h & co. ELY LECTURES THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By Rev. Albert Barnes, D.D., LL.D. CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM. By Rev. James McCosh, D.D., LL.D. COMPARATIVE EVIDENCES OF SCIENCE AND CHRISTI- ANITY. By Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D. THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY INDICATED BY ITS HISTORICAL EFFECTS. By Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D.D., LL.D. PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIANITY. By Professor George S. Morris, Ph.D. THE MIRACULOUS ELEMENT Professor A. W. Bruce, D.D. THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. By Rev. Lewis F. Stearns, D.D. ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY. By Rev. Frank F. Ellinwood, D.D. THE BIBLE AND ISLAM. By Rev. Henry Preserved Smith, D.D. THE SOCIAL MEANING OF MODERN RELIGIOUS MOVE- MENTS IN ENGLAND. By Thomas C. Hall, D.D. IN THE GOSPELS. By SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN ENGLAND THE SOCIAL MEANING OF MODERN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN ENGLAND BEING THE ELY LECTURES FOR 1899 BY THOMAS C. HALL, D.D. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1900 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK MY DEAR WIFE WHOSE LOVING CARE ALONE, UNDER A HEAVENLY FATHER'S BLESSING, MADE THE PREPARATION OF THESE LECTURES DURING RECOVERY FROM A LONG ILLNESS POSSIBLE ; AND WHOSE KINDLY CRITICISM HAS BEEN INSPIRATION AND CONSTANT HELP, THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED THE ELY FOUNDATION THE lectures contained in this volume were delivered to the students of Union Theological Seminary in the spring of the year 1899, as one of the courses established in the Seminary by Mr. Zebulon Stiles Ely, in the following terms : ' ' The undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand dollars to the Union Theological Seminary of the City of New York to found a lectureship hi the same, the title of which shall be The Elias P. Ely Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. 1 ' The course of lectures given on this Foundation is to comprise any topics serving to establish the proposition that Christianity is a religion from God, or that it is the perfect and final form of religion for man. " Among the subjects discussed may be : The Nat- ure and Need of a Revelation ; The Character and Influence of Christ and His Apostles ; The Authen- ticity and Credibility of the Scriptures, Miracles, and Prophecy ; The Diffusion and Benefits of Christian- ity, and The Philosophy of Religion in its Relations to the Christian System. * ' Upon one or more of such subjects a course of public lectures shall be given, at least once in two or three years. The appointment of the lecturers is to be by the concurrent action of the Faculty and Direc- tors of said Seminary and the undersigned, and it shall ordinarily be made two years in advance. ' ' PREFACE IN the first years of my ministerial activity I became interested in the revival movement that has left such deep marks upon our Amer- ican Western life. I sought the meaning of the movement, and studied its history, not from in- tellectual curiosity, but asking constantly the question, Why cannot the same zeal be awakened in our day ? This led me to study the move- ment in its English origin. Soon it became apparent to me that the power of the movement was not in its theology. I sought it in its ritual ; nor was the secret there. New forms of organ- ization sprang then into being, and the thought was natural that its power was here. Yet it needed but little study to compel the surrender of this hypothesis. Deeper than its theology, more lasting than its ritual, more profound than its organizations, moved the spirit that gave the English-speaking race new power and quick- ened life. Slowly I learned to see in it the advance of God's self-revelation to men in the associated life of men. Not in mystic con- xii PREFACE teinplation do men come closest to the life of God, but in the changing activity of the race's history — the open page upon which God is writ- ing, perhaps for the greater universe to read, the strange and wonderful story of man's re- demption. More and more I began to feel that the movement was but the prelude to a more splendid symphony of divine praise, in which the concerted voices of harmonized human life will vie with the uplifted songs of the angels in ascribing glory and honor and power to Him that sitteth upon the throne, who has called light out of darkness, and doeth all things well. CONTENTS LECTURE I INTRODUCTION— THE BEGINNINGS OP METHODISM Definitions, 1 ; Our limits, 3 ; Field preaching in 1739 and Oxford reaction, 1848, 4 ; Factors at work, 9 ; Relig- ious movement of 1702 and Tory reaction, 1710, 13; Towndshend and Walpole, 1714-1742, 19 ; The Nonju- rors, 22 ; The Whigs and the Church, 24 ; The growth of towns, 26 ; Religious decline of the reigns of George I. and II., 29; The Deist controversy, 30; The gradual awakening, 32 ; Oxford in 1730, 33 ; The beginning of the dawn, 37. LECTURE II THE METHODIST MOVEMENT William Law's "Serious Call," 40; Methodist group of 1729, 43 ; Experiences of Wesley, 44 ; Theological dis- pute really ethical, 49 ; The movement not merely new organization, 52; Real depth of movement, 56; The social character illustrated, 58 ; Democracy of the move- ment, 62; Educational value of the Chapel, 65; The link with the Establishment, 68; The great social im- portance of the awakening at a time of change, 74. XIV CONTENTS LECTURE III ENGLAND'S CONDITION AND THE EVANGELICAL PARTY The Industrial awakening, 76 ; Political changes under Pitt, 77 ; Beginnings of democracy, 78 ; The French Revo- lution, 79 ; Open-air meetings and political life, 83 ; Seriousness in politics, 84 ; Pitt vs. Fox, 85 ; England's attitude toward France, 87; The ulay " element and its significance, 88 ; Rise of the Evangelical party, 94 ; Characteristics, 95; Advantages of its triumph and its relation to Establishment, 97. LECTURE IV THE EVANGELICAL PARTY AND SOCIAL REFORM Effect on English manners, 107 ; Formal entrance into politi- cal life, 111; East Indian question, 113; Slavery move- ment, 115 ; Development of the political conscience, 119 ; Evangelical circles, 120 ; The Manchester school and the party, 125 ; Factory Acts Reform movement, 128 ; More factory agitation, 129 ; Leadership of Lord Ashley, 131 ; Prison reform, 132 ; Limitations of Evangelicalism, 134. LECTURE V RADICALISM AND REFORM Puritan origin for Radical religious thought, 143 ; Bentham, 144; John Stuart Mill and religious movement, 146; Priestly and his work, 151 ; Owen, 155 ; The working class and the latter-day Evangelicalism, 161 ; "Workingmen and Radicalism, 162; Trade Unions, 167; Methodism sur- vival in the country, 168 ; Neglects of organized Chris- tianity, 169 ; Rise of Chartism, 172 ; Effects of its fail- ures, 174. CONTENTS xv LECTURE VI THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT Social strain of 1830-1848, 175 ; Intellectual awakening, 176 ; Coleridge, 1772-1834, 176 ; Wordsworth, 1780-1850, 176 ; Unreflecting character of the movement up to 1830, 178 ; The intellectual revolt, 182 ; Services of Maurice, 182 ; Workingmen's colleges, 183 ; Maurice and Chart- ism, 184; Tennyson's message, 190; Carlyle's relation to the " Broad " movement, 191 ; Relation to Manchester thought, 194; Ruskin's place, 195; The socialism of Morris, 195; Toynbee Hall, 197; Chastened discontent of England, 199; Limitations of the "Broad" move- ment, 202; The twofold protest, 203; Its Protestant character, 206. LECTURE VII THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION The Puritan and Cavalier in history, 209 ; Factors in the High Church reaction, 210; Newman's leadership, 217; The reactionary social significance, 219 ; Gladstone and the Tory reaction, 223; Effect of reaction on Oxford, 224; Effect upon political parties, 226; The historic claims of High Churchism, 227 ; The two conceptions in the Church, 228; Ward's " Ideal Church," 231; Social significance of reaction, 232 ; Limitations, 236 ; Author- ity as external, 237 ; Protestantism vs. Catholicism, 241 ; The extremes of both, 242. LECTURE VIII THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL — A REVIEW Puritan origin of all phases, 246; The real services, 249; Not theological nor philosophical nor ecclesiastical, but social, 256; Temporary and permanent elements, 256; Evolution of movement for social service, 263 ; Failures of all phases and their successes, 273 ; Conclusion, 277. THE SOCIAL MEANING OF MODEEN EELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN ENGLAND LECTUEE I. INTRODUCTORY To give our definitions at the outset may save us future misunderstandings. By "social" is meant the organized life of the community as distinguished from the separate lives of the in- dividuals of which it is composed. No thought- ful man dwells upon his individual liberty with- out remembering how limited on every hand that sphere must be. We are born into a physi- cal life without any exercise of our volition. We live under the -sway of inherited memories, powerful as the most fundamental instincts; amid environments we did nothing to create ; heirs to a history with which we had nothing to do ; the creatures of imaginations whose springs are in far distant aeons. We are tossed about amid loves and hates, fears and friend- 1 2 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS ships, whose very origin baffles our curiosity. The strongest passions about us spring from a life long passed away, and the traditions that most influence us are, from our view-point, things of chance. The very greatness of an individual- ity is that it stands forth as a type of such an organized life or nation. The beginning of this century saw individu- ality often emphasized extremely, but it also saw great social forces started whose end is not yet. "We look about in vain on the horizon where sets the sun of the nineteenth century for men to compare with those just past away, and who have made the century great. Lincoln, Bismarck, and Gladstone were fitting successors to Washington, Napoleon, and Pitt. But even if they left no successors among us, yet the or- ganized forces with which such names are iden- tified have not passed away. The closing years of the century exhibit combinations of power, the like of which the world's history has never yet seen. The German army and German so- cial democracy ; the political Republic and the huge international commercial syndicates; the ever-growing unions of laboring men and the spreading out of organized transportation, are often emphasized in their contrasts and their superficial antagonisms. They are the signs of the coming to full self-consciousness of factors INTRODUCTORY 3 the most powerful in history. Man is social. He is bound to the past, to his fellows of the present, and to the children of that golden future which Christianity substitutes for the golden age of long ago. When we are asked to examine any great movement no inquiry should be more earnestly pressed than its significance for this organized communal life which is more than any individual or the sum of all living in- dividuals. This social organized life conserves the traditions of the ages, gives the present its deepest meaning, and is the womb out of which springs the future. The first half of the eighteenth century saw a movement started in England, which is loose- ly called the evangelical revival. As, however, the evangelical party was only one sign of a far larger awakening, it is well to speak of it by some term that will include elements not in any sense evangelical, although deeply religious. This religious awakening had profound social meaning, that is to say, its significance for the communal life far transcended the immediate effect upon the thousands of individual lives moved by it. The organized communal life came under its power and was quickened by its inspiration. It is this influence we are asked to trace and measure as we seek to follow its effects upon English life in particular. 4 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS It would be interesting to go farther; to study the awakening in America, and the changes in Scotland, that can be immediately traced to connections with the new religious in- terest in England. But our scope is already too wide, and the leading principles remain the same, although the differences in the historical development might here and there render them a little more obscure. The movement has been generally associated with the lives and activities of Whitefield and the Wesleys. Dates are even assigned for its beginning, as when Whitefield preached first in the open air to the neglected colliers of Kings- wood near Bristol in 1739, or when Wesley first began his work at the Foundry a little later. Yet the springs of the movement go very far back in English history. The countless relig- ious factors that give English religious life its strong local color may all be traced as at work upon it. The connection, for instance, between it and early Puritanism in nearly all its phases is too plain to be ignored. Nor is it right to pass over the influence upon it of the German Moravian Church, exercised as it was in a most critical period and deeply leaving on it an im- press for good. So it would be wholly false to the facts of the case to treat any one man or any one epoch as INTRODUCTORY 5 a definite starting-point. Just as Zwingli, Lu- ther, (Ecolampadius, Calvin, and Erasmus be- gan movements really independent one of the other and different in kind, so, too, the religious movement of the eighteenth century had many men as its founders who worked independently and on different lines. The revival of spiritual interest touched all classes, but in different ways and at different times. The last phase which we will attempt to examine will be the Oxford movement, or Tractarian stage of the Evangelical Revival. And even here all we can hope to do, is to mark its beginnings and its final great disappoint- ment in the blow it sustained by the defection of so many of its leaders to the Roman Cath- olic Church. So that the movement, taken gen- erally, as we shall examine it, covers roughly about five generations of men, or about one hundred and thirty years. At the same time it must be realized that history is not broken up into sharply divided chapters. Slowly the forces gathered that were to produce such great results. Even as early as 1702 there was some promise of a new religious advance, and it was only post- poned by the hostility of the organized Church. It would be very interesting to deal with the movement as an historian would be justified in dealing, for example, with the rise of Buddhism 6 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS in India, or of Mohametanism in Arabia, seek- ing to draw no inferences, but dealing with them as purely objective phenomena, to be tested by purely historical measures. Such ob- jective, purely historical treatment of the evan- gelical revival is lacking and would be most useful. So far as possible these pages have been based upon private examination carried out in this spirit. But our aim will be not so much a simple setting forth of the historical circumstances of the revival, as an attempt to gather the significance of the movement, and to set forth, in meagre enough outline, some of its salient features as connected with organized English life. At a most critical time in the race's history we find a great social upheaval affecting the foremost nations of the European world. In England that movement, more than anywhere else, was directly connected in time with a great revived interest in religion. It is for us to trace some of the effects of this union in time of these two mighty forces, or more properly the two manifestations of the one great force. Schleiermacher, in his classic definition of "piety," pronounces it neither knowledge nor activity (Thuri), but a direction of the feeling or the immediate consciousness, and the content of this immediate consciousness in the sense of INTRODUCTORY 7 dependence upon God.* Such loving depend- ence produces its proper fruit in loving rela- tions to God's world. The whole being, phys- ical, intellectual, and moral, is brought into new relations both to God and His universe by the life of piety. Hence there can be only one true religion, but its manifestations will be as numer- ous as there are faulty conceptions of these re- lations. The elements of true religion are sim- ple. The elements that enter into its object- ive manifestations are as complex as human life in all its strange physical, mental, and moral diversity. Hence Puritanism in its historic de- velopment expressed itself in most varied and often seemingly contradictory ways. Leaders in the movement, really urged on by the same impulse, failed to realize the truer unity, and vainly sought to make some external and sec- ondary element a bond where in fact no such bond was possible. This is characteristic of all revived religious feeling. It makes all life more intense. The longing for unity is born of the sense of unity with God and fervent desire therefore for unity with all God's creatures. But the practical effect of religious intensity has been the most diverse expressions, and seem- ingly a widening of the distances between men. The revived religious feeling known as the Ref- * Der Cliristlichc GlavAe, Vol. I., Sections 3 and 4. 8 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS ormation broke Christendom into a hundred fragments, and destroyed all pretence even of Christian uniformity. The same thing marked the great religious movement in England. With the religious quickening, dissent sprang into new life, new sects arose ; it broke the quiet of the Establishment, and in its last phase now threatens its overthrow. For the Oxford move- ment has already made divisions in its uniform- ity which no episcopal authority has been able either to remove or to conceal. 4 This religious awakening has been too often treated as the work of individuals. It would be as near the facts to say that these individ- uals were the work of the awakening. Great social forces find their expression in great men and remarkable movements. These forces make themselves felt long before the leaders come on the stage, and it is curious to observe how blindly leaders often launch movements, whose tendency they in no way know, whose sweep they in no way measure. Wesley in organizing his class meetings never intended to found the Methodist Church, whose foundation-stone he then laid. The well-nigh inevitable outcome of the Tractarian movement would have been far- thest removed from the mind of Pusey, Hurrell, Froude, and the saintly Keble, and most dis- tasteful to them. God reveals His omnipotence INTRODUCTORY 9 in the power and helplessness of the men He calls on the stage for great crises. To grasp therefore the character of the evangelical move- ment it is essential that we examine as far as possible the forces plainly at work in England, before the leaders entered upon their task, that we may try to understand their labors in the light of England's condition ; for only then can we properly examine these labors, the leaders, and the various phases of the movement in which they played a part. To analyze the factors that go to make up a single life is a task so complicated that the great dramatist, the poet, the novelist, and the biographer find all their powers taxed to give even a relatively accurate picture. How, then, can it be hoped to do more than sketch, in the broadest way, some of the features of a national life which is the sum and more than the sum of thousands of individual lives. Yet to such a task we must address ourselves, even if we can hope to do no more than form a relatively ac- curate picture of the conditions then existing. England and Wales in 1703, when John "Wesley was born, had a population of about six millions. This is only an estimate, as no census was taken until 1801, and the estimate rests on somewhat doubtful calculations on the basis of the number of hearthstones taxed in the king- 10 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS dom.* The tours of Defoe and Arthur Young furnish us some interesting details, and particu- larly can we note the progress made between 1728 and 1748, by comparing the editions of Defoe, the last edition having been edited by Eichardson. The new school of English novels, which Defoe in his mature years (he was then fifty-nine) founded, gives us graphic and amus- ing pictures of life at that time. Yet with all such help it is hard to realize how different a land the England of 1702-37 was from the Eng- land of to-day. London was a badly lighted, ill-kept, misgoverned town. Round about it lay heath, common, and forest. The roads leading to it were abominable, and rendered unsafe day and night by an almost unchecked lawlessness ; for the hangings that took place with frightful frequency f for the most trivial offences failed * Macpherson, Vol. II., page 634 of his Annals says : " * It then appeared,' says the continuator of Rapin's History (Vol. III., page 952, notes), ' that the number of houses in England and Wales, soon after the Restoration (1688), was about 1,- 230,000, and reckoning six persons at a medium to each house it fixes the number of people then to be 7,380,000.'" D'Avenant is quoted by Macpherson, however, as saying in the essay On Ways and Means of Supplying the War that it appeared from the books of Hearth-money that there were not above 1,300,000 families in England, and allowing six persons to a house, 7,800,000 or not quite 8,000,000 was then the population. On page 134 of Vol. III., Macpherson as- sumes this last figure, 8,000,000, as the population in 1726. t According to Sir Stephen Jaunsson's account (see Lecky, INTRODUCTORY 11 in any marked degree to suppress the violence that made all travel unsafe. Bristol was the second city in size in Eng- land, and yet the road connecting it with Lon- don was bad in the extreme. The country people were densely ignorant and grossly su- perstitious. The open farming system pre- vailed, in which agrarian communities farmed in common. Enclosures and well-cared-for es- tates hardly existed in our understanding of the terms. Schools were few, and many of those that did exist were fearfully defective. Com- merce and industry were in their infancy. The darkest cloud of stupid, narrow prejudices lay like a crushing weight upon the ignorant coun- try population. The sports of the people were savage bull-fights, dog-fights, and brutalizing exhibitions in the county rings. The Church possessed political power, and it is easy to un- der-estimate her influence in other spheres, but the spiritual guidance she gave was uncertain and unsatisfactory. The life of the time seems History of the Nineteenth Century, Vol. VI., page 249) there were hanged at the Old Bailey, from 1749 to 1772, 678 persons of 1,121 who were condemned to death. See Howard on Prisons, and Romilly's Observations on the Criminal Law of England. In 1732 70 persons were hanged at the Old Bailey, and as late as 1726, a murderess, Katherine Hayes, was burnt alive at the stake. See also Romilly's Observations on Madan's Thoughts on Executive Jvstice. 12 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS to have been extremely narrow, but considering the great mass of dull ignorance it was along its own lines exceedingly intense. When we read in the pages of the history of England that " all England was ' for ' or ' against ' this measure," it it is needful to consider all such expressions in the light of our own condition. With a daily press, and but a small percentage of illiteracy, those of us who take active interest in even so pressing a question as war or peace, is small. What must have been the proportion of Eng- land's ignorant scattered population who took more than a passing interest in the questions that we deal with as the momentous ones of the opening years of the eighteenth century. How many are we to suppose of England's six or seven millions knew aught of the " balance of power," for which William was piling up so huge a debt, or even entered very actively into the question of the succession to the throne of England herself. But this fact of but a small number controlling the nation's actions induced intense feeling among those few. And the stormy activities of these contending parties exhausted and strained England to the utmost. England's destiny in the beginning of the eigh- teenth century was in the hands of a few great reigning families, whose self-interest, family pride, and vaunting ambitions were the leading INTRODUCTORY 13 factors in all political movements. England was London, and London was the select po- litical club called Westminster, together with the court and a few fashionable chop-houses. Public opinion was in the hands of one or two who commanded large followings and bid them shout, and a few pamphleteers who wrote viru- lent and violent articles in the interests of those who paid them the most or made themselves most feared. The fear of popery under King James had induced many to come together after the man- ner of the old Puritans and Dissenters to form circles for the advancement of personal piety. These societies were, however, in the English Church and favored by men like Beveridge. They became the well-known societies for the improvement of morals. " Such an evil spirit," writes Burnet, "as is now spread among the clergy, would be a sad speculation at any time, but in our present circumstances, when we are near so great a crisis, it is a dreadful thing. But a little to balance this, I shall give an ac- count of more promising beginnings and ap- pearances which though they are of an older date, yet of late have been brought into a more regulated form. In King James's reign, the fear of popery was so strong, as well as just, that many, in and about London, began to meet 14 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS often together, both for devotion and for their further instruction. Things of that kind had been formerly practised only among the Puri- tans and the Dissenters. But these were of the Church, and came to their ministers to be as- sisted with forms of prayer and other direc- tions." * And in 1702 the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel was successfully launched under the smiles of the Queen. There is no say- ing what might have been the outcome of this movement in reviving Puritanism and giving English life during Queen Anne's reign a differ- ent character had not other forces been in con- stant play. The strong Tory reaction that set in after King "William's death linked itself to the churchly and religious feeling. It seems like a horrid mockery of things sacred that Boling- broke and Atterbury, the Queen's chief advisers, should have been able to swing the religious sentiment of England so completely over to the old stand-point of intolerance and exclusiveness. Their first effort was a failure, when the Bill for- bidding Occasional Conformity — i.e., the taking of the sacrament by nonconformists in an Es- tablished Church simply to qualify them for office — was lost. It was lost, however, only be- cause the Lords and Commons could not agree *Burnet, History of Our Own Times, Vol. II., p. 318. (Folio Edition, 1734.) INTRODUCTORY 15 upon the form of the measure. The Whig Bishops, it is refreshing to note, withstood the Tory intolerance of the lower clergy. The fa- naticism rose nevertheless higher and higher. And at last, when an empty-headed, vain man called Sacheverell, in 1710, was impeached for language seditious in the extreme formally ut- tered at St. Paul's in the presence of the Lord Mayor, the Tory fury was so great that, though convicted, his sentence was merely formal. He had happily largely broken the force of his pop- ular position by explaining his words in an ut- terly unnatural sense. But the whole incident goes to show how strong in 1710 was the old narrow persecuting intolerant spirit that had so often split England. The seeds of division were there, in spite of 1688 and all that William Ill's tolerance and good sense and the long Whig supremacy had done. Indeed so perilous was the position of Dissenters that in the year Anne died, and while she was quite ill, Brad- bury, the famous preacher of the Fetter Lane Independent Church, met Bishop Burnet in Smithfield and explained his dejection to him by recalling the memories of the place, and ex- pressing a fear of the return of those times. Burnet told him of the Queen's approaching death, and during a service sent word to Brad- bury of the event, when the whole congregation 16 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS burst into praise for deliverance. For on that very day the infamous Test Act was to have gone into effect, by which Bolingbroke hoped to so weaken the Whig party that the succession of the Pretender would be assured. The deliberate political prostitution of the Church by men of the type of Bolingbroke and Atterbury wrought out its inevitable result in the weakening of its spiritual power, and the lowering of its aims. Of the dissenters at this time it is exceedingly difficult to form an exact estimate either of their numerical strength or relative influence. Many things seem to have weakened them. There came the natural reaction after the Restora- tion. Few men cherish a lost cause, or one seemingly lost. Nor did the Nonconformists escape the hardships of laws enacted against them under the Stuarts. The number also of independent yeomen was on the wane. These had always supplied a large body of indepen- dent Dissenters. Immigration to new worlds also undoubtedly weakened Dissent in Eng- land. In very imperfect returns made in 1689, the number was placed at 110,000 in England and Wales.* But, as the population is here counted at 2,600,000, this estimate must be en- tirely false. It was reported to William III * Skeat, History qf Dissenters, p. 151. INTRODUCTORY 17 that they did not number one to twenty-two of the inhabitants. But there was good reason for wishing William to think England more united than it really was.* A party, however, that *S reckoned among the members Baxter, Howe, Calamy, Bunyan, Matthew Henry, and Defoe had not only influence but must have had con- siderable support in the nation. Between 1688 and 1690 the Quakers alone had taken out li- censes for one hundred and thirty-one tem- porary and one hundred and eight permanent places of worship. And in 1715 and 1716 Neal V claims that there were 1,107 Dissenting congre- gations in England and forty-three in Wales. The Presbyterians numbered about as many as the Independents and Baptists together. On the whole it would be probably about fair to suppose that the avowed Nonconformists, in- cluding all parties, numbered a fifth to a sixth part of England's population when William be- '-" gan his reign, or at least that over one million were Dissenters before his reign came to a close. These suffered many hardships. They were excluded from the universities ; could only be married by Anglican ministers ; were compelled to " occasionally conform " or run serious risks if they took office or went into the great cor- porations of the day. In a hundred ways they * Cf. Dalrymple, Memoirs, Part II. , Book 1, appendix. 18 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS were made to feel their anomalous position. Yet in spite of all this, and the many weaken- ing factors from outside, there is little question that Dissent grew and is now growing steadily stronger in England. Now already signs were appearing of a new day for England. The dawn of that glory of commercial supremacy of which Anglo-Saxons boast, and which is the race's weightiest respon- sibility before God's eternal judgment-seat was now breaking on the horizon. Hamlets became towns, and population increased by leaps and bounds. The French wars had much to do with this condition. Safe from invasion, for already England controlled the Channel, English indus- try and agriculture became large factors in the maintaining of the armies of the continent. The demand for labor kept the farming popula- tion, not only from crowding and competition, but the numbers actually decreased up to 1770 in spite of the fact that the population as a whole was vastly increasing. At the same time the demands for farm product, and the high war prices made this " a golden age for the English peasant."* M. de Lavergne (quoted by Prothero) says England became "the granary * E. E. Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farm" ing, p. 38. INTRODUCTORY 19 of Europe." This was due to the agricultural revolution being rapidly effected, which prepared the way for the industrial revolution of a later date. Wealth increased and the years between the death of Queen Anne in 1714 and 1720 were marked by a most destructive and demoralizing era of wild speculation, culminating in the burst- ing of the South Sea Bubble and in suicides and ruined reputations that impressed the warning all too lightly on the public conscience. Meanwhile, forces were gathering strength in the quiet days of Townshend and Walpole's ascendencies that they least of all men were likely to comprehend. They should both be awarded much praise for a quiet service little noticed by the historians, but which helped to solve one of the nation's most pressing prob- lems. It was the interest Townshend and Walpole took in farming that introduced new methods into England's agriculture. Townshend gained from his favorite theme the pleasant nickname of Turnips Townshend. When in 1730 Wal- pole finally overthrew his brother-in-law, and took his place as sole leader, Townshend retired with joy to teach England the mystery of crop rotation and continental methods of raising stock for the market. Walpole also thoroughly understood prac- 20 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS tical management of liis estates, and his hold over the Tory squire was not a little due to thorough sympathy with many of his most cherished ideals. He was able to identify him- self both with the commerce of England to which he promised peace, and with the Tory gentry to whom he was akin by the manner of his life, and by the quiet protection he gave them during the difficult period of England's agricultural recon- struction. This moderation of Walpole's whole adminis- tration ; the spirit of tolerance he preached and established; the fashion of scouting intense feeling, and scoffing at all but practical and ob- vious ambitions, affected English life, already largely swallowed up in its increasing prosper- ity. The South Sea Bubble of 1720 and its collapse left English life deeply infected by the speculative and trading spirit. Those who had never felt any interest in, or even cherished a positive hostility to, the increasing commercial character of the English people were caught in the trading mania, and no reaction completely undid the work thus begun. The religious life of the opening years of the eighteenth century was deeply affected by this complete change in the character of the farming population. Re- ligion centred about the parish church, and while the population was fixed the influence was INTRODUCTORY 21 fairly steady. But the arrangements of the parochial system broke largely down under the changed conditions. "Wesley's father had ter- rible experiences with the half-savage inhabi- tants of Epworth, where his manse was finally burnt down by the mob. Nor was this a soli- tary instance. No great industrial change is possible without suffering, and the ecclesiastical arrangements had made poor provision for these changes. As Lecky has pointed out, the Revo- lution of 1688 was largely a movement of the town population and the trading classes against the landed gentry of England. The great Whig leaders, and not the Church, formed the body of mediation. The Established Church was bit- terly against the new conditions, and lost by her bigotry a splendid vantage ground. For this reason Dissent claimed a large proportion of these new factors in England's coming great- ness. Happily for England and the Establish- ^ ment the Whig leaders also saw the need of conciliating the Church, and of moderating its tone. But in doing this there was introduced into ecclesiastical leadership an unwholesome worldly moderatism, that stifled real faith, and reduced the spiritual zeal. One of the weighty spiritual influences of this period we dare not overlook, namely the Non- jurors ; partly because of the effect in a general 22 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS way of all sincere sacrifice, but more particular- ly because of the direct historic connection be- tween all phases of the religious movement and these Nonjuror theologians. The Nonjurors were the spiritual children of a past period of English religious life. Lathbury, in his ex- ceedingly partisan history of them, urges that the bishops of the church who wanted William to come to England, really wanted him only as a regent. When William and Mary ascend- ed to the throne, Bancroft, Archbishop of Can- terbury ; Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; Tumm, Bishop of Ely ; Erampton of Glouces- ter ; Lloyd of Norwich ; White of Peterborough ; Thomas of Worcester ; Lake of Chichester, and Cartwright of Chester, nine in all, refused the oath of allegiance. Of these, three died during the year, leaving the battle to the famous six nonjuring divines. The history of their opinions brings into strong light the real character of much of the teaching in the Established Church and demonstrates how entirely the anti-Protes- tant element has been underestimated as a fac- tor in it. The influence of the Nonjurors was wide and deep. They had suffered for their convictions, and they were in many cases men of marked ability. Writing, teaching, medicine, and law received many of them, and thus they contribu- INTRODUCTORY 23 ted to a deepening of English lay life, as in their sincerity they carried their convictions with them into retirement. They attempted to per- petuate a schism in the Church, and even made overtures to the Greek Church for reunion. Save, however, in opposition to the Establish- ment and hatred of Dissenters they seem to have had little unity of opinion. They in fact split twice into factions, and waged intense war with one another on many minor points of canonical law and doubtful episcopal history. Naturally they remained poor, and unable there- fore to buy books they were apt to settle down near libraries. Oxford was most favorable to them in sentiment ; hence well up to John Wes- ley's days they were strongly represented among the haunters of the libraries there, and this ac- counts in some measure for Oxford's reaction- ary attitude later on. But they had nothing to do with nonconfor- mity in its non-episcopal branches. Persecu- tion does not of necessity check, but it does narrow and harden. One might suppose that the easy indulgence of the days after Queen Anne would have encouraged both the Non- jurors and the other Dissenters. But the Non- jurors died out under it, and there is some evidence that goes to show that Walpole's policy did dissent more injury than Bolingbroke's per- 24 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS secution. The nominal restrictions and real im- munity granted to Dissenters was demoralizing in the extreme. If anything tended to low views of the sacrament surely the making of them, as Cowper says, " a pick-lock to office " was that most fitted to do so. Walpole never cared to rouse the Tory squire and parson by repealing the acts passed against nonconfor- mity, but he winked at all violations and passed an annual act of indemnity. He was no doubt partly afraid of the contest, and partly saw no difference in the way the thing was done if only it were done. But the moral results must have been bad in the extreme. No one felt exactly satisfied, but no one felt actually abused. Tory churchmen sulked and made no effort to understand the new conditions. Whig church- men found latitudinarianism the best title to place, nor did they realize at all keenly the changes going on about them. Dissent was satisfied by repeated acts of indemnity which saved it from the martyr's crown, but checked also the martyr's zeal. The non jurors were suspected and left more or less helpless. Wal- pole was in so far a splendid politician. His nature was coarse, his ambitions low, his ideals false ; but he had the political instinct and the unswerving purpose of the English country gentleman, with a power of setting forth his INTRODUCTORY 25 side of the case that made him a match for far more brilliant men ; and he saw some things clearly that neither the throne nor even the more ambitious Whigs were willing to see. He realized the need of peace. He realized the strain upon the country of the Revolution, and desired beyond all things to moderate the pas- sions— religious, social, and political — to which the long struggle with the throne and foreign interference had given rise. He was unscrupu- lous in his employment of means. From the King to the humble dissenting commoner he made money do his work. And in so far the country squire was a thorough democrat : he was willing to bribe even the humblest, and valued all support in pounds and shillings or half- pence as the case might be. But England was really resting and not sleeping. The ways and means of " Turnips Townshend " and Walpole were well adapted for giving England the basis for a farther economic advance. Nor did Wal- pole stand as most country squires stood, in the way of commerce, but, on the contrary, advanced the cause of freer trade conditions. He protec- ted the colonies and understood the wisdom there of his general let-alone policy. Problems, however, were becoming pressing whose range and character the rough coarse- grained hunting Norfolk squire was no more 2C ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS fitted to deal with than would an honest country boor be fitted to educate a bright and sensitive child. The town population was growing ever more rapidly. The social strain and popular discon- tent were also increasing. A class was rising in England a description of which finds little place in the witty letters of Horace Walpole, and no worthy recognition in the literature of the period. The court was gay, corrupt, heart- less, and increasingly dull. The coarseness of speech and manners needs no illustration to those familiar with Thackeray's description of the four Georges in his famous lectures. A readjustment of England's forces was taking place. The old yeoman class, for instance, was disappearing. Many causes for this may be as- signed. Larger areas and more capital were now required to meet the demands of more skil- ful farming. Wealth was increasing, and as land was the expression for social station it had therefore an artificial value beyond its earning capacity. Much land was being absorbed by the growing towns, so that although enclosure acts added to the total acreage under tillage, yet the chief effect was to ruin small copyholders and the freeholders or very small yeomen by de- priving them of common and bringing them into sharp competition with the cheaper wholesale INTRODUCTORY 27 farming. So that although the nation as a whole was better fed, a class of which England had always been proud suffered sadly. The result of all this was felt by the Estab- lished Church. There were no adequate pro- visions for the increasing town population, and the increasing number of tithe complaints showed the disarrangement of the parochial system. Town life began to exert its inevitable fasci- nation over the minds of men because of the essentially social character of men. Yet it is easy to see from experiences in our own day what the demoralization must have been when ignorant healthy country lads were poured into towns and cities, whose coarseness of life and utter recklessness in morals have been too well portrayed to us in the pages of Defoe, Fielding, Swift, and Smollett. There is no concealing the fact that the reigns of George I and II, were, amidst increasing prosperity, years of moral and religious decline. Philanthropy, as the word is now understood, was non-existent, although individual kindness happily never died out. A few individuals like Berkeley and Oglethorpe and some Quakers kept alive better ideals and strove against the stream. The influence of the Court, of the aristocracy, and even of Queen Caroline, was bad and demoralizing. 28 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Only one aspect of the national life was socially hopeful. England's union as a nation was being completed. The passions of religious and political strife were being allayed. Wai- pole was at least successful in binding the nation together in common comparative indifference to everything spiritual and savoring of enthu- siasm. He kept peace at home and abroad before the nation as an aim worth striving for. And the years of peace after the exhaustion produced by the wars of William were most grateful. The very evil of a national debt made the union of England more sure. Holders of consols that would almost certainly have been repudiated by the Stuarts had they come to the throne, were made thereby somewhat less Jacobite in their feelings. Yet on the whole the condition of both Church and nation was lamentable. There were good men in the Church and able men in the nation. William Law was not the only faithful upholder of purer traditions, nor was Oglethorpe the only far-seeing well-wisher of his country. But the whole tone of life was low, coarse, and material. Nor was established Christianity in a position to affect the social regeneration needed without great changes in her tone and spirit. The Tory clergy, in constant contact with the INTRODUCTORY 29 country squire, remained still loyal to worn-out traditions. They hated popery too heartily to throw their weight without reserve upon the side of the Pretender; they at the same time never warmly welcomed the Hanoverian suc- cession. The high stations in the ecclesiastical world were therefore filled by the few favorites of the Whigs, and these were powerless for the most part to influence the lower clergy, who despised them, had they even possessed the ambition to try to do so. Never were the evils of church patronage so patent, never did men think so lightly of those evils. Walpole scarcely disguised his contempt for his ecclesiastical creations, and the first two Georges seldom troubled themselves as Anne had done with the power of church patronage. George ITs favor- ite, Lady Yarmouth, sold in an ingenious way a bishopric to a clergyman for £5,000. He made a bet with her that he would not be made a Bishop and as, of course, he lost he paid her in full.* Men ceased to be servants for the sake of Christ and became lackeys for the sake of gold. The devout and earnest Tory church- men, of whom there were not a few, had no influence with the Whig population of the towns, and the ambitious latitudinarian prelacy too often only influenced it for ill. Walpole * Related by Thackeray in The Four Georges. 30 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS compensated the dissenters for the disabilities he refused to remove, by weakening in every way the Tory churchmen who might oppose his annual acts of indemnity. In spite of greatly increasing population no new parishes were projected. Bishops at times scarce knew the limits of their dioceses, and the system of pluralities left whole districts in the power of absentees. The exhaustion of the Revolution extended itself to theological controversy, and no better enthusiasm than theological contro- versy took its place. Many Dissenters were won to the Establishment by the tolerance in its leaders, and others finding its advantages from a worldly point of view considerable, placed no obstacles in the way of the conversion of their children. The sincere but narrow and nu- merically small band of nonjurors were slowly disappearing, and with them was vanishing the last evidences of the fierce political bitterness that vigorously opposed the Protestant succes- sion. The chief religious struggle of the period of Queen Anne and the first years of the Hano- verian succession was the controversy with the Deists. This battle was carried on with great intellectual ability between Hobbes, Boling- broke, Blount, Shaftesbury, Hume, Toland, and Collins on the one side, with Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648) as the chief inspiration INTRODUCTORY 31 to the movement ; while on the other Wai-bur- ton (Legation of Moses, 1738), Berkeley, Butler (1692-1752), Hutcheson (1694-1746), and Clarke made equally able defences of theism. The dis- pute lasted on long after the religious revival had begun, but on the whole seems to have had little to do with it. It was Germany and France that felt that influence most. The real weakness of the deist party was less the inadequacy of their arguments than the general moral tone of their lives. It is extremely doubtful if the able defence made was either understood or much studied by the mass of even thinking Englishmen. Men's minds were in profound confusion. Religion was not differ- entiated from theological opinion and both had been once considered important as state matters. Now a change took place. Ever since Crom- well's time the difficulty of maintaining a logical position between the conflicting claims of relig- ion, liberty, and the state had been too repeat- edly emphasized by violence and party passion not to leave men weary of even the considera- tion of some of these claims. The Tory party that had preached extreme opinions on the sub- ject of the sacredness of the throne was in a bad plight when the Georges were conceded undisputed possession, and all the appoint- ments were given to the Whig partisans. The 32 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS practical outcome of Whig rule and William's toleration was the acceptance by the mass of men of the notion that religion was a private matter, and not much matter at that. Men's energies were gladly given to other activities than theological wrangling. The literary activi- ties of Queen Anne's day had stirred England. Philosophy and history claimed the talents and the time of the better class of even devouter churchmen. Toleration became identical in the minds of educated men with latitudinarianism. Bishops cared not to protest against the corrup- tions of the Court that had created them ; and Tory churchmen dared scarce attack the man- ners of the King, while men suspected them of attempts to undermine his throne. Hence scandals passed unrebuked that established for the world of fashion a standard as low as that of the French court, with an added coarseness. It lacked but little and the rising industrial class, estranged by political differences from the more earnest of the clergy, and betrayed in large measure by the court favorites in prefer- ment, would have drifted as hopelessly away from all religious leadership as did the third estate in the history of France. Moreover, in the reaction against the intol- erable tyranny of the Church, and in violent opposition to extreme opinions foisted on Chris- INTRODUCTORY 33 tianit y by narrow-minded and often self-seeking ecclesiastics, many of the well-minded and intel- ligent people welcomed the attacks now made freely under the protection of toleration upon Christianity. Thus the early years of Wai- pole's ministry mark probably the lowest point to which the cause of organized religion in Eng- land may be said to have fallen. Oxford plays so important a part in the whole awakening of English life that some account of its condition at the close of George II's reign must be given. Yet it is exceedingly difficult to correctly estimate the moral and spiritual con- ditions existing there. The older dominance of independent ministers had been long shaken off, and Tory and Jacobite sympathies were al- most openly confessed. The religious atmos- phere seems to have been largely nominal. The scholarship was low, though not so low as at Cambridge. Chesterfield speaks of the "ob- scurity " into which Cambridge at this time had fallen. It was from this stand-point, no doubt, that Gibbon judged Oxford so severely. He went out from her disappointed, ever to mourn the days spent there as wasted time. On the other hand, Dr. Samuel Johnson held in pro- foundest reverence the halls of Oxford, and par- ticularly his "own nest of singing birds" in Pembroke College. Gibbon wrote, "To the 34: ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS University of Oxford I acknowledge no obliga- tions, and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother."* The other extreme criticism comes from the Methodists, who saw in Oxford only students wasting time in rioting and ill living. Very surely it was not right or nice for the uni- versity to discourage Wesley and his friends ; but, on the other hand, a great deal of the abuse was no doubt provoked by a very excessive and objectionable priggishness. Indeed, one must conclude that Oxford, from the stand-point of her highest possibilities, fell far below the meas- ure men had a right to expect of her, but that, on the other hand, in spite of all her faults, like the English Constitution, she did her work far better than anyone had any reason to hope it would be done, for her disadvantages were very great. One of the unfortunate features of the Res- toration was the placing of an actual premium upon dissipation. To be a " gentleman " it was necessary to forswear even the virtues for which Puritanism had stood, as well as its narrowness and bigotry. Hence Tory Oxford undoubtedly degenerated in both morals and manners. It is not necessary to accept the exceedingly severe criticisms of the early Methodists upon the ir- * Quoted by Andrew Lang. INTRODUCTORY 35 religion of Oxford in order to form a very low opinion of the general life. The doctrines of the Reformation were no longer fashionable, even as contained in the thirty-nine articles, and drinking and gaming were all too common. The regular attendance of the early Methodists upon the sacraments brought down the scorn of the whole university upon them, and consider- ing Oxford's religious professions, and the zeal with which the same undergraduates gladly " rabbled " a Dissenting meeting-house, this conduct cannot be excused even on the basis of undoubted priggishness on the part of the Meth- odists ; yet Oxford was still the home of some of the noblest traditions of English life. Soon the spark was to touch England that had been kindled at her altars, and the flame of religious devotion was to enwrap the life of the nation, whose proudest memories may well centre about the home and birthplace of so much that is best in her spiritual and intellectual life. But in the day of which we speak she shared the spiritual and intellectual depression with all England. "Whigs and Tories were still fanatical within her bounds. Conflicts were common between the two opposing political opinions, and the churchly character of Oxford gave the Tory party a more or less steady preponderance. That the intellectual level was low is the evi- 36 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS dence of all. Chesterfield, Adam Smith, Gib- bon, and the "Wesleys have but one opinion on this point. The fellows and professors took no interest in the students, and the heads of houses could only now and then be stirred to either discipline or zeal for a reformation. The stu- dents were wild partisans, and ready to " mob " a dissenter or obnoxious Whig, but drinking, gaming, and loose living were the rule, and so- briety marked out anyone, save, perhaps, a poor servitor, for contempt and ridicule. Universi- ties are intellectual aristocracies, and any aris- tocracy is jealous of its position and highly conservative if not actually reactionary. The churchly character of Oxford's aristocracy gave still farther strength to this feeling. Thus it happened that the university failed to recognize even influences she greatly strengthened, and gave, unwittingly, support only to movements she opposed. Cambridge was ever more toler- ant in her spirit, but she also committed the same faults. And although later in her history she spared Kowland Hill, yet circumstances other than her inherent tolerance probably in- duced her to do so. Some of the older authorities were, however, still doing their work. There is no absolute break in the long succession of great names that adorn both the established and the nonconform- INTRODUCTORY 37 ing churches. Yet a strange lethargy overtook the religious world, and amidst rising material pros- perity on every hand, amidst the favoring in- fluences of peace abroad and toleration at home, amidst the awakening influences of a growing commerce and an agricultural revolution, the cause of organized religion failed to secure men's sympathy or to influence men's lives. New aims began to occupy men, and new opinions to lay hold of their imaginations. New needs pressed home by growing population, and the increasing problems of domestic concern made men restless. The stout country gentleman of rough common-sense, utterly lacking in both idealism and imagination, had played his part. A new era was dawning for England. New wants, little understood by either the Whig leaders of the prevailing type or the Tory leaders of the past, were preparing the way for a change in English thought and English man- ners. Quiet influences of which the ordinary historian takes little note were at work. Sin- cere and godly foreign artisans, German and French, were at work infusing new spiritual as well as artistic spirit into the life of the com- munities where they settled. A common hunger for better things began to make itself felt. This was evidenced in many ways. The re- ligious rising called for men to guide it ; and 38 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS these reacted and gave definite character to the rising of the spiritual life. The signs of the coming movement were already at hand during the last twelve years of Walpole's administra- tion after he had shaken off Townshend to govern alone QJ330-42). For instance in Wales the movement had already started and gained good headway under Griffith Jones, and that before ever the Methodist movement of Oxford was heard of there. Defoe marked one hun- dred and thirty-six charity schools in London in 1747. The state of prisons had received at- tention in Parliament. Keforms were being forever pressed on the unwilling Walpole. The people had already picked out their future political champion. The manners of street and court and home began to attract attention. All classes began to feel the need of something that had drifted out of life. The very scepti- cism to which Butler and Warburton had been making replies awoke in men's hearts the ques- tioning that wrangles and disputes had stilled. Good men began to battle in unknown places like Epworth with the darkness about them. The dreary platitude of the majority of the pul- pits left men hungry for more real teaching. The manners at court shocked the feelings of the sober middle class. This was in some respects very fortunate for Parliament and its steady INTRODUCTORY 39 development, because to it the people now looked for guidance, and the throne left domes- tic affairs wholly alone. At the same time the outrageous corruption which Walpole's creatures had reduced to a fine art rendered men restless, for they had been taught submission to a king but not to a purchased majority. The pamphlets of the days of Walpole's last administration show beneath all that was fractious and unreasonable a steady appeal to better though half -forgotten traditions, and to a moral temper in the Eng- lish people, which amid many wanderings and aberrations has yet given tone and character to the nation's development. LECTURE n. THE METHODIST MOVEMENT ENGLAND'S lethargy was soon to be broken. In 1730 while Walpole was ridding himself of his brother-in-law Townshend, all Oxford was reading William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, which had been published the year before. All great movements inevitably centre sooner or later about great names; but this movement was already in the air. The hunger of an unfed spiritual life, the restless discontent with unreality, the weary seeking for some highest good was felt in very many quarters, in many different ways. The Moravian brethren in London were mak- ing converts to their rather complicated and im- practical doctrine and discipline. The Welsh revival was well under way. The scenes at Ep- worth were, no doubt, more characteristic than is to-day easily proved, of many faithful parish ministers now utterly unknown who were try- ing to do their whole religious duty. To thirsty spirits Law's appeal was a cry to come to the springs of living water. Hundreds heard the 40 THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 41 appeal, and came and drank. William Law had ceased in 1717 to act as a clergyman, and lived in a quiet and religious seclusion as direc- tor of souls to two elderly women of some means. His work inspires intellectual religious admiration. To this Serious Call Dr. Samuel Johnson owed his awakened spiritual life. The passage is familiar where he says, " I then be- came a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it ; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered. When at Oxford, I took up Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are) and per- haps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an over-match for me ; and this was the first occa- sion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational inquiry." " From this time onward," remarks Boswell, "religion was the predominant object of his thoughts." * And again he says, " He much commended Law's Serious Call which, he said, was the finest piece of hortatory theology in any lan- guage." f Law influenced men by his appeal to the slumbering and scattered religious ener- gies of England. Not many followed him in * Boawell, Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson^ p. 13. Malone's Edition. \Ibid., p. 175. 42 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS his views of authority ; fewer still accepted his vague and ascetic mysticism learnt from Bohme. But many heard his cry to come into real and not nominal fellowship with God. Many awoke to consider the whole question of life, religion, God, and the message and work of Christ Jesus. Keble once said long after to Froude, "Froude, you thought Law's Serious Call was a clever book; it seems to me as if you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight." * The profound impression made by Law, and the new interest in religion that awoke men's hearts in England gave rise not to one set of opinions but to many, not to one ritual but to many forms ; not to one organiza- tion but to many organizations. It was very natural that the work should first find a hear- ing in Oxford — the home of Nonjuring theology which was distinctly High Church in its tradi- tions and sympathies. As early as the Convocation in 1702 the Established Church was commonly divided into two parties called High Church and Low Church.t The Oxford Methodists be- longed distinctly to the High Church party. They communicated weekly at Christ Church * Quoted by Dean Church, The Oxford Movement, London, 1892, p. 29. t Burnet, History of Our Own Times^ Vol. II., p. 318. THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 43 and laid great emphasis upon the rubrics and canons. They fasted twice a week, upon Wed- nesday and Friday. Clayton evidently held that " an outward sacrifice " was offered at the communion. They religiously observed saints' days. They all held the nonjuror doctrines of apostolic succession and of the power of the priest to forgive sin. Wesley, late in life, en- forced penance and confession. Some of the Nonjurors had maintained the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and this was held as an opinion by at least one of the Oxford Metho- dists. They all were inclined to believe any baptism invalid save as administered by Episco- pal authority. And Wesley ruined his influence in Georgia by his insistance upon rigid obser- vance of the rubrics of the prayer-book, and his upholding, perhaps quite unduly and certainly unwisely, his dignity as a priest. " It was in November, 1729," writes John Wesley,* "four young gentlemen of Oxford, Mr. John Wesley, fellow of Lincoln College ; Mr. Charles Wesley, student of Christ Church; Mr. Morgan, com- moner of Christ Church, and Mr. Kirkham, of Merton College, began to spend some evenings in a week together in reading, chiefly the Greek Testament." Others joined the group, which varied in size. Fasting, prayer, and visiting the * Works, Vol. VIII. , p. 334. 44 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Castle, where felons were confined, or Bocardo, where debtors lay, were the accepted means of grace, together with the weekly sacrament. There was no intended departure from the An- glican Church, but no very profound study of either her history or of her ideals, least of all was there any attempt to master the vast ranges of theological opinion that have, from time to time, found a hospitable welcome under her roof, or even dominated her councils. It so happened that the Church of England at the time of Wesley's early activity was mildly Ar- minian in her thinking, in spite of the decided Calvinism of her articles. Thus it happened that mild Arminianism became Wesley's work- ing creed. The caricature of Calvinism which he attacked in his later career in his controversy with Whitefield, Toplady, and Kowland Hill and others, and which, alas, was as unthinkingly de- fended by them, was really all Wesley seems to have known of Calvin and his real views. Wes- ley describes once his horror at stumbling upon the Canons of Dort in the Bodleian Library, and writes : " But what a scene is here disclosed ! I won- der not at the heavy curse of God, which so soon after fell on our church and nation. What a pity it is, that the Holy Synod of Trent and that of Dort did not sit at the same time ; nearly THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 45 allied as they were, not only as to the purity of doctrine [the italics are ours] which each of them established, but also as to the spirit wherewith they acted, if the latter did not exceed." * But it never seems to have occurred to this omnivorous reader to consult Calvin himself to see whether the Synod of Dort truly represented either Calvinism or Calvin's spirit. In fact there is no more painful chapter in the history of the evangelical revival than its theological disputings, and no more obvious fact to any thoughtful student of the early move- ment than its theological barrenness. Even the simpler theological distinctions were confound- ed by the early teachings of John "Wesley and Whitefield. "Wesley confounded justification by faith with sanctification. And although his own sound common-sense saved him person- ally from extravagances, had the Methodist movement been an intellectual movement in the same sense that the Eeformation was, there would have been just the same outbreaks of fanaticism and theological extravagances with which Luther had to deal. Nor is it without significance that the great body of Methodists who received so permanent an impress of that mighty spirit, although split into great numbers * Journal^ July, 1741, p. 215. 46 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS of bodies by various disputes, have never been troubled by theological quarrels. The disputes have been about administration and ritual, or real or supposed departures from the primitive simplicity of manner and life. Wesleyan Meth- odism neither began under theological inspira- tion, nor furnished it. And it must also be noted that it was the followers of Whitefield and not Whitefield himself who exalted the the- ological disputations which so injured the New Connection of Lady Huntingdon. Whitefield himself asked that Wesley should preach his funeral sermon. Nor can anything be sweeter than the drawing together of the two men after the first heat had subsided. Whitefield is said to have been asked by a bigoted follower of Calvinistic pretensions if he thought that they would meet Wesley in heaven. " Nay," said Whitefield, "John Wesley will be so near the throne, that I doubt if we often even catch a glimpse of him. " It needs only a simple read- ing of Wesley's sermon in reply to "Whitefield to see that both men were thoroughly out of their element in the controversy which separated their followings, and which vexed sadly the course of the religious awakening. The success of the Arminian Methodists no more stamps their loose theological thinking with heaven's seal of approval than the comparative failure of Calvin- THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 47 istic Methodism would lead us to question the intellectual value of Calvinism. John Wesley believed in witchcraft ; used the lot ; decided questions by opening the Bible and reading the top verse of the page ; thought J hysteria was possession by evil spirits. Every / event in his life was a miraculous intervention, from the stopping of a headache to the ceasing of rain that he might preach. His thorough knowledge of the Bible was yet utterly uncriti- cal even in the sense of that word in his own day. He had a splendid mind, was a sound classical scholar, an omnivorous reader, and an amusing and original literary critic. He had picked up German, French, Italian and even a little Spanish, not thoroughly, but so that he could use them practically. But he was neither fond of nor given to exhausting a topic in search of fundamental principles. His. life and habit were based upon experience. Every in- novation was thrust upon him as a result of ex- perience. He objected to field-preaching until experiences with Whitefield taught him its use. He disliked the " class system " until experience with the Moravian brethren led him to adopt it. His own mother argued with him against stop- ping lay preaching, and only when she touched upon her experience of the practical effect did "Wesley yield. He never thought through the 48 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS physical manifestations, which at first he en- couraged, and then discouraged; not because he had any explanation or any settled convictions in regard to them, but because experience led him to act at first favorably and then unfavor- ably. That such a man was raised up was God's great goodness to England. As a leader, organizer, preacher, a cheerful, constant, patient but despotic ruler Wesley was just what the awakening needed. But to expect from this restless energy, this unceasing preacher, any serious contribution to the theological work of such men as Burnet, Stillingfleet, and Tillotson, would be irrational. "Wesley was amusingly ar- gumentative. Indeed Isaac Taylor justly says, "If he had been less argumentative and less categorical, and more meditative, he would have set Wesleyan Methodism on a broader theolog- ical foundation." * The revival was not theo- >/ logical in its early phases, it was practical. The disputes of the deists had not reached the mining population of Kingswood, nor had the able defence of Eevelation greatly changed the attitude of the leisure classes toward so- cial righteousness and individual purity and un- selfishness. If the theological and doctrinal side of "Wes- ley's teachings was not the strongest, with ten- * Wesley and Methodism, p. 36. THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 49 fold force may it be said that Whitefield was injured rather than helped by the doctrinal statements to which he attached importance. As between Wesley's Arminianism and White- field's Calvinism, if it were necessary to choose, it were better in respect to Calvin's memory to take the Arminianism. Eowland Hill, Laving- ton, and Toplady substituted abuse for argu- ment, and, it is needless to add, brought no new light therefore to the solution of the pure- ly philosophical question involved. The fact of the matter was that the interest in the question •was not really theological at all as far as Wes- ley went, but purely social, ethical, and practi- cal. He thought antinomianism was bound up in the caricatures of Calvinism he had learned from the seventeenth century men, and attacked it accordingly. Nor can we think it aught but a tender providence that kept the imperious temper of Wesley from accepting the theology of Dort as a basis for his religious development, when even the sweet temper of Toplady was so soured by it that he seriously debates the ques- tion of the salvation of an Arminian. " I must question," he writes, " whether a man that dies an Arminian can go to heaven." * As this dic- tum would have excluded the vast majority of * Quoted by Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. II., p. 65. 4 50 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS English Christians at that time, one is glad to remember that Toplady was then only thirty and had not yet written Rock of Ages cleft for me ! The Calvinistic wing of the Metho- dist Movement never made any advance on Owen's theology, at its best, and fell far below it at its worst. Indeed if any cause is to be assigned for the relative barrenness of the Cal- vinistic Methodists everywhere, save in Wales, it is to be sought, not indeed in their theology, but in their theological disputations, which swallowed up the energies better devoted to practical piety by those whom they assailed. Fortunately Wesley set the good example of taking little part in the disputations that raged, and that part was based solely on the supposed connection between the extreme Calvinism of some and the moral looseness that early began to mark the societies founded by the Methodist workers. His remarks (1770) were followed by the unhappy division that greatly weakened the religious influence of the revival. Nor was the success of the movement to be traced to even the proper emphasis upon ac- cepted truths. The great religious experiences that had constant emphasis were also mingled with appeals that, now at least, even the most evangelical teachers do not make. Physical terrors and physical joys play not a small part THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 51 in the appeals of the early days, and inferences might be legitimately drawn from much of the preaching that would result in the identification of the feelings with the will. The fact that William Law was the inspira- v' tion to the Methodist movement, and remained so long its guide and friend, points plainly to the fact that the evangelical revival was practical and neither theological nor ritualistic. Never did any man have a more nebulous theology, never did any man less understand the historical ritual development of the Established Church. Wesley was himself impatient of opinions. " I found him," he writes of a Calvin istic op- ponent, " rigorously tenacious of the uncondi- tional decrees. O that opinions should sepa- . rate chief friends ! This is bigotry all over. " * And again he writes, and the passage is a very significant one, "I would wish all to observe, that the points in question between us and either the German or the English antinomians are not points of opinion, but of practice [italics ours]. We break with no man for his opinion. We think and let think." f That this seems often to have been held rather as a counsel of perfection was due to Wesley's imperious tem- per and the unfortunate spirit of the times. * Journal, April. 1746. f Ibid., May, 1745, Vol. I., p. 336. 52 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS But nothing needs more emphasis at the very outset of our inquiry into the character of the religious revival than the fact that its signifi- cance was not theological. The little Methodist group never agreed on their theology. Gambold was Moravian to the end of his days, and Wesley thought that he hid his light there under a bushel. Ingham founded his own sect based upon some half- understood dogmas he gained from Sandeman and Glass, two Scotchmen whom the Established Church of Scotland had expelled. John Clay- ton began as a High Church ritualist and never changed his views. "Whitefield was Calvinist, as he understood the term, to the last. Nor was its organization the reason of its strength and sweep. If we find the origin of the theology in the thinking of the day, so also the organization of the movement was loose, unpremeditated, and in many ways far short of ideal, and sprang from its immediate circumstances. 'The organiza- tions that sprang up out of the revival may have been, indeed certainly were, needed to preserve its fruit. They were evils, though less evils than would have been the leaving of the gathered flocks unshepherded. The Moravians brought from Germany the idea of a Church within the Church for its salvation. John Wesley accepted THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 53 this in the main, but with no clear idea of what it would lead to. Charles had misgivings, and Samuel objected, but true to the energetic, yet practical character that gave John Wesley power, he never faced the real issue, and even when or- daining and establishing a church in America he clung to the old Moravian idea in England. His classes and financial plans grew out of the experiences of his work, not out of his theories or his ideals of organization. Nor was it much otherwise with the " connections " and the chapels. Only the law compelled them to face the question of whether they were within the Established Church or not. It is useless to consider the question of what other steps the new movement might have taken than that of founding chapels and starting schools and laying the foundations for elaborate future or- ganizations. As a matter of fact these things were forced upon them by the hostility or in- ertness of the existing religious organizations. Nonconformity was as hostile to the new life as the Established Church. And as for Quakers, Wesley speaks constantly of them as the com- panions in his mind of infidels and " Papists." By the time Wesley had grown old and to him and the better class among his followers all churches were open, the divisions were too great, the lack of sympathy had done its work 54 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS too effectively for the newer organizations to ever surrender their place and be absorbed by the parent bodies whose hostility had necessitated their formation. But these organizations were great elements of weakness ; their quarrels, dis- putings, and expense cost the movement some of its best life, and soon Dissent and the Estab- lishment, from their vantage points of history and continuity, not only easily were able to hold their own against the newer organizations, but even to successfully resist, and, in some in- stances, to absorb them. The older organizations compelled the newer ones gradually to modify their methods in many instances most materially. The spirit of inde- pendent organization, however, had a wide in- direct influence, and, later on, was of important social significance through the training it gave many for future political action. At the same time no one can ever hope to revive the enthu- siasm that made all things new in England by simply returning to these forms of organization, however useful in the past. The power of the organization was the new life of which they were the imperfect signs, and in no way were they the causes of the revitalizing of England. This may be seen in the history of the evan- gelical party which remained within the older lines, and did its work in large measure on *en- THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 55 tirely a different plan. The religious move- ment was essentially different from a simple re- vival of traditions, either of doctrine or ritual. It was far more than a " return " to past suc- cesses in either field. The spiritual quickening that took form in the Tractarian movement cannot be considered here, but it is enough to point out that the High Church ritualism was nearly all present in the Church as an active force when the evangeli- calism against which the Tractariaus protested was having the largest spiritual power over the Church. But it did not then make headway as it did later against the simpler form. The essence of the revival was therefore not a set of opinions nor a system of theology, nor yet some special type of churchly organization or ecclesiastical government, nor was it a reversion to older ritual and past authority. Of course, all the leaders thought their suc- cess depended upon the particular thing they emphasized. Whitefield considered his poor edition of Calvinism essential, and yet Wesley did as large a work with his Arminianism. Count Zinzendorf regarded the ecclesiastical ritual he had carefully invented as essential to the missionary success it in truth rather hin- dered than helped. Much of the weakness and of the unnecessary opposition discovered in the 56 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS early stages can be traced to these misjudg- ments. The Methodists came to parishes where were godly men alive to the situation in Eng- land, but who found themselves treated as en- tirely outside salvation and without hope in the world. This tendency became even more marked after the wiser leaders were away. The catch- words of the awakening, some true, some false, and mostly half true and half false, became the touchstone on which the metal in the pulpit was tried. If these party shibboleths were not pro- nounced as the ears of the new movement had grown accustomed to hear them spoken, then at once all faith in the speaker's "evangelical soundness " was lost. It mattered not that many of these phrases, like the metal coin that sometimes comes into our hands, had lost all real semblance to the image first set forth. These theological and religious phrases hardened into a most narrow and offensive type of scholasti- cism, so that severe as has been the treatment of the evangelical movement by superficial writ- ers yet the second growth of evangelical scholas- ticism certainly deserved much of the condem- nation. Deeper than either its organizations with inherent defects and unhistoric traditions, mightier than either its theological phrases or its religious opinions, ran the current of power on which English society floated safely past THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 57 rocks and shoals where other nations floundered and made sad shipwreck. This power was di- vine emphasis upon personal piety and social salvation. This fact is still more clearly seen when one considers the history of the Church of England after the awakening had really touched English life. Out of the loins of the evangelical revival H sprang schools of thought so entirely different from any to which early evangelicalism was ac- customed, that it did not and could not recog- nize its own offspring. Yet historically it is easy to trace the bond that binds together all the varied phases of the one great evangelical or religious movement. Nor will we here at- tempt to mark the common lines of thought that undoubtedly did run through all the discussion. Sin, grace, redemption, and the world's salva- tion formed common themes. But when men came to the matter of definition then the schools went far apart. Broad Church theology laid no such emphasis upon inherited guilt as did evangelicalism, and the Oxford men differed completely from the other two parties in the means of grace and the results of redemption. The Salvation Army represents to-day the same restless discontent with the comparative inactiv- ity of Protestantism, and admirably reproduces some of the longings, and many of the troubles 5S ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS that formed the intense and storm-tossed life of the early evangelical revival. Its interest was in no degree theological, and its unchurchly at- titude was the natural reaction from the recep- tion it received at first from the hands of the churches, and the evidence of the discontent that first sent it forth. And the Chapel was in the same category as the Church, for both represented about the same level of religious aspiration and spiritual enthusiasm. The homes and family histories of those who have brought the Salvation Army to its present position and power, connect it directly with the two wings of the evangelical revival that may be conven- iently designated the Methodist and the church- ly evangelical party, and admirably illustrate the earlier movement. The organization pre- sents as little that is novel as its theology. The uniforms and titles are but other manifesta- tions of the same spirit that led the early Metho- dists to separate themselves from " the world,'* by conspicuous plainness of dress, and by a form of government verging on despotism. It was characteristic of the social character of the Methodist movement that its leaders instinctively turned away from the quietism that corrupted the doctrine of the Moravians in England. "Wesley broke abruptly from them because he more or less distinctly felt the anti- THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 59 social character of such teaching. In excessive emphasis upon salvation by faith Moravian teachers in England denounced works and in- sisted upon quiet waiting for those blessings which Wesley knew came only with active ser- vice. At the time he quarrelled with his old teacher Law, Wesley was utterly unfit to hold his own in controversy with him, and the dis- pute as it comes down to us inspires us with great respect for the character as well as the in- tellect of Law. At the same time Wesley was again instinctively right. Law's mysticism was of the contemplative monastic type, against which all that was practical and religious in Wesley protested, although he quite wrongly made doctrinal statement the basis of his pro- test. The little band of Oxford Methodists were united, not by their doctrines, but in their pray- ers, devotions, and practical charity. The early scenes at the debtor's prison, the Bocardo, a room over the north gate of Oxford city, the teaching of little children and the visits to the poor at the Castle mark the real bond of fellow- ship that unites them all in the mind of the Christian world to-day as the founders of a new and more Christian state of things in English religious life. Ecclesiasticism has been too much inclined to 60 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS compound with the world, and in exchange for recognition and support to surrender the social life to politics and to pleasure. England's quarrel with Puritanism was renewed with Methodism because both claimed the whole life. The Methodists flung themselves upon the task of the world's salvation. As Luther felt that religious education was of first impor- tance if Germany were to be saved, so Wesley started in upon the social salvation of England by planting schools. Their success is not the question. His prudence in methods may be questioned, but the light his schools and plans, his constant teaching, his school-books, gram- mars, etc., throw upon the fundamental instincts of the movement is invaluable. The eagerness of the Methodists to read transformed illiterate communities into such absorbers of literature that publishing houses existed solely from this demand. Grave injustice has often been done to this side of Methodist activity because of the com- parative illiteracy of so many of the Methodist preachers in the beginning. But Wesley him- self ever encouraged learning, and promoted it in every way. The social meaning of the Methodists' constant efforts to teach reading to all that they could reach can best be read in the history of national-school education in Eng- THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 61 land. Ingliam gathered about him the children of the villages round Oxford to teach them their letters. Wesley, the learned fellow of Lincoln, spent hours instructing ignorant prisoners and unfortunate poor in the humble art of English spelling. Of course the Methodists were accused of Communism and assailed as agitators. The Yorkshire riots of 1740 were charged to the ac- count of Ingham, and Wesley himself was often accused of lawless agitation. The truth was that the preaching of the Methodists spared no class. When Boswell spoke of preaching and the success "which those called Methodists have " Dr. Samuel Johnson said : " Sir, it is owing to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which is the only way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited to their congregation.* Johnson, Tory and High Church man as he was, had always a good word for both Wesley and the Methodists. The visiting of prisons could only bear the fruit it afterward did, in planting sympathies for the oppressed that drew men to consider fundamental problems in connection with the whole prison system. All such work began * Boswell's Life, Malone's Edition, pp. 126-127. 62 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS from the longing to be of social service for Christ's sake, to live Christ's redemptive life, and to obey Him. The academic exclusiveness of a university aristocracy formed no obstacle to the Methodist brotherhood mingling with the people, and bringing to them of their own stores. The profoundly democratic character of the movement was to a large degree forced on the Methodists. They had access to all classes. Ingham married the daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon, and the fellows of Oxford had all society open to them. But the needs of Eng- land pressed upon them, and one of the remark- able features of Wesley's life is the utter ab- sence of any note of class distinction. It is generally impossible to tell from his records with what class he was dealing. Men were to him "souls," whether in Fetter Lane or in king's palaces. No man was more respectful to au- thority, no man more absolutely independent in his thinking and conduct. Nor was this characteristic of AVesley only. The old Puri- tan self-respect was reawakened in the great middle and trading classes. Manhood was ap- pealed to in terms of Christian demands for holi- ness and self-sacrifice. The foundation for the coming democracy was laid by appeals to the highest in man. There was no accommodation THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 63 of the message to the supposed incapacity of any class to know and do its whole duty. The fatal mistake of the Koman type of Christianity, that of setting up of degrees of Christian perfection from which some are excluded by circumstance, was happily avoided, rather by the practical common-sense of the leaders than of fixed pur- pose or deliberate weighing of its errors. This entire consecration of the whole body of Chris- tians to be a holy priesthood was one of the precious lessons the Methodists learned from the Moravians and never forgot. It banished from the religious world of that day the pernicious habit of alms-giving for the sake of alms-giving as of soul saving value irrespective of the effect on the receiver. This had tainted the activity of the early brotherhood, but was slain by the consecrated common-sense of the movement as it matured. The brothers Wesley started even on their first missionary journey " to save their souls." From the Moravians they learned that their souls were saved and their sins forgiven, and that missions were the fruit and not the root of the forgiven life. Human life came to have value for them as human life. The democracy of the Methodist movement was no philosophical struct- ure built upon exceedingly doubtful " rights of man." It was a democracy founded upon the 64: ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS most eternal possibility before every man. The poor wretch condemned to the gallows could go into the presence of the eternal judge as a conqueror and more than conqueror through Him that had loved him, or he could go to his own place. It raised up a " serious " democracy, a self-respecting and other-self-respecting de- mocracy. Whatever may be the advantages of a cen- tralized government, and there are many, the educative value of self-government has in im- perialism no equivalent. The strong hierarchi- cal system stands certain strains under which more democratic forms show to great dis- advantage. The hierarchy of Borne as an invad- ing and conquering force amid the barbarism of the north was at its very best. In England the established hierarchy had done excellent ser- vice. But it had failed, as the Boman hier- archy had failed, to educate its own citizens. The appearance of Methodism was the signal for the outbreak of forces the founders of Methodism never calculated upon. The chapels became centres of churchly self-control with all the weakness of such control, but also with all the promise and potency of education to a far higher self-control than any centralized govern- ment can give. The social significance of the building of THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 65 chapels by spontaneous impulse all over Eng- land, apart from all state aid, indeed for tho most part out of local and exceedingly limited resources, forms no unworthy theme for med- itation. There was no separation from the State Church. But the lessons of self-control, self-discipline, and self-government had to be learned outside of its institutions, and the Meth- odist chapels sprang up to give the centres of that kind of work. The great unconscious, unorganized life of England received new impulses, new hopes, new fears, new sense of responsibility and new though untried powers. The modern spirit recoils somewhat from the fierce controversy that marks much of the chapel life, more particularly in its Calvinistic section. Minute and seemingly unimportant questions gave rise to endless dispute. It must, however, be remembered that fierce wrestlings over questions that are even thought to rep- resent realities have a very different educa- tional value from lifeless scholastic disputation. Scholasticism was once alive. Its issues were once thought to be matters of life and death. So long as this was so they trained great minds for coming conflicts and made the way for the renaissance. Sophism and scholastic disputa- tions become utterly deadly only when they are 5 66 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS felt to be not about realities but about words and phrases. The educational value of the Chapel disputa- tions was further heightened by the restoration to men's life of the great source of religious and literary inspiration. The English Bible became again the hand-book of thousands. The journal of John Nelson the stone-mason would put to shame the style of many a skilful high-priced newspaper correspondent by its infinite supe- riority in simplicity and directness. "If you want to know anything," said Dr. Johnson, " go and teach it ! " The lay ministry raised up hundreds of men so intensely in earn- est that they became educated men before their ministry was nearly over. They perhaps lacked varied culture ; but they had that which uni- versities too often failed to impart, command over their words for making them do their work, and an earnest purpose that gave force to their words. These men faced real and living issues, they wrestled with the deepest problems of human existence. "Whatever may be the value of their intellectual conclusions, and we do not overrate these, the educational value of their striving cannot be overrated. "With nothing like the educational facilities of the continental na- tions and no greater intelligence, so far as it is possible to judge, these Methodist working- THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 67 men sprang, by dint of conscience and mental power, into the forefront of the great world's international battle. What part the chapel played in preparing the English workingman's mind for that struggle can only be a matter of opinion, but in our judgment it was a chief factor, though a neglected factor, in the exciting story of England's industrial development. Nor was the intellectual gain by any means the most important, even putting aside the moral training. There was indeed in English life a lack of refinement noted by all observ- ers of the time. Horace Walpole noticed it even in his days, and Arthur Young made the same observation. France has far exceeded England in the amenities of life. The rough horse-play of the English lower classes is still remarked by foreign writers who comment upon English manners. But the chapel did much to ' soften and refine. The whole tone of English literature was transformed. The hymns of Watts, Charles Wesley, Clayton, John Wesley and many others were sung in the streets of the growing towns and hummed by rough carters as they plied their trade along the great high- ways of commerce. Beading was almost de- v manded of one who claimed to have been con- verted, that the Bible might be read; and so reading became occupation and filled days and 68 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS 'MOVEMENTS hours otherwise given to rude sports or still ruder pleasures. In imitation of the Oxford Methodists, class leaders became teachers, and taught and learned, refined and acquired a re- finement, that was as much refinement in spirits as refinement in outward manners. What that refinement is anyone can see for himself by going to Scotland, where these same influences have produced the tenderness and depth the "Kailyard School" delight in portraying for us. Wesley, in his journal (March, 1743), tells of his reproving a man for swearing in such a tactful way that the man actually longed to go and hear him preach, "only he was afraid he should say something against fighting of cocks." Bull-baiting gradually disappeared even before it was forbidden by law. The rough and brutal ^ sports made way for better things. The second- growth Puritan spirit perhaps revived and went too far, but when we find what the character of the plays on the stage was at this time, there is little wonder that a "serious " generation came to regard all theatres as wicked and in them- selves wrong. Moreover Methodism was kept most provi- dentially from complete separation from the Established Church, and so there was kept up a vital connection between the new teacher of the THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 69 people and the old instructress, never wholly unfaithful, even in her worst periods, to the sacred charge. The new religious democracy was to modify, as well as to be trained by, the important traditions that cluster about the National clmrch. Over the lapse of years the Methodist congregations were led by these associations to link the glory of the Puritan past with their own earnest longings and national religious aspirations. There was deepened in the national mind the sense of national unity. The Hanoverian house had / never taken the place in the popular life and heart that the house of Stuart had so fearfully abused. Now national feeling had to take the place of blind loyalty to a king. The end of the eighteenth century saw the democracy of England in unbroken unity striving for what it considered national honor and national safety. To church and chapel was committed wholly the training of the children of the poor ; and that training was, no doubt, technically fearfully defective. But Methodism breathed into the task a spirit of consecration and a genuine ear- nest piety that left its stamp on English charac- ter as deeply as did the old Puritan training that made England not afraid to speak with the enemy in the gate. That training was broadened out by the TO ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS missionary interest that was now freely awa- kened. Rough Yorkshire laboring men heard for the first time from their Moravian teachers of the West Indian colonies, where two of their brethren had sold themselves into slavery for the redeeming of men's souls from bondage. They learned about Georgia and Greenland, about India and the distant plantations of Ceylon, where men were doing and dying for Christ and His cross. The average English workingman to-day knows where the Soudan is only because the triumphant flag of conquest has gone there. In the days of Whitefield thou- sands listened as he pleaded for the colonies and plantations across the stormy seas, where the banner of a better battle was planted by the little chapel congregations that hung upon his lips. As in the old Spanish days the mission- aries were often the forerunners of the mighty army of conquest, so now the humble mis- sionary from the Moravian society or the Cal- vinistic connection heralded the approach of English commercial conquest. The social sig- nificance of this feature of the chapel training is too easily passed over. The insular mind needed awakening and needed contact with the wider world, and there could be no more wholesome contact than this humble, prayerful, yearning interest in the far-off brethren whom THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 71 they sent as their messengers of peace. For missionary interest was in those days no im- personal abstract interest evidenced by stated contributions to some board. It was the per- sonal sending and personal support of men the chapel worshippers knew, and their interest was sustained by the personal appeals and accounts of labors undergone in far-off places. "We are only interested at present in the social significancy of all this, as it helped to build up that democracy that was to more and more take the helm of a vast empire into its own hands and guide for weal or woe the ship of state. The Methodist class-meeting idea was bor- rowed from the Moravians in large part, though modified by the experiences of the Methodist band at Oxford and by Wesley's own exceed- ingly good organizing sense. It developed the spirit of social watchfulness, and the profound sense of personal responsibility to God for one's neighbor. Men became their brethren's keep- ers. Of course it had its defects and disad- vantages ; yet at a time when English society was being torn apart by many influences, when changes of a most momentous character were taking place in industrial England, that just in those places new social bonds of a most real and tender personal character should bind again the 72 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS fragments of society was a providence of pecul- iar significance. Any social bond has power. But its power is in proportion to the common interest and depth of common sympathy. Men brought together by the accidents of trade and common life are often as widely separated by their different ambitions and rivalries. Political bonds depend on the strength and purity of the political pas- sions that formed them. They may be exceed- ingly lasting or may be weakened by political selfishness and degraded by illegitimate methods. In ecclesiastical bonds, tradition, prejudices, family circumstances, social convenience or ambition may now play so large a part that they mean but little under most circumstances as a social force. It was not so in the early Metho- dist class-meeting. Stormy persecution and relentless laughter kept them free from much that weakens church life to-day. The questions were tremendous realities to those who met. The leaders were separated by no ecclesiastical ambitions from the life of the flock they cared for. The intellectual struggles and sympathies were common bonds; the religious aspirations common ideals ; the prayers, devotions, and discipline a common inspiration to hundreds who thus in the seething changes taking place during the industrial revolution found strength THE METHODIST MOVEMENT 73 and guidance and divine life in human fellow- ship. The practical character of the Methodist movement was ever most marked. Alms-giving was accounted indeed a virtue, but happily more real help was all that was in the power of most of the Methodist societies. The ecclesi- astical revival that just started in the reign of Queen Anne had initiated, indeed, many char- ities, and England had at no time been behind in a good deal of miscellaneous charity. "What ^ was needed after the Georgian lethargy was the personal touch, the intimate intertwining of human life. The class-meeting gave just this v needed feature to the charity of England. The parochial system was breaking down under the extension of the town and city. The Tory squire and Oxford parson were generally rudely just and good-natured, if we can trust the testimony of contemporary literature. But they ruled from above, and understood as little as they often do now the real life they were set to guide. The Methodist class-meeting leader and the village evangelist knew exactly with what they had to deal. They reached around, and not down. They played upon familiar strings, and awoke melodies less homely hands could never have enticed from the rude instruments, capable of so much, but so little understood. 74 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Methodism thus gained by leaps and bounds. It became a social factor of first significance. It changed directly and indirectly the whole face of English communal life, and lifted into new light mighty problems with which England had soon to occupy herself. The complicated tapestry of human life is made up of many threads and many colors. National history has many factors. Into Eng- land's life at the close of the eighteenth century had entered threads dyed blood red from the field of battle. Commerce, trade, art, literature, industrial conditions, personal and communal achievements of many kinds had entered as fac- tors into the social state of George Ill's reign as he conducted England out of one century into another. But probably no factor, nay no four or five factors together, may be said to have had the same social significance for the future of England's empire as the Methodist phase of the Evangelical BevivaL LECTUKE III. ENGLAND'S CONDITION AND THE RISE OF THE EVANGELICAL PARTY WELL was it for England that the religious awakening had preceded some of the great changes that England was now to see. The hymns of "Watts and Charles Wesley were be- ginning to pervade the land like the murmur- ings of the brooks as winter breaks and sum- mer comes. In the humble cottage and in the ancestral home alike the rousing appeals of Doddridge, John Wesley, Law, and Whitefield found an entrance. Dissent was melting in the common fervor and losing its too purely intel- lectual character. The establishment was hon- ey-combed by the Methodist movement in one or other of its phases. Newton led the Calvin- istic section, and the so-called Olney hymns were ringing in the ears of curates and bishops alike. In 1789 Hannah More was able to say, in ad- dressing herself to The Eeligion of the Fash- ionable World,* " It is with the liveliest joy I * Works, Vol. VI., p. 124, London, 1818. 73 76 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS acknowledge the delightful truth. Liberality flows with a full tide through a thousand chan- nels. There is scarcely a newspaper but rec- ords some meeting of men of fortune for the most salutary purpose. The noble and numer- ous structures for the relief of distress, which are the ornament and glory of our metropolis, proclaim a species of munificence unknown to former ages." And in reference to the changed attitude of all classes toward religions he says, "Still allowing, what has been granted, that absolute infidelity is not the reigning evil, and that servants will perhaps be more likely to see religion neglected than to have it ridiculed." * And this happened in spite of the most tre- mendous strain upon English life and charac- ter. The agricultural revolution had greatly disarranged the rural population. But now the romance of the nineteenth century was being opened. The industrial life had been quick- ened by the French emigration. The spinning jenny in 1764-69 had changed greatly the con- ditions governing the production of yarn. The woods of England were disappearing under the operations of the enclosure acts, and the de- mand for charcoal for smelting. As the supply grew scarce, " coke," an invention of one Dar- by, began to be used. But in 1748 or there- * Tracts and Essays, p. 91, London, 1818 ; Works, VoL VL THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 77 abouts coal was being used freely, and the mining of it greatly increased. Watt made a success at last of his steam-engine in 1756-76' and in 1777 writes of one he had set up at Choosewater, " the velocity, violence, magni- tude, and horrible noise of the engine give uni- versal satisfaction to all beholders." * From this on the steam-engine became the real power in the land. Coal-gas was introduced by an as- sistant of Watt's, named Murdock, in 1803. Meantime the power-loom of Cartwright had been brought to comparative perfection, and riots were taking place among the wretched hand-workers hopelessly displaced, and reduced in many cases to the most fearful suffering. The political lethargy was broken. The de- mocracy had found a voice, or rather voices. For Pitt, Burke, and Fox, unlike in so many respects, and so often in actual opposition, yet represented different sides of a common aspira- tion. The greatest strain, however, came from the sympathetic disturbance of the French Eevolu- tion. The discontented and really suffering population that machinery had displaced and ruined was in a condition to easily catch the spirit of revolt, triumphant and audacious, which was spreading everywhere. Not in vain * Quoted in Social England, Vol. V., p. 463. 78 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS did tlie voices of the nation's leaders appeal to the multitude for peace. And there can be no doubt that the religious spirit kindled in Eng- land saved the democracy from that violence which would sooner or later have brought on the reaction that on the continent led directly to despotisms more or less thinly disguised. Had the effect of this religious caste given to life and thought been simply the lulling of the democracy to quiet content with existing conditions this effect would have to be de- plored. But this was not the case. Eng- lish democracy may be said to date from the revolution of 1688, when definite constitutional limits were set forever about the throne, and " divine right " was transferred to the nation as a self-governing body. Yet many things most anomalous remained and even now remain. The change could not be sudden and at the same time wholesome. All classes suffer to- gether under false economic conditions. The pressing need was a body of men from all classes with faith in God, love for man, and the fearlessness to face all difficulties in making God's will, as they understood it, the supreme rule of life. The Evangelical Revival in its early Method- ist phase organized and softened the great body, or middle and lower middle classes. It did not THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 79 make them contented either with themselves or existing conditions. Personal cleanliness, neat- ness, and cheerful surroundings became ideals in middle-class English life. The industrial conditions that began to make these impossible roused righteous wrath. The very teaching of the pulpit classed sin, death, and disease to- gether, and awoke longings for a nobler and higher life. The class-meeting and the Sab- bath-school inculcated higher standards of thought and action. At the same time this discontent was chas- tened. Evils were traced to their moral causes. Violence was shown to lead but to violence. The whole atmosphere was made sweeter and more kindly. This was a most providential preparation for the shock that was soon to come in the French Revolution. The unor- ganized industrial life of England presented frightful pictures. Already in 1740 riots had begun, and from that on spasmodic outbreaks of the starving workingmen whom the new ma- chinery had displaced form regular parts in the annals of English life. The sympathy with France was wide and general in the beginning of the sad social crisis. The touch was close be- tween the national discontents. It needed but little to start in England the violence and dis- organization that became epidemic elsewhere. 80 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Happily for England the Methodist move- ment had started where Christ started, with little children ; and the tempering of all society by religious feeling had proceeded far before the first French outbreak. Wesley's own school was not a great success. He expected children to rise at four and five and engage in an hour's private devotion without anything to eat, and spend the whole day in the study of languages without any recreation. But the success of his particular scheme was not the main question, but the plain seeing of what society stood in need of, and the attempt to meet that need. The French revolutionists talked glibly about the brotherhood of mankind, and offered their armies to any nation that took up arms against its rulers. It was a fortunate thing for Eng- land that a better gospel of universal brother- hood was being proclaimed in the English Moravian missionaries' activity, and in the sup- port given to Whitefield and his following in their efforts in America. There was tremendous social significance in the profoundly universal character of the Meth- odist movement. To Wesley the Indians of North America and the men and women he saw on his journey to Herrnhut, the Spanish Jews and the Italian and French wanderers in Geor- gia, all were alike his brethren and sisters, and THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 81 for their sake he set himself with most extraor- dinary energy to master enough of their lan- guages to preach to them the gospel as he un- derstood it. Missionary effort has accustomed us now to such sense of universal sympathy. But there were at that time no missionary ef- forts, and long after this early time Sydney Smith could jeer unrebuked at the " consecrated cobblers," and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland denounce foreign missions as a most sacrilegious interference with God's plans. No true democracy can rest on any national plat- form. Wesley was imperious in his temper, but no man seems ever to have so completely forgotten in his work all the external things to which men usually attach so much importance. No man was ever less blinded by rank and fashion, or kept himself so completely from elation in the hours of success and applause. Whitefield was more easily thus influenced. This was natural in a way. And it must also be said for "Whitefield that though rank and fashion greatly impressed him, they never blinded him to his mission nor drew him from his work. He could write to the Countess of Huntingdon in a tone of servile adulation that strikes strangely on our ears. But he never left his missions in America, or his poor colliers in England to give 82 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS himself up to the brilliant circle the countess gathered from time to time about her to hear him preach. To Lord Chesterfield and Horace Mann, to the wits of the day and the savants of court circles "VVhitefield preached the same hon- est condemnation of sin and offered the same free gift of grace. The movement was demo- cratic in the very best sense of that word. It was touched with the feeling of human infirm- ity. It pervaded all English life before long, lifting up better ideals than the revolution had provided, and appealing to all classes with the same warning and hope. It did not deal in the first instance with political conditions any more than did apostolic Christianity. For example Wesley seems scarcely to have followed the political questions of his day. Save such a matter of primary im- portance as the attempt of the pretender's son in 1745 he scarcely mentions in his journal any of the events of political character. One can scarcely tell from him whether the country was at peace or war. But social conditions inter- ested him very much. The poverty of the peo- ple, the character of their crops, the conditions of the roads, the changing of population, the dirty and ill-kept state of the towns ; these things he saw and noted in his diary. The same thing is true of all the early leaders, THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 83 such as Howel Harris of Wales, Ingham, and Whitefield. Puritanism was early forced to take on a political character. This was happily never the case with its religious successor as such. The same class indeed exhibited politi- cal powers of a high order in both movements, but it was called as a class into activity under very different conditions during the Puritan and the Evangelical periods. The class-meeting laid nevertheless the foun- dation for political organization by a class that had had no such training. The itinerant preachers and the lay exhorters made public speech the power it became in after years. Kude men found out their powers. Classes came to organized self-consciousness. The vast meetings held in the open air in an orderly manner to really listen to men seriously address- ing themselves to live realities, was just what was needed to make men ready for the political popular appeals that came with such power in the wake of the Methodist movement. The hust- ings were transformed from a free fight with fists and stones to an intellectual struggle before the national jury. Thus weapons, leaders, and popular temper were prepared for the political struggle of the near future. Just as the conven- ticle had trained men for public duty and laid the foundation upon which the town-meeting 84 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS was built up that gave the world its first mighty experiment in republican government ; so now the Methodist meeting and the mass meeting by the roadside, the lay speaker and the relig- ious agitation, were the providential training for the new social straggles yet to come. The monster political meeting is usually traced to O'Connell, but he only adopted what "Whitefield and Wesley had made popular. Long before the reform bill, Pitt had this great middle class in mind, for they became a power years before they were given any polit- ical recognition. And the moment they re- ceived recognition Methodist miners and popu- lar leaders trained in the class-meeting and the chapel stepped into Parliament to remain factors in the nation's councils ever since. It sobered the nation to realize that wrongs could not pass without audible protest. It sobered the oppress- or to realize that he must defend himself be- fore an informed public opinion ; and it sobered the oppressed to realize that they had a court of appeals that they could plead before, ere they sprang to violence and brute force. This in itself was of no small social signifi- cance during the strain of life at the close of the eighteenth century. The awful violence of the French Eevolution came in* France as a fearful shock to men's minds. The natural leaders and THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 85 spokesmen of the French people had been most industriously gotten rid of. Any aristocratic sympathizer with popular discontent was chal- lenged as a traitor to his class, and either killed in a duel or driven from the land. The people had no trained leaders accustomed to respon- sibility and sobered by experience. England happily had just such a class, and as she merged from her political lethargy it was to find herself appealed to by men now trained to appeal and to address the very best that was in their fellow-men on behalf of their fellow-men. One of the striking evidences of the change in the tone of English society is seen in the contrast between Pitt and Fox. Fox was a man of splendid capacity, the finest speaker in the house, and a daring and consistent advocate of the democracy. At any other time Fox would have become the idolized tribune of the people. But this he never really was. Nor is the reason hard to find. He lacked the " seriousness " that was now in demand. He was a far better man than Walpole, a far loftier type of man than Townshend, but it was Pitt who appealed to the new and rising power, and was supported by those, who, for exactly the same reason, stood by Gladstone in our own day. Fox championed every reform measure, and opposed every attempt to bind men's wrists 86 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS again with the chains of tyranny during the terror of the French Revolution. But the fact that neither king nor people understood Fox, is due to the tremendous change that had passed over English life since Walpole. Two elements have always struggled for supremacy in Great Britain. In the days of the great Revolution they were represented by Roundhead and Cava- lier. After the Restoration it seemed as if the old Puritan seriousness had gone out of life. Of churchly feeling there was abundance, but that was not peculiar to the Puritan. This seriousness was recalled to influence and power by the Evangelical awakening, and Fox was not serious. In contrast to the almost austere self- contained, and haughty Pitt, Fox would have been to other ages of English history a most attractive figure. Unselfish in his advocacy of the largest development of democracy, brave and frank in his public positions, he yet lacked the note of his generation, and never gained the place his talents and courage would have made for him in almost any other reign. The serious religious democracy saw in him only a gaming dissolute man of the world, and no community of political ideals even gave Fox power over that democracy. The significance of this serious religious char- acter given by the revival to life is seen in the THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 87 reason for the attitude of England to the French Revolution. The whole feeling was at first, and most naturally, friendly. France was under the dominion of a dynasty which, as Fox quite truly pointed out,* was the natural enemy of England and all that England stood for. The industrial democracy of England welcomed the ideas that were spreading far and wide not only in France but in Europe. The conditions in England might have easily been such as to make the Revolution a most dangerous factor. But the earnest re- ligious tone was alienated by not only the ex- cesses of the Revolution, but by its decided anti- religious character. It was here that Burke succeeded in overcoming even Pitt's reluctance, and roused England to the attitude she took. Other nations took up arms against France because the reigning houses felt the Revolution was a blow at their own security. It was the democracy of England, stirred by Burke, that compelled the unwilling Pitt to enter upon the war. Burke was no Tory in the acceptance of an existing order for its own sake in unrea- soning class feeling. He viewed, however, with real alarm, the progress of ideas he thought threatened the sober, loyal, religious develop- ment of freedom and righteousness. How far * Burke's attack on Fox for this utterance was quite unfair as a reply, though noble and just as a sentiment. 88 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS he was right is not for us here to consider and decide. The point is simply that his appeal was heard by exactly the same class that gave Pitt its support, and for the same reason. The sober middle class was under the dominion of ideas and faiths at which the French Revolution seemed to be aiming deadly blows. The words of Burke came home to them, "I call it atheism by establishment, when any state as such, shall not acknowledge the existence of God as a moral governor of the world; when it shall offer to him no religious or moral worship; when it shall abolish the Christian religion by a regular decree ; when it shall persecute with a cold, un- relenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of con- fiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, all its ministers ; — when it shall generally shut up or pull down churches; when the few buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose of making a profane apotheosis of monsters, whose vices and crimes have no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men consider as objects of general detestation, and the severest animadversions of law." * Thus the English war with France was no dynastic intrigue nor yet the instinctive spirit of self-defence that prompted the reigning fam- ilies of Europe to take up arms against the * Letters on a Regicide Peace, Works, VoL II., p. 296. THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 89 root of a spreading evil. It was a popular war upon what Burke had succeeded in convincing men was an attack upon Christian institutions, and the great middle class gave freely to put down this " atheistic " establishment. This se- rious tone was at the eighteenth century no longer the distinctive mark of a small band of despised Methodists. In 1791 "Wesley was still living, but the movement that was so closely to be identified with his name was far wider than his organization. It is hard for us to realize the very curious and anomalous position the Methodists of Eng- land long held. The old idea of the Moravian Church, of being a purer church within the Church for its entire salvation, long lingered in men's minds. At one time separation would have been very easy. Persecution had much estranged many, John Wesley seems ever to have been ready to go out. Charles, however, remained a loyal member, and restrained his brother. In 1744 John Wesley, for instance, wrote a message of loyal attachment to the King, in view of the threatened coming of the Jacobite pretender. But Charles Wesley per- suaded him not to send it because it would seem like separation from the Church to send a letter in the name of the Methodists. Several times separation was formally contemplated (for 90 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS example in 1753, also 1758), but again Charles intervened. John Wesley, however, had come consciously to the Presbyterian view of the identity of bishop and presbyter and the pure- ly administrative character of the bishop's of- fice, and he ordained and despatched bishops to America, and in 1785 to Scotland. But in Eng- land he remained regular until 1788, in which year he also ordained men for England. Mean- time the battle had been quietly won. The vi- tality of Methodism had been imparted to the older church. Persecution stopped. John Wes- ley was welcome before his death in almost any pulpit he cared to have. He wondered once it' the "offence of the Cross had ceased."* Vari- ous societies had now sprung into existence in- dependent of the Wesleyan Methodists. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists had organized societies as early as 1735, and held their first conference in 1742. The Lady Huntingdon " connection " existed separately, though on very intimate terms with the so-called Whitefield Methodists. The New Connection Wesleyan Methodists were organized in 1797 by Alexander Kilham, and primitive Methodism was the outcome of an attempt to return to former simplicity of life, dress, and behavior. It was organized in * Journal. THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 91 1807-10, during three years of somewhat bitter controversy. A small secession also took place in 1806 called the Band-room Secession. At the time of Wesley's death in 1791 there were in Great Britain and Ireland two hundred and ninety-four preachers and 71,568 members in his connection alone, and about a dozen who were ordained to administer the sacraments. Meantime, however, the Established Church had become " methodistical." Earnest laymen were probably more responsible for this in the begin- ning than the clergy, and this spirit found fitting expression in the churchly and the social activi- ties of a group of distinguished laymen called into active service by the awakening. Not only did lay preaching, begun by Nelson and Max- well, pervade ths Methodist Church, but within the Established Church the importance of the lay element received due notice. This was wholly natural. The old High Church party had exalted the priestly character of the clergy. The separation of the clergy from the laymen was emphasized extremely. The natural result was the leaving of those things with which the Church concerned herself in the hands of the clergy. But a change came over men's minds during the Evangelical movement. The priestly function was very largely neglected or denied. The priestly character lost its power, and the 92 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS great separation was bridged by the sense of a common salvation and a common duty. Hence it happened that a great and influential body of laymen took part in what was not only social and political reform, but in the missionary movements that sprang from the awakening. The only missionary society in England had been the one mentioned as founded in 1702, " For the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." This had been established under the patronage of William, and had special reference to the American Colonies. But in 1792, " The Baptist Missionary Society" was planned by the devoted Carey, who went to India. Then there followed in rapid succession the establish- ment of the London Missionary Society in 1795 ; the Scottish Church Society in 1796 ; the Church Missionary Society in 1799 ; then the London Jews Society in 1808. After that came the General Baptist Missionary Society; and the Wesleyan Missionary Society was founded in 1813. Besides these missionary societies there were also founded, in 1799, the Religious Tract Society and not long after, in 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society. Had Wesley never met the Moravians, in all human probability the Oxford Methodist move- ment would have been an Anglican revival of traditional Catholicism. This, however, would THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 93 not by any means have excluded the possibility of a strong and healthy Evangelical movement within the Church. For great as is the debt the Evangelical party owes and confesses to the "Wesleyan movement, it had a very different theology and a quite different temper and habit. In the convocation of 1702, when first the designations of High Church and Low Church are said to have been used, there was brought to light * a radical difference existing in the minds of many as to how the Anglican compromise between Catholicism on the one hand, and the ^Reformation on the other, was to be viewed. The High Church party had almost undisputed possession of both Church and nation when Queen Anne's death, hastened without doubt by the issues involved, gave again the Low Church party standing room in the Church. The High Church party seems, however, without question, to have had the balance of influence in the Church. This was no doubt because of the way dissent constantly weakened the Low Churchmen. The long sleep of Church and State during the years between 1714 (Queen Anne's death) and 1742 (Walpole's overthrow) was not favorable to the High Church party. Tory passions had gone to sleep. Deism had * See Lecture L 94: ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS invaded the universities. The pretender's claims were less and less advanced. The non- juring High Church theology was neither popu- lar nor likely to advance any man's interest. The Low Church party was therefore a ready- made soil for the seeds of spiritual fruitfuiness to find root in. Bishop Burnet died in 1715 and Samuel Clarke in 1729, leaving no intellectual succes- sors. But when the time came new men rose to lead the Church of England forward to a glorious chapter in her history. In the mean- time the High Church party had suffered by the appearance of insincerity given it by its adhesion to a royal house whose claims it had denounced. It was steadily and quietly put aside, and no better evidence of this exists than the way the bishops appointed after Anne treated the waywardness and irregularities of the Methodists. Opposition, of course, they had, but none such as compelled them to leave the Establishment ; a thing easy to have been accomplished had any of the bishops seriously pressed for their expulsion in the very begin- ning. Court influences were also on the side of the Low Church party after 1760, and George III prided himself on his interest in religion. The rise therefore of the Evangelical phase of the THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 95 religious movement was contemporaneous with the Methodist movement, yet in many ways dif- fered from it. In the first place it was decidedly Calvinistic. The Thirty-nine Articles gave this tone to the whole party. The Calvinism was generally moderate and based rather on English divinity than on any first-hand study of Calvin himself. The homilies and plain teachings of the ru- brics were rather ignored than attacked, and the interest centred more in the practical re- ligious life than either in abstract theology or consistent churchmanship. In the second place the Evangelical party was less instinc- tively hostile to culture and what was then known as "secular" learning. A man like Edward Young exercised a considerable influ- ence by his Night Thoughts, but also wrote dramas, was in court circles and sought no such separation of life as Methodism attempted in certain phases of its development. The works of James Hervey gave it a certain literary standing. His Meditations and .Dialogues were astonishingly popular. His theology and general tone were characteristic of the early Evangelical- ism. He writes to Wesley : " As for points of doubtful disputations — those especially which relate to particular or universal redemption — I profess myself attached neither to the one 96 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS nor the other. I neither think of them myself, nor preach of them to others." * Yet his Cal- vinism was pronounced, and gave rise in the last days of his life to a serious breach with Wesley. This Calvinistic tone made the bond between the Evangelical party and the Non- conformists much stronger than between them and the Methodists, as the Dissenters were without serious exception Calvinistic. Watts and Doddridge and Cudworth were the life- long friends of Hervey, and the Commentary of Henry gave the Evangelical party its chief authority upon the Bible. Even in the life-time of the Nonconformist Dr. Watts his hymns were used in the Established Church service. Men like Grirnshaw of Haworth represented the more Methodist type in the Evangelical ranks. Rapidly this Evangelicalism became the dominant party. Even old Tories like Dr. Samuel Johnson were Evangelical in their the- ology. The writings of Hannah More spread widely the opinions which would have been rejected coming either from Dissenting minis- ters or from Methodist exhorters. No serious opposition was made to Evangelicalism, for the old "High and Dry," as it now came to be called, commanded no one's respect. The futile violence of isolated clergymen who disgraced * Quoted by Tierman, Oxford Methodists^ p. 254. THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 97 their cloth by leading mobs against "Whitefield, Wesley, Ingham, and Grimshaw rather reacted in favor of the views they advocated, and greatly increased the interest in the questions they raised. The attitude of the throne kept down any effective Episcopal interference, and the rapid establishment of societies and the spread of their literature secured the substantial ad- hesion of the Church to Evangelical ways of looking at religion. The national advantage at this time of the triumph of Evangelicalism in the Church rather than High Church Kitualism is not to be un- derstated. The weakness of English life had been the division upon religious matters in which the Dissenters had formed the extreme wing of a Protestant party, while a Catholic party of the Laud type had formed the other extreme. The national church in the compro- mises that mark its history was torn in two by the political factions that sympathized with one or other of these. Thus the nation was weakened and divided by these differences. The large mass of Englishmen up to the death of Queen Anne, certainly at least within the Establishment, was Catholic.* But it never was * We use the word u Catholic " to signify the churchly claims to be an exclusive medium for the ordinary convey- ance of divine grace. 7 98 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Eoman Catholic. The triumph of the Catholic party even in the degree in which they are now triumphant would have alienated the dissenting bodies, and would have made a great deal more permanent the divisions in English life. The weakness of George III would have made any such divisions as those created by religious con- tention most lamentable if not fatal blunders in those hours of peril that came with Napoleon's attempts on the marine supremacy of England. Happily the Catholic party was too weak at this time to withstand the drawing together of the strong Protestant elements of the nation. Dissent and Evangelicalism worked hand in hand. The Methodists were never disloyal to the Church in which both Charles and John Wesley died. The Moravians never left the Church, and after the disruption in Yorkshire many seem to have returned quietly to the full en- joyment of her privileges. It was a most happy providence for constitutional liberty that at a time when it was most seriously threatened, England was Evangelical and Protestant even in a sense that is not true to-day. A serious ultramontane conspiracy in England against the religious and civil liberties of the nation within the Established Church is hardly now within the possibilities of practical politics. It might have been far otherwise had Wesley and THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 99 his little band gone out like Keble and Newman to restore not Protestantism but Catholic tradi- tions to English life ; to sow not harmony but religious discord among the rapidly increasing populations of English towns from 1739 to 1792. No one can claim that the Evangelical party fairly represents the historical development of the elements that are gathered together in the English Church. The Catholic elements, star- ing in the face the passer-by who reads the rubrics or the homilies, were completely ignored. The obvious inferences with regard to author- ity and the sacraments that the High Church men in all periods of the history of the Estab- lishment have drawn, were not challenged nor corrected but simply passed by. Small as it has at times been a Catholic party has never failed to maintain high ground on the questions ever at issue between true Protestantism and a Catholic Church party in any one of its phases. Fortunately for England's social development the Catholic claims were forgotten by all but a few. Dissent welcomed the Evangelical party as Protestant allies. The challenge of the Oxford Methodist who remained true to his High Church position fell on ears too full of the joyous cry of victory to have any effect. The political lines no longer coincided with the 100 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS religious divisions, and England stood strongly and confidently on the basis of a Protestant democracy against all attempts made in the name of liberty against her freedom. This far-reaching political and social signifi- cance given to the Evangelical party seems all the stranger when it is remembered through what curious influences it came about. White- field was no thinker ; and as against Wesley in an argument he was a child. Nor was he in all things a far-seeing or very strong man. Yet had his Calvinism been less unquestioned he never could have acted as he did the part of a link between Methodism, Calvinistic Evangeli- calism, and Dissent. In the new enthusiasms and fervent heats of Evangelistic activity Prot- estantism flew into a still greater number of fragments ; and yet the movement as a whole in a most unexpected way gave political and social unity through the infused Evangelical spirit. The growth of the Evangelical party was greatly quickened by the exertions of the social influence of Lady Huntingdon and the high literary influence of Hannah More. The poems of Cowper also gave it a position in the world of letters to which Methodism could not aspire. The king was known to favor it, and the intense activity in all circles of society trans- THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 101 formed the atmosphere of the upper classes. So that the first twenty years of the nineteenth century saw it fairly in possession of the Eng- lish Church and making rapid headway in Eng- lish society. Up to 1832 (the Keform Bill) the social meaning of Methodism must remain for the most part an assumption. Methodists were not as a class properly represented in Par- liament. They were a power, but only such a power as strong public opinion is, where no channel exists for sending a message to inter- pret definitely its will. Had the religious activity of the Established Church taken the form during the last years of the eighteenth century that it did in 1839, it is extremely doubtful whether it would be possible to link definitely the Evangelical movement to the social progress. Up to the time of the French Revolution and after it the social reform spirit was diffused over the whole nation. The part of the Methodists, however, had to remain rather that of suggestion than of active partici- pation, because of the unrepresented character of the class. There is no reasonable doubt that Burke's appeal on behalf of India against "War- ren Hastings was heard at all only because of the sentiment kindled by the Methodist move- ment. The England of Walpole would have paid not the slightest attention, especially during the 102 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS fox-hunting season. Yet it is not easy to trace this connection save by showing, as one easily may, how entirely different the atmosphere had become, and how widely different the aims and ideals of that generation were, from those of Walpole's time. Moreover, the social activity was, in the ear- lier years, of necessity, largely individual. It was the training of children, building chapels, founding missionary and Bible societies, organ- izing private charity, visiting the prisons, and coming into real and vital contact with diverse life. There can be no real help rendered men without knowledge of them, of their life, preju- dices, ignorances, limitations, hopes, and fears. The brutal ignorance of one class concerning the life of a weaker makes even clever and good men unfit rulers of their fellows. Before the democ- racy of England could gain recognition, men had to be raised up with not only sympathy, but with knowledge of the conditions under which men around them were living. In theory an Established Church supplies the needed oppor- tunity for sympathetic contact man with man, and supports a class whose peculiar function it is to be servants of all and to render to society the most important service of interpreting one manner of life to another. In point of fact, how- ever, making all allowances for the inevitable THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 103 infirmity of human nature, the Established Church was, during the reigns of George I and George II, and even of Queen Anne, most shame- fully remiss. The "High and Dry" party was separated by Tory prejudice and aristocratic pride from the growing trading class, of whom it became intensely jealous. Speaking of the period, Thorold Kogers declares, "There is no period in English history in which the pride of the English noble was more absorbing and more obtrusive than during the time (1750-1785) on which I am immediately commenting. It be- trayed itself in a thousand affectations and a thousand insolences. Noble youth found a sat- isfaction in street outrages and indecencies, noble age in vaporing about the privileges of the peers and in attempts to constitute them selves a limited order. . . . Three-fourths of them would have restored the Stuarts, from sheer hatred to the moneyed men." * The " High and Dry " Church party was, unfortu- nately, in the hands of this class. The Tory squire and the Tory parson hunted and drank to- gether, and were alike utterly incapable of enter- ing into the new life growing up all about them. Many of them were not bad men, judged by or- dinary street standards, but they were worse than useless ; they were obnoxiously in the way. * Work and Wages, p. 473. 104 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS These men the early Methodist movement could not touch, and they formed also a barrier over which the movement could not easily have passed. Vicars like the Reverend George White headed mobs to suppress the Methodist enthu- siasm. Even to-day the prejudice against the Methodists is so strong that to attend their chapels would, in some regions, exclude from circles that call themselves Christian in Eng- land. It was, therefore, no ordinary event in the social development of England when Evan- gelical principles raised up, not a clergy only, but a strong and influential laity who eagerly sought to understand and reach the life that was about them. Happily for England the great growing trading classes heard eagerly the fresh message, and relationships were established whose social significance is not at all measured by the reforms in Parliament directly connected with the Evangelical movement. Nothing is more remarkable than the way the religious movement swept on, effecting great changes in one class without apparently exciting even re- mark in the other classes. Just as Christianity had undermined the Roman Empire before the literary world even knew the name of Christ, save in the most casual way, so also the original Methodist movement might have worked unseen and unnoticed in the class it largely spread in THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 105 had it not been for the founding of a more thoughtful Calvinistic section, whose influence told at once upon ranges of English society com- paratively beyond the reach of the Methodist preachers. The religious movement might eas- ily have split English society in much the way that Germany was split in two by the Reforma- tion. It was a most providential thing that quito apart in many ways from the spirit of Methodism there grew up an Evangelical party, even more closely allied with the Establishment and having its ear. One of the grave disadvantages to the Refor- mation was the physical struggle it had to en^. gage in for its life. This both narrowed and hardened its thought, and made the Jesuit re- action possible by diverting its spiritual energies into other than religious channels. Had the re- ligious movement in England been confined to the Methodist Church and the classes it chiefly influenced, there would inevitably have been a struggle for political power, but in that struggle the purely class feeling would have been even more largely developed ; and it is almost certain that the Methodists, as a class, would have gone into political life, as under certain other condi- tions they did in America. As a matter of fact the struggle for representation was not left to them alone. The union of feeling with the 106 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Evangelical party saved England from a very serious division and a very grave danger of the state. The social significance of the rise of the Evan- gelical party is emphasized still further by the definite political character the party soon as- sumed. But it could do this with far less loss than the Methodists could have done it, for it did not have to struggle, in the first place, for the political recognition that would have en- gaged the attention and very likely have ex- hausted the strength of the unrepresented Meth- odists had they been compelled to struggle alone. It was, therefore, of great social import that there rose slowly in English life a phase of the religious movement quite unique in the his- tory of the Church and destined to play no in- considerable part in England's political life. LECTURE IV. THE EVANGELICAL PARTY AND SOCIAL REFORM IT was inevitable that the religious awaken- ing should show in the personal lives and the domestic manners of Englishmen. It is only necessary to examine the coarseness of Swift and Smollett to see how lacking in delicacy of feeling and thought even the most talented of the brilliant preceding generation were. Novels were read aloud in refined circles in George I's time that older women would not now care to read alone. Convention, like law, may be only the ghost of a past morality. Yet even if this is so the existence of conventions and laws point to a morality once very much alive. The gener- ation that rejoiced in Hervey's Meditations and Miss Edge worth's Tales may have fallen a lit- tle below the critical feeling that welcomed Swift and Fielding, but there is no question as to the wholesomeness of the change in tone and propriety. Nor had men to wait long before Sir "Walter Scott demonstrated that all the genius of Queen Anne's novelists might find a 107 108 ENQLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS still mightier rival in the garb of absolute puri- ty and innocence. English literature suffered no fatal excision when Evangelicalism insisted upon cutting out from it the ribald jest and the animal coarseness that mars much good work of days gone by. The statistics of communal morals are practi- cally worthless in the ordinary hands. The penal code of England remained long the shock- ing witness to a barbarism that had disappeared ages ago in France and Germany. Yet the real administration of justice in England for the last hundred and fifty years was probably as far ahead of those countries as the code seemed to be behind. It is not therefore from the statis- tics of lessened crimes that a fair estimate can be formed of the force, as a social factor, of the Evangelical party. This may be more plainly demonstrated in the annals of Parliament and in the exciting struggles for great moral principles and social reforms in which the leaders of Evangelicalism engaged and with marked success. Nonconformists had never been absolutely excluded by the test acts from political life. Yet the class was not fairly represented in pub- lic life, and their feelings and aspirations found little organized expression. The Methodists belonged to a class still more unrepresented in EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 109 the governing bodies. Upon the Evangelical party in the Established Church, therefore, fell the duty of giving to aroused moral and social feeling proper legislative expression. Here tho experience of the religious circle or society proved of great value. Societies were formed for the doing of the many things to be done, and the agitation of reforms to be carried. In all of these, even where the churchly feel- ing was dominant, laymen took not only active but leading parts. The life of Samuel Wilber- force is almost a history of the establishment of these agencies for making and organizing social forces. What this lay leadership did for the sanity and reasonableness of the movement can only be judged by contrasting the spirit of ec- clesiasticism in any age with the broad and sweeping spirit of the religious movement as it entered upon this phase of its special activity. From the opening of the nineteenth century to 1832 nothing was heard of but reform. Pris- ons, poor laws, penal codes, emancipation, re- form bills, Jewish disabilities, slave trade and slavery, the relief of Dissenters, the establish- ment of schools, the reform of asylums, the founding of hospitals, the improving of cot- tages, the establishment of charity organiza- tions for a multitude of purposes, all these things called for the unceasing activities of men like 110 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS the Thorntons, Howard, and Wilberforce. But these were only a few of the hosts enlisted now, no longer from those only who were touched by the religious principles, but also from those whose philanthropic zeal had no such basis. The introduction of such a spirit lifted the whole tone of Parliament. " In no respect," says Lecky,* " does the legislation of this period (1714-1742) present a more striking contrast to that of the nineteenth century than in the almost complete absence of attempts to alleviate the social con- dition of the poorer classes or to soften the more repulsive features of English life." This contrast is fairly startling when one glances at the Parliamentary activity from the time of the younger Pitt to the accession of Queen Victoria, and compares it with that of Townshend and "Walpole's reigns. At first, of course the Evangelical party was based only upon a common enthusiasm for righteousness which the leaders identified with the theological doctrines that formed the basis of their appeal. There was little united ethical sentiment save as regarded the personal life and relations. Wesley had, indeed, denounced slavery. One of his last messages before he died was one of * History of England in the Eighteenth Century , Vol. L, P. 540. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 111 encouragement to Wilberforce in regard to this matter. On the other hand, Whitefield bought slaves for his mission and Hervey presented him with one which he resolved to call " Weston," after the name of Hervey 's parish.* " I think," Whitefield writes, " to call your intended pur- chase ' Weston', and shall take care to remind him by whose means he was brought under the everlasting gospel." This was in response to Hervey's note, " When you please to demand, my brother will pay you ,£30, for the purchase of a negro. And may the Lord Jesus Christ give you, or rather take for Himself, the precious soul of the poor slave ! " These were intended partly to cultivate the ground about his orphanage in Georgia, partly to be instructed in Christianity. Then came a time when the Evangelical party was more than a party of certain opinions and emotions. Already in 1808 Sydney Smith sneers at " The party which it (Evangelicalism) has formed in the legislature." f Sydney Smith classes Arminian and Calvin- istic Methodists and the evangelical clergymen of the Church of England together and says: " We shall use the general term Methodists and distinguish these three classes of fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out the finer shades * Tierman, Oxford Methodists, p. 277. t Works, Vol. I., p. 12C. 112 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS and nicer discriminations of lunacy." * " We must remember," says lie in another place, "that the Methodists have formed a powerful party in the House of Commons, who, by the neutrality which they affect, and partly adhere to, are courted both by ministers and oppo- sition." Of course he is here referring to the great influence of that distinguished body of laymen that strongly mark the Evangelicalism of the opening of the nineteenth century. Well might even Sydney Smith speak of the " unimpeachable character " and " talents of some " of a party containing such names as Wilberforce, Grant, Parry, and the Thorntons, the founders of the African Missionary Society. For very early, the purely doctrinal character of the religious revival gave place to a social ac- tivity that can hardly be called political, because of this very " neutrality " of which Sydney Smith complains. The hostile attitude of many members of the Established Church flung Evangelical clergy- men within its pale into closer contact with various shades of nonconformity. The " Toler- ation Acts " of Wai pole had indeed allayed the dissenting agitation, but the earnest Noncon- formists, at first as hostile to Methodism as the Establishment, soon recognized in it an ally. * Works, Vol I., p. 96. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 113 "Without becoming a recognized party, the Evan- gelical movement was soon found on the side of Pitt when Pitt advocated reform, and the new philanthropy which sprang out of the revival allied itself with every agitation for social ame- lioration. There was also a curious chapter opening in the history of India. The steady struggle of England with France had gradually given not only Northern America over to English-speak- ing races, but India also became the ward of the Indian Company. Not all Macaulay's brilliant periods can reconcile a modern, not to say Christian, conscience to the methods and imme- diate results of that conquest. Happily for England, the new religious philanthropy and the new spirit of universality began to drive men far afield to proclaim Christ. In India it was not the Established Church that first felt the burden of these millions, but a few German and Danish missionaries. Before long, English mis- sionaries began to seek India as a field of labor. The company opposed the project, and clergy- men in the Establishment saw in these mission- aries dangerous fanatics who would only incite the populations to bloodshed. By the time, however, that missionary enterprise was spread- ing, there was an Evangelical leaven in the House of Commons, and the despised mission- ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS aries were links of communication between India and the common people. In 1808 Sydney Smith complains that the Evangelical party had gained complete possession of the India House, " and will take care to introduce (as much as they dare without provoking attention) their own peculiar tenets." * This is interesting testimony because it was to the rising tide of public morality that Burke trusted his venture when he assailed Warren Hastings, entrenched as he was behind all that influences of the most potent character could bring up. No nobler appeals to national con- science have ever been made in the English tongue than by Burke. One is tempted to won- der if he had been called the dinner-bell of the House after the Evangelical awakening had done its work, and a Reform Parliament with a con- science was sitting in Westminster. Schlegel is said to have remarked of him, " Without main- taining any system of philosophy he seems to have seen farther into the true nature of society and to have more clearly comprehended the ef- fect of religions in connecting individual secu- rity with national welfare than any philosopher of any preceding age." So it is no surprise to find Burke already anticipating that reform which, more than anything else, seems to have * Essay on Methodism, p. 117. Works, Vol. I., Ed. 1808. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 115 moulded the Evangelical party into a fighting reform organization. Burke it was who wanted to move against the slave trade. But he was too early. It was reserved for Wilberforce, as the head of that party, to first effectively attack it. When it is remembered how profitable that trade was, how harmless it seemed to one who, like John Newton, had engaged in it for two years after his conversion, and how completely the reform wanted actual interests behind it pressing for its acceptance, there is no more honorable chapter in the social history of man- kind than the victory gained over greed, op- pression, and self-interest by the Evangelical party under the leadership of the pious Wilber- force. Wesley, Baxter, Cowper, and many others had denounced the traffic. The Quakers had long been on record against the horrors of the trade. But when Thomas Clarkson and William Wil- berforce began their agitation, the seats of the traffic were just those places where the Evangelical revival had done its best work — Bristol, Liverpool, and the seaport towns of the west coast had heard the voices of Evangelical- ism most eagerly, and so the opposition on which all attempts, such as those of David Hartly (1776) and Burke had foundered, were really being undermined by the rising tide of 116 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS philanthropic and social feeling engendered. A committee was formed on May 22, 1787, tinder the chairmanship of Granville Sharp, and in twenty long years of struggle, at last Christian principle and sympathy conquered (March 25, 1807). The trade was suppressed; but Chris- tian opinion did not stop there. To abolish all slavery in the colonies was the next step, and the same machinery that had been called into being to oppose the trade overcame, in 1833, the institution. The payment of twenty millions of pounds (£20,000,000) suppressed forever chattel slavery in the British Empire. Of course, the slavery agitation raised a storm of ridicule. The Evangelicals were represented as hypocrites, pretenders, selfish, meddling per- sons. The floating literature of the day abounds with the sneers and attacks made on the leaders and the movement. A powerful colonial party, with money, influence, tradition, and the old English bogey of " vested rights," that has stood guard over so many invested wrongs, did all that it was in their power to do to stop the measure. Pitt, toward his death, lent only half- hearted support to his friend Wilberforce. Fox was, however, an unwavering supporter, and it was during his premiership that the trade was suppressed. Burke, as long as he lived, lifted up his voice against the traific. It EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 117 was, however, the forces the religious move- ment had called into being and organized that at last signally triumphed. This anti-slavery agi- tation had far-reaching consequences in the machinery it thus created for its purpose of making propaganda. " Free sugar " circles, and contributions for the slaves, efforts to reach them with schools and literature, resulted in intense interest in colonial life, and in great missionary activity. Wilberforce and Hannah More could not be put aside as fanatics and hypocrites. The Evangelical party was, of course, repre- sented by pictures, familiar to us even now, of red-nosed parsons with dirty white ties. Mis- sionary effort was freely caricatured as the supplying of natives with woollen socks and the like. The " candid friends " of the upper classes were heartily disliked, but could not be got rid of. That which to-day is so disagree- able to some English statesmen as the " Non- conformist conscience " was then doubly pain- ful as the Evangelical party, and the power of reform from 1780 to 1832 was largely not the moral sentiment alone aroused by the religious revival, but the special organization called into being by the reforms advocated by the Evan- gelical party, who could ba neither bribed nor discouraged. It is not necessary to go into the fruitless 118 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS discussion as to whether Clarkson or "Wilber- force was the originator of the abolition move- ment. Long before either of them became interested the Quakers had advocated the same thing. For a number of years many had felt the unhappy character of the traffic. But that which was needed most — organized public opin- ion— was lacking. The significance of the aboli- tion movement was tremendous. It gave men faith in the power of organized moral feeling by persistent agitation to accomplish an}Tthing. In Liverpool alone over 10,000 persons were reputed as engaged directly in the slave traffic, besides many more indirectly connected with the trade.* Only organized enthusiasm and resolute faith could do anything against such an array of interests. Happily the groundwork for organization was already laid. The Dis- senters, Methodists, and Evangelical circles were to a man enlisted. Clarkson outside of Parliament and Wilberforce within toiled not in vain. Although the independence of each member of the Evangelical party within the house was vigorously maintained, yet Wilber- force could speak of " our set " voting for this or that measure. The party thus independent meant a great deal to any ministry. Not only in numbers were they important, but their ver- * Hansard, 1805. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 119 diet meant much to the country. Bitter was the opposition from extreme, party men on both sides. They feared God and regarded not the face of man. The Whiteheads, father and son, the Thorntons, Grant, W. Smith, Young and others made a following not to be despised for influence either inside or outside the house. The slave trade gave a constant reason for an organization, and the result of their presence and conscientious labors lifted the tone of Parliament to a plane from which it has never again entirely fallen. "Wilberforce lamented, and with much truth, that Pitt did not go even farther than he did. With courage great things might have been accomplished that had to wait for other times. Wilberforce thought his own signal success in Yorkshire by an appeal to men's better natures would have sounded through England the knell of corrupt party rule, had Pitt had the faith to try the same thing. " He was then able," says Wilberforce, " if he had duly estimated his position, to have cast off the corrupt machinery of influence and formed a government upon the basis of independent principle. The return" (of Wilberforce) "was an intimation of that power with which intelli- gence and property had now armed the middle ranks of society." * The characteristics of the * Zt/e, p. 33, American Edition. 120 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS religious revival as we have watched them from the beginning were strongly marked in Wilber- force. He lived according to rule, as far as he could,* following Doddridge's suggestions. One of his first efforts was to form a society for the reformation of manners like the one Burnet speaks of in 1692. f He had the same habit of writing largely of his own spiritual experiences and reflections in those diaries that have sup- plied the historian with the most minute data for any account of this period that can be had. With him sprang into being various associa- tions. Christianity, as Wesley remarked, is so- cial. No great revival of the religious impulse has ever taken place without a springing up of societies, associations, guilds, orders, circles, etc. This was as true of the social activity of the Evangelical party, as it had been of the more purely religious beginnings of Methodism. The slave agitation produced at once a com- mittee, circles, branches, etc., outside of Parlia- ment and to them Wilberforce and Clarkson went for inspiration and, support. It is astonishing with what antiquated weap- ons every reform is fought. The first step taken in Parliament was to compel the slave- traders to reduce the number of slaves carried. The reply was, it is nonsense to interfere ; self- * Life, p. 49. f Ibid., p. 56. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 121 interest will protect the health of valuable slaves, far more than law. But the law went through. In the year before Sir Dobbens' bill passed 2,643 slaves had perished in the awful Middle Passage from overcrowding. After the bill the number was reduced to three hundred and twenty-five, and the Liverpool merchants confessed that the legislation had actually increased their profits.* While the slave-trade agitation was going on the zeal of the party found also other outlets for reform. Sunday bills were introduced, and although the legislation did not succeed the agitation did acknowledged good. Gambling received serious consideration, and even Fox denounced it as an evil. Echoes of Howard's work were heard in a county jails' bill that enlisted the Evangelical men on humanity's side in 1783. Every mention of Parliamentary re- form found them all on their feet as in 1784. And Burke led them in an attack on the methods of dealing with prisoners to be trans- ported that led to serious changes, 1784. Burke stated in his speech, what seems now almost incredible, that over 100,000 such had to be pro- vided for in the year ! t Minchin, an Evangelical Member of Parlia- ment, led, in 1787, an attack on the still bloody penal laws, and one finds the familiar list on his * Hansard's Reports, 1805. f Hansard, 1784. 122 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS side. In the same spirit and with the same fol- lowing we find, in 1791, Gray, another member of the Evangelical party, having a committee appointed on imprisonment for debt, and we read the astonishing estimate made by Burke of 10,000 as lying in jail, and over 20,000 in hid-, ing to avoid jail. This speech was among the last ones Burke made. A little while after he was on his dying bed, and the last pages that came under his dying eyes were Wilberforce's Practical View of Christianity, so at least Henry Thornton wrote to Hannah More. The power of the Methodists and Dissenters and their close union with the Evangelical party were exhibited on a national scale, when a move was made by one of the bishops that threatened the Toleration Act. The excitement compelled the immediate withdrawal of all such proposals. Even any restriction upon the licensing of dis- senting ministers was rejected, and the Bishop of London found himself compelled for a shil- ling or sixpence to license as many dissenting preachers as demanded it, while the Established Church labored under very much more elaborate arrangements. The starvation in the North of England, ow- ing to the wars, gave the Evangelicals an oppor- tunity not neglected. A society " for the bet- tering of the condition of the poor " received EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 123 Wilberforce's interest and gave great force to the later reforming party in Yorkshire and the manufacturing districts. It was through the labors of this society that the epoch-making factory legislation began. The condition of children in the cotton-mills could not but excite compassion. Little children from nine to ten years of age were dragged from their dirty beds at two, three, and four o'clock in the morning, to work for their mere subsistence until ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock at night. The horrors of the awful traffic in children's blood were disclosed in various official reports.* The observance of Sunday was sinking into very obnoxious desue- tude, and the moment attempts were made by the Evangelical party to better protect the day, the retort was too easy that they were robbing the poor of the only day they had for them- selves. The Saturday half-holiday, secured by law for women and children, and then gradually as a result of this for adults, was very largely due to the activity of this same party. One of the great blessings of this social ac- tivity of the Evangelical political party, was the close union brought about by it with the rising trades unions of England. There is no prouder chapter in the history of the working democracy * Parliamentary Commissions on the Staffordshire Pottery Works, Reports of the Children's Employment Commission^ etc. 124 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS than the history of English trade unionism. Its quiet, steady, temperate, cautious advance has been largely due to the character of the men whom Methodism trained, and the sym- pathy and support extended by men who dared the reproaches of their own class in society and struggled for their brethren against selfish- ness, prejudice, and slander to secure justice and righteousness. The independence of the Evangelical par- liamentary party stood them in good stead dur- ing this long conflict with slavery at home after they had fought for twenty years with slavery abroad. Liberalism was under the sway of the Manchester economic theories. The anti-corn law agitation had convinced men that freedom of trade was what was needed. The self-sacri- "n ficing labors of Cobden and the political econ- omy of Adam Smith had won a battle against a selfish, narrow, landed aristocracy, bent upon taxing the whole community in order that they I might as landlords demand their rents as of old. u As over against this selfish and boldly en- trenched oligarchy the Manchester school did noble service. The reform bill and the repeal of the corn-laws gave the democracy a living chance. The straggle for abolition, reform, and repeal lifted the whole political life of England to a better standing-ground. One danger that was EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 125 rising on the horizon the Manchester school did not and would not see. The wage slavery that was growing up about them seemed the out- come of laws their whole political economy had taught them to bow down to and worship, to the neglect of nobler altars. The protest of Evan- gelicalism against the factory slavery seemed to the triumphant Manchester men a betrayal of all they considered won. They looked upon the attempt for any sentimental reasons, to interfere with the " laws of trade " as gross treachery to proved principles. The alliance between scientific liberalism and the Evangelical party Wilberforce knew was based on only superficial agreement. He speaks of the struggle coming in regard to the East India Company's charter, and writes: "But more — that we must secure the entrance of mis- sionaries. To whom can any discretionary power of granting or refusing leave to go be trusted? I must think over this important point, but I have long conceived that probably those who are interested for religion will be compelled to join the great body of commercial and political-economy men, who will, I doubt not, contend for destroying the monopoly of the Company, and leaving the road to the East Indies free and open." * * Lift, American Edition, p. 342. 126 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS In the reform movement the part played by the Evangelicals was perhaps more indirect, although it is not too much to say that without its support reform must have waited longer still. The Church was, as such, opposed to re- form because under the baneful influence of Tory squire and wealthy land-owner. Had the Tory party been able to command the Church as a whole in the way it did before Evangelicalism arose and has often done since, reform would have had a far harder struggle. In the provi- dence of God Evangelicalism had found Dis- senters and Methodists its earnest supporters in the long battle for abolition, in the support of the Bible Society, and the agitation for im- provement in morals and the suppression of vice. It was the great nonconforming liberal body of Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, and the North that clamored for reform in the repre- sentation in Parliament. Leeds had no repre- sentation, while Old Sarum, with a few poor cottages, had two members in the house. The inequality was defended by the old arguments, " vested interests " and " property rights," the spirit of the constitution and the admirable work Parliament had done, etc. No step ever taken was wiser than the sup- port given by the Evangelical party to this measure, for it introduced into the life of Eng- EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 127 land the elements she most needed for her stability. It would be. too much to claim that this great constitutional change was wholly the work of the religious movement, but it is within the mark to say that the reform bill and the introduction with it into English parliamentary life of the great middle class would have been morally impossible without the training and the organization of the Evangelical party and the Methodist and Dissenting chapels. The social meaning of the early Evangelical movement may be said to have found its profoundest expression during this reform agitation. Again and again it is possible to trace its influence in parliamen- tary life. On questions such as " Jewish disa- bilities," " the Irish question," and " the corn law agitation," the Nonconformist influence was felt, though not unitedly, nor on the basis of the old humanitarian enthusiasm that made the struggle against slavery and for reform both ennobling and strengthening. J^ VM'^X?^ The Evangelical party lost its first great leader by death in ISSS/mit the mantle fell on worthy shoulders, for Lord Shaftesbury was already in Parliament and was pursuing exactly the same independent course which gave the Evangelical party such power during the days of Wilberforce. The Manchester School was agitating for the repeal of the corn laws, and 128 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS demanding free trade and a policy of peace and non-interference with European policy. In all these things the great dissenting and low church masses followed the lead — of course with ex- ceptions— of Cobden and Bright. Soon, how- ever, they had given them other work to do in which they could not look for the support of the very men who had aided them in their abolition struggle and whom they had helped in the Corn law repeal. As far back as 1802 we saw that the awful conditions of the manufacturing classes had excited the compassion of the Evangelical lead- ers in Parliament, and a bill had been passed "for the preservation of the health and morals of apprentices and others employed in cotton mills and in cotton and other factories." The bill fixed for such boys a day of twelve hours, and limited night-work. This bill was, of course, opposed. It was as usual against the " spirit of the constitution," etc., etc. But the opposition was neither organized, nor did it seemingly find much public sympathy. Those were times when men expected Parliament to interfere largely in regulating trade and life. So also in 1809, the hours for children's labor were still farther restricted in certain mills. The employment of mere babies at dangerous work was stopped, and up to sixteen the day EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 129 was made twelve hours. Again in 1825, Sir John Cain Hobhouse carried through a bill granting a partial holiday on Saturday for chil- dren, and this had the support of all the Evan- gelicals who were striving to save the Sunday from entire transformation into a day of amuse- ment and revelry in the factory districts. Now, however, a change came. The " politi- cal economy men," as Wilberforce called them, in their righteous struggle against the corn- laws and the tax on trade for the benefit of the landlords, laid down axioms that neither experi- ence nor economic speculation has borne out. On the basis of absolute industrial freedom they hoped to build up an ideal society. This worked in the supposed interests of the mill men and the manufacturers, and after the bill in 1831, which prohibited night-work for " persons " (i.e., chil- dren) under twenty-one, every step to regulate the slaughter and degradation of England's middle and lower classes aroused the fiercest opposition. At this time the Evangelicals joined hands with the growing unions and with the landlords to regulate their former allies in past conflicts. From 1833, when a bill was passed that stopped all night- work for boys and girls under eighteen in spinning and weaving mills, and began to in- sist on school attendance and to establish in- 9 130 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS spection of factories, the work went steadily on. Lord Shaftesbury became the spokesman of the Evangelical party in and out of the House of Parliament. He labored at Exeter Hall, was the President of the Bible Society, and aroused all England by his fearful but all too truthful tale of the woes of child life in " Christian Eng- land." The act of 1835 found 56,455 children employed, while in 1836, although the factories had been reduced in number, the employed children were only 29,283. Then came the struggle to include women, and the shocking revelations of women hitched up with blind horses, and of little children push- ing the carts from behind, in dark wet passages, underground, woke England's sympathy, and the employment of women and children in mines was finally prohibited.* The next step was very hard. But the Fac- tory act of 1844 f has become the beacon-light of social reformers ever since, and was the direct outcome of the Evangelical party's agitation and appeal to the conscience of England. This act made the word "person " in the clauses of vari- ous acts containing the words " young persons " include all women. School attendance was made compulsory. Children were limited to an aver- age of six and a half hours work a day. Lord * 5 and 6 Viet., c. 99. f 7 Viet., c. 15. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 131 Shaftesbury still further amended the act in 1845 to include " print works." All this was done under fire from "good people" who were soaked with prejudices against paternalism in government, and who claimed that the self-interest of employers was enough to protect women and children. The law of trade by which all, even babies, were to be protected in their " rights " to sell their labor under no restriction was precious in the eyes of the trading and "political economy men." Happily for England and the world, her great trading and manufacturing era had been pre- ceded by the great religious awakening; con- science was too quick, hearts were too sympa- thetic, to tolerate the conditions that unrestricted demand for human unskilled labor produced. In 1847 a ten hours bill came as a boon to all women and young persons, and this was still further amended to make it exclude night- work. On the commissions that drew up these bills Lord Shaftesbury became the familiar figure. In him the chimney-sweep and the factory hand found voice. He spoke for Evangelical Low Churchmen and for Evangelical Nonconformity, and watched the progress of social reform with wise and kindly eye. The work went on after 1844 and 1847, but the struggle has been over details and not principles. In 1860 other trades 132 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS were taken in, and in 1874 a factory act sought to unify the whole regulation. But the general provisions were the demand for sanitary condi- tions for all workers, protected machinery, safety at work, holidays, education, and certificates of fitness. The principle of state interference with trade conditions was battled for by religious sentiment and conscience against organized selfishness supported by all the scientific political economy maxims of the day. It had tremendous social meaning that conscience and sentiment won the battle. Not only in the immediate, indisputable benefits the laws conferred are we to find this significance, but also in the victory itself of or- ganized righteousness. The work of Howard was tentative. Prison reform is relatively as crying a need to-day as in Howard's time. Our penal machinery still lacks fearfully in scientific adjustment to life and social conditions. Yet at the same time Howard established right princi- ples, and awoke men to the real discussion of the complete questions involved. He did more. He introduced into the discussion what he brought to it, the question of a vital and a vital- izing righteousness. The names of Howard and Elizabeth Fry will stand out to all time as pio- neers and worthy explorers in the strange and dark areas of human existence where crime and EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 133 violence demand communal interference for the protection of social life. The social meaning of the exertions of Wilberf orce and the Evangelical party is not limited to individual victories like slavery's suppression. All the French chatter about human brotherhood at the time of the Kevolution had not one tithe of the social sig- nificance that the practical recognition of that brotherhood had when Wilberforce stood up year after year to plead for the souls of negro slaves in the English Parliament, and demanded for them, as men, the protection of English law. The universality of Christianity never found more fitting expression than in this demand for the freedom of the slave. Nor can we see in the protection of England's little children the whole social significance of the Evangelical activity under the Earl of Shaftesbury. There is no real line between children and the weakness of unorganized adults. The concession that weakness demands the strong communal protection extended by the factory acts includes the weakness, not simply of women and children, but of all who for any reason need that same arm. So long as the state was a group of powerful families, men naturally felt jealous of the interference of such a state in their affairs. The democracy of Eng- land began after 1832 to trust Parliament as a 134 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS state in which conscience had a place, and with all its defects as on the whole a safe arbiter be- tween man and man. The discontented social- istic dreams of Europe have no fitting soil in England, not because any thinking man is con- tent with existing conditions, but because dis- content has found a fitting though slow method both of expression and of remedy. To claim this state of things as the result of dogmatic Christianity would be absurd. To say that the religious revival of the eigh- teenth and nineteenth centuries was a chief fac- tor is to abide well within the mark. To maintain that the social condition of England to-day is what it is in its best and most lasting features because of the work of the great Evangelical leaders is capable of demonstration. The awak- ening of the social conscience, and the applica- tion of methods of social organization to the problems of modern life, is largely the work of that movement which began on the coal-fields of Kingswood in the field preaching of Whitefield, and that has permeated not English life only but the life of the world, now so closely linked together by the highways of commerce. To those who identify the Evangelical re- vival and Evangelicalism our task would now be completely outlined. But we cannot so identify EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 135 them. Evangelicalism was only one bodily form under which the religious inspiration did important work. It was too deep a movement, too real a spiritual and divine regeneration to confine itself to one set of intellectual formulae. In some respects Evangelicalism was funda- mentally lacking. In its enthusiasm and noble reliance upon its Christian experience, in its felt consciousness of the divine presence, it lacked power of discrimination. Its Protestant- ism was not thorough-going. Never had it confi- dence full and complete in the foundation-stone of Protestant theology ; that confidence in God and man, which made the Keformation so dar- ing, which is to-day the strength of Protestant- ism and still forms the basis of it. Wesley had, indeed, defended private judgment, and remarked that finally to this bar all truth must be brought.* But in truth Evangelicalism only asserted it, as does the Eoman Church, in order at once to crucify it. On the basis of private judgment all external written authority is ac- cepted, and from that on it ceases to have any real standing. The verbal theories of inspira- tion promulgated by Evangelicalism became to the party what the councils decisions are to the Koman Catholic — the end of all argument. Practically, whether in Home or in Evangel- * Journal, August, 1743, p. 289. 136 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS icalism, room for growth is made by the utterly uncritical use of the abundant and various ma- terial at hand. This externalizing of the au- thority, however, worked more and more disas- trously as the inner glow and sense of an ever present and living experience of God, which had so marked the earlier life, slowly disappeared. The early Evangelicalism had indeed unfail- ingly asserted the sole authority of the very letter of scripture, and had from the beginning defended an intensely uncritical, unhistorical, and mechanical theory of that authority. But no movement ever followed with greater vigor the inspirations of the present and living hour, quite apart from the professed authority, or without even attempting any satisfactory adjust- ment between the conflicting claims. As the age became more reflective, as the fervor out of which Evangelicalism itself grew, touched at all points the life of England, there was bound to be a searching of hearts, and an appeal from the intellectual inconsistencies all too plainly visible. The hard and shallow character of the theol- ogy of Evangelicalism was not so visible nor so destructive on the Methodist or Arminian wing because it was not the organizing prin- ciple of its life. But within the Established Church and in nonconforrning circles there EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 137 were no new organizations and no new princi- ples of discipline. For them the new fervor had but one channel, and that was the hard and somewhat shallow form of Calvinism that rested neither on historical study of Calvin nor on full and critical study of the Bible. Hence it happened that though the zeal of Evangelicalism was undisputed, its hold over many thinking men was insecure. It in fact invited the very speculation it condemned, and brought forth children bound to call in question the formulae Evangelicalism too often identified •with final truth. Men refused to rest satisfied with a doctrine of election that omitted all the safeguards placed about it by Calvin and the older English divines. Popular Evangelicalism reduced the confessed mystery to an arbitrary wantonness on the part of the Supreme Being. As long as fervor and new enthusiasm awoke vivid sensa- tions these were regarded as conclusive evi- dences of a sure election, and the doctrine for such as felt these sensations was robbed of much of its terror. The eloquence born of real feeling awoke in hundreds these sensations and thus increased the comfortable " number of the elect." When, however, such a mind as that of the poet Cowper was swayed now by one set of sensations and now by another, and refused to 138 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS accept the memory of past peace as an evidence of sure election, the result was not only intense suffering, but an absolute perversion of the gospel, and a caricature of God. On sensitive minds this form of the doctrine left a horror of uncertainty worse than that of Borne, for Rome relieves the mind she cannot assure of salvation by the doctrines of purgatory and the interces- sion of saints. When a calmer mind grasped the doctrine intellectually, as did the mother of Maurice, and yet was incapable of the spiritual ecstasy which sealed election for so many early Evangelicals, the result was great spiritual desolation and suffering. In like manner crass and wholly unbiblical and unoriental conceptions of the atonement still linger as a heritage from this stage of the Evangelical development. Statements of the doctrine lacked both criti- cal exactness and spiritual insight. There was no proper consideration of the ethical and legal questions involved, nor any proper knowledge of the historical development of the ideas that were proclaimed as fundamental to the Christian system, although they had their origin in heathen legalism and found no support in the New Testament except by gross misconstruction of its plain language. EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 139 i The scholastic prominence given to Adam re- appears with wearisome iteration in Evangeli- calism. Nor does it ever seem to occur to so useful and so spiritual a Bible student as Scott to inquire whence Adam gained this place in theology, whether from Paul, or from a scholas- ticism long after Paul. The notes of the Evangelicalism of these, its last years of creative activity, were the unhis- torical spirit of its theology, its utter lack of scientific curiosity as to the intellectual frame- work of its philosophy, and the calm ignoring of important sides of life and truth ever spring- ing into view. Indeed Evangelicalism stood back quite appalled by the children of the very same religious awakening from which it sprang, and failed utterly to recognize the same religious zeal in other garb, that had given it, nay, was still giving it, power to regenerate the race, and establish the kingdom of God on earth. It was hindered from the recognition by its excessive spirit of individualism, to use a much- abused phrase. The saving of souls was the task it set itself, but they were to be saved out of the world, and not kept in the world for that world's sake. Segregation and sectarianism, the establishment of " circles " and " inner circles " not for the world's sake, but for the members* own souls' sake, marred the spiritual life of the 14:0 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS last phases of Evangelicalism. It became nar- row even in its philanthropies, and began to compass land and sea for proselytes to the sect. Gross lack of charity broke its inner unity. In- sistence upon phrases became normal to its temper. Injustice and bigotry were the natural fruit of this state of things. In the excessive emphasis upon an assurance of personal faith it became self-centred, and, even in certain phases, profoundly selfish, atheistical, and un- loving. Its very charity and philanthropy be- gan, like mediaeval charity, and for the same reason, to injure rather than aid the commun- ity. Roman Catholic charity has too often been proclaimed as a means of grace to the giver apart from the effect upon the receiver. Hence, in countries under the dominance of Rome, charity has often lowered the independence of the community, and distracted attention from the primary injustice and wrongs upon which misery and poverty rest. The reforms for which Evangelicalism had been ready to sacrifice so much were now mat- ters of glorious history. Religious zeal, how- ever, is not a matter of splendid reminiscence ; forgetting those things which are behind the true religious spirit presses forward. Evangeli- calism became a party, with a certain constant significance as the guardian of important les- EVANGELICALISM AND REFORM 141 sons and traditions, but no longer with enough vitality to lead the onward movement of the re- vival. The fierce caricatures of Evangelicalism that abound in English letters seem both un- called for and very unreasonable in the light of its acknowledged services to the communal life of England. It is only possible to under- stand this fierce hostility when one fully realizes how completely Evangelicalism sought at last to separate religion from life, and how drearily narrow became its conception of the relation of man to his fellow-men and to his God. The "scheme of salvation," as Evangelicalism pro- claimed it, became a formula for the acquisition of future blessedness at the expense of joy and fellowship sacrificed here. It is needless to say that many noble-hearted Evangelicals never felt the full force of the teaching nor went the full length that others did. Nevertheless, an air of insincerity and externalism began to pervade the teaching and preaching, the reform and philanthropic work, that made it a very ready mark for a world that never liked it and re- sented bitterly its fiery denunciation of much that reasonable men felt was, in proper place, harmless, or even noble. Moreover, the contact of Evangelicalism had been largely with the middle and upper middle classes. It was distinctly liberal in politics, 142 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS and without any marked influence over men of letters or the aristocracy of England, who still in the last analysis controlled the destiny of England. The reform activity has still farther alienated these classes, and gave it, in the minds of many, the attitude of constant menace to modes of thought and feeling, to institutions and arrangements, that had much that was beau- tiful and worthy, and were still further endeared to English life by antiquity and tradition. The time was already come where it was to be saved for further usefulness by the purifying process of antagonism and contradiction. It was to be softened and broadened and stripped of some outward deformity by the rising in England of religious phases wholly different from it in in- tellectual temper, though united to it in the so- cial significance that links together all phases of the Evangelical Revival. LECTUEE V. RADICALISM AND REFORM WEKE we tracing the history of either religi- v ous or social thought it would be needful now to again go back to the Puritanism of the restora- tion for an explanation of strange windings in the history of radical religious conceptions. For this inquiry there is, however, no proper place here. Sufficient must it be to notice the prevalence of a large element of exceedingly radical religious thinking in the great mass of Nonconformity. The Keformation set men's minds free. The wider the range of human inquiry the larger is the possibility, nay, the necessity, for great intellectual divergence. The day when all good men could meet for action on a hearty acceptance of even a very simple plat- form of religious opinion has probably gone forever. Presbyterianism, for perfectly evident histori- cal reasons, had become the harboring shelter for the most extreme religious radicalism. The deadness of pre-Evangelical orthodoxy had given rise to a wide-spread acceptance of Socinian 143 144 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS views. Even to this day the name Presbyterian and the form of government of the Presbyterian Church mark many Unitarian places of worship. The end of the eighteenth century called into play some great minds among the independent Socinian (Unitarian) and radical thinkers of England. Greatest among these were Bentham (1748- 1832) and Priestley (1733-1804). The influence of these really wonderful men was slow in mak- ing itself felt. Indeed, Bentham was only recognized in England long after he had attained wide celebrity on the Continent, and has only been made known to most English readers in- directly through James Mill and his son John Stuart Mill. Priestley's influence was wider spread. But his experiments in electricity and the discovery of oxygen had no influence over the mass of men, who resented bitterly his ad- vocacy of the French Revolution and his pro- nounced democracy. Liberalism in politics be- | gan, however, slowly to mean hostility not only to the Established Church, but also to revelation. There arose an intellectual impatience with the prevalent and narrow orthodoxy. Much of the rejection of religious opinion by radicalism was because religious opinion was crude and narrow and only half understood itself. Any estimate of Bentham by one not trained RADICALISM AND REFORM 145 in law must be more or less superficial. The vast mass of his writings, the • complicated phraseology, and the obscure nature of the sub- ject of which he treats, shut most men out from aught but a second-hand knowledge of Ben- thain's opinions. Yet his influence upon the social reform movement, whose spring we would find in the religious altruism of the revival, was by no means small. Paley is evidence that the utilitarian philosophy is not in itself of necessity irreligious. Bentham made room for religious motives as those that actually do influence men, but not because they have of necessity objective reality, but only subjective value to the man thus influenced. His whole thinking was most thoroughly opposed to any revealed authority, or any external sanction for human conduct. He influenced legislation, and more particularly, in the judgment of those best qualified to pronounce, did he give useful form to the great revision of law made necessary by the changes that had come over society. To him as well as to Sir Samuel Romilly is ascribed the praise for the softening of the penal code, and the imparting of consistency to the many changes of necessity going on in the legal rev- olution. His philosophy of the "greatest happiness for the greatest number," can have a noble or an ignoble interpretation. The popu- 10 146 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS lar form of it, with whicli all are more or less familiar is, of course, that of John Stuart Mill. No one can call his interpretation of that philos- ophy ignoble. He says himself, in the familiar passage from his autobiography, that in Ben- tham's system " I now had opinions — a creed, a doctrine, a philosophy in one among the best senses of the word, a religion, in the inculcation and diffusion of which could be made the prin- cipal outward purpose of life." His father, himself a clergyman who had abandoned all dogmatic Christianity, had brought him up to consider work done for mankind's welfare as the one thing worth living for, and living for man- kind's welfare as the one motive to real life. It is quite impossible, in the social progress of England, to separate the factors that go to make up that progress, and to say this factor was irre- ligious and this was religious. God alone judges motives with accuracy. Mill, of course, as is known to all, rejected definitely dogmatic Chris- tianity. At first pure analytical reason seemed to him enough to guide the race in its racial life. Later, and under the influence of his wife, he enlarged his list of the motives that do actuate men, and he gave place for better and worthier conceptions of even the intellectual life. He remained true to conscience and his form of de- finite religion. He was radical in the extreme RADICALISM AND REFORM 147 and did not fear the bold proclamation of his sincere convictions. Early in life his enthusi- asm had prompted all manner of plans for the redemption quickly of the race by argument. These plans he had to surrender, but he never wavered from his ideal of life, and he nobly strove for the attainment of his ideal. There is no ignoring the immense social im- portance of Mill's work, nor of the influence he brought to bear upon the religious world. From / differing stand-points he and Carlyle did more to compel the religious world to face facts and to think than any other two men. Coleridge, as we shall see later, had flung out questions and left them to instigate to research. But men easily ignored Coleridge. The religious world could not ignore John Stuart Mill. Unselfish sacrifice for principle, and almost Quixotic effort to make manifest his stern adherence to duty, were more than once illustrated in his career. He refused, as is well-known, to canvass Westminster or pay anyone to canvass West- minster for him, and his support of the canvass for Bradlaugh at last cost him his seat. Many of his theories are now attacked in detail ; but it is impossible to fairly estimate the value to a religious-social development of such searching anxious questioning as Mill compelled Evangel- icalism, Broad-Churchmen and thinking Non- 148 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS conformity to submit to. He was distinctly on nobler, higher ground than even his great fellow- reformer Cobden. And he shared with Cobden the transparent honesty and dauntless courage that made the great free-trader such a power for political righteousness. The ideal church will do its own doubting, very humbly and very fearlessly, but very faith- fully. The Church, as the first fervor of the Methodist and Evangelical awakening left it, was however very far from ideal. Some of its faults were intellectual, some of them were moral. The effect on the better men of Mill's search- ing questioning cannot have been unwholesome. That many whose houses were built upon the sand suffered housewreck is undoubtedly to be lamented. That many fell away for a time is not to be denied. That many others only hard- ened their hearts in religious dogmatism is, alas, also true. Yet there was a need for just such earnest hand to hand work with self as Mill compelled sober and serious men to under- take. Nay, there is need for it to-day. Senti- mentalism is not religion any more than dogma is. Many were comforting their sinful souls in the days of misty Broad Churchism and of sentimental Evangelicalism with phrases that had no meaning, and with activity that had no aim. RADICALISM AND REFORM 149 The social significance of Mill for the forces of Christianity was the compulsion laid upon men to face facts. Cobden's peace programme •^f appealed to religious sentiment. Mill opposed it. It was, as he saw it, trade selfishness. For Mill England stood for freedom, and her might, ^ power, wealth, and honor were nothing if Eug- land was not prepared to lay these down for the sake of freedom, even if any European inter- vention cost her any one or all of these in an European war. The religious world had to stop and think. Her own doctrine of self-sac- rifice must be preached to her from one whose philosophy was utilitarian ! Ecclesiasticism has always distrusted democ- \> racy and so was not offended at Mill's strictures on an ignorant democracy, but it gave many a Broad Churchman a start to find on what ground Mill advocated socialism, and to learn from an unbeliever about socialized character. Fortunate it was for modern English radical- ism that it was born in so fruitful and so free an age. It never had the bitter aggressiveness that the radicalism of the social democracy of Europe has had engrafted on to it by violent and short-sighted persecution. Fortunate it was for dogmatic Christianity that the great radical critic was, if so unsparing, yet so rever- ent and so lofty in his tone. The social signif- 150 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS icance of the religious revival was deepened, and the social movement was made more con- scious of its failures and taught many weighty lessons by the astonishing grasp and powerful insight of its greatest critic. There is no connection between Mill as a >/ social reformer and the religious movement, ex- cept that he was born on the same soil and breathed the same atmosphere. No one could have been more utterly kept from any vital connection with historic Christianity than Mill. He knew and valued Maurice, and he had a powerful influence over many of the younger Christian men. But he worked out in the sight of God his own salvation, and only God, who can measure all the factors that make up the tangled scheme of life, is his judge. But we may be thankful that in an age tempted to mis- take words for things, soon to be caught in the entanglements of past traditions revived, there was an independent voice — a challenger to call men to consider and make their way straight before their feet. Of his own social significance we have not space to speak. Perhaps it would be exceed- ingly difficult to hold the balance and weigh his services to social progress. They were very great. He saw many things hidden from the eyes of his contemporaries. He saw the RADICALISM AND REFORM 151 failures brought about by the community not reaping the benefit of the " unearned incre- ment." He advocated the ideals for Ireland that now seem to promise prosperity. He heartily sympathized with North America in her struggle for free soil. He saw that with socialized character the estimates now put upon private property must change. He welcomed free discussion, and he himself introduced a new tone in discussing socialism. For us his chief meaning is the issue he forced on Prot- estantism in all different phases, and the depth and reality he imparted into religious-social discussion. There died about the time that John Stuart Mill was born, a very different type of religious radical in the person of the great Priestley. Neither as a religious thinker nor yet as a social reformer does he belong directly in the line of our discussion. And yet as the material for these lectures has been slowly gathered it was found impossible to escape contact with his enormous influence. As a religious thinker he came of a type of Calvinism with which we have had little to do in this quest. It was a far freer and more in- tellectual type of Calvinism than the later Evangelical product. It was fearless intel- lectually at a time when fearless intellectuality 152 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS was not altogether common. It must, however, be confessed that it did not always possess the spiritual warmth without which intellectuality does little for mankind. There were men like Dr. Docldridge who combined both elements to a marked degree, and in the academy kept by Dr. Doddridge young Priestley began his stud- ies. He drifted, as many did in that day, away from orthodox phraseology into the vague serai- arianism that marked the nonconformity that had not come under the influence of Evan- gelicalism. From that position his clear, sharp thinking and exceedingly dogmatic temper soon drove him into pronounced and dogmatic So- cinianism. With neither his scientific services, which were so considerable, nor with his theo- logical views are we here concerned. He was, however, of no inconsiderable influ- ence on the social development of orthodoxy. His views were as extreme on the democratic and radical side of the governmental issue as on the religious question. His house was wrecked because of his pronounced sympathy with the French Eevolution, and many valuable manuscripts were destroyed. But not even a howling mob could convert him from his confi- dence in the people educated and swayed not by passion and prejudice, but by reason. The Unitarianism of modern English life was largely RADICALISM AND REFORM 153 the product of his great powers. To Unitarian- ism he imparted also the aggressive and dog- matic spirit that has contributed very largely to its decay. He sought refuge in America, but even in Philadelphia refused a professorship in the university lest it hamper his very aggressive spirit of liberty. No view of the social significance of the re- ligious movement would be complete that left out of account the enormous quickening of interest in old theological problems as lines of unfortunate division in the communal life. The laxity of the pre-Evangelical period permitted free intercourse and spiritual fellowship between men of very different intellectual character. Yet it was on the basis rather of indifference than of intelligent toleration of disagreement. In the general opposition to the Established Church all Nonconformists found themselves provided with a common platform, and this sense of common wrong made them not over- anxious to criticise one another. It was very different after the Evangelical ardor began to reach beyond the bounds of Methodism and one class in the community. Again men were called to face the reality of their faith. This was the period of struggle between definite Uni- tarianism and orthodoxy. To hundreds of dissenting families came the 154 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS question, on what are you building ? The foun- dations of society were dragged into the dis- cussion. The French Revolution drew lines all through Europe because men had to decide for action. It was common enough for men to have vague sympathy with reform in govern- ment, and with the oppressed poor ; but now came the question, how will you stand ? So ^ also in the religious-social world, Priestley forced men to say to their souls, on what foun- dation are you resting? The Bible was once more studied not for its theology only, but with the solemn question, are things as they exist now a divine, or a human, or a satanic order ? Priestley's social dogmatism affrighted many, his theological system left many more unsatis- fied. One service he rendered in no small measure: he compelled men to search their hearts, and to question their formulae, and to face facts. The social significance of his work was his entire and unquestioning faith in a divine order. In this he was like a little child. His philoso- phy of "necessity" became in some hands a rigid materialism. It was not that with Priest- ley. Calm and confident he expected the un- folding of that order because he believed in a divine law and the personal government of the world and human life. His teaching affected RADICALISM AND REFORM 155 greatly the social development of a later phase of the religious revival. Closely connected with this same phase, by the influence in a practical way which he exert- ed over the leaders of it, is the founder of Eng- lish socialism, Eobert Owen, who in 1800 took / charge of Mr. Dale's mills at New Lanark. It was one of the deep and cruel misfortunes to the cause of social advance that the activity of Robert Owen became intimately connected with a false and superficial philosophy of life. His secularism was not only utterly opposed to his real working creed, but his later reaction to a profoundly irrational spiritualism demonstrated its inherent incapacity for either explaining the phenomena of life or for satisfying the human soul. No doubt one explanation for the ag- gressive secular character of Owen's philosophy was his real ignorance of essential Christianity. Wilberforce came in contact with Owen in 1812, and makes the following entry in his journal : " Owen of Lanark, Dale's son-in-law and part- ner, breakfasted with me, and stayed long talk- ing of his plan of education, and of rendering manufactures and morals compatible." This visit was renewed, we are told in the Life of Wilberforce* and Mr. Grant and Henry Thorn- ton met Mr. Owen by appointment. When Mr. * Page 356, Amer. Ed. 156 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Owen was proceeding to detail his schemes, he gently hinted that the ladies present might be suffered to retire from a discussion which must prove far beyond their comprehension. Mr. Wilberforce eagerly dissented from the propo- sition ; and it was well for Mr. Owen that he yielded, for he had not read long before " Grant, Henry Thornton, and I were all fast asleep, and the despised ladies were his only real audience." " One of my great principles, Mr. Wilberforce," said Owen, " is that persons ought to place themselves in the situation of others, and act as they would wish themselves to be treated.'* "Is that quite a new principle, Mr. Owen?" Wilberforce asked. " I think I have read some- thing very like it in a book called the New Testament." "Very possibly it may be so," gravely responded Owen. Alas, it was not perhaps Owen that was altogether to blame for not realizing that the golden rule stood in the New Testament, for in the long struggle over the factory act, in which he bore a valiant part, it was not the book to which appeal was oftenest made by those who favored "letting well enough alone," and who defended the principle of vested right as fundamental to a Christian state. The earnest sincerity of Owen is undisputed. When, as a prosperous and energetic mill-owner, RADICALISM AND REFORM 157 he took charge of Dale^s cotton-mill he found over ten thousand employees, of whom five hun- dred were children brought, at ages varying from five to six, from the poor-houses of Glasgow and Edinburgh. The conditions at that mill were not bad as men then counted conditions. Whole families, however, slept in one-roomed houses without sanitation, and children worked from twelve to fourteen hours a day simply for what they ate and drank. He at once began to at- tend to the sanitary condition of the houses, to clean up the mills themselves, to build model dwellings, and to treat the employees like men and women, and not as cattle. He it was who first introduced the co-opera- tive store, where the poor could buy good arti- cles at a reasonable price. Little children ap- pealed to his pity, and he was the founder in England of the infant-school. He soon had difficulty with his partners, for although his mill was abundantly successful, they regarded many of his reforms as unnecessary. In 1813 he started a new firm, and with Jeremy Beutham and William Allen he began an enterprise lim- ited at the outset to a profit of five per cent. Then he became intensely interested in the fac- tory act of 1819, which in his judgment did not go nearly far enough. He reported to Parlia- ment on the poor law and pointed out, what all 158 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS had later on to admit, that there was much seri- ous defect in both conception and administra- tion. Soon after this he took up an aggressive attitude toward organized Christianity, and he lost much of his hold upon the reforming party by his pronounced secular views. As we have seen the reforms were in the hands of the pro- nounced Evangelicals. Kobert Owen was a man lacking in all the education of the schools, but was intensely under the influence of the altruistic spirit. How far he really understood Christi- anity in any true understanding of the word is v doubtful. That he rejected much of the teach- ing of the day is not to be wondered at. He was a clear, but not profound, thinking man. His secular philosophy was shallow in the ex- treme ; his wide influence in this direction was only over those who, like himself, saw only one side of the Christian development. He did a great deal of injury to social reform by linking it to his secularism, and identifying that reform with a spirit of hostility to Christian thought and feeling. His views became the creed of hundreds of working-men, who knew his sacri- fices for their sake, and who understood the shallow but clear assertions by which Owen supported his views. Owen became the father of English socialism by advancing schemes for the reconstruction of RADICALISM AND REFORM 159 all English society. The whole industrial and agricultural life was to come under immediate communal control. Education was to be com- munal after three or four years in the family circle. Industrial units were to be constructed of from six to seven thousand souls, and these were to be linked together until the whole civil- ized world was involved in the industrial and agricultural union. All know of the natural and inevitable failure of his plans in this country, and how New Harmony had to be abandoned, and his Welsh scheme also ended in disappoint- ment. Owen's dauntless spirit was, however, not cast down, and in 1838 he started his Labor Exchange in London. This, too, proved una- vailing. He left behind him a group of " Owenites," determined followers of his ideals. But it was elsewhere than in England that the seed he planted was to grow up to full philo- sophical completeness. What he left in Eng- land was largely an ideal which the religious movement he did not understand was to use, and even to make a popular and lasting element in English life. It is a sad pity that Owen tried to found a " religion of reason," or attempted to think out a philosophy. He was equally incapable of the one or the other. He was a practical man of affairs. In the ten years of conduct of New 160 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Lanark he had realized enough to buy out his partners for £84,000, and he and the new firm made in some four years over £150,000 of profits. Then he bought them out for the enormous sum of £114,000 more. Metternich thought so much of him as to make most flat- tering overtures to him, and embodied much of Owen's experience in the reconstruction of Aus- tria. Brougham, Eomilly, Zachary Macaulay, and Lord Lansdowne followed him in setting up an infant-school at Westminster. Had he possessed more capacity for really entering into historic situations, had he had reasoning pow- ers and more patience, his influence would have been direct rather than confined to the hints and methods others have made their own. To appreciate the position of radicalism as it now appears a factor of importance in English social development, it must be remembered that the religious movement had assumed a definite shape at this time. It had begun to harden into the Methodist and Evangelical sects. Ours it is not to trace this hardening process. The spiritual meaning of the religious movement was the consciousness of direct contact of God with life in the human soul. It was essentially an " experience " theology that — so far as the Evangelical movement had a theology — really gave it a basis and starting-ground. RADICALISM AND REFORM 161 The fatal defect was the narrowness of the experience upon which both Methodism and Evangelicalism sought to build again Christian character. The conflict with Owen had made them distrust all appeal to "reason." The French Eevolution and the proclamation of the encyclopaedists still further deepened this dis- trust. For art and literature as such there grew up a similar suspicion, because these seemed to exalt an experience broader and far more com- prehensive than the " conversion " which was the one thing needful for the Evangelical. The sense of fellowship and social unity that was a most precious fruit of the awakening began to degenerate into an exclusive sectarianism. Fel- lowship became latent. Brotherhood began to seek as its basis catch-words and phrases that had no longer their real power. Social secularism saw the weakness of the Evangelical attitude. Popular education ex- tended the reading of the working classes. Modern science was a new revelation, and its dazzling gleam hid for the time all other light. One has only to gaze for a little steadily at the lime-light, and diffused sunshine will seem dark- ness to the blinded eye. New views of social duty and glorious visions of popular freedom and progress had been the fruit of the social awakening of the French Revolution's earlier 11 162 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS period. In the meantime the agitation for re- form had awakened a sense of independent po- litical power. Most unfortunately the Church, as standing for Christianity, was widely and truly believed to be as a whole opposed to the social aspirations of the nation. Not even the social activity of the Evangelical and Dissent- ing parties saved Christianity from the charge of being obstructive and reactionary. The Evangelical parties became identified rather with the triumphant bourgeoisie, and even to be hated and feared on this account. English secularism was never grossly materialistic, it was " a religion of reason," a " worship of prog- ress," often only a blind opposition to abuses that ought to have been opposed. The radicalism of Bentham as represented by James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and others, never seems to have sunk very deeply into the popular mind. At the same time the general critical acumen of the working-class had greatly in- creased. They could no longer be subdued by religious formulae, no matter how earnestly pre- sented. The uneducated workingmen became, as Carlyle said, more critical than the educated unworkingmen. The burden of taxation, the exposure of government methods during the reform and free trade struggles, the growing faith in themselves, made the working-classes RADICALISM AND REFORM 163 impatient of the religiosity into which Evan- gelicalism was fast drifting. The strength of the religious movement had been in its contact with real life, and its clear- cut, definite statements had been of great use in dealing with men of by no means deeply inquir- ing minds, but with a very real heart hunger. The Evangelical systems were at least very easily stated if not so easily defended. A few strong proof-texts gave them the proper credentials. They appealed to obvious reali- ties, and gave proper emphasis to much neg- lected sides of truth. Sin, grace, and redemp- tion formed their theme, and the relationships which constituted the system never wholly ob- scured the great facts of religious experience. Their very incisive narrowness gave them power over certain classes of not widely informed nor very sympathetic hearers ; and others accepted the systems, not on careful examination of them, but on the not unnatural ground of their evident and tremendous power. Evangelicalism was from the beginning largely a lay movement. Many of its ablest preachers and workers had had no adequate theological or philosophic training, and the habit readily grew up of con- demning any such preparation for preaching the "simple gospel." The systems were first read into the Bible and then easily again read 164 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS out of it. "Whether these systems were Calvin- is tic in color or Arminian made little differ- ence, and after the first heats of controversy were over few took pains to really inquire which had scripture as authority, or whether both lacked that necessary credential. But men more insistent upon thorough inquiry and of broader sympathies could not rest satisfied with these Evangelistic systems, which had neither the support of antiquity, as they constantly as- sumed, nor of the scriptures to which they ap- pealed. Radicalism found the popular religious formulae an easy mark, and in showing up their weakness was very apt to suppose it had ex- ploded all religion. The social significance of radical thought was, in fact, an emphasis upon conscience and an argument that the great motives of human life are " I ought," and " I must because I ought." Owen's activity was the fruit of the humanita- rian and philanthropic activity that proceeds directly, not out of the dogmas of Christianity, but out of its revived life. His doctrine that character depended upon circumstances, and that all men had to do was to improve the cir- cumstances and good character would result, could not confessedly rest upon experience up to the present, because all existing evil is the re- sult of acknowledged bad circumstances. So it RADICALISM AND REFORM 165 must rest on faith in good circumstances, and men's faith finds a stronger basis in resting upon the interaction of improving character and improving circumstances. Moreover, Owen was himself an argument for the vast superiority of character over circumstance. The main trouble was the identification by radicalism, as well as by large sections of the religious world of re- ligion with ecclesiastical and dogmatic systems more or less defensible, but after all is said not belonging to the essentials of the spiritual life. The rising historic spirit was already threat- ening these systems. The felt antagonism exist- ing between lofty ideals and the actual ideals that evidently animated these systems turned the hearts of aspiring radicalism away from ex- ternal Christianity. The perversion of State Establishments to the maintenance of indefensi- ble positions never went after 1688 to quite the same lengths in England as elsewhere. This was in large measure due to the peculiar position of the Whig party to the Church, and to the neces- sity later on of a constant appeal to large bodies of Nonconformists outside the established sys- tem. At the same time the unorganized, and to a large degree unrepresented, democracy found itself consciously face to face with an aristocratic government divided into two sections called Whig and Tory, or Liberal and Conservative. 166 ENGLISH HELIOIOUS MOVEMENTS The Church was indeed divided between Whigs and Tories, but democracy found itself largely left without either in its councils or its activity. The forms of Dissent that ministered to a large number of the more humble classes did not command the intellectual respect of thoughtful working-men. This was at a time also when the conditions were pressing hardly upon the laboring-classes. War with its heavy burden had greatly increased all taxation, and very much disturbed the economic condition. Hun- dreds of working-men were being displaced by machinery and found themselves in competition with mere children. Utterly unregulated hours of labor, and periodical intervals of overwork and idleness bore hardly on great masses of factory workers. Discontent was abroad. The reform bill greatly disappointed the manual laborers. Their popular hero Owen voiced their despair over the changes that had taken place. The Church was seen by hundreds to bo but one of the many props for the maintenance of an existing condition no man dared to defend save in detail ; which, on the whole, was too dark to inspire anyone with courage. No won- der radicalism made great headway among men, who saw in its doubts and denials so many blows at an order and a set of opinions they had learned to hate. RADICALISM AND REFORM 167 Trades-unions were beginning to absorb also the social energy of the working-classes. Be- tween organized Christianity and the trades- union there has never been open conflict in England. Yet there existed then, as there ex- ists now, much feeling of suspicion. Nor is this wholly unwarranted by the facts. The Church is a social organization. Its mission is to trans- form the community and to turn and overturn until the law of God is the law of man. It appeals to the social instinct and seeks to sat- isfy it. The old agapce or love-feasts; the entertainments of the American church ; the circles and societies of organized Christianity are all the marks of this social character. Out- side organizations, such as lodges, fraternities, trades-unions, and other combinations for social purposes stand in a sense as rivals of the organized Church in satisfying this awakened want. Hence more or less antagonism has always sprung up between the trades-union and the Church. This antagonism was pecul- iarly outspoken in the beginning of trades- unionism, and gave radicalism in politics a good excuse for radicalism in religion. The chief temptation for Christ on the mount was to obtain power by bowing to it. To this temptation the Roman Church yielded when she sold herself for temporal authority. To 168 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS this worship Protestantism was tempted also to yield, and did in large measure yield. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, how- ever, it was wealth more than political power that tempted the Church. The working-men felt instinctively the surrender. For them reforming clubs, chartist gatherings, trades- unions, and political debating circles promptly began to take the place that the social activities of the Church might have filled. Radicalism became as jealous of the Church as the Church was scornful of radicalism. In the country the Evangelical revival still con- tinued its organizing work long after radicalism had completely undermined it, to all appear- ances, in the city. Thorold Rogers gives this striking testimony to the Primitive Methodists and their work in organizing the forces long before organized in the town. He is no very friendly critic of religious forces, hence his testimony has double value. He says, "The heads of the trades-union in towns can summon their men speedily; and take action, if action seems desirable, promptly. But it is far more difficult to manipulate the scattered elements of an agricultural union. ... I do not believe that the mass of peasants could have been moved at all, had it not been for the organization of the Primitive Methodists, a religious system which, RADICALISM AND REFORM 169 as far as I have seen its working, has done more good with scanty means, and perhaps, in some persons' eyes, with grotesque appliances for devotion, than any other religious agency. I have often found that the whole character of a country parish has been changed for the bet- ter by the efforts of those rustic missionaries, who possess many of the qualities, and have produced not a little of the discipline which the preaching friars of the thirteenth, and the Lollard Bible-men of the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries displayed or enforced. I be- lieve it is true that all successful religious move- ments have aimed at heightening the morality and improving the material condition of those they have striven to influence." * The work of social organization of the work- ing-men for their economic and material im- provement was as directly within the province of the Established Church of the land which these working-men supported, as the education of children in India and the relieving the miseries of the Zenana. But this work the Church was leaving wholly undone* Eadical- ism became, and naturally became, the religion of the town working-man. For his union or political club he made wondrously heavy sacri- fices. For the good of his class he entered into * Work and Wages, p. 516. 170 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS alliances that many times cost him dearly. In these organizations the altruistic energies found some scope, and the negations of secularism became sacred dogmas, intimately connected with his own mental and spiritual develop- ment. It was a tremendous loss to the working- classes that there should have been this great estrangement, and a still more momentous loss to the Church that she should have failed in the very beginning to have realized, even more fully, the need there was of her mediatorial character. The pretension to priesthood of a class is a huge and blasphemous mockery if all Christians do not feel that they are priests unto God, forever presenting the world's wants be- fore the throne of grace, and forever holding up the grace of God in the vigorous proclamations of a ceaseless activity. Never has organized Christianity recovered fully her lost opportunity. That there must ever be unspiritual and unenlightened masses of men while the Church has a militant work to do is what must be expected. The sad part of radicalism was the acceptance by spiritual men of propositions directly subversive of all the historic basis upon which spiritual life has stood. "With scoffing, defiant, irreligious radicalism the Church ought to gently and RADICALISM AND REFORM 171 tenderly contend. Alas, that she should ever be put, as she has been more than once, in the position of contending against spiritually minded men for wrongs she should have been the first to point out. But it was the old story. The Samaritan outcast was more a neighbor to the down-trodden and unprotected working- man, when priest and levite passed by. It was thus that Chartism took on its distinctly negative and secular aspect, and became the organizing inspiration for the working-men who believed themselves, with much justice, to have been betrayed by the reform of 1832. There was nothing in the movement itself of a secular character. They asked only for (1) annual par- liaments; (2) universal suffrage; (3) vote by ballot; (4) abolition of the property qualifica- tion for membership in the House of Commons ; (5) payment of members ; and (6) equal elec- toral districts. The methods that unrepresented classes always take to make known their wants are stormy. This Macaulay points out in a speech on the Keforrn Bill of 1832. "We drive over to the side of revolution those whom we shut out from power ; " * and again in 1832 he pointed out that mobs of Madrid "assembled before the royal palace, forced their King, their absolute King, to appear in the balcony, and * Speech in the House of Commons, March, 1831. 172 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS exacted from him a promise that he would dis- miss an obnoxious minister." " If there is any country in the world where pure despotism ex- ists, that country is Turkey; and yet there is no country in the world where the inhabitants of the capital are so much dreaded by the gov- ernment." The Keform Bill of 1832 had indeed admitted the wealthiest middle classes of the growing towns to the franchise. It had done useful service by abolishing fifty-six rotten bor- oughs, or seats that simply represented the wishes of wealthy individuals. From thirty more it took away half their representation. It gave to counties fifty-six additional representa- tives, and gave the wholly unrepresented cities of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and thirty- nine towns, seats in the House of Commons. The basis of the franchise was made a ten- pound leasehold for boroughs, and the county franchise was given to all leaseholders and copy-holders. But as yet the laboring classes were without a voice. They therefore made their wants known by stormy meetings, and at last were to gather together and present before the bar of the House of Commons the great pe- tition for the passing of the People's Charter. The bitterness was intense. With some justice the working-men felt themselves betrayed. The great middle classes had had their earnest and RADICALISM AND REFORM 173 hearty support all through the stormy Eeform Bill agitation. But now that these had gotten what they wanted, all further efforts were re- garded as noxious disturbance of the peace. In fact it was said by one of the reform leaders in the House of Commons, that further agitation would be a betrayal of those who had obtained the passing of the act. Moreover, as we saw, Owen was instilling into the minds of large classes of men, the economic views that have, under a thousand different garbs, been roughly classed as socialistic. He linked these teach- ings with a " rational religion " that was closely akin to the systems to which Comte has given form. Both Chapel and Church were largely hostile to the Chartist movement. The Chapel because it had largely gained what it wanted, and none are so conservative in temper as re- formers who have carried their particular meas- ure of reform. The Church was hostile because still under the dominion of the Tory squire and county magnate; and, almost fiercely opposed to any change, it was filled with insensate wrath at the Liberalism that was identified with free thought and anti-clericalism. There is no need to describe again the oft- told panic in London, the closing of the bridges, the filling of the streets with soldiers, the mis- erable throng whose elements were too hetero- 174 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS geneous to display the real force of the popular discontent, and the miserable fiasco on Ken- nington Common. The Duke of "Wellington commanded London, and massed his soldiers. But only a rabble of 50,000 gathered, and they dropped silently away after the petition had been sent, without a procession, to the House of Commons. The working-men felt themselves deserted. They distrusted even the party of corn-law re- peal under Cobden and Bright, and O'Connor entered into serious debate on the subject. The secularism that had been instilled by many of the radicals found a fine and fruitful soil. Every institution was more or less distrusted and at- tacked. The second Revolution in France and the disturbances all over Europe in 1848, made sympathetic disturbances natural in England; but the main disaster of the Chartist movement, as of radicalism in reform generally, was the sense of dreary isolation felt by many of the best spirits in England in their reform efforts, and the distinct gulf that yawned between or- ganized Christian feeling and the wounded spir- its of those who, no one now denies, had great hardships to complain of, and were in need of wise and tender sympathy and guidance. LECTUEE IV. THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT IT was at a moment of great social strain that in a new phase the religious movement again made itself felt. The organization and devel- opment of England's constitutional democracy did not come without struggle. Had George III. been a really strong man and shared the feelings of many of his most powerful subjects, a strong reaction might easily have been set on foot against the claims of the country for Par- liamentary change. And in the name of law and order, during the troubled years of 1838- 48, under a less wise ruler and with a little less sympathy for the suffering, it would have been easy to greatly limit the right of public meeting and political agitation. Happily for the larger cause of human freedom, the panic of 1848 was only temporary. Many things combined to allay distrust. England became more and more prosperous. The loss, in fact, of the American Colonies had formed the beginning of a new colonial career, founded on much more lasting principles than conquest and force. Australia 175 176 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS and the development of India, the enormous growth of foreign commerce, the unquestioned supremacy at sea, gave England a proud place in the world's history at this time. It was inevitable that these points of contact with the larger world should now do for England what similarly enlarged contact had done for it in the age of Elizabeth. The intellectual awak- ening of the nineteenth century began with an outburst of song and gave to the world a litera- ture that in breadth, variety, purity, and force, is second only to the Elizabethan period in English history, and has no rival in the world's history save in Athens at the time of Pericles. Contact with the thought of Germany introduced new elements into the religious thinking of the age. The very spirit and tone of the questions men began to ask themselves struck at the nar- row dogmatism of the second-growth Evangeli- calism that claimed the religious world for itself. Coleridge (1772-1834) and Wordsworth (1780- 1850) began life as violent social reformers. The dreams of a " Pancjjocracy " in America were never realized by the wayward, erratic Coleridge. Nor, indeed, were many of the dreams of his restless, unsatisfied ambition ever fulfilled. He constantly made plans, any one of which would have been a life-work for the or- dinary genius; but, like Michael Angelo, his THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 177 work he largely left full of massive promise and * suggestion, but strangely incomplete and tantal- izing. Yet it was a splendid thing for Eng- land's life that at a time when dogmatism and traditional ways of thought began to alienate the masses of men, more particularly the men that worked with their hands — the great indus- trial army that had sprung like a giant from the soil — that at this time men favoring change, im- patient with the tyrannies of their time, thirst- ing for larger life and nobler manhood for the nation, were yet under the spell of the deep re- ligious spirit that pervaded England. France knew the violence of the unchained passions of men. It was not because Englishmen were less narrow or less violent that like scenes were not enacted on her soil. The explanation of the quietness of England's revolution is that the working-men found sympathetic leadership, and that religious thought was social and economic in the hour of England's stress and peril. That this was the case is in large part due to the questionings of Coleridge. Principal Tulloch, in his admirable lectures on Religious Thought in Britain During the Nine- teenth Century* appears to us to lay too much emphasis upon the positive contributions of the strange poet-theologian. The thoughts that * Xew York, 1886. 12 178 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Coleridge flung into the arena were a kind of challenge to thinking men. But the positive answers were gained, not from Coleridge, but from the source he gained so much from, name- ly, from Germany. He raised the questions of Biblical criticism and authority which men only attempted to answer when they had become familiar with Kant and German historical criti- cism. He flung out his suggestions about a na- tional church at a time when thinking minds were dissatisfied with the individualistic and low conception then rife about the Church. But he gave no clear solution of the problem ; he would perhaps have done no proportionate amount of good had he given answers. Men had again to awake and ask themselves a great multitude of questions that Evangelicalism had never raised. It was normal and right that the early enthu- siasm of the religious movement should fling itself upon philanthropy and reform. The un- reflecting character of this earnestness, the straightforward way in which abuses that lay in the clear sight of men were attacked and desper- ately grappled with, mark the unreflecting pe- riod of the awakening. When, however, the movement became wider and deeper, and men's minds were as thoroughly awakened as their hearts, there came the inevitable intellectual THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 179 crisis, sad traces of which many bore to their graves. The foundations upon which Evangeli- calism supposed itself to rest had to undergo the test of sober examination. The sharp and re- peated attacks of radical thought compelled men to stand on the defensive. Nor could Evangel- icalism hold its own in this rough and tumble intellectual battle. With pain and sorrow men saw their most cherished formula unable to stand the shock of critical examination. Radi- calism granted no unexamined premises, and demanded reasons for what Evangelicalism as- sumed would never be questioned. Moreover, the living experiences of the early movement had hardened into more or less im- perfect customs, dogmas, and unquestioned authorities. There is, however, no transferring the authority of a vital experience to another soul. You may and should bear witness to the truth that has moved you, but the same truth may in very different garb have power over others, who even deny that truth as you state it in words. The danger to England's religious life was the identification of religion with either one of the phases best known in the beginning of the century. The formalism of the Established Church was set off to some degree by the active but shallow Evangelicalism that pervaded one 180 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS wing of it, and nearly all Dissenting churches. In men's impatience with stupid and selfish con- servatism there was danger that even thinking men should identify religion with mere reaction, intellectual and political. This is seen in the early work of "Wordsworth, and the revolt of Shelley and Byron furnishes evidence of the drift toward an irreligious de- mocracy. There were none in the ranks of Evangelicalism fitted to guide this wayward, searching generation in its intellectual seeking for some highest good. Whatever m ay be the the- ological importance of Coleridge — and this is not small — his influence was rather suggestive than directly constructive. Moreover, the awakened social aspirations demanded a social sympathy he was not in a position to give. Liberalism began in the minds of many to as- sume a form dangerous not only to the Church as a national institution, but to organized Chris- tianity. The struggle over subscription to the articles for entrance and honors at the univer- sities was resisted with a heat and violence that only this pressing danger, as it seemed to earn- est men, can explain. The utter secularization of life and education seemed to many at this time the goal toward which the whole movement tended. At this point two distinct movements began to make articulate the religious life for THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 181 which Evangelicalism was no longer a large enough expression. Both of these movements were animated by the intense social feeling that characterized the Evangelical Revival through- out. The two movements were marked by an intense intellectual activity. But one was in contact with the larger outlook of foreign Prot- estantism, the other found itself in sympathy with the treasures of religious feeling expressed in the Catholic development of Southern Eu- rope. Were we tracing the intellectual side of this development, it would be impossible to pass over the work of men like TVhately, Arnold of Kugby, Hampton, Dean Stanley, Mil- man, and Thorwall, because on the purely intel- lectual side they gave vast assistance to men struggling with the evident contradictions be- tween modern criticism, history, and philosophy and the systems of religious belief common in their day. But the social perplexity was the highway along which liberal opinion seemed to advance to abrupt antagonism with the ecclesi- asticism and theology that stood for Christi- anity. Even thoughtful and acute men consid- ered Christianity hopelessly reactionary. So also the services that Evangelicalism was doing in Parliament were considered by advanced po- litical economists as reactionary, and the fact that in the advancement of the factory acts the 182 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Evangelical party had to largely rely on the landlords and squires in opposition to the manu- facturers lent color to this view. Evangelicalism stood for Christianity, and was undoubtedly at this stage of its life inclined to reaction. The great mass of liberals shared this misap- prehension, and to remove it men like Whately contributed much on the intellectual but little on the social side. The now threatening danger to English life was the identification of all social change with extreme radicalism in religion. The dominant position of Priestley in wide non- conforming circles, and the extreme neglect on the part of large sections of the English clergy of obvious duties greatly strengthened this im- pression. At this point Frederick Dennison Maurice en- tered into English life with larger conceptions of what Christianity really was, and with pro- found views on the relation of the Church to working-men. These as a class were without doubt neglected. Gladstone speaks in no meas- ured terms of the existing conditions. He says of this time (1830) : " Taking together the ex- pulsion of the poor and the laboring classes (es- pecially from the town churches), the mutila- tions and blockages of the fabricks (sic — ru- brics ?)> the baldness of the services, the elab- orate horrors of the so-called music TEE BROAD OHURCH MOVEMENT 183 and above all the coldness and indifference of tlie lounging or sleeping congregations, our ser- vices were probably without a parallel in the world for their debasement." * Moreover, as we have seen, working-men had found in an anti- Christian radicalism a substitute for the en- thusiasm of religion. The danger was great that the Church Establishment should make the mistake that has been made in Europe, of such an alliance between the Church and the conser- vative elements in the government that the working-classes should be left in an attitude of positive hostility to the Church, and a ready prey for a dangerous and extravagant radi- calism. In Maurice the noble aspirations of the work- ing-classes found an advocate and an inspi- ration. Quietly, year after year, he found his work in the Working-men's College, Great Ormond Street, tell more and more. There he attracted some of the noblest of the thinking men in English life. From him went out the impulses that made the work of Kingsley tell so much all over England. Few listened to his sermons; perhaps few more read his books, but among these few were Tennyson, Carlyle, Kingsley, Bobertson of Brighton, and a band * The Church of England and Ritualism. Contemporary Review i October, 1874. 18i ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS of less known but choice spirits, whose zeal saved thousands for a rational and self-con- sistent even if often a vague, system of Chris- tian faith. The social significance of this phase of the religious movement lies not alone in the co-operation systems that sprang out of the movement immediately, or the Christian Socialism that the party adopted as its creed, weighty as has been the influence of both these efforts; the main social meaning was the per- manent establishment of a bond of sympathy between the Church in this wide and deeper meaning, and the more intelligent and thought- ful working-men, who felt that here was a Christianity that they could accept and which tried at least to understand and voice their wants and make articulate their complaints. The senseless panic of London over the Chart- ist movement was not shared by these earnest seekers after the social solution of problems that must be faced. They were brave men who dared at the time of great excitement in 1838-1848 to claim for Chartism, and oppressed and unrepresented working-men, a fair hearing. Against Maurice, Ludlow, and Kingsley were arrayed not only all the conservative forces in Church and state, but the liberal political economy of the day was almost as violently outraged by their teaching as was conservatism. THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 185 The extreme Manchester individualism was the dominant note of the time. The socialism of Owen was for them the most paltry and imprac- tical sentimentalism. Cobden and Bright saw quite clearly the real evil of the com laws, and the natural tendency of any reformer is to greatly over-estimate the value of the one re- form seen to be necessary. Foolishly enough, the Chartists did not see the evil of protection to their own interests, and O'Connell violently opposed the league. The political economy views of Bentharn and James Mill were the prevalent basis of thought for the young and intelligent radicalism that looked with scorn on the "ColeridgiaDS," as Maurice and Stirling are called in Mill's Autobiography. This thought was in its sectarian stage, as John Stuart Mill himself says. Later on in life he also realized some of the things for which now the school of Maurice, Ludlow and others were contending. At that time Coleridge was identified in many minds with the most feared forms of infidelity, and Owen stood for the religion of " Keason," which to the average Englishman was the same as the guillotine, the revolution of blood, and the fury of mob law. For the religious philos- ophy of Coleridge and the practical philan- thropy and social reforms of Owen, Maurice now stood up as defender, and that in the name 186 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS of orthodox Christianity. The fury and sur- prise of all parties may be imagined. England was gathering her forces for a struggle with the discontented. The disturb- ances in the north were easily put down, and then came the fiasco in London. The mob scattered, but there was left a bit- terness in the hearts of thousands such as only injustice, disappointment, and helpless rage can engender. The population of England was in a fair way to drift as helplessly away from organ- ized religion as has the whole of the Social Democracy of Germany, and with the same destructive, senseless hate of all even distantly connected with the Church. Then it was that these few men saved society from this division. The kindly, gentle sympathy of men like Mau- rice, Kingsley, Ludlow, Thomas Hughes ; their willingness to bear the storm of opprobrium that greeted their self-chosen title of Christian Socialists; their splendid appeals to the man' hood, not of a class, but of all England, called enough away from bald and materialistic secu- larism to stem the tide, and if not to wholly correct the mistakes of ecclesiasticism, yet at least to claim a share in the reform movement for earnest, Christ-like men. Maurice embodied, in his Kingdom of Christ, his faith in the Church as under two aspects — THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 187 one as a great social organization, the other as a great educational organization. He made •what would to the Nonconformist world seem extravagant claims for the Church as controlling education, but, on the other hand, he longed to admit all Dissenters to the Church, not on the basis of a set of opinions, but of the organizing life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was not a " liberal." He wrote himself in 1871 : " What sympathy then could I have with the Liberal party (in 1830), which was emphatically anti- theological." To him personally Cobden and the anti-corn law league were being used of God, but he had no faith in a national life that was not based on faith in a divine order, and any movement that appealed only to present expediency was to him wanting in the first guarantee for permanent usefulness. It is hard now to understand the storm of indignation that greeted these men. They sacrificed all chances of preferment in the Church. But happily Maurice and Kingsley do not need titles to their names to keep them afloat. The work of winning the working-men began in the little night-school in Little Ormond Yard, where the Kev. Mr. Short and Maurice began first with grown men and then gradually with boys, and all that would come. Some of the choicest minds of England have kept up since 188 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS the work thus simply begun, and carried it on amidst a storm of abuse. The motives are well set forth by Maurice himself, in writing of a Chartist tailor who became one of his active workers : " The man is full of honest doubts. He has been driven into infidelity from feeling that there were no Christians to meet the wants of his mind." * Just as to-day, on the conti- nent, all the unquestioned fidelity and honest benevolence of the Roman Catholic Church avails little to keep her hold on the more intel- ligent and half -educated masses, because she refuses to them what she does not deny to her intellectual aristocracy — full freedom to investi- gate and encouragement to do so. So also the Evangelical party in England feared the results of such encouragement to question, treated all questioning as wicked doubt, and drove from her the intelligence and manhood of the awak- ened masses. Walter Cooper and Gerald Massey paved the way for free intercourse between these Chris- tian reformers and the ex-Chartist workers at Cranbourn Tavern, and there was organized the first " Working-men's Association." The efforts of these men were directed, as Maurice said, toward " Christianizing socialism and not Chris- tian-Socializing the universe." t They met as * Life of Maurice, Vol I. , p. 519. f Ibid. , Vol. II. , p. 41. THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 189 seekers after the solution of existing difficulties. No one, not the most hardened Conservative Tory, denied that there were hardships and inequalities in the existing social arrangements. Baligion, it seemed to these men, presupposed a divine order, incompatible with the human disorder. Of course, they had their several ways of remedy, but the main thing in the minds of the religious elements was the asser- tion of this faith in a divine order as the miracle mountain-lifting force. For them the conflict was really a double one, with the un-Christian socialists and the un-social Christians. Work- ing-men's colleges were established at Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Salford, Ancoats, Shef- field, Halifax, "VVolverhampton, Glasgow, Bir- kenhead and Ayr.* The Democratic revolt against all ecclesiasticism was separated from revolt against Christianity. The evils of classes springing up ignorant of each others' needs, difficulties, and common aspirations, were to some extent averted. Socialistic England's legislation has steadily been from that date onward, but the socialistic party has nowhere been weaker. Kingsley, and still more Maurice, recognized the fact that any triumph of a par- ty, socialistic or otherwise, must of necessity ba temporary and inadequate. The nation must * Life of Maurice, Vol. II., p. 379. 190 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS move as a nation, and work out its own salva-' tion with fear and trembling as a nation. Archdeacon Hare wrote of Maurice in 1853 : " I do not believe that there is any other living man who has done anything at all approaching to what Maurice has effected, in reconciling the reason and the conscience of thoughtful men of our age to the faith of the Church." * And when at last ecclesiastical zeal deprived him of his professorship, nearly a thousand working- men, of ninety-five different occupations, sent him a spontaneous address of passionate loyalty. Nor can we overlook the effects of this thought on the literature of the day. The secular spirit had found expression, the restless inquiry of the day had voiced itself in the bitterness of Byron and Shelley. Now another and a higher note was to be sounded, and in Tennyson all the aspirations of a religious so- cial feeling found their voice. In Memoriam embodies the teachings of Maurice, and the music of Tennyson has become English music as no other poet's singing has done since Chaucer. Byron may be still read and admired in Europe, but nowhere will Tennyson be read as he is with us. As the German household feels the pagan note in Goethe, and, although proud of his intellectual gianthood, loves Schil- *Life of Maurice, Vol. II., p. 184. THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 191 ler more ; so the English literary world may place Byron never so high, yet by Wordsworth and Tennyson is English society influenced, and their music it loves. This broad church movement, as it was loose- ly called, was not the creation of any man. Just as Methodism sprang up and flourished quite independently of its greatest leaders, so this social-religious movement was born not of flesh nor of blood but by the will of God. In- deed, independently of Maurice, Eobertson of Brighton fought his way to a wider and noble conception of the kingdom of Christ with its duties and glorious privileges. And working- men heard him gladly. On his tomb is a touch- ing inscription placed there by " the working- men of Brighton." They filled the church at his funeral, and gave him an attentive hearing whenever he poured out, as he freely did, the best that his trained sympathetic mind had to give. The movement was in no way hindered by some who did not share its leading thought. Carlyle never turned to the secular liberalism of his day, nor sought refuge from his doubts and darkness in a surrender to democratic ma- chinery. In much of Christianity he rightly saw sham and unreason ; he despised the com- fortable negligence of the pressing issues that 192 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS marked large sections of the churches. Upon the insincerity of the day he poured out his in- dignation, sometimes a little too much in the style of modern grand opera, with waves of sound and the clashing of cymbals, not meaning much to untrained ears. But it is safe to say that he was saved from more direct and destruc- tive antagonism by the moral respect inspired by the men who were, as usual, being denounced as the introducers of strange gods and the wan- ton destroyers of old treasures. The foundation of the faith that marked this phase of the religious awakening was a pro- found confidence that God was made evident in a divine order, and that all society and all life was a witness to this order ; that even the dis- orders of society, the sins and shortcomings of men revealed still more plainly that all real life was dependent upon this order ; and that these sins bore witness to the fact. The social value was not therefore the exhibition of a kindly and sympathetic spirit toward the weaker and hum- bler classes. Nor was the spirit of the move- ment one of content with existing conditions. Indeed, Maurice urged Kingsley to "write a working country parson's letter about the right and wrong use of the Bible. I mean protesting against the notion of turning it into a book to keep the poor in order." This faith in God was THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 193 reflected in faith in man's possible apprehen- sion of God. It led to confidence in enlight- ened reason, and trusted even the poorest and most ignorant with the deep things of God. The faith of the masses of men had been ter- ribly shaken by the apparent refusal of the Church to meet the issues raised by such books as Paine's Age of Reason, and the more intelligent of the Chartists were familiar with the arguments of the French encyclopedists as given them in the Chartist literature that sprang up all over the North of England after the passing of the Keform Bill. Evangelical orthodoxy demanded unquestioned obedience to a book, whose verbal inspiration was asserted in more or less distinct terms, while the Church either ignored the issue or turned to " author- ity," as we shall see in the next lecture. The extreme Protestantism of the working-classes was ready to accept neither of these proposi- tions, nor to submit to any ignoring of the argu- ments ; and hundreds turned away from all re- ligion, and sought in social agitation an outlet for their social energies. Many, however, were saved by the bold and fearless linking of faith in a divine order, to which faith the social ac- tivity of the ex-Chartists and reformers bore witness, with the content of Christianity as the highest witness to that divine, imperishable re- 13 194 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS ality. And the fearless facing of critical and scientific questions gave hundreds of young men new courage to take up religion again as having meaning and power for the very ends they held most dear. The fearful and destructive antagonism be- tween the ideals of Christianity and progressive thought that became the normal condition on the continent of Europe before and after the fitful storm of 1848, was largely avoided in Eng- land, and with it the disastrous separations of classes of men in their political and social ideals. Liberalism was no longer synonymous with anti- Christian speculation, and in the minds of many, and some of them the choicest in England, the fundamental conception of Christianity became identical with the reign and exhibition of that social love and order which gave the reform movement its point and power. Nor was it a weakness of the broad church movement — so-called — that in its finest spirits modern mechanical liberalism was constantly disavowed. The Manchester school was doing its purely Protestant work, critical and destruc- tive of past idols and vain worship. There was serious danger that hollow political rationalism should seriously blight the growth of social en- thusiasm roused by the anti-corn law agitation. Then it was that the prophecy of Carlyle and THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 195 Euskin in no small measure contributed to rouse again the spiritual perceptions of men to new activity. These men were essentially re- ligious teachers, but the basis of their teaching was not dogmatic but social. They failed, even in their better moments, to do justice to large elements in the dogmatic progress of Christi- anity. But they did call men back to great fun- damental but much neglected views of human life. It was at Morris's working-man's college that Euskin learned some of the lessons to which he reverted in his later life as he "harked back" (in his own words) to the religious memories of the past. And the long and noble list of men whose life was touched on its deepest side, and who passed over those early bridges of artifi- cial gulfs to understand better and more fully the aspirations of their fellow-men, is glorious prophecy for the ultimate triumph of a religious and spiritual democracy in England. The sub- ordinate place that Euskin gave to his art criticism was one result of that early contact with human life. " I begin to feel," he writes to Miss Mitford, " that all the work I have been doing, and all the loves I have been cherishing, are ineffective and frivolous — that these are not the times for watching clouds, or dreaming over quiet waters ; that more serious work is to be 196 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS done ; and that the time for endurance has come, rather than for meditation ; and for hope rather than for happiness." * This phase of the religious movement widened out into so many differing channels, found expressions so various, that many will fail to realize the essentially religious character of these manifestations. Scholastic Protestant- ism has so over-emphasized metaphysics as a factor in a religious philosophy that it has been willing to unite men far apart in real sympa- thies upon a basis of superficial agreement here. For co-operation some agreement in sympathy is wholly needful. The broad school realized more or less distinctly, however, that this sympathy might have another basis besides metaphysical theological speculation. For men of the mental type of Buskin and Morris it is perfectly useless to propose any metaphysical theological basis as a common ground, for neither of them could ever be the least inter- ested in either metaphysical or philosophical problems. This is no more a reproach to them than if they were to regard Calvin as irrelig- ious, because living in the midst of the glories of the Savoy Alps, he never once, so far as I am aware, alluded to the beauty which surrounded him unnoticed. * Collingwood's Life of Ruskin, Vol. I., p. 157. THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 197 Morris's art work and Toynbee Hall are, however, equally the product of the religious movement with the discussions of predestina- tion and free will to which it also gave rise. It belonged to the essence of the broad church movement that it sought, more or less intelli- gently and more or less successfully, to bind men together for religious life and social ser- vice on another platform than that of intellectual agreement. In point of fact as human activity is more and more widely differentiated in its evolution, agreements of an intellectual kind will insure less and less that union in sympathy and feeling most needed for effective co-operation. The religious significance of the broad church movement was therefore of necessity not to be expressed in theological formulae ; neither could anyone truly test it by theological formulas. Dr. Candlish never really met Maurice at all in their discussion of the atonement. They spoke in different tongues about different things. The social significance of the movement scarcely needs pointing out. Toynbee Hall and the decorations of every English house of a certain class built since 1880, the settlement work of London, the socialism of the London county council, the summer schools at Oxford and Cambridge are only a few of the tokens met on every hand. The message of a line of 198 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS prophets from Maurice to Buskin cannot be formulated into a philosophic creed, and would lose its power were that attempted, but Buskin still speaks to thousands and thousands in a voice they can understand, of truth and right- eousness and divine order. The note of stern- ness is not lacking. The old Puritan spirit is dominant in Carlyle. It is no accident that he it was who gave Cromwell back to England as a Protestant hero. Sin in its abstracter forms may have not received due emphasis. Against Sin in its concrete visible modes is thundered at with Old Testament vigor. That which lay deepest in the heart of Buskin was, " the weight of evil against which we have to contend," and " the blasphemies of the earth " waxing " louder and its miseries heaped heavier every day." Nor would it be difficult to show that the dream of a social theocracy, that with all the inevita- ble limits of the dreams, has stirred men's hearts in England from the days of More, is the same religious-social feeling that bound together not alone the past with the present, but the relig- ious and social yearnings of spirits apparently very far apart. The composite social life is more varied, deeper, and more many-sided than any individ- ual can be. As Browning and Dante Bossetti, toiled to make the mediaeval world and the Be- THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 199 naissance plain in the world of poetical expres- sion, they also mingled the deep insight into the life of the people, the wonderful depth of common human life as the Puritan of Puritan- ism's best period felt and saw it. The socialism of William Morris is not the bald, unspiritual, materialistic, economic theory from which very naturally many have shrunk ; it is fierce yearn- ing after the entire redeemable man, the rescue of manhood from the clutch of tyrannies mis- called economic laws. ' ' Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight ? " * Joy was man's rightful portion and love the only way to joy. Love is enough : ho ye who seek saving, Go no further; come hither; there hath been who have found it. And these know the House of Fulfilment of craving ; These know the cup with the roses around it ; These know the World's wound and the balm that hath bound it ; Cry out, the World heedeth not, "Love leads us home!"f The discontent of England was not the bane- ful thing it might have been, arraying class against class, men eating their hearts out in the ignoble, envious struggle, because of the * Earthly Paradise, Interlude. f Love is Enough! 200 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS social direction given by the religious impulse in the opening years of the century. Hard materialistic Liberalism, the narrow creed of the worship of the Goddess of Getting On is, God knows, all too prevalent still; but it no longer could pose as the moral leader of the world, nor could it vaunt itself in all its naked- ness and be not ashamed as it does elsewhere, and did in England before the fierce onslaughts of Maurice, Kingsley, Carlyle, Euskin, and William Morris. The change in the decoration of English homes, and the new types of phil- anthropic efforts introduced may be matters of passing fashion ; but new currents were set in motion that are not matters of passing fashion, but flow forth from the throne of the living God. A new sense of brotherhood and social responsibility was awakened, a new longing for directness, sincerity, and Christian manhood was born, and in hundreds of channels flow still the quiet waters of this phase of the religious awakening of the nineteenth century. Puritanism has in its nature nothing that should check the artistic and aesthetic life. It was its stern struggle that gave its face the severe hard lines that mask its nobler being. Its intensely Protestant character was stamped upon it in its long weary fight with a dissolute court and a disordered kingdom. The sense of THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 201 God as the father of the nation, the high long- ing to make the national life a temple for his worship, the intense feeling of dependence upon the God of Battles, and the splendid manhood engendered by vows of loyalty foremost and immediately to God and His will; these were the elements that made Puritanism great and at times terrible. Had it gone forth to joy and love ; had it had its training in the graces •and the beauties of God's fuller Revelation ; and then had it survived uncorrupted and still un defiled, we should have had the highest ex- hibition of the possible glory of the exalted risen Christ. Historically it went forth to bat- tle, to apparent defeat, and men wrote shameful and mocking inscriptions over the cross on which it was crucified. It arose again from the dead. It spoke again of law and sin and death in William Law, Wesley, and Whitefield; it called again the national church to reform and ethical struggle, it awoke in the smiles and tears of a new poetry, psalmody, and art. Again in new words and yet old phase, it haunted men with longings for a national theocracy ; not a stupid economic theory, nor yet a dead level of dull mediocrity, but to a divine democracy under the leadership of the best, the noblest, and truest to which men's hearts might turn. Amid all the racial, intellectual, and artistic 202 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS differences that separate so widely those who may be roughly classed together as one phase of the great religious awakening, this spirit alone is common to all, this divine longing bends all together in a religious unity no creed could accomplish. The sense of God's law, His justice, His revelation in all present life of love to the children of men, and an awe-struck long- ing for a wider social revelation amid the sor- rows and disorders of the world ; these were the fruits of that awakened spirit manifesting itself in so many different phases. If, therefore, we are to criticise this phase of the movement, it is necessary to understand both its ideals and its limitations. To many its theology is "gelatinous," its theory of life "vague," its social thought either "mystic" or " sentimental." To many it seemed but the broad and easy road to a gradual rejection of all positive conviction ; an evasion of all clear and definite answers to the searching questions of unbelief. There can be no question that some of these charges have a basis of truth. Many minds will never be, ought never to be, satisfied with the answers given by Maurice or Coleridge to the scholastic problems. Scho- lasticism is only evil when it is dead scholasti- cism or when it is substituted for revelation and its conclusions treated as final. Very often the THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 203 broad churchman has attacked scholasticism in the same illiberal spirit in which it would con- demn him. There must be more and not less theology. There must be more and not less of accurate and searching metaphysical inquiry. Out of these, however, will never come social regeneration. The social meaning of the broad church movement was largely a protest, and a needed protest, against the cherishing of past and well-worn phrases and turns of thought; it is also a protest against any attempt to again build up Protestantism on the basis of any metaphysical philosophy, no matter how search- ing and no matter how consistent. In the same way and for the same reason this movement was a protest against the speculative political economy of the day. The age of ma- chinery and the advance of science had per- suaded men that the motives of human life could be classified and investigated as simply as the laws of mechanics. No one questions the reign of law in human life, but the political economy of the anti-corn-law agitation was a priori, mechanical and utterly superficial. It omitted motives that on the face of history are the most powerful factors in human life, and its philosophy was wofully defective. The broad church social thought was not sufficiently clear or thoroughly enough worked out to command 204 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS even the attention in that day of scientific (so- called) political economy. Its appeal, however, did what political economy could not do, and its social success and unremitting activity have given it a place in English life, even as a theory of social organization, that the conclusions of John Stuart Mill have long lost. Its definite service was the infusing into the social intuitions of Owen the inspiration of the religious altruism that Owen lived upon with- out knowing upon what meat he really fed. No doubt co-operation as experimented upon is temporary ; but association is permanent, and the power and new problems of association Owen was the first to recognize. Many wonder why socialism as a party has no hold upon Eng- lish life, and yet the explanation is to be sought in the spirit that propagated socialism in the first instance, and gave to it a deep distrust of either sharply cut class lines, or of intensely dogmatic positions. The gradual reformation of methods and manners inspired by the broad church religious movement has also filled men with hope in the final outcome of a gradual evolutionary process assisted by growing intel- ligence and conscience. One great weakness as a popular religious force was, of necessity, the lack of clear-cut definitions and party catch- words. Evangelical- THE BROAD CHURCH MOVEMENT 205 ism was strong in presenting a sharply defined and closely organized system of belief that fairly covered all life. Once its main proposi- tions and chief premises were granted it easily became a code readily defended and not diffi- cult to master. Evangelicalism was positive, dogmatic, clear-cut, and within certain limits self-consistent. As it began to weaken and lose its power those who had grown up under its teaching found the doubts and acknowledged limitations of the broad movement very trying. For such minds it seemed as if all had gone when clear, sharp, positive answers were no longer furnished by the " system of truth." For many salvation was a " scheme ; " a series of propositions. The religious teaching that could not easily be compassed by a series of proposi- tions was defective and dangerous. Honest men and women felt, they said, that their souls were not fed, because they were accustomed to find their food given in particular forms, and missing the form starved. Moreover it is true that co-operation is only possible on a basis of sympathy and fellowship. The broad church movement assumed a wider sympathy and a broader fellowship than yet exists among men. It insisted itself on a plat- form whose negative attitude excluded many with, they thought, clearer purpose and more 206 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS definite convictions. It failed to realize impor- tant omissions in its teaching and aspirations. It gave excuse to many for a refusal to consider at all matters that must be faced and struggled with to an issue. One service it is impossible to omit that was immediately social as well as religious ; it gave comprehension a reasonable and intelligent basis. To "tolerate" implies an arrogant assumption of superiority. The spirit of com- prehension is much wider and better than the spirit of toleration. Toleration is usually a matter of necessity. The spirit of comprehen- sion was first rationally defended and cogently maintained by the broad churchmen, not as a matter of necessity, political, social, or religious, but of privilege and advantage. The fundament- al confession upon which any democracy rests is that no one individual or party is as wise as the whole people. To excise any elements is to weaken the power of the whole to come to just conclusions. To exclude honest contributions to the solution of life's pressing questions is to set up an authority confessedly less wise than the whole, by making a party sit in judgment. The Broad Church movement was of all phases the most intensely Protestant in character, if the early reformers be considered normal ; only they attempted to carry out more fully the principles THE BROAD CHUROH MOVEMENT 207 which circumstances made well-nigh impossible of carrying out for the early leaders. The strength of the movement was strong faith in God as deliverer and ruler, and supreme confidence that men had only to submit their plans and ways to the divine guidance, and out of the darkness of night would come the day- spring from on high to visit and to cheer, and that the Son of God was now redeeming a king- dom unto Himself. LECTURE VII. THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION THE movement which has been denominated u the Broad Church " movement was not linked together by any intellectual principle that was absolutely common to all. Maurice was both conservative in temper and profoundly under the power of certain traditions. Carlyle felt that he and Ruskin stood at one time alone in England for God and the Queen. The basis was rather a certain catholicity of taste and a social sympathy on which the different elements in this Broad movement met. But the same forces that urged these on in revolt against the deadness of both the spiritual and the intellectual life of England were operat- ing even earlier on another set of minds destined to play perhaps a more striking part in the his- tory of the social development of England's democracy. Widely apart as are the ethical standards and ideals of the great body of Eng- land's middle class from those of the ruling aristocracy, these differences have yet been largely surmounted by England's practical spirit 208 THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 209 of compromise, and in consequence of the deep- seated distrust, natural to all classes, of abstract theories or a thorough-going logic. The puritan type and the cavalier have faced each other under different names almost since the Norman Conquest. From time to time the strain has become too great and the resort has been to arms. For the most part, however, the great intermixture of blood, and political in- stinct have saved England from such disaster. Th$ ideals have, however, constantly survived, and to-day the " nonconf orming conscience " is a distinct force to be reckoned with in English politics. Nor is it only in nonconformity that one of these ideals is to be met with. The Established Church has never been homo- geneous. Historically it has ever sheltered vastly different conceptions of both the Church and the state. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that different conceptions of the divine life and heart have animated its coun- sels and moulded its history. The Evangeli- calism of Eomaine and Simon has an historical claim to consideration, but so also has the High Churchmanship of Pusey and Keble. William Law and Laud represent types of the life culti- vated within the Establishment from the begin- ning, when it ceased to be Roman, and yet re- mained Catholic according to its own claim. 14 210 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS The Establishment is not the result of one compromise, it is the outgrowth of years of com- promise. These various struggles do not al- ways exhibit themselves in the standards, but the two ideals are distinctly embodied. The articles are of the reformed type, and embody the Protestant element in the Church. The prayer-book, and particularly the rubrics, rep- resent as strongly the Catholic element, which finds still further development in the homilies. In time of indifference no one gave much heed to these contradictions within the Church. "When men, however, were under strain, then extreme views came to the front, and struggle has ensued. The Established Church has thus lost, on the one hand, many whose views of her prerogatives led them to leave what they thought defiled altars, rather than continue fellowship with the unsatisfactory views held by moderate and low churchmen ; and, on the other hand, many have gone out from her in protest against even the claims she did set up. The revived religious life awakened within her and called Methodism and Evangelicalism, saved the Church from attack by those who out- side her communion sympathized with the Evangelical attitude. But after the panic pro- duced by the French Revolution had subsided, THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 211 liberalism began again to lift up its head, and to invade all spheres of life. Again the Church had to submit her claims to the most searching scrutiny. Radical and negative opinions began to be again widely expressed. Nor were the temper and arguments of men like Arnold and Whately calculated to stem the rising tide of liberal criticism, nor stay very effectively the hand of ruthless interference. They saw indeed the danger. Dr. Arnold wrote in June, 1832, to the Eev. J. E. Tyler : " It is worth while to look at Owen's paper The Crisis, or at The Midland Representative, the great paper of the Birming- ham operatives. The most abstract points are discussed in them, and the very foundations of all things are daily being probed, as much as by the sophists, whom it was the labor of Socrates' life to combat. . . . The Church as it now stands, no human power can save ; my fear is, that if we do not mind, we shall come to the American fashion, and have no provision made for teaching Christianity at all." * And again to Archbishop Whately in 1833 he writes: "Further, Lord Henley's notion about convoca- tion, and bishops not sitting in Parliament, and laymen not meddling with church doctrine, seemed to me so dangerous a compound of the worst errors of Popery and Evangelicalism com- * Life of Arnold, Vol. I., p. 278, 14th edition. 212 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS bined, and one so suited to the interests of the devil and his numerous party, that I was very desirous of protesting against it.* To Bishop Co- pleston Whately also writes : " The Church has been for one hundred years without any govern- ment, and in such stormy seasons it will not go on much longer without a rudder." f Yet they were not the men to reinstate the Church among the great masses of the unthinking clergy. Nor could the men of the Maurice type render effective service along the ecclesiastical line. They shared the critical feeling of the day. They desired rather to conform the Church to broad national wants, than to reassert for the Church any formerly held authority. All these men represented the Protestant type of English thought, the critical, independent thinking that has always marked Protestantism. England, however, has never been more than temporarily Protestant. A large Catholic element under many forms has ever been present. Protestant- ism has ever asserted the individual responsibil- ity directly to God, and in doing this has culti- vated a set of virtues of a manly character. The love of freedom, veracity, independence, and personal rectitude have been bulwarks of * Life of Arnold, Vol. I., p. 298, 14th edition, t Life of Whately, Vol. I., p. 167. (Quoted also by Dean Church.) THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 213 strength for Protestant nations as rewards for their dwelling on important truth. At the same time these things have also proved a source at times of political weakness. The quickened love for searching after truth and the felt im- portance of honestly maintaining it, the oft ex- cessive assertion of freedom and independence, has led to the flying apart of the various schools of protest. All these things have also weakened the Prot- estant party in the English Established Church. And in the days of Protestant supremacy there has been neglect to properly emphasize phases of truth upon which the Catholic development loves to dwell. So that it has often happened that reaction has taken place just when Protest- antism seemed most firmly established. This was the case in 1820 and thereabouts. Re- action was setting in. The rise of the separ- ate Methodist organizations going out from her had done something to weaken within the Es- tablished Church the purely Protestant forces. Ever within her the Catholic ideal and the Protestant ideal — the principle of aristocratic centralization and of democratic popular re- sponsibility— had jostled and struggled as they had in the state. The Tory churchly feeling was outraged by the attacks of a secular Liber- alism which became more and more frequent. 2U ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS This Tory section resisted and bitterly resented the removal of Catholic disabilities. Now an attempt to abolish the subscription to the Articles at the university seemed to many the last straw. No great religious movement, however, has its strength in mere negations. Against the encroachments of Liberalism within the Establishment itself something more was needed than indignation and protest. The re- ligious enthusiasm that had awakened Method- ism, quickening her into new organization for effective missionary activity; that had made Evangelicalism the handmaid of domestic po- litical reforms ; that was to awaken in the Broad Church movement the thought and art of Eng- land, and give to her new and broad literary im- pulses ; awoke at the same time the churchly, catholic feeling which was destined to entirely change the face of public worship, and arouse new conflicts whose end is not yet. As in the early Methodist movement we noted that, in the beginning, very different theological conceptions were bound together by organiza- tion for the advance of personal piefcy ; and as in that movement we may trace in its genesis many differing streams of thought and feeling ; so also this Catholic revival had many elements the union of which was on the basis simply of this common Catholic sympathy. There was FEE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 215 represented the ritual element, whose main in- terest was aesthetic, historic,, and tinged with the love of mystic symbolism. Quite separate from this was the purely High Church movement, de- manding in the name of the Church the control of England's moral and religious future. The Tory revival, awakened by Sir Walter Scott and fostered by the fact that Toryism seemed now no longer really dangerous to the liberties of the average Englishman, made the appeal of the Ritualistic High Church party a welcome one to many whose sense of historic continuity was being outraged by the boastful confident self- assertion of an extremely bold and irreverent school of politics. To many it may seem strange to connect this phase of English life with the Evangelical Re- vival begun a hundred years before. But not only does so high and sympathetic a student of the movement as Gladstone do so, but Car- dinal Newman does so himself. He speaks of Thomas Scott, of Aston Sanford, as the man " to whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul." * And again : " This man's Catholic doctrine of the warfare between the City of God and the powers of darkness was also deeply im- pressed upon my mind by a work of a very opposite character, Law's Serious Call." f He * Apologia pro vita Sua, 1864, p. 60. f P. 62. 216 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS traces his serious and permanent religious impressions to the Evangelical literature that sprang directly out of Methodism. Indeed all he seems ever to have known of Calvinism was gathered from these pages, which accounts for the strange blunders he makes in giving an account of Calvinism.* He says at one time : "I learned to give up my remaining Calvin- ism," f but as a matter of fact, he never seems to have known historic Calvinism at all. The intellectual coloring and the form his religious life took, depended on a combination of circum- stances. In an article which he himself wrote about the time that Tract 90 appeared, New- man gives as factors in the movement, first the influence of Walter Scott, in pointing a restless and superficial age back to the glories of the Middle Ages, and the fact that this interest in medievalism awakened the longing for some steadier guide than passing opinion. He traces also the influence of Coleridge's demand for a deeper philosophy of life as running through the movement ; although, of course, Coleridge's questioning seemed to Newman impious. Thirdly he places the influence of Wordsworth and Southey as among the potent factors in the religious restlessness of the age 4 * Serious Call, p. 61. t Ibid., p. 65. J The State of Religious Parties. THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 217 Personally Newman was most influenced by Hurrell Fronde, of whom he himself writes : " He was a high Tory of the Cavalier stamp." * Walter Scott also early influenced his personal thought. In 1871 he wrote : " I have ever had such a devotion, I may call it, to Walter Scott. As a boy in the early summer mornings I read Waverley and Guy Manneriny in bed when they first came out . . . and long before that — I think when I was eight years old • — I listened eagerly to the Lay of the Last Min- strel, which my mother and aunt were reading aloud." f The deciding factor was the surviving Tory and Non-juror theology and tradition of Ox- ford. The sacramentalism of Oxford was a lasting memory. Long after popular disgust with the use of the holy communion as a " pick- lock " to office had swept the " test " away, Ox- ford lamented this as a surrender of religious principle ! The sacramentalism of the earliest church, no doubt, grew out of the mystery wor- ship of the Greeks. And at first the symbolism was to half conceal and yet instruct in the mys- teries those not yet initiated. The grasping by a separated priesthood within the Church of functions belonging to all, the early exclusion * Apologia, p. 86. t Memoirs of T. R. Hope Scott, Vol. LL. , p. 243. 218 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS from the sacraments of the neophytes, the claim- ing of the mediatorial character of the whole church for a class within the Church, and the gradual exclusion of not only the world but the lay members of the Church from privilege and duty, have marked the sacerdotal progress that gradually built up the hierarchy and cor- rupted the primitive simplicity of the gospel. The mediatorial, priestly, and solemn character of the Church has, however, never received from Protestantism the emphasis it deserves. The sacerdotal claims of Rome can only be fully met by acknowledging them as the gift to the whole Church. The power of the High Church, or Tractarian, movement was the appeal to a forgotten or neg- lected set of truths, and the forceful and enthu- siastic advocacy of them by men whose serious and self-sacrificing zeal none can deny. With the theological questions involved we are not now more particularly concerned. But the understanding between the Conservative (Tory) elements and their natural allies in the ritualiz- ing and High Church movements in English life was at first made difficult by their intense moral purpose, to which the Tory party in 1830 was quite a stranger. The High Church party rep- resented an entirely different conception not only of the Church, but also of the state, as THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 219 over against the low views of radical Liberalism at that day. For them the state was no mere taxing machine interested in procuring simply protection for the man's goods and temporal opportunity. For them, as for Dr. Arnold, the state was a moral and religious institution with ethical and religious responsibilities for all its children. The High Church party stood for the assertion of paternalism in government, which in the hands of a limited aristocracy justly inspired the liberals with fear, but which in the hands of a trained democracy is becom- ing again the note of social thought. One of the immediate social effects of this churchly revival was an increased demand for purity of life in politics, without which no form of government has value. The moral tone of Gladstone, High Churchman as he was, recon- ciled even the Dissenters of England to his leadership, although he often advocated views far removed from their traditional sympathies. It stayed the hands that were stretched out to complete the destruction of the Establishment, and enabled Gladstone to obtain for the dis- established church of Ireland terms that left her better off in many ways than before. It is quite impossible to disassociate this Tractarian movement from the inevitable po- litical reaction against the triumph of Liberal- 220 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS ism in the Reform Bill. It gave to the reaction that distinct religious tone which Evangelicalism had lent to the great reform movements of 1790 to 1820 which culminated in the destruction of slavery. But, as Newman complains as late as 1830-1832 : " The Evangelical party itself seemed with its late successes to have lost that simplicity and unwoiidliness which I admired so much in Milnes and [Thomas] Scott." * Liberalism had become formal, critical, and had lost moral enthusiasm. Its attacks upon the bishops were not made because it wanted a more religious leadership in the Church, but because it wanted no religious leadership at all. It was not with the deadness of ecclesiasticism that it had its quarrel, but in the very existence of any system of ecclesiasticism. The Trac- tarian movement stood for a religious tradition that had and will always have a place in Eng- lish hearts, so long as England fulfils her mis- sion as a world factor in God's great world purpose. The strength of Anglicanism was not in what we must pronounce a reactionary and a dismal betrayal of truth to superstition, but in the high moral enthusiasm and genuine re- ligious zeal with which it took up arms against just the same foes that Morris and Euskin rec- ognized ; namely, the secular materialism and * Apologia, p. 94, London, 1864. , THE HIGH CHUBCH REACTION 221 vaunting superficial rationalism that began to influence English minds to their exceeding hurt. This is nowhere more plainly seen than in the desperate and successful efforts to reach that class in the community most saturated with this superficial materialism. The High Church movement changed the entire character of much of the activity of the Establishment. Much en- ergy was, of course, squandered in making mere proselytes. That mistake every religious move- ment has made from the time when the Judai- zers followed Paul into Galatia and made life a bitterness to him. But the High Churchmen flung themselves with noble enthusiasm upon the same social problems with which the oppos- ing wing of the Church was also seeking to deal. This activity is the note of the true Church, but it was not the note on which they laid the emphasis. Nor was their purpose in trying to gain control of England's education either ig- noble or unreasonable. From their stand-point the national Establishment had to give account for the souls of all England. Their complaint against Dissent was that it was irresponsible in this regard. However much we may lament any control they did succeed in gaining of Eng- land's school, their stand-point was a religious one and had much truth in it. The church of 222 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Christ is responsible for the souls of all men, and gives a solemn account of its stewardship as the ages roll around. But the church of Christ is not High Church Episcopacy, but all Christ's friends who do whatsoever He has commanded them. The social significance of the High Church movement was, however, also reactionary. It had its basis in a deep distrust of the democracy, and in overweening confi- dence in authority. The social and political condition of the countries in which churchly authority had had widest sweep had no lessons for the Tractarians because their ideals were not the ideals of Protestants; their traditions were the traditions of Catholicism's last Tory stronghold. They appealed to large elements in English life; the elements that stand now for vested interests, for the maintenance of the landed aristocracy that historically were found on the side of James the Pretender, Charles I., and the Catholicism of Laud. Had England's aristocracy not been so constantly reinforced by accessions from the middle classes, the con- flict would have at some time been even more acute than in Cromwell's age, or in 1688. But the unity of the aristocratic reactionary party has never been complete. Compromise has prevented extreme measures. England has swung back and forth between the contending THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 223 ideals, and the determining factor has always been the measure of religious enthusiasm that inspired one or other of the extreme parties. The moral enthusiasm that had transformed the middle classes of England, and that had car- ried so many measures of philanthropic and re- forming character to successful issue, had been identified in the minds of many good but slow- thinking men with extreme political opinions. The old Toryism of England was in great danger of sinking into a sordid and selfish class bent simply upon obstruction and the preservation of vested rights. Such a state of things would have invited violent collision in several times of strain, and the French situation of 1848 might have been reproduced. The chief service rendered by the High Church reaction was to temper the natural selfishness engendered by historic privilege and power with a religious thinking that appealed in a peculiar way to the reactionary party. It was long before the Tory reaction was suflicient- ly tempered to command the respect of the na- tion. The leadership was not at all fortunate from this point of view. Had Gladstone found the Conservative party on the plane of to-day, he would probably never have drifted over to the leadership of the Liberals. The secular and selfish character of Toryism forced Glad- 224 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS stone to the advocacy of change and democracy. The very principle of religious toleration was born in him, not of natural disposition, but as a result of the fierce debates of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act (1850-1851), which led him at last to disestablish the Irish Church. In 1833 Arnold complained of the moral condition of the Tory party: "It is not the Duke of Wellington nor Sir Robert Peel who would do harm, but the base party that they would bring in their train. . . . and all the tribe of selfish and ignorant lords and county squires and clergymen, who would irritate the feeling of the people to mad- ness." * It is always quite pitiful to see how the churchly mind seems to regard the slightest social innovation as a possible attack upon the institutions with which it is identified. The squire and country parson have always been bulwarks of reaction. On the churchly mind the Oxford movement had a wholesome effect. It, under the guise of — for Protestants — impossible ecclesiastical con- ceits, awoke a spirit of fierce self-devotion, and changed the goocl-natured, hunting, shooting country parson of old, into an earnest, even if narrow and bigoted, servant of those whom he could reach. The High Church clergyman be- came the rival of the Methodist, Evangelical, * Life of Arnold, Vol. I., p. 308. THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 225 and Dissenting clergy, in ministering to the rural population. In this work the High Church party had an advantage over the Broad Church men in the far more definite and positive character of their teaching. Evangelicalism had trained men to definite statements of what was known as " the truth." There was no hesitation in Evangeli- calism's advance of opinions. As the party lost ground through formality and social apathy, the people whom it had trained felt the need of this same definiteness in the character of the teach- ing they accepted ; of all this the High Church- man had enough and to spare. In this sharp and clear-cut teaching the Broad Churchmen were wofully deficient. Nor did they easily agree among themselves. In 1848 the last echoes of the Chartist move- ment were already dying away after the Lon- don fiasco. The repeal of the corn laws and returning prosperity, together with the inevit- able readjustment of human life to changed conditions, gave the reaction opportunity to gather its strength. This reaction was as yet little touched by the religious movement, then confined in both its Broad Church and its High Church aspects to small academic groups. "When Newman went over to Borne he himself wrote, " Liberalism won in a clear field." By 15 226 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS liberalism Newman meant all that he abhorred as radical innovation and free inquiry. The intellectual side of religious questions re- ceived new and earnest attention because of the polemics of the High Church party. But, on the whole, the period after the passing of the repeal of the corn laws until the great reform period under Gladstone has little to boast of in the way of social activity. Senseless panics were shamefully used for party purposes, and not even the great popularity of Cobden, Bright, and Gladstone, could calm public feeling or re- sist the reaction. Yet in some ways the deep hold that the religious way of looking at life had taken is marked in the appeals made in the name of religion for " Peace on Earth and Good- Will to Men " in the series of peace conferences held between 1848 and 1851 in Brussels, Paris, Frankfort-on-the-Main, London, Manchester, and Edinburgh, which are identified with the names of Cobden and Bright. The withdrawal of Newman and many others to the Church of Borne apparently only left the field to the Evangelical, Broad Church, and or- thodox parties in the Church. The Noncon- formist attitude seems to have been naturally one of deep hostility to the claims, often made in haughty and thoroughly pharisaic spirit, of exclusive possession of the Church. As a matter THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 227 of fact, the High Church party was not dead, and both parties to the alternate struggle be- tween Protestantism and the Roman type of Catholicism were and are still gathering their forces. The secular Liberalism was apparently more or less profoundly moved by the earnest- ness and reality given to religious life by the two important struggles made against its claims — the High Church movement in England and the Free Church secession in Scotland. Social re- formers began to recognize the power of religious feeling, and the endeavors from 1848 onward to find a common standing ground for religious social activity on an ecclesiastical and yet an undogmatic basis have not ceased. It is hard, amid the noises of the conflict now waging between the Romanizing Catholic reac- tion and the rising spirit of Protestant opposi- tion, to look over the field covered by this phase of the religious movement and to rightly esti- mate its social significance. One thing must be said. The High Church party has historic claims. "William Law and the Non-jurors belonged distinctly to habits of thought identical with those revived to-day. The " Methodists " were High Churchmen, and for the most part were only unconsciously forced from that position. The rubrics and the homilies bear witness to a constant recogni- 228 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS tion of elements the Evangelical party took no notice of. The rapid spread of the view of life and religion fostered by the High Church party, shows how large the area was of English public opinion never heartily in sympathy with the extreme Protestant position. The power of the appeal was that the demand for social service was made in the name of traditions and past practices still dear to many, and appealing to very many more. In the evolution of religious life one thing stands out plainly — that opinions, dogmas, and rituals make their way on the wings of social service. The power of the High Church party is not scholarship. One has only to compare the History of the Arians by John Henry Newman, with any fairly good modern historic work to see how vastly inferior in both range and scholarship Newman was to men with a third of his influence. Nor was the power of it to be found in a return to Catholicism, for the Roman Catholic Church, with a far more comprehensive scheme, had been working for years in England without any such result. The problem is to be met farther back in the history of men's complex evolution. Two ex- treme conceptions of society meet in the Prot- estant and Catholic parties in England ; and the power of each is the religious enthusiasm embodied in this social conceptioo. The Catho- THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 229 lie party represents benevolent tyranny ; tho want of faith in the average man that longs for authority outside of the man to keep hiui on the way of righteousness. This feeling shows itself in the scorn and contempt that the Trac- tarians pour out upon the " pride of reason." For the Catholic mind and temper submission to authority becomes a virtue for its own sake, careless often even of the kind of authority to which submission is rendered. It is easy to realize how a tribal life might at a certain stage of its progress depend for its safety upon just such unquestioning submission. The military spirit fosters the same temper, and breeds the same ideal of virtue. In fact virtue among the Eomans was unflinching physical courage. The Catholic reaction naturally had its appro- priate field among those accustomed to rule, and who regarded submission as a chief virtue. The social significance of the reaction was there- fore a recall of the virtue that had high place in the past, and that properly directed has a place in the future. Protestantism represents broadly the inde- pendent spirit that brooks no outside interfer- ence. Luther was truly of a Protestant spirit when denouncing, on the basis of his subjective and very narrow experience, the Book of James as an "epistle of straw." He was in a more 230 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Catholic mood when the weight of mere tradi- tion and custom made him break with Zwingli, because he felt that he was " of another spirit." The excessive Protestantism of the Evangeli- cals was tempered by exceedingly unhistoric traditions to which they appealed, and that of the Broad Church men by the feeling for art and poetry that gave them a larger contact with the past. And yet it may have been needed in the providence of God, by over-emphasis upon the Catholic spirit and claims, to remind men that social experience is more than any one man's individual experiences, and that any faith in a present democracy implies also faith in all past democracies. The authority of the past over the present has dwarfed and hindered growth in countries under the Roman tradi- tions ; but the way of life is not by dispensing with all authority, but trying the traditions whether they be of God or no. The unchecked progress of the High Church party would mean social reaction to the point of a more or less benevolent paternal ecclesias- ticism. The treatment meted out to Dr. Hamp- den showed in what spirit all opposition would have been put down. Paternal aristocracy of an ecclesiastical type is not what most thought- ful men are likely to demand as the remedy for existing evils. At the same time it is perfectly THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 231 plain that the reaction has a social lesson worth considering. No such movement has its strength in falsehood. The extreme views of Church and state meet in the Kadical and High Church positions and still await the compromise of the future. To discover this extreme social position it is not to Newman we had best go. For Newman was both too metaphysical and too theological to deal with the practical and fundamental prob- lem involved. This problem is not political, as Dean Stanley would have us believe,* but social in a far deeper sense. And no man who had anything to do with the movement more clearly reveals this than does William Ward, the author of The Ideal Clmrcli. As early as 1832 we find him proposing in the Oxford Union, the motion that an absolute monarchy is a more desirable form of govern- ment than the constitution proposed by Lord John Eussell.f And it is characteristic of the temper of Oxford that the proposition was lost by only six votes. It is no wonder that Ward professed perfect ignorance of history. " The details of the historical inquiry were, he con- sidered, beyond his capacity — so far as giving * Edinburgh Review, April, 1881, Article on The Oxford School. t Life of Ward, p. 20. 232 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS any positive judgment went, and his trust in Mr. Newman in such a matter was far more confident than any independent opinion to which the utmost study would have led him." * For Ward the struggle was with agnosticism and revelation, but what interests us in his discussion is the place he gives to an external authority "regulating the orthodoxy of her children " and defining the limits of all belief. Throughout the Ideal Clmrch runs an entirely different social conception from that of Pro- testant Democracy. "The high and low, rich and poor, one with another, shall have the great principle daily and hourly impressed on their minds, by the Church, of their soul's salvation being the one thing needful " (Italics ours) ; t and the Church is "ever on the watch to catch souls." t This Church is a separate outward organization for " training up saints," a special class in the religious community with peculiar responsibilities of a spiritual kind, and needing special spiritual preparation.§ And the highest office of the Church " is to train, not ordinary Christians [Italics ours] but those destined to be Saints." II These Saints are always spelt with a capital and " are the very hidden life of a Church ; and Saints cannot be nurtured on less * Life of Ward, p. 95. f Ibid., P- 10. J Ibid., p. 15. § Cf. pages 16 and 17. \\ Ibid., p. 18. THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 233 than the full Catholic doctrine." * Orthodoxy is established dogma, and Salvation depends there- fore upon orthodoxy. Hence a priest will very carefully and habitually use language precise- ly orthodox, even on details whereof his own spiritual advancement or else intellectual acu- men has not yet enabled him to discern the essential importance." f With the accuracy of the definition given the Church we do not deal. Sufficient is it to remark that the monarchical and aristocratic temper in its benevolent aspects forms the model. "The Church is to be the poor man's court of justice " J and "it devolves on the Church, therefore, to assert in her own courts the rights of the poor." § Thus through- out the conception, not only of the Church but of society, runs the thought of a visible and formal centre of authority existing independ- ently of the life it creates and directs. The " ordinary Christian " is in contact with God through the intercession of those nearer Him. Just as the " ordinary " citizen must approach the king by someone who has his ear. Hence there is "the importance of gaming to our- selves intercessors against His final judgment," asserted by Catholics, and " our experience in England does not enable us to deny this." il * Life of Ward, p. 20. f Ibid., p. 21. t Ibid., p. 31. § Ibid., p. 31. (| Ibid., p. 86. 234 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS In the very conception of orthodoxy there is the essence of faith in a benevolent despotism, to whom submission is a virtue for its own sake. God is thought of as ruling by proxy ; " The Church " being His representative on earth. All this is the natural product of a view of society held in monarchical and aristocratic societies, and was the natural ideal of High Churchmen, whether in the time of Laud or in the days of Nonjuring theology. No wonder, therefore, that Ward says : "Two principles especially, closely and indissolubly connected with each other, seem to me so vitally impor- tant at the present time that I could wish their very names were familiar to us all ' as house- hold words,' the one, the absolute supremacy of conscience in moral and religious questions, the other the high sacredness of hereditary relig- ion." * The second takes away the first, be- cause the first is to be in absolute subjection to the second. "Again, the education of the whole people is now allowed, by very general consent, to be in itself the legitimate office of the Church." The relation of the Roman Church to the State in the Middle Ages is the author's ideal of the normal and right rela- tion. The churchly reaction found, therefore, a natural expression in the revival of the art * Life of Ward, pp. THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 235 of the Middle Ages; but there was no his- torical discrimination between the two great lines of development, the free and democratic Gothic and the Southern Classic. This arose from the fact, no doubt, that the real meaning of the Middle Age development has only re- cently been disclosed. The reaction was to the centralized and monarchical and not to the guild and free city. This is seen still more plainly in the hatred for not only the reformers, but more especially for the Teutonic reformers. "Alas, I found, in Luther's commentary [on Galatians] no such points of sympathy and agreement as I had hoped. Never was my conscience so shocked and revolted by any work not openly professing immorality," sighs Ward ; * "I can see nothing in it showing any spirituality of mind whatever." f In the evolution of human government two distinct principles must make themselves felt. On the one hand the authority of the national leadership must at times clothe itself with abso- lute supremacy for the sake of the social organi- zation. The tribe that obeyed implicitly even a brutal and inferior chieftain would most cer- tainly easily maintain the contest with far superior strength and leadership divided in counsels and questioningly obeyed. The politi. * Life of Ward, p. 169, footnote. f Idem. 23G ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS cal and social significance of the Jesuit reaction is quite clear. The Protestant counsels divided and the leadership questioned, the enthusiasm of reviving monarchical centralization had an easy task. On the other hand stagnation is only prevented when in the national life indi- vidual initiative has at times the fullest play. It was the lack of this, among other things, that made Italy, with all her splendid capacity, prove so poor an antagonist for the powerful North. England was still in 1832 and is now in her constitution deeply Tory, using the word as Hallam has made it classic. Even her advance must be along the lines of an historic develop- ment. Just because the national Church close- ly represents the ruling mind of English life it was safe to predict the recrudescence of the al- lied Catholic and Roman spirit, together with the reassertion of the older monarchical and conservative temper. The real difference be- tween the High Church party as represented by such an one as Ward was not nearly so much theological as he supposed it to be. It is quite safe to say that the doctrine of justification by faith as set forth at Trent, were it to stand alone, would never separate now the Melancthon type of Lutheran theology from the Roman communion. Ward attributes Luther's person- THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 237 al piety, so far as lie had it, " to the unspeakable blessings of a Catholic education and monastic discipline . . . before he turned his mind to the invention of these blasphemies," i.e., the doctrine of justification by faith.* It is the longing on the part of the human soul for authority, born of the dependence of the child for so long upon parents ; the fierceness of the struggle with life and sin ; the unsatisfactory results of our personal conduct of our own life, that makes the churchly and the Tory reaction both in religion and in social conduct so easy and so tempting an escape for many minds. In the confidence and vigor of successful struggle the Protestant temper can see no possibility of any return to worn-out formulse and to traditions of the past. The time comes when the Protestant temper has exhausted its first vigor in assaults against the inert mass of ignorance, habit, and customs more or less defensible. Then comes the time when every mistake made is remembered, every beauty neglected is recalled, when the mind and heart seek rather support than conflict, when submission is easier than analysis ; at this stage dogmatic claims to guide and control made in the name of past triumphs and supported by the memories of genuine services easily gain * Life of Ward) r- 171, footnote. 238 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS again the upper hand, and assert and exercise a welcome tyranny over the soul. It was in the midst of such social reaction that the High Church movement took its rise. It spoke to minds troubled and perplexed by the political philosophy of Bentham and Mill, linked as it was with doubt and scepticism. Nay, in John Stuart Mill himself there are the signs of that inevitable reaction from the dis- cursive reason as sole guide to the mystery of life and death. Much more was this the case in many minds much more thoroughly imbued with reverence for the historic triumphs of the Christian faith, and much more receptive for the confident appeals a powerful priesthood awakened in the Church. Not many found themselves able to think their way through Mill's reasoning, or able to follow Newman as he battled in the Grammar of Assent with the great and fundamental problems. When, how- ever, in the imagery of the altar and in the ac- cents of religious art, men were bade link them- selves to a triumphant Catholic Church that would do battle for them, many honest and yet weary minds assented and found peace. The half-forgotten melodies of an older age first stirred men's souls. Keble and Scott spoke to a generation tired of corn-laws and the din of progress and reform. The grotesquely inad- THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 239 equate means men advocated for establishing material harmony on earth were farther empha- sized by the outburst of war and national hate that made the peace congresses of Frankfort and Edinburgh seem the mocking voices of de- ceiving spirits. Far from the clatter of noisy conflict, away from the unfruitful strife of many leaders in their assaults on antiquity, preju- dice, and custom, visions of peaceful growth in graces which extreme Protestantism has seldom successfully cultivated, lured many hearts to promised peace under the banner of authority and tradition. As the monastery of the Middle Ages afford- ed a place of welcome refuge to hundreds of souls who felt themselves spent in the struggle, or who shrunk from the brutalities of the daily conflict of life, so in the social reaction after 1848 hundreds turned again to see if in the boasted unity of the Roman idea there might not be found rest and spiritual peace. Natu- rally the drift was toward Borne. The via media of Newman was more or less felt to be a farce from the beginning. The yearning was not for Catholic custom nor for Catholic theology, but for Roman authority. If anyone doubts this he has but to examine carefully the underlying philosophies of the leaders of the High Church movement. Ward starts as a pronounced fol- 24:0 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS lower of Kant, though he nowhere seems to have made him consciously the teacher. New- man's Grammar of Assent has almost nothing of the modern Protestant spirit, while Keble and Froude dallied in the odds and ends of African speculation, whose memories made up the Latin theologies of the post-Mcean period. There is no philosophic or theological unity binding them together. Ward more than con- fesses this.* The unity of external authority is, of course, a myth. The infallibility of Rome must be limited to faith and morals in order not to run in the face of all evident history. It must be farther exercised ex cathedra. The de- cisions that are thus " authoritative " are few and far between. What the soul wants is not definite dogma but daily direction. The con- fessional and not papal infallibility is the real strength of authority. The power of the con- fessional is the indefinite claim of an infallible authority that must be denied in detail although banked upon as a whole. The power of the past, and the hold that social tradition has over the human heart, these are the sources of strength in the High Church reaction of the closing years of the century. To a lesser degree the same High Church re- action affected the more thoroughly Protestant * Ideal Church, p. .20 THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 241 bodies, and will in all probability still further affect them. Critical discussions of the author- ity of the written word have provoked a sim- ilar desire to close all discussion by formal dog- matic utterance. The divisions of Protestantism are no longer on dogmatic lines, in which little interest at all is taken, but only on the lines of cult and traditional habit. The authority of the past over the present along all lines, social, economic, scientific, as well as philosophical, is the real issue. Its reality no one disputes, but its amount and where it is lodged form the liv- ing questions. High Church reaction, whether Roman or Protestant, seeks an external and tangible expression of this authority of the past as final. To oppose the dreaded onslaughts of revolutionary thought, either in social or philosophic dress, it seems necessary to many to clothe the authority of the past with either the form of council, or with antiquity, or a living pa- pal voice, or the unsearchable poverty of original manuscripts which no one has ever seen. In such external authority the future is to have a safeguard from the storms of social disturbance that beginning with 1792 have swept on in suc- ceeding waves up to the . present day. It is truly felt that the social condition is at the bottom a religious question. It is also truly felt that the only authority that can speak peace 16 242 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS to the stormy waters is the voice of religion, and it has seemed often to trembling and igno- rant disciples in the boat to be helpless in fatal slumber. It seems evident to Protestant minds that neither the verbal accuracy of lost manuscripts nor the dogmatic infallibility of a good old man when pronouncing ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals can really still the storm. The godly saint in the Dissenting chapel wants rest in accepting the imperfect translation of im- perfect Hebrew and Greek texts as the very word of the living God. And the humble Irish or Italian peasant longs to feel that the faithful priest at the confessional is in very deed speaking from God to his soul. Nor is it ab- stract faith and morals that the chapel saint and French peasant want light upon, but the every- day application of known rules to an unknown life. It is a vain scholasticism that disputes about any infallibility that is less than suffi- cient to give daily and infallible guidance in actual practical every-day decisions covering the whole range of social duty and social experi- ence. The Protestant mind faces the fact that, how- ever undoubted is the authority of the past over the present, it is not final, that above and beyond the past the kindly father's educating THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 243 hand is leading on and up to a better future However we may mourn the absence of a final and definite infallible answer to the thousand ques- tions of our troubled life, it is in the moments of reaction and impaired faith that the want seems greatest. It is good for us that Christ is gone away, and that on a living communion with a present spirit we must find the solu- tion not of abstract and interesting but chiefly philosophical questions of definition in faith and morals, but of pressing present-day ques- tions of wrong and human infamy. Our edu- cation is this walking with the unseen. The felt presence of this unseen spirit made John Wesley and Whitefield, Wilberforce and Clark- son, William Perm, Maurice, and Newman re- solutely sure of duty until death, though the form in which that religious certainty clothed itself along social, political, theological, and philosophical lines are forms which often, like shells upon the beaches, are now but the empty chambers filled with the vibrations that mock us with their mimic murmurs. There was, no doubt, a pressing need of renewed emphasis upon the past social ex- perience at a time when men were putting their faith in paper constitutions and not spiritual character. Austria secured her constitution in 1818, and the South American republics have 244 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS the largest theoretical political freedom. But what do these things avail ? The High Church movement emphasized the need of individual and national repentance. The Ideal Church has far better passages than those we have found room for ; passages filled with lofty conceptions of righteousness and res- toration through the mercy and the forgiveness of God. It is filled, as are filled the yearnings of the Christian Year-book, with the spirit of longing for a final deliverance from sin and death. The national Church awoke to new sense of national responsibility. The very glori- fication of the past, oft inaccurate and unhis- toric, awakened longing that stirred hearts not filled by the spirit of reaction. Morris and his socialists glory in the same mediaeval triumphs ; and the sense of historic continuity, of the in- numerable cloud of witnesses beholding our work, sobered and chastened the turbulent spirit of the British working-man. There is no fear of the reaction working permanent evil if the enthusiasm for righteousness saves Prot- estantism from wasting her resources in vain and weakening scholastic discussion. This mis- take cost us many candlesticks in the seven- teenth century, when reaction was more spirit- ual and therefore more successful than the dry formalism of the age. THE HIGH CHURCH REACTION 245 Living issues need living answers. Not in Eome, nor in lost manuscripts, are we to learn the significance of the social storms that sweep about us, but under the sway of the Comforter speaking in present-day tongue and giving the seal of approval in advancing righteousness ; if we will to do the will of God we shall know of the doctrine. The voice of God did speak with religious certainty to the past, but it is not with the religious certainties of the past that the present can be quieted. From the written word breaks new light, from the past come new inspirations, for us the certainty is based on the faith in a Father who will never leave us nor forsake us, and to whom we can di- rectly turn in the moments of new and strange doubts that roll over us> and to which no hu- man voice can command peace. LECTUBE VIII THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL A Review THE social character of Puritanism needs hardly any demonstration. A theocracy was the Puritan ideal. Too much indeed the Puritan was apt to form his ideal rather from the pages of the preliminary than the fuller Revelation. Hence the thought naturally suggests itself to trace in the evangelical revival of Puritanism a social character. At first, however, one is con- scious of a sense of great difference between the forms of Methodism and the old Puritan party. These recent forms have neither the dignity nor the hardness that marked Puritanism even in its sweetest moods. There is also a total ab- sence of the political character so strongly im- pressed on Puritanism. One may read, as we have seen, Wesley's Journal from cover to cover, and although he travelled all over England, Wales, Ireland, and into Scotland, you will search in vain for any light upon political occur- rences of the most momentous character, and 246 SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 247 you barely find even mention of the changes that passed over England between 1792 and 1836. Again the Puritan movement at once busied itself with renewed researches into the theory of Church and state, and the old Puri- tan divines built in great measure upon their conception in regard to these points the sys- tems of theology that remain as their monu- ments. Nothing is more startling than to see how the Evangelical movement started entirely without any such worked-out theory of either Church or state. Neither the Methodists nor even the Calvinists availed themselves of past contributions on these vital topics. The Cal- vinism of Geneva can only be comprehended after one has grasped the conception of the state as Calvin held it, or indeed as it was gen- erally held by Calvinists in Europe. But the Calvinism of the Evangelical party was purely doctrinal, and seems for the most part to have had its origin from derived sources. As for the Methodist movement, it was avowedly careless in forming any opinion on these subjects at all. Wesley went from expedient to expedient until he found himself a father of churches he had never purposed founding, and hardly dared to recognize. And yet this movement from its earliest stages was intensely Puritan and social in its 24:8 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS deeper and profounder meaning. The discon- tent of the founders of this new religious refor- mation was not with the political organization of the day, nor yet with the ecclesiastical forms of the Church. Law was a High Churchman who could not brook indeed the second admin- istration of oaths that seemed to set aside ones already taken. But he was content to remain a non-juror, and to continue in fellowship with the national Church. It was the unsocial character of religion, the utter formality of its profes- sions, the failure to tell on e very-day life, that awoke the Methodists to study again the con- ditions of salvation. And if any proof is needed of the profound significance of this revolt, one need only ask what permanent things has it left as a heritage to be handed down as precious to the coming Church. No one will claim as the permanent heritage either the " moonlight " theology of Law, with its vague and half -mastered mysti- cism ; or the loose Arminianism, that can hardly even be classed as a theological system, which Wesley left as the result of his active but utter- ly untheological thinking. The very power of his system is that it is not theological, but prac- tical and devotional and vitally ethical. His "General Rules" contain not one single dog- matic condition of communion. And to this SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 249 day the articles he drew up for the American Church reflect the utterly untheological char- acter of the movement by the omissions of all the Calvinism that gave the Thirty-nine Ar- ticles their unity. " They are a liberal and ju- dicious abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, the Calvinistic and other features being omitted."* Although without a tenable scientific theory of either Church or state, Wesley knew man as so- cial. " God made us for a social life," he writes to his father. He sprang to the help of society by an attempt to reorganize that society on the basis of the religious experience he had known as real in himself. And the things which last of Methodism are the missions founded for the social reorganization of the world. The brother- hood of man is the foundation-stone of modern missions, and the Indian and the negro became at once brothers whom Wesley and Whitefield started out to save. What gives Methodism its chief claim to gratitude from the brotherhood of Christian / churches is the organization of England's mid- y' die classes for the hour of industrial and polit- ical strain, when the danger that threatened was complete and lasting severance of the bonds that held Europe's foremost Protestant power * Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. III., p. 807. 250 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS together. The chapels that Methodism strewed over the land saved Protestantism in the hours of Tory reaction and of Jacobin excitement. They were, moreover, as we pointed out, the training-schools for that political life begin- ning for the working-men of England. Of the beliefs distinctive of Methodism many have passed into deserved oblivion. The physical manifestations of conversion are no longer looked for. Witches and witchcraft no longer trouble men. The very phrases of the move- ment have acquired a broader and better mean- ing. But the noble appeal to love, to fellow- ship, and to purity of an associated life has been heard far past the chapel walls. " It cannot be," writes Wesley, "that they should long obey God from fear, who are deaf to the motives of love." * It was this closely associated Chris- tian life that gave Methodism its peculiar char- acter and power. Men were banded togeth- er in pursuit of holiness. It marked a bet- ter form of the social religious feeling that banded men together in the Middle Ages for holy life and works of common mercy. That social lacks soon became apparent to Wesley we have also seen. To him we may trace the beginnings of many of the later philan- thropic movements. But deeper than even * Journal, January, 1736. SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 251 these there ran the longing for an associated religious life that would sweep all England. To Wesley "The Gospel," as he saw more than ever, " is in truth but one great promise, from the beginning of it to the end." * He made every parish his own. Nor was this the spirit of Wesley only. The movement, whether in Wales or under Whitefield, bore the same stamp. The universality of God's V- salvation binding men together for a com- mon purpose of salvation gave that markedly aggressive character that roused such bitter op- position, and led to so much persecution. The Moravian brethren in England had sunk into an anti-social quietism, and nothing marks the instinctive social character of the Methodist movement more than the way it flung off its early associations with the brethren of Herrnhut. In the disorganization of society consequent upon the agricultural revolution that, as we saw, marked the French wars, it was in large part Methodism that held together the society with which the parochial system was no longer fit to deal. The conservative social power of relig- s ious organization to give form to a chaotic dis- organized class of population in a nation, has never received a more striking illustration. Just as the Christian Church stood ready to * Journal, June, 1738. 252 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS reorganize and preserve the elements of civiliza- tion scattered in the downfall of paganism, so now in the shifting of the population from field to city and in the increase by decimals, Metho- dism stood ready within and without the Estab- lishment to reorganize the life that would otherwise, as in France, only have found its place amidst bloodshed and the horrors of revolution. Methodism was theologically and V intellectually no great theoretic gain to histori- cal Christianity ; as a social force it was one more revelation of God's omnipotent wisdom and gracious dealing in the raising up of communi- ties to reveal the workings of His ever-present order of righteousness. Does anyone challenge Methodism to prove its apostolic succession, it is not to doubtful history of on-laid hands it need go, but to the continual and present evi- dence of divine life breathed into whole com- munities for this spiritual uplifting, their social reorganization, and their political and ecclesias- tical freedom. Both types of theological thought were repre- sented in Methodism; Arminianism, or the emphatic dwelling on man's responsibility to God for his acts, and the Calvinistic, or the equally emphatic declaration of God's absolute sovereignty. Had the revival merely resulted in the formation of the Methodist churches it SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 253 would still have been a most noteworthy provi- dence. At the same time we should have been left to lament still further divisions of Protest- antism as its chief fruit. There was, however, a still further inspiration in it. The national Church had neglected many splendid opportuni- ties ; but it now was to feel the blessing it had given to society. It is noteworthy that it was the Calvinistic type of thought that became dominant in the Evangelical movement, as a distinct section of the Church of England. This was in part, no doubt, due to the decided character of the Thirty-nine Articles. But not wholly so. The national idea finds in the Cal- vinistic statement of the sovereignty of God congenial soil. The social impulse received a larger and more universal expression when thus in alliance with the national spirit and definite doctrinal emphasis upon the absolute reign of law. Hence it happens that as we trace the effects of the renewed social impulse in the life of the Evangelical party we find it entering at once upon a career of legal reformation. The theocratic conception of Puritanism made the awakened Christian conscience feel the national responsibility as well as the individual Chris- tian responsibility for national sins. The slave- trade became a burden to Christian men and women who had no other connection with it 254: ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS than that their nation suffered it. Prisons and jails became individual sorrows, because their condition was a national wrong. Hence the note of the Evangelical party was the parliamentary activity, and the abounding philanthropic re- forms in which the party was engaged. The accusation that Evangelical theology was both hard and narrow is not easily met. Nor was it, as it ought to have been, intellectually fruitful. Had its Calvinism been drawn from the original sources we might have confidently looked for great intellectual activity. But that was not the case. The Calvinistic reformers of the distinctly second period of the Reforma- tion gave Evangelical theology its color and its inspiration. The permanent heritage received from Evangelicalism is not theological nor intellectual, it is social and philanthropic. It is not the thinkers of the party that have given it character, but the workers like Howard, Wil- berforce, and Lord Shaftesbury. Of clear and definite statement there was no lack. But phrases and not ideas became the intellectual capital. There was actual jealousy of any departure from party watchwords, actual suspi- cion of anyone who sought to go down more deeply into the heart of things. The relations of Christianity to the state have been from the beginning the chief prob- SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 255 lems of religious thought. The Messianic king- dom so clearly foretold in the pre-Christian prophecy made the temptation to Christ on the Mount to bow before Home, and seize the Em- pire for his holy purpose, only resistable by the Messiah Himself. Christianity can afford to make no concessions for the sake of power. Her power is spiritual and will one day be su- preme without concessions. Yet the desire for supreme place is both legitimate and of divine origin. The State has a divine mission ; in its highest development it will be coincident with the spiritual ideals of Christ. Csesar and Christ will not dispute for the sway of the world, but the world will recognize the spiritual headship of Christ and government as its noblest expres- sion. The linking of evangelical fervor, therefore, to v the law-making of England was a distinct social advance. The world has often ruled in the name of religion. Religion ceases to be religion when it tries to rule in the name of the world. - But when Christianity comes to full self-con- J sciousness, then it demands of the nation na- tional subjection to the eternal conceptions of righteousness, mercy, and brotherhood, which Jesus embodied and the risen Christ calls us to incarnate in our social institutions. The launching of the great social reforms with which 256 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Evangelicalism is identified lifted up the whole national life. At a time when commercialism and growing town populations threatened to swamp the moral life of England, the energy * and sacrifice of the Evangelical party carried 4 the commercial classes over to the side of right- eousm 3, and in most apparent conflict with their own interests made the trading classes the stern opponents of slavery and the slave- trade. Seldom has the power of the cross as the one permanent social force that grows with the ages been better demonstrated than in that long and weary struggle. The effect of this ac- tivity was felt in all English life. The outcome in missionary and philanthropic enterprises changed the character of even the mercantile energy of England. In God's providence the nation that commanded the seas was awakened to her national responsibility for the nations beyond the seas. The strength of Evangelicalism was not, therefore, her clear but somewhat scholastic and unsatisfactory doctrinal definitions, but her ethical enthusiasm and her loyalty to the social headship of the risen Christ. She boldly claimed all life for the ideals of Christ as she understood those ideals. That her understand- ing of them was not always the deepest or the truest is only to say that none has ever sounded SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 257 all the depth that lies hidden even in the rev- elation of God in Christ Jesus, much less all the mystery that is still to be revealed as His headship becomes more and more acknowl- edged. mf The intellectual and artistic awakening that followed the French Revolution and the French wars could not, however, be content with the clear-cut but unhistoric and uncritical formulae. Moreover the party of Evangelicalism had sur- rendered much of her vitality in the hours of her comparative triumph. Evangelicalism was fash- ionable and yielded too readily to the seduc- tions of ease and popularity. The current liter- ature of the beginning of this century shows, often under the most unfair caricature, what the weakness of the Evangelical party was. Had the religious movement now lost its force, Eng- land would have surrendered herself to a re- vived paganism such as Byron and Shelley praised, and to an intensely dogmatic material- ism of the Bentham type. In both directions men saw hope and relief. Byron appealed to a gallantry in man, and to a noble part of his nat- v ure hitherto little addressed. Bentham stirred men's intellects profoundly, and modified by his utilitarian theories the course of legislation, and not unfavorably. The growing prosperity and increasing contrasts in English life made just 17 258 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS such soil as furnished rich crops of revolution in Europe. Paganism was profoundly attrac- tive to men's minds grown weary with the iter- ation and reiteration of religious phrases that had lost a large part of their divine vitality and were never, as intellectual formulae, profoundly respected. It was at this stage that the religious life of England awoke to new thought and to new du- ties. Exegetical and historical problems had to be faced. If they were to bo met without re- ligious injury they had to be dealt with in a re- ligious spirit. The Evangelical temper was neither sympathetic enough nor analytical enough to undertake this task. Moreover, the social problem, as such, has never been really faced. Amelioration, the correction of obvious injustice, had indeed been bravely undertaken. But to search for the foundations of society amid the promptings of the Christian social consciousness was a task reserved for a later day. This, then, was the chief social significance of the movement loosely called the Broad Church movement. What William Law was to the Methodist movement Coleridge was to this later development. The scholarship of the movement was not final. No scholarship is final. There was even no clear intellectual SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 259 agreement. Arnold, Whately, Maurice, Dean Stanley, Carlyle, Kuskin, all represent as many distinct types as there are men. Nor did they possess all the learning and scholarship of Eng- land. Pusey was foremost as a student of Se- mitics, and Milman was one of England's most learned historians. But they did represent a distinct protest against the separation of life into religious and secular ; and against the shams and unrealities that paraded themselves as the forces of national existence. They re- stored again a lost enthusiasm, imparting it even to such opposite schools of thought as the Evangelicals on the one hand, and the Unita- rians on the other. They bound together in re- ligious sympathy various social forces. Perhaps it may be said that this was the chief social significance of the Broad Church movement, that it faced sympathetically the new life with its new problems and dangers. The Pharisee in Christ's time had his own ^ remedy for the ills that bore heavily on men. All had only to become as he was, to study the law and fast and pray, and salvation was as- sured. But men felt the utter unreality of this teaching. They saw that the Pharisees were not so very different from themselves. Men could never again surrender to the law after having tasted of a larger pagan life. Men were 260 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS done with the school-master and discontented and restless. Then it was that Christ intro- duced the larger life, which never has been since quite buried out of sight in human formu- lae. This larger life, sympathy and hope the Broad school men revived. Of course, it was profoundly misunderstood even by its own prophets ; it always is. Yet it laid the founda- tion for new social advance. It made possible the safe awakening of sleeping forces ; it awoke in England a new social consciousness inde- pendent of its own formulae, and all the stronger for doing its own searching. Men judge of Christ as they see Him reflected in His followers. Second-growth Evangelical- ism, like second-growth Puritanism, was identi- fied in men's minds with narrow sympathies and hard, shallow views of life. That there were noble exceptions did not alter the opinion of good men who judged only as they saw Evan- gelicalism in the life about them. The antagon- ism of the world Christians may always expect. Sooner or later, in one way or another, the antithesis is sure to make itself felt. Men, however hungry for a revelation of social order, whose hearts are longing for a revelation of God in the life they know, were rightly re- pelled by the want of faith in aught but the worn-out phrases of a school that showedall the SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE Hf GENERAL 261 signs of a spent enthusiasm. Such men also were at this moment greatly increased in num- bers by unwise laws and the hardships of war taxation. They had been schooled in the busy life of the city, amidst great material hardships, to compare Christian professions and promises with the actual condition of things. In thou- sands there was awakened perhaps a mere physi- cal animal discontent, but in many, indeed very many, there was awakened the hungry desire for a better, less selfish social order. Then it was that the Broad school did its own providen- tial work. The steadiness and sobriety of Eng- lish social change even amid antagonism, both cruel and painful, is the work in large measure of the religious awakening and the wise sym- pathy of religious leaders, whom the ecclesias- tical world regarded, and even now is tempted to regard, as beyond the pale of toleration be- cause " they follow not with us." In the twi- light of our intellectual life shadows, even of our brethren, seem to us dangerous enemies as they struggle with us toward the common goal. The religious services of this school of thought and feeling are hard to estimate. Socialism is now respectable. It is dominant in many of the leading universities of Europe, and has an honored place at least as a subject of inquiry in all But in the days of 1848 to boldly proclaim 262 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS themselves Christian socialists, as did Maurice, Ludlow, and Charles Kingsley, was courting the infamy and persecution men sought to heap upon them. In informed circles it is no longer fashionable to trust to right legal machinery for curing the ills of the world. But when, after all the proud reforms of England's Parliament, Carlyle deliberately scoffed at the materialism and infidelity that lurked in this mechanical theory, and called men back to face vital truth, he was deliberately exposing himself in the age he did it in to the attacks of all " prudent " and " safe " persons. Dean Stanley's reverent in- terpretation of the scholarship of Germany ex- posed him to the attacks of those whose intel- lectual horizon was bounded by the formulae they had learned from the reforming divines of the seventeenth century. This sympathetic atti- tude toward the modern spirit saved England from the gravest danger that confronted her in her industrial progress, and gave the whole so- cial unrest a deeply thoughtful and reverent character unique in the history of modern social thought. The desire of men of real intelligence writes Arnold in 1822, was " a uniformly Chris- tian spirit," appearing " to uphold good prin- ciples for their own sake, not merely as tending to the maintenance of things as they are."* *Life of Arnold, Vol. I., p. 43. SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 263 Of the positive intellectual contributions of the so-called Broad school men this is not the place to speak. They vary greatly in value. The social significance was the Christian sym- pathetic attitude they taught to stiff, obstinate Englishmen toward the new questions and new thought the world had to face. This temper / has in large measure saved England from the acute phases of social and political agitation which have plagued the Continental nations, and given such fine excuses for reactionary appeal to force and tradition. The movement also went deeper into the social question than did the party of Evangel- ical reform. Before every society there are two main questions seldom properly distinguished. The first is, whether the existing social order is being abused. Men can, under cover of a social order against which there exists no complaint, destroy real order by abusing that system. A second and deeper question is, whether the existing social order is to be justified before the bar of conscience. The French Revolution con- vinced most Englishmen that they did not want to destroy their existing social order. And that opinion prevails generally to-day. The Evangel- ical party had bravely attacked abuses that had grown up upon the social order and were con- tent, for the most part, to have these remedied. 264 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS The social thought of the Broad school men, as well as such thinkers as Carlyle and Euskin, did not, indeed, have any quarrel with the forms of the social order. But they were among the first to boldly attack the spirit of that order, and to cry out for a complete reformation in the underlying conception that selfishness and brute force were the twin pillars of society. This theory had indeed been more or less openly avowed by a school of thought popular in England, by reason of its great simplicity and the clearness and energy of those who advanced it. Men did not even recognize its essentially irreligious character. The theory of the greatest happiness to the greatest number, by which Bentham veiled an exceedingly mate- rialistic philosophy of society, even attracted the younger religious men. The social protest of the men that followed Maurice, Carlyle, or Buskin is against the spirit that would thus reduce to selfishness, instead of social affection, the laws of life. The religious world in all its phases has begun to grasp that essential differ- ence, and to realize that the spirit at the basis of social order is the important thing, and to fear but little changes that have right motives as their inspiration, knowing that even se- rious mistakes in the effort to bring about order are not so dangerous as the selfish con- SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 2G5 tinuance in abuses for fear of possible injury by change. It was characteristic of the entire religious movement to throw its energies upon education. John Wesley had founded a school after his own plan and ideal. Sunday-schools were the direct outcome of the movement, and Hannah More did inestimable service to the much- neglected female education in England by both her methods and her writing. Indeed the close connection between the religious revival and education is not the least element in its social significance. It sprang from the university life and kept in touch with the universities through- out its course. Its principal strength was the hold it gained over the men who were leading England's public life. Yet at the same time there can be no question that the education was insular and traditional. The excessive conserv- atism of Oxford makes us wonder at the splen- did things she accomplished, in spite of her attachment to past ideals, and her insistence upon traditions that had long lost their hold elsewhere. To the work of Coleridge, Arnold, and Carlyle, England owes her connection in large part with a wider world of thought and learning and education in Germany, the social meaning of which is best seen in the historic and critical ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS schools to which this contact gave birth. To Oxford there came fresh impulses and to Eng- land new problems in the opening up again of the questions that Kant and Hegel had laid before the world. The work of Emanuel Kant, the great modern Protestant, appeal's in a hun- dred ways in the thought of England from this time onward. J Great freedom in speculation and in handling critical and historical questions was one of the results, not so much of the religious movement as of advanced liberalism and the influence of the French encyclopaedists. Strong reaction from this might have easily closed the ears of the leaders of thought in England to all ad- vanced inquiry, and produced the conditions found too often in Italy and Spain, where intel- lectual freedom is synonymous with infidelity. - The Broad Churchmen met this freedom, not by rejecting it, but by reverently entering into it, and by demanding for education a like bold facing of the issues raised. The school had confidence in the classes of England, in the wealthy and in the working-men, and was not afraid to give its best to the working-men in Great Ormond Street or to appeal to the best instincts in men of all classes. The outcome of this confidence as seen in social settlements, in summer schools, in the determined spirit on the SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 267 part of so many of all denominations and shades of thought in so many lands to probe to the bot- tom of social problems, and give all fair answers a hearing, lies beyond the scope of our present inquiry. Yet it is only just to point out the source of this growing confidence and to mark it as a direct fruifc of the religious awakening in England- Whatever fate may befall the theological re- sults of the Broad school ; and it is impossible to claim that they rendered any phenomenal service along this line ; whatever may be the final verdict upon the historical and critical positions they severally maintained ; and that these positions are always subject to review cannot be denied ; yet, as a permanent ser- vice to all thought, religious and social, will remain the spirit of reverent freedom and Christian confidence in God and man devel- oped and defended by the Broad Church party and the allied social thought of Carlyle and Buskin. In the tremendous strides toward a democratic form of government made in England since 1688 — made without a serious physical conflict, and if engendering heat and excitement at the time, yet commanding in the end the practical assent of all classes — it is often forgotten how deeply the old Tory conception of life is rooted 268 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS in English thinking. The enthusiastic icon- oclast might claim that " Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley were with us, they watch from their graves." But English literature is also deeply dyed in the feudal and Tory life coloring. It is abso- lutely impossible to cultivate artistic apprecia- tion of the past and its achievements without some entering into sympathy with the thought and feelings of the past that thus found utterance. For Evangelicalism, with all its splendid virtues, the past was largely bounded by the traditions of the reformation of the seventeenth century, and its sympathies were scarcely broad enough to enter largely into past states of feeling, how- ever deeply these might once have touched Eng- land. Popery was to Evangelicalism an impos- sible standing point, and High Churchism a past memory of a fitful dream. Yet it sprang, itself, immediately from a circle of ideas, as we have seen, harbored within the prayer-books and offices it had never ceased to use, and never expressed any desire to change. It was inevi- table, therefore, that the High Church movement which we have briefly studied should spring up and protest again on behalf of a social and re- ligious conception never in any way eliminated from the English Church. SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 269 The Non-jurors had never left the Church. Their protest, indeed, was for long utterly un- heeded. The recrudescence of the same social conceptions they cherished links the High Church party as a social factor with the Oxford Methodists, who started, as did Pusey and his friends, to simply live up to the rubrics and that which they stood for in the Establishment. These men stood not for a different theology. With all respect for the intellectual services of Pusey and Newman and their several parties it cannot be urged that they advanced in any great degree scientific theology. Their real social service was renewed attention to the ancient, traditional, authoritative attitude of Christianity to human life. However, as Prot- estants, we may reject earnestly the sacramental theories and the external authority of the Catho- lic conception of the relation of the Church to the state, we need, because we are Protestants, to emphasize as never before the function of the Church as the spiritual authority in the life of the state. The High Church party claimed for % a mere fragment of Christendom what belongs to all ; but it rightly claimed a spiritual super- vision of life. A nation is not Christian because it believes in a certain set of theological articles, or imposes them upon its rulers and universities, as the High Church party fondly claimed. Nor 270 . ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS is the standing of a nation as Christian de- pendent upon the churchly maintenance of some mystic connection between the hands of past bishops, however worthy, and the heads of present and future bishops, priests, and dea- cons, however consecrated ; but upon the in- spiring motives of the nation in its internal and external relations. We are not farther off to-day from the source of all religious inspiration and guidance than were the most apostolic fathers, but England needed to be again aroused to the national re- sponsibility of the Church to human life as an authoritative guide in its spiritual concerns. The national Church stands established as the representative of the Church to and in the state. Ward, in his Ideal Church, expresses the feeling that was revived in the High Church party that, " She [the Ideal Church] will feel it her duty to proclaim aloud the general application of Chris- tian principles to political government ; and plain and undeniable sins, such as flagrant unjust war, or a measure conspicuously op- pressive to the poor, she will fearlessly de- nounce. . . . The office of protecting the poor against wrong is especially her own ; nor will she consider any one of her attributes more noble, obvious or inalienable." * * p. 49. SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 271 The Church needs to commend herself to every man's conscience ; her value as a guide in things spiritual depends on her success in thus commending herself. The social meaning of the churchly party's rise was to be found in the sense that the Establishment was not fulfilling her high aim, and that the High Churchmen did lift up with real enthusiasm a loftier ideal of churchly zeal. The fact that the leaders seceded to Rome is proof conclusive that they neither did nor desired to introduce any advance in the thinking of the church, nor did they add any great amount to the sum of critical or his- torical knowledge, although they possessed respectable scholarship along both these lines^ Their real service was again social, in the reor- ganization of church life as a great factor in the social development of the English people ; and however much Protestants may be inclined to pity the extravagances and even superstition into which the party has in large measure been led, yet candid examination has certainly con- vinced many even prejudiced observers of the decided advance made by the Church in practi- cal piety under the High Church influence. Ono notable feature of the movement marks its common origin with the Methodism of the last century, and links it with the circle of ideas out of which Methodism sprang. This feature 272 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS is the emphasis upon the duty of the Church as such to prescribe the rules whereby the individ- ual may attain various degrees of sanctification. " A function," writes Ward,* " of the Church, even more important than any we have yet named, is what may be briefly described as the training up of saints ; the sedulously tending of those who, whether in reward for a consistently holy walk in time past, or by the fore -working of God's grace, have aspirations within them that tend to a high and noble strictness of life, and who thirst for a far more entire self- abnegation and devotion to God's will than that for which the ordinary walks of life afford suffi- cient scope." Thus Methodism started, but found in the practical contact with life what the High Church movement has not found — a corrective for this introduction of a caste system into Christianity. The Methodists soon de- manded from all men the highest that they knew for themselves, and they soon realized what William Law did not realize, that there was no safe compromise with men. Either entire subjection or rebellion is the moral alter- native before every responsible man. The High Church leaders were men of far more intellect- ual acumen than most of those who took lead- ing parts in the Methodist movement, although * Ideal Church, p. 16. SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 273 probably no one of them had the genius and power of John Wesley ; but they moved in the scholasticism in which Methodism began, and the social significance of the movement has been limited by the distinctly reactionary intellectual platform from which they did their teaching. But they, too, have flung themselves on the prob- lems of the social order. Instinctively they proclaimed as the real "note" of the true Church its capacity to solve these problems. Indeed Ward — in many ways the thinker of the party even more than Newman — says: "The saints are in every age the great external wit- nesses of Christianity, the great visible notes of the Church:' * Thus we have sought to trace from the begin- ning of the Methodist Oxford movement the religious awakening that passed over England in four distinct phases with separate character- istics. We have seen how different and even exclusive the theological and ritual life of each phase was. We have noted the concomitant interest in the national life and marked the social significance of the awakening. The essence of the movement cannot be sought in the opinions advocated by any one phase, for in spite of defects in all, the common religious origin and . abounding usefulness of all can * Ideal Church, p. 558. " 18 274 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS hardly be soberly denied, and yet these opin- ions separated and did not unite the various phases. Nor can any form of church govern- ment be urged a return to which might secure the results of this movement, for it advanced under all forms and theories of church govern- ment. The strength of the movement was not Cal- vinism nor yet Arminianism ; it was not inde- pendence nor traditionalism ; it was not infor- mality in worship nor yet ritual ; it was not the zeal of an untrained ministry nor the wide and varied culture of thorough scholastic learn- ing ; it was not the keeping close to certain statements of truth — because no party ever suc- ceeded on agreeing to any great extent upon the statements it should keep close to. The open Bible cannot be given as the secret of the Anglican success, nor can the critical examina- tion of it be urged as the strength of Evangeli- calism. Nor can we assert that the particular ability of special men accounts for the religious activity that stretched over one hundred years and called into leadership men as widely differ- ent as Whitefield, Coke, Wesley, Wilberforce, Scott, Arnold, Maurice, Newman and Ward. The personal religious depth of none of these men is open to serious dispute. Probably no one will accept more than one as in any way SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 275 representing fully his particular caste of relig- ious philosophy. But as a matter of fact the religious services of these men is not denied. The whole church joins with Newman singing, 4< Lead, Kindly Light, amid the Encircling Gloom ; " feeds its devotion on Keble's Chris- tian Tear ; joins with Charles Wesley and John Bowring in praising the cross ; learns from the pages of Scott the mind's spiritual meaning of the sacred text, and glories in the philanthropy and achievements of all. They form a cloud of witnesses now that they are dead, whom we should have had reduced by two-thirds, were they living, because their opinions did not coin- cide with ours. The religious movement was not based upon an opinion, nor was it the outcome of dogmatic prepossessions. Opinions sprang from it, and it gave rise to theories and dogmas, because it was a revival of religion, a revivification of the old ele- ments, transforming them and making them new. That which was common to all was an ideal of salvation for men and for society. Wesley says : " Now that life tends most to the glory of God wherein we most promote holiness in our- selves and others ; I say ourselves and others as being fully persuaded that these can never be put asunder." * Personal and social holiness * Journal, p. 122 (letter to his father). 276 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS was the end for which "Wilberforce and Clarksom moved heaven and earth to abolish slavery as a personal stain and a social blot. Personal holi- ness was Arnold's constant sermon to the boys at Bugby, banishing vice and deception from hun- dreds of young hearts to go out to service of the kind Thomas Hughes rendered so conspicu- ously. Personal holiness was the one aim of John H. Newman going out from friends and comrades to the long and sad search after truth told in the tender pages of the Apologia and finding peace only when he had accepted a set of opinions ifc is safe to say the robust common- sense of Anglo-Saxons will never receive in their present entirety. -- In all we recognize the divine life, struggling through the mass of confused prejudices, social, scholastic, literary, class, personal, racial, and traditional, purifying in many cases, nearly always lifting the man far above his opinions in special times of exaltation. In all faith in God and submission to His holy will form the underlying principles of action. In all now plainly temporary and accidental elements were exalted into essential principles. "Wesley thought unbelief in witchcraft the first step toward denial of all supernatural elements in religion. Thomas Scott thought the mainten- ancy of the six-day cosmogony essential to the SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 277 holding of any faith in the religious value of the Bible. Arnold considered the admission of Jews to the House of Commons a serious shak- ing of the foundation of the Christian nation's claim to be Christian. * Newman awoke once horror-stricken to ask himself if he was not in the same condemnations with the monophysites. All the different representatives of the different phases were schismatic in that they made per- sonal opinions the basis of fellowship with those no seriously minded man would now regard as among the lost. To Charles Kingsley, Newman was an underhand lying Jesuit. To Newman, Hampden was guilty of mortal sin in propound- ing views now tolerated even in Roman circles. All of them in their several degrees advanced, even amid blunders and errors, the cause of real and essential righteousness. The centre of unity is to be found in the pray- ers they offered up and the hymns they sang, rather than in the opinions they made their own. They found a common significance in the social activity that absorbed a far larger propor- tion of their thought and time than the controv- ersies of which the world now reads for the most part, and which -give parties their distinc- tive names. All the phases of these controver- sies had for the participants an importance they * Life, Vol. II., pp. 28, 29. 278 ENGLISH RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS do not possess for us. We do not go to Wes- ley's sermon on predestination, nor to White- field's reply in order to inform ourselves con- cerning the philosophical or theological value of Arminianism or Calvinism. However much we may recognize the philosophic value of one or other line of thought the fact of Methodism stamps so-called Arminianism as neither a deadly heresy nor a dangerous disadvantage to Evangelical truth. It does not settle the intel- lectual value of Arminianism, but it does surely demonstrate the folly of supposing that Calvin- ism is the only foundation on which Evangelical truth can rest. The power of the Evangelical Revival is not yet exhausted, although its forms are varied and its manifestations are more general. Protest- antism has been lately aroused by the activity and zeal of those to whom the Roman Church undoubtedly appeals more strongly than does the Church of the Reformation, and who desire to restore the English Church to her former state. Conflicting conceptions of the character of both Church and State will thus sooner or later be brought into final struggle for the mas- tery of the Establishment. The Salvation Army still maintains much of the method and spirit that distinguished the early Methodist move- ment, with its class discipline and minute regu- SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN GENERAL 279 lation of the daily life ; both the High Church- man and the Salvation Army leader deem the personal and authoritative watch by the churchly organization over the particulars of the individual life essential to the higher sancti- fication at which both aim. Both more or less avowedly profess degrees of sanctity, and aim at a centralized and effective central power to enforce unity. On the other hand the freer and more Prot- estant movement is finding expression in the banding together of the bodies of non-con- formity on the basis of skilful evasion of their intellectual differences. But to all alike the one hope that animates and inspires is the same apocalyptic vision that inspired the Pres- byter John on the Isle of Patmos, when amid discouragements and trials, and the unbelief and persecution of men, he saw a new Heaven and a new Earth, wherein dwelt righteousness, and the four and twenty elders flung their crowns at the feet of the risen Saviour and exclaimed : Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power : for Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created! Rev. iv. 11. BIBLIOGRAPHY No complete bibliography is possible. In- formation has been gleaned from very various and different sources. But the following works have proved especially useful. A Short History of the English People : T. R. Green, M.A. Illustrated Edition, New York, 1893, 4 vols. A History of England in the Eighteenth Century : W. E. H. Lecky. New York, 1888, 8 vols. The Nineteenth Century : Robert MacKenzie. New York, 1880, 1 vol. History of Our Own Times : Bishop Burnet. Fo- lio Edition, London, 1734. Social England : Edited by H. D. Trail. London, 1894. Pioneers and Progress of English Farming : R. Prothero. History of the Non- jurors : Thomas Lathbury. London, 1845. History of the Convocation of the Church of Eng- land : Thomas Lathbury. London, 1842. The "Reports " and " Tours " of Arthur Young. The Tour of Defoe. London, 1727. The Tour of Defoe : Edited by Richardson. Lon- don, 1748. History of the Puritans. (Abridged.) Neal. Lon- don Edition, 1811. 281 2S2 BIBLIOGRAPHY The Puritans and Queen Elizabeth : Samuel Hop- kins. New York, 1875, 3 vols. Defoa's Works (Walter Scott's Notes). Bohn Edi- tion, 1854, 7 vols. \Villiam Law's Works, especially A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, London, 181 G ; and Letters to Dr. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor, Philadelphia, 1830. Memoirs of the Reign of George II. : Lord John Henry. Philadelphia, 1848, 2 vols. Hansard's Parliamentary Reports from 1780. MacPherson's Annals of Commerce. Hannah More's Works. New York, 1835, 7 vols. Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II. 's Reign : Horace Walpolc. London, 1822. The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Com- pared : Bishop Lavington. London, 1849-51, 2 vols. Sydney Smith's Works. London, 1839, 4 vols. The Centenary of Methodism. Dublin, 1839. John Wesley's Works. New York, 1826, 10 vols. John Wesley's Journal (better edition). New York, 1837, 2 vols. Life of John Wesley (most excellent) . Tyerman. New York, 1872, 3 vols. The Oxford Methodist : Tyerman. New York, 1873. The Life of George Whitefield : Tyerman. New York, 1877, 2 vols. History of Free Churches of England, A.D. 1688 to 1851 : H. S. Skeat. London, 1869. Life of William Wilberforce, by his Sons. London, 1838. Life of Samuel Wilberforce, by his Son. New York, 1889. Romelly's Reports, particularly Cold Bath Prison Report, 1800. Howard the Philanthropist : J. Stoughton. Lon- don, 1884. BIBLIOGRAPHY 283 Religion in England under Queen Anne and the Four Georges. London, 1878, 2 vols. Robert Owen's Life and Works. , . Gleanings of Past Years : William E. Gladstone. New York, 1886, 7 vols. The Oxford Movement : Dean Church. London, 1892. Catholicism, Romanism, and Anglicanism : Princi- pal Fairbairn. London, 1898. John Henry Newman's Works, particularly Apo- logia pro Vita Sua. London, 1870. Newman's Life and Correspondence. 1890, 2 vols. The Ideal Church : William G. Ward. Lon- don, 1884. William G. Ward and the Oxford Movement. Sec- ond Edition, London, 1890. Life of Cardinal Manning : Purcell. London, 189G, 2 vols. Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold : Dean Stanley. London, 1887, 2 vols. Tracts for the Times, particularly No. 90. (Vari- ous Editions.) Life and Letters of Dean Stanley. London, 1894, 2 vols. Life and Verses of Dean Stanley. 1895. Life of F. D. Maurice in his Letters. Third Edi- tion, New York, 2 vols. Ruskin's Works, George Allen's Edition, Sunny- side, 1888. Carlyle's Works, Ashburton Edition, 1889, 17 vols. Charles Kingsley's Essays. London, 1880. Letters and Life of Charles Kingsley. New York, 1888. Life and Correspondence of Whately. Dublin, 18G8. Essays, Reviews, and Addresses of James Martineau. London, 1891, 3 vols. ffl»orse lectures for 1898 THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF ASIA STUDIES AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS OF ORIENTAL RELIGIONS BY JOHN HENRY BARROWS, D.D. 12mo, $1.5O CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS CONTENTS : — I. Beginning at Jerusalem ; or Christianity and Juda- ism.— II. The Cross and the Crescent in Asia. — III. Observations of Popular Hinduism. — IV. Philosophic Hinduism. — V. Some Difficulties in the Hindu Mind in Regard to Christianity. — VI. Christianity and Buddhism. — VII. Confucianism, and the Awakening of China. — VIII. Success of Asiatic Missions : America's Responsibility to the Orient. Dr. Barrows's book gives an account of the results achieved by the introduction of Christianity into Asia during this century. The exact religious condition of the Asia of to-day is clearly detailed ; and a hope- ful forecast is given with regard to the continuance of the work already auspiciously begun in the Far East. /iDorse Xectures for 1895 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN A BRIEF HISTORY OF HIS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT, THROUGH CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT BY JOHN M. TYLER Professor of Biology, Amherst College 12mo, 312 pp., $1.75 CONTENTS :— Introduction.— I. The Problem : The Mode of its Solu- tion.— II. Protozoa to Worms : Cells, Tissues, and Organs. — III. Worms to Vertebrates : Skeleton and Head.— IV. Vertebrates: Backbone and Brain. — V. The History of Mental Development and its Sequence of Functions. — VI. Natural Selection and Environment. — VII. Conformity to Environment— VIII. Man.— IX. The Teachings of the Bible.— X. Present Aspect of the Theory of Evolution. — Chart showing Sequence of Attainments and of Dominant Functions. — Phylogenetic Chart of the Animal Kingdom. — Index. " It is thoroughly strong and able, and in a perspicuous way presents the doctrine of evolution in its relation to man in his social, moral, and religious nature. To the question ' Whence?' the author answers, as all evolutionists do, ' Protoplasm ' ; to the question ' Whither' his reply is, ' Everything points to a spiritual end in animal evolution.' The whole discussion is calm and evidently in the interest of truth rather than of tradition." — The Out/wk. Ubc flBorse ^Lectures for 1894 THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY TO THE ERA OF THE MEIJI BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D. Formerly of the Imperial University of Tokio; Author of "The Mikado's Empire" and " Corea, the Hermit Nation " 1 2mo, 457 pp., $2.OO CONTENTS :— I. Primitive Faith : Religion before Books.— II. Shinto : Myths and Ritual.— III. The Kojiki and its Teachings.— IV. The Chinese Ethical System in Japan. — V. Confucianism in its Philosophical Form. — VI. The Buddhism of Northern Asia. — VII. Riyobu, or Mixed Buddhism. — VIII. Northern Buddhism in its Doctrinal Evolutions.— IX. The Buddhism of the Japanese. — X. Japanese Buddhism in its Missionary Development. — XI. Roman Christianity in the Seventeenth Century. — XII. Two Centuries of Silence. — Notes, Authorities, and Illustrations. — Index. " The book is excellent throughout, and indispensable to the religious student."— TJte A tlantic Monthly. '' To any one desiring a knowledge of the development and ethical status of the East, this book will prove of the utmost assistance, and Dr. Griffis may be thanked for throwing a still greater charm about the Land of the Rising Sun." — The Churchman. ZTbe /l&orse Xectures for 1893 THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN MODERN THEOLOGY BY A. M. FAIRBAIRN, M.A., D.D. Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford 8vo, 556 pp., $2.5O SUMMARY Introduction.- -THE RETURN TO CHRIST. Book I. — HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. Division I. — The Law of Development in Theology and the Church. Division II. — Historical Criticism and the History of Christ Book II. — THEOLOGICAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE. Division I. — The New Testament Interpretation of Christ Division II. — Christ the Interpretation of God. Division III.— A. God as Interpreted by Christ the Determinative Principle in Theology. B. God as Interpreted by Christ the Determinative Principle in the Church. " One of the most valuable and comprehensive contributions to theology that has been made during this generation." — London Spectator. " Suggestive, stimulating, and a harbinger of the future catholic theology." — Boston Literary World. "An important contribution to theological literature." — London Times. 3Elg Xectures for 1897 THE BIBLE AND ISLAM: OR, THE INFLUENCE OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS ON THE RELIGION OF MOHAMMED BY HENRY PRESERVED SMITH, D.D. 1 2mo, 31 9 pp., $1 .50 CONTENTS I. The Apostle of Allah. VI. Revelation and Prophecy. II. The Common Basis in Heathenism. VII. Sin and Salvation. III. The Koran Narratives. VIII. The Service of God. IV. The Doctrine of God. IX. The Future Life. V. The Divine Government. X. Church and State. "We should be inclined to regard this volume as perhaps the very best for one who desired to get a clear understanding of the doctrines rather than of the practical workings of Mohammedanism." — The Outlook. " The general reader will not meet with a more complete compendium of the religious teachings of the Prophet of Arabia. " — New York Commercial Advertiser. Big lectures for 1891 ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK BY FRANK F. ELLINWOOD, D.D. Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. 1 2mo, 384 pp., $1 ,75 CONTENTS I. The Need of Understanding the False Religions. II. The Methods of the Early Christian Church in Dealing with Heathenism. III. The Successive Developments of Hinduism. IV. The Bhagavad Gita and the New Testament. V. Buddhism and Christianity. VI. Mohammedanism Past and Present. VII. The Traces of a Primitive Monotheism. VIII. Indirect Tributes of Heathen Systems to the Doctrines of the Bible. IX. Ethical Tendencies of the Eastern and the Western Philosophies. X. The Divine Supremacy of the Christian Faith. THE ELY LECTURES " The special value of this volume is in its careful differentiation of the schools of religionists in the East, and the distinct points of antagonism of the very fundamental ideas of Oriental religions toward the religion of Jesus. " — Outlook. " A more instructive book has not been issued for years." — New York Observer. *'The author has read widely, reflected carefully, and written ably." — Congregationaiist. " It is a book which we can most heartily commend to every pastor and to every intelligent student, of the work which the Church is called to do jn the world." — The Missionary. 2/ectures for 1890 THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE BY LEWIS FRENCH STEARNS, D.D. 12mo, 473 pp., $2.OO CONTENTS I. The Evidences of To-day. II. Philosophical Presuppositions — Theistic. III. Philosophical Presuppositions — Anthropological. IV. The Genesis of the Evidence. V. The Growth of the Evidence. VI. The Verification of the Evidence. VII. Philosophical Objections. VIII. Theological Objections. IX. Relation to other Evidences. X. Relation to other Evidences — Conclusion. " His presentation of the certainty, reality, and scientific character of the facts in a Christian consciousness is very strong." — The Lutheran. " An important contribution to the library of apologetics. " — Living Church. "A good and useful work." — The Churchman. " The tone and spirit which pervade them are worthy of the theme, and the style is excellent. There is nothing of either cant or pedantry in the treatment. There is simplicity, directness, and freshness of manner which strongly win and hold the reader." — Chicago Advance. CHARLES SCRffiNER'S SONS J53-J57 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK K •3 x-' CM H 4 ti f 6 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY Acme Library Card Pocket Under Pat. " Ref. Index File." Made by LIBRARY BUREAU