CALVINISM AXD THE FUTURE.
senescent Europe, yet this will not for a moment mislead the thinking mind. It is impossible for you to shut yourselves off hermetically from the old world, as you form no humanity apart, but are a member of the great body of the race. The poison having once entered the system at a single point in due time must necessarily pervade the whole organism.
Now the serious question with which we are confronted is whether we can expect that by natural evolution a higher phase of social life will develop out of the present spiritual decline. The answer history supplies to this question is far from encouraging. In India, in Babylon, in Egypt, in Persia, in China and elsewhere, like periods of vigorous growth have been succeeded by times of spiritual decadence; and yet in not one of these lands has the downward course finally resolved itself in the movement towards higher things. All these nations to this day have continued in their spiritual stagnation. In the Roman empire alone has the dark night of boundless demoralisation been broken by the dawn of a higher life. But this light did not arise through evolution; it shone from the cross of Calvary. The Christ of God had appeared and by his gospel alone was the world of that time saved from certain destruction. And again, when towards the close of the middle ages Europe was threatened with social bankruptcy, a second resurrection from the dead and a manifestation of new vital power were witnessed, now among the peoples of the Reformation, but this time also not by way of evolution, but again through the same gospel for which the hearts were thirsting and whose truth was freely proclaimed as never before. What antecedents then does history furnish to lead us to expect in the present instance an evolution of life from death, whilst the symptoms of decomposition already suggest the bitterness of the grave? Mohammed, it is true, in the seventh century succeeded in creating a stir among the dead bones throughout the entire
Levant by throwing himself upon the nations as a second Messiah, greater even than the Christ. And assuredly if the coming of another Christ, surpassing in glory the Christ of Bethlehem, were possible, then the cure for moral corruption were found. Hence some indeed have been anxiously looking for the coming of some glorious Universal Spirit, who might again instill his vitalizing power into the heart-blood of the nations. But why dwell longer on such idle fancies? Nothing can possibly surpass the God-given Christ, and what we are to look for, instead of a second Messiah, is the second coming of the Same Christ of Calvary, this time with his tan in his hand for judgment, not to open up for our sin-cursed life a new evolution, but to receive it at its goal and solemnly to conclude the history of the world. Either this second coming, therefore, is near at hand, and what we are witnessing are the death-throes of humanity: or a rejuvenation is still in store for us, but if so, that rejuvenation can come only through the old and yet ever new gospel which at the beginning of our era and again at the time of the Reformation has saved the threatened life of our race. For every believer this is a matter of absolute and immediate certainty by reason of his faith, but even for the unbeliever it admits of historical verification, inasmuch as twice only has trial been made of a power that could infuse new vital vigor into the race, and both times Christianity and Christianity alone has proven equal to the task.
The most alarming feature, however, of the present situation is the lamentable absence of that receptivity in our diseased organism, which is indispensable to the effecting of a cure. In theGraeco-Roman world such receptivity did exist; the hearts opened spontaneously to receive the truth. To an even stronger degree this receptivity existed in the age of the Reformation when large masses cried for the gospel. Then as now the body suffered from anaemia, and blood-poisoning even had set in, but there was no aversion to the only effectual antidote. Now it is precisely this that distinguishes our modern decadence from the preceding ones, that with the masses the receptivity for the gospel is on the decrease, whilst with the higher classes the positive aversion to it is on the increase. The invitation to how the knee before Christ, as God, is met with a shrug of the shoulders, if not with the sarcastic rejoinder: "Fit for children and old women, not for us men!" The leading classes of society consider themselves in ever increasing measure as having outgrown Christianity.
Therefore, first of all. the question must be answered wind has brought us to this pass, a question deriving its paramount importance from the fact that only a correct diagnosis can lead to effective medication. Now, historically, the cause of the evil is found in nothing else than in the spiritual degeneration which marked the close of the preceding century. The responsibility for this degeneration undoubtedly rests in part with the Christian churches themselves, not excepting those of the Reformation. Worn out by the struggle for reform, these last churches had fallen asleep, had allowed leaf and Mower to wither on their branches, and had apparently become forgetful of their duties in reference to humanity at large and the whole sphere of human life. It is not necessary to enter upon this more fully. It may be taken for granted that towards the end of that century the general tone of life had become vapid and common-place, ignoble and base at heart. The eagerly devoured literature of the period furnishes the proof. By way of reaction against this, the proposal was then made by deistic and atheistic philosophers, first in England, but afterwards chiefly in France on the part of the Encyclopaedists, to place the whole of life on a new basis, turn upside dowTn the existing order of affairs, and arrange a new world on the assumption that human nature continues in its uncorrupted state. This conception was an heroic one and awakened response: it struck the noblest chords of the human heart. In the great revolution of 17S9 it was first put into execution. Xow in this mighty revolution, in this upheaval not only of political conditions, but even more of convictions, ideas, and usages of life, two elements should be sharply distinguished. In one respect it was an imitation of Calvinism, whilst in another respect it was in direct opposition to its principles. The great revolution, it should not be forgotten, broke out in a Roman-Catholic country, where first in the night of St. Bartholomew and subsequently by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the Huguenots had been slaughtered and hanished. After this violent suppression of Protestantism in France and other Roman-Catholic countries the ancient despotism had regained its ascendency, and to these nations all the fruits of the Reformation had been lost. This, by way of caricature of Calvinism, invited and compelled the attempt to strike for freedom by external violence and to establish a pseudodemocratic state of affairs, which was to preclude for ever a return to despotism. Thus the French revolution, by meeting violence with violence, crime with crime, strove after the same social liberty which Calvinism had proclaimed among the nations but which had been attempted by Calvinism in the course of a purely spiritual movement By this the French revolution in a sense executed a judgment of God, the result of which affords, even to Calvinists, cause for rejoicing. The shades of De Coligny were aveuged in the September-murders of Mazas.
Bat this is only one side of the medal of the revolution. Its reverse discloses a purpose directly opposed to the sound Calvinistic idea of liberty. Calvinism by virtue of its profoundly serious conception of life had strengthened and consecrated the social and ethical ties; the French revolution loosened and entirely unfastened them, detaching life not merely from the Church but also from God's ordinances, even from God Himself. Man as such, each individual henceforth, was to be his own lord and master, guided by his own free will and good pleasure. The train of life was to rush forward as heretofore but no longer bound to follow the track of the divine commandments. What else could result than wreckage and ruin? Enquire of the France of to-day what fruit the fundamental idea other grand revolution has yielded to the nation after its first century of free sway so rich in horrors, and the answer comes in a most pitiful tale of national decadence and social demoralisation.
Humbled by the enemy from beyond the Rhine, internally rent by partisan fury, dishonored by the Panama cabal, disgraced by its pornography, the victim of oeconomic retrogression, stationary, nay, even decreasing in population, France, as has been well said by Gamier, a medical authority on the subject, France has been led by egotism to degrade marriage, by lust to destroy family-life, and presents to-day, in wide circles, the disgusting spectacle of men and women lost in unnatural sexual sin. I am aware that there are still thousands upon thousands of families in France living without reproach, who dearly grieve at the moral ruin of their country, but then these are the very circles which have resisted the false pretences of the Revolution; and, on the other hand, the almost bestialized circles are those that have succumbed to the first onset of Voltairianism.
From France this spirit of dissolution, this passion ot wild emancipation has spread among the other nations especially through the medium of an infamously obscene literature, and infected their lives. Then nobler minds particularly in Germany, perceiving what depth of wickedness had been reached in France, made the bold attempt of realizing this enticing and reducing idea of "emancipation from God" in a higher form while yet retaining its essence. Philosophers of the first rank in a stately procession each for himself constructed a cosmology endeavoring to restore a firm foundation to social and ethical relations, either by putting them on the basis of natural law, or by giving them an ideal substratum evolved from their own speculation. For a moment this attempt seemed to have a fair chance of success, for, instead of atheistically banishing God from their system, these philosophers sought refuge in Pantheism, and thus made it feasible to found the social structure, not as the French, on a state of nature or on the atomistic will of the individual, but on the processes of history and the collective will of the race, unconsciously tending towards the highest goal. And, indeed, for more than half a century this philosophy has imparted a certain stability to life: not that any real stability was inherent in the systems themselves, but because the established order of law and strong political institutions in Germany lent the indirect support of tradition to the walls of an edifice which otherwise would have immediately collapsed. Even so, however, it could not prevent that in Germany, also. moral principles became more and more problematic, moral foundations more and more insecure, no other right than that of actual law received recognition, and, however much German and French development might differ between themselves, both agreed in their aversion to, and rejection of, traditional Christianity. Voltaire's "Ecrasez finfdme" is already left far behind by Von Nietzsche's blasphemous utterances on the Christ, and Von is'ietzsche is the author whose works are being most eagerly devoured by the young modem Germany of our day..
After this manner then, we in Europe at least, have arrived at what is called modern life, involving a radical breach with the Christian traditions of the Europe of the past. The spirit of this modern life is most clearly marked by the fact that it seeks the origin of man not in creation after the image of God but in evolution from the orang-outang or chimpanzee. Two fundamental ideas are clearly implied in this: 1. that the point of departure is no longer the ideal or the divine but the material and the low; 2. that the sovereignty of God, which ought to be supreme, is denied, and man yields himself to the mystical current of an endless process, a regressus and processus in infinitum. Out of the root of these two fertile ideas a double type of life is now being evolved. On the one hand the interesting, rich and highly-organized life of University-circles attainable by the more refined minds only, and at the side of this, or rather far beneath it, a materialistic life of the masses, craving after pleasure, but, in their own way, also taking their point of departure in matter, and likewise, but after their own cynical fashion, emancipating themselves from all fixed ordinances. Especially in our everexpanding large cities this second type of life is gaining the upper hand, and, overriding the voice of the countrydistricts, is giving a shape to public opinion, which avows its ungodly character more openly in each successive generation. Money, pleasure and social power, these alone are the objects of pursuit, and people are constantly growing less fastidious regarding the means employed to secure them. Thus the voice of conscience becomes less and less audible, and duller the lustre of the eye which on the eve of the revolution still reflected some gleam of the ideal. The fire of all higher enthusiasm has been quenched, only the dead embers remain. In the midst of the weariness of life, what can restrain from taking refuge in suicide? Deprived of the wholesome influence of rest, the brain is oversti undated and over-exerted till the asylums are no longer adequate for housing the insane. Whether property be not synonymous with theft, becomes a more and more seriously mooted question. That life ought to be freeer and marriage less binding is being accepted more and more on an established proposition. The cause of monogamy is no longer worth fighting for, since polygamy and polyandry are being systematically glorified in all products of the realistic school of art and Literature. In harmony with this, religion is of course declared superfluous because it renders life gloomy. But art, art above all, is in demand, not for the sake of its ideal worth, but because it pleases and intoxicates the senses. Thus people live in time and for temporal things, and shut their ears to the tolling of the bells of eternity. The irrepressible tendency is to make the whole view of life concrete, concentrated, practical. And out of this modernized private life there emerges a type of social and political life characterized by a decadence of parliamentarism, by an ever stronger desire for a dictator, by pauperism and capitalism arrayed against each other in sharp conflict, whilst heavy armaments on land and on sea, even at the price of financial ruin, become the ideal of these powerful states whose craving for territorial expansion threatens the very existence of the weaker nations. Gradually the conflict between the strong and the weak has grown to be the controlling feature of life, arising from Darwinism itself, whose central idea of a struggle for life has for its mainspring this very antithesis. Yon Nietzsche has not shrunk from pouring out the phials of his contempt over everything that is weak and from exalting the strong for its own sake. Since Bismarck introduced it into higher politics the maxim of the right of the stronger has found universal acceptance. The scholars and experts of our day demand with increasing boldness that the common man shall bow to their authority. And the end can but be that once more the sound principles of democracy will lie banished, to make room this time not for a new aristocracy of nobler birth and higher ideals, but for the coarse overbearing kratistocracy of a brutal money-power. Von Nietzsche is by no means exceptional, but proclaims as its herald the future of our modern life. And while the Christ in divine compassion showed heart winning sympathy with the weak, modern life in this respect also takes the precisely opposite ground that the weak must be supplanted by the strong. Such was the process of selection to which we, ourselves, owe our origin and such is the process which in us and after us must work itself out to its ultimate consequences.
Meanwhile, as observed above, it should not be forgotten that there flows in modern life a side-current, of nobler origin. A host of high-minded men arose, who, shrinking from the uneasy chill of the moral atmosphere, and taking alarm at the brutality of the prevailing egotism, endeavored to strengthen the low-ebbing life partly by means of altruism, partly by means of a mystical cult of the feelings, partly even by means of the name of Christianity. Though in accord with the school of the French Revolution in their breach with Christian tradition and in their refusal to recognize any point of departure besides that of empiricism and nationalism, these men nevertheless, by acquiescing, as Kant in a gross dualism, tried to escape from the fatal consequences of their principle. It is precisely from this dualism that they drew the inspiration for the many noble ideas elaborated in their theories, embodied in their poetry, conjured up before our imagination in touching romances, commended to our consciences in ethical treatises, and, best of all, realized not unfrequently in the serious pursuit of lite With them, side by side with the intellect, conscience had maintained its authority, for. even where God is forsaken, couscience, being divinely touched, remains capable of producing, to a certain extent, pure and sound emotions. To the vigorous initiative of these men we owe the numerous Sociological investigations and practical measures, which have allayed and alleviated so much suffering, and by an ideal altruism have put to shame the selfishness even of so many a Christian heart. Having a personal predisposition for mysticism some of them claimed the right to emancipate the inner life of the soul from all restraints of criticism. To lose one's self in the Infinite, and to feel the stream of the Infinite pulsate through the deepest recesses of the inner life, meant to them the highest raptures of piety. Others again— specially theologians,— to a less extent divorced from Christianity by reason of their antecedents, office or scholarly occupation, falling in with this altruism and mysticism, set themselves the task of so metamorphosing the Christ that he might continue to glitter from the throne of humanity, as the highest ideal of the modernized human heart. Each and all inspired by sincerity and inspiring by their ideal intent, these endeavours ma}- be traced from Schleiermacher down to Ritschl. He, therefore, who would look down upon such men would only dishonor himself. Much rather we ought to thank them for what they endeavored to save, also those women of noble aspirations, who by their character-novels, written in an elevated Christian spirit, have counteracted so much that was base, and have fostered so many precious germs. Even Spiritism, fraught with error though it be, has often received its impulse from the alluring hope that the contact with the eternal world, destroyed by criticism, could thus be reestablished through the medium of visions. Unfortunately, however boldly conceived this ethical dualism might be, and whatever bold metamorphoses this mysticism might indulge in, there always lurked behind it the naturalistic, nationalistic system of thought which the intellect had devised. They extolled the normal character of their cosmology over against the abnormalism of our belief, and the Christian religion, being abnormalistic in principle and in its mode of manifestation, inevitably lost ground, to such an extent that some of our best men did not shrink from professing that they preferred not only Spiritism but Mohammedanism, and Von Schopenhauer even Buddhism to the old Church Faith. It is true that the entire phalanx of theologians from Schleiermacher to Pfleiderer continued to pay high honors to the name of Christ, but it is equally undeniable that this remained possible only by subjecting Christ and the Christian confession to ever bolder metamorphoses. A painful fact, but one which becomes absolutely evident, if you compare the creed now current in these circles with the confession for which our Martyrs shed their blood.
Even confining ourselves to the Apostles' creed, which for more than a thousand years has-been the Common standard of all Christians, we find that the belief in God as the "Creator of heaven and earth" has been abolished, for creation has been supplanted by evolution. Abolished also has been the belief in God the Son, as born from the Virgin Mary, through conception from the Holy Ghost. Abolished further, with many, the belief in his resurrection and ascension and return to judgment. Abolished finally even the belief of the church in the resurrection of the dead, or at least in the resurrection of the body. The name of the Christian religion is still being retained, but in essence it has become a quite different religion in its principle, even of a diametrically opposite character. And when incessantty the charge is brought against us, that in point of fact the traditional Christ of the Church involves a complete metamorphosis of the genuine Jesus, whilst the modern interpretation has lifted the veil off the true character of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, we can but answer, that after all, historically, not this modern conception of Jesus of Nazareth but the church's confession of the God-Man is the one that has conquered the world; and that throughout those fifty ages the best and most pious of our race have paid homage to the Christ of tradition and rejoiced in Him as their Savior in the shadow of Death.
Though desiring to be second to none, therefore, in sincere appreciation of what is noble in such attempts, I am fully settled in my conviction that no help is to be expected from that quarter. A theology which virtually destroys the authority of the Holy Scriptures as a sacred book; which sees in sin nothing but a lack of development; recognises Christ for no more than a religious genius of central significance; views redemption as a mere reversal of our subjective mode of thinking; and indulges in a mysticism dualistically opposed to the world of the intellect, — such a theology is like a dam giving way before the first assault of the inrushing tide. It is a theology without hold upon the masses, a quasi-religion utterly powerless to restore our sadly tottering moral life to even a temporary footing.
May more perhaps be expected from the marvellous energy displayed in the latter half of this century by Home? Let us not too hastily dismiss this question. Though the history of the Reformation has established a fundamental antithesis between Rome and ourselves, and though the cry of "no popery", or the principle of antipapism still awakens an echo in so many hearts, it would nevertheless be narrow-minded and short-sighted to underestimate the real power which even now is manifest in Rome's warfare against Atheism and Pantheism. Only ignorance of the exhaustive studies of Romish philosophy and of Rome's successful efforts in social life, could account for such a superficial judgment. Calvin in his da}r already acknowledged that, as against a spirit from the Great Deep, he considered Roman believers his allies. A so-called orthodox Protestant need only mark in his confession and catechism such doctrines of religion and morals as are not subject to controversy between Rome and ourselves, to perceive immediately, that what we have in common with Rome concerns precisely those fundamentals of our Christian creed now most fiercely assaulted by the modern spirit. Undoubtedly on the points of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, of man's nature before and after the Fall, of justification, of the mass, of the invocation of saints and angels, of the worship of images, of purgatory and many others, we are as unflinchingly opposed to Rome as our fathers were. But does not current literature show that these are not now the points on which the struggle of the age is concentrated '? Are not the lines of battle drawn as follows: Theism over against Pantheism; sin over against imperfection; the divine Christ of Cod over against Jesus the mere man; the cross a sacrifice of reconciliation over against the cross as a symbol of martyrdom; the Bible as given by inspiration of God over against a purely human product; the ten commandments as ordained by God over against a mere archaeological document; the ordinances of God absolutely established over against an ever-changing law and morality spun out of man's subjective consciousness? Now in this conflict Rome is not an antagonist, but stands on our side, inasmuch as she also recognises and maintains the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the Cross as an all-atoning sacrifice, the Scriptures as the Word of God, and the ten Commandments as a divinely imposed rule of life. Therefore, let me ask, if Roman theologians take up the sword to do valiant and skilful battle against the same tendency that we ourselves mean to fight to the death, is it not the part of wisdom to accept the valuable help of their elucidation? Calvin at least was accustomed to appeal to Thomas of Aquino. And I for my part am not ashamed to confess that on many points my views have been clarified through the work of the Romish theologians.
This, however, does not in the least involve, that our hope for the future may be placed in Rome's endeavour, and that we, idle ourselves, may await Rome's victory. A rapid survey of the situation will suffice to convince us of the contrary. To begin with your own continent, can South-America for a moment stand a comparison with the North? Now inSouthand Central-America the Roman Catholic Church is supreme. It has exclusive control in this territory, Protestantism not even counting as a factor. Here, then, is an immense field in which the social and political power, which Rome can bring to bear upon the regeneration of our race, can freely exert itself, a field, moreover, in which Rome is not a recent arrival, but which she has occupied for almost three centuries. The youthful development of the social organism of these countries has stood under her influence, she has remained in control also of their intellectual and spiritual life since their liberation from Spain and Portugal.
Moreover the population of these States is derived from such European countries as have always been under the undisputed sway of Rome. The test, therefore, is as complete and fair as possible. But in vain do we look in those American Romish States for a life which elevates, develops energy, and exerts a wholesome influence outside Financially they are weak, almost unprogressive in their economic conditions; in their political life they present the sad spectacle of endless internal strife; and, if one were inclined to form an ideal picture of the future of the world, he might almost do so by imagining the very opposite of what is the actual situation in South- America. Nor can it be pleaded in excuse of Rome that this is clue to exceptional circumstances, for in the first place this political backwardness is met with not only in Chili, but likewise in Peru, in Brazil as well as in the Argentine Republic; while, crossing from the new to the old world, we reach, in spite of ourselves, the same conclusion. In Europe, also, the credit of all Protestant states is high, that of the Southern Countries which are Roman Catholic is at a painful discount. Economic and administrative affairs in Spain and Portugal, and not less in Italy, offer cause for continual complaint. The outward power and outside influence of these states is visibly declining. And, what is more discouraging still, infidelity and a revolutionary spirit have made such inroads in these countries, that half of the population, though still nominally Romish, has in reality broken with all true religion. This may be seen in Prauce, which is almost entirely Romish, and yet has voted time and again with overwhelming majorities against the advocates of religion. In fact we may say; that, in order to appreciate the noble, energetic traits of the Romanists, one must observe them, not in their own countries where they are on the decline, but in the center of Protestant North-Germany, in Protestant Holland and England and in your own Protestant States. In regions where, deprived of a controlling influence, they adjust themselves to the polity of others and concentrate their strength as an opposition party, under such leaders as Manning and Wiseman, Von Ketteler and Windthorst, they compel our admiration by the enthusiastic championship of their cause. But even apart from this testimonium paupevtatis furnished by Rome Herself through the mismanagement in Southern Europe and South-America, where she has full sway, in the contest of the nations also her power and influence are visibly waning. The balance of power in Europe is now gradually passing into the hands of Russia, Germany and England, every one of them non-Romish States, and on your own continent the Protestant North holds the supremacy. Since 1866 Austria has been continually retrogressing and at the death of the present Emperor will be seriously threatened with dissolution. Italy has attempted to live beyond its resources: it strove to he a great, colonial, naval power, and the result is that it has brought itself to the verge of economic ruin. The battle of Addua dealt the death-blow to more than her colonial aspirations. Spain and Portugal have absolutely lost all influence on the Social, intellectual, and political development of Europe. And France, which only fifty years ago made all Europe tremble at the unsheathing of her sword, is now herself anxiously scanning the Sibylline books of her future. Even from a statistical point of view, the power of Rome is all the while decreasing. Economic depression has in more than one Romish country brought about a considerable decrease of the birthrate. Whilst in Russia, Germany. England and the United States population is growing, it has in some Romish countries become almost stationary. Even now statistics give only the smaller half of Christendom to the Roman-Catholic Church, and it is safe to predict that within the next half century its share will be less than forty per cent. However highly, therefore, I may be inclined to value the inherent power of Roman -Catholic unity and scholarship for the defense of much, we also count sacred, and though I do not see how we could repulse the attack of modernism save by combined exertion, nevertheless there is not the slightest prospect that the political supremacy will ever again pass into Rome's hands. And, even if this were to happeu contrary to expectations, who could possibly rejoice as in the realization of his ideal, of he beheld the conditions now prevailing in Southern Europe and South America reproduced elsewhere.
We may, in fact, even put it more strongly: it would be a step backwards in the course of history. Rome's world and life-view represents an older and hence lower stage of development in the history of mankind. Protestantism succeeded it, and hence occupies a spiritually higher standpoint. He who will not go backwards, but reaches after higher things, must therefore either stand by the world-view once developed by Protestantism, or, on the other hand, for this too is conceivable, point out a still higher standpoint. Now this it is that the latter modern philosophy does indeed presume to do, acknowledging Luther as a great man for his time, but hailing in Kant and Darwin the apostles of a much richer gospel. But this need not detain us. For our own age, however great in invention, in the display of powers of mind and energy, has not advanced us a single step in the establishment of principles, has in no wise given us a higher view of life, and has yielded us neither greater stability nor greater soundness in our religious and ethical i.e. truly human existence. The solid faith of the Reformation it has bartered for shifting hypotheses; and in so far as it ventured upon a systematised and strictly logical life-view it did not reach forward, but backward, to that Heathen wisdom of pre-Christian times, of which Paul testified that God has put it to shame by the foolishness of the Cross. Let no one therefore say: Ye, who, because history does not go backward, protest against a return to Rome, ye yourselves have no right to make a stand on Protestantism;
for after Protestantism came Modernism. For the pertinence of such an objection must be denied, as long as my contention be not disproved, that the material advance of our century has nothing in common with advancement in the matter of life principles, and that what modernism offers us is not modern but, rather, very antique, not posterior, but anterior to Protestantism, reaching back to the Stoa and to Epicurus.
Only along the lines of Protestantism therefore, can a successful advance be attempted, and on those lines indeed salvation is sought at present, by two different tendencies both of which must lead to bitter disappointment. The one of these is practical, the other mystical in character. Without hope of defense against modern criticism and still less against criticism of dogma, the former, the practical tendency, holds that Christians can do no better than fall back upon all manner of Christian works. Its devotees are at a loss what attitude to assume towards the Scriptures; they have become themselves estranged from dogma; but what is to prevent such hesitating believers from sacrificing their person and their gold to the cause of philanthropy, evangelism and missions! This even offers a threefold advantage: it unites Christians of all shades of opinion, alleviates much misery, and has a conciliatory attraction for the non-Christian world. And of course this propagandism through action must lie gratefully and sympathetically hailed. In the century that has passed, Christian activity was indeed far too limited and a Christianity that does not prove its worth in practice, degenerates into dry scholasticism and idle talk. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that Christianity can be confined within the limits of such practical manifestation. Our Savior made whole the sick and fed the hungry, but the paramount thing in His ministry was, after all, that in strict allegiance to the Scriptures of the old covenant, He openly proclaimed his own divinity and mediatorship, the expiation of sins through his blood, and his coming to judgment. No dogma, in fact, has ever been confessed by the church of Christ which was not the intellectual definition of what Christ proclaimed about His own mission to the world, and about the world to which he was sent. He healed the sick body, but. He even more truly bound up our spiritual wounds. He rescued us from Paganism and Judaism and translated us into a wholly new world of convictions of which He Himself as the God-ordained Messiah constituted the center. Besides, so far as our dispute with Rome is concerned, we should not lose sight of the fact that in Christian works and devotion Rome still outstrips us: nay let us acknowledge without reserve that even the unbelieving world is beginning to rival us and that in deeds of philanthropy, she tries more and more to overtake us. In missions, to be sure, unbelief does not follow in our footsteps, but pray howcan we continue to prosecute missions, unless we have a well-defined gospel to preach? Or is it possible to imagine anything more monstrous than so-called liberal missionaries preaching only humanity and colorless piety and met by the pagan sages with the answer that the}- themselves in their cultured circles have never taught or believed anything else than just this modern humanism.
Does perhaps the other tendency, the mystical one, possess stronger powers of defense? What thinker or student of history would affirm this? No doubt mysticism eradiates a fervor that warms the heart and woe betide the giant of dogma and the hero of action, who are strangers to its depth and tenderness. God created hand, head and heart, the hand for the deed, the head for the word, the heart for mysticism. King in deed, prophet in profession, and priest in heart, shall man in his threefold office stand before God, and a Christianity that neglects the mystic element grows frigid and congeals. We are therefore to be accounted fortunate whenever a mystic atmosphere envelopes us, making us breathe the balmy air of spring
Through it life is made truer, deeper, and richer. But it would be a sad mistake to suppose that mysticism, taken by itself, can bring about a reversal in the spirit of the age. Not Bernard of Clairvaux but Thomas of Aquino, not Thomas a Kempis but Luther have ruled the spirits of men. Mysticism is, in its very nature, seclusive, and strives rather to avoid contact with the outside world. Its very strength lies in the indifferentiated life of the soul and on this account it cannot take a positive stand. It flows along a subterranean bed and does not show sharply demarcated lines above ground. What is worse, history proves that all one-sided mysticism has always' become morbid and has ultimately degenerated into a mysticism of the flesh astounding the world with its infamy.
Accordingly, although I rejoice in the revival of both the practical and mystical tendencies, both will result in loss instead of gain if they are expected to compensate for the abandonment of the Bible and the confession. Mysticism is sweet and Christian works are precious, but the seed of the church, both at the birth of Christianity and in the age of the Reformation has been the blood of martyrs, and our sainted martyrs shed their blood not for mysticism and not for philanthropic projects but for the sake of convictions such as concerned the acceptance of the truth and the rejection of error. To live with consciousness is our well-nigh divine prerogative, and only from the clear unobscured vision of consciousness proceeds the mighty word that can make the times reverse their current, and cause a revolution in the spirit of the world. It is selfdeception, therefore, and only self-deception, when these practical and mystical Christians believe they can do without a Christian life and world-view of their own. No one can do without that. Every one who thinks he can abandon the Christian dogma and do away with the Catechism of the Reformation, lends ear unawares to the hypotheses of the modern world-view and without knowing bow far lie has drifted, swears by the Catechism of the Zeitgeist.
Therefore let us not stop half-way. As truly as every plant has a root, so truly does a principle hide under every manifestation of life. These principles are interconnected and have their common root in a fundamental principle, and from the latter is developed logical^ and systematically the whole complex of ruling ideas and conceptions that go to make up our life and world-view With such a coherent world and life- view, firmly resting on its principle and self-consistent in, its splendid structure, modernism now confronts Christianity and against this deadly danger, ye, Christians, cannot successfully defend your Sanctuary, but by placing, in opposition to all this, a life and world-view of your own, founded as firmly on the base of your own principle, wrought out with the same clearness and glittering in an equally logical consistency. Now this is not obtained by either Christian works or mysticism, but only by going back, our hearts full of mystical warmth and our personal faith manifesting itself in abundant fruit, to that turning-point in history and in the development of humanity which was reached in the Reformation. And this is equivalent to a return to Calvinism. There is no choice here. Socinianism died an inglorious death; Anabaptism perished in wild revolutionary orgies; Luther never worked out his fundamental thought; and Protestantism taken in a general sense, without further differentiation, is either a purely negative conception without content, or a chameleon-like name which the deniers of the God-man like to adopt as their shield. Only of Calvinism can it lie said that it has consistently and logically followed out the lines of the Reformation, has established churches and States, has set its stamp upon social and public life, and has thus, in the full sense of the word, created for the whole life of man a world of thought entirely its own. It follows therefore that we are placed before a trilemma compelling us either to let ourselves be carried along by modernism, which means the doom of Christianity: or to construct a world-view of our own such as shall transcend Calvinism, a task thus far attempted by no one; or finally to bring to light again the half forgotten fundamental lines of Calvinism and extend these in accordance with the demands of our present so much more richly developed life.
I feel convinced that, after what I have said in my Lectures, no one will accuse me of underrating Lutheranism; yet the present emperor of Germany has no less than three times furnished an example of the evil after-effect of Luther's apparently slight mistakes. Luther was misled into recognizing the sovereign of the land as the head of the established church and what have we as a result of this been called upon to witness from Germany's eccentric emperor? First of all that Stocker, the champion of Christian democracy, was dismissed from his court, merely because this bold defender of the freedom of the churches had so much as expressed the wish that the emperor should abdicate his chief episcopate. Next that, at the sailing of the German squadron for China, Prince Henry of Russia was instructed to carry to the far Orient not the "Christian" but the "imperial gospel". And more recently that he called upon his loyal subjects to be faithful in the performance of their duties, urging as a motive that after death they were to appear before God.... and His Christ?.... No; but.... before God.... and I lie great emperor. Ever bolder encroachment, it will be noticed, of Caesarism upon the essence of the Christian religion. These as you see, are far from mere trifles, rather they touch principles of world-wide application, for which oar forefathers in the age of the Reformation fought their great battles. To repristination I am as averse as any man, but in order to place for the defense of Christianity, principle over against principle, and worldview over against world-view, there lies at hand, for him who is a Protestant in bone and marrow, only the Calvinistic principle as the sole trustworthy foundation on which to build.
What then are we to understand by this return to Calvinism? Do I mean that all believing Protestants should subscribe the sooner the better to the Reformed symbols and thus all ecclesiastical multiformity be swallowed up in the unity of the Reformed church-organisation? I am far from cherishing so crude, so ignorant, so unhistorical a desire. As a matter of course, there is inherent in every conviction, in every confession, a motive for absolute and unconditional propagandism, and the word of Paul to Agrippa: '"I would to God that with little or with much, n« it you only, but also all that hear me this day. might become such as I am" must remain the heart-felt wish not only of every good Calvinist, but of every one who may glory in a firm immovable conviction. But so ideal a desire of the human heart can never be realized, in this our dispensation. First of all, not one Reformed Standard, not even the purest, is infallible as was the word of Paul. Then again the Calvinistic confession is so deeply religious, SO highlv spiritual, that, excepting always periods of profound religious commotion, it will never be realized by the large masses but will impress with a sense of it> inevitability only a relatively small circle. Furthermore our inborn onesidedness will always necessarily lead to the manifestation of the church of Christ in many forms. And, last not least, absorption on a large scale by one church of the members of another can only take place at critical moments in history. In the ordinary run of things ninety per cent of the Christian population die in the church in which they were born and baptized. Besides, such an identification of my program with the absorption of one church by another would be at variance with the whole tendency of my argument.
Not ecclesiastically, confined to a narrow circle, but as a phenomenon of universal significance have I commended to you the Calvinism of history. Therefore what I ask may in the main be reduced to the following four points: 1. that Calvinism shall no longer be ignored where it still exists, but rather be retraced where the after effects of its influence are still manifest; 2. that Calvinism shall again be made a subject of study in order that the outside world may cease to misrepresent it: 3. that its principles shall again be consistently applied not only to Theology, but to every department of life; 4. that the churches which still lay claim to confessing it, shall cease being ashamed of their confession.
First then, Calvinism should no longer be ignored where it still exists but rather be retraced where traces of its historical influence are still manifest. A pointing out, in detail, with even some degree of completeness, of the traces that Calvinism has everywhere left behind in social and political, in scientific and esthetic life, would in itself demand a broader study than could be thought of in the rapid course of a single lecture. Allow me therefore, addressing an American audience, to point out a single feature in your own political life. I have already observed in my third lecture how in the preamble of more than one of your constitutions, while taking a decidedly democratic view, nevertheless not the atheistic standpoint of the French revolution, but the Calvinistic confession of the supreme sovereignty of God, has been made the foundation, at times even in terms, as I have pointed out, corresponding literally with the words of Calvin. Not a trace is to be found among you of that anti-clericalism which has become identified with the very essence of the revolutionary democracy, in France and elsewhere, and when your President proclaims a national day of thanksgiving or when the houses of Congress assembled in Washington are opened with prayer, it is ever new evidence