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CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1876. by 
 F. W. A. Osborne, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. 
 
f 
 
 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 LECTURES, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL 
 
 BY THE 
 
 KEY. ALFRED JAMES BRAY. 
 
 » ^•i> « 
 
 THE MILTON LEAGU.E 
 
 1877. 
 
 [All rights feservedj 
 
Printed at the "Gazette" rRixTixG House, 
 MONTREAL. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 After much solicitation from many friends I have consented 
 to put forth the following lectures in a printed form. They were 
 delivered to popular audiences, from my own pulpit, in Zion 
 Church ; and were received with more or less of appreciation. 
 One or two of them provoked much excitement and contro- 
 versy. I am not answerable for that. The Church that can- 
 not afford to have its history told, and its doings criticised is 
 in degenerate condition ; and the men who try to put down 
 freedom of speech by bluster, or blows, are fools. I have 
 been much condemned by some " peace-loving " Protestants, 
 and much threatened by some very ignorant, but devoted, 
 Roman Catholics, and I have survived both. 
 
 I am well aware that in these lectures I have added but 
 little to the general knowledge of Church History, and but 
 little to the help of controversy, but my excuse is, they are 
 lectures, and had, necessarily, to be brought forward in popu- 
 lar form, so as to give interest as well as information. But of 
 this I am conscious : I have honestly striven to be accurate 
 in all matters of history, and fair in all criticism. 
 
 Some complaints have been made that the Methodists and 
 Presbyterians were not included in the series. It was una- 
 voidable ; six being as many as could be well pressed into 
 the time at my disposal, I had to make choice of those churches 
 which would enable me to keep along the historical line. It 
 may yet happen that I shall have a criticism or two to offer 
 on those churches. Meantime I commit my book to the can- 
 did, intelligent reader, hoping he may find in it some pleasure 
 .and some profit. 
 
 Montreal, May, 1877. 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 The course of lectures I propose to deliver on some of the great 
 Churches and religious movements of Christendom will be mainly 
 historical and critical. And I want to say, at once, that my purpose 
 is not to create, or to foster, an already existing spirit of hostility — 
 not to pour oil on the fire which even now burns far too fiercely — 
 but, as far as I can, to give information concerning the great and 
 varied organizations which are the outward form of Christian life. 
 I want to trace the various windings of the stream of cleansing and 
 of life of which Jesus Christ is the unfailing fountain. I shall em- 
 brace every opportunity of comparing the ritual and the doctrine of 
 the several branches of the church. I shall hold up, to my utmost 
 reach, the virtues and graces of any church ; and also, as far as in 
 me lies, bring forth to prominent view their blunderings and their 
 crimes. We shall find both in every church — virtue and vice, wis- 
 dom and folly, humility and pride, working of ansjel and working of 
 fiend. Every church is touching the two great worlds — has its 
 mingling of light and shadow, has precious stones in setting of iror?. 
 This, I fervently hope, may be a practical outcome of it all : a more 
 charitable thought and sentiment toward our many brethren who 
 see not as we see, nor worship according to our form ; but are as 
 earnestly groping after the same God, and worshipping with equal 
 sincerity. This, if we are observant, and willing to read the mean- 
 ing of historical facts, must result : that this stream, of which Christ 
 was the living fountain, has been flowing on through many lands. 
 It has become more or less tainted by the soil through which it 
 passed ; but still, in North and South, in East and West, it has 
 borne a healing virtue to the people. It has fertilised the desert, 
 causing it to rejoice and blossom as the rose. On its banks hosts 
 of the weary of earth have gathered, and, when the thirst was 
 quenched, lified high the glad song of ransomed souls. Into its 
 waters the lepers have gone, and found the flesh of a little child. 
 Its silent flew has been, and is, the chiefest blessing of the world. 
 This you will see, that truth is not lost to men, and cannot be. 
 
S ' CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 Though, in passing from generation to generation, it has been so 
 distorted at times that the ancient thing which stood forth at first, 
 so divinely fair, is scarcely recognisable in the misshapen mass you 
 look upon, yet it is there — there at the heart of it, half hidden in 
 the enfolding conditions of man's invention, or wholly hidden by 
 the dark-coloured wrappings which human superstition has woven 
 out of its own ignorance — it is there, living and moving. Kings 
 have raged against it, and gone storming in upon it with their fire 
 and their sword ; priests, moved by pride and ambition, made of it 
 a stalking horse, by which they rode to power ; they baptized the 
 flesh and the devil, and allowed them to govern the church, calling 
 each by a christian name. Under that goverance it became a 
 colossus of crime, with a thin veil of hypocrisy lightly drawn over 
 its face ; the vow of purity its children took often became license 
 for the foulest sin ; but the truth lived on — the truth which Christ 
 had taught by parable and speech — it lived on and shone on, the 
 world's great light, revealing the way to heaven and God. 
 
 Let me say another word preliminary. When I speak of a 
 " Church " I mean the human organization, the outward form and 
 construction, an ecclesiastical system. Christianity is the gift of 
 God working mightily in the soul; a thing unseen, uns^stemilyzed 
 — a divine power, operating in the world of spirit. But the church is 
 the product of human exigency, and of human invention. Jesus 
 Christ gave no rule of working, but enjoined simply the principle of 
 love, and no ritual, only that men worship God in spirit and in truth. 
 But a church, an organized form of christian life and work was 
 needed, and so it came to be. As it rose up at first bearing the 
 name of Christ, in which it gloried, it presented a picture of rare 
 beauty. It was not a forced and arbitrary union of men and 
 women, but a free spontaneous growth. It was not the result of 
 outward despotism, forcing upon them alliance for defence of 
 natural rights and liberties, but it grew out of the truest principles 
 and feelings of humanity. The social element, the family sentiment, 
 the love that flamed in the heart fused the many into one. 
 
 And now to look at the Eastern Church. I am in difficulties at 
 once. The subject is so large, so broad geographically and his- 
 torically that even to give it a passing glance and reference is a 
 task of no small dimensions. But the task is self imposed, so that 
 I have neither rhyme nor reason for complaint. And if you will 
 lend me your attention I hope to prove skilful enough in my work 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 to make the subject interesting and the time seem short. In this I 
 have an ally — it is not a worn out theme, and the change of scene and 
 circumstance will give the story zest. To turn away from the tur- 
 moil of the Western world and wander for a while in the calm of the 
 East, must be a pleasure now and always. The life is so unlike the 
 life we live and look upon ; in all the modes and customs you will 
 have so much of oriental magnificence, joined with pagan barbarism 
 that it must command your interest. But it will not be all new — 
 you will meet the old familar names of Jerusalem, of Antioch and 
 Alexandria, and almost fancy you can hear the first disciples as 
 they bravely taught in synagogue or street. You will hap upon 
 such old world, historic places, as Sinai in Arabia, and Arrarat in 
 Armenia, and the cedar forests of Lebanon. As you pass along 
 you may see hosts of pilgrims crowding the banks of the Jordan, 
 and sanctuaries crowning the mountain heights as cities set on the 
 hills. This Eastern Church covers a vast tract of country, and has 
 many branches. Armenia, the church of which is largest and most 
 powerful, has its home in the fastnesses of the mountain tract sur- 
 rounding the historic Arrarat. A strange people these Armenian 
 Christians, with a remarkable histor}^ behind them. They have 
 battled bravely and long with the Mohommedans, their neighbors. 
 They have been good merchants as well as zealous christians, and 
 have demonstrated this, at any rate, that men may hold their doc- 
 trines very firmly and at the time grow rich. They are quiet as 
 they are wealthy, and might well be called the Quakers of the East. 
 They date their origin in the fourth century. 
 
 Then there is the Church of Syria with Antioch for its capital, 
 where the name of christian was first given to the followers of the 
 Nazarene. There is also the Coptic Church of Egypt, prone to 
 call Alexandria its head, though even its patriarch has made his 
 home in Carlo. The Abysinian Church belongs also to the group, 
 with its polygamy and old-world barbarisms. So barbarous indeed 
 is that church that it could find it in its wicked old heart to canonise 
 the weak and guilty Pilate, because he washed his hands before the 
 accusing people and said, " I am innocent of the blood of this 
 man," After that farewell Abysinia. I shall not climb a hill to- 
 night, or cross a mile of desert to look in upon your filthy temples 
 and your debased priesthood. 
 
 A fairer sight to look upon is the Greek Church, stretching from the 
 desert of Mount Sinai all through the islands and coasts of the Levant 
 
10 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 and Archipelago, with Greece and Constantinople for its centre. 
 A venerable church this, the most venerable of them all, for from 
 her they all went forth in turn, to call themselves by other names, 
 and sometimes to have and teach far other creeds. Looking here 
 we are reminded somewhat of the mighty men of Athens and of 
 Sparta. We are reminded too of the time when the Greek, and not 
 the Roman, was the tongue in which all teachers spoke its faith. 
 We remember too that ti\e first Church in Rome was but a colony 
 of Greeks; that the first fathers of the Western Church were 
 Greeks, and the first popes were not Italians but Greeks, the very 
 name of pope being taken from the old and noble tongue. 
 
 And then there is last of all the vast Church of Russia, with face 
 turned westward always, the link between past and future holding 
 the key of all the East. So that the Eastern Church with all its 
 branches, orthodox and heterodox, is cast, geographically considered. 
 
 You will find great names there too. A few of them to be re- 
 membered among the noble army of martys, and all of them mighty 
 men to weild the sharp sword of logic in controversial times. There 
 is Ignatius, brave enough to live or to die for the truth enshrined in 
 his mind and heart. There is the Emperor Constantine, who gave 
 the church peace, quenched the fire and broke the sword of perse- 
 cution, and has since been canonised as a great saint — the equal 
 of Apostles — quite unworthily, as I think, for he wrought fearful 
 mischief in the church he protected from outward foes. We shall 
 find him again directly and see that he was like no Apostle but 
 Judas, and like no saint but Joe Smith of latter day notoriety. 
 There is also TertuUian, a lion roaring in the theologic camp ; and 
 Arius, the great master and vendor of heresy ; and Athanasius, the 
 fierce polemic and creed maker, the champion of orthodox men in 
 the church ; and Chrysostom, the divine, and eloquent preacher. 
 In more modern days you have Nicon the Magnificent, with the 
 mind and heart of a Martin Luther, and the luxurious habits and 
 care for display of a Cardinal Wolsey. Ambrose also is there, who 
 suffered in the days of the Great Peter ; and a host of other good 
 men and mighty, of whom we know a few and Heaven knows all. 
 
 Turn for a little to the rise and first constructive policy of this 
 Easterii Church. But to understand it well I must take you some 
 way back in history. The early Christian Church had passed through 
 three distinct phases of life and experience. The first was brightest 
 and best perhaps. It was just after the Ascension, a time when 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. II 
 
 loving hearts were united, and lofty souls held loving converse. It 
 was a brotherhood in which all had equal standing. The teacher 
 taught, and his theme was Christ and Him crucified. The young 
 learnt how small is earthly pleasure and how great is duty ; and the 
 old learnt to reflect with joy on the home and the rest Christ had 
 gone to prepare. There was perfect equality ; no man sought to 
 lord it over God's heritage of souls. There was no ecclesiastical 
 machinery with whose measured evolutions men were compelled to 
 go round ; there were no creeds as now, brimfuU of cursing, but in 
 the mind and heart christian thought of truth, and sentiments of 
 universal love were growing, and outwardly there was the fair shin- 
 ing of just works. It was a time of peace, during which the growing 
 trees of this garden of the Lord struck their roots deep down into 
 the soil, touching and clinging to the primeval rock of eternal truth. 
 
 It was well ; the strength was needed, for the church entered upon 
 her second phase of life. The storm gathered and broke, and came 
 beating down, and every tree swayed making trial of its root strength. 
 The trouble first came from within. The form of church government 
 was Republican, but in every Republic there is a possible, if not a 
 probable despotism. Men began to grasp after power. It was 
 Bishop against Presbyter, and the Bishop was victorious, creating a 
 sacerdotal caste in the church, and making the old equality impossi- 
 ble. It was the introduction of Episcopacy, preparing the way for 
 the Pope and the ten thousand evils that have clustered round the 
 Papacy. Joining this inward trouble came violent assault from 
 without. The wicked looked with hate, the learned with scorn, and 
 the good often with contempt upon the band of Nazarenes. Then 
 arose the strangest contest the world has ever seen. On the one 
 hand the Greeks with their chaos of religion, a strange jumble of 
 beauty and ugliness, virtue and vice, the cunning of the sophist and 
 the sublimity of the sage ; and Rome, sitting on her seven-hilled 
 throne, proud mistress of the world ; Rome with her skill, her 
 unrivalled organization, her matchless eloquence, her invincible 
 armies, old world institutions, pride and wealth and sin, were banded 
 together. On the other side, and opposed to them all, a small band 
 of men and women, not rich, and most of them quite unlearned, but 
 each with the heart of a hero and the soul of a saint. Then arose 
 the long conflict between Church and State, a mighty war of 
 principles. 
 
 But the conflict ceased at last, and the church entered upon the 
 
12 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 third phase of her life. Church and State became friends and made 
 common cause against the people. The Church propped the State — 
 the State protected the Church. The bishops blessed the King — 
 the King made the bishops rich in this world's goods. So the 
 church was broken ; her light hid, her beauty effaced. Then there 
 came a time of silence ; the church was passing on her way to the 
 ages, but throiigh a secret channel. If she spoke, her words are 
 nowhere written down ; if she did anything for men, history bears 
 no record of it. To use the eloquent language of Dean Stanley, 
 " The stream, in that most critical moment of its passage from the 
 " everlasting hills to the plain below, is lost to our view at the very 
 " point where we are most anxious to watch it ; we may hear its 
 " struggle under the overarching rocks, we may catch its spray on 
 '' the bough that overlap its course, but the torrent itself we see 
 " not, or only see by imperfect glimpses." That is as true as it is 
 beautiful. But soon this stream comes forth to light again — broad 
 waters, but not clear, and sadly troubled. In Africa it first appeared. 
 Let us follow it as far as we may. But it will be needful for you to 
 bear in mind that the progress of the church was not for a moment 
 retarded by the persecutions of the State. The more the fires raged, 
 and the sword flashed in bloody slaughter, the more the church 
 increased. Timid men grew brave, and tender women met sword 
 and gibbet with the heroism which is born of faith. The light of 
 the truth shone everywhere — stars rose above the horizon and 
 gleamed clear out in the night. The blood of the martyrs became 
 the seed of a new harvest. So much did it gro«^^ and spread, that 
 by the end of the third certury the organization had assumed pro- 
 portions formidable and alarming to the civil powers. The doctrines 
 of Christianity had spread among the soldiers of the Romish army, 
 and at peril of life the brave men refused to join in sacrifice to the 
 gods of heathendom. Servants of the Emperor they were, but first 
 of all good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and ready to endure any hard- 
 ness. The state of things was dangerous, for when the civil power 
 got angry the church put on a revengeful mood. The Church of 
 Nicomedia was razed to tho ground by order of the King, and the 
 christians retaliated and burnt his palace about his kingly ears. 
 But speedily a change came, and came from a quarter to which 
 none had looked. Constantine, who had escaped from the treacher- 
 ous custody of Galerius, and had found refuge over in Britain, was 
 casting about for some means of climbing to place and power. He 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 n 
 
 found it, and in this way : He would make the christians his steps 
 to the throne. An inspiration from heaven, say a multitude of 
 writers — a dark suggestion from the pit, it rather seems to me. It 
 came to him in this shape : '' If I but espouse the cause of the 
 christians, I shall have a host of allies ready-made ; I shall have 
 strong partizans in every corner of the empire — men and women 
 who will defy fire and sword in the name of the cause, — and, what 
 is more important still, I shall find in every legion of the army 
 staunch, unwavering adherents." This course he followed, unfurled 
 a banner be called christian, and gained the throne full soon. Then 
 the christians had entered on a time of peace, the fires were quenched 
 by royal edict, and the prisons disgorged themselves. But oh ! it 
 was a fatal peace ; better, a thousand times, the fiercest persecution 
 than the right hand of royal protection. Church and state had 
 married, and all the devils that prowled the earth must have caught 
 at the ropes with eager joy to ring out a merry peal. A bloody 
 Nero, or a savage Trojan, is not by half as dangerous as the suave 
 policy of a Constantine. She set up her altars in the king's palace, 
 and straightway sacrificed to idols. She clasped the imperial orna- 
 ments upon her brow and neck, which marred her simple beauty 
 there and then, and ever since has well nigh stopped her breath. 
 It was now that the church began to receive large endowments 
 from the king and laity, and the clergy grew rich, and proud, and 
 insolent. Then was begun that fatal scheme which prepared the 
 way for the pope of Rome, which turned the church into an empire, 
 with many lands and much wealth. And this Constantine, the first 
 christian king, as he is called, who has been canonized, — put far up 
 in the calendar, side by sid« with Paul, perhaps — what claim has he 
 to the honor? As I think, and many more, not any at all. He 
 was proclaimed king in the good old English city of York, and at 
 once espoused the cause of the christians. And why 1 and what 
 for? Simply because the christians were many in number and 
 strong in influence, and would serve his purpose well. If he could 
 have found any other tool he would have used it just as readily. He 
 was a far-seeing man ; so shaped a policy for himself He was 
 handsome, with the look and courage of a lion, brave in battle and 
 subtle in the council chamber, and soon achieved a resistless popu- 
 larity. And those are his best and, as far as I can find, his only 
 claims to saintliness. A christian ? Well, he was pagan as much 
 as christian, and a little more perhaps. He worshipped Jesus 
 
14 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. . . 
 
 Christ, and he also worshipped the sun ; wishing to be impartial, 
 always. He built a huge pillar of porphry, and put upon the top- 
 of it a statue in which the sun, the Saviour, and himself, the empe- 
 ror, mingled. So he had learnt humility, it appears, in joining himself 
 with the great lights of the material and spiritual worlds. In dress, 
 Constantine was a barbarian— in eating, a beast ; all the world knew 
 him for a glutton. He murdered his son Crispus, also his nephew ' 
 Licinius, and then suffocated his wife Fausta in a steam bath. A 
 great saint, surely ! He was converted, too, after a fashion of his- 
 own, for he put off his baptism till the pains of death had taken hold 
 upon him, that he might sin safely through life, be washed in dying, 
 and thus float clean and safe into heaven upon the broad bosom of 
 baptismal waters. He executed his purpose well, for when the 
 time came in which he felt that his end was nigh, he sent 
 for the priests, was baptised with many a prayer and many a 
 blessing, dressed in robes of dazzling white, and so the great 
 king and great saint died. The archangels, of course, bore 
 him aloft with jubilant songs, but the church of earth bowed 
 down with sorrow in sackcloth and in ashes. Better that the church 
 had sent up a shout of joy, and set itself to undo the mischief he 
 had done, for it was great, and destined to prove a lasting curse. I 
 wish I could say a good word for this king, who has been so loudly 
 praised ; but, having regard to my character as an honest man, I 
 cannot ; for, judged from a christian standpoint, from the crown of 
 his head to the sole of his foot, from his first day to his last, there 
 was not a good thing in him. True, he gave vast sums of money 
 to the church, but that was dictated by a worldly policy, and not by 
 christian generosity. He wanted to make the church rich enough, 
 and powerful enough, to attract to herself the ambitious, and so- 
 divert them from politics. I wish I could banish him out of sight ; 
 but I cannot even do that, for we must follow his career somewhat ■ 
 if we would see the workings of this Eastern Church. 
 
 In the year 330 this most christian king then turned his back 
 upon the city of Rome in search of a new capital. It was time^ 
 His crimes had roused the fury of the people. They likened him 
 to the infamous Nero, and the Romans were likely to make Rome 
 as hot for Constantine as Nero had made it for the Romans. The 
 enraged king projected a wholesale massacre of me populace ; but 
 abandoned that, and took his revenge by degrading the city to a 
 subordinate rank, and building Constantinople as the seat of im- 
 
THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 15 
 
 perial empire. So the metropolis was changed, and the church 
 passed into a new phase. 
 
 The Nicean Council is the next point of importance. It came 
 about in this way : There were many causes of dissension among 
 the christians. Sometimes it was a question of discipline, but 
 oftener a question of doctrine. Murmurs were growing loud 
 against the Pagan branches that were being grafted on to the 
 christian stock. But it was in the ancient city of Alexandria that 
 the gathered storm first broke ; and, as it often happens, personal 
 ambition was the prime cause of it. There was in that city one 
 Arius, a Presbyter, who could be content with no office less than 
 that of a bishop. But another, Alexander by name, supplanted 
 him, and grasped the prize. Arius had many supporters, for he was 
 a much admired man — a man perhaps to be envied, for some seven 
 hundred virgins of the Mareotic have looked upon him lovingly. 
 Then was seen a sad sight, and a great scandal. The would-be 
 bishop accused the actual bishop of heresy. The bishop answered 
 back by excommunicating his accuser. And not without some show 
 of reason, for Arius had vented the heresy that there was a time 
 when God the Son did not exist, and a time when God the Son 
 began to be — so plainly subordinating one person in the Holy 
 Trinity. Answers came fast and furious, and controversy raged. 
 The people of Alexandria were amused greatly at this strife of 
 tongues among the holy fathers, and went over the disputations for 
 themselves in the theatre by night. Jews and Pagans broke out in 
 scornful laughter. " See how the christians love," they cried, "how 
 close the bonds of brotherhood are drawn. Arius and Alexander, 
 Presbyter and bishop, see how well they fight." And they did fight 
 well ; and the arena broadened, and the number of combatants 
 increased on either side. It spread through Africa and Egypt, con- 
 vulsing and rending asunder many lands and many churches. To 
 try and heal this ever-widening breach, Constantine called a council 
 at Nicea. That council was perhaps the most remarkable the 
 world has ever known. Can you imagin ^ the scene ? The gathering 
 was in one of the principal buildings of the town, probably the 
 Gymnasium, and it was filled with a strange crowd. There were 
 men who had lived through the last persecution, and bore traces of 
 the suffering then endured. Some had lost an eye, and some had 
 been lamed by the hot iron. There in a group are the deputies of 
 the Egyptian Church, with Bishop Alexander at their head. Close 
 
1 6 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 beside him is a young man who has not yet seen his 25th birthday. 
 He is insignificant \\\ appearance, and only a deacon as yet ; but he 
 has an open f^cC; a ready tongue, and plenty of argument at 
 command. Hv will prove himself to be the most refined and 
 elaborate curser of any age, for he will make a creed full of the 
 hottest damning. I am speaking of course of the great Athanasius. 
 There, too, is another man worth looking at. He is very tall and 
 very thin. A few changes one could suggest would make him 
 handsome. The face is worn and deadly pale ; his dress, that of 
 an ascetic, grotesque almost in length of skirt and shortness of 
 sleeve. His hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. Usually 
 he is silent ; but at times breaks out with fierce excitement that 
 seems near akin to madness. Yet they say he has a sweet voice 
 and an earnest, winsome manner, which accounts, I suppose, for the 
 large and perplexing following of the seven hundred virgins ; for, 
 of course, I am describing Arius, the heretic. And so I might fill 
 up the picture by showing you the Coptic hermits and the deputies 
 from Syria. Eusebius, too, the father of church history, and 
 Nicholas, of Myra, and Theophilus, the Goth, and, last of all, the 
 great king and great saint, Constantine himself. : -trd^ 
 
 The Council, it seems to me, was little more than a solemn farce. 
 As such Councils often do, it settled the question by simply evading 
 it. A creed was drawn up it is true, at the time temporising and . 
 convenient, but as the event has proved, marked by a disastrous 
 ambiguity. The Atheniasian Creed grew out of it. I am sorry 
 for those who are compelled to hear, and still more sorry 
 for those who are compelled to read the Athanasian Creed. 
 The emperor was there to enforce the decision of the council. 
 Arius was banished — denounced through east and west, and the 
 most christian edict went forth from this most christian king that 
 whosoever should find a book of Arius and did not burn it should 
 straightway suffer death. O ! friends, these are things to weep over. 
 A little while ago, it seems but yesterday, and christians were 
 brothers all. Whatever of storm raged around, in the camp where 
 they gathered there was peace ; the many were of one heart and of 
 one mind ; eating bread together and praying and praising God with 
 gladness. They had no favour of kings or nobles, but what was 
 better far, they had the love which fills all earth and heaven with 
 joy, and the meekness which, while it suffers, conquers men ; they 
 had no palaces of costly marble or lofty temples of gold and silver 
 
ITHF EASTERN CHURCH, \f 
 
 and cedar wood ; but ihey had each a palace in heaven, which the 
 Lord had prepared— an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and 
 that fadeth not away. They had nc earthly honour or title of dignity, 
 but each rejoiced in the assurance that he was a king and a priest 
 unto God — a king by right of his new birth, a priest by God's own 
 anointing. And here were their descendants playing the parts of 
 courtiers and parasites, taking royal bribes and giving thanks, bend- 
 ing themselves in the house of Rimmon, men declaring love for the 
 same dear Christ, readhig the words of his gospel of peace — yet, 
 meetino: in fierce fight to rend and tear each other. The voices that 
 should have been raised in eloquent rebuke of sin, or to tell out the 
 message of mercy Christ had brought, were only raised in angry 
 controversy. The derisive laughter of the pagan, the theatres trad- 
 ing in caricatures of christian polemics, the multitude drawing 
 amusement from the way they carried on their war of words, showed 
 how great the folly and the sin. Oh God ! that the church should 
 fall so low, and that men should hate each other so in the name of 
 holy religion. But brothers, are we better than our fathers were ? 
 They neglected the heathen and spent themselves in mutual recrimi- 
 nation — often we do the same. They passed actual evils of daily 
 life over in the careful search for a possible heresy — often we do the 
 same. God grant that the church may learn, that the work she 
 has to do is not to build up palaces of theology, and that the duty 
 of a christian is not to destroy a christian, but to save the world and 
 bring it unto God the Father. 
 
 To note the historical epochs of this great church would require 
 almost as many hours as are left to me minutes. It had its long 
 hard battle with heresies, the Arian proving, perhaps, most formid- 
 able of them all ; it had its internal convulsions and revolutions. 
 Fragments broke away from it and became greater than the original. 
 Rome rose up by and by to dispute the supremacy with Constanti- 
 nople. But its most bitter, its deadly enemy has been, and still is 
 Mahometanism, which arose in the seventh century. Its origin and 
 wonderfnl growth is a story I cannot tell now, and I suppose is 
 known to most of you. In every way it opposed itself to the Chris- 
 tianity of the Greek Church. It is not to be wondered at, for Ma- 
 hometanism is, without doubt, the unholy product of christian dis- 
 sension. It is not so much a new religion that was founded, but 
 ; rather a foul heresy that arose. And its progress was helped by 
 wars among christians. They had turned holy religion into a fire- 
 
I8 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. "^ 7 
 
 brand of hell for contention and violence, when almost suddenly a 
 sword flashed before them which made the stoutest heart quail. It 
 was the sword of the Saracen. It went gleaming in bloody slaughter 
 and conquering from end to end the Eastern provinces of the Roman 
 Empire. And the christians yielded. They who had fought like 
 lions over some foim of theological expression, some abstruse 
 notion, or doctrinal scruple, sacrificing all things to it, gave up their 
 land, their church, the very name of christian to their savage and 
 barbarous conqueror. Constantinople became the chief city of the 
 Mussulman Turk. 
 
 But the Eastern Church passed into a new phase, and to the 
 Mahometan Turk arose a foe called of God, I trust, to crush him. 
 I am speaking of the rise of the Russian Church. The end of the 
 loth century was a dark time in European history. Men were 
 looking with pale faces and failing hearts for the end of the world 
 to come. The whole Romish Church was corrupt from centre to 
 circumference. The Papal See had become the prey, and at times, 
 the prize of bold profligates. Then sprang into life the Russian 
 Church. A grain of mustard seed got sown in Russian soil, and 
 speedily sprang up and spread great branches out. The story goes 
 that to Vladimir, a fierce Prince, who ruled in the Isle of Rugen, a 
 pagan place, deputations went from the various churches, each of 
 which sought to convert, him to its faith. The Bulgarian Mussulmans 
 went ; the representatives of Western Christendom went next ; the 
 sons of Abraham went then, and then one wise man from Greece, 
 to tell of the faith and glory of the Greek Church. Vladimir and 
 his nobles heard them speak and witnessed their form of worship, 
 and finally made choice of the faith and worship of him who had 
 come from Greece. By royal command the people disgraced their 
 national idol and turned christian. A poor enough beginning, but 
 great and grand in its results. I should like to follow its wondrous 
 spread, to watch the rise of Moscow with its stately towers, to linger 
 on those vast highways and speak of the people who pass. I should 
 like to stay and hear a sermon from Chrysostom, he of the silver 
 tongue, to see how the good and brave Ambrose sufiered for the 
 people, to see the great Peter, too, the Czar of all the Russias, with 
 his clear head, his indomitable will, and his heavy boots, but I have 
 not time at command, and will only ask you to stand otf a litde and 
 look in upon the life the church has long been living — what she has 
 been, what she is now, for she moves but Uttle if at all. 
 
THE EA S TERN CHURCH. 1 9 
 
 This will strike you perhaps first of all— the strong speculative 
 tendency of the Eastern Churches. Among them is the birthplace 
 and natural home of philosophy, and of all the subtler forms of 
 theologic thought. In this it contrasts greatly with all the churches 
 of the West. The spirit of the East and the spirit of the West are 
 vastly different. In the West you have an almost savage energy, 
 a magnificent freedom. In the East you have intellectual repose. 
 The East can only busy itself about creeds and matters of the mind. 
 The West will only busy itself with the concrete facts and things of 
 life. The East seeks first for orthodoxy; the West strives after 
 catholicity. The Eastern Council met to determine the nature of the 
 Godhead. The first decree of Rome was to prohibit the marriage 
 of the clergy. The Western theology is hard, tangible, and for the 
 most part based on common sense. The Eastern theology is 
 rhetorical, speculative, dealing with abstract things and always based 
 on philosophy. Of course I prefer the Western, for it seems to me 
 infinitely better to make a man a good christian, having an inward 
 faith that breaks out in just works, than to make him a good phil- 
 osopher or subtle theologian. I would rather have the heart full ot 
 love and goodness than have the head full of abstract notions and 
 unanswerable arguments. Athanasius was a great polemic, and a 
 mighty man in a war of words, but I have never heard that the world 
 was much the better for his presence in it, and I am sure that the 
 church has been made the worse for the creed he gave it, in which 
 he heaped up damnations wilh so much heat and skill. Many a 
 poor Methodist preacher, who could scarcely speak his mother 
 tongue with gracefulness, has been a brighter light and a greater 
 good than he. Great hearts are the greatest arguments ; a holy life 
 is more convincing than a thousand creeds. 
 
 Another prominent feature in the Eastern Church is its monastic 
 system. Anthony. is the father of it. He wandered and fasted and 
 prayed by the Dead Sea shores, thinking, poor man, that to starve 
 was a form of piety ; and to lacerate the body, and to fill the mind 
 with gloomy thoughts, would be a sacrifice acceptable to God. Of 
 course he soon got men to copy him, as most fanatics do. Speedily, 
 in the Lybian and Arabian deserts, monasteries arose, peopled with 
 monks who thought that, if the body were well loopholed and win- 
 dowed by hard usage, the light of heaven could better fall in upon 
 the soul. He would be unjust who should pour unqualified scorn 
 or condemnation upon the monastic system. Some of the first 
 
20 CHURCHES OF CFTRTSTENDOM. 
 
 ascetics were God fearing and self-sacrificing men. It was a strong 
 protest against the popular vice of self-indulgence. It was like the 
 teetotalism of to-day, not an absolute good, but an expedient and a 
 powerful remedy. The life of the christians at first was a grand 
 rebuke to all the Pagan world. They lived in great simplicity, eat- 
 ing and drinking to live, and not living to eat and to drink. They 
 were diligent in business, but not hasters after riches. That they 
 had they held as stewards, and gave in regal largess to the poor 
 and needy. But full too soon the change came. Christians 
 hungered for wealth, and sought madly after sensual delights. The 
 monastic system came as a great and stern corrective, and for long 
 wrought a good work in the earth. In the early days of Christianity 
 in Russia, the monasteries were homes of labour and of culture. 
 In them were kept the chronicles on which Russian history is based. 
 They stood forth as watch towers, from which a kindly light was 
 poured forth upon the dark places of heathendom. Later on, they 
 served as bulwarks against the two great enemies of Russia, the 
 Mahommedan Tartars on one side, and the Roman Catholic Poles 
 on the other. Their inmates were good and simple men, not only 
 given to prayer, but to honest toil with their hands. But it is the 
 old story, alas ! alas ! corruption always comes. In the course of 
 time the church was changed. The monks accepted gifts, and the 
 monasteries grew rich. The corrective has been made to minister 
 to the passions of the debauchee ; the profession of abstinence has 
 been turned into a mantle for the drunkard and the glutton. It was 
 good at first, for there was a foul fiend in the church that went 
 destroying all its strength and beauty, and would not go out but by 
 prayer and fasting. Thrust out for awhile, it came back again with 
 sevenfold increase of power to steal, to kill, and to destroy. 
 
 The ivorship of the Greek Church is a strange mixture of bar- 
 baric rudeness and elaborate ceremonialism. Statues and graven 
 images of any kind are rigidly excluded, and hated bravely as any 
 Puritan could do ; and yet they worship pictures with a zeal which 
 has passed into an ungovernable fanaticism. Music is unknown in 
 service, and an Eastern worshipper would be as outraged as any 
 Scotch Presbyterian of the straight old school, at the notes of an 
 organ ringing through transept and nave. 
 
 It is not missionary either, that spirit has not been born there, and 
 from her alters no men go forth with burning zeal for the souls of the 
 pagan world. It was, and is, content to pursue its own calm round 
 
Tffn EASTERN CIIURCtT. at 
 
 of service and of life, leaving to others the task of wresting king- 
 doms from the devil. But the priests are not arrogant and despotic 
 as are the ^)riests of the Western world ; they never reach the indi- 
 vidual mind or seek to crush the individual conscience by terror 
 and superstition ; there is no great ecclesiastical system there framed 
 for smiting down the people and robbing them of freedom. Nor is 
 there that harsh and persecuting intolerance that will not let a bro- 
 ther live if he speak his shibboleth in his own way. Its attitude to 
 Rome to day is that of uncompromising hostility. Soon after Pio 
 Nono took possession of the Vatican, and long before he was infalli- 
 ble in other opinion than his own, his high and mightiness penned 
 a long epistle to the churches of the East. You would imagine 
 perhaps that the voice of the temporal and spiritual potentate, him 
 who held the keys of Peter, so keeping the gates of heaven, would 
 command awe and reverence, if not ready obedience in all the lands 
 of the Orient. He was willing to speak words of peace and fatherly 
 affection to those " who indeed," said he " serve Christ, but are aliens 
 from this holy throne of Peter." And he besought them to return 
 to their allegiance. But they answered him right scornfully. They 
 called his holiness the Pope a '* protestant ;" aye, worse than that, 
 which was the most unkindest cut of all, they called him a "dissen- 
 ter." They said — *' of the heresies which have spread over a great 
 part of the world Arianism was one, and popery is another. But 
 like the former which has altogether vanished, the latter also, al- 
 though now flourishing, shall not endure to the end, but shall pass 
 and be cast down, and that mighty voice shall be heard from 
 heaven, it is fallen — it is fallen." Well and bravely spoken. It is 
 a prophecy ; it shall be fulfilled. Rome is doomed we know — it 
 will not, it cannot endure to the end. But may not the words turn 
 back with the sound of doom upon the church that uttered them. 
 Can // endure to the end ? Will its great names, its philosophies, its 
 creeds and dogmas save it when the fire comes that shall try all 
 things human. No — I think not. Russia has life, has.dignity — she 
 stands forth to-day ready to draw her sword against the vile Turks, 
 and if it be drawn, God speed it. But Russia's church, all the 
 Eastern Church is like to die for lack of energy. Its centuries of 
 calm repose have been centuries of crime. The true church is the 
 place where holy faith brings forth good works, and flames in the 
 heart aj a fire ; and not a huge receptacle for worn out creeds and 
 rituals— as well be a catacomb where the dead lie in silence. The 
 
22 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 Eastern Church to-day is stagnant, she is but a splendid mausoleum- 
 guarding the bones of the honoured dead. Her eyes are backward, 
 they should be on ; her hands hang down, they should be lifted in holy 
 prayers for the people. She glories in the name of Orthodox ; and if 
 any church may claim that distinction, surely she may. She has not 
 changed with the changes of time and the world. Rome has changed 
 whenever the need arose. She has not. The world has moved, 
 she has stood still. But what has orthodoxy done for her ? What 
 has it done for the world.'' If Christianity is to be juds^ed by the 
 tests of ecclesiastical history ; if it is to be measured by the ortho- 
 dox zeal of great Doctors of Divinity, we have but little of hope 
 in the future. But w^e have more than that. Our true Christianity 
 is not seen in dogmas and creeds — is not revealed by controversy; 
 the voice of disputation rings with a strange hollow ness upon the 
 ear, and the enduring world finds no beauty in them. But this is 
 the true Christianity which speaks in noble deeds, teaching men to 
 love it for the shining light and happy life it gives, the spirit that 
 dives with passionate charity into the dark recesses of sin and woe, 
 that irrigates every quarter of the globe with the fertilizing stream 
 of a boundless benevolence that has blessing and healing for all men. 
 The hungry world asks for bread, the orthodox church gives it a 
 creed of Athanasius or Augustine ; it asks for the water of life, and 
 lo ! a glittering stream of words. The Eastern Church is dying ; it 
 must change or cease to be. Western energy is pouring in upon, 
 Eastern lands. Russia is wisely giving it welcome, and Russia will 
 live thereby. All the Eastern Church may follow, and then when 
 she cares more for just and holy living, when she is willing to lead 
 the people from good to better, when she, has learnt to hail the 
 advent of new forces of life and forms of truth, then the beautiful 
 East shall lift up the voice of gladness, her noble poetry and phil- 
 osophy shall shine with new lustre, then shall her priests be clothed 
 with salvation and her saints rejoice in goodness. May the mighty 
 voice speak to her soon, ringing through her mighty temples — ■ 
 "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is 
 risen upon thee." 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 The decline and fall of the Roman Empire is at once a wonder 
 and a simple thing. To see her as she once was, with her match- 
 less eloquence, her well devised organization, her brave and skilful 
 armies, her commanding position, geographically considered, one 
 would almost dare to predict for her a lasting and splendid empire. 
 The seven-hilled city had for ages been increasing in glory of know- 
 ledge, and strength. But her strength was to fail her, and her 
 glory be dimmed. In my last lecture, on the Eastern Church, I 
 spoke of the time when the king, Constantine, left Rome and founded 
 the city of Constantinople as the seat of government. At once 
 decay set in, and Rome's decline was rapid. Many of the nobles 
 had followed the king, wealth flowed in by fewer and by shallower 
 streams, and the ancient wisdom failed in the chambers of the 
 senate. At once anxious to escape the rage of Roman citizens, and 
 to erect for himself an eternal monument of the glories of his reign, 
 Constantine drew from Rome wealth, and labour and genius. At 
 his death the vast empire was divided between his three sons, and 
 soon civil war went flaming from end to end. Weakness, by 
 heaven's decree, follows after war. Wasted by internal strife, it be- 
 came an easy prey to the fierce Goths and Vandals. The time 
 came when Rome was compelled to contemplate the loss, or desola- 
 tion, of her provinces from the ocean to the Alps. The estates of 
 her senators were confiscated by the rapacious Vandals ; her foun- 
 tains of wealth had dried up ; Rome's glory was impaired — her 
 greatness almost gone. The end was not long in coming. Maximus 
 was king. At one time a senator, he learned to aspire after the 
 crown. By dint of cunning and crime, he achieved this object of 
 ambition, but only to find that weary lies the head that wears a 
 crown. Three months, during almost every hour of which he was 
 tormented by remorse, or guilt or terror, saw the end of his reign 
 and his life. His throne was shaken, by sedition when the Vandals 
 landed at the mouth of the Tiber. Maximus sought safety in 
 flight ; but, in the streets of Rome, his people murdered him. Then 
 
26 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 all in the city was turmoil and panic, and the Vandals were thunder- 
 ing at the gates. Not an army of Romans, but a band of the clergy, 
 with their bishop at their head, issued forth from the gates. The 
 Bishop Leo, noble in fearlessness, and powerful by reason of his 
 eloquence, sought to save his people from the conquering sword of 
 the barbarian. He seemed to triumph, for the Vandal king, 
 Genseric, promised to spare the unresisting hosts, and to protect 
 the buildings from fire. If the command was given, it was not 
 heeded ; and for fourteen days Rorr 2 and its inhabitants were given 
 over to the licentious uses of the Vandals and the Moors, who did 
 their awful work of outrage and slaughter with a blind, mad fury. 
 Rome had fiiUen ; her empire was broken up ; her all of glory and 
 of strength shattered into a thousand fragments. It was the great 
 fall of a great power — it was the magnificent ruin of a magnificent 
 throne. Let him weep over it who will, I have not a tear to shed. 
 Rome did much to help on civilization ; but it became a great 
 despotism, and, sooner or later, any despotic power must come to 
 nought — fall as Rome fell, and be broken as Rome was broken. 
 God speed the time. 
 
 But Rome w^ill not drop out of world history. She will not cease 
 to command the attention of all nations, for another empire will 
 find its seat there ; but this time it will be ecclesiastical and not 
 civil. Mark the rise of it. At about the close of the 5th century, 
 a struggle began between the bishops of Rome and those of Con- 
 stantinople for supremacy. The Bishop of Rome brought about a 
 crisis by excommunicating the Bishop of Constantinople ; who, in 
 turn, excommunicated the Bishop of Rome. Already the western 
 prelate had learned to use haughty language to the emperor " You 
 are the sovereign of the human race," said he, " but you bow your 
 neck to those who preside over things divine." That was the fore- 
 shming of the church's power over all things temporal ; an indica- 
 tion of the spirit that was in her, and what her purpose was. 
 Already she was moving with the impulse of a boundless and 
 quenchless ambition. : - 
 
 I need not stay now to tell the story of its progress — how with 
 commanding force it went from land to land, from cape to continent, 
 from island to archipelago, subduing thought, reason, conscience, 
 judgment, individuals and communities unto itself. Let it suffice 
 that I point you for a moment to a scene which will show you how 
 powerful the church had grown to be. Hildebrand is pope, and 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 27 
 
 calls himself Gregory VII. Until now the pontifical tiara has 
 always been second in glory to the crown ; the king was greater 
 than the pope. Hildebrand, in the quiet of a monastic life at Clugni, 
 has matured a scheme which shall rc^^erse that, and make the 
 tiara mightier than the crown. The bold diplomatist has found no 
 rest since, for he must make his thought a thing. He has raised 
 five popes in succession to the papal chair, content that others shall 
 have the name since he has grasped the reins of power. His first 
 move was to wrest from the king the right to confirm the election of 
 a pope, and place both election and confirmation in the hands of 
 the cardinals. That move was directed against Germany, which 
 nation then was in the ascendant. But he has other moves yet, 
 some of which will startle the world. The great pope-maker is at 
 last made pope, and at once begins one of the most wonderful trials- 
 of personal skill and strength the w^orld has ever seen. On the one 
 side Henry, King of Germany and Italy — on the other, Pope Gre- 
 gory VII. But Henry is ill-prepared to do battle with the skilful 
 and bold Hildebrand, for those who had the care of his youth made 
 it their object and first endeavour to debilitate his mind and body. 
 While yet a child he was called to the throne, and Agnes, his mother, 
 a womanly woman, was regent for awhile. At thirteen years of age 
 the bishops stole him from Kaiserworth, on the Rhine, and con- 
 signed him to a captivity most sumptuous, but most enervating. 
 They opened broid avenues of pleasure, and encouraged the young 
 passions to rush forth without control of conscience or of reason. 
 They had denied him discipline and instruction, and taught him only 
 in the ways of folly. The pope was strong in body and mind, and 
 full of a great idea. When yet in the cloister at Clugni, before his 
 prophetic eye arose a vast theocratic state, the Bishop of Rome its 
 head, ruling, in the name of God, the kings and dignitaries of the 
 earth. Heathen Rome had risen to conquer and to civilize ; but 
 christian Rome had a far loftier mission— it was to conquer and to 
 save, with salvation everlasting. But not in fine dreams did he waste 
 his time, for he set his hand to the work of reformation in the church, 
 caused laws to be passed compelling the married clergy to put away 
 their wives, fought battle after batUe,— now with weapons spiritual, 
 and now with weapons carnal— has given out hot anathemas and 
 sharp sword-thrusts, until he is master of the field. So he and Henry 
 meet— the strong man as pope, the weak man as king. It was a 
 g -at conflict, but the king went under— the pope triumphed. See 
 
aS CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 how mighty the church has grown to be : Henry,' unkinged and 
 excommunicated, broken in spirits as in fortune, has crossed the 
 Alps in winter time to throw himself at the feet of the pope as a 
 humble suppliant for mercy. It is cold, the earth is covered with 
 snow, — even the fierce mountain streams have ceased to flow, for the 
 mountain frost holds them in its grip — and Henry, descendant of 
 many kings and ruler of many lands, thinly clad, and alone, 
 ascends slowly the rocky path which leads to the fortress of Canossa. 
 He passed the first and second gates, but not the third — it is closed 
 against him. The pope is within, but will not open. For three 
 days and nights he is there pleading before that closed gate — 
 crouching down in cold, in hunger, and in shame. The trial is 
 long and hard — so long and so full of humiliation that the watch- 
 ing world grows scornful of the suppliant king and sick of the papal 
 vengeance. At last the gate opens, and Henry bows before the 
 pope, pleading for readmission to the church and repossession of 
 his crown. The triumph is complete — the church is dominant ; no 
 one to dispute her word, be it for heaven or for earth — be it in mat- 
 ters civil or matters religious. She rules kings as the common 
 people ; her hand is upon the proudest throne, and he who sits 
 thereon must acknowledge her authority. Her thunder went roll- 
 ing from end to end of Europe, striking terror to every heart ; the 
 valour and the chivalry of western civilization rallied round her 
 standards ; the haughtiest nobles obeyed her mandate ; the multitude 
 of the people were to her as slaves. She was queen of a vast empire. 
 It was a wonderful thing, this rise and spread and grasping of 
 power. I should like to look a little at the chief causes of it. And 
 let me say here, so as to make it prominent, that the Roman Church 
 took root in the mind and heart of men, spreading far and wide 
 abroad by reason of the truth of God and of Christ she held and 
 taught. She sent the spirit of Christianity abroad among the ruins of 
 the old world ; it shone as light in the dark places of earth ; it moved 
 among the people as a divine power. She gave to the people great 
 and swelling thoughts of God, with overpowering eloquence she 
 declared a living Christ as the Saviour of men ; she demanded faith 
 within, and without just works ; she reared up holy altars where the 
 broken in heart could offer acceptable sacrifice ; her sons were 
 manly men, strong to do or to suffer ; he- daughters were womanly 
 women, brave in heart and beautiful in conduct ; her priests were 
 clothed with righteousness ; her saints shouted for joy. To the 
 
THE ROMAN CA THOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 29 
 
 people she came as a gentle mother, exercising a kindly and humane 
 influence. She softened the rage of secular wars, she stood up for 
 the poor and feeble against the tyranny of kings and nobles. True 
 to her name and mission —for she had came in the name of One who 
 was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with griefs, a man who at his best estate had not where to lay His 
 head, who through life was a pauper companying with the poor, and 
 died at last upon a cross — coming in His name, the Church sided 
 with the people, the poor and the oppressed. With something of 
 the spirit of Him who gave his life a ransom for many, the church 
 stood forth as champion of popular freedom. She came to the 
 baron, whose spirit was haughty, and whose hand was red with the 
 blood of reckless slaughter ; who sat in his grim cliff castle as a 
 hungry giant, who robbed and outraged and slaughtered — she came 
 to him and with a word struck a terror to his heart that paralyzed 
 his arm. She was an impartial mother, taking all to her bosom, the 
 rich and the poor, the wise and the foolish. There were delicate 
 spirits that could not bear the roughness of the outer world, she 
 provided them asylums where they could spend their lives in prayer 
 and contemplation. Men grew sick of the fever of the world, got 
 shattered by the storms which went thundering through the state, 
 and longed for a little rest with which to close the day of earthly life, 
 the church found them a hospital. For the brave and energetic 
 she had great work, for men of contemplative turn she had the 
 cloister. Every way was open to all — the poorest of her sons, if he 
 had the genius in him, might climb to the highest seat. Her theology 
 was soothing to the obedient, making the way to heaven easy, but to 
 the disobedient it was as thunder and lightning crushing the soul 
 down to an everlasting hell. The church was armed with divine 
 omnipotence, with power to scourge or bless at will. At first she 
 used truth only in her warfare, but soon got to use any weapon that 
 would serve for the hour. Men had the Bible, God's spoken vvord 
 to the world, but the church was over the Bible, its only infallible 
 interpreter. By her priests she entered into the most secret chamber 
 of every soul, so that no life or part of life could be separate from 
 her. When the child was born the priest was there to baptize it ; the 
 church gave the youth its education in letters ; was the confidant of 
 the young man's love ; knew all his inward and outward life, temporal 
 as well as spiritual ; soothed his declining days ; and at the last ad- 
 ministered extreme unction, by which heaven was opened. From 
 
30 CHURCHES OF CHISTENDOM. 
 
 first to last the church was in the place of God to him, ruling his 
 conscience, his intellect, and giving him his faith. People converted 
 from paganism wanted a ceremony, the church gave it in full 
 measure. New sacraments were introduced as the need for them 
 arose. New doctrines were invented and at once made infallible. 
 Everything was pressed into the service of the church. If the people 
 wanted music, they had to go to the church for it ; if they wanted to 
 see grand displays of the fine arts in architecture, in carving, in 
 images, in paintings, they could only see it by going to the church. 
 
 Then, there was her organization, based on that of ancient Rome, 
 the city of organizations and practical rules. In the old empire the 
 individual was subordinated to the state ; and so it was in the new 
 ecclesiastical empire. The individual was nothing ; the church was 
 all. Every priest was a well drilled soldier, having no conscience 
 of his own, no judgment of his own, no freedom of will or of action, 
 his only to obey his ecclesiastical superiors. The priests were often 
 earnest men, going here and there preaching with a fiery eloquence ; 
 but their zeal was kept in limits prescribed by the church. If it 
 broke beyond, the church punished the offender with awful severity, 
 or smiled and passed it by. The priests were often learned men ; 
 but their philosophy, their logic, or their science was submissive to 
 the church. Against such an organizarion and such energy what 
 could stand? .n: ■ 
 
 But still more may be reckoned of the alliance with the civil 
 power. At first, as we know, the church separated the spiritual 
 from tlip^ temporal power, which had been more or less united in 
 the theocrasies of India, Egypt and Judea. Just as in doctrine 
 and form of worship much of old world paganism was introduced, 
 so in this the church took a step backward and got united with the 
 state, which union can only be effected at any time to the lasting 
 detriment of both church and state. The church stood first on a 
 purely moral basis ; it shunned all temporal affairs ; it left political 
 ac'ion to the state and confined itself to intellectual and religious 
 action. It grew in spite of the state, and in the midst of civil per- 
 secution. But Constantine changed the face of things. He 
 establ'-shed religion and made the church a national institution. So 
 there was a revolution, a transformation, destined, as I think, to act 
 most disastrously upon the church by taking from her the purely 
 spiritual character and turning it into a political institution. The 
 alliance was assumed from henceforth. When, in 473, Theodoric 
 
THE ROMAN CA THOLIC CIIURCir. 
 
 3» 
 
 conquered Italy, he himself appointed a pope ; a pagan king appoints 
 God's vicar upon earth ! Not long after that, Theodora, who had 
 been a common prostitute, and afterwards became the emperor's 
 wife, sold the papal chair to Vigilius for two hundred pounds of 
 gold. The great brave fisherman, Peter, could scarcely have dreamt 
 that his seat would ever be worth so much. But so it is — the 
 improbable is always happening, and history is full of irony. 
 
 But this alliance with the civil power was destined to do great 
 things for the church, considered as an ecclesiastical institution ; 
 for it became real and more profitable. An ambitious Frank officer 
 took a fancy for the crown of his sovereign ; not quite a solitary case. 
 But this time it seemed to him he could make his fancy a fact, if 
 only the pope would sanctify the act. The deed of covenant was 
 not long in making. The Frank officer, Pepin by name, consum- 
 mated the act, and Pope Zachary gave it papal benediction. The 
 Pope and Pepin were helpful to each other ; the one wanted libera- 
 tion from Constantinople and the Lombards, the other wanted the 
 crown of France. The thing was done. Pepin caused himself to 
 be proclaimed King of France, shut up the rightful sovereign in 
 the convent of St. Omer, and kept his compact with the pope by 
 defeating the Lombards and giving a part of their territory to the 
 holy father ; who, as his part of the bargain, went to France, placed 
 the crown upon the head of the usurper, and then anointed him 
 with holy oil. Then, for the first time, the Pope of Rome became 
 a temporal sovereign. I will not stop now to characterise the 
 morality of the movement. It was at least a great success. 
 
 Then comes Charlemagne, the brave, the kingly, the magnificent; 
 one of the greatest men our royal palaces have sheltered. He 
 faithfully adhered to his father Pepin's contract with the pope. He 
 waged a thirty years war with the Saxons, and finally conquered 
 Spain, Italy, Germany and Hungary. And every conquest of 
 Charlemagne was a victory for the church. His sharp sword was 
 her mighty missioner. When cities or nations were compelled to 
 own the great French king as temporal sovereign, they were also 
 forced to own the Pope of Rome as spiritual head. They were 
 baptised at the sword's point, subscribed to Romish doctrines to 
 escape instant death, and gave some portion of their lands, or paid 
 it out in tithes, to build churches and feed the priests, because they 
 couldn't help it. So the church grew and multiplied, became 
 rich, became powerful—more powerful at last than any king, as we 
 
32 
 
 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 have seen by that strange spectacle at Canossa, where Henry is 
 suppliant. • -^ . ^ i ;, ; - ; v ^. . - - . 
 
 But that was the moment of her greatest triumph. She had 
 reached the mountain's crest, and began to descend on the other 
 side. I began by comparing two periods — the time of her rise and 
 the time when Hildebrand so greatly prospered. Let me give a 
 comparison now of the power of the Roman Church when Hilde- 
 brand was pope and the Roman Church now. Then the voice that 
 spoke from the Vatican went thundering through all Europe, and not 
 a king and not a noble dared to disobey it ; now it is but a feeble cry, 
 a peevish wail, at which a peasant laughs, and is not afraid. Then, 
 at its call, the valour and the chivalry of all Christendom would have 
 rallied round its standard — a million swords would have leapt from 
 their scabbards in answer to its lightest nod ; now, a few hundred 
 French and Belgians and Irish only would respond to her appeal for 
 martial help. I'hen the wealth of great nations was at her com- 
 mand—she could levy taxes and compel the payment of them ; 
 now, a pitiful appeal has to be made by Pio Nono for the sparse 
 coppers of the poor and the sparser gold of the rich. Even then the 
 answer often seems to be — Nothing to give. Henry, greatest of the 
 western kings, stood barefoot in the cold before the Pope of Rome, 
 meekly begging for his crown, — and now^ in all Germany the papal 
 dove can find no green thing to rest upon. The decay of the Roman 
 Church is more wonderful than its rise and prosperity. Compared 
 with the vast expenditure of force and skill it took to build it up, it 
 stood but a little while. For ten centuries or more the work of 
 building went on, but it held its glory for barely one. At one time 
 the church, like the Berserkers of northern romance, seemed to pos- 
 sess the soul and strength of each antagonist it slew ; but a change 
 came, a time when storms went thundering in upon her system — her 
 doctrines — her priesthood — and it was found that she had lost much 
 of her ancient strength and skill. Can we find the causes of this 
 rapid decline ? I think so. •- '; - 
 
 And first of all, the ambition which for a time helped them to 
 achieve such mighty things, began to work out its own destruction. 
 The spirit of Rome's ancient heroes and mighty men, Fabius, Regu- 
 lus, Cicero and Coesar came into the church. The bishops had 
 practical skill ; obstinate endurance ; power of speech, with words like 
 battle-axes swung by a giant's arm ; a quenchless lust of power, a 
 resolution which nothing could overturn. They organized the 
 
- - THE ROMAN CA THOLIC CHURCH. 33 
 
 church as ancient Rome had organized the empire, — and, like the 
 old empire, the organization became too vast, too cumbrous, and 
 fell to pieces. Other organizations grew up within the circle, began 
 to expand more and more, and then there was collision, and conflict, 
 and the old was broken. 
 
 But still more did the Church of Rome suffer from that alliance 
 with the state which at one time gave it so much material pros- 
 perity. It was inevitable — sooner or later disaster must follow on 
 •wrong. In the history of the world it has never happened that the 
 state has protected and formed an alliance with the church from 
 pure and disinterested motives, but it has always been done from 
 political considerations. Whenever the state has given patronage to 
 the church, it was because the state wanted the influence of the 
 church — wanted it as an instrument of government or an excuse for 
 despotism. When the state seeks alliance with the church, it is 
 because the state wants to use the church as a tool. It was so at 
 iirst, when Constantine established the church and made it rich. It 
 was so when the pope achieved that piece of political immorality 
 with Pepin, and it was so in England. And the best of masters 
 quarrel with their tools at times — the worst of masters are always 
 doing so. Rome had some good masters, and she had some who 
 were at the antipodes of goodness. Those who made some show of 
 love for her used her — they got back again, with interest, all they 
 gave ; ecclesiastical dignitaries graced the palace or proces- 
 sion ; were always at hand to baptise and bless iniquity, — while the 
 priesthood, wringing every secret from every heart at the confes- 
 sional, scattering abroad their theologic thunders, inventing miracles 
 and such like things, was a vast and splendidly organized police. 
 But when bad men ruled, they abused the church ; made her an 
 instrument of torture to the people ; forced her to cover their foul- 
 ness with her sacred garments ; degraded the church with their own 
 degradation ; played the tyrant over her as she had played the tyrant 
 over them when she had the power. Then came intrigue and counter- 
 intrigue, plot and counter-plot, altar against throne ; the church sold 
 her garment and bought a sword, and fierce war went wasting whole 
 continents. Wherever the Romish Church has been in alliance with 
 the civil power, it has been most disastrous to both. It has given 
 protection to the priesthood in its pursuit of lust and power ; it has 
 shielded it from honest and healthy criticism ; it has legalized priestly- 
 tyranny ; compelled the people to yield their conscience, their rea- 
 
 3 
 
^ „ CHURCHES QF ClIR!STENDO.\U 
 
 soil, their goods, to the church, — and the church, in turn, has been 
 a millstone about the neck of the state ; hindered the development 
 of the people by denying them education, by denying them the free 
 and active use of their intellect— so enervating the people and 
 making industrial activity, or commercial enterprise, on a large scale, 
 well nigh impossible. Kings called the church and paid her to 
 bless them, but she has cursed them altogether. Read the history 
 of France since the days of Charlemagne — read the history of 
 Spain, of Germany, and Portugal, and you will find more than 
 ample confirmation of what I say. 
 
 But still more was the partial ruin of the church brought about by 
 the flagrant, the utter immorality of the priesthood. A church to 
 live must not only be sound in doctrine, taking all she can find of 
 truth and love, and giving living principles to the people, but she 
 must be sound in life. Dogmas may be questioned, but life must 
 be beyond controversy. Men were told that the church was the 
 great conservator of all that was true for mind and conduct. They 
 read, or heard, texts from the Gospel of Christ enjoining on all His 
 servants an upright walk, and they looked to the men who were 
 not simply baptised into the church as themselves had been, but 
 men who had voluntarily given their lives to the service of the 
 church — men who ministered at her altars, preached the word of 
 Jesus Christ, the word of God, the word of holiness, the word of 
 duty, the word of immortal life ; they looked to those men and saw — 
 what? corruption, riot, debauchery. The church, which should 
 have flamed as a great light cheering and guiding the people, was a 
 huge pillar of blackness flinging dark shadows over all the lands. 
 The church, which should have been the shrine of Justice, the 
 place where Mercy and Truth meet together and Righteousness 
 and Peace kiss each other, was a colossus of crime — the Flesh and 
 the Devil seem to have " taken Holy Orders." For gain great sin- 
 ners were absolved of their sins — past, present and future ; ill-gotten 
 gold was wrung out of tyrants on their death-bed ; the houses of the 
 widows and the weak were devoured ; the clergy were emancipated 
 from the secular law, thus getting a license to sin, which they most 
 freely and fully used. To be rich the church absolved men from 
 oaths, broke marriages, told shameless lies, forged characters 
 canonised great workers of iniquity, and for the gratification of its 
 bestial passions spared nothing and no one. 
 
 I am not going to make the assertion, which would be as foolish 
 
^^"^ THE ROMAN CA TIIOUC CHURCH. 35 
 
 as unjust, that all the Roman Catholic clergy at any time were living 
 profligate lives. During the darkest ages, in many a village and 
 town, great souls walked in the beauty of truthful lives, doing their 
 manful duty. Now and again over the papal throne was seen the 
 shining of a light, such as at the end of the 6th century, when 
 Gregory the Great was pope. He roused the dying energies of the 
 church, established schools of music, administered justice, set the 
 example in alms giving, regulated the liturgy and the fashions of 
 sacerdotal garments, and, what every man and woman with ear and 
 soul for music will bless him for, gave the church that magnificent 
 chant we call " the Gregorian," which is the foundation of all that 
 is grand and elevating in our modern psalmody. True, there was 
 much of evil mixed up with the good even in him, for he was the 
 first to sanctify that mythologic Christianity which worships Mary by 
 images and pictures and builds churches to her glory, which declares 
 the efficacy of the bones of martyrs and the relics of saints, which 
 localizes heaven a few miles above the air and hell in the bowls of 
 the earth ; " ignorance is the mother of devotion," he said, and 
 straightway abolished the studies of mathematics and classics, and 
 to remove all temptation, burnt the Palatine library which Augustus 
 Caesar had founded. But still Gregory did much good, and helped 
 to redeem the church from universal corruption. We should remem- 
 ber him too for this— that Gregory seeing our Anglo Saxon children 
 in the market, called them " angels," and sent his missionaries over 
 to Britain to teach our fathers in the faith. 
 
 But the history of the Roman Church for whole centuries is 
 but the record of political and social crimes. Let me give you a 
 page of popish history, speaking of the men who ruled the church 
 as God's vicegerents upon earth. It shall run from 757 to 1045. 
 At the first date I have named, Pope Paul was elected to the ponti- 
 ; fical chair. On the death of him, the Duke of Nepi forced some 
 f weak bishops to consecrate his brother Constantine as pope ; other 
 electors chose Stephen IV., and war commenced between the rival 
 popes. Constantine was conquered and his eyes put out. In 795 
 the nephews of Pope Adrian seized Pope Leo, his successor, forced 
 him into a church, and tried hard to put out his eyes and cut out 
 his tongue. He only escaped that to fall soon after by a conspiracy 
 lo depose him. His successor, Stephen V., was driven from the 
 city. His successor, Pascal I., was accused of first blinding and 
 then murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace. He swore 
 
CHURCHES OF CHRISTE/VDOM. 
 
 it wasn't true, and died. John VIII. , who paid tribute to the 
 Mahomedans, excommunicated the Bishop of Naples, and then 
 absolved him, receiving him back on the condition that he should 
 betray some of the Mahomedans and assassinate others himself. 
 There was a conspiracy to murder the pope, and it succeeded. 
 Formosus was leader in that conspiracy ; he was first excommuni- 
 cated and then elected pope. Boniface VI. came next, who had 
 been deposed at one time from the diaconate and at another from 
 the priesthood, for his grossly immoral life. If it be that he 
 repented and turned to better ways, history is silent about it. 
 Stephen VII. followed, who dug up the body of the dead Formosus, 
 clothed it in the papal robes, propped it in a chair, gave it a post 
 mortem trial, and flung it into the Tiber. Not long after that Stephen 
 himself was put into prison, and there strangled. In the next five 
 years no less than five popes are consecrated. Then comes Leo X., 
 who in two months was driven from the Vatican by one Christopher, 
 his chaplain, who in turn is expelled by Sergius IIL, whom the 
 soldiers brought in. This man lived in open profligacy. His 
 paramour, Theodora, loved another after him, and made her lover 
 pope. That was John X. He was a good soldier, and gave the 
 Saracens a taste of his courage and skill. But the daughter of 
 Theodora hated John, flung him into prison, and there they smothered 
 him with a pillow. This woman, Marozia, made her own son pope, 
 and called him John XL But Alberic, another of her sons, mutinied, 
 cast his brother, the pope, and his mother, the pope-maker, into 
 prison, and raised his own son to the chair of Peter, who was just 
 19 years old when he was at the head of all Christendom, and God's 
 vicar upon earth. His life was appalling, even in that time. His 
 immoralities outraged a grossly immoral people. He consecrated a 
 boy of ten years old as bishop, and performed the ceremony over 
 another boy in a stable. He was deposed at last by a council, and 
 finally murdered by a citizen in revenge for personal wrongs. I 
 might speak also of John XIII. , who was strangled in prison ; of 
 Boniface VII., who imprisoned Benedict VII. and killed him by 
 starvation ; of John XIV., who was put to death in the castle cf 
 St. Angelo ; — but I will only give the blackest part in all the story. 
 There had been two popes at once, and fierce wars between them, 
 but other wars were yet to follow. Benedict IX., in 1033, a boy of 
 less than twelve years, was made Pope of Rome. Of him one of 
 his successors declared that his life was so foul, so execrable, that 
 
THE ROMAN CA THOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 37 
 
 he shuddered to describe it. The people at last rose up against 
 him, and when he could resist the popular fury no longer, he put the 
 papal chair up to auctfon. It was bought by a presbyter named 
 John, who became Gregory VI., in the year of grace 1045. There, 
 that is a chapter of popish history ! 
 
 Let me give you another ; — I will make it brief. Begin with 
 Boniface VIII., if you will, who became pope in 1294. But when 
 he ascended the papal throne another pope was living — one Peter 
 Morrone, who had been a visionary hermit, seeing many angels in 
 the air, and hearing sounds of phantom bells. A weak man was 
 Peter, far fitter to dream his dreams and tell them to the credulous, 
 than to govern Christendom ; of which fact Peter became aware, and 
 so abdicated. A strange thing, I may remark, in passing, that 
 Christ's vicar upon earth, divinely chosen by men inspired, should 
 afterward declare by his abdication that heaven and the cardinals 
 had blundered. It is not easily explained ; but then^ there are many 
 things about the papacy which " no fellow can understand." By 
 his successor, Boniface, whom I have named, Peter was thrown into 
 prison, and shortly afterwards seen by a monk ascending to heaven, 
 which opened to receive him. This Boniface drained Europe of 
 money. The wealth of England and France passed into the hands 
 of the church, that is, into the hands of the pope. He devised the 
 jubilee, which brought much money ; he quarrelled with nearly every 
 christian king then ruling ; he issued the bull " unam sanc/am" which 
 declared it necessary to salvation to believe that every *' human 
 being is subject to the pontiff of Rome." Against him England and 
 
 I France rebelled at last, and here is the charge drawn up by them : — 
 
 I (i) That Boniface was not a true pope ; (2) That he was a heretic ; 
 
 i (3) That he was a Simoniac ; (4) That he was a man weighed 
 down with crimes. There are other charges brought against him, 
 but they are of so foul a nature that I could not utter them before 
 any audience. For nine years he lorded it over God's heritage, and 
 
 I then was seen this — a pope of Rome, the holy father of the church 
 astride a lean and wretched horse, with his face to the tail, being 
 that way conveyed to prison, where in a short time he died. His 
 successor, Benedict, had but a short breath as pope, for they gave 
 him a basket of figs, of which he ate, and died in a few days. Then 
 the seat of ecclesiastical empire is changed, for the pope who 
 followed Benedict took up his residence at Avignon, in France. For 
 a whole seventy years the popes forsook the Eternal City. Of course 
 
38 -: CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 there was a rival pope at Rome, and the two were ever at open war. 
 Each charged the other with most fearful crimes, a id at last a 
 solemn council declared that each was guilty of all the crimes 
 imputed to him, and deposed them both, electing Alexmder in their 
 stead. Three popes at once, and all infallible ! If you want to 
 know as to the morality of the papacy at that time, history will tell 
 you that the pope's court at Avignon in the time of Clement VI. was 
 the most voluptuous in all Christendom. The pope's lady grew vastly 
 rich by the sale of church promotion. Petrarch, who lived there at 
 the time, declares it to have been a vast brothel, and he had personal 
 reason to remember and hate the pope to the last day of his life. 
 Then you can come down to the days of Alexander and his infamous 
 son Caesar Borgia, who made the streets of Rome run down with blood, 
 and violated every law of honour and of virtue. For long ages the 
 popes of Rome, with scarce an exception, were guilty of almost 
 every crime that could be done under heaven. They gathered 
 wealth by open tyranny or secret dishonesty ; they lived in the most 
 flagrant profligacy, and gave their benediction to any wrongs. A 
 pope declared that fornication and adultery were not sins at all ; 
 another, that all the monks and bishops were hypocrites ; another, 
 that Mary was no more a virgin than his mother was, and Christ not 
 half so great as he. They denied the real presence of Christ in the 
 sacrament, and laughed to scorn the fundamentals of christian faith. 
 Cardinal Bembo advised a. friend not to read St. Paul ; it would 
 spoil his taste, he said. What can I more say ? The time would 
 fail me to tell half the story of their wickedness. The Apostles 
 were ensamples of manly virtue. Their successors were steeped to 
 the lips in crime. And can you wonder that this living, crowned lie 
 grew to be hateful to men ? You shudder to hear of it ; you recoil 
 with horror as you catch glimpses of those dark forms through the 
 vistas of long ages. What must it have been to men and women to 
 whom these things were not of the past, but of the present ; who 
 were face to face with them every day and all day long, year in 
 and year out 1 The ages were dark — ignorance was profound ; but 
 the people had some love for moral goodness — the earth had not 
 become quite devildom, and men had capacity, and knew it, to 
 admire virtue. They heard virtue preached, and saw in papal palace, 
 in monastery and convent, little else but blackest vice. They heard 
 truth preached, and saw a lie acted out; they asked for bread and 
 got a stone. And no wonder that they revolted ; that they rose up 
 
THE ROMAN CA TIIOLIC CHURCH. 39 
 
 fiercely against this priestly greed, priestly tyranny, priestly profli- 
 gacy. They were tired of the rule of his holiness— the devil. The 
 church called itself christian, but was pagan as to doctrines, was 
 pagan as to ceremonies, was pagan as to morality, and paganism is 
 not to be made permanent on earth, so the Roman Church passed 
 to decay. .^ : .: : , 
 
 There is one other cause of that decay of which I should like to 
 remind you — the Church of Rome failed to recognise the fact that 
 the world of mind is set to an ascending scale, and cannot be kept 
 clown to the same level always. At first Catholicism was in perfect 
 accord with the intellectual wants of Europe. It had no need to 
 exercise a tyranny, for the latitude it permitted was all men cared 
 to have. It was not simply a sect, or a dominant party, acting on 
 the nat'ons of Europe, forming a weight in the balance of power, 
 but rather an all-pervasive energy animating and vivifying the whole 
 social system. All the institutions of the people, social or political, 
 grew out of ecclesiastical teachings — men remained in the church 
 just as they preserved their family relations or their nationality. 
 But that state of things could not be made permanent, for it could 
 only exist by the suppression of all criticism and a complete par- 
 alysis of all speculative faculties. The great aim of the Roman 
 Church was immobility, and the actual practice of the church was 
 retrogression. She went back to paganism, and tried hard to drag 
 the people with her. Her ceremonies, with such elaborate efforts 
 after scenic display, are pagan ; her doctrines of transubstantiation 
 and of eternal hell are pagan. But the world never sleeps long 
 together. It moves slowly, but it moves. The revival of learning 
 commenced. The first pulses of returning intellectual life began to 
 throb, and men questioned what before they had received without a 
 doubt. Printing was invented, and letters were ever a foe to Rome. 
 Men began to breathe more freely. The word of freedom was 
 whispered here and there, and passed along from lip to lip. In the 
 south of France it took shape— the gay and gallant troubadours, in 
 the beautiful langue doc, the very tongue for minstrelsy, improvised 
 their songs and flung sly scorn at pope and priest. It was a merry 
 epidemic, and spread as joy spreads on a May-day when villagers 
 dance on the green. And while the young were singins: the old 
 were thinkings soberly and sadly, but greatly. The church had said, 
 with authority, the earth is a flat surface ; heaven is a few miles up 
 in the air — hell is in the bowels of the earth. Science said, one 
 
40 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 day, " Not so. The earth is a globe — see here, by the measurement 
 of a degree and by the pendulum we have demonstrated it." "It 
 is a damnable heresy," said the church. *'It is a fact, none the 
 less," was the answer. The church quoted the Psalms, the Penta- 
 teuch, and the Prophecies ; her opponents quoted their figures and 
 the voyages of Columbus, De Gama, and Magellan. Copernicus 
 broached some new theories about the heavens. One Lippershey, a 
 Hollander, discovered the telescope ; Galileo looked through it, and 
 put more Roman dogmas in great peril. Rome made mighty 
 efforts to turn back the advancing tide, but all in vain. The 
 gigantic intellect of Europe had been asleep, drugged by an opiate 
 administered by the church ; but it was awake now, and full of a 
 new life. Soon the beautiful valleys of Piedmont were filled with 
 AValdenses ; the poor men of Lyons dared to preach this dangerous 
 dogma : that the sanctity of a priest lay not in his doctrine, but in his 
 manner of life. They denounced the doctrine of transubstantiation^ 
 the invocation of saints, purgatory, and proclaimed open war with 
 the sale of indulgences. Tetzel went vending indulgences through 
 Germany, to get money for the pope. " Ah !" said Luther, " I shall 
 make a hole in your drum and stop that music ;" and straightway 
 did it, after a fashion of his own. The pope got angry ; Luther 
 lived on. The pope excommunicated him ; Luther burnt the bull 
 in the market-place. The church summoned Luther to the Bar of 
 Creeds ; Luther summoned the church to the Bar of Divine Truth 
 as revealed in the Word of God, compelled her to stand forth in the 
 light of religion that she might be judged, stripped off her fine cloak, 
 and bade the world see how false the thing was. Whole nations 
 broke from the ancient thraldom, flung down the shackles of a 
 tyrant priesthood, and rose up strong, glad, grand in the conscious- 
 ness of recovered manhood. God be praised for the brave German 
 monk who fought so well and gave us our protestant faith — the faith 
 cf free men. 
 
 Over in England a star had long been shining, for Wickliffe had 
 given the people the Bible in such form as they could read it, — and 
 the Bible correctly translated into the vulgar tongue was ever as a 
 sword in the bones of Rome. The revolution came, and papal 
 power was for ever broken in England. Rome strove hard against 
 jl* . When she knew the war was come, she marshalled all her forces. 
 The crusades were invented at one time to distract the attention of 
 Europe from her iniquities. The toy served well for a while. The 
 
THE ROMAN CA THOLIC CHURCH. 41 
 
 Order of Bare-footed Carmelites was instituted. Ignatius Loyola, 
 founded the Society of Jesus, which ever since has been Rome's 
 most useful tool. She resorted to rough measures when they 
 became necessary. Copernicus was denounced, and his book inter- 
 dicted ; Galileo was dragged before his masters and punished 
 fiercely. She employed all the vast resources at her command to- 
 arrest the expansion of the human mind, to impede the circulation 
 of knowledge, and to quench the lamp of liberty in blood. In 1208 
 Innocent III. established the Inquisition. In 1209 began the mas- 
 sacre of the Albigenses. In 1215 the Fourth Council of the Lateran 
 enjoined all rulers, " as they desired to be esteemed faithful, to 
 " swear a public oath that they would labour earnestly, and to the 
 " full extent of their power, to exterminate from their dominions all 
 " those who were branded as heretics by the chu'-ch." By the 
 Inquisition alone more than 31,000 persons were burnt, and more 
 than 290,000 condemned to punishments less severe than death. In 
 the Netherlands, during the reign of Charles V., at least 50,000- 
 were slaughtered by mother church. The work of death was done 
 in most terrible and revolting form. All that ingenuity could invent 
 in form of torture was practised. The victims were usually burnt 
 alive — often at a slow fire. A single member of a family, a son, 
 perhaps, in the flush of his early youth, would be accused. With 
 ruthless hands they drag him forth, and the "mother saw the body of 
 him, who was dearer to her than life itself, dislocated and writhing 
 and quivering with pain. She watched the slow fire creep from limb 
 to limb till it had swathed him in a sheet of agony, — and when, at 
 last, the scream of anguish had died away and the tortured body 
 was at rest, she was told that all this was acceptable to the God she 
 served, and was but a faint image of the sufferings he would inflict 
 through eternity upon the dead." France had its black Bartho- 
 lomew's Day, and England saw the fires of Smithfield burn to ashes 
 the bodies of its noblest sons and daughters. Rome fought like a 
 fiery dragon ; Rome fought like a devil ; Rome fought with the fury 
 of a thousand devils — but in vain. Rome's ancient power was 
 broken ; Rome was thrust down. And there she lies — not dead, 
 but dying ; magnificent in ruin — but in ruin. 
 
 Is she dying.? Is she in ruin? Let us see how her present con- 
 dition looks to-day. Italy is free. That ancient stronghold of the 
 Roman Church — the land over which she exercised temporal as well 
 as spiritual power — is for her a stronghold no longer. The pope 
 
42 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 holds the Vatican, but Victor Emanuel holds th palace. He is 
 King of Italy, the free king of a free people, and the tiara of Pio 
 Nono must stoop to the crown of Victor Emanuel. It was a great' 
 problem, how to bring about this freedom, for the Italians groaned 
 under this twofold form of tyranny. Brave Garibaldi drew his sword 
 and cut the Gordian knot. Will Italy go back to its old allegiance 
 again ? I think not. The king is under the ban of excommunica- 
 tion, and yet he lives and seems content. The pope screams, ful- 
 minates anathemas, is infallible, and yet he is not happy ! Yes, in 
 reckoning up the friends of the Roman Church, you may mark off 
 Italy. 
 
 Then there is France. France has done great things for the 
 papacy ; poured wealth into its coffers ; given it vast dominions ; 
 given it protection from its foes ; given it the education of its young^ 
 the conscience and reason of the people. And the church has given 
 France — what ? Short-lived martial glory, the fetters of ignorance, 
 the sanctification of crime, and most bloody revolutions. The 
 French people have never been sober — never been able to hold 
 themselves in calm possession by reason of the priests. They have 
 been forced into one of two extremes . that of superstition, in 
 which they gave up their right of conscience and of reason to 
 the church, — or to Atheism, when they denied God and truth and 
 justice. There have been oscillations — the whole people one day 
 bowing at the shrine of some new saint, or greedily drinking in the 
 tale of some new miracle, and the next pulling down churches and 
 breaking altars and images, enthroning Reason as the only God. But 
 France has broken with the papacy — not with religion, but with the 
 papacy, with the religion of popery, religion as taught and lived by 
 priests and bishops — the religion which has given her an ignorant and 
 superstitious people. France is taking education out of the hands of 
 the priests, establishing schools in spite of the church, and refuses 
 more to aid the papal power with her arms. The work of regenera- 
 tion will be done slowly, but it will be done, and glorious France 
 will work out its national salvation. ' i: --; ,._,,.., 
 
 Austria is in just such a state as France — for Austria, so long 
 ground down by the iron heel of Rome, impoverished by her rapa- 
 city, and befooled by her superstition, has taken the franchise and 
 is using it in vigorous form. 
 
 Germany— ah ! the sturdy German has conquered popery once 
 more; revenged again the ancient wrongs^ and this time the work 
 
THE ROMAN CA THOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 43 
 
 seems fully done. The Jesuits have been driv^en out of Germany, and 
 will scarcely be allowed to return, I think. I have heard those Falck 
 laws by which it was done condemned, and Bismarck denounced 
 for carrying them through, by even zealous Protestants. They say 
 it was persecution ; I say " No, it was needful protection." They 
 say it was against the papacy ; I say " No, it was on behalf of the 
 German nation." Let me prove that to you — it is very simple. 
 At the time, the papacy was being reduced to great straits. Italy 
 had declared for a free church in a free state, the great civil dogma, 
 w^hich, carried out, is a blessing which acts on church and state with 
 good to both. But it was a blow to the temporal power of the 
 papacy. In the Prusso-Austrian war, it was the hope of the papacy 
 to restore the German empire under Austria, and so make Germany 
 a catholic nation. That hope went out in disappointment. Then, 
 again, in the Franco-German war, the French expected ultramontane 
 sympathies in Germany. Every effort was put forth to excite 
 catholic sentiment against the protestants. They were spoken of 
 as atheists ; it was persistently stated that they were incapable of 
 being honest men. " The followers of Luther are the most aban- 
 doned men in all Europe," they said. The pope, thinking all living 
 men had forgotten history, said, "Let the German people under- 
 stand that no other church but that of Rome is the church of 
 freedom and progress." A part of the German clergy remonstrated, 
 and determined to resist the papal usurpation. They protested 
 against a man being placed on the throne of God — against a vice- 
 God of any kind. They even declared the pope a heretic. Against 
 these insubordinates excommunications were fulminated, and at last 
 the demand was made that some professors and teachers be removed 
 from office, and those who held the pope's infallibility be substituted. 
 But the Prussian government said No. Bismarck and his govern- 
 ment wanted to maintain peaceful relations with the papacy. It 
 did n't want, still less did it seek, a theological quarrel ; but it soon 
 found that the question was not one of theology, but one of politics. 
 A teacher in a gymnasium was excommunicated, and the church 
 demanded of the government his dismissal from office. The gov- 
 ernment refused, and the church authorities declared that refusal an 
 attack upon their faith. The king sided with his minister, and was 
 at once threatened with the revolt of all the good catholics in the 
 country. They told him that in a contention with the pope, 
 governments must yield and change. So that the plain issue was 
 
44 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. __ 
 
 this — " Who is to be master in the state, the government of the 
 country, or the Roman Church?" Here were two authorities, the 
 one declaring that what the other did was wrong, and men could 
 not live in obedience to both. The government resolved to assert 
 its own supremacy, and first of all abolished the Roman catholic 
 department in the ministry of Public Worship ; then passed a law 
 that clerics abusing their office to the disturbance of the public 
 peace be criminally punished, and separated the schools from the 
 church. The Jesuit party was establishing an organization all over 
 Germany, based on the principle that state legislation is not binding 
 in ecclesiastical matters. The Bishop of Ermeland declared that he 
 would not obey the laws if they touched the church. He was the 
 servant of the state ; he was being paid by the state ; so were all 
 the Jesuits ; — and this was open rebellion. The state stopped that 
 bishop's pay, and then, finding that there was no hope of peace 
 while the Jesuits were there, sent them all away. Then the laws 
 were passed, theyfrj/" of which was to regulate the means by which 
 a person might sever his connection with the church ; the second, 
 to restrict the church in the exercise of ecclesiastical punishments ; 
 the third, to regulate the power of ecclesiastical discipline, forbid- 
 ding bodily chastisement, regulating fines and banishments, and 
 granting the privilege of appeal from the priests to a royal court of 
 justice ; and last of all, ordaining the preliminary education and 
 appointments of priests, and closing all institutions which should 
 refuse to be superintended by the state. And the government was 
 in the right. It only did its duty to the state. The civil power 
 must be supreme ; the civil law must be respected, or there is no 
 peace and no prosperity for a nation, n. bishop, who is in receipt 
 of state pay, who is duly recognized as a public teacher, if he 
 declare that the government is not to be obeyed, is guilty of treason, 
 and should be dealt with as Germany dealt with the Bishop of 
 Ermeland. If a body of men, be they who they may, shall organize 
 discontent into revolt : shall use their position and their church 
 authority as an instrument of sedition, — then, the government have 
 a right, nay, it is laid upon them as a duty, to treat that body of 
 men as Germany treated the Jesuits, turn them out. It was not at 
 all persecution, but the firm and legitimate action of a civil govern- 
 ment, determined to protect the people and guard the national 
 interests- The papacy has nothing more to hope from Germany. 
 Of the papacy in England, I will not stay to speak now. I shall 
 
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 45 
 
 _^ ^ 
 
 have an opportunity when I come to speak of the English Church. 
 Suffice it to say that England has taken her freedom of conscience, 
 and means to keep it. 
 
 So only Spain is left, poor Spain, tlie ancient home of chivalry, 
 the great, the beautiful Spain, now bankrupt in politics, bankrupt in 
 morals, bankrupt in money and being wound up. There is not much 
 in Spain for the priests to feed upon. 
 
 Only bankrupt Spain left ; pardon me, I am wrong. There is 
 another land, a new one as to its people, who are small as yet in 
 number, but they are brave, hardy, and thrifty withal. They are just 
 learning the magnificent resources of their country, how to turn to 
 ^ood account their forests, lakes, and rivers — I mean this Canada of 
 ours. I hear it said that Rome is looking this way with great interest 
 and hope. She dares to think she may have a great nation loyal to her 
 here in the far west. But others, who are not slaves of the priests 
 have an interest in Canada as to its present and its future. Now 
 let it be remembered that our quarrel with the Roman Church here, 
 is not a theological one, but altogether political. As to religious 
 ■dogmas and forms of worship, the churches must fight those things 
 out. And every church must have equal freedom to preach its own 
 dogmas, and to exercise its right of worship. But here is the diffi- 
 culty, — the old difficulty of Italy, of Germany. France, and of 
 England. The Church of Rome is a political institution. She 
 demands the government of the people in things temporal as in things 
 spiritual ; she will not accept the condition of a free church in a free 
 state, but will have it that she shall be a free church in a fettered 
 state. The legislature must be made to work for her or she will not 
 submit to it. She claims to be the supreme authority, and will let 
 none work apart from her. If catholic judges, doing their duty, 
 having regard to their high judicial office and their solemn oath, 
 shall justly administer the law, they are at once excommunicated, 
 put under the curse of the church for this world, and for that which 
 is to come. And what does that mean ? [ am happy to believe that 
 in the case of the judges who lately did their duty in this matter, not 
 fearing the anathemas of the bishops, it does not mean much. They 
 are enlightened men, and not much afraid of the power mother 
 church may exercise in eternity, I suspect. But what must it mean 
 to those who are not as they, to those who are blind followers of the 
 priests, to those who believe— as many of them do— that the church 
 ■can bar the soul from communion with God, can deny it all the 
 
46 . CHURCHES OF CHRISTEXDOM. 
 
 blessings of redemption, and torture them in everlasting fire ; what 
 must it mean to them ? Why, an authority not to be resisted. When 
 I speak to men on politics, be it from pulpit or platform, I speak as 
 man to men, not as master to slaves, I speak to a people who have 
 been trained from their youth up to have and to exercise the right 
 of private judgment. The priest speaks to a people who have beer> 
 trained to believe that they have no such right, and will use it at 
 the peril of their soul. I do not use the authority of a church claim- 
 ing to be infallible in its judgment ; the priest does. I do not 
 threaten the disobedient with eternal torment ; the priest does. 
 I say if the government is bad, turn it out — if the laws are bad, 
 change them ; but the priest says : " disobey government or laws.*' 
 I speak, as I believe, not for my church or any church, but for the 
 national welfare ; my motive, at least, is drawn from sentiments of 
 patriotism. The Church of Rome cares nothing for the nation, but 
 all for the Church of Rome. 
 
 Look at the condition of the Roman catholic population in the 
 city of Montreal, and you have proof of it. There is a most expen- 
 sive system of education doing almost nothing. The priests have 
 claimed the right to educate the children of Roman catholic parents. 
 It was granted. They dealt with it in secret conclave. Three or 
 four months ago there was a Council of Education composed of 
 bishops, priests, and the Superintendent of Education, as tractable 
 and dumb a slave as ever was Nubian to his Roman lord. And 
 what did they ? Nobody knows. It was too much or too litde to tell. 
 One hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars a year the government 
 of Quebec pays for education, and yet the Roman catholics of 
 Montreal have to pay over $100,000 more. And for that what do 
 they get ■* Almost nothing. Elementary education is entrusted to 
 young girls ; and to show how well they are qualified for the work, 
 let me tell you that awhile ago they wanted an increase of salary, 
 and couldn't write a letter to the Board to ask for it ! There is a 
 Roman catholic normal school which has no functions, for not a 
 teacher is required to get a diploma from it, yet we spend much 
 money to keep up the staff of priests there. General education 
 among the Roman catholics is a myth. If they would learn to read 
 and write they must go to college, and there they learn so much that 
 they are unfitted for the trade or manual labors of the country, and 
 are fitted only for some of the learned professions — most of all for 
 the clerical. Such a course must tell disastrously upon the industrial 
 
THE ROMAN C A TIIOLIC CHURCH. . ^ 
 
 development of a people. A while ago there was a large number of 
 mechanics' institutes, and literary institutes, and debating clubs, but 
 with the exception of one, they are all gone. The priests don't want 
 the people to have mechanics' institutes, and literary societies, and 
 debates ; they won't have them, and so they killed them all, and put 
 in their places card, and billiard, and drinking clubs. The priests 
 don't want to see the people enlightened. They only want blind, 
 abject obedience. And this ignorance tends to poverty, as always. 
 All the industries here are started by other than Roman catholics. 
 A Scotchman will get rich while Roman catholics remain poor. 
 What progress have you in this city among the Roman catholic 
 population? Not much, if any. How is that ? Is it because they 
 have not capacity ? Oh no, my Roman catholic friends, your priests 
 have done it. The same thing is going on out in the country. The 
 agricultural development is hindered, for the priests exact a tithe on 
 all grains grown, and have the first lien on all lands for the building 
 of churches. , « , . . 
 
 Now, what are we to do .'' Well, first of all, learning from the 
 past, we must demand that the education of all children be put ia 
 the hands of competent persons. Then, that all the churches be 
 free, having equal rights, but be allowed to exact no privileges. 
 There must be no immunity from taxation for ecclesiastical institu- 
 tions or for the clergy. Let the actual house of worship be free, but 
 all the rest be taxed — be it convent, nunnery, or parson's or sexton's 
 house. I am a clergyman, but I am also a citizen of Montreal, and 
 I demand all the privileges of citizenship : protection for my person 
 and my property by day and by night — the right to give my vote — 
 the right of free speech and free action ; and I also demand my right 
 to bear the full burden of citizenship. I don't want to be coddled 
 and dry-nursed by the corporation. I protest against exemption 
 from taxation, and declare that for myself and all the clergy of the 
 Dominion, for parsons' houses or sextons' houses, or monkeries or 
 nunneries to be exempt, is an injustice — a shame — an iniquity. 
 Those nunneries, being supported by charity and exempt from tax- 
 ation, are inflicting a serious injury upon the popr sewing women, 
 who are not exempt from taxation and have their rents to pay. 
 They are inflicting an injury upon trade by being allowed to carry 
 on the manufacture of red spruce gum without the usual trade tax. 
 Because of the politics of the Roman Church we are compelled to 
 have three governments, when one would do the work much better 
 
CHURCHES OF CHISTENDOM. 
 
 and save us much money, as well as the shame of much political 
 intrigue and immorality. We will give to our Roman catholic 
 fellow-subjects all the rights we demand for ourselves, all the rights 
 of British subjects, but no more. The Roman Church shall be as 
 free as any protestant church ; but when she turns to political 
 action, defies the civil power, or plays the t\ rmt, then we shall say 
 to her: — " No ; we own to Queen Victoria, but not to the Pope of 
 " Rome. Canada for the Canadians, and not for the priests." We 
 are protestants — that is, we are free ; our shoulders have not been 
 trained to any yoke. We have not forgotten our fathers' manful 
 struggle for freedom and a pure faith ; we remember yet how they 
 suffered and died in the sacred cause of enlightenment and con- 
 science. We know that Rome is the enemy of a nation's material 
 prosperity. It is the enemy of civilization ; of popular intelligence ; 
 of domestic peace ; of general freedom ; of social morality ; of chris- 
 tian faith ; of pure religion. It is the friend of popular ignorance ; of 
 superstition ; of pagan barbarism ; of social immorality ; of political 
 corruption ; of anarchy and sedition, and bloody revolution. And 
 therefore, while saying to our catholic fellow countrymen : " Friends, 
 ■" we would have you free ; free from priestcraft ; free from the tyranny 
 ■" of Rome ; free to be educated ; free to develop all your natural gifts 
 ■*' and resources ; free to exercise your franchise without fear of priestly 
 ^* anathema — we say, and mean it too, no church must meddle with ■., 
 " our civil rights ; no church must hinder our national development 
 " in education, in industrial and commercial enterprise. You have 
 *' exercised your tyranny elsewhere, but here we meet it with our 
 sturdy, manful * No ! ' In the name of English liberty and the 
 " protestant faith, it shall not be." 
 
 ■(< 
 
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. 
 
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. 
 
 On every page of world history we meet evidences of the Divine 
 interference in the affairs of men. The kings of earth may set 
 themselves, and the rulers thejeof take counsel together against the 
 Lord and against his anointed, saying — " Let us break their bands 
 asunder and cast away these cords from us." But in vain the league 
 and covenant ; in vain the fierce uprising. The Lord has ordained 
 the world to life, and will not yield it to the ravages of human pride 
 and lust. Man, as barbarian, half-civilized, or wholly civilized, has 
 always had his affairs guided by a benificent power he could not 
 resist. And at no time in all the long march of the ages has the 
 truth of man and God been left without direct and brave witnesses. 
 When all the world seemed sinking into the void and darkness of 
 paganism, Abraham came forth from Ur of the Chaldees, and, by 
 his inward faith and outward justness, lit a torch in the wilderness of 
 Canaan which ever since has been as the world's pillar of fire to guide 
 it through the night. When, in the after ages, Israel had turned to 
 idols, led by disloyal kings and lying prophets to bow down at the 
 altars of false gods, Elijah in the desert wailing out his passionate, 
 bitter, " I only am left," is startled by the revelation that seven 
 thousand men, each as true, if not so great as he, are there in the 
 caves of Israel, loyal to the ancient faith and covenant, and brave 
 to uphold the truth, — a noble army of seven thousand, who have 
 not, and will, not bow the knee to Baal. In the church of the 
 Waldenses, of which I am to speak to-night, you have an illustration 
 of that, as striking and as startling as you will find on any page of 
 universal history. * ^ a. 
 
 In my last lecture I gave the history of the Church of Rome, a 
 history of the furious working of ambition and spiritual despotism, a 
 history of faith's gradual decay, the thrusting out of religion, the 
 enthronement of unbelief and unreason, a history of immorality in 
 speech and in deed ; when the Ahabs of Israel, calling themselves 
 popes and God's vicars upon earth, led the Lord's heritage to sacri- 
 fice at Baal's altars. I can imagine that in those darkest days, when 
 
 4 
 
CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 in the Vatican, and in the Holy City, sin held high carnival under 
 ecclesiastical patronage, some visitor to Rome, into whose mind has 
 been shot a ray of pure light, creating there a brave and holy thought 
 of reformation for the people, looking round upon all the mad de- 
 bauchery of church and state, and asking passionately, " Must truth 
 and christian love perish at the hands of christians ? Is there no 
 baptism but for the flesh and the devil ? no honor but for wrong and 
 injustice ? Is there no power to cleanse the church and lead it to its 
 ancient faith and truth ?" And I can imagine the mocking answer that 
 would come : " Look round and see j where is the church ? Here 
 are hosts of priests, magnificent temples of worship, richly decked 
 altars, the oft-repeated form of service and use of the sacraments ; 
 but the church, where is that ? Those priests are the ministers of 
 irreligion ; those temples are vast show houses, to which the people 
 go for bread and get a stone, a stone to kneel upon, and a stone as 
 object of worship, — and their own hearts get petrified, also turning 
 to stone. Morality is gone ; truth is gone ; faith fell dead in the 
 streets of Rome long ago. The church is a cruel mother, who has 
 devoured her own children. Reform this ! Sweeten the bitter 
 waters of the Dead Sea first, and then try to do it. Quench this 
 ambition ! Put out the fires of ^tna and Vesuvius, and then try." 
 And I can imagme the would-be iconoclast and reformer going back 
 to his sad musings again, with the Elijah cry upon his lips, " I only 
 am left." And yet, if that man with the thought of reformation ir* 
 his mind, instead of going back to his solitude in despair, will only 
 cross that mountain range they call the Alps, he will find that he is 
 not alone, for multitudes in the valleys there hold a pure faith, and 
 are moved by the great sentiment of christian love. Humble men 
 and women serve Christ all day long, living in simple fashion, and 
 loving each other bravely. No image worship there in church or in 
 house ; no prayers offered to Mary or to Peter ; no dominant 
 presthood, to live in pride and sensuality ; no spiritual despotism, 
 and no unblushing immorality. The Pope of Rome has no jurisdic- 
 tion there. His blessing, they think, will not be worth the having, 
 and so they wisely never ask it ; his word, they think, is not 
 infallible, not often wise, and so they never follow it. The men of 
 the Vaudois valleys are men of the Church of Christ, humble and 
 good and true, and, as we shall see, brave as lions in the day of 
 peril. 
 
 A fitting place those valleys in which to shelter the truth of God 
 
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. 53 
 
 and the earth. The church here is like a pure spring of water 
 •embosomed among the mountains. Take the geography of it. It 
 is called the valley of Piedmont, a simple accommodation of the 
 two Latin words pede and montium : the foot of the mountains. 
 They lie at the base of the Alps, the highest mountain range in 
 Europe, dividing Italy from France, Switzerland and Germany. It 
 has the duchy of Milan on the east, on the south Nice and Genoa, 
 on the west France, and on the north Savoy. At one time it was a 
 part of Lombardy, but later on it passed into the hands of the King 
 of Sardinia, who made the splendid city of Turin its capital. It 
 is a magnificent tract of rich and fruitful valleys embosomed in 
 lofty mountains, which are encircled by mountains yet higher than 
 they. Deep and rapid rivers intersect it here and there, the prin- 
 cipal of which are the Po, the Tauaro, the Stura, and the Dora. 
 The scenery is of strangely varied kind, forming most wonderful 
 contrasts. The beauty, the plenty, the calm of paradise are there ; 
 and there, too, the grimmest and darkest of precipices, wide lakes 
 and sheets of ice, and stupendous mountains, the head of them ever 
 white with snow. The entrance to most of the valleys is by a deep 
 and narrow defile, often by winding ways known only to the experi- 
 enced. Nature had fortified the place with difficult passes, and 
 bulwarks of mountain and rock ; and God put there a true church. 
 It was a cabinet in which the Lord placed his jewel of truth in time 
 of danger ; it was Israel's sacred cave where the thousands of the 
 faithful lived when the ecclesiastical Ahabs and Jezabels had set up 
 Baal's altar worship. 
 
 Another branch of this same faithful family dwelt close by in the 
 valleys which lie at the foot of the mountain range stretching from 
 the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, and called the 
 Pyrennes. There, too, you have the same contrasts of verdant 
 fields and frightful precipice, of fruitful gardens and bare, black 
 rock. There, too, Nature has built a wonderful citadel. It is a 
 natural garrison where a few can hold a host in check. This strong 
 geographical position is an important factor in the fortunes of those 
 people, as we shall see. .■£ . 
 
 When Rome was fast rising to temporal power, throwing out her 
 net to north and south and east and west, causing kings to bow the 
 neck and whole nations to swear allegiance, the men of the valleys 
 were overlooked, or, perhaps, were too poor and too obscure for her 
 queenly notice ; however, it was those christians at the foot of the 
 
54 -r.--^r^ CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. v; 
 
 Alps, for ages, by the beneficent providence of God, dwelt together in 
 peace, scarce hearing, and but little heeding, the great stir and throb- 
 of European life. They lived the lives of humble, God-fearing, and 
 justice-loving men and women. They were content with the simple- 
 eloquence of their preachers, and the simplest form of service. As 
 best they could they carried out the doctrines they were taught. By 
 the power of a strong faith, they lived most beautiful live? For 
 ages it went on, and when Rome did at last look that way and dis- 
 covered heresy lurking there, and demanded its destruction, the 
 knowledge and the command were too late. While the Vatican 
 busied itself with the subjugation of nations and the gathering of 
 wealth, the truth cast into the soil of the Vaudois valleys took root 
 and sprang up, and soon became a tree, and the tree became a 
 forest, stretching along the valleys and up the mountain side, and 
 into other lands, and the forest was so mighty that no papal storm 
 could level it, and no papal fire could burn it. 
 
 Let us not forget that geographical position has always had much 
 to do with the mould and make of a people. Palestine was chosen 
 from old for Israel. There, in the great highway of the nations, she 
 stood up a very light in the pagan world, and sending her truths of 
 God and of life to the ends of civilization. Israel in Egypt holding 
 the fat land of Goshen, could never have been what Israel was on 
 the bare, bleak hills of Canaan, and so the Lord led them out and 
 brought them to the land of promise. As firmly do I believe that 
 there was a direct interposition of divine providence in the estab- 
 lishment of the Vaudois in their valleys. For truth seemed in dan- 
 ger of being lost to the earth. In the East was apathy , a stir now 
 and then on account of some ventor of heresy ; war now and then 
 between philosophic theologians, but never the stir and throb of true 
 life, and never a bugle call to war against sin. In the West, as we 
 have seen, all of the practical Christianity it had, as to rules, and 
 systems, and creeds, all of energy and skill, were used for the 
 purposes of the proud and the lustful. A people were needed to 
 preserve for men the faith and truth of God, and they were found in 
 the Vaudois valleys, a people true and brave and strong. ?« ; -; - 
 
 The antiquity of the Waldenses is beyond dispute, but the precise 
 period of its rise is not ensily settled. Enough, that they were the 
 first protestants, and bore the name we know so well of puritans and 
 dissenters. And no wonder, for grand was the protest they made — 
 magnificent the form of dissent. Thej^^ protested in language 
 
THE WALDENSI AN CHURCH. 55 
 
 eloquent by reason of its simplicity and earnestness against image 
 worship, against the invocation of saints, the pagan doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, and the aggressive policy of bishops and popes. 
 They refused to give honour except to the honourable, demanding 
 life as well as a creed ; they refused to pay reverence to high office 
 or great title or temporal power, and would yield it only where it was 
 due — then most gladly, with praises to God, the giver of every 
 human grace. The life they lived was one of rare beauty and sim- 
 plicity, contentedly tilling the soil and gathering in the fruit. They 
 lived in peace together ; no wail of the dying or shout of the men of 
 blood there ; no plunder and pillage when the night has come ; no 
 instrument forged by priestly hands with which to scourge the 
 people ; no fierce controversy rending and tearing the church, but 
 industry and brotherhood joined in holy wedlock. Each wrought 
 humbly and prayed mightily, serving God as his conscience told him 
 how. They shunned wealth, afraid of the snare that ever lies hid in 
 the heart of it, — and yet none were poor and in want, for all loved 
 each and each loved all. They sought no titles of the earth, for 
 each had that highest title, " a son of God." They craved no lordly 
 mansions, for each owned a palace above built by the builder of 
 worlds. With their own hands they built their own churches, 
 asking no help from the state or the owners of land. Each was a 
 teacher of truth. When they were doing honest trade, they were 
 also doing great spiritual work. After they had sold their jewels 
 and trinkets, and were asked if they had nothing more, " Oh, yes," 
 the answer would be, " w^e have jewels still more precious than any 
 " you have seen — we have a precious stone so brilliant that by its 
 " light a man may see God ; another, which radiates such a fire as 
 " to enkindle the love of God in the heart of its possessor." And 
 so they would go on bringing forth many jewels from God's most 
 blessed Word, until the hearer often found " the pearl of great 
 price," and sold all he had for it. Oh, rare simplicity! What joy 
 to turn from Rome ; its insatiable ambition ; its howling and grasp- 
 ing priesthood ; its shameless immorality ; its crushing despotism, to 
 the peaceful Vaudois valleys, where christian faith and love are 
 bringing forth the rich fruit of peace and holy works. Sad that it 
 should be broken in upon by the tiger of the seven-hilled city. A 
 curse upon the bigotry which, for the sake of an empty creed, could 
 destroy so much of life and beauty. 
 
 I said just now it would be difficult to fix upon the precise period 
 
56 -^--^ ^^1 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. ^ — ^^- 
 
 of the rise of the Waldensian Church. Some historians, with con- 
 siderable ingenuity, have traced it back to the great Irenaeus, the 
 famed disciple of Polycarp, who had sat at the feet of John the 
 divine. And it may be that Irenaeus, in his journeys to the great 
 metropolis, had passed through those valleys and preached his glo- 
 rious gospel there, finding a people ready to hear and believe. The 
 Waldensians themselves claimed to date back to the time when the 
 church became secularized under the great Emperor Constantine, 
 declaring that they saw in the church only a spiritual power sepa- 
 rated from civil action or patronage. However it was, its singularity 
 attracted little or no attention up to the beginning of the 9th century. 
 Then a man came forth and laid the first stone in the great temple 
 which should rise slowly but surely, its stones cemented together by 
 the blocd of many saints. The man was Claude, Bishop of Turin. 
 Born in Spain, that sunny land and ancient home of chivalry, 
 Claude, early in life, turned with love and longing to the church. 
 With a bold and fearless mind he explored the broad fields of 
 theology ; he searched the Scriptures mightily, for the evil day had 
 not yet come when the Bible should be a forbidden book, — so that 
 even Luther, monk and doctor as he was, had to search long among 
 the musty tomes of a library before he could find the Word as Christ 
 and Paul had spoken it. It was not long before the industry and 
 talents and earnest piety of Claude drew attention to himself, and he 
 became chaplain in the court of Louis the Meek, King of France 
 and Emperor of the West. His powerful oratory drew multitudes to 
 hear him, and his power lay in a rare simplicity and earnestness. 
 The people, then as now, recognized an earnest man, and waited for 
 his word. 
 
 At length Louis the Meek, deploring the ignorance of a great 
 part of Italy concerning the doctrines of the Gospel, and having no 
 love for image-worship, which was spreading rapidly and disastrously, 
 sent his faithful Claude to Piedmont as bishop of the Turin see. 
 At once the work of reform began. No dreamer this Claude, the 
 Bishop, waiting for changes to come, and hoping they might be for 
 the better ; no sluggard nursing his two white hands ; no time-server 
 caring only for peace, and putting place as the lord of his con- 
 scienc, but a brave and faithful man who found in the world great 
 work to do, and in his heart a will to do it. It is like a chapter 
 from a Hebrew prophet's life, so bold he was to exhort and reprove, 
 to warn and denounce. He dragged forth sins from their lurking 
 
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. 
 
 57 
 
 places, and shamed men of them, as they showed in the light of 
 truth ; he lashed the lazy priests into action, and brought down the 
 fat of many ; he declared as his cardinal points of doctrine a pure 
 gospel and a pure life. The imai^es and the relics, and the pilgrim- 
 ages he hated as much as ever Elijah hated the Baal altars of his 
 land, and like Elijah bent all the force of his great soul to the 
 putting away of the sin. Of course a storm gathered and broke 
 about his ears, for his deeds and words raised the anger of priests 
 and monks. They called him a blasphemer and a heretic ; shot their 
 barbed arows straight for his heart. Even his own people rose 
 against him, and he went about in danger of his life. No marvel. 
 The world has ever been slow to recognize its true benefactors, and 
 the man who comes with his burden of truth-telling, must look for 
 pain and hunger and death. Bigotry spurned Christ and his word, 
 crucifying him between two thieves ; and if they hated him they will 
 hate his true disciples also ; and the truer they are in discipleship 
 the more will they get of the world's scorn. If the preacher will 
 dance to the piping of his age, proclaim in an orthodox way the 
 orthodox creed, fall in with the popular mood, and follow the 
 tyrant majority, then he will walk safely by day and by night ; make 
 a reputation for ability and prudence ; keep a well-stocked larder, 
 and a good digestion. But let him dare to be singular for the truth's 
 sake ; heterodox as concerning the letter perhaps, but true as con- 
 cerning the spirit ; earnest in his crying against the popular sins of 
 his day, and he will get only revilings and hate ; and just as the age 
 may be polite or vulgar in its vengeance, it will exact from him the 
 full penalty of his courage — perhaps pain, perhaps hunger, perhaps 
 a prison, perhaps a martyr's fiery end. 
 
 In doctrine Claude was singularly pure, and grandly hostile to 
 the pretensions of the Church of Rome. From the first by writings, 
 and by speech, he maintained that Christ is the alone head of the 
 church, thus laying an axe at the very root of the papal tree ; for 
 strike at its infallibility and you bring down its strength. Seven 
 hundred years before Luther did thunder it out upon the ears of 
 startled Christendom, Claude preached justification by faith alone, 
 without the deeds of the law. He declared that the church, mean- 
 ing thereby the popes and cardinals and bishops, was not infallible 
 at all, but fallible and greatly given to error ; and therefore the Bible, 
 and that alone, was the ground of a christian's confidence. "God 
 commands us," said he, " to bear our cross, and not to worship it, but 
 
58 ^^r - CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. r- ~ —-— 
 
 these are all for worshipping it and do not bear it at all." It is 
 strengthening to read his strong words — the floods of satire he poured 
 out upon the church, the scathing sarcasms, the earnest, tearful 
 appeal following each other in rapid succession. How he ended his 
 splendid life I know not, but his great work still lives, an imperishable 
 heritage. He taught men to find personal freedom, and the power of 
 a living faith — to live justly in love and good works. And the man 
 who teaches that writes his name on marble, and engraves his 
 memory on enduring brass ; a blessing on the memory of Claude, 
 Bishop of Turin, and the first great protestant. Rome has not writ 
 his name in her calendar of saints, but God has put it on the 
 bead-roll of earth's good and mighty men. 
 
 The teachings of Claude spread rapidly through the valleys of 
 the Piedmont, making multitudes of converts. The stone once cut 
 out of the mountain went rolling on and growing. The true light 
 which enlighteneth went shining in upon Lombardy and in upon 
 Alby, from whence came the Albigences, into Savoy and Spain — 
 everywhere changing the mind of the people. 
 
 Pass,/^r saltum^ over a space of more than 300 years. Rome is 
 in the zenith of her power and her glory ; sLe makes kings and 
 uumakes them ; she blesses or curses, enriches or impoverishes at 
 her will. About the year 1160 she had promulgated the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, and at the same time required all men on 
 penalty of excommunication from the church, and everlasting 
 burning, to hold the dogma from henceforth as an article of faith 
 necessary to salvation. That is the way Rome has always made 
 her doctrines and forced them on the, people. She was ever above 
 argument, for she holds the keys of heaven and hell. At once 
 the dogma was accepted, and a new form of idolatry was thus 
 introduced into the church. But a man in the city of Lyons dared 
 to set himself against the pope, and well nigh all the church, for to 
 hold that the wafer was the real body of Christ, and to worship it as 
 such, was, he felt, an outrage on his common-sense, a faculty he had 
 ventured to hold in his own keeping, not giving it over to priests. 
 The name of this bold man was Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of 
 that city. The merchant was also a scholar, and what is more, a 
 MAN. Lyons, situated on the confluence of the Rhine and the Soane, 
 had long before been blessed with ihe light of the Gospel. Faithful 
 preachers declared the word of truth, and holy men and women 
 walked its streets in the fear of the Lord and in christian love. 
 
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. y^cf 
 
 Persecution had flamed in upon them early, and a few ages more 
 found the light gone out. Again it is revived and Peter Waldo is 
 the master spirit in the work. It is the story of Luther centuries 
 before Luther came. Waldo had only revolted against the dogma 
 of transubstantiation at first, and never dreamt of breaking with the 
 Church of Rome, or stirring war against the pope, just as Luther 
 only quarrelled ^vith the traffic in indulgences, and meant to serve 
 the church. V aldo was content to buy and sell and make his 
 profits, getting rich in an ordinary way ; but a great awakening came, 
 and came suddenly. Sitting at supper one night with his friends, 
 and spending the time in frivolous talk, one of them fell down dead, 
 with scarce a word or a cry. The thing thrilled to the heart of 
 Peter Waldo, and from that time forth he set himself to the lofty 
 work of personal salvation, and teaching the way of life. He 
 searched the scriptures and found what every earnest seeker finds 
 there : " the pearl of great price." He found a way to escape from 
 the wrath to come ; he found peace and exceeding joy ; he found 
 new views and conceptions of truth and life and duty ; that there was 
 a way of rising above " the smoke and din of this dear spot which 
 we call earth," and a glory and heaven to be achieved greater than 
 material wealth can give, and lasting as the soul. He abandoned 
 his commercial pursuits, gave his wealth away in alms, and taught 
 the recipients of his bounty words of truth and life. 
 
 This living exemplar of the gospel he spoke could not but suc- 
 ceed. What the lips said, that the deed confirmed ; the teacher 
 lived his teachings, and that way made them powerful. Soon, his 
 knowledge became broader and deeper, and his courage grew. He 
 was not afraid to test the church ; he brought it to the word of God, 
 weighed it in the balance, and found it wanting. Her doctrines, 
 many of them, her rites, her services, her sacraments, her preten- 
 sions, had no foundation there he discovered ; and then he lifted 
 up his voice against the apostate church and the impious pope. It 
 was a great scandal, of course, and a thing not to be borne, that a 
 layman should dare to teach, still more to be, a heretic. The Arch- 
 bishop of Lyons was indignant ; the church was insulted and 
 outraged ; and Waldo was forbidden to teach or preach again, on 
 pain of excommunication. But when a man has once dared ta 
 break from the Church of Rome, and defied her thunder and light- 
 ning, it is marvellous how little he cares for all her swearing and 
 cursing. He is not afraid of her for this world, or for the world to 
 
CHURCHES OF CHISTENDOM. 
 
 come. Peter Waldo was not, and would not be, silenced so. The 
 constraining love is there, burning at his heart, and speak and teach 
 he must, though all the bishops in all Christendom forbid it. He 
 has received his ordination and commission from on high, and 
 wants no more authority. So he went about preaching ; got 
 scholars, who translated the bible that people might read it for 
 themselves. He gathered a church together in the city of Lyons, 
 a church of dissenters, a church of brave, bold nonconformists ; 
 and, in defiance of the pope, but in the great name of God, minis- 
 tered to them in holy things. .. 
 
 At last the Pope Alexander hears of those strange things done 
 in Lyons, and gives orders for a persecution, for the Church of 
 Rome could brook no freedom of thought or judgment or speech, 
 still less that any man or people should oppose her imperious will. 
 And persecution began. Peter Waldo and his companions were 
 forbidden to expound the scriptures and to teach \ but like another 
 Peter, who was greater than he, he answered back that they were 
 yielding obedience to a higher power than that of magistrate or 
 bishop, and would not cease from working until they had ceased 
 to live. They appealed to the pope, Alexander the Third ; sent 
 delegates, and a copy of their Romance version of the bible. The 
 matter came under discussion in the great Lateran Council, which 
 resulted in a commission to institute an examination of the case. 
 A learned monk made investigation of their religious knowledge 
 and their orthodoxy. But his ideas of religious knowledge and 
 theirs differed vastly. He meant by knowledge of religion, the 
 scholastic terminology of the church; but they meant the experience 
 of grace in the soul. He wanted doctrinal statements, and defini- 
 tions of the distinction between credere aliqind^ et in aliquid, and they 
 could only tell what they had felt and seen. And, failing in this 
 examination, permission to preach was refused. But, all the same, 
 sure of their cause and their calling, they preached without per- 
 mission, and in defiance of the pope ; and that meant in the teeth 
 of persecution. Waldo and his flock were driven from Lyons ; they 
 were hunted from place to place, nor ever allowed to rest. But, as 
 always, the persecutors overreached themselves, for the driven 
 people scattered the seed of life wherever they went, and a mighty 
 harvest sprang up. Persecution brought the Reformation in. Peter 
 Waldo spent twenty years in teaching and living the truth of Christ, 
 and then fell asleep, leaving multitudes behind to carry on the 
 
THE VVALDENSIAN CHURCH. 5, 
 
 great, brave work. So God's workers die . His heroes go down to 
 the grave ; but the work goes on, in spite of fire and flood. 
 
 A simple people were those protestants of the valleys, learned in 
 no lore save that of the ancient scriptures and rich only in faith and 
 good works. They held that the sacred scriptures, independent of 
 every other authority, explained from themselves, are the only source 
 of a knowledge of the christian faith ; they discarded the doctrine 
 of necessity for a special priesthood — denied the right of the church 
 to be a theocracy — denied the seven sacraments, the mass, the 
 dogma of transubstantiation, of the worship of saints, of purgatory 
 and of its associate dogma, that of indulgences. They declared for 
 an universal christian priesthood, holding that each was called to 
 minister in holy things. Their confession of faith put forth in 1120 
 is sufficient evidence of their purity of doctrine and an uncom- 
 promising hostility to the pretensions of Rome. In one article they 
 say " that Christ is our life, and truth, and peace, and righteousness ; 
 our shepherd and advocate, our sacrifice and priest, who died for the 
 sins of all who should believe, and rose again for our justification." 
 Their sentiment toward Rome is thus defined in the article which 
 immediately follows " and we also firmly believe that there is no 
 other advocate or mediator with God the father but j-.^sus Christ, 
 and as to the Virgin Mary, she was holy, humble, and full of grace ; 
 and this we also believe concerning all other saints, viz. : that they 
 are waiting in heaven for the resurrection of their bodies in the day 
 of judgment." And here is another of those articles of confession 
 "moreover. we have ever regarded all the inventions of men in the 
 affairs of religion as an unspeakable abomination before God — such 
 as the festival days and vigils of saints, and what is called holy 
 water, the abstaining from flesh on certain days, and such like 
 things — but above all, the masses." Not much of learning had those 
 men ; they were not doctors in divinity, but they had, and exercised 
 it seems to me, that great gift or faculty to which all religious dogmas 
 should be subject, common sense. If men would use that faculty 
 more, taking less from superstition and more from the facts of the 
 gospel and of daily life, they would be a little less afraid of the 
 fathers and respect themselves a little more ; would ask and think 
 in a manly way ; they would put away many of the abominations 
 they now have, would have a larger and freer life, a truer thought, a 
 diviner sentiment, and juster rules of conduct. Do I refer to the 
 Roman Catholics ? of course I do, to them and to the protestants^ 
 
62 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 I subscribe to the sentiments of the brave Waldenses, I accept their 
 creed and claim those who put them forth as among my ancestors 
 in the faith. A fig for the antiquity of Rome ; we are as old, and a 
 hundred times more venerable. We can claim at least that Protest- 
 ant creed and Roman Catholic creed have come along the ages side 
 by side, like the rivers Rhone and Garronne that run together for 
 many a league, but the waters never mingling ; the one bright, clear 
 and sparkling, emblem of a free glad life — the other a muddy stream 
 that rolls darkly along, with no pebbles gleaming from its bed, and 
 never a star reflected in all its gloomy depths, — fit image of Rome, 
 its doctrines and life. 
 
 From the time that Peter Waldo was driven from Lyons with his 
 flock following him, and persecuted from place to place by order of 
 his holiness the pope, the vengeance of the papacy followed the 
 Vaudois with relentless fury. The great St. Bernard preached 
 against them — used satire, anathemas and lies unsparingly. But 
 they lived on. Missionaries were sent from Rome to convert them, 
 and often went back converted to the Waldensian faith. Men 
 renowned for their skill in polemics were sent to holH disputations 
 with them, and got worsted in the combat. For the Waldenses 
 fought with only simple weapons ; no polished blades of Damascus, 
 or tempered steel of Toledo, but rough unpolished things ; no skill 
 to go down and finger freely at the roots of a Greek irregular verb ; 
 no power of nice distinction between the subtle forms of theologic 
 thought and speech ; but with the weapons which they had they 
 struck most mighty hard, cleaving through the shield and armor- 
 joints of the doughty knights of unbelief and unreason, bringing 
 them to their knees in shame and penitence. 
 
 But Rome had other arguments than those of her theologians — 
 arguments which others have borrowed or stolen from her at times 
 and used in a clumsy way, but of which Rome is the original author, 
 the patentee and the mistress. One of them was the greatest 
 argument she has ever used, and rarely failed to settle a dispute or 
 silence a heretic. Was it her noble army of scholars learned in 
 sacred things ? No. Was it the eloquence of her preachers that 
 went sweeping all opposition away like a mountain torrent when a 
 flood has fallen ? No. Was it the dialectic force and skill of her 
 great controversialists that convinced or compelled the reason ^. 
 No. Was it the beauty of the lives of popes and bishops and 
 priests drawing the people to their creeds and their altars? No.. 
 
THE IVALDENSIAN CHURCH. 
 
 w 
 
 Then was it her winsome gentleness, her power of prayer and tears 
 and pleading? No. It was "the holy Inquisition" — that tender, 
 pathetic, reasoning, emotional, motherly thing — the infernal in- 
 quisition. The heresy which was spreading so alarmingly, created a 
 want in the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical polity. It was found 
 that the system was not perfect, for there was no way of reaching 
 and exterminating the heretics. Papal bulls came roaring as did 
 those of Bashan in the olden time, but they generally got into the 
 pope's china shops and made a mess of things. Anathemas went 
 rushing from the Vatican hissing hot, but a brief passage through 
 the cool atmosphere of the people's indifference took the fire out of 
 them and they didn't burn up much. So more had to be done, and 
 more was done, for Rome was ever fruitful of inventions. The 
 church felt, and confessed she felt, a want — the devil supplied the 
 man to meet the want. Dominic was the name of him, with a 
 " Saint " before it, which a grateful church placed there. I have a 
 great reverence for " saints " — but then there are saints and saints — 
 saints of the Church of Rome, and saints of the Church of Christ. 
 This one was only a saint of the Church of Rome, and her way has 
 always been to reward those who did her special service. And taking 
 it that way, Dominic is a great saint. Descended from an illustrious 
 Spanish family, he was educated for the priesthood. In 1170 he 
 was born, and well for the world had it been, and well for himself, 
 I think, if the first breath of him had been also the last. Until he 
 came forth with his diabolical scheme of fire and blood, every bishop 
 was his own inquisitor, and punished heresy with all the power he 
 had, which was not much. The famous St. Bernard in a crowded 
 place once declaimed against the heretics, and the audience left 
 him to thunder at the pillars and empty benches, and all the mighty 
 man could do was to try again in the market place, and, failing 
 there, to shake the dust from his shoes against the obstinate city — 
 from which dust if the people of that city of Toulouse suffered, 
 history has not recorded it. But Dominic changed all that, finding 
 a remedy. In the early part of the thirteenth century he founded 
 the Inquisition, a secret tribunal set up in a secret chamber, with 
 just such arguments of speech as the inquisitors cared to employ, 
 and these failing, such powerful arguments as the rack and the 
 thumb-screw, or the embrace of an iron figure with both hands full 
 of knives, or else a pile of faggots and a torch. That was the 
 instrument this Dominic, this saint, set up for the conversion of; 
 
64 — — CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. - ^^-—-^ 
 
 heretics — an instrument that spread wailing and woe and bloody 
 slaughter throughout all Europe. And this man, having first formed 
 a race like himself — called at first "preaching friars," and then 
 " Dominican friars " — died in his bed, was canonized as a saint, 
 worshipped as a divinity, and proposed through Christendom as a 
 model of piety and virture. But as a quaint old writer has well 
 said, " never was such a rabble in the world as a Spanish saint roll. 
 The first class of them are ideal beings, or pagans, or enthusiasts, 
 but the last are saints ivith a vengeance, for all their steps to paradise 
 are marked with human blood." The Inquisition was certainly well 
 calculated to produce an uniformity of religious profession, for who 
 can stand against such weapons as it had at command ? but a more 
 infernal engine for the destruction of trust in the family, of all 
 freedom of thought and speech, of all manful rights and brotherly 
 honor, was never invented. It made the priesthood a despotism ; 
 it created distrust and jealousy everywhere; it made true and 
 lasting friendships impossible. A man was dragged to the tribunal 
 of the Inquisition; he knew not his accuser; he was ignorant of 
 the nature of the charge against him, and often died in that 
 ignorance, unless under torture he could invent some story of crime, 
 and in the agonies of death forge a lie. The Spanish people have 
 suffered most by the inventions of their fellow-countryman. By 
 nature, and as God made them, they are generous, bold and open, 
 and none in all Europe more chivalrous. Now, they are reserved, 
 distrustful and jealous ; in relig'on, ignorant and superstitious and 
 bigotted ; a lying people, and fierce in seeking revenge. What has 
 brought about the change? The 'holy Inquisition." "\yhen that 
 was established, suspicion sprang up in every breast ; friendship 
 pure and frank was at an end ; confidence no longer held families 
 together, for the brother ftared his brother, the father feared his son, 
 the daughter distrusted her mother ; society fell to pieces, broken 
 by the holy Inquisition. 
 
 The story of the VValdensian persecution is a story of most 
 heroic resistance, and clinging to faith and freedom, on the one 
 side ; and the most deadly, fierce, implacable hate, on the other. 
 Their goods were confiscated, their houses burned ; no one, on 
 penalty of death, could offer them focd and shelter. They were 
 condemned to enjoy no christian privilege while living, and burial 
 was denied to them when dead. The priests of Rome went 
 preaching from land to land, in order to stir up a crusade against 
 
THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. 
 
 65 
 
 the puritans of the Piedmont valleys. The favourite text of the 
 preachers was this, from the Psalms ; " Who will rise up for me 
 against the evil doers, or who will stand up for me against the 
 workers of iniquity ? " And the sermon always closed with an 
 earnest appeal to all the f^iithful, and a promise of pardon for all 
 their sins, if they would join the holy crusade against the heretics. 
 Many stood greatly in need of all the indulgence and pardon they 
 could get, and they joined the faithful papal army. But the pope 
 was not satisfied with the progress they were making ; only a 
 shower of rain was falling on the fire of heresy, and he wanted a 
 /f^^// poured down that should quench at once the flames, leaving 
 but the black ashes of dead men behind. And so he proclaimed 
 open war ; sold his garment and bought a sword ; and the struggle 
 began in grim and deadly earnest. Count Raymond was deposed 
 by the pope, and the papal army, pouring into the city of Beziers, 
 slaughtered the inhabitants, Albigenses and Roman Catholics 
 together. The city of Carcassone was taken by treachery, and the 
 Earl of Beziers foully murdered. Avignon was stormed, and all 
 the pro*:estants slain without pity. The same work of ravage and 
 murder was repeated in Alby ; and, all the time, the holy inquisi- 
 tion was working along with this army of fanatics, beginning, or 
 else completing, the deed of death ; working so hard, and doing so 
 muchj that it got glutted, and had to pause awhile from the work of 
 death from sheer exhaustion. The Church of Rome by this time 
 had drunk the blood of full a million protestants ; but her thirst 
 was not quenched, and she turned elsewhere for another draught of 
 this red, red wine, drawn from the veins of heretics. ^ , * 
 
 In the year 1400 was commenced the great war of extermination 
 against the Waldenses. It was toward the end of December, the 
 time when the mountains were covered with snow, and the great 
 avalanches thundered down to the valleys, and the passes we;e all 
 choked up, and then, without a whisper of warning, or a note of 
 challenge to battle, the Catholics broke into the peaceful valleys, 
 burned the houses, and destroyed with wanton cruelty all they could 
 lay their evil hands upon. Then might be seen defenceless and 
 homeless men and women rushing up the sides of the snow-covered 
 Alps to seek a place of hiding, with human hounds baying at their 
 heels. Mothers went struggling up, a cradle in one hand, and with 
 the other leading her boy of tender years. Night found them 
 shelterless and foodless, and morning found them by scores stark 
 
 5 
 
,^ ""' CHURCHES OF CIIKISTENDOM. 
 
 dead in the snow, and all this was done in the name of God 
 and religion. In 1484 Innocent VllI was pope, and sent his 
 legate with strict injunctions to raise an army and tread the 
 Waldenses under foot as venemous adders. '' Bend all your endea- 
 vours,'' said he, " and bestow all your care on so holy and so 
 necessary an extermination of the heretics." But, it was not in pope 
 or his legate to do that. Multitudes of those heretics bravely fought 
 and bravely died, and the blood they shed brought forth a mighty 
 harvest of believers. Onslaught followed onslaught ; fast as they 
 formed themselves into a community, it was broken up again ; they 
 were hunted down as if they had been wolves, and not peace-loving 
 men ; in Calabria they were utterly exterminated. But while fire 
 and sword destroyed the Waldenses, it had no power to destroy the 
 truth of God th 3y had. That lived on — a light of revelation, flashing 
 abroad on many lands ; a source of strength to the weak, courage to 
 the timid, and salvation to all who would. The truth of God is a 
 mountain torrent which mortal power may turn aside or bar back for 
 a little, but cannot dam up and stop ; it will rise and swell and break 
 away all human barriers, and go thundering down with life and 
 healing for the nations. "When Martin Luther came he was not 
 alone, for thousands of the " poor men of Lyons," as they were called, 
 and the Christians of the Vaudois valleys held a faith as pure, and 
 saving, and honouring to God as that he proclaimed from his pulpit 
 to the sturdy Germans. The Lord gave the world a word of peace 
 and life, and will not have it crushed or dismissed at the bidding of 
 an apostate church. 
 
 How the Waldenses were scattered by persecution, and how they 
 returned, fighting their way back to their dear valleys again, march- 
 ing as eagerly and resolutely as did Israel from Babylon, in the olden 
 time ; how they suffered and how they triumphed, getting possession 
 of their home again, I have not space now to tell. But I want to 
 speak a word here of our England, and of him who, in the long ago, 
 smote down tyr.ints with his strong right hand ; who gave the people 
 back their freedom, their manhood; who raised the nations to great- 
 ness and honour, I mean the hero, the statesman, the soldier, Oliver 
 Cromwell. No man so great as he hath England seen for many a 
 year. So brave in battle ; so wise in counsel ; so patriotic in senti- 
 ment, and so true in character ; and few acts in his noble life are wor- 
 thier to be chronicled than the protection he afforded to the Vaudois 
 Christians. England grew sick of the horrible massacres ; the tales 
 
THE IVALDENSIAX CHURCH, 
 
 67 
 
 of burning and blood-shed made her cry out in her pain, for England 
 was ever as tender of heart as she was brave. What could they, 
 the great sympathising people of England? Why give a collection ; 
 that always comes first with the English, for they are a practical 
 people, and knew that bread wall cost money ? So they made a 
 national collection, the crownless king Cromwell heading the list for 
 a good thousand pounds. But the war and the murder went on, 
 and England grew fiercer with pity. The great Milton had flung 
 his passionate cry to the heavens : 
 
 " Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold : 
 Even them who kept Thy faith so pure of old, 
 When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, , •; ; ■ 
 
 Forget not : in Thy book record their groans 
 Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
 Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 6 ' , 
 
 Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans ■ "^ W^ 
 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they ' -.: • 
 
 To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow t 
 
 O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth swav 
 The triple tyrant : that from these may grow 
 A hundred fold, who, having learned Thy way. 
 Early may fly the Babylonian woe." 
 
 Then England spoke, through her great protector, courteously, 
 but firmly, in two letters, one to the King of France, and the other 
 to the English Ambassador at his court. Will you bear with me 
 while I read them ? The first was written in the statelv Latin 
 tongue, and Milton, of course, was the writer. 
 
 The English is thus : 
 
 *' To the most serene and potent Prince, Louis, King of France. 
 
 Most serene and fotent King, most close Friend and Ally, 
 
 Your Majesty may recollect that during the negotiation between us for the 
 renewino; of our League (which many advantages to both Nations, and much 
 damage to their common Enemies, resulting therefrom, now testify to have been 
 very wisely done), — there fell out that miserable Slaughter of the People of the 
 Valleys : whose cause, on all sides deserted and trodden down, we, with the 
 utmost earnestness and pity, recommend to your mercy and protection. Nor do 
 we think your Majesty, for your own part, has been wanting in an oftice so pious 
 and indeed so human, in so far as either by authority or favour you might have 
 influence with the Duke of Savoy : we certainly, and many other Princes and 
 States, by embassies, by letters, by entreaties directed thither, have not been 
 wanting.r^ .:,::' 
 
 After that most sanguinary Massacre, which spared no age nor either se.v, 
 
^ - - ^ ^^ CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 there was at last a Peace given ; or rather, under the specious name of Peace,^ 
 a certain more disguised hostility. The terms of the Peace were settled in your 
 Town of Pignerol : hard terms ; but such as those poor People, indigent and- 
 wretched, after suffering all manner of cruelties and atrocities, might gladly 
 acquiesce in ; if only, hard and unjust as the bargain is, it were adhered tc It 
 is not adhered to : those terms are broken ; the purport of every one of them is, 
 by false interpretation and various subterfuges, eluded and violated. Many of 
 these People are ejected from their old Habitations ; their Native Religion is 
 prohibited to many : new Taxes are exacted ; a new Fortress has been built over 
 them, out of which soldiers frequently sallying plunder or kill whomsoever they 
 meet. Moreover, new Forces have of late been privily got ready against them ; 
 and such as follow the Romish Religion are directed to withdraw from among 
 them within a limited time : so that everything seems now again to point towards 
 the extermination of all among those unhappy People, whom the former Mas- 
 sacre had left. 
 
 Which now, O Most Christian King, I beseech and obtest thee, by thy right- 
 hand which pledged a League and Friendship with us, by the sacred honour of 
 that Title of Most Christian, — permit not to be done : nor let such license of 
 savagery, I do not say to any Prince (for indeed no cruelty like this could come 
 into the mind of any Prince, much less into the tender } ears of that young 
 Prince, or into the woman's heart of his Mother), but to those most accursed 
 Assassins, be given. Who while they profess themselves the servants and imi- 
 tators of Christ our Saviour, who came into this world that he might save 
 sinners, abuse His most merciful Name and Commandnients to the crudest 
 slaughterings. Snatch, thou who art able, and who in such an elevation art 
 worthy to be able, those poor Suppliants cf thine from the hands of Murderers,, 
 who, lately drunk with blood, are again athirst for it, and think convenient to 
 turn the discredit of their own cruelty upon their Prince's score. Suffer not 
 either thy Titles and the Environs of thy Kingdom to be soiled with that 
 discredit, or the peaceable Gospel of Christ by that cruelty, in thy Reign. Re- 
 member that these very People became subjects of thy Ancestor, Henry, most 
 friendly to Protestants ; when Lesdiguiores victoriously pursued him of Savoy 
 across the Alps, through those same Valleys, where indeed the most commodious 
 pass to Italy is. The Instrument of that their Paction and Surrender is yet 
 extant in the Public Acts of your Kingdom : in which this among other things is 
 specified and provided against. That these People of the Valleys should not 
 thereafter be delivered over to any one except on the same conditions under 
 which thy invincible Ancestor had received them into fealty. This promised 
 protection they now implore ; promise of thy Ancestor they now, from thee the 
 Grandson, suppliantly demand. To be thine rather than his whose they now 
 are, if by any means of exchange it could be done, they would wish and prefer ; 
 if that may not be, thine at least by succour, by commiseration and deliverance. 
 There are likewise reasons of state which might give inducement not to reject 
 these People of the Valleys flying for shelter to thee : but I would not have thee, 
 so great a King as thou art, be moved to tlie defence of the unfortunate by 
 other reasons than the promise of thy Ancestors, and thy own piety and royal 
 benignity and greatness of mind. So shall the praise and fame of this most?^ 
 worthy action be unmixed and clear ; and thyself shalt find the Father of Mercy 
 
^^^^-7^^=-=—-^^^" TH-E WALDENSIAN CIIURCH. (^ 
 
 and His Son Christ the Kin<r, whose Name and Doctrine thou shalt have vin- 
 dicated, the more favourable to thee, and propitious through the course of life. 
 
 May the Almighty, for His own glory, for the safety of so many innocent 
 Christian men, and for your true honour, dispose your Majesty to this determi- 
 nation. Your Majesty's most friendly 
 
 Oliver Protector of the Commonwealth 
 OF England. 
 
 Westminster, 26th May 1658," 
 
 That is the letter, just Hke him ; the brave, tender OHver. 
 And here is the other : 
 
 ' To Sir Wdliam Lockhart, our Ambassador at (he French Court: These.'' 
 
 'Whitehall,' 26th May, 1658. 
 Sir. 
 
 The continual troubles and vexations of the poor People of Piedmont 
 professing the Refc -med Religion, — and that after so many serious instances of 
 yours in the Court of France in their behalf, and after such hearty recommenda- 
 tions of their most deplorable condition to his Majesty in our name, who also has 
 been pleased upon all such occasions to profess very deep resentments of their mi- 
 series, and to give us no small hopes of interposing his power and interest with the 
 Duke of Savoy for the accommodating of those affairs, and for the restoring those 
 poor distressed creatures to their ancient privileges and habitations. — are matter of 
 so much grief to us, and lie so near our heart, that, notwithstanding we are abun- 
 dantly satisfied with those many signal marks you have always hitherto given of 
 your truly Christian zeal and tenderness on their regard, yet the present conjuncture 
 of their affairs, and the misery that is daily added to their affliction begetting in 
 us fresh arguments of pity towards them, not v)nly as men, but as the poor dis- 
 tressed Members of Christ, — do really move us at present to recommend their 
 sad condition to your special care. Desiring you to redouble your instances v/ith 
 the King, in such pathetic and affectionate expressions as may be in some 
 measure suitable to the greatness of their present sufferings and grievances. 
 Which, the truth is, are almost inexpressible. For so restless and implacable 
 is the malice and fury of their Popish Adversaries, that, — as though they es- 
 teemed it but a light matter to have formerl\^ shed the mnocent blood of so 
 many hundreds of souls, to have burned their houses, to have rased their 
 churches, to have plundered their goods, and to have driven out the Inhabitants 
 beyond the River Pelice, out of those their ancient Possessions which they had 
 quietly enjoyed for so many ages and generations together, — they are now 
 resolved to fill their cup of aflliction up to the brim, and to heat the furnace yet 
 seven times hotter than before. Amongst other things : 
 
 First, — They forcibly prohibit all manner of Public Exercises at San Giovanni, 
 which, notwithstanding, the Inhabitants have enjoyed time out of mind : and in 
 case they yield not ready obedience to such most unrighteous orders, they are 
 immediately summoned before their Courts of Justice, and there proceeded 
 against in a most severe and rigorous manner, and some threatened to be wholly 
 destroved and exterminated. 
 
 2. And forasmuch as, in the said Valleys, there aref not found among the 
 I^atives men fitly qualified and of abilities for Ministerial Functions to supply so 
 
w 
 
 CHURCHES OF CHISTENDOM. 
 
 much as one half of their Churches, and upon this account they are necessitated 
 to entertain some out of France and Geneva, which are the Duke of Savoy's 
 friends and allies, — their Popish Enemies take hold of this advantage ; and make 
 use of this stratagem, namely, to banish and drive out the shepherds of the 
 flocks, that so the wolves may the better come in and devour the sheep. 
 
 3. To this we add, their strict prohibition of all Physicians and Chirurgeons 
 of the Reformed Religion to inhabit in the Valleys. And thus they attempt not 
 only to starve their souls for want ot spiritual food and nourishment, but to- 
 destroy their bodies likewise for want of those outward conveniences and helps 
 which God hath allowed to all mankind. - ■' 
 
 4. And as a supplement to the former grievances, those of the Reformed 
 Religion are prohibited all manner of ("ommerce and Trade with their Popish 
 neighbours ; that so they may not be able to subsist and maintain their families : 
 and if they offend herein in the least, they are immediately apprehended as 
 rebels. 
 
 5. Moreover, to give the world a clear testimony what their main design in alt 
 these oppressions is, they have issued out Orders whereby to force the poor 
 Protestants To sell their Lands and Houses to their Popish neighbours : whereas 
 the Papists are prohibited upon pain of excommunication to sell any immovable 
 to the Protestants. 
 
 6. Besides, the Court of Savoy have rebuilt the Fort of La Torre ; contrary 
 to the formal and express promise made by them to the Ambassadors of the 
 Evangelical Cantons. Where they have also placed Commanders, who commit 
 the Lord knows how many excesses and outrages in all the neighbouring parts ; 
 without being ever called to question, or compelled to make restitution for the 
 same. If by chance any murder be committed in the Valleys (as is too-too often 
 practised) whereof the authors are not discovered, the poor Protestants are im- 
 mediately accused as guilty thereof, to render them odious to their neighbours. 
 
 7. There are sent lately into the said Valleys several Troops of Horse and 
 Companies of Foot ; which hath caused the poor People, out of fear of a mas- 
 sacre, with great expense and difficulty to send their wives and little ones, with 
 all that were feeble and sick amongst them, into the Valley of Perosa, under the 
 King of France, his Dominions. V 
 
 These are, in short, the grievances, and this is the present state and condition 
 of these poor People even at this very day. Whereof you are to use your utmost 
 endeavours to make his Majesty thoroughly sensible ; and to persuade him to 
 give speedy and effectual orders ' to' his Ambassador who resides in the Duke's 
 Court, To act vigorously in their behalf. Our Letter, which you shall present 
 his Majesty for this end and purpose, contains several reasons in it which we 
 hope will move his heart to the performance of this charitable and merciful 
 work. And we desire you to second and animate the same with your most 
 earnest solicitations ; representing unto him how much his own interest and 
 honour is concerned in the^making good that Accord of Henry the Fourth, his 
 royal predecessor, with the Ambassadors of those very People, in the year 1592, 
 by the Constable of Lesdiguieres ; which Accord is registered in the Parliament 
 of Dauphine ; and whereof you have an authentic copy in your own hands. 
 Whereby the Kings of France oblige themselves and their Successors To main- 
 tain and preserve their ancient privileges and concessions.— Besides that the 
 
THE IVALDENSIAN CHURCH. 
 
 n 
 
 gaining to himself the hearts of that People, by so gracious and remarkable a 
 protection and delverance, mii^ht be of no little use another day, in relation to 
 Pignerol and the other adjacent places under his Dominions. 
 
 One of the most effectual remedies, which we conceive the fittest to be applied 
 at present is, That the King of France would be pleased to make an Exchange 
 with the Duke of SavDy for those Valleys; resigning over to him some other 
 part of his Dominions in lieu thereof, — as, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, the 
 Marquisate of Saluces was exchanged with the Duke for La Bresse. Which 
 certainly could not but be of great advantage to his Majesty, as well for the 
 safety of Pignerol, as fur the opening of a Passage for his Forces into Italy, — 
 which ' Passage,' if under the dominion, and in the hands of so powerful a Prince, 
 joined with the natural strength of these places by reason of their situation, 
 must needs be rendered impregnable. 
 
 By what we have already said, you see our intentions ; and therefore we leave 
 all other particulars to your special care and conduct ; and rest, ' your friend,' , 
 
 " Oliver P. 
 
 That was the last letter on public affairs the great man ever wrote, 
 and it was worthy to stand at the end of the long catalogue of his 
 greatnesses. And this is the end of my story, told imperfectly I am 
 sure, but with the best of intentions. I wanted to show how fierce 
 bigotry can be, and how truth holds its own against overwhelming 
 odds. Not from hatred to Rome have I spoken, but from hatred to 
 bigotry and persecution, and strong admiration for v.hatever is brave 
 in man. Were the VValdenses perfect ? Oh no ! but then who is ? 
 If they had been masters would they have turned on the Romans 
 with sword and with fire .'* Perhaps, for fierce persecution has not 
 been confined to the Romans, and I am against persecution any- 
 where, in any church. Had the Waldenses hunted a single Roman 
 Catholic family out of their peaceful valleys ; had " the poor men " 
 of Lyons worried and harried a simple outlying village, my words of 
 condemnation would be spoken in no tame and measured way. I 
 know that at one time over in England protestantism took the place 
 of Roman Catholicism, and the presbyter was but priest writ large. 
 The King Henry was vile and a brute ; do you think I am going to 
 defend him ? The Protestants tortured the Catholics and Quakers ; 
 do you think I am proud of that ? I tell you I am ashamed of it : I 
 am no apologist for any man's wrong doing, or the crimes of any insti- 
 tution. I don't care for churches three figs, but I care for the truth 
 of God and the rights of men ; I care for the progress of our common 
 humanity ; I care for the development of reason and the free exer- 
 cise of conscience. If any man wants to bind truth, to deny the 
 natural freedom of others to think and to speak, I am the enemy of 
 
72 
 
 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 that man, be he priest or presbyter, cleric or laic. 1 am on the 
 side of the persecuted, and when I am persecuted I am on my own 
 side, and, this way or that, shall take my own manful rights. I am 
 told I must not speak against the religion of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. I never did ; I only spoke against its irreiigion, and surely 
 a born Briton may do that. I shall speak of the irreligion of the 
 protestant churches by and by. I am constantly speaking of the 
 irreligion of my own church. What else am I here lor ? I am not 
 for a party — I am for the people, for humanity. What else should 
 the preacher do ? Is he to smooth over sin in the past or the present ? 
 I say no. Is he to gather inspiration from some ecclesiastical sys- 
 tem, speaking and working for that ? I say no. Is he to maintain 
 the dignity of a caste or a privileged class of men ? I say ?w. He 
 is to try and build men up strong in truth and beautiful in holiness. 
 He is to speak great lessons of living, lessons drawn from men's 
 blunders and sins in the past, lessons drawn from the experiences 
 through which men are going, lessons drawn from the word of man 
 and the word of God, from the heavens above and earth beneath 
 and hell that is under the earth, that all may learn to be wise and 
 rise from high to higher, till they awake satisfied in the likeness oi 
 
 God. 
 
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OE ENGLAND. 
 
 "'^^ = ITS RISE, DOCTRINE AND RITUAL. 
 
 In preceding lectures, I have attempted to show to what a colossus 
 of crime the Romish Church had grown. The vow of purity its 
 children took became a license for sin. The corruptist court in 
 the world was the court of the pope. Both morality and doctrine 
 were shamefully entreated by the clergy. Its wonderful policy had 
 most wonderfully succeeded. The conquering sword of christian 
 kings made whole nations convert to Rome, and the priests held 
 them to the faith. Liberty of speech and freedom of conscience 
 was an ancient dream that few men dared to speak about. The con- 
 science of Europe was in the keeping of the pope, and neither king 
 nor beggar could choose his faith or ritual of worship. The church 
 taxed a man's land, and also his conscience. She took from him 
 the trust of his wife and son and daughter ; the guidance of his 
 own reason, and the work of personal salvation. That could not 
 last for ever. Israel oppressed will cry at last to God. He will 
 hear the cry, come down to summon some Moses to stand before 
 the burning bush and receive commission to go down and crush to 
 the dust the haughty oppressor. The protestant reformation was 
 not the work of an hour. For centuries the thought of it had been 
 in many a mind, and the love of it in many a heart. Whole ages 
 back the valleys of the Vaudois, and the Piedmont had been lit up 
 from end to end by the teachings of justification by faith and not 
 by the deeds of the law. Lutheranism was long before Luther. 
 There was no time in all Rome's history when no protestant 
 appeared. If she burned him here, another rose up there ; he died 
 also, and a hundred sprang up to fill the place. There was always 
 some Paul of Samosata, some Peter of Bruis, or Henry of Lausanne 
 to give the church trouble. In the twelfth century, not all the 
 miracles of Clairvaux and the leanness of its abbots could put down 
 the heretics. Waldo arose in France ; Arnold in Italy ; John Huss 
 in Constance, and Wickliffe in England. Brave men and good, all 
 of them — men loving Christ and christian truth. The preparation 
 was going on ; God was moving the heart of the nations. The 
 
-y5 ^=.^ CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 spirit of the Lord had come in answer to the human cry. It burned 
 in holy souls in Languedoc and Bohemia, in the valleys of the 
 Pyrenees and the mountains of the Tyrol. Every new \\^\\. that 
 shone from holy writ ; every improvement in law, and science, and 
 art ; every discovery in astronomy, was an agent of the reformation- 
 Luther, Melancthon, Calvin and a host of others arose at last — 
 great men, mighty men, heroes in the faith, called by God, guided 
 by him ; driven^ sometimes, to stand in the breach and fight for the 
 human race. It had long been preparing. Men had been digging 
 the foundation and quarrying stone and hewing the wood ; that done, 
 Luther and his fellows came to build it up with manly shouting. 
 
 I have always looked with wonder and no small admiration upon 
 those early reformers. Here is the woik they had to do: to con- 
 vince men that the canonical scriptures of the old and the new 
 testaments are the direct word of God and the only infallible rules 
 of faith and practice ; to deny what the church had all along taught, 
 that an inspired man was needed to stand between mankind and the 
 inspired word of God ; that the miracles of the church were only lies, 
 invented to bolster up a false and foul superstition ; that the ecclesias- 
 tical traditions were worth no more than other traditions ; that the 
 pope was not God's vicar at all, had no right to authority, and could 
 neither retain nor remit any man's sin. Now that was asking the 
 human race to take a great step, and it required no little manhood, no 
 little manly heroism to do it. They came to a people steeped in 
 Romanism to the very lips, to men and women who from the cradle 
 had been taught to offer it steady and unquestioning obedience, 
 people entangled in the meshes of a priestly network of most 
 cunning workmanship, and said to them all : Break away from this 
 faith, it is false ; cast off this priestly domination and authority, it 
 is unwarrantable usurpation ; put away this ritual, it is a worn out 
 thing and useless. It was a j^jreat negative work they were called to 
 do, a work that is always hard and often dissappointing in its results. 
 People cling to their old beliefs and prejudices for dear life, and it 
 is a greater task to take from ihem a falsehood than to give them a 
 truth. To do that negative work manly men are needed, and, thank 
 <jod, whenever these men are needed they are raised up. This 
 protest against Rome, in Germany most of all, was one of the 
 noblest things the world has ever seen. Only once, I think, has it 
 been surpassed, and then by One w^hose soul was big as yesterday, 
 to-day and forever, standing forth to protest against Judaism and all 
 
THE Cin'RCH OF EXGLAXDr^^^^ W 
 
 sin of speech and deed, andbyhi> ife and death gaining redemption 
 for every mortal man. There is no tyranny like that of the spiritual, 
 none half so tierce and crushing, and so there is no heroism like 
 that which breaks the bonds of such tyranny. Vou shall find hosts 
 of men ready to wade to the neck in blood, to offer themselves to 
 fight savages in a deadly climate and be food for powder anywhere. 
 You can buy them for a uniform apiece, a trifling coin and a remote 
 chance of a little fame. It doesn't require a very high kind of 
 courage for that. But to oppose institutions rooted deep in the 
 people's love, and which your fathers reverenced in centuries gone by ; 
 to break down the altars at which they offered sacrifice ; to denounce 
 a form by which they worshipped God ; to destroy the usages that 
 ministered to a mother's piety, gave her strength to bear the ills and 
 cross of life, and gave her comfort in the hour of death ; and to do 
 this because in them you have seen lurking a despotism that binds 
 the hands and fetters the heart. To hew down the tree, hoary and 
 venerable, under whose spreading branches twenty generations have 
 gathered to play their merry May day games and tell the story of 
 their love, and that because it poisons the air around, and stifles the 
 breath of your neighbours who believe it not. Such work is a sad 
 and bitter thing, requring a great soul that loves truth more than all 
 the poor temporalities of ease, and fame, and life, requiring, it seems 
 to me, a heart that swells and heaves with the pure emotions of 
 religion, like the great ocean when pressed by the wings of a mighty 
 storm. A man must be ready to lose himself if he would this way 
 save the world. 
 
 It is marvellous to note how much the character of the leading 
 spirits of the day contributed to the firm establishment of the 
 protestant cause. Leo the Tenth was Pope, a member of the 
 magnificent, but ill-fated, Medici family ; would have been a great 
 man if his lot had been cast in less difficult times. He held that 
 might was the only right, and policy the highest law. Erasmus was 
 there with a giant intellect and a child's timidity,' a great and 
 brilliant coward, laying his axe to the root of the papal tree in spite 
 of himself. Luther had the heart of a lion and the tongue of an 
 orator, — would dare and do the mightiest things that his conscience 
 told him should be done. In England, Henry VIII was on the 
 throne ; a man of great powers and small principles, a I'ttle regard for 
 religion and more for himself, with pride and passion and self-will 
 in abundance. When Luther thundered against the papacy, Henry 
 
CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 had small sympathy with the monk and the word he spoke. When 
 he wearied of his wife and wanted a divorce, which the pope rightly 
 refused, Henry turned protestant and dared the pope and all his 
 cardinals. I am not going to allow for a moment that we owe our 
 protestant freedom of thought and worship, our protestant doctrines 
 of faith and love, to the self-willed, arrogant, and sensual, Henry VIII. 
 No earthly power could have staved otT the reformation long, and 
 Henry did but hasten it by a year or two. When the heart of a 
 people is stirred within it, longing desperately for a religion it can 
 live and die by — a religion of pure faith and morals, and a burning, 
 saving love — a religion that leaves the home its sacredness and 
 gives it lasting beauty — a religion that shall give the conscience 
 peace and satisfy the soul, then it must soon come. A great-soul'd 
 Luther will give it to the Germans ; a restive, self-willed king will 
 give it to the English. The Almighty guides the affairs of His 
 church, and by instruments the most unlikely spreads the glory of 
 His name. 
 
 The existence of the Church of England as a distinct body, and 
 her tinal separation from Rome, must be dated from the period of 
 the divorce. It was a mighty wrenching and rending away from 
 the past, and not without great convulsions was the work of separa- 
 tion completed. It always must be so with the individual or the 
 community. Old faiths cannot be destroyed, old rituals abandoned, 
 old allegiance cast off, and new faiths embraced, or new rituals 
 formed and new powers acknowledged, without great and mighty 
 strugglc^j. No wonder that the bewildered Nicodemus cried, "How 
 can a man be born when he is old.-*" It is hard indeed — a time of 
 anguish and woe. The demon that has entered the body will hold 
 it to the last, and cast it down and tear it in the desperate endeavor 
 to hold aominion. 
 
 The clergy were the great opposers of the reformation. They 
 saw, or thought they saw, some sinister design upon their privileges 
 and temporalities. They had lorded it over God's heritage, and 
 thought they held the conscience of the people in fee simple. These 
 protestant doctrines were dangerous to their spiritual power and 
 temporal wealth alike, for they taught that each man was free to 
 speak his own thoughts to (iod, and that by the death of Christ 
 ■every son of Adam might become a king and priest to God the 
 Father. They taught a pure morality also, which was opposed to 
 the practice of the great mass of the clergy. And so they stood 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAXD. 79 
 
 manfully at the pumps, and mended the torn sail as best they could, 
 to keep the battered, water-logged old papal ship afloat. But all in 
 vain, for a storm was raging and the sea was heaving wildly. The 
 ship struggled for a while against wind and tide, and then was 
 mastered, and flung high and dry upon the shore, from henceforth 
 a wreck, and useless to any crew but a few young ritualists of these 
 latter days who are spending their strength in the vain endeavor to 
 make her sea-worthy again. V . <,.:>«:' 
 
 To me that is one of the strangest things 1 meet in the way of 
 experience — clerical opposition to all and every reform, Christ 
 found his deadliest foes in the rabbis and priests, they it was that 
 hated him most and crucified him at last. When Wesley and 
 Whitfield came with a lofty purpose and a word of life, it was the 
 clergy who raised the mob against them and often perilled their lives. 
 Thousands of honest men now are longing to see the Episcopal 
 Church set free, that she may take her right place in the nation, and, 
 unfettered, do her noble work, and the clergy again bar the way of 
 reform. How they cling to glebe lands and rich endowments, — 
 h(^w frightened they are at the thought of walking alone without the 
 crutch of state to lean upon. Can it be that this after all is but 
 humility, and we have all along mistaken it for something else .'* 
 Can it be that they are so distrustful of themselves and their own 
 powers of self governance that they insist upon taking men with 
 different creeds and men with no creeds at all into their affairs .^ 
 Are they so distrustful of their own light by which to read and 
 interpret doctrine that they must borrow the light of a political 
 senate, to which a man is rarely sent on account of his profound 
 religious convictions or clear insight into truth ? Can it be that 
 they have formed so modest an estimate of their powers that they 
 are afraid to trust themselves to the people whom they seek to lead 
 in the way of truth and life ? Oh ! when will the clergy essay to 
 lead mankind in its search for higher truth and more light instead' 
 of standing up to bar the way.'* Progress has not ceased to be 
 possible — standing still is not yet a law of heaven for earth. " Lay 
 aside every weight and press toward the goal," is still the true cry 
 for individuals and for churches. The march forward may not, must 
 not cease, and if the clergy prove laggards in the way, then they 
 must follow the lead of others and take the truths men find at 
 second hand. 
 
 The first outward sign that the work of the reformation was an 
 
^. CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM, " " ^^ 
 
 earnest and a real thing was the suppression of the monasteries. 
 These were the great bulwarks of the Roman Church — while these 
 stood up in England's richest valleys, overshadowing the baronial 
 hall and the peasart's cot, rich in lands which kings and pious 
 ancestors had from time to time bequeathed, secret council chambers 
 all through the land where many a popish plot had birth, and dens of 
 darkest profligacy withal — while these stood with their multitudes of 
 monks and nuns, Rome would hold her own in England. There 
 was a time when those monastic institutions served the cause of 
 humanity. When the country was a prey to barbarism ; when secur- 
 rity of life or property was impossible in the land because of constant 
 wars between barons and counties, these religious houses claimed and 
 received a wide and deep veneration, and helped to humanize the mind 
 as well as to convert the heart. But abuse follows swift on the heels 
 of use, and before many centuries had passed away the blessing was 
 transformed into a curse. When the decay had once set in the 
 work was rapidly done, and what had been a thing of use, of beauty 
 and of joy, became ugly, loathsome, and to be trampled under foot- 
 Strong ? Those monastaries were dangerously strong. They had 
 the wealth of England, they had its books and its scholars, they had 
 its orators and artists, they had hold of its conscience, and the 
 nation co'dd never be free till these were done away for ever. 
 
 Henry was impelled by rapacity, they say, when he did it ; per- 
 haps he was : but, thank God, he did it. Enormous sums went into 
 the public exchequer by means of it, and most was well and 
 usefully spent. A part of it went to construct harbours to help the 
 industry and commerce of the nation ; a part of it went to build 
 hospitals for the sick and poor, and a part of it to build colleges for 
 the education of her sons. Was this spoliation ? was it robbery to 
 take the property of the church and apply it to secular uses .' Had 
 the king and parliament any right to step in between the church 
 and her lands ? Well, if abuses are to be put away and wrongs 
 redressed, some means must be found of doing it. The wealth of 
 the church was the chief cause of clerical immorality, and the one 
 thing that gave to Rome her power. So that besetting sin must be 
 taken away from her. Pious ancestors had given some and pious 
 kings had given the rest. The gifts had been abused, and the nation 
 took them back again. Is the church contained in the nation, or 
 the nation contained in the church ? did the church found the nation 
 or the nation establish the church ? which is the older and which 
 
" — - THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ^ 8l 
 
 the greater? The church, as established, is the servant of the 
 nation ; her wealth was given her for a set purpose ; that purpose 
 accomplished, or the national mind changed, and the wealth goes 
 Qack into the hands that gave it. If she has the mind, she certainly 
 has the right to enjoy it while the majority is on her side ; and 
 others holding a different opinion certainly have equal right to strive 
 by every legitimate means to change the mind of the majority, that 
 she may stand forth with all her magnificent resources of learning 
 and oratory and organization, a free church in a free land, unfettered 
 by state control, unhampered by state endowment, and working as 
 she best knows how, teaching what she holds as true, worshipping 
 by a ritual helpful to her members, and so bringing salvation to our 
 people and glory to our God. ,..-., ^ 
 
 This state control from the very first was a mighty yoke upon the 
 neck of her. She had but changed Popes, Leo X. for Henry VIII. — 
 A Paul or a Pius of Rome for England's reigning monarch. How 
 did the evil effects appear at first ? Why, thus : the fortunes of the 
 Reformation and the Protestant cause in England rose and fell with 
 the capricious temper or changing moods of the king. Henry was 
 long halting between two opinions, and none, for a time, could say 
 whether England would be Protestant or Romish. The cause was 
 put in fearful peril by his marriage with Catherine Howard, and for 
 a time the fortunes of the pure faith were trembling in the balance. 
 Some change on the part of the king, or sinister advice from Wolsey 
 and the work of Wickliff w^ere undone. Oh, well for the church of 
 Christ in the land, and well for the peace of the nation since, if some 
 christian heroes had but risen up to denounce her craven policy, 
 give back the wealth they had, and cast themselves for bread upon 
 their people and their God. One strong struggle, and the thing 
 would have been done for ever. Surely it was a sad thing to see 
 the fortunes of Christ's church dependent on the caprice of a selfish, 
 grasping, irreligious king. A sad thing to see ministers of Christ 
 selling their noble birth-right for a mess of potage. What are 
 houses and lands when compared with a minister's freedom of 
 speech and act. The effect of state pay, and state control must 
 always be disastrous. In the time of Henry it imperilled the cause 
 of the Reformation, made impossible a change of doctrine, caused 
 the clergy to adopt a policy of vacilation that should change with 
 the humour of the king. In the time of Edward it established the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, forced upon the people their spiritual 
 
 6 --.- ,-.:.■■- p.-;..:- 
 
82 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. — - 
 
 teachers, their liturgy, their ritual and their doctrines. In the time 
 of Mary it enkindled a thousand martyr-fires, caused her noblest 
 sons and truest daughters to perish at the stake, and but for the love 
 of God toward us would have again enwrapped our land in the 
 dense darkness of the papacy. Ever since then it has had the effect 
 of making the clergy a class and a caste, separate from the people 
 and given to tyranny ; it has opened the pulpits of the land to 
 the dowerless sons of the rich, who were too poor to buy a com- 
 mission in the army, and too proud to do the work of a doctor or a 
 merchant, but had no fitness, either by power of speech or religious 
 fervour, for the holy ofiice they assumed. Hireling shepherds they 
 were, who sought personal pleasure and left the sheep to perish. 
 Because of state pay and state control discipline Is now well nigh 
 impossible. English clergymen have adopted the ritual of the 
 Romish Church, are practising its posturings and genuflexions, 
 adopting again its fashions in millinery, teaching doctrines that 
 Protestant England holds in abhorrence, such as the real presence 
 and the confessional, they are seeking once more to estabUsh the 
 tyranny of the priesthood, and are doing it in defiance of principles 
 of honesty, in defiance of church dignitaries, in defiance of public 
 opinion. Internal reform is simply impossible ; discipline cannot be 
 enforced, because the church is controlled by the state. And what 
 does the state mean ? Why, multitudes of dissenters, and Jews, and 
 Catholics, and infidels, and all having a share in the management 
 of the Church Episcopal. Its representative, the parliament, is 
 made up of men of the most diverse creeds, and some whose creeds 
 it would be difficult to define. And what is the church? Why, it is 
 made up of three great parties, between whom there is not much 
 love — the high, the broad, the low — one is very nearly allied to the 
 dissenters, another so near akin to the Roman Catholics that it 
 would require a King Solomon to tell the difference. And this 
 motley parliament has control of this motley church. It seems to 
 me that there is no escape for the church from her present anomalous 
 position — from the perils that threaten her most of all from within — 
 but in emancipation, by divorcing herself from this connection with 
 the state. ]f at one time the establishment was necessary as a bul- 
 wark of the Protestant faith, as a barrier to the progress of Rome, 
 now a free church is needed to do the same work. Through the 
 establishment popery is coming in ; the state church through a por- 
 tion of its members is compelled to be an ally of the Pope of Rome. 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The non-conformity cf England to-day, and not the established 
 church, is the bulwark of our faith. If at first it was right that the 
 Episcopal Church should receive state aid and state control, circum- 
 stances now demand that she should decline the patronage longer 
 and refuse the control. To meet the subtle policy of Rome's priests, 
 the infidelity of the day, the wide-spread mammon worship and 
 spirit of ease and pleasure-loving, they want Protestant churches ; 
 all equal in the eye of the law ; all free to govern themselves in 
 ecclesiastical affairs ; to choose their doctrine and their ritual, all 
 joined in unity of purpose, though not crushed into uniformity of 
 expression ; all working as they best know how for the good of men, 
 and the glory of God the Father. 
 
 By freedom of thought the Reformation came and grew. Luther 
 dared to think in Germany ; Wicklitf, and a host of others, dared 
 to think in England. It was not by legislative enactments — it was 
 not by the suppression of monasteries, that the protestant faith was 
 established in England , but by the liberty men took to read the 
 word of God, and think upon its teachings. The church has kept 
 freedom of thought ever since ; but never gained freedom of action 
 — never learnt that Christ's kingdom, not being of this world, may 
 not, cannot, without peril to herself, receive her laws from Caesar. 
 
 When Henry VIII died, Httle or no advance had been made 
 toward a purer doctrine and a truer ritual. The name of the 
 church had been changed ; the headship of it had been vested in 
 other hands ; but the church itself was substantially the same. 
 Transubstantiation was still held ; the cup was denied to the laity ; 
 prayers were offered for the dead ; the clergy were compelled to 
 remain celibates as before ; and, with scarcely a change, the old 
 ritual was observed. Henry himself was so little changed that he 
 left a considerable sum of money to the church of Windsor, that 
 every year masses might be said for his soul. Superstitions die 
 hard. It is easy to believe against them, and preach against them ; 
 but to slay them outright is a difficult affair. It was reserved for 
 Edward VI fully to establish the Episcopal Church in the protestant 
 faith, with doctrines gathered in part from Germany, and in part 
 from Geneva. ' 2" : 
 
 Two causes helped to retard the work of the Reformation : the 
 one was the veneration the people had for the church of their 
 fathers, and the other was the foolish zeal of the imprudent 
 reformers. They forgot, many of them, that, though individuals 
 
84 —^—7 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 may pass quickly out of Egyptian darkness, communities move 
 slow. A mati may learn a truth in an hour ; but a nation must 
 ponder for a century, and arrive at conviction by slow stages. A 
 man who has been accustomed for many years to a dark room, can- 
 not bear a flood of light all at once to flash upon the eye ; he must 
 have it by degrees^ till the nerves have gathered strength. A nation 
 may be born in a day ; but cannot reach mature manhood in a day. 
 There is the time of nonage, the dawn of wisdom's day ; the time 
 of hope and fear; the time of clinging to the old, and dread of 
 trusting the new ; and wise men will treat it gently, nor seek by 
 violent outrage to thrust it back into the darkness, from which it 
 has barely emerged. AVhen the foolish zealots seized the images, 
 and destroyed them ruthlessly, they were doing a good thing im- 
 prudently ; they imperilled the good cause by rashness, and drove 
 tiie shadow back upon the dial, for the lengthening of the life of 
 Rome. 
 
 Still, great advance was made. The laity were admitted to the 
 sacrament, and private masses were forbidden. Auricular confes- 
 sion was no longer enforced, but he might confess his sins who 
 would. Then the old scandal of clerical celibacy was done away, 
 and the work of reform went rapidly on. When Mary ascended 
 the throne, with her policy of blood and death, by which she sought 
 to restore the papacy, the work had been so well and so faithfully 
 done — the new teaching had taken such firm hold upon the heart 
 and conscience — that a thousand fires could not burn it, and the 
 royal fiat could not banish it the land. Gardiner, the politic adviser 
 of the queen, sought to lead the nation back by slow degrees ; but 
 the nation would not be led that way. It had eaten the strong 
 meat, and done the hard work of Pharaoh, long enough ; and now 
 that Canaan stood forth to view, a land of figs and pomegranites, 
 a land flowing with mi^.k and honey, it would not turn its back upon 
 the fair and peaceful scene to retrace its steps across the hot and 
 rocky desert. 
 
 Thtn^ the grim arguments of fire and sword and rack, were tried, 
 you know how fiercely. Rome had drunk blood in the valleys of the 
 Pyrenees, and the mountains of the Tyrol ; in Spain and France 
 she had made her thunder and her lightning felt, and then tried her 
 murderous policy in England. But it was too late. The people had 
 drank of the clear spring, and would not stoop down to drink from 
 the mud-pools Rome was pointing out. 1 he martyrs fire makes 
 
"^^ " " ^ ^ ^ THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 85 
 
 more converts than all the preaching of a Luther. The blood of a 
 true man shed, and a host of heroes spring forth as the harvest after 
 the summer. Latimer lit his candle there in Smithfield, and it has 
 gone shining on through the stormy night and wintry day : a blaze 
 that ever grows and flashes wider abroad with every added age ; a 
 light to shine aloft, a blessing and a joy, while sun and moon and 
 stars endure. The ambitious, for money or for power, may find 
 length of days a grand necessity to the working out of his purpose, 
 but a true servant of Jesus Christ, a lover of religion, takes no count 
 •of time at all ; his supreme concern is to be faithful unto dying. 
 While the great master died on a cross, the servant may not shrink 
 ■from the stake and the fagot. His, is to hold the truth, to speak it, 
 to live it, ever ready to be offered up, sure that the crown of 
 righteousness awaits the just man there. 
 
 In 1558 Queen Mary died, and Elizabeth, amid universal rejoic- 
 ings, took possession of the throne. A prudent woman was Eliza- 
 beth, and a friend to the reformation. She lived in stormy times — 
 times of wars abroad and wars at home. She had a strong hand, 
 and foes at home or elsewhere felt the weight of it. Of her 
 dealings with the puritans I shall have occasion to speak in a future 
 lecture. Suffice it to say now that the work of the reformation was 
 completed in her day. The power of Rome was forever broken in 
 England, her shackles the nation had cast off and trampled under 
 foot. Men at last were free from priestcraft and from superstition. 
 They learnt that Christ is the only saviour of men, and penances and 
 the prayers of the saints cannot secure heaven. One sacrifice alone 
 <:an be efficacious, that of the Son of God. They learnt that 
 salvation is a personal work, and cannot be delegated to the priest; 
 that each for himself must work it out under the guidance of the 
 Holy Ghost. They learnt to read the bible as the mind of God 
 revealed, and to find in Him a tender father and an ever constant 
 friend. Religion became a reality, a principle of life and love and 
 faith, a guide for speech and deed, a thing to live by always, and 
 not a formula or creed as the Church of Rome had always made it. 
 In spite of state control and legislative interference, her earnest men 
 did great and earnest work. The English Church did much to 
 make the English nation, and that is a work great enough and 
 .grand enough to cover any institution with immortal glory. ^i6?:r x^j^c 
 
 Of course great changes have at different periods taken place." 
 Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the evil of her. She has 
 
S6 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 had times of supineness and times of marvellous energy. I will 
 dwell a little more on the present condition of the church, as far as^ 
 I understand it, looking back sometimes into history, and on some- 
 times into the probable future. And I would mention as one 
 striking and prominent aspect of the church to-day, its great 
 activity. The Episcopal Church of England is fully awake ; knows 
 her vast resources ; knows her responsibility, and is working in city 
 and town and village with most magnificent zeal. There have been 
 periods in her history, whole centuries together, when she has been 
 marked by a shameful and guilty supineness. The c1 rgy, sure of 
 their pay, neglected the work puc into their hands, — whole parishes 
 were left to starve and faint and die ; multitudes hungered, but no 
 man broke the bread of life to them. They were parched with thirst 
 and scarce a man in all the clergy could be found to point the way 
 to the river of God. I am not astonished at that ; it seems to me a 
 natural outcome, or result, of a state endowed church. To do the 
 work of the christian ministry well and faithfully, the grand essential 
 is a burning zeal ; the imperative of love to God and man speaking, 
 in the soul. How else can he speak words of truth with saving 
 power ; how else can he bear the disappontments, the heart- 
 sicknesses, the pains and smarts of his life ; how else can he practice 
 forbearance toward the ignorant, and vain, and obstinate, and 
 indifferent ; how else stand up the winter through and receive the 
 snows into his bosom, to melt them with the heat of it, and cause 
 them to spring up again at his feet, clear water for the thirsty. 
 There must be the true christian before there can be the true 
 minister. Power of holy life, anc power of eloquent speech are the 
 indispensible conditions. But those conditions were, for the most part, 
 utterly ignored. The office was sought for its social position and 
 respectable living ; patronage was the great prime force, and rarely 
 the constraining love of Christ. Where that is so the ministry must 
 be a cold and nerveless thing — a body without a soul — a mere pro- 
 fession without piety. The clergy had not even that poor incentive 
 and pitiful motive which men find when they have to earn the 
 bread they eat. The state made the bread and water sure. Once 
 installed by a patron in a living and the parson was secure. Be he 
 faithful or unfaithful, diligent or idle, a wise man or a fool, eloquent 
 or a stammerer, every year the tithes would come, though from him 
 and from his church the people would stay away. What could be 
 more natural than that this state of things should produce inertia and 
 
^" ^^ THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. % 
 
 indifference ; should fill the pulpits with men to whom earnestness 
 would be vulgar extravagance, and piety a maudlin sentimentality ; 
 with men who, for the most part, were either dandies or drones, hire- 
 ling shepherds, who took no care to fight the wolf and save the flock. 
 But, it will be said, perhaps, the cause still exists ; how do you 
 account for a different effect from the same. There is still, as ever, 
 the exercise of patronage ; purchase has been abolished in the 
 army, but not in the church ; still the living is secure, and so is the 
 social position. And yet now there is great activity among the 
 clergy of the English Church. They are hard working men ; mul- 
 titudes of them men of deep and true piety, men of great sympathy, 
 men of zeal and prudence, men actuated by the purest and loftiest 
 motives. Well, I account for the increased activity on the part of 
 the Episcopal Church, mainly from the action of dissenters. 
 Churches, as men, are more or less creatures of circumstances. 
 Comparison or rivalry is a great awakening power, a mighty pro- 
 gressive force. Put a nation so far in advance of all other nations, 
 in military or industrial or literary power, that it has no rival any- 
 where, pTid that nation will not march lorwa d very fast or very 
 long, if it march at all. There may be in it mighty possibilities, 
 unknown reserves of force ; but the possibility will remain a possi- 
 bility, and not become a reality — the reserve will not be utilized 
 until circumstances make it a dire necessity. Dissent had long 
 been growing into a great power in England, steadily deepening and 
 spreading; the seed becoming a tree, the tree a mighty forest, 
 stretching up the hill side and covering the plain for many a league. 
 The members of it were members from intelligent conviction, and 
 had to suffer many things for their faith's sake. Its ministers were 
 tempted to the work by no glitter of social position or worldly 
 goods. They brought at first but little increase to the polemical 
 power of the age. They were not very skilful to seize and bring up 
 the subtle points of a doctrine. They were well content with 
 worldly poverty, and felt " passing rich on forty pounds a year ; " 
 but they were true men, with a great thought in the mind and a 
 great love in the heart. Greek was Greek to most of them, and 
 Hebrew as mysterious as the language of the angels ; hut they 
 knew Jesus Christ as the world's redeemer ; they knew how deep 
 and desperate are the wants and woes of man ; they knew what 
 sin, and sorrow on account of it, meant ; they knew how hard are 
 the ways of holiness, and so could sympathise with the struggling 
 
gg _ CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 and the frail ; they knew how mighty is the power of prayer to 
 cleave the heavens and prevail with God. They spoke the lan- 
 guage of the soul, that needs no grace of diction or flowers of 
 rhetoric, to find its way to the conscience, but carries a burning 
 thought straight into the heart, as an arrow shot into an oak, and 
 quivering long with force unspent. Such men could not be obscure 
 long; the cause they helped by life and speech could not be 
 repressed by scorn or contempt, or fire or sword. A man with a 
 heart in him will multiply himself in spite of the church, the world, 
 the flesh and the devil. When a true man arises, with a thought 
 and purpose from on high — a gospel charioteer, driving into the 
 world with his burden of reproof and truth-telling — standing up in 
 the midst of the crowd with his sermon on Christ, and him crucified, 
 philosophy may be scornful, wealth may be haughty, indifference 
 may laugh,rphariseeism may superciliously gather up its garments 
 and pass by on the other side ; but he will prevail, and have three 
 thousand converts in a day. He will not find popularity, perhaps, 
 for the world is ever slow to recognise and own its benefactors ; he 
 will not find the patronage of the great and the rich ; but he will 
 find the "well done" of heaven, which is better than a kingly 
 crown. Oh ! no ; if a great heart is beating in thy bosom, inflamed 
 with love to God and men ; if there is a true thought in thy mind, 
 then speak it out ; but look not for green laurels and ringing 
 plaudits, the world will only cheer its kindred. If there be not 
 that love in the heart and that thought in the mind, then seek not 
 this office of the teacher and the preacher — there are sorrows and 
 pains in it. . 
 
 *' Thou must prepare thine ears to hear the noise 
 Of counsellors threatening ; or the foolish voice 
 Of ignorant reprovers. 
 
 Thou must provide thyself to hear great Lords 
 Talk, without reason, big, imperious words. 
 Thou must contented be to make repair, 
 If need require, before the Scorrer's chair ; 
 To hear them jeer and flout, and take in hand ' 
 
 To scoff at what they do not understand : • t 
 Or to say, perhaps, that of thyself thou makest some goodly thing ; 
 Or that thou undertakest above thy calling ; ^^ ,, 
 
 Or unwarranted — 
 
 Not heeding from whose mouth it hath been said, 
 _ ^ God's wisdom oft elects what men despise, l J 
 
 And fooliih things to foil the worldly wise." ; ;^ ' r;;^-: K 'CvW \-/ : 
 
- - ^ THE CHURCH OF England: 89 
 
 Such was dissent at first, and the power of it was great. By and 
 bye it could lay claim to culture and scholarly attainment, all the 
 time maintaining its ancient earnestness. The square, red brick 
 meeting house, with its regulation two rows of windows was here and 
 there suuperseded by the sanctuary in Gothic or Corinthian style. 
 Its ministry found a way to the intelligence of the cultivated as 
 well as to the heart of the ruder, and the Episcopal Church awoke at 
 last to find that well nigh half the nation had turned from her stately 
 frigidity to the warmer and more humanizing influences the dissen- 
 ters had brought to bear upon the heart and conscience of them all. 
 Human nature is loyal to the light when it comes. Man turns to 
 love to live in the light of it as truly as the flowers in spring lift up 
 their heads to the sun to catch its light and receive the kiss that 
 paints its petals. And thank God the good example was not lost. 
 She shook off the fatal lithargy and came forth with a wonderful 
 vigor. She is at work now, and I am glad. For surely this activity, 
 though marked by many deplorable excesses, many wanderings in 
 some quarters from what we regard as the true faith and a Protes- 
 tant ritual, is better a thousand fold than the old indifference and 
 worldliness when the clergymen left the defences of the fold un- 
 watched, broken down, and the sheep exposed to the fierce on- 
 slaught of the prowling lion and the wolf. 
 
 I have fairly and fully granted that the Episcopal Church is to-day 
 a working church — a church marked by great activity. The old 
 icy and aristocratic indifference is gone, banished, to be never re- 
 called I think. But the assertion forces from me this remark — 
 while the Episcopal Church is fiiil of energy, is greatly in earnest 
 and greatly active, it cannot by half meet the spiritual demands of 
 the nation. Considered merely as one of the christian churches of 
 the land, the largest, but only one of them, and there can be no 
 complaint on this score. But considered as a state church, it is an 
 anomaly. How far my reasoning may be correct you must judge — 
 but to me it seems that a national church should have room for the 
 nation in it. Accommodation for all, if all should be inclined to go. 
 Every parishoner in the parish has a right to go to the parish church. 
 What if everyone should choose to act upon that right ? Then, it 
 seems to me, a national church should have a place in it for men of 
 every variety of creed. Honest men, I mean, who will not sub- 
 scribe to one creed and then preach and practice quite another. 
 There are thousands of Unitarians in the land ; English men and 
 
90 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 women, true citizens who pay taxes, obey the laws, and uphold the 
 constitution, but there is no place for them in the state church. A 
 vast number object to the ritual of the Eoiscopal church, they deny 
 the truth of many of its doctrines, and there is no place in the 
 state church for them. A majority cannot, without injustice, force 
 a form of faith upon a minority. If twenty construct a creed and 
 force it upon ten they do that ten a wrong. Let the twenty take the 
 creed they have formulated, and live and die by it if they can, but 
 let them not compel the ten to support the teacher of it. If there 
 is to be a state church, justice cannot be done unless there is room 
 in it for men of every shade and variety of creed. By that I mean you 
 are forced by law of equity into concurrent endowment or none at 
 all. Unless all churches are equally favoured by state, by levelling 
 up or levelling down, some churches must suffer wrong or be denied 
 the just rights of citizenship. Concurrent endowment is dead in 
 England and buried out of sight ; a stone lies upon the mouth of the 
 sepulchre which no earthly power can roll away. One church alone 
 stands high in the nation, fed with milk and honey, receiving pay for 
 all the work, and doing less than half of it. The state has favoured 
 only this her first born son, and though other children have been 
 born to her, quite as loyal, loving and true, as ready to expend their 
 money and the best blood in their veins on her behalf, she has 
 spumed them one by one, thrusting them forth into the wilderness 
 to live as best they can, or starve and die of hunger and of cold. 
 Mother state is unnatural, cold toward many of her children, and 
 unkind, and the elder brother at home, though sometimes he has 
 been heard to express love for other members of the family, and 
 pity, never has been known to offer them a share of his goodly meal. 
 The nonconformists ask r'^ reversal of positions, they would not 
 share the goods if they could — they only ask that each and all of 
 them shall go forth alike, undowried and unfavoured, to do their 
 holy work of faith and love, ^rmly trusting in their people and their 
 
 God. - ■:-7: ■■^-Kfe ■ ."#v;r ^- :-fe" ;v - ::■::-; z- ■;.= ■- ;K..-:,\.;"; 
 
 Another prominent feature in the Episcopal Church to day is the 
 change of doctrinal views that Lave been very rapidly brought 
 about. A mighty revolution is going on in the church, and from 
 her spreading to other churches. The old hard Galvanism, so 
 stilted and so cold, so hard and haughty in its ways, has been 
 attacked in its very stronghold. Such men as archdeacon Hare, 
 and Dennison Maurice, and Robertson of Brighton, have done 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 9^ 
 
 much to soften down the hard lines of the old theology and clear 
 away the gloom that hung about the fair and shining face of our 
 holy religion. They spoke of the atonement as having been 
 necessary to the saving of man> but that there was no wrath in God 
 to be appeased by the shedding of innocent blood. They said: 
 Love immortal and eternal brooded over the heart of every Adam's 
 son. The light was there for all, and only man was blind. The 
 death of Christ was not for the bringing down of God, but for the 
 bringing up of man ; not to soften the heart of the father, but to 
 awake the prodigal from his fatal slumber, and send him repentant 
 to his home again. That teaching has been powerful to convince 
 and convert ; it has stirred the pulse of hosts of christians and 
 caused the heart to thrill with a newer joy. 
 
 The doctrine of the real presence has come forth also to challenge 
 popular attention. This is not new to us ; our fathers fought a 
 desperate fight against it centuries ago. It was a potent cause of 
 popular superstition and ecclesiastical tyranny. They said : by the 
 agency of the priest, the bread and the wine cease to be bread and 
 wine, but are the very body and blood of Christ, The priests alone 
 partook of this, and the poor befooled people bowed down in 
 worship. Certain of the English clergy are trying might and main 
 to bring that folly back again, but they will not succeed. They may 
 cajole and impose upon a it^ sentimental and foolish men and 
 women, but England is too thoroughly prctestant, has too sturdy a 
 hate of the old time superstition, ever again to bow the knee to gods 
 that hear not, and see not, and are not gods at all. They cannot do 
 now with the narrow prison houses of superstition, where priestly 
 hands have traced forms of liberty upon the walls wherewith to 
 mock them. The bread and wine they take as a remembrancer of 
 Him who loved them and died for them and rose again, that they, 
 the unjust, might come to God. They take the dear memorial of 
 His dying, and cling to His cross for life and heaven. They eat the 
 bread and call to mind His broken body and the wherefore ; they 
 drink of the cup and think of the shed blood which bought for them 
 salvation. He is their Saviour and great high priest, but they see 
 Him not in bread and wine any more than we see Him in shining 
 star and fragrant flower, but the bread and wine are in remembrance 
 of Him crucified. There is an attempt to set up the confessional 
 too, a thing of which I find it difficult to speak with calmness or 
 moderation. It was one of Rome's most diabolical inventions. It 
 
^ ^^^^^ CHURCHES GF CHRISTENDOM. ^_=.^_ . _ 
 
 was an instrument of priestly tyranny and popular degradation. If 
 that should come again, then good by to the sacredness of home, to 
 the trust of father and mother and daughter and son, good by to 
 the joy of the hearthstone, good by to the music of home, good by 
 to the friendship of friends and the natural trust of true lovers. 
 But it will not come, I am sure it wiU not. The heart and conscience 
 and mind of England are against it. If certain clergymen have no 
 more regard for their morals than to seek to make their ear a sewer 
 into which all the filth of the parish shall be poured, the people 
 have more delicacy than to tell their secret thoughts and deeds. 
 Never again will the priest have power to come, in the name of the 
 church, between the man and the wife, the mother and the daughter, 
 in England. Our fathers groaned long and suffered mightily under 
 this monstrous thing, and the men who seek to bring it back again 
 are enemies of our domestic peace, enemies of our hearths and 
 homes, enemies of our church and our religion. Of this I am sure, 
 that in none but a most degraded and superstitious society can such 
 an infamous institution be tolerated. It invades the sacred privacy 
 of life, it makes a man's wife and children and servants its constant 
 spies and accusers. When any church shall stand in need of such 
 a social immorality, depend upon it that church is irrecoverably 
 diseased and fast hastening to its end. - - • =^ 
 
 What this strange outbreak of ritualism in the Episcopal church 
 may mean, we can scarcely tell. In the service there is an aping of 
 Rome; many posteiings and genuflexions ; swinging of censors and 
 burning of candles ; varied and sundry articles of dress ; turnings 
 toward the rising and the setting sun. That they are not original but 
 borrowed from Rome is plain, but the wherfore of it all, I think, the 
 Ritualists themselves have not quite decided. By some, I have no 
 doubt, it is intended as the b-^^st form of public worship by which 
 the priest may magnify his office. I believe that very much of the 
 ritualism of the day arises from a fatal craving on the part of the 
 clergy for more spiritual power over the minds of the people. It is 
 a development of clerical ambition. They are not content to be 
 simple teachers of the people, their brethren in truth-seeking, and 
 truth-living, and sympathy ; but they crave superiority and power, 
 which if granted, will end in ecclesiastical despotism. On that account 
 I regard this ritualism and sacramentarianism with feelings of alarm. 
 Priestly domination has ever been a scourge, and ever must be so ; 
 and unless they would have back the old times when the clerics 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 93 
 
 were kings in the land, ruling the consciences of the people with a 
 rod of iron, and smiting the nation down to the darkness of 
 ignorance and superstition ; they must look well after their simplicity 
 of worship, and see that they are not led to Rome by so-called 
 protestants. Others of the ritualists see in it but a form of worship 
 attractive and popular ; the introduction of a sensuous element 
 into the public service. They imagine that the church is losing its 
 hold upon the people, and must regain it by setting up some novelty, 
 as a pushing tradesman advertises his wares and makes his shop 
 attractive to the eye. So they burn candles at mid-day, burn in- 
 cense before the altar, sing florid music, have many changes in the 
 service, and banish all simplicity. If that is all, it is simply a very 
 questionable mode of filling a church, and I doubt if the heart and 
 the conscience can be reached that way. There must, of course, 
 be a form, there must be some appeal to the senses ; it is meet to 
 stand to sing, and kneel in prayer, and sit to listen. It is impossible 
 to have service without ritual, and I have sometimes thought that a 
 short liturgy to occupy part of the service, leaving room for an ex- 
 tempore prayer, is a great help both to the people and to the minister. 
 It is almost superfluous for any Englishman to say that I have a 
 profound admiration for the simple but sublime liturgy of the Epis- 
 copal church. In most other protestant churches too much is left 
 for the minister to do, and too little for the people. Yet there is 
 danger in a liturgy, for it becomes stereotyped ; the people get to 
 know it too well, to say it and not feel it ; it sinks down into dull 
 routine, and dull routine imperils the life of any church ; for men 
 live by changes and develope by the surprises which nature and God 
 are ever springing upon them. Fresh scenes enkindle fresh thoughts ; 
 new experiences create new emotions, and man rises ever from high 
 to higher. . ., . , 
 
 \ am not prophet enough to foretell what will be the future of 
 the Episcopal Church of England. It seems to me that circum- 
 stances are all on her side, and her destiny is largely in her 
 own hands. She has a magnificent organization, based on ancient 
 usage and the gathered facts of men's experience as to their own 
 wants. She has given England its literature, and holds as proud a 
 position to-day as she has ever done. She has great orators whom 
 all men delight to honour. As a church she has the attachment of 
 almost half the English nation, and the reverence of almost all of it. 
 But if she would reach her true position, if she would achieve her 
 
94 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 great destiny, she must do a work of reform by putting away many 
 things. She must put away her old pride and haughtiness, and 
 learn to recognize and love her fellow christians who do not use her 
 liturgy or conform to her ritual. Her claim to apostolical succession 
 is a figment and a folly, and no more possible, as a law for the 
 church, than an equivalent theory would be in the world of art. 
 The inspiration flows into the soul from the laying on of God's 
 hands alone, and not from any fixed methods of human confedera- 
 tion. The Almighty has not followed a method for distributing lis 
 grace as men follow a method for bringing water to the city from 
 the hills. It comes as the abundant rain comes, it falls on the 
 mountain slopes, it runs down to the plains in rills of silvery hue 
 and song, it combines in streams and rivers, it hides under ground 
 and bubbles up in fountains ; now the mighty stream floods all its 
 channels, now it leaves the old worn beds to cut new ways for its 
 leaping music, and again it will burst up in fresh districts to gladden 
 the ground with beauty. No perfectness of organization or power 
 of wealth, or ancient claim, can command the spirit of anointing ; 
 it comes not through rituals, or bishops, or councils, or creeds, but 
 as the wind, hiding the secret of whence and whither. 
 
 One other thing the Episcopal Church of England must do if she 
 is going to take her righful place and do her rightful work. She 
 must put away state patronage and state control, the endowment 
 and the protection are not a help, but a hindrance : a yoke upon 
 her nock, and a fetter upon her hands. She has nothing to lose 
 by disestablishment and disendowment, but everything to gain. She 
 will lose a crutch and gain in strength of limb ; she wil lose vexa- 
 tious exactions, the interference of politicians who have small regard 
 for piety and great regaid for party victory. She will lose a false 
 honour and gain a real glory. She may lose a few ritualists — which 
 would be no substantial loss — but she would draw to herself, I most 
 firmly believe, many of the eloquent preachers and scholarly laymen 
 of other denominations ; she would break down for ever the barrier 
 now existing between herself and the kindred churches of the land, 
 and she will have done what is of far more importance than all 
 considerations of prudence and policy, far before the church and all 
 churches ; she will have done right. 
 
 It will come, this disestablishment and disendowment. Not yet, 
 I hope, not yet. They do not yet know how to grapple with the 
 details of the subject. Disestablishment would be easy enough, but 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. ^5 
 
 disendowment is an intricate and difficult matter ; and it should be 
 approached neither in anger nor in haste, but with judicial calmness 
 and stern regard to what is just and fair. There are many dead to 
 think of, whole hosts of pious ancestors, and it is a hard matter to 
 get at them to know what they meant ; and there are hosts of living to 
 be consulted. The establishment is not a new thing, it is an ancient 
 thing and venerable. It has lived long, and in great part lived most 
 mighty well. It has played a conspicuous part in the nation's 
 history. The bead roll of Episcopal church worthies is long, and 
 many of the names writ there will shine more and more as the 
 ages pass info the perfect day. She has nursed England's large 
 hearted and devoted patriots ; at her altars have ministered a 
 host of saintly men ; from her pulpits great orators with burn- 
 ing zeal have spoken out their message of rebuke and truth- 
 telling ; our book shelves are crowded with the literature of her 
 brave, wise, and learned, sons. And though age is no reason 
 for living, surely it is no reason for destruction. The establish- 
 ment is old and venerable withal, and should command veneration. 
 But while I respect a sentiment of this sort, while I honour it as 
 proof of tenderness in man, I would not have it debar me, or other 
 men, from an act of justice. For there is not a single wrong in 
 existence that is not old, and that many do not love. Did n't South 
 America love slavery, and give the north something more than a 
 hint of her sentiment? Wasn't Roman Catholicism an ancient 
 thing and venerable ? Had there not been a time when she fear- 
 lessly declared the truth ; had she not again and again interposed 
 between the tyrant and his vassels ; v^as there not a time when the 
 haughty, spoiling, murderous baron stayed his hand at her word, 
 and the poor man dared in her presence assert his rights ; was there 
 not a time when she led the van of human progress, and was the 
 mother of all civilization ; when her preachers were bold and 
 eloquent ; her writers bold and learned ; her common people bold 
 and good ? And yet, because perversions had come, shadows and 
 bars of blackness ; priestly despotism grinding down the mind and 
 conscience of the people ; papal insolence daring to stand between 
 the soul of man and God, because of that though the holy pope took 
 to hard praying and swearing ; though cardinals and bishops did set 
 up a most pitiful whine ; though from end to end of Christendom was 
 wailed forth the soft, pathetic notes of that old song : " Woodman, 
 spare that tree." Luther and his brav^^ compeers hacked away at 
 
9^^ CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 the withered thing, with hard blows and manly shouting. Yes, I 
 would have men regard sentiment, as far as possible, and deal 
 tenderly with the object of it, but there is one sentiment deeper, 
 broader, mightier than all others — it is the great sentiment oi justice. 
 Events are bringing about the disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the English Church in a manner wonderful for its decisive- 
 ness and rapidity. The non-conformists were for long the chief and 
 only promoters of it ; but now the ritualists have taken it out of 
 their hands. They are in open revolt against the public worship 
 regulation act, and in some way or other will set themselves free. 
 The people, too, are anxious to heal the great rift which has gone 
 through the country, dividing men and filling them with bitterness. 
 England's heart is set to do right, and she will do it. The nation 
 is rising to the idea of a free church in a free state. Englishmen 
 see that the Episcopal Church of Canada and elsewhere is free 
 and flourishing, and they say : " Why not in England ?" And 
 many of the clergy are asking : " Why not be free ? What need of 
 ours bishops in the House of Lords ? Why be subject to the med- 
 dling of politicians, who, for the most part, care nothing for the 
 church ? The people love us ; let us cast ourselves upon that strong 
 affection." And they will do it : in a little while perhaps, or after 
 long ; but they will do it, and the church will stand forth free — free 
 to do with more vigor and efficiency her holy work for men and 
 God — free to co-operate with other churches without scorn or bit- 
 terness — free as to faith and form of worship ; every pious soul 
 within her gates a brave " defender of the faith :" and then, religious 
 England will rise up in peace and thankfulness, and lift up the 
 shout of joy and prayer, which we will echo back, " God bless the 
 great enfranchised church — God save our Queen !" "< ;? 
 
 \ 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCH. 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCH. 
 
 The old historian Quintus Curtius tells that in certain seasons of 
 the year Bactria was darkened by whirlwinds of dust, which com- 
 pletely covered and concealed all the roads ; left thus without their 
 usual landmarks the travellers used to wait until the stars shone out 
 to light them on their dim and perilous way. These are days of 
 great confusion in little things ; much fighting the air, and at times 
 bewilderment, for theologic, and other forms of controversy, have 
 whirled the dust in clouds along and obscured the pathway from our 
 sight. It is well to imitate the example of the Bactrians, ceasing to 
 look for a little upon the confusions of the day, and turning our gaze 
 upon the great and good and brave of the past, seek guidance from 
 their shining light. For history is a compound of poetry and philo- 
 sophy. It teaches great general truths and principles of life by a 
 representation of characters and events. But how to present the 
 poetry and philosophy together so that the picture shall be at once 
 truthful and attractive, informing to the mind and moving to the fancy; 
 correct as a map, yet beautiful as a landscape painting ; how to make 
 the bare hard lines of history pleasing to the imagination without 
 running into historical romance, has always been the master 
 difficulty with writers and with speakers. It is my difficulty to-night. 
 I want to give exact information, and at the same time present 
 moving scenes to the imagination. I want to play the part of 
 sculptor, giving to the eye express and lively images of some mean, 
 and some magnificent, forms which moved along the stage of past 
 life ; and at the same time to play the part of anatomist, dissecting 
 the subject, the mean and the magnificent alike, to its inmost 
 recesses, and laying bare the springs of action, the causes of life 
 or decay. I have to state historical facts and to indulge in manifold 
 speculations ; and the task is not easy, I find, but I will do it as best 
 I can. And the task is pleasant if hard, for where you deal with 
 great men you move in ^reat times, and follow the lines of a history 
 which for long continues to be fruitful in mighty practical lessons 
 for all the living. The heroes of one age stimulate whole genera- 
 
lOO CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 tions following to high heroic action. The biographies of earth's 
 true-hearted men — who lived in stormy and passionate devotion to 
 justice and truth — who upheld the cause of humanity against human- 
 ity — who were mighty to do and to suffer, counting nor comfort nor 
 \\{z dear unto them — those biographies are great armories, wherein 
 stoui weapons may be forged, by which great battles may be fought 
 and won. 
 
 The history of faith's conquests did not cease to be written when 
 that eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews was done. Since 
 then, "by faith " many a Noah has " prepared an ark to the saving 
 of his house " — many an Abraham has gone forth to pitch his 
 tent and build his altar in a land of strangers, " looking for a city 
 which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God " — many 
 a noble Moses has turned his back upon this world's wealth and 
 ease and fain choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of 
 God Men by the might of faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
 eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
 the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness 
 men made strong, waxed valiant to fight, turned to flight the armies 
 of the aliens. 
 
 Let us not forget those mighty men, our fathers. They wrought 
 hard — we are reaping the fruit of their labour. They fought right 
 manfully for a pure faith, for freedom of thought and speech, — they- 
 broke ecclesiastical fetters, threw down ecclesiastical prison houses, 
 put priesdy despotism at peril, and built a protestant rampart round 
 the land which defies the gathered forces of popery, as the rock 
 bound coast of the British Isles defies the dashing of the fierce 
 Atlantic wave. They were stern men, hard of speech and grim in 
 doing — much light in them, but not much swarthiness — had a the- 
 ology and a way of dealing with despots that was somewhat harsh- 
 perhaps — but what would you? would you have a vesper hymn 
 from the cannon's throat ? or the song of a thrush from an eagle .'* 
 would you choose a surgeon's delicate lancet to hew down a forest 
 of trees .'' would you have the tints of the rainbow in the ribs of a 
 mountain ? Strength and beauty are doubtless necessary to perfec- 
 tion, but the strength alone is sometimes needed when stern work 
 has to be done. The puritan fathers were not ideal men. I shall not 
 hold them up as exemplars of all greatness. In many things the best 
 of them were lacking. No man since Jesus Christ has been such, 
 an exemplar. He lacked nothing to a complete and perfect man- 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCIf. lor 
 
 hood, but the greatest of his disciples has not reached to the full 
 stature of the master. Humanity reveals itself in fragments — one 
 man is the embodiment of one kind of excellence, another of another- 
 Achilles wins the victory and Homer immortalises it. Blake con- 
 quers on the sea, and Cromwell on the land, and Milton tells the 
 story of them both. They were stern men those puritans, at a time 
 when stern men were needed — the work they did stern men only 
 could have done. ^ ;.^ ^ 
 
 The merits of the English reformation were many and great. It 
 was right in declaring the Roman Church, with all its clergy and 
 Cardinals and popes, no more inspired than other men, and there- 
 fore no more fit than others to keep traditions, expound scriptures 
 and keep the keys of heaven. It was right in declaring that by 
 reason of her prejudice and sloth and ambition and crime she had 
 grieved away the Spirit of God and forfeited all right to man's 
 allegiance or reverence. It was right in exposing the false doctrines 
 and wicked practices of that Church, its arrogance and pride. It 
 was right in demanding liberty of conscience, an open Bible and the 
 right to interpret it ; to have the sacraments in full ; to reject relics 
 and the power of saints, allowing nothing to stand between the soul 
 of the sinner and the love of the Saviour. The reformation was 
 right in demanding the emancipation of thought, and reason, and 
 judgment from ecclesiastical trammels and priestly tyrranny. It 
 was right in refusing to have the public conscience taxed ; the form 
 of worship and false doctrines prescribed ; but it is plain that the 
 form that reformation took was not favorable to the growth of reli- 
 gion or political liberty. It was a great step to get back from the 
 pope to the Bible, and freedom of conscience, and good sense in the 
 exposition of it. Wonders were wrought in the land — the magicians 
 in the church w^ere confounded and overthrown. But it had only 
 left Egypt to wander in the wilderness ; carrying the sanctuary, the 
 ark, and the table of the law ; sometimes sighing after the leaks and 
 garlics left behind ; now and then worshipping a calf of gold the king 
 had set up, or trusting an empty word the king had spoken. The 
 church had but changed popes — Clement of Rome for Henry VHI 
 of England. If the system which the founders of the Church of 
 England adopted could have been made permanent (and but for the 
 sturdy puritans it would have been) the reformation, politically, would 
 have teen a national curse rather than a national good. It looked 
 at first as if the English had only broken one yoke in pieces to put 
 
I02 — ^ CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. ^_=^...^^ 
 
 on another ; had only dethroned one despot to enthrone another. 
 But it could not be ; the first step taken, and the second was in- 
 evitable. It was not likely that the people could free themselves 
 from an ancient bondage, and then submit themselves to a bondage 
 of a day's growth. From the earliest days of childhood they had 
 been taught to own the pope's supremacy; to regard him as Christ's 
 Vicar upon earth ; to give their conscience into the keeping of the 
 church, and listen with reverence to all the priest should say. That 
 illusion had been scattered by the breath of Luther and his fol- 
 lowers ; by a mighty effort they had wrenched themselves away from 
 the monstrous lie they had believed and loved ; and now, having 
 done a part, they were commanded to stay the hand and do no more. 
 They were asked to exchange the intolerance of Rome for the in- 
 tolerance of the Protestant. They were applauded for removing the 
 crucifix, but would be persecuted if they laid a finger on the surplice. 
 But though civil government and its ministers — who at heart were 
 Romish still, chose to halt midway — the people had no such pur- 
 pose. Individuals had passed out of the gloom and bondage of 
 Egypt and caught glimpses of a land flowing with milk and honey 
 there away beyond, and went back to lead their many brethren out. 
 The history of the rise of great religious differences is always a 
 strange one, and full of lessons, which few are wise enough to learn, 
 and fewer still to practice. The differences among the English 
 protestants that gave birth to the puritan party have been repeated 
 a thousand times since. There were men dissenting stoutly from 
 almost all Christendom, yet holding it a sin, and criminal offence, 
 that anv should dissent from them. They demanded freedom of 
 conscience, yet refused to grant it; declaimed against persecu- 
 tion, yet piled on the fagot and set the rack to work ; they 
 removed the images and said "enough, the vestments shall re- 
 main " ; they made a general appeal to reason when they abolished 
 the censer and the incense, but reason was no more sought after, 
 only ecclesiastical authority when the puritans demanded still 
 further changes. It wouldn't be difficult to find some excuse for 
 that imperious no which rang out from church and state on the ears, 
 of iconoclastic puritans. For fifteen centuries or more the church 
 was supposed to be under the special and immediate guidance 
 of the holy spirit. Ecclesiastical decisions as to all points of 
 Biblical interpretation and forms of ritual were controlled by 
 divinity itself, so error there could not be. The reformation swept 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCH. 103 
 
 that theory out of Germany and England. But somehow there 
 obtained among the clergy and the laity a confused notion that 
 theology was a fixed truth, not to be questioned, scarcely to be 
 discussed. But there were men who would question, and dispute, 
 and often deny the truth of great and venerable doctrines. And 
 some, wise in their own eyes, claimed for themselves what they had 
 denied to the church, infallibility in the interpretation of the Bible. 
 They were intolerant upon principle and persecuted those who 
 differed from them in the name of Truth. Then the state had 
 to interfere on behalf of peace ; for the state had taken the place 
 of the pope, and, while making no pretensions to divine guidance, 
 enacted a body of formulas in matters of religious belief beyond 
 which none might pass. So articles of religion were passed into 
 statute laws of the realm. Men more or less wise, and more or 
 less good, did, in convocation in the year 1562, draw up 39 
 articles and compose a prayer book, the articles to be, from hence- 
 forth, the national expression of faith, and the book, the national 
 form of worship. And then it came to be that quite young men, 
 of little, sober thought, and less experience, were called upon to 
 enter the ministry by pledging themselves to a long series of 
 intricate and difficult propositions of abstruse divinity ; they under- 
 took never to waver or doubt, never to allow the mind to be shaken 
 by any contrary wind of doctrine. But the state had assumed 
 a function she was not fitted to discharge ; it was usurpation and 
 folly when she assumed the headship of the church. She fell 
 into an ancient blunder at once, trying to steroetype the ever- 
 changing forms of religious belief. The man — who in obedience to a 
 council of the Church of Rome, or the Convocation and parliament 
 of the Church of England, or the synod of the church of Scotland, 
 or any other body, assuming to be representative and authoritative, 
 shall undertake never to waver or doubt in matters of religious 
 belief, simply pledges himself never to enquire, never to examine 
 for one moment the foundations of his faith, never to hear and 
 heed the great strong voices which rise from the sad deeps of his 
 own nature, never to make progress possible for himself or other 
 men — he promises what he has no right to promise, what he should 
 sooner die than promise, to give up his own manhood. But the man 
 who does make that promise is at once turned into an instrument of 
 oppression and tyranny. Men who bind themselves to a set and 
 changeless formula of faith, be it the edict of a lateran council, or 
 
I04 
 
 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 the 39 articles of Episcopacy, or the Westminster confession of Pres- 
 byterianism, do at once put on more or less of intolerance and bigotry. 
 For they hold, not that each form of belief is an approximation 
 to the truth, but that their form of belief is the whole truth itself — 
 not that the conceptions of the relations of man to man, and of man 
 to God, may change, must change, with the growth of ages — but that 
 their conception is the right one, and therefore permanent. And 
 they become intolerant of any attempt to break away, and wiU rule 
 as despots if they can. It i3 no more true of one church than of all 
 the churches which have tried to stereotype their creed. On that 
 account the Roman catholics persecuted the christians of the 
 Vaudois valleys and of the Netherlands, and the protestants of 
 England ; and the Episcopal Church persecuted the catholics and the 
 puritans, and the puritans persecuted the quakers. On that account 
 see the dividing lines here among us : the Catholic priest gathers up 
 his petticoat of dark stuff and passes by, not deigning a glance at 
 his Protestant fellow citizen, who pays most of his taxes for him ; 
 and the Presbyterian has built a dead wall between himself and the 
 Unitarian ; and the Baptist has dug great and wide trenches and 
 filled them with water to keep off all the world. You shall find 
 many a protestant non-conformist dissenting stoutly from all the 
 christians extant in this world of ours ; a Calvinist dissenting from 
 Calvin in most things, a protestant dissenting from nine-tenths of 
 protestantism, and yet he will persecute a brother who shall differ 
 just a bit from him. This is it : I hold a creed, result of early educa- 
 tion, or in some points I have wrought it out for myself; and there 
 I take my stand, holding that this which I have got is finality for 
 myself and all other men. I marvel that all men do not see as I 
 see, and mock at those who walk in old ways regardful of old land- 
 marks. I call them on, and a few respond. One earnest soul seems 
 sweeping past, denying that I have reached finality and found the 
 all of truth, and I cry : " hold friend, you are wrong to dissent from 
 me ; you must not dissent from me ; I shall call you hard names if 
 you do ; I shall throw stones at you if you do ; have a care ; I hold 
 it as a duty to save you from the sin of heresy." Yes, that is it. 
 The Roman Catholic Church said that ; and the Episcopal Church 
 of England said that ; the Puritans in turn said it ; Nonconforming 
 churches often say it to their ministers now. What is the remedy .'' 
 Why, put away your ecclesiasticism, your despotism, your pride — 
 look the difficulties in the face — let each take his manhood, respect- 
 
^^^^ THE PURITAN CHURCH, " - _. .^^ 
 
 ing the manful rights of every other, and exercise that charity which 
 never faileth. 
 
 In the time of Edward, protestantism began to be divided into two 
 parties. There was the Lutheran party of moderate reformers, too 
 intent on building a new system of dogmatic theology to spend 
 much time and energy in the work of changing forms and cere- 
 monies, so the crucifixes and images, the tapers and priestly vest- 
 ments, continued to be used. On the other side was the Calvinistic 
 party of ardent reformers, hating all these things as popish idolatry 
 and superstition. The reign of Mary healed it for a time, for they 
 had to make common cause against their ancient foe. But the 
 breach grew into a wide gulph while Elizabeth was Queen. Calvin 
 had dogmatised on the shores of the lake of Geneva, and John 
 Knox, the giant Scot, from the ancient town of Frankfort, had sent 
 thunder rolling over Europe. Elizabeth opposed the pope's supre- 
 macy well enough, but was greatly in love with many a Romish 
 superstition, and had faith in a gorgeous form of worship. She 
 grew angry when the real presence was denied, and was often pray- 
 ing to the Virgin Mary. But the great battle was fought over 
 images, and the crucifix and lighted tapers, and on account of such 
 small things the puritans arose. Small things they were when 
 looked at superficially, but if you will look a little deeper you will 
 find that tremendous issues were involved. The puritan party was 
 at first a purely religious party, and the battle they fought was the 
 battle of the reformation. The old religion, with its forms and 
 faiths, had not been forgotten by the people. If it had, and Rome 
 had ceased to be dangerous, we might condemn the captious spirit 
 of the puritans. But Rome had not ceased to be dangerous, and 
 would not, while the people were taught the old faith and the old 
 ceremony. The lurking priests, who were protestants in nothing 
 save the name, had a great advantage while the ceremonies remained 
 unchanged. There were the old images, the old vestments, the 
 tapers burning on the altars as of yore, and any day might come 
 that fatal relapse which should place the nation again under the 
 yoke of Rome. The sign of the cross in baptism may in itself be a 
 harmless and a decorous thing, but what if that sign is one of the 
 most striking superstitions in the Church of Rome, what if while it 
 is but an empty sign and can do no good to child or sponsor, it may 
 keep alive the old superstition and foster a clinging to the dark 
 things that once reigned in the heart and conscience ; why, then, it 
 
io6 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 is better that the sign of the cress should be done away. It is no 
 use lopping a branch or two from the deadly upas tree, the axe 
 must be laid to the root of it, and the destruction of it made sure. 
 Half measures will end in failure when you have such a gigantic 
 evil as popery to deal with. You cannot banish that by gentle 
 means. You cannot persuade it to go, plead you never so per- 
 sistently. It would laugh behmd its strong ramparts at a whole 
 nation on its knees. Again and again has it been found that it can 
 only be driven forth at the sword's point. So the puritans fought 
 not over tapers and vestments and images, but against the deadly 
 principle those things did signify and embody, and against the super- 
 stition and those things fostered and kept alive. Small things those 
 vestments and images — how can they hurt or hinder ? Oh, yes, they 
 are small things in themselves, but what do t^ y signify ? that is the 
 question. If you had been travelling some years ago on the Euro- 
 pean Continent, and had gone to the City of Strasbourg, you would 
 have found the French flag flying from cathedral, tower, and rampart. 
 If you go there now the German flag is seen instead. A small thing 
 that, only a different coloured rag. No. it is not a small thing. 
 That change of rag means that the people have passed under an- 
 other government ; are French no longer, but a part of the German 
 Empire. So the ritual of a Church, as to vestments, may be a small 
 thing in itself, but its signification is important. Does it mean an 
 acknowledgment of Rome or Lambeth .? That is the qiiestion. A 
 change of garments may indicate a change of church auth(»rity. And 
 while that is so the garments must be looked after. The Puritans 
 did that. They stood manfully up for a thorough reformation, no half 
 measures nor truckling policy ; for a pure faith and simple ritual ; for 
 freedom of faith and of worship ; for man's inalienable right to ap- 
 proach the mercy seat of God, and in the name of Christ make confes- 
 sion of his sins ; to offer for himself his sacrifice of a broken and a 
 contrite heart, and hear for himself the divine absolute. The 
 puritans asserted the reality and importance of religious principle 
 as against formulas and badges. Hitherto the people had been 
 mocked with empty forms and hollow creeds ; they hungered des- 
 perately, and the priests came with two hands full of husks ; they 
 thirsted, and were led to the slimy waters of baptismal regeneration ; 
 they wanted the pillar of fire to lead them through the night, and 
 the priest came bearing a lighted taper. And it seemed as if the Refor- 
 mation would be only the name of the thing ; as if the Church was 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCH. 
 
 107 
 
 cnly to be re-christened, not cleansed — painted in patches, but not 
 purified ; and the brave puritans said, " of this we have had more 
 than enough ; stand aside with your flickering torch-light and let 
 God's pillar of fire shine out ; let the priest put away the surplice, 
 and put on salvation as a garment ; away with empty forms and 
 worn out creeds, and give us life that the people may take it and 
 live. We ask not for show, for sound, and for pleasure to the senses, 
 we ask for reality. ' A living dog is better than a dead lion.' " 
 
 The English Reformation had produced no Luther, Calvin, Zwin> 
 gle or Knox — no man of vast imperial soul, who could impart to 
 the national mind the impress of his own character, or leave behind 
 him the heritage of his religious creed. No stirring appeals went 
 forth to the masses of mankind such as awoke the echoes of the 
 press anvd the pulpit of Germany and France and Switzerland. 
 From the papal to the royal supremacy, from the legislative to the 
 archiepiscopal powers, from the Roman missal to the Anglican lit- 
 urgy, the transition was easy. The English Church, having warred 
 somewhat successfully against the Church of Rome, now withdrew 
 her arms from thence and turned them against the dissenters within 
 her own borders. Suspecting, it seems, her magnificent resources 
 of piety, genius and learning, she grasped the illegitimate weapons 
 of civil power to enforce a general and absolute conformity. In the 
 first year of Queen Elizabeth the Act of Uniformity was passed, 
 which gave her, as monarch, full powers in all concerns ecclesiati- 
 cal ; and in the last clause but one it was enacted " that all ornaments 
 for churches and the ministers thereof shall remain as they were in 
 the second year of Edward VI." That was the great civil effort ta 
 stop the progress of the Reformation, and to crush the genius of pro- 
 testantism. The ministers of the state were tardy in doing the work 
 of law, however, and nonconformity made way. Made way in a 
 most unpleasant and alarming manner, in the opinion of the rough- 
 handed daughter of Henry, and she wrote a characteristic letter to 
 Parker, and through him to all the bishops, enjoining them to begin 
 the work of enforcing uniformity. But among the clergy were many 
 men of honest scruple and tender conscience ; they hated the cap 
 and the surplice, because they were badges of Rome, — and while 
 the majority of the London clergy complied with the order to wear 
 them, others would not, and suffered the k ss of preferments and 
 social position. Sampson, dean of Christ cliurch, and Humphrey, 
 president of Magdalen college, Oxford, were summoned before the 
 
-^o8 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM, 
 
 ecclesiastical commission and required to conform in the use of the 
 cap and the surplice ; and though they wrote a most submissive 
 petition declaring the honest scruples they had, declaring that to 
 restore the Roman ceremonies was to put the dear and hard-bought 
 liberty of the people in peril — was to risk being led back to the 
 ancient darkness of superstition — yet the intolerant state church left 
 them no alternatives but the surrender of their convictions or their 
 places. Like true men, they held to their convictions and let their 
 places go. Elizabeth could brook no opposition to he" imperious 
 will, and grew not merely firm, but fierce. And her fire set the 
 nation in a blaze which it cost great seas of England's best blood to 
 quench. If the queen and her party were in earnest, so were the 
 puritans. They had tasted liberty, and would not lightly give it up. 
 Only cravens will. They suffered persecution, and, as of old, their 
 bonds were made manifest in all places, and by those bonds the 
 gospel of a free conscience made great conquest. It was not simply 
 in matters of dress they refused to conform ; it began there, and 
 went further. They took exception to the Book of Common Prayer, 
 to many of its ceremonies — especially that of baptism, and churching 
 of women, and music from organs- Then they attacked the disci- 
 pline of the church, and even episcopaey itself, and, most strongly, 
 the lordly and temporal power of the bishops, and the ordination 
 and imposition of ministers upon the parishes. So that the war 
 became one of great principles, involving to each side most tremen- 
 dous issues. It was a war of giants, each side fought with enduring 
 obstinacy, and for a time it seemed as if each was invincible. Eli- 
 zabeth fought with a hard rough hand, not for the church, but for 
 herself She cared for the church just as civil rulers have always 
 cared for it — as an instrument of power, and no more. She robbed 
 the church to fill her own exchequer, and m.ade a multitude of liv- 
 ings so poor that to this day, Queen Anne's bounty notwithstanding, 
 many an English clergyman is doomed to a respectable poverty, 
 which is only slow starvation ; while a few clergymen, and all the 
 bishops, roll in unearned wealth. That is one great blessing which 
 accrues from state patronage and control. Some getting rich on 
 patronage and others starving on intellect and piety. 
 
 The restraints and penalties by which civil governments have at 
 various times thought it expedient to limit the religious liberty of its 
 subjects may easily be traced and pointed out. P'irst, there comes 
 the test of conformity to the established religion as the condition of 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCH. ^^ 
 
 exercising offices of civil trust ; then the restraint upon the free 
 promulgation of those differing opinions ; then the prohibition of 
 the open exercise of worship; then the prohibition is extended 
 to private acts of worship and expressions of opinion ; and last 
 of all, the enforcement by legal penalties of conformity to the 
 established church, its form of worship, and formulas of faith. 
 Through all those stages tiie puritans had to pass. They under- 
 went confiscation, imprisonment, exile, compulsory silence, ever)'- 
 thing except conviction. Laws were passed forbidding the puritan 
 ministers to preach, or even call the people to worship in a private 
 house. The act of uniformity banished them from town and city, 
 from home and friends. The press was used to libel and denounce 
 them. The shepherd was torn from his flock, and went weeping 
 into exile. The prudent, obstinate, masculine Elizabeth persecuted 
 them without a sign of relenting or remorse. That beduped and 
 befooled James L, who was only a tool in the hands of others, 
 persecuted them still more, but under Charles I, most fickle and 
 most false of all England's kings, the party war flamed fiercely from 
 end to end of England. Speaking of that time, Macauley says : 
 " The puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the holy 
 office. They were forced to fly from the country. They were 
 imprisoned. Their noses were slit. They were whipped. Their ears 
 were cut off. Their cheeks were branded with red hot iron. But the 
 cruelty of the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude of the victims. 
 The mutilated defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the 
 star chamber, came back with undiminished resolution to the place 
 of their glorious infancy, and manfully presented the stump of their 
 ear to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The hardy sect grew 
 up and flourished in spite of everything that seemed likely to stunt 
 it, struck its roots deep into a barren soil, and spread its branches 
 wide to an inclement sky. The multitude thronged round Prynne 
 in the pillory with more respect than they paid Mainwaring in the 
 pulpit, and treasured up the rags which the blood of Burton had 
 soaked, with a veneration such as mitres and surplices had ceased to 
 inspire." That eloquent tribute by the great historian and essayist is 
 none too great, for those puritans did most marvellous things, 
 creating a mighty age. Year after year and for generation after 
 generation, they went on waging an untiring war against ever}' form 
 of civil or ecclesiastical despotism. They bore the anathemas of 
 bishops and the wrath of kings, the rush and sweep of armies. At 
 
CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM, 
 
 one time convinced that England could no longer offer an asylum to 
 free men, and not encouraged by the state of things in Europe, 
 turned their eyes to the newly discovered lands lying beyond the 
 Atlantic, in which they could find shelter from a present tyranny, 
 and a boundless prr oect for future hope. And the " Mayflower," 
 with her small but hardy band jet out in search for " freedom to wor- 
 ship God." Others followed in the following years ; men of higher 
 social rank ; men of capacious minds and commanding intellects ; 
 men formed to lead and legislate. And others would have gone, 
 the wise and cautious Lord Saye — the acknowledged chief of the 
 independent sect — the brave, open and enthusiastic lord Brook ; Sir 
 Arthur Haslerig ; Hampden, ashamed of a country for whose rights 
 he had fought alone ; and Cromwell, panting with energies he could 
 neither control nor explain, and whose unconquerable fire was still 
 wrapt in smoke to all but his kinsman Hampden, these all would 
 have gone but that the king, advised by Laud, put a stop to emigra- 
 tion. That was the dawn of a great and decisive day. I must dwell 
 on it a little. 
 
 Charles the First was king. In 1633 he determined to go to 
 Scotland and be crowned as King of the Scots. His reception there 
 was all that kingly heart could wish. The entrance into Edinburgh 
 was a grand ovation, public joy ran high, all showing that the heart 
 of the people was loyal. But strangely enough, in presbyterian 
 Scotland, Charles had as sole adviser, Archbishop Laud, who wished 
 the king to establish a regimen and a ritual worship. In a short 
 time Laud produced his service book for the cathedral at Edinburgh, 
 which was crowded for the occasion. But any one to have looked 
 on that swaying crowd would have seen that all were ill at ease. A 
 dark scowl sat upon many a face ; bitterness was in many a heart ; 
 and loud murmurings hung on many a lip, because of this high- 
 handed innovation. Dr. Hanna ascended the reading desk, but 
 no sooner had he commenced this novel service than an old dame, 
 who occupied her wonted place at the pulpit stairs, sprang to her 
 feet, and hurling a cutty stool at his head, cried, Out, thou false thief; 
 dost thou say mass at my lug! The old dame struck the first of 
 many blows ; the covenant was formed, an army raised, and civil 
 war commenced by the brave Scots, who were determined to have 
 religious liberty or know the reason why. Charles raised an army 
 and marched to chastise the rebellious Scots, but somehow didn't do 
 it, and gave them all they asked instead. Meanwhile in England 
 
^^^^_ „. =.. THE PURITAN CHURCH, III 
 
 the "divine right" of the king was being enforced with a heavy 
 and cruel hand The puritan party of freedom was growing mad. 
 The writ of ship mon^^y was brought out, which Hampden resisted. 
 Then came the long parliament and the growth of the puritan party, 
 and then, after wrong doing and high-handed cruelty on the one 
 side, and patient forbearance on the other, came war. I am not an 
 
 . advocate for war ; I have espoused the cause of peace, and so far 
 from delighting in the din and tumult of strife, would re-echo the 
 angel song, with all my heart and voice, " On earth peace and 
 good will toward men." I am watching and longing for the dawn of 
 that day by whose light men shall work to "beat the sword into a 
 ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning hook." War has ever 
 been the world's great curse, the fearful weapon wielded by ambition 
 or revenge, devastating lands and desolating homes. And, if there is 
 one kind of war worse than another — if one battlefield can be more 
 dreadful than another — it is when men of kith and kin do meet in 
 deadly strife ; when brother makes the home hearth red with his 
 brother's blood. But there is a greater evil that can happen to a 
 nation than even civil war, and that is civil or religious slavery and 
 oppression. There is no single spark of disloyalty within me; 
 every pulsation of my heart is loyal to my Queen, and right earnest 
 is my prayer "Long may she live to reign over us," but if a despot 
 were on the throne — one who used the royal prerogative to abuse the 
 civil rights of the people, and his headship of the church to bind 
 them in chains of ritual or of formula ; then, with all my heart and 
 all my strength of hand I would rise up in rebellion. Is man a 
 worm, to be crushed at the tyrant's will ? Is his back of iron that 
 the scourge cannot tear it ? Is not his liberty a sacred trust, given 
 him of heaven ? It is ; and he who tamely yields it up, to tyrant 
 state or tyrant church is a craven-hearted coward, and only worthy 
 
 "^ of his chains. 
 
 I need not dwell at length upon the story, you know it well ; how 
 T that the puritan cause at last became the cause of the people, of civil 
 and religious liberty; how that the parliament took up arms against the 
 king, and sent brave Oliver to lead them on to conquer Charles at 
 Marston Moor, and crush the royalist party at Naseby ; how the 
 Scots took up the cause of the king, and Cromwell taught them to 
 wish they hadn't ; how there came a long struggle between the 
 independents and presbyterians with varying fortunes for each cause ; 
 how that Cromwell lent himself to a political blunder and a piece of 
 
1 1 2 CHURCHES OF CHRIS TEN DOM. 
 
 infamy in the execution of the king ; how Cromwell was given some 
 power and took the rest, and was lord protector of the British realm 
 when the puritans were in the ascendant, triumphant over popes 
 and kings. 
 
 I am by no means disposed to excuse or try to palliate many 
 things those puritans did. There was much in their early opposition 
 which was extreme, and captious, and uncharitable. In language 
 and demeanor they were nard and stern, had not much of " sweet- 
 ness and light." The form of church government they established 
 was what is called independent, which too often seemed to mean 
 that every man was quite as good as every other man, if not a little 
 better, and that each v/as free to differ from his brother and speak it 
 out in hard, rough language. When they got the power they were 
 almost as intolerant as their ancient masters had been, and insisted 
 upon the enforcement of their dogmas just as fiercely as did ever 
 catholic priest. There were many extravagancies in statesmanship, 
 in dress, in speech, and in matters of religion. To the puritan, God 
 was an awful king. The earth shuddered at His presence. The 
 crashing thunder and rending earthquake were but faint whispers of 
 his wrath, as the magnificence of earth and sky is but a ray out of 
 his glory. It was terrible to fall into the hands of the living and 
 angry God. 
 
 By Adam's sin every man had fallen, and the wrath of God was 
 resting on him, because he was born into the life of earth. Man had 
 no power of himself to discern good from evil, right from wrong, and 
 all his goodness was at best but torn and filthy rags. The puritan 
 stood at the base of Sinai, and cried " Amen " to the thunderings of 
 a Jewish law. I am not an apologist for such a theology as that, but 
 what would you ? Only such men as they could h?,ve done such work 
 as they did. They were for the people always, as against tyrant king 
 or tyrant priest. The mighty war they waged was for liberty of 
 conscience, man's right to think and act according to his light of 
 reason. They opposed with manful and with prosperous might the 
 fa'se and pernicious doctrine that the state is subservient to the 
 church, and must make its statute laws to conform to ecclesiastical 
 rules. They said " the state is supreme ; civil laws are made for the 
 people ; if the teachings of the cnurch are opposed to these, all the 
 worse for the church." Their form of church government rightly 
 excluded the possibility of establishing religion, or having a state 
 churchj for any man might minister, who for his character and gifts, 
 
THE PURITAN CHURCH. 
 
 113 
 
 the people should elect. He was the free choice of a free people, 
 asking no sanction of the state, seeking no patronage, and submitting 
 to no control. Their doctrines were hard, but did great and needful 
 work. They told how hateful in real aspect and terrible in conse- 
 quence was all sin ; how it benumbs the mind, paralyses the ener- 
 gies, deadens the intellect, the affections and the soul, and that in 
 those days as in these, had tieed to be taught. The spirit of the 
 times had turned religion into a mere ceremonial, and confined it to 
 a building called the church. The puritan took it everywhere ; 
 wrought in its name in field or office, lived in its name in his home, 
 spoke in its name in the council chamber, fought in its name against 
 doers of evil. He was g, man of religion, living always as under the 
 -eye of invisible God. The times were profligate, luxurious, wild 
 and licentious ; the puritan lived, and demanded from others, a pure 
 and austere morality. To be real in a frivolous age, earnest when 
 the multitudes laugh, pure among profligates, godly among the god- 
 less, prayerful among the scorners, is no small thing. It demands 
 the stuff of which saints and heroes are made. And that the 
 puritans were. You can find fault with them if you like, and laugh 
 at them as did the gay cavaliers of their own day. You can say 
 that they were cold and stiff, austere, not lovely at any time ; that 
 they had the strength of the law, and not the beauty of the gospel ; 
 the cunning of the pharisee, and not the simplicity of the christian ; 
 that the rose never bloomed upon their cheeks, but only a cloud was 
 seen to lie darkly on the brow ; that their religion was a principle, 
 and not a kindling, warming, shining sentiment ; that it was hard 
 and grim as the grey crags of a mountain peak, and not a native 
 fountain of joy and gladness, leaping up in winter's frost or sum- 
 mer's sun, playing in the sober autumn or amid the greenness of 
 spring ; and in that you will be right. But their faith made them 
 fitted for their times, and for rough work ; it made them strong men; 
 it made them men of iron sides, and iron will, and unconquerable 
 daring. Those were strong men who dared to resist the grinding 
 despotism of James and the two Charles's, who fought at Nasby 
 and at Marston Moor. Those were strong men, the two thousand 
 ministers, who left pulpit and people, home and friends, to wander 
 in cheerless exile rather than sin against their conscience. They 
 were strong men who sailed away in the Mayflower, to brave wind 
 and sea, hunger and cold, who stepped upon the rocky shores of 
 the American continent, and lifted up to the heavens their song of 
 
 8 
 
114 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 praise ; strong men who faced a thousand perils while they livedo 
 founded a mighty empire on the broad and strong basis of civil and 
 religious liberty, and dying, left "unstained what there they found — 
 freedom to worship God." The battle they fought was that of liberty 
 against despotism, reason against prejudice. They strove for no single 
 generation, and for no single land ; it was for the freedom of the 
 English people, and that the human race might have the opportunity 
 to achieve its great destiny. The lines they marked went out into 
 all the world. The mighty spirit of them passed into the breast of 
 oppressed and down-trodden people ; it roused ancient Greece from 
 the slumber of tv^o thousand years in slavery and degradation ; it 
 kindled in Europe an unquenchable fire, and in its glare men fought ■ 
 like men for man's most manful rights. England owes most of her 
 civil rights to the work they did. Thanks to them, a royal despot 
 can never more tura the wheel of oppression in the free British 
 empire. Any tyrant there would have a short breath in these 
 days. Cromwell and his fellows were not always moderate in the 
 use of power. They had not got accustomed to liberty, and 
 used it in a clumsy way at times; but under them the star of 
 Britain rose and has not fallen, aye, has not paled its glory 
 yet. They were friends of religious liberty, and have handed the 
 priceless heritage down to us. They taught the great lesson, 
 which we are mighty slow to learn, that an age is not to live 
 for itself, but for the ages that must follow. How if they had 
 been as craven and politic as some others I could name — say of 
 this generation, say of this place — who are well content to live, 
 counting life in cents and dollars — will submit to the imposition of 
 wrong, nor dare to protest ? Is it well that the sons of English puri- 
 tans, and the sons of Scotland's brave covenanters, shall submit to a 
 yoke their fathers would not wear ? If they had forgotten their sons, 
 as we seem willing to forget ours, where would have been England's 
 freedom and glory now ? If they had cared more for personal ease 
 and comfort than for justice, where had been our ease and comfort 
 now ? We have need of their spirit, the spirit of our fathers ; we 
 have need to feel the mighty throb of indignation against injustice as 
 they felt it. When shall we feel it ? Not yet — not yet, I fear. We 
 want peace — peace at any price — at the price of our own and our 
 children's rights — peace, and a way to make money. Well, but no. 
 Some of us will speak, so that the rest shall hear. I have tasted 
 the liberty of the Gospel of Christ, and must not only be free, but 
 
THE rUR/TAA' C//URCI/. 
 
 "5 
 
 sec my fellow men free. I am a Briton ; they gave me birth down 
 in the wilds of Cornwall ; they filled my veins with true old Celtic 
 
 . blood — no fault of mine, but it was so. The roar of Atlantic waves, 
 and the mighty rush, or weird sob, of Atlantic winds passing from 
 
 ' sea to sea lulled me to my sleeping and filled my ears when morning 
 came. I have watched the great sea in its madness dash and dash 
 
 . against the tall and rock-ribbed cliffs, and then fall back in foam, as 
 if a thousand faces shone up in white anger ; and I was never afraid 
 of the storm, she seemed to me as a mother. And then came time 
 for thought of men — of men who had by mighty doing made English 
 history. And as I read the story of heroic deeds, to my young ima- 
 gination I still stood in the midst of storm — I was watching the 
 heaving oceans of human passions, and the breath of their striving 
 came beating on me like a tempest. So my mother continued to 
 enfold me in her arms, and her spirit got mingled with mine. I 
 grew to be proud of my great fathers in the love of liberty ; as their 
 figures moved across the canvas my heart leapt towards them. I 
 grew to be proud of my great free country — proud of her free press — 
 proud of her free institutions — proud of the free senate — proud of 
 the free queen of that free people ; sorry for nothing but the fettered 
 church. And now, that I am 3000 miles away, the old love of free- 
 dom is in me stronger than ever. To have any form of tyranny in 
 her empire seems to me a wrong to her, and I am jealous for her 
 
 . honor. I cannot stand quietly by and see the subjects of Victoria 
 oppressed by kingcraft or priestcraft. I love the faith of my protest- 
 ant fathers — I love the altars they reared— I love the dear old home 
 from end to end, and have sung as I would sing to-night : 
 
 " I love thee, when I see thee stand 
 l:-^ The hope ol every other land ; 
 
 A seamark on the tide of Time, 
 Rearing to heaven thy head sublime ; 
 Whence beams of Gospel-splendour shed 
 A sacred halo round thy head. 
 I love thee when 1 hear thy voice 
 Bid a despairing world rejoice ; 
 And loud from shore to shore proclaim 
 In every temple Messiah's Name ; 
 That Name at which from sea to sea 
 All nations yet shall bow the knee. 
 I love thee next to heaven above ; 
 Land of my fathers, thee I love. 
 And rail thy slanderers as they will, 
 "With all thy faults I love thee still." 
 
% 
 
 THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 
 
 The 1 8th century was, I think, the strangest and maddest time in 
 all European history. It is difficult to say whether society was 
 deeply savage or highly civilized, cultivated or coarse— whether its 
 leaders were great men or only simulacra of greatness. You will 
 have some notion of the state of things when I say France was drunk 
 and led the European dance. French literature, French morals, 
 French politics, French dramas, French laughter and naughtiness — 
 all things were French, and all things were beautiful, and bad, and 
 rotten. Louis XIV. had created an era, and left his own stamp 
 upon it. He did it in a pious, monarchical, " divine right of kings " 
 way ; flung an air of stateliness into the life of society, and a gleam 
 of the classical into literature ; but, for all that, was author of all the 
 doubt and the scoffing, all the mischief and sin and shame with which 
 history has mosdy credited the regent, Philip of Orleans. Voltaire 
 arose, a bright and baneful star, and with his wonderful genius, his 
 crushing sarcasm, his wild scoffing, his wicked wit, his indecency of 
 speech and conduct, his varied knowledge, and his passionate hate 
 of religion, changed the current of popular thought and taste, 
 and the whole face of things. Around him clustered kindred 
 spirits — men possessed of large. stores of information, capacious 
 minds, force of expression and ready wit — D'Alembct and Diderot, 
 Raynal, Heivetius, and Holback formed with him the famous band 
 of encyclopidists, who announced a new gospel and created a new 
 literature. Thev did their wicked work in a most wicked manner. 
 Not brave enough to stand forth in the open and challenge judg- 
 ment or war, each played a double character — the one within his 
 own circle with closed doors and a nom de plume^ the other out 
 before the people. Voltaire, in secret, wrote most abusive songs 
 and violent satires against the king and the nobility and the church, 
 and all that bore the name or form of religion, and at the same time 
 printed, in his own name, poems in praise of Louis XIV. and to 
 celebrate the feast of the Virgin Mary. He composed, in secret, an 
 epistle to Urania, which was a wild diatribe against Christianity 
 and Christ, and soon after in public cited odes in honour of the true 
 
I20 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 God and a dying Saviour. He was but one of many. And the 
 streams from those secret sources went bearing poison everywhere^ 
 captivating intellect and demorahzing societ}^, until there was no 
 more need for secrecy, but public demand and popular applause for 
 the avowal of infidelity. 
 
 England copied France. Shaftesbury shone as a bright and par- 
 ticular star, and his pleasantness of form, his gorgeous drapery, his 
 notion of morals, his thought of religion, his keen piercing wit, were 
 all modelled after the style of the French. He taught the English 
 people that Shakespeare and Milton were antiquated, and not to be 
 reckoned with the lights which had juSv blazed above the horizon. 
 Addison, Steele, Prior, Pope, Thomson, Swift and others accepted 
 this gospel of a new literature, and formed a poetry from poetical 
 reminiscences, and a prose from humourous incidents and polished 
 speech. The creative genius was no longer sought ; the fine poetic 
 inspiration which giveth life and beauty to cold inanimate forms, 
 was held as mere rhapsody and vulgar. A glance at the pages of 
 the Tatler and the Spectator, or the prose and poetry of the men I 
 have named, will convince you of the truth of this. To be a man of 
 the world — meaning, also, a man of the flesh and the devil, of 
 course — was the highest aim of the tallest men. Poetry, history, 
 politics, religious knowledge, all came by inspiration to the man of 
 the world, and to acquire them by study was held to be mean and 
 vulgar. It needs but a glance at the leading men of the first half of 
 the i8th century, and the turbulent, dissolute life which they led, their 
 ever-shifting standard of morals, their light, fantastic, but convenient 
 philosophy, their freedom as to things men are used to look 
 upon as honorable, to see that their methods of teaching and modes 
 of life must have been destructive of all economy, must have led to 
 dissipation, vanity and pride, and that they were deadly enemies to 
 truth, simplicity and virtue, without which freedom is only a bright, 
 delusive dream, and right for man or men only a shadow. 
 
 The four Georges kinged it over England for nearly the whole of 
 the century ; and they were as strange a lot as ever sat upon a throne, 
 and surrounded by as strange a lot as ever pampered or pestered 
 royalty. Just look at them as they fall into groups. George I., 
 brave enough as a soldier, and more or less a child of good fortune, 
 getting the electorate of Hanover, and Sophia, niece of the luck- 
 less Stuart who lost his head to Cromwell and popular freedom. 
 That way the elector came to be called over as King of England, 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 1 2 1 
 
 Scotland and Ireland. He cared but a liittle for the honour ; cried 
 much on leaving his people ; showed much prudence in his dealings 
 with the English ; regarded himself as little better than a lodger at 
 St. James and Hampton Court ; plundered the people a good deal, 
 it is true, and divided the spoil among his German followerc. But 
 the English were accustomed to that, and could readily forgive it, 
 since he allowed them to do what they had grown fond of doing — 
 that is, govern themselves. I should like to take you through that 
 period, to show you the state of morals as gathered from Fielding's 
 novels and Hogarth's sketches and twenty books of history. The 
 brilliant, bad company gathered round the throne of the four Georges 
 or crowding through the streets of London — the great Dr. Johnson, 
 great at criticism and eating ; Addison, the poet and secretary ; and 
 Dick Steele ; and the mighty Marlborough with his fiery spouse ; 
 Fox and Walpole, and North, and Chatham, and Newcastle, and the 
 younger Pitt. I should like to give a page of the political morality of the 
 day — the story of men who were willing to coalesce with any party, 
 or to abandon any party, or to undermine any party, or to assault 
 any party for personal gain — men whose doctrines were that politi- 
 cal virtue is the mere coquetry of political prostitution, that every 
 patriot has his price, that government can be carried on only by 
 means of corruption, and that the state is given as a prey to states- 
 men ; the story also of the secret service fund, which meant then 
 what it has me mt in other places since then — money obtained for car- 
 rying on the business of buying constituencies and members of parlia- 
 ment ; of the childish and base old Duke of Newcastle refusing to 
 give Fox an account of the way in which that money was spent^ 
 saying, " My brother, when he was at the Treasury, never told any- 
 body what he did with the secret service money ; no more will I.'^ 
 But I must forbear, satisfied with this cursory glance. 
 
 From this state of literature and politics you will easily imagine 
 what the religious life of the people must have been. Books had 
 been published in England ridiculing in boldest language the whole 
 christian revelation, and the popular belief in miracles. Appeals 
 were made to the rights of reason and of a sound understanding ; 
 people built systems of godliness according to their own notions. 
 Almost all the brilliant minds in England and in France were capti- 
 vated by the teachings of the Deists, and the philosophy of the day 
 was bent with tremendous energy to the task of offering contention 
 to all laws human and divine, and of releasing the popular and the 
 
122 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 particular mind and heart from all feelings of reverence for powers 
 in heaven or powers on earth. The church was but the thing in 
 name — the willing, smiling, smirking, flatterer of the king and the 
 nobles, and all else, able to dispense patronage. My lady of Yar- 
 mouth, the king's favorite, sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 
 ;!^5,ooo. She had made a bet with him that he would be made a 
 bishop; he lost, and paid the money; and he was not the only prelate 
 of his time who had been led by such hands to consecration. Look 
 into the palace in the time of George II , and you may see crowds 
 of cassocks rustling up the back stairs of the ladies of the court ; 
 stealthy clergy slipping purses into their laps, and the godless old 
 king yawning under his canopy in his chapel royal, as the chaplain 
 is discoursing on righteousness and temperance. Righteousness, 
 and temperance ! AVhat were those things to George of Hanover, 
 King of England ? Nothing, and he pays no heed. Whilst the 
 preacher is discoursing, the old king is chattering in German, chat- 
 tering so loud that one day the clergyman burst out weeping in his 
 pulpit because the chosen defender of the faith and disposer of 
 Bishoprics would not listen to him. The clergy were corrupt and 
 indifferent, and the people were also corrupt and indifferent. It 
 spread abroad and down to all classes of society, from royalty to 
 nobility, from nobility to peasantry. Hireling shepherds let the 
 sheep go wandering any whither, let the wolf of infidelity prowl and 
 destroy at savage will, careful only of the wages due. The old 
 quarrel with the puritans was, by common consent, forgotten, for the 
 people had wearied of the puritan snarl and twang, of the puritan 
 hard, dry dogmas, and the puritan long, dry sermons, which, like 
 the wind, seemed to make the circuit of the earth and have no end. 
 It was a time of reaction, of slumber and ease. The church main- 
 tained the semblance of life, but did that only because it was 
 paid by the state. Energy there was little or none ; faith was a 
 lapsed virtue ; the torch was well nigh quenched ; the fires did but 
 smoke and smoulder on the altar, and it seemed as if decay had set 
 in and was fast eating: its wav to the heart of things, makino^ the end 
 death, desolation, near and sure. 
 
 But just when all seemed darkest and most hopeless, a breath 
 passed over the valley of dry, white bones, and there wa* a faint 
 stir and change in the scene. To the wise who looked on, it was 
 clear that an old world was passing away. For three hundred years 
 the middle ages had lain in the throes and agonies of death, and 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 123 
 
 now they were gasping out their last breath. A corrupt body was 
 breaking up ; an old and bad thing was falling to pieces. There 
 was movement — the movement of a new life, with promise of better 
 things for the people. In literature, a great stride was taken away 
 from the old fashion of writing, and we find ourselves in company 
 of such men as Gibbon and Hume, and Johnson and Burke. 
 Garrick gave new life and meaning to the drama. Pitt, the great 
 commoner, grasped the political situation of the country, and 
 achieved for the nation, at vast expenditure, vast successes. The 
 war with France was prosecuted with great vigor. Here, on this 
 continent, the English arms were everywhere successful. Louisburg 
 fell ; the island of Cape Breton was reduced ; the French fleet, sent 
 out to defend French- America, wa«i destroyed. The next year 
 brought conquest after conquest : first that of Greece ; then that of 
 Guadaloupe ; then Ticonderoga ; then Niagara. A greater exploit 
 still was achieved by the brave Wolfe on the plains of Abraham ; 
 he fell, but Quebec was taken. The next year was 1760, and still 
 triumph followed triumph. Montreal was taken ; the whole pro- 
 vince of Canada was subjugated ; the French fleet suffered disaster 
 everywhere. In the East, still more brilliant things were done. In 
 the space of three years or so, the English had founded the mighty 
 Indian empire. As the inscription on Chatham's monument in 
 Guildhall says, under his administration, " commerce had been 
 united with and made to flourish by war." The nation was always 
 spending huge sums of money, and always growing richer. One 
 proof of the revival is, that Glasgow then began to be important, 
 and has never lost it since, I believe. 
 
 Philosophy also put forth before men in another garb, and de- 
 clared it had at last a mission. Philosophy had been indulging in 
 many most marvellous vagaries for a long period. The pendulum 
 had oscillated, swinging now to the zone of unbelief, and now to the 
 zone of positive affirmation, and now vibrating between them both 
 in a sad, uncertain way. Immanuel Kant came forth, and fixed it 
 in the zone of affirmation. Born at Konigsburg, in Prussia, he 
 lived there and died there, simply and always a philosopher. Philo- 
 sophy, for the most part, had declared against religion. Great 
 efforts had been made, first in the region of Ontology, and then in 
 that of Pyscology. School after school had attempted to settle 
 the pyscological question ; such as Locke, Hume, the sensational 
 school, the Scotch school, and Gall. All of these declared that 
 
124 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 experience was the foundation of knowledge, and all experience led 
 irresistably to scepticism. So thoughtful men found themselves in 
 a dilemma ; compelled to reject the bible, and to deny some great 
 facts of their own consciousness, or to find refuge in a denial of 
 philosophy. Kant came forth with his " Critique of Pure Reason," 
 and said by it, "No; you may be true to philosophy and to the 
 teachings of the bible — that is, you may be a philosopher and 
 have faith in God : not that by any philosophical method you can 
 discover God ;" for, said he, " I have gone round the domain of the 
 human understanding, and taken the exact measure of it, and am 
 compelled to admit that that domain is only an island. Nature has 
 assigned to it invariable limits. Tt is the empire of Truth ; but it 
 is surrounded by a stormy and illimitable sea, upon which we dis- 
 cover nothing but illusions. There, on that sea, the navigator, 
 deceived by masses of ice, which appear and disappear successively 
 before him, believing that at every moment he is about to discover 
 land, wanders without repose, guided only by one hope. He is the 
 ■plaything of the stormy waves, always forming new plans, always 
 preparing himself for new experiences which he can never renounce, 
 and yet which he can never obtain. But," said he, " though we 
 cannot know anything respecting things per se, we are not to em- 
 brace scepticism ; for our knowledge, though relative, is certain. 
 We have ideas independent of experience ; and these ideas have 
 the character of universality and necessity. We can establish the 
 veracity of consciousness, and with the veracity of consciousness is 
 established the certainty of morals. If, in consciousness, I find the 
 ideas of God and virtue, I cannot escape believing in God and 
 virtue I find those ideas, and I have that faith. A belief, I admit, 
 that is practical ; not theoretical. It is founded on a certainty, not 
 on a demonstration. I cannot reason it out ; and yet, that God 
 exists, that the world exists, are irresistible convictions." 
 
 That was a great step in philosophy, and a great gain to the 
 world. It put an end to philosophical scoffing at religion, and 
 brought metaphysics round to the side of faith. 
 
 We are prepared now to expect a revival in the church, for, when 
 such a storm blows, every tree in the forest, and every corn-stalk in 
 the field will bow and sway. At Oxford University a small band 
 of young Students began to meet for prayer that the church might 
 awake and put on her beautiful garments. Wonderful desires they 
 had, and wonderful words of deep and earnest prayer did they 
 
THE UNITARIAN CnURCIL 125 
 
 speak to each other. The heart of these was moved, and did heave 
 and swell with great thoughts and great earnestness. In due time 
 went forth Wesleyanism, going down of set plan and purpose, to 
 the lower and lowest strata of human society ; finding work to do 
 among the untaught and neglected masses, who were the makers 
 of wealth, and yet starved in spite of the thing they had made ; 
 finding words of hope, and strength, and life eternal for the weavers 
 of Spitalfields, and the begrimed coal miners of Bristol, and the slow 
 minded agriculturalists of Devonshire, and the bold fishermen and 
 cruel wreckers of Cornwall. Like the breath of the Lord it went 
 forth at the prophesying of a small band of men, and there was a 
 great shaking among the dry bones. Methodism handled with mag- 
 nificent self confidence the tremendous weapons of appeal to the 
 mere feelings of men. It boldly called up a storm, and then grandly 
 ruled it for the good of the people and the glor)^ of God. 
 ■ At Cambridge another movement had begun, taking, not so much 
 the form of prayer, as that of deep and earnest thought. At Oxford 
 heart and mind were in motion ; at Cambridge mind and heart were 
 stirring. The one appeal was to the emotional, the other to the 
 reason ; the one aimed to revive and carry on the Reformation, fer- 
 vour of faith and of feeling ; the other sought to carry on the 
 thought of the Reformation. So Methodism went down to the many, 
 the people, to stir them to faith, and great songs that should swell 
 up to the heavens ; and Unitarianism went up to the few, the learned 
 and the thoughtful ; it took to itself unlimited intellectual freedom, 
 and went forth in strong and swift pursuit of truth. From the first 
 it was bold, it was daring ; believing in God with great reverence ; 
 believing also in the wide province of human reason most firmly, 
 and holding the God-given understanding of man in great honor. 
 But this movement at Cambridge was not so sudden, so revolution- 
 ary, in its character, as was the Oxford movement under the lead 
 of the Wesleys and Whitfield. Unitarianism was a revival of the 
 mtellectual side of the Reformation. It brought reason to bear 
 upon matters of religion, and religion to bear upon matters of the 
 reason. Of course, the Unitarians, like all other denominations, 
 take a pardonable pride in tracing their line of ancestry as it reaches 
 back to the early founders of the christian faith. I suppose every 
 church extant can find its ancestors in the primitive church ; and all 
 of us can see clearly our patent of nobility in the Acts of the 
 Apostles. The Unitarians claim kindred first of all with the Judaizers 
 
1 2 6 CHURCHES OF CHRIS TEND OM. 
 
 and Ebionites of the first century ; then with Artemou and Paul of 
 Samosata, with Photinus, Arius, Abelard, the Albigenses, and the 
 Anabaptists, and so on to Socinus and the Italian reaction against 
 the paganism of the papal court, under Leo X., in the sixteenth 
 century. Far be it from me to deny this claim as to parentage and 
 ancestry ; for, having respect to the uncertainty of all such things 
 in this uncertain world, I meet any man's claim with a " perhaps,'* 
 or *' it may be." 
 
 I think my Unitarian friends, however, will hardly dispute my fair 
 ness, or accuracy, when I name John Biddle as the first of the English 
 unitarians. Biddle was a scholar, a brave man, — brave enough to 
 hold and utter opinions, though he might stand alone — and, what 
 was more, was an honest and good man. He came to his conclu- 
 sions by the study of the Bible — he appealed to the protestant right 
 Ui private judgment , but the puritans never understood the doctrine 
 of the right of private judgment as teaching that any one had the 
 right to differ from them. So in 1647 Biddle was imprisoned under 
 Charles I. for the sin of heresy, and soon after, in the Westminster 
 assembly, some zealous puritans urged that he should be put to 
 death. But Cromwell would not have such injustice done, and he 
 who protected the Vaudois christians from the fury of the pope, 
 protected English christians from the bigotry of the puritans. He 
 sent Biddle out of the way of his foes, with a pension of £2^ a year 
 to live on. So tolerant were the puritans, who a short time before 
 had thundered so mightily against intolerance, that in parliament 
 assembled they appointed a committee of divines to examine Biddle, 
 and then passed a law that all persons who were unsound as to the 
 doctrine of the Trinity shall be put to death. This was in 1648. 
 Before the sentence could be executed on any one, the power of the 
 assembly and the parliament had passed away, and Richard Crom- 
 well gave place to Charles II. At the Restoration, Biddle returned 
 to London and opened a chapel for preaching. But the attempt 
 failed of success. They flung him into prison, where, in 1662, he 
 died. Unitarianism was hated by all parties, denied toleration in 
 express terms by the " Act of Toleration," and for a time sank into 
 obscurity. 
 
 But although Biddle may well be called the first English unitarian, 
 because he was the first to separate himself from the orthodox church, 
 other, and great men, before him, had ventured to think in much 
 the same way. To episcopacy, and the forms of the church, they had 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH^ ^ .^ ^ y 2 7 
 
 neither a strong attachment nor a strong objection. They regarded 
 some doctrines, which were held by many as essential, as mere opi- 
 nions or forms of doctrine, and nothing more. They were called 
 Latitudinarians, Rationalists, Platonists, and such like names. In 
 their modes of speech and modes of thinking they were always at 
 variance with the forms of speech and tone of the articles of the 
 church. They were not so much teachers of new truths, but they 
 had a habit of looking at old truths in a new way, and saying some- 
 thing original about them. They were men of progress, not afraid, 
 in not holding it sin, to ditfer from the Fathers or from the intellec- 
 tual leaders of the Reformation. They recognized the law of 
 development, and acted on it. They saw that God had ordained 
 that every age shall be better and bigger than the age preceding, 
 and in a manful way they sought to make the world as God had 
 purposed. They saw that Calvinism was the embodiment of the 
 doctrines which grew out of the stern necessities of the Reforma- 
 tion ; but they saw also that Calvinism was impossible as a 
 permanent form of faith for men, and that sooner or later they must 
 drop the theology of Calvin and fall back upon the larger and fairer 
 catholic doctrine of universal love. Many of them preferred the 
 sooner to the later. Among the number was John Hales, of Eton, 
 who went to the synod of Dort to uphold the Calvinistic doctrines as 
 to predestination and reprobation, and returned a convert to Arme- 
 nianism ; and by and by went further afield, prefei ring reason to 
 authority. There was also the brave, good-hearted and clear-headed 
 Chillingworth declaring that he recognised in reason the final judge 
 and arbiter of religion. " Reason may be imperfect," he said ; " we 
 may crave an authority to supersede it, but that authority is not 
 given. The Scriptures are the rule of faith, but we have no infal- 
 lible external aurhority to tell us what the Scriptures mean. In all 
 things essential their meaning is plain to those who honestly and 
 sincerely try to understand them." Chillingworth seems to have 
 been a Rationalist from his youth up. The mountains which troubled 
 the puritans were to him as molehills. His difficulties arose from 
 the outrageous clauses of damnation in the Athanasian creed, and 
 such like things. He entered the Church of England under many 
 mental reservations, then took refuge in the Church of Rome, but 
 could not flee from himself or find rest, for he had learnt to follow 
 Reason. 
 Then there was Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, whose name. 
 
128 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 €ver since his day, has been a terror to the church ; who has been 
 called sceptic, intidel, athiest, monster, and a few more such choice 
 things ; but of whom you will be startled, when you come to read 
 his books, to find that he was a christian believer and a good man. 
 But he was given to exercise his speculative faculties; to speak of 
 old matters in a new manner ; to follow reason through some of 
 the intricate windings of theology ; struck out some quite new paths 
 for thought to travel in ; and, of course, they called him infidel. 
 Heretic he was ; for he advocated the interpretation of scripture 
 miracles after the fashion of our modern Rationalists. He had 
 some strange and startling explanations of the Trinity ; he denied 
 the dogma of eternal punishment, and proclaimed the doctrine of a 
 final restitution ; he denied the personality of the devil and kindred 
 spirits, although he had a mortal dread of being alone in the dark ; 
 and, altogether, his was a great world of rational theology, that 
 is, doctrine based on reason. 
 
 That stream went on, fertilising many places, and doing much to 
 keep the church and the people from falling into utter unreason and 
 the most abject superstition. But we shall get a distincter notion 
 of the causes of that revival at Cambridge I have noticed, if we 
 look for a moment at that little group of men called, in their day and 
 since, the Cambridge Platonists, whose avowed object was to establish 
 religion and morality, not on anything transient, or arbitrary or 
 shifting, but on principles immutable and eternal. First was Dr. 
 Cudworth, with bis " Intellectual System of the Universe," intended 
 as a refutation c^ the theories of Hobbes, and to insist on the 
 essential and eternal discrimination of moral good and evil, of jus- 
 tice and injustice. Cudworth's protest was needed ; is needed yet, 
 I think. It is an ancient conceit that right or wrong is just an arbi- 
 trary thing. Plato, in his book of " Laws," speaks of men who said 
 that nothing was naturally just ; that a thing was made just by arts 
 and laws, not by any nature of its own. Aristotle, in his ethics, 
 speaks of things honest and just, not by nature, but only by law. 
 Down through the ages, the foul stream passed. The ancient 
 sceptics declared that morality was made by the state alone. The 
 same obtained among the Scholastics, and even Calvinists could say 
 that God might command what is contrary to all the precepts of 
 the decalogue ; that holiness is not conformity with the nature of 
 God ; and that God can with justice condemn the innocent to ever- 
 lasting torments. Against this, Cudworth lifted up his voice, 
 
 \ 
 
THE UNITARIAN CIWRClfj, 129 
 
 declaring that a thing was not right because God had so willed ; 
 but God had willed it because it was right ; declaring that not 
 even the will of God could have made right and wrong: other than 
 they are ; for truth and falsehood are not mere names, but everlast- 
 ing realities. 
 
 With Cudworth was Henry More, a Rationalist, and a Mystic 
 withal ; who allowed his philosophy to impinge on his theology, 
 being a disciple of Photinus rather than of Plato— adopting the 
 great maxim of Cicero, " I will follow reason wherever it leads me," 
 put on as '* priestly habiliments ; " the "rational," as his "sacredotal 
 breastplate." He thought that every priest should be a rational 
 man and a philosopher. " To take away reason," said he, *' is to 
 despoil the priest of his breastplate ; and, worse still, it is to rob 
 Christianity of that special perogative which it has above all other 
 religions in the world ; namely, that it dares appeal unto reason." 
 There was John Wilkins, too — made Bishop of Chester afterward — 
 less mystical, and more practical than More, making a magnificent 
 effort to establish the great principles of religion — the being of God 
 and a future state — by " showing how firm and solid a foundation 
 they have in the nature and reason of mankind;" also, John 
 Smith — the most philosophical and interesting of all the Cambridge 
 men— but who died before he had reached the meridian of life; 
 and Benjamin Whichcot, and others, of whom I may not now speak, 
 who, with one accord, gave honor to reason ; banished the theology 
 of Calvin, because it was irrational, representing God as doing 
 what, consistently with his own nature, he cou]fi not do; and, at 
 the same time, daring to question many of the /Joctrines and forms 
 of the church. I do not claim those men as avowed Unitarians ; 
 but from such loins did Unitarianism spring. 
 
 The history of it as a church is not of much interest or of much 
 importance. As I said awhile ago, after the death of Biddle it 
 passed almost out of notice, and for a long time was kept in obscu- 
 rity. In 1702 Thomas Evelyn, a presbyterian minister in Dublin, 
 avowed unitarian opinions and was driven from his pulpit. In 17 10 
 Whiston was expelled from his professorship at Cambridge for the 
 same reason. In 17 12 Dr. Samuel Clarke, a London rector, pub- 
 lished his celebrated work on the Arian controversy. In 17 19 the 
 dissenting world was startled and confused by " the Salter's Hall 
 controversy," which arose out of a great meeting called to put down 
 a socinianizing minister at Exeter, splitting into two parties. One 
 
 9 
 
130 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 Still maintained the old watchword of freedom from all creeds and 
 subscriptions, and the other maintaining that the only way to put 
 down dangerous errors was by reverting to tests. At last, in 1778, 
 after many clergymen, such as Lindsay, Jebb, Wakefield, Disney, 
 and many dissenters, such as Priestley, Price, Aiken, Rees, and Bel- 
 sham, had openly or covertly embraced unitarianism, and almost all 
 the chapels belonging to the general baptists and to the presbyteri- 
 ans, had been given up to unitarian teaching, the body firmly estab- 
 lished itself as a separate church in England. I need not stay now 
 to describe the unitarian church polity — for it is known to you all — 
 but will say just a word as to its present condition as far as 1 know 
 it. In England they have not made much progress, presenting a 
 very striking contrast to the Wesleyan church. It has had men of 
 great intellectual force and scholarly ability, who have exercised a 
 great influence upon the thinking portion of the community. Such 
 men as the late George Dawson — whom to have heard was to respect, 
 and to know was to love — have done a work which only eternity can 
 reveal. They have now the cultured Dr. Vance Smith ; and tower- 
 ing above all in his own denomination, and above most in all denomi- 
 nations, that great christian, great scholar, great preacher, greatest 
 of English living theologians, James Martineau. In America, Uni- 
 tarianism has achieved a larger success ; perhaps because the country 
 is new, and the people are freer than they can be in England, where 
 old world prejudices seem undying things, and rule as tyrants. On 
 this continent, under the leadership of such able men as die gentle, 
 cultured, true-hearted Channing ; the eloquent, brave, clear-headed, 
 great-hearted, noble Theodore Parker ; and the mystical, poetic, 
 profound, yet witching Emerson ; and a host of other lesser lights, 
 the unitarians have greatly prospered. In England, as a church, as 
 a separate communion, the cause is a failing one ; but as to its 
 methods of reasoning, its principles and practices of life, its venera- 
 tion for the spirit of truth, without much thought for the letter ; its 
 insistance upon the eternal verities of human morality, and the uni- 
 versal love of the universal Father, matters for which, if I mistake 
 them not, they care much more than for any merely denominational 
 success ; in those things they have wrought a mighty work in the 
 land ; liberalizing the churches ; softening down the old, hard, harsh, 
 repulsive features of theology ; persuading men that it is right to do 
 right for its own sake, and that on the face of the great God still 
 lingers the old smile of a tender love. 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 131 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that in England 
 unitarianism is on the increase — on the contrary, as a denomination, 
 it is failing; but its principles, its main teachings, are enormously 
 successful, being received on every side with certain modifications. 
 For I ought to state here what I think my unitarian friends will not 
 question— that the name " Unitarian " is misleading, it is hardly 
 fair, for it does but half express their cast of thought and the form 
 of life they seek. True, they hold that God is one God, and that in 
 a different sense to the unity of God as held by trinitarians ; but the 
 root idea of them, the reason of their existence as a church, is not 
 simply to propagate any one doctrine, or to protest against any one 
 •error, but, rather, to put forth a claim, and to maintain by all and 
 every means legitimate, for perfect intellectual freedom within the 
 church as everywhere else. At the first it said to the people : '• You 
 sought your freedom in the Protestant Reformation, but didn't 
 find it there. True, you flung off the shackles of popery; you 
 refused to dance longer to the foolish pipings of a priest — but, having 
 done so much, you ceased to try and do more ; you have thrown 
 off an infallible pope to take on the yoke of an infallible book ; as 
 before, you are fettered by creeds and confessions ; you allow your- 
 selves to be bewildered by many definitions, things too subtle for 
 analysis and too delicate for mortal use ; you are entangled in fine- 
 spun theories, like flies in a web. We declare unto you the gospel 
 of liberty, and hold forth to you the light of reason." 
 
 But it will be better, I think, if I try and point out some of the 
 main peculiarities of unitarianism — dwelling on them in more or less 
 of criticism. Criticism, let me beg you to remember, not contro- 
 versy ; and I throw out no challenge whatever, for if I did, I should 
 find champions of a diacrent stamp from those who in other things 
 have sought to meet me. So I only indulge in criticism as the title 
 of all my lectures go. And first of all, in matter of time and promi- 
 nence, the unitarians have laid, and do lay, stress on the intellect or 
 the reason, as holding a pre-eminent place in all religious beliefs. 
 The Cambridge men derived our knowledge from reason and from 
 conscience. These were the guides of human life. The fact of 
 external revelation, say the Bible, was to have additional force from 
 its agreement with the revelation within. But if that agreement 
 was not complete, then one must regulate the other. Then the 
 question arises, Which is to be supreme? "The external," said 
 most of the protestants ; " reason, conscience, all must yield to the 
 
132 CHURCHES OF CH/STENDOM. 
 
 yy 
 
 Bible, for human reason may be wrong — the Bible cannot be. 
 "No," said the Cambridge men, "the inner revelation must be 
 accepted and the outer rejected, if they do not harmonise." " But 
 that need not be. The Bible is in accord with our reason and our 
 conscience ; we can interpret it, have and hold its teaching, which is- 
 a rational Christianity." That is still the unitarian position, and I 
 am greatly in sympathy with it. I share this profound distrust of 
 old world formulas of faith, and this reverence for the human reason. 
 I hold firmly and tenaciously to the right of private judgment, for its 
 own sake and for the sake of the inevitable results flowing from it. 
 " When men have appreciated," says Lecky, " the countless differ- 
 ences which the exercise must necessarily produce — when they have 
 estimated the intrinsic fallibility of their reason and the degree in 
 which it is distorted by the will — when, above all, they have 
 acquired that love of truth which a constant appeal to private judg- 
 ment at last produces, they will never dream that guilt can be asso- 
 ciated with an honest conclusion, or that one class of arguments^ 
 should be stifled by authority. In the 17th century, when the con- 
 troversy with Catholicism had brought the central principle of 
 protestantism into clear relief, and when the highest genius of 
 Europe still flowed in the channels of divinity, this love of truth 
 was manifested in the greatest works of English theology in a 
 degree which very few departments of English literature had ever 
 equalled. Hooker, upholding with his majestic eloquence, the im- 
 mutable principles of eternal law ; Berkley, the greatest modern 
 master of the Socratic dialogue, asserting the claims of free 
 thought against those who vainly boasted that they monopolized 
 it, and pursuing with the same keen and piercing logic the 
 sophisms that lurked in the common places of fashion, and in the 
 obscurest recesses of metaphysics ; Chillingworth, with a bold unfal- 
 tering hand, drawing the line between certainties and probabilities, 
 eliminating from theology the old conception of faith considered as 
 an unreasoning acquiescence, and teaching that belief should always 
 be strictly ' proportionable to the credibility of its motives ; ' these, 
 and such as these, even when they were opposed to religious liberty, 
 were its real founders." The recognition of reason and the claim to use 
 this great, this magnificent gift, has saved the church from falling into 
 abject superstition. But, I see allied to this great good a possible 
 evil ; I see that reason cannot circle the all of things, or find the 
 ends of the lines of God's thought and purpose v/hich have gone out 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 133 
 
 into the world of human Ufe. I would prove all things in order to 
 hold fast, firmly, and intelligently that which is good ; but, I have 
 also a profound distrust of this reason, my own, or that of other 
 men, and cannot, dare not, take it as sole and sufficient guide. It is a 
 great light, but when uninstructed by a divine teacher, wanders in 
 devious and dangerous ways. If you would see the working of it 
 and the end thereof, what this cold speculation leads to when reason 
 wanders without the guide divine, and stands divorced from a living 
 faith, you must go to the subtle races of India ; you must examine 
 that strange thing called Buddhism ; you must follow the intellect in 
 its speculative wanderings, along step by step into the gathering 
 gloom ; mark the grim spectral shapes that rise before you ; feel for 
 a moment the wild rush and thrill of hope, and then the chill, the 
 cold disappointment that follows quick upon it, and seems to freeze 
 the very blood ; go on till you stand shivering at the fearful brink 
 of a vacuus Nirwana ; no solid ground for one more step, nothing 
 left but an awful plunge into the swirling chaos of an endless doubt. 
 That is the logical, and only issue, of unrestrained and unqualified 
 speculation. It never has been found in the actual affairs of life and 
 death, that man can stand alone upon his own Reason, refusing to 
 bow to all authority, and shaking off all reverence and all faith. 
 Man has Conscience and Imagination as well as Reason; and in order 
 to do the work of life, to have peace of mind and joy diffused through 
 all the soul, each of these must do its great part. Religion is for 
 the whole man, it has a truth for the Reason, a truth comprehensible, 
 that m^y be grasped and understood ; it has truth for the Conscience 
 and truth for the Faith ; each is necessary to the other. Without 
 the exercise of Reason, man runs into fanaticism ; carves himself 
 images, or lives upon the dangerous food of mere emotional excite- 
 ment. Without the exercise of Faith man becomes coldly specula- 
 tive; Religion becomes a code of morals, at best a mere negation. 
 Conscience is that which applies the truth to actual life and moulds 
 the character for holiness. Each is necessary to the other ; reason 
 to balance faith, faith to travel where reason may not set its foot, and 
 conscience to make the true thought a true thing, and the theory a 
 potent life. 
 
 That is where I think unitarianism fails ; it enthrones the reason, 
 either ignoring the imagination altogether, or holding it as a very 
 small and subordinate force. There is great danger in addressing 
 men through the imagination only, or in making a mere appeal to 
 
134 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 the emotional. By doing that Romanism bound Europe to its cha- 
 riot wheels ; by doing that the most monstrous doctrines were forced 
 upon the people • the Roman hierarchy of priestly despotism was 
 built upon it ; but is there not equal danger in the other extreme, 
 that of appealing to the intellect alone ? The air we breathe is com- 
 posed of oxygen and nitrogen ; let there be any change in the due 
 proportion, and life is put at risk. So in the soul of man ; imagina- 
 tion and reason must balance each other, or the religious life will be 
 endangered. The perfect religious character, it seems to me, is that 
 where intellect and faith are both in motion, each helping the other, 
 reason bowing down to faith when mystery begins to gather round 
 it, and faith leading reason along past mystery, until, clasping 
 hands, still they bow in reverent worship at the great throne of the 
 great and living God. 
 
 The next point I would notice as peculiar to unitarianism 
 is a determined refusal to submit to any constraint from churches or 
 creeds. They hold that no form of church government or model of 
 ecclesiastical hierarchy is given in the New Testament, and so they 
 take that which seems to suit them best. They have adopted 
 the Congregational form, just as they have always been on the side 
 of popular governments, because it gives freedom. They will have 
 nor pontiff, nor prelate, nor presbytery stand before them and say 
 " thus far, and no farther ;" but in religion, which is a thought, a 
 feeling, a communion with the Infinite Spirit, they will have no fet- 
 ters ; they will be free ; they have taken freedom, and, as far as I 
 can see, mean to keep it. That is well ; I have no criticism to offer 
 on that, only unqualified approval. 
 
 So in the matter of creeds it is polar to Romanism. Romanism 
 is a church of creeds and dogmas, hard, fast, unchanging creeds to 
 which men must subscribe, taking no counsel of reason ; dogmas 
 infallible, which man must deny or disobey at risk of his soul. Uni- 
 tarianism on the other hand is the entire abnegation of all creeds 
 and disapproval of all dogmas and test doctrines ; and in great part 
 I go with it. I have great faith in freedom, some in the P'athers, not 
 much. I decline to take a thing because it is old ; because it 
 appeared to the men of the last generation to be right ; or even 
 because it appears right in the eyes of living and learned theolo- 
 gians. '' Open your mouth and shut your eyes," is a good enough 
 game for young children, when they trust each other that it is only a 
 choice of sweets, but I have no relish for it in the sober, sad, great 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, 
 
 135 
 
 affairs of religious belief. I open my eyes wide, and shut my mouth 
 resolutely, until I have looked round the thing, and into it as far as 
 I can. I claim a right to accept it all, or in part, to hold this, and 
 to refuse to hold that. I will not have it imposed upon me. I will 
 hold myself free to change my opinions with increase of light and 
 knowledge. But, if I may judge from my own experience, and what 
 I have heard and read conaerning others, human nature, seeking 
 God, has need to take some postulates as points of starting for 
 granted, and must have some natural guiding lines to follow. Never 
 a man yet began at the very beginning and wrought it out ; the 
 great argument, the great truth of God and morality, and immor- 
 tality, without having taken on trust some creed or dogma. It is all 
 very well for a man to say " the gospel is my creed," but the ques- 
 tion comes, "how do you read the gospel?" There you have a 
 revelation of a few great fundamental truths, and you have to give 
 them renderings and readings for the human capacity. All will not 
 search for themselves and find conclusions ; many could not if they 
 would, and the church, if there is to be substantial agreement among 
 its members, must have some recognized standard of faith ; not 
 unalterably fixed, but still, settled points from which to start, and 
 well defined lines, along which thought and life may run. In this 
 matter, as in all others, man has faith as well as reason, and nis 
 faith may grasp truths his reason can never explain. Nature has 
 written out, on the heart and in the mind, the outlines of great 
 creeds, and starting with them we must fill them in as best we can. 
 Man drinks the water of life, but he cannot trace it back to its 
 spring. By freedom in the matter of creeds, I mean the right to 
 criticise, to embrace what my reason approves, and also what my 
 faith alone can grasp. 
 
 And now I come to that in unitarianism which has given it its 
 name — the unity of God. I did not put it first because I believe 
 the unitarians do not put it first. Still it is a great and distinguish- 
 ing feature. Many unitarians still think as their fathers did — that 
 the idea of a Trinity involves a contradiction, and that every 
 rational man must reject it. And without entering upon any elabo- 
 rate explanation of their position, which must be familiar to you all, 
 and without turning to controversy, I will say why I think a man 
 may be rational and yet not reject the doctrine of the Trinity. I do 
 not mean to say that I could clearly define in so many words the 
 doctrine, for I do not accept the definition given in the articles of 
 
136 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 the Church of England. I have never seen a definition that satisfied 
 me. I do not think I could frame one to satisfy myseL )Ut then 
 that might be said of most of our great and fundamental truths of 
 spirit and of life. I would go further, and say that I believe no ar- 
 gument has ever been produced, which was made to run on logical 
 lines, which has demonstrated the doctrine of the Incarnation or the 
 divinity of Jesus Christ. And I believe that no such logical argu- 
 ment ever will be produced. But I take my stand on this — that man 
 has moral faculties as well as logical, and the moral are functional 
 and forceful in him. In the universe I find that the highest things 
 are revealed to the highest faculties in man ; those highest are the 
 spiritual — that just as music is only known to the musical, and poetry 
 to the poetic, so the spiritual th-.ngs of the world can only be dis- 
 cerned by the spirtually-minded. They cannot be reached and 
 comprehended by the logical faculties. Men have long been trying 
 to prove the existence of a God by an appeal to logic. With almost 
 infinite labour they have built up an argument for design, dealing 
 with things as they are seen, law and order, and the fitness of each 
 for the other. That argument has failed, in its time doing more 
 harm than good. And no wonder. The mountains and the sea, the 
 flowers that bloom in the field, and the stars that shine and glance 
 in the far away spaces of blue heaven, the order that rules with 
 •calmness unbroken, the beauty of all things good, speak a language 
 the reason cannot interpret — knows not the grammar of. It seems 
 to me that our path to God lies not through the reasoning faculties 
 at all. Intellect always proceeds from definite promises, and must 
 always end in definite and measured results ; it can only argue from 
 what it comprehends — from fixed points and along lines that may 
 be traced ; from the knowable you cannot deduce the unknowable, 
 nor from the finite deduce the infinite, that is, logically. What then? 
 Are we driven by reason, or by lack of it, to scepticism, if not to infi- 
 delity ? No. In my consciousness I find a great and undeniable 
 fact — the fact of God. I find it in humanity. The throb of ocean's 
 waves, as they beat upon the shore, brings the eager question to 
 childhood's lips, "What are the wild waves saying?" The simple 
 villager, whom problems of metaphysics have never troubled, hears 
 the still, small voice of God whispering from swaying tree and bab- 
 bling brook. By the exercise of the spiritual in me I see God ; yes, 
 I see God, as I see you at this moment — the men and women of 
 this audience. I use no figure of speech nor metaphor — I most 
 
THE UNITARIAN- CHURCH. 
 
 137 
 
 certainly do see you, but I do not mean that I simply see an array 
 of faces and rows of human bodies. What is it that makes you f 
 Why, your soul. And I do not see that. Yet in spite of my ina- 
 bility to see your soul, and so penetrate to the very depths of your 
 being, there, where humanity rises and separates you from the brute, 
 you will not question that I can see you. I can see you at this 
 moment as you are, not merely a body, but a spirit also. Your soul 
 reveals itself to me, and manifests your true personality ; and in that 
 way do we see God. Let a man with serious heart and mind look 
 upon the universe, and he will everywhere see the shining face of 
 the Great Builder. Where there is the spiritual mind — the filial 
 faith, that He who created the human spirit after His own image, is 
 also manifesting Himself in all the outward symbols of creation, 
 there will be a bearing in of conviction upon the understanding — 
 an apprehension of the harmony of moral designs which bind toge- 
 ther the influences of the universe — a glad recognition of the one 
 holy and divine power that thrills through all things living. 
 
 And in that way I accept the Godhead of Jesus Christ. I find 
 that men have, through all the ages, been possessed by an instinct 
 that their helpers must come to them from some mysterious region; 
 that they cannot be merely children of earth, merely of their own 
 race. I find the Oriental speaking of emanations from God ; and 
 the Greeks, as well as our own ancestors, the Goths, speaking of 
 Sons of God. There is a representative case in that most magnifi- 
 cent drama, the book of Job. There came to this smitten man a 
 consciousness of evil which was new to him. This consciousness 
 was strangely mixed up with the assurance that there was a righ- 
 teousness which he could claim as his own. It was more deep, 
 more his own, than the evil or the wearing pain of his bones. He 
 knew that his pain had come from God, and yet that it was an evil. 
 Could God be the oppressor ? was the question that rushed hot and 
 shrieking to his lips. He found at last that God was not his oppres- 
 sor, but the defender of his cause. But the evil was there, crushing 
 him down in suffering and shame. And then came the thought of a 
 Redeemer, an actual person connected with him, and who was at 
 the root of his being, one in whom and by whom he should find 
 deliverance. Suppose Job to be humanity, as the writer intended, 
 and you have the germinal thought of incarnation. And then I turn 
 and look upon Jesus Christ, the word He spoke and the work He 
 did, the sublimity of His thought, His speech, His character ; the 
 
138 CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM. 
 
 mystic tenderness and inspiring power of His teachings ; the shame 
 He suffered and the death He died ; and I tind that here is the 
 answer to the expectant instinct of humanity. I cannot reason it 
 out ; I cannot even appeal to reason to support what my moral 
 faculties receive. You know what I mean. You have stood some- 
 times in a deep, green valley, when your ears were filled with the 
 murmurs of fountains and the song of birds ; or you have gazed 
 upon some mountain range, where, on the naked granite, the sun 
 did flash in floods of glory; or you saw the >touii cloud breaking 
 there, and the grey crags quiver as the thunder went crashing by ; 
 or you have stood upon the shore as ocean's wave broke at your 
 feet in a thousand voices of laughter, and you felt that an infinite 
 presence had folded you round, that God was near. But if you 
 turned fi^om that to reasoning mood, and tried to prove to yourself 
 that it was so, the consciousness of a presence was taken from 
 you. It was water you heard in the valley, and the voice of Deity 
 was not in it at all. The brooding cloud was but a mass of 
 acqueous vapour condensed into visible form ; the great thunder 
 was but the voice of fluid breaking from its too narrow prison 
 house ; and the wind that swept ocean with such shouting, was but 
 a current of air making its natural circuit, not having a note to tell 
 of the march of God. Even so, when I read the words of Christ, 
 look upon His work, put myself into a condition of sympathy with 
 Him ; when I see what by faith in His name men have done, I am 
 compelled to own Him as God manifest in flesh. I cannot find an 
 argument for it that shall satisfy my intellect any more than it would 
 satisfy yours, but then I take comfort from the reflection that I get 
 my belief in God that way — indeed that we can only apprehend the 
 most beautiful and the most precious things of aaily life that way. 
 Do you reason yourselves into admiration of a beautiful landscape ? 
 When sweet harmonies float round you, filling all the soul with joy, 
 did you get that joy by an analysis of the music which satisfied the 
 intellect ? Can you throw great, constant, grand, motherhood into 
 syllogistic form 1 Then, I pray you, don't say I am not rational if 
 in Jesus Christ I recognise the manifestation, the incarnation, of 
 very God. It involves a Trinity, you say. Good, I am satisfied to 
 leave it so. 
 
 It seems to me that the unitarians have yielded very much to the 
 same sentiment. They speak of Christ with profound reverence 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 139 
 
 and earnest love. In the utterances of such men as Channing and 
 Martineau you will find Christ spoken of in words that seem to indi- 
 cate a spirit of worship in the men. They tell us we have got nearer 
 to them — that we have broadened and became more rational. That 
 is so, but the unitarians have also been changing by coming nearer 
 to us. Learning of them, we have sought after reason more, — and 
 learning of us, they have sought out the secret and power of faith. 
 I earnestly rnnfess that to rac ii. appears as it they are not quite 
 consistent — as if they stand in perilous places. They speak of 
 Christ as man only — divinely sent — divinely inspired — filled with 
 the Spirit of God, and they worship him. And to worship any thing 
 or person less than very God, can be nothing but idolatry. 
 
 But this, every candid critic must allow, the unitarians have 
 carried their principles into most magnificent practice. Right is 
 right, said hey, by immutable and irrevocable law, and the only true 
 life is that which is true to justice. And they have lived, for the 
 most part, as if they believed in what they said. In all unitarian lit- 
 erature there is a high and healthy tone as to morality. Theodore 
 Parker has been much abused for his theology, and deserves it in 
 some measure ; but I have nowhere read in the English tongue, or 
 other, outside of the Bible, sentiments that shone with clearer light 
 of good living ; sentiments that were more charged with a deep and 
 swelling passion for what is pure in life ; sentiments more calcu- 
 lated to inspire esteem and love of the good, and the true, and the 
 noble, than I have found in the writings of Theodore Parker. I 
 know not how it may be here, but I know that in England our 
 beloved orthodoxy is greatly discounted in the markets. The long 
 faced members of Calvanistic or Armenian churches don't get much 
 or long, credit as a rule. It is a fact, that if you were to go to 
 Manchester, and ask some man of information and judgment to 
 take men as representing churches as to integrity in commercial 
 matters, and say which stood highest in his estimation, he would 
 say at once, " the unitarian." Now, I am not an unitarian ; I could 
 not be. My faith in the Godhead of Christ is almost a passion ; 
 it inspires me as nothing else can do. I hold to the doctrine of the 
 Trinity though I cannot explain it. Unitarianism is too constantly 
 aggressive, I think, in its tone and its policy \ it lacks warm blood, 
 fire, the throb of emotion ; it is cold — too precise and mathematical 
 in its movements for me \ but I would be slow to speak words of 
 
14© CHURCHES OF CHRISTENDOM, 
 
 censure on a church or its principles, which has produced true 
 
 and good men and women. Practice is the test of principles after 
 
 all, and true life is the end of faith. I would that they could 
 
 say with me : 
 
 " Strong Son of God, immortal love, 
 When we, that have not seen thy face. 
 By faith, and faith alone embrace. 
 Believing where we cannot prove." 
 
 but they do not, because they cannot. They remain true to their 
 own convictions, and I am not going to speak hard words of them 
 for that. I shall speak of them with profound respect ; for they 
 have had mighty men who have done mighty things on earth for 
 the uplifting of our common humanity ; they have manifested cul- 
 ture of mind and of spirit ; a firm, intellectual grasp upon questions 
 subtle or simple ; great energy in the cause of popular freedom ; 
 less of bigotry than any other of the churches ; a high moral cha- 
 racter, and a just walk, which has commanded the respect of all but 
 the fools of the earth. Their aim is great as ours, and the same 
 as to end ; that sin shall be destroyed, and holiness become the 
 one regnant power in the mind and heart of man ; that the world 
 shall be saved, and God the universal love have universal glory. 
 Judge them as to their motive and aim; and though your method shall 
 jar against theirs, give them credit for the good there is in them. 
 For, it is the spiritual expression that steals from our dogma ; 
 the fulness with which it interprets the holy character of God ; the 
 nearness it makes us feel of the eternal world to our world, and 
 not simply its logical accuracy, or general orthodoxy, that gives it its 
 worth. The soul is reached religiously by methods of art rather 
 than by methods of science. It is the amount of quickening truth 
 with which our creed is translucent that helps us. Be charitable 
 to your brother, for, with his convictions, even though they be 
 erroneous, if he is no less sensitive than you to a violation of truth, 
 to a stain on his integrity, to passing an uncharitable judgment, or 
 circulating a slander, Or bolstering iniquity by a vote, or being 
 found in any way hostile to God, and keeps his soul open to the 
 divine life for purification and strength, both of you have the essen- 
 tial truth. The spirit is near you both, and will use your dogmas 
 with indifference to any philosophical weakness or strength. I do 
 not say that truth of creed is not important. I do not say that a 
 
THE UNITARIAN CHURCH. 141 
 
 symmetrical and pure theology, an adequate interpretation of the 
 character and work of Christ and of Christianity is not a most desir- 
 able thing ; but I do say that it is the use you make of your lights 
 that is of first importance. The great question is, what are 
 you, and what have you done for yourself and for others ? Has 
 your faith led to practice, and of what sort is it ? For Jesus Christ 
 has come, not that men might have creeds, but that men might 
 have life; great, free, full, abundant life.