoms of that age, inaugurated by soldiers of admirable prowess,\nexplorers of unsurpassed boldness and persistence, and missionaries\nwhose heroic faith has canonized them in the veneration of Christendom,\nhave nevertheless come to naught.\n\nWe turn now to observe the beginnings, coinciding in time with those of\nthe French enterprise, of a series of disconnected plantations along the\nAtlantic seaboard, established as if at haphazard, without plan or\nmutual preconcert, of different languages and widely diverse Christian\ncreeds, depending on scanty private resources, unsustained by\ngovernmental arms or treasuries, but destined, in a course of events\nwhich no human foresight could have calculated, to come under the\nplastic influence of a single European power, to be molded according to\nthe general type of English polity, and to become heir to English\ntraditions, literature, and language. These mutually alien and even\nantagonistic communities were to be constrained, by forces superior to\nhuman control, first into confederation and then into union, and to\noccupy the breadth of the new continent as a solid and independent\nnation. The history reads like a fulfillment of the apocalyptic imagery\nof a rock hewn from the mountain without hands, moving on to fill the\nearth.\n\nLooking back after the event, we find it easy to trace the providential\npreparations for this great result. There were few important events in\nthe course of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that did not\nhave to do with it; but the most obvious of these antecedents are to be\nfound in _controversies_ and _persecutions_.\n\nThe protest of northern Europe against the abuses and corruptions\nprevailing in the Roman Church was articulated in the Augsburg\nConfession. Over against it were framed the decrees of the Council of\nTrent. Thus the lines were distinctly drawn and the warfare between\ncontending principles was joined. Those who fondly dreamed of a\npermanently united and solid Protestantism to withstand its powerful\nantagonist were destined to speedy and inevitable disappointment. There\nhave been many to deplore that so soon after the protest of Augsburg was\nset forth as embodying the common belief of Protestants new parties\nshould have arisen protesting against the protest. The ordinance of the\nLord's Supper, instituted as a sacrament of universal Christian\nfellowship, became (as so often before and since) the center of\ncontention and the badge of mutual alienation. It was on this point that\nZwingli and the Swiss parted from Luther and the Lutherans; on the same\npoint, in the next generation of Reformers, John Calvin, attempting to\nmediate between the two contending parties, became the founder of still\na third party, strong not only in the lucid and logical doctrinal\nstatements in which it delighted, but also in the possession of a\ndefinite scheme of republican church government which became as\ndistinctive of the Calvinistic or \"Reformed\" churches as their doctrine\nof the Supper. It was at a later epoch still that those insoluble\nquestions which press most inexorably for consideration when theological\nthought and study are most serious and earnest--the questions that\nconcern the divine sovereignty in its relation to human freedom and\nresponsibility--arose in the Catholic Church to divide Jesuit from\nDominican and Franciscan, and in the Reformed churches to divide the\nArminians from the disciples of Gomar and Turretin. All these divisions\namong the European Christians of the seventeenth century were to have\ntheir important bearing on the planting of the Christian church in\nAmerica.\n\nIn view of the destined predominance of English influence in the\nseaboard colonies of America, the history of the divisions of the\nChristian people of England is of preeminent importance to the\nbeginnings of the American church. The curiously diverse elements that\nentered into the English Reformation, and the violent vicissitudes that\nmarked the course of it, were all represented in the parties existing\namong English Christians at the period of the planting of the colonies.\n\nThe political and dynastic character of the movements that detached the\nEnglish hierarchy from the Roman see had for one inevitable result to\nleaven the English church as a lump with the leaven of Herod. That\nconsiderable part of the clergy and people that moved to and fro,\nwithout so much as the resistance of any very formidable _vis inertiae_,\nwith the change of the monarch or of the monarch's caprice, might leave\nthe student of the history of those times in doubt as to whether they\nbelonged to the kingdom of heaven or to the kingdom of this world. But,\nhowever severe the judgment that any may pass upon the character and\nmotives of Henry VIII. and of the councilors of Edward, there will\nhardly be any seriously to question that the movements directed by these\nmen soon came to be infused with more serious and spiritual influences.\nThe Lollardy of Wycliffe and his fellows in the fourteenth century had\nbeen severely repressed and driven into \"occult conventicles,\" but had\nnot been extinguished; the Bible in English, many times retouched after\nWycliffe's days, and perfected by the refugees at Geneva from the Marian\npersecutions, had become a common household book; and those exiles\nthemselves, returning from the various centers of fervid religious\nthought and feeling in Holland and Germany and Switzerland, had brought\nwith them an augmented spiritual faith, as well as intensified and\nsharply defined convictions on the questions of theology and church\norder that were debated by the scholars of the Continent. It was\nimpossible that the diverse and antagonist elements thus assembled\nshould not work on one another with violent reactions. By the beginning\nof the seventeenth century not less than four categories would suffice\nto classify the people of England according to their religious\ndifferences. First, there were those who still continued to adhere to\nthe Roman see. Secondly, those who, either from conviction or from\nexpediency or from indifference, were content with the state church of\nEngland in the shape in which Elizabeth and her parliaments had left it;\nthis class naturally included the general multitude of Englishmen,\nreligious, irreligious, and non-religious. Thirdly, there were those\nwho, not refusing their adhesion to the national church as by law\nestablished, nevertheless earnestly desired to see it more completely\npurified from doctrinal errors and practical corruptions, and who\nqualified their conformity to it accordingly. Fourthly, there were the\nfew who distinctly repudiated the national church as a false church,\ncoming out from her as from Babylon, determined upon \"reformation\nwithout tarrying for any.\" Finally, following upon these, more radical,\nnot to say more logical, than the rest, came a fifth party, the\nfollowers of George Fox. Not one of these five parties but has valid\nclaims, both in its principles and in its membership, on the respect of\nhistory; not one but can point to its saints and martyrs; not one but\nwas destined to play a quite separate and distinct and highly important\npart in the planting of the church of Christ in America. They are\ndesignated, for convenience' sake, as the Catholics, the Conformists,\nthe Puritans or Reformists, the Separatists (of whom were the Pilgrims),\nand the Quakers.\n\nSuch a Christendom was it, so disorganized, divided, and subdivided into\nparties and sects, which was to furnish the materials for the peopling\nof the new continent with a Christian population. It would seem that the\nsame \"somewhat not ourselves,\" which had defeated in succession the\nplans of two mighty nations to subject the New World to a single\nhierarchy, had also provided that no one form or organization of\nChristianity should be exclusive or even dominant in the occupation of\nthe American soil. From one point of view the American colonies will\npresent a sorry aspect. Schism, mutual alienation, antagonism,\ncompetition, are uncongenial to the spirit of the gospel, which seeks\n\"that they all may be one.\" And yet the history of the church has\ndemonstrated by many a sad example that this offense \"must needs come.\"\nNo widely extended organization of church discipline in exclusive\noccupation of any country has ever long avoided the intolerable\nmischiefs attendant on spiritual despotism. It was a shock to the hopes\nand the generous sentiments of those who had looked to see one undivided\nbody of a reformed church erected over against the medieval church,\nfrom the corruptions of which they had revolted, when they saw\nProtestantism go asunder into the several churches of the Lutheran and\nthe Reformed confessions; there are many even now to deplore it as a\ndisastrous set-back to the progress of the kingdom of Christ. But in the\ncalmness of our long retrospect it is easy for us to recognize that\nwhatever jurisdiction should have been established over an undivided\nProtestant church would inevitably have proved itself, in no long time,\njust such a yoke as neither the men of that time nor their fathers had\nbeen able to bear. Fifteen centuries of church history have not been\nwasted if thereby the Christian people have learned that the pursuit of\nChristian unity through administrative or corporate or diplomatic union\nis following the wrong road, and that the one Holy Catholic Church is\nnot the corporation of saints, but their communion.\n\nThe new experiment of church life that was initiated in the colonization\nof America is still in progress. The new States were to be planted not\nonly with diverse companies from the Old World, but with all the\ndefinitely organized sects by which the map of Christendom was at that\ntime variegated, to which should be added others of native origin.\nNotwithstanding successive \"booms\" now of one and then of another, it\nwas soon to become obvious to all that no one of these mutually jealous\nsects was to have any exclusive predominance, even over narrow precincts\nof territory. The old-world state churches, which under the rule, _cujus\nregio ejus religio_, had been supreme and exclusive each in its\njurisdiction, were to find themselves side by side and mingled through\nthe community on equal terms with those over whom in the old country\nthey had domineered as dissenters, or whom perhaps they had even\npersecuted as heretics or as Antichrist. Thus placed, they were to be\ntrained by the discipline of divine Providence and by the grace of the\nHoly Spirit from persecution to toleration, from toleration to mutual\nrespect, and to cooeperation in matters of common concern in the\nadvancement of the kingdom of Christ. What further remains to be tried\nis the question whether, if not the sects, then the Christian hearts in\neach sect, can be brought to take the final step from mutual respect to\nmutual love, \"that we henceforth, speaking truth in love, may grow up in\nall things into him, which is the head, even Christ; from whom all the\nbody fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint\nsupplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part,\nshall make the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in\nlove.\" Unless we must submit to those philosophers who forbid us to find\nin history the evidences of final cause and providential design, we may\nsurely look upon this as a worthy possible solution of the mystery of\nProvidence in the planting of the church in America in almost its\nultimate stage of schism--that it is the purpose of its Head, out of the\nmutual attrition of the sects, their disintegration and comminution, to\nbring forth such a demonstration of the unity and liberty of the\nchildren of God as the past ages of church history have failed to show.\n\nThat mutual intolerance of differences in religious belief which, in the\nseventeenth century, was, throughout Christendom, coextensive with\nreligious earnestness had its important part to play in the colonization\nof America. Of the persecutions and oppressions which gave direct\nimpulse to the earliest colonization of America, the most notable are\nthe following: (1) the persecution of the English Puritans in the reigns\nof James I. and Charles I., ending with the outbreak of the civil war in\n1642; (2) the persecution of the English Roman Catholics during the same\nperiod; (3) the persecution of the English Quakers during the\ntwenty-five years of Charles II. (1660-85); (4) the persecution of the\nFrench Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685); (5)\nthe disabilities suffered by the Presbyterians of the north of Ireland\nafter the English Revolution (1688); (6) the ferocious ravaging of the\nregion of the Rhenish Palatinate by the armies of Louis XIV. in the\nearly years of the seventeenth century; (7) the cruel expulsion of the\nProtestants of the archiepiscopal duchy of Salzburg (1731).\n\nBeyond dispute, the best and most potent elements in the settlement of\nthe seaboard colonies were the companies of earnestly religious people\nwho from time to time, under severe compulsion for conscience' sake,\ncame forth from the Old World as involuntary emigrants. Cruel wars and\npersecutions accomplished a result in the advancement of the kingdom of\nChrist which the authors of them never intended. But not these agencies\nalone promoted the great work. Peace, prosperity, wealth, and the hope\nof wealth had their part in it. The earliest successful enterprises of\ncolonization were indeed marked with the badge of Christianity, and\namong their promoters were men whose language and deeds nobly evince the\nChristian spirit; but the enterprises were impelled and directed by\ncommercial or patriotic considerations. The immense advantages that were\nto accrue from them to the world through the wider propagation of the\ngospel of Christ were not lost sight of in the projecting and organizing\nof the expeditions, nor were provisions for church and ministry omitted;\nbut these were incidental, not primary.\n\nThis story of the divine preparations carried forward through\nunconscious human agencies in different lands and ages for the founding\nof the American church is a necessary preamble to our history. The scene\nof the story is now to be shifted to the other side of the sea.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE PURITAN BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA--ITS DECLINE ALMOST TO\nEXTINCTION.\n\n\nThere is sufficient evidence that the three little vessels which on the\n13th of May, 1607, were moored to the trees on the bank of the James\nRiver brought to the soil of America the germ of a Christian church. We\nmay feel constrained to accept only at a large discount the pious\nofficial professions of King James I., and critically to scrutinize many\nof the statements of that brilliant and fascinating adventurer, Captain\nJohn Smith, whether concerning his friends or concerning his enemies or\nconcerning himself. But the beauty and dignity of the Christian\ncharacter shine unmistakable in the life of the chaplain to the\nexpedition, the Rev. Robert Hunt, and all the more radiantly for the\ndark and discouraging surroundings in which his ministry was to be\nexercised.\n\nFor the company which Captain Smith and that famous mariner, Captain\nBartholomew Gosnold, had by many months of labor and \"many a forgotten\npound\" of expense succeeded in recruiting for the enterprise was made up\nof most unhopeful material for the founding of a Christian colony. Those\nwere the years of ignoble peace with which the reign of James began; and\nthe glittering hopes of gold might well attract some of the brave men\nwho had served by sea or land in the wars of Elizabeth. But the last\nthirty years had furnished no instance of success, and many of\ndisastrous and sometimes tragical failure, in like attempts--the\nenterprises of Humphrey Gilbert, of Raleigh, of John White, of Gosnold\nhimself, and of Popham and Gorges. Even brave men might hesitate to\nvolunteer for the forlorn hope of another experiment at colonizing.\n\nThe little squadron had hardly set sail when the unfitness of the\nemigrants for their work began to discover itself. Lying weather-bound\nwithin sight of home, \"some few, little better than atheists, of the\ngreatest rank among them,\" were busying themselves with scandalous\nimputations upon the chaplain, then lying dangerously ill in his berth.\nAll through the four months' passage by way of the Canaries and the West\nIndia Islands discontents and dissensions prevailed. Wingfield, who had\nbeen named president of the colony, had Smith in irons, and at the\nisland of Nevis had the gallows set up for his execution on a charge of\nconspiracy, when milder counsels prevailed, and he was brought to\nVirginia, where he was tried and acquitted and his adversary mulcted in\ndamages.\n\nArrived at the place of settlement, the colonists set about the work of\nbuilding their houses, but found that their total number of one hundred\nand five was made up in the proportion of four carpenters to forty-eight\n\"gentlemen.\" Not inadequately provisioned for their work, they came\nrepeatedly almost to perishing through their sheer incapacity and\nunthrift, and their needless quarrels with one another and with the\nIndians. In five months one half of the company were dead. In January,\n1608, eight months from the landing, when the second expedition arrived\nwith reinforcements and supplies, only thirty-eight were surviving out\nof the one hundred and five, and of these the strongest were conspiring\nto seize the pinnace and desert the settlement.\n\nThe newcomers were no better than the first. They were chiefly\n\"gentlemen\" again, and goldsmiths, whose duty was to discover and refine\nthe quantities of gold that the stockholders in the enterprise were\nresolved should be found in Virginia, whether it was there or not. The\nship took back on her return trip a full cargo of worthless dirt.\n\nReinforcements continued to arrive every few months, the quality of\nwhich it might be unfair to judge simply from the disgusted complaints\nof Captain Smith. He begs the Company to send but thirty honest laborers\nand artisans, \"rather than a thousand such as we have,\" and reports the\nnext ship-load as \"fitter to breed a riot than to found a colony.\" The\nwretched settlement became an object of derision to the wits of London,\nand of sympathetic interest to serious minds. The Company, reorganized\nunder a new charter, was strengthened by the accession of some of the\nforemost men in England, including four bishops, the Earl of\nSouthampton, and Sir Francis Bacon. Appeals were made to the Christian\npublic in behalf of an enterprise so full of promise of the furtherance\nof the gospel. A fleet of nine ships was fitted out, carrying more than\nfive hundred emigrants, with ample supplies. Captain Smith, representing\nwhat there was of civil authority in the colony, had a brief struggle\nwith their turbulence, and recognized them as of the same sort with the\nformer companies, for the most part \"poor gentlemen, tradesmen,\nserving-men, libertines, and such like, ten times more fit to spoil a\ncommonwealth than either begin one or help to maintain one.\" When only\npart of this expedition had arrived, Captain Smith departed for England,\ndisabled by an accidental wound, leaving a settlement of nearly five\nhundred men, abundantly provisioned. \"It was not the will of God that\nthe new state should be formed of these materials.\"[41:1] In six months\nthe number of the colonists was reduced to sixty, and when relief\narrived it was reckoned that in ten days' longer delay they would have\nperished to the last man. With one accord the wretched remnant of the\ncolony, together with the latest comers, deserted, without a tear of\nregret, the scene of their misery. But their retreating vessels were met\nand turned back from the mouth of the river by the approaching ships of\nLord de la Warr with emigrants and supplies. Such were the first three\nunhappy and unhonored years of the first Christian colony on the soil of\nthe United States.\n\nOne almost shrinks from being assured that this worthless crew, through\nall these years of suicidal crime and folly, had been assiduous in\nreligious duties. First under an awning made of an old sail, seated upon\nlogs, with a rail nailed to two trees for a pulpit, afterward in a poor\nshanty of a church, \"that could neither well defend wind nor rain,\" they\n\"had daily common prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons,\nand every three months the holy communion, till their minister died\";\nand after that \"prayers daily, with an homily on Sundays, two or three\nyears, till more preachers came.\" The sturdy and terrible resolution of\nCaptain Smith, who in his marches through the wilderness was wont to\nbegin the day with prayer and psalm, and was not unequal to the duty,\nwhen it was laid on him, of giving Christian exhortation as well as\nrighteous punishment, and the gentle Christian influence of the Rev.\nRobert Hunt, were the salt that saved the colony from utterly perishing\nof its vices. It was not many months before the frail body of the\nchaplain sank under the hardships of pioneer life; he is commemorated by\nhis comrade, the captain, as \"an honest, religious, and courageous\ndivine, during whose life our factions were oft qualified, our wants and\ngreatest extremities so comforted that they seemed easy in comparison of\nwhat we endured after his memorable death.\" When, in 1609, in a nobler\nspirit than that of mere commercial enterprise, the reorganized Company,\nunder the new charter, was preparing the great reinforcement of five\nhundred to go out under Lord de la Warr as governor of the colony,\ncounsel was taken with Abbot, the Puritan Bishop of London, himself a\nmember of the Virginia Company, and Richard Buck was selected as a\nworthy successor to Robert Hunt in the office of chaplain. Such he\nproved himself. Sailing in advance of the governor, in the ship with Sir\nThomas Gates and Sir George Somers, and wrecked with them off the\nBermudas, he did not forget his duty in the \"plenty, peace, and ease\" of\nthat paradise. The ship's bell was rescued from the wreck to ring for\nmorning and evening prayer, and for the two sermons every Sunday. There\nwere births and funerals and a marriage in the shipwrecked company, and\nat length, when their makeshift vessel was ready, they embarked for\ntheir desired haven, there to find only the starving threescore\nsurvivors of the colony. They gathered together, a pitiable remnant, in\nthe church, where Master Buck \"made a zealous and sorrowful prayer\"; and\nat once, without losing a day, they embarked for a last departure from\nVirginia, but were met at the mouth of the river by the tardy ships of\nLord de la Warr. The next morning, Sunday, June 10, 1610, Lord de la\nWarr landed at the fort, where Gates had drawn up his forlorn platoon of\nstarving men to receive him. The governor fell on his knees in prayer,\nthen led the way to the church, and, after service and a sermon from\nthe chaplain, made an address, assuming command of the colony.\n\nArmed, under the new charter, with adequate authority, the new governor\nwas not slow in putting on the state of a viceroy. Among his first cares\nwas to provide for the external dignity of worship. The church, a\nbuilding sixty feet by twenty-four, built long enough before to be now\nin need of repairs, was put into good condition, and a brave sight it\nwas on Sundays to see the Governor, with the Privy Council and the\nLieutenant-General and the Admiral and the Vice-Admiral and the Master\nof the Horse, together with the body-guard of fifty halberdiers in fair\nred cloaks, commanded by Captain Edward Brewster, assembled for worship,\nthe governor seated in the choir in a green velvet chair, with a velvet\ncushion on a table before him. Few things could have been better adapted\nto convince the peculiar public of Jamestown that divine worship was\nindeed a serious matter. There was something more than the parade of\ngovernment manifested by his lordship in the few months of his reign;\nbut the inauguration of strong and effective control over the lazy,\ndisorderly, and seditious crowd to be dealt with at Jamestown was\nreserved for his successor, Sir Thomas Dale, who arrived in May, 1611,\nin company with the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, the \"apostle of Virginia.\"\n\nIt will not be possible for any to understand the relations of this\ncolony to the state of parties in England without distinctly recognizing\nthat the Puritans were not a party _against_ the Church of England, but\na party _in_ the Church of England. The Puritan party was the party of\nreform, and was strong in a deep fervor of religious conviction widely\ndiffused among people and clergy, and extending to the highest places of\nthe nobility and the episcopate. The anti-Puritan party was the\nconservative or reactionary party, strong in the _vis inertiae_, and in\nthe king's pig-headed prejudices and his monstrous conceit of\ntheological ability and supremacy in the church; strong also in a\nconsiderable adhesion and zealous cooeperation from among his nominees,\nthe bishops. The religious division was also a political one, the\nPuritans being known as the party of the people, their antagonists as\nthe court party. The struggle of the Puritans (as distinguished from the\ninconsiderable number of the Separatists) was for the maintenance of\ntheir rights within the church; the effort of their adversaries, with\nthe aid of the king's prerogative, was to drive or harry them out of the\nchurch. It is not to be understood that the two parties were as yet\norganized as such and distinctly bounded; but the two tendencies were\nplainly recognized, and the sympathies of leading men in church or state\nwere no secret.\n\nThe Virginia Company was a Puritan corporation.[44:1] As such, its\nmeetings and debates were the object of popular interest and of the\nroyal jealousy. Among its corporators were the brothers Sandys, sons of\nthe Puritan Archbishop of York, one of whom held the manor of Scrooby.\nOthers of the corporation were William Brewster, of Scrooby, and his son\nEdward. In the fleet of Sir Thomas Gates, May, 1609, were noted\nPuritans, one of whom, Stephen Hopkins, \"who had much knowledge in the\nScriptures and could reason well therein,\" was clerk to that \"painful\npreacher,\" but not strict conformist, Master Richard Buck. The intimate\nand sometimes official relations of the Virginia Company not only with\nleading representatives of the Puritan party, but with the Pilgrims of\nLeyden, whom they would gladly have received into their own colony, are\nmatter of history and of record. It admits of proof that there was a\nsteady purpose in the Company, so far as it was not thwarted by the king\nand the bishops of the court party, to hold their unruly and\nill-assorted colony under Puritan influences both of church and\ngovernment.[45:1] The fact throws light on the remoter as well as the\nnearer history of Virginia. Especially it throws light on the memorable\nadministration of Sir Thomas Dale, which followed hard upon the\ndeparture of Lord de la Warr and his body-guard in red cloaks.\n\nThe Company had picked their man with care--\"a man of good conscience\nand knowledge in divinity,\" and a soldier and disciplinarian proved in\nthe wars of the Low Countries--a very prototype of the great Cromwell.\nHe understood what manner of task he had undertaken, and executed it\nwithout flinching. As a matter of course--it was the way in that\ncolony--there was a conspiracy against his authority. There was no\nsecond conspiracy under him. Punishment was inflicted on the ringleaders\nso swift, so terrible, as to paralyze all future sedition. He put in\nforce, in the name of the Company, a code of \"Laws, Divine, Moral, and\nMartial,\" to which no parallel can be found in the severest legislation\nof New England. An invaluable service to the colony was the abolition of\nthat demoralizing socialism that had been enforced on the colonists, by\nwhich all their labor was to be devoted to the common stock. He gave out\nland in severalty, and the laborer enjoyed the fruits of his own\nindustry and thrift, or suffered the consequences of his laziness. The\nculture of tobacco gave the colony a currency and a staple of export.\n\nWith Dale was associated as chaplain Alexander Whitaker, son of the\nauthor of the Calvinistic Lambeth Articles, and brother of a Separatist\npreacher of London. What was his position in relation to church parties\nis shown by his letter to his cousin, the \"arch-Puritan,\" William Gouge,\nwritten after three years' residence in Virginia, urging that\nnonconformist clergymen should come over to Virginia, where no question\nwould be raised on the subject of subscription or the surplice. What\nmanner of man and minister he was is proved by a noble record of\nfaithful work. He found a true workfellow in Dale. When this\nstatesmanlike and soldierly governor founded his new city of Henrico up\nthe river, and laid out across the stream the suburb of Hope-in-Faith,\ndefended by Fort Charity and Fort Patience, he built there in sight from\nhis official residence the parsonage of the \"apostle of Virginia.\" The\ncourse of Whitaker's ministry is described by himself in a letter to a\nfriend: \"Every Sabbath day we preach in the forenoon and catechise in\nthe afternoon. Every Saturday, at night, I exercise in Sir Thomas Dale's\nhouse.\" But he and his fellow-clergymen did not labor without aid, even\nin word and doctrine. When Mr. John Rolfe was perplexed with questions\nof duty touching his love for Pocahontas, it was to the old soldier,\nDale, that he brought his burden, seeking spiritual counsel. And it was\nthis \"religious and valiant governor,\" as Whitaker calls him, this \"man\nof great knowledge in divinity, and of a good conscience in all things,\"\nthat \"labored long to ground the faith of Jesus Christ\" in the Indian\nmaiden, and wrote concerning her, \"Were it but for the gaining of this\none soul, I will think my time, toils, and present stay well spent.\"\n\nThe progress of the gospel in reclaiming the unhappy colony to\nChristian civilization varies with the varying fortunes of contending\nparties in England. Energetic efforts were made by the Company under\nSandys, the friend of Brewster, to send out worthy colonists; and the\ndelicate task of finding young women of good character to be shipped as\nwives to the settlers was undertaken conscientiously and successfully.\nGenerous gifts of money and land were contributed (although little came\nfrom them) for the endowment of schools and a college for the promotion\nof Christ's work among the white people and the red. But the course of\nevents on both sides of the sea may be best illustrated by a narrative\nof personal incidents.\n\nIn the year 1621, an East India Company's chaplain, the Rev. Patrick\nCopland, who perhaps deserves the title of the first English missionary\nin India, on his way back from India met, probably at the Canaries, with\nships bound for Virginia with emigrants. Learning from these something\nof the needs of the plantation, he stirred up his fellow-passengers on\nthe \"Royal James,\" and raised the sum of seventy pounds, which was paid\nto the treasurer of the Virginia Company; and, being increased by other\ngifts to one hundred and twenty-five pounds, was, in consultation with\nMr. Copland, appropriated for a free school to be called the \"East India\nSchool.\"\n\nThe affairs of the colony were most promising. It was growing in\npopulation and in wealth and in the institutions of a Christian\ncommonwealth. The territory was divided into parishes for the work of\nchurch and clergy. The stupid obstinacy of the king, against the\nremonstrances of the Company, perpetrated the crime of sending out a\nhundred convicts into the young community, extorting from Captain Smith\nthe protest that this act \"hath laid one of the finest countries of\nAmerica under the just scandal of being a mere hell upon earth.\" The\nsweepings of the London and Bristol streets were exported for servants.\nOf darker portent, though men perceived it not, was the landing of the\nfirst cargo of negro slaves. But so grateful was the Company for the\ngeneral prosperity of the colony that it appointed a thanksgiving sermon\nto be preached at Bow Church, April 17, 1622, by Mr. Copland, which was\nprinted under the title, \"Virginia's God Be Thanked.\" In July, 1622, the\nCompany, proceeding to the execution of a long-cherished plan, chose Mr.\nCopland rector of the college to be built at Henrico from the endowments\nalready provided, when news arrived of the massacre which, in March of\nthat year, swept away one half of the four thousand colonists. All such\nenterprises were at once arrested.\n\nIn 1624 the long contest of the king and the court party against the\nVirginia Company was ended by a violent exercise of the prerogative\ndissolving the Company, but not until it had established free\nrepresentative government in the colony. The revocation of the charter\nwas one of the last acts of James's ignoble reign. In 1625 he died, and\nCharles I. became king. In 1628 \"the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of\nprelates,\" William Laud, became Bishop of London, and in 1633 Archbishop\nof Canterbury. But the Puritan principles of duty and liberty already\nplanted in Virginia were not destined to be eradicated.\n\nFrom the year 1619, a settlement at Nansemond, near Norfolk, had\nprospered, and had been in relations of trade with New England. In 1642\nPhilip Bennett, of Nansemond, visiting Boston in his coasting vessel,\nbore with him a letter to the Boston church, signed by seventy-four\nnames, stating the needs of their great county, now without a pastor,\nand offering a maintenance to three good ministers if they could be\nfound. A little later William Durand, of the same county, wrote for\nhimself and his neighbors to John Davenport, of New Haven, to whom some\nof them had listened gladly in London (perhaps it was when he preached\nthe first annual sermon before the Virginia Company in 1621), speaking\nof \"a revival of piety\" among them, and urging the request that had been\nsent to the church in Boston. As result of this correspondence, three\neminently learned and faithful ministers of New England came to\nVirginia, bringing letters of commendation from Governor Winthrop. But\nthey found that Virginia, now become a royal colony, had no welcome for\nthem. The newly arrived royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, a man\nafter Laud's own heart, forbade their preaching; but the Catholic\ngovernor of Maryland sent them a free invitation, and one of them,\nremoving to Annapolis with some of the Virginia Puritans, so labored in\nthe gospel as to draw forth the public thanks of the legislative\nassembly.\n\nThe sequel of this story is a strange one. There must have been somewhat\nin the character and bearing of these silenced and banished ministers\nthat touched the heart of Thomas Harrison, the governor's chaplain. He\nmade a confession of his insincere dealings toward them: that while he\nhad been showing them \"a fair face\" he had privately used his influence\nto have them silenced. He himself began to preach in that earnest way of\nrighteousness, temperance, and judgment, which is fitted to make\ngovernors tremble, until Berkeley cast him out as a Puritan, saying that\nhe did not wish so grave a chaplain; whereupon Harrison crossed the\nriver to Nansemond, became pastor of the church, and mightily built up\nthe cause which he had sought to destroy.\n\nA few months later the Nansemond people had the opportunity of giving\nsuccor and hospitality to a shipwrecked company of nine people, who had\nbeen cast away, with loss of all their goods, in sailing from the\nBermudas to found a new settlement on one of the Bahamas. Among the\nparty was an aged and venerable man, that same Patrick Copland who\ntwenty-five years before had interested himself in the passing party of\nemigrants. This was indeed entertaining an angel. Mr. Copland had long\nbeen a nonconformist minister at the Bermudas, and he listened to the\ncomplaints that were made to him of the persecution to which the people\nwere subjected by the malignant Berkeley. A free invitation was given to\nthe Nansemond church to go with their guests to the new settlement of\nEleuthera, in which freedom of conscience and non-interference of the\nmagistrate with the church were secured by charter.[50:1] Mr. Harrison\nproceeded to Boston to take counsel of the churches over this\nproposition. The people were advised by their Boston brethren to remain\nin their lot until their case should become intolerable. Mr. Harrison\nwent on to London, where a number of things had happened since\nBerkeley's appointment. The king had ceased to be; but an order from the\nCouncil of State was sent to Berkeley, sharply reprimanding him for his\ncourse, and directing him to restore Mr. Harrison to his parish. But Mr.\nHarrison did not return. He fulfilled an honorable career as incumbent\nof a London parish, as chaplain to Henry Cromwell, viceroy of Ireland,\nand as a hunted and persecuted preacher in the evil days after the\nRestoration. But the \"poetic justice\" with which this curious dramatic\nepisode should conclude is not reached until Berkeley is compelled to\nsurrender his jurisdiction to the Commonwealth, and Richard Bennett, one\nof the banished Puritans of Nansemond, is chosen by the Assembly of\nBurgesses to be governor in his stead.[51:1]\n\nOf course this is a brief triumph. With the restoration of the Stuarts,\nBerkeley comes back into power as royal governor, and for many years\nafflicts the colony with his malignant Toryism. The last state is worse\nthan the first; for during the days of the Commonwealth old soldiers of\nthe king's army had come to Virginia in such numbers as to form an\nappreciable and not wholly admirable element in the population.\nSurrounded by such society, the governor was encouraged to indulge his\nnatural disposition to bigotry and tyranny. Under such a nursing father\nthe interests of the kingdom of Christ fared as might have been\nexpected. Rigorous measures were instituted for the suppression of\nnonconformity, Quaker preachers were severely dealt with, and clergymen,\nsuch as they were, were imposed upon the more or less reluctant\nparishes. But though the governor held the right of presentation, the\nvestry of each parish asserted and maintained the right of induction or\nof refusing to induct. Without the consent of these representatives of\nthe people the candidate could secure for himself no more than the\npeople should from year to year consent to allow him. It was the only\nprotection of the people from absolute spiritual despotism. The power\nmight be used to repel a too faithful pastor, but if there was sometimes\na temptation to this, the occasion was far more frequent for putting the\npeople's reprobation upon the unfaithful and unfit. The colony, growing\nin wealth and population, soon became infested with a rabble of\nworthless and scandalous priests. In a report which has been often\nquoted, Governor Berkeley, after giving account of the material\nprosperity of the colony, sums up, under date of 1671, the results of\nhis fostering care over its spiritual interests in these words: \"There\nare forty-eight parishes, and the ministers well paid. The clergy by my\nconsent would be better if they would pray oftener and preach less. But\nof all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us. But I thank\nGod there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not\nhave, these hundred years.\"\n\nThe scandal of the Virginia clergy went on from bad to worse. Whatever\ncould be done by the courage and earnestness of one man was done by Dr.\nBlair, who arrived in 1689 with limited powers as commissary of the\nBishop of London, and for more than fifty years struggled against\nadverse influences to recover the church from its degradation. He\nsucceeded in getting a charter for William and Mary College, but the\ngenerous endowments of the institution were wasted, and the college\nlanguished in doing the work of a grammar school. Something was\naccomplished in the way of discipline, though the cane of Governor\nNicholson over the back of an insolent priest was doubtless more\neffective than the commissary's admonitions. But discipline, while it\nmay do something toward abating scandals, cannot create life from the\ndead; and the church established in Virginia had hardly more than a name\nto live. Its best estate is described by Spotswood, the best of the\nroyal governors, when, looking on the outward appearance, he reported:\n\"This government is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under a due\nobedience to the royal authority and a gentlemanly conformity to the\nChurch of England.\" The poor man was soon to find how uncertain is the\npeace and tranquillity that is founded on \"a gentlemanly conformity.\"\nThe most honorable page in his record is the story of his effort for\nthe education of Indian children. His honest attempt at reformation in\nthe church brought him into collision not only with the worthless among\nthe clergy, but also on the one hand with the parish vestries, and on\nthe other hand with Commissary Blair. But all along the \"gentlemanly\nconformity\" was undisturbed. A parish of French Huguenots was early\nestablished in Henrico County, and in 1713 a parish of German exiles on\nthe Rappahannock, and these were expressly excepted from the Act of\nUniformity. Aside from these, the chief departures from the enforced\nuniformity of worship throughout the colony in the early years of the\neighteenth century were found in a few meetings of persecuted and\nvilified Quakers and Baptists. The government and clergy had little\nnotion of the significance of a slender stream of Scotch-Irish\nemigration which, as early as 1720, began to flow into the valley of the\nShenandoah. So cheap a defense against the perils that threatened from\nthe western frontier it would have been folly to discourage by odious\nreligious proscription. The reasonable anxiety of the clergy as to what\nmight come of this invasion of a sturdy and uncompromising Puritanism\nstruggled without permanent success against the obvious interest of the\ncommonwealth. The addition of this new and potent element to the\nChristian population of the seaboard colonies was part of the\nunrecognized preparation for the Great Awakening.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[41:1] Bancroft, vol. i., p. 138.\n\n[44:1] See the interesting demonstration of this point in articles by E.\nD. Neill in \"Hours at Home,\" vol. vi., pp. 22, 201.\n\nMr. Neill's various publications on the colonial history of Virginia and\nMaryland are of the highest value and authority. They include: \"The\nEnglish Colonization of America During the Seventeenth Century\";\n\"History of the Virginia Company\"; \"Virginia Vetusta\"; \"Virginia\nCarolorum\"; \"Terra Mariae; or, Threads of Maryland Colonial History\";\n\"The Founders of Maryland\"; \"Life of Patrick Copland.\"\n\n[45:1] It was customary for the Company, when a candidate was proposed\nfor a chaplaincy in the colony, to select a text for him and appoint a\nSunday and a church for a \"trial sermon\" from which they might judge of\nhis qualifications.\n\n[50:1] The project of Eleuthera is entitled to honorable mention in the\nhistory of religious liberty.\n\n[51:1] For fuller details concerning the Puritan character of the\nVirginia Company and of the early ministers of Virginia, see the\narticles of E. D. Neill, above referred to, in \"Hours at Home,\" vol. vi.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE NEIGHBOR COLONIES TO VIRGINIA--MARYLAND AND THE CAROLINAS.\n\n\nThe chronological order would require us at this point to turn to the\nDutch settlements on the Hudson River; but the close relations of\nVirginia with its neighbor colonies of Maryland and the Carolinas are a\nreason for taking up the brief history of these settlements in advance\nof their turn.\n\nThe occupation of Maryland dates from the year 1634. The period of bold\nand half-desperate adventure in making plantations along the coast was\npast. To men of sanguine temper and sufficient fortune and influence at\ncourt, it was now a matter of very promising and not too risky\nspeculation. To George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, one of the most\ninteresting characters at the court of James I., the business had\npeculiar fascination. He was in both the New England Company and the\nVirginia Company, and after the charter of the latter was revoked he was\none of the Provisional Council for the government of Virginia. Nothing\ndaunted by the ill luck of these companies, he tried colonizing on his\naccount in 1620, in what was represented to him as the genial soil and\nclimate of Newfoundland. Sending good money after bad, he was glad to\nget out of this venture at the end of nine years with a loss of thirty\nthousand pounds. In 1629 he sent home his children, and with a lady and\nservants and forty of his surviving colonists sailed for Jamestown,\nwhere his reception at the hands of the council and of his old Oxford\nfellow-student, Governor Pott, was not cordial. He could hardly have\nexpected that it would be. He was a recent convert to the Roman Catholic\nChurch, with a convert's zeal for proselyting, and he was of the court\nparty. Thus he was in antagonism to the Puritan colony both in politics\nand in religion. A formidable disturbing element he and his company\nwould have been in the already unquiet community. The authorities of the\ncolony were equal to the emergency. In answer to his lordship's\nannouncement of his purpose \"to plant and dwell,\" they gave him welcome\nto do so on the same terms with themselves, and proceeded to tender him\nthe oath of supremacy, the taking of which was flatly against his Roman\nprinciples. Baltimore suggested a mitigated form of the oath, which he\nwas willing to take; but the authorities \"could not imagine that so much\nlatitude was left for them to decline from the prescribed form\"; and his\nlordship sailed back to England, leaving in Virginia, in token of his\nintention to return, his servants and \"his lady,\" who, by the way, was\nnot the lawful wife of this conscientious and religious gentleman.\n\nReturned to London, he at once set in motion the powerful influences at\nhis command to secure a charter for a tract of land south of the James\nRiver, and when this was defeated by the energetic opposition of the\nfriends of Virginia, he succeeded in securing a grant of land north and\neast of the Potomac, with a charter bestowing on him and his heirs \"the\nmost ample rights and privileges ever conferred by a sovereign of\nEngland.\"[55:1] The protest of Virginia that it was an invasion of the\nformer grant to that colony was unavailing. The free-handed generosity\nwith which the Stuarts were in the habit of giving away what did not\nbelong to them rarely allowed itself to be embarrassed by the fear of\ngiving the same thing twice over to different parties.\n\nThe first Lord Baltimore died three months before the charter of\nMaryland received the great seal, but his son Cecilius took up the\nbusiness with energy and great liberality of investment. The cost of\nfitting out the first emigration was estimated at not less than forty\nthousand pounds. The company consisted of \"three hundred laboring men,\nwell provided in all things,\" headed by Leonard and George Calvert,\nbrothers of the lord proprietor, \"with very near twenty other gentlemen\nof very good fashion.\" Two earnest Jesuit priests were quietly added to\nthe expedition as it passed the Isle of Wight, but in general it was a\nProtestant emigration under Catholic patronage. It was stipulated in the\ncharter that all liege subjects of the English king might freely\ntransport themselves and their families to Maryland. To discriminate\nagainst any religious body in England would have been for the proprietor\nto limit his hope of rapid colonization and revenue and to embroil\nhimself with political enemies at home. His own and his father's\nintimate acquaintance with failure in the planting of Virginia and of\nNewfoundland had taught him what not to do in such enterprises. If the\nproprietor meant to succeed (and he _did_ mean to) he was shut up\nwithout alternative to the policy of impartial non-interference with\nreligious differences among his colonists, and the promotion of mutual\nforbearance among sects. Lord Baltimore may not have been a profound\npolitical philosopher nor a prophet of the coming era of religious\nliberty, but he was an adroit courtier, like his father before him, and\nhe was a man of practical good sense engaged in an enormous land\nspeculation in which his whole fortune was embarked, and he was not in\nthe least disposed to allow his religious predilections to interfere\nwith business. Nothing would have brought speedier ruin to his\nenterprise than to have it suspected, as his enemies were always ready\nto allege, that it was governed in the interest of the Roman Catholic\nChurch. Such a suspicion he took the most effective means of averting.\nHe kept his promises to his colonists in this matter in good faith, and\nhad his reward in the notable prosperity of his colony.[57:1]\n\nThe two priests of the first Maryland company began their work with\ncharacteristic earnestness and diligence. Finding no immediate access to\nthe Indians, they gave the more constant attention to their own\ncountrymen, both Catholic and Protestant, and were soon able to give\nthanks that by God's blessing on their labors almost all the Protestants\nof that year's arrival had been converted, besides many others. In 1640\nthe first-fruits of their mission work among the savages were gathered\nin; the chief of an Indian village on the Potomac nearly opposite Mount\nVernon, and his wife and child, were baptized with solemn pomp, in\nwhich the governor and secretary of the colony took part.\n\nThe first start of the Maryland colony was of a sort to give promise of\nfeuds and border strifes with the neighbor colony of Virginia, and the\npromise was abundantly fulfilled. The conflict over boundary questions\ncame to bloody collisions by land and sea. It is needless to say that\nreligious differences were at once drawn into the dispute. The vigorous\nproselytism of the Jesuit fathers, the only Christian ministers in the\ncolony, under the patronage of the lord proprietor was of course\nreported to London by the Virginians; and in December, 1641, the House\nof Commons, then on the brink of open rupture with the king, presented a\nremonstrance to Charles at Hampton Court, complaining that he had\npermitted \"another state, molded within this state, independent in\ngovernment, contrary in interest and affection, secretly corrupting the\nignorant or negligent professors of religion, and clearly uniting\nthemselves against such.\" Lord Baltimore, perceiving that his property\nrights were coming into jeopardy, wrote to the too zealous priests,\nwarning them that they were under English law and were not to expect\nfrom him \"any more or other privileges, exemptions, or immunities for\ntheir lands, persons, or goods than is allowed by his Majesty or\nofficers to like persons in England.\" He annulled the grants of land\nmade to the missionaries by certain Indian chiefs, which they affected\nto hold as the property of their order, and confirmed for his colony the\nlaw of mortmain. In his not unreasonable anxiety for the tenure of his\nestate, he went further still; he had the Jesuits removed from the\ncharge of the missions, to be replaced by seculars, and only receded\nfrom this severe measure when the Jesuit order acceded to his terms. The\npious and venerable Father White records in his journal that \"occasion\nof suffering has not been wanting from those from whom rather it was\nproper to expect aid and protection, who, too intent upon their own\naffairs, have not feared to violate the immunities of the church.\"[59:1]\nBut the zeal of the Calverts for religious liberty and equality was\nmanifested not only by curbing the Jesuits, but by encouraging their\nmost strenuous opponents. It was in the year 1643, when the strength of\nPuritanism both in England and in New England was proved, that the\nCalverts made overtures, although in vain, to secure an immigration from\nMassachusetts. A few years later the opportunity occurred of\nstrengthening their own colony with an accession of Puritans, and at the\nsame time of weakening Virginia. The sturdy and prosperous Puritan\ncolony on the Nansemond River were driven by the churlish behavior of\nGovernor Berkeley to seek a more congenial residence, and were induced\nto settle on the Severn at a place which they called Providence, but\nwhich was destined, under the name of Annapolis, to become the capital\nof the future State. It was manifestly not merely a coincidence that\nLord Baltimore appointed a Protestant governor, William Stone, and\ncommended to the Maryland Assembly, in 1649, the enacting of \"an Act\nconcerning Religion,\" drawn upon the lines of the Ordinance of\nToleration adopted by the Puritan House of Commons at the height of its\nauthority, in 1647.[59:2] How potent was the influence of this\ntransplanted Nansemond church is largely shown in the eventful civil\nhistory of the colony. When, in 1655, the lord proprietor's governor was\nso imprudent as to set an armed force in the field, under the colors of\nLord Baltimore, in opposition to the parliamentary commissioners, it\nwas the planters of the Severn who marched under the flag of the\ncommonwealth of England, and put them to rout, and executed some of\ntheir leaders for treason. When at last articles of agreement were\nsigned between the commissioners and Lord Baltimore, one of the\nconditions exacted from his lordship was a pledge that he would never\nconsent to the repeal of the Act of Toleration adopted in 1649 under the\ninfluence of the Puritan colony and its pastor, Thomas Harrison.\n\nIn the turbulence of the colony during and after the civil wars of\nEngland, there becomes more and more manifest a growing spirit of\nfanaticism, especially in the form of antipopery crusading. While\nJacobite intrigues or wars with France were in progress it was easy for\ndemagogues to cast upon the Catholics the suspicion of disloyalty and of\ncomplicity with the public enemy. The numerical unimportance of the\nCatholics of Maryland was insufficient to guard them from such\nsuspicions; for it had soon become obvious that the colony of the\nCatholic lord was to be anything but a Catholic colony. The Jesuit\nmission had languished; the progress of settlement, and what there had\nbeen of religious life and teaching, had brought no strength to the\nCatholic cause. In 1676 a Church of England minister, John Yeo, writes\nto the Archbishop of Canterbury of the craving lack of ministers,\nexcepting among the Catholics and the Quakers, \"not doubting but his\nGrace may so prevail with Lord Baltimore that a maintenance for a\nProtestant ministry may be established.\" The Bishop of London, echoing\nthis complaint, speaks of the \"total want of ministers and divine\nworship, except among those of the Romish belief, who, 'tis conjectured,\ndoes not amount to one of a hundred of the people.\" To which his\nlordship replies that all sects are tolerated and protected, but that\nit would be impossible to induce the Assembly to consent to a law that\nshall oblige any sect to maintain other ministers than its own. The\nbishop's figures were doubtless at fault; but Lord Baltimore himself\nwrites that the nonconformists outnumber the Catholics and those of the\nChurch of England together about three to one, and that the churchmen\nare much more numerous than the Catholics.\n\nAfter the Revolution of 1688 it is not strange that a like movement was\nset on foot in Maryland. The \"beneficent despotism\" of the Calverts,\nnotwithstanding every concession on their part, was ended for the time\nby the efforts of an \"Association for the Defense of the Protestant\nReligion,\" and Maryland became a royal colony. Under the new regime it\nwas easier to inflict annoyances and disabilities on the petty minority\nof the Roman Catholics than to confer the privileges of an established\nchurch on the hardly more considerable minority of Episcopalians. The\nChurch of England became in name the official church of the colony, but\ntwo parties so remotely unlike as the Catholics and the Quakers combined\nsuccessfully to defeat more serious encroachments on religious liberty.\nThe attempt to maintain the church of a small minority by taxes extorted\nby a foreign government from the whole people had the same effect in\nMaryland as in Ireland: it tended to make both church and government\nodious. The efforts of Dr. Thomas Bray, commissary of the Bishop of\nLondon, a man of true apostolic fervor, accomplished little in\nwithstanding the downward tendency of the provincial establishment. The\ndemoralized and undisciplined clergy resisted the attempt of the\nprovincial government to abate the scandal of their lives, and the\npeople resisted the attempt to introduce a bishop. The body thus set\nbefore the people as the official representative of the religion of\nChrist \"was perhaps as contemptible an ecclesiastical organization as\nhistory can show,\" having \"all the vices of the Virginian church,\nwithout one of its safeguards or redeeming qualities.\"[62:1] The most\nhopeful sign in the morning sky of the eighteenth century was to be\nfound in the growth of the Society of Friends and the swelling of the\ncurrent of the Scotch-Irish immigration. And yet we shall have proof\nthat the life-work of Commissary Bray, although he went back discouraged\nfrom his labors in Maryland and although this colony took little direct\nbenefit from his efforts in England, was destined to have great results\nin the advancement of the kingdom of Christ in America; for he was the\nfounder of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign\nParts.\n\nThe Carolinas, North and South, had been the scene of the earliest\nattempts at Protestant colonization in America. The Huguenot enterprise\nat Beaufort, on Port Royal harbor, was planted in 1562 under the\nauspices of Coligny, and came to a speedy and unhappy end. The costly\nand disastrous experiment of Sir Walter Raleigh was begun in 1584 on\nRoanoke Island, and lasted not many months. But the actual occupation of\nthe region was late and slow. When, after the Restoration, Charles II.\ntook up the idea of paying his political debts with free and easy\ncessions of American lands, Clarendon, Albemarle, and Shaftesbury were\namong the first and luckiest in the scramble. When the representatives\nof themselves and their partners arrived in Carolina in 1670, bringing\nwith them that pompous and preposterous anachronism, the \"Fundamental\nConstitutions,\" contrived by the combined wisdom of Shaftesbury and John\nLocke to impose a feudal government upon an immense domain of\nwilderness, they found the ground already occupied with a scanty and\ncuriously mixed population, which had taken on a simple form of polity\nand was growing into a state. The region adjoining Virginia was peopled\nby Puritans from the Nansemond country, vexed with the paltry\npersecutions of Governor Berkeley, and later by fugitives from the\nbloody revenge which he delighted to inflict on those who had been\ninvolved in the righteous rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon. These had\nbeen joined by insolvent debtors not a few. Adventurers from New England\nsettled on the Cape Fear River for a lumber trade, and kept the various\nplantations in communication with the rest of the world by their\ncoasting craft plying to Boston. Dissatisfied companies from Barbadoes\nseeking a less torrid climate next arrived. Thus the region was settled\nin the first instance at second hand from older colonies. To these came\nsettlers direct from England, such emigrants as the proprietors could\npersuade to the undertaking, and such as were impelled by the evil state\nof England in the last days of the Stuarts, or drawn by the promise of\nreligious liberty.\n\nSouth Carolina, on the other hand, was settled direct from Europe, first\nby cargoes of emigrants shipped on speculation by the great real-estate\n\"operators\" who had at heart not only the creation of a gorgeous\naristocracy in the West, but also the realization of fat dividends on\ntheir heavy ventures. Members of the dominant politico-religious party\nin England were attracted to a country in which they were still to be\nregarded before the law as of the \"only true and orthodox\" church; and\nreligious dissenters gladly accepted the offer of toleration and\nfreedom, even without the assurance of equality. One of the most notable\ncontributions to the new colony was a company of dissenters from\nSomersetshire, led by Joseph Blake, brother to Cromwell's illustrious\nadmiral. Among these were some of the earliest American Baptists; and\nthere is clear evidence of connection between their arrival and the\ncoming, in 1684, of a Baptist church from the Massachusetts Colony,\nunder the pastorate of William Screven. This planting was destined to\nhave an important influence both on the religious and on the civil\nhistory of the colony. Very early there came two ship-loads of Dutch\nCalvinists from New York, dissatisfied with the domineering of their\nEnglish victors. But more important than the rest was that sudden\noutflow of French Huguenots, representing not only religious fidelity\nand devotion, but all those personal and social virtues that most\nstrengthen the foundations of a state, which set westward upon the\nrevocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. This, with the later influx\nof the Scotch-Irish, profoundly marked the character of South Carolina.\nThe great names in her history are generally either French or Scotch.\n\nIt ought to have been plain to the proprietors, in their monstrous\nconceit of political wisdom, that communities so constituted should have\nbeen the last on which to impose the uniformity of an established\nchurch. John Locke did see this, but was overruled. The Church of\nEngland was established in name, but for long years had only this shadow\nof existence. We need not, however, infer from the absence of organized\nchurch and official clergy among the rude and turbulent pioneers of\nNorth Carolina that the kingdom of God was not among them, even from the\nbeginning. But not until the year 1672 do we find manifestation of it\nsuch as history can recognize. In that year came William Edmundson, \"the\nvoice of one crying in the wilderness,\" bringing his testimony of the\nlight that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The honest\nman, who had not thought it reasonable in the Christians of\nMassachusetts to be offended at one's sitting in the steeple-house with\nhis hat on, found it an evidence that \"they had little or no religion\"\nwhen the rough woodsmen of Carolina beguiled the silent moments of the\nFriends' devotions by smoking their pipes; and yet he declares that he\nfound them \"a tender people.\" Converts were won to the society, and a\nquarterly meeting was established. Within a few months followed George\nFox, uttering his deep convictions in a voice of singular persuasiveness\nand power, that reached the hearts of both high and low. And he too\ndeclared that he had found the people \"generally tender and open,\" and\nrejoiced to have made among them \"a little entrance for truth.\" The\nchurch of Christ had been begun. As yet there had been neither baptism\nnor sacramental supper; these outward and visible signs were absent; but\ninward and spiritual grace was there, and the thing signified is greater\nthan the sign. The influence diffused itself like leaven. Within a\ndecade the society was extended through both the Carolinas and became\nthe principal form of organized Christianity. It was reckoned in 1710 to\ninclude one seventh of the population of North Carolina.[65:1]\n\nThe attempt of a foreign proprietary government to establish by law the\nchurch of an inconsiderable and not preeminently respectable minority\nhad little effect except to exasperate and alienate the settlers. Down\nto the end of the seventeenth century the official church in North\nCarolina gave no sign of life. In South Carolina almost twenty years\npassed before it was represented by a single clergyman. The first\nmanifestation of church life seems to have been in the meetings on the\nbanks of the Cooper and the Santee, in which the French refugees\nworshiped their fathers' God with the psalms of Marot and Beza.\n\nBut with the eighteenth century begins a better era for the English\nchurch in the Carolinas. The story of the founding and the work of the\nSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, taken in\nconnection with its antecedents and its results, belongs to this\nhistory, not only as showing the influence of European Christianity upon\nAmerica, but also as indicating the reaction of America upon Europe.\n\nIn an important sense the organization of religious societies which is\ncharacteristic of modern Christendom is of American origin. The labors\nof John Eliot among the Indians of New England stirred so deep an\ninterest in the hearts of English Christians that in 1649 an ordinance\nwas passed by the Long Parliament creating a corporation to be called\n\"The President and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New\nEngland\"; and a general collection made under Cromwell's direction\nproduced nearly twelve thousand pounds, from the income of which\nmissionaries were maintained among some of the Northern tribes of\nIndians. With the downfall of the Commonwealth the corporation became\ndefunct; but through the influence of the saintly Richard Baxter, whose\ntender interest in the work of Eliot is witnessed by a touching passage\nin his writings, the charter was revived in 1662, with Robert Boyle for\npresident and patron. It was largely through his generosity that Eliot\nwas enabled to publish his Indian Bible. This society, \"The New England\nCompany,\" as it is called, is still extant--the oldest of Protestant\nmissionary societies.[66:1]\n\nIt is to that Dr. Thomas Bray who returned in 1700 to England from his\nthankless and discouraging work as commissary in Maryland of the Bishop\nof London, that the Church of England owes a large debt of gratitude for\nhaving taken away the reproach of her barrenness. Already his zeal had\nlaid the foundations on which was reared the Society for the Promotion\nof Christian Knowledge. In 1701 he had the satisfaction of attending the\nfirst meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in\nForeign Parts, which for nearly three quarters of a century, sometimes\nin the spirit of a narrow sectarianism, but not seldom in a more\nexcellent way, devoted its main strength to missions in the American\ncolonies. Its missionaries, men of a far different character from the\nmiserable incumbents of parishes in Maryland and Virginia, were among\nthe first preachers of the gospel in the Carolinas. Within the years\n1702-40 there served under the commission of this society in North\nCarolina nine missionaries, in South Carolina thirty-five.[67:1]\n\nBut the zeal of these good men was sorely encumbered with the armor of\nSaul. Too much favorable legislation and patronizing from a foreign\nproprietary government, too arrogant a tone of superiority on the part\nof official friends, attempts to enforce conformity by imposing\ndisabilities on other sects--these were among the chief occasions of the\ncontinual collision between the people and the colonial governments,\nwhich culminated in the struggle for independence. By the time that\nstruggle began the established church in the Carolinas was ready to\nvanish away.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[55:1] W. H. Browne, \"Maryland\" (in American Commonwealths), p. 18.\n\n[57:1] This seems to be the whole explanation of the curious paradox\nthat the first experiment of religious liberty and equality before the\nlaw among all Christian sects should have been made apparently under the\nauspices of that denomination which alone at the present day continues\nto maintain in theory that it is the duty of civil government to enforce\nsound doctrine by pains and penalties. We would not grudge the amplest\nrecognition of Lord Baltimore's faith or magnanimity or political\nwisdom; but we have failed to find evidence of his rising above the\nplane of the smart real-estate speculator, willing to be all things to\nall men, if so he might realize on his investments. Happily, he was\nclear-sighted enough to perceive that his own interest was involved in\nthe liberty, contentment, and prosperity of his colonists.\n\nMr. E. D. Neill, who has excelled other writers in patient and exact\nstudy of the original sources of this part of colonial history,\ncharacterizes Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, as \"one whose whole life\nwas passed in self-aggrandizement, first deserting Father White, then\nCharles I., and making friends of Puritans and republicans to secure the\nrentals of the province of Maryland, and never contributing a penny for\na church or school-house\" (\"English Colonization of America,\" p. 258).\n\n[59:1] Browne, pp. 54-57; Neill, _op. cit._, pp. 270-274.\n\n[59:2] The act of Parliament provided full religious liberty for\ndissenters from the established order, save only \"so as nothing be done\nby them to the disturbance of the peace of the kingdom.\"\n\n[62:1] H. C. Lodge, \"British Colonies in America,\" pp. 119-124, with\nauthorities cited. The severe characterization seems to be sustained by\nthe evidence.\n\n[65:1] Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" p. 237.\n\n[66:1] \"Digest of S. P. G. Records,\" pp. 2, 3; \"Encyclopaedia\nBritannica,\" vol. xvi., p. 514.\n\n[67:1] \"Digest of S. P. G. Records,\" pp. 849, 850.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE DUTCH CALVINIST COLONY ON THE HUDSON AND THE SWEDISH LUTHERAN COLONY\nON THE DELAWARE--THEY BOTH FALL UNDER THE SHADOW OF GREAT BRITAIN.\n\n\nWhen the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the Dutch East India Company's\nship, the \"Half-moon,\" in September, 1609, sailed up \"the River of\nMountains\" as far as the site of Albany, looking for the northwest\npassage to China, the English settlement at Jamestown was in the third\nyear of its half-perishing existence. More than thirteen years were yet\nto pass before the Pilgrims from England by way of Holland should make\ntheir landing on Plymouth Rock.\n\nBut we are not at liberty to assign so early a date to the Dutch\nsettlement of New York, and still less to the church. There was a prompt\nreaching out, on the part of the immensely enterprising Dutch merchants,\nafter the lucrative trade in peltries; there was a plying to and fro of\ntrading-vessels, and there were trading-posts established on Manhattan\nIsland and at the head of navigation on the Hudson, or North River, and\non the South River, or Delaware. Not until the great Dutch West India\nCompany had secured its monopoly of trade and perfected its\norganization, in 1623, was there a beginning of colonization. In that\nyear a company of Walloons, or French-speaking Hollanders, was planted\nnear Albany, and later arrivals were settled on the Delaware, on Long\nIsland, and on Manhattan. At length, in 1626, came Peter Minuit with an\nample commission from the all-powerful Company, who organized something\nlike a system of civil government comprehending all the settlements.\nEvidences of prosperity and growing wealth began to multiply. But one is\nimpressed with the merely secular and commercial character of the\nenterprise and with the tardy and feeble signs of religious life in the\ncolony. In 1626, when the settlement of Manhattan had grown to a village\nof thirty houses and two hundred souls, there arrived two official\n\"sick-visitors,\" who undertook some of the public duties of a pastor. On\nSundays, in the loft over the horse-mill, they would read from the\nScriptures and the creeds. And two years later, in 1628, the village,\nnumbering now about two hundred and seventy souls, gave a grateful\nwelcome to Jonas Michaelius, minister of the gospel. He rejoiced to\ngather no less than fifty communicants at the first celebration of the\nLord's Supper, and to organize them into a church according to the\nReformed discipline. The two elders were the governor and the Company's\nstorekeeper, men of honest report who had served in like functions in\nchurches of the fatherland. The records of this period are scanty; the\nvery fact of this beginning of a church and the presence of a minister\nin the colony had faded out of history until restored by the recent\ndiscovery of a letter of the forgotten Michaelius.[69:1]\n\nThe sagacious men in control of the Dutch West India Company were quick\nto recognize that weakness in their enterprise which in the splendid\ncolonial attempt of the French proved ultimately to be fatal. Their\nsettlements were almost exclusively devoted to the lucrative trade with\nthe Indians and were not taking root in the soil. With all its\nadvantages, the Dutch colony could not compete with New England.[70:1]\nTo meet this difficulty an expedient was adopted which was not long in\nbeginning to plague the inventors. A vast tract of territory, with\nfeudal rights and privileges, was offered to any man settling a colony\nof fifty persons. The disputes which soon arose between these powerful\nvassals and the sovereign Company had for one effect the recall of Peter\nMinuit from his position of governor. Never again was the unlucky colony\nto have so competent and worthy a head as this discarded elder of the\nchurch. Nevertheless the scheme was not altogether a failure.\n\nIn 1633 arrived a new pastor, Everard Bogardus, in the same ship with a\nschoolmaster--the first in the colony--and the new governor, Van\nTwiller. The governor was incompetent and corrupt, and the minister was\nfaithful and plain-spoken; what could result but conflict? During Van\nTwiller's five years of mismanagement, nevertheless, the church emerged\nfrom the mill-loft and was installed in a barn-like meeting-house of\nwood. During the equally wretched administration of Kieft, the governor,\nlistening to the reproaches of a guest, who quoted the example of New\nEngland, where the people were wont to build a fine church as soon as\nthey had houses for themselves, was incited to build a stone church\nwithin the fort. There seems to have been little else that he did for\nthe kingdom of heaven. Pastor Bogardus is entitled to the respect of\nlater ages for the chronic quarrel that he kept up with the worthless\nrepresentatives of the Company. At length his righteous rebuke of an\natrociously wicked massacre of neighboring Indians perpetrated by Kieft\nbrought matters to a head. The two antagonists sailed in the same ship,\nin 1647, to lay their dispute before the authorities in Holland, the\nCompany and the classis. The case went to a higher court. The ship was\ncast away and both the parties were drowned.\n\nMeanwhile the patroon Van Rensselaer, on his great manor near Albany,\nshowed some sense of his duty to the souls of the people whom he had\nbrought out into the wilderness. He built a church and put into the\npastoral charge over his subjects one who, under his travestied name of\nMegapolensis, has obtained a good report as a faithful minister of Jesus\nChrist. It was he who saved Father Jogues, the Jesuit missionary, from\nimminent torture and death among the Mohawks, and befriended him, and\nsaw him safely off for Europe. This is one honorable instance, out of\nnot a few, of personal respect and kindness shown to members of the\nRoman clergy and the Jesuit society by men who held these organizations\nin the severest reprobation. To his Jesuit brother he was drawn by a\npeculiarly strong bond of fellowship, for the two were fellow-laborers\nin the gospel to the red men. For Domine Megapolensis is claimed[71:1]\nthe high honor of being the first Protestant missionary to the Indians.\n\nIn 1647, to the joy of all the colonists, arrived a new governor, Peter\nStuyvesant, not too late to save from utter ruin the colony that had\nsuffered everything short of ruin from the incompetency and wickedness\nof Kieft. About the time that immigration into New England ceased with\nthe triumph of the Puritan party in England, there began to be a\ndistinct current of population setting toward the Hudson River colony.\nThe West India Company had been among the first of the speculators in\nAmerican lands to discover that a system of narrow monopoly is not the\nbest nurse for a colony; too late to save itself from ultimate\nbankruptcy, it removed some of the barriers of trade, and at once\npopulation began to flow in from other colonies, Virginia and New\nEngland. Besides those who were attracted by the great business\nadvantages of the Dutch colony, there came some from Massachusetts,\ndriven thence by the policy of exclusiveness in religious opinion\ndeliberately adopted there. Ordinances were set forth assuring to\nseveral such companies \"liberty of conscience, according to the custom\nand manner of Holland.\" Growing prosperously in numbers, the colony grew\nin that cosmopolitan diversity of sects and races which went on\nincreasing with its years. As early as 1644 Father Jogues was told by\nthe governor that there were persons of eighteen different languages at\nManhattan, including Calvinists, Catholics, English Puritans, Lutherans,\nAnabaptists (here called Mennonists), etc. No jealousy seems to have\narisen over this multiplication of sects until, in 1652, the Dutch\nLutherans, who had been attendants at the Dutch Reformed Church,\npresented a respectful petition that they might be permitted to have\ntheir own pastor and church. Denied by Governor Stuyvesant, the request\nwas presented to the Company and to the States-General. The two Reformed\npastors used the most strenuous endeavors through the classis of\nAmsterdam to defeat the petition, under the fear that the concession of\nthis privilege would tend to the diminution of their congregation. This\nresistance was successfully maintained until at last the petitioners\nwere able to obtain from the Roman Catholic Duke of York the religious\nfreedom which Dutch Calvinism had failed to give them.\n\nStarted thus in the wrong direction, it was easy for the colonial\ngovernment to go from bad to worse. At a time when the entire force of\nDutch clergy in the colony numbered only four, they were most\nunapostolically zealous to prevent any good from being done by\n\"unauthorized conventicles and the preaching of unqualified persons,\"\nand procured the passing of an ordinance forbidding these under penalty\nof fine and imprisonment. The mild remonstrances of the Company, which\nwas eager to get settlers without nice inquiries as to their religious\nopinions, had little effect to restrain the enterprising orthodoxy of\nPeter Stuyvesant. The activity of the Quakers among the Long Island\ntowns stirred him to new energy. Not only visiting missionaries, but\nquiet dwellers at home, were subjected to severe and ignominious\npunishments. The persecution was kept up until one of the banished\nFriends, John Bowne, reached Amsterdam and laid the case before the\nCompany. This enlightened body promptly shortened the days of\ntribulation by a letter to the superserviceable Stuyvesant, conceived in\na most commercial spirit. It suggested to him that it was doubtful\nwhether further persecution was expedient, unless it was desired to\ncheck the growth of population, which at that stage of the enterprise\nought rather to be encouraged. No man, they said, ought to be molested\nso long as he disturbed neither his neighbors nor the government. \"This\nmaxim has always been the guide of the magistrates of this city, and the\nconsequence has been that from every land people have flocked to this\nasylum. Tread thus in their steps, and we doubt not you will be\nblessed.\"\n\nThe stewardship of the interests of the kingdom of Christ in the New\nNetherlands was about to be taken away from the Dutch West India\nCompany and the classis of Amsterdam. It will hardly be claimed by any\nthat the account of their stewardship was a glorious one. The supply of\nministers of the gospel had been tardy, inconstant, and scanty. At the\ntime when the Dutch ministers were most active in hindering the work of\nothers, there were only four of themselves in a vast territory with a\nrapidly increasing population. The clearest sign of spiritual life in\nthe first generation of the colony is to be found in the righteous\nquarrel of Domine Bogardus with the malignant Kieft, and the large\nChristian brotherly kindness, the laborious mission work among the\nIndians, and the long-sustained pastoral faithfulness of Domine\nMegapolensis.\n\nDoubtless there is a record in heaven of faithful living and serving of\nmany true disciples among this people, whose names are unknown on earth;\nbut in writing history it is only with earthly memorials that we have to\ndo. The records of the Dutch regime present few indications of such\nreligious activity on the part of the colonists as would show that they\nregarded religion otherwise than as something to be imported from\nHolland at the expense of the Company.\n\nA studious and elegant writer, Mr. Douglas Campbell, has presented in\ntwo ample and interesting volumes[74:1] the evidence in favor of his\nthesis that the characteristic institutions established by the Puritans\nin New England were derived, directly or indirectly, not from England,\nbut from Holland. One of the gravest answers to an argument which\ncontains so much to command respect is found in the history of the New\nNetherlands. In the early records of no one of the American colonies is\nthere less manifestation of the Puritan characteristics than in the\nrecords of the colony that was absolutely and exclusively under Dutch\ncontrol and made up chiefly of Dutch settlers. Nineteen years from the\nbeginning of the colony there was only one church in the whole extent of\nit; at the end of thirty years there were only two churches. After ten\nyears of settlement the first schoolmaster arrived; and after thirty-six\nyears a Latin school was begun, for want of which up to that time young\nmen seeking a classical education had had to go to Boston for it. In no\ncolony does there appear less of local self-government or of central\nrepresentative government, less of civil liberty, or even of the\naspiration for it. The contrast between the character of this colony and\nthe heroic antecedents of the Dutch in Holland is astonishing and\ninexplicable. The sordid government of a trading corporation doubtless\ntended to depress the moral tone of the community, but this was an evil\ncommon to many of the colonies. Ordinances, frequently renewed, for the\nprevention of disorder and brawling on Sunday and for restricting the\nsale of strong drinks, show how prevalent and obstinate were these\nevils. In 1648 it is boldly asserted in the preamble to a new law that\none fourth of the houses in New Amsterdam were devoted to the sale of\nstrong drink. Not a hopeful beginning for a young commonwealth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBefore bidding a willing good-bye to the Dutch regime of the New\nNetherlands, it remains to tell the story of another colony, begun under\nhappy auspices, but so short-lived that its rise and fall are a mere\nepisode in the history of the Dutch colony.\n\nAs early as 1630, under the feudal concessions of the Dutch West India\nCompany, extensive tracts had been taken on the South River, or\nDelaware, and, after purchase from the Indians, settled by a colony\nunder the conduct of the best of all the Dutch leaders, De Vries.\nQuarrels with the Indians arose, and at the end of a twelvemonth the\ncolony was extinguished in blood. The land seemed to be left free for\nother occupants.\n\nYears before, the great Gustavus Adolphus had pondered and decided on an\nenterprise of colonization in America.[76:1] The exigencies of the\nThirty Years' War delayed the execution of his plan, but after the fatal\nday of Luetzen the project resumed by the fit successor of Gustavus in\nthe government of Sweden, the Chancellor Oxenstiern. Peter Minuit, who\nhad been rejected from his place as the first governor of New Amsterdam,\ntendered to the Swedes the aid of his experience and approved wisdom;\nand in the end of the year 1637, against the protest of Governor Kieft,\nthe strong foundations of a Swedish Lutheran colony were laid on the\nbanks of the Delaware. A new purchase was made of the Indians (who had\nas little scruple as the Stuart kings about disposing of the same land\ntwice over to different parties), including the lands from the mouth of\nthe bay to the falls near Trenton. A fort was built where now stands the\ncity of Wilmington, and under the protection of its walls Christian\nworship was begun by the first pastor, Torkillus. Strong reinforcements\narrived in 1643, with the energetic Governor Printz and that man of\n\"unwearied zeal in always propagating the love of God,\" the Rev. John\nCampanius, who through faith has obtained a good report by his brief\nmost laborious ministry both to his fellow-countrymen and to the\nDelaware Indians.\n\nThe governor fixed his residence at Tinicum, now almost included within\nthe vast circumference of Philadelphia, and there, forty years before\nthe arrival of William Penn, Campanius preached the gospel of peace in\ntwo languages, to the red men and to the white.\n\nThe question of the Swedish title, raised at the outset by the protest\nof the Dutch governor, could not long be postponed. It was suddenly\nprecipitated on the arrival of Governor Rising, in 1654, by his capture\nof Fort Casimir, which the Dutch had built for the practical assertion\nof their claim. It seems a somewhat grotesque act of piety on the part\nof the Swedes, when, having celebrated the festival of Trinity Sunday by\nwhipping their fellow-Christians out of the fort, they commemorated the\ngood work by naming it the Fort of the Holy Trinity. It was a fatal\nvictory. The next year came Governor Stuyvesant with an overpowering\nforce and demanded and received the surrender of the colony to the\nDutch. Honorable terms of surrender were conceded; among them, against\nthe protest, alas! of good Domine Megapolensis, was the stipulation of\nreligious liberty for the Lutherans.\n\nIt was the end of the Swedish colony, but not at once of the church. The\nSwedish community of some seven hundred souls, cut off from\nreinforcement and support from the fatherland, cherished its language\nand traditions and the mold of doctrine in which it had been shaped;\nafter more than forty years the reviving interest of the mother church\nwas manifested by the sending out of missionaries to seek and succor the\ndaughter long absent and neglected in the wilderness. Two venerable\nbuildings, the Gloria Dei Church in the southern part of Philadelphia,\nand the Old Swedes' Church at Wilmington, remain as monuments of the\nhonorable story. The Swedish language ceased to be spoken; the people\nbecame undistinguishably absorbed in the swiftly multiplying population\nabout them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was a short-lived triumph in which the Dutch colony reduced the\nSwedish under its jurisdiction. It only prepared a larger domain for it\nto surrender, in its turn, to superior force. With perfidy worthy of\nthe House of Stuart, the newly restored king of England, having granted\nto his brother, the Duke of York, territory already plighted to others\nand territory already occupied by a friendly power, stretching in all\nfrom the Connecticut to the Delaware, covered his designs with friendly\ndemonstrations, and in a time of profound peace surprised the quiet town\nof New Amsterdam with a hostile fleet and land force and a peremptory\ndemand for surrender. The only hindrance interposed was a few hours of\nvain and angry bluster from Stuyvesant. The indifference of the Dutch\nrepublic, which had from the beginning refused its colony any promise of\nprotection, and the sordid despotism of the Company, and the arrogant\ncontempt of popular rights manifested by its governors, seem to have\nleft no spark of patriotic loyalty alive in the population. With inert\nindifference, if not even with satisfaction, the colony transferred its\nallegiance to the British crown, henceforth sovereign from Maine to the\nCarolinas. The rights of person and property, religious liberty, and\nfreedom of trade were stipulated in the capitulation.\n\nThe British government was happy in the character of Colonel Nicolls,\nwho came as commandant of the invading expedition and remained as\ngovernor. Not only faithful to the terms of the surrender, but\nconsiderate of the feelings and interests of the conquered province, he\ngave the people small reason to regret the change of government. The\nestablished Dutch church not only was not molested, but was continued in\nfull possession of its exceptional privileges. And it continued to\nlanguish. At the time of the surrender the province contained \"three\ncities, thirty villages, and ten thousand inhabitants,\"[78:1] and for\nall these there were six ministers. The six soon dribbled away to\nthree, and for ten years these three continued without reinforcement.\nThis extreme feebleness of the clergy, the absence of any vigorous\nchurch life among the laity, and the debilitating notion that the power\nand the right to preach the gospel must be imported from Holland, put\nthe Dutch church at such a disadvantage as to invite aggression. Later\nEnglish governors showed no scruple in violating the spirit of the terms\nof surrender and using their official power and influence to force the\nestablishment of the English church against the almost unanimous will of\nthe people. Property was unjustly taken and legal rights infringed to\nthis end, but the end was not attained. Colonel Morris, an earnest\nAnglican, warned his friends against the folly of taking by force the\nsalaries of ministers chosen by the people and paying them over to \"the\nministers of the church.\" \"It may be a means of subsisting those\nministers, but they won't make many converts among a people who think\nthemselves very much injured.\" The pious efforts of Governor Fletcher,\nthe most zealous of these official propagandists, are even more severely\ncharacterized in a dispatch of his successor, the Earl of Bellomont:\n\"The late governor, ... under the notion of a Church of England to be\nput in opposition to the Dutch and French churches established here,\nsupported a few rascally English, who are a scandal to their nation and\nthe Protestant religion.\"[79:1] Evidently such support would have for\nits main effect to make the pretended establishment odious to the\npeople. Colonel Morris sharply points out the impolicy as well as the\ninjustice of the course adopted, claiming that his church would have\nbeen in a much better position without this political aid, and citing\nthe case of the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, where nothing of the kind had\nbeen attempted, and where, nevertheless, \"there are four times the\nnumber of churchmen that there are in this province of New York; and\nthey are so, most of them, upon principle, whereas nine parts in ten of\nours will add no great credit to whatever church they are of.\"[80:1]\n\nIt need not be denied that government patronage, even when dispensed by\nthe dirty hands of such scurvy nursing fathers as Fletcher and Lord\nCornbury, may give strength of a certain sort to a religious\norganization. Whatever could be done in the way of endowment or of\nsocial preferment in behalf of the English church was done eagerly. But\nhappily this church had a better resource than royal governors in the\nwell-equipped and sustained, and generally well-chosen, army of\nmissionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Not fewer\nthan fifty-eight of them were placed by the society in this single\nprovince. And if among them there were those who seemed to \"preach\nChrist of envy and strife,\" as if the great aim of the preacher of the\ngospel were to get a man out of one Christian sect into another, there\nwere others who showed a more Pauline and more Christian conception of\ntheir work, taking their full share of the task of bringing the\nknowledge of Christ to the unevangelized, whether white, red, or\nblack.[80:2]\n\nThe diversity of organization which was destined to characterize the\nchurch in the province of New York was increased by the inflow of\npopulation from New England. The settlement of Long Island was from the\nbeginning Puritan English. The Hudson Valley began early to be occupied\nby New Englanders bringing with them their pastors. In 1696 Domine\nSelyns, the only Dutch pastor in New York City, in his annual report\ncongratulates himself, \"Our number is now full,\" meaning that there are\nfour Dutch ministers in the whole province of New York, and adds: \"In\nthe country places here there are many English preachers, mostly from\nNew England. They were ordained there, having been in a large measure\nsupplied by the University of Cambridge [Mass.].\" The same letter gives\nthe names of the three eminent French pastors ministering to the\ncommunities of Huguenot refugees at New Rochelle and New York and\nelsewhere in the neighborhood. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, more\nimportant to the history of the opening century than any of the rest,\nwere yet to enter.\n\nThe spectacle of the ancient Dutch church thus dwindling, and seemingly\ncontent to dwindle, to one of the least of the tribes, is not a cheerful\none, nor one easy to understand. But out of this little and dilapidated\nBethlehem was to come forth a leader. Domine Frelinghuysen, arriving in\nAmerica in 1720, was to begin a work of training for the ministry, which\nwould result, in 1784, in the establishment of the first American\nprofessorship of theology;[81:1] and by the fervor of his preaching he\nwas to win the signal glory of bringing in the Great Awakening.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[69:1] Dr. E. T. Corwin, \"History of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in\nAmerica\" (in the American Church History Series), pp. 28-32.\n\n[70:1] \"The province, under the long years of Dutch supremacy, had\ngathered only some seven thousand inhabitants, against the hundred and\ntwenty thousand of their New England neighbors\" (Lodge, \"English\nColonies,\" p. 297).\n\n[71:1] See Corwin, p. 37; but compare the claim made in behalf of the\nPuritan Whitaker, \"apostle to the Indians\" thirty years earlier\n(Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" p. 18); compare also the work\nof the Lutheran Campanius in New Sweden (Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" p.\n83).\n\n[74:1] \"The Puritans in Holland, England, and America\" (New York, 1892).\n\n[76:1] The king's noble conceptions of what such a colony should be and\nshould accomplish are quoted in Bancroft, vol. ii., pp. 284, 285.\n\n[78:1] Corwin, p. 54.\n\n[79:1] Corwin, pp. 105, 121.\n\n[80:1] Corwin, p. 105.\n\n[80:2] \"Digest of S. P. G. Records,\" pp. 57-79. That the sectarian\nproselyting zeal manifested in some of the missionaries' reports made an\nunfavorable impression on the society is indicated by the peremptory\nterms of a resolution adopted in 1710: \"That a stop be put to the\nsending any more missionaries among Christians, except to such places\nwhose ministers are, or shall be, dead or removed\" (_ibid._, p. 69). A\ngood resolution, but not well kept.\n\n[81:1] Corwin, p. 207. Undue stress should not be laid upon this formal\nfact. The early New England colleges were primarily and mainly\ntheological seminaries and training-schools for the ministry. Their\nprofessors were all theological professors. It is stated in Dwight's\n\"Life of Edwards\" that James Pierpont, of New Haven, Edwards's\nfather-in-law, who died in 1714, lectured to the students of Yale\nCollege, as professor of moral philosophy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE PLANTING OF THE CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND--PILGRIM AND PURITAN.\n\n\nThe attitude of the Church of England Puritans toward the Separatists\nfrom that church was the attitude of the earnest, patient, hopeful\nreformer toiling for the removal of public abuses, toward the restless\n\"come-outer\" who quits the conflict in despair of succeeding, and,\n\"without tarrying for any,\" sets up his little model of good order\noutside. Such defection seemed to them not only of the nature of a\nmilitary desertion and a weakening of the right side, but also an\nimplied assertion of superior righteousness which provoked invidious\ncomparison and mutual irritation of feeling. The comparison must not be\npressed too far if we cite in illustration the feeling of the great mass\nof earnest, practical antislavery men in the American conflict with\nslavery toward the faction of \"come-outer\" abolitionists, who,\ndespairing of success within the church and the state, seceded from\nboth, thenceforth predicting failure for every practical enterprise of\nreform on the part of their former workfellows, and at every defeat\nchuckling, \"I told you so.\"\n\nIf we should compare the English Separatist of the seventeenth century\nwith this American Separatist of the nineteenth, we should be in still\ngreater danger of misleading. Certainly there were those among the\nSeparatists from the Church of England who, in the violence of their\nalienation and the bitterness of their sufferings, did not refrain from\nsour and acrid censoriousness toward the men who were nearest them in\nreligious conviction and pursuing like ends by another course. One does\nnot read far in the history of New England without encountering\nreformers of this extreme type. But not such were the company of true\nworshipers who, at peril of liberty and life, were wont to assemble each\nLord's day in a room of the old manor-house of Scrooby, of which William\nBrewster was lessee, for Christian fellowship and worship, and for\ninstruction in Christian truth and duty from the saintly lips of John\nRobinson. The extreme radicals of their day, they seem to have been\ndivinely preserved from the besetting sins of radicalism--its\nnarrowness, its self-righteousness, its censoriousness and intolerance.\nThose who read the copious records of the early New England colonization\nare again and again surprised at finding that the impoverished little\ncompany of Separatists at Leyden and Plymouth, who were so sharply\nreprobated by their Puritan brethren of the Church of England for their\nschismatic attitude, their over-righteousness and exclusiveness, do\nreally excel, in liberality and patient tolerance and catholic and\ncomprehensive love toward all good men, those who sat in judgment on\nthem. Something of this is due to the native nobleness of the men\nthemselves, of whom the world was not worthy; something of it to their\nlong discipline in the passive virtues under bitter persecution in their\nnative land and in exile in Holland and in the wilderness; much of it\ncertainly to the incomparably wise and Christ-like teaching of Robinson\nboth at Scrooby and at Leyden, and afterward through the tender and\nfaithful epistles with which he followed them across the sea; and all of\nit to the grace of God working in their hearts and glorified in their\nliving and their dying.\n\nIt would be incompatible with the limits of this volume to recite in\ndetail the story of the Pilgrims; it has been told more amply and with\nfuller repetition than almost any other chapter of human history, and is\nnever to be told or heard without awakening that thrill with which the\nheartstrings respond to the sufferings and triumphs of Christ's blessed\nmartyrs and confessors. But, more dispassionately studied with reference\nto its position and relations in ecclesiastical history, it cannot be\nunderstood unless the sharp and sometimes exasperated antagonism is kept\nin view that existed between the inconsiderable faction, as it was\nesteemed, of the Separatists, and the great and growing Puritan party at\nthat time in disfavor with king and court and hierarchy, but soon to\nbecome the dominant party not only in the Church of England, but in the\nnation. It is not strange that the antagonism between the two parties\nshould be lost sight of. The two are identified in their theological\nconvictions, in their spiritual sympathies, and, for the most part, in\ntheir judgment on questions concerning the externals of the church; and\npresently their respective colonies, planted side by side, not without\nmutual doubts and suspicions, are to grow together, leaving no visible\nseam of juncture,\n\n     Like kindred drops commingling into one.[84:1]\n\nTo the Puritan reformer within the Church of England, the act of the\nPilgrims at Scrooby in separating themselves from the general mass of\nEnglish Christians, mingled though that mass might be with a multitude\nof unworthy was nothing less than the sin of schism. One effect of the\nact was to reflect odium upon the whole party of Puritans, and involve\nthem in the suspicion of that sedition which was so unjustly, but with\nsuch fatal success, imputed to the Separatists. It was a hard and\ndoubtful warfare that the Puritans were waging against spiritual\nwickedness in high places; the defection of the Separatists doubly\nweakened them in the conflict. It is not strange, however it may seem\nso, that the animosity of Puritan toward Separatist was sometimes\nacrimonious, nor that the public reproaches hurled at the unpopular\nlittle party should have provoked recriminations upon the assailants as\nbeing involved in the defilements and the plagues of Babylon, and should\nhave driven the Separatists into a narrower exclusiveness of separation,\ncutting themselves off not only from communion with abuses and\ncorruptions in the Church of England, but even from fellowship with good\nand holy men in the national church who did not find it a duty to\nsecede.\n\nNothing of this bitterness and narrowness is found in Robinson.\nStrenuously as he maintained the right and duty of separation from the\nEstablishment, he was, especially in his later years, no less earnest in\ncondemning the \"Separatists who carried their separation too far and had\ngone beyond the true landmarks in matters of Christian doctrine or of\nChristian fellowship.\"[85:1] His latest work, \"found in his studie after\nhis decease,\" was \"A Treatise of the Lawfulness of Hearing of the\nMinisters in the Church of England.\"\n\nThe moderateness of Robinson's position, and the brotherly kindness of\nhis temper, could not save him and his people from the prevailing odium\nthat rested upon the Separatist. Many and grave were the sorrows through\nwhich the Pilgrim church had to pass in its way from the little hamlet\nof Scrooby to the bleak hill of Plymouth. They were in peril from the\npersecutor at home and in peril in the attempt to escape; in peril from\ngreedy speculators and malignant politicians; in peril from the sea and\nfrom cold and from starvation; in peril from the savages and from false\nbrethren privily sent among them to spy out their liberties; but an\nadded bitterness to all their tribulations lay in this, that, for the\ncourse which they were constrained in conscience to pursue, they were\nsubject to the reprobation of those whom they most highly honored as\ntheir brethren in the faith of Christ. Some of the most heartbreaking of\ntheir trials arose directly from the unwillingness of English Puritans\nto sustain, or even countenance, the Pilgrim colony.\n\nIn the year 1607, when the ships of the Virginia Company were about\nlanding their freight of emigrants and supplies at Jamestown, the first\nand unsuccessful attempt of the Pilgrims was made to escape from their\nnative land to Holland. Before the end of 1608 the greater part of them,\nin scattering parties, had effected the passage of the North Sea, and\nthe church was reunited in a land of religious freedom. With what a\nblameless, diligent, and peaceful life they adorned the name of disciple\nthrough all the twelve years of their sojourn, how honored and beloved\nthey were among the churches and in the University of Leyden, there are\nabundant testimonies. The twelve years of seclusion in an alien land\namong a people of strange language was not too long a discipline of\npreparation for that work for which the Head of the church had set them\napart. This was the period of Robinson's activity as author. In erudite\nstudies, in grave debate with gainsayers at home and with fellow-exiles\nin Holland, he was maturing in his own mind, and in the minds of the\nchurch, those large and liberal yet definite views of church\norganization and duty which were destined for coming ages so profoundly\nto influence the American church in all its orders and divisions. \"He\nbecame a reformer of the Separation.\"[87:1]\n\nWe pass by the heroic and pathetic story of the consultations and\ncorrespondences, the negotiations and disappointments, the embarkation\nand voyage, and come to that memorable date, November 11 (= 21), 1620,\nwhen, arrived off the shore of Cape Cod, the little company, without\ncharter or warrant of any kind from any government on earth, about to\nland on a savage continent in quest of a home, gathered in the cabin of\nthe \"Mayflower,\" and after a method quite in analogy with that in which,\nsixteen years before, they had constituted the church at Scrooby,\nentered into formal and solemn compact \"in the presence of God and one\nof another, covenanting and combining themselves together into a civil\nbody politic.\"\n\nIt is difficult, in reading the instrument then subscribed, to avoid the\nconviction that the theory of the origin of the powers of civil\ngovernment in a social compact, which had long floated in literature\nbefore it came to be distinctly articulated in the \"Contrat Social\" of\nJean Jacques Rousseau, was familiar to the minds of those by whom the\npaper was drawn. Thoughtful men at the present day universally recognize\nthe fallacy of this plausible hypothesis, which once had such wide\ncurrency and so serious an influence on the course of political history\nin America. But whether or not they were affected by the theory, the\npractical good sense of the men and their deference to the teachings of\nthe Bible secured them from the vicious and absurd consequences\ndeducible from it. Not all the names of the colonists were subscribed to\nthe compact,--a clear indication of the freedom of individual judgment\nin that company,--but it was never for a moment held that the\ndissentients were any the less bound by it. When worthless John\nBillington, who had somehow got \"shuffled into their company,\" was\nsentenced for disrespect and disobedience to Captain Myles Standish \"to\nhave his neck and heels tied together,\" it does not seem to have\noccurred to him to plead that he had never entered into the social\ncompact; nor yet when the same wretched man, ten years later, was by a\njury convicted of willful murder, and sentenced to death and executed.\nLogically, under the social-compact theory, it would have been competent\nfor those dissenting from this compact to enter into another, and set up\na competing civil government on the same ground; but what would have\nbeen the practical value of this line of argument might have been\nlearned from Mr. Thomas Morton, of Furnivall's Inn, after he had been\nhaled out of his disorderly house at Merry Mount by Captain Standish,\nand convented before the authorities at Plymouth.\n\nThe social-compact theory as applied to the church, implying that the\nmutual duties of Christian disciples in society are derived solely from\nmutual stipulations, is quite as transparently fallacious as when it is\napplied to civil polity, and the consequences deducible from it are not\nless absurd. But it cannot be claimed for the Plymouth men, and still\nless for their spiritual successors, that they have wholly escaped the\nevil consequences of their theory in its practical applications. The\nnotion that a church of Christ is a club, having no authority or\nlimitations but what it derives from club rules agreed on among the\nmembers, would have been scouted by the Pilgrims; among those who now\nclaim to sit in their seats there are some who would hesitate to admit\nit, and many who would frankly avow it with all its mischievous\nimplications. Planted in the soil of Plymouth, it spread at once through\nNew England, and has become widely rooted in distant and diverse\nregions of the American church.[89:1]\n\nThe church of Plymouth, though deprived of its pastor, continued to be\nrich in faith and in all spiritual gifts, and most of all in the\nexcellent gift of charity. The history of it year after year is a\nbeautiful illustration of brotherly kindness and mutual self-sacrifice\namong themselves and of forgiving patience toward enemies. But the\ncolony, beginning in extreme feebleness and penury, never became either\nstrong or rich. One hundred and two souls embarked in the \"Mayflower,\"\nof whom nearly one half were dead before the end of four months. At the\nend of four years the number had increased to one hundred and eighty. At\nthe end of ten years the settlement numbered three hundred persons.\n\nIt could not have been with joy wholly unalloyed with misgivings that\nthis feeble folk learned of a powerful movement for planting a Puritan\ncolony close in the neighborhood. The movement had begun in the heart of\nthe national church, and represented everything that was best in that\ninstitution. The Rev. John White, rector of Dorchester, followed across\nthe sea with pastoral solicitude the young men of his parish, who, in\nthe business of the fisheries, were wont to make long stay on the New\nEngland coast, far from home and church. His thought was to establish a\nsettlement that should be a sort of depot of supplies for the fishing\nfleets, and a temporary home attended with the comforts and safeguards\nof Christian influence. The project was a costly failure; but it was\nlike the corn of wheat falling into the ground to die, and bringing\nforth much fruit. A gentleman of energy and dignity, John Endicott,\npledged his personal service as leader of a new colony. In September,\n1628, he landed with a pioneering party at Naumkeag, and having happily\ncomposed some differences that arose with the earlier comers, they named\nthe place _Salem_, which is, by interpretation, \"Peace.\" Already, with\nthe newcomers and the old, the well-provided settlement numbered more\nthan fifty persons, busy in preparation for further arrivals. Meanwhile\nvigorous work was doing in England. The organization to sustain the\ncolony represented adequate capital and the highest quality of character\nand influence. A royal charter, drawn with sagacious care to secure\nevery privilege the Puritan Company desired, was secured from the\nfatuity of the reigning Stuart, erecting in the wilderness such a free\ncommonwealth as his poor little soul abhorred; and preparation was made\nfor sending out, in the spring of 1629, a noble fleet of six vessels,\ncarrying three hundred men and a hundred women and children, with\nample equipment of provisions, tools and arms, and live stock. The\nCompany had taken care that there should be \"plentiful provision\nof godly ministers.\" Three approved clergymen of the Church of\nEngland--Higginson, Skelton, and Bright--had been chosen by the Company\nto attend the expedition, besides whom one Ralph Smith, a Separatist\nminister, had been permitted to take passage before the Company\n\"understood of his difference in judgment in some things\" from the other\nministers. He was permitted to continue his journey, yet not without a\ncaution to the governor that unless he were found \"conformable to the\ngovernment\" he was not to be suffered to remain within the limits of its\njurisdiction. An incident of this departure rests on the sole authority\nof Cotton Mather, and is best told in his own words:\n\n     \"When they came to the Land's End, Mr. Higginson, calling up\n     his children and other passengers unto the stern of the ship\n     to take their last sight of England, said, 'We will not say,\n     as the Separatists were wont to say at their leaving of\n     England, Farewell, Babylon! farewell, Rome! but we will say,\n     Farewell, dear England! farewell, the church of God in\n     England, and all the Christian friends there! We do not go to\n     New England as Separatists from the Church of England, though\n     we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it; but we go\n     to practice the positive part of church reformation and\n     propagate the gospel in America.'\"\n\nThe story ought to be true, for the intrinsic likeliness of it; and it\nis all the likelier for the fact that among the passengers, kindly and\neven fraternally treated, and yet the object of grave misgivings, was\nthe honest Separatist minister, Ralph Smith.[91:1] The ideal of the new\ncolony could hardly have been better expressed than in these possibly\napocryphal words ascribed to Mr. Higginson. These were not fugitives\nseeking asylum from persecution. Still less were they planning an asylum\nfor others. They were intent on the planting of a new commonwealth, in\nwhich the church of Christ, not according to the imperfect and perverted\npattern of the English Establishment, but according to a fairer pattern,\nthat had been showed them in their mounts of vision, should be both free\nand dominant. If this purpose of theirs was wrong; if they had no right\nto deny themselves the comforts and delights of their native land, and\nat vast cost of treasure to seclude themselves within a defined tract of\nwilderness, for the accomplishment of an enterprise which they conceived\nto be of the highest beneficence to mankind--then doubtless many of the\nmeasures which they took in pursuance of this purpose must fall under\nthe same condemnation with the purpose itself. If there are minds so\nconstituted as to perceive no moral difference between banishing a man\nfrom his native home, for opinion's sake, and declining, on account of\ndifference of opinion, to admit a man to partnership in a difficult and\nhazardous enterprise organized on a distinctly exclusive basis, such\nminds will be constrained to condemn the Puritan colonists from the\nstart and all along. Minds otherwise constituted will be able to\ndiscriminate between the righteous following of a justifiable policy and\nthe lapses of the colonial governments from high and Christian motives\nand righteous courses. Whether the policy of rigorous exclusiveness,\nbuilding up communities of picked material, homogeneous in race,\nlanguage, and religion, is on the whole less wise for the founders of a\nnew commonwealth than a sweepingly comprehensive policy, gathering in\npeople mutually alien in speech and creed and habits, is a fairly open\nquestion for historical students. Much light might be thrown upon it by\nthe comparative history of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, of New\nEngland and Pennsylvania. It is not a question that is answered at once\nby the mere statement of it.\n\nWe do not need to be told that to the little Separatist settlement at\nPlymouth, still in the first decade of its feeble existence, the\nfounding, within a day's journey, of this powerful colony, on\necclesiastical principles distinctly antagonistic to their own, was a\nmomentous, even a formidable fact. Critical, nay, vital questions\nemerged at once, which the subtlest churchcraft might have despaired of\nanswering. They were answered, solved, harmonized, by the spirit of\nChristian love.\n\nThat great spiritual teacher, John Robinson, besides his more general\nexhortations to brotherly kindness and charity, had spoken, in the\nspirit of prophecy, some promises and assurances which came now to a\ndivine fulfillment. Pondering \"sundry weighty and solid reasons\" in\nfavor of removal from Holland, the pilgrims put on record that \"their\npastor would often say that many of those who both wrote and preached\nagainst them would practice as they did if they were in a place where\nthey might have liberty and live conformably.\" One of the most\naffectionate of his disciples, Edward Winslow, wrote down some of the\nprecious and memorable words which the pastor, who was to see their face\nno more, uttered through his tears as they were about to leave him.\n\"'There will be no difference,' he said, 'between the unconformable\nministers and you, when they come to the practice of the ordinances out\nof the kingdom.' And so he advised us to close with the godly party of\nthe kingdom of England, and rather to study union than division, viz.,\nhow near we might possibly without sin close with them, rather than in\nthe least measure to affect division or separation from them.\"\n\nThe solitude of the little starving hamlet by the sea was favorable to\nthe springing and fructifying of this seed in the good and honest hearts\ninto which it had been cast. Before the great fleet of colonists, with\nits three unconformable Church of England clergymen, had reached the\nport of Salem the good seed had been planted anew in other hearts not\nless honest and good. It fell on this wise. The pioneer party at Salem\nwho came with Endicott, \"arriving there in an uncultivated desert, many\nof them, for want of wholesome diet and convenient lodgings, were seized\nwith the scurvy and other distempers, which shortened many of their\ndays, and prevented many of the rest from performing any great matter of\nlabor that year for advancing the work of the plantation.\" Whereupon the\ngovernor, hearing that at Plymouth lived a physician \"that had some\nskill that way,\" wrote thither for help, and at once the beloved\nphysician and deacon of the Plymouth church, Dr. Samuel Fuller,\nhastened to their relief. On what themes the discourse revolved between\nthe Puritan governor just from England and the Separatist deacon already\nfor so many years an exile, and whither it tended, is manifested in a\nletter written soon after by Governor Endicott, of Salem, to Governor\nBradford, of Plymouth, under date May 11 (= 21), 1629. The letter marks\nan epoch in the history of American Christianity:\n\n     \"_To the worshipful and my right worthy friend, William\n     Bradford, Esq., Governor of New Plymouth, these:_\n\n     \"RIGHT WORTHY SIR: It is a thing not usual that servants to\n     one Master and of the same household should be strangers. I\n     assure you I desire it not; nay, to speak more plainly, I\n     cannot be so to you. God's people are marked with one and the\n     same mark, and sealed with one and the same seal, and have,\n     for the main, one and the same heart, guided by one and the\n     same Spirit of truth; and where this is there can be no\n     discord--nay, here must needs be sweet harmony. The same\n     request with you I make unto the Lord, that we may as\n     Christian brethren be united by a heavenly and unfeigned love,\n     bending all our hearts and forces in furthering a work beyond\n     our strength, with reverence and fear fastening our eyes\n     always on him that only is able to direct and prosper all our\n     ways.\n\n     \"I acknowledge myself much bound to you for your kind love and\n     care in sending Mr. Fuller among us, and I rejoice much that I\n     am by him satisfied touching your judgments of the outward\n     form of God's worship.[94:1] It is, as far as I can yet\n     gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth,\n     and the same which I have professed and maintained ever since\n     the Lord in mercy revealed himself to me, being very far\n     different from the common report that hath been spread of you\n     touching that particular. But God's children must not look for\n     less here below, and it is the great mercy of God that he\n     strengthens them to go through with it.\n\n     \"I shall not need at this time to be tedious unto you, for,\n     God willing, I purpose to see your face shortly. In the\n     meantime I humbly take my leave of you, committing you to the\n     Lord's blessed protection, and rest\n\n     \"Your assured loving friend and servant,\n\n     \"JOHN ENDICOTT.\"\n\n\"The positive part of church reformation,\" which Higginson and his\ncompanions had come into the wilderness to practice, appeared in a new\nlight when studied under the new conditions. The question of separation\nfrom the general fellowship of English Christians, which had lain\nheavily on their consciences, was no longer a question; instead of it\narose the question of separation from their beloved and honored\nfellow-Christians at Plymouth. The Act of Uniformity and the tyrannous\nprocesses by which it was enforced no longer existed for them. They were\nfree to build the house of God simply according to the teaching of the\ndivine Word. What form will the structure take?\n\nOne of the first practical questions to emerge was the question by what\nauthority their ministry was to be exercised. On one point they seem to\nhave been quite clear. The episcopal ordination, which each of them had\nreceived in England, whatever validity it may have had in English law,\ngave them no authority in the church of God in Salem. Further, their\nappointment from the Company in London, although it was a regular\ncommission from the constituted civil government of the colony, could\nconfer no office in the spiritual house. A day of solemn fasting was\nheld, by the governor's appointment, for the choice of pastor and\nteacher, and after prayer the two recognized candidates for the two\noffices, Skelton and Higginson, were called upon to give their views as\nto a divine call to the ministry. \"They acknowledged there was a twofold\ncalling: the one, an inward calling, when the Lord moved the heart of a\nman to take that calling upon him, and fitted him with gifts for the\nsame; the second (the outward calling) was from the people, when a\ncompany of believers are joined together in covenant to walk together in\nall the ways of God.\" Thereupon the assembly proceeded to a written\nballot, and its choice fell upon Mr. Skelton and Mr. Higginson. It\nremained for the ministers elect to be solemnly inducted into office,\nwhich was done with prayer and the laying on of hands in benediction.\n\nBut presently there were searchings of heart over the anterior question\nas to the constituency of the church. Were all the population of Salem\nto be reckoned as of the church of Salem? and if not, who should\n\"discern between the righteous and the wicked\"? The result of study of\nthis question, in the light of the New Testament, was this--that it was\n\"necessary for those who intended to be of the church solemnly to enter\ninto a covenant engagement one with another, in the presence of God, to\nwalk together before him according to his Word.\" Thirty persons were\nchosen to be the first members of the church, who in a set form of words\nmade public vows of faithfulness to each other and to Christ. By the\nchurch thus constituted the pastor and teacher, already installed in\noffice in the parish, were instituted as ministers of the church.[96:1]\n\nBefore the solemnities of that notable day were concluded, a belated\nvessel that had been eagerly awaited landed on the beach at Salem the\n\"messengers of the church at Plymouth.\" They came into the assembly,\nGovernor Bradford at the head, and in the name of the Pilgrim church\ndeclared their \"approbation and concurrence,\" and greeted the new\nchurch, the first-born in America, with \"the right hand of fellowship.\"\nA thoughtful and devoted student declares this day's proceedings to be\n\"the beginning of a distinctively American church history.\"[97:1]\n\nThe immediate sequel of this transaction is characteristic and\ninstructive. Two brothers, John and Samuel Browne, members of the\ncouncil of the colony, took grave offense at this departure from the\nways of the Church of England, and, joining to themselves others\nlike-minded, set up separate worship according to the Book of Common\nPrayer. Being called to account before the governor for their schismatic\nprocedure, they took an aggressive tone and declared that the ministers,\n\"were Separatists, and would be Anabaptists.\" The two brothers were\nillogical. The ministers had not departed from the Nationalist and\nanti-Separatist principles enunciated by Higginson from the quarter-deck\nof the \"Talbot.\" What they had just done was to lay the foundations of a\nnational church for the commonwealth that was in building. And the two\nbrothers, trying to draw off a part of the people into their\nschism-shop, were Separatists, although they were doubtless surprised to\ndiscover it. There was not the slightest hesitation on the governor's\npart as to the proper course to be pursued. \"Finding those two brothers\nto be of high spirits, and their speeches and practices tending to\nmutiny and faction, the governor told them that New England was no place\nfor such as they, and therefore he sent them both back for England at\nthe return of the ships the same year.\"[98:1] Neither then nor\nafterward was there any trace of doubt in the minds of the New England\nsettlers, in going three thousand miles away into the seclusion of the\nwilderness, of their indefeasible moral right to pick their own company.\nThere was abundant opportunity for mistake and temptation to wrong-doing\nin the exercise of this right, but the right itself is so nearly\nself-evident as to need no argument.\n\nWhile the civil and ecclesiastical foundations of the Salem community\nare thus being laid, there is preparing on the other side of the sea\nthat great _coup d'etat_ which is to create, almost in a day, a\npractically independent American republic. Until this is accomplished\nthe colonial organization is according to a common pattern, a settlement\non a distant shore, equipped, sustained, and governed with authority all\nbut sovereign by a commercial company at the metropolis, within the\nreach, and thus under the control, of the supreme power. Suppose, now,\nthat the shareholders in the commercial company take their charter\nconferring all but sovereign authority, and transport themselves and it\nacross the sea to the heart of the settlement, there to admit other\nplanters, at their discretion, to the franchise of the Company, what\nthen? This was the question pondered and decided in those dark days of\nEnglish liberty, when the triumph of despotism, civil and spiritual,\nover the rights of Englishmen seemed almost achieved. The old officers\nof the Company resigned; their places were filled by Winthrop and Dudley\nand others, who had undertaken to emigrate; and that memorable season of\n1630 not less than seventeen ships, carrying about one thousand\npassengers, sailed from English ports for Massachusetts Bay. It was the\nbeginning of the great Puritan exodus. Attempts were made by the king\nand the archbishop to stay the flow of emigration, but with only\ntransient success. \"At the end of ten years from Winthrop's arrival\nabout twenty-one thousand Englishmen, or four thousand families,\nincluding the few hundreds who were here before him, had come over in\nthree hundred vessels, at a cost of two hundred thousand pounds\nsterling.\"[99:1] What could not be done by despotism was accomplished by\nthe triumph of the people over the court. The meeting of the Long\nParliament in 1640 made it safe for Puritans to stay in England; and the\nPuritans stayed. The current of migration was not only checked, but\nturned backward. It is reckoned that within four generations from that\ntime more persons went to old England than originally came thence. The\nbeginnings of this return were of high importance. Among the home-going\ncompanies were men who were destined to render eminent service in the\nreconstruction of English society, both in the state and in the army,\nand especially in the church. The example of the New England churches,\nvoluminously set forth in response to written inquiries from England,\nhad great influence in saving the mother country from suffering the\nimposition of a Presbyterian hierarchy that threatened to be as\nintolerant and as intolerable as the tyranny of Laud.\n\nFor the order of the New England churches crystallized rapidly into a\nsystematic and definite church polity, far removed from mere Separatism\neven in the temperate form in which this had been illustrated by\nRobinson and the Pilgrim church. The successive companies of emigrants\nas they arrived, ship-load after ship-load, each with its minister or\ncollege of ministers, followed with almost monotonous exactness the\nmethod adopted in the organization of the church in Salem. A small\ncompany of the best Christians entered into mutual covenant as a church\nof Christ, and this number, growing by well-considered accessions, added\nto itself from time to time other believers on the evidence and\nconfession of their faith in Christ. The ministers, all or nearly all of\nwhom had been clergymen in the orders of the Church of England, were of\none mind in declining to consider their episcopal ordination in England\nas conferring on them any spiritual authority in a church newly gathered\nin America. They found rather in the free choice of the brotherhood the\nsign of a divine call to spiritual functions in the church, and were\ninducted into office by the primitive form of the laying on of hands.\n\nIn many ways, but especially in the systematized relations of the\nchurches with one another and in their common relations with the civil\ngovernment, the settled Nationalism of the great Puritan migration was\nillustrated. With the least possible constraint on the individual or on\nthe church, they were clear in their purpose that their young state\nshould have its established church.\n\nThrough what rude experiences the system and the men were tested has\nbeen abundantly told and retold.[100:1] Roger Williams, learned,\neloquent, sincere, generous, a man after their own heart, was a very\nmalignant among Separatists, separating himself not only from the\nEnglish church, but from all who would not separate from it, and from\nall who would not separate from these, and so on, until he could no\nlonger, for conscience' sake, hold fellowship with his wife in family\nprayers. After long patience the colonial government deemed it necessary\nto signify to him that if his conscience would not suffer him to keep\nquiet, and refrain from stirring up sedition, and embroiling the colony\nwith the English government, he would have to seek freedom for that\nsort of conscience outside of their jurisdiction; and they put him out\naccordingly, to the great advantage of both parties and without loss of\nmutual respect and love. A little later, a clever woman, Mrs. Ann\nHutchinson, with a vast conceit of her superior holiness and with the\nugly censoriousness which is a usual accompaniment of that grace,\ndemonstrated her genius for mixing a theological controversy with\npersonal jealousies and public anxieties, and involved the whole colony\nof the Bay in an acrimonious quarrel, such as to give an unpleasant tone\nof partisanship and ill temper to the proceedings in her case, whether\necclesiastical or civil. She seems clearly to have been a willful and\npersistent nuisance in the little community, and there were good reasons\nfor wanting to be rid of her, and right ways to that end. They took the\nwrong way and tried her for heresy. In like manner, when the Quakers\ncame among them,--not of the mild, meek, inoffensive modern variety to\nwhich we are accustomed, but of the fierce, aggressive early\ntype,--instead of proceeding against them for their overt offenses\nagainst the state, disorderly behavior, public indecency, contempt of\ncourt, sedition, they proceeded against them distinctly as Quakers, thus\nputting themselves in the wrong and conceding to their adversaries that\ncrown of martyrdom for which their souls were hankering and to which\nthey were not fully entitled.\n\nOf course, in maintaining the principle of Nationalism, the New England\nPuritans did not decline the implications and corollaries of that\nprinciple. It was only to a prophetic genius like the Separatist Roger\nWilliams that it was revealed that civil government had no concern to\nenforce \"the laws of the first table.\" But the historical student might\nbe puzzled to name any other church establishment under which less of\nmolestation was suffered by dissenters, or more of actual encouragement\ngiven to rival sects, than under the New England theocracies. The\nNationalist principle was exclusive; the men who held it in New England\n(subject though they were to the temptations of sectarian emulation and\nfanatic zeal) were large-minded and generous men.\n\nThe general uniformity of church organization among the Puritan\nplantations is the more remarkable in view of the notable independence\nand originality of the leading men, who represented tendencies of\nopinion as widely diverging as the quasi-Presbyterianism of John Eliot\nand the doctrinaire democracy of John Wise. These variations of\necclesiastico-political theory had much to do with the speedy diffusion\nof the immigrant population. For larger freedom in building his ideal\nNew Jerusalem, the statesmanlike pastor, Thomas Hooker, led forth his\nflock a second time into the great and terrible wilderness, and with his\nassociates devised what has been declared to be \"the first example in\nhistory of a written constitution--a distinct organic law constituting a\ngovernment and defining its powers.\"[102:1] The like motive determined\nthe choice company under John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton to refuse\nall inducements and importunities to remain in Massachusetts, choosing\nrather to build on no other man's foundations at New Haven.[102:2] At\nthe end of a hundred years from the settlement of Boston the shores and\nriver valleys of Massachusetts and Connecticut were planted with towns,\neach self-governing as a pure democracy, each with its church and\neducated minister and its system of common schools. The two colleges at\nCambridge and New Haven were busy with their appointed work of training\nyoung men to the service of God \"in church or civil state.\" And this\ngreat and prosperous and intelligent population was, with inconsiderable\nexceptions, the unmingled progeny of the four thousand English families\nwho, under stress of the tyranny of Charles Stuart and the persecution\nof William Laud, had crossed the sea in the twelve years from 1628 to\n1640.\n\nThe traditions of the fathers of New England had been piously cherished\ndown to this third and fourth generation. The model of an ideal state\nthat had been set up had, meanwhile, been more or less deformed,\nespecially in Massachusetts, by the interference of England; the\ndominance of the established churches had been slightly infringed by the\ngrowth here and there of dissenting churches, Baptist, Episcopalian, and\nQuaker; but the framework both of church and of state was wonderfully\nlittle decayed or impaired. The same simplicity in the outward order of\nworship was maintained; the same form of high Calvinistic theology\ncontinued to be cherished as a norm of sound preaching and as a vehicle\nof instruction to children. All things continued as they had been; and\nyet it would have been a most superficial observer who had failed to\ndetect signs of approaching change. The disproportions of the\nCalvinistic system, exaggerated in the popular acceptation, as in the\nfavorite \"Day of Doom\" of Michael Wigglesworth, forced the effort after\npractical readjustments. The magnifying of divine sovereignty in the\nsaving of men, to the obscuring of human responsibility, inevitably\nmitigated the church's reprobation of respectable people who could\ntestify of no experience of conversion, and yet did not wish to\nrelinquish for themselves or their families their relation to the\nchurch. Out of the conflict between two aspects of theological truth,\nand the conflict between the Nationalist and the Separatist conceptions\nof the church, and especially out of the mistaken policy of restricting\nthe civil franchise to church-members, came forth that device of the\n\"Half-way Covenant\" which provided for a hereditary quasi-membership in\nthe church for worthy people whose lives were without scandal, and who,\nnot having been subjects of an experience of conscious conversion, were\nfelt to be not altogether to blame for the fact. From the same causes\ncame forth, and widely prevailed, the tenet of \"Stoddardeanism,\" so\ncalled as originating in the pastoral work, and, it is said, in the\npersonal experience, of Solomon Stoddard, the saintly minister of\nNorthampton from 1669 till 1729, when he was succeeded by his colleague\nand grandson, Jonathan Edwards. It is the view that the Lord's Supper is\ninstituted as a means of regeneration as well as of sanctification, and\nthat those who are consciously \"in a natural condition\" ought not to be\nrepelled, but rather encouraged to come to it. From the same causes, by\nnatural sequence, came that so-called Arminianism[104:1] which, instead\nof urging the immediate necessity and duty of conversion, was content\nwith commending a \"diligent use of means,\" which might be the hopeful\nantecedent of that divine grace.\n\nThese divergences from the straight lines of the primeval New England\nCalvinism had already begun to be manifest during the lifetime of some\nof the founders. Of not less grave import was the deflection from the\nlofty moral standard of the fathers. A great New Englander, Horace\nBushnell, maintaining his thesis that great migrations are followed by a\ntendency to barbarism, has cited in proof this part of New England\nhistory.[105:1] As early as the second generation, the evil tendency\nseemed so formidable as to lead to the calling, by the General Court of\nMassachusetts, of the \"Reforming Synod\" of 1679. No one can say that the\nheroic age of New England was past. History has no nobler record to\nshow, of courage and fortitude in both men and women, than that of New\nEngland in the Indian wars. But the terrors of those days of\ntribulation, the breaking up of communities, the decimation of the\npopulation, the long absences of the young men on the bloody business of\nthe soldier, were not favorable for maturing the fruits of the Spirit.\nWithal, the intrigues of British politicians, the threatened or actual\nmolestations of the civil governments of the colonies, and the\ncorrupting influences proceeding from every center of viceregal\nauthority, abetted the tendency to demoralization. By the end of the\nfirst third of the eighteenth century, New England, politically,\necclesiastically, theologically, and morally, had come into a state of\nunstable equilibrium. An overturn is impending.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe set and sturdy resolution of the founders of the four colonies of\nthe New England confederacy that the first planting of their territory\nshould be on rigorously exclusive principles, with a homogeneous and\nmutually congenial population, under a firm discipline both civil and\necclesiastical, finds an experimental justification in the history of\nthe neighbor colony of Rhode Island. No commonwealth can boast a nobler\nand purer name for its founder than the name of Roger Williams. Rhode\nIsland, founded in generous reaction from the exclusiveness of\nMassachusetts, embodied the principle of \"soul-liberty\" in its earliest\nacts. The announcement that under its jurisdiction no man was to be\nmolested by the civil power for his religious belief was a broad\ninvitation to all who were uncomfortable under the neighboring\ntheocracies.[106:1] And the invitation was freely accepted. The\ncompanions of Williams were reinforced by the friends of Mrs.\nHutchinson, some of them men of substance and weight of character. The\nincreasing number of persons inclined to Baptist views found in Rhode\nIsland a free and congenial atmosphere. Williams himself was not long in\ncoming to the Baptist position and passing beyond it. The Quakers found\nRhode Island a safe asylum from persecution, whether Puritan or Dutch.\nMore disorderly and mischievous characters, withal, quartered\nthemselves, unwelcome guests, on the young commonwealth, a thorn in its\nside and a reproach to its principles. It became clear to Williams\nbefore his death that the declaration of individual rights and\nindependence is not of itself a sufficient foundation for a state. The\nheterogeneous population failed to settle into any stable polity. After\ntwo generations the tyranny of Andros, so odious elsewhere in New\nEngland, was actually welcome as putting an end to the liberty that had\nbeen hardly better than anarchy.\n\nThe results of the manner of the first planting on the growth of the\nchurch in Rhode Island were of a like sort. There is no room for\nquestion that the material of a true church was there, in the person of\nfaithful and consecrated disciples of Christ, and therefore there must\nhave been gathering together in common worship and mutual edification.\nBut the sense of individual rights and responsibilities seems to have\novershadowed the love for the whole brotherhood of disciples. The\ncondition of the church illustrated the Separatism of Williams reduced\nto the absurd. There was feeble organization of Christians in knots and\ncoteries. But sixty years passed before the building of the first house\nof worship in Providence, and at the end of almost a century \"there had\nnot existed in the whole colony more than eight or ten churches of any\ndenomination, and these were mostly in a very feeble and precarious\nstate.\"[107:1]\n\nMeanwhile the inadequate compensations of a state of schism began to\nshow themselves. In the absence of any organized fellowship of the whole\nthere grew up, more than elsewhere, a mutual tolerance and even love\namong the petty sects, the lesson of which was learned where it was most\nneeded. The churches of \"the standing order\" in Massachusetts not only\nadmired but imitated \"the peace and love which societies of different\nmodes of worship entertained toward each other in Rhode Island.\" In\n1718, not forty years from the time when Baptist churches ceased to be\n_religio illicita_ in Massachusetts, three foremost pastors of Boston\nassisted in the ordination of a minister to the Baptist church, at which\nCotton Mather preached the sermon, entitled \"Good Men United.\" It\ncontained a frank confession of repentance for the persecutions of which\nthe Boston churches had been guilty.[107:2]\n\nThere is a double lesson to be learned from the history of these\nneighbor colonies: first, that a rigorously exclusive selection of men\nlike-minded is the best seed for the first planting of a commonwealth in\nthe wilderness; secondly, that the exclusiveness that is justified in\nthe infancy of such a community cannot wisely, nor even righteously, nor\neven possibly, be maintained in its adolescence and maturity. The\nchurch-state of Massachusetts and New Haven was overthrown at the end of\nthe first generation by external interference. If it had continued a few\nyears longer it must have fallen of itself; but it lasted long enough to\nbe the mold in which the civilization of the young States should set and\nharden.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[84:1] The mutual opposition of Puritan and Pilgrim is brought out with\nemphasis in \"The Genesis of the New England Churches,\" by L. Bacon,\nespecially chaps. v., vii., xviii.\n\n[85:1] L. Bacon, \"Genesis of New England Churches,\" p. 245.\n\n[87:1] L. Bacon, \"Genesis,\" p. 245.\n\n[89:1] The writer takes leave to refer to two essays of his own, in\n\"Irenics and Polemics\" (New York, Christian Literature Co., 1895), for a\nfuller statement of this point.\n\n[91:1] L. Bacon, \"Genesis,\" p. 467.\n\n[94:1] The phrase is used in a large sense, as comprehending the whole\nsubject of the nature and organization of the visible church (L. Bacon,\n\"Genesis,\" p. 456, note).\n\n[96:1] L. Bacon, \"Genesis,\" p. 475.\n\n[97:1] L. Bacon, \"Genesis,\" p. 477.\n\n[98:1] Morton's Memorial, in Palfrey, vol. i., p. 298.\n\n[99:1] Palfrey, vol. i., p. 584.\n\n[100:1] As, for example, with great amplitude by Palfrey; and in more\ncondensed form by Dr. Williston Walker, \"Congregationalists\" (in\nAmerican Church History Series).\n\n[102:1] L. Bacon, \"Early Constitutional History of Connecticut.\"\n\n[102:2] L. Bacon, \"Thirteen Historical Discourses.\" The two mutually\nindependent republics at Hartford and New Haven represented opposite\ntendencies. That at New Haven was after the highest type of theocracy;\nthe Connecticut colony inclined to the less rigorous model of Plymouth,\nnot exacting church-membership as a condition of voting. How important\nthis condition appeared to the mind of Davenport may be judged from his\nexclamation when it ceased, at the union of New Haven with Connecticut.\nHe wrote to a friend, \"In N. H. C. Christ's interest is miserably lost;\"\nand prepared to turn his back forever on the colony of which he was the\nfather.\n\n[104:1] The name, applied at first as a stigma to the liberalizing\nschool of New England theology, may easily mislead if taken either in\nits earlier historic sense or in the sense which it was about to acquire\nin the Wesleyan revival. The surprise of the eighteenth century New\nEngland theologians at finding the word associated with intense fervor\nof preaching and of religious experience is expressed in the saying,\n\"There is all the difference between a cold Arminian and a hot Arminian\nthat there is between a cold potato and a hot potato.\" For a lucid\naccount of the subject, see W. Walker, \"History of the Congregational\nChurches,\" chap. viii.\n\n[105:1] Sermon on \"Barbarism the First Danger.\"\n\n[106:1] And yet, even in the Rhode Island communities, the arbitrary\nright of exclusion, in the exercise of which Roger Williams had been\nshut out from Massachusetts, was asserted and adopted. It was forbidden\nto sell land to a newcomer, except by consent of prior settlers.\n\n[107:1] Dr. J. G. Vose, \"Congregationalism in Rhode Island,\" pp. 16, 53,\n63.\n\n[107:2] _Ibid._, pp. 56, 57. \"Good men, alas! have done such ill things\nas these. New England also has in former times done something of this\naspect which would not now be so well approved; in which, if the\nbrethren in whose house we are now convened met with anything too\nunbrotherly, they now with satisfaction hear us expressing our dislike\nof everything which looked like persecution in the days that have passed\nover us.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE MIDDLE COLONIES: THE JERSEYS, DELAWARE, AND PENNSYLVANIA--THE QUAKER\nCOLONIZATION--GEORGIA.\n\n\nThe bargainings and conveyancings, the confirmations and reclamations,\nthe setting up and overturning, which, after the conquest of the New\nNetherlands, had the effect to detach the peninsula of New Jersey from\nthe jurisdiction of New York, and to divide it for a time into two\ngovernments, belong to political history; but they had, of course, an\nimportant influence on the planting of the church in that territory. One\nresult of them was a wide diversity of materials in the early growth of\nthe church.\n\nToward the end of the Dutch occupation, one lonely congregation had been\nplanted in that region which, at a later time, when the Dutch church in\nAmerica had awaked from its lethargy, was to become known as \"the garden\nof the Dutch church.\"[109:1]\n\nAfter the extinction of the high theocracy of the New Haven Colony by\nthe merger of it in Connecticut, a whole church and town, headed by the\npastor, having secured such guaranty of their political liberty as the\nunstable government of New Jersey was able to give, left the homes\nendeared to them by thirty years of toil and thrift, and lifting the ark\nof the covenant by the staves, set themselves down beside the Passaic,\ncalling their plantation the New-Ark, and reinstituted their fundamental\nprinciple of restricting the franchise to members of the church. Thus\n\"with one heart they resolved to carry on their spiritual and town\naffairs according to godly government.\" The Puritan migration, of which\nthis was the nucleus, had an influence on the legislation and the later\nhistory of New Jersey out of all proportion to its numbers.\n\nTwenty years later the ferocious persecution of the Scottish\nCovenanters, which was incited by the fears or the bloody vindictiveness\nof James II. after the futile insurrection of Monmouth, furnished a\nmotive for emigration to the best people in North Britain, which was\nquickly seized and exploited by the operators in Jersey lands.\nAssurances of religious liberty were freely given; men of influence were\nencouraged to bring over large companies; and in 1686 the brother of the\nmartyred Duke of Argyle was made governor of East Jersey. The\nconsiderable settlements of Scotchmen found congenial neighbors in the\nNew Englanders of Newark. A system of free schools, early established by\na law of the commonwealth, is naturally referred to their common\ninfluence.\n\nMeanwhile a series of events of the highest consequence to the future of\nthe American church had been in progress in the western half of the\nprovince. Passing from hand to hand, the ownership and lordship of West\nJersey had become vested in a land company dominated by Quakers. For the\nfirst time in the brief history of that sect, it was charged with the\nresponsibility of the organization and conduct of government. Hitherto\nit had been publicly known by the fierce and defiant and often\noutrageous protests of its representatives against existing governments\nand dignities both in state and in church, such as exposed them to the\nnatural and reasonable suspicion of being wild and mischievous\nanarchists. The opportunities and temptations that come to those in\npower would be a test of the quality of the sect more severe than trial\nby the cart-tail and the gibbet.\n\nThe Quakers bore the test nobly. Never did a commercial company show\nitself so little mercenary; never was a sovereign more magnanimous and\nunselfish. With the opening of the province to settlement, the\nproprietors set forth a statement of their purposes: \"We lay a\nfoundation for after ages to understand their liberty as men and\nChristians, that they may not be brought into bondage but by their own\nconsent; for we put the power in the people.\" This was followed by a\ncode of \"Concessions and Agreements\" in forty-four articles, which were\nat once a constitution of government and a binding compact with such as\nshould enter themselves as colonists on these terms. They left little to\nbe desired in securities for personal, political, and religious\nliberty.[111:1]\n\nAt once population began to flow amain. In 1677 two hundred and thirty\nQuakers came in one ship and founded the town of Burlington. By 1681\nthere had come fourteen hundred. Weekly, monthly, quarterly meetings\nwere established; houses of worship were built; and in August, 1681, the\nQuaker hierarchy (if it may so be called without offense) was completed\nby the establishment of the Burlington Yearly Meeting. The same year the\ncorporation, encouraged by its rapid success, increased its numbers and\nits capital, bought out the proprietors of East Jersey, and appointed as\ngovernor over the whole province the eminent Quaker theologian, Robert\nBarclay. The Quaker regime continued, not always smoothly, till 1688,\nwhen it was extinguished by James II. at the end of his perfidious\ncampaigns against American liberties.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis enterprise of the Quaker purchase and settlement of New Jersey\nbrings upon the stage of American history the great apostle of Christian\ncolonization, William Penn. He came into relation to the New Jersey\nbusiness as arbiter of some differences that arose between the two\nFriends who had bought West Jersey in partnership. He continued in\nconnection with it when the Quaker combination had extended itself by\npurchase over the whole Jersey peninsula, and he was a trusted counselor\nof the corporation, and the representative of its interests at court.\nThus there grew more and more distinct before his peculiarly adventurous\nand enterprising mind the vision of the immense possibilities,\npolitical, religious, and commercial, of American colonization. With\nadmirable business shrewdness combined with courtly tact, he canceled an\notherwise hopeless debt from the crown in consideration of the\nconcession to him of a domain of imperial wealth and dimensions, with\npractically unlimited rights of jurisdiction. At once he put into\nexercise the advantages and opportunities which were united in him so as\nnever before in the promoter of a like enterprise, and achieved a\nsuccess speedy and splendid beyond all precedent.\n\nThe providential preparations for this great enterprise--\"the Holy\nExperiment,\" as Penn delighted to call it--had been visibly in progress\nin England for not more than the third part of a century. It was not the\nless divine for being wholly logical and natural, that, just when the\nPuritan Reformation culminated in the victory of the Commonwealth, the\nQuaker Reformation should suddenly break forth. Puritanism was the last\nexpression of that appeal from the church to the Scriptures, from\nexisting traditions of Christianity to its authentic original documents,\nwhich is the essence of Protestantism. In Puritanism, reverence for the\nScriptures is exaggerated to the point of superstition. The doctrine\nthat God of old had spoken by holy men was supplemented by the\npretension that God had long ago ceased so to speak and never would so\nspeak again. The claim that the Scriptures contain a sufficient guide to\nmoral duty and religious truth was exorbitantly stretched to include the\nlast details of church organization and worship, and the minute\ndirection of political and other secular affairs. In many a case the\nScriptures thus applied did highly ennoble the polity and legislation of\nthe Puritans.[113:1] In other cases, not a few, the Scriptures,\nperverted from their true purpose and wrested by a vicious and conceited\nexegesis, were brought into collision with the law written on the heart.\nThe Bible was used to contradict the moral sense. It was high time for\nthe Quaker protest, and it was inevitable that this protest should be\nextravagant and violent.\n\nIn their bold reassertion of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, that his\nlight \"lighteth every man who cometh into the world,\" it is not strange\nthat the first Quakers should sometimes have lost sight of those\nprinciples the enunciation of which gives such a character of sober\nsanity to the apostolic teachings on this subject--that a divine\ninfluence on the mind does not discharge one from the duty of\nself-control, but that \"the spirits of the prophets are subject to the\nprophets\"; that the divine inworking does not suspend nor supersede\nman's volition and activity, but that it behooves man to \"work, because\nGod worketh in him to will and to work.\" The lapse from these\ncharacteristically Christian principles into the enthusiastic, fanatic,\nor heathen conception of inspiration has been a perpetually recurring\nincident in the history of the church in all ages, and especially in\ntimes of deep and earnest spiritual feeling. But in the case of the\nQuaker revival it was attended most conspicuously by its evil\nconsequences. Half-crazy or more than half-crazy adventurers and\nhysterical women, taking up fantastical missions in the name of the\nLord, and never so happy as when they felt called of God to some\npeculiarly outrageous course of behavior, associated themselves with\nsincere and conscientious reformers, adding to the unpopularity of the\nnew opinions the odium justly due to their own misdemeanors. But the\nprophet whose life and preaching had begun the Quaker Reformation was\nnot found wanting in the gifts which the case required. Like other great\nreligious founders, George Fox combined with profound religious\nconviction a high degree of tact and common sense and the faculty of\norganization. While the gospel of \"the Light that lighteth every man\"\nwas speeding with wonderful swiftness to the ends of the earth, there\nwas growing in the hands of the founder the framework of a discipline by\nwhich the elements of disorder should be controlled.[114:1] The result\nwas a firmly articulated organization compacted by common faith and zeal\nand mutual love, and by the external pressure of fierce persecution\nextending throughout the British empire on both sides of the ocean.\n\nEntering into continental Europe, the Quaker Reformation found itself\nanticipated in the progress of religious history. The protests of the\nAnabaptists against what they deemed the shortcomings of the Lutheran\nReformation had been attended with far wilder extravagances than those\nof the early Quakers, and had been repressed with ruthless severity. But\nthe political and militant Anabaptists were succeeded by communities of\nmild and inoffensive non-resistants, governing themselves by a narrow\nand rigorous discipline, and differing from the order of Quakers mainly\nat this point, that whereas the Quakers rejected all sacraments, these\ninsisted strenuously on their own views of Baptism and the Supper, and\nadded to them the ordinance of the Washing of Feet. These communities\nwere to be found throughout Protestant Europe, from the Alps to the\nNorth Sea, but were best known in Holland and Lower Germany, where they\nwere called Mennonites, from the priest, Menno Simons, who, a hundred\nyears before George Fox, had enunciated the same principles of duty\nfounded on the strict interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.\n\nThe combination of circumstances to promote the \"Holy Experiment\" of\nWilliam Penn is something prodigious. How he could be a petted favorite\nat the shameful court of the last two Stuarts, while his brethren\nthroughout the realm were languishing under persecution, is a fact not\nin itself honorable, but capable of being honorably explained; and both\nthe persecution and the court favor helped on his enterprise. The time\nwas opportune; the period of tragical uncertainty in colonization was\npast; emigration had come to be a richly promising enterprise. For\nleader of the enterprise what endowment was lacking in the elegantly\naccomplished young courtier, holding as his own the richest domain that\ncould be carved out of a continent, who was at the same time brother, in\nunaffected humility and unbounded generosity, in a great fraternity\nbound together by principles of ascetic self-denial and devotion to the\nkingdom of God?\n\nPenn's address inviting colonists to his new domain announced the\noutlines of his scheme. His great powers of jurisdiction were held by\nhim only to be transferred to the future inhabitants in a free and\nrighteous government. \"I purpose,\" said he, conscious of the magnanimity\nof the intention, \"for the matters of liberty, I purpose that which is\nextraordinary--to leave myself and successors no power of doing\nmischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole\ncountry;\" and added, in language which might have fallen from his\nintimate friend, Algernon Sidney, but was fully expressive of his own\nviews, \"It is the great end of government to support power in reverence\nwith the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power; for\nliberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is\nslavery.\"[116:1] With assurances of universal civil and religious\nliberty in conformity with these principles, he offered land at forty\nshillings for a hundred acres, subject to a small quit-rent.\n\nThrough the correspondence of the Friends' meetings, these proposals\ncould be brought to the attention of many thousands of people, sifted\nand culled by persecution, the best stuff for a colony in all the United\nKingdom. The response was immediate. Within a year three ship-loads of\nemigrants went out. The next year Penn himself went with a company of a\nhundred, and stayed long enough to see the government organized by the\nfree act of the colonists on the principles which he had set forth, and\nin that brief sojourn of two years to witness the beginnings of a\nsplendid prosperity. His city of Philadelphia consisted in August, 1683,\nof three or four little cottages. Two years afterward it contained about\nsix hundred houses, and the schoolmaster and the printing-press had\nbegun their work.[117:1] The growth went on accelerating. In one year\nseven thousand settlers are said to have arrived; before the end of the\ncentury the colonists numbered more than twenty thousand, and\nPhiladelphia had become a thriving town.[117:2]\n\nBut Great Britain, although the chief source of population, was not the\nonly source. It had been part of the providential equipment of Penn for\nhis great work to endow him with the gift of tongues and bring him into\nintimate relations with the many congregations of the broken and\npersecuted sects kindred to his own on the continent of Europe. The\nsummer and autumn of 1678, four years before his coming to Pennsylvania,\nhad been spent by him, in company with George Fox, Robert Barclay, and\nother eminent Friends, in a mission tour through Holland (where he\npreached in his mother's own language) and Germany. The fruit of this\npreaching and of previous missions appeared in an unexpected form. One\nof the first important accessions to the colony was the company of\nMennonites led by Pastorius, the \"Pennsylvania Pilgrim,\" who founded\nGermantown, now a beautiful suburb of Philadelphia. Group after group of\npicturesque devotees that had been driven into seclusion and\neccentricity by long and cruel persecution--the Tunkers, the\nSchwenkfelders, the Amish--kept coming and bringing with them their\ntraditions, their customs, their sacred books, their timid and pathetic\ndisposition to hide by themselves, sometimes in quasi-monastic\ncommunities like that at Ephrata, sometimes in actual hermitage, as in\nthe ravines of the Wissahickon. But the most important contribution of\nthis kind came from the suffering villages of the Rhenish Palatinate\nravaged with fire and sword by the French armies in 1688. So numerous\nwere the fugitives from the Palatinate that the name of Palatine came to\nbe applied in general to German refugees, from whatever region. This\nmigration of the German sects (to be distinguished from the later\nmigration from the established Lutheran and Reformed churches) furnished\nthe material for that curious \"Pennsylvania Dutch\" population which for\nmore than two centuries has lain encysted, so to speak, in the body\npolitic and ecclesiastic of Pennsylvania, speaking a barbarous jargon of\nits own, and refusing to assimilate with the surrounding people.\n\nIt was the rough estimate of Dr. Franklin that colonial Pennsylvania was\nmade up of one third Quakers, one third Germans, and one third\nmiscellaneous. The largest item under this last head was the Welsh, most\nof them Quakers, who had been invited by Penn with the promise of a\nseparate tract of forty thousand acres in which to maintain their own\nlanguage, government, and institutions. Happily, the natural and\npatriotic longing of these immigrants for a New Wales on this side the\nsea was not to be realized. The \"Welsh Barony\" became soon a mere\ngeographical tradition, and the whole strength of this fervid and\nreligious people enriched the commonwealth.[118:1]\n\nSeveral notable beginnings of church history belong to the later part of\nthe period under consideration.\n\nAn interesting line of divergence from the current teachings of the\nFriends was led, toward the end of the seventeenth century, by George\nKeith, for thirty years a recognized preacher of the Society. One is\nimpressed, in a superficial glance at the story, with the reasonableness\nand wisdom of some of Keith's positions, and with the intellectual vigor\nof the man. But the discussion grew into an acrimonious controversy, and\nthe controversy deepened into a schism, which culminated in the\ndisowning of Keith by the Friends in America, and afterward by the\nLondon Yearly Meeting, to which he had appealed. Dropped thus by his old\nfriends, he was taken up by the English Episcopalians and ordained by\nthe Bishop of London, and in 1702 returned to America as the first\nmissionary of the newly organized Society for the Propagation of the\nGospel in Foreign Parts. An active missionary campaign was begun and\nsustained by the large resources of the Venerable Society until the\noutbreak of the War of Independence. The movement had great advantages\nfor success. It was next of kin to the expiring Swedish Lutheran Church\nin the three counties that became afterward the State of Delaware, and\nheir to its venerable edifices and its good will; it was the official\nand court church of the royal governors, and after the degenerate sons\nof William Penn abandoned the simple worship, as well as the clean\nliving, in which their father delighted, it was the church promoted by\nthe proprietary interest; withal it proved itself, both then and\nafterward, to hold a deposit of truth and of usages of worship\npeculiarly adapted to supplement the defects of the Quaker system. It is\nnot easy to explain the ill success of the enterprise. In Philadelphia\nit took strong root, and the building, in 1727, of Christ Church, which\nsurvives to this day, a monument of architectural beauty as well as\nhistorical interest, marks an important epoch in the progress of\nChristianity in America. But in the rural districts the work languished.\nParishes, seemingly well equipped, fell into a \"deplorable condition\";\nchurches were closed and parishes dwindled away. About the year 1724\nGovernor Keith reported to the Bishop of London that outside the city\nthere were \"twelve or thirteen little edifices, at times supplied by one\nor other of the poor missionaries sent from the society.\" Nearly all\nthat had been gained by the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania, where the\n\"Venerable Society\" had maintained at times forty-seven missionaries and\ntwenty-four central stations, was wiped out by the Revolutionary\nWar.[120:1]\n\nAnother great beginning that comes within the field of vision in the\nfirst four decades of the eighteenth century is the planting of the\ngreat national churches of Germany. We have observed the migration of\nthe minor sects of Germany--so complete, in some cases, that the entire\nsect was transplanted, leaving no representative in the fatherland. In\nthe mixed multitude of refugees from the Palatinate and other ravaged\nprovinces were many belonging both to the Lutheran and to the Reformed\nchurches, as well as some Catholics. But they were scattered as sheep\nhaving no shepherd. The German Lutheran and Reformed immigration was\ndestined to attain by and by to enormous proportions; but so late was\nthe considerable expansion of it, and so tardy and inefficient the\nattention given to this diaspora by the mother churches, that the\nclassical organization of the Reformed Church dates only from 1747, and\nthat of the Lutheran Church from 1760.[121:1] The beautiful career of\nthe Moravians began in Pennsylvania so late as 1734. In general it may\nbe said that the German-American church was affected only indirectly by\nthe Great Awakening.\n\nBut the greatest in its consequences, both religious and political, of\nthe great beginnings in the early part of the eighteenth century, was\nthe first flow of the swelling tide of the Scotch-Irish immigration.\nAlready, in 1669, an English Presbyterian, Matthew Hill, persuaded to\nthe work by Richard Baxter, was ministering to \"many of the Reformed\nreligion\" in Maryland; and in 1683 an appeal from them to the Irish\npresbytery of Laggan had brought over to their aid that sturdy and\nfearless man of God, Francis Makemie, whose successful defense in 1707,\nwhen unlawfully imprisoned in New York by that unsavory defender of the\nAnglican faith, Lord Cornbury, gave assurance of religious liberty to\nhis communion throughout the colonies. In 1705 he was moderator of the\nfirst presbytery in America, numbering six ministers. At the end of\ntwelve years the number of ministers, including accessions from New\nEngland, had grown to seventeen. But it was not until 1718 that this\nmigration began in earnest. As early as 1725 James Logan, the\nScotch-Irish-Quaker governor of Pennsylvania, speaking in the spirit of\nprophecy, declares that \"it looks as if Ireland were to send all her\ninhabitants hither; if they continue to come they will make themselves\nproprietors of the province.\" It was a broad-spread, rich alluvium\nsuperimposed upon earlier strata of immigration, out of which was to\nspring the sturdy growth of American Presbyterianism, as well as of\nother Christian organizations. But by 1730 it was only the turbid and\nfeculent flood that was visible to most observers; the healthful and\nfruitful growth was yet to come.[122:1]\n\nThe colony of Georgia makes its appearance among the thirteen British\ncolonies in America, in 1733, as one born out of due time. But no colony\nof all the thirteen had a more distinctly Christian origin than this.\nThe foundations of other American commonwealths had been laid in faith\nand hope, but the ruling motive of the founding of Georgia was charity,\nand that is the greatest of these three. The spirit which dominated in\nthe measures taken for the beginning of the enterprise was embodied in\none of the most interesting personages of the dreary eighteenth\ncentury--General James Oglethorpe. His eventful life covered the greater\npart of the eighteenth century, but in some of the leading traits of his\ncharacter and incidents of his career he was rather a man of the\nnineteenth. At the age of twenty-one he was already a veteran of the\narmy of Prince Eugene, having served with honorable distinction on the\nstaff of that great commander. Returning to England, in 1722 he entered\nParliament, and soon attained what in that age was the almost solitary\ndistinction of a social reformer. He procured the appointment of a\nspecial committee to investigate the condition of the debtors' prisons;\nand the shocking revelations that ensued led to a beginning of\nreformation of the cruel and barbarous laws of England concerning\nimprisonment for debt. But being of the higher type of reformers, he was\nnot content with such negative work. He cherished and elaborated a\nscheme that should open a new career for those whose ill success in life\nhad subjected them to the pains and the ignominy due to criminals. It\nwas primarily for such as these that he projected the colony of Georgia.\nBut to a mind like his the victims of injustice in every land were\nobjects of practical sympathy. His colony should be an asylum for\nsufferers from religious persecution from whatever quarter. The\nenterprise was organized avowedly as a work of charity. The territory\nwas vested in trustees, who should receive no pay or emolument for their\nservices. Oglethorpe himself gave his unpaid labor as military and civil\nhead of the colony, declining to receive in return so much as a\nsettler's allotment of land. An appropriation of ten thousand pounds was\nmade by Parliament for the promotion of the work--the only government\nsubsidy ever granted to an American colony. With eager and unselfish\nhopes of a noble service to be rendered to humanity, the generous\nsoldier embarked with a picked company of one hundred and twenty\nemigrants, and on the 12th of February, 1733, landed at the foot of the\nbluff on which now stands the city of Savannah. The attractions of the\ngenial climate and fertile soil, the liberal terms of invitation, and\nthe splendid schemes of profitable industry were diligently advertised,\nand came to the knowledge of that noble young enthusiast, Zinzendorf,\ncount and Moravian bishop, whose estate of Herrnhut in Lusatia had\nbecome an asylum for persecuted Christians; and missionary colonists of\nthat Moravian church of which every member was a missionary, and\ncompanies of the exiled Salzburgers, the cruelty of whose sufferings\naroused the universal indignation of Protestant Europe, were mingled\nwith the unfortunates from English prisons in successive ship-loads of\nemigrants. One such ship's company, among the earliest to be added to\nthe new colony, included some mighty factors in the future church\nhistory of America and of the world. In February, 1736, a company of\nthree hundred colonists, with Oglethorpe at their head, landed at\nSavannah. Among them was a reinforcement of twenty colonists for the\nMoravian settlement, with Bishop David Nitschmann, and young Charles\nWesley, secretary to the governor, and his elder brother, John, now\nthirty-three years old, eager for the work of evangelizing the heathen\nIndians--an intensely narrow, ascetic, High-church ritualist and\nsacramentarian. The voyage was a memorable one in history. Amid the\nterrors of a perilous storm, Wesley, so liable to be lifted up with the\npride that apes humility, was humbled as he contrasted the agitations of\nhis own people with the cheerful faith and composure of his German\nshipmates; and soon after the landing he was touched with the primitive\nsimplicity and beauty of the ordination service with which a pastor was\nset over the Moravian settlement by Bishop Nitschmann. During the\ntwenty-two months of his service in Georgia, through the ascetic toils\nand privations which he inflicted on himself and tried to inflict on\nothers, he seems as one whom the law has taken severely in hand to lead\nhim to Christ. It was after his return from America, among the\nMoravians, first at London and afterward on a visit to Herrnhut, that he\nwas \"taught the way of the Lord more perfectly.\"[125:1]\n\nThe three shipmates, the Wesleys and Bishop Nitschmann, did not remain\nlong together. Nitschmann soon returned to Germany to lead a new colony\nof his brethren to Pennsylvania; Charles Wesley remained for four months\nat Frederica, and then recrossed the ocean, weary of the hardness of the\npeople's hearts; and, except for the painful and humiliating discipline\nwhich was preparing him to \"take the whole world to be his parish,\" it\nhad been well for John Wesley if he had returned with his brother. Never\ndid a really great and good man act more like a fool than he did in his\nGeorgia mission. The priestly arrogance with which he attempted to\nenforce his crotchets of churchmanship on a mixed community in the edge\nof the wilderness culminated at last in his hurling the thunderbolts of\nexcommunication at a girl who had jilted him, followed by his slipping\naway from the colony between two days, with an indictment for defamation\non record against him, and his returning to London to resign to the\nSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel his commission as missionary.\nJust as he was landing, the ship was setting sail which bore to his\ndeserted field his old Oxford friend and associate in \"the Methodist\nClub,\" George Whitefield, then just beginning the career of meteoric\nsplendor which for thirty-two years dazzled the observers of both\nhemispheres. He landed in Savannah in May, 1738. This was the first of\nWhitefield's work in America. But it was not the beginning of the Great\nAwakening. For many years there had been waiting and longing as of them\nthat watch for the morning. At Raritan and New Brunswick, in New Jersey,\nand elsewhere, there had been prelusive gleams of dawn. And at\nNorthampton, in December, 1734, Jonathan Edwards had seen the sudden\ndaybreak and rejoiced with exceeding great joy.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[109:1] Corwin, pp. 58, 128.\n\n[111:1] It is notable that the concessions offered already by Carteret\nand Berkeley in 1664 contained an unlimited pledge of religious liberty,\n\"any law, statute, usage, or custom of the realm of England to the\ncontrary notwithstanding\" (Mulford, \"History of New Jersey,\" p. 134). A\nhalf-century of experience in colonization had satisfied some minds that\nthe principle adopted by the Quakers for conscience' sake was also a\nsound business principle.\n\n[113:1] See the vindication of the act of the New Haven colonists in\nadopting the laws of Moses as the statute-book of the colony, in the\n\"Thirteen Historical Discourses of L. Bacon,\" pp. 29-32. \"The greatest\nand boldest improvement which has been made in criminal jurisprudence by\nany one act since the dark ages was that which was made by our fathers\nwhen they determined 'that the judicial laws of God, as they were\ndelivered by Moses, and as they are a fence to the moral law, being\nneither typical nor ceremonial nor having any reference to Canaan, shall\nbe accounted of moral equity, and generally bind all offenders and be a\nrule to all the courts.'\"\n\n[114:1] For the dealing of Fox with the case of John Perrot, who had a\ndivine call to wear his hat in meeting, see the \"History of the Society\nof Friends,\" by the Messrs. Thomas, pp. 197-199 (American Church History\nSeries, vol. xii.).\n\n[116:1] Quoted in Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 366.\n\n[117:1] Bancroft, vol. ii., p. 392.\n\n[117:2] H. C. Lodge, p. 213.\n\n[118:1] For a fuller account of the sources of the population of\nPennsylvania, see \"The Making of Pennsylvania,\" by Sydney George Fisher\n(Philadelphia, 1896).\n\n[120:1] Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" pp. 210-212, 220. In a\nfew instances the work suffered from the unfit character of the\nmissionaries. A more common fault was the vulgar proselyting spirit\nwhich appears in the missionaries' reports (\"Digest of S. P. G.\nRecords,\" pp. 12-79). A certain _naif_ insularity sometimes betrays\nitself in their incapacity to adapt themselves to their new-world\nsurroundings. Brave and zealous Mr. Barton in Cumberland County recites\na formidable list of sects into which the people are divided, and with\nunconscious humor recounts his efforts to introduce one sect more\n(_ibid._, p. 37). They could hardly understand that in crossing the\nocean they did not bring with them the prerogatives of a national\nestablishment, but were in a position of dissent from the existing\nestablishments. \"It grieved them that Church of England men should be\nstigmatized with the grim and horrid title of dissenters\" (\"The Making\nof Pennsylvania,\" p. 192). One of the most pathetically amusing\ninstances of the misfit of the Englishman in America is that of the Rev.\nMr. Poyer at Jamaica, L. I. The meeting-house and glebe-lands that had\nbeen provided by the people of that parish for the use of themselves and\ntheir pastor were gotten, neither honorably nor lawfully, into the\npossession of the missionary of the \"S. P. G.\" and his scanty following,\nand held by him in spite of law and justice for twenty-five years. At\nlast the owners of the property succeeded in evicting him by process of\nlaw. The victim of this persecution reported plaintively to the society\nhis \"great and almost continual contentions with the Independents in his\nparish.\" The litigation had been over the salary settled for the\nminister of that parish, and also over the glebe-lands. But \"by a late\nTryal at Law he has lost them and the Church itself, of which his\ncongregation has had the possession for twenty-five years.\" The\ngrievance went to the heart of his congregation, who bewail \"the\nemperious behaviour of these our enemies, who stick not to call\nthemselves the Established Church and us Dissenters\" (\"Digest of S. P.\nG. Records,\" p. 61; Corwin, \"Dutch Church,\" pp. 104, 105, 126, 127).\n\n[121:1] Dubbs, \"Reformed Church,\" p. 281; Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" p.\n260.\n\n[122:1] R. E. Thompson, \"The Presbyterian Churches,\" pp. 22-29; S. S.\nGreen, \"The Scotch-Irish in America,\" paper before the American\nAntiquarian Society, April, 1895. \"The great bulk of the emigrants came\nto this country at two distinct periods of time: the first from 1718 to\nthe middle of the century, the second from 1771 to 1773.... In\nconsequence of the famine of 1740 and 1741, it is stated that for\nseveral years afterward 12,000 emigrants annually left Ulster for the\nAmerican plantations; while from 1771 to 1773 the whole emigration from\nUlster is estimated at 30,000, of whom 10,000 are weavers\" (Green, p.\n7). The companies that came to New England in 1718 were mainly absorbed\nby the Congregationalism of that region (Thompson, p. 15). The church\nfounded in Boston by the Irish Presbyterians came in course of time to\nhave for its pastor the eminent William Ellery Channing (Green, p. 11).\nSince the organization of the annual Scotch-Irish Congress in 1889, the\nliterature of this subject has become copious. (See \"Bibliographical\nNote\" at the end of Mr. Green's pamphlet.)\n\n[125:1] The beautiful story of the processional progress of the Salzburg\nexiles across the continent of Europe is well told by Dr. Jacobs,\n\"History of the Lutherans,\" pp. 153-159, with a copious extract from\nBancroft, vol. iii., which shows that that learned author did not\ndistinguish the Salzburgers from the Moravians. The account of the\nship's company in the storm, in Dr. Jacobs's tenth chapter, is full of\ninterest. There is a pathetic probability in his suggestion that in the\nhymn \"Jesus, lover of my soul,\" we have Charles Wesley's reminiscence of\nthose scenes of peril and terror. For this episode in the church history\nof Georgia as seen from different points of view, see American Church\nHistory Series, vols, iv., v., vii., viii.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE AMERICAN CHURCH ON THE EVE OF THE GREAT AWAKENING--A GENERAL VIEW.\n\n\nBy the end of one hundred years from the settlement of Massachusetts\nimportant changes had come upon the chain of colonies along the Atlantic\nseaboard in America. In the older colonies the people had been born on\nthe soil at two or three generations' remove from the original\ncolonists, or belonged to a later stratum of migration superimposed upon\nthe first. The exhausting toil and privations of the pioneer had been\nsucceeded by a good measure of thrift and comfort. There were yet bloody\ncampaigns to be fought out against the ferocity and craft of savage\nenemies wielded by the strategy of Christian neighbors; but the severest\nstress of the Indian wars was passed. In different degrees and according\nto curiously diverse types, the institutions of a Christian civilization\nwere becoming settled.\n\nIn the course of this hundred years the political organization of these\nvarious colonies had been drawn into an approach to uniformity. In every\none of them, excepting Connecticut and Rhode Island, the royal or\nproprietary government was represented by a governor and his staff,\nappointed from England, and furnishing a point of contact which was in\nevery case and all the time a point of friction and irritation between\nthe colony and the mother country. The reckless laxity of the early\nStuart charters, which permitted the creation of practically independent\ndemocratic republics with churches free from the English hierarchy, was\nsucceeded, under the House of Orange, by something that looked like a\nstatesmanlike care for the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges\nof the English church. Throughout the colonies, at every viceregal\nresidence, it was understood that this church, even where it was not\nestablished by law, was the favored official and court church. But\ninasmuch as the royal governors were officially odious to the people,\nand at the same time in many cases men of despicable personal character,\ntheir influence did little more than create a little \"sect of the\nHerodians\" within the range of their patronage. But though it gave no\nreal advantage to the preferred church, it was effective (as in\nMassachusetts) in breaking down the exclusive pretensions of other\norganizations.\n\nThe Massachusetts theocracy, so called, fell with the revocation of the\ncharter by James II. It had stood for nearly fifty years--long enough to\naccomplish the main end of that Nationalist principle which the\nPuritans, notwithstanding their fraternizing with the Pilgrim\nSeparatists, had never let go. The organization of the church throughout\nNew England, excepting Rhode Island, had gone forward in even step with\nthe advance of population. Two rules had with these colonists the force\nof axioms: first, that it was the duty of every town, as a Christian\ncommunity, to sustain the town church; secondly, that it was the duty of\nevery citizen of the town to contribute to this end according to his\nability. The breaking up of the town church by schisms and the shirking\nof individual duty on the ground of dissent were alike discountenanced,\nsometimes by severely intolerant measures. The ultimate collision of\nthese principles with the sturdy individualism that had been accepted\nfrom the Separatists of Plymouth was inevitable. It came when the\n\"standing order\" encountered the Baptist and the Quaker conscience. It\ncame again when the missionaries of the English established church, with\nsingular unconsciousness of the humor of the situation, pleaded the\nsacred right of dissenting and the essential injustice of compelling\ndissenters to support the parish church.[129:1] The protest may have\nbeen illogical, but it was made effective by \"arguments of weight,\"\nbacked by all the force of the British government. The exclusiveness of\nthe New England theocracies, already relaxed in its application to other\nsects, was thenceforth at an end. The severity of church establishment\nin New England was so far mitigated as at last to put an actual premium\non dissent. Holding still that every citizen is bound to aid in\nmaintaining the institutions of public worship, it relieved any one of\nhis assessment for the support of the parish church upon his filing a\ncertificate that he was contributing to the support of another\ncongregation, thus providing that any disaffection to the church of the\ntown must be organized and active. It was the very euthanasia of\nestablishment. But the state-church and church-state did not cease to be\nuntil they had accomplished that for New England which has never been\naccomplished elsewhere in America--the dividing of the settled regions\ninto definite parishes, each with its church and its learned minister.\nThe democratic autonomy of each church was jealously guarded, and yet\nthey were all knit together by terms of loose confederation into a vital\nsystem. The impracticable notion of a threefold ministry in each church,\nconsisting of pastor, teacher, and ruling elder, failed long before the\nfirst generation had passed; but, with this exception, it may justly be\nsaid that the noble ideal of the Puritan fathers of New England of a\nChristian state in the New World, \"wherein dwelleth righteousness,\" was,\nat the end of a hundred years from their planting, realized with a\ncompleteness not common to such prophetic dreams.\n\nSo solid and vital, at the point of time which we have assumed (1730),\nseemed the cohesion of the \"standing order\" in New England, that only\ntwo inconsiderable defections are visible to the historian.\n\nThe tendency toward Baptist principles early disclosed itself among the\ncolonists. The example of Roger Williams was followed by less notable\ninstances; the shameful intolerance with which some of these were\ntreated shows how formidable this tendency seemed to those in authority.\nBut a more startling defection appeared about the year 1650, when\nPresident Dunster of Harvard College, a man most honorable and lovable,\nsignified his adoption of the Baptist tenets. The treatment of him was\nungenerous, and for a time the petty persecutions that followed served\nrather to discredit the clergy than really to hinder the spread of\nBaptist principles. In the year 1718 the Baptist church of Boston\nreceived fraternal recognition from the foremost representatives of the\nCongregational clergy of Boston, with a public confession of the wrong\nthat they had done.[130:1] It is surprising to find, after all this\nagitation and sowing of \"the seed of the church,\" that in all New\nEngland outside of Rhode Island there are in 1730 only six Baptist\nchurches, including (an honorable item) two Indian churches on the\nislands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.[131:1]\n\nThe other departure from the \"standing order\" was at this date hardly\nmore extensive. The early planting of Episcopalian churches in Maine and\nNew Hampshire, with generous patronage and endowment, had languished and\ndied. In 1679 there was no Episcopal minister in all New England. In\n1702 were begun the energetic and richly supported missions of the \"S.\nP. G.\" At the end of twenty-eight years there were in Rhode Island four\nEpiscopalian churches; in Massachusetts, three, two of them in the city\nof Boston; in Connecticut, three.[131:2] But in the last-named colony an\nincident had occurred, having apparently no intimate connection with the\n\"Venerable Society's\" missions, but charged with weighty, and on the\nwhole beneficent, consequences for the future of the kingdom of Christ\nin America.\n\nThe incident was strikingly parallel to that of seventy years before,\nwhen the president of Harvard College announced his acceptance of\nBaptist principles. The day after the Yale commencement in September,\n1722, a modest and respectful paper was presented to the trustees of the\ncollege, signed by Rector Timothy Cutler and Tutor Brown (who\nconstituted the entire faculty of the college) and by five pastors of\ngood standing in the Connecticut churches. Two other pastors of note\nwere named as assenting to the paper, although not subscribing it. It\nseemed a formidable proportion of the Connecticut clergy. The purport of\nthe paper was to signify that the signers were doubtful of the\nvalidity, or persuaded of the invalidity, of presbyterial as\ndistinguished from episcopal ordination. The matter was considered with\nthe gravity which it merited, and a month later, at the time of the\nmeeting of the colonial legislature, was made the subject of a public\ndiscussion, presided over with great dignity and amenity by Governor\nGurdon Saltonstall, formerly pastor of the church in New London. The\nresult was that, of the seven pastors assenting to the paper of the two\ncollege men, only two adhered to them; but one of these two was that\nable and excellent Samuel Johnson, whose later career as president of\nKing's College in New York, as well as the career of his no less\ndistinguished son, is an ornament to American history both of church and\nstate.\n\nThis secession, small in number, but weighty in character, was of course\na painful shock to the hitherto unbroken unity of the church and clergy\nof Connecticut. But it was not quite like a thunderbolt from a clear\nsky. It had been immediately preceded by not a little conference and\ncorrespondence with Connecticut pastors on the one hand, and on the\nother hand with representatives of the powerful and wealthy Propagation\nSociety, on the question of support to be received from England for\nthose who should secede. Its prior antecedents reached farther back into\nhistory. The Baptist convictions of the president of Harvard in 1650\nwere not more clearly in line with the individualism of the Plymouth\nSeparatists than the scruples of the rector of Yale in 1722 were in line\nwith the Nationalism of Higginson and Winthrop. This sentiment,\nespecially strong in Connecticut, had given rise to much study as to the\nbest form of a colonial church constitution; and the results of this had\nrecently been embodied (in 1708) in the mildly classical system of the\nSaybrook Platform. The filial love of the Puritan colonists toward the\nmother church of England was by no means extinct in the third\ngeneration. Alongside of the inevitable repugnance felt and manifested\ntoward the arrogance, insolence, and violence with which the claims of\nthe Episcopal Church were commended by royal governors and their\nattaches and by some of the imported missionaries, there is ample\nevidence of kindly and fraternal feeling, far beyond what might have\nbeen expected, on the part of the New England clergy toward the\nrepresentatives of the Church of England. The first missionaries of the\n\"Venerable Society,\" Keith and Talbot, arriving in New England in 1702,\nmet with welcome from some of the ministers, who \"both hospitably\nentertained us in their houses and requested us to preach in their\ncongregations, which accordingly we did, and received great thanks both\nfrom the ministers and people.\"[133:1] One of these hospitable pastors\nwas the Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, of New London, who twenty years later,\nas governor of the colony, presided at the debate which followed upon\nthe demission of Rector Cutler.\n\nThe immediate results of what had been expected to lead off a large\ndefection from the colonial clergy were numerically insignificant; but\nvery far from insignificant was the fact that in Connecticut a sincere\nand spontaneous movement toward the Episcopal Church had arisen among\nmen honored and beloved, whose ecclesiastical views were not tainted\nwith self-seeking or servility or with an unpatriotic shame for their\ncolonial home and sympathy with its political enemies. Elsewhere in New\nEngland, and largely in Connecticut also, the Episcopal Church in its\nbeginnings was handicapped with a dead-weight of supercilious and odious\nToryism. The example of a man like Johnson showed that one might become\nan Episcopalian without ceasing to be a patriotic American and without\nholding himself aloof from the fellowship of good men. The conference\nin Yale College library, September 13, 1722, rather than the planting of\na system of exotic missions, marks the true epoch from which to date the\nprogress of a genuinely American Episcopal Church.[134:1]\n\nCrossing the recently settled boundary line into New York, not yet risen\nto rank with the foremost colonies, we find in 1730 a deepening of the\nearly character, which had marked that colony, of wide diversity among\nthe Christian people in point of race, language, doctrinal opinion, and\necclesiastical connection.\n\nThe ancient Dutch church, rallying from its almost asphyxia, had begun\nnot only to receive new life, but, under the fervid spiritual influence\nof Domine Frelinghuysen, to \"have it more abundantly\" and to become a\nmeans of quickening to other communions. It was bearing fruit, but its\nfruit had not seed within itself after its kind. It continued to suffer,\nin common with some other imported church systems, from depending on a\ntransatlantic hierarchy for the succession of its ministry. The supply\nof imported ministers continued to be miserably inadequate to the need.\nIn the first four decades of the century the number of its congregations\nmore than doubled, rising to a total of sixty-five in New York and New\nJersey; and for these sixty-five congregations there were nineteen\nministers, almost all of them from Europe. This body of churches, so\ninadequately manned, was still further limited in its activities by the\ncontinually contracting barrier of the Dutch language.\n\nThe English church, enjoying \"the prestige of royal favor and princely\nmunificence,\" suffered also the drawbacks incidental to these\nadvantages--the odium attending the unjust and despotic measures\nresorted to for its advancement, the vile character of royal officials,\nwho condoned their private vices by a more ostentatious zeal for their\nofficial church, and the well-founded popular suspicion of its pervading\ndisloyalty to the interests and the liberties of the colonies in their\nantagonism to the encroachments of the British government. It was\nrepresented by one congregation in the city of New York, and perhaps a\ndozen others throughout the colony.[135:1] It is to the honor of the\nministers of this church that it succeeded in so good a measure in\ntriumphing over its \"advantages.\" The early pastors of Trinity Church\nadorned their doctrine and their confession, and one such example as\nthat of the Rev. Thoroughgood Moor did much to redeem the character of\nthe church from the disgrace cast upon it by the lives of its patrons.\nThis faithful missionary had the signal honor of being imprisoned by the\ndirty but zealous Lord Cornbury (own cousin to her Majesty the Queen,\nand afterward Earl of Clarendon), of whom he had said, what everybody\nknew, that he \"deserved to be excommunicated\"; and he had further\noffended by refusing the communion to the lieutenant-governor, \"upon the\naccount of some debauch and abominable swearing.\"[135:2] There was\nsurely some vigorous spiritual vitality in a religious body which could\nsurvive the patronizing of a succession of such creatures as Cornbury\nand his crew of extortioners and profligates.\n\nA third element in the early Christianity of New York was the\nPresbyterians. These were represented, at the opening of the eighteenth\ncentury, by that forerunner of the Scotch-Irish immigration, Francis\nMakemie. The arrest and imprisonment of Makemie in 1706, under the\nauthority of Lord Cornbury, for the offense of preaching the gospel\nwithout a license from the government, his sturdy defense and his\nacquittal, make an epoch in the history of religious liberty in America,\nand a perceptible step in the direction of American political liberty\nand independence.\n\nThe immense volume and strength of the Scotch-Irish immigration had\nhardly begun to be perceptible in New York as early as 1730. The total\nstrength of the Presbyterian Church in 1705 was organized in\nPhiladelphia into a solitary presbytery containing six ministers. In\n1717, the number having grown to seventeen, the one presbytery was\ndivided into four, which constituted a synod; and one of the four was\nthe presbytery of New York and New Jersey. But it was observed, at least\nit might have been observed, that the growing Presbyterianism of this\nnorthernmost region was recruited mainly from old England and from New\nEngland--a fact on which were to depend important consequences in later\necclesiastical history.\n\nThe chief increment of the presbytery of New York and New Jersey was in\nthree parts, each of them planted from New England. The churches founded\nfrom New Haven Colony in the neighborhood of Newark and Elizabethtown,\nand the churches founded by Connecticut settlers on Long Island when\nthis was included in the jurisdiction of Connecticut, easily and without\nserious objection conformed their organization to the Presbyterian\norder. The first wave of the perennial westward migration of the New\nEnglanders, as it flowed over the hills from the valley of the\nHousatonic into the valley of the Hudson, was observed by Domine\nSelyns, away back in 1696, to be attended by many preachers educated at\nHarvard College.[137:1] But the churches which they founded grew into\nthe type, not of Cambridge nor of Saybrook, but of Westminster.\n\nThe facility with which the New England Christians, moving westward or\nsouthwestward from their cold northeastern corner of the country, have\ncommonly consented to forego their cherished usages and traditions of\nchurch order and accept those in use in their new homes, and especially\ntheir readiness in conforming to the Presbyterian polity, has been a\nsubject of undue lamentation and regret to many who have lacked the\nfaculty of recognizing in it one of the highest honors of the New\nEngland church. But whether approved or condemned, a fact so unusual in\nchurch history, and especially in the history of the American church, is\nentitled to some study. 1. It is to be explained in part, but not\naltogether, by the high motive of a willingness to sacrifice personal\npreferences, habits, and convictions of judgment, on matters not of\nprimary importance, to the greater general good of the community. 2. The\nPresbyterian polity is the logical expression of that Nationalist\nprinciple which was cherished by many of the Puritan fathers, which\ncontended at the birth of New England with the mere Independency of the\nPilgrims, and which found an imperfect embodiment in the platforms of\nCambridge and Saybrook. The New England fathers in general, before their\nviews suffered a sea-change in the course of their migrations, were\nEpiscopalians and Presbyterians rather than Congregationalists; and if,\nin the course of this history, we shall find many in their later\ngenerations conforming to a mitigated form of the Westminster polity, or\nto a liberalized and Americanized Episcopal Church, instead of finding\nthis to be a degeneration, we shall do well to ask whether it is not\nrather a reversion to type. 3. Those who grow up in a solidly united\nChristian community are in a fair way to be trained in the simplicity of\nthe gospel, and not in any specialties of controversy with contending or\ncompeting sects. Members of the parish churches of New England going\nwest had an advantage above most others, in that they could go simply as\nrepresentatives of the church of Christ, and not of a sect of the\nchurch, or of one side of some controversy in which they had never had\noccasion to interest themselves. 4. The principle of congregational\nindependency, not so much inculcated as acted on in New England, carries\nwith it the corollary that a congregation may be Presbyterian or\nEpiscopalian or Methodist, if it judges best, without thereby giving the\nindividual Christian any justification for secession or schism. 5. The\nchange, in the westward movement of Christian civilization, from the\ncongregational order to the classical, coincides with the change in the\nframe of civil polity from town government to county government. In the\nbeginning the civil state in New England was framed after the model of\nthe church.[138:1] It is in accordance with the common course of church\nhistory that when the people were transported from the midst of pure\ndemocracies to the midst of representative republics their church\ninstitutions should take on the character of the environment.\n\nThe other factors of the religious life of New York require only brief\nmention.\n\nThere were considerable Quaker communities, especially on western Long\nIsland, in Flushing and its neighborhood. But before the year 1730 the\nfervid and violent and wonderfully brief early enthusiasm of this\nSociety had long been waning, and the Society, winning no accessions and\nsuffering frequent losses in its membership, was lapsing into that\n\"middle age of Quakerism\"[139:1] in which it made itself felt in the\nlife of the people through its almost passive, but yet effective,\nprotests against popular wrongs.\n\nInconsiderable in number, but of the noblest quality, was the\nimmigration of French Huguenots, which just before and just after the\nrevocation of the Edict of Nantes brought to New York and its\nneighborhood a half-dozen congregations, accompanied by pastors whose\nlearning, piety, and devotion to the work of Christ were worthy of that\nschool of martyrdom in which they had been trained. They were not\nnumerous enough, nor compactly enough settled, to maintain their own\nlanguage in use, and soon became merged, some in the Dutch church and\nsome in the English. Some of their leading pastors accepted salaries\nfrom the Propagation Society, tendered to them on condition of their\naccepting the ordination and conforming to the ritual of the English\nchurch. The French Reformed Church does not appear organically in the\nlater history of the colony, but the history of the State and of the\nnation is never largely written without commemorating, by the record of\nfamily names made illustrious in every department of honorable activity,\nthe rich contribution made to the American church and nation by the\ncruel bigotry and the political fatuity of Louis XIV.[139:2]\n\nThe German element in the religious life of New York, at the period\nunder consideration, was of even less historical importance. The\npolitical philanthropy of Queen Anne's government, with a distinct\nunderstanding between the right hand and the left, took active measure\nto promote the migration of Protestant refugees from all parts of\nGermany to the English colonies in America. In the year 1709 a great\ncompany of these unhappy exiles, commonly called \"poor Palatines\" from\nthe desolated region whence many of them had been driven out, were\ndropped, helpless and friendless, in the wilderness of Schoharie County,\nand found themselves there practically in a state of slavery through\ntheir ignorance of the country and its language. There were few to care\nfor their souls. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was\npromptly in the field, with its diligent missionaries and its ignoble\npolicy of doing the work of Christ and humanity with a shrewd eye to the\nmain chance of making proselytes to its party.[140:1] With a tardiness\nwhich it is difficult not to speak of as characteristic, after the lapse\nof twenty-one years the classis of Amsterdam recognized its\nresponsibility for this multitude of wandering sheep; and at last, in\n1793, the German Reformed Church had so far emancipated itself from its\nbondage to the old-country hierarchy as to assume, almost a century too\nlate, the cure of these poor souls. But this migration added little to\nthe religious life of the New York Colony, except a new element of\ndiversity to a people already sufficiently heterogeneous. The greater\npart of these few thousands gladly found their way to the more\nhospitable colony of Pennsylvania, leaving traces of themselves in\nfamily names scattered here and there, and in certain local names, like\nthat of Palatine Bridge.\n\nThe general impression left on the mind by this survey of the Christian\npeople of New York in 1730 is of a mass of almost hopelessly\nincongruous materials, out of which the brooding Spirit of God shall by\nand by bring forth the unity of a new creation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe population of the two Jerseys continued to bear the character\nimpressed on it by the original colonization. West Jersey was\npredominantly Quaker; East Jersey showed in its institutions of church\nand school the marks made upon it by the mingling of Scotch and Yankee.\nBut there was one point at which influences had centered which were to\nmake New Jersey the seed-plot of a new growth of church life for the\ncontinent.\n\nThe intolerable tyranny of Lord Cornbury in New York, at the beginning\nof the century, had driven many of the Dutch Christians of that colony\nacross the Hudson. The languishing vine throve by transplanting. In the\ncongenial neighborhood of the Calvinists of Scotland and New England the\ncluster of churches in the region of New Brunswick came to be known as\n\"the garden of the Dutch church.\" To this region, bearing a name\ndestined to great honor in American church history, came from Holland,\nin 1720, Domine Theodore J. Frelinghuysen. The fervor and earnestness of\nhis preaching, unwonted in that age, wakened a religious feeling in his\nown congregation, which overflowed the limits of a single parish and\nbecame as one of the streams that make glad the city of God.\n\nIn the year 1718 there arrived at the port of Philadelphia an Irishman,\nWilliam Tennent, with his four sons, the eldest a boy of fifteen. He was\nnot a Scotch-Irishman, but an English-Irishman--a clergyman of the\nestablished Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland. He lost no time in\nconnecting himself with the Presbyterian synod of Philadelphia, and\nafter a few years of pastoral service in the colony of New York became\npastor of the Presbyterian church at Neshaminy, in Pennsylvania, twenty\nmiles north of Philadelphia. Here his zeal for Christian education moved\nhim to begin a school, which, called from the humble building in which\nit was held, became famous in American Presbyterian history as the Log\nCollege. Here were educated many men who became eminent in the ministry\nof the gospel, and among them the four boys who had come with their\nfather from Ireland. Gilbert, the eldest and most distinguished of them,\ncame in 1727, from his temporary position as tutor in the Log College,\nto be pastor to the Presbyterian church in New Brunswick, where\nFrelinghuysen, in the face of opposition from his own brethren in the\nministry, had for seven years pursued his deeply spiritual and fruitful\nwork as pastor to the Dutch church. Whatever debate there may be over\nthe question of an official and tactual succession in the church, the\nexistence of a vital and spiritual succession, binding \"the generations\neach to each,\" need not be disputed by any. Sometimes, as here, the\nsuccession is distinctly traceable. Gilbert Tennent was own son in the\nministry to Theodore Frelinghuysen as truly as Timothy to Paul, but he\nbecame spiritual father to a great multitude.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the year 1730 the total population of Pennsylvania was estimated by\nGovernor Gordon at forty-nine thousand. In the less than fifty years\nsince the colony was settled it had outstripped all the older colonies,\nand Philadelphia, its chief town, continued to be by far the most\nimportant port for the landing of immigrants. The original Quaker\ninfluence was still dominant in the colony, but the very large majority\nof the population was German; and presently the Quakers were to find\ntheir political supremacy departing, and were to acquiesce in the change\nby abdicating political preferment.[143:1] The religious influence of\nthe Society of Friends continued to be potent and in many respects most\nsalutary. But the exceptional growth and prosperity of the colony was\nattended with a vast \"unearned increment\" of wealth to the first\nsettlers, and the maxim, \"Religio peperit divitias, et mater devorata\nest a prole,\"[143:2] received one of the most striking illustrations in\nall history. So speedily the Society had entered on its Middle\nAge;[143:3] the most violent of protests against formalism had begun to\ncongeal into a precise and sometimes frivolous system of formalities.\nBut the lasting impress made on the legislation of the colony by Penn\nand his contemporaries is a monument of their wise and Christian\nstatesmanship. Up to their time the most humane penal codes in\nChristendom were those of New England, founded on the Mosaic law. But\neven in these, and still more in the application of them, there were\ntraces of that widely prevalent feeling that punishment is society's\nbitter and malignant revenge on the criminal. The penal code and the\nprison discipline of Pennsylvania became an object of admiring study for\nsocial reformers the world over, and marked a long stage in the\nadvancement of the kingdom of God. The city of Philadelphia early took\nthe lead of American towns, not only in size, but in its public\ncharities and its cultivation of humane arts.\n\nNotwithstanding these eminent honors, there is much in the later history\nof the great commonwealth in which Quakerism held dominion for the\ngreater part of a century to reflect doubt on the fitness of that form\nof Christianity for conducting the affairs, either civil or religious,\nof a great community.\n\nThere is nothing in the personal duty of non-resistance of evil, as\ninculcated in the New Testament, that conflicts with the functions of\nthe civil governor--even the function of bearing the sword as God's\nminister. Rather, each of these is the complement and counterpart of the\nother. Among the early colonial governors no man wielded the sword of\nthe ruler more effectively than the Quaker Archdale in the Carolinas. It\nis when this law of personal duty is assumed as the principle of public\ngovernment that the order of society is inverted, and the function of\nthe magistrate is inevitably taken up by the individual, and the old\nwilderness law of blood-revenge is reinstituted. The legislation of\nWilliam Penn involved no abdication of the power of the sword by the\ncivil governor. The enactment, however sparing, of capital laws conceded\nby implication every point that is claimed by Christian moralists in\njustification of war. But it is hardly to be doubted that the tendency\nof Quaker politics so to conduct civil government as that it shall\n\"resist not evil\" is responsible for some of the strange paradoxes in\nthe later history of Pennsylvania. The commonwealth was founded in good\nfaith on principles of mutual good will with the Indians and tender\nregard for Indian rights, of religious liberty and interconfessional\namity, and of a permanent peace policy. Its history has been\ncharacterized, beyond that of other States, by foul play toward the\nIndians and protracted Indian wars, by acrimonious and sometimes bloody\nsectarian conflicts, by obstinate insurrections against public\norder,[144:1] and by cruel and exterminating war upon honest settlers,\nfounded on a mere open question of title to territory.[144:2]\n\nThe failure of Quakerism is even more conspicuous considered as a\nchurch discipline. There is a charm as of apostolic simplicity and\nbeauty in its unassuming hierarchy of weekly, monthly, quarterly, and\nyearly meetings, corresponding by epistles and by the visits of\ntraveling evangelists, which realizes the type of the primitive church\npresented in \"The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.\" But it was never\nable to outgrow, in the large and free field to which it was\ntransplanted, the defects incident to its origin in a protest and a\nschism. It never learned to commend itself to men as a church for all\nChristians, and never ceased to be, even in its own consciousness, a\ncoterie of specialists. Penn, to be sure, in his youthful overzeal, had\nclaimed exclusive and universal rights for Quakerism as \"the alone good\nway of life and salvation,\" all religions, faiths, and worships besides\nbeing \"in the darkness of apostasy.\"[145:1] But after the abatement of\nthat wonderful first fervor which within a lifetime carried \"its line\ninto all the earth, and its words to the ends of the world,\" it was\nimpossible to hold it to this pitch. Claiming no divine right to all\nmen's allegiance, it felt no duty of opening the door to all men's\naccess. It was free to exclude from the meeting on arbitrary and even on\nfrivolous grounds. As zeal decayed, the energies of the Society were\nmainly shown in protesting and excluding and expelling. God's husbandry\ndoes not prosper when his servants are over-earnest in rooting up tares.\nThe course of the Society of Friends in the eighteenth century was\nsuicidal. It held a noble opportunity of acting as pastor to a great\ncommonwealth. It missed this great opportunity, for which it was perhaps\nconstitutionally disqualified, and devoted itself to edifying its own\nmembers and guarding its own purity. So it was that, saving its soul, it\nlost it. The vineyard must be taken away from it.\n\nAnd there were no other husbandmen to take the vineyard. The petty\nGerman sects, representing so large a part of the population, were\nisolated by their language and habits. The Lutherans and the Reformed,\ntrained in established churches to the methods and responsibilities of\nparish work, were not yet represented by any organization. The\nScotch-Irish Presbyterian immigration was pouring in at Philadelphia\nlike a flood, sometimes whole parishes at once, each bringing its own\npastor; and it left large traces of itself in the eastern counties of\nPennsylvania, while it rushed to the western frontier and poured itself\nlike a freshet southwesterly through the valleys of the Blue Ridge and\nthe Alleghanies. But the Presbyterian churches of eastern Pennsylvania,\neven as reinforced from England and New England, were neither many nor\nstrong; the Baptists were feebler yet, although both these bodies were\ngiving signs of the strength they were both about to develop.[147:1]\nThe Episcopalians had one strong and rapidly growing church in\nPhiladelphia, and a few languishing missions in country towns sustained\nby gifts from England. There were as yet no Methodists.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCrossing the boundary line from Pennsylvania into Maryland--the line\ndestined to become famous in political history as Mason and Dixon's--we\ncome to the four Southern colonies, Maryland, Virginia, and the two\nCarolinas. Georgia in 1730 has not yet begun to be. All these have\nstrongly marked characteristics in common, which determine in advance\nthe character of their religious history. They are not peculiar in being\nslave colonies; there is no colony North or South in which slaves are\nnot held under sanction of law. Georgia, in its early years, is to have\nthe solitary honor of being an antislavery and prohibitionist colony.\nBut the four earlier Southern colonies are unlike their Northern\nneighbors in this, that the institution of slavery dominates their whole\nsocial life. The unit of the social organism is not the town, for there\nare no towns; it is the plantation. In a population thus dispersed over\nvast tracts of territory, schools and churches are maintained with\ndifficulty, or not maintained at all. Systems of primary and secondary\nschools are impracticable, and, for want of these, institutions of\nhigher education either languish or are never begun. A consequent\ntendency, which, happily, there were many influences to resist, was for\nthis townless population to settle down into the condition of those who,\nin distinction from the early Christians, came to be called _pagani_, or\n\"men of the hamlets,\" and _Heiden_, or \"men of the heath.\"\n\nAnother common characteristic of the four Southern colonies is that\nupon them all was imposed by foreign power a church establishment not\nacceptable to the people. In the Carolinas the attempted establishment\nof the English church was an absolute failure. It was a church (with\nslight exceptions) without parishes, without services, without clergy,\nwithout people, but with certain pretensions in law which were\nhindrances in the way of other Christian work, and which tended to make\nitself generally odious. In the two older colonies the Established\nChurch was worse than a failure. It had endowments, parsonages, glebes,\nsalaries raised by public tax, and therefore it had a clergy--and _such_\na clergy! Transferring to America the most shameful faults of the\nEnglish Establishment, it gave the sacred offices of the Christian\nministry by \"patronage\" into the hands of debauched and corrupt\nadventurers, whose character in general was below the not very lofty\nstandard of the people whom they pretended to serve in the name of Jesus\nChrist. Both in Virginia and in Maryland the infliction of this rabble\nof simonists as a burden upon the public treasury was a nuisance under\nwhich the people grew more and more restive from year to year. There was\nno spiritual discipline to which this _pretraille_ was amenable.[148:1]\nIt was the constant effort of good citizens, in the legislature and in\nthe vestries, if not to starve out the vermin, at least to hold them in\nsome sort of subjection to the power of the purse. The struggle was one\nof the antecedents of the War of Independence, and the vestries of the\nVirginia parishes, with their combined ecclesiastical and civil\nfunctions, became a training-school for some of the statesmen of the\nRevolution.\n\nIn the general dereliction of churchly care for the people of the\nSouthern colonies, on the part of those who professed the main\nresponsibility for it, the duty was undertaken, in the face of legal\nhindrances, by earnest Christians of various names, whom the established\nclergy vainly affected to despise. The Baptists and the Presbyterians,\nsoon to be so powerfully prevalent throughout the South, were\nrepresented by a few scattered congregations. But the church of the\npeople of the South at this period seems to have been the Quaker\nmeeting, and the ministry the occasional missionary who, bearing\ncredentials from some yearly meeting, followed in the pioneer footsteps\nof George Fox, and went from one circle of Friends to another, through\nthose vast expanses of thinly settled territory, to revive and confirm\nand edify. The early fervors of the Society were soon spent. Its work\nwas strangely unstable. The proved defects of it as a working system\nwere grave. The criticism of George Keith seems justified by the\nevent--its candle needed a candlestick. But no man can truly write the\nhistory of the church of Christ in the United States without giving\nhonor to the body which for so long a time and over so vast an area bore\nthe name and testimony of Jesus almost alone; and no man can read the\njourneys and labors of John Woolman, mystic and ascetic saint, without\nrecognizing that he and others like-minded were nothing less than true\napostles of the Lord Jesus.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne impression made by this general survey of the colonies is that of\nthe absence of any sign of unity among the various Christian bodies in\noccupation. One corner of the great domain, New England, was thickly\nplanted with homogeneous churches in mutual fellowship. One order of\nChristians, the Quakers, had at least a framework of organization\nconterminous with the country. In general there were only scattered\nmembers of a Christian community, awaiting the inbreathing of some\nquickening spiritual influence that should bring bone to its bone and\nerect the whole into a living church.\n\nAnother and very gratifying impression from the story thus far is the\ngeneral fidelity of the Christian colonists in the work of the gospel\namong the heathen Indians. There was none of the colonies that did not\nmake profession of a zealous purpose for the Christianizing of the\nsavages; and it is only just to say, in the face of much unjust and evil\ntalk, that there was none that did not give proof of its sincerity. In\nVirginia, the Puritans Whitaker and Thomas Dale; in Maryland, the\nearliest companies of Jesuit missionaries; Campanius among the Swedish\nLutherans; Megapolensis among the Dutchmen, and the Jesuit martyr Jogues\nin the forests of New York; in New England, not only John Eliot and\nRoger Williams and the Mayhews, but many a village pastor like Fitch of\nNorwich and Pierson of Branford, were distinguished in the first\ngeneration by their devotion to this duty.[150:1] The succession of\nfaithful missionaries has never failed from that day to this. The large\nexpectations of the churches are indicated by the erection of one of the\nearliest buildings at Harvard College for the use of Indian students. At\nWilliam and Mary College not less than seventy Indian students at one\ntime are said to have been gathered for an advanced education. It was no\nfault of the colonial churches that these earnest and persistent efforts\nyielded small results. \"We discover a strange uniformity of feature in\nthe successive failures.... Always, just when the project seemed most\nhopeful, an indiscriminate massacre of missionaries and converts\ntogether swept the enterprise out of existence. The experience of all\nwas the same.\"[151:1]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt will be a matter of growing interest, as we proceed, to trace the\nrelation of the American church to negro slavery.\n\nIt is a curious fact, not without some later analogies, that the\nintroduction into the New World of this \"direful spring of woes\nunnumbered\" was promoted, in the first instance, by the good Las Casas,\nas the hopeful preventive of a worse evil. Touched by the spectacle of\nwhole tribes and nations of the Indians perishing under the cruel\nservitude imposed upon them by the Spanish, it seemed to him a less\nwrong to transfer the infliction of this injustice to shoulders more\nable to bear it. But \"man's inhumanity to man\" needed no pretext of\nphilanthropy. From the landing of the Dutch ship at Jamestown in 1619,\nwith her small invoice of fourteen negroes, the dismal trade went on\nincreasing, in spite of humane protest and attempted prohibition. The\nlegislature of Massachusetts, which was the representative of the\nchurch, set forth what it conceived to be the biblical ethics on the\nsubject. Recognizing that \"lawful captives taken in just wars\" may be\nheld in bondage, it declared among its earliest public acts, in 1641,\nthat, with this exception, no involuntary bond-slavery, villeinage, or\ncaptivity should ever be in the colony; and in 1646 it took measures for\nreturning to Africa negroes who had been kidnapped by a slaver. It is\nnot strange that reflection on the golden rule should soon raise doubts\nwhether the precedents of the Book of Joshua had equal authority with\nthe law of Christ. In 1675 John Eliot, from the midst of his work among\nthe Indians, warned the governor against the sale of Indians taken in\nwar, on the ground that \"the selling of souls is dangerous merchandise,\"\nand \"with a bleeding and burning passion\" remonstrated against \"the\nabject condition of the enslaved Africans.\" In 1700 that typical\nPuritan, Judge Samuel Sewall, published his pamphlet on \"The Selling of\nJoseph,\" claiming for the negroes the rights of brethren, and predicting\nthat there would be \"no progress in gospeling\" until slavery should be\nabolished. Those were serious days of antislavery agitation, when\nCotton Mather, in his \"Essays to Do Good,\" spoke of the injustice of\nslavery in terms such that his little book had to be expurgated by the\nAmerican Tract Society to accommodate it to the degenerate conscience of\na later day, and when the town of Boston in 1701 took measures \"to put a\nperiod to negroes being slaves.\" Such endeavors after universal justice\nand freedom, on the part of the Christians of New England, thwarted by\nthe insatiable greed of British traders and politicians, were not to\ncease until, with the first enlargement of independence, they should\nbring forth judgment to victory.\n\nThe voice of New England was echoed from Pennsylvania. The Mennonites of\nGermantown, in 1688, framed in quaint and touching language their\npetition for the abolition of slavery, and the Quaker yearly meetings\nresponded one to another with unanimous protest. But the mischief grew\nand grew. In the Northern colonies the growth was stunted by the\nclimate. Elsewhere the institution, beginning with the domestic service\nof a few bondmen attached to their masters' families, took on a new type\nof malignity as it expanded. In proportion as the servile population\nincreases to such numbers as to be formidable, laws of increasing\nseverity are directed to restraining or repressing it. The first\nsymptoms of insurrection are followed by horrors of bloody vengeance,\nand \"from that time forth the slave laws have but one quality--that of\nferocity engendered by fear.\"[153:1] It was not from the willful\ninhumanity of the Southern colonies, but from their terrors, that those\nslave codes came forth which for nearly two centuries were the shame of\nAmerica and the scandal of Christendom. It is a comfort to the heart of\nhumanity to reflect that the people were better than their laws; it was\nonly at the recurring periods of fear of insurrection that they were\nworse. In ordinary times human sympathy and Christian principle softened\nthe rigors of the situation. The first practical fruits of the revival\nof religion in the Southern colonies were seen in efforts of Christian\nkindness toward the souls and bodies of the slaves.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[129:1] One is touched by the plaintive grief of the Rev. Mr. Muirson,\nwho has come from the established church of England to make proselytes\nfrom the established churches of Connecticut. He writes to the \"S. P.\nG.,\" without a thought of casting any reflections upon his patrons: \"It\nwould require more time than you would willingly bestow on these Lines,\nto express how rigidly and severely they treat our People, by taking\ntheir Estate by distress when they do not willingly pay to support their\nMinisters\" (\"Digest of S. P. G. Records,\" p. 43). The pathos of the\nsituation is intensified when we bear in mind the relation of this\ntender-hearted gentleman's own emoluments to the taxes extorted from the\nCongregationalists in his New York parish.\n\n[130:1] See above, p. 107.\n\n[131:1] Newman, \"Baptist Churches in the United States,\" pp. 197, 198,\n231.\n\n[131:2] Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" chaps, iv., v.; C. F.\nAdams, \"Three Episodes in Massachusetts History,\" pp. 342, 621.\n\n[133:1] \"Digest of S. P. G.,\" p. 42.\n\n[134:1] Tiffany, chap. v. For a full account of these beginnings in\nConnecticut in their historical relations, see L. Bacon on \"The\nEpiscopal Church in Connecticut\" (\"New Englander,\" vol. xxv., pp.\n283-329).\n\n[135:1] There were on duty in New York in 1730, besides the minister of\nTrinity Church, ten missionaries of the \"S. P. G.,\" including several\nemployed specially among the Indians and the negroes. Fifteen years\nlater there were reported to the \"Venerable Society\" in New York and New\nJersey twenty-two churches (\"Digest of S. P. G.,\" pp. 855, 856; Tiffany,\np. 178).\n\n[135:2] \"Digest of S. P. G.,\" p. 68 and note.\n\n[137:1] Corwin, \"Reformed (Dutch) Church,\" p. 115.\n\n[138:1] \"Mr. Hooker did often quote a saying out of Mr. Cartwright, that\nno man fashioneth his house to his hangings, but his hangings to his\nhouse. It is better that the commonwealth be fashioned to the setting\nforth of God's house, which is his church, than to accommodate the\nchurch frame to the civil state\" (John Cotton, quoted by L. Bacon,\n\"Historical Discourses,\" p. 18).\n\n[139:1] Thomas, \"The Society of Friends,\" p. 239.\n\n[139:2] Corwin, \"Reformed (Dutch) Church,\" pp. 77, 78, 173.\n\n[140:1] Illustrations of the sordid sectarianism of the \"Venerable\nSociety's\" operations are painfully frequent in the pages of the \"digest\nof the S. P. G.\" See especially on this particular case the action\nrespecting Messrs. Kocherthal, Ehlig, and Beyse (p. 61).\n\n[143:1] S. G. Fisher, \"The Making of Pennsylvania,\" p. 125; Thomas, \"The\nSociety of Friends,\" p. 235.\n\n[143:2] \"Religion gave birth to wealth, and was devoured by her own\noffspring.\" The aphorism is ascribed to Lord Falkland.\n\n[143:3] Thomas, \"The Society of Friends,\" p. 236.\n\n[144:1] Fisher, \"The Making of Pennsylvania,\" pp. 166-169, 174.\n\n[144:2] It is not easy to define the peculiarity of Penn's Indian\npolicy. It is vulgarly referred to as if it consisted in just dealing,\nespecially in not taking their land except by fair purchase; and the\n\"Shackamaxon Treaty,\" of which nothing is known except by vague report\nand tradition, is spoken of as some thing quite unprecedented in this\nrespect. The fact is that this measure of virtue was common to the\nEnglish colonists generally, and eminently to the New England colonists.\nA good example of the ordinary cant of historical writers on this\nsubject is found in \"The Making of Pennsylvania,\" p. 238. The writer\nsays of the Connecticut Puritans: \"They occupied the land by squatter\nsovereignty.... It seemed like a pleasant place; they wanted it. They\nwere the saints, and the saints, as we all know, shall inherit the\nearth.... Having originally acquired their land simply by taking it, ...\nthey naturally grew up with rather liberal views as to their right to\nany additional territory that pleased their fancy.\" No purchase by Penn\nwas made with more scrupulous regard to the rights of the Indians than\nthe purchases by which the settlers of Connecticut acquired title to\ntheir lands; but I know of no New England precedent for the somewhat\nPunic piece of sharp practice by which the metes and bounds of one of\nthe Pennsylvania purchases were laid down.\n\nThe long exemption of Pennsylvania from trouble with the Indians seems\nto be due to the fact that an exceptionally mild, considerate, and\nconscientious body of settlers was confronted with a tribe of savages\nthoroughly subdued and cowed in recent conflicts with enemies both red\nand white. It seems clear, also, that the exceptional ferocity of the\nforty years of uninterrupted war with the Indians that ensued was due in\npart to the long dereliction by the Quaker government of its duty of\nprotecting its citizens and punishing murder, robbery, and arson when\ncommitted by its copper-colored subjects.\n\n[145:1] Penn's \"Truth Exalted\" (quoted in \"Encyclopaedia Britannica,\"\nvol. xviii., p. 493).\n\n[147:1] In 1741, after a decade of great activity and growth, the entire\nclerical strength of the American Presbyterian Church, in its four\npresbyteries, was forty-seven ministers (Thompson, \"Presbyterian\nChurches,\" p. 33).\n\n[148:1] It is a subject of unceasing lament on the part of historians of\nthe American Episcopal Church that the mother church, all through the\ncolonial days, should have obstinately refused to the daughter the gift\nof the episcopate. There is no denying the grave disadvantages thus\ninflicted. But it admits of doubt whether such bishops, with such\nconditions, as would have been conceded by the English church of the\neighteenth century, would, after all, have been so very precious a boon.\nWe shrink from the imputation upon the colonial church of Maryland and\nVirginia which is implied in suggesting that it would have been\nconsiderably improved by gaining the disciplinary purity of the English\nchurch of the Georgian era. The long fight in Virginia, culminating in\nPatrick Henry's speech in the Parsons' Case, so far Americanized the\nEpiscopal Church as to make sure that no unwelcome minister was ever to\nbe forced from outside on one of its parishes. After the Revolution it\nbecame possible to set up the episcopate also on American principles.\nThose who are burdened with regret over the long delay of the American\nProtestant episcopate may find no small consolation in pondering the\nquestion, what kind of an outfit of bishops, with canons attached, might\nhave been hoped for from Sir Robert Walpole or Lord Bute? On the whole,\nat this point the American Episcopal Church is in the habit of pitying\nitself too much. It has something to be thankful for.\n\n[150:1] It is a curious exception, if it is indeed an exception, that\nthe one Christian colony that shows no record of early Indian missions\nshould be that of William Penn. Could this be due to the Quaker faith in\nthe sufficiency of \"the Light that lighteneth every man that cometh into\nthe world\"?\n\nThe type of theology and method of instruction used by some of the\nearliest laborers in this field left something to be desired in point of\nadaptedness to the savage mind. Without irreverence to the great name of\nJonathan Edwards, there is room for doubt whether he was just the man\nfor the Stockbridge Indians. In the case of the Rev. Abraham Pierson, of\nBranford, in New Haven Colony, afterward founder of Newark, we have an\nillustration both of his good intentions and of his methods, which were\nnot so good, in \"_Some Helps for the Indians: Shewing them how to\nImprove their Natural Reason, to Know the True God and the Christian\nReligion_.\" This catechism is printed in the Indian language with an\nEnglish version interlined.\n\n\"_Q._ How do you prove that there is but one true God?\n\n\"_An._ Because the reason why singular things of the same kind are\nmultiplied is not to be found in the nature of God; for the reason why\nsuch like things are multiplied is from the fruitfulness of their\ncauses: but God hath no cause of his being, but is of himself. Therefore\nhe is one.\" (And so on through _secondly_ and _thirdly_.)\n\n_Per contra_, a sermon to the Stockbridge Indians by the most ponderous\nof the metaphysical preachers of New England, Samuel Hopkins, is\nbeautifully simple and childlike. It is given in full in Park's \"Life of\nHopkins,\" pp. 46-49.\n\n[151:1] McConnell, \"History of the American Episcopal Church,\" p. 7. The\nstatement calls for qualification in detail, but the general fact is\nunmistakable.\n\n[153:1] H. C. Lodge, \"English Colonies,\" p. 67 _et seq._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE GREAT AWAKENING\n\n\nIt was not wholly dark in American Christendom before the dawn of the\nGreat Awakening. The censoriousness which was the besetting sin of the\nevangelists in that great religious movement, the rhetorical temptation\nto glorify the revival by intensifying the contrast with the antecedent\ncondition, and the exaggerated _revivalism_ ever since so prevalent in\nthe American church,--the tendency to consider religion as consisting\nmainly in scenes and periods of special fervor, and the intervals\nbetween as so much void space and waste time,--all these have combined\nto deepen the dark tints in which the former state is set before us in\nhistory.\n\nThe power of godliness was manifest in the earlier days by many\ninfallible signs, not excluding those \"times of refreshing\" in which the\nsimultaneous earnestness of many souls compels the general attention.\nEven in Northampton, where the doctrine of the venerable Stoddard as to\nthe conditions of communion has been thought to be the low-water mark of\nchurch vitality, not less than five such \"harvest seasons\" were within\nrecent memory. It was to this parish in a country town on the frontier\nof civilization, but the most important in Massachusetts outside of\nBoston, that there came, in the year 1727, to serve as colleague to his\naged grandfather, Pastor Stoddard, a young man whose wonderful\nintellectual and spiritual gifts had from his childhood awakened the\npious hopes of all who had known him, and who was destined in his future\ncareer to be recognized as the most illustrious of the saints and\ndoctors of the American church. The authentic facts of the boyhood of\nJonathan Edwards read like the myths that adorn the legendary Lives of\nthe Saints. As an undergraduate of Yale College, before the age of\nseventeen, his reflections on the mysteries of God, and the universe,\nand the human mind, were such as even yet command the attention and\nrespect of students of philosophy. He remained at New Haven two years\nafter graduation, for the further study of theology, and then spent\neight months in charge of the newly organized Presbyterian church in New\nYork.[156:1] After this he spent two years as tutor at Yale,--\"one of\nthe pillar tutors, and the glory of the college,\"--at the critical\nperiod after the defection of Rector Cutler to the Church of\nEngland.[156:2] From this position he was called in 1726, at the age of\ntwenty-three, to the church at Northampton. There he was ordained\nFebruary 15, 1727, and thither a few months later he brought his\n\"espoused saint,\" Sarah Pierpont, consummate flower of Puritan\nwomanhood, thenceforth the companion not only of his pastoral cares and\nsorrows, but of his seraphic contemplations of divine things.\n\nThe intensely earnest sermons, the holy life, and the loving prayers of\none of the greatest preachers in the history of the church were not long\nin bearing abundant fruit. In a time of spiritual and moral depression,\nwhen the world, the flesh, and the devil seemed to be gaining against\nthe gospel, sometime in the year 1733 signs began to be visible of\nyielding to the power of God's Word. The frivolous or wanton frolics of\nthe youth began to be exchanged for meetings for religious conference.\nThe pastor was encouraged to renewed tenderness and solemnity in his\npreaching. His themes were justification by faith, the awfulness of\nGod's justice, the excellency of Christ, the duty of pressing into the\nkingdom of God. Presently a young woman, a leader in the village\ngayeties, became \"serious, giving evidence,\" even to the severe judgment\nof Edwards, \"of a heart truly broken and sanctified.\" A general\nseriousness began to spread over the whole town. Hardly a single person,\nold or young, but felt concerned about eternal things. According to\nEdwards's \"Narrative\":\n\n     \"The work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true\n     saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the\n     town, so that in the spring and summer, anno 1735, the town\n     seemed to be full of the presence of God. It was never so full\n     of love, nor so full of joy, and yet so full of distress, as\n     it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in\n     almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on the\n     account of salvation's being brought unto them; parents\n     rejoicing over their children as being new-born, and husbands\n     over their wives, and wives over their husbands. The goings of\n     God were then seen in his sanctuary. God's day was a delight,\n     and his tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were\n     then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God's service,\n     every one intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to\n     drink in the words of the minister as they came from his\n     mouth; the assembly in general were from time to time in tears\n     while the Word was preached, some weeping with sorrow and\n     distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and\n     concern for the souls of their neighbors. Our public praises\n     were then greatly enlivened; God was then served in our\n     psalmody in some measure in the beauty of holiness.\"\n\nThe crucial test of the divineness of the work was given when the people\npresented themselves before the Lord with a solemn act of thanksgiving\nfor his great goodness and his gracious presence in the town of\nNorthampton, with publicly recorded vows to renounce their evil ways and\nput away their abominations from before his eyes. They solemnly promise\nthenceforth, in all dealings with their neighbor, to be governed by the\nrules of honesty, justice, and uprightness; not to overreach or defraud\nhim, nor anywise to injure him, whether willfully or through want of\ncare; to regard not only their own interest, but his; particularly, to\nbe faithful in the payment of just debts; in the case of past wrongs\nagainst any, never to rest till they have made full reparation; to\nrefrain from evil speaking, and from everything that feeds a spirit of\nbitterness; to do nothing in a spirit of revenge; not to be led by\nprivate or partisan interest into any course hurtful to the interests of\nChrist's kingdom; particularly, in public affairs, not to allow ambition\nor partisanship to lead them counter to the interest of true religion.\nThose who are young promise to allow themselves in no diversions that\nwould hinder a devout spirit, and to avoid everything that tends to\nlasciviousness, and which will not be approved by the infinitely pure\nand holy eye of God. Finally, they consecrate themselves watchfully to\nperform the relative duties of parents and children, husbands and wives,\nbrothers and sisters, masters, mistresses, and servants.\n\nSo great a work as this could not be hid. The whole region of the\nConnecticut Valley, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and neighboring\nregions felt the influence of it. The fame of it went abroad. A letter\nof Edwards's in reply to inquiries from his friend, Dr. Colman, of\nBoston, was forwarded to Dr. Watts and Dr. Guise, of London, and by them\npublished under the title of \"Narrative of Surprising Conversions.\" A\ncopy of the little book was carried in his pocket for wayside reading on\na walk from London to Oxford by John Wesley, in the year 1738. Not yet\nin the course of his work had he \"seen it on this fashion,\" and he\nwrites in his journal: \"Surely this is the Lord's doing, and it is\nmarvelous in our eyes.\"\n\nBoth in this narrative and in a later work on \"The Distinguishing Marks\nof a Work of the Spirit of God,\" one cannot but admire the divine gift\nof a calm wisdom with which Edwards had been endowed as if for this\nexigency. He is never dazzled by the incidents of the work, nor\ndistracted by them from the essence of it. His argument for the\ndivineness of the work is not founded on the unusual or extraordinary\ncharacter of it, nor on the impressive bodily effects sometimes\nattending it, such as tears, groans, outcries, convulsions, or\nfaintings, nor on visions or ecstasies or \"impressions.\" What he claims\nis that the work may be divine, _notwithstanding_ the presence of these\nincidents.[159:1] It was doubtless owing to the firm and judicious\nguidance of such a pastor that the intense religious fervor of this\nfirst awakening at Northampton was marked by so much of sobriety and\norder. In later years, in other regions, and under the influence of\npreachers not of greater earnestness, but of less wisdom and discretion,\nthere were habitual scenes of extravagant and senseless enthusiasm,\nwhich make the closing pages of this chapter of church history painfully\ninstructive.\n\nIt is not difficult to understand how one of the first places at a\ndistance to feel the kindling example of Northampton should be the\nneighborhood of Newark. To this region, planted, as we have seen, with\nso strong a stock from New England, from old England, and from Scotland,\ncame, in 1708, a youth of twenty years, Jonathan Dickinson, a native of\nthe historic little town of Hatfield, next neighbor to Northampton. He\nwas pastor at Elizabeth, but his influence and activity extended through\nall that part of New Jersey, and he became easily the leader of the\nrapidly growing communion of Presbyterian churches in that province, and\nthe opponent, in the interest of Christian liberty and sincerity, of\nrigid terms of subscription, demanded by men of little faith. There is a\ngreat career before him; but that which concerns the present topic is\nhis account of what took place \"sometime in August, 1739 (the summer\nbefore Mr. Whitefield came first into these parts), when there was a\nremarkable revival at Newark.... This revival of religion was chiefly\nobservable among the younger people, till the following March, when the\nwhole town in general was brought under an uncommon concern about their\neternal interests, and the congregation appeared universally affected\nunder some sermons that were then preached to them.\"\n\nLike scenes of spiritual quickening were witnessed that same season in\nother parts of New Jersey; but special interest attaches to the report\nfrom New Londonderry, Penn., where a Scotch-Irish community received as\nits pastor, in the spring of 1740, Samuel Blair, a native of Ireland,\ntrained in the Log College of William Tennent. He describes the people,\nat his first knowledge of them, as sunk in a religious torpor,\nignorance, and indifference. The first sign of vitality was observed in\nMarch, 1740, during the pastor's absence, when, under an alarming sermon\nfrom a neighbor minister:\n\n     \"There was a visible appearance of much soul-concern among\n     the hearers; so that some burst out with an audible noise into\n     bitter crying, a thing not known in these parts before.... The\n     first sermon I preached after my return to them was from\n     Matthew vi. 33: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his\n     righteousness.' After opening up and explaining the parts of\n     the text, when in the improvement I came to press the\n     injunction in the text upon the unconverted and ungodly, and\n     offered this as one reason among others why they should now\n     first of all seek the kingdom and righteousness of God, viz.,\n     that they had neglected too long to do so already, this\n     consideration seemed to come and cut like a sword upon several\n     in the congregation; so that while I was speaking upon it they\n     could no longer contain, but burst out in the most bitter\n     mourning. I desired them as much as possible to restrain\n     themselves from making any noise that would hinder themselves\n     or others from hearing what was spoken; and often afterward I\n     had occasion to repeat the same counsel. I still advised\n     people to endeavor to moderate and bound their passions, but\n     not so as to resist and stifle their convictions. The number\n     of the awakened increased very fast. Frequently under sermons\n     there were some newly convicted and brought into deep distress\n     of soul about their perishing estate. Our Sabbath assemblies\n     soon became vastly large, many people from almost all parts\n     around inclining very much to come where there was such\n     appearance of the divine power and presence. I think there was\n     scarcely a sermon or lecture preached here through that whole\n     summer but there were manifest evidences of impressions on the\n     hearers, and many times the impressions were very great and\n     general. Several would be overcome and fainting; others deeply\n     sobbing, hardly able to contain; others crying in a most\n     dolorous manner; many others more silently weeping, and a\n     solemn concern appearing in the countenances of many others.\n     And sometimes the soul-exercises of some (though comparatively\n     but very few) would so far affect their bodies as to occasion\n     some strange, unusual bodily motions. I had opportunities of\n     speaking particularly with a great many of those who afforded\n     such outward tokens of inward soul-concern in the time of\n     public worship and hearing of the Word. Indeed, many came to\n     me of themselves, in their distress, for private instruction\n     and counsel; and I found, so far as I can remember, that with\n     by far the greater part their apparent concern in public was\n     not just a transient qualm of conscience or merely a floating\n     commotion of the affections, but a rational, fixed conviction\n     of their dangerous, perishing estate....\n\n     \"In some time many of the convinced and distressed afforded\n     very hopeful, satisfying evidence that the Lord had brought\n     them to true closure with Jesus Christ, and that their\n     distresses and fears had been in a great measure removed in a\n     right gospel way, by believing in the Son of God. Several of\n     them had very remarkable and sweet deliverances this way. It\n     was very agreeable to hear their accounts how that when they\n     were in the deepest perplexity and darkness, distress and\n     difficulty, seeking God as poor, condemned, hell-deserving\n     sinners, the scene of recovering grace through a Redeemer has\n     been opened to their understandings with a surprising beauty\n     and glory, so that they were enabled to believe in Christ with\n     joy unspeakable and full of glory.\"[162:1]\n\nThe experience of Gilbert Tennent at New Brunswick had no connection\nwith the first awakening at Northampton, but had important relations\nwith later events. He was the eldest of the four sons whom William\nTennent, the Episcopalian minister from Ireland, had brought with him to\nAmerica and educated at his Log College. In 1727 he became pastor of a\nchurch at New Brunswick, where he was much impressed with what he saw of\nthe results of the work of the Rev. Theodore Frelinghuysen, who for\nseven years had been pastor of a neighboring Dutch church. The example\nand fraternal counsel of this good man made him sensible of the\nfruitlessness of his own work, and moved him to more earnest prayers and\nlabors. Having been brought low with sickness, he prayed to God to grant\nhim one half-year more in which to \"endeavor to promote his kingdom with\nall my might at all adventures.\" Being raised up from sickness, he\ndevoted himself to earnest personal labors with individuals and to\nrenewed faithfulness in the pulpit, \"which method was sealed by the Holy\nSpirit in the conviction and conversion of a considerable number of\npersons, at various times and in different places, in that part of the\ncountry, as appeared by their acquaintance with experimental religion\nand good conversation.\" This bit of pastoral history, in which is\nnothing startling or prodigious, was at least five years previous to the\n\"Surprising Conversions\" at Northampton. There must have been generally\nthroughout the country a preparedness for the Great Awakening.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was in that year (1735) in which the town of Northampton was all\nablaze with the glory of its first revival under Edwards that George\nWhitefield, first among the members of Wesley's \"Holy Club\" at Oxford,\nattained to that \"sense of the divine love\" from which he was wont to\ndate his conversion. In May, 1738, when the last reflections from the\nNorthampton revival had faded out from all around the horizon, the young\nclergyman, whose first efforts as a preacher in pulpits of the Church of\nEngland had astonished all hearers by the power of his eloquence,\narrived at Savannah, urged by the importunity of the Wesleys to take up\nthe work in Georgia in which they had so conspicuously failed. He\nentered eagerly into the sanguine schemes for the advantage of the\nyoung colony, and especially into the scheme for building and endowing\nan orphan-house in just that corner of the earth where there was less\nneed of such an institution than anywhere else. After three months' stay\nhe started on his return to England to seek priest's orders for himself,\nand funds for the orphans that might be expected sometime in Georgia. He\nwas successful in both his errands. He was ordained; he collected more\nthan one thousand pounds for the orphan-house; and being detained in the\nkingdom by an embargo, he began that course of evangelistic preaching\nwhich continued on either side of the ocean until his death, and which\nis without a parallel in church history. His incomparable eloquence\nthronged the parish churches, until the churches were closed against\nhim, and the Bishop of London warned the people against him in a\npastoral letter. Then he went out into the open fields, in the service,\nas he said, of him \"who had a mountain for his pulpit, and the heavens\nfor his sounding-board, and who, when his gospel was refused by the\nJews, sent his servants into the highways and hedges.\" Multitudes of\nevery rank thronged him; but especially the heathenized and embruted\ncolliers near Bristol listened to the unknown gospel, and their awakened\nfeelings were revealed to the preacher by his observing the white\ngutters made by the tears that ran down their grimy faces. At last the\nembargo was raised, and committing his work to Wesley, whom he had drawn\ninto field-preaching, he sailed in August, 1739, for Philadelphia, on\nhis way to Georgia. His fame had gone before him, and the desire to hear\nhim was universal. The churches would not contain the throngs. It was\nlong remembered how, on those summer evenings, he would take his stand\nin the balcony of the old court-house in Market Street, and how every\nsyllable from his wonderful voice would be heard aboard the river-craft\nmoored at the foot of the street, four hundred feet away.\n\nAt New York the Episcopal church was closed against him, but the pastor\nof the Presbyterian church, Mr. Pemberton, from Boston, made him\nwelcome, and the fields were free to him and his hearers. On the way to\nNew York and back, the tireless man preached at every town. At New\nBrunswick he saw and heard with profound admiration Gilbert Tennent,\nthenceforth his friend and yokefellow.\n\nSeeing the solemn eagerness of the people everywhere to hear him, he\ndetermined to make the journey to Savannah by land, and again he turned\nthe long journey into a campaign of preaching. Arriving at Savannah in\nJanuary, 1740, he laid the foundation of his orphan-house, \"Bethesda,\"\nand in March was again on his way northward on a tour of preaching and\nsolicitation of funds. Touching at Charleston, where the bishop's\ncommissary, Dr. Garden, was at open controversy with him, he preached\nfive times and received seventy pounds for his charitable work. Landing\nat New Castle on a Sunday morning, he preached morning and evening.\nMonday morning he preached at Wilmington to a vast assemblage. Tuesday\nevening he preached on Society Hill, in Philadelphia, \"to about eight\nthousand,\" and at the same place Wednesday morning and evening. Then\nonce more he made the tour to New York and back, preaching at every\nhalting-place. A contemporary newspaper contains the following item:\n\n     \"New Castle, May 15th. This evening Mr. Whitefield went on\n     board his sloop here in order to sail for Georgia. On Sunday\n     he preached twice in Philadelphia, and in the evening, when he\n     preached his farewell sermon, it is supposed he had twenty\n     thousand hearers. On Monday he preached at Darby and Chester;\n     on Tuesday at Wilmington and Whiteclay Creek; on Wednesday,\n     twice at Nottingham; on Thursday at Fog's Manor and New\n     Castle. The congregations were much increased since his being\n     here last. The presence of God was much seen in the\n     assemblies, especially at Nottingham and Fog's Manor, where\n     the people were under such deep soul-distress that their cries\n     almost drowned his voice. He has collected in this and the\n     neighboring provinces about four hundred and fifty pounds\n     sterling for his orphans in Georgia.\"\n\nInto the feeble but rapidly growing presbyteries and the one synod of\nthe American Presbyterian Church the revival had brought, not peace, but\na sword. The collision was inevitable between the fervor and\nunrestrained zeal of the evangelists and the sense of order and decorum,\nand of the importance of organization and method, into which men are\ntrained in the ministry of an established church. No man, even at this\nday, can read the \"standards\" of the Presbyterian Church without seeing\nthat they have had to be strained to admit those \"revival methods\" which\never since the days of Whitefield have prevailed in that body. The\nconflict that arose was not unlike that which from the beginning of New\nEngland history had subsisted between Separatist and Nationalist. In the\nPresbyterian conflict, as so often in religious controversies,\ndisciplinary and doctrinal questions were complicated with a difference\nof race. The \"Old Side\" was the Scotch and Irish party; the \"New Side\"\nwas the New England party, to which many of the old-country ministers\nadhered. For successive years the mutual opposition had shown itself in\nthe synod; and in 1740, at the synod meeting at Philadelphia, soon after\nthe departure of Whitefield, the real gravamen of the controversy\nappeared, in the implied and even express impeachment of the spiritual\ncharacter of the Old Side ministers. The impeachment had been implied in\nthe coming of the evangelists uninvited into other men's parishes, as\nif these were mission ground. And now it was expressed in papers read\nbefore the synod by Blair and Gilbert Tennent. The action of the synod\nwent so far toward sustaining the men of the New Side as to repeal the\nrule restraining ministers from preaching outside of their own parishes,\nand as to put on record a thanksgiving for the work of God in the land.\nThrough all the days of the synod's meeting, daily throngs on Society\nHill were addressed by the Tennents and other \"hot gospelers\" of the\nrevival, and churches and private houses were resounding with revival\nhymns and exhortations. Already the preaching and printing of Gilbert\nTennent's \"Nottingham Sermon\" had made further fellowship between the\ntwo parties for the time impossible. The sermon flagrantly illustrated\nthe worst characteristic of the revivalists--their censoriousness. It\nwas a violent invective on \"The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry,\"\nwhich so favorable a critic as Dr. Alexander has characterized as \"one\nof the most severely abusive sermons which was ever penned.\" The answer\nto it came in a form that might have been expected. At the opening of\nthe synod of 1741 a solemn protestation was presented containing an\nindictment in seven grave counts against the men of the New Side, and\ndeclaring them to \"have at present no right to sit and vote as members\nof this synod, and that if they should sit and vote, the doings of the\nsynod would be of no force or obligation.\" The protestation was adopted\nby the synod by a bare majority of a small attendance. The presbytery of\nNew Brunswick found itself exscinded by this short and easy process of\ndiscipline; the presbytery of New York joined with it in organizing a\nnew synod, and the schism was complete.\n\nIt is needless further to follow in detail the amazing career of\nWhitefield, \"posting o'er land and ocean without rest,\" and attended at\nevery movement by such storms of religious agitation as have been\nalready described. In August, 1740, he made his first visit to New\nEngland. He met with a cordial welcome. At Boston all pulpits were\nopened to him, and churches were thronged with eager and excited\nhearers.[168:1] He preached on the common in the open air, and the\ncrowds were doubled. All the surrounding towns, and the coast eastward\nto Maine, and the interior as far as Northampton, and the Connecticut\ntowns along the road to New York, were wonderfully aroused by the\npreaching, which, according to the testimony of two nations and all\ngrades of society, must have been of unequaled power over the feelings.\nNot only the clergy, including the few Church of England missionaries,\nbut the colleges and the magistrates delighted to honor him. Belcher,\nthe royal governor at Boston, fairly slobbered over him, with tears and\nembraces and kisses; and the devout Governor Talcott, at New Haven, gave\nGod thanks, after listening to the great preacher, \"for such refreshings\non the way to our rest.\" So he was sped on his way back to the South.\n\nRelieved thus of the glamor of his presence, the New England people\nbegan, some of them, to recognize in what an earthen vessel their\ntreasure had been borne. Already, in his earlier youth, when his vast\npowers had been suddenly revealed to him and to the world, he had had\nwise counsel from such men as Watts and Doddridge against some of his\nperils. Watts warned him against his superstition of trusting to\n\"impressions\" assumed to be divine; and Doddridge pronounced him \"an\nhonest man, but weak, and a little intoxicated with popularity.\"[169:1]\nBut no human strength could stand against the adulation that everywhere\nattended him. His vain conceit was continually betraying him into\nindiscretions, which he was ever quick to expiate by humble\nacknowledgment. At Northampton he was deeply impressed with the beauty\nof holiness in Edwards and his wife; and he listened with deference to\nthe cautions of that wise counselor against his faith in \"impressions\"\nand against his censorious judgments of other men as \"unconverted\"; but\nit seemed to the pastor that his guest \"liked him not so well for\nopposing these things.\"\n\nThe faults of Whitefield were intensified to a hateful degree in some of\nhis associates and followers. Leaving Boston, he sent, to succeed to his\nwork, Gilbert Tennent, then glowing with the heat of his noted\nNottingham sermon on \"An Unconverted Ministry.\" At once men's minds\nbegan to be divided. On the one hand, so wise and sober a critic as\nThomas Prince, listening with severe attention, gave his strong and\nunreserved approval to the preaching and demeanor of Tennent.[169:2] At\nthe other extreme, we have such testimony as this from Dr. Timothy\nCutler, the former rector of Yale College, now the Episcopalian minister\nof Boston:\n\n     \"It would be an endless attempt to describe that scene of\n     confusion and disturbance occasioned by him [Whitefield]: the\n     division of families, neighborhoods, and towns, the\n     contrariety of husbands and wives, the undutifulness of\n     children and servants, the quarrels among teachers, the\n     disorders of the night, the intermission of labor and\n     business, the neglect of husbandry and of gathering the\n     harvest.... In many conventicles and places of rendezvous\n     there has been checkered work indeed, several preaching and\n     several exhorting and praying at the same time, the rest\n     crying or laughing, yelping, sprawling, fainting, and this\n     revel maintained in some places many days and nights together\n     without intermission; and then there were the blessed\n     outpourings of the Spirit!... After him came one Tennent, a\n     monster! impudent and noisy, and told them they were all\n     damn'd, damn'd, damn'd; this charmed them, and in the most\n     dreadful winter I ever saw people wallowed in the snow night\n     and day for the benefit of his beastly brayings, and many\n     ended their days under these fatigues. Both of them carried\n     more money out of these parts than the poor could be thankful\n     for.\"[170:1]\n\nThis is in a tone of bitter sectarian railing. But, after all, the main\nallegations in it are sustained by the ample evidence produced by Dr.\nCharles Chauncy, pastor of the First Church in Boston, in his serious\nand weighty volume of \"Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in\nNew England,\" published in 1743, as he sincerely says, \"to serve the\ninterests of Christ's kingdom,\" and \"faithfully pointing out the things\nof a bad and dangerous tendency in the late and present religious\nappearance in the land.\" Dr. Chauncy was doubtless included in the\nsweeping denunciation of the Christian ministry in general as\n\"unconverted,\" \"Pharisees,\" \"hypocrites.\" And yet it does not appear in\nhistorical evidence that Chauncy was not every whit as good a Christian\nas Tennent or Whitefield.\n\nThe excesses of the revival went on from bad to worse. They culminated,\nat last, in the frenzy of poor James Davenport, great-grandson of the\nvenerable founder of New Haven, who, under the control of \"impressions\"\nand \"impulses\" and texts of Scripture \"borne in upon his mind,\"\nabandoned his Long Island parish, a true _allotrio-episcopos_, to thrust\nhimself uninvited into the parishes of other ministers, denouncing the\npastor as \"unconverted\" and adjuring the people to desert both pastor\nand church. Like some other self-appointed itinerants and exhorters of\nthe time, he seemed bent upon schism, as if this were the great end of\npreaching. Being invited to New London to assist in organizing a\nSeparatist church, he \"published the messages which he said he received\nfrom the Spirit in dreams and otherwise, importing the great necessity\nof mortification and contempt of the world; and made them believe that\nthey must put away from them everything that they delighted in, to avoid\nthe heinous sin of idolatry--that wigs, cloaks and breeches, hoods,\ngowns, rings, jewels, and necklaces, must be all brought together into\none heap into his chamber, that they might by his solemn decree be\ncommitted to the flames.\" On the Sabbath afternoon the pile was publicly\nburned amid songs and shouts. In the pile were many favorite books of\ndevotion, including works of Flavel, Beveridge, Henry, and like\nvenerated names, and the sentence was announced with a loud voice, \"that\nthe smoke of the torments of such of the authors of the above-said books\nas died in the same belief as when they set them out was now ascending\nin hell, in like manner as they saw the smoke of these books\narise.\"[171:1] The public fever and delirium was passing its crisis. A\nlittle more than a year from this time, Davenport, who had been treated\nby his brethren with much forbearance and had twice been released from\npublic process as _non compos mentis_, recovered his reason at the same\ntime with his bodily health, and published an unreserved and\naffectionate acknowledgment of the wrong that he had done under the\ninfluence of a spirit of delusion which he had mistaken for the Spirit\nof truth. Those who had gone furthest with him in his excesses returned\nto a more sober and brotherly mind, and soon no visible trace remained\nof the wild storm of enthusiasm that had swept over New England, except\na few languishing schisms in country towns of Connecticut.\n\nAs in the middle colonies, the revival had brought division in New\nEngland. But, after the New England fashion, it was division merely into\nways of thinking, not into sects. Central in the agitated scene is the\ncalm figure of Edwards, uniting the faith and zeal of an apostle with\nthe acuteness of a philosopher, and applying the exquisite powers of his\nintellect to discriminate between a divine work and its human or Satanic\nadmixtures, and between true and spurious religious affections. He won\nthe blessing of the peacemaker. When half a generation had passed there\nhad not ceased, indeed, to be differences of opinion, but there was none\nleft to defend the wild extravagances which the very authors of them\nlamented, and there was none to deny, in face of the rich and enduring\nfruits of the revival, that the power of God had been present in it. In\nthe twenty years ending in 1760 the number of the New England churches\nhad been increased by one hundred and fifty.[172:1]\n\nIn the middle colonies there had been like progress. The Presbyterian\nministry had increased from forty-five to more than a hundred; and the\nincrease had been wholly on the \"New Side.\" An early move of the\nconservative party, to require a degree from a British or a New England\ncollege as a condition of license to preach, was promptly recognized as\nintended to exclude the fervid students from the Log College. It was met\nby the organization of Princeton College, whose influence, more New\nEnglandish than New England, directed by a succession of illustrious\nYale graduates in full sympathy with the advanced theology of the\nrevival, was counted on to withstand the more cautious orthodoxy of\nYale. In this and other ways the Presbyterian schism fell out to the\nfurtherance of the gospel.\n\nIn Virginia the quickening was as when the wind breathed in the valley\nof dry bones. The story of Samuel Morris and his unconscious mission,\nalthough authentic fact, belongs with the very romance of\nevangelism.[173:1] Whitefield and \"One-eyed Robinson,\" and at last\nSamuel Davies, came to his aid. The deadly exclusiveness of the inert\nVirginia establishment was broken up, and the gospel had free course.\nThe Presbyterian Church, which had at first been looked on as an exotic\nsect that might be tolerated out on the western frontier, after a brief\nstruggle with the Act of Uniformity maintained its right to live and\nstruck vigorous root in the soil. The effect of the Awakening was felt\nin the establishment itself. Devereux Jarratt, a convert of the revival,\nwent to England for ordination, and returned to labor for the\nresuscitation of the Episcopal Church in his native State. \"To him, and\nsuch as he, the first workings of the renewed energy of the church in\nVirginia are to be traced.\"[173:2]\n\nAn even more important result of the Awakening was the swift and wide\nextension of Baptist principles and churches. This was altogether\nlogical. The revival had come, not so much in the spirit and power of\nElijah, turning to each other the hearts of fathers and of children, as\nin the spirit of Ezekiel, the preacher of individual responsibility and\nduty. The temper of the revival was wholly congenial with the strong\nindividualism of the Baptist churches. The Separatist churches formed in\nNew England by the withdrawal of revival enthusiasts from the parish\nchurches in many instances became Baptist. Cases of individual\nconversion to Baptist views were frequent, and the earnestness with\nwhich the new opinion was held approved itself not only by debating and\nproselyting, but by strenuous and useful evangelizing. Especially at the\nSouth, from Virginia to Georgia, the new preachers, entering into the\nlabors of the annoyed and persecuted pioneers of their communion, won\nmultitudes of converts to the Christian faith, from the neglected\npopulations, both black and white, and gave to the Baptist churches a\nlasting preeminence in numbers among the churches of the South.\n\nThroughout the country the effect of this vigorous propagation of rival\nsects openly, in the face of whatever there was of church establishment,\nsettled this point: that the law of American States, by whomsoever\nadministered, must sooner or later be the law of liberty and equality\namong the various religious communions. In the southern colonies, the\nempty shell of a church establishment had crumbled on contact with the\nserious earnestness of the young congregations gathered by the\nPresbyterian and Baptist evangelists. In New England, where\nestablishment was in the form of an attempt by the people of the\ncommonwealth to confirm the people of each town in the maintenance of\ncommon worship according to their conscience and judgment, the \"standing\norder\" had solid strength; but when it was attempted by public authority\nto curb the liberty of a considerable minority conscientiously intent on\nsecession, the reins were ready to break. It soon came to be recognized\nthat the only preeminence the parish churches could permanently hold was\nthat of being \"servants of all.\"\n\nWith equal and unlimited liberty, was to follow, as a prevailing\ncharacteristic of American Christianity, a large diversity of\norganization. Not only that men disagreeing in their convictions of\ntruth would be enrolled in different bodies, but that men holding the\nsame views, in the same statement of them, would feel free to go apart\nfrom one another, and stay apart. There was not even to be any one\ngenerally predominating organization from which minor ones should be\nreckoned as dissenting. One after another the organizations which should\nbe tempted by some period of exceptional growth and prosperity to\npretend to a hegemony among the churches--Catholic, Episcopalian,\nPresbyterian, Baptist, Methodist--would meet with some set-back as\ninexorable as \"the law of nature that prevents the trees from growing up\ninto the sky.\"\n\nBy a curious paradox, the same spiritual agitation which deepened the\ndivisions of the American church aroused in the colonies the\nconsciousness of a national religious unity. We have already seen that\nin the period before the Awakening the sole organ of fellowship reaching\nthrough the whole chain of the British colonies was the correspondence\nof the Quaker meetings and missionaries. In the glow of the revival the\ncontinent awoke to the consciousness of a common spiritual life. Ranging\nthe continent literally from Georgia to Maine, with all his weaknesses\nand indiscretions, and with his incomparable eloquence, welcomed by\nevery sect, yet refusing an exclusive allegiance to any, Whitefield\nexercised a true apostolate, bearing daily the care of all the churches,\nand becoming a messenger of mutual fellowship not only between the ends\nof the continent, but between the Christians of two hemispheres. Remote\nchurches exchanged offices of service. Tennent came from New Jersey to\nlabor in New England; Dickinson and Burr and Edwards were the gift of\nthe northern colonies to the college at Princeton. The quickened sense\nof a common religious life and duty and destiny was no small part of the\npreparation for the birth of the future nation.\n\nWhether for good or for evil, the few years from 1740 to 1750 were\ndestined to impress upon the American church in its various orders, for\na hundred years to come, the character of _Methodism_.[176:1]\n\nIn New England, the idea, into which the first pastors had been trained\nby their experience as parish ministers in the English established\nchurch, of the parochial church holding correlative rights and duties\ntoward the community in all its families, succumbed at last, after a\nhundred years of more or less conscious antagonism, to the incompatible\nprinciple, adopted from the Separatists of Plymouth, of the church\nformed according to elective affinity by the \"social compact\" of persons\nof the age of discretion who could give account to themselves and to one\nanother of the conscious act and experience of conversion. This view,\nsubject to important mitigations or aggravations in actual\nadministration, held almost unquestioned dominance in the New England\nchurches until boldly challenged by Horace Bushnell, in his\n\"epoch-making\" volume on \"Christian Nurture\" (1846), as a departure from\nthe orthodoxy of the fathers.\n\nIn the Presbyterian Church, revivalism as a principle of church life had\nto contend with rules distinctly articulated in its constitutional\ndocuments. So exclusively does the Westminster institute contemplate the\nchurch as an established parish that its \"Directory for Worship\"\ncontains no provision for so abnormal an incident as the baptism of an\nadult, and all baptized children growing up and not being of scandalous\nlife are to be welcomed to the Lord's Supper. It proves the immense\npower of the Awakening, that this rigid and powerful organization, of a\npeople tenacious of its traditions to the point of obstinacy, should\nhave swung so completely free at this point, not only of its\nlong-settled usages, but of the distinct letter of its standards.\n\nThe Episcopal Church of the colonies was almost forced into an attitude\nof opposition to the revival. The unspeakable folly of the English\nbishops in denouncing and silencing the most effective preachers in the\nnational church had betrayed Whitefield into his most easily besetting\nsin, that of censorious judgment, and his sweeping counter-denunciations\nof the Episcopalian clergy in general as unconverted closed to him many\nhearts and pulpits that at first had been hospitably open to him. Being\nhuman, they came into open antagonism to him and to the revival. From\nthe protest against extravagance and disorder, it was a short and\nperilously easy step to the rejection of religious fervor and\nearnestness. The influence of the mother church of that dreary period\nand the influence of the official rings around every royal governor were\nall too potent in the same direction. The Propagation Society's\nmissionaries boasted, with reason, of large accessions of proselytes\nalienated from other churches by their distaste for the methods of the\nrevival. The effect on the Episcopal Church itself was in some respects\nunhappy. It \"lowered a spiritual temperature already too low,\"[177:1]\nand weakened the moral influence of the church, and the value of its\ntestimony to important principles which there were few besides\nefficiently to represent--the duty of the church not to disown or shut\nout those of little faith, and the church's duty toward its children.\nNever in the history of the church have the Lord's husbandmen shown a\nfiercer zeal for rooting up tares, regardless of damage to the wheat,\nthan was shown by the preachers of the Awakening. Never was there a\nwider application of the reproach against those who, instead of\npreaching to men that they should be converted and become as little\nchildren, preach to children that they must be converted and become like\ngrown folks.[178:1] The attitude of the Episcopal Church at that period\nwas not altogether admirable; but it is nothing to its dishonor that it\nbore the reproach of being a friend of publicans and sinners, and\noffered itself as a _refugium peccatorum_, thus holding many in some\nsort of relation to the kingdom of Christ who would otherwise have\nlapsed into sheer infidelity.\n\nIn all this the Episcopal Church was affected by the Awakening only by\nway of reaction. But it owes a debt to the direct influence of the\nAwakening which it has not always been careful to acknowledge. We have\nalready seen that the requickening of the asphyxiated church of Virginia\nwas part of the great revival, and this character remains impressed on\nthat church to this day. The best of those traits by which the American\nEpiscopal Church is distinguished from the Church of England, as, for\ninstance, the greater purity of the ministry and of the membership, are\nfamily traits of the revival churches; the most venerated of its early\nbishops, White and Griswold, bore the same family likeness; and the\n\"Evangelical party,\" for a time so influential in its counsels, was a\ntardy and mild afterglow from the setting of the Great Awakening.[179:1]\n\nAn incident of the revival, failing which it would have lacked an\nessential token of the presence of the Spirit of Christ, was the\nkindling of zeal for communicating the gospel to the ignorant, the\nneglected, and the heathen. Among the first-fruits of Whitefield's\npreaching at the South was a practical movement among the planters for\nthe instruction of their slaves--devotees, most of them, of the most\nabject fetich-worship of their native continent. Of the evangelists and\npastors most active in the revival, there were few, either North or\nSouth, whose letters or journals do not report the drawing into the\nchurches of large numbers of negroes and Indians, whose daily lives\nwitnessed to the sincerity of their profession of repentance and\nChristian faith. The Indian population of the southeastern corner of\nConnecticut with such accord received the gospel at the hands of the\nevangelists that heathenism seemed extinct among them.[179:2]\n\nAmong the first trophies of the revival at Norwich was a Mohegan boy\nnamed Samson Occum. Wheelock, pastor at Lebanon, one of the most ardent\nof the revival preachers, took him into his family as a student. This\nwas the beginning of that school for the training of Indian preachers\nwhich, endowed in part with funds gathered by Occum in England, grew at\nlast into Dartmouth College. The choicest spiritual gifts at the\ndisposal of the church were freely spent on the missions. Whitefield\nvisited the school and the field, and sped Kirkland on his way to the\nOneidas. Edwards, leaving Northampton in sorrow of heart, gave his\nincomparable powers to the work of the gospel among the Stockbridge\nIndians until summoned thence to the presidency of Princeton College.\nWhen Brainerd fainted under his burden, it was William Tennent who went\nout into the wilderness to carry on the work of harvest. But the great\ngift of the American church to the cause of missions was the gift of\nDavid Brainerd himself. His life was the typical missionary's life--the\nscattering of precious seed with tears, the heart-sickness of hope\ndeferred, at last the rejoicing of the harvest-home. His early death\nenrolled him in the canon of the saints of modern Christendom. The story\nof his life and death, written by Jonathan Edwards out of that fatherly\nlove with which he had tended the young man's latest days and hours, may\nnot have been an unmixed blessing to the church. The long-protracted\nintrospections, the cherished forebodings and misgivings, as if doubt\nwas to be cultivated as a Christian virtue, may not have been an\naltogether wholesome example for general imitation. But think what the\nstory of that short life has wrought! To how many hearts it has been an\ninspiration to self-sacrifice and devotion to the service of God in the\nservice of man, we cannot know. Along one line its influence can be\npartly traced. The \"Life of David Brainerd\" made Henry Martyn a\nmissionary to the heathen. As spiritual father to Henry Martyn, Brainerd\nmay be reckoned, in no unimportant sense, to be the father of modern\nmissions to the heathen.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[156:1] Of how little relative importance was this charge may be judged\nfrom the fact that a quarter-century later, when the famous Joseph\nBellamy was invited to it from his tiny parish of Bethlem, Conn., the\ncouncil called to advise in the case judged that the interests of\nBethlem were too important to be sacrificed to the demands of New York.\n\n[156:2] See the altogether admirable monograph of Professor A. V. G.\nAllen on \"Jonathan Edwards,\" p. 23.\n\n[159:1] Allen, \"Jonathan Edwards,\" pp. 164-174.\n\n[162:1] Joseph Tracy, \"The Great Awakening,\" chap. ii. This work, of\nacknowledged value and authority, is on the list of the Congregational\nBoard of Publication. It is much to be regretted that the Board does not\npublish it as well as announce it. A new edition of it, under the hand\nof a competent editor, with a good index, would be a useful service to\nhistory.\n\n[168:1] The critical historian has the unusual satisfaction, at this\npoint, of finding a gauge by which to discount the large round numbers\ngiven in Whitefield's journal. He speaks of preaching in the Old South\nChurch to six thousand persons. The now venerable building had at that\ntime a seating capacity of about twelve hundred. Making the largest\nallowance for standing-room, we may estimate his actual audience at two\nthousand. Whitefield was an honest man, but sixty-six per cent. is not\ntoo large a discount to make from his figures; his estimates of\nspiritual effect from his labor are liable to a similar deduction.\n\n[169:1] Tracy, \"Great Awakening,\" p. 51.\n\n[169:2] _Ibid._, pp. 114-120.\n\n[170:1] Letter of September 24, 1743, quoted in McConnell, \"American\nEpiscopal Church,\" p. 142, note.\n\n[171:1] Chauncy, \"Seasonable Thoughts,\" pp. 220-223.\n\n[172:1] Tracy, \"Great Awakening,\" p. 389.\n\n[173:1] See the autobiographical narrative in Tracy, p. 377.\n\n[173:2] Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" p. 45.\n\n[176:1] \"The Great Awakening ... terminated the Puritan and inaugurated\nthe Pietist or Methodist age of American church history\" (Thompson,\n\"Presbyterian Churches in the United States,\" p. 34). It is not\nunnecessary to remark that the word \"Methodist\" is not used in the\nnarrow sense of \"Wesleyan.\"\n\n[177:1] Unpublished lectures of the Rev. W. G. Andrews on \"The\nEvangelical Revival of 1740 and American Episcopalians.\" It is much to\nbe hoped that these valuable studies of the critical period of American\nchurch history may not long remain unpublished.\n\n[178:1] This sharp antithesis is quoted at second hand from Charles\nKingsley. The stories of little children frightened into screaming, and\nthen dragged (at four years of age, says Jonathan Edwards) through the\nagitating vicissitudes of a \"revival experience,\" occupy some of the\nmost pathetic, not to say tragical, pages of the history of the\nAwakening.\n\n[179:1] McConnell, pp. 144-146; W. G. Andrews, Lecture III.\n\n[179:2] Tracy, pp. 187-192.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nCLOSE OF THE COLONIAL ERA--THE GERMAN CHURCHES--THE BEGINNINGS OF THE\nMETHODIST CHURCH.\n\n\nThe quickening of religious feeling, the deepening of religious\nconviction, the clearing and defining of theological opinions, that were\nincidental to the Great Awakening, were a preparation for more than\nthirty years of intense political and warlike agitation. The churches\nsuffered from the long distraction of the public mind, and at the end of\nit were faint and exhausted. But for the infusion of a \"more abundant\nlife\" which they had received, it would seem that they could hardly have\nsurvived the stress of that stormy and revolutionary period.\n\nThe religious life of this period was manifested in part in the growth\nof the New England theology. The great leader of this school of\ntheological inquiry, the elder Edwards, was born at the opening of the\neighteenth century. The oldest and most eminent of his disciples and\nsuccessors, Bellamy and Hopkins, were born respectively in 1719 and\n1721, and entered into the work of the Awakening in the flush of their\nearliest manhood. A long dynasty of acute and strenuous argumentators\nhas continued, through successive generations to the present day, this\ndistinctly American school of theological thought. This is not the\nplace for tracing the intricate history of their discussions,[182:1]\nbut the story of the Awakening could not be told without some mention of\nthis its attendant and sequel.\n\nNot less notable than the new theology of the revival was the new\npsalmody. In general it may be said that every flood-tide of spiritual\nemotion in the church leaves its high-water mark in the form of \"new\nsongs to the Lord\" that remain after the tide of feeling has assuaged.\nIn this instance the new songs were not produced by the revival, but\nonly adopted by it. It is not easy for us at this day to conceive the\neffect that must have been produced in the Christian communities of\nAmerica by the advent of Isaac Watts's marvelous poetic work, \"The\nPsalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament.\"\nImportant religious results have more than once followed in the church\non the publication of religious poems--notably, in our own century, on\nthe publication of \"The Christian Year.\" But no other instance of the\nkind is comparable with the publication in America of Watts's Psalms.\nWhen we remember how scanty were the resources of religious poetry in\nAmerican homes in the early eighteenth century, and especially how rude\nand even grotesque the rhymes that served in the various churches as a\nvehicle of worship, it seems that the coming of those melodious stanzas,\nin which the meaning of one poet is largely interpreted by the\nsympathetic insight of another poet, and the fervid devotion of the Old\nTestament is informed with the life and transfigured in the language of\nthe New, must have been like a glow of sunlight breaking in upon a gray\nand cloudy day. Few pages of biography can be found more vividly\nillustrative of the times and the men than the page in which Samuel\nHopkins recites the story of the sufferings of his own somber and\nponderous mind under the rebuke of his college friend David Brainerd. He\nwalked his solitary room in tears, and (he says) \"took up Watts's\nversion of the Psalms, and opened it at the Fifty-first Psalm, and read\nthe first, second, and third parts in long meter with strong affections,\nand made it all my own language, and thought it was the language of my\nheart to God.\" There was more than the experience of a great and simple\nsoul, there was the germ of a future system of theology, in the\npenitential confession which the young student \"made his own language,\"\nand in the exquisite lines which, under the figure of a frightened bird,\nbecame the utterance of his first tremulous and faltering faith:\n\n     Lord, should thy judgment grow severe,\n     I am condemned, but thou art clear.\n\n     Should sudden vengeance seize my breath,\n     I must pronounce thee just in death;\n     And if my soul were sent to hell,\n     Thy righteous law approves it well.\n\n     Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord,\n     Whose hope, still hovering round thy word,\n     Would light on some sweet promise there,\n     Some sure support against despair.\n\nThe introduction of the new psalmody was not accomplished all at once,\nnor without a struggle. But we gravely mistake if we look upon the\ncontroversy that resulted in the adoption of Watts's Psalms as a mere\nconflict between enlightened good taste and stubborn conservatism. The\naction proposed was revolutionary. It involved the surrender of a\nlong-settled principle of Puritanism. At the present day the objection\nto the use of \"human composures\" in public worship is unintelligible,\nexcept to Scotchmen. In the later Puritan age such use was reckoned an\ninfringement on the entire and exclusive authority and sufficiency of\nthe Scriptures, and a constructive violation of the second commandment.\nBy the adoption of the new psalmody the Puritan and Presbyterian\nchurches, perhaps not consciously, but none the less actually, yielded\nthe major premiss of the only argument by which liturgical worship was\ncondemned on principle. Thereafter the question of the use of liturgical\nforms became a mere question of expediency. It is remarkable that the\nlogical consequences of this important step have been so tardy and\nhesitating.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was not in the common course of church history that the period under\nconsideration should be a period of vigorous internal activity and\ndevelopment in the old settled churches of America. The deep, often\nexcessive, excitements of the Awakening had not only ceased, but had\nbeen succeeded by intense agitations of another sort. Two successive\n\"French and Indian\" wars kept the long frontier, at a time when there\nwas little besides frontier to the British colonies, in continual peril\nof fire and scalping-knife.[184:1] The astonishingly sudden and complete\nextinction of the French politico-religious empire in Canada and the\nWest made possible, and at no remote time inevitable, the separation of\nthe British colonies from the mother country and the contentions and\ndebates that led into the Revolutionary War began at once.\n\nAnother consequence of the prostrating of the French power in America\nhas been less noticed by historians, but the course of this narrative\nwill not be followed far without its becoming manifest as not less\nmomentous in its bearing on the future history of the church. The\nextinction of the French-Catholic power in America made possible the\nlater plantation and large and free development of the Catholic Church\nin the territory of the United States. After that event the Catholic\nresident or citizen was no longer subject to the suspicion of being a\nsympathizer with a hostile neighboring power, and the Jesuit missionary\nwas no longer liable to be regarded as a political intriguer and a\nconspirator with savage assassins against the lives of innocent settlers\nand their families. If there are those who, reading the earlier pages of\nthis volume, have mourned over the disappointment and annihilation of\ntwo magnificent schemes of Catholic domination on the North American\ncontinent as being among the painful mysteries of divine providence,\nthey may find compensation for these catastrophes in later advances of\nCatholicism, which without these antecedents would seem to have been\nhardly possible.\n\nAlthough the spiritual development of the awakened American churches,\nafter the Awakening until the independence of the States was established\nand acknowledged, was limited by these great hindrances, this period was\none of momentous influences from abroad upon American Christianity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Scotch-Irish immigration kept gathering volume and force. The great\nstream of immigrants entering at the port of Philadelphia and flowing\nwestward and southwestward was joined by a tributary stream entering at\nCharleston. Not only the numbers of this people, occupying in force the\nhill-country from Pennsylvania to Georgia, but still more its\nextraordinary qualities and the discipline of its history, made it a\nfactor of prime importance in the events of the times just before and\njust after the achievement of the national independence. For generations\nit had been schooled to the apprehension and acceptance of an\nelaborately articulated system of theology and church order as of divine\nauthority. Its prejudices and animosities were quite as potent as its\nprinciples. Its fixed hereditary aversion to the English government and\nthe English church was the natural fruit of long memories and traditions\nof outrages inflicted by both these; its influence was now about to be\npowerfully manifested in the overthrow of the English power and its\nfeeble church establishments in the colonies. At the opening of the War\nof Independence the Presbyterian Church, reunited since the schism of\n1741, numbered one hundred and seventy ministers in seventeen\npresbyteries; but its weight of influence was out of all proportion to\nits numbers, and this entire force, not altogether at unity with itself\non ecclesiastical questions, was united as one man in the maintenance of\nAmerican rights.\n\nThe great German immigration begins to flow in earnest in this period.\nThree successive tides of migration have set from Germany to America.\nThe first was the movement of the petty sects under the invitation and\npatronage of William Penn, quartering themselves in the eastern parts of\nPennsylvania. The second was the transportation of \"the Palatines,\"\nexpatriated by stress of persecution and war, not from the Rhenish\nPalatinate only, but from the archduchy of Salzburg and from other parts\nof Germany and Switzerland, gathered up and removed to America, some of\nthem directly, some by way of England, as an act of political charity by\nQueen Anne's government, with the idea of strengthening the colonies by\nplanting Protestant settlers for a safeguard against Spanish or French\naggressions. The third tide continues flowing, with variable volume, to\nthis day. It is the voluntary flow of companies of individual emigrants\nseeking to better the fortunes of themselves or their families. But this\nvoluntary migration has been unhealthily and sometimes dishonestly\nstimulated, from the beginning of it, by the selfish interests of those\nconcerned in the business of transportation or in the sale of land. It\nseems to have been mainly the greed of shipping merchants, at first,\nthat spread abroad in the German states florid announcements of the\ncharms and riches of America, decoying multitudes of ignorant persons to\nrisk everything on these representations, and to mortgage themselves\ninto a term of slavery until they should have paid the cost of their\npassage by their labor. This class of bondmen, called \"redemptioners,\"\nmade no inconsiderable part of the population of the middle colonies;\nand it seems to have been a worthy part. The trade of \"trepanning\" the\nunfortunates and transporting them and selling their term of service was\nnot by several degrees as bad as the African slave-trade; but it was of\nthe same sort, and the deadly horrors of its \"middle passage\" were\nhardly less.\n\nIn one way and another the German immigration had grown by the middle of\nthe eighteenth century to great dimensions. In the year 1749 twelve\nthousand Germans landed at the port of Philadelphia. In general they\nwere as sheep having no shepherd. Their deplorable religious condition\nwas owing less to poverty than to diversity of sects.[188:1] In many\nplaces the number of sects rendered concerted action impossible, and the\npeople remained destitute of religious instruction.\n\nThe famine of the word was sorely felt. In 1733 three great Lutheran\ncongregations in Pennsylvania, numbering five hundred families each,\nsent messengers with an imploring petition to their coreligionists at\nLondon and Halle, representing their \"state of the greatest\ndestitution.\" \"Our own means\" (they say) \"are utterly insufficient to\neffect the necessary relief, unless God in his mercy may send us help\nfrom abroad. It is truly lamentable to think of the large numbers of the\nrising generation who know not their right hand from their left; and,\nunless help be promptly afforded, the danger is great that, in\nconsequence of the great lack of churches and schools, the most of them\nwill be led into the ways of destructive error.\"\n\nThis urgent appeal bore fruit like the apples of Sodom. It resulted in a\npainful and pitiable correspondence with the chiefs of the mother\nchurch, these haggling for months and years over stipulations of salary,\nand refusing to send a minister until the salary should be pledged in\ncash; and their correspondents pleading their poverty and need.[188:2]\nThe few and feeble churches of the Reformed confession were equally\nneedy and ill befriended.\n\nIt seems to us, as we read the story after the lapse of a hundred and\nfifty years, as if the man expressly designed and equipped by the\nprovidence of God for this exigency in the progress of his kingdom had\narrived when Zinzendorf, the Moravian, made his appearance at\nPhiladelphia, December 10, 1741. The American church, in all its\nhistory, can point to no fairer representative of the charity that\n\"seeketh not her own\" than this Saxon nobleman, who, for the true love\nthat he bore to Christ and all Christ's brethren, was willing to give up\nhis home, his ancestral estates, his fortune, his title of nobility, his\npatrician family name, his office of bishop in the ancient Moravian\nchurch, and even (last infirmity of zealous spirits) his interest in\npromoting specially that order of consecrated men and women in the\nchurch catholic which he had done and sacrificed so much to save from\nextinction, and to which his \"cares and toils were given.\" He hastened\nfirst up the Lehigh Valley to spend Christmas at Bethlehem, where the\nfoundations had already been laid on which have been built up the\nhalf-monastic institutions of charity and education and missions which\nhave done and are still doing so much to bless the world in both its\nhemispheres. It was in commemoration of this Christmas visit of Bishop\nZinzendorf that the mother house of the Moravian communities in America\nreceived its name of Bethlehem. Returning to Philadelphia, he took this\ncity as the base of his unselfish and unpartisan labors in behalf of the\ngreat and multiplying population from his fatherland, which through its\nsectarian divisions had become so helpless and spiritually needy.\nAlready for twenty years there had been a few scattering churches of\nthe Reformed confession, and for half that time a few Lutheran\ncongregations had been gathered or had gathered themselves. But both the\nsects had been overcome by the paralysis resulting from habitual\ndependence on paternal governments, and the two were borne asunder,\nwhile every right motive was urging to cooeperation and fellowship, by\nthe almost spent momentum of old controversies. In Philadelphia two\nstarveling congregations representing the two competing sects occupied\nthe same rude meeting-place each by itself on alternate Sundays. The\nLutherans made shift without a pastor, for the only Lutheran minister in\nPennsylvania lived at Lancaster, sixty miles away.\n\nTo the scattered, distracted, and demoralized flocks of his German\nfellow-Christians in the middle colonies came Zinzendorf, knowing Jesus\nChrist crucified, knowing no man according to the flesh; and at once\n\"the neglected congregations were made to feel the thrill of a strong\nreligious life.\" \"Aglow with zeal for Christ, throwing all emphasis in\nhis teaching upon the one doctrine of redemption through the blood shed\non Calvary, all the social advantages and influence and wealth which his\nposition gave him were made subservient to the work of preaching Christ,\nand him crucified, to the rich and the poor, the learned and the\nignorant.\"[190:1] The Lutherans of Philadelphia heard him gladly and\nentreated him to preach to them regularly; to which he consented, but\nnot until he had assured himself that this would be acceptable to the\npastor of the Reformed congregation. But his mission was to the sheep\nscattered abroad, of whom he reckoned (an extravagant overestimate) not\nless than one hundred thousand of the Lutheran party in Pennsylvania\nalone. Others, as he soon found, had been feeling, like himself, the\nhurt of the daughter of Zion. A series of conferences was held from\nmonth to month, in which men of the various German sects took counsel\ntogether over the dissensions of their people, and over the question how\nthe ruinous effects of these dissensions could be avoided. The plan was,\nnot to attempt a merger of the sects, nor to alienate men from their\nhabitual affiliations, but to draw together in cooeperation and common\nworship the German Christians, of whatever sect, in a fellowship to be\ncalled, in imitation of a Pauline phrase (Eph. ii. 22), \"the\nCongregation of God in the Spirit.\" The plan seemed so right and\nreasonable and promising of beneficent results as to win general\napproval. It was in a fair way to draw together the whole miserably\ndivided German population.[191:1]\n\nAt once the \"drum ecclesiastic\" beat to arms. In view of the impending\ndanger that their scattered fellow-countrymen might come into mutual\nfellowship on the basis of their common faith in Christ, the Lutheran\nleaders at Halle, who for years had been dawdling and haggling over the\nimploring entreaties of the shepherdless Lutheran populations in\nAmerica, promptly reconsidered their _non possumus_, and found and sent\na man admirably qualified for the desired work, Henry Melchior\nMuehlenberg, a man of eminent ability and judgment, of faith, devotion,\nand untiring diligence, not illiberal, but a conscientious sectarian. An\nearnest preacher of the gospel, he was also earnest that the gospel\nshould be preached according to the Lutheran formularies, to\ncongregations organized according to the Lutheran discipline. The easier\nand less worthy part of the appointed task was soon achieved. The danger\nthat the religious factions that had divided Germany might be laid\naside in the New World was effectually dispelled. Six years later the\ngovernor of Pennsylvania was still able to write, \"The Germans imported\nwith them all the religious whimsies of their country, and, I believe,\nhave subdivided since their arrival here;\" and he estimates their number\nat three fifths of the population of the province. The more arduous and\nnoble work of organizing and compacting the Lutherans into their\nseparate congregations, and combining these by synodical assemblies, was\nprosecuted with wisdom and energy, and at last, in spite of hindrances\nand discouragements, with beneficent success. The American Lutheran\nChurch of to-day is the monument of the labors of Muehlenberg.\n\nThe brief remainder of Zinzendorf's work in America may be briefly told.\nThere is no doubt that, like many another eager and hopeful reformer, he\noverestimated the strength and solidity of the support that was given to\nhis generous and beneficent plans. At the time of Muehlenberg's arrival\nZinzendorf was the elected and installed pastor of the Lutheran\ncongregation in Philadelphia. The conflict could not be a long one\nbetween the man who claimed everything for his commission and his sect\nand the man who was resolved to insist on nothing for himself.\nNotwithstanding the strong love for him among the people, Zinzendorf was\neasily displaced from his official station. When dispute arose about the\nuse of the empty carpenter's shop that stood them instead of a church,\nhe waived his own claims and at his own cost built a new house of\nworship. But it was no part of his work to stay and persist in\nmaintaining a division. He retired from the field, leaving it in charge\nof Muehlenberg, \"being satisfied if only Christ were preached,\" and\nreturned to Europe, having achieved a truly honorable and most Christian\nfailure, more to be esteemed in the sight of God than many a splendid\nsuccess.\n\nBut his brief sojourn in America was not without visible fruit. He left\nbehind him the Moravian church fully organized under the episcopate of\nBishop David Nitschmann, with communities or congregations begun at nine\ndifferent centers, and schools established in four places. An extensive\nitinerancy had been set in operation under careful supervision, and,\nmost characteristic of all, a great beginning had been made of those\nmissions to the heathen Indians, in which the devoted and successful\nlabors of this little society of Christians have put to shame the whole\nAmerican church besides. Not all of this is to be ascribed to the\nactivity of Zinzendorf; but in all of it he was a sharer, and his share\nwas a heroic one. The two years' visit of Count Zinzendorf to America\nforms a beautiful and quite singular episode in our church history.\nReturning to his ancestral estates splendidly impoverished by his\nfree-handed beneficence, he passed many of the later years of his life\nat Herrnhut, that radiating center from which the light of the gospel\nwas borne by the multitude of humble missionaries to every continent\nunder the whole heaven. The news that came to him from the \"economies\"\nthat he had planted in the forests of Pennsylvania was such as to fill\nhis generous soul with joy. In the communities of Nazareth and Bethlehem\nwas renewed the pentecostal consecration when no man called anything his\nown. The prosperous farms and varied industries, in which no towns in\nPennsylvania could equal them, were carried on, not for private\ninterest, but for the church. After three years the community work was\nnot only self-supporting, but sustained about fifty missionaries in the\nfield, and was preparing to send aid to the missions of the mother\nchurch in Germany. The Moravian settlements multiplied at distant\npoints, north and south. The educational establishments grew strong and\nfamous. But especially the Indian missions spread far and wide. The\nstory of these missions is one of the fairest and most radiant pages in\nthe history of the American church, and one of the bloodiest.\nZinzendorf, dying at London in May, 1756, was spared, we may hope, the\nheartbreaking news of the massacre at Gnadenhuetten the year before. But\nfrom that time on, through the French wars, the Revolutionary War, the\nWar of 1812, and down to the infamy of Georgia and the United States in\n1837, the innocent and Christlike Moravian missions have been exposed\nfrom every side to the malignity of savage men both white and red. No\norder of missionaries or missionary converts can show a nobler roll of\nmartyrs than the Moravians.[194:1]\n\nThe work of Muehlenberg for the Lutherans stimulated the Reformed\nchurches in Europe to a like work for their own scattered and pastorless\nsheep. In both cases the fear that the work of the gospel might not be\ndone seemed a less effective incitement to activity than the fear that\nit might be done by others. It was the Reformed Church of Holland,\nrather than those of Germany, miserably broken down and discouraged by\nravaging wars, that assumed the main responsibility for this task. As\nearly as 1728 the Dutch synods had earnestly responded to the appeal of\ntheir impoverished brethren on the Rhine in behalf of the sheep\nscattered abroad. And in 1743, acting through the classis of Amsterdam,\nthey had made such progress toward beginning the preliminary\narrangements of the work as to send to the Presbyterian synod of\nPhiladelphia a proposal to combine into one the Presbyterian, or Scotch\nReformed, the Dutch Reformed, and the German Reformed churches in\nAmerica. It had already been proved impossible to draw together in\ncommon activity and worship the different sects of the same German race\nand language; the effort to unite in one organization peoples of\ndifferent language, but of substantially the same doctrine and polity,\nwas equally futile. It seemed as if minute sectarian division and\nsubdivision was to be forced upon American Christianity as a law of its\nchurch life.\n\nDiplomacies ended, the synods of Holland took up their work with real\nmunificence. Large funds were raised, sufficient to make every German\nReformed missionary in America a stipendiary of the classis of\nAmsterdam; and if these subsidies were encumbered with severe conditions\nof subordination to a foreign directory, and if they begot an enfeebling\nsense of dependence, these were necessary incidents of the difficult\nsituation--_res dura et novitas regni_. The most important service which\nthe synods of Holland rendered to their American beneficiaries was to\nfind a man who should do for them just the work which Muehlenberg was\nalready doing with great energy for the Lutherans. The man was Michael\nSchlatter. If in any respect he was inferior to Muehlenberg, it was not\nin respect to diligent devotion to the business on which he had been\nsent. It is much to the credit of both of them that, in organizing and\npromoting their two sharply competing sects, they never failed of\nfraternal personal relations. They worked together with one heart to\nkeep their people apart from each other. The Christian instinct, in a\ncommunity of German Christians, to gather in one congregation for common\nworship was solemnly discouraged by the two apostles and the synods\nwhich they organized. How could the two parties walk together when one\nprayed _Vater unser_, and the other _unser Vater_? But the beauty of\nChristian unity was illustrated in such incidents as this: Mr. Schlatter\nand some of the Reformed Christians, being present at a Lutheran church\non a communion Sunday, listened to the preaching of the Lutheran\npastor, after which the Reformed minister made a communion address, and\nthen the congregation was dismissed, and the Reformed went off to a\nschool-house to receive the Lord's Supper.[196:1] Truly it was fragrant\nlike the ointment on the beard of Aaron!\n\nSuch was the diligence of Schlatter that the synod or coetus of the\nReformed Church was instituted in 1747, a year from his arrival. The\nLutheran synod dates from 1748, although Muehlenberg was on the ground\nfour years earlier than Schlatter. Thus the great work of dividing the\nGerman population of America into two major sects was conscientiously\nand effectually performed. Seventy years later, with large expenditure\nof persuasion, authority, and money, it was found possible to heal in\nsome measure in the old country the very schism which good men had been\nat such pains to perpetuate in the new.\n\nHigh honor is due to the prophetic wisdom of these two leaders of\nGerman-American Christianity, in that they clearly recognized in advance\nthat the English was destined to be the dominant language of North\nAmerica. Their strenuous though unsuccessful effort to promote a system\nof public schools in Pennsylvania was defeated through their own ill\njudgment and the ignorant prejudices of the immigrant people played upon\nby politicians. But the mere attempt entitles them to lasting gratitude.\nIt is not unlikely that their divisive work of church organization may\nhave contributed indirectly to defeat the aspirations of their\nfellow-Germans after the perpetuation of a Germany in America. The\ncombination of the mass of the German population in one solid church\norganization would have been a formidable support to such aspirations.\nThe splitting of this mass in half, necessitating petty local schisms\nwith all their debilitating and demoralizing consequences, may have\nhelped secure the country from a serious political and social danger.\n\nSo, then, the German church in America at the close of the colonial era\nexists, outside of the petty primeval sects, in three main divisions:\nthe Lutheran, the Reformed, and the Moravian. There is free opportunity\nfor Christians of this language to sort themselves according to their\nelective affinities. That American ideal of edifying harmony is well\nattained, according to which men of partial or one-sided views of truth\nshall be associated exclusively in church relations with others of like\nprecious defects. Muehlenberg seems to have been sensible of the nature\nof the division he was making in the body of Christ, when, after\nsevering successfully between the strict Lutherans in a certain\ncongregation and those of Moravian sympathies, he finds it \"hard to\ndecide on which side of the controversy the greater justice lay. The\ngreater part of those on the Lutheran side, he feared, was composed of\nunconverted men,\" while the Moravian party seemed open to the reproach\nof enthusiasm. So he concluded that each sort of Christians would be\nbetter off without the other. Time proved his diagnosis to be better\nthan his treatment. In the course of a generation the Lutheran body,\ncarefully weeded of pietistic admixtures, sank perilously deep in cold\nrationalism, and the Moravian church was quite carried away for a time\non a flood of sentimentalism. What might have been the course of this\npart of church history if Muehlenberg and Schlatter had shared more\ndeeply with Zinzendorf in the spirit of apostolic and catholic\nChristianity, and if all three had conspired to draw together into one\nthe various temperaments and tendencies of the German Americans in the\nunity of the Spirit with the bond of peace, may seem like an idle\nhistorical conjecture, but the question is not without practical\ninterest to-day. Perhaps the Moravians would have been the better for\nbeing ballasted with the weighty theologies and the conservative temper\nof the state churches; it is very certain that these would have gained\nby the infusion of something of that warmth of Christian love and zeal\nthat pervaded to a wonderful degree the whole Moravian fellowship. But\nthe hand and the foot were quite agreed that they had no need of each\nother or of the heart.[198:1]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy far the most momentous event of American church history in the\nclosing period of the colonial era was the planting of the Methodist\nEpiscopal Church. The Wesleyan revival was strangely tardy in reaching\nthis country, with which it had so many points of connection. It was in\nAmerica, in 1737, that John Wesley passed through the discipline of a\nhumiliating experience, by which his mind had been opened, and that he\nhad been brought into acquaintance with the Moravians, by whom he was to\nbe taught the way of the Lord more perfectly. It was John Wesley who\nsent Whitefield to America, from whom, on his first return to England,\nin 1738, he learned the practice of field-preaching. It was from America\nthat Edwards's \"Narrative of Surprising Conversions\" had come to Wesley,\nwhich, being read by him on the walk from London to Oxford, opened to\nhis mind unknown possibilities of the swift advancement of the kingdom\nof God. The beginning of the Wesleyan societies in England followed in\nclose connection upon the first Awakening in America. It went on with\ngrowing momentum in England and Ireland for quarter of a century, until,\nin 1765, it numbered thirty-nine circuits served by ninety-two\nitinerant preachers; and its work was mainly among the classes from\nwhich the emigration to the colonies was drawn. It is not easy to\nexplain how it came to pass that through all these twenty-five years\nWesleyan Methodism gave no sound or sign of life on that continent on\nwhich it was destined (if one may speak of predestination in this\nconnection) to grow to its most magnificent proportions.\n\nAt last, in 1766, in a little group of Methodist families that had found\none another out among the recent comers in New York, Philip Embury, who\nin his native Ireland long before had been a recognized local preacher,\nwas induced by the persuasions and reproaches of a pious woman to take\nhis not inconsiderable talent from the napkin in which he had kept it\nhidden for six years, and preach in his own house to as many as could be\nbrought in to listen to him. The few that were there formed themselves\ninto a \"class\" and promised to attend at future meetings.\n\nA more untoward time for the setting on foot of a religious enterprise\ncould hardly have been chosen. It was a time of prevailing languor in\nthe churches, in the reaction from the Great Awakening; it was also a\ntime of intense political agitation. The year before the Stamp Act had\nbeen passed, and the whole chain of colonies, from New Hampshire to\nGeorgia, had been stirred up to resist the execution of it. This year\nthe Stamp Act had been repealed, but in such terms as to imply a new\nmenace and redouble the agitation. From this time forward to the\noutbreak of war in 1775, and from that year on till the conclusion of\npeace in 1783, the land was never at rest from turmoil. Through it all\nthe Methodist societies grew and multiplied. In 1767 Embury's house had\noverflowed, and a sail-loft was hired for the growing congregation. In\n1768 a lot on John Street was secured and a meeting-house was built. The\nwork had spread to Philadelphia, and, self-planted in Maryland under the\npreaching of Robert Strawbridge, was propagating itself rapidly in that\npeculiarly congenial soil. In 1769, in response to earnest entreaties\nfrom America, two of Wesley's itinerant preachers, Boardman and Pilmoor,\narrived with his commission to organize an American itinerancy; and two\nyears later, in 1771, arrived Francis Asbury, who, by virtue of his\npreeminent qualifications for organization, administration, and command,\nsoon became practically the director of the American work, a function to\nwhich, in 1772, he was officially appointed by commission from Wesley.\n\nVery great is the debt that American Christianity owes to Francis\nAsbury. It may reasonably be doubted whether any one man, from the\nfounding of the church in America until now, has achieved so much in the\nvisible and traceable results of his work. It is very certain that\nWesley himself, with his despotic temper and his High-church and Tory\nprinciples, could not have carried the Methodist movement in the New\nWorld onward through the perils of its infancy on the way to so eminent\na success as that which was prepared by his vicegerent. Fully possessed\nof the principles of that autocratic discipline ordained by Wesley, he\nknew how to use it as not abusing it, being aware that such a discipline\ncan continue to subsist, in the long run, only by studying the temper of\nthe subjects of it, and making sure of obedience to orders by making\nsure that the orders are agreeable, on the whole, to the subjects. More\nthan one polity theoretically aristocratic or monarchic in the\natmosphere of our republic has grown into a practically popular\ngovernment, simply through tact and good judgment in the administration\nof it, without changing a syllable of its constitution. Very early in\nthe history of the Methodist Church it is easy to recognize the\naptitude with which Asbury naturalizes himself in the new climate.\nNominally he holds an absolute autocracy over the young organization.\nWhatever the subject at issue, \"on hearing every preacher for and\nagainst, the right of determination was to rest with him.\"[201:1]\nQuestions of the utmost difficulty and of vital importance arose in the\nfirst years of the American itinerancy. They could not have been decided\nso wisely for the country and the universal church if Asbury, seeming to\ngovern the ministry and membership of the Society, had not studied to be\ngoverned by them. In spite of the sturdy dictum of Wesley, \"We are not\nrepublicans, and do not intend to be,\" the salutary and necessary change\nhad already begun which was to accommodate his institutes in practice,\nand eventually in form, to the habits and requirements of a free people.\n\nThe center of gravity of the Methodist Society, beginning at New York,\nmoved rapidly southward. Boston had been the metropolis of the\nCongregationalist churches; New York, of the Episcopalians;\nPhiladelphia, of the Quakers and the Presbyterians; and Baltimore,\nlatest and southernmost of the large colonial cities, became, for a\ntime, the headquarters of Methodism. Accessions to the Society in that\nregion were more in number and stronger in wealth and social influence\nthan in more northern communities. It was at Baltimore that Asbury fixed\nhis residence--so far as a Methodist bishop, ranging the country with\nincessant and untiring diligence, could be said to have a fixed\nresidence.\n\nThe record of the successive annual conferences of the Methodists gives\na gauge of their increase. At the first, in 1773, at Philadelphia, there\nwere reported 1160 members and 10 preachers, not one of these a native\nof America.\n\nAt the second annual conference, in Philadelphia, there were reported\n2073 members and 17 preachers.\n\nThe third annual conference sat at Philadelphia in 1775, simultaneously\nwith the Continental Congress. It was the beginning of the war. There\nwere reported 3148 members. Some of the foremost preachers had gone back\nto England, unable to carry on their work without being compelled to\ncompromise their royalist principles. The preachers reporting were 19.\nOf the membership nearly 2500 were south of Philadelphia--about eighty\nper cent.\n\nAt the fourth annual conference, at Baltimore, in 1776, were reported\n4921 members and 24 preachers.\n\nAt the fifth annual conference, in Harford County, Maryland, were\nreported 6968 members and 36 preachers. This was in the thick of the\nwar. More of the leading preachers, sympathizing with the royal cause,\nwere going home to England. The Methodists as a body were subject to not\nunreasonable suspicion of being disaffected to the cause of\nindependence. Their preachers were principally Englishmen with British\nsympathies. The whole order was dominated and its property controlled by\nan offensively outspoken Tory of the Dr. Johnson type.[202:1] It was\nnatural enough that in their public work they should be liable to\nannoyance, mob violence, and military arrest. Even Asbury, a man of\nproved American sympathies, found it necessary to retire for a time from\npublic activity.\n\nIn these circumstances, it is no wonder that at the conference of 1778,\nat Leesburg, Va., at which five circuits in the most disturbed regions\nwere unrepresented, there was a decline in numbers. The members were\nfewer by 873; the preachers fewer by 7.\n\nBut it is really wonderful that the next year (1779) were reported\nextensive revivals in all parts not directly affected by the war, and an\nincrease of 2482 members and 49 preachers. The distribution of the\nmembership was very remarkable. At this time, and for many years after,\nthere was no organized Methodism in New England. New York, being\noccupied by the invading army, sent no report. Of the total reported\nmembership of 8577, 140 are credited to New Jersey, 179 to Pennsylvania,\n795 to Delaware, and 900 to Maryland. Nearly all the remainder, about\neighty per cent. of the whole, was included in Virginia and North\nCarolina. With the exception of 319 persons, the entire reported\nmembership of the Methodist societies lived south of Mason and Dixon's\nline. The fact throws an honorable light on some incidents of the early\nhistory of this great order of preachers.\n\nIn the sixteen years from the meeting in Philip Embury's house to the\nend of the War of Independence the membership of the Methodist societies\ngrew to about 12,000, served by about 70 itinerant preachers. It was a\nvery vital and active membership, including a large number of \"local\npreachers\" and exhorters. The societies and classes were effectively\norganized and officered for aggressive work; and they were planted, for\nthe most part, in the regions most destitute of Christian institutions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nParallel with the course of the gospel, we trace in every period the\ncourse of those antichristian influences with which the gospel is in\nconflict. The system of slavery must continue, through many sorrowful\nyears, to be in view from the line of our studies. We shall know it by\nthe unceasing protest made against it in the name of the Lord. The\narguments of John Woolman and Anthony Benezet were sustained by the\nyearly meetings of the Friends. At Newport, the chief center of the\nAfrican slave-trade, the two Congregational pastors, Samuel Hopkins,\nthe theologian, and the erudite Ezra Stiles, afterward president of Yale\nCollege, mutually opposed in theology and contrasted at every point of\nnatural character, were at one in boldly opposing the business by which\ntheir parishioners had been enriched.[204:1] The deepening of the\nconflict for political liberty pointed the application of the golden\nrule in the case of the slaves. The antislavery literature of the period\nincludes a printed sermon that had been preached by the distinguished\nDr. Levi Hart \"to the corporation of freemen\" of his native town of\nFarmington, Conn., at their autumnal town-meeting in 1774; and the poem\non \"Slavery,\" published in 1775 by that fine character, Aaron\nCleveland,[204:2] of Norwich, hatter, poet, legislator, and minister of\nthe gospel. Among the Presbyterians of New Jersey, the father of Dr.\nAshbel Green took the extreme ground which was taken by Dr. Hopkins's\nchurch in 1784, that no person holding a slave should be permitted to\nremain in the communion of the church.[204:3] In 1774 the first society\nin the world for the abolition of slavery was organized among the\nFriends in Pennsylvania, to be followed by others, making a continuous\nseries of abolition societies from New England to Maryland and Virginia.\nBut the great antislavery society of the period in question was the\nMethodist Society. Laboring through the War of Independence mainly in\nthe Southern States, it publicly declared, in the conference of 1780,\n\"that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature, and\nhurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure\nreligion, and doing that which we would not that others should do to us\nand ours.\" The discipline of the body of itinerants was conducted\nrigorously in accordance with this declaration.\n\nIt must not be supposed that the instances here cited represent\nexceptions to the general course of opinion in the church of those\ntimes. They are simply expressions of the universal judgment of those\nwhose attention had been seriously fixed upon the subject. There appears\nno evidence of the existence of a contrary sentiment. The first\nbeginnings of a party in the church in opposition to the common judgment\nof the Christian conscience on the subject of slavery are to be referred\nto a comparatively very recent date.\n\nAnother of the great conflicts of the modern church was impending. But\nit was only to prophetic minds in the middle of the eighteenth century\nthat it was visible in the greatness of its proportions. The vice of\ndrunkenness, which Isaiah had denounced in Samaria and Paul had\ndenounced at Ephesus, was growing insensibly, since the introduction of\ndistilled liquors as a common beverage, to a fatal prevalence. The\ntrustees of the charitable colony of Georgia, consciously laying the\nfoundations of many generations, endeavored to provide for the welfare\nof the nascent State by forbidding at once the importation of negro\nslaves and of spirituous liquors; but the salutary interdict was soon\nnullified in the interest of the crops and of the trade with the\nIndians. Dr. Hopkins \"inculcated, at a very early day, the duty of\nentire abstinence from intoxicating liquids as a beverage.\"[206:1] But,\nas in the conflict with slavery, so in this conflict, the priority of\nleadership belongs easily to Wesley and his itinerants. The conference\nof 1783 declared against permitting the converts \"to make spirituous\nliquors, sell and drink them in drams,\" as \"wrong in its nature and\nconsequences.\" To this course they were committed long in advance by the\n\"General Rules\" set forth by the two Wesleys in May, 1743, for the\nguidance of the \"United Societies.\"[206:2]\n\nAn incident of the times immediately preceding the War of Independence\nrequires to be noted in this place, not as being of great importance in\nitself, but as characteristic of the condition of the country and\nprophetic of changes that were about to take place. During the decade\nfrom 1760 to 1775 the national body of the Presbyterians--the now\nreunited synod of New York and Philadelphia--and the General Association\nof the Congregational pastors of Connecticut met together by their\nrepresentatives in annual convention to take counsel over a grave peril\nthat seemed to be impending. A petition had been urgently pressed, in\nbehalf of the American Episcopalians, for the establishment of bishops\nin the colonies under the authority of the Church of England. The\nreasons for this measure were obvious and weighty; and the protestations\nof those who promoted it, that they sought no advantage before the law\nover their fellow-Christians, were doubtless sincere. Nevertheless, the\nfear that the bringing in of Church of England bishops would involve the\nbringing in of many of those mischiefs of the English church\nestablishment which neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear\nwas a perfectly reasonable fear both to the Puritans of New England and\nto the Presbyterians from Ireland. It was difficult for these, and it\nwould have been even more difficult for the new dignitaries, in colonial\ndays, to understand how bishops could be anything but lord bishops. The\nfear of such results was not confined to ecclesiastics. The movement was\nfelt by the colonial statesmen to be dangerously akin to other British\nencroachments on colonial rights. The Massachusetts Assembly instructed\nits agent in London strenuously to oppose it. In Virginia, the\nEpiscopalian clergy themselves at first refused to concur in the\npetition for bishops; and when at last the concurrence was voted, it was\nin the face of a formal protest of four of the clergy, for which they\nreceived a vote of thanks from the House of Burgesses.[207:1]\n\nThe alliance thus occasioned between the national synod of the\nPresbyterian Church and the Congregationalist clergy of the little\ncolony of Connecticut seems like a disproportioned one. And so it was\nindeed; for the Connecticut General Association was by far the larger\nand stronger body of the two. By and by the disproportion was inverted,\nand the alliance continued, with notable results.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[182:1] See G. P. Fisher, \"History of Christian Doctrine,\" pp. 394-418;\nalso E. A. Park in the \"Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia,\" vol. iii., pp.\n1634-38. The New England theology is not so called as being confined to\nNew England. Its leading \"improvements on Calvinism\" were accepted by\nAndrew Fuller and Robert Hall among the English Baptists, and by\nChalmers of the Presbyterians of Scotland.\n\n[184:1] Of what sort was the life of a church and its pastor in those\ndays is illustrated in extracts from the journal of Samuel Hopkins, the\ntheologian, pastor at Great Barrington, given in the Memoir by Professor\nPark, pp. 40-43. The Sabbath worship was disturbed by the arrival of\nwarlike news. The pastor and the families of his flock were driven from\ntheir homes to take refuge in blockhouses crowded with fugitives. He was\ngone nearly three months of fall and winter with a scouting party of a\nhundred whites and nineteen Indians in the woods. He sent off the\nfighting men of his town with sermon and benediction on an expedition to\nCanada. During the second war he writes to his friend Bellamy (1754) of\na dreadful rumor that \"good Mr. Edwards\" had perished in a massacre at\nStockbridge. This rumor was false, but he adds: \"On the Lord's day P.M.,\nas I was reading the psalm, news came that Stockbridge was beset by an\narmy of Indians, and on fire, which broke up the assembly in an instant.\nAll were put into the utmost consternation--men, women, and children\ncrying, 'What shall we do?' Not a gun to defend us, not a fort to flee\nto, and few guns and little ammunition in the place. Some ran one way\nand some another; but the general course was to the southward,\nespecially for women and children. Women, children, and squaws presently\nflocked in upon us from Stockbridge, half naked and frighted almost to\ndeath; and fresh news came that the enemy were on the plains this side\nStockbridge, shooting and killing and scalping people as they fled. Some\npresently came along bloody, with news that they saw persons killed and\nscalped, which raised a consternation, tumult, and distress\ninexpressible.\"\n\n[188:1] Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" pp. 191, 234; Dubbs, \"German Reformed\nChurch,\" p. 271.\n\n[188:2] See extracts from the correspondence given by Dr. Jacobs, pp.\n193-195. Dr. Jacobs's suggestion that three congregations of five\nhundred families each might among them have raised the few hundreds a\nyear required seems reasonable, unless a large number of these were\nfamilies of redemptioners, that is, for the time, slaves.\n\n[190:1] Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" p. 196. The story of Zinzendorf, as\nseen from different points of view, may be studied in the volumes of\nDrs. Jacobs, Dubbs, and Hamilton (American Church History Series).\n\n[191:1] Acrelius, quoted by Jacobs, p. 218, note.\n\n[194:1] Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" pp. 215-218; Hamilton, \"The Moravians,\"\nchaps, iii.-viii., xi.\n\n[196:1] Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" p. 289.\n\n[198:1] Jacobs, pp. 227, 309, sqq.; Hamilton, p. 457. No account of the\nGerman-American churches is adequate which does not go back to the work\nof Spener, the influence of which was felt through them all. The author\nis compelled to content himself with inadequate work on many topics.\n\n[201:1] Dr. J. M. Buckley, \"The Methodists,\" p. 181.\n\n[202:1] The attitude of Wesley toward the American cause is set forth\nwith judicial fairness by Dr. Buckley, pp. 158-168.\n\n[204:1] A full account of Hopkins's long-sustained activity against both\nslavery and the slave-trade is given in Park's \"Memoir of Hopkins,\" pp.\n114-157. His sermons on the subject began in 1770. His monumental\n\"Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans, with an Address to\nSlave-holders,\" was published in 1776. For additional information as to\nthe antislavery attitude of the church at this period, and especially\nthat of Stiles, see review of \"The Minister's Wooing,\" by L. Bacon (\"New\nEnglander,\" vol. xviii., p. 145).\n\n[204:2] I have not been able to find a copy of this poem, the character\nof which, however, is well known. The son of Aaron Cleveland, William,\nwas a silversmith at Norwich, among whose grandsons may be named\nPresident Grover Cleveland, and Aaron Cleveland Cox, later known as\nBishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe.\n\n[204:3] Dr. A. Green's Life of his father, in \"Monthly Christian\nAdvocate.\"\n\n[206:1] Park, \"Memoir of Hopkins,\" p. 112.\n\n[206:2] Buckley, \"The Methodists,\" Appendix, pp. 688, 689.\n\n[207:1] See Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" pp. 267-278, where\nthe subject is treated fully and with characteristic fairness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nRECONSTRUCTION.\n\n\nSeven years of war left the American people exhausted, impoverished,\ndisorganized, conscious of having come into possession of a national\nexistence, and stirred with anxious searchings of heart over the\nquestion what new institutions should succeed to those overthrown in the\nstruggle for independence.\n\nLike questions pervaded the commonwealth of American Christians through\nall its divisions. The interconfessional divisions of the body\necclesiastic were about to prove themselves a more effectual bar to\nunion than the political and territorial divisions of the body politic.\nThe religious divisions were nearly equal in number to the political.\nNaming them in the order in which they had settled themselves on the\nsoil of the new nation, they were as follows: 1. The Protestant\nEpiscopalians; 2. The Reformed Dutch; 3. The Congregationalists; 4. The\nRoman Catholics; 5. The Friends; 6. The Baptists; 7. The Presbyterians;\n8. The Methodists; to which must be added three sects which up to this\ntime had almost exclusively to do with the German language and the\nGerman immigrant population, to wit, 9. The German Reformed; 10. The\nLutherans; 11. The Moravians. Some of these, as the Congregationalists\nand the Baptists, were of so simple and elastic a polity, so\nself-adaptive to whatever new environment, as to require no effort to\nadjust themselves. Others, as the Dutch and the Presbyterians, had\nalready organized themselves as independent of foreign spiritual\njurisdiction. Others still, as the German Reformed, the Moravians, and\nthe Quakers, were content to remain for years to come in a relation of\nsubordination to foreign centers of organization. But there were three\ncommunions, of great prospective importance, which found it necessary to\naddress themselves to the task of reorganization to suit the changed\npolitical conditions. These were the Episcopalians, the Catholics, and\nthe Methodists.\n\nIn one respect all the various orders of churches were alike. They had\nall suffered from the waste and damage of war. Pastors and missionaries\nhad been driven from their cures, congregations had been scattered,\nhouses of worship had been desecrated or destroyed. The Episcopalian and\nMethodist ministers were generally Tories, and their churches, and in\nsome instances their persons, were not spared by the patriots. The\nFriends and the Moravians, principled against taking active part in\nwarfare, were exposed to aggressions from both sides. All other sects\nwere safely presumed to be in earnest sympathy with the cause of\nindependence, which many of their pastors actively served as chaplains\nor as combatants, or in other ways; wherever the British troops held the\nground, their churches were the object of spite. Nor were these the\nchief losses by the war. More grievous still were the death of the\nstrong men and the young men of the churches, the demoralization of camp\nlife, and, as the war advanced, the infection of the current fashions of\nunbelief from the officers both of the French and of the British armies.\nThe prevalent diathesis of the American church in all its sects was one\nof spiritual torpor, from which, however, it soon began to be aroused\nas the grave exigencies of the situation disclosed themselves.\n\nPerhaps no one of the Christian organizations of America came out of the\nwar in a more forlorn condition than the Episcopalians. This condition\nwas thus described by Bishop White, in an official charge to his clergy\nat Philadelphia in 1832:\n\n     \"The congregations of our communion throughout the United\n     States were approaching annihilation. Although within this\n     city three Episcopal clergymen were resident and officiating,\n     the churches over the rest of the State had become deprived of\n     their clergy during the war, either by death or by departure\n     for England. In the Eastern States, with two or three\n     exceptions, there was a cessation of the exercises of the\n     pulpit, owing to the necessary disuse of the prayers for the\n     former civil rulers. In Maryland and Virginia, where the\n     church had enjoyed civil establishments, on the ceasing of\n     these, the incumbents of the parishes, almost without\n     exception, ceased to officiate. Farther south the condition of\n     the church was not better, to say the least.\"[210:1]\n\nThis extreme feebleness of Episcopalianism in the several States\nconspired with the tendencies of the time in civil affairs to induce\nupon the new organization a character not at all conformed to the ideal\nof episcopal government. Instead of establishing as the unit of\norganization the bishop in every principal town, governing his diocese\nat the head of his clergy with some measure of authority, it was almost\na necessity of the time to constitute dioceses as big as kingdoms, and\nthen to take security against excess of power in the diocesan by\noverslaughing his authority through exorbitant powers conferred upon a\nperiodical mixed synod, legislating for a whole continent, even in\nmatters confessedly variable and unessential. In the later evolution of\nthe system, this superior limitation of the bishop's powers is\nsupplemented from below by magnifying the authority of representative\nbodies, diocesan and parochial, until the work of the bishop is reduced\nas nearly as possible to the merely \"ministerial\" performance of certain\nassigned functions according to prescribed directions. Concerning this\nframe of government it is to be remarked: 1. That it was quite\nconsciously and confessedly devised for the government of a sect, with\nthe full and fraternal understanding that other \"religious denominations\nof Christians\" (to use the favorite American euphemism) \"were left at\nfull and equal liberty to model and organize their respective churches\"\nto suit themselves.[211:1] 2. That, judged according to its professed\npurpose, it has proved itself a practically good and effective\ngovernment. 3. That it is in no proper sense of the word an episcopal\ngovernment, but rather a classical and synodical government, according\nto the common type of the American church constitutions of the\nperiod.[211:2]\n\nThe objections which only a few years before had withstood the\nimportation into the colonies of lord bishops, with the English common\nand canon law at their backs, vanished entirely before the proposal for\nthe harmless functionaries provided for in the new constitution. John\nAdams himself, a leader of the former opposition, now, as American\nminister in London, did his best to secure for Bishops-elect White and\nProvoost the coveted consecration from English bishops. The only\nhindrance now to this long-desired boon was in the supercilious\ndilatoriness of the English prelates and of the civil authorities to\nwhom they were subordinate. They were evidently in a sulky temper over\nthe overwhelming defeat of the British arms. If it had been in their\npower to blockade effectively the channels of sacramental grace, there\nis no sign that they would have consented to the American petition.\nHappily there were other courses open. 1. There was the recourse to\npresbyterial ordination, an expedient sanctioned, when necessary, by the\nauthority of \"the judicious Hooker,\" and actually recommended, if the\ncase should require, by the Rev. William White, soon to be consecrated\nas one of the first American bishops. 2. Already for more than a\nhalf-century the Moravian episcopate had been present and most\napostolically active in America. 3. The Lutheran Episcopal churches of\nDenmark and Sweden were fully competent and known to be not unwilling to\nconfer the episcopal succession on the American candidates. 4. There\nwere the Scotch nonjuring bishops, outlawed for political reasons from\ncommunion with the English church, who were tending their \"persecuted\nremnant\" of a flock in Scotland. Theirs was a not less valid succession\nthan those of their better-provided English brethren, and fully as\nhonorable a history. It was due to the separate initiative of the\nEpiscopalian ministers of Connecticut, and to the persistence of their\nbishop-elect, Samuel Seabury, that the deadlock imposed by the\nEnglishmen was broken. Inheriting the Puritan spirit, which sought a\n_jus divinum_ in all church questions, they were men of deeper\nconvictions and \"higher\" principles than their more southern brethren.\nIn advance of the plans for national organization, without conferring\nwith flesh and blood, they had met and acted, and their candidate for\nconsecration was in London urging his claims, before the ministers in\nthe Middle States had any knowledge of what was doing. After a year of\ncostly and vexatious delay in London, finding no progress made and no\nhope of any, he proceeded to Aberdeen and was consecrated bishop\nNovember 14, 1784. It was more than two years longer before the English\nbishops succeeded in finding a way to do what their unrecognized Scotch\nbrethren had done with small demur. But they did find it. So long as the\nAmericans seemed dependent on English consecration they could not get\nit. When at last it was made quite plain that they could and would do\nwithout it if necessary, they were more than welcome to it. Dr. White\nfor Pennsylvania, and Dr. Provoost for New York, were consecrated by the\nArchbishop of Canterbury at the chapel of Lambeth Palace, February 4,\n1787. Dr. Griffith, elected for Virginia, failed to be present; in all\nthat great diocese there was not interest enough felt in the matter to\nraise the money to pay his passage to England and back.\n\nThe American Episcopal Church was at last in a condition to live. Some\nformidable dangers of division arising from the double derivation of the\nepiscopate were happily averted by the tact and statesmanship of Bishop\nWhite, and liturgical changes incidental to the reconstitution of the\nchurch were made, on the whole with cautious judgment and good taste,\nand successfully introduced. But for many years the church lived only a\nlanguishing life. Bishop Provoost of New York, after fourteen years of\nservice, demitted his functions in 1801, discouraged about the\ncontinuance of the church. He \"thought it would die out with the old\ncolonial families.\"[213:1] The large prosperity of this church dates\nonly from the second decade of this century. It is the more notable for\nthe brief time in which so much has been accomplished.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe difficulties in the way of the organization of the Catholic Church\nfor the United States were not less serious, and were overcome with\nequal success, but not without a prolonged struggle against opposition\nfrom within. It is not easy for us, in view either of the antecedent or\nof the subsequent history, to realize the extreme feebleness of American\nCatholicism at the birth of our nation. According to an official\n\"Relation on the State of Religion in the United States,\" presented by\nthe prefect apostolic in 1785, the total number of Catholics in the\nentire Union was 18,200, exclusive of an unascertainable number,\ndestitute of priests, in the Mississippi Valley. The entire number of\nthe clergy was twenty-four, most of them former members of the Society\nof Jesuits, that had been suppressed in 1773 by the famous bull,\n_Dominus ac Redemptor_, of Clement XIV. Sorely against their will, these\nmissionaries, hitherto subject only to the discipline of their own\nsociety, were transformed into secular priests, under the jurisdiction\nof the Vicar Apostolic of London. After the establishment of\nindependence, with the intense jealousy felt regarding British\ninfluence, and by none more deeply and more reasonably felt than by the\nCatholics, this jurisdiction was impracticable. The providentially fit\nman for the emergency was found in the Rev. John Carroll, of an old\nMaryland family distinguished alike for patriotism and for faithfulness\nto Catholic principles. In June, 1784, he was made prefect apostolic\nover the Catholic Church in the United States, and the dependence on\nBritish jurisdiction was terminated.\n\nWhen, however, it was proposed that this provisional arrangement should\nbe superseded by the appointment of a bishop, objections not unexpected\nwere encountered from among the clergy. Already we have had occasion to\nnote the jealousy of episcopal authority that is felt by the clergy of\nthe regular orders. The lately disbanded Jesuits, with characteristic\nflexibility of self-adaptation to circumstances, had at once\nreincorporated themselves under another name, thus to hold the not\ninconsiderable estates of their order in the State of Maryland. But the\nplans of these energetic men either to control the bishop or to prevent\nhis appointment were unsuccessful. In December, 1790, Bishop Carroll,\nhaving been consecrated in England, arrived and entered upon his see of\nBaltimore.\n\nDifficulties, through which there were not many precedents to guide him,\nthickened about the path of the new prelate. It was well both for the\nchurch and for the republic that he was a man not only versed in the\ntheology and polity of his church, but imbued with American principles\nand feelings. The first conflict that vexed the church under his\nadministration, and which for fifty years continued to vex his\nassociates and successors, was a collision between the American\nsentiment for local and individual liberty and self-government, and the\nabsolutist spiritual government of Rome. The Catholics of New York,\nincluding those of the Spanish and French legations, had built a church\nin Barclay Street, then on the northern outskirt of the city; and they\nhad the very natural and just feeling that they had a right to do what\nthey would with their own and with the building erected at their\ncharges. They proceeded accordingly to put in charge of it priests of\ntheir own selection. But they had lost sight of the countervailing\nprinciple that if they had a right to do as they would with their\nbuilding, the bishop, as representing the supreme authority in the\nchurch, had a like right to do as he would with his clergy. The building\nwas theirs; but it was for the bishop to say what services should be\nheld in it, or whether there should be any services in it at all, in the\nRoman Catholic communion. It is surprising how often this issue was\nmade, and how repeatedly and obstinately it was fought out in various\nplaces, when the final result was so inevitable. The hierarchical power\nprevailed, of course, but after much irritation between priesthood and\npeople, and \"great loss of souls to the church.\"[216:1] American ideas\nand methods were destined profoundly and beneficially to affect the\nRoman Church in the United States, but not by the revolutionary process\nof establishing \"trusteeism,\" or the lay control of parishes. The\ndamaging results of such disputes to both parties and to their common\ninterest in the church put the two parties under heavy bonds to deal by\neach other with mutual consideration. The tendency, as in some parallel\ncases, is toward an absolute government administered on republican\nprinciples, the authoritative command being given with cautious\nconsideration of the disposition of the subject. The rights of the laity\nare sufficiently secured, first, by their holding the purse, and,\nsecondly, in a community in which the Roman is only one of many churches\nheld in like esteem and making like claims to divine authority, by their\nholding in reserve the right of withdrawal.\n\nOther and unwonted difficulties for the young church lay in the Babel\nconfusion of races and languages among its disciples, and in the lack of\npublic resources, which could be supplied no otherwise than by free\ngift. Yet another difficulty was the scant supply of clergy; but events\nwhich about this time began to spread desolation among the institutions\nof Catholic Europe proved to be of inestimable benefit to the\nill-provided Catholics of America. Rome might almost have been content\nto see the wasting and destruction in her ancient strongholds, for the\nopportune reinforcement which it brought, at a critical time, to the\nrenascent church in the New World. More important than the priests of\nvarious orders and divers languages, who came all equipped for mission\nwork among immigrants of different nationalities, was the arrival of the\nSulpitians of Paris, fleeing from the persecutions of the French\nRevolution, ready for their special work of training for the parish\npriesthood. The founding of their seminary in Baltimore in 1791, for the\ntraining of a native clergy, was the best security that had yet been\ngiven for the permanence of the Catholic revival. The American Catholic\nChurch was a small affair as yet, and for twenty years to come was to\ncontinue so; but the framework was preparing of an organization\nsufficient for the days of great things that were before it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe most revolutionary change suffered by any religious body in America,\nin adjusting itself to the changed conditions after the War of\nIndependence, was that suffered by the latest arrived and most rapidly\ngrowing of them all. We have seen the order of the Wesleyan preachers\ncoming so tardily across the ocean, and propagated with constantly\nincreasing momentum southward from the border of Maryland. Its\ncongregations were not a church; its preachers were not a clergy.\nInstituted in England by a narrow, High-church clergyman of the\nestablished church, its preachers were simply a company of lay\nmissionaries under the command of John Wesley; its adherents were\nmembers of the Church of England, bound to special fidelity to their\nduties as such in their several parish churches, but united in clubs and\nclasses for the mutual promotion of holy living in an unholy age; and\nits chapels and other property, fruits of the self-denial of many poor,\nwere held under iron-bound title-deeds, subject to the control of John\nWesley and of the close corporation of preachers to whom he should demit\nthem.\n\nIt seems hardly worthy of the immense practical sagacity of Wesley that\nhe should have thought to transplant this system unchanged into the\nmidst of circumstances so widely different as those which must surround\nit in America. And yet even here, where the best work of his preachers\nwas to be done among populations not only churchless, but out of reach\nof church or ministry of whatever name, in those Southern States in\nwhich nine tenths of his penitents and converts were gained, his\npreachers were warned against the sacrilege of ministering to the\ncraving converts the Christian ordinances of baptism and the holy\nsupper, and bidden to send them to their own churches--when they had\nnone. The wretched incumbents of the State parishes at the first sounds\nof war had scampered from the field like hirelings whose own the sheep\nare not, and the demand that the preachers of the word should also\nminister the comfort of the Christian ordinances became too strong to be\nresisted. The call of duty and necessity seemed to the preachers\ngathered at a conference at Fluvanna in 1779 to be a call from God; and,\ncontrary to the strong objections of Wesley and Asbury, they chose from\nthe older of their own number a committee who \"ordained themselves, and\nproceeded to ordain and set apart other ministers for the same\npurpose--that they might minister the holy ordinances to the church of\nChrist.\"[218:1] The step was a bold one, and although it seemed to be\nattended by happy spiritual results, it threatened to precipitate a\ndivision of \"the Society\" into two factions. The progress of events, the\nestablishment and acknowledgment of American independence, and the\nconstant expansion of the Methodist work, brought its own solution of\nthe divisive questions.\n\nIt was an important day in the history of the American church, that\nsecond day of September, 1784, when John Wesley, assisted by other\npresbyters of the Church of England, laid his hands in benediction upon\nthe head of Dr. Thomas Coke, and committed to him the superintendency of\nthe Methodist work in America, as colleague with Francis Asbury. On the\narrival of Coke in America, the preachers were hastily summoned together\nin conference at Baltimore, and there, in Christmas week of the same\nyear, Asbury was ordained successively as deacon, as elder, and as\nsuperintendent. By the two bishops thus constituted were ordained elders\nand deacons, and Methodism became a living church.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe two decades from the close of the War of Independence include the\nperiod of the lowest ebb-tide of vitality in the history of American\nChristianity. The spirit of half-belief or unbelief that prevailed on\nthe other side of the sea, both in the church and out of it, was\nmanifest also here. Happily the tide of foreign immigration at this time\nwas stayed, and the church had opportunity to gather strength for the\nimmense task that was presently to be devolved upon it. But the westward\nmovement of our own population was now beginning to pour down the\nwestern slope of the Alleghanies into the great Mississippi basin. It\nwas observed by the Methodist preachers that the members of their\nsocieties who had, through fear, necessity, or choice, moved into the\nback settlements and into new parts of the country, as soon as peace was\nsettled and the way was open solicited the preachers to come among them,\nand so the work followed them to the west.[219:1] In the years\n1791-1810 occurred the great movement of population from Virginia to\nKentucky and from Carolina to Tennessee. It was reckoned that one fourth\nof the Baptists of Virginia had removed to Kentucky, and yet they hardly\nleavened the lump of early frontier barbarism. The Presbyterian Church,\nworking in its favorite methods, devised campaigns of home missionary\nenterprise in its presbyteries and synods, detailing pastors from their\nparishes for temporary mission service in following the movement of the\nScotch-Irish migration into the hill-country in which it seemed to find\nits congenial habitat, and from which its powerful influences were to\nflow in all directions. The Congregationalists of New England in like\nmanner followed with Christian teaching and pastoral care their sons\nmoving westward to occupy the rich lands of western New York and of\nOhio. The General Association of the pastors of Connecticut, solicitous\nthat the work of missions to the frontier should be carried forward\nwithout loss of power through division of forces, entered, in 1801, into\nthe compact with the General Assembly of the Presbyterians known as the\n\"Plan of Union,\" by which Christians of both polities might cooeperate in\nthe founding of churches and in maintaining the work of the gospel.\n\nIn the year 1803 the most important political event since the adoption\nof the Constitution, the purchase of Louisiana by President Jefferson,\nopened to the American church a new and immense field for missionary\nactivity. This vast territory, stretching from the Mississippi westward\nto the summits of the Rocky Mountains and nearly doubling the domain of\nthe United States, was the last remainder of the great projected French\nCatholic empire that had fallen in 1763. Passed back and forth with the\nvicissitudes of European politics between French and Spanish masters, it\nhad made small progress in either civilization or Christianity. But the\nimmense possibilities of it to the kingdoms of this world and to the\nkingdom of heaven were obvious to every intelligent mind. Not many years\nwere to pass before it was to become an arena in which all the various\nforces of American Christianity were to be found contending against all\nthe powers of darkness, not without dealing some mutual blows in the\nmelley.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe review of this period must not close without adverting to two\nimportant advances in public practical Christianity, in which (as often\nin like cases) the earnest endeavors of some among the Christians have\nbeen beholden for success to uncongenial reinforcements. As it is\nwritten, \"The earth helped the woman.\"\n\nIn the establishment of the American principle of the non-interference\nof the state with religion, and the equality of all religious communions\nbefore the law, much was due, no doubt, to the mutual jealousies of the\nsects, no one or two of which were strong enough to maintain exceptional\npretensions over the rest combined. Much also is to be imputed to the\nindifferentism and sometimes the anti-religious sentiment of an\nimportant and numerous class of doctrinaire politicians of which\nJefferson may be taken as a type. So far as this work was a work of\nintelligent conviction and religious faith, the chief honor of it must\nbe given to the Baptists. Other sects, notably the Presbyterians, had\nbeen energetic and efficient in demanding their own liberties; the\nFriends and the Baptists agreed in demanding liberty of conscience and\nworship, and equality before the law, for all alike. But the active\nlabor in this cause was mainly done by the Baptists. It is to their\nconsistency and constancy in the warfare against the privileges of the\npowerful \"Standing Order\" of New England, and of the moribund\nestablishments of the South, that we are chiefly indebted for the final\ntriumph, in this country, of that principle of the separation of church\nfrom state which is one of the largest contributions of the New World to\ncivilization and to the church universal.\n\nIt is not surprising that a people so earnest as the Baptists showed\nthemselves in the promotion of religious liberty should be forward in\nthe condemnation of American slavery. We have already seen the vigor\nwith which the Methodists, having all their strength at the South,\nlevied a spiritual warfare against this great wrong. It was at the South\nthat the Baptists, in 1789, \"_Resolved_, That slavery is a violent\ndeprivation of the rights of nature, and inconsistent with a republican\ngovernment, and we therefore recommend it to our brethren to make use of\nevery legal measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land.\"[222:1]\nAt the North, Jonathan Edwards the Younger is conspicuous in the\nunbroken succession of antislavery churchmen. His sermon on the\n\"Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave-trade,\" preached in 1791 before the\nConnecticut Abolition Society, of which President Ezra Stiles was the\nhead, long continued to be reprinted and circulated, both at the North\nand at the South, as the most effective argument not only against the\nslave-trade, but against the whole system of slavery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt will not be intruding needlessly upon the difficult field of dogmatic\nhistory if we note here the widely important diversities of Christian\nteaching that belong to this which we may call the sub-Revolutionary\nperiod.\n\nIt is in contradiction to our modern association of ideas to read that\nthe prevailing type of doctrine among the early Baptists of New England\nwas Arminian.[222:2] The pronounced individualism of the Baptist\nchurches, and the emphasis which they place upon human responsibility,\nmight naturally have created a tendency in this direction; but a cause\nnot less obvious was their antagonism to the established\nCongregationalism, with its sharply defined Calvinistic statements. The\npublic challenging of these statements made a favorite issue on which to\nappeal to the people from their constituted teachers. But when the South\nand Southwest opened itself as the field of a wonderfully rapid\nexpansion before the feet of the Baptist evangelists, the antagonism was\nquite of another sort. Their collaborators and sharp competitors in the\ngreat and noble work of planting the gospel and the church in old and\nneglected fields at the South, and carrying them westward to the\ncontinually advancing frontier of population, were to be found in the\nmultiplying army of the Methodist itinerants and local exhorters, whose\ntheology, enjoined upon them by their commission, was the Arminianism of\nJohn Wesley. No explanation is apparent for the revulsion of the great\nbody of American Baptists into a Calvinism exaggerated to the point of\ncaricature, except the reaction of controversy with the Methodists. The\ntendency of the two parties to opposite poles of dogma was all the\nstronger for the fact that on both sides teachers and taught were alike\nlacking in liberalizing education. The fact that two by far the most\nnumerous denominations of Christians in the United States were picketed\nthus over against each other in the same regions, as widely differing\nfrom each other in doctrine and organization as the Dominican order from\nthe Jesuit, and differing somewhat in the same way, is a fact that\ninvites our regret and disapproval, but at the same time compels us to\nremember its compensating advantages.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is to this period that we trace the head-waters of several important\nexisting denominations.\n\nAt the close of the war the congregation of the \"King's Chapel,\" the\noldest Episcopal church in New England, had been thinned and had lost\nits rector in the general migration of leading Tory families to Nova\nScotia. At the restoration of peace it was served in the capacity of lay\nreader by Mr. James Freeman, a young graduate of Harvard, who came soon\nto be esteemed very highly in love both for his work's sake and for his\nown. Being chosen pastor of the church, he was not many months in\nfinding that many things in the English Prayer-book were irreconcilable\nwith doubts and convictions concerning the Trinity and related\ndoctrines, which about this time were widely prevalent among theologians\nboth in the Church of England and outside of it. In June, 1785, it was\nvoted in the congregation, by a very large majority, to amend the order\nof worship in accordance with these scruples. The changes were in a\ndirection in which not a few Episcopalians were disposed to move,[224:1]\nand the congregation did not hesitate to apply for ordination for their\npastor, first to Bishop Seabury, and afterward, with better hope of\nsuccess, to Bishop Provoost. Failing here also, the congregation\nproceeded to induct their elect pastor into his office without waiting\nfurther upon bishops; and thus \"the first Episcopal church in New\nEngland became the first Unitarian church in America.\" It was not the\nbeginning of Unitarianism in America, for this had long been \"in the\nair.\" But it was the first distinct organization of it. How rapidly and\npowerfully it spread within narrow geographical limits, and how widely\nit has affected the course of religious history, must appear in later\nchapters.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nClose as might seem to be the kindred between Unitarianism and\nUniversalism, coeval as they are in their origin as organized sects,\nthey are curiously diverse in their origin. Each of them, at the present\nday, holds the characteristic tenet of the other; in general, Unitarians\nare Universalists, and Universalists are Unitarians.[225:1] But in the\nbeginning Unitarianism was a bold reactionary protest against leading\ndoctrines of the prevailing Calvinism of New England, notably against\nthe doctrines of the Trinity, of expiatory atonement, and of human\ndepravity; and it was still more a protest against the intolerant and\nintolerable dogmatism of the sanhedrim of Jonathan Edwards's successors,\nin their cock-sure expositions of the methods of the divine government\nand the psychology of conversion. Universalism, on the other hand, in\nits first setting forth in America, planted itself on the leading\n\"evangelical\" doctrines, which its leaders had earnestly preached, and\nmade them the major premisses of its argument. Justification and\nsalvation, said John Murray, one of Whitefield's Calvinistic Methodist\npreachers, are the lot of those for whom Christ died. But Christ died\nfor the elect, said his Calvinistic brethren. Nay, verily, said Murray\n(in this following one of his colleagues, James Relly); what saith the\nScripture? \"Christ died for _all_.\" It was the pinch of this argument\nwhich brought New England theologians, beginning with Smalley and the\nsecond Edwards, to the acceptance of the rectoral theory of the\natonement, and so prepared the way for much disputation among the\ndoctors of the next century.[225:2]\n\nMr. Murray arrived in America in 1770, and after much going to and fro\norganized, in 1779, at Gloucester, Mass., the first congregation in\nAmerica on distinctly Universalist principles. But other men, along\nother lines of thought, had been working their way to somewhat similar\nconclusions. In 1785 Elhanan Winchester, a thoroughly Calvinistic\nBaptist minister in Philadelphia, led forth his excommunicated brethren,\none hundred strong, and organized them into a \"Society of Universal\nBaptists,\" holding to the universal _restoration_ of mankind to holiness\nand happiness. The two differing schools fraternized in a convention of\nUniversalist churches at Philadelphia in 1794, at which articles of\nbelief and a plan of organization were set forth, understood to be from\nthe pen of Dr. Benjamin Rush; and a resolution was adopted declaring the\nholding of slaves to be \"inconsistent with the union of the human race\nin a common Saviour, and the obligations to mutual and universal love\nwhich flow from that union.\"\n\nIt was along still another line of argument, proceeding from the assumed\n\"rectitude of human nature,\" that the Unitarians came, tardily and\nhesitatingly, to the Universalist position. The long persistence of\ndefinite boundary lines between two bodies so nearly alike in their\ntenets is a subject worthy of study. The lines seem to be rather\nhistorical and social than theological. The distinction between them has\nbeen thus epigrammatically stated: that the Universalist holds that God\nis too good to damn a man; the Unitarian holds that men are too good to\nbe damned.\n\nNo controversy in the history of the American church has been more\ndeeply marked by a sincere and serious earnestness, over and above the\ncompetitive zeal and invidious acrimony that are an inevitable admixture\nin such debates, than the controversy that was at once waged against the\ntwo new sects claiming the title \"Liberal.\" It was sincerely felt by\ntheir antagonists that, while the one abandoned the foundation of the\nChristian faith, the other destroyed the foundation of Christian\nmorality. In the early propaganda of each of them was much to deepen\nthis mistrust. When the standard of dissent is set up in any community,\nand men are invited to it in the name of liberality, nothing can hinder\nits becoming a rallying-point for all sorts of disaffected souls, not\nonly the liberal, but the loose. The story of the controversy belongs to\nlater chapters of this book. It is safe to say at this point that the\nearly orthodox fears have at least not been fully confirmed by the\nsequel up to this date. It was one of the most strenuous of the early\ndisputants against the \"liberal\" opinions[227:1] who remarked in his\nlater years, concerning the Unitarian saints, that it seemed as if their\nexclusive contemplation of Jesus Christ in his human character as the\nexample for our imitation had wrought in them an exceptional beauty and\nChristlikeness of living. As for the Universalists, the record of their\nfidelity, as a body, to the various interests of social morality is not\nsurpassed by that of any denomination. But in the earlier days the\nconflict against the two sects called \"liberal\" was waged ruthlessly,\nnot as against defective or erroneous schemes of doctrine, but as\nagainst distinctly antichristian heresies.\n\nThere is instruction to be gotten from studying, in comparison, the\ncourse of these opinions in the established churches of Great Britain\nand among the unestablished churches of America. Under the enforced\ncomprehensiveness or tolerance of a national church, it is easier for\nstrange doctrines to spread within the pale. Under the American plan of\nthe organization of Christianity by voluntary mutual association\naccording to elective affinity, with freedom to receive or exclude, the\nflock within the fold may perhaps be kept safer from contamination; as\nwhen the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1792, and again in 1794,\ndecided that Universalists be not admitted to the sealing ordinances of\nthe gospel;[228:1] but by this course the excluded opinion is compelled\nto intrench itself both for defense and for attack in a sectarian\norganization. It is a practically interesting question, the answer to\nwhich is by no means self-evident, whether Universalist opinions would\nhave been less prevalent to-day in England and Scotland if they had been\nexcluded from the national churches and erected into a sect with its\npartisan pulpits, presses, and propagandists; or whether they would have\nmore diffused in America if, instead of being dealt with by process of\nexcommunication or deposition, they had been dealt with simply by\nargument. This is one of the many questions which history raises, but\nwhich (happily for him) it does not fall within the function of the\nhistorian to answer.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo this period is to be referred the origin of some of the minor\nAmerican sects.\n\nThe \"United Brethren in Christ\" grew into a distinct organization about\nthe year 1800. It arose incidentally to the Methodist evangelism, in an\neffort on the part of Philip William Otterbein, of the German Reformed\nChurch, and Martin Boehm, of the Mennonites, to provide for the\nshepherdless German-speaking people by an adaptation of the Wesleyan\nmethods. Presently, in the natural progress of language, the English\nwork outgrew the German. It is now doing an extensive and useful work by\npulpit and press, chiefly in Pennsylvania and the States of that\nlatitude. The reasons for its continued existence separate from the\nMethodist Church, which it closely resembles both in doctrine and in\npolity, are more apparent to those within the organization than to\nsuperficial observers from outside.\n\nThe organization just described arose from the unwillingness of the\nGerman Reformed Church to meet the craving needs of the German people by\nusing the Wesleyan methods. From the unwillingness of the Methodist\nChurch to use the German language arose another organization, \"the\nEvangelical Association,\" sometimes known, from the name of its founder,\nby the somewhat grotesque title of \"the Albrights.\" This also is both\nMethodist and Episcopal, a reduced copy of the great Wesleyan\ninstitution, mainly devoted to labors among the Germans.\n\nIn 1792 was planted at Baltimore the first American congregation of that\norganization of disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg which had been begun in\nLondon nine years before and called by the appropriately fanciful name\nof \"the Church of the New Jerusalem.\"\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[210:1] Quoted in Tiffany, p. 289, note. The extreme depression of the\nProtestant Episcopal and (as will soon appear) of the Roman Catholic\nChurch, at this point of time, emphasizes all the more the great\nadvances made by both these communions from this time forward.\n\n[211:1] Preface to the American \"Book of Common Prayer,\" 1789.\n\n[211:2] See the critical observations of Dr. McConnell, \"History of the\nAmerican Episcopal Church,\" pp. 264-276. The polity of this church seems\nto have suffered for want of a States' Rights and Strict Construction\nparty. The centrifugal force has been overbalanced by the centripetal.\n\n[213:1] Tiffany, pp. 385-399.\n\n[216:1] Bishop O'Gorman, pp. 269-323, 367, 399.\n\n[218:1] Buckley, \"The Methodists,\" pp. 182, 183.\n\n[219:1] Jesse Lee, quoted by Dr. Buckley, p. 195.\n\n[222:1] Newman, \"The Baptists,\" p. 305.\n\n[222:2] _Ibid._, p. 243.\n\n[224:1] Tiffany, p. 347; McConnell, p. 249.\n\n[225:1] Dr. Richard Eddy, \"The Universalists,\" p. 429.\n\n[225:2] _Ibid._, pp. 392-397. The sermons of Smalley were preached at\nWallingford, Conn., \"by particular request, with special reference to\nthe Murrayan controversy.\"\n\n[227:1] Leonard Bacon, of New Haven, in conversation.\n\n[228:1] Eddy, p. 387.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTHE SECOND AWAKENING.\n\n\nThe closing years of the eighteenth century show the lowest low-water\nmark of the lowest ebb-tide of spiritual life in the history of the\nAmerican church. The demoralization of army life, the fury of political\nfactions, the catchpenny materialist morality of Franklin, the\nphilosophic deism of men like Jefferson, and the popular ribaldry of Tom\nPaine, had wrought, together with other untoward influences, to bring\nabout a condition of things which to the eye of little faith seemed\nalmost desperate.\n\nFrom the beginning of the reaction from the stormy excitements of the\nGreat Awakening, nothing had seemed to arouse the New England churches\nfrom a lethargic dullness; so, at least, it seemed to those who recalled\nthose wonderful days of old, either in memory or by tradition. We have a\ngauge of the general decline of the public morals, in the condition of\nYale College at the accession of President Dwight in 1795, as described\nin the reminiscences of Lyman Beecher, then a sophomore.\n\n     \"Before he came, college was in a most ungodly state. The\n     college church was almost extinct. Most of the students were\n     skeptical, and rowdies were plenty. Wine and liquors were\n     kept in many rooms; intemperance, profanity, gambling, and\n     licentiousness were common. I hardly know how I escaped....\n     That was the day of the infidelity of the Tom Paine school.\n     Boys that dressed flax in the barn, as I used to, read Tom\n     Paine and believed him; I read and fought him all the way.\n     Never had any propensity to infidelity. But most of the class\n     before me were infidels, and called each other Voltaire,\n     Rousseau, D'Alembert, etc.\"[231:1]\n\nIn the Middle States the aspect was not more promising. Princeton\nCollege had been closed for three years of the Revolutionary War. In\n1782 there were only two among the students who professed themselves\nChristians. The Presbyterian General Assembly, representing the\nstrongest religious force in that region, in 1798 described the then\nexisting condition of the country in these terms:\n\n     \"Formidable innovations and convulsions in Europe threaten\n     destruction to morals and religion. Scenes of devastation and\n     bloodshed unexampled in the history of modern nations have\n     convulsed the world, and our country is threatened with\n     similar calamities. We perceive with pain and fearful\n     apprehension a general dereliction of religious principles and\n     practice among our fellow-citizens, a visible and prevailing\n     impiety and contempt for the laws and institutions of\n     religion, and an abounding infidelity, which in many instances\n     tends to atheism itself. The profligacy and corruption of the\n     public morals have advanced with a progress proportionate to\n     our declension in religion. Profaneness, pride, luxury,\n     injustice, intemperance, lewdness, and every species of\n     debauchery and loose indulgence greatly abound.\"\n\nFrom the point of view of the Episcopalian of that day the prospect was\neven more disheartening. It was at this time that Bishop Provoost of New\nYork laid down his functions, not expecting the church to continue much\nlonger; and Bishop Madison of Virginia shared the despairing conviction\nof Chief-Justice Marshall that the church was too far gone ever to be\nrevived.[232:1] Over all this period the historian of the Lutheran\nChurch writes up the title \"Deterioration.\"[232:2] Proposals were set on\nfoot looking toward the merger of these two languishing denominations.\n\nEven the Methodists, the fervor of whose zeal and vitality of whose\norganization had withstood what seemed severer tests, felt the benumbing\ninfluence of this unhappy age. For three years ending in 1796 the total\nmembership diminished at the rate of about four thousand a year.\n\nMany witnesses agree in describing the moral and religious condition of\nthe border States of Kentucky and Tennessee as peculiarly deplorable.\nThe autobiography of that famous pioneer preacher, Peter Cartwright,\ngives a lively picture of Kentucky society in 1793 as he remembered it\nin his old age:\n\n     \"Logan County, when my father moved into it, was called\n     'Rogues' Harbor.' Here many refugees from all parts of the\n     Union fled to escape punishment or justice; for although there\n     was law, yet it could not be executed, and it was a desperate\n     state of society. Murderers, horse-thieves, highway robbers,\n     and counterfeiters fled there, until they combined and\n     actually formed a majority. Those who favored a better state\n     of morals were called 'Regulators.' But they encountered\n     fierce opposition from the 'Rogues,' and a battle was fought\n     with guns, pistols, dirks, knives, and clubs, in which the\n     'Regulators' were defeated.\"[233:1]\n\nThe people that walked in this gross darkness beheld a great light. In\n1796 a Presbyterian minister, James McGready, who for more than ten\nyears had done useful service in Pennsylvania and North Carolina,\nassumed charge of several Presbyterian churches in that very Logan\nCounty which we know through the reminiscences of Peter Cartwright. As\nhe went the round of his scattered congregations his preaching was felt\nto have peculiar power \"to arouse false professors, to awaken a dead\nchurch, and warn sinners and lead them to seek the new spiritual life\nwhich he himself had found.\" Three years later two brothers, William and\nJohn McGee, one a Presbyterian minister and the other a Methodist, came\nthrough the beautiful Cumberland country in Kentucky and Tennessee,\nspeaking, as if in the spirit and power of John the Baptist, to\nmultitudes that gathered from great distances to hear them. On one\noccasion, in the woods of Logan County, in July, 1800, the gathered\nfamilies, many of whom came from far, tethered their teams and encamped\nfor several days for the unaccustomed privilege of common worship and\nChristian preaching. This is believed to have been the first American\ncamp-meeting--an era worth remembering in our history. Not without\nabundant New Testament antecedents, it naturalized itself at once on our\nsoil as a natural expedient for scattered frontier populations\nunprovided with settled institutions. By a natural process of evolution,\nadapting itself to other environments and uses, the backwoods\ncamp-meeting has grown into the \"Chautauqua\" assembly, which at so many\nplaces besides the original center at Chautauqua Lake has grown into an\nimportant and most characteristic institution of American civilization.\n\nWe are happy in having an account of some of these meetings from one who\nwas personally and sympathetically interested in them. For in the spring\nof the next year Barton Warren Stone, a Presbyterian minister serving\nhis two congregations of Concord and Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, and\noppressed with a sense of the religious apathy prevailing about him,\nmade the long journey across the State of Kentucky to see for himself\nthe wonderful things of which he had heard, and afterward wrote his\nreminiscences.\n\n     \"There, on the edge of a prairie in Logan County, Kentucky,\n     the multitudes came together and continued a number of days\n     and nights encamped on the ground, during which time worship\n     was carried on in some part of the encampment. The scene was\n     new to me and passing strange. It baffled description. Many,\n     very many, fell down as men slain in battle, and continued for\n     hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless\n     state, sometimes for a few moments reviving and exhibiting\n     symptoms of life by a deep groan or piercing shriek, or by a\n     prayer for mercy fervently uttered. After lying there for\n     hours they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud that had\n     covered their faces seemed gradually and visibly to disappear,\n     and hope, in smiles, brightened into joy. They would rise,\n     shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding\n     multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive. With\n     astonishment did I hear men, women, and children declaring the\n     wonderful works of God and the glorious mysteries of the\n     gospel. Their appeals were solemn, heart-penetrating, bold,\n     and free. Under such circumstances many others would fall down\n     into the same state from which the speakers had just been\n     delivered.\n\n     \"Two or three of my particular acquaintances from a distance\n     were struck down. I sat patiently by one of them, whom I knew\n     to be a careless sinner, for hours, and observed with critical\n     attention everything that passed, from the beginning to the\n     end. I noticed the momentary revivings as from death, the\n     humble confession of sins, the fervent prayer, and the\n     ultimate deliverance; then the solemn thanks and praise to\n     God, and affectionate exhortation to companions and to the\n     people around to repent and come to Jesus. I was astonished at\n     the knowledge of gospel truth displayed in the address. The\n     effect was that several sank down into the same appearance of\n     death. After attending to many such cases, my conviction was\n     complete that it was a good work--the work of God; nor has my\n     mind wavered since on the subject. Much did I see then, and\n     much have I seen since, that I consider to be fanaticism; but\n     this should not condemn the work. The devil has always tried\n     to ape the works of God, to bring them into disrepute; but\n     that cannot be a Satanic work which brings men to humble\n     confession, to forsaking of sin, to prayer, fervent praise and\n     thanksgiving, and a sincere and affectionate exhortation to\n     sinners to repent and come to Jesus the Saviour.\"\n\nProfoundly impressed by what he had seen and heard, Pastor Stone\nreturned to his double parish in Bourbon County and rehearsed the story\nof it. \"The congregation was affected with awful solemnity, and many\nreturned home weeping.\" This was in the early spring. Not many months\nafterward there was a notable springing up of this seed.\n\n     \"A memorable meeting was held at Cane Ridge in August, 1801.\n     The roads were crowded with wagons, carriages, horses, and\n     footmen moving to the solemn camp. It was judged by military\n     men on the ground that between twenty and thirty thousand\n     persons were assembled. Four or five preachers spoke at the\n     same time in different parts of the encampment without\n     confusion. The Methodist and Baptist preachers aided in the\n     work, and all appeared cordially united in it. They were of\n     one mind and soul: the salvation of sinners was the one\n     object. We all engaged in singing the same songs, all united\n     in prayer, all preached the same things.... The numbers\n     converted will be known only in eternity. Many things\n     transpired in the meeting which were so much like miracles\n     that they had the same effect as miracles on unbelievers. By\n     them many were convinced that Jesus was the Christ and were\n     persuaded to submit to him. This meeting continued six or\n     seven days and nights, and would have continued longer, but\n     food for the sustenance of such a multitude failed.\n\n     \"To this meeting many had come from Ohio and other distant\n     parts. These returned home and diffused the same spirit in\n     their respective neighborhoods. Similar results followed. So\n     low had religion sunk, and such carelessness had universally\n     prevailed, that I have thought that nothing common could have\n     arrested and held the attention of the people.\"[236:1]\n\nThe sober and cautious tone of this narrative will already have\nimpressed the reader. These are not the words of a heated enthusiast, or\na man weakly credulous. We may hesitate to accept his judgment, but may\nsafely accept his testimony, amply corroborated as it is, to facts which\nhe has seen and heard.\n\nBut the crucial test of the work, the test prescribed by the Lord of the\nchurch, is that it shall be known by its fruits. And this test it seems\nto bear well. Dr. Archibald Alexander, had in high reverence in the\nPresbyterian Church as a wise counselor in spiritual matters, made\nscrupulous inquiry into the results of this revival, and received from\none of his correspondents, Dr. George A. Baxter, who made an early visit\nto the scenes of the revival, the following testimony:\n\n     \"On my way I was informed by settlers on the road that the\n     character of Kentucky travelers was entirely changed, and that\n     they were as remarkable for sobriety as they had formerly been\n     for dissoluteness and immorality. And indeed I found Kentucky\n     to appearances the most moral place I had ever seen. A profane\n     expression was hardly ever heard. A religious awe seemed to\n     pervade the country. Upon the whole, I think the revival in\n     Kentucky the most extraordinary that has ever visited the\n     church of Christ; and, all things considered, it was\n     peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of the country into\n     which it came. Infidelity was triumphant and religion was on\n     the point of expiring. Something extraordinary seemed\n     necessary to arrest the attention of a giddy people who were\n     ready to conclude that Christianity was a fable and futurity a\n     delusion. This revival has done it. It has confounded\n     infidelity and brought numbers beyond calculation under\n     serious impressions.\"\n\nA sermon preached in 1803 to the Presbyterian synod of Kentucky, by the\nRev. David Rice, has the value of testimony given in the presence of\nother competent witnesses, and liable thus to be questioned or\ncontradicted. In it he says:\n\n     \"Neighborhoods noted for their vicious and profligate manners\n     are now as much noted for their piety and good order.\n     Drunkards, profane swearers, liars, quarrelsome persons, etc.,\n     are remarkably reformed.... A number of families who had lived\n     apparently without the fear of God, in folly and in vice,\n     without any religious instruction or any proper government,\n     are now reduced to order and are daily joining in the worship\n     of God, reading his word, singing his praises, and offering up\n     their supplications to a throne of grace. Parents who seemed\n     formerly to have little or no regard for the salvation of\n     their children are now anxiously concerned for their\n     salvation, are pleading for them, and endeavoring to lead them\n     to Christ and train them up in the way of piety and virtue.\"\n\nThat same year the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in its\nannual review of the state of religion, adverted with emphasis to the\nwork in the Cumberland country, and cited remarkable instances of\nconversion--malignant opposers of vital piety convinced and reconciled,\nlearned, active, and conspicuous infidels becoming signal monuments of\nthat grace which they once despised; and in conclusion declared with joy\nthat \"the state and prospects of vital religion in our country are more\nfavorable and encouraging than at any period within the last forty\nyears.\"[238:1]\n\nIn order successfully to study the phenomena of this remarkable passage\nin the history of the church, it is necessary to bear in mind the social\nconditions that prevailed. A population _perfervido ingenio_, of a\ntemper peculiarly susceptible of intense excitement, transplanted into a\nwild country, under little control either of conventionality or law,\ndeeply ingrained from many generations with the religious sentiment, but\nbroken loose from the control of it and living consciously in reckless\ndisregard of the law of God, is suddenly aroused to a sense of its\napostasy and wickedness. The people do not hear the word of God from\nSabbath to Sabbath, or even from evening to evening, and take it home\nwith them and ponder it amid the avocations of daily business; by the\nconditions, they are sequestered for days together in the wilderness for\nthe exclusive contemplation of momentous truths pressed upon the mind\nwith incessant and impassioned iteration; and they remain together, an\nagitated throng, not of men only, but of women and children. The student\nof psychology recognizes at once that here are present in an unusual\ncombination the conditions not merely of the ready propagation of\ninfluence by example and persuasion, but of those nervous, mental, or\nspiritual infections which make so important a figure in the world's\nhistory, civil, military, or religious. It is wholly in accord with\nhuman nature that the physical manifestations attendant on religious\nexcitement in these circumstances should be of an intense and\nextravagant sort.\n\nAnd such indeed they were. Sudden outcries, hysteric weeping and\nlaughter, faintings, catalepsies, trances, were customary concomitants\nof the revival preaching. Multitudes fell prostrate on the ground,\n\"spiritually slain,\" as it was said. Lest the helpless bodies should be\ntrampled on by the surging crowd, they were taken up and laid in rows on\nthe floor of the neighboring meeting-house. \"Some lay quiet, unable to\nmove or speak. Some talked, but could not move. Some beat the floor with\ntheir heels. Some, shrieking in agony, bounded about, it is said, like a\nlive fish out of water. Many lay down and rolled over and over for hours\nat a time. Others rushed wildly over the stumps and benches, and then\nplunged, shouting 'Lost! Lost!' into the forest.\"\n\nAs the revival went on and the camp-meeting grew to be a custom and an\ninstitution, this nervous epidemic took on certain recognizable forms,\none of which was known as \"the jerks.\" This malady \"began in the head\nand spread rapidly to the feet. The head would be thrown from side to\nside so swiftly that the features would be blotted out and the hair made\nto snap. When the body was affected the sufferer was hurled over\nhindrances that came in his way, and finally dashed on the ground, to\nbounce about like a ball.\" The eccentric Lorenzo Dow, whose freaks of\neloquence and humor are remembered by many now living, speaks from his\nown observation on the subject:\n\n     \"I have passed a meeting-house where I observed the\n     undergrowth had been cut for a camp-meeting, and from fifty to\n     a hundred saplings were left breast-high on purpose for\n     persons who were 'jerked' to hold on to. I observed where they\n     had held on they had kicked up the earth as a horse stamping\n     flies.... I believe it does not affect those naturalists who\n     wish to get it to philosophize about it; and rarely those who\n     are the most pious; but the lukewarm, lazy professor is\n     subject to it. The wicked fear it and are subject to it; but\n     the persecutors are more subject to it than any, and they have\n     sometimes cursed and sworn and damned it while\n     jerking.\"[240:1]\n\nThere is nothing improbable in the claim that phenomena like these,\nstrange, weird, startling, \"were so much like miracles that they had the\nsame effect as miracles on unbelievers.\" They helped break up the\napathetic torpor of the church and summon the multitudes into the\nwilderness to hear the preaching of repentance and the remission of\nsins. But they had some lamentable results. Those who, like many among\nthe Methodists,[241:1] found in them the direct work of the Holy Spirit,\nwere thereby started along the perilous incline toward enthusiasm and\nfanaticism. Those, on the other hand, repelled by the grotesqueness and\nextravagance of these manifestations, who were led to distrust or\ncondemn the good work with which they were associated, fell into a\ngraver error. This was the error into which, to its cost, the\nPresbyterian Church was by and by drawn in dealing with questions that\nemerged from these agitations. The revival gave rise to two new sects,\nboth of them marked by the fervor of spirit that characterized the time,\nand both of them finding their principal habitat in the same western\nregion. The Cumberland Presbyterians, now grown to large numbers and\ndeserved influence and dignity in the fellowship of American sects,\nseparated themselves from the main body of Presbyterians by refusing to\naccept, in face of the craving needs of the pastorless population all\nabout them, the arbitrary rule shutting the door of access to the\nPresbyterian ministry to all candidates, how great soever their other\nqualifications, who lacked a classical education. Separating on this\nissue, they took the opportunity to amend the generally accepted\ndoctrinal statements of the Presbyterian churches by mitigating those\nutterances which seemed to them, as they have seemed to many others, to\nerr in the direction of fatalism.\n\nAbout the same time there was manifested in various quarters a generous\nrevolt against the existence and multiplication of mutually exclusive\nsects in the Christian family, each limited by humanly devised\ndoctrinal articles and branded with partisan names. How these various\nprotesting elements came together on the sole basis of a common faith in\nChrist and a common acceptance of the divine authority of the Bible;\nhow, not intending it, they came to be themselves a new sect; and how,\nstruggling in vain against the inexorable laws of language, they came to\nbe distinguished by names, as _Campbellite Baptist_, _Christ-ian_ (with\na long _i_), and (+kat' exochen+) Disciples, are points on which\ninteresting and instructive light is shed in the history by Dr. B. B.\nTyler.[242:1]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe great revival of the West and Southwest was not the only revival,\nand not even the earliest revival, of that time of crisis. As early as\n1792 the long inertia of the eastern churches began to be broken here\nand there by signs of growing earnestness and attentiveness to spiritual\nthings. There was little of excited agitation. There was no preaching of\nfamous evangelists. There were no imposing convocations. Only in many\nand many of those country towns in which, at that time, the main\nstrength of the population lay, the labors of faithful pastors began to\nbe rewarded with large ingatherings of penitent believers. The\nlanguishing churches grew strong and hopeful, and the insolent\ninfidelity of the times was abashed. With such sober simplicity was the\nwork of the gospel carried forward, in the opening years of this\ncentury, among the churches and pastors that had learned wisdom from the\nmistakes made in the Great Awakening, that there are few striking\nincidents for the historian. Hardly any man is to be pointed out as a\npreeminent leader of the church at this period. If to any one, this\nplace of honor belongs to Timothy Dwight, grandson of Jonathan Edwards,\nwhose accession to the presidency of Yale College at the darkest hour\nin its history marked the turning-point. We have already learned from\nthe reminiscences of Lyman Beecher how low the college had sunk in point\nof religious character, when most of the class above him were openly\nboastful of being infidels.[243:1] How the new president dealt with them\nis well described by the same witness:\n\n     \"They thought the faculty were afraid of free discussion. But\n     when they handed Dr. Dwight a list of subjects for class\n     disputation, to their surprise, he selected this: 'Is the\n     Bible the word of God?' and told them to do their best. He\n     heard all they had to say, answered them, and there was an\n     end. He preached incessantly for six months on the subject,\n     and all infidelity skulked and hid its head. He elaborated his\n     theological system in a series of forenoon sermons in the\n     chapel; the afternoon discourses were practical. The original\n     design of Yale College was to found a divinity school. To a\n     mind appreciative, like mine, his preaching was a continual\n     course of education and a continual feast. He was copious and\n     polished in style, though disciplined and logical. There was a\n     pith and power of doctrine there that has not been since\n     surpassed, if equaled.\"[243:2]\n\nIt may be doubted whether to any man of his generation it was given to\nexercise a wider and more beneficent influence over the American church\nthan that of President Dwight. His system of \"Theology Explained and\nDefended in a Series of Sermons,\" a theology meant to be preached and\nmade effective in convincing men and converting them to the service of\nGod, was so constructed as to be completed within the four years of the\ncollege curriculum, so that every graduate should have heard the whole\nof it. The influence of it has not been limited by the boundaries of our\ncountry, nor has it expired with the century just completed since\nPresident Dwight's accession.\n\nAt the East also, as well as at the West, the quickening of religious\nthought and feeling had the common effect of alienating and disrupting.\nDiverging tendencies, which had begun to disclose themselves in the\ndiscussions between Edwards and Chauncy in their respective volumes of\n\"Thoughts\" on the Great Awakening, became emphasized in the revival of\n1800. That liberalism which had begun as a protest against a too\nperemptory style of dogmatism was rapidly advancing toward a dogmatic\ndenial of points deemed by the opposite party to be essential. Dogmatic\ndifferences were aggravated by differences of taste and temperament, and\neverything was working toward the schism by which some sincere and\nzealous souls should seek to do God service.\n\nIn one most important particular the revival of 1800 was happily\ndistinguished from the Great Awakening of 1740. It was not done and over\nwith at the end of a few years, and then followed by a long period of\nreaction. It was the beginning of a long period of vigorous and\n\"abundant life,\" moving forward, not, indeed, with even and unvarying\nflow, yet with continuous current, marked with those alternations of\nexaltation and subsidence which seem, whether for evil or for good, to\nhave become a fixed characteristic of American church history.\n\nThe widespread revivals of the first decade of the nineteenth century\nsaved the church of Christ in America from its low estate and girded it\nfor stupendous tasks that were about to be devolved on it. In the glow\nof this renewed fervor, the churches of New England successfully made\nthe difficult transition from establishment to self-support and to the\ncostly enterprises of aggressive evangelization into which, in company\nwith other churches to the South and West, they were about to enter. The\nChristianity of the country was prepared and equipped to attend with\nequal pace the prodigious rush of population across the breadth of the\nGreat Valley, and to give welcome to the invading host of immigrants\nwhich before the end of a half century was to effect its entrance into\nour territory at the rate of a thousand a day. It was to accommodate\nitself to changing social conditions, as the once agricultural\npopulation began to concentrate itself in factory villages and\ncommercial towns. It was to carry on systematic campaigns of warfare\nagainst instituted social wrong, such as the drinking usages of society,\nthe savage code of dueling, the public sanction of slavery. And it was\nto enter the \"effectual door\" which from the beginning of the century\nopened wider and wider to admit the gospel and the church to every\nnation under heaven.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[231:1] \"Autobiography of Lyman Beecher,\" vol. i., p. 43. The same\ncharming volume contains abundant evidence that the spirit of true\nreligion was cherished in the homes of the people, while there were so\nmany public signs of apostasy.\n\n[232:1] Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" pp. 388, 394, 395.\n\n[232:2] Dr. Jacobs, chap. xix.\n\n[233:1] \"Autobiography of Peter Cartwright,\" quoted by Dorchester,\n\"Christianity in the United States,\" p. 348.\n\n[236:1] See B. B. Tyler, \"History of the Disciples,\" pp. 11-17; R. V.\nFoster, \"The Cumberland Presbyterians,\" pp. 260-263 (American Church\nHistory Series, vols. xi., xii.).\n\n[238:1] Tyler, \"The Disciples\"; Foster, \"The Cumberland Presbyterians,\"\n_ubi supra_.\n\n[240:1] Let me add an illustrative instance related to me by the\ndistinguished Methodist, Dr. David P. Durbin. Standing near the platform\nfrom which he was to preach at a camp-meeting, he observed a powerfully\nbuilt young backwoodsman who was manifestly there with no better intent\nthan to disturb and break up the meeting. Presently it became evident\nthat the young man was conscious of some influence taking hold of him to\nwhich he was resolved not to yield; he clutched with both hands a\nhickory sapling next which he was standing, to hold himself steady, but\nwas whirled round and round, until the bark of the sapling peeled off\nunder his grasp. But, as in the cases referred to by Dow, the attack was\nattended by no religious sentiment whatever.\n\nOn the manifestations in the Cumberland country, see McMasters, \"United\nStates,\" vol. ii., pp. 581, 582, and the sources there cited. For some\njudicious remarks on the general subject, see Buckley, \"Methodism,\" pp.\n217-224.\n\n[241:1] So Dr. Buckley, \"Methodism,\" p. 217.\n\n[242:1] American Church History Series, vol. xii.\n\n[243:1] See above, pp. 230, 231.\n\n[243:2] \"Autobiography of Lyman Beecher,\" vol. i., pp. 43, 44.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nORGANIZED BENEFICENCE.\n\n\nWhen the Presbyterian General Assembly, in 1803, made a studious review\nof the revivals which for several years had been in progress, especially\nat the South and West, it included in its \"Narrative\" the following\nobservations:\n\n     \"The Assembly observe with great pleasure that the desire for\n     spreading the gospel among the blacks and among the savage\n     tribes on our borders has been rapidly increasing during the\n     last year. The Assembly take notice of this circumstance with\n     the more satisfaction, as it not only affords a pleasing\n     presage of the spread of the gospel, but also furnishes\n     agreeable evidence of the genuineness and the benign tendency\n     of that spirit which God has been pleased to pour out upon his\n     people.\"\n\nIn New England the like result had already, several years before,\nfollowed upon the like antecedent. In the year 1798 the \"Missionary\nSociety of Connecticut\" was constituted, having for its object \"to\nChristianize the heathen in North America, and to support and promote\nChristian knowledge in the new settlements within the United States\";\nand in August, 1800, its first missionary, David Bacon, engaged at a\nsalary of \"one hundred and ten cents per day,\" set out for the\nwilderness south and west of Lake Erie, \"afoot and alone, with no more\nluggage than he could carry on his person,\" to visit the wild tribes of\nthat region, \"to explore their situation, and learn their feelings with\nrespect to Christianity, and, so far as he had opportunity, to teach\nthem its doctrines and duties.\" The name forms a link in the bright\nsuccession from John Eliot to this day. But it must needs be that some\nsuffer as victims of the inexperience of those who are first to take\ndirection of an untried enterprise. The abandonment of its first\nmissionary by one of the first missionary societies, leaving him\nhelpless in the wilderness, was a brief lesson in the economy of\nmissions opportunely given at the outset of the American mission work,\nand happily had no need to be repeated.[247:1]\n\nDavid Bacon, like Henry Martyn, who at that same time, in far different\nsurroundings, was intent upon his plans of mission work in India, was\nown son in the faith to David Brainerd. But they were elder sons in a\ngreat family. The pathetic story of that heroic youth, as told by\nJonathan Edwards, was a classic at that time in almost every country\nparsonage; but its influence was especially felt in the colleges, now no\nlonger, as a few years earlier, the seats of the scornful, but the homes\nof serious and religious learning which they were meant to be by their\nfounders.\n\nOf the advancement of Christian civilization in the first\nquarter-century from the achievement of independence there is no more\ndistinguished monument than the increase, through those troubled and\nimpoverished years, of the institutions of secular and sacred learning.\nThe really successful and effective colleges that had survived from the\ncolonial period were hardly a half-dozen. Up to 1810 these had been\nreinforced by as many more. By far the greater number of them were\nfounded by the New England Congregationalists, to whom this has ever\nbeen a favorite field of activity. But special honor must be paid to the\nwise and courageous and nobly successful enterprise of large-minded and\nlarge-hearted men among the Baptists, who as early as 1764, boldly\nbreasting a current of unworthy prejudice in their own denomination,\nbegan the work of Brown University at Providence, which, carried forward\nby a notable succession of great educators, has been set in the front\nrank of existing American institutions of learning. After the revivals\nof 1800 these Christian colleges were not only attended by students\ncoming from zealous and fervid churches; they themselves became the foci\nfrom which high and noble spiritual influences were radiated through the\nland. It was in communities like these that the example of such lives as\nthat of Brainerd stirred up generous young minds to a chivalrous and\neven ascetic delight in attempting great labors and enduring great\nsacrifices as soldiers under the Captain of salvation.\n\nIt was at Williams College, then just planted in the Berkshire hills,\nthat a little coterie of students was formed which, for the grandeur of\nthe consequences that flowed from it, is worthy to be named in history\nbeside the Holy Club of Oxford in 1730, and the friends at Oriel College\nin 1830. Samuel J. Mills came to Williams College in 1806 from the\nparsonage of \"Father Mills\" of Torringford, concerning whom quaint\ntraditions and even memories still linger in the neighboring parishes of\nLitchfield County, Connecticut. Around this young student gathered a\ncircle of men like-minded. The shade of a lonely haystack was their\noratory; the pledges by which they bound themselves to a life-work for\nthe kingdom of heaven remind one of the mutual vows of the earliest\nfriends of Loyola. Some of the youths went soon to the theological\nseminary, and at once leavened that community with their own spirit.\n\nThe seminary--there was only one in all Protestant America. As early as\n1791 the Sulpitian fathers had organized their seminary at Baltimore.\nBut it was not until 1808 that any institution for theological studies\nwas open to candidates for the Protestant ministry. Up to that time such\nstudies were made in the regular college curriculum, which was\ndistinctly theological in character; and it was common for the graduate\nto spend an additional year at the college for special study under the\npresident or the one professor of divinity. But many country parsonages\nthat were tenanted by men of fame as writers and teachers were greatly\nfrequented by young men preparing themselves for the work of preaching.\n\nThe change to the modern method of education for the ministry was a\nsudden one. It was precipitated by an event which has not even yet\nceased to be looked on by the losing party with honest lamentation and\nwith an unnecessary amount of sectarian acrimony. The divinity\nprofessorship in Harvard College, founded in 1722[249:1] by Thomas\nHollis, of London, a Baptist friend of New England, was filled, after a\nlong struggle and an impassioned protest, by the election of Henry Ware,\nan avowed and representative Unitarian. It was a distinct announcement\nthat the government of the college had taken sides in the impending\nconflict, in opposition to the system of religious doctrine to the\nmaintenance of which the college had from its foundation been devoted.\nThe significance of the fact was not mistaken by either party. It meant\nthat the two tendencies which had been recognizable from long before\nthe Great Awakening were drawing asunder, and that thenceforth it must\nbe expected that the vast influence of the venerable college, in the\nclergy and in society, would be given to the Liberal side. The dismay of\none party and the exultation of the other were alike well grounded. The\ncry of the Orthodox was \"To your tents, O Israel!\" Lines of\necclesiastical non-intercourse were drawn. Church was divided from\nchurch, and family from family. When the forces and the losses on each\nside came to be reckoned up, there was a double wonder: First, at the\nnarrow boundaries by which the Unitarian defection was circumscribed: \"A\nradius of thirty-five miles from Boston as a center would sweep almost\nthe whole field of its history and influence;\"[250:1] and then at the\nsweeping completeness of it within these bounds; as Mrs. H. B. Stowe\nsummed up the situation at Boston, \"All the literary men of\nMassachusetts were Unitarian; all the trustees and professors of Harvard\nCollege were Unitarian; all the _elite_ of wealth and fashion crowded\nUnitarian churches; the judges on the bench were Unitarian, giving\ndecisions by which the peculiar features of church organization so\ncarefully ordered by the Pilgrim Fathers had been nullified and all the\npower had passed into the hands of the congregation.\"[250:2]\n\nThe schism, with its acrimonies and heartburnings, was doubtless in some\nsense necessary. And it was attended with some beneficent consequences.\nIt gave rise to instructive and illuminating debate. And on the part of\nthe Orthodox it occasioned an outburst of earnest zeal which in a\nwonderfully short time had more than repaired their loss in numbers, and\nhad started them on a career of wide beneficence, with a momentum that\nhas been increasing to this day. But it is not altogether useless to\nput the question how much was lost to both parties and to the common\ncause by the separation. It is not difficult to conceive that such\ndogged polemics as Nathanael Emmons and Jedidiah Morse might have been\nnone the worse for being held in some sort of fellowship, rather than in\nexasperated controversy, with such types of Christian sainthood as the\nyounger Ware and the younger Buckminster; and it is easy to imagine the\nextreme culture and cool intellectual and spiritual temper of the\nUnitarian pulpit in general as finding its advantage in not being cut\noff from direct radiations from the fiery zeal of Lyman Beecher and\nEdward Dorr Griffin. Is it quite sure that New England Congregationalism\nwould have been in all respects worse off if Channing and his friends\nhad continued to be recognized as the Liberal wing of its clergy? or\nthat the Unitarian ministers would not have been a great deal better off\nif they had remained in connection with a strong and conservative right\nwing, which might counterbalance the exorbitant leftward flights of\ntheir more impatient and erratic spirits?\n\nThe seating of a pronounced Unitarian in the Hollis chair of theology at\nHarvard took place in 1805. Three years later, in 1808, the doors of\nAndover Seminary were opened to students. Thirty-six were present, and\nthe number went on increasing. The example was quickly followed. In 1810\nthe Dutch seminary was begun at New Brunswick, and in 1812 the\nPresbyterian at Princeton. In 1816 Bangor Seminary (Congregationalist)\nand Hartwick Seminary (Lutheran) were opened. In 1819 the Episcopalian\n\"General Seminary\" followed, and the Baptist \"Hamilton Seminary\" in\n1820. In 1821 Presbyterian seminaries were begun at Auburn, N. Y., and\nMarysville, Tenn. In 1822 the Yale Divinity College was founded\n(Congregationalist); in 1823 the Virginia (Episcopalian) seminary at\nAlexandria; in 1824 the Union (Presbyterian) Seminary, also in Virginia,\nand the Unitarian seminary at Cambridge; in 1825 the Baptist seminary at\nNewton, Mass., and the German Reformed at York, Pa.; in 1826 the\nLutheran at Gettysburg; in 1827 the Baptist at Rock Spring, Ill. Thus,\nwithin a period of twenty years, seventeen theological schools had come\ninto existence where none had been known before. It was a swift and\nbeneficent revolution, and the revolution has never gone backward. In\n1880 were enumerated in the United States no less than one hundred and\nforty-two seminaries, representing all sects, orders, and schools of\ntheological opinion, employing five hundred and twenty-nine resident\nprofessors.[252:1]\n\nTo Andover, in the very first years of its great history, came Mills and\nothers of the little Williams College circle; and at once their\ninfectious enthusiasm for the advancement of the kingdom of God was felt\nthroughout the institution. The eager zeal of these young men brooked no\ndelay. In June, 1810, the General Association of Massachusetts met at\nthe neighboring town of Bradford; there four of the students, Judson,\nNott, Newell, and Hall, presented themselves and their cause; and at\nthat meeting was constituted the American Board of Commissioners for\nForeign Missions. The little faith of the churches shrank from the\nresponsibility of sustaining missionaries in the field, and Judson was\nsent to England to solicit the cooeperation of the London Missionary\nSociety. This effort happily failing, the burden came back upon the\nAmerican churches and was not refused. At last, in February, 1812, the\nfirst American missionaries to a foreign country, Messrs. Judson, Rice,\nNewell, Nott, and Hall, with their wives, sailed, in two parties, for\nCalcutta.\n\nAnd now befell an incident perplexing, embarrassing, and disheartening\nto the supporters of the mission, but attended with results for the\npromotion of the gospel to which their best wisdom never could have\nattained. Adoniram Judson, a graduate of Brown University, having spent\nthe long months at sea in the diligent and devout study of the\nScriptures, arrived at Calcutta fully persuaded of the truth of Baptist\nprinciples. His friend, Luther Rice, arriving by the other vessel, came\nby and by to the same conclusion; and the two, with their wives, were\nbaptized by immersion in the Baptist church at Calcutta. The\nannouncement of this news in America was an irresistible appeal to the\nalready powerful and rapidly growing Baptist denomination to assume the\nsupport of the two missionaries who now offered themselves to the\nservice of the Baptist churches. Rice returned to urge the appeal on\ntheir immediate attention, while Judson remained to enter on that noble\napostolate for which his praise is in all the churches.\n\nTo the widespread Baptist fellowship this sudden, unmistakable, and\nimperative providential summons to engage in the work of foreign\nmissions was (it is hardly too much to say) like life from the dead. The\nsect had doubled its numbers in the decade just passed, and was\nestimated to include two hundred thousand communicants, all \"baptized\nbelievers.\" But this multitude was without common organization, and,\nwhile abundantly endowed with sectarian animosities, was singularly\nlacking in a consciousness of common spiritual life. It was pervaded by\na deadly fatalism, which, under the guise of reverence for the will of\nGod, was openly pleaded as a reason for abstaining from effort and\nself-denial in the promotion of the gospel. Withal it was widely\ncharacterized not only by a lack of education in its ministry, but by a\nviolent and brutal opposition to a learned clergy, which was\nparticularly strange in a party the moiety of whose principles depends\non a point in Greek lexicology. It was to a party--we may not say a\nbody--deeply and widely affected by traits like these that the divine\ncall was to be presented and urged. The messenger was well fitted for\nhis work. To the zeal of a new convert to Baptist principles, and a\nmissionary fervor deepened by recent contact with idolatry in some of\nits most repulsive forms, Luther Rice united a cultivated eloquence and\na personal persuasiveness. Of course his first address was to pastors\nand congregations in the seaboard cities, unexcelled by any, of whatever\nname, for intelligent and reasonable piety; and here his task was easy\nand brief, for they were already of his mind. But the great mass of\nignorance and prejudice had also to be reckoned with. By a work in which\nthe influence of the divine Spirit was quite as manifest as in the\nconvulsive agitations of a camp-meeting, it was dealt with successfully.\nChurch history moved swiftly in those days. The news of the accession of\nJudson and Rice was received in January, 1813. In May, 1814, the General\nMissionary Convention of the Baptists was organized at Philadelphia,\nthirty-three delegates being present, from eleven different States. The\nConvention, which was to meet triennially, entered at once upon its\nwork. It became a vital center to the Baptist denomination. From it, at\nits second meeting, proceeded effective measures for the promotion of\neducation in the ministry, and, under the conviction that \"western as\nwell as eastern regions are given to the Son of God as an inheritance,\"\nlarge plans for home missions at the West.\n\nThus the great debt which the English Congregationalists had owed to the\nBaptists for heroic leadership in the work of foreign missions was\nrepaid with generous usury by the Congregationalists to the Baptists of\nAmerica. From this time forward the American Baptists came more and more\nto be felt as a salutary force in the religious life of the nation and\nthe world. But against what bitter and furious opposition on the part of\nthe ancient ignorance the new light had to struggle cannot easily be\nconceived by those who have only heard of the \"Hard-Shell Baptist\" as a\ncurious fossil of a prehistoric period.[255:1]\n\nThe American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions continued for\ntwenty-seven years to be the common organ of foreign missionary\noperations for the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, and the Dutch\nand German Reformed churches. In the year 1837 an official Presbyterian\nBoard of Missions was erected by the Old-School fragment of the\ndisrupted Presbyterian Church; and to this, when the two fragments were\nreunited, in 1869, the contributions of the New-School side began to be\ntransferred. In 1858 the Dutch church, and in 1879 the German church,\ninstituted their separate mission operations. Thus the initiative of the\nAndover students in 1810 resulted in the erection, not of one mission\nboard, timidly venturing to set five missionaries in the foreign field,\nbut of five boards, whose total annual resources are counted by millions\nof dollars, whose evangelists, men and women, American and foreign-born,\nare a great army, and whose churches, schools, colleges, theological\nseminaries, hospitals, printing-presses, with the other equipments of a\nChristian civilization, and the myriads of whose faithful Christian\nconverts, in every country under the whole heaven, have done more for\nthe true honor of our nation than all that it has achieved in diplomacy\nand war.[255:2]\n\nThe Episcopalians entered on foreign mission work in 1819, and the\nMethodists, tardily but at last with signal efficiency and success, in\n1832. No considerable sect of American Christians at the present day is\nunrepresented in the foreign field.\n\nIn order to complete the history of this organizing era in the church,\nwe must return to the humble but memorable figure of Samuel J. Mills. It\nwas his characteristic word to one of his fellows, as they stood ready\nto leave the seclusion of the seminary for active service, \"You and I,\nbrother, are little men, but before we die, our influence must be felt\non the other side of the world.\" No one claimed that he was other than a\n\"little man,\" except as he was filled and possessed with a great\nthought, and that the thought that filled the mind of Christ--the\nthought of the Coming Age and of the Reign of God on earth.[256:1] While\nhis five companions were sailing for the remotest East, Mills plunged\ninto the depth of the western wilderness, and between 1812 and 1815, in\ntwo toilsome journeys, traversed the Great Valley as far as New Orleans,\ndeeply impressed everywhere with the famine of the word, and laboring,\nin cooeperation with local societies at the East, to provide for the\nuniversal want by the sale or gift of Bibles and the organization of\nBible societies. After his second return he proposed the organization of\nthe American Bible Society, which was accomplished in 1816.\n\nBut already this nobly enterprising mind was intent on a new plan, of\nmost far-reaching importance, not original with himself, but, on the\ncontrary, long familiar to those who studied the extension of the church\nand pondered the indications of God's providential purposes. The\nearliest attempt in America toward the propagation of the gospel in\nforeign lands would seem to have been the circular letter sent out by\nthe neighbor pastors, Samuel Hopkins and Ezra Stiles, in the year 1773,\nfrom Newport, chief seat of the slave-trade, asking contributions for\nthe education of two colored men as missionaries to their native\ncontinent of Africa. To many generous minds at once, in this era of\ngreat Christian enterprises, the thought recurred of vast blessings to\nbe wrought for the Dark Continent by the agency of colored men\nChristianized, civilized, and educated in America. Good men reverently\nhoped to see in this triumphant solution of the mystery of divine\nprovidence in permitting the curse of African slavery, through the cruel\ngreed of men, to be inflicted on the American republic. In 1816 Mills\nsuccessfully pressed upon the Presbyterian \"Synod of New York and New\nJersey\" a plan for educating Christian men of color for the work of the\ngospel in their fatherland. That same year, in cooeperation with an\nearnest philanthropist, Dr. Robert Finley, of New Jersey, he aided in\nthe instituting of the American Colonization Society. In 1817 he sailed,\nin company with a colleague, the Rev. Ebenezer Burgess, to explore the\ncoast of Africa in search of the best site for a colony. On the return\nvoyage he died, and his body was committed to the sea: a \"little man,\"\nto whom were granted only five years of what men call \"active life\"; but\nhe had fulfilled his vow, and the ends of the earth had felt his\ninfluence for the advancement of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.\nThe enterprise of African colonization, already dear to Christian hearts\nfor the hopes that it involved of the redemption of a lost continent,\nof the elevation of an oppressed race in America, of the emancipation of\nslaves and the abolition of slavery, received a new consecration as the\nobject of the dying labors and prayers of Mills. It was associated, in\nthe minds of good men, not only with plans for the conversion of the\nheathen, and with the tide of antislavery sentiment now spreading and\ndeepening both at the South and at the North, but also with \"Clarkson\nsocieties\" and other local organizations, in many different places, for\nthe moral and physical elevation of the free colored people from the\npitiable degradation in which they were commonly living in the larger\ntowns. Altogether the watchmen on the walls of Zion saw no fairer sign\nof dawn, in that second decade of the nineteenth century, than the\nhopeful lifting of the cloud from Africa, the brightening prospects of\nthe free negroes of the United States, and the growing hope of the\nabolition of American slavery.[258:1]\n\nOther societies, national in their scope and constituency, the origin of\nwhich belongs in this organizing period, are the American Education\nSociety (1815), the American Sunday-school Union (1824), the American\nTract Society (1825), the Seamen's Friend Society (1826), and the\nAmerican Home Missionary Society (1826), in which last the\nCongregationalists of New England cooeperated with the Presbyterians on\nthe basis of a Plan of Union entered into between the General Assembly\nand the General Association of Connecticut, the tendency of which was to\nreinforce the Presbyterian Church with the numbers and the vigor of the\nNew England westward migration. Of course the establishment of these and\nother societies for beneficent work outside of sectarian lines did not\nhinder, but rather stimulated, sectarian organizations for the like\nobjects. The whole American church, in all its orders, was girding\nitself for a work, at home and abroad, the immense grandeur of which no\nman of that generation could possibly have foreseen.\n\nThe grandeur of this work was to consist not only in the results of it,\nbut in the resources of it. As never before, the sympathies, prayers,\nand personal cooeperation of all Christians, even the feeblest, were to\nbe combined and utilized for enterprises coextensive with the continent\nand the world and taking hold on eternity. The possibilities of the new\nera were dazzling to the prophetic imagination. A young minister then\nstanding on the threshold of a long career exulted in the peculiar and\nexcelling glory of the dawning day:\n\n     \"Surely, if it is the noblest attribute of our nature that\n     spreads out the circle of our sympathies to include the whole\n     family of man, and sends forth our affections to embrace the\n     ages of a distant futurity, it must be regarded as a privilege\n     no less exalted that our means of _doing_ good are limited by\n     no remoteness of country or distance of duration, but we may\n     operate, if we will, to assuage the miseries of another\n     hemisphere, or to prevent the necessities of an unborn\n     generation. The time has been when a man might weep over the\n     wrongs of Africa, and he might look forward to weep over the\n     hopelessness of her degradation, till his heart should bleed;\n     and yet his tears would be all that he could give her. He\n     might relieve the beggar at his door, but he could do nothing\n     for a dying continent. He might provide for his children, but\n     he could do nothing for the nations that were yet to be born\n     to an inheritance of utter wretchedness. Then the privilege of\n     engaging in schemes of magnificent benevolence belonged only\n     to princes and to men of princely possessions; but now the\n     progress of improvement has brought down this privilege to the\n     reach of every individual. The institutions of our age are a\n     republic of benevolence, and all may share in the unrestrained\n     and equal democracy. This privilege is ours. We may stretch\n     forth our hand, if we will, to enlighten the Hindu or to tame\n     the savage of the wilderness. It is ours, if we will, to put\n     forth our contributions and thus to operate not ineffectually\n     for the relief and renovation of a continent over which one\n     tide of misery has swept without ebb and without restraint for\n     unremembered centuries. It is ours, if we will, to do\n     something that shall tell on all the coming ages of a race\n     which has been persecuted and enslaved, trodden down and\n     despised, for a thousand generations. Our Father has made us\n     the almoners of his love. He has raised us to partake, as it\n     were, in the ubiquity of his own beneficence. Shall we be\n     unworthy of the trust? God forbid!\"[260:1]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[247:1] \"Life of David Bacon,\" by his son (Boston, 1876).\n\n[249:1] Compare the claim of priority for the Dutch church, p. 81,\n_note_.\n\n[250:1] J. H. Allen, \"The Unitarians,\" p. 194.\n\n[250:2] \"Autobiography of L. Beecher,\" p. 110.\n\n[252:1] \"Herzog-Schaff Encyclopedia,\" pp. 2328-2331.\n\n[255:1] \"The Baptists,\" by Dr. A. H. Newman, pp. 379-442.\n\n[255:2] I have omitted from this list of results in the direct line from\nthe inception at Andover, in 1810, the American Missionary Association.\nIt owed its origin, in 1846, to the dissatisfaction felt by a\nconsiderable number of the supporters of the American Board with the\nattitude of that institution on some of the questions arising\nincidentally to the antislavery discussion. Its foreign missions, never\nextensive, were transferred to other hands, at the close of the Civil\nWar, that it might devote itself wholly to its great and successful work\namong \"the oppressed races\" at home.\n\n[256:1] It may be worth considering how far the course of religious and\ntheological thought would have been modified if the English New\nTestament had used these phrases instead of _World to Come_ and _Kingdom\nof God_.\n\n[258:1] The colored Baptists of Richmond entered eagerly into the\nColonization project, and in 1822 their \"African Missionary Society\"\nsent out its mission to the young colony of Liberia. One of their\nmissionaries was the Rev. Lott Cary, the dignity of whose character and\ncareer was an encouragement of his people in their highest aspirations,\nand a confirmation of the hopes of their friends (Newman, \"The\nBaptists,\" p. 402; Gurley, \"Life of Ashmun,\" pp. 147-160).\n\n[260:1] Leonard Bacon, \"A Plea for Africa,\" in the Park Street Church,\nBoston, July 4, 1824.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nCONFLICTS OF THE CHURCH WITH PUBLIC WRONGS.\n\n\nThe transition from establishment to the voluntary system for the\nsupport of churches was made not without some difficulty, but with\nsurprisingly little. In the South the established churches were\npractically dead before the laws establishing them were repealed and the\nendowments disposed of. In New York the Episcopalian churches were\nindeed depressed and discouraged by the ceasing of State support and\nofficial patronage; and inasmuch as these, with the subsidies of the \"S.\nP. G.,\" had been their main reliance, it was inevitable that they should\npass through a period of prostration until the appreciation of their\nlarge endowments, and the progress of immigration and of conversion from\nother sects, and especially the awakening of religious earnestness and\nof sectarian ambition.\n\nIn New England the transition to the voluntary system was more gradual.\nNot till 1818 in Connecticut, and in Massachusetts not till 1834, was\nthe last strand of connection severed between the churches of the\nstanding order and the state, and the churches left solely to their own\nresources. The exaltation and divine inspiration that had come to these\nchurches with the revivals which from the end of the eighteenth century\nwere never for a long time intermitted, and the example of the\ndissenting congregations, Baptist, Episcopalian, and Methodist,\nsuccessfully self-supported among them, made it easy for them,\nnotwithstanding the misgivings of many good men, not only to assume the\nentire burden of their own expenses, but with this to undertake and\ncarry forward great and costly enterprises of charity reaching to the\nbounds of the country and of the inhabited earth. It is idle to claim\nthat the American system is at no disadvantage in comparison with that\nwhich elsewhere prevails almost throughout Christendom; but it may be\nsafely asserted that the danger that has been most emphasized as a\nwarning against the voluntary system has not attended this system in\nAmerica. The fear that a clergy supported by the free gifts of the\npeople would prove subservient and truckling to the hand by which it is\nfed has been proved groundless. Of course there have been time-servers\nin the American ministry, as in every other; but flagrant instances of\nthe abasement of a whole body of clergy before the power that holds the\npurse and controls promotion are to be sought in the old countries\nrather than the new. Even selfish motives would operate against this\ntemptation, since it has often been demonstrated that the people will\nnot sustain a ministry which it suspects of the vice of subserviency.\nThe annals of no established church can show such unsparing fidelity of\nthe ministry in rebuking the sins of people and of rulers in the name of\nthe Lord, as that which has been, on the whole, characteristic of the\nChristian ministers of the United States.\n\nAmong the conflicts of the American church with public wrongs strongly\nintrenched in law or social usage, two are of such magnitude and\nprotracted through so long a period as to demand special\nconsideration--the conflict with drunkenness and the conflict with\nslavery. Some less conspicuous illustrations of the fidelity of the\nchurch in the case of public and popular sins may be more briefly\nreferred to.\n\nThe death of Alexander Hamilton, in July, 1804, in a duel with Aaron\nBurr, occasioned a wide and violent outburst of indignation against the\nmurderer, now a fugitive and outcast, for the dastardly malignity of the\ndetails of his crime, and for the dignity and generosity as well as the\npublic worth of his victim. This was the sort of explosion of excited\npublic feeling which often loses itself in the air. It was a different\nmatter when the churches and ministers of Christ took up the affair in\nthe light of the law of God, and, dealing not with the circumstances but\nwith the essence of it, pressed it inexorably on the conscience of the\npeople. Some of the most memorable words in American literature were\nuttered on this occasion, notwithstanding that there were few\ncongregations in which there were not sore consciences to be irritated\nor political anxieties to be set quaking by them. The names of Eliphalet\nNott and John M. Mason were honorably conspicuous in this work. But one\nunknown young man of thirty, in a corner of Long Island, uttered words\nin his little country meeting-house that pricked the conscience of the\nnation. The words of Lyman Beecher on this theme may well be quoted as\nbeing a part of history, for the consequences that followed them.\n\n     \"Dueling is a great national sin. With the exception of a\n     small section of the Union, the whole land is defiled with\n     blood. From the lakes of the North to the plains of Georgia is\n     heard the voice of lamentation and woe--the cries of the widow\n     and fatherless. This work of desolation is performed often by\n     men in office, by the appointed guardians of life and liberty.\n     On the floor of Congress challenges have been threatened, if\n     not given, and thus powder and ball have been introduced as\n     the auxiliaries of deliberation and argument.... We are\n     murderers--a nation of murderers--while we tolerate and reward\n     the perpetrators of the crime.\"\n\nWords such as these resounding from pulpit after pulpit, multiplied and\ndisseminated by means of the press, acted on by representative bodies of\nchurches, becoming embodied in anti-dueling societies, exorcised the\nfoul spirit from the land. The criminal folly of dueling did not,\nindeed, at once and altogether cease. Instances of it continue to be\nheard of to this day. But the conscience of the nation was instructed,\nand a warning was served upon political parties to beware of proposing\nfor national honors men whose hands were defiled with blood.[264:1]\n\nAnother instance of the fidelity of the church in resistance to public\nwrong was its action in the matter of the dealing of the State of\nGeorgia and the national government toward the Georgia Indians. This is\nno place for the details of the shameful story of perfidy and\noppression. It is well told by Helen Hunt Jackson in the melancholy\npages of \"A Century of Dishonor.\" The wrongs inflicted on the Cherokee\nnation were deepened by every conceivable aggravation.\n\n     \"In the whole history of our government's dealings with the\n     Indian tribes there is no record so black as the record of its\n     perfidy to this nation. There will come a time in the remote\n     future when to the student of American history it will seem\n     well-nigh incredible. From the beginning of the century they\n     had been steadily advancing in civilization. As far back as\n     1800 they had begun the manufacture of cotton cloth, and in\n     1820 there was scarcely a family in that part of the nation\n     living east of the Mississippi but what understood the use of\n     the card and spinning-wheel. Every family had its farm under\n     cultivation. The territory was laid off into districts, with a\n     council-house, a judge, and a marshal in each district. A\n     national committee and council were the supreme authority in\n     the nation. Schools were flourishing in all the villages.\n     Printing-presses were at work.... They were enthusiastic in\n     their efforts to establish and perfect their own system of\n     jurisprudence. Missions of several sects were established in\n     their country, and a large number of them had professed\n     Christianity and were leading exemplary lives. There is no\n     instance in all history of a race of people passing in so\n     short a space of time from the barbarous stage to the\n     agricultural and civilized.\"[265:1]\n\nWe do well to give authentic details of the condition of the Cherokee\nnation in the early part of the century, for the advanced happy and\npeaceful civilization of this people was one of the fairest fruits of\nAmerican Christianity working upon exceptionally noble race-qualities in\nthe recipients of it. An agent of the War Department in 1825 made\nofficial report to the Department on the rare beauty of the Cherokee\ncountry, secured to them by the most sacred pledges with which it was\npossible for the national government to bind itself, and covered by the\ninhabitants, through their industry and thrift, with flocks and herds,\nwith farms and villages; and goes on to speak of the Indians themselves:\n\n     \"The natives carry on considerable trade with the adjoining\n     States; some of them export cotton in boats down the Tennessee\n     to the Mississippi, and down that river to New Orleans. Apple\n     and peach orchards are quite common, and gardens are\n     cultivated and much attention paid to them. Butter and cheese\n     are seen on Cherokee tables. There are many public roads in\n     the nation, and houses of entertainment kept by natives.\n     Numerous and flourishing villages are seen in every section of\n     the country. Cotton and woolen cloths are manufactured;\n     blankets of various dimensions, manufactured by Cherokee\n     hands, are very common. Almost every family in the nation\n     grows cotton for its own consumption. Industry and commercial\n     enterprise are extending themselves in every part. Nearly all\n     the merchants in the nation are native Cherokees. Agricultural\n     pursuits engage the chief attention of the people. Different\n     branches in mechanics are pursued. The population is rapidly\n     increasing.... The Christian religion is the religion of the\n     nation. Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Moravians are\n     the most numerous sects. Some of the most influential\n     characters are members of the church and live consistently\n     with their professions. The whole nation is penetrated with\n     gratitude for the aid it has received from the United States\n     government and from different religious societies. Schools are\n     increasing every year; learning is encouraged and rewarded;\n     the young class acquire the English and those of mature age\n     the Cherokee system of learning.\"[266:1]\n\nThis country, enriched by the toil and thrift of its owners, the State\nof Georgia resolved not merely to subjugate to its jurisdiction, but to\nsteal from its rightful and lawful owners, driving them away as outlaws.\nAs a sure expedient for securing popular consent to the intended infamy,\nthe farms of the Cherokees were parceled out to be drawn for in a\nlottery, and the lottery tickets distributed among the white voters.\nThus fortified, the brave State of Georgia went to all lengths of\noutrage. \"Missionaries were arrested and sent to prison for preaching to\nCherokees; Cherokees were sentenced to death by Georgia courts and hung\nby Georgia executioners.\" But the great crime could not be achieved\nwithout the connivance, and at last the active consent, of the national\ngovernment. Should this consent be given? Never in American history has\nthe issue been more squarely drawn between the kingdom of Satan and the\nkingdom of Christ. American Christianity was most conspicuously\nrepresented in this conflict by an eminent layman, Jeremiah Evarts,\nwhose fame for this public service, and not for this alone, will in the\nlapse of time outshine even that of his illustrious son. In a series of\narticles in the \"National Intelligencer,\" under the signature of\n\"William Penn,\" he cited the sixteen treaties in which the nation had\npledged its faith to defend the Cherokees in the possession of their\nlands, and set the whole case before the people as well as the\ngovernment. But his voice was not solitary. From press and pulpit and\nfrom the platforms of public meetings all over the country came\npetitions, remonstrances, and indignant protests, reinforcing the\npathetic entreaties of the Cherokees themselves to be protected from the\ncruelty that threatened to tear them from their homes. In Congress the\nhonor of leadership among many faithful and able advocates of right and\njustice was conceded to Theodore Frelinghuysen, then in the prime of a\ngreat career of Christian service. By the majority of one vote the bill\nfor the removal of the Cherokees passed the United States Senate. The\ngates of hell triumphed for a time with a fatal exultation. The authors\nand abettors of the great crime were confirmed in their delusion that\nthreats of disunion and rebellion could be relied on to carry any\ndesired point. But the mills of God went on grinding. Thirty years\nlater, when in the battle of Missionary Ridge the chivalry of Georgia\nwent down before the army that represented justice and freedom and the\nauthority of national law, the vanquished and retreating soldiers of a\nlost cause could not be accused of superstition if they remembered that\nthe scene of their humiliating defeat had received its name from the\nmartyrdom of Christian missionaries at the hands of their fathers.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn earlier pages we have already traced the succession of bold protests\nand organized labors on the part of church and clergy against the\ninstitution of slavery.[268:1] If protest and argument against it seem\nto be less frequent in the early years of the new century, it is only\nbecause debate must needs languish when there is no antagonist. Slavery\nhad at that time no defenders in the church. No body of men in 1818 more\nunmistakably represented the Christian citizenship of the whole country,\nNorth, South, and West, outside of New England, than the General\nAssembly of the then undivided Presbyterian Church. In that year the\nAssembly set forth a full and unanimous expression of its sentiments on\nthe subject of slavery, addressed \"to the churches and people under its\ncare.\" This monumental document is too long to be cited here in full.\nThe opening paragraphs of it exhibit the universally accepted sentiment\nof American Christians of that time:\n\n     \"We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human\n     race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and\n     sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with\n     the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as\n     ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and\n     principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoin that 'all\n     things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye\n     even so to them.' Slavery creates a paradox in the moral\n     system. It exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings\n     in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of\n     moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of\n     others whether they shall receive religious instruction;\n     whether they shall know and worship the true God; whether they\n     shall enjoy the ordinances of the gospel; whether they shall\n     perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and\n     wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether\n     they shall preserve their chastity and purity or regard the\n     dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the\n     consequences of slavery--consequences not imaginary, but which\n     connect themselves with its very existence. The evils to which\n     the slave is _always_ exposed often take place in fact, and in\n     their worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take\n     place, as we rejoice to say that in many instances, through\n     the influence of the principles of humanity and religion on\n     the minds of masters, they do not, still the slave is deprived\n     of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed\n     to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may\n     inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which\n     inhumanity and avarice may suggest.\n\n     \"From this view of the consequences resulting from the\n     practice into which Christian people have most inconsistently\n     fallen of enslaving a portion of their _brethren_ of\n     mankind,--for 'God hath made of one blood all nations of men\n     to dwell on the face of the earth,'--it is manifestly the duty\n     of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when\n     the inconsistency of slavery both with the dictates of\n     humanity and religion has been demonstrated and is generally\n     seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest, and\n     unwearied endeavors to correct the errors of former times, and\n     as speedily as possible to efface this blot on our holy\n     religion and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery\n     throughout Christendom, and if possible throughout the world.\"\n\nIt was not strange that while sentiments like these prevailed without\ncontradiction in all parts of the country, while in State after State\nemancipations were taking place and acts of abolition were passing, and\neven in the States most deeply involved in slavery \"a great, and the\nmost virtuous, part of the community abhorred slavery and wished its\nextermination,\"[270:1] there should seem to be little call for debate.\nBut that the antislavery spirit in the churches was not dead was\ndemonstrated with the first occasion.\n\nIn the spring of 1820, at the close of two years of agitating\ndiscussion, the new State of Missouri was admitted to the Union as a\nslave State, although with the stipulation that the remaining territory\nof the United States north of the parallel of latitude bounding Missouri\non the south should be consecrated forever to freedom. The opposition to\nthis extension of slavery was taken up by American Christianity as its\nown cause. It was the impending danger of such an extension that\nprompted that powerful and unanimous declaration of the Presbyterian\nGeneral Assembly in 1818. The arguments against the Missouri bill,\nwhether in the debates of Congress or in countless memorials and\nresolutions from public meetings both secular and religious, were\narguments from justice and duty and the law of Christ. These were met by\nconstitutional objections and considerations of expediency and\nconvenience, and by threats of disunion and civil war. The defense of\nslavery on principle had not yet begun to be heard, even among\npoliticians.\n\nThe successful extension of slavery beyond the Mississippi River was\ndisheartening to the friends of justice and humanity, but only for the\nmoment. Already, before the two years' conflict had been decided by \"the\nMissouri Compromise,\" a powerful series of articles by that great\nreligious leader, Jeremiah Evarts, in the \"Panoplist\" (Boston, 1820),\nrallied the forces of the church to renew the battle. The decade that\nopened with that defeat is distinguished as a period of sustained\nantislavery activity on the part of the united Christian citizenship of\nthe nation in all quarters.[271:1] In New England the focus of\nantislavery effort was perhaps the theological seminary at Andover.\nThere the leading question among the students in their \"Society of\nInquiry concerning Missions\" was the question, what could be done, and\nespecially what _they_ could do, for the uplifting of the colored\npopulation of the country, both the enslaved and the free. Measures were\nconcerted there for the founding of \"an African college where youth were\nto be educated on a scale so liberal as to place them on a level with\nother men\";[271:2] and the plan was not forgotten or neglected by these\nyoung men when from year to year they came into places of effective\ninfluence. With eminent fitness the Fourth of July was taken as an\nantislavery holiday, and into various towns within reach from Andover\ntheir most effective speakers went forth to give antislavery addresses\non that day. Beginning with the Fourth of July, 1823, the annual\nantislavery address at Park Street Church, Boston, before several united\nchurches of that city, continued for the rest of that decade at least\nto be an occasion for earnest appeal and practical effort in behalf of\nthe oppressed. Neither was the work of the young men circumscribed by\nnarrow local boundaries. The report of their committee, in the year\n1823, on \"The Condition of the Black Population of the United States,\"\ncould hardly be characterized as timid in its utterances on the moral\ncharacter of American slavery. A few lines will indicate the tone of it\nin this respect:\n\n     \"Excepting only the horrible system of the West India Islands,\n     we have never heard of slavery in any country, ancient or\n     modern, pagan, Mohammedan, or Christian, so terrible in its\n     character, so pernicious in its tendency, so remediless in its\n     anticipated results, as the slavery which exists in these\n     United States.... When we use the strong language which we\n     feel ourselves compelled to use in relation to this subject,\n     we do not mean to speak of animal suffering, but of an immense\n     moral and political evil.... In regard to its influence on the\n     white population the most lamentable proof of its\n     deteriorating effects may be found in the fact that, excepting\n     the pious, whose hearts are governed by the Christian law of\n     reciprocity between man and man, and the wise, whose minds\n     have looked far into the relations and tendencies of things,\n     none can be found to lift their voices against a system so\n     utterly repugnant to the feelings of unsophisticated\n     humanity--a system which permits all the atrocities of the\n     domestic slave trade--which permits the father to sell his\n     children as he would his cattle--a system which consigns one\n     half of the community to hopeless and utter degradation, and\n     which threatens in its final catastrophe to bring down the\n     same ruin on the master and the slave.\"[272:1]\n\nThe historical value of the paper from which these brief extracts are\ngiven, as illustrating the attitude of the church at the time, is\nenhanced by the use that was made of it. Published in the form of a\nreview article in a magazine of national circulation, the recognized\norgan of the orthodox Congregationalists, it was republished in a\npamphlet for gratuitous distribution and extensively circulated in New\nEngland by the agency of the Andover students. It was also republished\nat Richmond, Va. Other laborers at the East in the same cause were\nJoshua Leavitt, Bela B. Edwards, and Eli Smith, afterward illustrious as\na missionary,[273:1] and Ralph Randolph Gurley, secretary of the\nColonization Society, whose edition of the powerful and uncompromising\nsermon of the younger Edwards on \"The Injustice and Impolicy of the\nSlave Trade and of the Slavery of the Africans\" was published at Boston\nfor circulation at the South, in hopes of promoting the universal\nabolition of slavery. The list might be indefinitely extended to include\nthe foremost names in the church in that period. There was no adverse\nparty.\n\nAt the West an audacious movement of the slavery extension politicians,\nflushed with their success in Missouri, to introduce slavery into\nIllinois, Indiana, and even Ohio, was defeated largely by the aid of the\nBaptist and Methodist clergy, many of whom had been southern men and had\nexperienced the evils of the system.[273:2] In Kentucky and Tennessee\nthe abolition movement was led more distinctively by the Presbyterians\nand the Quakers. It was a bold effort to procure the manumission of\nslaves and the repeal of the slave code in those States by the agreement\nof the citizens. The character of the movement is indicated in the\nconstitution of the \"Moral Religious Manumission Society of West\nTennessee,\" which declares that slavery \"exceeds any other crime in\nmagnitude\" and is \"the greatest act of practical infidelity,\" and that\n\"the gospel of Christ, if believed, would remove personal slavery at\nonce by destroying the will in the tyrant to enslave.\"[274:1] A like\nmovement in North Carolina and in Maryland, at the same time, attained\nto formidable dimensions. The state of sentiment in Virginia may be\njudged from the fact that so late as December, 1831, in the memorable\ndebate in the legislature on a proposal for the abolition of slavery, a\nleading speaker, denouncing slavery as \"the most pernicious of all the\nevils with which the body politic can be afflicted,\" could say,\nundisputed, \"_By none is this position denied_, if we except the erratic\nJohn Randolph.\"[274:2] The conflict in Virginia at that critical time\nwas between Christian principle and wise statesmanship on the one hand,\nand on the other hand selfish interest and ambition, and the prevailing\nterror resulting from a recent servile insurrection. Up to this time\nthere appears no sign of any division in the church on this subject.\nNeither was there any sectional division; the opponents of slavery,\nwhether at the North or at the South, were acting in the interest of the\ncommon country, and particularly in the interest of the States that were\nstill afflicted with slavery. But a swift change was just impending.\n\nWe have already recognized the Methodist organization as the effective\npioneer of systematic abolitionism in America.[275:1] The Baptists, also\nhaving their main strength in the southern States, were early and\nemphatic in condemning the institutions by which they were\nsurrounded.[275:2] But all the sects found themselves embarrassed by\nserious difficulties when it came to the practical application of the\nprinciples and rules which they enunciated. The exacting of \"immediate\nemancipation\" as a condition of fellowship in the ministry or communion\nin the church, and the popular cries of \"No fellowship with\nslave-holders,\" and \"Slave-holding always and every where a sin,\" were\nfound practically to conflict with frequent undeniable and stubborn\nfacts. The cases in which conscientious Christians found themselves, by\nno fault of their own, invested by inhuman laws with an absolute\nauthority over helpless fellow-men, which it would not be right for them\nsuddenly to abdicate, were not few nor unimportant.[275:3] In dealing\nwith such cases several different courses were open to the church: (1)\nTo execute discipline rigorously according to the formula, on the\nprinciple, Be rid of the tares at all hazards; never mind the wheat.\nThis course was naturally favored by some of the minor Presbyterian\nsects, and was apt to be vigorously urged by zealous people living at a\ndistance and not well acquainted with details of fact. (2) To attempt to\nprovide for all cases by stated exceptions and saving clauses. This\ncourse was entered on by the Methodist Church, but without success. (3)\nDiscouraged by the difficulties, to let go all discipline. This was the\npoint reached at last by most of the southern churches. (4) Clinging to\nthe formulas, \"Immediate emancipation,\" \"No communion with\nslave-holders,\" so to \"palter in a double sense\" with the words as to\nevade the meaning of them. According to this method, slave-holding did\nnot consist in the holding of slaves, but in holding them with evil\npurpose and wrong treatment; a slave who was held for his own advantage,\nreceiving from his master \"that which is just and equal,\" was said, in\nthis dialect, to be \"morally emancipated.\" This was the usual expedient\nof a large and respectable party of antislavery Christians at the North,\nwhen their principle of \"no communion with slave-holders\" brought them\nto the seeming necessity of excommunicating an unquestionably Christian\nbrother for doing an undeniable duty. (5) To lay down, broadly and\nexplicitly, the principles of Christian morality governing the subject,\nleaving the application of them in individual cases to the individual\nchurch or church-member. This was the course exemplified with admirable\nwisdom and fidelity in the Presbyterian \"deliverance\" of 1818. (6) To\nmeet the postulate, laid down with so much assurance, as if an axiom,\nthat \"slave-holding is always and everywhere a sin, to be immediately\nrepented of and forsaken,\" with a flat and square contradiction, as\nbeing irreconcilable with facts and with the judgment of the Christian\nScriptures; and thus to condemn and oppose to the utmost the system of\nslavery, without imputing the guilt of it to persons involved in it by\nno fault of their own. This course commended itself to many lucid and\nlogical minds and honest consciences, including some of the most\nconsistent and effective opponents of slavery. (7) Still another course\nmust be mentioned, which, absurd as it seems, was actually pursued by a\nfew headlong reformers, who showed in various ways a singular alacrity\nat playing into the hands of their adversaries. It consisted in\nenunciating in the most violent and untenable form and the most\noffensive language the proposition that all slave-holding is sin and\nevery slave-holder a criminal, and making the whole attack on slavery to\nturn on this weak pivot and fail if this failed. The argument of this\nsort of abolitionist was: If there can be found anywhere a good man\nholding a bond-servant unselfishly, kindly, and for good reason\njustifiably, then the system of American slavery is right.[277:1] It is\nnot strange that men in the southern churches, being offered such an\nargument ready made to their hand, should promptly accept both the\npremiss and the conclusion, and that so at last there should begin to be\na pro-slavery party in the American church.\n\nThe disastrous epoch of the beginning of what has been called \"the\nsouthern apostasy\" from the universal moral sentiment of Christendom on\nthe subject of slavery may be dated at about the year 1833. A year\nearlier began to be heard those vindications on political grounds of\nwhat had just been declared in the legislature of Virginia to be by\ncommon consent the most pernicious of political evils--vindications\nwhich continued for thirty years to invite the wonder of the civilized\nworld. When (about 1833) a Presbyterian minister in Mississippi, the\nRev. James Smylie, made the \"discovery,\" which \"surprised himself,\" that\nthe system of American slavery was sanctioned and approved by the\nScriptures as good and righteous, he found that his brethren in the\nPresbyterian ministry at the extreme South were not only surprised, but\nshocked and offended, at the proposition.[278:1] And yet such was the\nswift progress of this innovation that in surprisingly few years, we\nmight almost say months, it had become not only prevalent, but violently\nand exclusively dominant in the church of the southern States, with the\npartial exception of Kentucky and Tennessee. It would be difficult to\nfind a precedent in history for so sudden and sweeping a change of\nsentiment on a leading doctrine of moral theology. Dissent from the\nnovel dogma was suppressed with more than inquisitorial rigor. It was\nless perilous to hold Protestant opinions in Spain or Austria than to\nhold, in Carolina or Alabama, the opinions which had but lately been\ncommended to universal acceptance by the unanimous voice of great\nreligious bodies, and proclaimed as undisputed principles by leading\nstatesmen. It became one of the accepted evidences of Christianity at\nthe South that infidelity failed to offer any justification for American\nslavery equal to that derived from the Christian Scriptures. That\neminent leader among the Lutheran clergy, the Rev. Dr. Bachman, of\nCharleston, referred \"that unexampled unanimity of sentiment that now\nexists in the whole South on the subject of slavery\" to the confidence\nfelt by the religious public in the Bible defense of slavery as set\nforth by clergymen and laymen in sermons and pamphlets and speeches in\nCongress.[278:2]\n\nThe historian may not excuse himself from the task of inquiring into the\ncause of this sudden and immense moral revolution. The explanation\noffered by Dr. Bachman is the very thing that needs to be explained.\nHow came the Christian public throughout the slave-holding States, which\nso short a time before had been unanimous in finding in the Bible the\ncondemnation of their slavery, to find all at once in the Bible the\ndivine sanction and defense of it as a wise, righteous, and permanent\ninstitution? Doubtless there was mixture of influences in bringing about\nthe result. The immense advance in the market value of slaves consequent\non Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin had its unconscious effect on\nthe moral judgments of some. The furious vituperations of a very small\nbut noisy faction of antislavery men added something to the swift\ncurrent of public opinion. But demonstrably the chief cause of this\nsudden change of religious opinion--one of the most remarkable in the\nhistory of the church--was panic terror. In August, 1831, a servile\ninsurrection in Virginia, led by a crazy negro, Nat Turner by name, was\nfollowed (as always in such cases) by bloody vengeance on the part of\nthe whites.\n\n     \"The Southampton insurrection, occurring at a time when the\n     price of slaves was depressed in consequence of a depression\n     in the price of cotton, gave occasion to a sudden development\n     of opposition to slavery in the legislature of Virginia. A\n     measure for the prospective abolition of the institution in\n     that ancient commonwealth was proposed, earnestly debated,\n     eloquently urged, and at last defeated, with a minority\n     ominously large in its favor. Warned by so great a peril, and\n     strengthened soon afterward by an increase in the market value\n     of cotton and of slaves, the slave-holding interest in all the\n     South was stimulated to new activity. Defenses of slavery more\n     audacious than had been heard before began to be uttered by\n     southern politicians at home and by southern representatives\n     and senators in Congress. A panic seized upon the planters in\n     some districts of the Southwest. Conspiracies and plans of\n     insurrection were discovered. Negroes were tortured or\n     terrified into confessions. Obnoxious white men were put to\n     death without any legal trial and in defiance of those rules\n     of evidence which are insisted on by southern laws. Thus a\n     sudden and convincing terror was spread through the South.\n     Every man was made to know that if he should become obnoxious\n     to the guardians of the great southern 'institution' he was\n     liable to be denounced and murdered. It was distinctly and\n     imperatively demanded that nobody should be allowed to say\n     anything anywhere against slavery. The movement of the\n     societies which had then been recently formed at Boston and\n     New York, with 'Immediate abolition' for their motto, was made\n     use of to stimulate the terror and the fury of the South....\n     The position of political parties and of candidates for the\n     Presidency, just at that juncture, gave special advantage to\n     the agitators--an advantage that was not neglected. Everything\n     was done that practiced demagogues could contrive to stimulate\n     the South into a frenzy and to put down at once and forever\n     all opposition to slavery. The clergy and the religious bodies\n     were summoned to the patriotic duty of committing themselves\n     on the side of 'southern institutions.' Just then it was, if\n     we mistake not, that their apostasy began. They dared not say\n     that slavery as an institution in the State is essentially an\n     organized injustice, and that, though the Scriptures rightly\n     and wisely enjoin justice and the recognition of the slaves'\n     brotherhood upon masters, and conscientious meekness upon\n     slaves, the organized injustice of the institution ought to be\n     abolished by the shortest process consistent with the public\n     safety and the welfare of the enslaved. They dared not even\n     keep silence under the plea that the institution is political\n     and therefore not to be meddled with by religious bodies or\n     religious persons. They yielded to the demand. They were\n     carried along in the current of the popular frenzy; they\n     joined in the clamor, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians;' they\n     denounced the fanaticism of abolition and permitted\n     themselves to be understood as certifying, in the name of\n     religion and of Christ, that the entire institution of slavery\n     'as it exists' is chargeable with no injustice and is\n     warranted by the word of God.\"[281:1]\n\nThere is no good reason to question the genuineness and sincerity of the\nfears expressed by the slave-holding population as a justification of\ntheir violent measures for the suppression of free speech in relation to\nslavery; nor of their belief that the papers and prints actively\ndisseminated from the antislavery press in Boston were fitted, if not\ndistinctly intended, to kindle bloody insurrections. These terrors were\npowerfully pleaded in the great debate in the Virginia legislature as an\nargument for the abolition of slavery.[281:2] This failing, they became\nthroughout the South a constraining power for the suppression of free\nspeech, not only on the part of outsiders, but among the southern people\nthemselves. The regime thus introduced was, in the strictest sense of\nthe phrase, \"a reign of terror.\" The universal lockjaw which thenceforth\nforbade the utterance of what had so recently and suddenly ceased to be\nthe unanimous religious conviction of the southern church soon produced\nan \"unexampled unanimity\" on the other side, broken only when some fiery\nand indomitable abolitionist like Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of the\nPresbyterian Church in Kentucky, delivered his soul with invectives\nagainst the system of slavery and the new-fangled apologies that had\nbeen devised to defend it, declaring it \"utterly indefensible on every\ncorrect human principle, and utterly abhorrent from every law of God,\"\nand exclaiming, \"Out upon such folly! The man who cannot see that\ninvoluntary domestic slavery, as it exists among us, is founded on the\nprinciple of taking by force that which is another's has simply no\nmoral sense.... Hereditary slavery is without pretense, except in avowed\nrapacity.\"[282:1] Of course the antislavery societies which, under\nvarious names, had existed in the South by hundreds were suddenly\nextinguished, and manumissions, which had been going on at the rate of\nthousands in a year, almost entirely ceased.\n\nThe strange and swiftly spreading moral epidemic did not stop at State\nboundary lines. At the North the main cause of defection was not,\nindeed, directly operative. There was no danger there of servile\ninsurrection. But there was true sympathy for those who lived under the\nshadow of such impending horrors, threatening alike the guilty and the\ninnocent. There was a deep passion of honest patriotism, now becoming\nalarmed lest the threats of disunion proceeding from the terrified South\nshould prove a serious peril to the nation in whose prosperity the hopes\nof the world seemed to be involved. There was a worthy solicitude lest\nthe bonds of intercourse between the churches of North and South should\nbe ruptured and so the integrity of the nation be the more imperiled.\nWithal there was a spreading and deepening and most reasonable disgust\nat the reckless ranting of a little knot of antislavery men having their\nheadquarters at Boston, who, exulting in their irresponsibility,\nscattered loosely appeals to men's vindictive passions and filled the\nunwilling air with clamors against church and ministry and Bible and law\nand government, denounced as \"pro-slavery\" all who declined to accept\ntheir measures or their persons, and, arrogating to themselves\nexclusively the name of abolitionist, made that name, so long a title of\nhonor, to be universally odious.[282:2]\n\nThese various factors of public opinion were actively manipulated.\nPolitical parties competed for the southern vote. Commercial houses\ncompeted for southern business. Religious sects, parties, and societies\nwere emulous in conciliating southern adhesions or contributions and\naverting schisms. The condition of success in any of these cases was\nwell understood to be concession, or at least silence, on the subject of\nslavery. The pressure of motives, some of which were honorable and\ngenerous, was everywhere, like the pressure of the atmosphere. It was\nnot strange that there should be defections from righteousness. Even the\nenormous effrontery of the slave power in demanding for its own security\nthat the rule of tyrannous law and mob violence by which freedom of\nspeech and of the press had been extinguished at the South should be\nextended over the so-called free States did not fail of finding citizens\nof reputable standing so base as to give the demand their countenance,\ntheir public advocacy, and even their personal assistance. As the\nsubject emerged from time to time in the religious community, the\nquestions arising were often confused and embarrassed by false issues\nand illogical statements, and the state of opinion was continually\nmisrepresented through the incurable habit of the over-zealous in\ndenouncing as \"pro-slavery\" those who dissented from their favorite\nformulas. But after all deductions, the historian who shall by and by\nreview this period with the advantage of a longer perspective will be\ncompelled to record not a few lamentable defections, both individual and\ncorporate, from the cause of freedom, justice, and humanity. And,\nnevertheless, that later record will also show that while the southern\nchurch had been terrified into \"an unexampled unanimity\" in renouncing\nthe principles which it had unanimously held, and while like causes had\nwrought potently upon northern sentiment, it was the steadfast fidelity\nof the Christian people that saved the nation from ruin. At the end of\nthirty years from the time when the soil of Missouri was devoted to\nslavery the \"Kansas-Nebraska Bill\" was proposed, which should open for\nthe extension of slavery the vast expanse of national territory which,\nby the stipulation of the \"Missouri Compromise,\" had been forever\nconsecrated to freedom. The issue of the extension of slavery was\npresented to the people in its simplicity. The action of the clergy of\nNew England was prompt, spontaneous, emphatic, and practically\nunanimous. Their memorial, with three thousand and fifty signatures,\nprotested against the bill, \"in the name of Almighty God and in his\npresence,\" as \"a great moral wrong; as a breach of faith eminently\ninjurious to the moral principles of the community and subversive of all\nconfidence in national engagements; as a measure full of danger to the\npeace and even the existence of our beloved Union, and exposing us to\nthe just judgments of the Almighty.\" In like manner the memorial of one\nhundred and fifty-one clergymen of various denominations in New York\nCity and vicinity protested in like terms, \"in the name of religion and\nhumanity,\" against the guilt of the extension of slavery. Perhaps there\nhas been no occasion on which the consenting voice of the entire church\nhas been so solemnly uttered on a question of public morality, and this\nin the very region in which church and clergy had been most stormily\ndenounced by the little handful of abolitionists who gloried in the\nname of infidel[285:1] as recreant to justice and humanity.\n\nThe protest of the church was of no avail to defeat the machination of\ndemagogues. The iniquitous measure was carried through. But this was not\nthe end; it was only the beginning of the end. Yet ten years, and\nAmerican slavery, through the mad folly of its advocates and the\nsteadfast fidelity of the great body of the earnestly religious people\nof the land, was swept away by the tide of war.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe long struggle of the American church against drunkenness as a social\nand public evil begins at an early date. One of the thirteen colonies,\nGeorgia, had the prohibition of slavery and of the importation of\nspirituous liquors incorporated by Oglethorpe in its early and\nshort-lived constitution. It would be interesting to discover, if we\ncould, to what extent the rigor of John Wesley's discipline against both\nthese mischiefs was due to his association with Oglethorpe in the\nfounding of that latest of the colonies. Both the imperious nature of\nWesley and the peculiar character of his fraternity as being originally\nnot a church, but a voluntary society within the church, predisposed to\na policy of arbitrary exclusiveness by hard and fast lines drawn\naccording to formula, which might not have been ventured on by one who\nwas consciously drawing up the conditions of communion in the church. In\nthe Puritan colonies the public morals in respect to temperance were\nfrom the beginning guarded by salutary license laws devised to suppress\nall dram-shops and tippling-houses, and to prevent, as far as law could\nwisely undertake to prevent, all abusive and mischievous sales of\nliquor. But these indications of a sound public sentiment did not\nprevent the dismal fact of a wide prevalence of drunkenness as one of\nthe distinguishing characteristics of American society at the opening of\nthe nineteenth century. Two circumstances had combined to aggravate the\nnational vice. Seven years of army life, with its exhaustion and\nexposure and military social usage, had initiated into dangerous\ndrinking habits many of the most justly influential leaders of society,\nand the example of these had set the tone for all ranks. Besides this,\nthe increased importation and manufacture of distilled spirits had made\nit easy and common to substitute these for the mild fermented liquors\nwhich had been the ordinary drink of the people. Gradually and\nunobserved the nation had settled down into a slough of drunkenness of\nwhich it is difficult for us at this date to form a clear conception.\nThe words of Isaiah concerning the drunkards of Ephraim seem not too\nstrong to apply to the condition of American society, that \"all tables\nwere full of vomit and filthiness.\" In the prevalence of intemperate\ndrinking habits the clergy had not escaped the general infection. \"The\npriest and the prophet had gone astray through strong drink.\" Individual\nwords of warning, among the earliest of which was the classical essay of\nDr. Benjamin Rush (1785), failed to arouse general attention. The new\ncentury was well advanced before the stirring appeals of Ebenezer\nPorter, Lyman Beecher, Heman Humphrey, and Jeremiah Evarts had awakened\nin the church any effectual conviction of sin in the matter. The\nappointment of a strong committee, in 1811, by the Presbyterian General\nAssembly was promptly followed by like action by the clergy of\nMassachusetts and Connecticut, leading to the formation of State\nsocieties. But general concerted measures on a scale commensurate with\nthe evil to be overcome must be dated from the organization of the\n\"American Society for the Promotion of Temperance,\" in 1826. The first\naim of the reformers of that day was to break down those domineering\nsocial usages which almost enforced the habit of drinking in ordinary\nsocial intercourse. The achievement of this object was wonderfully swift\nand complete. A young minister whose pastorate had begun at about the\nsame time with the organizing of the national temperance society was\nable at the end of five years to bear this testimony in the presence of\nthose who were in a position to recognize any misstatement or\nexaggeration:\n\n     \"The wonderful change which the past five years have witnessed\n     in the manners and habits of this people in regard to the use\n     of ardent spirits--the new phenomenon of an intelligent people\n     rising up, as it were, with one consent, without law, without\n     any attempt at legislation, to put down by the mere force of\n     public opinion, expressing itself in voluntary associations, a\n     great social evil which no despot on earth could have put down\n     among his subjects by any system of efforts--has excited\n     admiration and roused to imitation not only in our sister\n     country of Great Britain, but in the heart of continental\n     Europe.\"[287:1]\n\nIt is worthy of remark, for any possible instruction there may be in it,\nthat the first, greatest, and most permanent of the victories of the\ntemperance reformation, the breaking down of almost universal social\ndrinking usages, was accomplished while yet the work was a distinctively\nreligious one, \"without law or attempt at legislation,\" and while the\nefforts at suppression were directed at the use of ardent spirits. The\nattempt to combine the friends of temperance on a basis of \"teetotal\"\nabstinence, putting fermented as well as distilled liquors under the\nban, dates from as late as 1836.\n\nBut it soon appeared that the immense gain of banishing ardent spirits\nfrom the family table and sideboard, the social entertainment, the\nhaying field, and the factory had not been attained without some\ncorresponding loss. Close upon the heels of the reform in the domestic\nand social habits of the people there was spawned a monstrous brood of\nobscure tippling-shops--a nuisance, at least in New England, till then\nunknown. From the beginning wise and effective license laws had\ninterdicted all dram-shops; even the taverner might sell spirits only to\nhis transient guests, not to the people of the town. With the\nsuppression of social drinking there was effected, in spite of salutary\nlaw to the contrary, a woeful change. The American \"saloon\" was, in an\nimportant sense, the offspring of the American temperance reformation.\nThe fact justified the reformer in turning his attention to the law.\nFrom that time onward the history of the temperance reformation has\nincluded the history of multitudinous experiments in legislation, none\nof which has been so conclusive as to satisfy all students of the\nsubject that any later law is, on the whole, more usefully effective\nthan the original statutes of the Puritan colonies.[288:1]\n\nIn 1840 the temperance reformation received a sudden forward impulse\nfrom an unexpected source. One evening a group of six notoriously hard\ndrinkers, coming together greatly impressed from a sermon of that noted\nevangelist, Elder Jacob Knapp, pledged themselves by mutual vows to\ntotal abstinence; and from this beginning went forward that\nextraordinary agitation known as \"the Washingtonian movement.\" Up to\nthis time the aim of the reformers had been mainly directed to the\nprevention of drunkenness by a change in social customs and personal\nhabits. Now there was suddenly opened a door of hope to the almost\ndespair of the drunkard himself. The lately reformed drunkards of\nBaltimore set themselves to the reforming of other drunkards, and these\ntook up the work in their turn, and reformation was extended in a\ngeometrical progression till it covered the country. Everywhere meetings\nwere held, to be addressed by reformed drunkards, and new recruits from\nthe gutter were pushed forward to tell their experience to the admiring\npublic, and sent out on speaking tours. The people were stirred up as\nnever before on the subject of temperance. There was something very\nChristian-like in the method of this propagation, and hopeful souls\nlooked forward to a temperance millennium as at hand. But fatal faults\nin the work soon discovered themselves. Among the new evangelists were\nnot a few men of true penitence and humility, like John Hawkins, and one\nman at least of incomparable eloquence as well as Christian earnestness,\nJohn B. Gough. But the public were not long in finding that merely to\nhave wallowed in vice and to be able to tell ludicrous or pathetic\nstories from one's experience was not of itself sufficient qualification\nfor the work of a public instructor in morals. The temperance platform\nbecame infested with swaggering autobiographers, whose glory was in\ntheir shame, and whose general influence was distinctly demoralizing.\nThe sudden influx of the tide of enthusiasm was followed by a disastrous\nebb. It was the estimate of Mr. Gough that out of six hundred thousand\nreformed drunkards not less than four hundred and fifty thousand had\nrelapsed into vice. The same observer, the splendor of whose eloquence\nwas well mated with an unusual sobriety of judgment, is credited with\nthe statement that he knew of no case of stable reformation from\ndrunkenness that was not connected with a thorough spiritual renovation\nand conversion.\n\nCertainly good was accomplished by the transient whirlwind of the\n\"Washingtonian\" excitement. But the evil that it did lived after it.\nAlready at the time of its breaking forth the temperance reformation had\nentered upon that period of decadence in which its main interest was to\nbe concentrated upon law and politics. And here the vicious ethics of\nthe reformed-drunkard school became manifest. The drunkard, according to\nhis own account of himself (unless he was not only reformed, but\nrepentant), had been a victim of circumstances. Drunkenness, instead of\na base and beastly sin, was an infirmity incident to a high-strung and\ngenerous temperament. The blame of it was to be laid, not upon the\ndrunkard, whose exquisitely susceptible organization was quite unable to\nresist temptation coming in his way, but on those who put intoxicating\nliquor where he could get at it, or on the State, whose duty it was to\nput the article out of the reach of its citizens. The guilt of\ndrunkenness must rest, not on the unfortunate drunkard who happened to\nbe attacked by that disease, but on the sober and well-behaving citizen,\nand especially the Christian citizen, who did not vote the correct\nticket.\n\nWhat may be called the Prohibition period of the temperance reformation\nbegins about 1850 and still continues. It is characterized by the\npursuit of a type of legislation of variable efficacy or inefficacy, the\nessence of which is that the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be a\nmonopoly of the government.[290:1] Indications begin to appear that the\ndisproportionate devotion to measures of legislation and politics is\nabating. Some of the most effective recent labor for the promotion of\ntemperance has been wrought independently of such resort. If the cycle\nshall be completed, and the church come back to the methods by which its\nfirst triumphs in this field were won, it will come back the wiser and\nthe stronger for its vicissitudes of experience through these threescore\nyears and ten.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[264:1] \"An impression was made that never ceased. It started a series\nof efforts that have affected the whole northern mind at least; and in\nJackson's time the matter came up in Congress, and a law was passed\ndisfranchising a duelist. And that was not the last of it; for when\nHenry Clay was up for the Presidency the Democrats printed an edition of\nforty thousand of that sermon and scattered them all over the North\"\n(\"Autobiography of Lyman Beecher,\" vol. i., pp. 153, 154; with foot-note\nfrom Dr. L. Bacon: \"That sermon has never ceased to be a power in the\npolitics of this country. More than anything else, it made the name of\nbrave old Andrew Jackson distasteful to the moral and religious feeling\nof the people. It hung like a millstone on the neck of Henry Clay\").\n\n[265:1] \"A Century of Dishonor,\" pp. 270, 271.\n\n[266:1] \"A Century of Dishonor,\" pp. 275, 276.\n\n[268:1] See above, pp. 203-205, 222.\n\n[270:1] Deliverance of General Assembly, 1818.\n\n[271:1] The persistent attempt to represent this period as one of\nprevailing apathy and inertia on the subject of slavery is a very\nflagrant falsification of history. And yet by dint of sturdy reiteration\nit has been forced into such currency as to impose itself even on so\ncareful a writer as Mr. Schouler, in his \"History of the United States.\"\nIt is impossible to read this part of American church history\nintelligently, unless the mind is disabused of this misrepresentation.\n\n[271:2] \"Christian Spectator\" (monthly), New Haven, 1828, p. 4.\n\n[272:1] \"Christian Spectator,\" 1823, pp. 493, 494, 341; \"The Earlier\nAntislavery Days,\" by L. Bacon, in the \"Christian Union,\" December 9 and\n16, 1874, January 6 and 13, 1875. It is one of the \"Curiosities of\nLiterature,\" though hardly one of its \"Amenities,\" that certain phrases\ncarefully dissected from this paper (which was written by Mr. Bacon at\nthe age of twenty-one) should be pertinaciously used, in the face of\nrepeated exposures, to prove the author of it to be an apologist for\nslavery!\n\n[273:1] \"Christian Spectator,\" 1825-1828.\n\n[273:2] Wilson, \"Slave Power in America,\" vol. i., p. 164; \"James G.\nBirney and his Times,\" pp. 64, 65. This last-named book is an\ninteresting and valuable contribution of materials for history,\nespecially by its refutation of certain industriously propagated\nmisrepresentations.\n\n[274:1] \"Birney and his Times,\" chap. xii., on \"Abolition in the South\nbefore 1828.\" Much is to be learned on this neglected topic in American\nhistory from the reports of the National Convention for the Abolition of\nSlavery, meeting biennially, with some intermissions, at Philadelphia,\nBaltimore, and Washington down to 1829. An incomplete file of these\nreports is at the library of Brown University.\n\n[274:2] Wilson, \"The Slave Power,\" vol. i., chap. xiv.\n\n[275:1] See above, pp. 204, 205.\n\n[275:2] Newman, \"The Baptists,\" pp. 288, 305. Let me make general\nreference to the volumes of the American Church History Series by their\nseveral indexes, s. v. Slavery.\n\n[275:3] One instance for illustration is as good as ten thousand. It is\nfrom the \"Life of James G. Birney,\" a man of the highest integrity of\nconscience: \"Michael, the husband and father of the family legally owned\nby Mr. Birney, and who had been brought up with him from boyhood, had\nbeen unable to conquer his appetite for strong liquors, and needed the\nconstant watchful care of his master and friend. For some years the\nprobability was that if free he would become a confirmed drunkard and\nbeggar his family. The children were nearly grown, but had little mental\ncapacity. For years Michael had understood that his freedom would be\nrestored to him as soon as he could control his love of ardent spirits\"\n(pp. 108, 109).\n\n[277:1] \"If human beings could be justly held in bondage for one hour,\nthey could be for days and weeks and years, and so on indefinitely from\ngeneration to generation\" (\"Life of W. L. Garrison,\" vol. i., p. 140).\n\n[278:1] \"New Englander,\" vol. xii., 1854, p. 639, article on \"The\nSouthern Apostasy.\"\n\n[278:2] _Ibid._, pp. 642-644.\n\n[281:1] \"New Englander,\" vol. xii., 1854, pp. 660, 661.\n\n[281:2] Wilson, \"The Slave Power,\" vol. i., pp. 190-207.\n\n[282:1] \"Biblical Repertory,\" Princeton, July, 1833, pp. 294, 295, 303.\n\n[282:2] The true story of Mr. William Lloyd Garrison and his little\nparty has yet to be written faithfully and fully. As told by his family\nand friends and by himself, it is a monstrous falsification of history.\nOne of the best sources of authentic material for this chapter of\nhistory is \"James G. Birney and his Times,\" by General William Birney,\npp. 269-331. I may also refer to my volume, \"Irenics and Polemics\" (New\nYork, the Christian Literature Co.), pp. 145-202. The sum of the story\nis given thus, in the words of Charles Sumner: \"An omnibus-load of\nBoston abolitionists has done more harm to the antislavery cause than\nall its enemies\" (\"Birney,\" p. 331).\n\n[285:1] Birney, p. 321.\n\n[287:1] Sermon of L. Bacon (MS.), New Haven, July 4, 1830.\n\n[288:1] \"Eastern and Western States of America,\" by J. S. Buckingham, M.\nP., vol. i., pp. 408-413.\n\n[290:1] By a curious anomaly in church polity, adhesion to this\nparticular device of legislation is made constitutionally a part of the\ndiscipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In most other communions\nliberty of judgment is permitted as to the form of legislation best\nfitted to the end sought.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nA DECADE OF CONTROVERSIES AND SCHISMS.\n\n\nDuring the period from 1835 to 1845 the spirit of schism seemed to be in\nthe air. In this period no one of the larger organizations of churches\nwas free from agitating controversies, and some of the most important of\nthem were rent asunder by explosion.\n\nAt the time when the Presbyterian Church suffered its great schism, in\n1837, it was the most influential religious body in the United States.\nIn 120 years its solitary presbytery had grown to 135 presbyteries,\nincluding 2140 ministers serving 2865 churches and 220,557 communicants.\nBut these large figures are an inadequate measure of its influence. It\nrepresented in its ministry and membership the two most masterful races\non the continent, the New England colonists and the Scotch-Irish\nimmigrants; and the tenacity with which it had adhered to the tradition\nderived through both these lines, of admitting none but liberally\neducated men to its ministry, had given it exceptional social standing\nand control over men of intellectual strength and leadership. In the\nfour years beginning with 1831 the additions to its roll of communicants\n\"on examination\" had numbered nearly one hundred thousand. But this\nspiritual growth was chilled and stunted by the dissensions that arose.\nThe revivals ceased and the membership actually dwindled.\n\nThe contention had grown (a fact not without parallel in church\nhistory) out of measures devised in the interest of cooeperation and\nunion. In 1801, in the days of its comparative feebleness, the General\nAssembly had proposed to the General Association of Connecticut a \"Plan\nof Union\" according to which the communities of New England Christians\nthen beginning to move westward between the parallels that bound \"the\nNew England zone,\" and bringing with them their accustomed\nCongregational polity, might cooeperate on terms of mutual concession\nwith Presbyterian churches in their neighborhood. The proposals had been\nfraternally received and accepted, and under the terms of this compact\ngreat accessions had been made to the strength of the Presbyterian\nChurch, of pastors and congregations marked with the intellectual\nactivity and religious enterprise of the New England churches, who,\nwhile cordially conforming to the new methods of organization and\ndiscipline, were not in the least penetrated with the traditionary\nScotch veneration for the Westminster standards. For nearly thirty years\nthe great reinforcements from New England and from men of the New\nEngland way of thinking had been ungrudgingly bestowed and heartily\nwelcomed. But the great accessions which in the first four years of the\nfourth decade of this century had increased the roll of the communicants\nof the Presbyterian Church by more than fifty per cent. had come in\nundue proportion from the New Englandized regions of western New York\nand Ohio. It was inevitable that the jealousy of hereditary\nPresbyterians, \"whose were the fathers,\" should be aroused by the\nperfectly reasonable fear lest the traditional ways of the church which\nthey felt to be in a peculiar sense _their_ church might be affected by\nso large an element from without.\n\nThe grounds of explicit complaint against the party called \"New School\"\nwere principally twofold--doctrine and organization.\n\nIn the Presbyterian Church at this time were three pretty distinct types\nof theological thought. First, there was the unmitigated Scotch\nCalvinism; secondly, there was the modification of this system, which\nbecame naturalized in the church after the Great Awakening, when\nJonathan Dickinson and Jonathan Edwards, from neighbor towns in\nMassachusetts, came to be looked upon as the great Presbyterian\ntheologians; thirdly, there was the \"consistent Calvinism,\" that had\nbeen still further evolved by the patient labor of students in direct\nsuccession from Edwards, and that was known under the name of\n\"Hopkinsianism.\" Just now the latest and not the least eminent in this\nschool, Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor, of New Haven, was enunciating to large\nand enthusiastic classes in Yale Divinity School new definitions and\nforms of statement giving rise to much earnest debate. The alarm of\nthose to whom the very phrase \"improvement in theology\" was an\nabomination expressed itself in futile indictments for heresy brought\nagainst some of the most eminently godly and useful ministers in all the\nchurch. Lyman Beecher, of Lane Seminary, Edward Beecher, J. M.\nSturtevant, and William Kirby, of Illinois College, and George Duffield,\nof the presbytery of Carlisle, Pa., were annoyed by impeachments for\nheresy, which all failed before reaching the court of last resort. But\nrepeated and persistent prosecutions of Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia,\nwere destined to more conspicuous failure, by reason of their coming up\nyear after year before the General Assembly, and also by reason of the\nposition of the accused as pastor of the mother church of the\ndenomination, the First Church of Philadelphia, which was the customary\nmeeting-place of the Assembly; withal by reason of the character of the\naccused, the honor and love in which he was held for his faithful and\nuseful work as pastor, his world-wide fame as a devoted and believing\nstudent of the Scriptures, and the Christlike gentleness and meekness\nwith which he endured the harassing of church trials continuing through\na period of seven years, and compelling him, under an irregular and\nillegal sentence of the synod, to sit silent in his church for the space\nof a year, as one suspended from the ministry.\n\nThe earliest leaders in national organization for the propagation of\nChristianity at home and abroad were the Congregationalists of New\nEngland and men like-minded with them. But the societies thus originated\nwere organized on broad and catholic principles, and invited the\ncooeperation of all Christians. They naturally became the organs of much\nof the active beneficence of Presbyterian congregations, and the\nPresbyterian clergy and laity were largely represented in the direction\nof them. They were recognized and commended by the representative bodies\nof the Presbyterian Church. As a point of high-church theory it was held\nby the rigidly Presbyterian party that the work of the gospel in all its\ndepartments and in all lands is the proper function of \"the church as\nsuch\"--meaning practically that each sect ought to have its separate\npropaganda. There was logical strength in this position as reached from\ntheir premisses, and there were arguments of practical convenience to be\nurged in favor of it. But the demand to sunder at once the bonds of\nfellowship which united Christians of different names in the beneficent\nwork of the great national societies was not acceptable even to the\nwhole of the Old-School party. To the New Englanders it was intolerable.\n\nThere were other and less important grounds of difference that were\ndiscussed between the parties. And in the background, behind them all,\nwas the slavery question. It seems to have been willingly _kept_ in the\nbackground by the leaders of debate on both sides; but it was there. The\nNew-School synods and presbyteries of the North were firm in their\nadherence to the antislavery principles of the church. On the other\nhand, the Old-School party relied, in the _coup d'eglise_ that was in\npreparation, on the support of \"an almost solid South.\"[296:1]\n\nIt was an unpardonable offense of the New-School party that it had grown\nto such formidable strength, intellectually, spiritually, and\nnumerically. The probability that the church might, with the continued\ngrowth and influence of this party, become Americanized and so lose the\npurity of its thoroughgoing Scotch traditions was very real, and to some\nminds very dreadful. To these the very ark of God seemed in danger.\nArraignments for heresy in presbytery and synod resulted in failure; and\nwhen these and other cases involving questions of orthodoxy or of the\npolicy of the church were brought into the supreme judicature of the\nchurch, the solemn but unmistakable fact disclosed itself that even the\nGeneral Assembly could not be relied on for the support of measures\nintroduced by the Old-School leaders. In fact, every Assembly from 1831\nto 1836, with a single exception, had shown a clear New-School majority.\nThe foundations were destroyed, and what should the righteous do?\n\nHistory was about to repeat itself with unwonted preciseness of detail.\nOn the gathering of the Assembly of 1837 a careful count of noses\nrevealed what had been known only once before in seven years, and what\nmight never be again--a clear Old-School majority in the house. To the\npious mind the neglecting of such an opportunity would have been to\ntempt Providence. Without notice, without complaint or charges or\nspecifications, without opportunity of defense, 4 synods, including 533\nchurches and more than 100,000 communicants, were excommunicated by a\nmajority vote. The victory of pure doctrine and strict church order,\nthough perhaps not exactly glorious, was triumphant and irreversible.\nThere was no more danger to the church from a possible New-School\nmajority.\n\nWhen the four exscinded synods, three in western New York and one in\nOhio, together with a great following of sympathizing congregations in\nall parts of the country, came together to reconstruct their shattered\npolity, they were found to number about four ninths of the late\nPresbyterian Church. For thirty years the American church was to present\nto Christendom the strange spectacle of two great ecclesiastical bodies\nclaiming identically the same name, holding the same doctrinal\nstandards, observing the same ritual and governed by the same\ndiscipline, and occupying the same great territory, and yet completely\ndissevered from each other and at times in relations of sharp mutual\nantagonism.[297:1]\n\nThe theological debate which had split the Presbyterian Church from end\nto end was quite as earnest and copious in New England. But owing to the\nfreer habit of theological inquiry and the looser texture of\norganization among the Congregationalist churches, it made no organic\nschism beyond the setting up of a new theological seminary in\nConnecticut to offset what were deemed the \"dangerous tendencies\" of the\nNew Haven theology. After a few years the party lines had faded out and\nthe two seminaries were good neighbors.\n\nThe unlikeliest place in all American Christendom for a partisan\ncontroversy and a schism would have seemed to be the Unitarian\ndenomination in and about Boston. Beginning with the refusal not only of\nany imposed standard of belief, but of any statement of common opinions,\nand with unlimited freedom of opinion in every direction, unless,\nperhaps, in the direction of orthodoxy, it was not easy to see how a\nsplitting wedge could be started in it. But the infection of the time\nwas not to be resisted. Even Unitarianism must have its heresies and\nheresiarchs to deal with. No sooner did the pressure of outside attack\nabate than antagonisms began pretty sharply to declare themselves. In\n1832 Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, pastor of the Second Church in Boston,\nproposed to the church to abandon or radically change the observance of\nthe Lord's Supper. When the church demurred at this extraordinary demand\nhe resigned his office, firing off an elaborate argument against the\nusage of the church by way of a parting salute. Without any formal\ndemission of the ministry, he retired to his literary seclusion at\nConcord, from which he brought forth in books and lectures the oracular\nutterances which caught more and more the ear of a wide public, and in\nwhich, in casual-seeming parentheses and _obiter dicta_, Christianity\nand all practical religion were condemned by sly innuendo and\nhalf-respectful allusion by which he might \"without sneering teach the\nrest to sneer.\" In 1838 he was still so far recognized in the ministry\nas to be invited to address the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity\nSchool. The blank pantheism which he then enunciated called forth from\nProfessor Henry Ware, Jr., a sermon in the college chapel on the\npersonality of God, which he sent with a friendly note to Mr. Emerson.\nThe gay and Skimpolesque reply of the sage is an illustration of that\nflippancy with which he chose to toy in a literary way with momentous\nquestions, and which was so exasperating to the earnest men of positive\nreligious convictions with whom he had been associated in the Christian\nministry.\n\n     \"It strikes me very oddly that good and wise men at Cambridge\n     should think of raising me into an object of criticism. I have\n     always been, from my incapacity of methodical writing, 'a\n     chartered libertine,' free to worship and free to rail, lucky\n     when I could make myself understood, but never esteemed near\n     enough to the institutions and mind of society to deserve the\n     notice of masters of literature and religion.... I could not\n     possibly give you one of the 'arguments' you so cruelly hint\n     at on which any doctrine of mine stands, for I do not know\n     what arguments mean in reference to any expression of thought.\n     I delight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I\n     dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal\n     men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits\n     of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my\n     affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised into the importance\n     of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed\n     duties of such a personage who is to make good his thesis\n     against all comers. I certainly shall do no such thing.\"\n\nThe issue was joined and the controversy began. Professor Andrews Norton\nin a pamphlet denounced \"the latest form of infidelity,\" and the Rev.\nGeorge Ripley replied in a volume, to which Professor Norton issued a\nrejoinder. But there was not substance enough of religious dogma and\nsentiment in the transcendentalist philosophers to give them any\npermanent standing in the church. They went into various walks of\nsecular literature, and have powerfully influenced the course of\nopinions; but they came to be no longer recognizable as a religious or\ntheological party.\n\nAmong the minor combatants in the conflict between the Unitarians and\nthe pantheists was a young man whose name was destined to become\nconspicuous, not within the Unitarian fellowship, but on the outskirts\nof it. Theodore Parker was a man of a different type from the men about\nhim of either party. The son of a mechanic, he fought his way through\ndifficulties to a liberal education, and was thirty years old before his\nvery great abilities attracted general attention. A greedy gormandizer\nof books in many languages, he had little of the dainty scholarship so\nmuch prized at the neighboring university. But the results of his vast\nreading were stored in a quick and tenacious memory as ready rhetorical\nmaterial wherewith to convince or astonish. Paradox was a passion with\nhim, that was stimulated by complaints, and even by deprecations, to the\npoint of irreverence. He liked to \"make people's flesh crawl.\" Even in\nhis advocacy of social and public reforms, which was strenuous and\nsincere, he delighted so to urge his cause as to inflame prejudice and\nopposition against it. With this temper it is not strange that when he\ncame to enunciate his departure from some of the accepted tenets of his\nbrethren, who were habitually reverent in their discipleship toward\nJesus Christ, he should do this in a way to offend and shock. The\nimmediate reaction of the Unitarian clergy from the statements of his\nsermon, in 1841, on \"The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity,\"\nin which the supernatural was boldly discarded from his belief, was so\ngeneral and so earnest as to give occasion to Channing's exclamation,\n\"Now we have a Unitarian orthodoxy!\" Channing did not live to see the\ncharacteristic tenets of the heresiarch to whom he hesitated to give the\nname of Christian not only widely accepted in the Unitarian churches,\nbut some of them freely discussed as open questions among some orthodox\nscholars.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTwo very great events in this period of schism may be dispatched with a\nbrevity out of all proportion to their importance, on account of the\nsimplicity of motive and action by which they are characterized.\n\nIn the year 1844 the slavery agitation in the Methodist Episcopal Church\nculminated, not in the rupture of the church, but in the\nwell-considered, deliberate division of it between North and South. The\nhistory of the slavery question among the Methodists was a typical one.\nFrom the beginning the Methodist Society had been committed by its\nfounder and his early successors to the strictest (not the strongest)\nposition on this question. Not only was the system of slavery denounced\nas iniquitous, but the attempt was made to enforce the rigid rule that\npersons involved under this system in the relation of master to slave\nshould be excluded from the ministry, if not from the communion. But the\nenforcement of this rule was found to be not only difficult, but wrong,\nand difficult simply because it was wrong. Then followed that illogical\nconfusion of ideas studiously fostered by zealots at either extreme: If\nthe slave-holder may be in some circumstances a faithful Christian\ndisciple, fulfilling in righteousness and love a Christian duty, then\nslavery is right; if slavery is wrong, then every slave-holder is a\nmanstealer, and should be excommunicated as such without asking any\nfurther questions. Two statements more palpably illogical were never put\nforth for the darkening of counsel. But each extreme was eager to\nsustain the unreason of the opposite extreme as the only alternative of\nits own unreason, and so, what with contrary gusts from North and South,\nthey fell into a place where two seas met and ran the ship aground. The\nattempts made from 1836 to 1840, by stretching to the utmost the\nauthority of the General Conference and the bishops, for the suppression\nof \"modern abolitionism\" in the church (without saying what they meant\nby the phrase) had their natural effect: the antislavery sentiment in\nthe church organized and uttered itself more vigorously and more\nextravagantly than ever on the basis, \"All slave-holding is sin; no\nfellowship with slave-holders.\" In 1843 an antislavery secession took\nplace, which drew after it a following of six thousand, increased in a\nfew months to fifteen thousand. The paradoxical result of this movement\nis not without many parallels in church history: After the drawing off\nof fifteen thousand of the most zealous antislavery men in the church,\nthe antislavery party in the church was vastly stronger, even in\nnumbers, than it had been before. The General Conference of 1836 had\npronounced itself, without a dissenting vote, to be \"decidedly opposed\nto modern abolitionism.\" The General Conference of 1844, on the first\ntest vote on the question of excluding from the ministry one who had\nbecome a slave-holder through marriage, revealed a majority of one\nhundred and seventeen to fifty-six in favor of the most rigorous\nantislavery discipline. The graver question upon the case of Bishop\nAndrew, who was in the like condemnation, could not be decided\notherwise. The form of the Conference's action in this case was\nstudiously inoffensive. It imputed no wrong and proposed no censure,\nbut, simply on the ground that the circumstances would embarrass him in\nthe exercise of his office, declared it as \"the sense of this General\nConference that he desist from the exercise of this office so long as\nthis impediment remains.\" The issue could not have been simpler and\nclearer. The Conference was warned that the passage of the resolution\nwould be followed by the secession of the South. The debate was long,\nearnest, and tender. At the end of it the resolution was passed, one\nhundred and eleven to sixty-nine. At once notice was given of the\nintended secession. Commissioners were appointed from both parties to\nadjust the conditions of it, and in the next year (1845) was organized\nthe \"Methodist Episcopal Church, South.\"\n\nUnder the fierce tyranny then dominant at the South the southern\nBaptists might not fall behind their Methodist neighbors in zeal for\nslavery. This time it was the South that forced the issue. The Alabama\nBaptist Convention, without waiting for a concrete case, demanded of the\nnational missionary boards \"the distinct, explicit avowal that\nslave-holders are eligible and entitled equally with non-slave-holders\nto all the privileges and immunities of their several unions.\" The\nanswer of the Foreign Mission Board was perfectly kind, but, on the main\npoint, perfectly unequivocal: \"We can never be a party to any\narrangement which would imply approbation of slavery.\" The result had\nbeen foreseen. The great denomination was divided between North and\nSouth. The Southern Baptist Convention was organized in May, 1845, and\nbegan its home and foreign missionary work without delay.\n\nThis dark chapter of our story is not without its brighter aspects. (1)\nAmid the inevitable asperities attendant on such debate and division\nthere were many and beautiful manifestations of brotherly love between\nthe separated parties. (2) These strifes fell out to the furtherance of\nthe gospel. Emulations, indeed, are not among the works of the Spirit.\nIn the strenuous labors of the two divided denominations, greatly\nexceeding what had gone before, it is plain that sometimes Christ was\npreached of envy and strife. Nevertheless Christ was preached, with\ngreat and salutary results; and therein do we rejoice, yea, and will\nrejoice.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTwo important orders in the American church, which for a time had almost\nfaded out from our field of vision, come back, from about this epoch of\ndebate and division, into continually growing conspicuousness and\nstrength. Neither of them was implicated in that great debate involving\nthe fundamental principles of the kingdom of heaven,--the principles of\nrighteousness and love to men,--by which other parts of the church had\nbeen agitated and sometimes divided. Whether to their discredit or to\ntheir honor, it is part of history that neither the Protestant Episcopal\nChurch nor the Roman Catholic Church took any important part, either\ncorporately or through its representative men, in the agonizing struggle\nof the American church to maintain justice and humanity in public law\nand policy. But standing thus aloof from the great ethical questions\nthat agitated the conscience of the nation, they were both of them\ndisturbed by controversies internal or external, which demand mention at\nleast in this chapter.\n\nThe beginning of the resuscitation of the Protestant Episcopal Church\nfrom the dead-and-alive condition in which it had so long been\nlanguishing is dated from the year 1811.[304:1] This year was marked by\nthe accession to the episcopate of two eminent men, representing two\nstrongly divergent parties in that church--Bishop Griswold, of\nMassachusetts, Evangelical, and Bishop Hobart, of New York,\nHigh-churchman. A quorum of three bishops having been gotten together,\nnot without great difficulty, the two were consecrated in Trinity\nChurch, New York, May 29, 1811.\n\nThe time was opportune and the conjuncture of circumstances singularly\nfavorable. The stigma of Toryism, which had marked the church from long\nbefore the War of Independence, was now more than erased. In New England\nthe Episcopal Church was of necessity committed to that political party\nwhich favored the abolition of the privileges of the standing order; and\nthis was the anti-English party, which, under the lead of Jefferson, was\nfast forcing the country into war with England. The Episcopalians were\nnow in a position to retort the charge of disloyalty under which they\nhad not unjustly suffered. At the same time their church lost nothing of\nthe social prestige incidental to its relation to the established Church\nof England. Politicians of the Democratic party, including some men of\nwell-deserved credit and influence, naturally attached themselves to a\nreligious party having many points of congeniality.[305:1]\n\nIn another sense, also, the time was opportune for an advance of the\nEpiscopal Church. In the person of Bishop Hobart it had now a bold,\nenergetic, and able representative of principles hitherto not much in\nfavor in America--the thoroughgoing High-church principles of Archbishop\nLaud. Before this time the Episcopal Church had had very little to\ncontribute by way of enriching the diversity of the American sects. It\nwas simply the feeblest of the communions bearing the common family\ntraits of the Great Awakening, with the not unimportant _differentia_ of\nits settled ritual of worship and its traditions of order and decorum.\nBut when Bishop Hobart put the trumpet to his lips and prepared himself\nto sound, the public heard a very different note, and no uncertain one.\nThe church (meaning his own fragment of the church) the one channel of\nsaving grace; the vehicles of that grace, the sacraments, valid only\nwhen ministered by a priesthood with the right pedigree of ordination;\nsubmission to the constituted authorities of the church absolutely\nunlimited, except by clear divine requirements; abstinence from\nprayer-meetings; firm opposition to revivals of religion; refusal of all\ncooeperation with Christians outside of his own sect in endeavors for the\ngeneral advancement of religion--such were some of the principles and\nduties inculcated by this bishop of the new era as of binding\nforce.[306:1] The courage of this attitude was splendid and captivating.\nIt requires, even at the present time, not a little force of conviction\nto sustain one in publicly enunciating such views; but at the time of\nthe accession of Hobart, when the Episcopal Church was just beginning to\nlift up its head out of the dust of despair, it needed the heroism of a\nmartyr. It was not only the vast multitude of American Christians\noutside of the Episcopal Church, comprising almost all the learning, the\nevangelistic zeal, and the charitable activity and self-denial of the\nAmerican church of that time, that heard these unwonted pretensions with\nindignation or with ridicule; in the Episcopal Church itself they were\ndisclaimed, scouted, and denounced with (if possible) greater\nindignation still. But the new party had elements of growth for which\nits adversaries did not sufficiently reckon. The experience of other\norders in the church confirms this principle: that steady persistence\nand iteration in assuring any body of believers that they are in some\nspecial sense the favorites of Heaven, and in assuring any body of\nclergy that they are endued from on high with some special and\nexceptional powers, will by and by make an impression on the mind. The\nflattering assurance may be coyly waived aside; it may even be\nindignantly repelled; but in the long run there will be a growing number\nof the brethren who become convinced that there is something in it. It\nwas in harmony with human nature that the party of high pretensions to\ndistinguished privileges for the church and prerogatives for the\n\"priesthood\" should in a few years become a formidable contestant for\nthe control of the denomination. The controversy between the two parties\nrose to its height of exacerbation during the prevalence of that strange\nepidemic of controversy which ran simultaneously through so many of the\ngreat religious organizations of the country at once. No denomination\nhad it in a more malignant form than the Episcopalians. The war of\npamphlets and newspapers was fiercely waged, and the election of bishops\nsometimes became a bitter party contest, with the unpleasant incidents\nof such competitions. In the midst of the controversy at home the\npublication of the Oxford Tracts added new asperity to it. A distressing\nepisode of the controversy was the arraignment of no less than four of\nthe twenty bishops on charges affecting their personal character. In the\nmorbid condition of the body ecclesiastic every such hurt festered. The\nhighest febrile temperature was reached when, at an ordination in 1843,\ntwo of the leading presbyters in the diocese of New York rose in their\nplaces, and, reading each one his solemn protest against the ordaining\nof one of the candidates on the ground of his Romanizing opinions, left\nthe church.\n\nThe result of the long conflict was not immediately apparent. It was not\nonly that \"high\" opinions, even the highest of the Tractarian school,\nwere to be tolerated within the church, but that the High-church party\nwas to be the dominant party. The Episcopal Church was to stand before\nthe public as representing, not that which it held in common with the\nother churches of the country, but that which was most distinctive. From\nthis time forth the \"Evangelical\" party continued relatively to decline,\ndown to the time, thirty years later, when it was represented in the\ninconsiderable secession of the \"Reformed Episcopal Church.\" The\ncombination of circumstances and influences by which this party\nsupremacy was brought about is an interesting study, for which, however,\nthere is no room in this brief compendium of history.\n\nA more important fact is this: that in spite of these agitating internal\nstrifes, and even by reason of them, the growth of the denomination was\nwonderfully rapid and strong. No fact in the external history of the\nAmerican church at this period is more imposing than this growth of the\nEpiscopal Church from nothing to a really commanding stature. It is easy\nto enumerate minor influences tending to this result, some of which are\nnot of high spiritual dignity; but these must not be overestimated. The\nnature of this growth, as well as the numerical amount of it, requires\nto be considered. This strongly distinguished order in the American\nchurch has been aggrandized, not, to any great degree, by immigration,\nnor by conquest from the ranks of the irreligious, but by a continual\nstream of accessions both to its laity and to its clergy from other\nsects of the church. These accessions have of course been variable in\nquality, but they have included many such as no denomination could\nafford to lose, and such as any would be proud to receive. Without\njudging of individual cases, it is natural and reasonable to explain so\nconsiderable a current setting so steadily for two generations toward\nthe Episcopal Church as being attracted by the distinctive\ncharacteristics of that church. Foremost among these we may reckon the\nstudy of the dignity and beauty of public worship, and the tradition and\nuse of forms of devotion of singular excellence and value. A tendency to\nrevert to the ancient Calvinist doctrine of the sacraments has\nprepossessed some in favor of that sect in which the old Calvinism is\nstill cherished. Some have rejoiced to find a door of access to the\ncommunion of the church not beset with revivalist exactions of\nexamination and scrutiny of the sacred interior experiences of the soul.\nSome have reacted from an excessive or inquisitive or arbitrary church\ndiscipline, toward a default of discipline. Some, worthily weary of\nsectarian division and of the \"evangelical\" doctrine that schism is the\nnormal condition of the church of Christ, have found real comfort in\ntaking refuge in a sect in which, closing their eyes, they can say,\n\"There are no schisms in the church; the church is one and undivided,\nand we are it.\" These and other like considerations, mingled in varying\nproportions, have been honorable motives impelling toward the Episcopal\ndenomination; and few that have felt the force of them have felt\nconstrained stubbornly to resist the gentle assurances offered by the\n\"apostolic succession\" theory of a superior authority and prerogative\nwith which they had become invested. The numerous accessions to the\nEpiscopal Church from other communions have, of course, been in large\npart reinforcements to the already dominant party.\n\nIn the Roman Catholic Church of the United States, during this stormy\nperiod, there was by no means a perfect calm. The ineradicable feeling\nof the American citizen--however recent his naturalization--that he has\na right to do what he will with his own, had kept asserting itself in\nthat plausible but untenable claim of the laity to manage the church\nproperty acquired by their own contributions, which is known to Catholic\nwriters as \"trusteeism.\" Through the whole breadth of the country, from\nBuffalo to New Orleans, sharp conflicts over this question between\nclergy and laity had continued to vex the peace of the church, and the\nvictory of the clergy had not been unvarying and complete. When, in\n1837, Bishop John Hughes took the reins of spiritual power in New York,\nhe resolved to try conclusions with the trustees who attempted to\noverrule his authority in his own cathedral. Sharply threatening to put\nthe church under interdict, if necessary, he brought the recalcitrants\nto terms at last by a less formidable process. He appealed to the\ncongregation to withhold all further contributions from the trustees.\nThe appeal, for conscience' sake, to refrain from giving has always a\ndouble hope of success. And the bishop succeeded in ousting the\ntrustees, at the serious risk of teaching the people a trick which has\nsince been found equally effective when applied on the opposite side of\na dispute between clergyman and congregation. In Philadelphia the long\nstruggle was not ended without the actual interdicting of the cathedral\nof St. Mary's, April, 1831. In Buffalo, so late as 1847, even this\nextreme measure, applied to the largest congregation in the newly\nerected diocese, did not at once enforce submission.\n\nThe conflict with trusteeism was only one out of many conflicts which\ngave abundant exercise to the administrative abilities of the American\nbishops. The mutual jealousies of the various nationalities and races\namong the laity, and of the various sects of the regular clergy,\nmenaced, and have not wholly ceased to menace, the harmony of the\nchurch, if not its unity.\n\nOne disturbing element by which the Roman Catholic Church in some\nEuropean countries has been sorely vexed makes no considerable figure in\nthe corresponding history in America. There has never been here any\n\"Liberal Catholic\" party. The fact stands in analogy with many like\nfacts. Visitors to America from the established churches of England or\nScotland or Germany have often been surprised to find the temper of the\nold-country church so much broader and less rigid than that of the\ndaughter church in the new and free republic. The reason is less\nrecondite than might be supposed. In the old countries there are\nretained in connection with the state-church, by constraint of law or of\npowerful social or family influences, many whose adhesion to its\ndistinctive tenets and rules is slight and superficial. It is out of\nsuch material that the liberal church party grows. In the migration it\nis not that the liberal churchman becomes more strict, but that, being\nreleased from outside pressure, he becomes less of a churchman. He\neasily draws off from his hereditary communion and joins himself to some\nother, or to none at all. This process of evaporation leaves behind it a\nstrong residuum in which all characteristic elements are held as in a\nsaturated solution.\n\nA further security of the American Catholic Church against the growth of\nany \"Liberal Catholic\" party like those of continental Europe is the\nabsolutist organization of the hierarchy under the personal government\nof the pope. In these last few centuries great progress has been made by\nthe Roman see in extinguishing the ancient traditions of local or\nnational independence in the election of bishops. Nevertheless in\nCatholic Europe important relics of this independence give an effective\ncheck to the absolute power of Rome. In America no trace of this\nhistoric independence has ever existed. The power of appointing and\nremoving bishops is held absolutely and exclusively by the pope and\nexercised through the Congregation of the Propaganda. The power of\nordaining and assigning priests is held by the bishop, who also holds or\ncontrols the title to the church property in his diocese. The security\nagainst partisan division within the church is as complete as it can be\nmade without gravely increasing the risks of alienating additional\nmultitudes from the fellowship of the church.[312:1]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDuring the whole of this dreary decade there were \"fightings without\" as\nwell as within for the Catholic Church in the United States. Its great\nand sudden growth solely by immigration had made it distinctively a\nchurch of foreigners, and chiefly of Irishmen. The conditions were\nfavorable for the development of a race prejudice aggravated by a\nreligious antipathy. It was a good time for the impostor, the fanatic,\nand the demagogue to get in their work. In Boston, in 1834, the report\nthat a woman was detained against her will in the Ursuline convent at\nCharlestown, near Boston, led to the burning of the building by a\ndrunken mob. The Titus Oates of the American no-popery panic, in 1836,\nwas an infamous woman named Maria Monk, whose monstrous stories of\nsecret horrors perpetrated in a convent in Montreal, in which she\nclaimed to have lived as a nun, were published by a respectable house\nand had immense currency. A New York pastor of good standing, Dr.\nBrownlee, made himself sponsor for her character and her stories; and\nwhen these had been thoroughly exposed, by Protestant ministers and\nlaymen, for the shameless frauds that they were, there were plenty of\nzealots to sustain her still. A \"Protestant Society\" was organized in\nNew York, and solicited the contributions of the benevolent and pious to\npromote the dissemination of raw-head-and-bloody-bones literature on the\nhorrors of popery. The enterprise met with reprobation from sober-minded\nProtestants, but it was not without its influence for mischief. The\npresence of a great foreign vote, easily manipulated and cast in block,\nwas proving a copious source of political corruption. Large concessions\nof privilege or of public property to Catholic institutions were\nreasonably suspected to have been made in consideration of clerical\nservices in partisan politics.[313:1] The conditions provoked, we might\nsay necessitated, a political reform movement, which took the name and\ncharacter of \"Native American.\" In Philadelphia, a city notorious at\nthat time for misgovernment and turbulence, an orderly \"American\"\nmeeting was attacked and broken up by an Irish mob. One act of violence\nled to another, the excitement increasing from day to day; deadly shots\nwere exchanged in the streets, houses from which balls had been fired\ninto the crowd were set in flames, which spread to other houses,\nchurches were burned, and the whole city dominated by mobs that were\nfinally suppressed by the State militia. It was an appropriate climax\nto the ten years of ecclesiastical and social turmoil.[314:1]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[296:1] Johnson, \"The Southern Presbyterians,\" p. 359.\n\n[297:1] For the close historical parallel to the exscinding acts of 1837\nsee page 167, above. A later parallel, it is claimed, is found in the\n\"virtually exscinding act\" of the General Assembly of 1861, which was\nthe occasion of the secession of the Southern Presbyterians. The\nhistorian of the Southern Presbyterians, who remarks with entire\ncomplacency that the \"victory\" of 1837 was won \"only by virtue of an\nalmost solid South,\" seems quite unconscious that this kind of victory\ncould have any force as a precedent or as an estoppel (Johnson, \"The\nSouthern Presbyterians,\" pp. 335, 359). But it is natural, no doubt,\nthat exscinding acts should look different when examined from the muzzle\ninstead of from the breech.\n\n[304:1] Tiffany, chap. xv.\n\n[305:1] The intense antagonism of the New England Congregationalists to\nJefferson and his party as representing French infidelity and Jacobinism\nadmits of many striking illustrations. The sermon of Nathanael Emmons on\n\"Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin\" is characterized by\nProfessor Park as \"a curiosity in politico-homiletical literature.\" At\nthis distance it is not difficult to see that the course of this clergy\nwas far more honorable to its boldness and independence than to its\ndiscretion and sense of fitness. Both its virtues and its faults had a\ntendency to strengthen an opposing party.\n\n[306:1] Hobart's sermon at the consecration of Right Rev. H. U.\nOnderdonk, Philadelphia, 1827.\n\n[312:1] For a fuller account of the dissensions in the Catholic Church,\nconsult, by index, Bishop O'Gorman's \"History.\" On the modern\norganization of the episcopate in complete dependence on the Holy See,\nconsult the learned article on \"Episcopal Elections,\" by Dr. Peries, of\nthe Catholic University at Washington, in the \"American Catholic\nQuarterly Review\" for January, 1896; also the remarks of Archbishop\nKenrick, of St. Louis, in his \"_Concio in Concilio Vaticano Habenda at\nnon Habita_,\" in \"An Inside View of the Vatican Council,\" by L. W.\nBacon, pp. 61, 121.\n\n[313:1] A satirical view of these concessions, in the vast dimensions\nwhich they had reached twenty-five years later in the city and county of\nNew York, was published in two articles, \"Our Established Church,\" and\n\"The Unestablished Church,\" in \"Putnam's Magazine\" for July and\nDecember, 1869. The articles were reissued in a pamphlet, \"with an\nexplanatory and exculpatory preface, and sundry notices of the\ncontemporary press.\"\n\n[314:1] A studiously careful account of the Philadelphia riots of 1844\nis given in the \"New Englander,\" vol. ii. (1844), pp. 470, 624.\n\nThis account of the schisms of the period is of course not complete. The\nAmerican Missionary Association, since distinguished for successful\nlabors chiefly among the freedmen, grew out of dissatisfaction felt by\nmen of advanced antislavery views with the position of the \"American\nBoard\" and the American Home Missionary Society on the slavery question.\nThe organization of it was matured in 1846. A very fruitful schism in\nits results was that which, in 1835, planted a cutting from Lane\nSeminary at Cincinnati, in the virgin soil at Oberlin, Ohio. The\nbeginning thus made with a class in theology has grown into a noble and\nwidely beneficent institution, the influence of which has extended to\nthe ends of the land and of the world.\n\nThe division of the Society of Friends into the two societies known as\nHicksite and Orthodox is of earlier date--1827-28.\n\nNo attempt is made in this volume to chronicle the interminable\nsplittings and reunitings of the Presbyterian sects of Scottish\nextraction. A curious diagram, on page 146 of volume xi. of the present\nseries, illustrates the sort of task which such a chronicle involves.\n\nAn illustration of the way in which the extreme defenders of slavery and\nthe extreme abolitionists sustained each other in illogical statements\n(see above, pp. 301, 302) is found in Dr. Thornwell's claim (identical\nwith Mr. Garrison's) that if slavery is wrong, then all slave-holders\nought to be excommunicated (vol. vi., p. 157, note). Dr. Thornwell may\nnot have been the \"mental and moral giant\" that he appears to his\nadmirers (see Professor Johnson in vol. xi., p. 355), but he was an\nintelligent and able man, quite too clear-headed to be imposed upon by a\npalpable \"ambiguous middle,\" except for his excitement in the heat of a\ndesperate controversy with the moral sense of all Christendom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE GREAT IMMIGRATION.\n\n\nAt the taking of the first census of the United States, in 1790, the\ncountry contained a population of about four millions in its territory\nof less than one million of square miles.\n\nSixty years later, at the census of 1850, it contained a population of\nmore than twenty-three millions in its territory of about three millions\nof square miles.\n\nThe vast expansion of territory to more than threefold the great\noriginal domain of the United States had been made by honorable purchase\nor less honorable conquest. It had not added largely to the population\nof the nation; the new acquisitions were mainly of unoccupied land. The\nincrease of the population, down to about 1845, was chiefly the natural\nincrease of a hardy and prolific stock under conditions in the highest\ndegree favorable to such increase. Up to the year 1820 the recent\nimmigration had been inconsiderable. In the ten years 1820-29 the annual\narrival of immigrants was nine thousand. In the next decade, 1830-39,\nthe annual arrival was nearly thirty-five thousand, or a hundred a day.\nFor forty years the total immigration from all quarters was much less\nthan a half-million. In the course of the next three decades, from 1840\nto 1869, there arrived in the United States from the various countries\nof Europe five and a half millions of people. It was more than the\nentire population of the country at the time of the first census;--\n\n     A multitude like which the populous North\n     Poured never from her frozen loins to pass\n     Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons\n     Came like a deluge on the South and spread\n     Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.\n\nUnder the pressure of a less copious flood of incursion the greatest\nempire in all history, strongest in arts and polity as well as arms, had\nperished utterly. If Rome, with her population of one hundred and twenty\nmillions, her genius for war and government, and her long-compacted\ncivilization, succumbed under a less sudden rush of invasion, what hope\nwas there for the young American Republic, with its scanty population\nand its new and untried institutions?[316:1]\n\nAn impressive providential combination of causes determined this great\nhistoric movement of population at this time. It was effected by\nattractions in front of the emigrant, reinforced by impulses from\nbehind. The conclusion of the peace of 1815 was followed by the\nbeginning of an era of great public works, one of the first of which was\nthe digging of the Erie Canal. This sort of enterprise makes an\nimmediate demand for large forces of unskilled laborers; and in both\nhemispheres it has been observed to occasion movements of population out\nof Catholic countries into Protestant countries. The westward current\nof the indigenous population created a vacuum in the seaboard States,\nand a demand for labor that was soon felt in the labor-markets of the\nOld World. A liberal homestead policy on the part of the national\ngovernment, and naturalization laws that were more than liberal,\nagencies for the encouragement of settlers organized by individual\nStates and by railroad corporations and other great landed proprietors,\nand the eager competition of steamship companies drumming for steerage\npassengers in all parts of Europe--all these cooeperated with the growing\nfacility and cheapness of steam transportation to swell the current of\nmigration. The discovery of gold in California quickened the flow of it.\n\nAs if it had been the divine purpose not only to draw forth, but to\ndrive forth, the populations of the Old World to make their homes in the\nNew, there was added to all these causes conducive to migration the\nIrish famine of 1846-47, and the futile revolutions of 1848, with the\ntyrannical reactions which followed them. But the great stimulus to\nmigration was the success and prosperity that attended it. It was\n\"success that succeeded.\" The great emigration agent was the letter\nwritten to his old home by the new settler, in multitudes of cases\ninclosing funds to pay the passage of friends whom he had left behind\nhim.\n\nThe great immigration that began about 1845 is distinguished from some\nof the early colonizations in that it was in no sense a religious\nmovement. Very grave religious results were to issue from it; but they\nwere to be achieved through the unconscious cooeperation of a multitude\nof individuals each intent with singleness of vision on his own\nindividual ends. It is by such unconscious cooeperation that the\ndirecting mind and the overruling hand of God in history are most\nsignally illustrated.\n\nIn the first rush of this increased immigration by far the greatest\ncontributor of new population was Ireland. It not only surpassed any\nother country in the number of its immigrants, but in the height of the\nIrish exodus, in the decade 1840-50, it nearly equaled all other\ncountries of the world together. The incoming Irish millions were almost\nsolidly Roman Catholic. The measures taken by the British government for\nmany generations to attach the Irish people to the crown and convert\nthem to the English standard of Protestantism had had the result of\ndischarging upon our shores a people distinguished above all Christendom\nbesides for its ardent and unreserved devotion to the Roman Church, and\nhardly less distinguished for its hatred to England.\n\nAfter the first flood-tide the relative number of the Irish immigrants\nbegan to decrease, and has kept on decreasing until now. Since the Civil\nWar the chief source of immigration has been Germany; and its\ncontributions to our population have greatly aggrandized the Lutheran\ndenomination, once so inconsiderable in numbers, until in many western\ncities it is the foremost of the Protestant communions, and in Chicago\noutnumbers the communicants of the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and\nthe Methodist churches combined.[318:1] The German immigration has\ncontributed its share, and probably more than its share, to our\nnon-religious and churchless population. Withal, in a proportion which\nit is not easy to ascertain with precision, it added multitudinous\nthousands to the sudden and enormous growth of the Roman Catholic\nChurch. But there is an instructive contrast between the German\nimmigrations, whether Catholic or Protestant, and the Irish immigration.\nThe Catholicism of the Irish, held from generation to generation in the\nface of partisan and sometimes cruelly persecuting laws, was held with\nthe ardor, if not of personal conviction, at least of strong hereditary\nanimosity. To the Germans, their religious sect, whether Catholic,\nLutheran, or Reformed, is determined for them by political arrangement,\nunder the principle _cujus regio, ejus religio_. It is matter of course\nthat tenets thus acquired should be held by a tenure so far removed from\nfanaticism as to seem to more zealous souls much like lukewarmness.\nAccustomed to have the cost of religious institutions provided for in\nthe budget of public expenses, the wards of the Old World state-churches\nfind themselves here in strange surroundings, untrained in habits of\nself-denial for religious objects. The danger is a grave and real one\nthat before they become acclimated to the new conditions a large\npercentage will be lost, not only from their hereditary communion, but\nfrom all Christian fellowship, and lapse into simple indifferentism and\ngodlessness. They have much to learn and something to teach. The\nindigenous American churches are not likely to be docile learners at the\nfeet of alien teachers; but it would seem like the slighting of a\nprovidential opportunity if the older sects should fail to recognize\nthat one of the greatest and by far the most rapidly growing of the\nProtestant churches of America, the Lutheran, growing now with new\nincrements not only from the German, but also from the Scandinavian\nnations, is among us in such force to teach us somewhat by its example\nof the equable, systematic, and methodical ways of a state-church, as\nwell as to learn something from the irregular fervor of that revivalism\nwhich its neighbors on every hand have inherited from the Great\nAwakening. It would be the very extravagance of national self-conceit if\nthe older American churches should become possessed of the idea that\nfour millions of German Christians and one million of Scandinavians,\narriving here from 1860 to 1890, with their characteristic methods in\ntheology and usages of worship and habits of church organization and\nadministration, were here, in the providence of God, only to be\nassimilated and not at all to assimilate.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe vast growth of the Roman Catholic Church in America could not but\nfill its clergy and adherents with wonder and honest pride. But it was\nan occasion of immense labors and not a little anxiety. One effect of\nthe enormous immigration was inevitably to impose upon this church,\naccording to the popular apprehension, the character of a foreign\nassociation, and, in the earlier periods of the influx, of an Irish\nassociation. It was in like manner inevitable, from the fact that the\nimmigrant class are preponderantly poor and of low social rank, that it\nshould for two or three generations be looked upon as a church for the\nilliterate and unskilled laboring class. An incident of the excessive\ntorrent rush of the immigration was that the Catholic Church became to a\ndisproportionate extent an urban institution, making no adequate\nprovision for the dispersed in agricultural regions.\n\nAgainst these and other like disadvantages the hierarchy of the Catholic\nChurch have struggled heroically, with some measure of success. The\nsteadily rising character of the imported population in its successive\ngenerations has aided them. If in the first generations the churches\nwere congregations of immigrants served by an imported clergy, the most\nstrenuous exertions were made for the founding of institutions that\nshould secure to future congregations born upon the soil the services of\nan American-trained priesthood. One serious hindrance to the noble\nadvances that have nevertheless been made in this direction has been the\nfanatical opposition levied against even the most beneficent enterprises\nof the church by a bigoted Native-Americanism. It is not a hopeful\nmethod of conciliating and naturalizing a foreign element in the\ncommunity to treat them with suspicion and hostility as alien enemies.\nThe shameful persecution which the mob was for a brief time permitted to\ninflict on Catholic churches and schools and convents had for its chief\neffect to confirm the foreigner in his adherence to his church and his\nantipathy to Protestantism, and to provoke a twofold ferocity in return.\nAt a time when there was reason to apprehend a Know-nothing riot in New\nYork, in 1844, a plan was concerted and organized by \"a large Irish\nsociety with divisions throughout the city,\" by which, \"in case a single\nchurch was attacked, buildings should be fired in all quarters and the\ngreat city should be involved in a general conflagration.\"[321:1]\n\nThe utmost that could have been hoped for by the devoted but inadequate\nbody of the Roman Catholic clergy in America, overwhelmed by an influx\nof their people coming in upon them in increasing volume, numbering\nmillions per annum, was that they might be able to hold their own. But\nthis hope was very far from being attained. How great have been the\nlosses to the Roman communion through the transplantation of its members\nacross the sea is a question to which the most widely varying answers\nhave been given, and on which statistical exactness seems unattainable.\nThe various estimates, agreeing in nothing else, agree in representing\nthem as enormously great.[321:2] All good men will also agree that in\nso far as these losses represent mere lapses into unbelief and\nirreligion they are to be deplored. Happily there is good evidence of a\nlarge salvage, gathered into other churches, from what so easily becomes\na shipwreck of faith with total loss.\n\nIt might seem surprising, in view of the many and diverse resources of\nattractive influence which the Roman Church has at its command, that its\nlosses have not been to some larger extent compensated by conversions\nfrom other sects. Instances of such conversion are by no means wanting;\nbut so far as a popular current toward Catholicism is concerned, the\nattractions in that direction are outweighed by the disadvantages\nalready referred to. It has not been altogether a detriment to the\nCatholic Church in America that the social status and personal\ncomposition of its congregations, in its earlier years, have been such\nthat the transition into it from any of the Protestant churches could be\nmade only at the cost of a painful self-denial. The number of accessions\nto it has been thereby lessened, but (leaving out the case of the\ntransition of politicians from considerations of expediency) the quality\nof them has been severely sifted. Incomparably the most valuable\nacquisition which the American Catholic Church has received has been the\ncompany of devoted and gifted young men, deeply imbued with the\nprinciples and sentiments of the High-church party in the Episcopal\nChurch, who have felt constrained in conscience and in logic to take the\nstep, which seems so short, from the highest level in the Anglican\nChurch into the Roman, and who, organized into the Order of the Paulist\nFathers, have exemplified in the Roman Church so many of the highest\nqualities of Protestant preaching.\n\nHe is a bold man who will undertake to predict in detail the future of\nthe Roman Church in America. To say that it will be modified by its\nsurroundings is only to say what is true of it in all countries. To say\nthat it will be modified for the better is to say what is true of it in\nall Protestant countries. Nowhere is the Roman Church so pure from\nscandal and so effective for good as where it is closely surrounded and\njealously scrutinized by bodies of its fellow-Christians whom it is\npermitted to recognize only as heretics. But when the influence of\nsurrounding heresy is seen to be an indispensable blessing to the\nchurch, the heretic himself comes to be looked upon with a mitigated\nhorror. Not with the sacrifice of any principle, but through the\napplication of some of those provisions by which the Latin theology is\nable to meet exigencies like this,--the allowance in favor of\n\"invincible ignorance\" and prejudice, the distinction between the body\nand \"the soul of the church,\"--the Roman Catholic, recognizing the\nspirit of Christ in his Protestant fellow-Christian, is able to hold him\nin spiritual if not formal communion, so that the Catholic Church may\nprove itself not dissevered from the Church Catholic. In the common\nduties of citizenship and of humanity, in the promotion of the interests\nof morality, even in those religious matters that are of common concern\nto all honest disciples of Jesus Christ, he is at one with his heretic\nbrethren. Without the change of a single item either of doctrine or of\ndiscipline, the attitude and temper of the church, as compared with the\nchurch of Spain or Italy or Mexico, is revolutionized. The change must\nneeds draw with it other changes, which may not come without some jar\nand conflict between progressive and conservative, but which\nnevertheless needs must come. Out of many indications of the spirit of\nfellowship with all Christians now exemplified among American Catholics,\nI quote one of the most recent and authoritative from an address of\nArchbishop Ryan at the Catholic Congress in Chicago in 1893. Speaking on\nChristian union, he said:\n\n     \"If there is any one thing more than another upon which people\n     agree, it is respect and reverence for the person and the\n     character of the Founder of Christianity. How the Protestant\n     loves his Saviour! How the Protestant eye will sometimes grow\n     dim when speaking of our Lord! In this great center of union\n     is found the hope of human society, the only means of\n     preserving Christian civilization, the only point upon which\n     Catholic and Protestant may meet. As if foreseeing that this\n     should be, Christ himself gave his example of fraternal\n     charity, not to the orthodox Jew, but to the heretical\n     Samaritan, showing that charity and love, while faith remains\n     intact, can never be true unless no distinction is made\n     between God's creatures.\"[325:1]\n\nHerein is fellowship higher than that of symbols and sacraments. By so\nfar as it receives this spirit of love the American Catholic Church\nenters into its place in that greater Catholic Church of which we all\nmake mention in the Apostles' Creed--\"the Holy Universal Church, which\nis the fellowship of holy souls.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe effect of the Great Immigration on the body of the immigrant\npopulation is not more interesting or more important than the effect of\nit on the religious bodies already in occupation of the soil. The\nimpression made on them by what seemed an irruption of barbarians of\nstrange language or dialect, for the most part rude, unskilled, and\nilliterate, shunning as profane the Christian churches of the land, and\nbowing in unknown rites as devotees of a system known, and by no means\nfavorably known, only through polemic literature and history, and\nthrough the gruesome traditions of Puritan and Presbyterian and\nHuguenot, was an impression not far removed from horror; and this\nimpression was deepened as the enormous proportions of this invasion\ndisclosed themselves from year to year. The serious and not unreasonable\nfear that these armies of aliens, handled as they manifestly were by a\ngeneralship that was quick to seize and fortify in a conspicuous way the\nstrategic points of influence, especially in the new States, might\nimperil or ruin the institutions and liberties of the young Republic,\nwas stimulated and exploited in the interest of enterprises of\nevangelization that might counter-work the operations of the invading\nchurch. The appeals of the Bible and tract societies, and of the\nvarious home mission agencies of the different denominations, as well as\nof the distinctively antipopery societies, were pointed with the alarm\nlest \"the great West\" should fall under the domination of the papal\nhierarchy. Naturally the delineations of the Roman system and of its\npublic and social results that were presented to the public for these\npurposes were of no flattering character. Not history only, but\ncontemporary geography gave warnings of peril. Canada on one hand, and\nMexico and the rest of Spanish America on the other, were cited as\nliving examples of the fate which might befall the free United States.\nThe apocalyptic prophecies were copiously drawn upon for material of\nwar. By processes of exegesis which critical scholarship regards with a\nsmile or a shudder, the helpless pope was made to figure as the\nAntichrist, the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, the Scarlet Woman on\nthe Seven Hills, the Little Horn Speaking Blasphemies, the Beast, and\nthe Great Red Dragon. That moiety of Christendom which, sorely as its\nhistory has been deformed by corruption and persecution, violently as it\nseems to be contrasted with the simplicity of the primeval church, is\nnevertheless the spiritual home of multitudes of Christ's well-approved\nservants and disciples, was held up to gaze as being nothing but the\nenemy of Christ and his cause. The appetite of the Protestant public for\nscandals at the expense of their fellow-Christians was stimulated to a\nmorbid greediness and then overfed with willful and wicked fabrications.\nThe effect of this fanaticism on some honest but illogical minds was\nwhat might have been looked for. Brought by and by into personal\nacquaintance with Catholic ministers and institutions, and discovering\nthe fraud and injustice that had been perpetrated, they sprang by a\ngenerous reaction into an attitude of sympathy for the Roman Catholic\nsystem. A more favorable preparation of the way of conversion to Rome\ncould not be desired by the skillful propagandist. One recognizes a\nretributive justice in the fact, when notable gains to the Catholic\nChurch are distinctly traced to the reaction of honest men from these\nfraudulent polemics.[327:1]\n\nThe danger to the Republic, which was thus malignantly or ignorantly\nexaggerated and distorted, was nevertheless real and grave. No sincerely\nearnest and religious Protestant, nor even any well-informed patriotic\ncitizen, with the example of French and Spanish America before his eyes,\ncould look with tolerance upon the prospect of a possible Catholicizing\nof the new States at the West; and the sight of the incessant tide of\nimmigration setting westward, the reports of large funds sent hither\nfrom abroad to aid the propagation of the Roman Church, and the accounts\nof costly and imposing ecclesiastical buildings rising at the most\nimportant centers of population, roused the Christian patriotism of the\nolder States to the noblest enterprises of evangelization. There was no\nwasting of energy in futile disputation. In all the Protestant\ncommunions it was felt that the work called for was a simple, peaceful,\nand positive one--to plant the soil of the West, at the first occupation\nof it by settlers, with Christian institutions and influences. The\nimmensity of the task stimulated rather than dismayed the zeal of the\nvarious churches. The work undertaken and accomplished in the twenty\nyears from 1840 to 1860 in providing the newly settled regions with\nchurches, pastors, colleges, and theological seminaries, with\nSunday-schools, and with Bibles and other religious books, was of a\nmagnitude which will never be defined by statistical figures. How great\nit was, and at what cost it was effected in gifts of treasure and of\nheroic lives of toil and self-denial, can only be a matter of vague\nwonder and thanksgiving.\n\nThe work of planting the church in the West exhibits the voluntary\nsystem at its best--and at its worst. A task so vast and so momentous\nhas never been imposed on the resources of any state establishment. It\nis safe to say that no established church has ever existed, however\nimperially endowed, that would have been equal to the undertaking of it.\nWith no imposing combination of forces, and no strategic concert of\naction, the work was begun spontaneously and simultaneously, like some\nof the operations of nature, by a multitude of different agencies, and\nwent forward uninterrupted to something as nearly like completeness as\ncould be in a work the exigencies of which continually widened beyond\nall achievements. The planting of the church in the West is one of the\nwonders of church history.\n\nBut this noble act of religious devotion was by no means a sacrifice\nwithout blemish. The sacred zeal for advancing God's reign and\nrighteousness was mingled with many very human motives in the progress\nof it. Conspicuous among these was the spirit of sectarian competition.\nThe worthy and apostolic love for kindred according to the flesh\nseparated from home and exposed to the privations and temptations of the\nfrontier, the honest anxiety to forestall the domination of a\ndangerously powerful religious corporation propagating perverted views\nof truth, even the desire to advance principles and forms of belief\ndeemed to be important, were infused with a spirit of partisanship as\nlittle spiritual as the enthusiasm which animates the struggles and the\nshouters at a foot-ball game. The devoted pioneer of the gospel on the\nfrontier, seeing his work endangered by that of a rival denomination,\nwrites to the central office of his sect; the board of missions makes\nits appeal to the contributing churches; the churches respond with\nsubsidies; and the local rivalry in the mission field is pressed,\nsometimes to a good result, on the principle that \"competition is the\nlife of business.\" Thus the fragrance of the precious ointment of loving\nsacrifice is perceptibly tainted, according to the warning of\nEcclesiastes or the Preacher. And yet it is not easy for good men, being\nmen, sternly to rebuke the spirit that seems to be effective in\npromoting the good cause that they have at heart.\n\nIf the effect of these emulations on the contributing churches was\nrather carnal than spiritual, the effect in the mission field was worse.\nThe effect was seen in the squandering of money and of priceless service\nof good men and women, in the debilitating and demoralizing division and\nsubdivision of the Christian people, not of cities and large towns, but\nof villages and hamlets and of thinly settled farming districts. By the\nbuilding of churches and other edifices for sectarian uses, schism was\nestablished for coming time as a vested interest. The gifts and service\nbestowed in this cause with a truly magnificent liberality would have\nsufficed to establish the Christian faith and fellowship throughout the\nnew settlements in strength and dignity, in churches which, instead of\nlingering as puny and dependent nurslings, would have grown apace to be\nstrong and healthy nursing mothers to newer churches yet.\n\nThere is an instructive contrast, not only between the working of the\nvoluntary system and that of the Old World establishments, but between\nthe methods of the Catholic Church and the Protestant no-method. Under\nthe control of a strong cooerdinating authority the competitions of the\nvarious Catholic orders, however sharp, could never be allowed to run\ninto wasteful extravagance through cross-purposes. It is believed that\nthe Catholics have not erected many monuments of their own unthrift in\nthe shape of costly buildings begun, but left unfinished and abandoned.\nA more common incident of their work has been the buying up of these\nexpensive failures, at a large reduction from their cost, and turning\nthem to useful service. And yet the principle of sectarian competition\nis both recognized and utilized in the Roman system. The various\nclerical sects, with their characteristic names, costumes, methods, and\ndoctrinal differences, have their recognized aptitudes for various sorts\nof work, with which their names are strongly associated: the Dominican\nfor pulpit eloquence, the Capuchin for rough-and-ready street-preaching,\nthe Benedictine for literary work, the Sulpitian for the training of\npriests, and the ubiquitous Jesuit for shifty general utility with a\nspecialty of school-keeping. These and a multitude of other orders, male\nand female, have been effectively and usefully employed in the arduous\nlabor _Romanam condere gentem_. But it would seem that the superior\nstability of the present enterprise of planting Catholicism in the\ndomain of the United States, as compared with former expensive failures,\nwas due in some part to the larger employment of a diocesan parish\nclergy instead of a disproportionate reliance on the \"regulars.\"\n\nOn the whole, notwithstanding its immense armies of immigrants and the\ndevoted labors of its priests, and notwithstanding its great expansion,\nvisible everywhere in conspicuous monuments of architecture, the\nCatholic advance in America has not been, comparatively speaking,\nsuccessful. For one thing, the campaign was carried on too far from its\nbase of supplies. The subsidies from Lyons and Vienna, liberal as they\nwere, were no match for the home missionary zeal of the seaboard States\nin following their own sons westward with church and gospel and pastor.\nEven the conditions which made possible the superior management and\neconomy of resources, both material and personal, among the Catholics,\nwere attended with compensating drawbacks. With these advantages they\ncould not have the immense advantage of the popular initiative. In\nProtestantism the people were the church, and the minister was chief\namong the people only by virtue of being servant of all; the people were\nincited to take up the work for their own and carry it on at their best\ndiscretion; and they were free to make wasteful and disastrous blunders\nand learn therefrom by experience. With far greater expenditure of\nfunds, they make no comparison with their brethren of the Roman\nobedience in stately and sumptuous buildings at great centers of\ncommerce and travel. But they have covered the face of the land with\ncountry meeting-houses, twice as many as there was any worthy use for,\nin which faithful service is rendered to subdivided congregations by\nunderpaid ministers, enough in number, if they were wisely distributed,\nfor the evangelization of the whole continent; and each country\nmeeting-house is a mission station, and its congregation, men, women,\nand children, are missionaries. Thus it has come about, in the language\nof the earnest Catholic from the once Catholic city of New Orleans, that\n\"the nation, the government, the whole people, remain solidly\nProtestant.\"[331:1] Great territories originally discovered by Catholic\nexplorers and planted in the name of the church by Catholic missionaries\nand colonists, and more lately occupied by Catholic immigrants in what\nseemed overwhelming numbers, are now the seat of free and powerful\ncommonwealths in which the Catholic Church is only one of the most\npowerful and beneficent of the Christian sects, while the institutions\nand influences which characterize their society are predominantly\nProtestant.\n\nIn the westward propagation of Protestantism, as well as of Catholicism,\nthe distinctive attributes of the several sects or orders is strikingly\nillustrated.\n\nForemost in the pioneer work of the church are easily to be recognized\nthe Methodists and the Baptists, one the most solidly organized of the\nProtestant sects, the other the most uncompact and individualist; the\nfirst by virtue of the supple military organization of its great corps\nof itinerants, the other by the simplicity and popular apprehensibleness\nof its distinctive tenets and arguments and the aggressive ardor with\nwhich it inspires all its converts, and both by their facility in\nrecruiting their ministry from the rank and file of the church, without\nexcluding any by arbitrarily imposed conditions. The Presbyterians were\nheavily cumbered for advance work by traditions and rules which they\nwere rigidly reluctant to yield or bend, even when the reason for the\nrule was superseded by higher reasons. The argument for a learned\nministry is doubtless a weighty one; but it does not suffice to prove\nthat when college-bred men are not to be had it is better that the\npeople have no minister at all. There is virtue in the rule of\nministerial parity; but it should not be allowed to hinder the church\nfrom employing in humbler spiritual functions men who fall below the\nprescribed standard. This the church, in course of time, discovered, and\ninstituted a \"minor order\" of ministers, under the title of colporteurs.\nBut it was timidly and tardily done, and therefore ineffectively. The\nPresbyterians lost their place in the skirmish-line; but that which had\nbeen their hindrance in the advance work gave them great advantage in\nsettled communities, in which for many years they took precedence in\nthe building up of strong and intelligent congregations.\n\nTo the Congregationalists belongs an honor in the past which, in recent\ngenerations, they have not been jealous to retain. Beyond any sect,\nexcept the Moravians, they have cherished that charity which seeketh not\nher own. The earliest leaders in the organization of schemes of national\nbeneficence in cooeperation with others, they have sustained them with\nunselfish liberality, without regard to returns of sectarian advantage.\nThe results of their labor are largely to be traced in the upbuilding of\nother sects. Their specialty in evangelization has been that of the\nreligious educators of the nation. They have been preeminently the\nbuilders of colleges and theological seminaries. To them, also, belongs\nthe leadership in religious journalism. Not only the journals of their\nown sect and the undenominational journals, but also to a notable extent\nthe religious journals of other denominations, have depended for their\nefficiency on men bred in the discipline of Congregationalism.\n\nIt is no just reproach to the Episcopalians that they were tardy in\nentering the field of home missions. When we remember that it is only\nsince 1811 that they have emerged from numerical insignificance, we find\ntheir contribution to the planting of the church in the new settlements\nto be a highly honorable one. By a suicidal compact the guileless\nEvangelical party agreed, in 1835, to take direction of the foreign\nmissions of the church, and leave the home field under the direction of\nthe aggressive High-church party. It surrendered its part in the future\nof the church, and determined the type of Episcopalianism that was to be\nplanted in the West.[333:1] Entering thus late into the work, and that\nwith stinted resources, the Episcopal Church wholly missed the\napostolic glory of not building on other men's foundations. Coming with\nthe highest pretensions to exclusive authority, its work was very\nlargely a work of proselyting from other Christian sects. But this work\nwas prosperously carried on; and although not in itself a work of the\nhighest dignity, and although the methods of it often bore a painfully\nschismatic character, there is little room for doubt that the results of\nit have enriched and strengthened the common Christianity of America.\nIts specialties in the planting work have been the setting of a worthy\nexample of dignity and simplicity in the conduct of divine worship, and\nin general of efficiency in the administration of a parish, and, above\nall, the successful handling of the immensely difficult duties imposed\nupon Christian congregations in great cities, where the Episcopal Church\nhas its chief strength and its most effective work.\n\nOne must needs ascend to a certain altitude above the common level in\norder to discern a substantial resultant unity of movement in the\nstrenuous rivalries and even antagonisms of the many sects of the one\nchurch of Christ in America in that critical quarter-century from the\nyear 1835 to the outbreak of the Civil War, in which the work of the\nchurch was suddenly expanded by the addition of a whole empire of\nterritory on the west, and the bringing in of a whole empire of alien\npopulation from the east, and when no one of the Christian forces of the\nnation could be spared from the field. The unity is very real, and is\nvisible enough, doubtless, from \"the circle of the heavens.\" The sharers\nin the toil and conflict and the near spectators are not well placed to\nobserve it. It will be for historians in some later century to study it\nin a truer perspective.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not only as falling within this period of immigration, but as\nbeing largely dependent on its accessions from foreign lands, that the\ngrowth of Mormonism is entitled to mention in this chapter. In its\norigin Mormonism is distinctly American--a system of gross, palpable\nimposture contrived by a disreputable adventurer, Joe Smith, with the\naid of three confederates, who afterward confessed the fraud and perjury\nof which they had been guilty. It is a shame to human nature that the\nsilly lies put forth by this precious gang should have found believers.\nBut the solemn pretensions to divine revelation, mixed with elements\nborrowed from the prevalent revivalism, and from the immediate adventism\nwhich so easily captivates excitable imaginations, drew a number of\nhonest dupes into the train of the knavish leaders, and made possible\nthe pitiable history which followed. The chief recruiting-grounds for\nthe new religion were not in America, but in the manufacturing and\nmining regions of Great Britain, and in some of the countries,\nespecially the Scandinavian countries, of continental Europe. The able\nhandling of an emigration fund, and the dexterous combination of appeals\nto many passions and interests at once, have availed to draw together in\nthe State of Utah and neighboring regions a body of fanatics formidable\nto the Republic, not by their number, for they count only about one\nhundred and fifty thousand, but by the solidity with which they are\ncompacted into a political, economical, religious, and, at need,\nmilitary community, handled at will by unscrupulous chiefs. It is only\nincidentally that the strange story of the Mormons, a story singularly\ndramatic and sometimes tragic, is connected with the history of American\nChristianity.[335:1]\n\nTo this same period belongs the beginning of the immigration of the\nChinese, which, like that of the Mormons, becomes by and by important to\nour subject as furnishing occasion for active and fruitful missionary\nlabors.\n\nIn the year 1843 culminated the panic agitation of Millerism. From the\nyear 1831 an honest Vermont farmer named William Miller had been urging\nupon the public, in pamphlets and lectures, his views of the approaching\nadvent of Christ to judgment and the destruction of the world. He had\nfigured it out on the basis of prophecies in Daniel and the Revelation,\nand the great event was set down for April 23, 1843. As the date drew\nnear the excitement of many became intense. Great meetings were held, in\nthe open air or in tents, of those who wished to be found waiting for\nthe Lord. Some nobly proved their sincerity by the surrender of their\nproperty for the support of their poorer brethren until the end should\ncome. The awful day was awaited with glowing rapture of hope, or by some\nwith terror. When it dawned there was eager gazing upon the clouds of\nheaven to descry the sign of the Son of man. And when the day had passed\nwithout event there were various revulsions of feeling. The prophets set\nthemselves to going over their figures and fixing new dates; earnest\nbelievers, sobered by the failure of their pious expectations, held\nfirmly to the substance of their faith and hope, while no longer\nattempting to \"know times and seasons, which the Father hath put within\nhis own power\"; weak minds made shipwreck of faith; and scoffers cried\nin derision, \"Where is the promise of his coming?\" A monument of this\nhonest delusion still exists in the not very considerable sect of\nAdventists, with its subdivisions; but sympathizers with their general\nscheme of prophetical interpretation are to be found among the most\nearnest and faithful members of other churches.\n\nSuch has been the progress of Scriptural knowledge since the days when\nFarmer Miller went to work with his arithmetic and slate upon the\nstrange symbols and enigmatic figures of the Old and New Testament\nApocalypses, that plain Christians everywhere have now the means of\nknowing that the lines of calculation along which good people were led\ninto delusion a half-century ago started from utterly fallacious\npremises. It is to the fidelity of critical scholars that we owe it that\nhereafter, except among the ignorant and unintelligent, these two books,\nnow clearly understood, will not again be used to minister to the panic\nof a Millerite craze, nor to furnish vituperative epithets for\nantipopery agitators.\n\nTo this period also must be referred the rise of that system of\nnecromancy which, originating in America, has had great vogue in other\ncountries, and here in its native land has taken such form as really to\nconstitute a new cult. Making no mention of sporadic instances of what\nin earlier generations would have been called (and properly enough) by\nthe name of witchcraft, we find the beginning of so-called\n\"spiritualism\" in the \"Rochester rappings,\" produced, to the wonder of\nmany witnesses, by \"the Fox girls\" in 1849. How the rappings and other\nsensible phenomena were produced was a curious question, but not\nimportant; the main question was, Did they convey communications from\nthe spirits of the dead, as the young women alleged, and as many persons\nbelieved (so they thought) from demonstrative evidence? The mere\nsuggestion of the possibility of this of course awakened an inquisitive\nand eager interest everywhere. It became the subject of universal\ndiscussion and experiment in society. There was demand for other\n\"mediums\" to satisfy curiosity or aid investigation; and the demand at\nonce produced a copious supply. The business of medium became a regular\nprofession, opening a career especially to enterprising women. They\nbegan to draw together believers and doubters into \"circles\" and\n\"seances,\" and to organize permanent associations. At the end of ten\nyears the \"Spiritual Register\" for 1859, boasting great things,\nestimated the actual spiritualists in America at 1,500,000, besides\n4,000,000 more partly converted. The latest census gives the total\nmembership of their associations as 45,030. But this moderate figure\nshould not be taken as the measure of the influence of their leading\ntenet. There are not a few honest Christians who are convinced that\ncommunications do sometimes take place between the dead and the living;\nthere are a great multitude who are disposed, in a vague way, to think\nthere must be something in it. But there are few even of the earnest\ndevotees of the spiritualist cult who will deny that the whole business\nis infested with fraud, whether of dishonest mediums or of lying\nspirits. Of late years the general public has come into possession of\nmaterial for independent judgment on this point. An earnest\nspiritualist, a man of wealth, named Seybert, dying, left to the\nUniversity of Pennsylvania a legacy of sixty thousand dollars, on\ncondition that the university should appoint a commission to investigate\nthe claims of spiritualism. A commission was appointed which left\nnothing to be desired in point of ability, integrity, and impartiality.\nUnder the presidency of the renowned Professor Joseph Leidy, and with\nthe aid and advice of leading believers in spiritualism, they made a\nlong, patient, faithful investigation, the processes and results of\nwhich are published in a most amusing little volume.[338:1] The gist of\ntheir report may be briefly summed up. Every case of alleged\ncommunication from the world of departed spirits that was investigated\nby the commission (and they were guided in their selection of cases by\nthe advice of eminent and respectable believers in spiritualism) was\ndiscovered and demonstrated to be a case of gross, willful attempted\nfraud. The evidence is strong that the organized system of spiritualism\nin America, with its associations and lyceums and annual camp-meetings,\nand its itinerancy of mediums and trance speakers, is a system of mere\nimposture. In the honest simplicity of many of its followers, and in the\nwicked mendacity of its leaders, it seems to be on a par with the other\nAmerican contribution to the religions of the world, Mormonism.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[316:1] For condensed statistics of American immigration, see\n\"Encyclopaedia Britannica,\" 9th ed., s. vv. \"Emigration\" and \"United\nStates.\" For the facts concerning the Roman Empire one naturally has\nrecourse to Gibbon. From the indications there given we do not get the\nimpression that in the three centuries of the struggle of the empire\nagainst the barbarians there was ever such a thirty years' flood of\ninvasion as the immigration into the United States from 1840 to 1869.\nThe entrance into the Roman Empire was indeed largely in the form of\narmed invasion; but the most destructive influence of the barbarians was\nwhen they were admitted as friends and naturalized as citizens. See\n\"Encyclopaedia Britannica,\" vol. xx., pp. 779, 780.\n\n[318:1] Jacobs, \"The Lutherans,\" p. 446.\n\n[321:1] Bishop O'Gorman, \"The Roman Catholics,\" p. 375. The atrocity of\nsuch a plot seems incredible. We should have classed it at once with the\nMaria Monk story, and other fabulous horrors of Dr. Brownlee's\nProtestant Society, but that we find it in the sober and dispassionate\npages of Bishop O'Gorman's History, which is derived from original\nsources of information. If anything could have justified the animosity\nof the \"native Americans\" (who, by the way, were widely suspected to be,\nin large proportion, native Ulstermen) it would have been the finding of\nevidence of such facts as this which Bishop O'Gorman has disclosed.\n\n[321:2] The subject is reviewed in detail, from opposite points of view,\nby Bishop O'Gorman, pp. 489-500, and by Dr. Daniel Dorchester,\n\"Christianity in the United States,\" pp. 618-621. One of the most recent\nestimates is that presented to the Catholic Congress at Chicago, in\n1893, in a remarkable speech by Mr. M. T. Elder, of New Orleans.\nSpeaking of \"the losses sustained by the church in this country, placed\nby a conservative estimate at twenty millions of people, he laid the\nresponsibility for this upon neglect of immigration and colonization,\ni.e., neglect of the rural population. From this results a long train of\nlosses.\" He added: \"When I see how largely Catholicity is represented\namong our hoodlum element, I feel in no spread-eagle mood. When I note\nhow few Catholics are engaged in honestly tilling the honest soil, and\nhow many Catholics are engaged in the liquor traffic, I cannot talk\nbuncombe to anybody. When I reflect that out of the 70,000,000 of this\nnation we number only 9,000,000, and that out of that 9,000,000 so large\na proportion is made up of poor factory hands, poor mill and shop and\nmine and railroad employees, poor government clerks, I still fail to\nfind material for buncombe or spread-eagle or taffy-giving. And who can\nlook at our past history and feel proud of our present status?\" He\nadvocated as a remedy for this present state of things a movement toward\ncolonization, with especial attention to extension of educational\nadvantages for rural Catholics, and instruction of urban Catholics in\nthe advantages of rural life. \"For so long as the rural South, the\npastoral West, the agricultural East, the farming Middle States, remain\nsolidly Protestant, as they now are, so long will this nation, this\ngovernment, this whole people, remain solidly Protestant\" (\"The World's\nParliament of Religions,\" pp. 1414, 1415).\n\nIt is a fact not easy to be accounted for that the statistics of no\nChristian communion in America are so defective, uncertain, and\ngenerally unsatisfactory as those of the most solidly organized and\ncompletely systematized of them all, the Roman Catholic Church.\n\n[325:1] \"Parliament of Religions,\" p. 1417. An obvious verbal misprint\nis corrected in the quotation.\n\n[327:1] Bishop O'Gorman, pp. 439, 440. James Parton, in the \"Atlantic\nMonthly,\" April and May, 1868. So lately as the year 1869 a long list of\nvolumes of this scandalous rubbish continued to be offered to the\npublic, under the indorsement of eminent names, by the \"American and\nForeign Christian Union,\" until the society was driven by public\nexposure into withdrawing them from sale. See \"The Literature of the\nComing Controversy,\" in \"Putnam's Magazine\" for January, 1869.\n\n[331:1] Speech of Mr. M. T. Elder, of New Orleans, in the Catholic\nCongress at Chicago, 1893, quoted above, p. 322, _note_.\n\n[333:1] Tiffany, \"Protestant Episcopal Church,\" p. 459.\n\n[335:1] Carroll, \"Religious Forces of the United States,\" pp. 165-174;\nBishop Tuttle, in \"Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia,\" pp. 1575-1581; Professor\nJohn Fraser, in \"Encyclopaedia Britannica,\" vol. xvi., pp. 825-828;\nDorchester, \"Christianity in the United States,\" pp. 538-646.\n\n[338:1] \"Report of the Seybert Commission,\" Philadelphia, Lippincott.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nTHE CIVIL WAR--ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES.\n\n\nIt has been observed that for nearly half a generation after the\nreaction began from the fervid excitement of the Millerite agitation no\nseason of general revival was known in the American church.\n\nThese were years of immense material prosperity, \"the golden age of our\nhistory.\"[340:1] The wealth of the nation in that time far more than\ndoubled; its railroad mileage more than threefolded; population moved\nwestward with rapidity and volume beyond precedent. Between 1845 and\n1860 there were admitted seven new States and four organized\nTerritories.\n\nWithal it was a time of continually deepening intensity of political\nagitation. The patchwork of compromises and settlements contrived by\nmake-shift politicians like Clay and Douglas would not hold; they tore\nout, and the rent was made worse. Part of the Compromise of 1850, which\nwas to be something altogether sempiternal, was a Fugitive Slave Law so\nstudiously base and wicked in its provisions as to stir the indignation\nof just and generous men whenever it was enforced, and to instruct and\nstrengthen and consolidate an intelligent and conscientious opposition\nto slavery as not a century of antislavery lecturing and pamphleteering\ncould have done. Four years later the sagacious Stephen Douglas\nintroduced into Congress his ingenious permanent pacification scheme for\ntaking the slavery question \"out of politics\" by perfidiously repealing\nthe act under which the western Territories had for the third part of a\ncentury been pledged to freedom, and leaving the question of freedom or\nslavery to be decided by the first settlers upon the soil. It was\nunderstood on both sides that the effect of this measure would be to\nturn over the soil of Kansas to slavery; and for a moment there was a\ncalm that did almost seem like peace. But the providential man for the\nemergency, Eli Thayer, boldly accepted the challenge under all the\ndisadvantageous conditions, and appealed to the friends of freedom and\nrighteousness to stand by him in \"the Kansas Crusade.\" The appeal was to\nthe same Christian sentiment which had just uttered its vain protest,\nthrough the almost unanimous voice of the ministers of the gospel,\nagainst the opening of the Territories to the possibility of slavery. It\nwas taken up in the solemn spirit of religious duty. None who were\npresent are likely to forget the scene when the emigrants from New Haven\nassembled in the North Church to be sped on their way with prayer and\nbenediction; how the vast multitude were thrilled by the noble eloquence\nof Beecher, and how money came out of pocket when it was proposed to\nequip the colonists with arms for self-defense against the ferocity of\n\"border ruffians.\" There were scenes like this in many a church and\ncountry prayer-meeting, where Christian hearts did not forget to pray\n\"for them in bonds, as bound with them.\" There took place such a\nreligious emigration as America had not known since the days of the\nfirst colonists. They went forth singing the words of Whittier:\n\n     We cross the prairies as of old\n       Our fathers crossed the sea,\n     To make the West, as they the East,\n       The empire of the free.\n\nThose were choice companies; it was said that in some of their\nsettlements every third man was a college graduate. Thus it was that,\nnot all at once, but after desperate tribulations, Kansas was saved for\nfreedom. It was the turning-point in the \"irrepressible conflict.\" The\nbeam of the scales, which politicians had for forty years been trying to\nhold level, dipped in favor of liberty and justice, and it was hopeless\nthenceforth to restore the balance.[342:1]\n\nNeither of the two characteristics of this time, the abounding material\nprosperity or the turbid political agitation, was favorable to that\nfixed attention to spiritual themes which promotes the revival of\nreligion. But the conditions were about to be suddenly changed.\n\nSuddenly, in the fall of 1857, came a business revulsion. Hard times\nfollowed. Men had leisure for thought and prayer, and anxieties that\nthey were fain to cast upon God, seeking help and direction. The happy\nthought occurred to a good man, Jeremiah Lanphier, in the employ of the\nold North Dutch Church in New York, to open a room in the \"consistory\nbuilding\" in Fulton Street as an oratory for the common prayer of so\nmany business men as might be disposed to gather there in the hour from\ntwelve to one o'clock, \"with one accord to make their common\nsupplications.\" The invitation was responded to at first by hardly more\nthan \"two or three.\" The number grew. The room overflowed. A second room\nwas opened, and then a third, in the same building, till all its walls\nresounded with prayer and song. The example was followed until at one\ntime, in the spring of 1858, no fewer than twenty \"daily union\nprayer-meetings\" were sustained in different parts of the city. Besides\nthese, there was preaching at unwonted times and places. Burton's\nTheater, on Chambers Street, in the thick of the business houses, was\nthronged with eager listeners to the rudimental truths of personal\nreligion, expounded and applied by great preachers. Everywhere the\ncardinal topics of practical religious duty, repentance and Christian\nfaith, were themes of social conversation. All churches and ministers\nwere full of activity and hope. \"They that feared the Lord spake often\none with another.\"\n\nWhat was true of New York was true, in its measure, of every city,\nvillage, and hamlet in the land. It was the Lord's doing, marvelous in\nmen's eyes. There was no human leadership or concert of action in\nbringing it about. It came. Not only were there no notable evangelists\ntraveling the country; even the pastors of churches did little more than\nenter zealously into their happy duty in things made ready to their\nhand. Elsewhere, as at New York, the work began with the spontaneous\ngathering of private Christians, stirred by an unseen influence. Two\ncircumstances tended to promote the diffusion of the revival. The Young\nMen's Christian Association, then a recent but rapidly spreading\ninstitution, furnished a natural center in each considerable town for\nmutual consultation and mutual incitement among young men of various\nsects. For this was another trait of the revival, that it went forward\nas a tide movement of the whole church, in disregard of the\ndividing-lines of sect. I know not what Christian communion, if any, was\nunaffected by it. The other favorable circumstance was the business\ninterest taken in the revival by the secular press. Up to this time the\nchurch had been little accustomed to look for cooeperation to the\nnewspaper, unless it was the religious weekly. But at this time that was\nfulfilled which was spoken of the prophet, that \"holiness to the Lord\"\nshould be written upon the trains of commerce and upon all secular\nthings. The sensation head-lines in enterprising journals proclaimed\n\"Revival News,\" and smart reporters were detailed to the prayer-meeting\nor the sermon, as having greater popular interest, for the time, than\nthe criminal trial or the political debate. Such papers as the \"Tribune\"\nand the \"Herald,\" laying on men's breakfast-tables and counting-room\ndesks the latest pungent word from the noon prayer-meeting or the\nevening sermon, did the work of many tract societies.\n\nAs the immediate result of the revival of 1857-58 it has been estimated\nthat one million of members were added to the fellowship of the\nchurches. But the ulterior result was greater. This revival was the\nintroduction to a new era of the nation's spiritual life. It was the\ntraining-school for a force of lay evangelists for future work, eminent\namong whom is the name of Dwight Moody. And, like the Great Awakening of\n1740, it was the providential preparation of the American church for an\nimmediately impending peril the gravity of which there were none at the\ntime far-sighted enough to predict. Looking backward, it is instructive\nfor us to raise the question how the church would have passed through\nthe decade of the sixties without the spiritual reinforcement that came\nto it amid the pentecostal scenes of 1857 and 1858.\n\nAnd yet there were those among the old men who were ready to weep as\nthey compared the building of the Lord's house with what they had known\nin their younger days: no sustained enforcement on the mind and\nconscience of alarming and heart-searching doctrines; no \"protracted\nmeetings\" in which from day to day the warnings and invitations of the\ngospel were set forth before the hesitating mind; in the converts no\nsevere and thorough \"law-work,\" from the agonizing throes of which the\nsoul was with no brief travail born to newness of life; but the free\ninvitation, the ready and glad acceptance, the prompt enrollment on the\nLord's side. Did not these things betoken a superficial piety, springing\nup like seed in the thin soil of rocky places? It was a question for\nlater years to answer, and perhaps we have not the whole of the answer\nyet. Certainly the work was not as in the days of Edwards and Brainerd,\nnor as in the days of Nettleton and Finney; was it not, perhaps, more\nlike the work in the days of Barnabas and Paul and Peter?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt does not appear that the spiritual quickening of 1857 had any effect\nin allaying the sharp controversy between northern and southern\nChristians on the subject of slavery. Perhaps it may have deepened and\nintensified it. The \"southern apostasy,\" from principles universally\naccepted in 1818, had become complete and (so far as any utterance was\npermitted to reach the public) unanimous. The southern Methodists and\nthe southern Baptists had, a dozen years before, relieved themselves\nfrom liability to rebuke, whether express or implied, from their\nnorthern brethren for complicity with the crimes involved in slavery, by\nseceding from fellowship. Into the councils of the Episcopalians and the\nCatholics this great question of public morality was never allowed to\nenter. The Presbyterians were divided into two bodies, each having its\nnorthern and its southern presbyteries; and the course of events in\nthese two bodies may be taken as an indication of the drift of opinion\nand feeling. The Old-School body, having a strong southern element,\nremained silent, notwithstanding the open nullification of its\ndeclaration of 1818 by the presbytery of Harmony, S. C., resolving that\n\"the existence of slavery is not opposed to the will of God,\" and the\nsynod of Virginia declaring that \"the General Assembly had no right to\ndeclare that relation sinful which Christ and his apostles teach to be\nconsistent with the most unquestionable piety.\" The New-School body,\npatient and considerate toward its southern presbyteries, did not fail,\nnevertheless, to reassert the principles of righteousness, and in 1850\nit declared slave-holding to be _prima facie_ a subject of the\ndiscipline of the church. In 1853 it called upon its southern\npresbyteries to report what had been done in the case. One of them\nreplied defiantly that its ministers and church-members were\nslave-holders by choice and on principle. When the General Assembly\ncondemned this utterance, the entire southern part of the church seceded\nand set up a separate jurisdiction.[346:1]\n\nThere seems no reason to doubt the entire sincerity with which the\nsouthern church, in all its sects, had consecrated itself with religious\ndevotion to the maintenance of that horrible and inhuman form of slavery\nwhich had drawn upon itself the condemnation of the civilized world. The\nearnest antislavery convictions which had characterized it only\ntwenty-five years before, violently suppressed from utterance, seem to\nhave perished by suffocation. The common sentiment of southern\nChristianity was expressed in that serious declaration of the Southern\nPresbyterian Church, during the war, of its \"deep conviction of the\ndivine appointment of domestic servitude,\" and of the \"peculiar mission\nof the southern church to conserve the institution of slavery.\"[346:2]\n\nAt the North, on the other hand, with larger liberty, there was wider\ndiversity of opinion. In general, the effect of continued discussion, of\nlarger knowledge of facts, and of the enforcement on the common\nconscience, by the course of public events, of a sense of responsibility\nand duty in the matter, had been to make more intelligent, sober, and\ndiscriminating, and therefore more strong and steadfast, the resolution\nto keep clear of all complicity with slavery. There were few to assume\nthe defense of that odious system, though there were some. There were\nmany to object to scores of objectionable things in the conduct of\nabolitionists. And there were a very great number of honest,\nconscientious men who were appalled as they looked forward to the boldly\nthreatened consequences of even the mildest action in opposition to\nslavery--the rending of the church, the ruin of the country, the horrors\nof civil war, and its uncertain event, issuing perhaps in the wider\nextension and firmer establishment of slavery itself. It was an immense\npower that the bold, resolute, rule-or-ruin supporters of the divine\nright of slavery held over the Christian public of the whole country, so\nlong as they could keep these threats suspended in the air. It seemed to\nhold in the balance against a simple demand to execute righteousness\ntoward a poor, oppressed, and helpless race, immense interests of\npatriotism, of humanity, of the kingdom of God itself. Presently the\ntime came when these threats could no longer be kept aloft. The\ncompliance demanded was clearly, decisively refused. The threats must\neither be executed or must fall to the ground amid general derision. But\nthe moment that the threat was put in execution its power as a threat\nhad ceased. With the first stroke against the life of the nation all\ngreat and noble motives, instead of being balanced against each other,\nwere drawing together in the same direction. It ought not to have been\na surprise to the religious leaders of disunion, ecclesiastical and\npolitical, to find that those who had most anxiously deprecated the\nattack upon the government should be among the most earnest and resolute\nto repel the attack when made.\n\nNo man can read the history of the American church in the Civil War\nintelligently who does not apprehend, however great the effort, that the\nChristian people of the South did really and sincerely believe\nthemselves to be commissioned by the providence of God to \"conserve the\ninstitution of slavery\" as an institution of \"divine appointment.\"\nStrange as the conviction seems, it is sure that the conviction of\nconscience in the southern army that it was right in waging war against\nthe government of the country was as clear as the conviction, on the\nother side, of the duty of defending the government. The southern\nregiments, like the northern, were sent forth with prayer and\nbenediction, and their camps, as well as those of their adversaries,\nwere often the seats of earnest religious life.[348:1]\n\nAt the South the entire able-bodied population was soon called into\nmilitary service, so that almost the whole church was in the army. At\nthe North the churches at home hardly seemed diminished by the myriads\nsent to the field. It was amazing to see the charities and missions of\nthe churches sustained with almost undiminished supplies, while the\ngreat enterprises of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions were set on\nfoot and magnificently carried forward, for the physical, social, and\nspiritual good of the soldiers. Never was the gift of giving so\nabundantly bestowed on the church as in these stormy times. There was a\nfeverish eagerness of life in all ways; if there was a too eager haste\nto make money among those that could be spared for business, there was a\ngenerous readiness in bestowing it. The little faith that expected to\ncancel and retrench, especially in foreign missions, in which it took\nsometimes three dollars in the collection to put one dollar into the\nwork, was rebuked by the rising of the church to the height of the\nexigency.\n\nOne religious lesson that was learned as never before, on both sides of\nthe conflict, was the lesson of Christian fellowship as against the\nprevailing folly of sectarian divisions, emulations, and jealousies.\nThere were great drawings in this direction in the early days of the\nwar, when men of the most unlike antecedents and associations gathered\non the same platform, intent on the same work, and mutual aversions and\npartisan antagonisms melted away in the fervent heat of a common\nreligious patriotism. But the lesson which was commended at home was\nenforced in the camp and the regiment by constraint of circumstances.\nThe army chaplain, however one-sided he might have been in his parish,\nhad to be on all sides with his kindly sympathy as soon as he joined his\nregiment. He learned in a right apostolic sense to become all things to\nall men, and, returning home, he did not forget the lesson. The delight\nof a fellowship truly catholic in the one work of Christ, once tasted,\nwas not easily foregone. Already the current, perplexed with eddies, had\nbegun to set in the direction of Christian unity. How much the common\nlabors of Christian men and women and Christian ministers of every\ndifferent name, through the five years of bloody strife, contributed to\nswell and speed the current, no one can measure.\n\nAccording to a well-known law of the kingdom of heaven, the intense\nexperiences of the war, both in the army and out of it, left no man just\nas he was before. To \"them that were exercised thereby\" they brought\ngreat promotion in the service of the King. The cases are not few nor\ninconspicuous of men coming forth from the temptations and the\ndiscipline of the military service every way stronger and better\nChristians than they entered it. The whole church gained higher\nconceptions of the joy and glory of self-sacrifice, and deeper and more\nvivid insight into the significance of vicarious suffering and death.\nThe war was a rude school of theology, but it taught some things well.\nThe church had need of all that it could learn, in preparation for the\ntasks and trials that were before it.\n\nThere were those, on the other hand, who emerged from the military\nservice depraved and brutalized; and those who, in the rush of business\nincidental to the war, were not trained to self-sacrifice and duty, but\nhabituated to the seeking of selfish interests in the midst of the\npublic peril and affliction. We delight in the evidences that these\ncases were a small proportion of the whole. But even a small percentage\nof so many hundreds of thousands mounts up to a formidable total. The\nearly years of the peace were so marked by crimes of violence that a\nfrequent heading in the daily newspapers was \"The Carnival of Crime.\"\nProsperity, or the semblance of it, came in like a sudden flood.\nImmigration of an improved character poured into the country in greater\nvolume than ever. Multitudes made haste to be rich, and fell into\ntemptations and snares. The perilous era of enormous fortunes began.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[340:1] E. B. Andrews, \"History of the United States,\" vol. ii., p. 66.\n\n[342:1] Read \"The Kansas Crusade,\" by Eli Thayer, Harpers, New York,\n1889. It is lively reading, and indispensable to a full understanding of\nthis part of the national history.\n\n[346:1] Thompson, \"The Presbyterians,\" p. 135.\n\n[346:2] \"Narrative of the State of Religion\" of the Southern General\nAssembly of 1864.\n\n[348:1] For interesting illustrations of this, see Alexander, \"The\nMethodists, South,\" pp. 71-75. The history of the religious life of the\nnorthern army is superabundant and everywhere accessible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nAFTER THE WAR.\n\n\nWhen the five years of rending and tearing had passed, in which slavery\nwas dispossessed of its hold upon the nation, there was much to be done\nin reconstructing and readjusting the religious institutions of the\ncountry.\n\nThroughout the seceding States buildings and endowments for religious\nuses had suffered in the general waste and destruction of property.\nColleges and seminaries, in many instances, had seen their entire\nresources swept away through investment in the hopeless promises of the\ndefeated government. Churches, boards, and like associations were widely\ndisorganized through the vicissitudes of military occupation and the\nprotracted absence or the death of men of experience and capacity.\n\nThe effect of the war upon denominational organizations had been\nvarious. There was no sect of all the church the members and ministers\nof which had not felt the sweep of the currents of popular opinion all\nabout them. But the course of events in each denomination was in some\nmeasure illustrative of the character of its polity.\n\nIn the Roman Catholic Church the antagonisms of the conflict were as\nkeenly felt as anywhere. Archbishop Hughes of New York, who, with Henry\nWard Beecher and Bishop McIlvaine of Ohio, accepted a political mission\nfrom President Lincoln, was not more distinctly a Union man than Bishop\nLynch of Charleston was a secessionist. But the firm texture of the\nhierarchical organization, held steadily in place by a central authority\noutside of the national boundaries, prevented any organic rupture. The\nCatholic Church in America was eminently fortunate at one point: the\nfamous bull _Quanta Cura_, with its appended \"Syllabus\" of damnable\nerrors, in which almost all the essential characteristics of the\ninstitutions of the American Republic are anathematized, was fulminated\nin 1864, when people in the United States had little time to think of\necclesiastical events taking place at such a distance. If this\nextraordinary document had been first published in a time of peace, and\nfreely discussed in the newspapers of the time, it could hardly have\nfailed to inflict the most serious embarrassment on the interests of\nCatholicism in America. Even now it keeps the Catholic clergy in a\nconstantly explanatory attitude to show that the Syllabus does not\nreally mean what to the ordinary reader it unmistakably seems to mean;\nand the work of explanation is made the more necessary and the more\ndifficult by the decree of papal infallibility, which followed the\nSyllabus after a few years.\n\nSimply on the ground of a _de facto_ political independence, the\nsouthern dioceses of the Protestant Episcopal Church, following the\nprinciples and precedents of 1789, organized themselves into a \"Church\nin the Confederate States.\" One of the southern bishops, Polk, of\nLouisiana, accepted a commission of major-general in the Confederate\narmy, and relieved his brethren of any disciplinary questions that might\nhave arisen in consequence by dying on the field from a cannon-shot.\nWith admirable tact and good temper, the \"Church in the United States\"\nmanaged to ignore the existence of any secession; and when the alleged\n_de facto_ independence ceased, the seceding bishops and their dioceses\ndropped quietly back into place without leaving a trace of the secession\nupon the record.\n\nThe southern organizations of the Methodists and Baptists were of twenty\nyears' standing at the close of the war in 1865. The war had abolished\nthe original cause of these divisions, but it had substituted others\nquite as serious. The exasperations of the war, and the still more\nacrimonious exasperations of the period of the political reconstruction\nand of the organization of northern missions at the South, gendered\nstrifes that still delay the reintegration which is so visibly future of\nboth of these divided denominations.\n\nAt the beginning of the war one of the most important of the\ndenominations that still retained large northern and southern\nmemberships in the same fellowship was the Old-School Presbyterian\nChurch; and no national sect had made larger concessions to avert a\nbreach of unity. When the General Assembly met at Philadelphia in May,\n1861, amid the intense excitements of the opening war, it was still the\nhope of the habitual leaders and managers of the Assembly to avert a\ndivision by holding back that body from any expression of sentiment on\nthe question on which the minds of Christians were stirred at that time\nwith a profound and most religious fervor. But the Assembly took the\nmatter out of the hands of its leaders, and by a great majority, in the\nwords of a solemn and temperate resolution drawn by the venerable and\nconservative Dr. Gardiner Spring, declared its loyalty to the government\nand constitution of the country. With expressions of horror at the\nsacrilege of taking the church into the domain of politics, southern\npresbyteries one after another renounced the jurisdiction of the General\nAssembly that could be guilty of so shocking a profanation, and, uniting\nin a General Assembly of their own, proceeded with great promptitude to\nmake equally emphatic deliverances on the opposite side of the same\npolitical question.[354:1] But nice logical consistency and accurate\nworking within the lines of a church theory were more than could\nreasonably be expected of a people in so pitiable a plight. The\ndifference on the subject of the right function of the church continued\nto be held as the ground for continuing the separation from the General\nAssembly after the alleged ground in political geography had ceased to\nbe valid; the working motive for it was more obvious in the unfraternal\nand almost wantonly exasperating course of the national General Assembly\nduring the war; but the best justification for it is to be found in the\neffective and useful working of the Southern Presbyterian Church.\nConsidering the impoverishment and desolation of the southern country,\nthe record of useful and self-denying work accomplished by this body,\nnot only at home, but in foreign fields, is, from its beginning, an\nimmensely honorable one.\n\nAnother occasion of reconstruction was the strong disposition of the\nliberated negroes to withdraw themselves from the tutelage of the\nchurches in which they had been held, in the days of slavery, in a\nlower-caste relation. The eager entrance of the northern churches upon\nmission work among the blacks, to which access had long been barred by\natrocious laws and by the savage fury of mobs, tended to promote this\nchange. The multiplication and growth of organized negro denominations\nis a characteristic of the period after the war. There is reason to hope\nthat the change may by and by, with the advance of education and moral\ntraining among this people, inure to their spiritual advantage. There is\nequal reason to fear that at present, in many cases, it works to their\nserious detriment.\n\nThe effect of the war was not exclusively divisive. In two instances,\nat least, it had the effect of healing old schisms. The southern\nsecession from the New-School Presbyterian Church, which had come away\nin 1858 on the slavery issue, found itself in 1861 side by side with the\nsouthern secession from the Old School, and in full agreement with it in\nmorals and politics. The two bodies were not long in finding that the\ndoctrinal differences which a quarter-century before had seemed so\ninsuperable were, after all, no serious hindrance to their coming\ntogether.\n\nEven after the war was over, its healing power was felt, this time at\nthe North. There was a honeycomb for Samson in the carcass of the\nmonster. The two great Presbyterian sects at the North had found a\ncommon comfort in their relief from the perpetual festering irritation\nof the slavery question; they had softened toward each other in the glow\nof a religious patriotism; they had forgotten old antagonisms in common\nlabors; and new issues had obscured the tenuous doctrinal disputes that\nhad agitated the continent in 1837. Both parties grew tired and ashamed\nof the long and sometimes ill-natured quarrel. With such a disposition\non both sides, terms of agreement could not fail in time to be found.\nFor substance, the basis of reunion was this: that the New-School church\nshould yield the point of organization, and the Old-School church should\nyield the point of doctrine; the New-School men should sustain the\nOld-School boards, and the Old-School men should tolerate the New-School\nheresies. The consolidation of the two sects into one powerful\norganization was consummated at Pittsburg, November 12, 1869, with every\ndemonstration of joy and devout thanksgiving.\n\nOne important denomination, the Congregationalists, had had the\ndistinguished advantage, through all these turbulent years, of having no\nsouthern membership. Out of all proportion to its numerical strength was\nthe part which it took in those missions to the neglected populations\nof the southern country into which the various denominations, both of\nthe South and of the North, entered with generous emulation while yet\nthe war was still waging. Always leaders in advanced education, they not\nonly, acting through the American Missionary Association, provided for\nprimary and secondary schools for the negroes, but promoted the\nfoundation of institutions of higher, and even of the highest, grade at\nHampton, at Atlanta, at Tuskegee, at New Orleans, at Nashville, and at\nWashington. Many noble lives have been consecrated to this most\nChristlike work of lifting up the depressed. None will grudge a word of\nexceptional eulogy to the memory of that splendid character, General\nSamuel C. Armstrong, son of one of the early missionaries to the\nSandwich Islands, who poured his inspiring soul into the building up of\nthe \"Normal Institute\" at Hampton, Va., thus not only rearing a visible\nmonument of his labor in the enduring buildings of that great and useful\ninstitution, but also establishing his memory, for as long as human\ngratitude can endure, in the hearts of hundreds of young men and young\nwomen, negro and Indian, whose lives are the better and nobler for their\nhaving known him as their teacher.\n\nIt cannot be justly claimed for the Congregationalists of the present\nday that they have lost nothing of that corporate unselfishness, seeking\nno sectarian aggrandizement, but only God's reign and righteousness,\nwhich had been the glory of their fathers. The studious efforts that\nhave been made to cultivate among them a sectarian spirit, as if this\nwere one of the Christian virtues, have not been fruitless. Nevertheless\nit may be seen that their work of education at the South has been\nconducted in no narrow spirit. The extending of their sect over new\nterritory has been a most trivial and unimportant result of their\nwidespread and efficient work. A far greater result has been the\npromotion among the colored people of a better education, a higher\nstandard of morality, and an enlightened piety, through the influence of\nthe graduates of these institutions, not only as pastors and as\nteachers, but in all sorts of trades and professions and as mothers of\nfamilies.\n\nThis work of the Congregationalists is entitled to mention, not as\nexceptional, but only as eminent among like enterprises, in which few of\nthe leading sects have failed to be represented. Extravagant\nexpectations were at first entertained of immediate results in bringing\nthe long-depressed race up to the common plane of civilization. But it\ncannot be said that reasonable and intelligent expectations have been\ndisappointed. Experience has taught much as to the best conduct of such\nmissions. The gift of a fund of a million dollars by the late John F.\nSlater, of Norwich, has through wise management conduced to this end. It\nhas encouraged in the foremost institutions the combination of training\nto skilled productive labor with education in literature and science.\n\nThe inauguration of these systems of religious education at the South\nwas the most conspicuously important of the immediate sequels of the\nCivil War. But this time was a time of great expansion of the activities\nof the church in all directions. The influx of immigration, temporarily\nchecked by the hard times of 1857 and by the five years of war, came in\nagain in such floods as never before.[357:1] The foreign immigration is\nalways attended by a westward movement of the already settled\npopulation. The field of home missions became greater and more exacting\nthan ever. The zeal of the church, educated during the war to higher\nideas of self-sacrifice, rose to the occasion. The average yearly\nreceipts of the various Protestant home missionary societies, which in\nthe decade 1850-59 had been $808,000, rose in the next decade to more\nthan $2,000,000, in the next to nearly $3,000,000, and for the seven\nyears 1881-87 to $4,000,000.[358:1]\n\nIn the perils of abounding wealth by which the church after the war was\nbeset, it was divine fatherly kindness that opened before it new and\nenlarged facilities of service to the kingdom of heaven among foreign\nnations. From the first feeble beginnings of foreign missions from\nAmerica in India and in the Sandwich Islands, they had been attended by\nthe manifest favor of God. When the convulsion of the Civil War came on,\nwith prostrations of business houses, and enormous burdens of public\nobligation, and private beneficence drawn down, as it seemed, to its\n\"bottom dollar\" for new calls of patriotism and charity, and especially\nwhen the dollar in a man's pocket shrank to a half or a third of its\nvalue in the world's currency, it seemed as if the work of foreign\nmissions would have to be turned over to Christians in lands less\nburdened with accumulated disadvantages. But here again the grandeur of\nthe burden gave an inspiration of strength to the burden-bearer. From\n1840 to 1849 the average yearly receipts of the various foreign\nmissionary societies of the Protestant churches of the country had been\na little more than a half-million. In the decade 1850-59 they had risen\nto $850,000; for the years of distress, 1860-69, they exceeded\n$1,300,000; for the eleven years 1870-80 the annual receipts in this\nbehalf were $2,200,000; and in the seven years 1881-87 they were\n$3,000,000.[359:1]\n\nWe have seen how, only forty years before the return of peace, in the\ndays of a humble equality in moderate estates, ardent souls exulted\ntogether in the inauguration of the era of democracy in beneficence,\nwhen every humblest giver might, through association and organization,\nhave part in magnificent enterprises of Christian charity such as had\ntheretofore been possible \"only to princes or to men of princely\npossessions.\"[359:2] But with the return of civil peace we began to\nrecognize that among ourselves was growing up a class of \"men of\nprincely possessions\"--a class such as the American Republic never\nbefore had known.[359:3] Among those whose fortunes were reckoned by\nmany millions or many tens of millions were men of sordid nature, whose\nwealth, ignobly won, was selfishly hoarded, and to whose names, as to\nthat of the late Jay Gould, there is attached in the mind of the people\na distinct note of infamy. But this was not in general the character of\nthe American millionaire. There were those of nobler strain who felt a\nresponsibility commensurate with the great power conferred by great\nriches, and held their wealth as in trust for mankind. Through the\nfidelity of men of this sort it has come to pass that the era of great\nfortunes in America has become conspicuous in the history of the whole\nworld as the era of magnificent donations to benevolent ends. Within a\nfew months of each other, from the little State of Connecticut, came the\nfund of a million given by John F. Slater in his lifetime for the\nbenefit of the freedmen, the gift of a like sum for the like purpose\nfrom Daniel Hand, and the legacy of a million and a half for foreign\nmissions from Deacon Otis of New London. Great gifts like these were\nfrequently directed to objects which could not easily have been attained\nby the painful process of accumulating small donations. It was a period\nnot only of splendid gifts to existing institutions, but of foundations\nfor new universities, libraries, hospitals, and other institutions of\nthe highest public service, foundations without parallel in human\nhistory for large munificence. To this period belong the beginnings of\nthe Johns Hopkins University and Hospital at Baltimore, the University\nof Chicago, the Clarke University at Worcester, the Vanderbilt\nUniversity at Nashville, the Leland Stanford, Jr., University of\nCalifornia, the Peabody and Enoch Pratt Libraries at Baltimore, the\nLenox Library at New York, the great endowed libraries of Chicago, the\nDrexel Institute at Philadelphia, and the Armour Institute at Chicago.\nThese are some of the names that most readily occur of foundations due\nmainly to individual liberality, set down at the risk of omitting others\nwith equal claim for mention. Not all of these are to be referred to a\nreligious spirit in the founders, but none of them can fail of a\nChristian influence and result. They prepare a foothold for such a\nforward stride of Christian civilization as our continent has never\nbefore known.\n\nThe sum of these gifts of millions, added to the great aggregates of\ncontribution to the national missionary boards and societies, falls far\nshort of the total contributions expended in cities, towns, and villages\nfor the building of churches and the maintenance of the countless\ncharities that cluster around them. The era following the war was\npreeminently a \"building era.\" Every one knows that religious devotion\nis only one of the mingled motives that work together in such an\nenterprise as the building of a church; but, after all deductions, the\nvoluntary gifts of Christian people for Christ's sake in the promotion\nof such works, when added to the grand totals already referred to, would\nmake an amount that would overtax the ordinary imagination to conceive.\n\nAnd yet it is not certain that this period of immense gifts of money is\nreally a period of increased liberality in the church from the time,\nthirty or forty years before, when a millionaire was a rarity to be\npointed out on the streets, and the possession of a hundred thousand\ndollars gave one a place among \"The Rich Men of New York.\" In 1850 the\ntotal wealth of the United States was reported in the census as seven\nbillions of dollars. In 1870, after twenty years, it had more than\nfourfolded, rising to thirty billions. Ten years later, according to the\ncensus, it had sixfolded, rising to forty-three billions.[361:1] From\nthe point of view of One \"sitting over against the treasury\" it is not\nlikely that any subsequent period has equaled in its gifts that early\nday when in New England the people \"were wont to build a fine church as\nsoon as they had houses for themselves,\"[361:2] and when the messengers\nwent from cabin to cabin to gather the gifts of \"the college corn.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe greatest addition to the forces of the church in the period since\nthe war has come from deploying into the field hitherto unused\nresources of personal service. The methods under which the personal\nactivity of private Christians has formerly been organized for service\nhave increased and multiplied, and old agencies have taken on new forms.\n\nThe earliest and to this day the most extensive of the organizations for\nutilizing the non-professional ministry in systematic religious labors\nis the Sunday-school. The considerable development of this\ninstrumentality begins to be recognized after the Second Awakening in\nthe early years of the present century. The prevailing characteristic of\nthe American Sunday-school as distinguished from its British congener is\nthat it is commonly a part of the equipment of the local church for the\ninstruction of its own children, and incidentally one of the most\nimportant resources for its attractive work toward those that are\nwithout. But it is also recognized as one of the most flexible and\nadaptable \"arms of the service\" for aggressive work, whether in great\ncities or on the frontier. It was about the year 1825 that this work\nbegan to be organized on a national scale. But it is since the war that\nit has sprung into vastly greater efficiency. The agreement upon uniform\ncourses of biblical study, to be followed simultaneously by many\nmillions of pupils over the entire continent, has given a unity and\ncoherence before unknown to the Sunday-school system; and it has\nresulted in extraordinary enterprise and activity on the part of\ncompetent editors and publishers to provide apparatus for the thorough\nstudy of the text, which bids fair in time to take away the reproach of\nthe term \"Sunday-schoolish\" as applied to superficial, ignorant, or\nmerely sentimental expositions of the Scriptures. The work of the\n\"Sunday-school Times,\" in bringing within the reach of teachers all over\nthe land the fruits of the world's best scholarship, is a signal fact\nin history--the most conspicuous of a series of like facts. The\ntendency, slow, of course, and partial, but powerful, is toward serious,\nfaithful study and teaching, in which \"the mind of the Spirit\" is sought\nin the sacred text, with strenuous efforts of the teachable mind, with\nall the aids that can be brought from whatever quarter. The\nSunday-school system, coextensive with Protestant Christianity in\nAmerica, and often the forerunner of church and ministry, and, to a less\nextent and under more scrupulous control of clergy, adopted into the\nCatholic Church, has become one of the distinctive features of American\nChristianity.\n\nAn outgrowth of the Sunday-school system, which, under the conduct of a\nman of genius for organization, Dr. John H. Vincent, now a bishop of the\nMethodist Church, has expanded to magnificent dimensions, is that which\nis suggested by the name \"Chautauqua.\" Beginning in the summer of 1874\nwith a fortnight's meeting in a grove beside Chautauqua Lake for the\nstudy of the methods of Sunday-school teaching, it led to the questions,\nhow to connect the Sunday-school more intimately with other departments\nof the church and with other agencies in society; how to control in the\ninterest of religious culture the forces, social, commercial,\nindustrial, and educational, which, for good or evil, are affecting the\nSunday-school pupils every day of the week. Striking root at other\ncenters of assembly, east, west, and south, and combining its summer\nlectures with an organized system of home studies extending through the\nyear, subject to written examinations, \"Chautauqua,\" by the\ncomprehensive scope of its studies and by the great multitude of its\nstudents, is entitled to be called, in no ignoble sense of the word, a\nuniversity.[363:1] A weighty and unimpeachable testimony to the power\nand influence of the institution has been the recent organization of a\nCatholic Chautauqua, under the conduct of leading scholars and\necclesiastics of the Roman Church.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnother organization of the unpaid service of private Christians is the\nYoung Men's Christian Association. Beginning in London in 1844, it had\nso far demonstrated its usefulness in 1851 as to attract favorable\nattention from visitors to the first of the World's Fairs. In the end of\nthat year the Association in Boston was formed, and this was rapidly\nfollowed by others in the principal cities. It met a growing exigency in\nAmerican society. In the organization of commerce and manufacture in\nlarger establishments than formerly, the apprenticeship system had\nnecessarily lapsed, and nothing had taken its place. Of old, young men\nput to the learning of any business were \"articled\" or \"indentured\" as\napprentices to the head of the concern, who was placed _in loco\nparentis_, being invested both with the authority and with the\nresponsibility of a father. Often the apprentices were received into the\nhouse of the master as their home, and according to legend and romance\nit was in order for the industrious and virtuous apprentice to marry the\nold man's daughter and succeed to the business. After the employees of a\nstore came to be numbered by scores and the employees of a factory by\nhundreds, the word \"apprentice\" became obsolete in the American\nlanguage. The employee was only a \"hand,\" and there was danger that\nemployers would forget that he was also a heart and a soul. This was the\nexigency that the Young Men's Christian Association came to supply. Men\nof conscience among employers and corporations recognized their\nopportunity and their duty. The new societies did not lack encouragement\nand financial aid from those to whom the character of the young men was\nnot only a matter of Christian concern, but also a matter of business\ninterest. In every considerable town the Association organized itself,\nand the work of equipment, and soon of building, went on apace. In 1887\nthe Association buildings in the United States and Canada were valued at\nthree and a half millions. In 1896 there were in North America 1429\nAssociations, with about a quarter of a million of members, employing\n1251 paid officers, and holding buildings and other real estate to the\namount of nearly $20,000,000.\n\nThe work has not been without its vicissitudes. The wonderful revival of\n1857, preeminently a laymen's movement, in many instances found its\nnidus in the rooms of the Associations; and their work was expanded and\ninvigorated as a result of the revival. In 1861 came on the war. It\nbroke up for the time the continental confederacy of Associations. Many\nof the local Associations were dissolved by the enlistment of their\nmembers. But out of the inspiring exigencies of the time grew up in the\nheart of the Associations the organization and work of the Christian\nCommission, cooeperating with the Sanitary Commission for the bodily and\nspiritual comfort of the armies in the field. The two organizations\nexpended upward of eleven millions of dollars, the free gift of the\npeople at home. After the war the survivors of those who had enlisted\nfrom the Associations came back to their home duties, in most cases,\nbetter men for all good service in consequence of their experience of\nmilitary discipline.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA natural sequel to the organization and success of the Young Men's\nChristian Association is the institution of the Young Women's Christian\nAssociation, having like objects and methods in its proper sphere. This\ninstitution, too, owes the reason of its existence to changed social\nconditions. The plausible arguments of some earnest reformers in favor\nof opening careers of independent self-support to women, and the\nunquestionable and pathetic instances by which these arguments are\nenforced, are liable to some most serious and weighty offsets. Doubtless\nmany and many a case of hardship has been relieved by the general\nintroduction of this reform. But the result has been the gathering in\nlarge towns of populations of unmarried, self-supporting young women,\nsevered from home duties and influences, and, out of business hours,\nunder no effective restraints of rule. There is a rush from the country\ninto the city of applicants for employment, and wages sink to less than\na living rate. We are confronted with an artificial and perilous\ncondition for the church to deal with, especially in the largest cities.\nAnd of the various instrumentalities to this end, the Young Women's\nChristian Association is one of the most effective.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe development of organized activity among women has been a conspicuous\ncharacteristic of this period. From the beginning of our churches the\ncharitable sewing-circle or \"Dorcas Society\" has been known as a center\nboth of prayer and of labor. But in this period the organization of\nwomen for charitable service has been on a continental scale.\n\nIn 1874, in an outburst of zeal, \"women's crusades\" were undertaken,\nespecially in some western towns, in which bands of singing and praying\nwomen went in person to tippling-houses and even worse resorts, to\nassail them, visibly and audibly, with these spiritual weapons. The\ncrusades, so long as they were a novelty, were not without result.\nSpectacular prayers, offered with one eye on the heavens and the other\neye watching the impressions made on the human auditor, are not in vain;\nthey have their reward. But the really important result of the\n\"crusades\" was the organization of the \"Women's Christian Temperance\nUnion,\" which has extended in all directions to the utmost bounds of the\ncountry, and has accomplished work of undoubted value, while attempting\nother work the value of which is open to debate.\n\nThe separate organization of women for the support and management of\nmissions began on an extensive scale, in 1868, with the Women's Board of\nMissions, instituted in alliance with the American Board of\nCommissioners for Foreign Missions of the Congregationalist churches.\nThe example at once commended itself to the imitation of all, so that\nall the principal mission boards of the Protestant churches are in\nalliance with actively working women's boards.\n\nThe training acquired in these and other organizations by many women of\nexceptional taste and talent for the conduct of large affairs has tended\nstill further to widen the field of their activity. The ends of the\nearth, as well as the dark places nearer home, have felt the salutary\nresults of it.[367:1]\n\nIn this brief and most incomplete sketch of the origin of one of the\ndistinguishing features of contemporary Christianity--the application of\nthe systematized activity of private Christians--no mention has been\nmade of the corps of \"colporteurs,\" or book-peddlers, employed by\nreligious publication societies, nor of the vastly useful work of\nlaymen employed as city missionaries, nor of the houses and orders of\nsisters wholly devoted to pious and charitable work. Such work, though\nthe ceremony of ordination may have been omitted, is rather clerical or\nprofessional than laical. It is on this account the better suited to the\ngenius of the Catholic Church, whose ages of experience in the conduct\nof such organizations, and whose fine examples of economy and efficiency\nin the use of them, have put all American Christendom under obligation.\nAmong Protestant sects the Lutherans, the Episcopalians, and the\nMethodists have (after the Moravians) shown themselves readiest to\nprofit by the example. But a far more widely beneficent service than\nthat of all the nursing \"orders\" together, both Catholic and Protestant,\nand one not less Christian, while it is characteristically American in\nits method, is that of the annually increasing army of faithful women\nprofessionally educated to the work of nursing, at a hundred hospitals,\nand fulfilling their vocation individually and on business principles.\nThe education of nurses is a sequel of the war and one of the beneficent\nfruits of it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot the least important item in the organization of lay activity is the\nmarvelously rapid growth of the \"Young People's Society of Christian\nEndeavor.\" In February, 1881, a pastor in Portland, Me., the Rev.\nFrancis E. Clark, organized into an association within his church a\nnumber of young people pledged to certain rules of regular attendance\nand participation in the association meetings and of cooeperation in\nuseful service. There seems to have been no particular originality in\nthe plan, but through some felicity in arrangement and opportuneness in\nthe time it caught like a forest fire, and in an amazingly short time\nran through the country and around the world. One wise precaution was\ntaken in the basis of the organization: it was provided that it should\nnot interfere with any member's fidelity to his church or his sect, but\nrather promote it. Doubtless jealousy of its influence was thus in some\nmeasure forestalled and averted. But in the rapid spread of the Society\nthose who were on guard for the interests of the several sects\nrecognized a danger in too free affiliations outside of sectarian lines,\nand soon there were instituted, in like forms of rule, \"Epworth Leagues\"\nfor Methodists, \"Westminster Leagues\" for Presbyterians, \"Luther\nLeagues\" for Lutherans, \"St. Andrew's Brotherhoods\" for Episcopalians,\n\"The Baptist Young People's Union,\" and yet others for yet other sects.\nAccording to the latest reports, the total pledged membership of this\norder of associated young disciples, in these various ramifications, is\nabout 4,500,000[369:1]--this in the United States alone. Of the\nChristian Endeavor Societies still adhering to the old name and\nconstitution, there are in all the world 47,009, of which 11,119 are\n\"Junior Endeavor Societies.\" The total membership is 2,820,540.[369:2]\n\nContemporary currents of theological thought, setting away from the\nexcessive individualism which has characterized the churches of the\nGreat Awakening, confirm the tendency of the Christian life toward a\nvigorous and even absorbing external activity. The duty of the church to\nhuman society is made a part of the required curriculum of study in\npreparation for the ministry, in fully equipped theological seminaries.\nIf ever it has been a just reproach of the church that its frequenters\nwere so absorbed in the saving of their own souls that they forgot the\nmultitude about them, that reproach is fast passing away. \"The\nInstitutional Church,\" as the clumsy phrase goes, cares for soul and\nbody, for family and municipal and national life. Its saving sacraments\nare neither two nor seven, but seventy times seven. They include the\nbath-tub as well as the font; the coffee-house and cook-shop as well as\nthe Holy Supper; the gymnasium as well as the prayer-meeting. The\n\"college settlement\" plants colonies of the best life of the church in\nregions which men of little faith are tempted to speak of as\n\"God-forsaken.\" The Salvation Army, with its noisy and eccentric ways,\nand its effective discipline, and its most Christian principle of\nsetting every rescued man at work to aid in the rescue of others, is\nwelcomed by all orders of the church, and honored according to the\nmeasure of its usefulness, and even of its faithful effort to be useful.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is not to be supposed that this immense, unprecedented growth of\noutward activity can have been gained without some corresponding loss.\nThe time is not long gone by, when the sustained contemplation of the\ndeep things of the cross, and the lofty things in the divine nature, and\nthe subtile and elusive facts concerning the human constitution and\ncharacter and the working of the human will, were eminently\ncharacteristic of the religious life of the American church. In the\ntimes when that life was stirred to its most strenuous activity, it was\nmarked by the vicissitude of prolonged passions of painful sensibility\nat the consciousness of sin, and ecstasies of delight in the\ncontemplation of the infinity of God and the glory of the Saviour and\nhis salvation. Every one who is conversant with the religious biography\nof the generations before our own, knows of the still hours and days set\napart for the severe inward scrutiny of motives and \"frames\" and the\ngrounds of one's hope. However truly the church of to-day may judge\nthat the piety of their fathers was disproportioned and morbidly\nintrospective and unduly concerned about one's own salvation, it is none\nthe less true that the reaction from its excesses is violent, and is\nproviding for itself a new reaction. \"The contemplative orders,\" whether\namong Catholics or Protestants, do not find the soil and climate of\nAmerica congenial. And yet there is a mission-field here for the mystic\nand the quietist; and when the stir-about activity of our generation\nsuffers their calm voices to be heard, there are not a few to give ear.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn event of great historical importance, which cannot be determined to a\nprecise date, but which belongs more to this period than to any other,\nis the loss of the Scotch and Puritan Sabbath, or, as many like to call\nit, the American Sabbath. The law of the Westminster divines on this\nsubject, it may be affirmed without fear of contradiction from any\nquarter, does not coincide in its language with the law of God as\nexpressed either in the Old Testament or in the New. The Westminster\nrule requires, as if with a \"Thus saith the Lord,\" that on the first day\nof the week, instead of the seventh, men shall desist not only from\nlabor but from recreation, and \"spend the whole time in the public and\nprivate exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up\nin the works of necessity and mercy.\"[371:1] This interpretation and\nexpansion of the Fourth Commandment has never attained to more than a\nsectarian and provincial authority; but the overmastering Puritan\ninfluence, both of Virginia and of New England, combined with the\nScotch-Irish influence, made it for a long time dominant in America.\nEven those who quite declined to admit the divine authority of the\nglosses upon the commandment felt constrained to \"submit to the\nordinances of man for the Lord's sake.\" But it was inevitable that with\nthe vast increase of the travel and sojourn of American Christians in\nother lands of Christendom, and the multitudinous immigration into\nAmerica from other lands than Great Britain, the tradition from the\nWestminster elders should come to be openly disputed within the church,\nand should be disregarded even when not denied. It was not only\ninevitable; it was a Christian duty distinctly enjoined by apostolic\nauthority.[372:1] The five years of war, during which Christians of\nvarious lands and creeds intermingled as never before, and the Sunday\nlaws were dumb \"_inter arma_\" not only in the field but among the home\nchurches, did perhaps even more to break the force of the tradition, and\nto lead in a perilous and demoralizing reaction. Some reaction was\ninevitable. The church must needs suffer the evil consequence of\noverstraining the law of God. From the Sunday of ascetic self-denial--\"a\nday for a man to afflict his soul\"--there was a ready rush into utter\nrecklessness of the law and privilege of rest. In the church there was\nwrought sore damage to weak consciences; men acted, not from intelligent\nconviction, but from lack of conviction, and allowing themselves in\nself-indulgences of the rightfulness of which they were dubious, they\n\"condemned themselves in that which they allowed.\" The consequence in\ncivil society was alike disastrous. Early legislation had not steered\nclear of the error of attempting to enforce Sabbath-keeping as a\nreligious duty by civil penalties; and some relics of that mistake\nremained, and still remain, on some of the statute-books. The just\nprotest against this wrong was, of course, undiscriminating, tending to\ndefeat the righteous and most salutary laws that aimed simply to secure\nfor the citizen the privilege of a weekly day of rest and to secure the\nholiday thus ordained by law from being perverted into a nuisance. The\nsocial change which is still in progress along these lines no wise\nChristian patriot can contemplate with complacency. It threatens, when\ncomplete, to deprive us of that universal quiet Sabbath rest which has\nbeen one of the glories of American social life, and an important\nelement in its economic prosperity, and to give in place of it, to some,\nno assurance of a Sabbath rest at all, to others, a Sabbath of revelry\nand debauch.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[354:1] Thompson, \"The Presbyterians,\" chap. xiii.; Johnson, \"The\nSouthern Presbyterians,\" chap. v.\n\n[357:1] The immigration is thus given by decades, with an illustrative\ndiagram, by Dr. Dorchester, \"Christianity in the United States,\" p. 759:\n\n     1825-35         330,737\n     1835-45         707,770\n     1845-55       2,944,833\n     1855-65       1,578,483\n     1865-75       3,234,090\n     1875-85       4,061,278\n\n[358:1] _Ibid._, p. 714. We have quoted in round numbers. The figures do\nnot include the large sums expended annually in the colportage work of\nBible and tract societies, in Sunday school missions, and in the\nbuilding of churches and parsonages. In the accounts of the last-named\nmost effective enterprise the small amounts received and appropriated to\naid in building would represent manifold more gathered and expended by\nthe pioneer churches on the ground.\n\n[359:1] Dorchester, _op. cit._, p. 709.\n\n[359:2] Above, pp. 259, 260.\n\n[359:3] A pamphlet published at the office of the New York \"Sun,\" away\nback in the early thirties, was formerly in my possession, which\nundertook to give, under the title \"The Rich Men of New York,\" the name\nof every person in that city who was worth more than one hundred\nthousand dollars--and it was not a large pamphlet, either. As nearly as\nI remember, there were less than a half-dozen names credited with more\nthan a million, and one solitary name, that of John Jacob Astor, was\nreported as good for the enormous and almost incredible sum of ten\nmillions.\n\n[361:1] Dorchester, \"Christianity in the United States,\" p. 715.\n\n[361:2] See above, p. 70.\n\n[363:1] Bishop Vincent, in \"Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia,\" p. 441. The\nnumber of students in the \"Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle\"\nalready in 1891 exceeded twenty-five thousand.\n\n[367:1] Among the titles omitted from this list are the various\n\"Lend-a-Hand Clubs,\" and \"10 x 1 = 10 Clubs,\" and circles of \"King's\nDaughters,\" and like coteries, that have been inspired by the tales and\nthe \"four mottoes\" of Edward Everett Hale.\n\n[369:1] Dr. H. K. Carroll, in \"The Independent,\" April 1, 1897.\n\n[369:2] \"Congregationalist Handbook for 1897,\" p. 35.\n\n[371:1] Westminster Shorter Catechism, Ans. 60. The commentaries on the\nCatechism, which are many, like Gemara upon Mishna, build wider and\nhigher the \"fence around the law,\" in a fashion truly rabbinic.\n\n[372:1] Colossians, ii. 16.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nTHE CHURCH IN THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE.\n\n\nThe rapid review of three crowded centuries, which is all that the\nnarrowly prescribed limits of this volume have permitted, has\nnecessarily been mainly restricted to external facts. But looking back\nover the course of visible events, it is not impossible for acute minds\ndevoted to such study to trace the stream of thought and sentiment that\nis sometimes hidden from direct view by the overgrowth which itself has\nnourished.\n\nWe have seen a profound spiritual change, renewing the face of the land\nand leaving its indelible impress on successive generations, springing\nfrom the profoundest contemplations of God and his work of salvation\nthrough Jesus Christ, and then bringing back into thoughtful and\nteachable minds new questions to be solved and new discoveries of truth\nto be pondered. The one school of theological opinion and inquiry that\ncan be described as characteristically American is the theology of the\nGreat Awakening. The disciples of this school, in all its divergent\nbranches, agree in looking back to the first Jonathan Edwards as the\nfounder of it. Through its generations it has shown a striking sequence\nand continuity of intellectual and spiritual life, each generation\nanswering questions put to it by its predecessor, while propounding new\nquestions to the generation following. After the classical writings of\nits first founders, the most widely influential production of this\nschool is the \"Theology Explained and Defended in a Series of Sermons\"\nof President Dwight. This had the advantage over some other systems of\nhaving been preached, and thus proved to be preachable. The \"series of\nsermons\" was that delivered to successive generations of college\nstudents at Yale at a time of prevailing skepticism, when every\nstatement of the college pulpit was liable to sharp and not too friendly\nscrutiny; and it was preached with the fixed purpose of convincing and\nconverting the young men who heard it. The audience, the occasion, and\nthe man--a fervid Christian, and a born poet and orator--combined to\nproduce a work of wide and enduring influence. The dynasty of the\nEdwardeans is continued down to the middle of the nineteenth century,\nand later, through different lines, ending in Emmons of Franklin, Taylor\nof New Haven, and Finney of Oberlin, and is represented among the living\nby the venerable Edwards A. Park, of Andover, who adds to that power of\nsustained speculative thinking in a straight line which is\ncharacteristic of the whole school, a wide learning in the whole field\nof theological literature, which had not been usual among his\npredecessors. It is a prevailing trait of this theology, born of the\ngreat revival, that it has constantly held before itself not only the\nquestion, What is truth? but also the question, How shall it be\npreached? It has never ceased to be a revival theology.\n\nA bold and open breach of traditionary assumptions and habits of\nreasoning was made by Horace Bushnell. This was a theologian of a\ndifferent type from his New England predecessors. He was of a temper\nlittle disposed to accept either methods or results as a local\ntradition, and inclined rather to prefer that which had been \"hammered\nout on his own anvil.\" And yet, while very free in manifesting his small\nrespect for the \"logicking\" by syllogistic processes which had been the\npride of the theological chair and even the pulpit in America, and while\ndeclining the use of current phraseologies even for the expression of\ncurrent ideas, he held himself loyally subject to the canon of the\nScriptures as his rule of faith, and deferential to the voice of the\nchurch catholic as uttered in the concord of testimony of holy men in\nall ages. Endowed with a poet's power of intuition, uplifted by a fervid\npiety, uttering himself in a literary style singularly rich and\nmelodious, it is not strange that such a man should have made large\ncontributions to the theological thought of his own and later times. In\nnatural theology, his discourses on \"The Moral Uses of Dark Things\"\n(1869), and his longest continuous work, on \"Nature and the\nSupernatural\" (1858), even though read rather as prose-poems than as\narguments, sound distinctly new notes in the treatment of their theme.\nIn \"God in Christ\" (1849), \"Christ in Theology\" (1851), \"The Vicarious\nSacrifice\" (1866), and \"Forgiveness and Law\" (1874), and in a notable\narticle in the \"New Englander\" for November, 1854, entitled \"The\nChristian Trinity a Practical Truth,\" the great topics of the Christian\nsystem were dealt with all the more effectively, in the minds of\nthoughtful readers in this and other lands, for cries of alarm and\nnewspaper and pulpit impeachments of heresy that were sent forth. But\nthat work of his which most nearly made as well as marked an epoch in\nAmerican church history was the treatise of \"Christian Nurture\" (1847).\nThis, with the protracted controversy that followed upon the publication\nof it, was a powerful influence in lifting the American church out of\nthe rut of mere individualism that had been wearing deeper and deeper\nfrom the days of the Great Awakening.\n\nAnother wholesome and edifying debate was occasioned by the publications\nthat went forth from the college and theological seminary of the German\nReformed Church, situated at Mercersburg in Pennsylvania. At this\ninstitution was effected a fruitful union of American and German\ntheology; the result was to commend to the general attention aspects of\ntruth, philosophical, theological, and historical, not previously\ncurrent among American Protestants. The book of Dr. John Williamson\nNevin, entitled \"The Mystical Presence: A Vindication of the Reformed or\nCalvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist,\" revealed to the vast\nmultitude of churches and ministers that gloried in the name of\nCalvinist the fact that on the most distinctive article of Calvinism\nthey were not Calvinists at all, but Zwinglians. The enunciation of the\nstandard doctrine of the various Presbyterian churches excited among\nthemselves a clamor of \"Heresy!\" and the doctrine of Calvin was put upon\ntrial before the Calvinists. The outcome of a discussion that extended\nitself far beyond the boundaries of the comparatively small and\nuninfluential German Reformed Church was to elevate the point of view\nand broaden the horizon of American students of the constitution and\nhistory of the church. Later generations of such students owe no light\nobligation to the fidelity and courage of Dr. Nevin, as well as to the\nerudition and immense productive diligence of his associate, Dr. Philip\nSchaff.[377:1]\n\nIt is incidental to the prevailing method of instruction in theology by\na course of prelections in which the teacher reads to his class in\ndetail his own original _summa theologiae_, that the American press has\nbeen prolific of ponderous volumes of systematic divinity. Among the\nmore notable of these systems are those of Leonard Woods (in five\nvolumes) and of Enoch Pond; of the two Drs. Hodge, father and son; of\nRobert J. Breckinridge and James H. Thornwell and Robert L. Dabney; and\nthe \"Systematic Theology\" of a much younger man, Dr. Augustus H. Strong,\nof Rochester Seminary, which has won for itself very unusual and wide\nrespect. Exceptional for ability, as well as for its originality of\nconception, is \"The Republic of God: An Institute of Theology,\" by\nElisha Mulford, a disciple of Maurice and of the realist philosophy, the\nthought of whose whole life is contained in this and his kindred work on\n\"The Nation.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow great is the debt which the church owes to its heretics is\nfrequently illustrated in the progress of Christianity in America. If it\nhad not been for the Unitarian defection in New England, and for the\nattacks from Germany upon the historicity of the gospels, the\ntheologians of America might to this day have been engrossed in\n\"threshing old straw\" in endless debates on \"fixed fate, free will,\nforeknowledge absolute.\" The exigencies of controversy forced the study\nof the original documents of the church. From his entrance upon his\nprofessorship at Andover, in 1810, the eager enthusiasm of Moses Stuart\nmade him the father of exegetical science not only for America, but for\nall the English-speaking countries. His not less eminent pupil and\nassociate, Edward Robinson, later of the Union Seminary, New York,\ncreated out of nothing the study of biblical geography. Associating with\nhimself the most accomplished living Arabist, Eli Smith, of the American\nmission at Beirut, he made those \"Biblical Researches in Palestine\"\nwhich have been the foundation on which all later explorers have built.\nAnother American missionary, Dr. W. M. Thomson, has given the most\nvaluable popular exposition of the same subject in his volumes on \"The\nLand and the Book.\" With the exception of Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull in his\ndetermination of the site of Kadesh-barnea, the American successors to\nRobinson in the original exploration of the Bible lands have made few\nadditions to our knowledge. But in the department of biblical archaeology\nthe work of Drs. Ward, Peters, and Hilprecht in the mounds of Babylonia,\nand of Mr. Bliss in Palestine, has added not a little to the credit of\nthe American church against the heavy balance which we owe to the\nscholarship of Europe.\n\nMonumental works in lexicography have been produced by Dr. Thayer, of\nCambridge, on New Testament Greek; by Professor Francis Brown, of New\nYork, in conjunction with Canon Driver, of Oxford, on the languages of\nthe Old Testament; and by Dr. Sophocles, of Cambridge, on the Byzantine\nGreek.\n\nIn the work of the textual criticism of the Scriptures, notwithstanding\nits remoteness from the manuscript sources of study, America has\nfurnished two names that are held in honor throughout the learned world:\namong the recent dead, Ezra Abbot, of Cambridge, universally beloved and\nlamented; and among the living, Caspar Rene Gregory, successor to the\nlabors and the fame of Tischendorf. A third name is that of the late Dr.\nIsaac H. Hall, the successful collator of Syriac New Testament\nmanuscripts.\n\nIn those studies of the higher criticism which at the present day are\nabsorbing so much of the attention of biblical scholars, and the\nprogress of which is watched with reasonable anxiety for their bearing\non that dogma of the absolute inerrancy of the canonical Scriptures\nwhich has so commonly been postulated as the foundation of Protestant\nsystems of revealed theology, the American church has taken eager\ninterest. An eminent, and in some respects the foremost, place among the\nleaders in America of these investigations into the substructure, if not\nof the Christian faith, at least of the work of the system-builders, is\nheld by Professor W. H. Green, of Princeton, whose painstaking essays in\nthe higher criticism have done much to stimulate the studies of younger\nmen who have come out at conclusions different from his own. The works\nof Professors Briggs, of Union Seminary, and Henry P. Smith, of Lane\nSeminary, have had the invaluable advantage of being commended to public\nattention by ecclesiastical processes and debates. The two volumes of\nProfessor Bacon, of Yale, have been recognized by the foremost scholars\nof Great Britain and Germany as containing original contributions toward\nthe solution of the problem of Pentateuchal analysis. The intricate\ncritical questions presented by the Book of Judges have been handled\nwith supreme ability by Professor Moore, of Andover, in his commentary\non that book. A desideratum in biblical literature has been well\nsupplied by Professor Bissell, of Hartford, in a work on the Old\nTestament Apocrypha. But the _magnum opus_ of American biblical\nscholarship, associating with itself the best learning and ability of\nother nations, is the publication, under the direction of Professor\nHaupt, of Baltimore, of a critical text of the entire Scriptures in the\noriginal languages, with new translations and notes, for the use of\nscholars.\n\nThe undeniably grave theological difficulties occasioned by the results\nof critical study have given rise to a novel dogma concerning the\nScriptures, which, if it may justly be claimed as a product of the\nPrinceton Seminary, would seem to discredit the modest boast of the\nvenerated Dr. Charles Hodge, that \"Princeton has never originated a new\nidea.\" It consists in the hypothesis of an \"original autograph\" of the\nScriptures, the precise contents of which are now undiscoverable, but\nwhich differed from any existing text in being absolutely free from\nerror of any kind. The hypothesis has no small advantage in this, that\nif it is not susceptible of proof, it is equally secure from refutation.\nIf not practically useful, it is at least novel, and on this ground\nentitled to mention in recounting the contributions of the American\nchurch to theology at a really perilous point in the progress of\nbiblical study.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe field of church history, aside from local and sectarian histories,\nwas late in being invaded by American theologians. For many generations\nthe theology of America was distinctly unhistorical, speculative, and\nprovincial. But a change in this respect was inevitably sure to come.\nThe strong propensity of the national mind toward historical studies is\nillustrated by the large proportion of historical works among the\nmasterpieces of our literature, whether in prose or in verse. It would\nseem as if our conscious poverty in historical monuments and traditions\nhad engendered an eager hunger for history. No travelers in ancient\nlands are such enthusiasts in seeking the monuments of remote ages as\nthose whose homes are in regions not two generations removed from the\nprehistoric wilderness. It was certain that as soon as theology should\nbegin to be taught to American students in its relation to the history\nof the kingdom of Christ, the charm of this method would be keenly felt.\n\nWe may assume the date of 1853 as an epoch from which to date this new\nera of theological study. It was in that year that the gifted, learned,\nand inspiring teacher, Henry Boynton Smith, was transferred from the\nchair of history in Union Theological Seminary, New York, to the chair\nof systematic theology. Through his premature and most lamented death\nthe church has failed of receiving that system of doctrine which had\nbeen hoped for at his hands. But the historic spirit which characterized\nhim has ever since been characteristic of that seminary. It is\nillustrative of the changed tone of theologizing that after the death of\nProfessor Smith, in the reorganization of the faculty of that important\ninstitution, it was manned in the three chief departments, exegetical,\ndogmatic, and practical, by men whose eminent distinction was in the\nline of church history. The names of Hitchcock, Schaff, and Shedd cannot\nbe mentioned without bringing to mind some of the most valuable gifts\nthat America has made to the literature of the universal church. If to\nthese we add the names of George Park Fisher, of Yale, and Bishop Hurst,\nand Alexander V. G. Allen, of Cambridge, author of \"The Continuity of\nChristian Thought,\" and Henry Charles Lea, of Philadelphia, we have\nalready vindicated for American scholarship a high place in this\ndepartment of Christian literature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn practical theology the productiveness of the American church in the\nmatter of _sermons_ has been so copious that even for the briefest\nmention some narrow rule of exclusion must be followed. There is no\ndoubt that in a multitude of cases the noblest utterances of the\nAmerican pulpit, being unwritten, have never come into literature, but\nhave survived for a time as a glowing memory, and then a fading\ntradition. The statement applies to many of the most famous revival\npreachers; and in consequence of a prevalent prejudice against the\nwriting of sermons, it applies especially to the great Methodist and\nBaptist preachers, whose representation on the shelves of libraries is\nmost disproportionate to their influence on the course of the kingdom\nof Christ. Of other sermons,--and good sermons,--printed and published,\nmany have had an influence almost as restricted and as evanescent as the\nutterances of the pulpit improvisator. If we confine ourselves to those\nsermons that have survived their generation or won attention beyond the\nlimits of local interest or of sectarian fellowship, the list will not\nbe unmanageably long.\n\nIn the early years of the nineteenth century the Unitarian pulpits of\nBoston were adorned with every literary grace known to the rhetoric of\nthat period. The luster of Channing's fame has outshone and outlasted\nthat of his associates; and yet these were stars of hardly less\nmagnitude. The two Wares, father and son, the younger Buckminster, whose\nsingular power as a preacher was known not only to wondering hearers,\nbut to readers on both sides of the ocean, Gannett and Dewey--these were\namong them; and, in the next generation, Henry W. Bellows, Thomas Starr\nKing, and James Freeman Clarke. No body of clergy of like size was ever\nso resplendent with talents and accomplishments. The names alone of\nthose who left the Unitarian pulpit for a literary or political\ncareer--Sparks, Everett, Bancroft, Emerson, Ripley, Palfrey, Upham,\namong them--are a constellation by themselves.\n\nTo the merely literary critic those earnest preachers, such as Lyman and\nEdward Beecher, Griffin, Sereno Dwight, Wayland, and Kirk, who felt\ncalled of God to withstand, in Boston, this splendid array of not less\nearnest men, were clearly inferior to their antagonists. But they were\nsuccessful.\n\nA few years later, the preeminent American writer of sermons to be read\nand pondered in every part of the world was Horace Bushnell; as the\ngreat popular preacher, whose words, caught burning from his lips,\nrolled around the world in a perpetual stream, was Henry Ward Beecher.\nWidely different from either of these, and yet in an honorable sense\nsuccessor to the fame of both, was Phillips Brooks, of all American\npreachers most widely beloved and honored in all parts of the church.\n\nOf living preachers whose sermons have already attained a place of honor\nin libraries at home and abroad, the name of Bishop F. D. Huntington\nstands among the foremost; and those who have been charmed by the\nbrilliant rhetoric and instructed from the copious learning of his\ncollege classmate, Dr. Richard S. Storrs, must feel it a wrong done to\nour national literature that these gifts should be chiefly known to the\nreading public only by occasional discourses and by two valuable studies\nin religious history instead of by volumes of sermons. Perhaps no\nAmerican pulpits have to-day a wider hearing beyond the sea than two\nthat stand within hearing distance of each other on New Haven Green,\noccupied by Theodore T. Munger and Newman Smyth. The pulpit of Plymouth\nChurch, Brooklyn, has not ceased, since the accession of Lyman Abbott,\nto wield a wide and weighty influence,--less wide, but in some respects\nmore weighty, than in the days of his famous predecessor,--by reason of\na well-deserved reputation for biblical learning and insight, and for\ncandor and wisdom in applying Scriptural principles to the solution of\ncurrent questions.\n\nThe early American theology was, as we have seen, a rhetorical and not a\nmerely scholastic theology--a theology to be preached.[384:1] In like\nmanner, the American pulpit in those days was distinctly theological,\nlike a professor's chair. One who studies with care the pulpit of\nto-day, in those volumes that seem to command the widest and most\nenduring attention, will find that it is to a large extent apologetic,\naddressing itself to the abating of doubts and objections to the\nChristian system, or, recognizing the existing doubts, urging the\nreligious duties that are nevertheless incumbent on the doubting mind.\nIt has ceased to assume the substantial soundness of the hearer in the\nmain principles of orthodox opinion, and regards him as one to be held\nto the church by attraction, persuasion, or argument. The result of this\nattitude of the preacher is to make the pulpit studiously, and even\neagerly, attractive and interesting. This virtue has its corresponding\nfault. The American preacher of to-day is little in danger of being\ndull; his peril lies at the other extreme. His temptation is rather to\nthe feebleness of extravagant statement, and to an overstrained and\ntheatric rhetoric such as some persons find so attractive in the\ndiscourses of Dr. Talmage, and others find repulsive and intolerable.\n\nA direction in which the literature of practical theology in America is\nsure to expand itself in the immediate future is indicated in the title\nof a recent work of that versatile and useful writer, Dr. Washington\nGladden, \"Applied Christianity.\" The salutary conviction that political\neconomy cannot be relied on by itself to adjust all the intricate\nrelations of men under modern conditions of life, that the ethical\nquestions that arise are not going to solve themselves automatically by\nthe law of demand and supply, that the gospel and the church and the\nSpirit of Christ have somewhat to do in the matter, has been settling\nitself deeply into the minds of Christian believers. The impression that\nthe questions between labor and capital, between sordid poverty and\novergrown wealth, were old-world questions, of which we of the New World\nare relieved, is effectually dispelled. Thus far there is not much of\nhistory to be written under this head, but somewhat of prophecy. It is\nnow understood, and felt in the conscience, that these questions are for\nevery Christian to consider, and for those undertaking the cure of souls\nto make the subject of their faithful, laborious professional study. The\nfounding of professorships of social ethics in the theological\nseminaries must lead to important and speedy results in the efficiency\nof churches and pastors in dealing with this difficult class of\nproblems.[386:1] But whatever advances shall be made in the future, no\nsmall part of the impulse toward them will be recognized as coming from,\nor rather through, the inspiring and most Christian humanitarian\nwritings and the personal influence and example of Edward Everett Hale.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn one noble department of religious literature, the liturgical, the\nrecord of the American church is meager. The reaction among the early\ncolonists and many of the later settlers against forms of worship\nimposed by political authority was violent. Seeking for a logical basis,\nit planted itself on the assumption that no form (unless an improvised\nform) is permitted in public worship, except such as are sanctioned by\nexpress word of Scripture. In their sturdy resolution to throw off and\nbreak up the yoke, which neither they nor their fathers had been able to\nbear, of ordinances and traditions complicated with not a little of\ndebilitating superstition, the extreme Puritans of England and Scotland\nrejected the whole system of holy days in the Christian year, including\nthe authentic anniversaries of Passover and Pentecost, and discontinued\nthe use of religious ceremonies at marriages and funerals.[386:2] The\nonly liturgical compositions that have come down to us from the first\ngenerations are the various attempts, in various degrees of harshness\nand rudeness, at the versification of psalms and other Scriptures for\nsinging. The emancipation of the church from its bondage to an\nartificial dogma came, as we have already seen, with the Great Awakening\nand the introduction of Watts's \"Psalms of David, Imitated in the\nLanguage of the New Testament.\"[387:1] After the Revolution, at the\nrequest of the General Association of Connecticut and the General\nAssembly of the Presbyterian Church, Timothy Dwight completed the work\nof Watts by versifying a few omitted psalms,[387:2] and added a brief\nselection of hymns, chiefly in the grave and solemn Scriptural style of\nWatts and Doddridge. Then followed, in successive tides, from England,\nthe copious hymnody of the Methodist revival, both Calvinist and\nWesleyan, of the Evangelical revival, and now at last of the Oxford\nrevival, with its affluence of translations from the ancient hymnists,\nas well as of original hymns. It is doubtless owing to this abundant\nintermittent inflow from England that the production of American hymns\nhas been so scanty. Only a few writers, among them Thomas Hastings and\nRay Palmer, have written each a considerable number of hymns that have\ntaken root in the common use of the church. Not a few names besides are\nassociated each with some one or two or three lyrics that have won an\nenduring place in the affections of Christian worshipers. The \"gospel\nhymns\" which have flowed from many pens in increasing volume since the\nrevival of 1857 have proved their great usefulness, especially in\nconnection with the ministry of Messrs. Moody and Sankey; but they are,\neven the best of them, short-lived. After their season the church seems\nnot unwilling to let them die.\n\nSoon after the mid-point of the nineteenth century, began a serious\nstudy of the subject of the conduct of public worship, which continues\nto this day, with good promise of sometime reaching useful and stable\nresults. In 1855 was published \"Eutaxia, or the Presbyterian Liturgies:\nHistorical Sketches. By a Minister of the Presbyterian Church.\" The\nauthor, Charles W. Baird, was a man peculiarly fitted to render the\nchurch important service, such as indeed he did render in this volume,\nand in the field of Huguenot history which he divided with his brother,\nHenry M. Baird. How great the loss to historical theology through his\nprotracted feebleness of body and his death may be conjectured, not\nmeasured. This brief volume awakened an interest in the subject of it in\nAmerica, and in Scotland, and among the nonconformists of England. To\nAmerican Presbyterians in general it was something like a surprise to be\nreminded that the sisterhood of the \"Reformed\" sects were committed by\ntheir earliest and best traditions in favor of liturgic uses in public\nworship. At about the same time the fruitful discussions of the\nMercersburg controversy were in progress in the German Reformed Church.\n\"Mercersburg found fault with the common style of extemporaneous public\nprayer, and advocated a revival of the liturgical church service of the\nReformation period, but so modified and reproduced as to be adapted to\nthe existing wants of Protestant congregations.\"[388:1] Each of these\ndiscussions was followed by a proposed book of worship. In 1857 was\npublished by Mr. Baird \"A Book of Public Prayer, Compiled from the\nAuthorized Formularies of Worship of the Presbyterian Church, as\nPrepared by the Reformers, Calvin, Knox, Bucer, and others\"; and in 1858\nwas set forth by a committee of the German Reformed Church \"A Liturgy,\nor Order of Christian Worship.\" In 1855 St. Peter's Presbyterian Church\nof Rochester published its \"Church-book,\" prepared by Mr. L. W. Bacon,\nthen acting as pastor, which was principally notable for introducing the\nuse of the Psalms in parallelisms for responsive reading--a use which at\nonce found acceptance in many churches, and has become general in all\nparts of the country. Sporadic experiments followed in various\nindividual congregations, looking toward greater variety or greater\ndignity or greater musical attractiveness in the services of public\nworship, or toward more active participation therein on the part of the\npeople. But these experiments, conducted without concert or mutual\ncounsel, often without serious study of the subject, and with a feebly\nesthetic purpose, were representative of individual notions, and had in\nthem no promise of stability or of fruit after their kind. Only, by the\nincreasing number of them, they have given proof of an unrest on this\nsubject which at last is beginning to embody itself in organization and\nconcerted study and enterprise. A fifty years of mere tentative groping\nis likely to be followed by another fifty years of substantial progress.\n\nThe influence of the Protestant Episcopal Church upon this growing\ntendency has been sometimes favorable, sometimes unfavorable, but always\nimportant. To begin with, it has held up before the whole church an\nexample of prescribed forms for divine worship, on the whole, the best\nin all history. On the other hand, it has drawn to itself those in\nother sects whose tastes and tendencies would make them leaders in the\nstudy of liturgics, and thus while reinforcing itself has hindered the\ngeneral advance of improvement in the methods of worship. Withal, its\ninfluence has tended to narrow the discussion to the consideration of a\nsingle provincial and sectarian tradition, as if the usage of a part of\nthe Christians of the southern end of one of the islands of the British\narchipelago had a sort of binding authority over the whole western\ncontinent. But again, on the other hand, the broadening of its own views\nto the extent of developing distinctly diverse ways of thinking among\nits clergy and people has enlarged the field of study once more, and\ntended to interest the church generally in the practical, historical,\nand theological aspects of the subject. The somewhat timid ventures of\n\"Broad\" and \"Evangelical\" men in one direction, and the fearless\nbreaking of bounds in the other direction by those of \"Ritualist\"\nsympathies, have done much to liberate this important communion from\nslavish uniformity and indolent traditionalism; and within a few years\nthat has been accomplished which only a few years earlier would have\nbeen deemed impossible--the considerable alteration and improvement of\nthe Book of Common Prayer.\n\nIt is safe to prognosticate, from the course of the history up to this\npoint, that the subject of the conduct of worship will become more and\nmore seriously a subject of study in the American church in all its\ndivisions; that the discussions thereon arising will be attended with\nstrong antagonisms of sentiment; that mutual antagonisms within the\nseveral sects will be compensated by affiliations of men like-minded\nacross sectarian lines; and that thus, as many times before, particular\ncontroversies will tend to general union and fellowship.\n\nOne topic under this title of Liturgics requires special mention--the\nuse of music in the church. It was not till the early part of the\neighteenth century that music began to be cultivated as an art in\nAmerica.[391:1] Up to that time \"the service of song in the house of the\nLord\" had consisted, in most worshiping assemblies on this continent, in\nthe singing of rude literal versifications of the Psalms and other\nScriptures to some eight or ten old tunes handed down by tradition, and\nvariously sung in various congregations, as modified by local practice.\nThe coming in of \"singing by rule\" was nearly coincident with the\nintroduction of Watts's psalms and hymns, and was attended with like\nagitations. The singing-school for winter evenings became an almost\nuniversal social institution; and there actually grew up an American\nschool of composition, quaint, rude, and ungrammatical, which had great\nvogue toward the end of the last century, and is even now remembered by\nsome with admiration and regret. It was devoted mainly to psalmody tunes\nof an elaborate sort, in which the first half-stanza would be sung in\nplain counterpoint, after which the voices would chase each other about\nin a lively imitative movement, coming out together triumphantly at the\nclose. They abounded in forbidden progressions and empty chords, but\nwere often characterized by fervor of feeling and by strong melodies. A\nfew of them, as \"Lenox\" and \"Northfield,\" still linger in use; and the\nproductions of this school in general, which amount to a considerable\nvolume, are entitled to respectful remembrance as the first untutored\nutterance of music in America. The use of them became a passionate\ndelight to our grandparents; and the traditions are fresh and vivid of\nthe great choirs filling the church galleries on three sides, and\ntossing the theme about from part to part.\n\nThe use of these rudely artificial tunes involved a gravely important\nchange in the course of public worship. In congregations that accepted\nthem the singing necessarily became an exclusive privilege of the choir.\nTo a lamentable extent, where there was neither the irregular and\nspontaneous ejaculation of the Methodist nor the rubrical response of\nthe Episcopalian, the people came to be shut out from audible\nparticipation in the acts of public worship.\n\nA movement of musical reform in the direction of greater simplicity and\ndignity began early in this century, when Lowell Mason in Boston and\nThomas Hastings in New York began their multitudinous publications of\npsalmody. Between them not less than seventy volumes of music were\npublished in a period of half as many years. Their immense and\nsuccessful fecundity was imitated with less success by others, until the\nland was swamped with an annual flood of church-music books. A thin\ndiluvial stratum remains to us from that time in tunes, chiefly from the\npen of Dr. Mason, that have taken permanent place as American chorals.\nSuch pieces as \"Boylston,\" \"Hebron,\" \"Rockingham,\" \"Missionary Hymn,\"\nand the adaptations of Gregorian melodies, \"Olmutz\" and \"Hamburg,\" are\nnot likely to be displaced from their hold on the American church by\nmore skilled and exquisite compositions of later schools. But the\nfertile labors of the church musicians of this period were affected by\nthe market demand for new material for the singing-school, the large\nchurch choir, and the musical convention. The music thus introduced into\nthe churches consisted not so much of hymn-tunes and anthems as of\n\"sacred glees.\"[392:1]\n\nBefore the middle of the century the Episcopal Church had arrived at a\npoint at which it was much looked to to set the fashions in such matters\nas church music and architecture. Its influence at this time was very\nbad. It was largely responsible for the fashion, still widely prevalent,\nof substituting for the church choir a quartet of professional solo\nsingers, and for the degradation of church music into the dainty,\nlanguishing, and sensuous style which such \"artists\" do most affect. The\nperiod of \"The Grace Church Collection,\" \"Greatorex's Collection,\" and\nthe sheet-music compositions of George William Warren and John R. Thomas\nwas the lowest tide of American church music.\n\nA healthy reaction from this vicious condition began about 1855, with\nthe introduction of hymn-and-tune books and the revival of\ncongregational singing. From that time the progressive improvement of\nthe public taste may be traced in the character of the books that have\nsucceeded one another in the churches, until the admirable compositions\nof the modern English school of psalmody tend to predominate above those\nof inferior quality. It is the mark of a transitional period that both\nin church music and in church architecture we seem to depend much on\ncompositions and designs derived from older countries. The future of\nreligious art in America is sufficiently well assured to leave no cause\nfor hurry or anxiety.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn glancing back over this chapter, it will be strange if some are not\nimpressed, and unfavorably impressed, with a disproportion in the names\ncited as representative, which are taken chiefly from some two or three\nsects. This may justly be referred in part, no doubt, to the author's\npoint of view and to the \"personal equation\"; but it is more largely due\nto the fact that in the specialization of the various sects the work of\ntheological literature and science has been distinctively the lot of the\nCongregationalists and the Presbyterians, and preeminently of the\nformer.[394:1] It is matter of congratulation that the inequality among\nthe denominations in this respect is in a fair way to be outgrown.\n\nSpecial mention must be made of the peculiarly valuable contribution to\nthe liturgical literature of America that is made by the oldest of our\nepiscopal churches, the Moravian. This venerable organization is rich\nnot only in the possession of a heroic martyr history, but in the\ninheritance of liturgic forms and usages of unsurpassed beauty and\ndignity. Before the other churches had emerged from a half-barbarous\nstate in respect to church music, this art was successfully cultivated\nin the Moravian communities and missions. In past times these have had\ncomparatively few points of contact and influence with the rest of the\nchurch; but when the elements of a common order of divine worship shall\nby and by begin to grow into form, it is hardly possible that the\nMoravian traditions will not enter into it as an important factor.\n\nA combination of conditions which in the case of other bodies in the\nchurch has been an effective discouragement to literary production has\napplied with especial force to the Roman Catholic Church in America.\nFirst, its energies and resources, great as they are, have been\nengrossed by absolutely prodigious burdens of practical labor; and\nsecondly, its necessary literary material has been furnished to it from\nacross the sea, ready to its hand, or needing only the light labor of\ntranslation. But these two conditions are not enough, of themselves, to\naccount for the very meager contribution of the Catholic Church to the\ncommon religious and theological literature of American Christendom.\nNeither is the fact explained by the general low average of culture\namong the Catholic population; for literary production does not\nordinarily proceed from the man of average culture, but from men of\nsuperior culture, such as this church possesses in no small number, and\nplaces in positions of undisturbed \"learned leisure\" that would seem in\nthe highest degree promotive of intellectual work. But the comparative\nstatistics of the Catholic and the Protestant countries and universities\nof Germany seem to prove conclusively that the spirit and discipline of\nthe Roman Church are unfavorable to literary productiveness in those\nlarge fields of intellectual activity that are common and free alike to\nthe scholars of all Christendom. It remains to be seen whether the\nstimulating atmosphere and the free and equal competitions of the New\nWorld will not show their invigorating effect in the larger activity of\nCatholic scholars, and their liberation from within the narrow lines of\npolemic and defensive literature. The republic of Christian letters has\nalready shown itself prompt to welcome accessions from this quarter. The\nsigns are favorable. Notwithstanding severe criticisms of their methods\nproceeding from the Catholic press, or rather in consequence of such\ncriticisms, the Catholic institutions of higher learning are rising in\ncharacter and in public respect; and the honorable enterprise of\nestablishing at Washington an American Catholic university, on the\nupbuilding of which shall be concentrated the entire intellectual\nstrength and culture of this church, promises an invigorating influence\nthat shall extend through that whole system of educational institutions\nwhich the church has set on foot at immense cost, and not with wholly\nsatisfactory results.\n\nRecent events in the Catholic Church in America tend to reassure all\nminds on an important point on which not bigots and alarmists only, but\nliberal-minded citizens apostolically willing to \"look not only on their\nown things but also on the things of others,\" have found reasonable\nground for anxiety. The American Catholic Church, while characterized in\nall its ranks, in respect of loyal devotion to the pope, by a high type\nof ultramontane orthodoxy, is to be administered on patriotic American\nprinciples. The brief term of service of Monsignor Satolli as papal\nlegate clothed with plenipotentiary authority from the Roman see stamped\nout the scheme called from its promoter \"Cahenslyism,\" which would have\ndivided the American Catholic Church into permanent alien communities,\nconserving each its foreign language and organized under its separate\nhierarchy. The organization of parishes to be administered in other\nlanguages than English is suffered only as a temporary necessity. The\ndeadly warfare against the American common-school system has abated. And\nthe anti-American denunciations contained in the bull and syllabus of\nDecember 8, 1864, are openly renounced as lacking the note of\ninfallibility.[396:1]\n\nOf course, as in all large communities of vigorous vitality, there will\nbe mutually antagonist parties in this body; but it is hardly to be\ndoubted that with the growth and acclimatization of the Catholic Church\nin America that party will eventually predominate which is most in\nsympathy with the ruling ideas of the country and the age.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[377:1] For fuller accounts of \"the Mercersburg theology,\" with\nreferences to the literature of the subject, see Dubbs, \"The Reformed\nChurch, German\" (American Church History Series, vol. viii.), pp. 219,\n220, 389-378; also, Professor E. V. Gerhart in \"Schaff-Herzog\nEncyclopedia,\" pp. 1473-1475.\n\n[384:1] See above, p. 375.\n\n[386:1] The program of Yale Divinity School for 1896-97 announces among\nthe \"required studies in senior year\" lectures \"on some important\nproblems of American life, such as Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism;\nRaces in the United States; Immigration; the Modern City; the Wage\nSystem; the Relations of Employer and Employed; Social Classes; the\nCauses, Prevention, and Punishment of Crime; and University\nSettlements.\"\n\n[386:2] Williston Walker, \"The Congregationalists,\" pp. 245, 246.\n\n[387:1] See above, pp. 182-184.\n\n[387:2] The only relic of this work that survives in common use is the\nimmortal lyric, \"I love thy kingdom, Lord,\" founded on a motif in the\none hundred and thirty-seventh psalm. This, with Doddridge's hymn, \"My\nGod, and is thy table spread?\" continued for a long time to be the most\nimportant church hymn and eucharistic hymn in the English language. We\nshould not perhaps have looked for the gift of them to two\nCongregationalist ministers, one in New England and the other in old\nEngland. There is no such illustration of the spiritual unity of \"the\nholy catholic church, the fellowship of the holy,\" as is presented in a\nmodern hymn-book.\n\n[388:1] Professor Gerhart, in \"Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia,\" p. 1475.\n\n[391:1] \"Massachusetts Historical Collections,\" second series, vol. iv.,\np. 301; quoted in the \"New Englander,\" vol. xiii., p. 467 (August,\n1855).\n\n[392:1] This was the criticism of the late Rev. Mr. Havergal, of\nWorcester Cathedral, to whom Dr. Mason had sent copies of some of his\nbooks. The incident was freely told by Dr. Mason himself.\n\n[394:1] For many generations the religious and theological literature of\nthe country proceeded almost exclusively, at first or second hand, from\nNew England. The Presbyterian historian, Professor Robert Ellis\nThompson, remarks that \"until after the division of 1837 American\nPresbyterianism made no important addition to the literature of\ntheology\" (\"The Presbyterians,\" p. 143). The like observation is true\ndown to a much more recent date of the Protestant Episcopal Church.\nNoble progress has been made in both these denominations in reversing\nthis record.\n\n[396:1] So (for example) Bishop O'Gorman, \"The Roman Catholics,\" p. 434.\nAnd yet, at the time, the bull with its appendix was certainly looked\nupon as \"an act of infallibility.\" See, in \"La Bulle _Quanta Cura_ et la\nCivilisation Moderne, par l'Abbe Pelage\" (Paris, 1865), the utterances\nof all the French bishops. The language of Bishop Plantier of Poitiers\nseems decisive: \"The Vicar of Jesus Christ, doctor and pastor charged\nwith the teaching and ruling of the entire church, addressed to the\nbishops, and through them to all the Christian universe, instructions,\nthe object of which is to settle the mind and enlighten the conscience\non sundry points of Christian doctrine and morals\" (pp. 103, 104). See\nalso pp. 445, 450. This brings it within the Vatican Council's\ndefinition of an infallible utterance. But we are bound to bear in mind\nthat not only is the infallible authority of this manifesto against\n\"progress, liberalism, and modern civilization\" disclaimed, but the\nmeaning of it, which seems unmistakably clear, is disputed. \"The\nsyllabus,\" says Bishop O'Gorman, \"is technical and legal in its\nlanguage, ... and needs to be interpreted to the lay reader by the\necclesiastical lawyer\" (p. 435).\n\nA seriously important desideratum in theological literature is some\nauthoritative canon of the infallible utterances of the Roman see. It is\ndifficult to fix on any one of them the infallible authority of which is\nnot open to dispute within the church itself; while the liability of\nthem to misinterpretation (as in the case of the _Quanta Cura_ and\n_Syllabus_) brings in still another element of vagueness and\nuncertainty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nTENDENCIES TOWARD A MANIFESTATION OF THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH.\n\n\nThe three centuries of history which we have passed under rapid review\ncomprise a series of political events of the highest importance to\nmankind. We have seen, from our side-point of view, the planting, along\nthe western coast of the Atlantic Ocean, without mutual concert or\ncommon direction, of many independent germs of civilization. So many of\nthese as survived the perils of infancy we have seen growing to a lusty\nyouth, and becoming drawn each to each by ties of common interest and\nmutual fellowship. Releasing themselves from colonial dependence on a\ntransatlantic power, we find these several communities, now grown to be\nStates, becoming conscious, through common perils, victories, and hopes,\nof national unity and life, and ordaining institutes of national\ngovernment binding upon all. The strong vitality of the new nation is\nproved by its assimilating to itself an immense mass of immigrants from\nall parts of Europe, and by expanding itself without essential change\nover the area of a continent. It triumphs again and again, and at last\nin a struggle that shakes the world, over passions and interests that\nthreaten schism in the body politic, and gives good reason to its\nfriends to boast the solid unity of the republic as the strongest\nexisting fact in the political world. The very great aggrandizement of\nthe nation has been an affair of the last sixty years; but already it\nhas recorded itself throughout the vast expanse of the continent in\nmonuments of architecture and engineering worthy of the national\nstrength.\n\nThe ecclesiastical history which has been recounted in this volume,\ncovering the same territory and the same period of time, runs with equal\npace in many respects parallel with the political history, but in one\nimportant respect with a wide divergence. As with civilization so with\nChristianity: the germs of it, derived from different regions of\nChristendom, were planted without concert of purpose, and often with\ndistinct cross-purposes, in different seed-plots along the Atlantic\nseaboard. Varying in polity, in forms of dogmatic statement, and even in\nlanguage, the diverse growths were made, through wonders of spiritual\ninfluence and through external stress of trial, to feel their unity in\nthe one faith. The course of a common experience tended to establish a\npredominant type of religious life the influence of which has been\neverywhere felt, even when it has not been consented to. The vital\nstrength of the American church, as of the American nation, has been\nsubjected to the test of the importation of enormous masses of more or\nless uncongenial population, and has shown an amazing power of digestion\nand assimilation. Its resources have been taxed by the providential\nimposition of burdens of duty and responsibility such, in magnitude and\nweight, as never since the early preaching of the gospel have pressed\nupon any single generation of the church. Within the space of a single\nlifetime, at an expenditure of toil and treasure which it is idle to\nattempt to compute, the wide and desolate wilderness, as fast as\ncivilization has invaded it, has been occupied by the church with\nchurches, schools, colleges, and seminaries of theology, with pastors,\nevangelists, and teachers, and, in one way or another, has been\nconstrained to confess itself Christian. The continent which so short a\ntime ago had been compassionately looked upon from across the sea as\nmissionary ground has become a principal base of supplies, and\nrecruiting-ground for men and women, for missionary operations in\nancient lands of heathenism and of a decayed Christianity.\n\nSo much for the parallel. The divergence is not less impressive. In\ncontrast with the solid political unity into which the various and\nincongruous elements have settled themselves, the unity of the Christian\nchurch is manifested by oneness neither of jurisdiction nor of\nconfederation, nor even by diplomatic recognition and correspondence.\nOut of the total population of the United States, amounting, according\nto the census of 1890, to 62,622,000 souls, the 57,000,000 accounted as\nChristians, including 20,000,000 communicant church-members, are\ngathered into 165,297 congregations, assembling in 142,000 church\nedifices containing 43,000,000 sittings, and valued (together with other\nchurch property) at $670,000,000; and are served in the ministry of the\ngospel by more than 111,000 ministers.[400:1] But this great force is\ndivided among 143 mutually independent sects, larger and smaller. Among\nthese sects is recognized no controlling and cooerdinating authority;\nneither is there any common leadership; neither is there any system of\nmutual counsel and concert. The mutual relations of the sects are\nsometimes those of respect and good will, sometimes of sharp competition\nand jealousy, sometimes of eager and conscientious hostility. All have\none and the same unselfish and religious aim--to honor God in serving\ntheir fellow-men; and each one, in honestly seeking this supreme aim, is\naffected by its corporate interests, sympathies, and antipathies.\n\nThis situation is too characteristic of America, and too distinctly\nconnected with the whole course of the antecedent history, not to be\nbrought out with emphasis in this concluding chapter. In other lands the\nchurch is maintained, through the power of the civil government, under\nthe exclusive control of a single organization, in which the element of\npopular influence may be wholly wanting, or may be present (as in many\nof the \"Reformed\" polities) in no small measure. In others yet, through\ngovernment influence and favor, a strong predominance is given to one\norganized communion, under the shadow of which dissentient minorities\nare tolerated and protected. Under the absolute freedom and equality of\nthe American system there is not so much as a predominance of any one of\nthe sects. No one of them is so strong and numerous but that it is\noutnumbered and outweighed by the aggregate of the two next to it. At\npresent, in consequence of the rush of immigration, the Roman Catholic\nChurch is largely in advance of any single denomination besides, but is\ninferior in numerical strength and popular influence to the Methodists\nand Baptists combined--if they _were_ combined.\n\nAnd there is no doubt that this comminution of the church is frankly\naccepted, for reasons assigned, not only as an inevitable drawback to\nthe blessings of religious freedom, but as a good thing in itself. A\nweighty sentence of James Madison undoubtedly expresses the prevailing\nsentiment among Americans who contemplate the subject merely from the\npolitical side: \"In a free government the security for civil rights must\nbe the same as that for religious rights. It consists, in the one case,\nin the multiplicity of interests, and, in the other, in the multiplicity\nof sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number\nof interests and sects.\"[402:1] And no student of history can deny that\nthere is much to justify the jealousy with which the lovers of civil\nliberty watch the climbing of any sect, no matter how purely spiritual\nits constitution, toward a position of command in popular influence. The\ninfluence of the leaders of such a sect may be nothing more than the\nlegitimate and well-deserved influence of men of superior wisdom and\nvirtue; but when reinforced by the weight of official religious\ncharacter, and backed by a majority, or even a formidable minority, of\nvoters organized in a religious communion, the feeling is sure to gain\nground that such power is too great to be trusted to the hands even of\nthe best of men. Whatever sectarian advantage such a body may achieve in\nthe state by preponderance of number will be more than offset by the\npublic suspicion and the watchful jealousy of rival sects; and the\nweakening of it by division, or the subordination of it by the\novergrowth of a rival, is sure to be regarded with general complacency.\n\nIt is not altogether a pleasing object of contemplation--the citizen and\nthe statesman looking with contentment on the schism of the church as\naverting a danger to the state. It is hardly more gratifying when we\nfind ministers of the church themselves accepting the condition of\nschism as being, on the whole, a very good condition for the church of\nChrist, if not, indeed, the best possible. It is quite unreservedly\nargued that the principle, \"Competition is the life of business,\" is\napplicable to spiritual as well as secular concerns; and the\n\"emulations\" reprobated by the Apostle Paul as \"works of the flesh\" are\nfrankly appealed to for promoting the works of the spirit. This debasing\nof the motive of church work is naturally attended by a debasement of\nthe means employed. The competitive church resorts to strange business\ndevices to secure its needed revenue. \"He that giveth\" is induced to\ngive, not \"with simplicity,\" but with a view to incidental advantages,\nand a distinct understanding is maintained between the right hand and\nthe left. The extent and variety of this influence on church life in\nAmerica afford no occasion for pride, but the mention of them could not\nrightly be omitted. It remains for the future to decide whether they\nmust needs continue as an inevitable attendant on the voluntary system.\n\nSectarian divisions tend strongly to perpetuate themselves. The starting\nof schism is easy and quick; the healing of it is a matter of long\ndiplomatic negotiations. In a very short time the division of the\nchurch, with its necessary relations to property and to the employment\nof officials, becomes a vested interest. Provision for large expenditure\nunnecessary, or even detrimental, to the general interests of the\nkingdom of Christ, which had been instituted in the first place at heavy\ncost to the many, is not to be discontinued without more serious loss to\ninfluential individuals. Those who would set themselves about the\nhealing of a schism must reckon upon personal and property interests to\nbe conciliated.\n\nThis least amiable characteristic of the growth of the Christian church\nin America is not without its compensations. The very fact of the\nexistence, in presence of one another, of these multitudinous rival\nsects, all equal before the law, tends in the long run, under the\ninfluence of the Holy Spirit of peace, to a large and comprehensive\nfellowship.[404:1] The widely prevalent acceptance of existing\nconditions as probably permanent, even if not quite normal, softens the\nmutual reproaches of rival parties. The presumption is of course\nimplied, if not asserted, in the existence of any Christian sect, that\nit is holding the absolute right and truth, or at least more nearly that\nthan other sects; and the inference, to a religious mind, is that the\nright and true must, in the long run, prevail. But it is only with a\nhigh act of faith, and not as a matter of reasonable probability, that\nany sect in America can venture to indulge itself in the expectation of\na supremacy, or even a predominance, in American Christendom. The\nstrongest in numbers, in influence, in prestige, however tempted to\nassert for itself exclusive or superior rights, is compelled to look\nabout itself and find itself overwhelmingly outnumbered and outdone by a\ndivided communion--and yet a communion--of those whom Christ \"is not\nashamed to call his brethren\"; and just in proportion as it has the\nspirit of Christ, it is constrained in its heart to treat them as\nbrethren and to feel toward them as brethren. Its protest against what\nit regards as their errors and defects is nowise weakened by the most\nunreserved manifestations of respect and good will as toward\nfellow-Christians. Thus it comes to pass that the observant traveler\nfrom other countries, seeking the distinctive traits of American social\nlife, \"notes a kindlier feeling between all denominations, Roman\nCatholics included, a greater readiness to work together for common\ncharitable aims, than between Catholics and Protestants in France or\nGermany, or between Anglicans and nonconformists in England.\"[405:1]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are many indications, in the recent history of the American\nchurch, pointing forward toward some higher manifestation of the true\nunity of the church than is to be found in occasional, or even habitual,\nexpressions of mutual good will passing to and fro among sharply\ncompeting and often antagonist sects. Instead of easy-going and playful\nfelicitations on the multitude of sects as contributing to the total\neffectiveness of the church, such as used to be common enough on\n\"anniversary\" platforms, we hear, in one form and another, the\nacknowledgment that the divided and subdivided state of American\nChristendom is not right, but wrong. Whose is the wrong need not be\ndecided; certainly it does not wholly belong to the men of this\ngeneration or of this country; we are heirs of the schisms of other\nlands and ages, and have added to them schisms of our own making. The\nmatter begins to be taken soberly and seriously. The tender entreaty of\nthe Apostle Paul not to suffer ourselves to be split up into\nsects[405:2] begins to get a hearing in the conscience. The _nisus_\ntoward a more manifest union among Christian believers has long been\ngrowing more and more distinctly visible, and is at the present day one\nof the most conspicuous signs of the times.\n\nAlready in the early history we have observed a tendency toward the\nhealing, in America, of differences imported from over sea. Such was the\ncommingling of Separatist and Puritan in New England; the temporary\nalliance of Congregationalist and Presbyterian to avert the imposition\nof a state hierarchy; the combination of Quaker and Roman Catholic to\ndefeat a project of religious oppression in Maryland; the drawing\ntogether of Lutheran and Reformed Germans for common worship, under the\nsaintly influence of the Moravian Zinzendorf; and the \"Plan of Union\" by\nwhich New Englander and Scotch-Irishman were to labor in common for the\nevangelization of the new settlements.[406:1] These were sporadic\ninstances of a tendency that was by and by to become happily epidemic. A\nmore important instance of the same tendency was the organization of\nsocieties for charitable work which should unite the gifts and personal\nlabors of the Christians of the whole continent. The chief period of\nthese organizations extended from 1810, the date of the beginning of the\nAmerican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to 1826, when the\nAmerican Home Missionary Society was founded.[406:2] The \"catholic\nbasis\" on which they were established was dictated partly by the\nconscious weakness of the several sects as they drew near to\nundertakings formidable even to their united forces, and partly by the\nglow of fraternal affection, and the sense of a common spiritual life\npervading the nation, with which the church had come forth from the\nfervors of \"the second awakening.\"[406:3] The societies, representing\nthe common faith and charity of the whole church as distinguished from\nthe peculiarities of the several sects, drew to themselves the affection\nand devotion of Christian hearts to a degree which, to those who highly\nvalued these distinctions, seemed to endanger important interests. And,\nindeed, the situation was anomalous, in which the sectarian divisions of\nthe Christian people were represented in the churches, and their\ncatholic unity in charitable societies. It would have seemed more\nPauline, not to say more Christian, to have had voluntary societies for\nthe sectarian work, and kept the churches for Christian communion. It is\nno wonder that High-church champions, on one side and another, soon\nbegan to shout to their adherents, \"To your tents, O Israel!\" Bishop\nHobart played not in vain upon his pastoral pipe to whistle back his\nsheep from straying outside of his pinfold, exhorting them, \"in their\nendeavors for the general advancement of religion, to use only the\ninstrumentality of their own church.\"[407:1] And a jealousy of the\ngrowing influence of a wide fellowship, in charitable labors, with\nChristians of other names, led to the enunciation of a like doctrine by\nHigh-church Presbyterians,[407:2] and contributed to the convulsive and\npassionate rending of the Presbyterian Church, in 1837, into nearly\nequal fragments. So effective has been the centrifugal force that of\nthe extensive system of societies which from the year 1810 onward first\norganized works of national beneficence by enlisting the cooeperation of\n\"all evangelical Christians,\" the American Bible Society alone continues\nto represent any general and important combination from among the\ndifferent denominations.\n\nFor all the waning of interest in the \"catholic basis\" societies, the\nsacred discontent of the Christian people with sectarian division\ncontinued to demand expression. How early the aspiration for an\necumenical council of evangelical Christendom became articulate, it may\nnot be easy to discover[408:1] In the year 1846 the aspiration was in\nsome measure realized in the first meeting of the Evangelical Alliance\nat London. No more mistakes were made in this meeting than perhaps were\nnecessarily incident to a first experiment in untried work. Almost of\ncourse the good people began with the question, What good men shall we\nkeep out? for it is a curious fact, in the long and interesting history\nof efforts after Christian union, that they commonly take the form of\nefforts so to combine many Christians as to exclude certain others. In\nthis instance, beginning with the plan of including none but Protestant\nChristians, they proceeded at once to frame a platform that should bar\nout that \"great number of the best and holiest men in England who are\nfound among the Quakers,\" thus making up, \"designedly and with their\neyes open, a schismatic unity--a unity composed of one part of God's\nelect, to the exclusion of another; and this in a grand effort after the\nvery unity of the body of Christ.\"[409:1] But in spite of this and other\nlike mistakes, or rather because of them (for it is through its mistakes\nthat the church is to learn the right way), the early and unsuccessful\nbeginnings of the Evangelical Alliance marked a stage in the slow\nprogress toward a \"manifestation of the sons of God\" by their love\ntoward each other and toward the common Lord.\n\nIt is in large part the eager appetency for some manifestation of\ninterconfessional fellowship that has hastened the acceptance of such\norganizations as the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young\nPeople's Society of Christian Endeavor; just as, on the other hand, it\nis the conscientious fear, on the part of watchful guardians of\nsectarian interests, that habitual fellowship across the boundary lines\nof denominations may weaken the allegiance to the sect, which has\ninduced the many attempts at substituting associations constituted on a\nnarrower basis. But the form of organization which most comprehensively\nillustrates the unity of the church is that \"Charity Organization\" which\nhas grown to be a necessity to the social life of cities and\nconsiderable towns, furnishing a central office of mutual correspondence\nand cooerdination to all churches and societies and persons engaged in\nthe Christian work of relieving poverty and distress. This central\nbureau of charitable cooeperation is not the less a center of catholic\nfellowship for the fact that it does not shut its door against societies\nnot distinctively Christian, like Masonic fraternities, nor even against\nsocieties distinctively non-Christian, like Hebrew synagogues and\n\"societies of ethical culture.\" We are coming to discover that the\nessence of Christian fellowship does not consist in keeping people out.\nNeither, so long as the apostolic rubric of Christian worship[410:1]\nremains unaltered, is it to be denied that the fellowship thus provided\nfor is a fellowship in one of the sacraments of Christian service.\n\nA notable advance in true catholicity of communion is reported from\namong the churches and scattered missions in Maine. Hitherto, in the\nvarious movements of Christian union, it was common to attempt to disarm\nthe suspicions of zealous sectarians by urgent disclaimers of any intent\nor tendency to infringe on the rights or interests of the several sects,\nor impair their claim to a paramount allegiance from their adherents.\nThe Christians of Maine, facing tasks of evangelization more than\nsufficient to occupy all their resources even when well economized and\nsquandering nothing on needless divisions and competitions, have\nattained to the high grace of saying that sectarian interests must and\nshall be sacrificed when the paramount interests of the kingdom of\nChrist require it.[410:2] When this attainment is reached by other\nsouls, and many other, the conspicuous shame and scandal of American\nChristianity will begin to be abated.\n\nMeanwhile the signs of a craving for larger fellowship continue to be\nmultiplied. Quite independently of practical results achieved, the mere\nfact of efforts and experiments is a hopeful fact, even when these are\nmade in directions in which the past experience of the church has\nwritten up \"No Thoroughfare.\"\n\nI. No one need question the sincerity or the fraternal spirit with which\nsome important denominations have each proposed the reuniting of\nChristians on the simple condition that all others should accept the\ndistinctive tenet for which each of these denominations has contended\nagainst others. The present pope, holding the personal respect and\nconfidence of the Christian world to a higher degree than any one of his\npredecessors since the Reformation (to name no earlier date), has\nearnestly besought the return of all believers to a common fellowship by\ntheir acceptance of the authority and supremacy of the Roman see. With\nequal cordiality the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church have\nsignified their longing for restored fellowship with their brethren on\nthe acceptance by these of prelatical episcopacy. And the Baptists,\nwhose constant readiness at fraternization in everything else is\nemphasized by their conscientious refraining from the sacramental sign\nof communion, are not less earnest in their desire for the unification\nof Christendom by the general acceptance of that tenet concerning\nbaptism, the widespread rejection of which debars them, reluctant, from\nunrestricted fellowship with the general company of faithful men. But\nwhile we welcome every such manifestation of a longing for union among\nChristians, and honor the aspiration that it might be brought about in\none or another of these ways, in forecasting the probabilities of the\ncase, we recognize the extreme unlikeliness that the very formulas which\nfor ages have been the occasions of mutual contention and separation\nshall become the basis of general agreement and lasting concord.\n\nII. Another indication of the craving for a larger fellowship is found\nin the efforts made for large sectarian councils, representing closely\nkindred denominations in more than one country. The imposing ubiquity of\nthe Roman Church, so impressively sustaining its claim to the title\n_Catholic_, may have had some influence to provoke other denominations\nto show what could be done in emulation of this sort of greatness. It\nwere wiser not to invite comparison at this point. No other Christian\norganization, or close fellowship of organizations, can approach that\nwhich has its seat at Rome, in the world-wideness of its presence, or\ndemand with so bold a challenge,\n\n     Quae regio in terris non nostri plena laboris?\n\nThe representative assembly of any other body of Christians, however\nwidely ramified, must seem insignificant when contrasted with the real\necumenicity of the Vatican Council. But it has not been useless for the\nlarger sects of Protestantism to arrange their international assemblies,\nif it were for nothing more than this, that such widening of the circle\nof practical fellowship may have the effect to disclose to each sect a\nlarger Christendom outside to which their fellowship must sooner or\nlater be made to reach.\n\nThe first of these international sectarian councils was that commonly\nspoken of as \"the Pan-Anglican Synod,\" of Protestant Episcopal bishops\ngathered at Lambeth by invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury in\n1867 and thrice since. The example was bettered by the Presbyterians,\nwho in 1876 organized for permanence their \"Pam-Presbyterian Alliance,\"\nor \"Alliance of the Reformed Churches throughout the world holding\nthe Presbyterian System.\" The first of the triennial general councils\nof this Alliance was held at Edinburgh in 1877, \"representing more\nthan forty-nine separate churches scattered through twenty-five\ndifferent countries, and consisting of more than twenty thousand\ncongregations.\"[413:1] The second council was held at Philadelphia, and\nthe third at Belfast. The idea was promptly seized by the Methodists. At\nthe instance of the General Conference of the United States, a\nPam-Methodist Council was held in London in 1881,--\"the first Ecumenical\nMethodist Conference,\"--consisting of four hundred delegates,\nrepresenting twenty-eight branches of Methodism, ten in the eastern\nhemisphere and eighteen in the western, including six millions of\ncommunicants and about twenty millions of people.[413:2] Ten years\nlater, in 1891, a second \"Methodist Ecumenical Conference\" was held at\nWashington.\n\nInteresting and useful as this international organization of sects is\ncapable of being made, it would be a mistake to look upon it as marking\na stage in the progress toward a manifest general unity of the church.\nThe tendency of it is, on the whole, in the opposite direction.\n\nIII. If the organization of \"ecumenical\" sects has little tendency\ntoward the visible communion of saints in the American church, not much\nmore is to be hoped from measures for the partial consolidation of\nsects, such as are often projected and sometimes realized. The healing\nof the great thirty years' schism of the Presbyterian Church, in 1869,\nwas so vast a gain in ecclesiastical economy, and in the abatement of a\nlong-reeking public scandal and of a multitude of local frictions and\nirritations, that none need wonder at the awakening of ardent desires\nthat the ten Presbyterian bodies still surviving might \"find room for\nall within one fold\"[413:3] in a national or continental Presbyterian\nChurch. The seventeen Methodist bodies, separated by no differences of\npolity or of doctrine that seem important to anybody but themselves, if\nconsolidated into one, would constitute a truly imposing body, numbering\nnearly five millions of communicants and more than fifteen millions of\npeople; and if this should absorb the Protestant Episcopal Church (an\nevent the possibility of which has often been contemplated with\ncomplacency), with its half-million of communicants and its elements of\ninfluence far beyond the proportion of its numbers, the result would be\nan approximation to some good men's ideal of a national church, with its\narmy of ministers cooerdinated by a college of bishops, and its _plebs\nadunata sacerdoti_. Consultations are even now in progress looking\ntoward the closer fellowship of the Congregationalists and the\nDisciples. The easy and elastic terms of internal association in each of\nthese denominations make it the less difficult to adjust terms of mutual\ncooeperation and union. Suppose that the various Baptist organizations\nwere to discover that under their like congregational government there\nwere ways in which, without compromising or weakening in the slightest\ntheir protest against practices which they reprobate in the matter of\nbaptism, they could, for certain defined purposes, enter into the same\ncombination, the result would be a body of nearly five millions of\ncommunicants, not the less strong for being lightly harnessed and for\ncomprehending wide diversities of opinion and temperament. In all this\nwe have supposed to be realized nothing more than friends of Christian\nunion have at one time or another urged as practicable and desirable. By\nthese few and, it would seem, not incongruous combinations there would\nbe four powerful ecclesiastical corporations,--one Catholic and three\nProtestant,--which, out of the twenty millions of church communicants in\nthe United States, would include more than seventeen and one half\nmillions.[415:1]\n\nThe pondering of these possibilities is pertinent to this closing\nchapter on account of the fact that, as we near the end of the\nnineteenth century, one of the most distinctly visible tendencies is the\ntendency toward the abatement of sectarian division in the church. It is\nnot for us simply to note the converging lines of tendency, without some\nattempt to compute the point toward which they converge. There is grave\nreason to doubt whether this line of the consolidation or confederation\nof sects, followed never so far, would reach the desired result.\n\nIf the one hundred and forty-three sects enumerated in the eleventh\ncensus of the United States[415:2] should by successful negotiation be\nreduced to four, distinguished each from the others by strongly marked\ndiversities of organization and of theological statement, and united to\neach other only by community of the one faith in Jesus Christ, doubtless\nit would involve some important gains. It would make it possible to be\nrid of the friction and sometimes the clash of much useless and\nexpensive machinery, and to extinguish many local schisms that had been\nengendered by the zeal of some central sectarian propaganda. Would it\ntend to mitigate the intensity of sectarian competition, or would it\ntend rather to aggravate it? Is one's pride in his sect, his zeal for\nthe propagation of it, his jealousy of any influence that tends to\nimpair its greatness or hinder its progress, likely to be reduced, or is\nit rather likely to be exalted, by the consciousness that the sect is a\nvery great sect, standing alone for important principles? Whatever\nthere is at present of asperity in the emulous labors of the competing\ndenominations, would it not be manifold exasperated if the competition\nwere restricted to four great corporations or confederations? If the\nintestine conflict of the church of Christ in America should even be\nnarrowed down (as many have devoutly wished) to two contestants,--the\nCatholic Church with its diversity of orders and rites, on the one hand,\nand Protestantism with its various denominations solidly confederated,\non the other,--should we be nearer to the longed-for achievement of\nChristian union? or should we find sectarian animosities thereby raised\nto the highest power, and the church, discovering that it was on the\nwrong track for the desired terminus, compelled to reverse and back in\norder to be switched upon the right one?\n\nQuestions like these, put to be considered, not to be answered, raise in\nthe mind the misgiving that we have been seeking in diplomatic\nnegotiations between high contracting parties that which diplomacy can\ndo only a little toward accomplishing. The great aim is to be sought in\nhumbler ways. It is more hopeful to begin at the lower end. Not in great\ntowns and centers of ecclesiastical influence, but in villages and\ncountry districts, the deadly effects of comminuted fracture in the\nchurch are most deeply felt. It is directly to the people of such\ncommunities, not through the medium of persons or committees that\nrepresent national sectarian interests, that the new commandment is to\nbe preached, which yet is no new commandment, but the old commandment\nwhich they have had from the beginning. It cannot always be that sincere\nChristian believers, living together in a neighborhood in which the\nruinous effects of division are plain to every eye, shall continue to\nmisapprehend or disregard some of the tenderest and most unmistakable\ncounsels of their Lord and his apostles, or imagine the authority of\nthem to be canceled by the authority of any sect or party of Christians.\nThe double fallacy, first, that it is a Christian's prime duty to look\nout for his own soul, and, secondly, that the soul's best health is to\nbe secured by sequestering it from contact with dissentient opinions,\nand indulging its tastes and preferences wherein they differ from those\nof its neighbor, must sometime be found out and exposed. The discovery\nwill be made that there is nothing in the most cherished sermons and\nsacraments and prayers that is comparable in value, as a means of grace,\nwith the giving up of all these for God's reign and righteousness--that\nhe who will save his soul shall lose it, and he who will lose his soul\nfor Christ and his gospel shall save it to life eternal. These centuries\nof church history, beginning with convulsive disruptions of the church\nin Europe, with persecutions and religious wars, present before us the\nimportation into the New World of the religious divisions and\nsubdivisions of the Old, and the further division of these beyond any\nprecedent in history. It begins to look as if in this \"strange work\" God\nhad been grinding up material for a nobler manifestation of the unity of\nhis people. The sky of the declining century is red with promise.\nHitherto, not the decay of religious earnestness only, but the revival\nof it, has brought into the church, not peace, but division. When next\nsome divine breathing of spiritual influence shall be wafted over the\nland, can any man forbid the hope that from village to village the\nmembers of the disintegrated and enfeebled church of Christ may be\ngathered together \"with one accord in one place\" not for the transient\nfervors of the revival only, but for permanent fellowship in work and\nworship? A few examples of this would spread their influence through the\nAmerican church \"until the whole was leavened.\"\n\nThe record of important events in the annals of American Christianity\nmay well end with that wholly unprecedented gathering at Chicago in\nconnection with the magnificent celebration of the four hundredth\nanniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus--I mean, of course,\nthe Parliament of Religions. In a land which bears among the nations the\nreproach of being wholly absorbed in devotion to material interests, and\nin which the church, unsupported and barely recognized by the state, and\nunregulated by any secular authority, scatters itself into what seem to\nbe hopelessly discordant fragments, a bold enterprise was undertaken in\nthe name of American Christianity, such as the church in no other land\nof Christendom would have had the power or the courage to venture on.\nWith large hospitality, representatives of all the religions of the\nworld were invited to visit Chicago, free of cost, as guests of the\nParliament. For seventeen days the Christianity of America, and of\nChristendom, and of Christian missions in heathen lands, sat\nconfronted--no, not confronted, but side by side on the same\nplatform--with the non-Christian religions represented by their priests,\nprelates, and teachers. Of all the diversities of Christian opinion and\norganization in America nothing important was unrepresented, from the\nauthoritative dogmatic system and the solid organization of the Catholic\nChurch (present in the person of its highest official dignitaries) to\nthe broadest liberalism and the most unrestrained individualism. There\nwere those who stood aloof and prophesied that nothing could come of\nsuch an assemblage but a hopeless jangle of discordant opinions. The\nforebodings were disappointed. The diverse opinions were there, and were\nuttered with entire unreserve. But the jangle of discord was not there.\nIt was seen and felt that the American church, in the presence of the\nunchristian and antichristian powers, and in presence of those solemn\nquestions of the needs of humanity that overtask the ingenuity and the\nresources of us all combined, was \"builded as a city that is at unity\nwith itself.\" That body which, by its strength of organization, and by\nthe binding force of its antecedents, might have seemed to some most\nhopelessly isolated from the common sympathies of the assembly, like all\nthe rest was faithful in the assertion of its claims, and, on the other\nhand, was surpassed by none in the manifestation of fraternal respect\ntoward fellow-Christians of other folds. Since those seventeen wonderful\nSeptember days of 1893, the idea that has so long prevailed with\nmultitudes of minds, that the only Christian union to be hoped for in\nAmerica must be a union to the exclusion of the Roman Catholic Church\nand in antagonism to it, ought to be reckoned an idea obsolete and\nantiquated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe theme prescribed for this volume gives no opportunity for such a\nconclusion as the literary artist delights in--a climax of achievement\nand consummation, or the catastrophe of a decline and fall. We have\nmarked the sudden divulging to the world of the long-kept secret of\ndivine Providence; the unveiling of the hidden continent; the progress\nof discovery, of conquest, of colonization; the planting of the church;\nthe rush of immigration; the occupation of the continent with Christian\ninstitutions by a strange diversity of sects; the great providential\npreparations as for some \"divine event\" still hidden behind the curtain\nthat is about to rise on the new century,--and here the story breaks off\nhalf told.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo so many of his readers as shall have followed him to this last page\nof the volume, the author would speak a parting word. He does not\ndeprecate the criticisms that will certainly be pronounced upon his\nwork by those competent to judge both of the subject and of the style of\nit. He would rather acknowledge them in advance. No one of his critics\ncan possibly have so keen a sense as the author himself of his\nincompetency, and of the inadequacy of his work, to the greatness of the\nsubject. To one reproach, however, he cannot acknowledge himself justly\nliable: he is not self-appointed to a task beyond his powers and\nattainments, but has undertaken it at the instance of eminent men to\nwhose judgment he was bound to defer. But he cannot believe that even\nhis shortcomings and failures will be wholly fruitless. If they shall\nprovoke some really competent scholar to make a book worthy of so great\nand inspiring a theme, the present author will be well content.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[400:1] These statistical figures are taken from the authoritative work\nof Dr. H. K. Carroll, \"The Religious Forces of the United States\"\n(American Church History Series, vol. i.). The volume gives no estimate\nof the annual expenditure for the maintenance of religious institutions.\nIf we assume the small figure of $500 as the average annual expenditure\nin connection with each house of worship, it makes an aggregate of\n$82,648,500 for parochial expenses. The annual contributions to\nProtestant foreign and home missions amount to $7,000,000. (See above,\npp. 358, 359.) The amounts annually contributed as free gifts for\nChristian schools and colleges and hospitals and other charitable\nobjects can at present be only conjectured.\n\n[402:1] The \"Federalist,\" No. 51.\n\n[404:1] \"This habit of respecting one another's rights cherishes a\nfeeling of mutual respect and courtesy. If on the one hand the spirit of\nindependence fosters individualism, on the other it favors good\nfellowship. All sects are equal before the law.... Hence one great cause\nof jealousy and distrust is removed; and though at times sectarian zeal\nmay lead to rivalries and controversies unfavorable to unity, on the\nother hand the independence and equality of the churches favor their\nvoluntary cooeperation; and in no country is the practical union of\nChristians more beautifully or more beneficially exemplified than in the\nUnited States. With the exception of the Roman Catholics, Christians of\nall communions are accustomed to work together in the spirit of mutual\nconcession and confidence, in educational, missionary, and philanthropic\nmeasures for the general good. The motto of the state holds of the\nchurch also, _E pluribus unum_. As a rule, a bigoted church or a fierce\nsectarian is despised\" (Dr. J. P. Thompson, in \"Church and State in the\nUnited States,\" pp. 98, 99). See, to the like purport, the judicious\nremarks of Mr. Bryce, \"American Commonwealth,\" vol. ii., pp. 568, 664.\n\n[405:1] Bryce, \"American Commonwealth,\" vol. ii., p. 568.\n\n[405:2] 1 Cor. i. 10.\n\n[406:1] See above, pp. 61, 95, 190, 206, 220, 258.\n\n[406:2] See above, pp. 252-259.\n\n[406:3] Among the New England Congregationalists the zeal for union went\nso far as to favor combination with other sects even in the work of\ntraining candidates for the ministry. Among the \"honorary\nvice-presidents\" of their \"American Education Society\" was Bishop\nGriswold, of the Eastern Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church.\n\n[407:1] Sermon at consecration of Bishop H. U. Onderdonk, 1827.\n\n[407:2] Minutes of the Convention of Delegates met to consult on\nMissions in the City of Cincinnati, A.D. 1831. The position of the\nbishop was more logical than that of the convention, forasmuch as he\nheld, by a powerful effort of faith, that \"his own\" church is the church\nof the United States, in an exclusive sense; while the divines at\nCincinnati earnestly repudiate such exclusive pretensions for their\nchurch, and hold to a plurality of sectarian churches on the same\nterritory, each one of which is divinely invested with the prerogatives\nand duties of \"the church of Christ.\" A _usus loquendi_ which seems to\nbe hopelessly imbedded in the English language applies the word \"church\"\nto each one of the several sects into which the church is divided. It is\nthis corruption of language which leads to the canonization of schism as\na divine ordinance.\n\n[408:1] The first proposal for such an assembly seems to be contained in\nan article by L. Bacon in the \"New Englander\" for April, 1844. \"Why\nmight there not be, ere long, some general conference in which the\nvarious evangelical bodies of this country and Great Britain and of the\ncontinent of Europe should be in some way represented, and in which the\ngreat cause of reformed and spiritual Christianity throughout the world\nshould be made the subject of detailed and deliberate consideration,\nwith prayer and praise? That would be an 'ecumenical council' such as\nnever yet assembled since the apostles parted from each other at\nJerusalem--a council not for legislation and division, but for union and\ncommunion and for the extension of the saving knowledge of Christ\" (pp.\n253, 254).\n\n[409:1] See the pungent strictures of Horace Bushnell on \"The\nEvangelical Alliance,\" in the \"New Englander\" for January, 1847, p. 109.\n\n[410:1] James i. 27: \"Pure and unpolluted worship, in the eye of God,\nconsists in visiting widows and orphans in their tribulation, and\nkeeping one's self spotless from the world.\"\n\n[410:2] An agreement has been made, in this State, among five leading\ndenominations, to avoid competing enterprises in sparsely settled\ncommunities. An interdenominational committee sees to the carrying out\nof this policy. At a recent mutual conference unanimous satisfaction was\nexpressed in the six years' operation of the plan.\n\n[413:1] \"Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia,\" vol. i., p. 63.\n\n[413:2] Buckley, \"The Methodists,\" p. 552.\n\n[413:3] Thompson, \"The Presbyterians,\" p. 308.\n\n[415:1] If the Lutherans of America were to be united with the\nPresbyterians, it would be no more than was accomplished fourscore years\nago in Prussia. In that case, out of 20,618,307 communicants, there\nwould be included in the four combinations, 18,768,859.\n\n[415:2] Dr. Carroll, \"Religious Forces,\" p. xv.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nAbbot, Ezra, 379.\n\nAbbot, George, Archbishop, 42.\n\nAbbott, Lyman, 384.\n\nAbolitionists, 82, 282, 284.\n\nAdams, Charles Francis, 131.\n\nAdventists, 336.\n\nAlbany, 69.\n\nAlbrights, 229.\n\nAlexander, Dr. Gross, 348.\n\nAlexander VI., pope, 3, 17.\n\nAllen, Professor A. V. G., 156, 159, 382.\n\nAllen, Professor J. H., 250.\n\nAlliance, Evangelical, 408.\n\nAmerica:\n  providential concealment of, 1;\n  medieval church in, 2;\n  Spanish conquests and missions in, 6-15;\n  French occupation and missions, 16-29;\n  English colonies in, 38-67, 82-126;\n  Dutch and Swedes in, 68-81;\n  churches of New England, 88;\n  Quaker colonization, 109-117;\n  other colonists, 120-124;\n  diverse sects, 127-139;\n  Great Awakening, 157-180;\n  Presbyterians, 186;\n  Reformed, 187;\n  Lutheran, 188;\n  Moravian, 189;\n  Methodist, 198;\n  severance of colonies from England and of church from state, 221;\n  Second Awakening, 233;\n  organized beneficence, 246;\n  conflicts of the church, 261;\n  dissension and schism, 292;\n  immigration, 315;\n  the church in the Civil War, 340;\n  reconstruction and expansion of the church, 351;\n  theology and literature, 374;\n  political union and ecclesiastical division, 398;\n  tendencies toward unity, 405.\n\nAmerican Bible Society, 256, 408.\n\nAmerican Board of Missions, 252-255.\n\nAmerican Missionary Association, 255, 314.\n\nAndover Theological Seminary, 251, 271.\n\nAndrew, Bishop, 302.\n\nAndrews, E. B., 340.\n\nAndrews, W. G., 177, 179.\n\nAnglican Church established in American colonies, 51, 61, 64, 65.\n\nAntipopery agitation, 312, 325.\n\nAntislavery. See Slavery.\n\n\"Apostasy, the southern,\" 277, 346.\n\n\"Applied Christianity,\" 385.\n\nApprenticeship obsolete, 364.\n\nArminianism, 104, 222.\n\nArmstrong, General S. C., 356.\n\nAsbury, Bishop Francis, 200.\n\nAwakening, the Great, 53, 81, 126, 141, 157, 181.\n\nAwakening, the Second, 233, 242.\n\n\nBachman, John, 278.\n\nBacon, B. W., 380.\n\nBacon, David, 246.\n\nBacon, Francis, 40.\n\nBacon, Leonard, 84, 94, 102, 113, 134, 227, 260, 272, 278, 287, 408.\n\nBacon, Nathaniel, 63.\n\nBaird, Charles W. and Henry M., 388.\n\nBaltimore, first Lord, 54;\n  second Lord, 56.\n\nBancroft, George, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27, 29, 41, 116, 117, 383.\n\nBaptist Young People's Union, 369.\n\nBaptists:\n  in Virginia, 53;\n  in Carolina, 64;\n  in Rhode Island, 106;\n  in Massachusetts, 130;\n  in Pennsylvania, 146;\n  in the South, 149;\n  services to religious liberty, 221;\n  antislavery, 222;\n  become Calvinists, 223;\n  found Brown University, 248;\n  undertake foreign missions, 253;\n  divide on slavery, 303;\n  pioneer work, 332;\n  plan of Christian union, 411.\n\nBarclay, Robert, 112, 117.\n\nBarnes, Albert, 294.\n\nBaxter, George A., 237.\n\nBaxter, Richard, 66, 121.\n\nBeecher, Edward, 294, 383.\n\nBeecher, Henry Ward, 341, 351, 384.\n\nBeecher, Lyman, 230, 243, 251, 263, 286, 294, 383.\n\nBelcher, Governor, 168.\n\nBellamy, Joseph, 156, 181.\n\nBellomont, Lord, 79.\n\nBellows, Henry W., 383.\n\nBenezet, Anthony, 203.\n\nBennett, Philip, 48.\n\nBennett, Richard, 50.\n\nBerkeley, Governor Sir William, 49, 50, 51, 63.\n\nBethlehem, Pa., 189.\n\nBiblical science, 378.\n\nBirney, James G., 273, 274, 275, 283.\n\nBishops, Anglican, consecrated, 213, 304.\n\nBishops, Catholic, consecrated, 215.\n\nBishops, colonial, not wanted, 206.\n\nBishops, Methodist, consecrated, 219.\n\nBishops, Moravian, 124, 193.\n\nBissell, Edwin C., 380.\n\nBlair, Commissary, 52.\n\nBlair, Samuel, 160, 167.\n\nBlake, Joseph, 63.\n\nBoehm, Martin, 228.\n\nBogardus, Everard, 70.\n\nBoyle, Robert, 66.\n\nBradford, Governor William, 94, 97.\n\nBrainerd, David, 180, 183, 247.\n\nBray, Thomas, 61, 62, 66.\n\nBreckinridge, Robert J., 281, 378.\n\nBrewster, Edward, 43, 44.\n\nBrewster, William, 44, 83.\n\nBriggs, Charles A., 380.\n\nBrooks, Phillips, 384.\n\nBrown, Francis, 379.\n\nBrown, Tutor, 131.\n\nBrowne, J. and S., at Salem, 97.\n\nBrowne, W. H., 55, 59.\n\nBryce, James, 404, 405.\n\nBuck, Richard, 42, 44.\n\nBuckley, James M., 201, 202, 218, 219, 240, 241.\n\nBuckminster, 251, 383.\n\nBushnell, Horace, 105, 176, 375, 383, 409.\n\n\nCahenslyism, 392.\n\nCalvert, Cecilius, 56.\n\nCalvert, George, 54, 55.\n\nCalvert, Leonard and George, 56, 59.\n\nCalvinism:\n  in New England, 103, 225;\n  among Baptists, 223;\n  in the Presbyterian Church, 294.\n\nCampanius, John, 76, 150.\n\nCampbell, Douglas, 74.\n\nCampbellites, 242.\n\nCamp-meetings, 233.\n\nCanada, 18-29.\n\nCane Ridge revival, 235.\n\nCarolinas colonized, 62.\n\nCarroll, Bishop John, 214.\n\nCarroll, Dr. H. K., 335, 369.\n\nCartier, Jacques, 17.\n\nCartwright, Peter, 232.\n\nCatholic Church, Roman:\n  Revived and reformed in sixteenth century, 4.\n  Spanish missions a failure, 10-14.\n  French missions, their wide extension and final collapse, 17-29.\n  Persecuted in England, 36.\n  In Maryland, 56.\n  Way prepared for, 185.\n  Organized for United States, 215.\n  Conflict with \"trusteeism,\" 216, 310;\n  with fanaticism, 312.\n  Gain and loss by immigration, 318-322.\n  Modified in America, 323-396.\n  Methods of propagation, 330.\n  Its literature, 394.\n  Its relation to the Church Catholic, 324, 416, 418.\n\nCavaliers in Virginia, 51.\n\nChamplain, 17, 20, 28.\n\nChanning, William Ellery, 251, 301, 383.\n\nCharity Organization, 409.\n\nCharles II. of England, 51, 62, 78.\n\nCharter:\n  of Massachusetts, 90;\n    transferred to America, 98.\n\nCharter of the Virginia Company:\n  revoked, 48.\n\nChauncy, Charles, 170.\n\nChautauqua, 233, 363.\n\nCherokee nation, 265.\n\nChickasaws and Choctaws, 23.\n\nChinese immigration, 336.\n\nChurch polity in New England, 88, 95, 99, 102.\n\nClark, Francis E., 368.\n\nClarke, James Freeman, 383.\n\nClergy:\n  of Virginia, 52;\n  of Maryland, 61.\n\nCleveland, Aaron, 204.\n\nCollege settlement, 370.\n\nColleges, 48, 52, 102, 160, 172, 173, 176, 231, 247, 271.\n\nColonization in Africa, 257.\n\nCongregationalists:\n  in New England, 99;\n  in New Jersey, 109;\n  moving west, 137;\n  cooeperate with Presbyterians, 220;\n  college-builders, 333;\n  work at the South, 355.\n\nConservatism of American churches, 311.\n\nCopland, Patrick, 47, 48, 50.\n\nCornbury, Lord, 80, 121, 135, 141.\n\nCorwin, E. T., 69, 71, 78, 80, 121, 139.\n\nCovenanters in New Jersey, 110.\n\nCumberland Presbyterians, 241.\n\nCutler, Timothy, 131, 156, 169.\n\n\nDabney, Robert L., 378.\n\nDale, Sir Thomas, 43, 45.\n\nDavenport, James, 170.\n\nDavenport, John, 49, 102.\n\nDavies, Samuel, 173.\n\nDeerfield, 21.\n\nDe la Warr, Lord, 41, 43.\n\nDewey, Orville, 383.\n\nDickinson, Jonathan, 160, 294.\n\nDisciples, 242, 414.\n\nDivisions of Christendom, 31.\n\nDominicans, 9, 10, 32.\n\nDorchester, Daniel, 322, 335, 357, 358, 359, 361.\n\nDouglas, Stephen A., 341.\n\nDow, Lorenzo, 240.\n\nDrunkenness prevalent, 286.\n\nDubbs, Joseph H., 121.\n\nDudley, Governor, 98.\n\nDueling, 263.\n\nDuffield, George, 294.\n\nDunster, President, 130.\n\nDurand, William, 49.\n\nDurbin, David P., 240.\n\nDutch church, 68, 78, 109, 134.\n\nDutch in Carolina, 64.\n\n\"Dutch, Pennsylvania,\" 118.\n\nDwight, Timothy, 230, 242, 375, 387.\n\n\nEaton, Theophilus, 102.\n\nEddy, Richard, 225, 228.\n\nEdmundson, William, 64.\n\nEdwards, Jonathan, 156, 169, 172, 179, 247, 294.\n\nEdwards, Jonathan, the younger, 222, 225, 273.\n\nElder, M. T., 322, 331.\n\nEleuthera colony, 50.\n\nEliot, John, 66, 102, 150, 152.\n\nEmbury, Philip, 199.\n\nEmerson, Ralph Waldo, 298, 383.\n\nEmmons, Nathanael, 251, 305, 375.\n\nEndicott, John, 90, 93, 94.\n\nEngland, religious parties in, 33, 43.\n\nEpiscopal Church:\n  in Virginia, 38-53;\n  in Maryland, 60;\n  in Carolina, 64-67, 148;\n  in New York, 78-80, 135;\n  in Pennsylvania, 119;\n  in Georgia, 124;\n  in New England, 128, 129, 131-134;\n  hostile to revivals, 177, 306;\n  extreme depression, 210;\n  consecration of bishops, 212;\n  resuscitation, 304;\n  violent controversy, 306;\n  rapid growth, 308;\n  specialties of, in evangelization, 334;\n  reconstruction after Civil War, 352;\n  Pan-Anglican Synod, 412.\n\nEpworth League, 369.\n\nEstablishment of religion:\n  in Virginia, 45, 51-53;\n  in Maryland, 61;\n  in the Carolinas, 64, 65, 148;\n  in New York, 78-80;\n  in New England, 91, 97, 100, 102, 128, 129.\n    Disestablishment, 174, 221.\n\nEvangelical Association, 229.\n\nEvangelization at the South, 356.\n\nEvangelization at the West, 327.\n\nEvarts, Jeremiah, 267, 271, 286.\n\nExscinding Acts, 167, 297, 353.\n\n\nFanaticism of Spanish church, 4, 8.\n\nFanaticism, antipopery, 60, 61, 312.\n\nFinney, Charles G., 375.\n\nFisher, George Park, 182, 382.\n\nFisher, Sidney George, 118, 120, 143-145.\n\nFitch, John, 150.\n\nFletcher, Governor, 79, 80.\n\nFlorida, 9, 10, 22.\n\nFoster, R. V., 236, 238.\n\nFox, George, 34, 65, 114, 117, 149.\n\nFranciscans, 10, 11, 12, 32.\n\nFranklin, Benjamin, 118.\n\nFraser, John, 335.\n\nFrelinghuysen, Domine, 81, 134, 141, 142, 163.\n\nFrelinghuysen, Senator, 267.\n\nFrench missions:\n  projected, 17;\n  extinguished, 185, 220.\n\nFuller, Dr. and Deacon, 94.\n\n\nGates, Sir Thomas, 42.\n\nGeorgia, 122, 205, 264, 285.\n\nGerman exiles, 53, 139.\n\nGerman immigration, 117, 120, 187, 318.\n\nGladden, Washington, 385.\n\nGosnold, Bartholomew, 38.\n\nGough, John B., 289.\n\nGreat fortunes and great gifts, 359.\n\nGreatorex's collection, 393.\n\nGreen, Ashbel, 204.\n\nGreen, S. S., 122.\n\nGreen, W. H., 380.\n\nGregory, Caspar Rene, 379.\n\nGriffin, Edward Dorr, 251, 383.\n\nGriswold, Alexander V., 304.\n\nGurley, R. R., 273.\n\n\nHale, Edward Everett, 367, 386.\n\nHalf-way Covenant, 104.\n\nHall, Isaac H., 379.\n\nHamilton, J. Taylor, 190, 198.\n\nHampton Institute, 356.\n\nHand, Daniel, 360.\n\nHard times in 1857, 342.\n\nHarrison, Thomas, 49, 50, 60.\n\nHart, Levi, 204.\n\nHastings, Thomas, 387, 392.\n\nHaupt, Bible-work, 380.\n\nHaverhill, Mass., 21.\n\nHawkins, John, 289.\n\nHelps, Arthur, 7, 8.\n\nHigginson, Francis, 90.\n\nHigh-church party:\n  in Episcopal Church, 306, 308, 323, 407;\n  in Presbyterian Church, 295, 407.\n\nHill, Matthew, 121.\n\nHilprecht, Dr., 379.\n\nHistorical theology, 381.\n\nHitchcock, Roswell D., 382.\n\nHobart, John Henry, 304, 407.\n\nHodge, Charles, 378, 381.\n\nHolland:\n  colony from, in New York, 68;\n  not the source of New England institutions, 74;\n  Pilgrims in, 86;\n  mission from, to Germans, 194.\n\nHooker, Thomas, 102, 138.\n\nHopkins, Samuel, 151, 181, 183, 184, 204, 205.\n\nHopkins, Stephen, 44.\n\nHopkinsianism, 294.\n\nHudson, Henry, 68.\n\nHughes, John, 310, 351.\n\nHuguenots, 37, 53, 62, 64, 65, 81, 139.\n\nHumphrey, Heman, 286.\n\nHunt, Robert, 38, 41.\n\nHuntington, Frederic D., 384.\n\nHurst, John F., 382.\n\nHutchinson, Ann, 101, 106.\n\nHymn-writers, 387.\n\n\nIndians:\n  evangelization of, 46, 47, 57, 71, 74, 76, 150, 151, 179, 246;\n  Indian churches, 131.\n\nInduction refused to unworthy parsons, 51.\n\nImmigration, 315, 317, 357.\n\nInfidelity, 219, 230.\n\nInstitutional Church, 369.\n\nIntemperance, 75, 205, 285.\n\nInternational sectarian councils, 412.\n\nIreland, 318.\n\nIroquois, 20, 23, 25.\n\n\nJackson, Helen Hunt, 264.\n\nJacobs, Henry E., 71, 121, 188, 190, 196, 198.\n\nJames I. of England, 36, 38, 44, 47, 48, 90.\n\nJames II. of England, 110, 112.\n\nJamestown, 30-45.\n\nJarratt, Devereux, 173.\n\nJefferson, Thomas, 221, 230, 305.\n\nJerks, the, 239, 240.\n\nJesuits, 4, 10, 26, 28, 29, 32, 56, 57, 58, 71, 150, 214.\n\nJogues, Father, 71, 150.\n\nJohnson, President Samuel, 132.\n\nJohnson, Thomas Cary, 297, 314, _note_, 354.\n\nJournalism, 333, 344.\n\nJudson, Adoniram, 253.\n\n\nKansas-Nebraska Bill, 284, 341.\n\nKansas Crusade, 341.\n\nKeith, George, 119, 133, 149.\n\nKeith, Governor, 120.\n\nKieft, Governor, 70, 71.\n\nKing, Thomas Starr, 383.\n\nKing's Chapel, Boston, 224.\n\nKirby, William, 294.\n\nKirk, Edward Norris, 383.\n\nKnapp, Jacob, 288.\n\n\nLanphier, Jeremiah, 342.\n\nLa Salle, 18.\n\nLas Casas, 9, 152.\n\nLaud, William, 48.\n\nLea, Henry Charles, 382.\n\nLeon, Ponce de, 9.\n\nLeyden, 45, 83, 86.\n\nLiberty, religious:\n  in Eleuthera, 50;\n  in Maryland, 56, 59;\n  in Carolina, 63;\n  in New York, 72;\n  in New Jersey, 111;\n  in Pennsylvania, 116;\n  in Georgia, 123;\n  defended by Makemie, 136;\n  favored by sectarian division, 174;\n  promoted by Baptists, 221.\n\nLiterature of American church, 374-395.\n\nLittledale, R. F., 26, 27, 28.\n\nLiturgies, 386, 394.\n\nLocke, John, 62, 64.\n\nLodge, H. C., 62, 70, 117, 153.\n\nLog College, 142, 160, 162, 172.\n\nLogan County, Kentucky, 232, 234.\n\nLouisiana, 23, 27, 220.\n\nLutherans, 72, 120, 146, 188, 190, 232.\n\nLuther League, 369.\n\n\nMadison, James, Bishop, 232.\n\nMadison, James, President, 402.\n\nMaine, 20, 21, 23, 410.\n\nMakemie, Francis, 121, 136.\n\nMaria Monk, 312.\n\nMarshall, John, 232.\n\nMaryland, 49, 54-62.\n\nMason, John M., 263.\n\nMason, Lowell, 392.\n\nMassacres, 2, 10, 11, 12, 48, 71, 76, 151, 194.\n\nMather, Cotton, 107, 153.\n\nMayhews, the, 150.\n\nMcConnell, S. D., 151, 170, 179, 211, 224.\n\nMcGee brothers, 233.\n\nMcGready, James, 233.\n\nMcIlvaine, C. P., 351.\n\nMcMasters, John Bach, 240.\n\nMegapolensis, Domine, 71, 77, 150.\n\nMenendez, 10.\n\nMennonites, 72, 117, 153.\n\nMercersburg theology, 377, 388.\n\nMethodism:\n  tardy arrival in America, 198;\n  spreads southward, 201;\n  rapid growth, 202;\n  against slavery and intemperance, 205;\n  receives bishops, 219;\n  divided by the slavery agitation, 301;\n  in pioneer work, 332;\n  at the South, 353;\n  Ecumenical Conference, 413;\n  consolidation of Methodist sects, 414.\n\nMichaelius, Jonas, 69.\n\nMillerism, 336.\n\nMills, Samuel J., 248, 256.\n\nMinuit, Peter, 69, 70, 76.\n\nMissionary societies, 62, 252, 253, 255, 257, 258, 367.\n\nMissions, American:\n  to Indians, 179, 246, 265;\n  to the West, 220, 327;\n  to the South, 355.\n\nMissions, foreign, 252, 255, 257, 358.\n\nMissions to America:\n  Icelandic, 2;\n  Spanish, 6-16;\n  French, 17-29;\n  of the S. P. G., 62, 66, 67, 80, 126, 131, 133, 135, 140, 177;\n  of the church of Holland, 195.\n\nMissionary Ridge, 268.\n\nMississippi, the, 18, 21, 256.\n\nMissouri Compromise, 270, 271, 284.\n\nMobs:\n  antipopery, 321;\n  pro-slavery, 283.\n\nMontesinos, 9.\n\nMontreal, 17, 20.\n\nMoody, Dwight L., 344, 388.\n\nMoor, Thoroughgood, 135.\n\nMoore, George Foot, 380.\n\nMoravians: in Georgia, 124;\n  in Pennsylvania, 189, 193;\n  missions to Indians, 194;\n  their liturgies, 394.\n\nMormonism, 335.\n\nMorris, Colonel, 79.\n\nMorris, Samuel, 173.\n\nMorse, Jedidiah, 251.\n\nMorton, Thomas, 88.\n\nMuehlenberg, Henry M., 191-198.\n\nMulford, Elisha, 378.\n\nMunger, Theodore T., 384.\n\nMurray, John, 225.\n\nMusic, church, 391, 394.\n\n\nNansemond church, 48, 49, 59.\n\nNationalism of the Puritans, 100, 101, 128, 132, 137, 176.\n\nNative American party, 313, 321.\n\nNeill, E. D., 44, 51, 59.\n\nNeshaminy, 142.\n\nNevin, John W., 377.\n\nNewark, 110, 160.\n\nNew Brunswick, 162.\n\nNew England Company, 66.\n\nNew England theology, 181, 374.\n\nNew Englanders moving west, 80, 137.\n\nNew Haven theology, 294, 298.\n\nNew Jersey, 109-112.\n\nNew Jerusalem Church, 229.\n\nNew Londonderry, 160.\n\nNewman, A. H., 131, 255, 275.\n\nNew Mexico, 6, 11.\n\nNew-School Presbyterians, 294, 346, 355.\n\nNew-Side Presbyterians, 166.\n\nNew York, 68-81;\n  diversity of sects, 134.\n\nNicholson, Governor, 52.\n\nNicolls, Governor, 78.\n\nNitschmann, David, 124, 193.\n\nNorthampton, 104, 155-159.\n\nNorton, Andrews, 299.\n\nNott, Eliphalet, 263.\n\nNursing orders and schools, 368.\n\n\nOberlin College, 314.\n\nOccum, Samson, 179.\n\nOglethorpe, James, 123.\n\nO'Gorman, Bishop, 2, 15, 23, 24, 28, 216, 312, 321, 396.\n\nOld-School Presbyterians, 295, 345, 353.\n\nOld-Side Presbyterians, 166.\n\nOrders in Roman Church, 330.\n\nOrdination in New England, 96, 100.\n\nOtis, Deacon, 360.\n\nOtterbein, Philip William, 228.\n\n\nPaine, Thomas, 230.\n\nPalatines, 37, 53, 118, 140, 187.\n\nPalfrey, John G., 98, 99, 100, 383.\n\nPalmer, Ray, 387.\n\nPam-Methodist Conference, 413.\n\nPam-Presbyterian Alliance, 412.\n\nPan-Anglican Synod, 412.\n\nPark, Edwards A., 151, 182, 184, 204, 305, 375.\n\nParker, Theodore, 300.\n\nParkman, Francis, 18.\n\nParliament of Religions, 418.\n\nPastorius, 117.\n\nPenn, William, 112, 115, 143.\n\nPersecutions, 36, 51, 107, 110, 130.\n\nPierpont, James, 81.\n\nPierpont, Sarah, 156.\n\nPierson, Abraham, 109, 150.\n\nPilgrims, 45, 83, 84, 86, 88, 93.\n\nPlan of Union, 220, 258, 293.\n\nPocahontas, 46.\n\nPond, Enoch, 378.\n\nPopulation of United States:\n  in 1790, 315;\n  in 1850, _ibid._\n\nPorter, Ebenezer, 286.\n\nPott, Governor, 55.\n\nPresbyterians:\n  in Scotland and Ireland, 37, 110;\n  in America, 110, 121;\n  in New York, 136;\n  schism among, 166;\n  rapid growth, 186;\n  alliance with Congregationalists, 206;\n  earnestly antislavery, 268;\n  dissensions among, 292;\n  the great schism, 296;\n  characteristics as a sect, 332;\n  new schisms and reunions, 346, 353, 355;\n  liturgical movement, 388;\n  early unproductiveness in theology and literature, 394;\n  international alliance, 412.\n\nPrinceton College, 173, 175.\n\nPrinceton Seminary, 251, 380.\n\nProhibitory legislation, 290.\n\nProtestant sects and Catholic orders, 330-334.\n\nProtestantism in Europe divided, 31-34.\n\nProvoost, Bishop, 212, 213, 232.\n\nPsalmody, 182, 387, 391-393.\n\nPulpit, the American, 382.\n\nPuritan jurisprudence, 113;\n  sabbatarian extravagance provokes reaction, 371.\n\nPuritans:\n  not Separatists, 43;\n  in Virginia, 44-50;\n  in Maryland, 59;\n  antagonize the Separatists, 82;\n  settle at Salem, 90;\n  fraternize with the Pilgrims, 94;\n  church order, 96;\n  the great Puritan exodus bringing the charter, 98;\n  intend an established church, 100;\n  exclude factious dissenters, 101;\n  divergences of opinion, 103;\n  in New Jersey, 109;\n  Puritan church establishments fail, 108, 128, 174;\n  Nationalist principle succumbs to Separatist, 176.\n\n\nQuakerism:\n  a reaction from Puritanism, 113;\n  its enthusiasm, 114;\n  its discipline, 114;\n  anticipated in continental Europe, 115;\n  Keith's schism, 119;\n  Quaker jurisprudence, 143;\n  failure in civil government, 144;\n  and in pastoral work, 145;\n  its sole and faithful witness at the South, 149;\n  the only organized church fellowship uniting the colonies, 150;\n  Hicksite schism, 314.\n\nQuakers:\n  persecuted in England, 36;\n  in Virginia, 51, 53;\n  missions in Carolina, 64;\n  persecuted in New York, 73;\n  and in Massachusetts, 101;\n  dominant in New Jersey, 110;\n  and in Pennsylvania, 116;\n  excluded from Evangelical Alliance, 408.\n\n_Quanta Cura_, bull, with Syllabus, 352, 396.\n\nQuebec, 17, 20.\n\n\nRaleigh, Sir Walter, 39, 62.\n\nRedemptioners, 187.\n\nReformation in Spain, 4.\n\nReformed Church, German:\n  begins too late the care of German immigrants, 140;\n  long unorganized, 146;\n  persists in separation from other German Christians, 195.\n\nReformed-drunkard ethics, 290.\n\nReformed Dutch Church:\n  tardy birth in New York, 69;\n  and languishing life, 74, 78;\n  revival under Frelinghuysen, 81, 134, 141, 163.\n\nRelly, James, 225.\n\n_Requerimiento_ of the Spanish, 9.\n\nRestoration of the Stuarts, 51.\n\nRevival of 1857, 342.\n\nRevival of Roman Catholic Church, 214.\n\nRhode Island, 92, 106, 107.\n\nRice, David, 237.\n\nRice, Luther, 253.\n\nRipley, George, 299.\n\nRising, Governor, 77.\n\nRobinson, Edward, 378.\n\nRobinson, John, 83, 85, 86, 92.\n\nRobinson, \"One-eyed,\" 173.\n\nRolfe, John, 46.\n\nRoman Catholic. See Catholic.\n\nRousseau, Jean Jacques, 87.\n\nRush, Benjamin, 226, 286.\n\nRyan, Archbishop, 324.\n\n\nSabbath observance, 371.\n\nSt. Andrew's Brotherhood, 369.\n\nSt. Augustine, 10.\n\nSt. Lawrence, the, 17.\n\nSalem, 90, 96.\n\nSaloons, tippling, 285, 288.\n\nSaltonstall, Gurdon, 132, 133.\n\nSalvation Army, 370.\n\nSalzburgers, 37, 124, 125.\n\nSandys, Archbishop, and his sons, 44, 47.\n\nSatolli, Monsignor, 396.\n\nSaybrook Platform, 132, 137.\n\nSchaff, Philip, 377, 382.\n\nSchenectady, 21.\n\nSchism:\n  in Presbyterian Church, 167, 241, 297, 346, 353;\n  among Congregationalists, 249;\n  among Unitarians, 298;\n  in Methodist Church, 302, 303;\n  among Baptists, 303;\n  among Quakers, 314;\n  healed, 355;\n  compensations of, 107, 304, 354, 404.\n\nSchlatter, Michael, 195.\n\nSchools:\n  for Virginia, 47, 48, 52;\n  in New York, 70, 75;\n  in New England, 103;\n  in New Jersey, 110;\n  in Pennsylvania, 196.\n\nScotch-Irish:\n  in Virginia, 47;\n  in Carolina, 64;\n  in Maryland, 121;\n  in Pennsylvania, 122;\n  in New York, 136;\n  in the Alleghanies, 146;\n  in the Awakening, 160;\n  principles and prejudices of, 186.\n\nScreven, William, 64.\n\nScrooby, 44, 83.\n\nSeabury, Samuel, 212.\n\nSects:\n  European imported, 31-34;\n  in New York, 72, 134, 140;\n  in Rhode Island, 106;\n  in New Jersey, 109;\n  the German, 117, 120;\n  multiply against established churches, 174;\n  enfeebling effect of, 188;\n  reconstruct themselves, 208;\n  competition of, 328;\n  characteristics of, 332;\n  multitude of, 400;\n  mischiefs of, 403.\n\nSeminaries, theological, 249.\n\nSeparatists, 33, 44;\n  at Scrooby, Leyden, and Plymouth, 81-95;\n  in Rhode Island, 107;\n  their principle prevails, 176.\n\nSewall, Samuel, 152.\n\nSeybert commission, 338.\n\nShaftesbury, Lord, 62.\n\nShedd, W. J. G., 382.\n\nSisterhoods, 368.\n\nSlater educational fund, 357, 360.\n\nSlavery:\n  of Indians, 8, 9, 152;\n  of negroes, in Florida, 10;\n  in Virginia, 48;\n  in all colonies, 147;\n  condemned in Massachusetts, 152;\n    and in Pennsylvania, 153;\n    increased cruelty of, 153.\n  Kindness to slaves, 154, 179, 246, 271.\n  Constant and unanimous protest of the church against slavery, 203-205,\n      222, 268-277.\n  Beginning of a pro-slavery party in the church, 277;\n    propagated by terror, 279-282.\n  Pro-slavery reaction at the North, 282.\n  Unanimous protests against extension of slavery, 284.\n  Slavery question in Presbyterian Church, 296;\n    in Methodist Church, 301;\n    in Baptist Convention, 303.\n  Failure of compromises, 340.\n  The Kansas Crusade, 341.\n  Apostasy of the southern church complete, 346.\n  Diversity of feeling among northern Christians, 347.\n  Slavery extinguished, 285, 351.\n\nSmalley, John, 225.\n\nSmith, Eli, 273, 378;\n  Henry Boynton, 381;\n  Henry Preserved, 380;\n  John, 38-42, 47;\n  Ralph, 90.\n\nSmylie, James, 277.\n\nSmyth, Newman, 384.\n\nSocial science in seminaries, 369, 386.\n\nSocieties, charitable, 252-259, 295, 407.\n\nSociety P. C. K., 67.\n\nSociety P. G. in Foreign Parts, 62, 67;\n  missions in Carolina, 67;\n  in New York, 80, 120, _note_, 135, 140;\n  in Pennsylvania, 119;\n  in New England, 131-133.\n\nSociety P. G. in New England, 66.\n\nSophocles, E. A., 379.\n\nSouthampton insurrection, 279.\n\nSpain:\n  Reformation in, 3;\n  conquests and missions of, 7.\n\nSpiritualism, 337-339.\n\nSpotswood, Governor, 52.\n\nSpring, Gardiner, 353.\n\nStandish, Myles, 88.\n\nStiles, Ezra, 204, 222.\n\nStoddard, Solomon, 104, 155.\n\nStone, Barton W., 234.\n\nStorrs, Richard S., 384.\n\nStowe, Mrs. H. B., 250.\n\nStrawbridge, Robert, 200.\n\nStrong, Augustus H., 378.\n\nStuart, Moses, 378.\n\nSturtevant, J. M., 294.\n\nStuyvesant, Peter, 71, 73, 77.\n\nSumner, Charles, 283.\n\nSunday observance, 371.\n\nSunday-schools, 258, 362.\n\nSwedenborgians, 229.\n\nSwedes, 75-77.\n\nSyllabus of errors condemned by the pope, 352, 396.\n\nSynod:\n  \"Reforming,\" 105;\n  Presbyterian, 136;\n  disrupted, 167;\n  excision of, 297;\n  of Virginia, 346.\n\n\nTalcott, Governor, 168.\n\nTalmage, Thomas De Witt, 385.\n\nTaylor, Nathaniel W., 294, 375.\n\nTemperance:\n  efforts for, 75, 205, 206;\n  the Reformation, 285-291;\n  early legislation, 75, 288;\n  \"Washingtonian movement,\" 288;\n  Prohibitionism, 290.\n\nTennent, Gilbert, 142, 162, 165, 167, 169.\n\nTennent, William, 141, 160.\n\nTennent, William, Jr., 180.\n\nThayer, Eli, 341, 342.\n\nThayer, Joseph H., 379.\n\nTheological instruction, 81, 217, 249.\n\nTheological seminaries, 249, 251, 252.\n\nTheology, New England, 181, 243, 294, 355.\n\nTheology, systems of, 375, 378.\n\nThomas, Allen C. and Richard H., 114, 139, 143.\n\nThomas, John R., 393.\n\nThompson, Joseph P., 404.\n\nThompson, Robert Ellis, 122, 147, 176, 346, 394.\n\nThomson, William M., 379.\n\nThornwell, James H., 314, _note_, 378.\n\nTiffany, Charles C., 65, 71, 120, 131, 134, 173, 207, 210, 213, 224,\n232.\n\nTorkillus, Pastor, 76.\n\nTracy, Joseph, 162, 169, 172, 179.\n\nTrumbull, Henry Clay, 362, 379.\n\n\"Trusteeism,\" 215, 310.\n\nTuttle, Daniel S., 335.\n\nTyler, B. B., 236, 238, 242.\n\n\nUnion, Christian:\n  tendencies and attempts, 107, 191, 194, 206, 220, 349, 405, 406.\n\nUnitarianism, 224, 249, 383.\n\nUnited Brethren, 228.\n\nUnity, real, in the church, 175, 324, 325, 334, 419;\n  manifestation of it yet future, 36, 417, 419.\n\nUniversalism, 225-228.\n\n\nVan Twiller, Governor, 70.\n\nVermont, 21.\n\nVincent, John H., 363.\n\nVirginia, 38-53, 55, 173.\n\nVirginia Company, 40, 44, 48, 54.\n\nVoluntary system, 244, 261, 328.\n\nVose, James G., 107.\n\n\nWalker, Williston, 100, 104, 386.\n\nWalloons, 69.\n\nWar:\n  between France and England, 21, 184;\n  the Seven Years', 22, 24;\n  Revolutionary, 202, 209;\n  the Civil, 348, 365;\n  produces schisms and healings, 353, 355.\n\nWard, William Hayes, 379.\n\nWare, Henry, 249, 383.\n\nWare, Henry, Jr., 251, 299, 383.\n\nWarren, George William, 393.\n\nWashingtonianism, 288.\n\nWatts, Isaac, 158, 168, 182, 387, 391.\n\nWayland, Francis, 383.\n\nWelsh immigrants, 118.\n\nWesley, Charles, 124, 125.\n\nWesley, John, 124, 159, 198, 200, 202, 217, 285.\n\nWestminster League, 369.\n\nWestminster Sabbath law, 371.\n\nWestward progress of church, 219, 327, 358.\n\nWheelock, Eleazar, 179.\n\nWhitaker, Alexander, 43, 46, 150.\n\nWhite, Father, 57, 59.\n\nWhite, John, 89.\n\nWhite, Bishop William, 210, 212, 213.\n\nWhitefield, George, 126, 163, 168, 173, 175, 177.\n\nWigglesworth, Michael, 103.\n\nWilliam and Mary, College of, 52.\n\nWilliams, Roger, 100, 106, 150.\n\nWilliams College, 248.\n\nWilson, Henry, 273, 274, 281.\n\nWinchester, Elhanan, 226.\n\nWingfield, Governor, 39.\n\nWinthrop, John, 49, 98.\n\nWise, John, 102.\n\nWomen's C. T. Union, 367.\n\nWomen's Crusade, 366.\n\nWomen's mission boards, 367.\n\nWoods, Leonard, 378.\n\nWoolman, John, 150, 203.\n\n\nXimenes, Cardinal, 3.\n\n\nYale College, 230, 243.\n\nYeo, John, 60.\n\nYoung Men's Christian Association, 343, 364, 409.\n\nYoung People's Society of Christian Endeavor, 368, 409.\n\nYoung Women's Christian Association, 366.\n\n\nZinzendorf, 124, 189, 190, 192.\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\nThe following corrections have been made to the text:\n\n     page 32--people of England is of preeminent[original has\n     preeminent] importance\n\n     page 59--feared to violate the immunities of the\n     church.\"[ending quotation mark is missing in original]\n\n     page 188--sent messengers with an imploring petition to their\n     coreligionists[original has correligionists] at London and\n     Halle\n\n     page 296--It was an unpardonable offense[original has offence]\n\n     page 335-immediate adventism[original has hyphen between words]\n\n     page 353--gendered strifes that still delay the\n     reintegration[original has redintegration]\n\n     page 427--_Requerimiento_[original has Requirimiento] of the\n     Spanish, 9.\n\n     Footnote 377-1--(American Church History Series,[original has\n     quotation mark] vol. viii.)--also, pp. 219, 220, 389-378--this\n     typographical error has not been corrected\n\nVariations in hyphenation are preserved as in the original. Examples\ninclude the following:\n\n     Christ-like     Christlike\n     make-shift      makeshift\n\nThe following words use an oe ligature in the original:\n\n     coetus\n     d'oeil","title":"A History of American Christianity","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":134074}