Lectures on Calvinism (Stone Lectures)

A traveller from the old European Continent, disembark-, ing on the shore of this New World, feels as the Psalmist says, "his thoughts crowd upon him like a multitude". Compared with the eddying waters of this new stream of life, the old stream, in which he has moved seems, almost frostbound and dull; and while at home the stealing phantom of approaching Social Death now and then made him shiver for the horrors of the future, here the rippling and sparkling waves around him speak of an everhigher development of human life to come. Here, on American ground, he catches at once the magic spirit of Longfellow's "Excelsior". Here, for the first time, he realizes how so many divine potencies, hidden away in the bosom of mankind from our very creation, but which our old world was incapable of developing, are now beginning to disclose their inward splendour, thus promising a still richer store of surprises for the Future.

Not that you would ask me to forget the superiority which, in many respects, the Old World may still claim, in your eyes, as well as in mine.

Old Europe remains even now the bearer of a longer historical past, and therefore stand- before you as a deeper rooted tree, hiding between its leaves the more matured fruits of life. In one word, you are yet in your Springtide, — we are passing through our Fall; — and the harvest of Autumn has an enchantment of its own.

But, although, on the other hand, I fully acknowledge your privilege that (to use another simile) the train of life travels with you so immeasureably faster than with us, — leaving us miles and miles behind, — still we both feel that there is not a separate life in Old Europe and another here, but that it is one and the same current of human existence that rolls through both continents; — a vast uninterrupted tide, which entered Europe from Asia, then passed from Europe to America, and is now further developing itself in this New World, ever moving westward.

By virtue of our common origin you may call us bone of your bone, — we feel that you are flesh of our flesh, and although you are outstripping us in the most discouraging way, you will never forget that the historic cradle of 3rour wondrous youth stood in our old Europe, and was rocked most gently in my once so mighty Fatherland.

Moreover, besides this common parentage, there is another factor which, in the face of even a wider difference, would continue to unite your interests and ours. Far more precious to us, even than the development of human life, is the crown which ennobles it, and this noble crown of life for you and for me rests in the Christian name. That crown is our common heritage, and under the glory of that crown we are and feel united, in the closest and most holy brotherhood. It was not from Greece or Rome that the regeneration of human life came forth;— that mighty metamorphosis dates from Bethlehem and Golgotha; and if the Reformation, in a still more special sense, claims the love of our hearts, it is because it has dispelled the clouds of sacerdotalism, and has unveiled again to fullest view the glories of the cross. But, in deadly opposition to this Christian element, against this very Christian name, and against its salutiferous influence in every sphere of life, has now arisen, with such a violent intensity, the storm of Modernism..

In 1789 the turning point was reached.

Voltaire's mad cry "Ecrasez Pinfame" aimed at Christ himself, and this cry it was that gave utterance to the most hidden thought from which the French Revolution sprang. The fanatic outcry of another philosopher -'We no more need a God'', and the odious shibboleth "No God, no Master", of the Convention, — these were the sacrilegious watchwords which at that time heralded the liberation of man as an emancipation from all Divine Authority. And if, in His impenetrable Wisdom, God employed that revolution as a means by which to overthrow the tyranny of the Bourbons, and to bring a judgment on the princes who abused His nations as their footstool, nevertheless the principle of that Revolution remains thoroughly antichristian, and has since eaten its way like a cancer, dissolving and undermining all that stood firm and consistent before our Christian faith.

This anti-Christian power has since been strengthened ' by the richness of forms in which German Modernism unfolded itself, thereby rendering Pantheism so generally acceptable that in Darwin's evolution — theory its idea of an uninterrupted process has been hailed as the physiological basis of every existing thing. And what is still more lamentable, even in the church of Christ itself this poisonous toxin has forced an entrance, and under cover of a pious mysticism or in the garment of historic clearness, has attacked, first the sacredness of the church, after that the Holy Scripture, and at last even the holy person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. No doubt therefore but that Christianity is emperilled by great and serious dangers. Two world-views are wrestling one with another, in mortal combat. Modernism is bound to build a world of its own from the data of the natural man, and to con- struct man himself from the data of nature, while, on the other hand, all those who reverently bend the knee to Christ and worship Him as the Son of the Living God are bent upon saving the "Christian Heritage" for the world at large, confident, by this heritage, to lead her up to a still higher development. This is the struggle in Europe, this is the struggle in America, and this also, is the struggle for principles, in which my own country is engaged, and in which I myself have exhausted for nearly forty years every energy at my disposal.

In this struggle Apologetics have advanced us no single step. Apologetics have invariably begun by abandoning the assailed breastwork, in order to entrench themselves in a ravelin behind it.

Therefore, from the first, I have always said to myself: —"If the battle is to lie fought with honour and with a hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle; then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing principle assails us, and then it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a principle of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power. And this powerful principle is not to lie invented nor formulated by ourselves, but it is to be taken and applied as it presents itself in life, with its roots in the past, and its branches spread over our present existence. It will not do therefore to say that this principle is Christianity itself. Such a general principle, taken in an absolute sense, necessarily remains a pure abstraction, and only in its historical, its farthest, and its purest revelation can it supply us with the needed vigor for resistance; — and when thus taken, I found and confessed, and I still hold, that this manifestation of the Christian principle is given us in Calvinism. ^ In Calvinism has my heart found rest. From Calvinism have I drawn the inspiration, firmly and resolutely to take my stand in the thick of this great conflict of principles. And therefore, when I was invited to give the Stone Lectures here this year, I could not hesitate a moment as to my choice of subject. Calvinism, as the only decisive, lawful, and consistent defence for Protestant nations against encroaching, and overwhelming Modernism, — this of itself was bound to be my theme. Not that my personal experience can be of interest to you, but because it is the same conflict which engages you here, and us in Europe, and because in such an universal struggle, the more a testimony is based upon personal experience, the higher its significance, and the richer its value.

Allow me therefore, in six lectures, to speak to you on Calvinism. First on Calvinism in History, that we may clearly understand what Calvinism is. Then on Calvinism and Religion. Again on Calvinism as a political phenomenon;— After that on Calvinism as a social force, first in Science, and then in Art. And, finally, on the hope which in Calvinism, is laid away for the Future.

Clearness of presentation demands that in this first lecture I begin by fixing the conception of Calvinism historically. To prevent misunderstanding we must first know what we should not, and what we should, understand by it. Starting therefore from the current use of the term. I find that this is by no means the same in different countries and spheres of life. The name Calvinist is used in our times most generally as a sectarian name; this is not the case in Protestant, but in Romish countries, especially in Hungary and France. In Hungary the Reformed Churches have a membership of some two and one-half millions, and in both the Romish and Jewish press her members are constantly stigmatized by the non-official name of "Calvinists". A derisive name applied even to those who have divested themselves of all traces of sympathy with the taith of their fathers. The same phenomenon presents itself in France, especially in the Southern parts, where „Calviniste" is equally, and even more emphatically a sectarian stigma, which does not refer to the faith or confession of the stigmatized person, but is simply put upon every communicant of the Reformed Churches, even though he be an atheist. George Thiebaud, known for his anti-semitic propaganda, has at the same time revived the anti-Calvinistic spirit in France, and even in the Dreyfus case "Jews and Calvinists" were arraigned by him as the two anti-national forces as prejudicial to the ''esprit gaulois". This sectarian use of the name "Calvinist" is derived from the Romish polemists, who from the beginning were accustomed to attack by this ominous term what seemed to them the most dangerous form of Protestantism. This first significance however of the name "Calvinist" is of no importance whatsoever for the understanding and appreciation of Calvinism, because it is purely external, and independent of all spiritual confession. — Directly opposed to this is the second use of the word Calvinism, and this I call the confessional use. In this sense a Calvinist is represented exclusively as the outspoken subscriber to the dogma of fore -ordination. They who disapprove of this strong attachment to the doctrine of- predestination cooperate with the Romish polemist, in that by calling you "Calvinist" they represent you as a victim of dogmatic narrowness and what is worse still as being dangerous to the real seriousness of moral life. On the other hand there are theologians, who from fulness of conviction are open defenders of Predestination, and who count it their honor to be Calvinists, but who are so impressed with the disfavor attached to the "Calvinistic name", that for the sake of commending their conviction, they prefer to speak rather of Augustinianism than of Calvinism. This is what Hodge did— whose studies I so deeply appreciate. — The ecclesiastical title of some Baptists and Methodists indicates a third use of the name Calvinist. No less a man than Spurgeon belonged to a class of Baptists who in England call themselves "Calvinistic Baptists", and

the Whitfield Methodists in Wales to this day bear the name of "Calvinistic Methodists". Thus here also it indicates a confessional difference, but is applied as the name for special church-denominations. Without doubt this practice would have been most severely criticized by Calvin himself. During his life-time no Reformed Church ever dreamed of naming the Church of Christ after any man. The Lutherans have done this, the Reformed Churches never But beyond this sectarian, confessional, and ecclesiastical use of the name "Calvinist", it serves moreover as a scientific term, either in an historical, philosophical or political sense. Historically the name of Calvinism indicates the channel in which the Reformation moved, so far as it was neither Lutheran, Anabaptist nor Socinian. In the philosophical sense we understand by it that system of conceptions, which under the influence of the master-mind of Calvin raised itself to dominance in the several spheres of life. And as a political name Calvinism indicates that political movement which has guaranteed the liberty of nations in constitutional statesmanship; first in Holland; then in England; and since the close of the last century in the United States. In this scientific sense the name of Calvinism is especially current among German scholars. And the fact that this not only is the opinion of those who are themselve> ol Calvinistic sympathies, but that also scholars who have abandoned every confessional standard of Christianity nevertheless assign this profound significance to Calvinism, appears from the testimony borne by three of our best men of science, the first of whom, Dr. Robbert Fruin declares that: "Calvinism came into the Netherlands consisting of a logical system of Divinity, of a democratic Church-order of its own, impelled by a severely-moral sense, and as enthusiastic for the moral as for the religious reformation of mankind". Another historian, who was even more outspoken in his rationalistic sympathies writes: "Calvinism is the highest form of development reached by the religious and political principle in the 16th century". And a third authority acknowledges that Calvinism has liberated Switzerland, the Netherlands and England, and in the Pilgrim Fathers has provided the impulse to the prosperity of the United States And only in this last-named, strictlyscientific sense do I desire to speak to you on Calvinism as an independent general tendenc}r, which from a motherprinciple of its own has developed an independent form both for our life and for our thought among the nations of Western Europe and North America, and at present even in Southern Africa. The domain of Calvinism is indeed far broader than the narrow confessional interpretation would lead us to suppose. The aversion to naming the Church after a man gave rise to the fact, that though in France the Protestants were called " Huguenots ", in the Netherlands " Beggars", in Great Britain "Puritans" and "Presbyterians", and in North America "Pilgrim Fathers", yet all these products of the reformation which on 3rour contiuent and ours bore the special Reformed type.... were of Calvinistic origin. But the extent of the Calvinistic domain should not be limited to these purer revelations. Nobody applies such an exclusive rule to Christianit}r. Within its boundaries we embrace not only Western Europe, but also Russia, the Balkan States, the Armenians, and even Menelik's empire in Abyssinia. Therefore it is but just that in the same way we should include in the Calvinistic fold those churches also which have diverged more or less from its purer forms. In her 39 articles the Church of England is strictly Calvinistic, even though in her Hierarchy and Liturgy she has abandoned the straight paths, and has met with the serious results of this departure in Pusyism and Ritualism. The confession of the Independents was equally Calvinistic, even though in their conception of the Church, the organic structure was broken by individualism. And if under the leadership of Wesley most Methodists became opposed to the theological interpretation of Calvinism, it is nevertheless the Calvinistic spirit itself that created this spiritual reaction against the petrifying church-life of the times. In a given sense therefore it may be said, that the entire field which in the end was covered by the Reformation, so far as it was not Lutheran and not Socinian, was dominated in principle by Calvinism. Even the Baptists applied for shelter at the tents of the Calvinists. It is the free character of Calvinism that accounts for the rise of these several shades and differences, and of the reactions against their excesses. By its hierarchy Romanism is and remains uniform. Lutheranism owes its similar unity and uniformity to the ascendency of the prince, whose relation to the Church is that of "summus episcopus" and to its "ecclesia docens". Calvinism on the other hand, which sanctions no ecclesiastical hierarchy, and no magisterial interference, could not develop itself except in many and varied forms and deviations, thereby of course incurring the clanger of degeneration, provoking in its turn all kind of one-sided reactions. With the free development of life, such as was intended by Calvinism, the distinction could not fail to appear between a centrum, with its fulness and purity of vitality and strength, and the broad circumference with its threatening declensions. But in that very conflict between a pure and less pure development the steady working of its spirit was guaranteed to Calvinism.

Thus understood Calvinism is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and from this specific religious consciousness there was developed first a peculiar theology, then a special church-order, and then a given form for political and social life, for the interpretation of the moral world-order, for the relation between nature and grace, between Christianity and the world, between church and state, and finally for art and science, and amid all these life-utterances it remained always the self-same Calvinism, in so far as simultaneouly and spontaneousl}' all these developments sprang from its deepest life-principle.

Hence to this extent it stands in line with those other great complexes of human life, kwown as Paganism, Islamism, Romanism and Protestantism, by which we distinguish four entirely different worlds in the one collective world of human life. And if strictly considered you should coordinate Christianity and not Protestantism with Paganism and Islamism, it is nevertheless better to place Calvinism in line with them, because Calvinism claims to embody the Christian idea more purel}T and accurately than could Romanism and Lutheranism. In the Creek world of Russia and the Balkan States the national element is still dominant, and therefore the Christian faith in these counties has not been able to produce a form of life of its own from the root of its nrystical orthodoxy. In Lutheran countries the interference of the magistrate has prevented the free working of the spiritual principle. Hence of Romanism only can it be said, that it has embodied its life-thought in a world of conceptions and utterances entirely its own. But by the side of Romanism, and in opposition to it, Calvinism made its appearance, not merely to create a different Church-form, but an entirely different form for human life, to furnish human societ}r with a different method of existence, and to populate the world of the human heart with different ideals and conceptions.

That this had not been realised until our time, and is now acknowledged by friend and enemy in consequence of a better study of history, should not surprise us. This would not have been the case, if Calvinism had entered life as a well-constructed system, and had presented itself as an outcome of study. But its origin came about in an entirely different way. In the order of existence life is first. And to Calvinism life itself was ever the first object of its endeavours. There was too much to do and to suffer to devote much time to study. What was dominant was Calvinistic practice at the stake and in the field of battle. Moreover the nations among whom Calvinism gained the day,— such as the Swiss, the Dutch, the English and the Scotch— were by nature not very philosophically predisposed. Especially at that time life among those nations was spontaneous and void of calculation, and only later on has Calvinism in its parts become a subject of that special study by which historians and theologians have traced the relation between Calvinistic phenomena and the all-embracing unity of its principle. It can even be said that the need of a theoretic and systematic study of so incisive and comprehensive a phenomenon of life, only arises, when its first vitality has been exhausted, and when for the sake of maintaining itself in the future it is compelled to greater accuracy in the drawing of its boundarylines. And if to this you add the fact that the stress of reflecting our existence in the mirror of our consciousness with unity of image is far stronger in our philosophical age than it ever was before, it is readily seen that both the needs of the present, and the care for the future, compel us to a deeper stud)- of Calvinism. In the Romish Church everybody knows what he lives for, because with clear consciousness he enjoys the fruit of Rome's interpretation of life. Even in Islam you find the same power of a conviction of life dominated by one principle. Protestantism alone wanders about in the wilderness without aim or direction, moving hither and thither, without making any progress. This accounts for the fact that among Protestant nations Pantheism, born from the New German Philosophy and owing its concrete evolution-form to Darwin, claims for itself more and more the supremacy in every sphere of human life, even in that of theolog}7, and under all sorts of names tries to overthrow our Christian traditions, and is bent even upon exchanging the heritage of our fathers for a hopeless modern Buddhism. The leading thoughts, that had their rise in the French Revolution at the close of the last, and in German philosophy in the course of the present century, form together a world- and life-view which is diametrically opposed to that of our fathers. Their struggles were for the sake of the glory of God and a purified Christianity, the present movement wages war for the sake of the glory of man, being inspired not by the humble mind of Golgotha but by the pride of Humanism. And why did we, Christians, stand so weak, in the face of this Modernism? Why did wre constantly lose ground? Simply because we were devoid of an ecmal unity of life-conception, such as alone could enable us with irresistible energy to rebuff the enemy at the frontier. This unity of life-conception however is never to be found in a vague conception of Protestantism winding itself as it does in all kind of tortuosities but you do find it in that mighty historic process, which as Calvinism dug a channel of its own for the powerful stream of its life. By this unity of conception alone as given in Calvinism, you in America and wTe in Europe, might be enabled once again to take our stand, by the side of Romanism, in opposition to modern Pantheism. Without this unity of starting-point and historic interpretation of life the power must fail us to maintain our independent position, and our strength for insistence ebb away.

The supreme interest here at stake however forbids our accepting without more positive proof the fact that Calvinism really provides us with such an unit}^ of life-conception, and that Calvinism is not a partial nor was a merely temporary phenomenon, but is an all-embracing system of principles, such as rooted in the past, is able to strengthen us in the present and to fill us with confidence for the future. Hence we must first ask what are the required conditions for such general systems of life, as Paganism, Tslamism, Romanism and Modernism, and then show that Calvinism really fulfills these conditions.

These conditions demand in the first place that from a special principle a peculiar insight should arise into the three fundamental relations of all human life; viz., l.our relation to God 2. our relation to man, and 3. our relation to the world.

Hence the first claim demands: that such an action shall find its starting-point in a special interpretation of our relation to God. This is not accidental but imperative. If such an action is to put its impress upon our entire life, it must go out from that point in our consciousness, in which our life is still undivided and lies comprehended in its unity, — not in the spreading vines but in the root from which the vines spring. This point of course lies in the antithesis between all that is finite in our human life and the infinite that lies beyond its Here alone we find the common source from which the different streams of our human life spring and separate themselves. Personally it is our repeated experience that in the depths of our hearts, at the point where we disclose ourselves to the Eternal One, all the rays of our life converge as in one focus, and there alone regain that harmony which we so often and so painfully lose in the stress of daily duty. In prayer lies not only our unity with God, but also the unity of our personal life. Movements in history therefore which do not spring from this deepest source are always partial and transient, and only those historical acts, which arose from these deepest depths of man's personal existence embrace the whole of life and possess the required permanence.

This was the case with Paganism, which in its most general form is known by the fact, that it surmises, assumes and worships God in the creature. This applies to lowest Animism, as well as to highest Buddhism. Paganism does not rise to the conception of the independent existence of a God beyond and above the creature. But even in this imperfect form it has for its starting-point a definite interpretation of the relation of the infinite to the finite, and to this it owed its power to produce a finished form for human society. Simply because it possessed this significant startingpoint was it able to produce a form of its own for the whole of human life. It is the same with Islamism. which is characterized by its purely anti-paganistic ideal cutting off all contact between the creature and God. Mohammed and the Koran are the historic names, but in its nature the Crescent is only the absolute antithesis to Paganism. Islam isolates God from the creature, in order to avoid all commingling with the creature. As antipode Islam was possessed of an equally far-reaching tendenc\', and was also able to originate an entirely peculiar world of human life. The same is the case with Romanism. Here also the papal tiara, the hierarchy, the mass, etc., are but the outcome of one fundamental thought: viz., that God enters into fellowship with the creature by means of a mystic middle-link which is the Church; not taken as a mystic organism, but as a visible, palpable and tangible institute. Here the Church stands between God and the world, and so far as it was able to adopt the world and to inspire it, Romanism also created a form of its own for human society. And now by the side of and over against these three, Calvinism takes its stand with a fundamental thought which is equally profound. It does not seek God in the creature, as Paganism; it does not isolate God from the creature, as Islamism; it posits no mediate communion between God and the creature, as does Romanism; but proclaims the exalted thought that although standing in high majesty above the creature God enters into immediate fellowship with the creature by means of his Holy Spirit. This is even the heart and kernel of the Calvinistic confession of predestination. There is communion with God. but only in entire accord with his counsel of peace from all eternity. Thus there is no grace, but such as comes to us immediately from God. At every moment of our existence our entire spiritual life rests in God Himself. The Deo Soli Gloria was not the starting-point but the result, and predestination was inexorably maintained not for the sake of separating man from man, nor in the interest of personal pride, but in order to guarantee from eternity to eternity a direct and immediate communion with the Living God. The opposition against Rome aimed therefore with the Calvinist first of all at the dismissal of a church, which placed itself between the soul and God. The church consisted not in an office, nor in an independent institute, the believers themselves were the Church, in as much as by faith they stood in touch with the Almighty. Thus as in Paganism, Islamism and Romanism, so also in Calvinism is found that proper, definite interpretation of the fundamental relation of man to God, required as the first condition of a real life-system, that shall be able to create a form of its own for our human life.

Meanwhile I anticipate two objections. In the first place it may be asked: whether I do not claim honors for Calvinism which belong to Protestantism in general. To this I reply in the negative. When I claim the honor for Calvinism of having reestablished the direct fellowship with God, I do not undervalue the general significance of Protestantism. In the Protestant domain, taken in the historic sense, Lutheranism alone stands b}r the side of Calvinism. Now I wish to be second to none in my praises of Luther's heroic initiative. In his heart, rather than in the heart of Calvin, was the bitter conflict fought which led to the world historic breach. Luther can be interpreted without Calvin, but not Calvin without Luther. To a great extent Calvin entered upon the harvest of what the hero of Wittenberg had sown in and outside Germany. But when the question is put who had the clearest insight into the reformatory principle, worked it out most fully, and applied it most broadly, history points to the Reformer of Geneva and not to the hero of Wittenberg. Luther as well as Calvin contended for a direct fellowship with God, but he took it up from its subjective, anthropological side, and not from its objective, theological side as Calvin did. Luther's startingpoint was the special-soteriological principle of a justifying faith: while Calvin's extending far wider, lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God. As a natural result of this Luther also restored the Church as the representative and authoritative '•teacher" between God and the believer, while Calvin was the first to seek the Church in the believers themselves. As far as he was able Luther still leaned upon the Romish view of the sacraments, and upon the Romish cultus, while Calvin was the first in both to draw the line which extended immediately from God to man and from man to God. Moreover in all Lutheran countries the Reformation originated from the princes rather than from the people, and thereby passed under the power of the magistrate, who took his stand in the Church officially as her "summus episcopus", and therefore was unable to change either the social or the political life in accordance with its principle. Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the church upon every department of human life. Hence Lutheranism is nowhere spoken of as the creator of a peculiar life-form; even the name of " Lutheranism" is now rarely mentioned; while the students of history with increasing unanimity recognize Calvinism as the creator of a world of human life entirely its own. And if for this reason " Lutheranism " is of no account to us here, the general conception of "Protestantism" as such is of still less significance, because this indicates merely a negative idea, and is now valued most highly in those deviating circles in which the breach with our reformatory confession has become a final one.

The second question which may be put by way of objection is: If it is true that every general developmentform of life must find its starting-point in a peculiar interpretation of our relation to God,— how then do you explain the fact, that Modernism has led to such a general conception, although it sprang from the French Revolution which broke with all religion on principle. The question answers itself. By excluding all reckoning with the Living God from your conceptions and practice, such as is implied in the cry: "no God no master", you certainly bring to the front an interpretation of your own for our relation to God. A government that recalls its ambassador and breaks every relation with another power, declares thereby that its relation to the government of that country is a strained relation, which generally ends in war. This is the case here. The leaders of the French Revolution, not being acquainted with any relation to God except that which existed through the mediation of the Komish Church annihilated all relation to God, because they wished to annihilate the power of the Church; and as a result of this they declared war against every religious confession. But this of course very really implied a fundamental and special interpretation of our relation to God. It was the declaration that henceforth God was to be considered as dead, if not yet to the heart, at least to the state, to society and to science. To be sure in passing from French into German hands, Modernism could not rest content with such a bare negation, but the result shows how from that moment it clothed itself in either pantheism or agnosticism, and under each disguise it maintained the expulsion of God from practical and theoretical life. The effect worked upon our life by our relation to God is of the highest importance to our processes of thought, and both by Pantheism and Agnosticism this precious element is reduced to nothing. All that is conceived and established by man under the inspiration of these two philosophical tendencies rests exclusively on the human factor, and is unable to rise above the low level of Humanism.

Thus I maintain that the conception of our relation to God is the fundamental interpretation which dominates every general development-form of human life, and that for us this conception is given in Calvinism, thanks to its fundamental interpretation of an immediate fellowship of God with man and man with God. To this I add that Calvinism has neither invented nor conceived this fundamental interpretation, but that God himself implanted it in the hearts of its heroes and its heralds. We face here no product of a clever intellectualism, but the fruit of a work of God in the heart, or, if you like, an inspiration of history. This point should be emphasized. Calvinism has never burned its incense upon the altar of genius, it has erected no monument for its heroes, it scarcely calls them by name. One stone only in a wall at Geneva remains to remind one of Calvin. His very grave has been forgotten. Was this ingratitude? By no means. But if Calvin was appreciated, already in the 16th and 17"1 centuries the impression was vivid that it was One greaterthan Calvin, even God Himself, who had wrought here His work. Hence no general movement in life is so devoid of deliberate compact and conventionality of radiation as this. Simultaneously Calvinism had its rise in all the countries of Western Europe, and it appeared, among those nations not because the university was in its van, or because scholars led the people, or because a magistrate placed himself at their head, but it sprang from the hearts of the people themselves: with weavers and farmers, with tradesmen and servants, with women and young maidens; and in every instance it exhibited the same characteristic: viz., strong Assurance of faith not only without the intervention of the Church, but even in opposition to the Church. The human heart had attained unto eternal peace with its God; strengthened by this Divine fellowship, it discovered its high and holy calling, to consecrate every department of life and every energy at its disposal to the glory of God; and therefore when those men or women, who had become partakers of this Divine life, were forced to abandon their taith, it proved impossible, they could not deny their Lord and thousands and tens of thousands burned at the stake, not complaining but exulting, with thanksgiving in their hearts and psalms upon their lips. Calvin was not the author of this, but God Who through his Hoi}' Spirit had wrought in Calvin that which He had wrought in them. Calvin stood not above them, but as a brother by their side, a sharer with them of God's blessing. In this way Calvinism came to its fundamental interpretation of an immediate fellowship with God, not because Calvin invented it, but because in this immediate fellowship God Himself had granted to our fathers a privilege, of which Calvin was the first to become clearly conscious. This is the great work of the Holy Spirit in history, by which Calvinism has been consecrated, and which interprets to us its wondrous energ}-.

There are times in history when the pulse of religious life beats faintly; and there are times when its beat is bounding, and the latter was the case in the 16th century among the nations of Western Europe. At the close of the middle ages the question of faith dominated every activity in public life. New history starts out from this faith, even as the history of our times starts from the unbelief of the French Revolution. What law this pulselike movement of religious life obeys, we cannot tell, but it is evident that there is such a law, and that in times of high religious tension the inworking of the Holy Spirit upon the heart is irresistible. The apostle refers to it when he speaks of a divine force which is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And this mighty inworking of God was the experience of our Calvinists, Puritans and Pilgrim Fathers. It was not in all individuals to the same degree, for this never happens in any great movement, but they who formed the centre of life in those times, who were the promoters of that mighty change, they experienced this higher power to the fullest: and they were the men and women of every class of society and nationality who by God Himself were admitted into communion with the majesty of His eternal Being. Thanks to this work of God in the heart the persuasion that the whole of a mans life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence has become the fundamental thought of Calvinism. By this decisive idea, or rather by this mighty fact, it has allowed itself to be controlled in every department of its entire domain. It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life-view of Calvinism sprang.

This brings us of itself to the second condition, with which, for the sake of creating a special form for human life every profound movement has to comply: viz., a fundamental interpretation of its own touching the relation of man to man. How we stand toward God is the first, and how we stand toward man is the second principal question, which decides the tendency and the construction of our life. There is no uniformity among men, but endless multiformity. In creation itself the difference has been established between woman and man. Physical and spiritual gifts and talents cause one person to differ from the other. Past generations and our own personal life create distinctions. The social position of the rich and poor also differs. These differences may be weakened or accentuated by our interpretation of life, and Paganism and Islamism, Romanism as well as Modernism, and so also Calvinism have all taken their stand in this question in accordance with their primordial principle, If as Paganism contends, God dwells in the creature, divine superiority is exhibited in whatever is high among men. In this way it got its demigods, hero-worship, and finally its sacrifices upon the altar of Divus Augustus. On the other hand whatever is lower and godless gives rise to the systems of caste in India and in Eg}rpt, and to slavery everywhere else, thereby placing one man under a base subjection to his fellowman. Under Islamism, which dreams of its paradise of houries sensuality usurps public authority, and woman is the slave of man, even as the kafir is the slave of the Mosliin. Romanism, rooting in Christian soil, overcomes the absolute character of distinction, and renders it relative, but in order to interpret every relation of man to man hierarchically. There is a hierarchy among the angels of God, a hierarchy in God's Church, a hierarchy iu life, and so it has an entirely aristocratic interpretation of life as the embodiment of the ideal. Finally Modernism, which denies and abolishes every difference, cannot rest until it has made woman man and man woman, and, putting every distinction on a common level, kills life by placing it under the ban of uniformity. One type must answer for all, one uniform, one position and one and the same development of life; and whatever goes beyond and above it, is looked upon as an insult to the common consciousness. In the same way Calvinism has derived from its fundamental relation to God a peculiar interpretation of man's relation to man, and it is this only true relation, which since the 16th century has been gaining the day. If Calvinism places our entire human life immediately before God, then it follows that all men or women, rich or poor, weak or strong, dull or talented, as creatures of God, and as lost sinners, have no claim whatsoever to lord it one over an other, aud that we stand as equals before God, and consequently equal as man to man. Hence we cannot recognize any distinction among men, save such as has been imposed by God Himself, in that He gave one to have authority over the other, or enriched one with more talents than the other, in order that the man of more talents should serve the man with less, and in him serve his God. Hence Calvinism condemns not merely all open slavery and systems of caste, but also all covert slavery of woman and of the poor; it is opposed to all hierarchy among men, it tolerates no aristocracy save such as is able, either in person or in family, by the grace of God, to exhibit superiority of character or talent, and to show that it does not claim this superiority for self-aggrandizement or ambitious pride, but for the sake of spending it in the service of God. Hence Calvinism was bound to find its utterance in the democratic interpretation of life; to proclaim the liberty of nations; and not to rest until both politically and socially every man, simply because he is man, should be recognized, respected and dealt with as a creature created after the Divine likeness. This was no outcome of envy. It was not the man of lower estate who reduced his superior to his level in order to usurp the higher place, but it was a kneeling in concert of all men at the feet of the Holy One of Israel. This accounts for the fact that it made no sudden break with the past. Even as in its early stage Christianity did not abolish slavery, but undermined it by a moral judgment, so Calvinism allowed the provisional continuance of the conditions of hierarchy and aristocracy as traditions belonging to the Middle Ages. It was not laid up as a charge against him, that William of Orange was a prince of royal lineage; he was the more honored for it. But inwardly Calvinism has modified the structure of society not by the envying of classes, nor by an undue esteem for the possessions of the rich, but by a more serious interpretation of life. By better labor and a higher development of character the middle and working classes have provoked the nobility and the wealthier citizens to jealousy. First looking to God, and then to one's neighbor was the impulse, the mind and the spiritual custom to which Calvinism gave entrance. And from this holy fear of God and this united stand before the face of God a holier democratic idea has developed itself, and has evermore gained ground. This result has been brought about by nothing so much as by fellowship in suffering. When, though loyal to the Romish faith, the dukes of Egmont and Home ascended the same scaffold on which, for the sake of a nobler faith, the working-man and the weaver had been executed, in that bitter death the reconciliation between the classes received its sanction* By his bloody persecutions, Alva the Aristocrat advanced the prosperous development of the spirit of Democracy. To have placed man on a footing of equality with man, so far as the purely human interests are concerned, is the immortal glory which incontestably belongs to Calvinism. The difference between it and the Utopian dream of equality of the French Revolution is: that while in Paris it was one action in concert against God, here all were on their knees before God, consumed with a common zeal for the glory of His Name.

The third fundamental relation which decides the interpretation of life is the relation which you bear to the world. As said before, there are three principle elements with which you come in touch: viz., God, man and the world. Having reviewed the relation in which Calvinism places you to God and to man, the third and last fundamental relation is in order: viz., your attitude toward the world. Of Paganism it can be said in general, that it places too high an estimate upon the world, and therefore to some extent it both stands in fear of, and loses itself in it. On the other hand Islamism places too low an estimate upon the world, makes game of it and triumphs over it in reaching after the visionary world of a sensual paradise. For the purpose in hand however we need say no more of either, since both for Christian Europe and America the antithesis between man and the world has assumed the narrower form of the antithesis between the world and the Christian. The traditions of the Middle Ages gave rise to this. Under the hierarchy of Rome the Church and the World were placed over against each other, the one as being sanctified and the other as being still under the curse. Everything outside the Church was in the hands of demons, and exorcism banished this demoniacal power from everything that came under the protection, influence and inspiration of the Church. Hence in a Christian country the entire social life was to be covered by the wings of the Church. The magistrate had to be anointed and confessionally bound, art and science had to be placed under ecclesiastical animation and censure, trade and commerce had to be bound to the Church by the tie of guilds, and from the cradle to the grave family life was to be placed under ecclesiastical guardianship. This was a giganticeffort to claim the entire world for Christ, but one which of necessity brought with it the severest judgment upon every life-tendenc3r which either as heretical or as demoniacal withdrew itself from the blessing of the Church. Hence the stake was lit alike for witch and heretic, for in principle they lay under the same bam And this deadening theory was carried out with iron logic, not from cruelty, nor from any low ambition, but from the lofty purpose of saving the christianized world, i.e., the world as overshadowed by the Church. This of course avenged itself in the introduction of the world into the Church, and in the antithesis between the noisy carnival and the mystical absorption in the sufferings of Christ, the discord between spiritual aspirations and worldly sensualism came out in the most irritating wa}^. Escape from the world was the counterpoise in monastic and partly even in clerical orders, which emphasized holiness in the centrum of the Church in order to wink the more lightly at worldly excesses without. As a natural result the world corrupted the Church, and by its dominion over the world the Church proved an obstacle in the way of the world's free development of its life.

Thus making its appearance in a well-ordered social state Calvinism has wrought an entire change in the world of thoughts and conceptions. In this also, placing it self before the face of God, it has not only honored man for the sake of his likeness to the Divine image, but also the world as a Divine creation, and has at once placed to the front the great principle that there is a particular grace which works Salvation, and a common grace by which God, maintainsing the life of the world, relaxes the curse which rests upon it, arrests its process of corruption, and thus allows the untrammeled development of our life in which to glorify Himself as Creator. Thus the Church receded in order to be nothing more nor less than the congregation of believers, and in every department the life of the world was not emancipated from God, but from the dominion ol the Church; so that from the high moral standard among God's people alone the world might receive the antidote to its indwelling corruption. Thus domestic life regained its independence, trade and commerce realized their strength in liberty, art and science were set free from every ecclesiastical bond and restored to their own inspirations, and man began to understand the subjection of all nature with its hidden forces and treasures to himself as a holy duty, imposed upon him by the original ordinances of Paradise. Henceforth the curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life, life itself for the reason of its being secular being none the less divine. To praise God in the Church and serve Him in the world became the inspiring impulse, and in the Church, strength was to be gathered by which to resist temptation and sin in the world. Thus puritanic sobriety went hand in hand with the reconquest of the entire life of the world, and Calvinism gave the impulse to that new development which dared to face the world with the Roman thought: nil humanum a me alienum puto, although never allowing itself to be intoxicated by its poisonous cup.

Especially in its antithesis to Anabaptism Calvinism exhibits itself in bold relief. For Anabaptism adopted the opposite method, and in its effort to evade the world it confirmed the monastic starting-point generalizing it to a rule for all believers, and it was not from Calvinism, but from this anabaptistic principle, that Akosmism had its rise among certain Protestants in Western Europe. In fact Anabaptism adopted the Romish theor}r, with this difference: that it placed the kingdom of God in the room of the Church, and abandoned the distinction between the two moral standards, one for the clergy and the other for the laity. For the rest the Anabaptist's standpoint was:

1. that the unbaptized world was under the curse, for which reason he withdrew from all civil institutions; and

2. that the circle of baptized believers — with Rome the Church, but with him the kingdom of God — was duty bound to take all civil life under its guardianship and to remodel it; and so John of Leyden violently established his shameless power at Munster as King of the New Zion, and his devotees ran naked through the streets of Amsterdam. Hence on the same grounds on which Calvinism rejected Rome's theory concerning the world, it rejected the theory of the Anabaptist, and proclaimed that the Church must withdraw again within its spiritual domain, and that in the world we should realize the potencies of God's common grace in order that while emancipating the world from the Church we in our public life should feel bound by the holy ordinances of God.

Thus it is shown that Calvinism has a sharply-defined starting-point of its own for the three fundamental relations of all human existence: viz., our relation to God, to man and to the world. For our relation to God: an immediate fellowship of man with the Eternal, independently of priest or church. For the relation of man to man: the recognition in each person of human worth, which is his by virtue of his creation after the Divine likeness, and therefore of the equality of all men before God and the legislation, each one occupying the position appointed him of God, and endowed with the talents divinely bestowed for divine purposes. And for our relation to the world: the recognition that in the whole world the curse is restrained by grace, that the life of the world is to be honored in its independence, and that we must, in every domain, discover the treasures and develop the potencies hidden by God in the world and in her life, the fear of God remaining our never failing guarantee against her corruption. This justifies us fully in our statement that Calvinism duly answers the three abovenamed conditions, and thus is incontestably entitled to take its stand by the side of Paganism, Islamism, Romanism and Modernism, and to claim for itself the glory of possessing a fixed well-defined principle of an all-embracing tendency.

But even this is not all. The fact that in a given circle Calvinism has formed an interpretation of life of its own, from which both in the spiritual and secular domain a special system arose for domestic and social life, justifies it to assert itself as an independent formation; but does not yet credit it with the honor of having led humanity as such up to a higher stage in its development, and therefore has not as yet attained that standpoint which alone could give it the right to claim for itself the energy and devotion of our hearts. In China it can be asserted with equal right that Confucianism has produced a form of its own for life in a given circle and with the Mongolian race that form of life rests upon a theory of its own. But what has China done for humanity in general, and for the steady development of our race? Even so far as the waters of its life were clear, they formed nothing but an isolated lake. Almost the same remark applies to the high development which was once the boast of India and to the state of things in Mexico and Peru in the davs of Montezuma and the Iucas. In all these regions the people attained a high degree of development, but stopped there and, remaining ioslated, in no way proved a benefit to humanity at lai-ge. This applies more strongly still to the life of the colored races on the coast and in the interior of Africa; a far lower form of existence reminding us not even of a lake but rather of pools and marshes. There is but one worldstream, broad and fresh, which from the beginning bore the promise of the future; this stream had its rise in Middle -Asia and the Levant, and has steadily continued its course from East to West. From Western Europe it has passed on to your Eastern States and from thence to California. The sources of this stream of development are found in Babylon and in the valley of the Nile. From thence it flowed on to Greece. From Greece it passed on to the Roman Empire. From the Romanic nations it continued its way to the North-western parts of Europe, and so from Holland and England it reached at length your continent. At present that stream is at a standstill. Its Western course through China and Japan is impeded, meanwhile no one can tell what forces for the future may yet lie slumbering in the Slavic races which have thus far failed of progress. But while this secret of the future is still veiled in mystery, the course of this world-stream from East to West can be denied by none; and therefore I am justified in saying: that Paganism, Islamism and Romanism are the three successive formations which this development had reached, when its further direction passed over into the hands of Calvinism; and that Calvinism in turn is now denied this leading influence by Modernism, the daughter of the French Revolution.

The succession of these four phases of development did not take place mechanically, with sharply outlined divisions and parts. This development of life is organic, and therefore each new period roots in the past. In its deepest logic Calvinism had already been apprehended by Augustine, had long before Augustine been proclaimed in Rome by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans, and from Paul goes back to Israel and its prophets, yea to the tents of the patriarchs. Romanism does not make its appearance suddenly, as b}r one stroke of magic, but is the joint product of the three potencies of Israel's priesthood, the cross of Calvary, and the world-organization of the Roman Empire. Islam joins itself to Israel's Monism, to the Prophet of Nazareth, and to the tradition of the Koraishites. And even the Paganism of Babylon and Egypt on the one hand, and of Greece and Rome upon the other, stands organically related to what lay behind these nations, preceding the prosperity of their lives. But even so it is as clear as day that the supreme force in the central development of the human race moved along successively from Babylon and Egypt to Greece and Rome, then to the chief regions of the Papal dominion, and finally to the Calvinistic nations of Western Europe. If Israel flourished in the days of Babylon and Egypt, however high its standard, the direction and the development of our human race was not in the hands, of the sons ot Abraham but in those of the Belshassars and the Pharaohs. Again, this leadership does not pass from Babylon and Egypt on to Israel but to Greece and Rome. However high the stream of Christianity had risen when Islam made its appearance, in the 8th and 9th centuries the followers of Mahomet were our teachers and with them rested the issue of the world. And though the hegemony of Romanism still maintained itself for a short time after the peace of Munster, no one questions the fact, that the higher development which we are now enjoying we owe neither to Spain nor to Austria, nor even to the Germany of that time, but to the Calvinistic countries of the Netherlands and to England of the 16th century. Under Louis XIV Romanism arrested this higher development in France, but only that in the French Revolution it might exhibit a ghastly caricature of Calvinism, which in its sad conse- quences broke the inner strength of France as a nation, and weakened its international significance. The fundamental idea of Calvin has been transplanted from Holland and England to America, thus driving our higher development ever more Westward, until on the shores of the Pacific it now reverently abides whatsoever God has ordained. But no matter what mysteries the future may yet have to disclose the fact remains that the broad stream of the development of our race runs from Babylon to San Francisco, through the five stadia of Babylonian-Egyptian, Greek- Roman, Islamitic, Romanistic and Calvinistic civilization, and the present conflict in Europe as well as in America finds its main cause in the fundamental antithesis between the energy of Calvinism which proceded from the throne of God, found the source of its power in the Word of God, and in every sphere of human life exalted the glory of God, — and its caricature in the French Revolution, which proclaimed its unbelief in the cry of: no God no master; and which presently in the form of German Pantheism is reducing itself more and more to a modern Paganism.

Thus you see I spoke none too boldly, when I claimed for Calvinism the honor of being neither an ecclesiastic, nor a theologic, nor a sectarian conception, but one of the principal phases in the general development of our human race; and among these the youngest, whose high calling it still remains to influence the further course of human life. And I make this statement without in any way undervaluing the importance of its caricature in Modernism, — but of this T wile speak later on.— Just now however allow me to indicate another circumstance, which strengthens my principal statement, viz., the com mingling of blood as thus far the physical basis of all higher human development. From the high-lands of Asia our human race came down in groups, and these in turn have been divided into races and nations; and in entire conformity to the prophetic blessing of Noah the children of Shem and of Japheth have been the sole bearers of the development of the race. No impulse for any higher life has ever gone forth from the third group. With the two other groups a twofold phenomenon presents itself. There are tribal nations which have isolated themselves and others which have intermingled. Thus on the one hand there are groups which have dominated exclusively their own inherent forces and on the other hand groups which by commingling have crossed their traits with those of other tribes, so having attained a higher perfection. It is noteworthy that the process of human development steadily proceeds with those groups whose historic characteristic is not isolation but the commingling of blood. On the whole the Mongolian race has held itself apart, and in its isolation has bestowed no benefits upon our race at large. Behind the Himalayas a similar life secluded itself, and hence failed to impart any permanent impulse to the outside world. Even in Europe we find that with the Scandinavians and Slavs there was hardly any intermingling of blood, and, consequently having failedto develop a richer type, they have taken little part in the general development of human life. On the other hand the tablets from Babylon in our great Museums by the two languages of their inscriptions still show that in Mesopotamia the Aryan element of the Accadians mingled itself at an early period with the Semitic- Babylonian, and Egyptology leads us to conclude that in the land of the Pharaohs we deal from the beginning with a population produced lay the mingling of two different tribes. No one believes any longer the pretended race-unity of the Greeks. In Greece as well as in Italy we deal with races of a later date who have intermingled with the earlier Pelasgians, Etruscians and others. Islam seems to be exclusively Arabic, but a study of the spread of Islamism among the Moors, Persians, Turks and other series of subjected tribes, with whom intermarriage was common, at once reveals the fact that especially with Mahometans the commingling of blood was even greater than with their predecessors. When the leadership of the world passed into the hands of the Romanic natious, the same phenomenon presented itself in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. In these cases the Aborigines were generally Basques or Celts, the Celts in turn being overcome by the Germanic tribes, and even as in Italy the East-Gots and Lombards, so in Spain the West-Gots, in Portugal the Swabians and in France the Franks instilled new blood into debilitated veins and to this wonderful rejuvenation the Romanic nations owed their vigor until far into the 16th century. Thus in the life of nations the same phenomenon repeats itself which so often strikes the Historian as a result of international marriages among princely families, viz.. that the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons, the Oranges and the Hohenzollern, for instance, have been, centmy after century, productive of a host of most remarkable statesmen and heroes. The raiser of stock has aimed at the same effect in the crossing of different breeds, and botanists harvest large profits by obeying the same law of life with plants. And by itself it is not difficult to perceive that the union of natural powers, divided among different tribes, must be productive of a higher development. To this it should be added that the history of our race does not aim at the improvement of any single tribe, but at the development of mankind taken as a whole and therefore needs this commingling of blood in order to attain its end. For this reason we may expect that Calvinism also will obey this law, in fact history shows that the nations among whom Calvinism flourished most widely, exhibit in even way this mingling of races. In Switzerland the Cermans, united with Italians and French; in France the Gauls, with Franks and Burgundians; in the Lowlands Celts and Welch with Germans; so also in England the old Celts and Anglosaxons, were afterwards raised to a still higher standard of national life by the invasion of the Normans. Indeed it ma}- be said, that the three principal tribes of Western Europe, the Celtic, Romanic and Germanic elements under the leadership of the Germanic, give us the genealogy of the Calvinistic nations. In America, where Calvinism has come to unfold itself in a still higher liberty, this commingling of blood is assuming a larger proportion than has ever yet been known. Here the blood flows together from all the tribes of the ancient world, and again we have the Celts from Ireland, the Germans from Germany and Scandinavia, united to tbe Slavs from Russia and Poland, who promote still farther this already vigorous intermingling of the races. This latter process takes place under the higher exponent that it is not merely the union of tribe with tribe, but that the old historic nations are dissolving themselves in order to allow the reunion of their members in one higher unity, constantly assimilated by the American type. In this respect also Calvinism fully meets the conditions imposed on every new phase of development in the life of humanity. It spread itself in a domain where it found the commingling of blood stronger than under Romanism, and in America raised this up to its highest conceivable realization.

Thus it is shown that Calvinism does not only meet the necessary condition of the mingling of blood, but that in the process of human development it also represents, with respect to this, a further stadium. In Babylon this commingling of blood was of small significance; it gains in importance with the Greeks and Romans; it goes further under Islamism; is dominant under Romanism; but only among Calvinistic nations does it reach its highest perfection. Here in America it is achieving the intermingling of all the. nations of the old world. A similar climax of this process of human development is also exhibited lyy Calviuism in the fact, that only under the influence of Calvinism does the impulse of public activity proceed from the people themselves. In the life of the nations also there is development from the under-age period to that of maturity. As in the family-life, during the years of childhood, the direction of affairs is in the hands of the parents, so also in the life of the nations it is but natural that during their under-age period first the Asiatic despot, then some eminent ruler, afterwards the priesthood, and finally both priest and magistrate together should stand at the head every movement. The history of the nations in Babylon oi and under the Pharaohs, in Greece and Rome, under Islamism and under the papal system, fully confirms this course of development. But it is self-evident that this could not be the permanent state of things. Just because by this progress of development the nations finally came of age, they must at length reach that stadium in which the people awoke, stood up for their rights, and originated the movement that was to direct the course of future events; and in the rise of Calvinism this stadium appears to have been reached. Thus far every forward movement had gone forth from the authorities in State, Church or Science, and from thence had descended to the people. In Calvinism on the other hand the people themselves stand out in their broad ranks and from a spontaneity of their own, press forward to a higher form of social life and conditions. Calvinism had its rise with the people. In Lutheran countries the magistrate was still the leader in public advances, but in Switzerland, among the Huguenots, in Belgium, in the Netherlands, in Scotland and now in America the people themselves created the impetus. They seemed to have matured; to have reached the period in which they were of age. Even when in some cases the nobility took an heroic stand for the oppressed, their activity ended in nothing, and the middle class alone, by its undaunted euergy, broke the barrier, and among these it was the "common folk" to whose heroic initiative William the Silent as he hemself acknowledges owed the success of his undertaking.

Hence as a central phenomenon in the development of humanity Calvinism is not only entitled to an honorable position by the side of Paganistic, Islamistic and Romanistic forms, since like these it represents a peculiar principle dominating the whole of life, but it also meets every required condition for the advancement of human development another stadium. And yet this would remain a bare possibility without any corresponding reality, if history did not testify that Calvinism has actually caused the.stream of human life to flow in another channel, and has ennobled the social life of the nations. And therefore in closing I assert that Calvinism not only held out these possibilities but has also understood how to realize them. To prove this, just ask yourselves what would have become of Europe and America, in case in the 16th century the star of Calvinism had not suddenly arisen on the horizon of Western Europe. In that case Spain would have crushed the Netherlands. In England and Scotland the Stuarts would have carried out their fatal plans. In Switzerland the spirit of halfheartedness would have gained the day. And the beginnings of life in this new world would have been of an entirely different character. And as a necessary sequence the balance of power in Europe would have returned to its former stand. Protestantism would not have been able to maintain itself in politics. No further resistance could have been offered to the Romish-conservative power of the Hapsburgs, the Bourbons and the Stuarts; and the free development of the nations, as seen in Europe and America, would simply have been prevented. The whole American continent would have remained subject to Spain; the history of both continents would have become a most mournful one and it ever remains a question whether the spirit of the

Leipzig Interim would not have succeded, by way of a romanized Protestantism, in reducing Northern Europe again to the sway of the old Hierarchy. The enthusiasticdevotion of the best historians of the second half of this century to the struggle of the Netherlands against Spain, as one of the finest subjects of investigation, only explains itself by the conviction, that if the power of Spain had not been broken by the heroism of the Calvinistic spirit, the history of the Netherlands, of Europe and of the world would have been as painfully sad and dark as now, thanks to Calvinism, it is bright and inspiriting. Professor Fruin rightly remarks that: "In Switzerland, in France, in the Netherlands, in Scotland and in England, and wherever Protestantism has had to establish itself at the point of the sword, it was Calvinism that gained the day."'

Call to mind that this turn in the history of the world could not have been brought about except by the implanting of another principle in the human heart, and by the disclosing of another world of thought to the human mind; that only by Calvinism the psalm of liberty found its way from the troubled conscience to the lips; that Calvinism has captured and guaranteed to us our constitutional civil rights; and that simultaneously with this there went out from Western Europe that mighty movement which promoted the revival of science and art, opened new avenues to commerce and trade, beautified domestic and social life, exalted the middle classes to positions of honor, caused philanthropy to abound, and more than all this, elevated, purified and ennobled moral life by puritanic seriousness, and then judge for yourselves whether it will do to banish any longer this God-given Calvinism to the archives of history, and whether it is so much of a dream to conceive that Calvinism has yet a blessing to bring and a bright hope to unveil for the future.

You know what has taken place in Southern-Africa these last twenty years. The struggle of the Boers in the Trans- vaal against Albion's superior powers must often have reminded you of your own past. In what was achieved at Majuba or at the Spitskop, and recently in the invasion of Dr. Jameson by Kruger and his handful of faithful followers the heroism of old Calvinism was again brilliantly evident. If Calvinism had not been passed on from our fathers to the Boers, their blood would not have been so heroically shed, and no free republic would have arisen in the Sonth of the Dark Continent. This proves that Calvinism is not dead — that it still carries in its germ the vital energy of the days of its former glory. Even as a grain of wheat from the Sarcophagi of the Pharoahs, when again committed to the soil, bears fruit a hundredfold, so Calvinism still carries in itself a wondrous power for the future of the nations. What has been achieved in South Africa by the Boers, we Christians of both Continents should achieve in our still holier struggle for Christianity, marching under the banner of the Cross against the spirit of the times And for this purpose, of all Protestant tendencies Calvinism alone arms us with an inflexible principle, by the strength of that principle guaranteeing us a sure, though tar from easy victory.

The conclusion arrived at in my first Lecture, was first, that, scientifically speaking, Calvinism means the completed evolution of Protestantism, resulting in a both higher and richer stage of human development. Further, that the worldview of Modernism, with its starting-point in the French Revolution, can claim no higher privilege than that of presenting an atheistic caricature of the brilliant ideal proclaimed by Calvinism, therefore being unqualified for the honor of leading us higher on. And, lastly, that whosoever rejects atheism, or to speak still more boldly, refuses to accept antitheism, as his fundamental thought, is bound to go back to Calvinism, not to repristinate it in its worn-out form, but once more to catch hold of the Calvinistic principles, in order to embody them in such a form as, suiting the requirements of our own century, may restore the needed unity to Protestant thought and the lacking energy to Protestant practical life.

In my present Lecture, therefore, treating of Calvinism and Religion, first of all I will try to illustrate the dominant position occupied by Calvinism in the central domain of our worship of the Most High. The fact that, in the religious domain, Calvinism has occupied from the first a peculiar and impressive position, nobody will deny. As if by one magical stroke, it created its own Confession, its own Theology, its own Church Organisation, its own Church Discipline, its own Cultus, and its own Moral Praxis. And continued historical investigation proves with increasing certainty that all these new Calvinistic forms for our religious life were the logical product of its one fundamental thought and the embodiment of one and the same principle. Measure the energy which Calvinism here displayed by the utter incapability Modernism evinced in the same domain by the absolute fruitlessness of its endeavours. Ever since it entered its "mystical" period, Modernism also, both in Europe and in America, has acknowledged the necessity of carving out a new form for the religious life of our time. Hardly a century after the once glittering tinsel of Rationalism, now that Materialism is sounding its retreat in the ranks of science, a kind of hollow piety is again exercising its enticing charms, and every day it is becoming more fashionable to take a plunge into the warm stream of mysticism. With an almost sensual delight this modern mysticism quaffs its intoxicating draught from the nectar-cup of some intangible infinite. It was even purposed that, on the ruins of the once so stately Puritanic building, a new religion, with a new ritual should be inaugurated, as a higher evolution of religious life. Already, for more than a quarter of a century, the dedication and solemn opening of this new sanctuary has been promised us. And yet it has all led to nothing. No tangible effect has been produced. No formative principle lias emerged from the imbroglio of hypotheses. Not even the beginning of an associative movement is as yet perceptible, and the long looked for plant has not even lifted its head above the barren soil. — Now, in contraposition to tin's, look at the giant spirit of Calvin, who, in the sixteenth century. with one master stroke, placed before the gaze of the astonished world an entire religious edifice, erected in the purest Scriptural style. So rapidly was the whole building completed that most of the spectators forgot to pay attention to the wonderful structure of the foundations. In all that the religious modern thought has, I will not say created, as with a master hand, but heaped together, like an unsuccessful amateur, — not one nation, not one family, hardly one solitary soul has (to use Augustine's words), ever found the requiescat for his "broken heart," while the Reformer of Geneva, by his might)' spiritual energy, unto five nations at once, both then, and after the lapse of three centuries, has afforded guidance in life, uplifting of the heart unto the Father of Spirits, and holy peace, for ever. This naturally leads to the question — what was the secret of this wonderful energy? Allow me to present the answer to this question, — first in Religion as such, next in religion as manifested in the Life of the Church, and lastl}r in the fruit of Religion for Practical Life.

First, then, we must consider Religion as such. Here four mutually dependent fundamental questions arise; — (1) Does Religion exist for the sake of God, or for Man? (2) Must it operate directly or mediate!)/? (3) Can it remain partial in its operations or has it to embrace the whole of our personal being and existence? and, (4) Can it bear a normal, or must it reveal an exceptional, i.e. a soteriological character? To these four questions Calvinism answers: (1) Man's religion ought to be not egotistical, and for man, but ideal, for the sake of God. (2) It has to operate not mediately, by human interposition but directly, from the heart. (3) It may not remain partial, as running alongside of life, but must lay hold upon our whole existence. And (4) Its character should be soteriological, i.e., it should spring, not from our fallen and therefore abnormal nature, but from the new man, restored by palingenesis to his original standard. Allow we />u then successively to elucidate each of these four points.

Modern religious philosophy ascribes the origin of religion to a potency, from which it could not originate, but which acted merely, as its supporter and preserver. It has mistaken the dead prop of the living shoot for the living shoot itself. Attention is called, and very properly, to the contrast between man. and the overwhelming power of the cosmos which surrounds him, and now religion is introduced as a mystical energy, trying to strengthen him against this immense power of the cosmos which inspires him with such deadly fear. Being conscious of the dominion which his own unseen soul exercises over his tangible body, he infers quite naturally, that Nature, also, must be moved by the impulse of some hidden spiritual being. Animistically, therefore, he first explains the movements of nature as the result of an indwelling army of spirits, and tries to catch them to conjure them, to bend them to his advantage. Then, rising from this atomistic idea to a more monistic conception, he begins to believe in the existence of personal gods, — first in the sense of a disorderly host of unconnected beings, but soon concentrated hierarchically, under some supreme Being, — expecting from these divine beings, who stand above nature, effectual assistance against the fiendish power of Nature. And finally, grasping the contrast between the spiritual and the material, he paj^s homage to the Primative and Supreme Spirit, as standing over against all that is visible, till, in the end. having abandoned his faith in such an extramuudane Spirit, as a personal being, and charmed by the loftiness of his own human spirit, he prostrates himself before some impersonal ideal of which in selfadoration, he deems himself to lie the worshipful bearer. But whatever may be the various stages in the progress of this egoistic religion, it never overcomes its subjective character, remaining always a religion for the sake of man. Men are religious in order to conjure the spirits hovering behind the veil of Nature, to free themselves from the oppressive sway of the cosmos, or to raise themselves above all that is visible, in the consciousness of their spiritual superiority. It matters not whether the Llama priest confines the evil spirits in his jugs, whether the nature-gods of the Orient are invoked to find shelter agaiust the forces of nature, whether the loftier gods of Greece are worshipped in their ascendency above nature, or whether, finally, idealistic philosophy presents the spirit of man himself as the real object of adoration;— in all these different forms it is and remains a religion fostered for man's sake, aiming at his safety, his liberty, his elevation, and partly also at his triumph over death. And even when a religion of this kind has developed itself into monotheism, the god whom it worships remains invariably a god who exists in order to help man, in order to secure good order and tranquillity for the State, to furnish assistance and deliverance in time of need, or to strengthen the nobler and higher impulse of the human heart in its ceaseless struggle with the degrading influences of sin. The consequence of this is that all such religion thrives in time of famine and pestilence, it flourishes among the poor and oppressed, and it expands among the humble and the feeble; but it pines away in the days of prosperity, it fails to attract the well-to-do, it is abandoned by those who are more highly cultured. As soon as the more civilized classes enjoy tranquillity and comfort, and by the progress of science feel more and more delivered from the pressure of the cosmos, they throw away the crutches of religion, and with a sneer at everything holy, go stumbling forward on their own poor legs. This is the fatal end of egoistic religion; — it becomes superfluous and dissappears as soon as the egoistic interests are satisfied. This was the course of religion among all non-Christian nations, in earlier times, and the