Part 20

§ 174.5. =National Literature= (§ 171, 11).--To some extent Goethe, but much more decidedly the romantic school of poets, was attached to Schelling’s philosophy of nature. The romanticists developed a deep religiousness of feeling, as shown in Novalis and La Motte Fouqué, and violent opposition to rationalistic theology as shown in Tieck, which in the case of Fr. Schlegel ran to the other extreme of moral frivolity as seen in his “Lucinde.” The romantic school as thus represented by Schlegel was joined by the party of Young Germany with its gospel of the rehabilitation of the flesh. Its mouthpiece was the gifted poet Heine. The pantheistic deification of nature by Schelling, and the self-deification of the Hegelian school obtained poetic expression in Leop. Schafer’s _Laienbrevier und Weltpriester_, as well as in Sallet’s _Laienevangelium_; while the sympathies of the young Hegelians with the revolutionary movements gained utterance in the poems of Herwegh, and in a more serious tone in those of Freiligrath. More recently the views of the _Protestantenverein_ (§ 180) have found their poetical representative in Nic. Eichhorn, whose “Jesus of Nazareth,” a tragical drama, 1880, deals with the life, works, and sufferings of the “historical Christ,” after the style of free Protestant science, with rich psychological analysis of the character in a brilliant imaginative production. Though composed with a view to theatrical representation, it has never yet been put on the stage.

§ 174.6. The Christian element was present in the noble patriotic songs of E. M. Arndt[525] and Max. von Schenkendorf much more distinctly than in the romantic school. Enthusiasm in the struggle for freedom awakened faith in the living God. Uhland’s lovely lyrics, with their enthusiasm for the present interests of the Fatherland, entitle him to rank among patriotic poets, and their brilliant and profound rendering of the old German legends places him in the romantic school, which, however, in clearness and depth he leaves far behind. Without being a distinctively Christian poet, his warm sympathy with the life of the German people gives him a genuine interest in the Christian religion. The same may be said of Rückert’s highly finished poems, which transplanted the fragrant flowers of oriental sensuousness and contemplativeness into the garden of German poetry. A more decided Christian consecration of poetic genius is seen in the noble and beautiful lyrics of Emanuel Geibel, died 1884, the greatest and most Christian of the secular poets of the present. Of those ordinarily ranked as sacred poets may be named Knapp, Döring, Spitta, Garve, Vict. Strauss, etc., who for the most

## part contributed their sacred songs to Knapp’s “_Christoterpe_”

(1833-1853). A later publication of equal merit, called the “_Neue Christoterpe_,” has been edited since 1880 by Kögel, Baur, and Frommel. But with all the Christian depth and spirituality, freshness and warmth, which we meet with in the productions of these Christian poets, none of them has been able to rise to the noble simplicity, power, popular force, and fitting them for church use, objectivity which are present in the old evangelical church hymns. In this respect they all bear too conspicuously the signature of their age, with its subjective tone and the noise and turmoil of present conflicts. Of all modern poets, Rückert alone approaches in his advent hymn the measure and spirit of the old church song.--In the department of novels and romance there has been shown an almost invariable hostility toward Christianity, religion being either entirely avoided or held up to contempt by having as its representatives, simpletons, hypocrites, or knaves.

§ 174.7. In =France=, Chateaubriand in his “_Genie du Christianisme_” pronounces an eloquent eulogy on the half-pagan Christianity of the Middle Ages. In another work he makes the representatives of heathenism in the age of Constantine act like Homeric heroes, and those of Christianity speak “like theologians of the age of Bossuet.” Lamartine may be described as a Christian romanticist. Victor Hugo, Balzac, George Sand, Sue, Dumas, etc., influenced by the Revolution, developed an antichristian tendency; while naked naturalism, photographic realism in depicting the lowest side of Parisian life, especially adultery and prostitution, is represented by Flaubert, Daudet, De Goncourt, Zola, etc.--In =Italy=, the amiable Manzoni gave noble expression to Christian feeling in his “_Inni Sacri_,” and in his masterly romance “_Promessi Sposi_;” and the famous poet Silvio Pellico, in his “_La mia Prigioni_,” affords a noble example of the sustaining power of true religion during ten years’ rigorous imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon. The most gifted of modern Italian poets, Giacomo Leopardi, sank into despairing pessimism, which expressed itself in the domain of religion in biting satire and savage irony. Among the poets of the present who, with glowing patriotism, not only yearned for the deliverance and unity of Italy, but also lived to see these accomplished, and have since given expression, though from different political and religious standpoints, to the desire for the reconciliation of the free united kingdom with the irreconcilable church, the most distinguished are Aleardi, Carducci, Imbriani, Guercini, Cavalotti.--In =Spain=, Caecilia Böhl von Faber, although the daughter of a German father, and educated in Germany, introduced, under the name Fernan Caballero, the modern romance in a thoroughly national Spanish style, and in a purely moral and catholic Christian spirit. In the =Flemish Provinces=, Hendrik Conscience, the able novelist, has described Flemish village life in a spirit fully in sympathy with Christianity.--=England= had in Lord Byron a poet of the first rank, who more than any other poet had experience in himself of the convulsions and contradictions of his age. In powerful and impressive tones he sets forth the unreconciled disharmonies of nature and of human life. Incurable pain, despair, weariness of life, and hatred of mankind, without hope, yet without desire for reconciliation, enthusiastic admiration of the ancient world, passionate love of liberty and titanic pride in human might mingle with scenes of grumbling, misery, and profligacy. On the other hand, the rich and mostly solid English novel literature is prevailingly inspired by a Christian spirit.

§ 174.8. =Popular Education.=--While the poetic national literature for the most part found entrance only among the cultured and adult circles, this age, almost as fond of writing as of reading, produced an enormous quantity of books for the people and for children. But only a few succeeded in catching the proper tone for the masses and the youth, and still fewer supplied their readers with what was genuinely pious. Pestalozzi’s “_Lienhard und Gertrud_,” Hebel’s “_Schatzkästlein_,” and Tschokke’s “_Goldmacherdorf_,” respected at least the Christian feeling of the people, although they did not strengthen or foster it. But, on the other hand, in recent years a number of writers have appeared, thoroughly popular, and at the same time thoroughly Christian, who, as popular poets and novelists, have become apostles of Christian views, morals, and customs to the people. The most distinguished of these are Jeremiah Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius, died 1854), whose “Kate the Grandmother” was translated in the _Sunday Magazine_ for 1865, Von Horn, Carl Stöber, Wildenhahn, Nathusius, Frommel, Weitbrecht, etc. In the Catholic church Albanus Stoltz, died 1883, developed a wonderful power of popular composition, which, however, he subsequently put at the service of a fanatical ultramontanism, and so sacrificed much of its nobility and worth. From the enormous mass of children’s books only extremely few attain their aim. In the front rank stands the brilliant patriarch of Christian tale writing, Von Schubert, died 1860. After him are Barth, the author of “Poor Henry,” Stöber, and the Swiss Spyri, and the Catholic Christian Schmid, author of the “Easter Eggs.”--The =Public Schools=, especially under Dinter (died 1831), member of the consistory and schoolboard of Königsberg, were for a long time nurseries of the tame, flat, and self-satisfied rationalism of the _ancien régime_; but since 1830, and more particularly in consequence of the violent agitations of the seminary director Diesterweg, who died in 1866, put to silence in 1847, but still for his work in connexion with education always highly respected, many of the teachers took a higher flight in the naturalistic-democratic direction. By word and pen Diesterweg carried on a propaganda in favour of a free and liberal education for the people. His disciples, wanting his earnest Christian spirit, carried out recklessly his radical tendencies, and now the Christian faith has no more persistent foes than the teachers of the public schools. In A.D. 1870, a Teachers’ Association in Vienna gave a vote of 6,000 in favour of radicalism. At a Hamburg meeting in A.D. 1872 of 5,100 teachers, progress was shown by individuals raising their voices in defence of Christianity, which, however, were generally drowned in shrieks and hisses. A Teachers’ Evangelical Association held its ninth assembly at Hamburg in A.D. 1881 with 1,500 members. Christian opinions are now ably represented in schools, educational journals, and literature. A burning question at present is whether the national school should be preferred to the denominational school. Liberals in church and state say it should; conservatives say it should not; while both parties think their views supported by the experience of the past. The Prussian minister of education, Falk, A.D. 1872-1879, firmly insisted upon the development of the national system, but his successors Von Puttkamer and Von Gossler reverted to the denominational system. The German Evangelical School Congress of Hamburg in October, 1882, demanded that both elementary and secondary schools should have a confessional character.

§ 174.9. =Art.=--The intellectual quickening called forth with the opening of the new century imparted new spirit and life to the cultivation of the arts. Winckelmann, died A.D. 1768, had opened the way to an understanding of pagan classical art, and romanticism awakened appreciation of and enthusiasm for mediæval Christian art. The greatest masters of =Architecture= were Schinckel, Klenze, and Heideloff. The foundation stone of the final part of the Cologne cathedral was laid by a Protestant king, Frederick William IV., in A.D. 1842, and the work was finished by a Protestant builder in A.D. 1880. =Statuary= had three great masters, who gave expression to profound Christian ideas in bronze and marble, the Italian Canova, the German Dannecker, and greatest of all, the Dane Thorwaldsen, whose Christ and the Apostles and other works form a main attraction to visitors in Copenhagen. Three younger German masters of the art, who have heired their fame, are Rauch, Rietschl, and Drake.--In =Painting= too a new era now began. A group of gay German artists in Rome, with Overbeck at their head, formed a Society in A.D. 1813, and mostly became perverts to Romanism. Peter Cornelius, the ablest of the school, himself born a Catholic, answered his friends’ request to place Luther in a picture of the last judgment, in hell: “Yes, but with the Bible in his hands and the devils trembling before him”; and in a subsequent picture of the judgment, he gave the German reformer his place among the saints in heaven. His pupil, Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld is well known by his “_Bibel in Bildern_.” Ludwig Richter, the Albert Dürer of the nineteenth century and creator of the modern woodcut, has filled German houses with his artistic and poetic creations, which breathe of God, nature, and the family fireside. The Frenchman, Gustave Doré of Strassburg, has also illustrated the Bible in a manner worthy of ranking alongside of Schnorr, though a characteristically French striving for effect is everywhere discernible.--=Painted Glass= (§ 104, 14) for church windows had during the eighteenth century passed almost wholly out of use, but again in the nineteenth came into favour, and was made at Dresden, Nuremberg, and Munich. The most eminent artist in this department was Ainmiller of Munich, specimens of whose workmanship are to be seen in all parts of the world.

§ 174.10. =Music and the Drama.=--In Vienna the three great masters of musical composition, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, produced in the department of sacred music some of their noblest works. Mendelssohn, in his St. Paul and Elijah and in his Psalms, sought to reproduce the power and truth of the simple word of God. An early death prevented him giving expression to his ideal of Christ in music. The Hungarian virtuoso Liszt sacrifices sacred calmness and dignity to theatrical effect. His son-in-law, Richard Wagner, inspired by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, a richly endowed poet and composer, proclaimed by his followers as the Messiah of the music of the future, going back to mediæval legend, has produced a _quasi_-Christian musical drama, in which the gospel of pessimism takes the place of the gospel of the grace of God.--Quite different is the Passion Play of the Bavarian village Oberammergau, which is a reproduction of the mediæval mysteries (§ 115, 12). It originated in a vow made in 1633 on the occasion of a plague which visited the place, and is repeated every ten years on the Sundays from the end of May to the middle of September. The history of the Saviour’s passion is here represented with interludes from Messianic Old Testament passages explained by a chorus like that of the classical tragedy, with appropriate scenery, drapery, and musical accompaniment. In the presence of an immense concourse of strangers for whose accommodation a large amphitheatre was been built, almost all the villagers, men, women, and children, take part in the performance and show rare artistic power. The text of the drama for the most part agrees with the gospel narrative, only occasionally interspersed with legend, and quite free from ultramontane hagiology and mariolatry. The performance of A.D. 1850, and still more that of A.D. 1880, attracted crowds of pilgrims and tourists to the quiet and remote valley. An independent exhibition, falling little behind the original in the artistic character of its composition and production, was given, in 1883, on the Sundays of July and August in the Tyrolese village of Brixlegg, and was visited by similar crowds.

§ 175. INTERCOURSE AND NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCHES.

Protestants could recognise, as Catholics could not, elements of truth and beauty in the creeds of their opponents. When a peaceful and conciliatory spirit was shown by individual Catholic clergymen, it was the occasion of suspicion and persecution on the part of the old Romish party. Schemes of union were entertained by the Old Catholics (§ 190), and negotiations were entered on by the Greek Orthodox church, on the one hand, and the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, on the other, but in both cases without any practical result. On the union negotiations between the different Protestant sects, see § 178; and on the Prusso-Anglican bishopric of Jerusalem, see § 184, 8. Of the numerous conversions from Protestantism to Catholicism and from Catholicism to Protestantism, we can here mention only such as have excited public interest in some special way.

§ 175.1. =Romanizing Tendencies among Protestants.=--Not only in England, where an important high-church party embraced a more than half-Catholic Puseyism (§ 202, 2), but even in Protestant Germany a Romanizing current set in on many sides. A taste for the romantic, artistic, historical (§ 174, 5, 9, 4), as well as feudalist-aristocratic and hyper-Lutheran ecclesiastical tendencies led the way in this direction. Many sought rest in the bosom of the church “where alone salvation is found,” while others, too deeply rooted in evangelical truth, bewailed the loss of “noble and venerable” institutions in the worship, life, and constitution of the church, but were unable to accept the various unevangelical accretions which made void the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This was the position of Löhe of Neuendettelsau, in point of doctrine a strict Lutheran, who published a selection of Catholic legends as patterns of self-denial for his deaconesses, wished to restore anointing of the sick, etc. Some Protestant pastors expressed warm sympathy with the Pope during his misfortunes in A.D. 1860, and approved of the continuance of the papacy and the pope’s temporal dominion. A conference of Catholics (Count Stolberg, Dr. Michelis, etc.) and Protestants (Leo, Bindewald, etc.) at Erfurt in A.D. 1860, on the basis of a common recognition of the moral advantages of the papacy, sought to bring about a union of the churches. Still more remarkable is the story told by the Old Catholic professor Friedrich. Just before the opening of the Vatican Council, certain evangelical pastors of Saxony wrote letters to Bishop Martin of Paderborn, which Friedrich himself read, urging that at the council permission should be given to priests to marry and to give the cup in the communion to the laity, and promising that in that case they themselves and many like-minded pastors would join the Romish church. That the letters were written and received is unquestionable; but it is doubtful whether folly and imbecility or a wish to hoax and mystify, directed the pen. The writer or writers, as the examination before the consistory of the locality proved, are not to be sought among the pastors whose names are appended. How far the Protestant ultra-conservative reactionary party goes with the ultramontanes and how far it would aid the overthrow and undermining of the Protestant state and evangelical church, is shown by the conduct of the Privy Councillor and Chief Justice Ludwig von Gerlach (§ 176, 1), who, in 1872, in the Prussian House of Representatives, took his place among the ultramontane party of the centre, hostile to the empire and friendly to the Poles, and in his pamphlet “_Kaiser und Papst_” of 1872 described the new German empire as an incarnate antichrist. Also the Lutheran Guelphs of Hanover are zealous supporters of all the demands of the centre in the Prussian parliament and in the German Reichstag.

§ 175.2. =The Attitude of Catholicism toward Protestantism.=--Every Catholic bishop has still on assuming office to take the oath, _Hæreticos pro posse persequar_. The Jesuits, restored in A.D. 1814, soon pervaded every section with their intolerant spirit. The huge lie that Protestantism is in matters of State as well as of church essentially revolutionary, while Catholicism is the bulwark of the State against revolution and democracy, was affirmed with such audacity that even Protestant statesmen believed it. The Roman Jesuit Perrone (§ 191, 9) taught the Catholic youth in a controversial Italian catechism that “they should feel a creeping horror come over them at the mere mention of the word Protestantism, more even than when a murderous attack was made upon them, for Protestantism and its defenders are in the religious and moral world just the same as the plague and plague-stricken are in the physical world, and in all lands Protestants are the scum of all that is vile and immoral,” etc. In a pastoral of A.D. 1855, Von Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz, compared the Germans, who by the Reformation rent the unity of the church, to the Jews who crucified the Messiah. Romish prelates have vied with one another in their abuse of Protestants and Protestantism. In A.D. 1881, Leo XIII. speaking of the spread of Russian nihilism, charged Protestant missionaries with spreading the dominion of the prince of darkness. Prof. Hohoff of Paderborn, in his “Hist. Studies on Protestantism and Socialism,” Paderb., 1881, reiterated the accusation: “Yes, it is so, Protestantism has begotten atheism, materialism, scepticism, nihilism. The Reformation was the murderer of all science, the greatest foe of culture and learning, and the falsifier of all history.... Melanchthon’s _Loci_ may be styled the most unscientific production in the domain of dogmatics.... Yes, the Reformation has proved a prime source of superstition, a step backward in the history of civilization.... The Catholic church has been the champion of conscience, reason, and freedom.... No one is thoroughly capable of judging historical facts without prejudice as the believing Catholic Christian.”--But while the vast majority of Catholic writers thus abuse Protestantism, others like Seltmann of Eberswald seek to win over to the ranks of the Romish church those who can be befooled by fair speeches. The “Protestant” correspondents in Seltmann’s periodical write under the cloak of anonymity.--In Spain the Reformation was long attributed to the Augustinians, who were jealous of the Dominicans as the only dispensers of indulgences, and to Luther’s desire to marry; but the poet Nuñez de Arca in his “_Vision de Fray Martin_,” attributed it to the corruption of the church and papacy of its time, and regarded with sympathy the spiritual struggles of the reformer. Though as a good Catholic he concludes his poem with the ban of the church against Luther, he yet describes him as a just and well-deserving man.

§ 175.3. =Romish Controversy.=--In the beginning of A.D. 1872 the Waldensian Professor Sciarelli published as a challenge the thesis that the Apostle Peter never set foot in Rome, and Pius IX. with childlike simplicity gave his consent to a public disputation, which came off at Rome on 9th and 10th February. Three Protestant champions, with Sciarelli at their head, were confronted by three Catholics, headed by Fabiani, before 125 auditors admitted by ticket. Both sides claimed the victory; but the shorthand reports were more widely read through Italy than could be agreeable to the papal court.

§ 175.4. =Roman Catholic Union Schemes.=--While American Protestant missionaries strove zealously for the conversion of the schismatical Eastern Churches, Rome with equal diligence but little success endeavoured to win over these and the orthodox Greeks to her own communion. There was great joy over the conversion of the =Bulgarians= to Romanism in A.D. 1860. Taking advantage of a national movement for the restoration of a patriarchate independent of Constantinople (§ 207, 3), some French Jesuits succeeded in persuading a small number of malcontents to agree to a union with Rome. In 1861 the pope consecrated an old Bulgarian priest, Jos. Sokolski, archbishop of the united Bulgarian church. Very soon, however, he and almost all his followers returned to their allegiance to the Greek Orthodox church. Leo XIII. in his _encyclical_ of A.D. 1880, by giving conspicuous honour to Cyril and Methodius, and uttering kind sentiments about the Christian church in the East, and conferring high rank on dignitaries of the Eastern church, seeks to smooth the way for a union of the two great churches.

§ 175.5. =Greek Orthodox Union Schemes.=--In A.D. 1867 the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the whole Eastern church, to open the way to a common understanding and union of the churches, sending a modern Greek translation of the Book of Common Prayer, and asking their assistance at the consecration of an Anglican church at Constantinople. The patriarch Gregorius [Gregory] granted this request, and answered the letter in a friendly manner, passing over the Anglican’s warnings against superstitious additions to the doctrine, _e.g._ mariolatry, but characterizing all the contrary doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles as “very modern.” At the same time vigorous measures were being taken with a similar object by members of the Russian and of the Anglican churches. In 1870 Professor Overbeck of Halle undertook to act as intermediary in these negotiations. He had in 1865 published, in answer to the papal encyclical with syllabus of December 8th, 1864 (§ 185, 2), a tract with the motto _Ex oriente lux_, in which he placed the claims of the Orthodox eastern church before the Roman Catholic as well as Protestant. On the opening of the Vatican Council in 1869 he advocated in a pamphlet the breaking up of the papal church and the formation of Catholic national churches. In North America Professor Bjerring, of the Catholic seminary for priests at Baltimore, took the same position. In March, 1871, he went to St. Petersburg, was there ordained as an Orthodox priest, and on his return to New York instituted a Sunday service in the English language according to the Greek rite. Of any further advance in this direction of union nothing is known.