Part 29

§ 184.4. Livingstone and Stanley have made marvellous contributions to our geographical knowledge of =Central Africa= and to Christian missions there. The Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, factory boy, afterwards physician and minister, wrought, A.D. 1840-1849, under the London Missionary Society in South Africa, and then entered on his life work of exploration in Central Africa. During his third exploring journey into the interior in A.D. 1865 as a British consul, he was not heard of for a whole year. H. M. Stanley, of the _New York Herald_, was sent in A.D. 1871, and found him in Ujiji on Lake Tanganyiká. Livingstone died of dysentery on the southern bank of this lake in A.D. 1873. Still more important was Stanley’s second journey, A.D. 1874-1877, which yielded the most brilliant scientific results, and was epoch-making in the history of African missions. He got the greatest potentate in those regions, King Mtesa of Uganda, who had been converted by the Arabs to Mohammedanism, to adopt Christianity and permit a Christian church to be built in his city. Stanley’s letters from Africa roused missionary fervour throughout England. The Church Missionary Society in A.D. 1877 set up a mission station in the capital, and put a steamer on the Victoria Nyanza. The church services were regularly attended, education and the work of civilization zealously prosecuted, Sunday labour and the slave trade prohibited, etc. French Jesuits entered in A.D. 1879, insinuating suspicions of the English missionaries into the ear of the king, and the machinations of the Arab slave-dealers made their position dangerous. Missionaries arrived by way of Egypt with flattering recommendations from the English foreign secretary in the name of the queen. But the traders, by means of an Arabic translation of a letter purporting to be from the English consul at Zanzibar, cast suspicion on the document as a forgery, and represented its bearers as in the pay of the hostile Egyptians. Mtesa’s wrath knew no bounds, and only his favour for the missionary physician saved the mission and led him to send an embassy of three chiefs and two missionaries to England in June, A.D. 1879, to discover the actual truth. His anger meanwhile cooled, and the work of the mission was resumed. He was preparing to put an utter end to the national heathenism, when suddenly a report spread that the greatest of all the Lubaris or inferior deities, that of the Nyanza Lake, had become incarnate in an old woman, in order to heal the king and restore the ancient religion. The whole populace was in an uproar; Mtesa, under threat of deposition, restored heathenism, with human sacrifice, man stealing, and the slave trade. Then the Lubari excitement cooled down. Mtesa, moved by a dream, declared himself again a Mohammedan, and converted the Christian church into a mosque. The English missionaries, stripped of all means, starved, and subjected to all sorts of privations, did not flinch. At last, in January, A.D. 1881, the embassy, sent eighteen months before to England, reached home again, and, by the story of their reception, caused a revulsion of feeling in favour of the English mission, which again flourished under the protection of the king. But Mtesa died in 1884. His son and successor, Mwanga, a suspicious, peevish young despot, addicted to all forms of vice, began again the most cruel persecution, of which Bishop Hannington, sent out from England, with fifty companions, were the victims. Only four escaped.

§ 184.5. =Asia.=--The most important mission field in Asia is =India=. The old Lutheran mission there had great difficulties to contend against: the system of caste distinctions, the proud self-sufficiency of the pantheistic Brahmans, the politico-commercial interests of the East India Company, etc. The Leipzig Society has sixteen stations among the Tamuls, and alongside are English, American, and German missionaries of every school. The Gossner Society works among the Kohls of Chota Nagpore, where a rival mission has been started by the puseyite bishop of Calcutta, Dr. Milman, to which, in A.D. 1868, six of the twelve German missionaries and twelve of the thirty-six chapels were transferred. The Basel missionaries labour in Canara and Malabar. The military revolt in Northern India in A.D. 1857 interrupted missionary operations for two years; but the work was afterwards resumed with great vigour. The Christian benevolence shown during the famine of A.D. 1878, in which three millions perished, made a great impression in favour of the Protestant church. In the preceding years throughout all India only between 5,000 and 10, 000 souls were annually added; but in A.D. 1878 the number of new converts rose to 100,000, and in A.D. 1879 there were 44,000.--The island of =Ceylon= was, under Portuguese and Dutch rule, in great part nominally Christianized; but when compulsion was removed under British rule, this sham profession was at an end. Multitudes fell back into heathenism, and in the first ten years of the British dominion 900 new idol temples were erected. From A.D. 1812 Baptist, Methodist, and Anglican missionaries have toiled with small appearance of fruit. In =Farther India= the American missionaries have wrought since A.D. 1813. Judson and his heroic wife did noble work among the Karens and the Burmans. Also in Malacca, Singapore, and Siam the Protestant missions have had brilliant success. The work in Sumatra has been retarded by the opposition of the Malays and deadly malarial fever. The preaching of the gospel was eminently successful in =Java=, where since A.D. 1814 Baptist missionaries and agents of the London Society have wrought heroically. In Celebes the Dutch missionaries found twenty Christian congregations of old standing, greatly deteriorated for want of pastoral care, but still using the Heidelberg Catechism. At Banjermassin, in A.D. 1835 the Rhenish Society founded their first station in Borneo, and wrought not unsuccessfully among the heathen Dyaks. But in A.D. 1859 a rebellion of the Mohammedan residents led to the expulsion of the Dutch and the murder of all Christians. Only a few of the missionaries escaped martyrdom, and subsequently settled in Sumatra.

§ 184.6. The work in =China= began in A.D. 1807, when the London Missionary Society settled Morrison in Canton, where he began the study of the language and the translation of the Bible. Gutzlaff of Pomerania, in A.D. 1826, conceived the plan of evangelizing China through the Chinese converts, but, though he continued his efforts till his death in A.D. 1854, the scheme failed through the unworthiness of many of the professors. The war against the opium traffic, A.D. 1839-1842, opened five ports to the mission, and led to the transference of Hongkong to the English. The Chinese mission now made rapid strides; but the interior was still untouched. The conflict between the governor of Canton and the English, French, and Americans, and the chastisement administered to the Chinese in A.D. 1857, led the emperor, in A.D. 1858, to make a treaty with the three powers and also with Russia, by which the whole land was opened up for trade and missions, and full toleration granted to Christianity. Popular hatred of strangers, and especially of missionaries, however, occasioned frequently bloody encounters, and in A.D. 1870 there was a furious outburst directed against the French missionaries. During a terrible famine in North China, in A.D. 1878, when more than five millions perished, the heroic and self-sacrificing conduct of the missionaries brought them into high favour. Throughout China there are now 320 organized Christian congregations with 50,000 adherents under 238 foreign missionaries.--After seclusion for three centuries, =Japan=, about the same time as China, was opened by treaty to European and American commerce, notwithstanding the opposition of the old feudal nobility, the so-called Daimios. In A.D. 1871 the mikado’s government succeeded in overcoming completely the power of the daimios and setting aside the shiogun or military vizier, who had exercised supreme executive power. European customs were introduced, but the rigorous enactments against native converts to Christianity were still enforced. A cruel persecution of native Christians was carried on in A.D. 1867, but the Protestant missionaries continued to work unweariedly, preparing dictionaries and reading books. The Buddhist priests sought to get up a rival mission to send agents to America and Europe, whereas many of the leading newspapers expressed the opinion that Japan must soon put Christianity in the place of Buddhism as the state religion.

§ 184.7. =Polynesia and Australia.=--The flourishing Protestant church of Tahiti, the largest and finest of the Society Islands (§ 172, 5), suffered from the appearance of two French Jesuits in A.D. 1836. When Queen Pomare compelled them to withdraw, the French government, resenting this as an indignity to their nation, sent a fleet to attack the defenceless people, proclaimed a French protectorate, and introduced not only Catholic missionaries, but European vices. Amid much persecution, however, the Protestants held their own. In December, 1880, Pomare V. resigned, and the Society Islands became a dependency of France.--In the south-east groups great opposition was shown, but in the north-west Christianity made rapid progress. The island of Raiatea was the centre of the South Sea missions. There from A.D. 1819 John Williams, the apostle of the South Seas, wrought till he met a martyr’s death in A.D. 1839. He went from place to place in a mission ship built by his own hands. The Harvey Group were Christianized in A.D. 1821, and the Navigator Group in A.D. 1830. The French took the Marquesas Islands in A.D. 1838, and introduced Catholic missionaries. The attempt to evangelize the New Hebrides led to the death of Williams and two of his companions. Missionaries of the London Society, A.D. 1797-1799, had failed in the Friendly Islands through the savage character of the natives, but in A.D. 1822 the Methodists made a successful start. The gospel was carried thence to Fiji, which is now under British rule. Both groups have become almost wholly Christianized. The =Sandwich Islands= form a third mission centre, wrought by the American board. Kamehameha I. gladly adopted the elements of Christian civilization, though rejecting Christianity: while his successor Kamehameha II. in A.D. 1829 abolished tabu and overthrew the idol temples. In A.D. 1851 Christianity was adopted as the national religion. The work was more difficult in =New Zealand=, where the Church Missionary Society, represented by Samuel Marsden, the apostle of New Zealand, began operations in A.D. 1814. For ten years the position of the missionaries was most hazardous; yet they held on, and the conversion of the most bloodthirsty of the chiefs did much to advance their cause. In New Guinea the London Society has been making steady progress. Among the stolid natives of the continent of New Holland, the so called Papuans, the labours of the Moravians since A.D. 1849 have not yielded much fruit. Since A.D. 1875 the German-Australian Immanuel Synod, supported by Neuendettelsau, has laboured for the conversion of the heathen in the inland districts.

§ 184.8. =Missions to the Jews.=--In A.D. 1809 the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (§ 172, 5) was formed by a union of all denominations, but soon passed into the hands of the Anglicans. By the circulation of the Scriptures and tracts, and by the sending out of missionaries, mostly Jewish converts, the work was persevered in amid many discouragements. In A.D. 1818 Poland was opened to its missionaries, and there some 600 Jews were baptized. The society carried on its operations also in Germany, Holland, France, and Turkey. The work in Poland was interrupted by the Crimean war, and was not resumed till A.D. 1875. In Bessarabia Faltin has laboured successfully among the Jews since A.D. 1860. He was joined in the work in A.D. 1867 by the converted Rabbi Gurland, who had studied theology at Halle and Berlin. In A.D. 1871 Gurland accepted a call to similar work in Courland and Lithuania, and since A.D. 1876 has been Lutheran pastor at Mitau. In A.D. 1841 the evangelical bishopric of St. James was founded in Jerusalem by the English and Prussian governments conjointly, presentations to be made alternately, but the ordination to be according to the Anglican rite. The first bishop was Alexander, a Jewish convert. He died in A.D. 1845 and was succeeded by the zealous missionary Gobat, elected by the Prussian government. He died in A.D. 1879 and was succeeded by Barclay, who died in A.D. 1881. It was now again Prussia’s turn to make an appointment. The English demand to have Lutheran ministers ordained successively deacon, presbyter, and bishop had given offence, and so no new appointment has been made. In June 1886 the English-Prussian compact was formally cancelled and a proposal made to found an independent Prussian Evangelical bishopric.

§ 184.9. =Missions among the Eastern Churches.=--In A.D. 1815 the Church Missionary Society founded a missionary emporium in the island of Malta, as a tract depôt for the evangelizing the East; and in A.D. 1846 the Malta Protestant College was erected for training native missionaries, teachers, physicians, etc., for work in the various oriental countries. In the Ionian islands, in Constantinople, and in Greece, British and American missionaries began operations in A.D. 1819 by erecting schools and circulating the scriptures. At first the orthodox clergy were favourable, but as the work progressed they became actively hostile, and only two mission schools in Syra and Athens were allowed to continue. In Syria the Americans made Beyrout their head quarters in A.D. 1824, but the work was interrupted by the Turco-Egyptian conflicts. Subsequently, however, it flourished more and more, and, before the Syrian massacre of A.D. 1860 (§ 207, 2), there were nine prosperous stations in Syria. The founding of the Jerusalem bishopric in A.D. 1841, and the issuing of the Hatti-Humayun in A.D. 1856 (§ 207, 2), induced the Church Missionary Society to make more vigorous efforts which, however, were afterwards abandoned for want of success. Down to the outbreak of the persecution of Syrian Christians in A.D. 1860, this society had five flourishing stations. From A.D. 1831 the Americans had wrought zealously and successfully among the Armenians in Constantinople and neighbourhood, but in A.D. 1845 the Armenian patriarch excited a violent persecution which threatened the utter overthrow of the work. The British ambassador, Sir Stratford de Redcliffe, however, insisted upon the Porte recognising the rights of the Protestant Armenians as an independent religious denomination, and since then the missions have prospered. Among the Nestorians in Turkey and Persia the Americans, with Dr. Grant at their head, began operations in A.D. 1834; but through Jesuit intrigues the suspicions of the Kurds and Turks were excited, and in A.D. 1843 and 1846 a war of extermination was waged against the mountain Nestorians, which annihilated the Protestant missions among them. Operations, however, have been recommenced with encouraging success. Among the deeply degraded Copts in Egypt, and extending from them into Abyssinia, the Moravians had been working without any apparent result from A.D. 1752 to A.D. 1783. In A.D. 1826 the Church Missionary Society, under German missionaries trained at Basel (Gobat, Irenberg, Krapf [Krapff], etc.), took up the work, till it was stopped by the government in A.D. 1837. In A.D. 1855 the Basel missionaries began again to work in Abyssinia with the approval of King Theodore. This state of things soon changed. Theodore’s ambition was to conquer Egypt and overthrow Islam. But when in A.D. 1863 this scheme only called forth threats from London and Paris, he gave loose rein to his natural ferocity and put the English consul and the German missionaries in chains. By means of an armed expedition in A.D. 1868, England compelled the liberation of the prisoners, and Theodore put an end to his own life. After the withdrawal of the English the country was desolated by civil wars, and at the close of these troubles in A.D. 1878 the mission resumed its operations.

III. Catholicism in General.

§ 185. THE PAPACY AND THE STATES OF THE CHURCH.

The papacy, humiliated but not destroyed by Napoleon I., was in A.D. 1814 by the aid of princes of all creeds restored to the full possession of its temporal and spiritual authority, and amid many difficulties it reasserted for the most part successfully its hierarchical claims in the Catholic states and in those whose Protestantism and Catholicism were alike tolerated. Many severe blows indeed were dealt to the papacy even in the Roman states by revolutionary movements, yet political reaction generally by-and-by put the church in a position as good if not better than it had before. But while on this side the Alps, especially since the outbreak of A.D. 1848, ultramontanism gained one victory after another in its own domain, in Italy, it suffered one humiliation after another; and while the Vatican Council, which put the crown upon its idolatrous assumptions (§ 189, 3), was still sitting, the whole pride of its temporal sovereignty was shattered: the States of the Church were struck out of the number of the European powers, and Rome became the capital and residence of the prince of Sardinia as king of United Italy. But reverence for the pope now reached a height among catholic nations which it had never anywhere attained before.

§ 185.1. =The First Four Popes of the Century.=--Napoleon as First Consul of the French Republic, in A.D. 1801 concluded a concordat with =Pius VII.=, A.D. 1800-1823, who under Austrian protection was elected pope at Venice, whereby the pope was restored to his temporal and spiritual rights, but was obliged to abandon his hierarchical claims over the church of France (§ 203, 1). He crowned the consul emperor of the French at Paris in A.D. 1804, but when he persisted in the assertion of his hierarchical principles, Napoleon in A.D. 1808 entered the papal territories, and in May, A.D. 1809, formally repudiated the donation of “his predecessor” Charlemagne. The pope treated the offered payment of two million francs as an insult, threatened the emperor with the ban, and in July, A.D. 1809, was imprisoned at Savona, and in A.D. 1812 was taken to Fontainebleau. He refused for a time to give canonical institution to the bishops nominated by the emperor, and though at last he yielded and agreed to reside in France, he soon withdrew his concession, and the complications of A.D. 1813 constrained the emperor, on February 14th, to set free the pope and the Papal States. In May the pope again entered Rome. One of his first official acts was the restoration of the Jesuits by the bull _Sollicitudo omnium_, as by the unanimous request of all Christendom. The Congregation of the Index was again set up, and during the course of the year 737 charges of heresy were heard before the tribunal of the holy office. All sales of church property were pronounced void, and 1,800 monasteries and 600 nunneries were reclaimed. In A.D. 1815 the pope formally protested against the decision of the Vienna Congress, especially against the overthrow of the spiritual principalities in the German empire (§ 192, 1). Equally fruitless was his demand for the restoration of Avignon (§ 165, 15). In A.D. 1816 he condemned the Bible societies as a plague to Christendom, and renewed the prohibition of Bible translations. His diplomatic schemes were determined by his able secretary Cardinal Consalvi, who not only at the Vienna Congress, but also subsequently by several concordats secured the fullest possible expression to the interests and claims of the curia.--His successor was =Leo XII.=, A.D. 1823-1829, who, more strict in his civil administration than his predecessor, condemned Bible societies, renewed the Inquisition prosecutions, for the sake of gain celebrated the jubilee in A.D. 1825, ordered prayers for uprooting of heresy, rebuilt the Ghetto wall of Rome, overturned during the French rule (§ 95, 3), which marked off the Jews’ quarter, till Pius IX. again threw it down in A.D. 1846. After the eight months’ reign of =Pius VIII.=, A.D. 1829-1830, =Gregory XVI.=, A.D. 1831-1846, ascended the papal throne, and sought amid troubles at home and abroad to exalt to its utmost pitch the hierarchical idea. In A.D. 1832 he issued an encyclical, in which he declared irreconcilable war against modern science as well as against freedom of conscience and the press, and his whole pontificate was a consistent carrying out of this principle. He encountered incessant opposition from liberal and revolutionary movements in his own territory, restrained only by Austrian and French military interference, A.D. 1832-1838, and from the rejection of his hierarchical schemes by Spain, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia.[541]