Part 28

§ 182.20. =Ritschl and his School.=--=Ritschl=, 1822-1889, from A.D. 1846 in Bonn, from A.D. 1864 in Göttingen, on his withdrawal from the Tübingen party, applied himself to dogmatic studies and founded a school, the adherents of which, divided into right and left wings, have secured quite a number of academical appointments. After the completion of his great dogmatic work on “Justification and Reconciliation,” Ritschl resumed his historical studies in a “History of Pietism,” which he traces back through the persecuted anabaptists of the Reformation age to the Tertiaries of the Franciscan order and the mysticism of St. Bernard. He earnestly maintains his adherence to the confessions of the Lutheran church, and regards it as the task of his life to disentangle the pure Lutheran doctrine from the accretions of scholastic metaphysics. Even more decidedly than Schleiermacher, he banishes all philosophy from the domain of theology. The grand significance of Kant’s doctrine of knowledge, with its assertion of the incomprehensibility of all transcendent truth except the ethical postulates of God, freedom and immortality, as set forth in a more profound manner by Lotze, is indeed admitted, but only as a methodological basis of all religious inquiries, and with determined rejection of every material support from Kant’s construction of religion within the limits of the pure reason. Ritschl rather pronounces in favour of the formal principle of Protestantism, and declares distinctly that all religious truth must be drawn directly from Scripture, primarily from the New Testament as the witness of the early church uncorrupted by the Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysic, but also secondarily from the Old Testament as the record of the content of revelation made to the religious community of Israel. The truthfulness of the biblical, especially of the New Testament, system of truth, rests, however, not on any theory of inspiration, but on its being an authentic statement of the early church of the doctrine of Christ, inasmuch as to this witness the necessary degree of _fides humana_ belongs. Ritschl’s Christology rests on the witness of Christ to himself in the synoptists, through which he proclaims himself the one prophet who in the divine purpose of grace for mankind has received perfect consecration, sent by God into the world to represent the founding of the kingdom of God on earth foreshadowed in the Old Testament revelation; but no attempt is made to explain how Christ became possessed of the secrets of the divine decree. To him, as the first and only begotten Son of God, standing in essential union with the Father, belongs the attribute of deity and the right of worship. But of an eternal pre-existence of Christ we can speak only in so far as this is meant of the eternal gracious purpose of God to redeem the world through him by means of the complete unfolding of the kingdom of God in the fellowship of love. Whatever goes beyond this in the fourth gospel, its Johannine authenticity not being otherwise contested, as well as in Paul’s epistles and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, resulted from the necessity felt by their writers for assigning a sufficient reason for the assumption of such incomparable glory on the part of Christ. As the archetype of humanity destined for the kingdom of God, Christ is the original object of the divine love, so that the love of God to the members of his kingdom comes to them only through him. And as the earthly founding, so also the heavenly completion, of the kingdom of God is assigned to Christ, and hence after his resurrection all power was given to him, of the transcendent exercise of which, however, we can know nothing. The universality of human sin is admitted by Ritschl as a fact of experience, but he despairs of reaching any dogmatic statement as to the origin of sin through the temptation of a superhuman evil power. But that sin is inherited and as original guilt is under the condemnation of God, is not taught or pre-supposed by the teaching either of Christ or of the apostles. Redemption (reconciliation and justification) consists in the forgiveness of sins, by which the guilt that estranges from God is removed and the sinner is restored into the fellowship of the kingdom of God. Forgiveness, however, is not given on condition of the vicarious penal sufferings of Christ, whose sufferings and death are of significance rather because his life and works were a complete fulfilment of his calling, and witnessed to as such by God’s raising him from the dead. Justification secures the reception of the penitent sinner into the fellowship of the kingdom of God, preached and perfectly developed by Christ, and the sonship enjoyed in its membership, prefigured in Christ himself, which contains in itself the desire as well as the capacity to do good works out of love to God.--The school of Ritschl is represented in Göttingen by its founder and by =Schultz= and =Wendt=, in Marburg by =Herrmann=, in Bonn by =Bender=, in Giessen by =Gottschick= and =Kattenbusch=, in Strassburg by =Lobstein=, in Basel by =Kaftan=, formerly of Berlin.[537]

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

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

§ 183. HOME MISSIONS.

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

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

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

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

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

§ 184. FOREIGN MISSIONS.

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

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

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

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