Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (13)

§ 182.21. Opponents and critics of the school of Ritschl,
especially from the confessional Lutheran ranks, have appeared in
considerable numbers. Luthardt of Leipzig in A.D. 1878 opened the
campaign against Ritschilianism, followed by Bestmann, charging
it with undermining Christianity. The Hanoverian synod of
A.D. 1882 decided by a large majority that the scientific results
of theological science must be ruled by the confessions of the
evangelical church. The chief theme at the following Hanoverian
Pentecost Conference was the “Incarnation of the Son of God,” the
discussion being led by Professor Dieckhoff of Rostock, against
whom no voice was raised in favour of the views of Ritschl.
Not long after, Professor Fricke of Leipzig published a lecture
given by him at the Meissen Conference, on the Present Relations
of Metaphysics and Theology, followed by utterances of Kübel of
Tübingen, Grau of Königsberg, Kreibig and H. Schmidt at Berlin,
all unfavourable to Ritschl’s theology.--The main objections
are, according to =Bestmann=: idolatry of Kant, depreciation
of the religious factor in Christianity in favour of the ethical
by laying out a moral foreground without providing a dogmatic
background, reducing the objective fundamental truths of the
confession into subjective ethical ideas, etc.; according to
=Luthardt=: Ritschl’s position that it does not matter so much
what the facts of the Christian faith are in themselves, as what
they mean for us, makes his whole dogmatic system hang in the
air, if in Christianity we have to do not with what God, Christ,
the resurrection are, but only what significance we attach to
them, Christianity is stript of all importance, the significance
of a thing must have its foundation in the thing itself, etc.;
according to =Dieckhoff=: Ritschl on his accepting the divinity
of Christ lays down the rule that the special content of what is
meant by the term divinity must be transferable to the believer,
and so for Ritschl, Christ is a mere man who in his person was
the first to represent a relation to God which is destined for
all men in like measure, etc.; according to =Fricke=: new Kantian
scepticism with regard to ideals and transcendentals, reducing
religious elements to moral, with Ritschl’s removal of all
metaphysical facts the chief verities of our Christian faith
are taken away, at least in the scientific form in which we have
them, _e.g._ the doctrine of the Trinity, our Christology, our
theory of satisfaction, in place of which comes the Catholic
_justitia infusa_, etc.; according to =Münchmayer=: “the object
of justification with Ritschl is not the individual but the
community, it is no act of God upon the individual but an eternal
purpose of God for the community, its effect on the individual
is not objective divine forgiveness of guilt but a subjective act
of incorporation of the individual into the redeemed community;
Christ and his work are not the ground of justification,
but only the means of revealing the eternal justifying will
of God, and therefore finally a continuation of the historical
work of Christ by means of his church takes the place of the
personal intercession of the exalted Redeemer for the penitent
sinner.” Kreibig and Schmidt express themselves in a similar
manner.--Ritschl has not himself undertaken any reply, but
his disciples have sought to remove what they regard as
misunderstandings, and generally to vindicate the system of
their master.

§ 182.22. =Writers on Constitutional Law and History.=--The most
distinguished writers on the constitutional law of the church
are Eichhorn and Dove of Göttingen, Jacobsen of Königsberg,
Wasserschleben of Giessen, Richter and Hinschius of Berlin,
Friedberg of Leipzig, who belong to the unionist party; while
Bickell of Marburg, Mejer of Göttingen and Hanover, Von Scheuerl
of Erlangen, and Sohm of Strassburg belong to the confessional
Lutherans.--Of ecclesiastical historians (§ 5, 4, 5) the number
is so great that we cannot even enumerate their names.--The
“_Theologische Literaturzeitung_” of Schürer and Harnack
is a liberal scientific journal, distinguished for its fair
criticisms by writers whose names are given.

§ 183. HOME MISSIONS.

In regard to home mission work, the Protestant church long lagged behind the Catholic, which had wrought vigorously through its monkish orders. England first entered with zeal into the field, especially dissenters and members of the low church party, and subsequently also the high church ritualistic party (§ 202, 1, 3), which now takes an active interest in this work. Germany, in view of the scanty means at the disposal of the pietists and the church party, made noble efforts. In other continental countries, but especially in North America, much was done for home missions. Soon the whole Protestant world began to organize benevolent and evangelistic institutions. The laborious Wichern, in A.D. 1849, went through all Germany to arouse interest in home missions, and started a yearly congress on the subject in Wittenberg. Till his death in A.D. 1881, Wichern continued to direct this congress and further the interests which it represented.

§ 183.1. =Institutions.=--The earliest charity school was that
founded at Düsselthal by Count Recke-Volmarstein, in A.D. 1816,
followed by Zeller’s at Beuggen in A.D. 1820. One of the most
famous of these institutions was the =Rauhe Haus= of Wichern,
at Horn, near Hamburg, A.D. 1833.[538] Fliedner’s Deaconess
Institute at Kaiserswerth is the pride of the evangelical church.
It has now 190 branches, with 625 sisters, in the four continents.
There are many independent institutions modelled upon it in
Germany, England, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, and France.
In A.D. 1881 there were in Germany 31, and in the cities of other
lands 22, principal deaconess institutions of this German order,
with 4,751 sisters and 1,491 fields of labour outside of the
institution. The original institute of Kaiserswerth comprises
a hospital with 600 patients, a refuge for fallen women and
liberated prisoners, an orphanage for girls, a seminary for
governesses, and a home for female imbeciles.[539] Löhe founded
the deaconess institute of =Neuendettelsau=, on strict Lutheran
principles, with hospital, girls’ school, and asylum for imbecile
children. In France a most successful institution was founded by
pastor Bost of Laforce, in A.D. 1848, for foundlings, imbeciles,
and epileptics. In England, George Müller, a poor German student
of Halle, a pupil of Tholuck, beginning in A.D. 1832, founded at
Bristol five richly endowed orphanages after the pattern of that
of A. H. Francke, in which thousands of destitute street children
have been educated, and for this and other purposes has spent
nearly £1,000,000 without ever asking any one for a contribution,
acting on the belief that “the God of Elijah still lives.”
The London City Mission employs 600 missionaries. In New York,
since A.D. 1855, about 60,000 street children have been placed,
by the Society for Poor Children, in Christian families, and
21 Industrial schools are maintained with 10,000 scholars.--Tract
Societies in London, Hamburg, Berlin, etc., send out millions
of tracts for Christian instruction and awakening. The Society
for North Germany successfully pursues a similar work; the Calw
Publication Society circulates Christian text-books with woodcuts
at a remarkably small price. In Berlin the Evangelical Book
Society issues reprints of the older tracts on practical divinity.
Christian women, like the English Quakeress Elizabeth Fry, the
noble Amalie Sieveking of Hamburg, Miss Florence Nightingale, the
heroine of the Crimean war, and the brave Maria Simon of Dresden,
who organized the female nursing corps of the wars of 1866,
1870, 1871, helped on the work of home missions in all lands,
especially in the departments of tending the poor and the sick.

§ 183.2. The =Order of St. John=, secularized in A.D. 1810,
was reorganized by Frederick William IV. in A.D. 1852 into
an association for the care of the sick and poor. Under a
grand-master it has 350 members and 1,500 associates. Its
revenues are formed from entrance fees and annual contributions.
It has thirty hospitals. In A.D. 1861 it founded a hospital for
men in Beyrout during the persecution of Christians in Syria, and
in A.D. 1868 gave aid during the famine that followed the typhus
epidemic in East Prussia, and did noble service in the wars of
A.D. 1864, 1866, and 1870.

§ 183.3. =The Itinerant Preacher Gustav Werner in
Württemberg.=--Abandoning his charge in A.D. 1840, Werner began
his itinerant labours, and during the year formed more than a
hundred groups of adherents over all Württemberg. His preaching
was allegorical and eschatological, and avoided the doctrines of
satisfaction and justification. On his repudiating the Augsburg
Confession, the church boards refused to recognise him, and
he went hither and thither preaching a Christian communism. In
A.D. 1842 he bought a site in Reutlingen, built a house, and
founded a school for eighty children. In order to develop his
views of carrying on industrial arts on a Christian basis, he
bought, in A.D. 1850, the paper factory at Reutlingen for £4,000,
and subsequently transferred it to Dettingen on a larger scale,
at an outlay of £20,000. By A.D. 1862 he had established no less
than twenty-two branches, in which manufacturing was carried
on, with institutions of all kinds for education, pastoral work,
rescuing the lost and raising the fallen. Each member lives and
works for the whole; none receives wages; surplus income goes
to increase the number and extent of the institutions. Vast
multitudes of sunken and destitute families have been by these
means restored to respectable social positions and to a moral
religious life.

§ 183.4. =Bible Societies.=--The Bible societies constitute
an independent branch of the home mission. Modern efforts to
circulate Scripture began in England. As a necessary adjunct to
missionary societies, the great British and Foreign Bible Society
was founded in London in A.D. 1804, embracing all Protestant
sects, excepting the Quakers. It circulates Bibles without note
or comment. The Apocryphal controversy of A.D. 1825-1827 resulted
in the society resolving not to print the Apocrypha in its
issues. In consequence of this decision, fifty German societies,
including the present society of Berlin, seceded. The New York
Association, founded in A.D. 1817, is in thorough accord with
the London society. The Baden Missionary Society revived the
discussion in A.D. 1852 by making it the subject of essay
for a prize, which was won by the learned work of Keerl, who,
along with the stricter Lutherans, condemned the Apocrypha.
The other side was taken by Stier and Hengstenberg, and most
of the consistories advised adherence to the old practice,
as all misunderstanding was prevented by Luther’s preface and
the prohibition against using passages from the Apocrypha as
sermon texts.--Bible societies altogether have issued during
the century 180,000,000 Bibles and New Testaments in 324
different languages.[540]

§ 184. FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Protestant zeal for missions to the heathen has gone on advancing since the end of last century (§ 172, 5). Missionary societies increase from year to year. In A.D. 1883 there were seventy independent societies with innumerable branches, which contribute annually about £1,500,000, or five times as much as the Romish church, and maintain 2,000 mission stations, 2,940 European and American missionaries, and 1,000 ordained native pastors and 25,000 native teachers and assistants, having under their care 2,214,000 converts from heathenism. In missionary enterprise England holds the first place, next comes America, and then Germany. Among Protestant sects the Methodists and Baptists are most zealous in the cause of missions, and the Moravian Brethren have wrought most successfully in this department. The missions also did much to prepare the way for the suppression of the slave trade by the European powers in A.D. 1830, and the emancipation of all slaves in the British possessions in A.D. 1834, at a cost of £20,000,000. The noble English philanthropist, William Wilberforce, unweariedly laboured for these ends.--Also in England, Germany, Russia, and France new associations were formed for missions to the Jews, and the work was carried on with admirable patience, though the visible results were very small.

§ 184.1. =Missionary Societies.=--The great American Missionary
Society was founded at Boston in A.D. 1810, the English Wesleyan
in A.D. 1814, the American Methodist in A.D. 1819, the American
Episcopal in A.D. 1820, and the Society of Paris in A.D. 1824.
The new German societies were on confessional lines: that of
Basel in A.D. 1816, of Berlin in A.D. 1823, the Rhenish with the
mission seminary at Barmen in A.D. 1829, the North German, on
the basis of the Augsburg Confession, in A.D. 1836. The Dresden
Society, which resumed the old Lutheran work in the East Indies
(§ 167, 9), founded a seminary at Leipzig in A.D. 1849, in order
to get the benefit of the university. Lutheran societies, mostly
affiliated with that of Leipzig, were started in Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, Russia, Bavaria, Hanover, Mecklenburg, Hesse, and America.
The Neuendettelsau Institute wrought through the Iowa Synod among
the North American Indians, and through the Immanuel Synod among
the aborigines of Australia. The Hermannsburg Institute under
Harms prosecuted mission work with great zeal. In A.D. 1853,
Harms sent out in his own mission ship eight missionaries and as
many Christian colonists. It has been objected to this mission,
that endeavours after social elevation and industrial training
have driven to the background the main question of individual
conversion.--The advanced liberal school in Switzerland and
Germany sought in A.D. 1883 to start a mission on their own
particular lines. They do not propose any opposition to existing
agencies, and intend to make their first experiment among the
civilized races of India and Japan.

§ 184.2. =Europe and America.=--The Swedish mission in Lapland
(§ 160, 7) was resumed in A.D. 1825 by Stockfleth. The Moravians
carried on their work among the Eskimos in Greenland, which had
now become a wholly Christian country, and also in Labrador,
which was almost in the same condition. The chaplain of the
Hudson Bay Company, J. West, founded a successful mission in
that territory in A.D. 1822. Among the natives and negro slaves
in the British possessions, the United States, and West Indies,
Moravians, Methodists, Baptists, and Anglican Episcopalians
patiently and successfully carried on the work. Among the natives
and bush negroes, descendants of runaway slaves, in Guiana, the
Moravians did a noble work.--Catholic South America remained
closed against Protestant missions. But the ardent zeal of
Capt. Allen Gardiner led him to choose the inhospitable shores of
Patagonia as a field of labour. He landed there in A.D. 1850 with
five missionaries, but in the following year their corpses only
were found. The work, however, was started anew in A.D. 1856, and
prosecuted with success under the direction of an Anglican bishop.

§ 184.3. =Africa.=--The Moravians have laboured among the
Hottentots, the Berlin missionaries among the wild Corannas,
and the French Evangelical Society among the Bechuanas. Hahn
of Livonia is the apostle of the Hereros. On the East Coast the
London Missionary Society has wrought among the warlike Kaffirs,
and other British societies are labouring in Natal among the
Zulus. On the West Coast the English colony of Sierra Leone was
founded for the settling and Christianizing of liberated slaves,
and farther south is Liberia, a similar American colony; both in
a flourishing condition, under the care of Methodists, Baptists,
and Anglican Episcopalians. The Basel missionaries labour on the
Gold Coast, Baptists in Old Calabar, and the American and North
German Societies on the Gaboon River.--The London missionaries
won Radama of Madagascar to Christianity in A.D. 1818, but his
successor Ranavalona instituted a bloody persecution of the
Christians in A.D. 1835, during which David Jones, the apostle
of the Malagassy, suffered martyrdom in A.D. 1843. In the island
of Mauritius, where there is an Anglican bishop, many Malagassy
Christians found refuge. After the queen’s death in A.D. 1861,
her Christian son Radama II. recalled the Christian exiles
and the missionaries. He soon became the victim of a palace
revolution. His wife and successor Rosaherina continued a heathen
till her death in A.D. 1868, but put no obstacle in the way of
the gospel. But her cousin Ranavalona II. overthrew the idol
worship, was baptized in A.D. 1869, and in the following year
burned the national idols. Protestantism now made rapid strides,
till interrupted by French Jesuit intrigues, which have been
favoured by the recent French occupation.

§ 184.4. Livingstone and Stanley have made marvellous
contributions to our geographical knowledge of =Central Africa=
and to Christian missions there. The Scottish missionary, David
Livingstone, factory boy, afterwards physician and minister,
wrought, A.D. 1840-1849, under the London Missionary Society in
South Africa, and then entered on his life work of exploration
in Central Africa. During his third exploring journey into the
interior in A.D. 1865 as a British consul, he was not heard of
for a whole year. H. M. Stanley, of the _New York Herald_, was
sent in A.D. 1871, and found him in Ujiji on Lake Tanganyiká.
Livingstone died of dysentery on the southern bank of this lake
in A.D. 1873. Still more important was Stanley’s second journey,
A.D. 1874-1877, which yielded the most brilliant scientific
results, and was epoch-making in the history of African missions.
He got the greatest potentate in those regions, King Mtesa of
Uganda, who had been converted by the Arabs to Mohammedanism, to
adopt Christianity and permit a Christian church to be built in
his city. Stanley’s letters from Africa roused missionary fervour
throughout England. The Church Missionary Society in A.D. 1877
set up a mission station in the capital, and put a steamer
on the Victoria Nyanza. The church services were regularly
attended, education and the work of civilization zealously
prosecuted, Sunday labour and the slave trade prohibited, etc.
French Jesuits entered in A.D. 1879, insinuating suspicions
of the English missionaries into the ear of the king, and the
machinations of the Arab slave-dealers made their position
dangerous. Missionaries arrived by way of Egypt with flattering
recommendations from the English foreign secretary in the name
of the queen. But the traders, by means of an Arabic translation
of a letter purporting to be from the English consul at Zanzibar,
cast suspicion on the document as a forgery, and represented its
bearers as in the pay of the hostile Egyptians. Mtesa’s wrath
knew no bounds, and only his favour for the missionary physician
saved the mission and led him to send an embassy of three chiefs
and two missionaries to England in June, A.D. 1879, to discover
the actual truth. His anger meanwhile cooled, and the work of
the mission was resumed. He was preparing to put an utter end
to the national heathenism, when suddenly a report spread that
the greatest of all the Lubaris or inferior deities, that of
the Nyanza Lake, had become incarnate in an old woman, in order
to heal the king and restore the ancient religion. The whole
populace was in an uproar; Mtesa, under threat of deposition,
restored heathenism, with human sacrifice, man stealing, and the
slave trade. Then the Lubari excitement cooled down. Mtesa, moved
by a dream, declared himself again a Mohammedan, and converted
the Christian church into a mosque. The English missionaries,
stripped of all means, starved, and subjected to all sorts of
privations, did not flinch. At last, in January, A.D. 1881,
the embassy, sent eighteen months before to England, reached
home again, and, by the story of their reception, caused a
revulsion of feeling in favour of the English mission, which
again flourished under the protection of the king. But Mtesa died
in 1884. His son and successor, Mwanga, a suspicious, peevish
young despot, addicted to all forms of vice, began again the
most cruel persecution, of which Bishop Hannington, sent out
from England, with fifty companions, were the victims. Only
four escaped.

§ 184.5. =Asia.=--The most important mission field in
Asia is =India=. The old Lutheran mission there had great
difficulties to contend against: the system of caste distinctions,
the proud self-sufficiency of the pantheistic Brahmans, the
politico-commercial interests of the East India Company, etc.
The Leipzig Society has sixteen stations among the Tamuls, and
alongside are English, American, and German missionaries of
every school. The Gossner Society works among the Kohls of Chota
Nagpore, where a rival mission has been started by the puseyite
bishop of Calcutta, Dr. Milman, to which, in A.D. 1868, six
of the twelve German missionaries and twelve of the thirty-six
chapels were transferred. The Basel missionaries labour in Canara
and Malabar. The military revolt in Northern India in A.D. 1857
interrupted missionary operations for two years; but the work was
afterwards resumed with great vigour. The Christian benevolence
shown during the famine of A.D. 1878, in which three millions
perished, made a great impression in favour of the Protestant
church. In the preceding years throughout all India only between
5,000 and 10, 000 souls were annually added; but in A.D. 1878 the
number of new converts rose to 100,000, and in A.D. 1879 there
were 44,000.--The island of =Ceylon= was, under Portuguese and
Dutch rule, in great part nominally Christianized; but when
compulsion was removed under British rule, this sham profession
was at an end. Multitudes fell back into heathenism, and in the
first ten years of the British dominion 900 new idol temples
were erected. From A.D. 1812 Baptist, Methodist, and Anglican
missionaries have toiled with small appearance of fruit. In
=Farther India= the American missionaries have wrought since
A.D. 1813. Judson and his heroic wife did noble work among the
Karens and the Burmans. Also in Malacca, Singapore, and Siam
the Protestant missions have had brilliant success. The work in
Sumatra has been retarded by the opposition of the Malays and
deadly malarial fever. The preaching of the gospel was eminently
successful in =Java=, where since A.D. 1814 Baptist missionaries
and agents of the London Society have wrought heroically.
In Celebes the Dutch missionaries found twenty Christian
congregations of old standing, greatly deteriorated for want
of pastoral care, but still using the Heidelberg Catechism. At
Banjermassin, in A.D. 1835 the Rhenish Society founded their
first station in Borneo, and wrought not unsuccessfully among
the heathen Dyaks. But in A.D. 1859 a rebellion of the Mohammedan
residents led to the expulsion of the Dutch and the murder of all
Christians. Only a few of the missionaries escaped martyrdom, and
subsequently settled in Sumatra.

§ 184.6. The work in =China= began in A.D. 1807, when the London
Missionary Society settled Morrison in Canton, where he began the
study of the language and the translation of the Bible. Gutzlaff
of Pomerania, in A.D. 1826, conceived the plan of evangelizing
China through the Chinese converts, but, though he continued his
efforts till his death in A.D. 1854, the scheme failed through
the unworthiness of many of the professors. The war against the
opium traffic, A.D. 1839-1842, opened five ports to the mission,
and led to the transference of Hongkong to the English. The
Chinese mission now made rapid strides; but the interior was
still untouched. The conflict between the governor of Canton
and the English, French, and Americans, and the chastisement
administered to the Chinese in A.D. 1857, led the emperor, in
A.D. 1858, to make a treaty with the three powers and also with
Russia, by which the whole land was opened up for trade and
missions, and full toleration granted to Christianity. Popular
hatred of strangers, and especially of missionaries, however,
occasioned frequently bloody encounters, and in A.D. 1870 there
was a furious outburst directed against the French missionaries.
During a terrible famine in North China, in A.D. 1878, when more
than five millions perished, the heroic and self-sacrificing
conduct of the missionaries brought them into high favour.
Throughout China there are now 320 organized Christian
congregations with 50,000 adherents under 238 foreign
missionaries.--After seclusion for three centuries, =Japan=,
about the same time as China, was opened by treaty to European
and American commerce, notwithstanding the opposition of the
old feudal nobility, the so-called Daimios. In A.D. 1871 the
mikado’s government succeeded in overcoming completely the power
of the daimios and setting aside the shiogun or military vizier,
who had exercised supreme executive power. European customs were
introduced, but the rigorous enactments against native converts
to Christianity were still enforced. A cruel persecution
of native Christians was carried on in A.D. 1867, but the
Protestant missionaries continued to work unweariedly, preparing
dictionaries and reading books. The Buddhist priests sought
to get up a rival mission to send agents to America and Europe,
whereas many of the leading newspapers expressed the opinion that
Japan must soon put Christianity in the place of Buddhism as the
state religion.

§ 184.7. =Polynesia and Australia.=--The flourishing Protestant
church of Tahiti, the largest and finest of the Society Islands
(§ 172, 5), suffered from the appearance of two French Jesuits
in A.D. 1836. When Queen Pomare compelled them to withdraw,
the French government, resenting this as an indignity to
their nation, sent a fleet to attack the defenceless people,
proclaimed a French protectorate, and introduced not only
Catholic missionaries, but European vices. Amid much persecution,
however, the Protestants held their own. In December, 1880,
Pomare V. resigned, and the Society Islands became a dependency
of France.--In the south-east groups great opposition was shown,
but in the north-west Christianity made rapid progress. The
island of Raiatea was the centre of the South Sea missions. There
from A.D. 1819 John Williams, the apostle of the South Seas,
wrought till he met a martyr’s death in A.D. 1839. He went from
place to place in a mission ship built by his own hands. The
Harvey Group were Christianized in A.D. 1821, and the Navigator
Group in A.D. 1830. The French took the Marquesas Islands in
A.D. 1838, and introduced Catholic missionaries. The attempt
to evangelize the New Hebrides led to the death of Williams
and two of his companions. Missionaries of the London Society,
A.D. 1797-1799, had failed in the Friendly Islands through the
savage character of the natives, but in A.D. 1822 the Methodists
made a successful start. The gospel was carried thence to Fiji,
which is now under British rule. Both groups have become almost
wholly Christianized. The =Sandwich Islands= form a third mission
centre, wrought by the American board. Kamehameha I. gladly
adopted the elements of Christian civilization, though rejecting
Christianity: while his successor Kamehameha II. in A.D. 1829
abolished tabu and overthrew the idol temples. In A.D. 1851
Christianity was adopted as the national religion. The work was
more difficult in =New Zealand=, where the Church Missionary
Society, represented by Samuel Marsden, the apostle of New
Zealand, began operations in A.D. 1814. For ten years the
position of the missionaries was most hazardous; yet they held
on, and the conversion of the most bloodthirsty of the chiefs
did much to advance their cause. In New Guinea the London Society
has been making steady progress. Among the stolid natives of the
continent of New Holland, the so called Papuans, the labours of
the Moravians since A.D. 1849 have not yielded much fruit. Since
A.D. 1875 the German-Australian Immanuel Synod, supported by
Neuendettelsau, has laboured for the conversion of the heathen
in the inland districts.

§ 184.8. =Missions to the Jews.=--In A.D. 1809 the London Society
for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (§ 172, 5) was formed
by a union of all denominations, but soon passed into the hands
of the Anglicans. By the circulation of the Scriptures and
tracts, and by the sending out of missionaries, mostly Jewish
converts, the work was persevered in amid many discouragements.
In A.D. 1818 Poland was opened to its missionaries, and there
some 600 Jews were baptized. The society carried on its operations
also in Germany, Holland, France, and Turkey. The work in Poland
was interrupted by the Crimean war, and was not resumed till
A.D. 1875. In Bessarabia Faltin has laboured successfully among
the Jews since A.D. 1860. He was joined in the work in A.D. 1867
by the converted Rabbi Gurland, who had studied theology at Halle
and Berlin. In A.D. 1871 Gurland accepted a call to similar work
in Courland and Lithuania, and since A.D. 1876 has been Lutheran
pastor at Mitau. In A.D. 1841 the evangelical bishopric of
St. James was founded in Jerusalem by the English and Prussian
governments conjointly, presentations to be made alternately, but
the ordination to be according to the Anglican rite. The first
bishop was Alexander, a Jewish convert. He died in A.D. 1845 and
was succeeded by the zealous missionary Gobat, elected by the
Prussian government. He died in A.D. 1879 and was succeeded
by Barclay, who died in A.D. 1881. It was now again Prussia’s
turn to make an appointment. The English demand to have Lutheran
ministers ordained successively deacon, presbyter, and bishop
had given offence, and so no new appointment has been made. In
June 1886 the English-Prussian compact was formally cancelled
and a proposal made to found an independent Prussian Evangelical
bishopric.

§ 184.9. =Missions among the Eastern Churches.=--In A.D. 1815
the Church Missionary Society founded a missionary emporium in
the island of Malta, as a tract depôt for the evangelizing the
East; and in A.D. 1846 the Malta Protestant College was erected
for training native missionaries, teachers, physicians, etc., for
work in the various oriental countries. In the Ionian islands, in
Constantinople, and in Greece, British and American missionaries
began operations in A.D. 1819 by erecting schools and circulating
the scriptures. At first the orthodox clergy were favourable, but
as the work progressed they became actively hostile, and only two
mission schools in Syra and Athens were allowed to continue. In
Syria the Americans made Beyrout their head quarters in A.D. 1824,
but the work was interrupted by the Turco-Egyptian conflicts.
Subsequently, however, it flourished more and more, and, before
the Syrian massacre of A.D. 1860 (§ 207, 2), there were nine
prosperous stations in Syria. The founding of the Jerusalem
bishopric in A.D. 1841, and the issuing of the Hatti-Humayun
in A.D. 1856 (§ 207, 2), induced the Church Missionary Society
to make more vigorous efforts which, however, were afterwards
abandoned for want of success. Down to the outbreak of the
persecution of Syrian Christians in A.D. 1860, this society
had five flourishing stations. From A.D. 1831 the Americans
had wrought zealously and successfully among the Armenians in
Constantinople and neighbourhood, but in A.D. 1845 the Armenian
patriarch excited a violent persecution which threatened
the utter overthrow of the work. The British ambassador,
Sir Stratford de Redcliffe, however, insisted upon the Porte
recognising the rights of the Protestant Armenians as an
independent religious denomination, and since then the missions
have prospered. Among the Nestorians in Turkey and Persia the
Americans, with Dr. Grant at their head, began operations in
A.D. 1834; but through Jesuit intrigues the suspicions of the
Kurds and Turks were excited, and in A.D. 1843 and 1846 a war
of extermination was waged against the mountain Nestorians,
which annihilated the Protestant missions among them. Operations,
however, have been recommenced with encouraging success. Among
the deeply degraded Copts in Egypt, and extending from them into
Abyssinia, the Moravians had been working without any apparent
result from A.D. 1752 to A.D. 1783. In A.D. 1826 the Church
Missionary Society, under German missionaries trained at Basel
(Gobat, Irenberg, Krapf [Krapff], etc.), took up the work, till
it was stopped by the government in A.D. 1837. In A.D. 1855
the Basel missionaries began again to work in Abyssinia with
the approval of King Theodore. This state of things soon changed.
Theodore’s ambition was to conquer Egypt and overthrow Islam.
But when in A.D. 1863 this scheme only called forth threats from
London and Paris, he gave loose rein to his natural ferocity
and put the English consul and the German missionaries in chains.
By means of an armed expedition in A.D. 1868, England compelled
the liberation of the prisoners, and Theodore put an end to his
own life. After the withdrawal of the English the country was
desolated by civil wars, and at the close of these troubles in
A.D. 1878 the mission resumed its operations.

III. Catholicism in General.

§ 185. THE PAPACY AND THE STATES OF THE CHURCH.

The papacy, humiliated but not destroyed by Napoleon I., was in A.D. 1814 by the aid of princes of all creeds restored to the full possession of its temporal and spiritual authority, and amid many difficulties it reasserted for the most part successfully its hierarchical claims in the Catholic states and in those whose Protestantism and Catholicism were alike tolerated. Many severe blows indeed were dealt to the papacy even in the Roman states by revolutionary movements, yet political reaction generally by-and-by put the church in a position as good if not better than it had before. But while on this side the Alps, especially since the outbreak of A.D. 1848, ultramontanism gained one victory after another in its own domain, in Italy, it suffered one humiliation after another; and while the Vatican Council, which put the crown upon its idolatrous assumptions (§ 189, 3), was still sitting, the whole pride of its temporal sovereignty was shattered: the States of the Church were struck out of the number of the European powers, and Rome became the capital and residence of the prince of Sardinia as king of United Italy. But reverence for the pope now reached a height among catholic nations which it had never anywhere attained before.

§ 185.1. =The First Four Popes of the Century.=--Napoleon as
First Consul of the French Republic, in A.D. 1801 concluded a
concordat with =Pius VII.=, A.D. 1800-1823, who under Austrian
protection was elected pope at Venice, whereby the pope was
restored to his temporal and spiritual rights, but was obliged
to abandon his hierarchical claims over the church of France
(§ 203, 1). He crowned the consul emperor of the French at Paris
in A.D. 1804, but when he persisted in the assertion of his
hierarchical principles, Napoleon in A.D. 1808 entered the papal
territories, and in May, A.D. 1809, formally repudiated the
donation of “his predecessor” Charlemagne. The pope treated the
offered payment of two million francs as an insult, threatened
the emperor with the ban, and in July, A.D. 1809, was imprisoned
at Savona, and in A.D. 1812 was taken to Fontainebleau. He
refused for a time to give canonical institution to the bishops
nominated by the emperor, and though at last he yielded and
agreed to reside in France, he soon withdrew his concession,
and the complications of A.D. 1813 constrained the emperor, on
February 14th, to set free the pope and the Papal States. In May
the pope again entered Rome. One of his first official acts was
the restoration of the Jesuits by the bull _Sollicitudo omnium_,
as by the unanimous request of all Christendom. The Congregation
of the Index was again set up, and during the course of the year
737 charges of heresy were heard before the tribunal of the holy
office. All sales of church property were pronounced void, and
1,800 monasteries and 600 nunneries were reclaimed. In A.D. 1815
the pope formally protested against the decision of the Vienna
Congress, especially against the overthrow of the spiritual
principalities in the German empire (§ 192, 1). Equally fruitless
was his demand for the restoration of Avignon (§ 165, 15).
In A.D. 1816 he condemned the Bible societies as a plague to
Christendom, and renewed the prohibition of Bible translations.
His diplomatic schemes were determined by his able secretary
Cardinal Consalvi, who not only at the Vienna Congress, but also
subsequently by several concordats secured the fullest possible
expression to the interests and claims of the curia.--His
successor was =Leo XII.=, A.D. 1823-1829, who, more strict in
his civil administration than his predecessor, condemned Bible
societies, renewed the Inquisition prosecutions, for the sake
of gain celebrated the jubilee in A.D. 1825, ordered prayers
for uprooting of heresy, rebuilt the Ghetto wall of Rome,
overturned during the French rule (§ 95, 3), which marked off
the Jews’ quarter, till Pius IX. again threw it down in A.D. 1846.
After the eight months’ reign of =Pius VIII.=, A.D. 1829-1830,
=Gregory XVI.=, A.D. 1831-1846, ascended the papal throne, and
sought amid troubles at home and abroad to exalt to its utmost
pitch the hierarchical idea. In A.D. 1832 he issued an encyclical,
in which he declared irreconcilable war against modern science
as well as against freedom of conscience and the press, and his
whole pontificate was a consistent carrying out of this principle.
He encountered incessant opposition from liberal and revolutionary
movements in his own territory, restrained only by Austrian
and French military interference, A.D. 1832-1838, and from the
rejection of his hierarchical schemes by Spain, Portugal, Prussia,
and Russia.[541]

§ 185.2. =Pius IX., A.D. 1846-1878.=--Count Mastai Feretti in
his fifty-fourth year succeeded Gregory on 16th June, and took
the name of Pius IX. While in ecclesiastical matters he seemed
willing to hold by the old paths and distinctly declared against
Bible societies, he favoured reform in civil administration
and encouraged the hopes of the liberals who longed for the
independence and unity of Italy. But this only awakened the
thunder storm which soon burst upon his own head. The far
resounding cry of the jubilee days, “_Evviva Pio Nono!_” ended
in the pope’s flight to Gaeta in November, 1848; and in February,
1849, the Roman Republic was proclaimed. The French Republic,
however, owing to the threatening attitude of Austria, hastened
to take Rome and restore the temporal power of the pope. Amid the
convulsions of Italy, Pius could not return to Rome till April,
1850, where he was maintained by French and Austrian bayonets.
Abandoning his liberal views, the pope now put himself more and
more under the influence of the Jesuits, and his absolutist and
reactionary politics were directed by Card. Antonelli. From his
exile at Gaeta he had asked the opinion of the bishops of the
whole church regarding the immaculate conception of the blessed
Virgin, to whose protection he believed that he owed his safety.
The opinions of 576 were favourable, resting on Bible proofs:
Genesis iii. 15, Song of Sol. iv. 7, 12, and Luke i. 28; but some
French and German bishops were strongly opposed. The question was
now submitted for further consideration to various congregations,
and finally the consenting bishops were invited to Rome to settle
the terms of the doctrinal definition of the new dogma. After
four secret sessions it was acknowledged by acclamation, and
on 8th December, 1854 (§ 104, 7), the pope read in the Sixtine
chapel the bull _Ineffabilis_ and placed a brilliant diadem
on the head of the image of the queen of heaven. The disciples
of St. Thomas listened in silence to this aspersion of their
master’s orthodoxy; no heed was paid to two isolated individual
voices that protested; the bishops of all Catholic lands
proclaimed the new dogma, the theologians vindicated it, and the
spectacle-loving people rejoiced in the pompous Mary-festival.
The pope’s next great performance was the encyclical, _Quanta
cura_, of December 8th, 1864, and the accompanying syllabus
cataloguing in eighty-four propositions all the errors of the
day, by which not only the antichristian and anti-ecclesiastical
tendencies, but also claims for freedom of belief and worship,
liberty of the press and science, the state’s independence of the
church, the equality of the laity and clergy in civil matters, in
short all the principles of modern political and social life, were
condemned as heretical. Three years later the centenary of Peter
(§ 16, 1) brought five hundred bishops to Rome, with other clergy
and laymen from all lands. The enthusiasm for the papal chair
was such that the pope was encouraged to convoke an œcumenical
council. The jubilee of his consecration as priest in A.D. 1869
brought him congratulatory addresses signed by one and a half
millions, filled the papal coffers, attracted an immense number
of visitors to Rome, and secured to all the votaries gathered
there a complete indulgence. On the Vatican Council which met
during that same year, see § 189.[542]

§ 185.3. =The Overthrow of the Papal States.=--In the Peace of
Villafranca of 1859, which put an end to the short Austro-French
war in Italy, a confederation was arranged of all the Italian
princes under the honorary presidency of the pope for drawing up
the future constitution of Italy. During the war the Austrians
had vacated Bologna, but the French remained in Rome to protect
the pope. The revolution now broke out in Romagna. Victor Emanuel,
king of Sardinia, was proclaimed dictator for the time over that
part of the Papal States and a provisional government was set
up. In vain did the pope remind Christendom in an encyclical
of the necessity of maintaining his temporal power, in vain
did he thunder his _excommunicatio major_ against all who would
contribute to its overthrow. A pamphlet war against the temporal
power now began, and About’s letters in the _Moniteur_ described
with bitter scorn the incapacity of the papal government. In his
pamphlet, “_Le Pope et le Congrès_,” Laguéronnière proposed to
restrict the pope’s sovereignty to Rome and its neighbourhood,
levy a tax for the support of the papal court on all Catholic
nations, and leave Rome undisturbed by political troubles. On
December 31st, 1859, Napoleon III. exhorted the pope to yield
to the logic of facts and to surrender the provinces that refused
any longer to be his. The pope then issued a rescript in which
he declared that he could never give up what belonged not to
him but to the church. The popular vote in Romagna went almost
unanimously for annexation to Sardinia, and this, in spite of
the papal ban, was done. A revolution broke out in Umbria and
the March of Ancona, and Victor Emanuel without more ado attached
these states also to his dominion in A.D. 1860, so that only
Rome and the Campagna were retained by the pope, and even these
only by means of French support. At the September convention of
A.D. 1864 Italy undertook to maintain the papal domain intact,
to permit the organization of an independent papal army, and to
contribute to the papal treasury; while France was to quit Roman
territory within at the latest two years. The pope submitted
to what he could not prevent, but still insisted upon his most
extreme claims, answered every attempt at conciliation with
his stereotyped _non possumus_, and in A.D. 1866 proclaimed
St. Catherine of Siena (§ 112, 4) patron of the “city.” When
the last of the French troops took ship in A.D. 1866 the radical
party thought the time had come for freeing Italy from papal rule,
and roused the whole land by public proclamation. Garibaldi again
put himself at the head of the movement. The Papal State was
soon encircled by bands of volunteers, and insurrections broke
out even within Rome itself. Napoleon pronounced this a breach
of the September convention, and in A.D. 1867 the volunteers
were utterly routed by the French at Mentana. The French guarded
Civita Vecchia and fortified Rome. But in August, 1870, their own
national exigencies demanded the withdrawal of the French troops,
and after the battle of Sedan the Italians to a man insisted
on having Rome as their capital, and Victor Emanuel acquiesced.
The pope sought help far and near from Catholic and non-Catholic
powers, but he received only the echo of his own words, _non
possumus_. After a four hours’ cannonade a breach was made in the
walls of the eternal city, the white flag appeared on St. Angelo,
and amid the shouts of the populace the Italian troops entered
on September 20th, 1870. A plebiscite in the papal dominions gave
133,681 votes in favour of annexation and 1,507 against; in Rome
alone there were 40,785 for and only 46 against. The king now
issued the decree of incorporation; Rome became capital of united
Italy and the Quirinal the royal residence.

§ 185.4. =The Prisoner of the Vatican, A.D. 1870-1878.=--The
dethroned papal king could only protest and utter denunciations.
No result followed from the adoption of St. Joseph as guardian
and patron of the church, nor from the solemn consecration of the
whole world to the most sacred heart of Jesus, at the jubilee of
June 16th, A.D. 1875. The measures of A.D. 1871, by which Cavour
sought to realize his ideal of a “free church in a free state,”
were pronounced absurd, cunning, deceitful, and an outrage on
the apostles Peter and Paul. By these measures the rights and
privileges of a sovereign for all time had been conferred on the
pope: the holiness and inviolability of his person, a body-guard,
a post and telegraph bureau, free ambassadorial communication
with foreign powers, the _ex-territoriality_ of his palace of
the Vatican, embracing fifteen large saloons, 11,500 rooms,
236 stairs, 218 corridors, two chapels, several museums, archives,
libraries, large beautiful gardens, etc., as also of the Lateran
and the summer palace of Castle Gandolpho, with all appurtenances,
also an annual income, free from all burdens and taxes, of three
and a quarter million francs, equal to the former amount of
his revenue, together with unrestricted liberty in the exercise
of all ecclesiastical rights of sovereignty and primacy, and
the renunciation of all state interference in the disposal of
bishoprics and benefices. The right of the inferior clergy to
exercise the _appellatio ab abusu_ to a civil tribunal was set
aside, and of all civil rights only that of the royal _exequatur_
in the election of bishops, _i.e._ the mere right of investing
the nominee of the curia in the possession of the revenues of
his office, was retained.--To the end of his life Pius every year
returned the dotation as an insult and injury, and “the starving
holy father in prison, who has not where to lay his head,”
received three or four times more in Peter’s pence contributed
by all Catholic Christendom. Playing the _rôle_ of a prisoner
he never passed beyond the precincts of the Vatican. He reached
the semi-jubilee of his papal coronation in A.D. 1871, being
the first pope who falsified the old saying, _Annos Petri non
videbit_. He rejected the offer of a golden throne and the
title of “the great,” but he accepted a Parisian lady’s gift of
a golden crown of thorns. In support of the prison myth, straws
from the papal cell were sold in Belgium for half a franc per
stalk, and for the same price photographs of the pope behind
an iron grating. As once on a time the legend arose about the
disciple whom Jesus loved that he would not die, so was it
once said about the pope; and on his eighty-third birthday, in
A.D. 1874, a Roman Jesuit paper, eulogising the moral purity of
his life, put the words in his mouth, “Which of you convinceth
me of sin?” But he himself by constantly renewed rescripts,
encyclicals, briefs, allocutions to the cardinals and to numerous
deputations from far and near, unweariedly fanned the flame of
enthusiasm and fanaticism throughout papal Christendom, and
thundered threatening prophecies not only against the Italian,
but also against foreign states, for with most of them he lived
in open war. A collection of his “Speeches delivered at the
Vatican” was published in 1874, commented on by Gladstone in
the _Contemporary Review_ for January, 1875, who gives abundant
quotations showing papal assumptions, maledictions, abuse and
misunderstanding of the Scriptures with which they abound. On
the fiftieth anniversary of the pope’s episcopal consecration,
in June, 1877, crowds from all lands assembled to offer their
congratulations, with costly presents and Peter’s pence amounting
to sixteen and a half million francs. He died February 8th, 1878,
in the eighty-sixth year of his age and thirty-second of his
pontificate. His heirs claimed the unpaid dotations of twenty
million lire, but were refused by the courts of law.[543]--His
secretary Antonelli, descended from an old brigand family,
who from the time of his stay at Gaeta was his evil demon,
predeceased him in A.D. 1876. Though the son of a poor herdsman
and woodcutter, he left more than a hundred million lire. His
natural daughter, to the great annoyance of the Vatican, sought,
but without success, in the courts of justice to make good her
claims against her father’s greedy brothers.

§ 185.5. =Leo XIII.=--After only two days’ conclave the
Cardinal-archbishop of Perugia, Joachim Pecci, born in A.D. 1810,
was proclaimed on February 20th, 1878, as Leo XIII. In autograph
letters he intimated his accession to the German and Russian
emperors, but not to the king of Italy, and expressed his
wish for a good mutual understanding. To the government of the
Swiss Cantons he declared his hope that their ancient friendly
relations might be restored. At Easter, 1878, he issued an
encyclical to all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops,
in which he required of them that they should earnestly entreat
the mediation of the “immaculate queen of heaven” and the
intercession of St. Joseph, “the heavenly shield of the church,”
and also failed not to make prominent the infallibility of
the apostolic chair, and to condemn all the errors condemned
by his predecessors, emphasizing the necessity of restoring the
temporal power of the pope, and confirming and renewing all the
protests of his predecessor Pius IX., of sacred memory, against
the overthrow of the Papal States. On the first anniversary of
his elevation he proclaimed a universal jubilee, with the promise
of a complete indulgence. He still persisted in the prison
myth of his predecessor, and like him sent back the profferred
contribution of his “jailor.” In the conflicts with foreign
powers inherited from Pius, as well as in his own, he has
employed generally moderate and conciliatory language.--He has
not hesitated to take the first step toward a good understanding
with his opponents, for which, while persistently maintaining
the ancient principles of the papal chair, he makes certain
concessions in regard to subordinate matters, always with
the design and expectation of seeing them outweighed on the
other side by the conservation of all the other hierarchical
pretensions of the curial system. It was, however, only in
the middle of A.D. 1885 that it became evident that the pope
had determined, without allowing any misunderstanding to arise
between himself and his cardinals, to break through the trammels
of the irreconcilable zealots in the college. And indeed after
the conclusion of the German _Kulturkampf_ (§ 197, 13, 15),
brought about by these means, in an allocution with reference
thereto addressed to the cardinals in May, 1887, he gave an
unexpected expression to his wish and longing in regard to an
understanding with the government on the Italian question, which
involved an utter renunciation of his predecessor’s dogged _Non
possumus_, the attitude hitherto unfalteringly maintained. “Would
that peaceful counsels,” says he, “embracing all our peoples
should prevail in Italy also, and that at last once that unhappy
difference might be overcome without loss of privilege to the
holy see!” Such harmony, indeed, is only possible when the pope
“is subjected to no authority and enjoys perfect freedom,” which
would cause no loss to Italy, “but would only secure its lasting
peace and safety.” That he counts upon the good offices of the
German emperor for the effecting of this longed-for restoration
of such a _modus vivendi_ with the Italian government, he
has clearly indicated in his preliminary communications to the
Prussian centre exhorting to peace (§ 197, 14). The _Moniteur
de Rome_ (§ 188, 1), however, interpreted the words of the pope
thus: “Italy would lose nothing materially or politically, if
it gave a small corner of its territory to the pope, where he
might enjoy actual sovereignty as a guarantee of his spiritual
independence.”--On Leo’s contributions to theological science
see § 191, 12; on his attitude to Protestantism and the Eastern
Church, see § 175, 2, 4. He expressed himself against the
freemasons in an encyclical of A.D. 1884 with even greater
severity than Pius. Consequently the Roman Inquisition issued
an instruction to all bishops throughout the Catholic world
requiring them to enjoin their clergy in the pulpit and the
confessional to make it known that all freemasons are _eo ipso_
excommunicated, and by Catholic associations of every sort,
especially by the spread of the third order of St. Francis
(§ 186, 2), the injunction was carried out. At the same time a
year’s reprieve was given to the freemasons, during which the
Roman heresy laws, which required their children, wives, and
relatives to denounce them to all clergy and laymen, were to be
suspended. Should the guilty, however, allow this day of grace
to pass, these laws were to be again fully enforced, and then it
would be only for the pope to absolve them from their terrible sin.

§ 186. VARIOUS ORDERS AND ASSOCIATIONS.

The order of the Jesuits restored in A.D. 1814 by Pius VII. impregnated all other orders with its spirit, gained commanding influence over Pius IX., made the bishops its agents, and turned the whole Catholic church into a Jesuit institution. An immense number of societies arose aiming at the accomplishment of home mission work, inspired by the Jesuit spirit and carrying out unquestioningly the ultramontane ideas of their leaders. Also zeal for foreign missions on old Jesuit lines revived, and the enthusiasm for martyrdom was due mainly to the same cause.