THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1887. THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF IN PART AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BY DAVID S. SCHAFF, D.D. PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN LANE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY WITH PORTRAITS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1897 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NortoooB $regs J. 8. Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. JHg JHotfjer WELL-BELOVED WHO INTIMATELY SHARED FOR NEARLY FIFTY YEARS THE JOYS CARES AND HOPES OF HIM WHOSE LIFE THESE PAGES RECORD THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED M19G4G8 PREFACE AMONG the theologians of the last half century in America, Dr. Philip Schaff occupied a unique place. To European birth and theological training he joined a thor- ough adaptation of himself to American institutions and modes of thought, and came to occupy a position of larger public notice than any other theologian from the Conti- nent who has made this country his home. For this reason, if for no other, this biography may be expected to have a place of its own. The materials have been abundant, and an effort has been required not only to curtail the matter that pertains to Dr. Schaff s personal life, but to avoid entering into elaborate accounts of some movements with which he was closely identified, especially the progress of German theology in the middle of the century and the growth of the German Reformed Church 1 and its institutions. In addition to his correspondence and journals, Dr. Schaff left behind him a series of Personal Reminiscences upon his childhood and the years of preparation in Europe. Begun in 1871 and continued at intervals, they have been used in accordance with the following note, with which they were brought to a close : " These Reminiscences were intended for my family as a record of my European 1 Commonly so called in distinction from the Dutch Reformed Church. Its official name is the Reformed Church in the United States. viu PREFACE preparation for my American work. They may furnish authentic material for a biography, if I should be found worthy of one. Providence has connected me with several important movements in the church of this age, and my life is not without lessons of encouragement to young scholars. To me, it is marked all through with tokens of the merciful guidance of our heavenly Father. The nearer we approach eternity, the less we think of this fleeting life. When we go to God, the world vanishes. We are nothing ; God alone is great. The workman falls, but the work goes on. I close with the motto of St. Chrysostom, ' God be praised for all things.' ' Mindful of Dr. Schaffs own judgment, I have been encouraged to undertake this work by the advice of his friends Professor George L. Prentiss and Professor Thomas S. Hastings. On my last call upon the late Dr. William G. T. Shedd, a few months after Dr. Schaff's decease, he used the following language : " I have often said in the last few weeks that a biography of Dr. Schaff ought to be undertaken. I know of no man whose correspondence and acquaintance with men would furnish more interest- ing and valuable information for a biography. His im- pressions of the men he met and his experiences in travel would be of great interest. They are what make a biog- raphy interesting. For example, there is Baur; your father had close knowledge of him. No scholar of his genera- tion has interested me so much. He was broad, powerful, a man of great genius." Where the paragraphs are translations, it has been thought unnecessary to call special attention to the fact. During the European period, closing with the year 1844, PREFACE ix Dr. Schaff wrote in German exclusively. In the Mercers- burg period, lasting till 1864, he used German and English equally in his correspondence and other writings of a private nature. In the last period he used English, except when there was some special reason for the use of Ger- man. As far as has been possible, quotations from Dr. Schaff's published works have been avoided. A biography of a father is a precarious undertaking for a son. While the familiar intercourse of the home and the study gives access to the daily habits and the most intimate thoughts, a son is prompted by natural disposition to mistake matters of a purely private interest for matters of public concern, and to dwell upon what is usual and common as though it were exceptional and distinctive. In guarding against these dangers, I have given large space to the judgments of others even at the risk of seem- ing, at times, to repeat what is contained in the body of the narrative. My thanks are due for valuable counsel to Professor George L. Prentiss, Dr. Schaff's most intimate friend at the time of his death, and to the Rev. Dr. Frederick S. Hayden of Jacksonville, Illinois, who has followed these pages one by one and given to them the benefit of his literary judgment. DAVID S. SCHAFF. LANE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, October 4, 1897. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE EARLY YEARS. 1819-1837 i Birth and Parents Switzerland First School Meta Heusser Wurtemberg Rationalism in Switzerland Religious Experience Stuttgart CHAPTER II UNIVERSITY LIFE: TUBINGEN, HALLE, BERLIN. 1837-1840 . . 17 Tubingen Theological Tumult Christian Friedrich Schmid Baur and Ewald Dorner Meditations Struggles Poetic Ef- forts First Sermons Leaving Tubingen Hase Tholuck and Julius Muller Mrs. Tholuck George L. Prentiss Berlin Neander Claus Harms Private Tutor CHAPTER III TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY. 1841-1842 38 Dr. Schaff as a Traveller Palermo Agrigentum ^Etna Rome Thorwaldsen Overbeck The Colosseum Tasso Jesuit Sermon Passion Week Illumination of St. Peter's Gregory XVI Leaving Rome Assisi The Waldenses Geneva Prot- estant Celebrities CHAPTER IV CALL TO AMERICA. 1842-1844 63 Privat-Docent in Berlin Professor Park Monod and Godet "The Sin against the Holy Ghost " Private Thoughts Delega- tion from the United States Call to Mercersburg Marheineke Ordination Krummacher England Oxford Dr. Pusey Arri- val in America xii CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE MERCERSBURG. 1844-1845 92 Through Pennsylvania Reception in Mercersburg " Little Jamie" Personal Appearance Theological Seminary Dr. Nevin Inaugural "The Principle of Protestantism " Trial for Heresy CHAPTER VI IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY. 1844-1863 122 Fame of Mercersburg The Church Festivals Seminary Strug- gles First Endowment Dr. Schaff as a Lecturer Mercersburg Theology Among his Students Removal and Presidency of Mar- shall College Marriage Home Sorrows Student Stories Friendships Impressions of America CHAPTER VII THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND GERMAN THOUGHT IN AMERICA. 1844-1863 147 Perpetuation of the German Element in America The German- American Churches The Reformed Church and the Americanizing Process Dr. Schaff as Mediator between German Theology and American Thought As Interpreter of American Institutions abroad The Kirchenfreund History of the Apostolic Church Reception of the Work Historical Development CHAPTER VIII A YEAR IN EUROPE. 1854 171 Failing Health Scotland Maurice and Bunsen Oxford A Sunday in London Paris In Germany again Dining with the King Lectures on America Hurter and Prince Metternich Venice and Trent Switzerland The Kirchentag Manning and Cardinal Wiseman CHAPTER IX LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG. 1855-1863 197 Mercersburg again Drs. Wolff and Rauch New Era in the Reformed Church Attitude to the Catholic Church To the Epis- copal Church Liturgy and Liturgical Forms German Hymn-book Civil War Tercentenary of the Heidelberg Catechism Mer- cersburg Theology CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER X PAGE FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK. 1864-1870 221 Denominational Interests New York Sabbath Committee Sec- retary The American and Continental Sabbath German Mass Meetings Bishop Coxe Presentation of the American Theory in Germany The American Lange Dr. Schaff as an Exegete Qual- ifications of an Exegete President Lincoln's Death Visit abroad in 1 865 London Father Ignatius The Matterhorn Stuttgart Sunday Schools Berlin Lectures on the Civil War Mercersburg again Death of Dr. Harbaugh Elected Professor at Hartford "The Person of Christ" Visit abroad in 1869 Spurgeon Dean Alford Tregelles The Evangelical Alliance The Engadin Pere Hyacinthe CHAPTER XI MOVEMENTS TOWARDS CHRISTIAN UNION. 1870-1876 . . . 252 The Evangelical Alliance Proposed Conference in New York Dr. Schaff the Organizing Spirit Franco-Prussian War and the Vati- can Council Deputation to the Czar in 1871 Tholuck and Hodge Jubilees Visits to Europe for the Alliance, 1869-1873 The Jan- senists of Holland Chiselhurst Interview with Emperor William The Conference in Session Dr. Schaffs Estimate Alliance of the Reformed Churches The Baxter Monument The Old-Cath- olic Conference Dr. Dollinger The Evangelists, Moody and Sankey CHAPTER XII UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 1870-1893 282 Again Professor Union Theological Seminary Its Faculty Dr. Schaffs Inaugural In the Class Room Estimates of Students Anecdotes Charge to a Class Charge to a Pastor Doctor of Laws Friendships at Home and Abroad Home Sorrows Tour in the Orient Egypt The Pyramids The Wilderness Mt. Sinai Vexations of Oriental Travel The Mosaic Records Jerusalem Nazareth Beirut Reflections on Palestine Constantinople and Athens " Through Bible Lands " Oriental Travel and Theologi- cal Study CHAPTER XIII COUNCILS AND MEN. 1877-1884 317 First Council of the Reformed Churches Dr. SchafFs Address A Consensus Creed Dr. Muhlenberg and Henry B. Smith xiv CONTENTS Pius IX Salt Lake City and the Mormons Yosemite Valley Dean Stanley's Visit to America Berlin and Bismarck The Basel Conference of the Evangelical Alliance Tributes to Dr. Adams, Nathan Bishop, Dr. Washburn Literary Work The Luther Cele- bration in 1883 Ezra Abbot Europe in 1884 From Scotland to Scandinavia and Russia Deaths of Dorner and Lange Von Ranke Conference of the Evangelical Alliance of Copenhagen CHAPTER XIV THE REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 1870-1885 . . . .354 Origin of the Revision Movement American Cooperation Dr. Angus and Dean Stanley The Episcopal Bishops The American Committee First Meeting Organization Completed Bishop Mc- Ilvaine's Judgment Plan of Cooperation Cooperation Imperilled The University Presses Final Compact Dr. SchafFs Concep- tion of the Work His Share in the Revision The American Ap- pendix Publication of the Revised Scriptures Estimate of the Work Standard American Edition Dr. Schaff's Last Words on Revision Estimate of his Services CHAPTER XV GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED. 1885-1888 390 Roman Catholic Baptism in the Presbyterian Church German Universities Gottingen and Ritschl Marburg and Giessen Zwingli Festival Bonn, Berlin, Greifswald, Leipzig Halle and Jena Hase Heidelberg Celebration Spain Renan Henry Ward Beecher Drs. Prime and Hitchcock Lake Mohonk as a Summer Home Professor of Church History Bologna Doctor of Divinity again St. Andrews Bishop Hefele and Papal Infalli- bility The Death of Friends CHAPTER XVI ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY. 1890-1892 . 415 Last Voyage to Europe Rome The Pope at Mass Life of Dr. Nevin Switzerland German Universities once more Stutt- gart Godet and Lightfoot Revision of the Westminster Confes- sion Dr. Schaffs Endorsement Calvinism and Arminianism Letters to Drs. Van Dyke and Morris The Theology for the Present Time Dr. Briggs' Inaugural The Detroit Assembly and Union Seminary Dr. Worcester Liberty and Ecclesiastical Authority Church Schism Inerrancy Deliverance Calvin and Servetus Liberty and Peace CONTENTS xv CHAPTER XVII PAGE FIFTY YEARS A THEOLOGICAL TEACHER AND AUTHOR. 1842-1892 . 441 Old Age Optimism Godet's Eightieth Birthday Dr. Mann's Death Paralytic Stroke State of the Presbyterian Church Let- ter from Godet Semi-centennial of Public Activity Dr. Schaff's Literary Habits The Creeds of Christendom Dr. Schaff as a Church Historian Personal Acquaintance with Church Historians Bishop Lightfoot's Testimony to his Influence Historical Study in America American Society of Church History The Semi-cen- tennial Epistle from Berlin University CHAPTER XVIII THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 1893 469 Health Resigning Professorship Seminary Scheme Last Words to the Reformed Church Bible Revision Theological Pro- pccdeutic Theological Position Modern Biblical Criticism The Old Testament Last Summer The Columbian Exposition Par- liament of Religions The Reunion of Christendom Letter from Dr. Godet CHAPTER XIX THE LAST DAYS. 1893 492 Inauguration of a Successor Last Lecture Final Sickness Funeral General Estimate of Dr. Schaff's Career German Learn- ing and American Scholarship Dr. Schaff's Practical Bent Social Sympathies Friend to Students Religious Faith Tributes At the Funeral From Societies and Assemblies From Friends APPENDIX 511 INDEX 519 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS 1819-1837 Life, I repeat, is energy of love Divine or human, exercised in pain, In strife, in tribulation ; and ordained, If so approved and sanctified, to pass Through shadows and silent rest, to endless joy. WORDSWORTH. Birth and Parents Switzerland First School Meta Heusser Wiirtem- berg Rationalism in Switzerland Religious Experience Stuttgart " I AM a Swiss by birth, a German by education, an American by choice." In these words Philip Schaff was accustomed to express his threefold indebtedness to Swit- zerland, Germany and the United States. Each of these countries made permanent contributions to his mind and character. His warm affection for Germany and Switzer- land continued unabated, and, to the end of his life, he stood in relations of intimacy with a large circle of German and Swiss friends. To America he became at- tached by all the personal affiliations which turn a strange land into a home. He was born January i, 1819, at Chur, in the canton of Graubiindten, and was baptized a week later according to the rite of the Reformed Church, with which his parents 2 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1819 were identified. The faded baptismal paper is signed by his father, Philip Schaf 1 and Margaretha von Salis as sponsors. In his Personal Reminiscences he thus recalls the circumstances of his first home : " I was born and bred in poverty and obscurity. I can boast of no illustrious ancestors and kindred. I can truly say, that by the grace of God I am what I am. Inesti- mable is the blessing of a refined Christian home, warmed by the sunshine of parental care and brotherly and sisterly affection : it is the best discipline of mind and heart and the nursery of every virtue and grace. But poverty has its redeeming features : it stimulates energy, breeds in- dustry, and developes the spirit of self-reliance and manly independence. It often proves to be a better capital to start with than wealth and the prestige of pedigree. I have nothing to complain of. What my parents lacked was not their fault, and God has overruled any disadvan- tages of my early childhood for my own good. " My father was a carpenter in humble condition. He was much esteemed, as I have been told, by those who knew him. He died in his thirtieth year, when I was a year old, and lies buried in the graveyard at Chur. My mother, born in the year of the French Revolution, 1789, belonged to a large family of farmers at Zizers, a small village near Chur, and had several sisters, one of whom I remember as having been very kind to me. She married again after my father's death. She was much attached to me, her only child, and would have followed me to America, had she not been bound by family ties to Switzerland. She was a woman of fine appearance, strong constitution, good mind, independent will and native humor. It is a great comfort to me that I was able to contribute to 1 This spelling the son continued to use for some years after his arrival in America. CHAP. I EARLY YEARS her comfort in her declining years. When I visited her in 1865 at her home near Glarus, where she was then living, she could with difficulty realize my presence ; and after gazing at me for some time, she fell around my neck, exclaiming with deep emotion, ' Is it you, my son ! Now I wish to die. Lord, take me home ! ' When, accompanied by my son David, I saw my mother again in 1869, she was still in sound health and firm of step, although eighty. " Again two years later I saw her at Fiirstenau, near the Via Mala, and found her in good health, her hair still only moderately gray, eyes sparkling, but memory shattered. My last visit in the summer of 1872 was the most satis- factory of all. I removed her to a more comfortable home in Chur, and put her under the care of an experienced nurse. At the final interview she expressed the desire to receive the Holy Communion. The nurse provided the bread and wine, and we celebrated together the dying love of our Lord. It was one of the most solemn hours of my life. I left my mother bathed in tears, but ready to depart to a better world. She was afterwards removed, at her own request, to Glarus, and there she died May 25, 1876, aged eighty-seven. On my return the next year from the Orient, I made a pilgrimage with my wife and daughter to her grave at Glarus, where a plain marble cross marks her resting-place. Rest in peace, good old mother, till we meet again in the mansions of heaven ! " To his mother and the Swiss mountain air Dr. Schaff owed a rugged constitution, which enabled him to en- dure protracted and laborious study to the end of his life with little of the feeling of fatigue which oppresses most men. His affection for his native hills increased rather than waned as the years went on. Here is his description of his native canton and Switzerland : 4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1819 " The canton of Graubiindten, in which I was born, was for a long time an independent republic before its annexa- tion to Switzerland. It contains some of the grandest and most romantic scenery, but remained comparatively unknown to travellers until towards the middle of this cen- tury. I well remember when St. Moritz in the Engadin, now thronged every summer by tourists, was visited only by a few Swiss, who put up with poor accommodations in order to breathe its pure air and drink its healing waters. " Switzerland is the freest country in Europe, and the most beautiful in the world. Nowhere on the globe is there such a concentration and profusion of all that is great and sublime, lovely and charming in nature. What the philosopher Kant said of the starry heavens above us and the moral law within us may be justly applied to the snow-clad Alps, which fill the mind with ever-growing reverence and awe. The higher I have climbed on those everlasting hills, breathing their bracing air and enjoying the panorama of beauty beneath and beyond, as far as the eye can reach, the younger and stronger have I felt, and the nearer to God and to heaven. God himself has chosen the mountains Sinai, Zion, Tabor, Olivet as the base for His highest revelations and the most important events in the history of the race. As sang Meta Heusser, " ' The everlasting hills ! how calm they rise, Bold witnesses to an Almighty hand : We gaze with longing heart and eager eyes, And feel as if short pathway might suffice From those pure regions to the heavenly land.' " For intelligence, education, love of freedom, and good morals, the people of Switzerland compare favorably with any in the world, even Scotland and New England CHAP. I EARLY YEARS scarcely excepted. They have now maintained their re- publican institutions for more than five hundred and fifty years, and have outlived the changes of surrounding mon- archies. 1 Their William Tell, Arnold von Winkelried and Nicholas von der Flue will ever be identified with patri- otism and freedom in story and in song. Zurich, Basel and Geneva were centres of the Reformation, and Zwingli and Calvin did as much as Luther and Melanch- thon towards forming those ideas and principles which control the history of modern times. The Church of Scotland is but a daughter of the Church of Geneva, which John Knox described as 'the most perfect school of Christ since the days of the Apostles.' English Puri- tanism, which, more than any other agency, laid the foundations of New England, and shaped the institutions of America, is an offshoot of the same Calvinism. Swit- zerland has also contributed directly by emigration a goodly share to the scholarship, statesmanship and the industrial class of this country. Gallatin, Guyot and Agassiz were Swiss. Few historians have been so widely read outside their own country as Merle d'Aubigne", who wrote on the shores of Lake Geneva. The History of Christian Doctrine by Hagenbach, likewise a Swiss divine, is still the best we have in English dress. Pro- fessor Godet, by his commentaries on Luke and John, has more pupils in England and America than in his native land and language." The share which his Swiss nativity and early training had in preparing him to identify himself with American institutions, he acknowledges in the following words : " In many respects America is an extended Switzer- land. On my arrival here I found it much easier to fall 1 The six hundredth anniversary of Swiss independence was fittingly cele- brated by the Swiss population of New York City, in September, 1891. 6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1831 in with American institutions and to feel at home in this country than the emigrants from imperial Germany, who are apt either to retain a preference for a more central- ized form of government, or more frequently to run into an excess of democracy, especially on the Sunday ques- tion. Restraint of individual freedom, regard for law and custom, self-government and discipline, are indispensable to the permanency and prosperity of a republic. Our Christianity, our churches, our Bible and our Sabbath are the moral pillars of our national fabric. Take these away, and our liberty will soon degenerate into anarchy or military despotism." The lad went through the usual course in the schools at Chur. His talents and frank manners attracted the attention of his teachers, and won friends who were able to render him substantial assistance. The Graubundtners are a mixed race and speak Italian, German, and the Ro- mansch, a dialect peculiar to their canton. Schaff spoke Italian and German on the street. The copy books have been preserved in which he took down the dictation of the teacher on the religious teaching and history of the Bible, an exercise called in German schools Religion. Written in a clear and regular hand, and marked, " Win- ter, 1831-1832," they show the nature of some of the instruction given at that time. Here are several ex- tracts : " The Creation of Man : Whoever has worked six days and looks over his work, and can say that it is good, and thinks of God who has nourished and blessed him, for him the seventh day shall be a day of peace and one full of holy joy. . . . The Fall: It is only by childlike obedi- ence that we show proper confidence in our Father in heaven and love towards Him, as also to our parents on earth. Whoso has lost innocence, can no longer be CHAP. I EARLY YEARS happy in any paradise. . . . Adam's Sons: It would have been a pious and childlike act if they had wanted to give back to God something of what they had received from Him, just as children want to give back something to their parents, and thus show them their love ; for have not they received all things from their parents ? " Leaving the lower school, he spent three years in the classical school (Cantonsschule)^ made rapid progress, standing first in his classes, and skipping several of the grades. At the age of fourteen he began to support him- self by giving elementary instruction to the children of a noble family with which he was distantly related. The friendships of his school days were maintained in maturer years. Among these friends were members of the von Planta family, three sons of Antistes Kind, all afterwards clergymen, and Dr. Herzog, city pastor in Chur, who survived him. He frequently met them in later years, and he was accustomed before younger people to lay stress upon the friendships of childhood and youth as the most disinterested and enduring. Of some of the Swiss friends who took an interest in him, Dr. Schaff wrote : " My best patron in Chur, whom I shall always remember with most grateful affection, was the Rev. Paul Kind, Antistes or chief preacher of the city. He was an able and faithful preacher of the Gospel, and for this reason unpopular with his colleagues, who were either rationalistic or indifferent to religion, though universally esteemed for his irreproachable character. It was a pe- culiar satisfaction to greet this venerable servant of Christ so late as in 1869, and again in 1871, then bowed down by the weight of fourscore years, and totally blind. He remembered me and the scenes of my youth with the affection of a father. " I cannot omit to pay a grateful tribute to Pastor Pas- 8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1833 savant of St. James', near Basel, the author of several ascetic works and practical commentaries. 1 He was one of the most devout men I ever knew. Hearing of me through friends, he entered into correspondence with me, and while at Stuttgart and Tubingen cheered and aided me in the pursuit of an education. " The nearest and dearest of all these friends was Mrs. Meta Heusser-Schweizer. The daughter of the pious clergyman Schweizer, she was a lady of rare genius, culti- vation, and piety. She is the only Swiss poetess of any renown. Her poems of nature and the spiritual life are faultless in form, pure and tender in sentiment, often sub- lime, full of the richest Christian experience, many of them the sweet fruit of bitter sorrows. She sang like a bird, never dreaming of her songs being published, and shrink- ing from any suggestion of it, till at last some friends brought them to light anonymously in Knapp's Christo- terpe, a poetical annual begun in i833. 2 I read them with the utmost delight, and was only too glad, through a mutual Swiss friend, Pastor Burckhardt of Schaffhausen, to make her personal acquaintance. From the first time I met Mrs. Heusser, as an unknown student, I felt drawn towards her with filial affection which grew deeper and stronger with advancing years. We kept up a constant correspondence from 1837. Her letters, written in a most beautiful hand, are full of bright thoughts and religious sentiment. They are the most beautiful and thoughtful I ever saw from woman's pen. She died in peace, Jan. 2, 1876." Following the advice of Antistes Kind, young Schaff left 1 As, a commentary on the first three chapters of Ephesians. Basel, 1836. 2 Two volumes of Mrs. Heusser's poems were published 1858 and 1859 under the title Lieder einer Verborgenen. A selection, translated by Miss Jane Borthwick, appeared under the title Alpine Lyrics, 1875, and was afterwards included in the Hymns from the Land of Luther , edition 1884. CHAP, i EARLY YEARS Chur in 1834, and entered the boys' academy in Kornthal, WUrtemberg. This is his description of the journey, writ- ten forty years later : " It was in September that I left my native town and friends, and started with mingled feelings of sadness and hope for Wiirtemberg. I carried all my possessions in my knapsack (omnia mea mecum portans} and travelled alone and on foot down the valley of the Rhine to Rorschach, where I took the boat across the Lake of Constance to Friedrichshafen. The sight of a lake and the entrance into a German town made me forget all the fatigues of the journey and were the first sensation of my life. I took a refreshing bath in the lake near the castle, the summer residence of the king of Wiirtemberg, and continued my journey on foot to Tubingen and Kornthal." Thirty-seven years later he visited Friedrichshafen a second time, but under circumstances very different. This time it was as the representative of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance. As the chairman and spokes- man of a distinguished delegation from different countries of Europe and the United States, he pleaded in the pres- ence of Prince Gortschakoff the cause of the persecuted Lutherans in the Baltic provinces, and through him pre- sented a memorial in behalf of religious liberty in the Rus- sian empire to the Czar, then on a visit to his sister, Queen Olga, and her husband King Karl of Wiirtemberg. Of Wiirtemberg and his school life at Kornthal, he wrote : "The little kingdom of Wiirtemberg is one of the most remarkable countries in the world for the number of great men it has produced. Schiller and Uhland, the most national of the poets of Germany, not to mention other poets like Wieland, Schwab, Kerner, Knapp and Gerok ; Schelling and Hegel, the greatest philosophers of 10 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1834 the nineteenth century ; Kepler, the astronomer ; Andreae, Bengel, Storr, Schmid and Dorner among the leaders of Protestant theology ; Mb'hler, Hirscher and Hefele among Roman Catholic divines ; were all born and reared in Wiirtemberg. From the same country have gone forth champions of the orthodox faith, and, in strange con- trast, the chief representatives of German rationalism and pantheism Paulus, Baur and Strauss, with a number of less known but able followers. The people are good- natured, kind-hearted, plain, and economical in their habits, somewhat slow and heavy as compared with the people of Northern Germany, but reliable, intelligent and well in- formed, industrious and persevering, fond of philosophy and poetry, and possessed of a harmless humor of their own. " Five years I spent among this genial people, whose country became to me a second fatherland. I look upon that part of my youth with unalloyed pleasure. To Wiirt- emberg I owe under God my spiritual life and the best part of my education. Had I remained in Switzerland, my career would probably have taken a turn very different from that which it took. Some of my fellow-students in Chur became respectable, useful men, but others, no worse than I, went sadly astray. " Strange and incredible as it may seem, there are now several ministers of the Reformed churches of Graubund- ten and other cantons of Switzerland, some of them my fellow-students at Chur, Tubingen and Berlin, who deny even the existence of a personal God and the immortality of the soul. 1 In 1839 tne famous Dr. Strauss, who re- solved the life of Christ into a fiction of the religious imagination, was even called to the chair of didactic theology in the university of Zurich. The people, how- 1 Written in 1871. CHAP. I EARLY YEARS II ever, prevented the consummation of this choice, and Dr. J. P. Lange was afterwards called in his place. The philosopher Schelling, just before his death at Ragatz, August, 1854, expressed to me his surprise and indigna- tion that the destructive doctrines of Baur and Strauss should be disseminated among those simple mountain people. This antichristian school is now quite strong in Switzerland, and strives to control the national church. I can see no escape from this abnormal state of things, except in the complete separation of church and state. True Christianity thrives best on the self-supporting prin- ciple. Rationalism will soon starve to death without gov- ernmental support. Those who go to church look for spiritual nourishment, and will not listen for any length of time to preachers who take from them their only comfort in life and death." Kornthal, where Schaff spent eight months at school, is a neat and quiet village, resembling in origin and char- acter the Moravian settlements of Herrnhut, Gnadau and Konigsfeld. It was founded in 1819 by pietists who were dissatisfied with the prevailing indifferentism and rationalism in the state church. Securing a charter with certain immunities, the colony flourished and has acquired a wide reputation for its literary and benevo- lent institutions, as well as its religious life. The village is seven miles from Stuttgart, and is prettily situated in the midst of vineyards and well-cultivated fields, and in full view of the picturesquely located royal summer palace of the Solitude, once the seat of the military school where Schiller spent several years of his youth. " Here," he says, " I studied to great advantage. The most important part of my education was religious, espe- cially the catechetical instruction I received from Dr. Kapff, then pastor of the village church and afterwards 12 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1834 Prelat and cathedral preacher in Stuttgart. He was one of the noblest, purest and most amiable men I ever knew, a true disciple of St. John, the disciple of love. The peace of God beamed from his serene, benign countenance. He preached, from out of his own experi- e, Jesus Christ and him crucified as the only ground of our salvation. He confirmed me after a thorough course of religious instruction, and from that time I looked up to him as a spiritual father." The village accepts the Augsburg confession, and Schaff's confirmation was according to the Lutheran rite. During this period he had a serious attack of typhoid fever, which was epidemic in the school, and was removed to the Solitude castle till his recovery. In 1869 he visited Kornthal, where a son was then attending school, and made an address at the services commemorating the semi-centennial of its existence. On that occasion he said : " Thirty-five years ago, a youth from Switzerland, who was born in the same year as Kornthal and therefore has a twofold share in this festival, entered the institution for boys, in this place. At first, he felt lonely and discon- tented, and was seized by that homesickness which is peculiarly strong in the Swiss, and which no one can ade- quately appreciate without having had the experience. One day, at three o'clock in the morning, this stranger went away to the neighboring forest, and prayed, crying in intense agony, and as if on the brink of despair. His heart was without rest, because it had not yet found its rest in God. But God had mercy upon him, and heard his cry. His homesickness was the pain of a new birth from above. He began to realize for the first time what it is to have peace with God through the atoning blood of Christ which washes away all sin. By the faithful CHAP, i EARLY YEARS 13 instruction and pious example of Kullen (then headmaster of the school) and Kapff, he was introduced into the mysteries of evangelical truth and dedicated himself at this very church altar, from which I address you, to the service of God. This pupil is with you to-day, from a far distant land, and thanks you for the unspeakable benefit which he owes to this his spiritual birthplace." Writing to the son of Prelat Kapff upon the latter's death, in 1880, he said : The pangs of homesickness in Kornthal were turned into the first birth-pangs of the new life. No philosophical analysis can explain that religious and moral change which, on its divine side, is called the new birth, and on its human side, conversion. Most Christians can only say in regard to it that, while they were once dead, they now live, and their life is hid with Christ in God. This much I know, that in the winter and spring of 1834-35, by the grace of God, and under the guidance of your father and Professor Kullen, of blessed memory, a change occurred within me which determined all my after life and activity. From Kornthal he passed to the Gymnasium of Stutt- gart. The course of study, pursued half a century ago, now seems almost painfully severe. The age for begin- ning Latin was seven. In the second class Greek was taken up, and select pieces were read from Cornelius Nepos and Caesar. A few years later the pupils, who had the ministry in view, began the study of Hebrew. From the fifth class onward, the weekly essays had to be written alternately in Latin and Greek. Mathematics claimed relatively a small share of attention, and the natural sciences were barely touched. During the most of his stay in Stuttgart, he was an inmate of the home of William Julius Mann, his life- long friend, and shared with him his room. The father was a merchant held in high esteem for his counsel and 14 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1836 piety in the stricter religious circles. The following is a description of some of his schoolmates : " Among my fellow-students I was most intimate with Mann and the two sons of Schwab the poet, all of whom remained my close friends till their death. Mann and Gustav Schwab, like myself, came to America. The latter rose to be one of the honored merchants of the great metropolis of New York. I know no layman in America of German antecedents who surpasses him in intelligence, information, liberality and genuine, though unostentatious, usefulness. Dr. Mann filled the highest positions in the German Lutheran Church with marked ability and accept- ance. I had the pleasure of dedicating the third volume of my revised Church History to these tried and lifelong friends." Among the teachers in the gymnasium were Schwab, who gave instruction in German literature, and an odd character, Rheinbeck, a retired actor, who had rhetoric and elocution. The latter used to impress the boys by holding up his right hand in a dramatic manner, and declaring that it had once held the hand of Goethe at Weimar, and that he kept it unwashed for a week after the meeting. Among the friends, whom the boy won, was a sister of Hahnemann, the homoeopath, Madam Aubertin, who did much in the way of superintending his studies. She was a woman of much culture and of a lively and active temperament, then in advanced age. In earlier years she had been in charge of a school for young ladies at Mann- heim. Through the pious heads of the Mann family, he enjoyed the best of religious influences. Their house was a place of resort for the clergymen of the city and private religious gatherings. The pulpit of Stuttgart was at the time even more than ordinarily strong and influential. Dann, a man CHAP. I EARLY YEARS 15 of tall, erect figure, dressing in the old style with knee breeches and silver buckles, black silk stockings and tri- cornered hat, was closing his distinguished career. A physical infirmity made it necessary for him to sit while preaching. His rhetoric attracted actors and others who cared little for the evangelical treatment of his themes. He became very fond of the boy, who had access to him at all hours and who at his death in 1837 received as a special mark of favor a lock of his hair. Wilhelm Hofacker and Albert Knapp the poet, who were in their prime, he heard regularly at St. Leonhard's, also attending Knapp's devotional lectures. In later years he mentioned their names with reverence as having exercised a permanent influence upon his religious life. In the spring of 1836 he made his first visit to Switzer- land. The account, written from day to day, reveals the boyish ardor with which the journey was prosecuted and the eagerness with which every opportunity was seized to meet people of local or extended reputation. The journey was made on foot and kindness, received by the way, sup- plied for the most part the daily wants. The first stop- ping place was Tubingen, where he was introduced to the professor of philosophy, von Eschenmeyer, and to Professor Steudel, and shared their hospitality at table and over night. His journal has this record: Of course, I accepted both invitations very promptly. As I sat at the side of Professor von Eschenmeyer at the table, he talked with me in the most familiar way, and I was amazed at the extraordinary condescension of this dis- tinguished professor. I slept warm and without waking, the night through, in the very same bed that Mr. Ostertag 1 had slept the night before. . . . When I got over the line into Switzerland [he contin- ues], I fell down and kissed the earth of this dear land of 1 Subsequently director of the Mission Institute in Basel. 1 6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1837 freedom, my own fatherland. Oh, how well I felt ! A pure air from heaven seemed to come down softly upon me. All the opening landscapes, every object, seemed to be clothed about by some pure heavenly spirit with a supe- rior drapery from above. And then how I delighted in our mountains towering up to heaven ! How they take hold of the deepest feelings of the soul, and how clearly they teach us our littleness, yea, our nothingness ! How they inspire us by their solemn, priestly vestments, their heroic, strength which no storms can tame, and which invite us to high virtues ! The social and religious influences of these school days at Stuttgart left a deep impression upon the boy's mind and heart, and had much to do in keeping him during his university career from being drawn away by rationalistic teachings. He always retained much of the fervor of Wiirtemberg pietism. The debt to this, his second home, he repaid in after years by various services. Its first Sun- day school owed its origin to him. He frequently brought messages to its pulpit and to the platforms of religious gath- erings from his distant home in the West. He maintained his early friendships, and as the old friends departed one by one, he took delight in hunting up their children. Visit- ing the city, when nearly seventy, he attended Sabbath services at St. Leonhard's, and was greatly moved on hear- ing a sermon full of evangelical fervor by Albert Knapp's youngest son, then city pastor, and since deceased. Going out from the church, the flood of memories almost over- whelmed him. Walking along the Hochstetter Strasse with his son, he stopped in front of the old Mann house, pointed out the room he had once occupied, spoke of the good people whom he had come in contact with, and then proceeded to recall the enthusiasm with which he had pur- sued his classical studies at the gymnasium, and the ardor with which he had entered upon the realm of German poetry and other literature. CHAP, ii UNIVERSITY LIFE 17 CHAPTER II UNIVERSITY LIFE: TUBINGEN, HALLE, BERLIN 1837-1840 Tubingen Theological Tumult Christian Friedrich Schmid Baur and Ewald Dorner Meditations Struggles Poetic Efforts First Ser- mons Leaving Tubingen Hase Tholuck and Julius Miiller Mrs. Tholuck George L. Prentiss Berlin Neander Claus Harms Private Tutor IN the fall of 1837 the studies of the university course were entered upon at Tubingen. Founded by Count Eberhard in 1477, this institution has had a distinguished succession of teachers, from Reuchlin and Melanchthon down to Weizsacker and others among the living. It has been the alma mater of the scholars and professional men of Wiirtemberg, and has sent forth to other parts of Germany 'some of its most learned and brilliant biblical scholars. Its reputation for thoroughness of instruction and for the industry of its students has been proverbial. The second quarter of the century, in which the theo- logical preparation of Dr. Schaff fell, will stand out in the history of the study of the New Testament and the life of Christ as a period characterized by the most remarkable intellectual acumen, moral earnestness and scholarship. Of the two schools of theology and biblical criticism to which Tubingen has given its name, the earlier had lost its supremacy and, with the death of Steudel, closed its career. It was strongly evangelical, 1 8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1837 contained an infusion of mysticism, and was represented by men like Oetinger, Storr and Bengel. The influence of the later Tubingen school was at its height. With the might of an intellectual giant, its founder, Ferdinand Christian Baur, was shaking to their foundations the traditional theories of apostolic Christianity and the composition of the New Testament writings. His own writings were the heavy artillery of the new critical movement ; the Life of Jesus by his scholar Strauss, published in 1835, its daring and hopeless charge. Not only was Dr. Schaff brought from the first into close personal contact with most of the leaders of the evangelical and the radical schools of opinion, from Neander to Baur, and from Tholuck and Rothe to Schweizer and Schenkel. He also came in contact with representatives of the waning vulgar rationalism, such as Paulus, Wegscheider and Vatke. From the intellectual tumult of that time, sixty years ago, he came forth with his faith strengthened rather than shaken. His religious antecedents, as has been intimated, prepossessed him strongly in favor of the con- servative teaching of the university. His favorite pro- fessor at Tubingen was Schmid. For Strauss' position, it would seem, he felt no sympathy, and in later years he antagonized it in his Person of Christ and other writ- ings. For the genius of Baur he had profound respect, but he subsequently combated his theories of the irrecon- cilable difference between Paul and Peter and the origin of the writings of the New Testament. Of his Tubingen life, he thus speaks for himself in his Personal Remi- niscences : "The philosophy of Hegel ruled without a successful rival among the students, and filled them with enthusiasm for absolute knowledge. They thought they could recon- CHAP, ii UNIVERSITY LIFE 19 struct the whole universe by rethinking the thoughts of God, who comes to His self-consciousness in man. "Theology was divided into two hostile camps, the evangelical school of Dr. Schmid and the critical school of Dr. Baur. The whole theological world had just been stirred to its depths by the publication of the Life of Jesus, by Strauss, then repetent at Tubingen. Schwegler, a pupil of Baur, who subsequently distinguished himself by his Post-apostolic Age, was my classmate and an intense student, who worked himself to an untimely death. Baur himself was then in the prime of life, and was working out his reconstruction of the history of the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. I confine myself here to personal reminiscences. " Professor Schmid * was a profoundly learned, pious, conscientious and estimable scholar, but modest to a fault. He published nothing of importance during his lifetime, and his posthumous publications on Christian ethics and the theology of the New Testament (as I could prove from my notes of his lectures) do not do justice to him. His chief power lay in exegesis. He combined, like Bengel, deep reverence for the Word of God with accurate philology and critical discernment. He sympathized with Neander, and independently wrought out a similar reproduction of apostolic teaching under the four leading types of James, Peter, Paul and John. His like-minded pupil and friend, Oehler, whom I likewise knew very well, applied the same method in his Old Testament Theology? " Dr. Baur filled me with intellectual admiration for 1 Christian Friedrich Schmid (1794-1852). His Biblical Theology of the New Testament has been widely used in its English translation, Edinburgh, 1870. 2 Beck had not yet been called to Tubingen. 20 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1837 his rare genius and scholarship. He had great magnetism as a teacher. The most difficult problems of higher criticism he handled with the grip of a giant. He elabo- rated his lectures with conscientious care, and read them very closely, but with intense earnestness and inspiring enthusiasm. He was at that time, next to Neander, the most influential academic teacher in theology in Ger- many. I gained from him my first idea of historical development or of a constant and progressive flow of thought in the successive ages of the church. He made sad havoc with the literature of the apostolic age, and transferred all the writings of the canon, except the four great epistles of Paul and the Apocalypse, to the post- apostolic age, as elements in the growth of the catholic system out of the conflicting tendencies of Paulinism and Petrinism. But his bold, critical 'researches stimulated an immense activity in every direction, and led to many valuable results. His personal character was above reproach, and among all the modern opponents of tradi- tional orthodoxy, he is the ablest, the most honest and earnest. On his death-bed he is said to have prayed, ' Herr, macks sanft mit meinem Ende ' [Lord, grant me a peaceful end]." On a visit to Tubingen in 1888 Dr. Schaff was taken by Professor Weizsacker to the new university museum. Looking at the portraits of the rectors and distinguished professors, he tarried before the fine portrait of Dr. Baur, examining it closely and exclaiming, " He was a great genius, a theological genius of the first order ! What a stir he made in theological circles, and what a mighty im- petus he gave to critical and historical investigation ! His name will live." The narrative continues: "The most celebrated professor at that time, next to Baur, was Heinrich Ewald. I heard his lectures on Gene- CHAP. II UNIVERSITY LIFE 21 sis and on the biblical theology of the Old Testament. He was brimful of genius, learning and sublime self-con- ceit. He mastered the driest details of Hebrew syntax, and yet had a poetic insight into the beauties of Hebrew poetry and prophecy. He created as great a revolution in the higher criticism of the Old Testament, as Baur in that of the New Testament, and made as deep an impression on the age. It is a curious fact that these two men, the highest of the higher critics, were for ten years, 1838-1848, colleagues and antagonists in the same university. " Ewald was as bold and independent a critic as Baur and as fertile of arbitrary hypotheses. He always spoke and wrote with oracular self-assurance, as if he himself had been consulted by Moses and the prophets, by the Elohist, Jahvist, Deuteronomist and other writers of the Pentateuch, real or invented, before they composed their chapters. He was a perfect Ishmaelite and ignored or violently abused the labors of predecessors and contemporaries. He rarely quotes other books than his own and the primary sources. ' See the History ' is the language in which he refers to his own account of the history of Israel as if there were no other. He had no humor but an unlimited amount of sarcasm. He lived at war with his colleagues and left Tubingen at last in disgust. In speaking of the younger Fichte, professor of philosophy in Tubingen, he disparag- ingly characterized him in the exclamation, ' Fichte, whose father was a philosopher ! ' Baur was to him ' no Christian at all but worse than a heathen,' or ' only a common liter- ary Jew. I frequently told him,' he said, ' that he was no Christian. And what did Herr Baur do? He wouldn't believe me, and calls me a heretic-hunter (Ketzerriecher), as if there could be heresy where there is no Christianity !' Baur, with more sense and dignity, replied by calling Ewald's Jahrbucher der bib Use hen Wissenschaft (Magazine 22 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1837 of Biblical Science) Jahrbiicher der theologischen Leiden- schaft (Magazine of Theological Passion). "He wrote a public letter to the pope in 1848, and per- emptorily called upon him to resign his triple crown. When asked why the pope never answered his communication, he coolly replied, ' He does not dare to ' (er wagt es nicht}. One more characteristic anecdote I must relate. On one occasion, when he had received a considerable amount of money from his publisher, he remarked ' This is too much. What shall I do with it?' 'Put it at interest/ some one said. To which he exclaimed, 'But then it will be still more.' Such extraordinary characters are inconceivable outside the world of German scholars. " But all his eccentricities aside, Ewald was a very stimu- lating and enthusiastic teacher, wholly absorbed in his calling. He was tall and erect, with a full suit of hair, flashing eyes, and looked as solemn as a prophet of old. He had a profoundly religious nature, and whatever others may have thought of his ways of expressing himself, he no doubt considered himself very religious. He fairly trem- bled when he spoke of the majesty of Jahveh and the grandeur of the prophets. The highest word he ever spoke, he spoke to Dean Stanley, 1 when, holding up a Greek Testament, he exclaimed, 'In this little book is con- tained all the wisdom of the world.' " One more teacher nearer and dearer to me personally than all the rest of my Tubingen professors was Dr. Dorner. He had just been called, and I heard his first course of lectures on apologetics and dogmatics. He combined in some measure the excellences of Baur and Schmid, the speculative and the critical faculty of the former and the Christian piety, and the Scriptural sound- 1 At an inn in Dresden. See Stanley, History of the Jewish Church, III. p. x. CHAP. II UNIVERSITY LIFE 23 ness of the latter. He knew as much of history as Baur, was much more sober and fair in his judgment, but fell short of him in boldness, originality, in force, and in mastery of style. He had passed under the training of Hegel and Schleiermacher, and was just the kind of man to satisfy the wants of those advanced students who wished to master the critical and speculative problems of the age without losing their Christian faith. He was one of the purest and noblest men I ever knew, and combined the highest scientific culture with Christian faith, simplicity and humility. I shall always continue to be glad that I was able to induce him to come to America in 1873. I never lived in a place where there was more earnest and intense study than there was in Tubingen during my uni- versity course. "During vacations I usually made a journey on foot to my native Switzerland, and once to Munich, where I saw the treasures of art and made the acquaintance of Schell- ing, von Baader, Gorres and Schubert. I vividly recollect the impression these distinguished men made upon me. The acquaintance with the philosopher Schelling I re- newed in Berlin, and in Ragatz I heard from his dying lips his last views on the philosophy of church history, that is, the progressive stages of development as marked by the apostolic types, Peter, Paul and John. He confessed his faith in Christ as his only comfort in death." Dr. SchafFs note-books of lectures and his manuscript papers belonging to the university period are written out with faultless precision and neatness, and indicate untiring industry and the wide interests of his mind. Besides copious excerpts from readings in various departments of literature, they contain his own original observations. A few examples will show their nature : 24 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1838 Philosophy ought to be a living and deep longing for the fatherland of truth. . . . Love makes the Christian ser- vant of all men, faith makes him master of all things. . . . Without Christ life is as the twilight with dark night ahead ; with Christ it is the dawn of morning with the light and warmth of full day ahead. Every genuine and deep experience is a moral progress. Art is the wine of life, science is the bread, religion is both. The law has in it the need of the Gospel. In the thou shalt of the almighty and all-loving One lies the promise of the thou canst. The best authority against Strauss is an honest soul filled with Christ, whose life of faith hid with God shows that Christianity is not an idea hanging in the air, but that forth from the prophet of Nazareth there continues to go power which overcomes the world and also life for all sym- pathetic hearts. The Christian life is the child life with its faith, hope and love transfigured. The child believes without experience, loves without wisdom, hopes without foundation. The Christian believes and trusts like the child, but he knows in whom he believes. He loves warmly and unselfishly as the child loves, but he discrimi- nates as the child does not. He hopes as confidently, but with a more distinct image before him and immovable ground beneath him. Faith is his foundation, love is his dwelling room, hope the waving flag on the tower. The religious temper of his mind shows itself in the meditations he recorded from time to time while at Tubin- gen, which abound in expressions of pious gratitude and of longing for closer communion with Christ. On the last evening of the year 1838 he thus unbosomed himself: I am quite full of the blessed nearness of the Saviour which I have felt in these last days of Christmas week, and especially as I have listened to preaching. I have learned again that the most precious of all experiences is the ex- perience of his presence. There are happy hours spent in the friendships of the world where we say one to the other "I am thine, thou art mine." But those who feel the secret presence of Christ know that these pass into the shadow before the experiences we have in his com- CHAP. II UNIVERSITY LIFE 2$ munion, when we rise, as on the wings of eagles, through prayer and faith to him the highest of all beings, the beginning and the end and the moving centre of all things. Here, one has answer to his questionings ; here, peace which passeth knowledge. Our faith and hope, how can they fail to be sources of blessing, since they look towards Christ, who is not a hard master, but the Redeemer, the Wonderful, the Prince of Peace ! Just before leaving Tubingen he wrote : I confess it aloud that in Christ I have found what my soul's deepest needs cry out for, the satisfaction of my longings, the calming of anxious fears turning darkness into day. Earthly goods he has not given me, that I might the more zealously seek after heavenly things. He has denied me the sweet joy of a father's care, that with all the devotion my heart is capable of, I might pour out my love into his heart and find in him the truest and most trusty friend. He has been wonderfully present, healed my wounds, and shows daily his kindness and faithfulness, proving to me indeed that he lives and that his holy Gospel is not a garland of myths which abortive effort has sought to bind around his brow, and keeping me from erring in the labyrinth of the wisdom of the age. Throughout his university career it was more than once a question whether he would not be forced to abandon his studies for want of means. A slender support was secured through teaching, or furnished by friends, in large part in the form of loans. In subsequent years he often spoke of the liberal financial aid extended to needy theological stu- dents in this country, and the encouragements given to them as compared with the students in Germany, where no societies exist to aid candidates for the ministry, except as here and there the state helps one of unusual promise. The kindness of one friend, the Rev. Mr. Passavant, was most opportune. His letters are full of fatherly counsels, and again and again he refused to accept any praise for himself. "You should. give thanks not to me, but to the Lord," he wrote; "the great giver before whom we should 26 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1839 all bow down. You must remember that you are a poor sinner, and in that sense the Lord makes the poor rich." He repeatedly urged his young friend to take care of his health and, not unmindful of his bodily comfort, insisted upon his having a warm drink for breakfast, promising him an additional four kreuzer (about two cents) each day for this luxury. In his school period, Schaff developed a poetic facility, and was encouraged to cultivate the talent by Knapp and Mrs. Heusser. A number of his early pieces are still ex- tant. A few of them were put in print. He was fully convinced that he was born a poet. Time brought an- other conviction, and he abandoned poetical composition. But this early habit accounts, in part, for the interest he took in later years in sacred poetry and for his hymnologi- cal taste. He early stored his memory with the treasures of poetry in the language in which it was written, from Homer, Virgil and Dante to Goethe, Schiller and other German poets. It was his custom to lay great stress upon committing to memory the best pieces in youth, as one of the most valuable elements of an education. His first sermons were preached in the pulpit of Gustav Schwab at Gomaringen, a town of Wiirtemberg. The privilege of preaching was much coveted by the students who did not dream of remuneration for such services. He went from village to village on foot. His early sermons are, in part, written out on sheets and sewed together by his own hand. The first was preached the Monday after Easter, 1838, when he was nineteen, from the text which he afterwards emphasized as the epitome of the Gospel message, " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." A few weeks before his death, taking one of his grandsons, a namesake, on his knee, he had him repeat the verses which begin with these words and then, CHAP. II UNIVERSITY LIFE 27 with evident emotion, said, " That, my child, is the whole of the Gospel. That is the highest wisdom. Whatever else you forget, do not forget that." The third and last year of his university studies was divided between Halle and Berlin, where Neander and Hengstenberg, Tholuck and Julius Miiller held command- ing positions in the theological world. With them, the chief leaders of evangelical theology in Germany were Nitzsch at Bonn, Rothe, Ullmann and Umbreit at Heidel- berg, Dorner at Kiel, Lange at Zurich and, a little later, Ebrard of Erlangen. Differing in phases of theological doctrine, they agreed in opposing the Tubingen school and the older and newer rationalism represented by Weg- scheider, Paulus and Strauss. It was given to them to regain for positive and historical Christianity the con- fidence which it seemed to be in danger of losing, and to impart the courage of well-grounded religious con- victions, fortified by brilliant scholarship, to a younger class of men, who were soon to be called to places at their side, and to become their successors. Tholuck, who had gone to Halle as the successor of Knapp, in the chair of systematic theology and exegesis, was then in the fresh vigor of his powers. Julius Miiller had just been transferred to the university. With them were associated Gesenius, the Hebraist ; Wegscheider, the representative of the moribund, vulgar rationalism ; Erd- mann and Ulrici, the philosophers ; Leo, the historian ; and Witte, the Dante scholar. Wegscheider had out- lived his reputation. His audiences, which in the days of his prime had numbered four and five hundred, had dwindled down to six or eight students. The atmos- phere was already cleared of rationalistic mists by the growing power of evangelical thought under the instruc- tion and example of Tholuck and Julius Miiller. 28 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1839 Dr. Schaff s own account of his removal to Halle runs as follows : "On a fine September morning in 1839, I left Wiirtem- berg and travelled, partly on foot partly by diligence (for there were no railroads), stopping on the way at Niirn- berg, Erlangen, Eisenach, Weimar and Jena long enough to see the curiosities, and to make some interesting acquaintances. " I well remember a brief visit on Professor Hase, whom I knew through his admirable manual of Church History, and found to be a charming gentleman. He received me, a poor student, very kindly, with the words, 'Ah, you have not been prevented by the darkness of the night from calling upon me.' l I saw him once again in 1886 as an octogenarian. He was then engaged in pub- lishing his lectures on Church History, a work he did not live to finish. He died January 3, 1890, ninety years of age ; and a few days later Dr. Dollinger, the ablest Catholic church historian of the century and the leader of the Old Catholics (isolated and yet a member of the great Church catholic), closed his life of nearly ninety- one years. Ranke had preceded both in 1886, and at the same advanced age. All three were engaged to the very last in their favorite historical studies, which seem to be conducive to old age. In April, 1890, Dr. Kurtz, of Marburg, followed them, aged seventy-eight, after finishing the eleventh edition of his useful manual of Church History, which has been twice translated into English. " Soon after my arrival in Halle, I called with letters of introduction on Professor Tholuck. He at once, to my great surprise and delight, took me into his house, and employed me for a while as his amanuensis and librarian. 1 Haben Sie sick das Dunkel der Nacht nicht gescheut mich zu besuchen ! CHAP, ii UNIVERSITY LIFE 29 He invited me several times every week to his table, and showed me unwearied kindness ; and his young, beautiful and charming wife, then recently married and full of enthusiastic devotion to her husband, treated me like a brother. There assembled in her parlors once a week a number of accomplished Christian women, and at her request I helped to entertain them by readings from Dante, Shakespeare, Augustine's Confessions, Thomas a Kempis, Lenau's Savonarola, Tholuck's Sermons and other works. As for Dr. Tholuck, he was then in his prime, and the chief attraction of the university, espe- cially for students from England and America. He could converse with every visitor in his own dialect. He created an epoch by his arrival in 1827, and made the revived evangelical faith a converting power from the lecture chair and the pulpit. He had at first to encoun- ter much persecution, but outlived it, and became the most popular teacher and preacher in Halle. He was a man of genius, extensive learning and fervent piety. His lectures were fresh, suggestive and stimulating. His chief power and usefulness lay in his personal mag- netism and devotion to the students, whom he loved as his own children, himself being childless. He took daily walks at eleven and four with two or three of them at a time, instructing and entertaining them by easy con- versation, anecdotes and sallies of humor. He took special interest in honest sceptics and inquirers. He had himself a sceptical vein, and knew how to deal with honest doubts. Occasionally he was baffled by an un- expected answer. He once asked a student, who never went to church, where he worshipped on Sunday. ' In nature,' was the reply, ' God's own temple, with His sun shining brightly over me.' ' But what do you do when it rains?' said the professor. 'Then I put up an umbrella,' 30 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1839 was the ready retort. Tholuck once told me that seekers after religion needed kindly attention beyond any other class. He aroused many a young man to a sense of his individuality, and was truly a schoolmaster to lead many to Christ. " Professor Tholuck influenced American theological thought by his contact with American divines, such as Dr. Charles Hodge, Edward Robinson, Henry B. Smith, George L. Prentiss and Professor Park. He called them his American pets. Although a great sufferer from in- somnia and other bodily ailments, he prolonged his life by rigid regularity in his habits, strict temperance and constant exercise, till he reached seventy-seven. When I called a few weeks after his death, his widow led me to the chamber and chair where he died, and repeated to me his last words, ( My dear child, I die a double death, but Christ .' She supplied the unfinished sentence. 'Christ died and rose for me.' This was the sum of his theology, as it was his last comfort. 1 "Mrs. Tholuck is a rare woman. She was the young- est daughter of a pious family of the nobility, living at Stuttgart, von Gemmingen by name, who were originally Roman Catholics. The baroness recommended me to her daughter, which accounts for my favorable reception. Mrs. Tholuck was a niece of Mrs. Hegel, the widow of the philosopher, whom I visited often in Berlin, and found to be a very estimable lady. She was at that time much disturbed by infidel developments of the left, or radical, wing of the Hegelian school, especially the Life of Jesus, by Strauss, who claimed at that period to be a Hegelian. She assured me that her husband was a 1 Further information will be found in the elaborate sketches of Dr. Tholuck by Dr. Schaff, in his Germany and its Universities and the Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia. CHAP, ii UNIVERSITY LIFE 31 good Christian, and would have abhorred such a work. She often tried, she said, to prevail upon him to go with her to Gossner's church in Berlin, but he would excuse himself with the remark, * My dear child, thinking is also worship.' 1 This is very characteristic of the great thinker. Mrs. Tholuck shared her husband's affection for his students, often invited them to her hospitable board, entertained them around the Christmas tree, and pro- vided aid for them through friends. "It was at Dr. Tholuck's house," he continues, "that I made my first American acquaintance, Dr. George L. Prentiss, soon to become my intimate friend and afterward my beloved colleague in Union Seminary. 2 He was then studying in Halle and boarding with Professor Ulrici. He was handsome and a model gentleman. He often came to my study to hear me play on the flute and to talk philoso- phy and theology. We were both intimate with Kahnis, our fellow-student, who was then overflowing with spirit, wit and humor. " Next to Tholuck, Julius Miiller was my favorite teacher in Halle and, in some respects, I owe him more than I do Tholuck. He was less widely learned and brilliant, but more deep and solid. His work on sin 3 is one of the most able and valuable doctrinal monographs of modern times. We called him Sunden-Muller (Sin-Miiller). For his Chris- tian character I entertained profound respect. I have never known a more pure, humble, conscientious, kind and 1 Mein liebes Kind, das Denken ist auch Gottesdienst. 2 When Dr. Prentiss met Dr. Tholuck for the first time, so he informs me. the professor was walking with Dr. Henry B. Smith. " Do you know," he exclaimed, " the controlling and central feature of the theological thought of the day ? It is Ent-wick-el-ung" (de-vel-op-ment), emphasizing each syllable as he answered his own question. 8 The Christian Doctrine of Sin (Die christliche Lehre von der Sunde), 2 vols. 1839-1844. 32 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1839 Christ-like man, unless it be Neander. I never left his room without feeling better for having been in his pres- ence. The last time I saw him, in 1877, ne was scarcely able to speak, having had a stroke of paralysis, and I shall never forget the painful struggle of his lips, the tender expression of his eye and the hearty pressure of his hand. He lives in my memory as an evangelical saint. In his sincere modesty he refused to publish his lectures on dogmatic theology which would have taken rank as one of the very best systems of Protestant theology, and he ordered his manuscripts destroyed at his death." After spending six months in Halle, he decided to re- move to Berlin. The following extract from a letter to Mrs. Heusser bears upon the change: I have now resolved to leave here and go to Berlin, where I have been spending the Christmas holidays. I met, among others, Neander, Hengstenberg, Gossner and Theremin. Without any seeking on my part, Hengsten- berg offered me a place as tutor in the family of Mrs. von Krb'cher, and I have accepted, after declining a similar position in the family of the Count of Mecklenburg. Mrs. von Krocher's only son attends the gymnasium, and I am to oversee his studies and accompany him on his travels during the holidays. I dislike the thought of giving even the appearance of being ungrateful to Professor Tholuck by leaving here, for his kindness has been very great. But after I had made up my mind he told me that from the start it had been his opinion that this was the proper thing for me to do, and that he had only hesitated to say so as it would involve my leaving Halle. He first became known to Professor Hengstenberg through articles he had contributed to the Kirchenzeitung, of which Hengstenberg was editor. His buoyancy of spirits, bright eye and easy powers of conversation, and, without doubt, his Swiss extraction also, attracted atten- tion and won for him friends. Of his removal to Berlin he writes : CHAP, ii UNIVERSITY LIFE 33 "In Easter week of the year 1840 I travelled in the company of Dr. and Mrs. Tholuck from Halle to Berlin, where I proposed to complete my studies. Dr. Tholuck introduced me to Baron von Kottwitz, his spiritual father who came as near being a perfect saint as any one I have ever known. He also introduced me to the families of von Gerlach and Frau von Quast. Hengstenberg's mother-in- law introduced me to her friend the Baroness von Krocher, in whose family I was to act as tutor. " I at once took charge of my pupil, a bright and amia- ble boy of fifteen. Mrs. von Krocher was a lady of rare accomplishments, refined feelings and whole-souled gen- erosity. She treated me with the affection of a mother, gave me a liberal salary and left me ample time to attend the lectures at the university. I remained two years in her service, spending the winter in Berlin, the summer in her castle at Cothen near Freienwalde, and a year in travel. In Cothen I saw much of the country life of the Prussian nobility, and dined almost daily with Mrs. von Krocher's favorite brother, Rittmeister von Jena. He exercised an unbounded hospitality, and his large family combined social refinement with Christian character. When I left the service of Mrs. von Krocher she offered me a handsome gift in money, which I declined. It amounted to the salary I received in Mercersburg during the first five years of my stay there." The university of Berlin was then in the first rank among the twenty-two universities of Germany, although one of the youngest in age. The literary atmosphere in the city has never been more stimulating. Hegel and Schleiermacher had died a few years before, but had left worthy colleagues and successors. Every department could boast of one celebrity or more of brilliant ability who attracted students from all parts of the world. Schaff 34 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1839 heard the lectures of Neander, Hengstenberg, Twesten, Strauss (the court preacher), Theremin, Ranke, Ritter, Stef- fens and, later, Schelling. The last, in his advanced age, was called to Berlin in 1841 to enlighten the world with his matured thought on the philosophy of mythology and revelation. "He created a great sensation," writes Dr. Schaff; "even Neander and Alexander von Humboldt attending his lectures. The teacher that interested and helped me most was Neander. I heard only his course on Modern Church History, which he never matured for publication. I became intimately acquainted with him as a student and privat-docent, and often enjoyed his plain, cordial hospi- tality and that of his devoted sister, Hannchen. Berlin has never had a more beloved teacher. His character and example were even more impressive than his profound learning and original genius. It was impossible not to love and revere him for his simplicity, purity and humility, and his unselfish devotion to his students. He was one of the greatest and best men I ever knew. He had a most tender and conscientious regard for truth as the supreme object of knowledge. He sympathized with all types of vital Christianity, and had liberal intuitions for a free church in a free state. Hengstenberg was more ortho- dox, but his orthodoxy was angular and exclusive, and his advocacy of the traditional views of the Old Testament was not free from special pleading which recalled the advo- cate rather than the apologist. Neander's great merit is that he introduced into the treatment of church history the spirit of evangelical catholicity and transformed its periods into a book of quickening and life-giving impulse." 1 1 Dr. SchafFs reminiscences and estimate of Neander will be found at length in his Augustin, Melanchthon and Neander ; New York, 1885, and the Ger- man monograph, August Neander, Gotha, 1886. CHAP. II UNIVERSITY LIFE 35 A quarter of a century after this Dr. Schaff again ex- amined Neander's library, which after his death had been purchased by the Baptist seminary at Rochester, New York, and transferred to that city. Under date of July 25, 1866, he wrote : " I have made a most interesting visit to-day to Nean- der's library, which is kept separate from the other books and in the same plain binding as in Berlin. Here are the sacred tools with which he worked for fifty years. I greet many old acquaintances. Some of these books I used my- self while a student in Berlin. The library numbers about four thousand volumes, including a great deal of literary trash and useless editions, together with many valuable books, among which are some good editions of the Fathers." In 1841 he completed his course of study in the univer- sity, published his first book, passed the examination and delivered the public disputation for the degree of licentiate of theology, which is equivalent to the English bachelor of divinity and a step to a professorship. Neander examined him in church history, Hengstenberg in Old Testament exegesis, Marheineke in dogmatic theology, Twesten pre- sided at the disputation. Among his fellow-students in Berlin were Erbkam, Reu- ter and Jacobi, and among his fellow privat-docenten a few years later Piper and Kahnis, all church historians. An incident of this period was a visit at Kiel on Claus Harms (d. 1855), the fervid evangelical preacher whose theses, published in 1817 at the anniversary of the nailing up of Luther's theses, made a great sensation in Protes- tant circles in Germany. The conversation turned upon the contrast between the mountains of Switzerland and the level plains of Northern Germany. Harms went to all pains to displace the enthusiasm of his visitor for the Alps and to establish the superior excellency of the level 36 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1839 expanse. The ice-mountains, he said, " evidently bear the marks of the curse. No useful plant thrives on them, their summits no bird chooses for its dwelling-place, no animal except the ugly bear or the chamois shunning man and his haunts. There only ice and snow are found, and the bare masses of rock have around them the cold realm of death and solitude. The man who seeks to tread those dreary places must often pay dearly for his temerity. The blood is forced through the pores of the skin, hands and feet tremble at the severe cold, and, almost unmanned, does he reach the end of the journey, if he reaches it at all. Or he falls dead through faintness, or perhaps slips into a starless ice grave through a crevice in the glacier, or into pitiless death over the yawning precipice. Here on our plains the sky touches down at every spot, and we need not to climb up to get to God. We are close to Him always and find communion with Him everywhere." But as his young visitor remarked, " the good man Harms had himself a wonderful originality, which in him it is very pleasant to approach and which is even a source of spirit- ual inspiration to others. But this peculiarity was only edifying as it was his, for he could chain the hearer to himself and his words, and through them lead him up to heavenly altitudes." The following extract from a letter to Mrs. Heusser gives an insight into the family life of the Baroness von Krocher : On arriving in Berlin I went at once to the estate of my pupil at Cothen. This is perhaps the most beauti- ful spot in the whole of Brandenburg, a real oasis in the sand plain, and deserves the name of the Brandenburg Switzerland. The castle is very attractive in appearance, and the park is most beautiful, with natural and artificial waterfalls, shady avenues, fresh brooks, arbors, playing fountains, picturesque seats and some hills, from which CHAP, ii UNIVERSITY LIFE 37 the Oder may be seen with its sluggish current and white sails. The spirits of my patron do not correspond with the beautiful surroundings. She received me with a counte- nance made sad by the sorrows of the past, the loss within a year of a father, mother, a sister-in-law and an only daughter. . . . She has now taken her son out of school, and I direct all his studies myself. This involves a curtailment of my own studies. But Mrs. von Krocher gives me full liberty to go and come as I please. . . . Next spring we are expecting to make a journey to South- ern Europe, including Sicily. A richer conclusion to his studies he could scarcely have coveted. He had enjoyed rare opportunities during his school years and his university course. He had already come into close personal contact with some of the most distinguished German theologians of the century, and also met some of the chief literary men of Ger- many, such as Uhland and Tieck. The impressions of travel, to which he now proved himself to be receptive, placed his mind under a permanent debt, which in after years he was quick to acknowledge as a most valuable preparation for his life-work. 38 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1841 CHAPTER III TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 1841-1842 Dr. Schaff as a Traveller Palermo Agrigentum ^Etna Rome Thor- waldsen Overbeck The Colosseum Tasso Jesuit Sermon Passion Week Illumination of St. Peter's Gregory XVI Leaving Rome Assisi The Waldenses Geneva Protestant Celebrities To the end of his life, Dr. Schaff was an enthusiastic traveller and never seemed to know fatigue. Whatever country or place he visited, he visited it as a sympathetic observer of men and things, and with a mind intent upon learning. Although his eye was wide open to the beauties of nature and the monuments of history, and although he had a keen sense of the humorous and amus- ing, he seldom travelled merely for recreation. He took with him everywhere a restless curiosity to find out men, especially in his own department of study, and by con- versation to discover the trend of current thought and scholarly research. The journey to Southern Europe, in company with Mrs. von Krocher and her son Heinrich, lasted fourteen months, and not only introduced him to the treasures of Italian art, but gave him opportunity to meet a number of prominent and most interesting personages. The few pages it is possible to give from his detailed journal dis- play the keen ardor of youth and the intelligent eye of a mature appreciation. CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 39 After spending several months in Northern Italy, the party went by way of Pisa and Leghorn to Naples. Leaving Mrs. von Krocher, the tutor sailed with his pupil for Palermo. From there they made a tour through Sicily, lasting more than a month. The route lay across the country southwards to Sciacca, thence along the southern coast to Terranova, over the mountains to Syra- cuse, and then northwards to Messina. Here are some descriptions of Sicilian scenes : " Nov. 1 3th, 1841. The situation of this city, Palermo, is charming, but the situation of Naples is even more charming by reason of the proximity of smoking Vesuvius and the enchanting islands. The city itself is not nearly as attractive as Naples, but has more the appearance of antiquity and in some respects offers more of interest. . . . We spent the afternoon on the Monte Pellegrino, which is covered with sharp stones and which Goethe calls the most beautiful of all hills and from which the view over the city, the surrounding hills and the endless sea, is en- chanting. A good road leads to the chapel of Santa Rosalia, hewn into the rock, where the saint passed her solitary life and where her bones were found in 1624." The first day's journey extended to Alcamo. It was before the time of railroads. A guide furnished his ser- vices, three donkeys, and lodging and food for fifty-four carlins a day (about four dollars). " At six o'clock we started off with the guide, who took his little boy along, rode up over Monreale and through a stony mountain region, which might be better cultivated than it is. Again and again we turned around to look at Palermo and the sea. The road then descended to the village Borghetto, with a charming view of the gulf Castel a Mare. At the next village, Pertenico, which lies in a plain not far from the sea, we had a tolerable meal. Then 40 THE LIFE OF PH/LIP S CHAFF 1841 we descended further by a passable road, till at half-past four we reached Alcamo, built by the Saracen prince, Alkamah, in 828, a picturesquely situated town, from which a pleasing view is had over the surrounding hills and the gulf Castel a Mare. Most of the people, both men and women, wear a long black mantle, a few a white mantle, which covers the head and conceals the figure. We had the magnificent spectacle of the sunset, after which I had no hesitation about giving nature the preference over art. The dark clouds were draped in a radiance of glory just before the disappearance of day. Why should not all human pain-clouds also be irradiated with the glory of the Son of grace ! We found a good supper, which our miser- able-looking inn gave us no reason to expect. Greatly wearied with the long ride on my not very good-natured donkey, I am glad to retire, after commending myself, my mother and my friends to God. . . . " Heinrich has just told me that the guide is having a fuss because he cannot get any milk in all Sciacca. I asked our inn-keeper how many inns there were in the town. He replied, ' there is one good one, but only one, and that is my own. The other three are poor.' . . ." At Girgenti, near the ancient Agrigentum, they spent Sunday. The journal runs: "The place has a beautiful situation, but is dirty and poverty stricken. The cathedral must be old and is as unattractive as it is old. We hap- pened in just as the sermon was being preached in Italian, with all too many hyphens in Latin from the Vulgate and the Fathers. The friendly priest showed us the baptismal font and opened the marble sarcophagus said to have once contained the ashes of Phalaris. . . . Agrigentum, one of the rich and flourishing cities of antiquity, is said to have had 800,000 inhabitants, or as many as the Paris of to-day. Here, Empedocles was born and here was the residence of CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 41 Phalaris, whose brazen bull mercilessly consumed many victims. The city lay on several now fruitful hills, and lower than the modern town of Girgenti. We stopped first at the temple, Juno Lucinia, which is sustained by thirty-four Doric columns. About three hundred steps away is the temple of Concordia, bearing an inscription announcing that it was restored in 1788 by Ferdinand I. Two rows of columns surround it and two stairways lead to the upper part of the temple, one of which is modern, the other ancient. Close by is the temple of Hercules, with only one of its columns in upright position. The others lie about in heaps. From here you see the tomb of Theron and the columns, still standing, of the temple of yEsculapius. Then we went to the temple of Jupiter Olympus, according to Diodorus the largest of Sicilian temple-structures. All the columns lie prostrate in colos- sal heaps. Three columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux are still standing and two columns of the temple of Vulcan. Only small remains are left of the temples of Jupiter Poliens, Minerva, Ceres and Proserpina, which stood on much higher ground and further back from the sea. . . . " We ride twenty-four miles to-day, descending con- stantly through stony and desert regions until we come to the vicinity of Syracuse, where the vegetation is again luxuriant. Once Syracuse had a million and a half of inhab- itants. Of the five quarters only Ortygia remains. From the land side, you reach the city through fortifications and drawbridges. It presents a good appearance. We stop at- the Albergo del Sole, a good hotel, and visit at once the cathedral, which is built on the foundations of the temple of Minerva and near the celebrated spring of Arethusa, in which there are no longer any sweet waters and which is no longer invested with the charms once sung by poets. 42 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 We found a number of poor women standing in the water, washing clothes. The large harbor which witnessed the shattering of the Athenian fleet is very beautiful, and it is no wonder the location of the city called forth much admiration. " Nicolosi on Mt. ^Etna is certainly one of the most interesting spots of our journey. Fields of death all around, on which, however, a new and wonderful abun- dance of plants has grown up ! Astounding is the vent- uresomeness of man, who will risk his life and build his dwelling at the very foot of the terrible fire-hearth ! The houses of Nicolosi are built of the lava of ./Etna, and the village presents a swarthy appearance. . . . After lunch we climbed Monte Rosso, which at the eruption in 1669 rose from out of the depths and spat out those masses of lava which covered everything down to the lip of the sea. The view from here is most grand, and suggests how mag- nificent it must be from ^Etna itself, which is much higher and to which the guide pretended to be taking us. ... " On our way along the coast to Messina we see the sunrise, the horizon reddening soon after six. The top of ^Etna glows, then the castle of Taormina is enswathed in rosy light, then the queen of day herself rises out of the sea. What a view ! On this most splendid day we journeyed on as if on wings with the hills of Calabria at our right, ^Etna above us at our left and Messina in front where we arrived only too soon." They crossed over the straits of Messina to the main- land, and joining Mrs. von Krocher at Naples, passed on northwards, arriving at Rome in January, 1842. To the relics of ancient and mediaeval Rome, the young Swiss brought a lively historic sense. The Colosseum and the catacombs, so far as explored, the palaces of the Caesars and the ancient churches alike made a deep im- CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 43 pression upon his mind. The religious life of the modern city and its treasures of art, he studied with no less enthusiasm and lasting profit. The Campagna had for him a peculiar charm, and always made the impression of eternity. The classic and beautiful localities about Rome, Tivoli, Frascati and Albano, called forth warm outbursts of admiration, and detailed and vivid descriptions. Close by Mrs. von Krocher's lodgings in the Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitoline was the Casa Tarpeia, the building recently purchased by the Prussian government for the use of the archaeological institute, and the Protes- tant hospital. For several weeks Dr. Schaff had charge of the religious services at the Prussian embassy during the temporary absence of the chaplain. Among the friends who were spending the winter in the city was Dr. George L. Prentiss, in whose company he passed many happy hours. Of persons whose acquaintance he formed in Rome and of some of its scenes, he wrote : " I often saw Thorwaldsen, with his white hair, his cap, his morning gown and his large winter slippers in which he also received on one occasion a large company. He is now working on the Apostle Andrew. His gallery of art is very valuable, his personality very amiable, and he wins by his cordial and modest manner. I also often saw Overbeck in the Palazzo Cenci, not so approachable as Thorwaldsen, but nevertheless quite cordial, somewhat of a mystic in his appearance. He has just finished a car- toon of a fine burial of Christ which he is making at the order of the city of Liibeck. Overbeck is, as his manner indicates, a thoroughly ^earnest, thoughtful and genial man. His art is a handmaiden to religion. All his paint- ings have a spiritual earnestness and depth and a spotless purity. We can have nothing but respect for such a Catholic. 44 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 " I have seen the Colosseum by moonlight. The custo- dian went in advance with a burning torch which filled the awful spaces with a magic light. Into the gashes and sockets of the gigantic structure, the moon sent its soft radiance. From the top of these wounded walls, we looked upon the ruins of the palaces of the Caesars, the remains of Hadrian's temple to Venus and Roma, the triumphal arches of Titus and Constantine, the Cselian hill with its dusky cypresses, and in the background to the east the towers and statues of the Lateran, and to the left the baths of Titus, not one world but many worlds at once, full of great memories. And the Colosseum it- self, founded by Romans, built by Jews, the arena of gladiators, the platform for martyrs to die on, in the Middle Ages the fortress of bold knights or the shelter of pious orders, in Leo X's time the ancestor of noble palaces and a quarry for the construction of the modern city ; at the time of Sixtus IV, a cloth factory and now, the longed-for goal and a source of wondering admiration to lonely pilgrims ! And the holy Benedict XIV turned it into a Christian temple, with fourteen pictures of the passion and the crucifix erected in the centre, and twice a week in Lent the word of the Crucified is proclaimed, and the Franciscans from the neighboring convent Ara Cceli pass around in their processions! Thus the Colosseum, this half-rent wreath, this dumb witness of the Pagan world, is made to serve the Crucified One ! How many curses of toiling Jews, how many psalms of praise or Dies irae from dying martyrs, or sighs of expiring gladiators these walls did not hear ! . . . " Here in St. Onofrio is the room in which Tasso died, and the library, with Tasso' s death mask in wax, very much darkened by age but making a deep impression. Even in these features of the great and unfortunate poet, who CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 45 sojourned in the cloister in much pain twenty-two days, one still sees a noble poet's brow and a gentle grace and soft- ness. . . . As for Tasso's relations with the Princess Eleanor, the recently found letters bear upon them. The two lived in relations of fervent love for six years, the princess by fifteen years the elder, holding the poet and enthusiastic youth till the wrath of the duke struck them. But the vain, imprudent poet would not restrain himself from revealing the tender relations in his poems ; and the duke, to save the reputation of his house, demanded of him a confession that his poems written to the princess were conceived in hours of insanity, and when Tasso re- fused he was put in confinement. The princess pleaded for him, but in vain. For seven years the poet languished in bitter despair and under dreadful delusion, from which the muse was no longer able to rescue him. Her wings were wounded. She whom he had brought down into the flesh had left him. But who does not feel compassion for the tender but unhappy bard who, in the afternoon of his day, was crowned upon the Capitoline before he went to receive his reward for his long sufferings in the presence of another judge, who, we hope, also gave him a crown, not for his poems, it is true, for which pos- terity has crowned him with an immortal wreath. 1 . . . "I heard at eleven a sermon in the church of the Jesuits on forbidden reading. The preacher let loose with vehement earnestness especially against novels, and closed by advising the reading of religious books such as Thomas a Kempis, but made no reference to the Bible. A considerable orator and, after the fashion of the Catho- lics, very religious. The sermon was full of life and prac- tical. In the delivery the preacher showed the power to carry you along and to keep hold of you. In gesticula- 1 Tasso died April 25, 1595. 46 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 tion he had extraordinary ease and naturalness. In these externals the Italians far surpass us Germans. He had the hearer the whole time directly in his eye and did not for a moment let him off till he had made his impression, a characteristic of a good orator, and in this respect we Germans have much to learn. ..." The pomp and circumstance with which the festivities of Passion week were celebrated fifty years ago, and which were abandoned with the triumphal entrance of Victor Emmanuel, have a historical interest. A few sketches are taken from an elaborate and graphic description : l - "Palm Sunday. At eight o'clock I preached in the Embassy chapel on the crucifixion, dwelling on the process of crucifixion which must go on in the heart and which is followed by the resurrection and true life in God. The Prussian princes, Friedrich and Wilhelm, were present and communed. After the service I go to St. Peter's to see the festivities. The pope approached the throne, wearing a bishop's cap, and robed in splendid purple vestments. After kneeling, cardinals came up to him in procession to kiss his hand. After the distribution of palm branches, he arose, uttered the Dominus vobiscum, and offered a brief prayer to which there was choral response. Then began the procession. The pope, with the palm in his hand, is carried in the baldachin by twelve persons, and followed by a great company of clergy. Then came the passion music, the psalms, stabat mater, and last the mass, which, on this occasion, Cardinal Prince Schwarzenberg celebrated. The whole service makes strong appeal to the senses and the imagination. It is a drama. A plain pungent sermon on the atoning sufferings of Christ, would be of more worth than all this gay, perishable pomp. . . ." lr The full account from Dr. Schaff's journal was given after his death: "Passion Week in Rome Fifty Years Ago," Homiletic Review, March, 1895. CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 47 On Wednesday evening he turned aside to the small church of Caravita near the Collegio Romano, to witness the scene of the scourging. " It is enacted three times a week throughout Lent. After a priest had recited the story of the cross, all the lights were put out and the doors shut. A chorister boy went through the church offering whips which consisted of two moderately thick thongs. Then, in the mysterious darkness, amidst un- broken silence, a priest went to the altar and delivered an impassioned but short sermon about Judas, painting him in dark colors and declaring that his hearers were even worse than was the faithless disciple, and that they had often betrayed the Lord in thought and word. But continuing, he said, ' So can and must it not be. We must all drive out of our hearts this traitorous Judas spirit. Ye who are burdened with sins drive out Judas ! ' Thus he cried out in a loud voice and all fell at once to scourg- ing themselves lustily. In the midst of this noisy pro- cedure the priest began to pray a penitent prayer. * Saviour, Saviour, have mercy upon us ! ' After the scourg- ing, which lasted a short quarter of an hour, the lights were lit again and the litany sung. The whole scene makes a deep impression. The poor people, mostly from the lower classes, who scourged themselves are certainly not the worst offenders in this Babylon. The service, indicating the heart's discontent with itself and its longing after the death of the old man, represents what the Protes- tant doctrine of justification stands for. " To-day, Maundy Thursday, I was early at the Sistine chapel. From eight o'clock on, a throng of equipages, among which the carriages of the cardinals, ornamented with gilt, stand out, and a mass of people on foot of all nations pass over the bridge St. Angelo to the Vatican all in black and curious to see the spectacle about to be 48 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 offered. The great circumstance and commotion, the varied aspect of the foreigners, the number of the noble and beautiful women and the Swiss guards (clad on Good Friday and Sunday in armor), it is all a parade for the world of beauty and distinction, a spectacle for eager and curious visitors from abroad, fond of the world's show and glitter. Here splendid balconies are erected for kings, princes and ambassadors, while the people who have not money must stand in the outer court. No wonder that the Roman cares only for the benediction of the pope, and during the splendid exercises in the papal chapel carries on his usual business, retiring perhaps for a short season to a small church for worship. Among the princely person- ages I have met are the Princes Wilhelm and Friedrich of Prussia, and I have seen the two sons of Don Carlos and Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. . . . " The dispensation of the papal blessing from the St. Peter's loggia is also one of the conspicuous services. The large balcony in the middle of the facade of St. Peter's was covered with a red carpet, a large sail-cloth being drawn over it as protection against the sun. The pope remained sitting while he pronounced the indulgence and absolution of all sins (indulgentiam et absolutionem omnium peccatorum vestrorum), to which the singers re- sponded, Amen. Thereupon he arose from his seat and, directing his eyes to heaven, stretched out his hands and gave the blessing, as he three times made the sign of the cross and said, et benedictio dei omnipotentis patris et filii et spiritus sancti descendat super vos et maneat semper 7 1 Thereupon the pope seated himself and the two cardinal deacons read, the one in Italian and the other in Latin, the formulary of the plenary indulgence which the pope 1 The blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain with you. CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 49 gives to those present; and then they threw down the two formulas into the crowd, who eagerly struggled to get them, while the cardinals looked over the balcony at the scene below and laughed. Then the pope arose, pro- nounced a simple benediction and was carried away, and the ceremony was at an end. . . . "In the evening I attended the footwashing of the apos- tles in St. Peter's on a carpet placed there for the occa- sion and near by the platforms, erected for the princes. By rights the apostles ought to be leading clericals of different lands who have made the pilgrimage to Rome for Holy Week. Instead, such foreign clericals are chosen as are stationed in the city, and for a number of years they are said to have been the same persons. They are dressed in white. As soon as the pope had ascended his throne, the account of the footwashing was read. The pope then kissed the carpet, girded himself with an apron, and on his knees washed one apostle's feet after the other from a golden basin, dried them with a towel and kissed them. With this act of humility is con- trasted the service of the two chamberlains, who carried the pope's falda, as well as the elegance of the washing apparatus. "In the evening I saw the ceremony of the footwashing and feeding of the Catholic pilgrims, which occurs on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings of Holy Week and dates from St. Philip Neri, 1548. For the female pilgrims there is a distinct apartment, to which only women are admitted. The pilgrims, carrying a cer- tificate from their bishop that they have come to Rome to worship, are taken care of three days near the Trinita dei Pellegrini and their feet washed once. Before the foot- washing a brief sermon was addressed to the pilgrims. One hundred and sixty were present at the ceremony. 50 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1842 The number of the women, I was told, was sixty. The pertinent passage from the fourth Gospel was read and some prayers were said by the Cardinal Prince Schwarzen- berg. Any Catholic layman or cleric may assist at the ceremony and must wear a red coat. The pilgrims sit around the wall, each with a basin in front of him. The confratelli draw off their shoes and stockings, wash their feet, dry and kiss them. Among those who this evening performed the service were Cardinals Schwarzenberg and Corsi and the two sons of Don Carlos. After the foot- washing the pilgrims and the confratelli passed into a large hall, where they were treated to a simple yet abun- dant meal and refreshed with wine." The plaintive music and dramatic ceremonies of Good Friday keyed the soul to such a sensitive pitch that the quiet of Saturday was a relief. Then followed the glad festivities of Easter, which again lifted the soul out from the depths into the heights of spiritual devotion. This is the description of the ceremonies of Easter day : " Before eight o'clock the papal dragoons and guards had occupied the St. Angelo bridge and the street as far as St. Peter's square to preserve order, and the city police were drawn up on each side of the nave of St. Peter's as far as the tribune, and around it were the Swiss guards in armor. The pope descends by the stairway of Bernini and to the equestrian statue of Constantine, behind a long line of generals of orders, chaplains, chamberlains, papal singers, confessors of St. Peter's, deacons, abbots, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals and the governor of the city. Then he is carried on his throne by twelve chamber- lains through the portico and chief passages of St. Peter's, and behind him are carried two peacock fans, to represent, perhaps, the sun and moon or the church and the empire, with the picture of the vicar of Christ between them. At CHAP. Hi TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 51 his entrance into the church the tit es Petrns is sung. The church is packed full. The throng of country folk, in part in picturesque clothing, in part in torn and tattered garments which hardly cover their limbs, have streamed here to receive the papal blessing and to see the sights. They push vigorously and crowd to get at the statue of St. Peter. " As soon as his Holiness ascended the throne on the right of the baldachin, he received the homage of cardi- nals, patriarchs, bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries, who kiss his feet and bend three times on their knees. Then follow songs and prayers. The pope proceeds to the great throne. The altar is bathed in incense and the gloria is sung. Then follow the epistle and the credo, the tedious preparations for the mass itself and the carry- ing to and fro of the vessels, which are very elegant. Censers are swung and the sanctus chanted. Consecra- tion and elevation of the host by the pope. Communion by the pope, the cardinal deacon, Latin subdeacon, and cardinal deacons and noble laymen. Then the confiteor is recited and the communion by the cardinals completes the mass. After the adoration of the relics, the benediction is given from the balcony of St. Peter's. The formula is longer than the one on Thursday, and runs : " The holy Apostles Peter and Paul, on whose power and authority we depend, themselves intercede for you to the Lord. Amen. God Almighty, through the prayers and merits of the blessed and perpetual Virgin Mary, of the blessed Archangel Michael, of the blessed John the Baptist, and of the Apostles Peter and Paul and of all the saints, have mercy upon you, and Jesus Christ forgive all your sins and lead you to eternal life. Amen. Almighty and merci- ful God grant tmto you indulgence, absolution, and remis- sion of all your sins, time of true and fruitful repentance, 52 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 a heart always penitent and amendment of life, the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit, and final perseverance in good works. Amen. And the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain withyou. Amen. " At the words ' And the blessing/ the pope rises and makes the sign of the cross three times. After the bene- diction, the formula of indulgence is read in Latin and Italian and the two copies are thrown down into the crowd on the square. At the last Amen there is a salute from the cannons of St. Angelo and the bells of St. Peter's. " The illumination of St. Peter's in the evening is really a magnificent spectacle. Fourteen hundred lamps are lighted on the outer f agade and the cupola of the church, and on the porticos around the square. In their soft, mild light, the form of the noble building stands out in all its grandeur. Like a flaming rose in a fairyland, spreading out its glow- ing petals into the blue sky so appeared St. Peter's to us from Mt. Pincio, where I went with Frau von Krocher, Heinrich and Herr Passavant to see it. The scene changed in a moment at the stroke of the clock, and the motionless lamps were full of glowing light and rays. The bride has celebrated her nuptials, the pale lily blushes with fire, and the sepulchral walls burn with soul and blood. The building remains thus illuminated till mid- night, when the lights gradually die down. Three hun- dred and sixty-five men are employed in the illumination, and the total number of lights is five hundred and ninety- one. After we had seen the transformation from Mt. Pincio, I returned to the square of St. Peter's by the Ripetta, where the press of people and carriages going to Mt. Pincio was so great as nearly to crush us. " Arrived at the square, we found it nearly empty, and we enjoyed at our leisure the splendid spectacle. At close CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 53 view it had a marvellous beauty and made a more over- whelming impression than from Mt. Pincio, this greatest of all churches, with its two arms stretched out around the square, the figures of the Apostles and saints high up on the portico and the colonnades, looking down through the magic illumination upon the spectators and softly whisper- ing the events of other years into their ears. And in the middle of the square rises dusky but full of presenti- ment the mighty obelisk, with its suggestion of Egypt's priestly wisdom, which is like the dark night over against the bright radiance of Christianity." An audience with the pope is the culmination of a visit in Rome. From whatever standpoint we may contemplate the see of St. Peter and its claims, the unique office of the supreme pontiff is one of the most august institutions on the earth. This is Dr. SchafF s description of an audi- ence with Gregory XVI : " At first, I had a most tedious experience and almost felt sorry I had sought the audience. I had to wait from ten to a quarter of one in the antecamera nobile. Two cardinals, a French bishop and others preceded me. While waiting I entertained myself with my friend, the father confessor from Strassburg, about the Catholic Church, vestments, indulgences, celibacy and other ecclesiastical questions. Finally, we were summoned by a fine-looking chamberlain. Passing through a door we found ourselves in the beautiful but plain sitting room of his Holiness, who was clad in white. The nostrils of his capacious nose were soiled with snuff. It was hard for me to kiss his red slipper. He looked kindly out of his gray eyes at me as he asked about my birthplace and my profession. He drew himself back a little when I told him I was a Protes- tant and said, ' ma convertito ' (but converted). My friend the priest said 'No.' The pope replied 'sard convertito* 54 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1842 (surely he will be converted) and related two cases of con- version, the first of a countess of Mecklenburg, who came to Rome a thoroughgoing Protestant and who, as she was once passing through the Quirinal and talking about the pope, exclaimed to her companion, 'What do I care for the pope ! ' But afterward she repented of what she had said, and sent to the pope asking for information on three points, purgatory, the primacy of the pope and indul- gences. Then he sent Cardinal Lambruschini to her and she became an excellent Catholic. The second case was that of a teacher who was travelling in company with a prince of Saxony, and while in Venice was converted by a relative, went into a monastery, and at last died in the arms of the pope. ' He died,' said the pope, * like an angel senza tentazione? I had little to reply and was ill at ease, but greatly won by the pope's cordiality. He is certainly a good man. He gave me his blessing and I went out quite satisfied from his presence." The record of the last day spent in Rome runs as fol- lows : " I spent the day with Prentiss at the Sapienza and the Collegia Romano. At the Sapienza I heard lectures on the Old Testament and on the infallibility of the church by the Dominican, Modena, who spoke in Latin fluently and without notes. He was very cordial with me and said, ' In Germany philosophy has too much influence. The Germans make too solemn a matter of study. We are more cheerful in our studies, go to the carnival, go out to the Campagna, go to the theatre.' " At the Collegio, which is at once high school and uni- versity, I heard a lecture on the Trinity, which the Jesuit lecturer proved from the Scriptures and from tradition, in good fluent Latin, reading at times from Perrone. The prayer before and after the lecture, offered kneeling, strikes me as a very appropriate and beautiful custom." CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 55 Dr. Schaffs impressions on leaving the city are recorded thus: " Yesterday, May 6, I left Rome early in the morning with Heinrich, after reading Paul's farewell address to the elders at Miletus, and offering up a prayer for the jour- ney. Steinkopf, the painter, accompanied us as far as the Ponte Molle. Rome does not belong to any single people. It is the burial ground of the world's history, the tomb of all the past. There we find from youth up an intellectual home, an inexhaustible fountain of study and moral coun- sel, of wisdom and experience. No wonder that with a heavy heart I passed out through the Porta del Popolo. With solemn thoughts and burning emotions I crossed over the Campagna, which can seem wearisome and tedious only to a person without historic feeling, the arena of the finest and, at the same time, the most hateful deeds of antiquity and the Middle Ages at their greatest periods. Everywhere you are reminded of the sharpest of contrasts, Paganism and Christianity, the bloom and decay of the first, the energy of the latter, which defies the powers of destruction." Passing northward on foot through Spoleto and Foligno, he visited, with his pupil, Assisi, more celebrated for its patron saint than for its situation. Here is a description of the retreat of St. Francis : " I asked a priest where we could get horses or mul to take us to the convent of S. Maria delle Carcere, in the hills three miles off. He at once offered to go with us, and took me first to his house, where I was received with the greatest kindness by the canon, Carlo Ciminni. Soon the horses were ready and we were riding towards the famous spot through a lonely and bald region, the path affording beautiful views over the Umbrian valley. " Then we came to the famous gorge in which originally 56 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 there was a stream of water which did the inhabitants much damage, but was dried up in answer to the prayer of Francis. A wall is built around this retreat, and the enclosure is planted with trees. A garden is built on terraces and ministers to some of the needs of the monks, who otherwise depend upon alms. The monks' dwelling, an old stone structure commanding a view of the valley, is now occupied by eight monks, four of them lay brothers, who practise the severest rules of the Franciscans and all look haggard. The first chapel we entered gets its name from St. Bernard of Siena, the companion of St. Francis. Adjoining it is the choir of the saint, with scenes from his life. Upstairs there are three small guest rooms and a library. In the chapel is the picture of the Madonna, who often spoke with St. Francis. The sacristy is so small that ten persons could hardly find standing-place in it at the same time. Descending into a chamber cut in the rock, you see the bed of the saint and a piece of wood he used for a pillow. You must enter in bare feet and on your knees. Next to it is the real chapel of St. Francis, also hewn out of the rock. From the door of this chapel he preached to the birds, and opposite is the tree on which they perched and listened. The place is shown where the devil appeared and was thrown down by the saint, as an inscription attests. The priest who acted as our guide was exceedingly pleasant, and insisted that we should share his humble meal in the convent refectory." The following conversation took place as he and his pupil were about to take a caretta for Perugia : " As the driver was hitching up, his wife exclaimed, ' May the blessed Antonio go with you ! ' On asking who St. Antonio was, I received the reply : ' St. Antonio is a good fellow; he is the patron of horses and teamsters.' Well, where is he now? ' In paradise.' Does he come to CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 57 the stables ? ' Yes indeed, Signore, he loves horses and all beasts and men very much. Be, sure of it and have no concern for your journey.' Then he began to be more earnest and told me how ' God had divided the animals off into groups and distributed them among His angels and saints to watch over them.' He pictured to me, with all the movement of an Italian, the earthquake of 1833, which threatened to destroy the whole village on account of its wickedness. He himself alone had deserved the earth- quake, for he was the chiefest sinner in the world. But through the intercession of the holy Madonna, the valley was saved. When he came to a figure of the Madonna or a cross, he took off his cap most reverentially. When we were parting, he begged us not to forget him but to pray for him. On expressing the wish that we might meet in paradise, he replied, ' May the Lord bring it about,' and kissed both my hands." A visit to the Waldensian valleys forms an episode by itself. The Waldensian congregation at Turin at that time numbered five hundred, with Bert as pastor, whose support came in part from the Dutch, Prussian and Eng- lish embassies. An edict recently issued was intended to prevent the Waldenses from holding on to their property outside of the limit of their original Waldensian tracts. Determined efforts were also being made to break their ranks in the valleys by the construction of Catholic chapels. Since 1870 the enlightened policy of the Italian government has removed the restrictions against this brave people, who have spread far beyond their ancestral hills and built chapels as far south as Messina. Dr. Schaff kept up intimate intercourse with their leading pastors and felt that the Waldensian missions were the most natural agency for the evangelization of Italy. Here is his description of some of his experiences in the valleys. 58 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1842 " We start at 5 A.M. with the post wagon for Pinerolo, a four hours' drive from Turin. The road runs through well-cultivated fields, with the Alps in the distance. A conveyance took us to La Tour, the seat of the Walden- sian schools, in two hours. The region became more and more interesting as we went on, assuming a Swiss aspect, quiet, dreamlike, somewhat wild, with only this difference, that the vegetation of Italy remained in sight. The ground is kept under fine cultivation. Everything seems to be kept in good order in these valleys. Especially noticeable is the cleanliness about the houses and hotel. It is as if one had been transferred to quite another coun- try than Italy. The aspect is such that you feel at once that you are in Protestant atmosphere, breathing a clearer, purer air, after being shut up in close quarters. The Swiss would say es hoimelet mi an, it makes me feel at home. The Bear, the inn at which we alighted, greatly excels all the inns in small Italian towns I have stopped at. " The college or Waldensian high school is a large building, and has to thank the English Colonel Beckwith for its erection and maintenance. He is the great bene- factor of these valleys, and for several years has been spending the winters here, occupying a large house oppo- site the inn. He has the appearance of an earnest, kindly man and seems to live wholly for the good of this region. "The three principal teachers are Malan, Revel and Meille, all theologians. Malan, the oldest, is a quiet, earnest, scholarly man of perhaps thirty-five. Revel is plain in appearance, but evidently a man of deep piety. The most gifted of the three seems to be Meille, who is at the same time the youngest and has not finished his studies. I listened to the explanation of the second canto of the Inferno, which Malan was giving. The library CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 59 consists mostly of French and English books, and they are for the most part heretical ; but by an old law the Waldenses have the right to receive and keep such books for their own use on condition that they shall not be loaned out and, of course, never be placed in the hands of a Catholic. . . . "With the three . teachers I took a walk and had a splendid view up and down the Luserne and Angrogne valleys and over the plain to Turin. Descending through well-cultivated fields by a .footpath you see a large rock called Castelluzzo, under which is a cave very difficult of access, where the Waldenses in times of persecution used to flee. Almost every spot has been reddened with the blood of one or more of their martyrs. No wonder they love their valleys and regard almost every spot as a sanct- uary, and, wherever they go, feel a homesickness which is said to even surpass the homesickness of the Swiss. Where many suffered unto blood the grass now grows luxuriantly, and under the cool shade of the chestnut trees we rested and read the Scriptures." With the visit to the Waldenses the Italian days were over. Returning to Turin the party crossed the Alps into Switzerland. It was early in June, and this is Dr. Schaffs account: "We left Turin at three in the morning, four mules drawing our carriage. The ascent began at once and the landscape became rougher and wilder until we reached the snow line. The zigzag road afforded no extensive views. Arrived at the top of the pass, we looked back for the last time upon Italy and were once again on Swiss soil. What a contrast between these heights and the warm fruitful fields through which we passed yesterday ! . . . But these bleak cliffs, these steep, frightful and snow-covered Alpine heights have also a beauty of their own. 60 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 " In descending Mt. Cenis the difference became even more apparent between the northern and southern slopes of the Alps. On the Swiss side the snow reaches much further down and the vegetation is not nearly so luxuriant. The atmosphere is bracing, the winds are rough. On the other hand, the villages and towns are much cleaner and better built The people no longer have the Italian cast of countenance and speak the sweet, pleasing language, but seem to be more genuine and serious. In the exorbitant price we had to pay for lunch we had proof of the close proximity of Italy." At Geneva the party spent six weeks, giving Schaff opportunity to meet the leading Protestant divines there and in Lausanne. Malan, Merle d'Aubigne, Gaussen and Pilet were then at the height of their influence. With Malan and Gaussen he spent many hours at their homes. He writes : " Gaussen is an earnest man, a little slow, of strong convictions and, as it seems, narrow views, but not nearly as exclusive as Malan. He was exceedingly cordial to-day and after the meal took me to the oratoire and the library and then to the rural home of Merle d'Aubigne on the left bank of the lake and quite close to the water's edge. Merle is a large, powerful man, with spectacles, which he places at the extreme point of his nose. His presence cannot be said to be prepossessing and he does not seem to be as cordial and as approachable as Gaussen. He speaks German well and was for five years French preacher in Hamburg. I returned with Gaussen to his home. After tea he read a chapter, the relatives and servants being present, and accompanied it with brief explanations and prayer. I went back to my lodgings greatly pleased and in a happier frame of mind. . . . " Malan to-day represented the church at Geneva as CHAP, in TRAVELS IN ITALY AND SICILY 6 1 declining. He held me to the subject in which he is most interested and asked whether I felt sure of my eternal salvation and, if so, what some of the evidences were. When I answered, the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, he wanted to know my proof texts. I replied that there were many of them, for example, ' God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.' Hereupon he accused me of heresy and Pelagianism, and explained that in this passage (2 Peter iii. 10) the Greek word, without the article, does not mean 'all,' but all kinds, as the context proves, and that in the passage ' In Adam all die,' the emphasis is not upon all but upon in Adam and in Christ. It was a sin to declare that Christ died for all men, for this would mean that he redeems all and sanctifies all ; but as some perish, all are not redeemed. He then gave me a book which he had just written against the Wesley ans and invited me to come and see him often, and with a prayer and much earnestness expressed the hope that I might be delivered from pernicious heresy. He is a man of much oratorical ability and by his firmness and frankness wins esteem, but the way in which he put me under examination and passed sentence upon me, did not make a favorable impression. ..." Of another visit he writes, " Madam Malan and the daughters were at the table and proved to be very agree- able company. After breakfast I walked about in the garden with Malan and his son Caesar. Malan was smok- ing a cigar and unfolded to me his system at length. As I accepted the predestination of believers but rejected the decree of reprobation, he said that was my vitium but only a vitium quantitatis, not qualitatis. Malan' s chapel in his garden is very plain but pretty, and over against it is the school he started several years ago." 62 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 At Lausanne he met Herzog, a lifelong friend, after- wards professor at Erlangen and editor of the Herzog Encyclopaedia. Of Vinet he says, " I heard an excellent lecture by Vinet in homiletics. ' Le style active, iwila le style oratoireS he said. ' Beauty should be sought but beauty that is useful. Be direct. Don't go around about a subject. Have a goal clearly in mind.' These were some of his counsels, and his resemblance to Theremin is apparent. They have much in common both in point of 'character and of style. I was deceived in Vinet's appear- ance. He is a tall, infirm-looking man, with brown com- plexion, blue spectacles, large mouth, bent shoulders, but of much gentleness, earnestness and apparent conscien- tiousness. The evening spent at Vinet's with Herzog, the Waldensian Meille and others was a most precious experi- ence, one ever memorable." By way of Bern, where he met Schneckenburger, the party passed on to Stuttgart. Resigning his position of tutor to young von Krocher and declining an appointment in the seminary at Schiers in his native canton, he hurried on to Berlin to begin his career as a theological teacher. CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 63 CHAPTER IV CALL TO AMERICA 1842-1844 Privat-Docent in Berlin Professor Park Monod and Godet "The Sin against the Holy Ghost " Private Thoughts Delegation from the United States Call to Mercersburg Marheineke Ordination Krum- macher England Oxford Dr. Pusey Arrival in America IT was in the fall of 1842 that Dr. Schaff began to lect- ure as privat-docent. The following is his own account of his decision to pursue the study of theology : " Many men seem never to find out their true vocation in this world. Others start with a clear and definite aim and pursue it with unfaltering perseverance. Nevertheless Providence shapes our calling, assigns us our sphere of labor and gives us the necessary equipment, sometimes in harmony with our wishes, sometimes in direct opposition to flesh and blood. Our bitterest disappointments may be made our best opportunities. I am sure I am called to be a teacher of theology. I would not exchange my calling, if I could, no not even for a crown. Little as I have accomplished, that is nevertheless the best I could have done. " My first childish ambition was to be a soldier. My next and stronger passion was to be a poet. I filled my memory early with the lyrics of Salis, my countryman whose venerable form and whose funeral in 1834 I well remember, and Schiller, Goethe, Uhland, Riickert, Knapp, 64 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 as also with selections from the ancient and other modern classics. I wrote many verses, German and Latin, in all sorts of metres, ancient and modern, and sometimes I imagined myself to be a poet. But the wish was father to the thought. No effort can supply the defect of nature. I now look upon my juvenile verses as attempts to fly without wings. Nevertheless poetry has ever been to me, next to religion, my richest source of spiritual enjoyment. "As soon as I awoke to a sense of the paramount im- portance of religion, I chose the ministry for my vocation, and adhered ever after to this resolution without the quaver of a doubt. This was in my sixteenth year. My life's work has been as an educator of ministers in the class room and through the pen. I was strongly encour- aged to give myself up to teaching by my beloved pro- fessors, Drs. Schmid of Tubingen, Tholuck and M uller of Halle, and Neander, Twesten and Hengstenberg of Berlin. " The road leading to a professorship in the German and Swiss universities is steep and arduous. The prelimi- nary examination and disputation are a severe test. Then follows the severer ordeal, the career of the privat-docent, the necessary forerunner of the fixed appointment of extraordinary professor. Except in unusual cases the privat-docent depends for his support upon the fees of the students whom he can attract, and upon work outside the class room. He often submits to great privation, and fails at last. Many a decent, like Erbkam and Ueberweg, has waited for more than a decade before being promoted to the place of extraordinary professor with its modest income." l Dr. Julius Miiller wrote to the young teacher, " wishing 1 For a detailed sketch of the administration of the German universities, see Dr. Schaffs Germany and its Universities, pp. 27-49. CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 65 him from his heart the richest blessings of Providence, and declaring that the theological public had a right to expect much from him." Tholuck sent him the encour- aging word : I have received through Kollner the news that you have ventured upon the career of privat-docent, the academic ocean and that the beginning promises good things. I am convinced that you will succeed, and that God will glorify Himself through you, if you will only seek nothing else than His glory. And what a life you have behind you, so rich in experiences, full only of gracious leadings ! He chose for the subject of his first test lecture (December 3) the Apostolic Types of Doctrine, and for his test lecture in Latin (December 7) The Nature and Aims of Theology (de notione theologies). He was soon well advanced in two courses on the Catholic Epistles and the theology of Schleiermacher. Summing up his im- pressions of his class-room activity, he wrote at the close of his sojourn in Berlin : " Upon the whole my career as privat-docent has not been brilliant, but when I compare myself with other privat-docenten, and the extraordinary professors, I have all reason to be greatly satisfied." Looking back over an interval of more than forty years, he wrote as follows: "Among my hearers were several of my Swiss countrymen, and even an American professor, Dr. Park of Andover, then sojourning in Berlin. Being deficient in his knowledge of German, he asked me to give him private instruction on the theological system of Schleiermacher, but as my knowledge of English was very scant, I could not be of much use to him. I introduced him with no better result to my friend, Kahnis, who was so worried by his many Yankee questions that he ex- claimed in despair, ' God forgive Christopher Columbus for having discovered America ! ' 66 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 " I had no presentiment at that time what an important man Dr. Park was. From him I first heard the name of Jonathan Edwards. He praised him as the greatest phi- losopher and theologian America had produced, and when Dr. Herzog in 1854 asked me to take charge of the American celebrities in his Encyclopaedia, I suggested Edwards as the subject of an article, recommending Dr. Park or Dr. Stowe as the writer. He chose Dr. Stowe on account of the fame of his wife's Uncle Toms Cabin. But for this the great American divine would not have had a place in that work. I afterwards became very well ac- quainted with Dr. Park during my stay in Andover, and greatly enjoyed his company. He was then in the prime of his fame and influence, and a most genial companion, full of humor and spicy anecdotes admirably told. " There were four privat-docenten in the theological de- partment besides myself, all of them church historians, Erbkam, Reuter, then a Hegelian, Jacobi, a favorite dis- ciple of Neander, and Kahnis, a strong Lutheran. The first became professor in Konigsberg, the second in Gottingen, the third in Halle, and Kahnis in Leipzig, all well known by their writings. They have all passed away before me, and I am left alone. I saw Jacobi and Kahnis for the last time in 1886. Jacobi was still in active ser- vice. Kahnis was under a dark cloud and in the constant charge of a nurse. His memory was almost extinguished, but he recognized me, and smiled when I mentioned Halle and the names of our mutual friends, Henry B. Smith and George L. Prentiss. It was an affecting interview." Dr. Schaff was brought into social contact with the wider university circles as well as with the families of the theological faculty. He spent Saturday evenings with Hengstenberg, and attended the Monday evening con- ferences at the home of the genial president von Gerlach, CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 67 whose views of the church had a permanent influence upon his mind. Old friends and professors visited him. Tholuck "to his great delight" spent two weeks with him in his lodgings. Ullmann of Heidelberg and Dorner, then on his way to Konigsberg, paid him protracted visits. Among students with whom he came in close contact were Adolph Monod of Montauban, then forty years old, and Frederic Godet of Neuchatel. On quitting Berlin Monod, with whom he had spent "many happy hours," wrote : " You have been very useful to us, and your fraternal love is very precious to us. Do come and spend some time with us in France, that you may unite to Ger- man Christianity French Christianity." Their common Swiss origin had something to do in bringing Schaff and Godet together. In after years they kept up a correspondence, and Dr. Schaff dedicated to his friend the last volume of his Church History, treating of the Swiss Reformation. In his Personal Reminiscences , he writes : " My most intimate friend in Berlin was Godet. He was then acting as tutor to the ill-fated Emperor Frederick III and attending the lectures of Neander, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer. I saw him almost daily with the young prince in the palace garden or in my own room. He was a charming Christian gentleman, and highly es- teemed in the royal palace. He has kept up a constant correspondence with the prince, who spoke to me at the fifth centenary of Heidelberg University, where I met him, in the most affectionate terms of his old tutor." A birthday gift, Jan. I, 1844, from Godet of Bogatzky's Schatzkdstltin was accompanied by the following note : To-morrow is holy day. The Lord grant unto us quiet meditation, serious repentance, living faith, warm love and gratitude. That is much, but not more than He can and 68 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1842 will give . . . and thou, dear friend, be thou commended to the Lord, the almighty and ever-present One, the Mediator of sinners. During the vacations he took occasion to extend his acquaintance in theological circles. Besides visiting Halle and Tiibingen, he attended the one-hundredth anniversary of the university of Erlangen, spending pleasant hours with von Raumer and Ebrard, sojourned a week with Ullmann in Heidelberg, met Wieseler and Liebner in Got- tingen. This persistence in meeting men, as will appear, was characteristic. His wide personal acquaintance with German theologians gave to his opinions of the state of German theology a freshness they would have lacked if they had been based exclusively upon books. Besides the contributions of. an active pen to Hengsten- berg's Kirchenzeitung and Tholuck's Anzeiger, he pub- lished his trial essay for the right to lecture (Habilita- tionsschrifi) on James the Lord's brother, 1 and a volume on the Sin against the Holy Ghost. 2 This latter treatise has been widely quoted in Germany, and may be regarded as one of the noteworthy tracts on the theme of which it treats. The subject had been more recently set forth in the Studien tmd Kritiken by Grashof and Gurlitt in 1833, Tholuck in 1836, by Olshausen in his commentary and Nitzsch in the fourth edition of his System of Christian Doctrine. Olshausen had advocated the view that there were three degrees of sin against God, corresponding to the three persons of the God-head, and that it was the person sinned against as well as the inward state of the soul sinning which constituted blasphemy. Denying this threefold de- gree of sin, Schaff contended that it is the Son of man in 1 Das Verh'dltniss des Jakobtis, Bruders des Herrn, zu Jakobus Alpkdi, Berlin, 1842, pp. 99. 2 Die Silnde -wider den Heiligen Geist, Halle, 1841, pp. 210. CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 69 his earthly manifestations against whom the sin of blas- phemy is committed, and not the Second Person of the Trinity, and that it is not against one of the persons of the Trinity that the sin against the Holy Ghost is committed, but against Him as He operates upon the soul. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the rejection of the Divine itself, as it manifests itself to the soul. It pre- supposes a higher degree of Christian knowledge and enlightenment than is involved in the sin against the Son of man. It is the final culmination of evil. To the critical and philosophical treatment of his sub- ject, the author appended a detailed sketch of the pitiful case of Francesco Spiera, who believed himself to have committed the sin which cannot be forgiven. Summing up the evidence of this famous case, he pronounces Spiera's experiences to be a fearful instance of the awful consequence of obstinate resistance to the Holy Spirit, but records the judicious judgment that it is not given to us to say with infallible certainty when the sin against the Holy Spirit is committed. The volume, which is written in a flowing style and shows laborious study, received strong commendation from trusted theological teachers. The warm faith with which the young docent went into the class room, he carried also into his literary work. He had more than a literary and scientific purpose, as an author and instructor. He regarded the spiritual or reli- gious sense a prerequisite of a theological teacher, for the absence of which no amount of scholarship can atone. In later years he used to say of a certain class of theologians that they seemed to have no more spiritual apprehension than a horse. At this time he wrote, " A theologian without faith is like a sky without a star, a heart without a pulse, light without warmth, a sword without edge, a body without soul." 70 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1843 The following extract from his journal transfers us from the class room to the quiet reflections of the study chamber : I spent the evening of the birth of my Lord and Saviour (1842) quietly in my room. Yet, I am not alone, for the Lord, the best and most faithful friend, the best of Christmas gifts, is with me, stirs and comforts me. I play to-night with sweet memories from the past. Disappoint- ments also have borne good fruits, even where all has shaped itself in a way different from what I, in my short-sightedness, wished. What God has done, is well done. He is love, and love abideth forever. It is stronger than death. May the Lord strengthen me to-morrow at the communion with His love. A year later, in 1843, with his approaching departure for America in view, he wrote in the same spirit of religious devotion : On this last day of the year, a Sabbath, I have com- muned in the Louisa church. A year heavy with impor- tant events ! Everywhere memorial stones of divine love and cause for self-humiliation and thanks to the Lord ! I am not worthy, Lord, of all the goodness and mercy which Thou hast shown Thy servant ! If Thou wert to enter with me into judgment, I could not answer Thee one in a thousand. Continue to hide me under the shadow of Thy wings, to lead me in the way, to refresh me with streams of Thy grace, and to sanctify my life that it may be a thank-offering and an anthem of praise to Thy love for sinners ! Lord, go with me across the ocean to my new sphere of activity, which Thou hast opened out for me ! May my beginning, my continuance, and the end of my work be in Thee and redound to the glory of Thy Holy name ! May the edification of Thy Zion be my first and last thought ! May the Holy Spirit be the impelling force of all my activity and Thy Word my good weapon and defence ! Jesus and Jesus alone be my watchword ! Amen! It was the combination of religious warmth and a practical aim with a thorough theological equipment that CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA Jl gave to Dr. Schaff a providential fitness to pass from the sphere of the German university to an important place and work u\ the church in America. This change, which occurred in 1844, undoubtedly introduced him to a career of wider usefulness and influence than Germany would have afforded him, and resulted in his doing more than any one else of his generation towards the naturalization of the evangelical scholarship of Germany in the United States, and in fact in his securing a unique distinction as medi- ator between German and American religious thought. The occasion of Dr. SchafPs coming to the United States was a call from the German Reformed Church. The feeling was quite general within its pale that its interests would be advanced by having in its theological seminary a thoroughly equipped German scholar, who would not only give instruction to the rising generation of preachers through the medium of the German language, but also revive and strengthen the bond of union between it and the churches of the mother country. Its original constituency as well as its ecclesiastical symbols and tradi- tions were derived from the Palatinate and German Swit- zerland. In the month of July, 1843, two clergymen, one the Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Hoffeditz, and the other the Rev. Benja- min S. Schneck called on Dr. Schaff in his study. They had been sent abroad by the German Reformed synod to place in the hands of Dr. Frederick W. Krummacher a call to a professorship in Mercersburg. 1 Dr. Krummacher was then in the fulness of his powers as the most eloquent evangelical pulpit orator in the German, and was widely known in England and America through the translations of his sermons. After considerable hesitation he declined 1 Dr. Krummacher refers to this call in his Autobiography, 2d ed., Edin- burgh, 1871, pp. 193 sqq. 72 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1843 the invitation, and the attention of the delegates was turned to the young Berlin licentiate. They had been directed to him with singular unanimity by Krummacher, Tholuck, Julius Muller, Neander, Hengstenberg, Strauss- court preacher and professor at Berlin and other profess- ors. His scholarship, Christian fervor, and attachment to students were emphasized. In addition to these qualifica- tions, Dr. Hengstenberg laid stress on a certain adapta- bility of his nature to suit itself to the conditions of a new country. This judgment was amply vindicated. Years later, in 1861, the German Reformed Church attempted to secure the services of Dr. Ebrard for its theological school in Tiffin. In view of his age it was probably well for both parties that he did not accept. In 1874, Lane Semi- nary extended a call to another German theologian, Pro- fessor Christlieb of Bonn. In his case, likewise, although he had spent several years in England, transplantation might not have been followed by adaptation. At a second interview, the delegates secured his per- mission to present his name to the synod on their return to America. The mission of these two worthy German- American clergymen was novel, and excited a good deal of attention in Berlin and Germany. The king of Prus- sia, Frederick William IV, who was much interested in religious matters, invited them to an interview and made them a donation of 1500 thalers for the seminary at Mer- cersburg. Returning to America, Dr. Schneck found the synod in session at Winchester, Virginia, October, 1843. The enthu- siastic testimonials of the distinguished theologians were set before it, and copies of Mr. Schaff's work on the Sin against the Holy Ghost distributed. By a unanimous vote, a call was extended to him to the chair of " Church His- tory and Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 73 at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania." It is interesting to re- mark that the call was signed by Dr. J. F. Berg as pre- siding officer, who a few months later was to become the prosecutor of the new professor for heresy. The important bearing of this action on the subsequent history of the German Reformed Church of America, makes it proper to give an extract from a letter of Dr. Schneck written in German upon the adjournment of the synod (Nov. I, 1843). The synod was already in session when I arrived here in Chambersburg. I started off at once for Winchester, reaching there four days after the opening of the session. Tears of gratitude and joy were shed as the whole synod, on my arrival, arose and lifted its voice in prayer, thank- ing God for the safe return of my coadjutor and myself. As Dr. Hoffeditz was not able to be present, the duty fell upon me to make the report of our mission. I was afraid that many of the brethren might not be ready, as Dr. Hoffeditz and I were, to see clearly the hand of Provi- dence in the whole trend of events. We also feared that the same earnest purpose would not manifest itself as before, to call an unknown man to a professorship. What was my astonishment, after I had given a succinct account of the whole business and the president began to call for expressions of opinion, to hear one after another, ministers and elders, declare themselves without hesitation, nay, with firm conviction, to be persuaded that you were the man of God's appointment. Professor Nevin was the last to be called upon. Deeply moved and with his usual dignity of bearing, he arose and declared that in all his experience he had never been more willing to concur in the opinion of his brethren than in the case in hand. He still believed the synod had fol- lowed a divine sign in calling Dr. Krummacher, but it was clear to him also that the Lord proposed to direct them through this path to another man. "We have," he said, " much more evidence that Mr. Schaff is the man adapted to this place, than we had that Dr. Krummacher was, when we elected him." The choice was deferred to the following day and it 74 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1843 gives me intense pleasure to be able to say to you that you were unanimously elected by the synod to the pro- fessorship. Dear brother, I take it for granted you will come to us. I will not attempt to measure in words the expectancy with which your arrival is looked for at the earliest possible moment. Public opinion, even among our English-speaking congregations, regards your coming with much favor. When Dr. Schaff decided to come to America, he had no reason to entertain doubts of a speedy promotion to a professorship in Germany. At that very moment he was being pressed by Nitzsch and other influential scholars for a chair at Zurich. He was, however, always convinced he had acted wisely. " I have never regretted," he writes, " my decision, and never doubted that I followed the will of God clearly indicated in the recommendation and coun- sel of my beloved teachers and friends ! " He immediately took up the study of English, began to make inquiry about American theology and literature, and with a copy of Norton's Evidences of the Gemdneness of the Gospels, a gift from the American minister in Berlin, Mr. Wheaton, laid the foundation for a library of English authors. A considerable enthusiasm was felt at that time in certain circles in Germany for supplying the spiritual destitution among the Germans in America. A society, organized at Langenberg near Elberfeld for this purpose, had sent out a number of ministers who labored successfully in differ- ent states of the Union. Dr. Schaff' s call strengthened the hope that a closer bond of union might be formed between the churches of the New World and the mother church of the Continent. This was one of the chief con- siderations weighing with him in coming to a decision ; and Eichhorn, the Prussian minister of education, in giving him temporary release, distinctly alluded to this hope. A letter from Dr. Dorner, manifesting the same zeal, CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 75 evinces also a generous foresight in regard to American affairs which few German theologians were capable of sharing. He wrote : As soon as I heard of your call to America, I had the earnest desire that you might accept it. It is most impor- tant for that young country, not only that colonists and material forces be sent her, but that her intellectual and spiritual life be fostered by old Europe. Especially do I think it exceedingly important that German theological scholarship be represented there. Only through that channel can the Germans be expected to make that full contribution to the American nationality and institutions which they are able to make, and the German-American Church will only then show its peculiar strength when it yields to theological science her rightful place. Sooner or later questions will arise which are of decisive national importance, questions touching the relations of the state to religion which can only be answered by such scholarly culture. But why should I say more about the impor- tance of your mission since you are full of it ! In America little has yet been done in the department of theology, but more than is known here. Already a number of new phases of thought have been developed and heresies begotten. Its literature has had its theologi- cal controversies, which have been logically treated and carried on at length. You will tell Germany about them. Especially do I ask you to give attention to the trini- tarian and christological controversies and the develop- ment of the theory of the Atonement. When Dr. Schaff turned his steps in the direction of the west he did not give himself up to the thought of a lifelong separation from Germany. Eichhorn, minister of education and worship, promised that " a position would be open for him, when he returned," and Hengsten- berg urged him to keep this in mind and to carry on his work with an eye to it. The following extract, written the last day of 1843, records his own feelings : The most important thing that has happened to me this year is my call to America. I am to go to another 76 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 part of the earth, to enter into new relations, to teach German theology in a land with a great creative activity before it, which breathes the fresh air of spring and where every tendency can develope itself unhampered from with- out. My call should be a summons to a connection to be equally blessed to both parties, the mother churches in Germany and the brethren who have emigrated abroad and who, unless help be soon extended to them, are in danger, either of sinking into irreligion or of falling into the Roman Catholic Church, which is very active on the other side of the ocean, or of being swallowed up by the numberless sects. Lord, imbue me with wisdom and love that I may worthily respond to this call which by Thy grace has come to me. The novelty of the call involved him in many social engagements before his departure from Berlin. The fol- lowing lively account is of a company given in his honor by Marheineke, with whom he had a bare acquaintance and who had the manners of a man of the world and was a pronounced Hegelian. Most of the invited guests be- longed to a different circle from that into which he had been thrown, and occupied a different theological stand- point from his own. One of his articles in the Kirchen- zeitung had attracted his host's favorable attention. Among others present were Zumpt, Vatke, Bopp, Beneke, Couard and Bockh, " who entertained us greatly with his humor," all men of high distinction in their depart- ments. He was struck with Marheineke's childlike and jovial demeanor with his children, something hardly to be expected, he thought, in a man of his cold dignity in public. The conversation at the table took on a personal reference. He writes : I was seated next to Vatke, who praised my treatise on the Sin against the Holy Ghost. I told him I was surprised, as he could hardly be in sympathy with the position the book took. To which he replied, " Do not think that I am so blind as always to accept the miserable CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 77 products which come from persons occupying my stand- point, or that I am so intolerant as to overlook the good products originating in the standpoint antagonistic to my own. Your book, whatever else may be said of it, betrays an abounding vitality and is a keen and thorough study of the materials." Couard, joining us, said that on our death-beds only the simple truth of the Gospel expressed, say in Gerhardt's " O sacred Head, now wounded," would satisfy us, and it would give a peace which all the philosophical and theological systems taken together could not give. To which Vatke l replied, " That is true, the reason does not suffice for the sick-bed, and so long as the canonical dignity of the Scriptures is not set aside, the orthodox preacher has .a right to press their authority. The real subjects in dispute in the theological domain ought not to be taken before the congregations, but the orthodox men were to blame for having done this. Had not Steudel demanded the deposition of Strauss and had not the Evangelische Kirchcnzeitung* lifted one cry after another against Strauss and the rationalists ! The battle should have been fought out in the highest circles of rea- son." With all this, Vatke remained pleasant and made upon me the impression of a man who had for himself not yet closed the discussion. The last evening of his stay in Berlin he spent with Neander, parting " with him in peace and with the bless- ing of his fatherly love." The last friends whom he saw before leaving the city were Godet and Mrs. von Krocher. Prior to his ordination, which was appointed to take place in Krummacher's church at Elberfeld, Dr. Schaff made a trip to some of the German university towns and Switzerland. In Tubingen he stopped with Landerer, "this dearest friend with his harmless humor," heard Beck preach, was much with Schmid, " who one evening 1 Vatke was one of the first to develope the modern theory of the Old Testament. He was debarred by his liberal views from a full professorship. Couard was a leading preacher of Berlin. 2 Hengstenberg's organ, belligerently orthodox. 7 8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 rose no less than six times when I started to go, and hold- ing out his hand, held me fast by his gentle and amiable urgency." At Zurich, Lange assured him that if he had not decided to go to America, he would certainly have been called to the chair vacated by Schweizer and then about to be occupied by Ebrard. The parting from his mother was tender. He was her only son. At Heidel- berg he stopped again with Ullmann and met with a cor- dial reception from Rothe, " who gave him an insight into the artistic texture of his system of ethics which he is pre- paring for the press. He sees no help from the emancipa- tion of the church because it is not a hair's breadth more Christian now than the state. All the more recent signs of life have come from the world or from Hegel, and not from any genuine movement in the church." In Bonn he saw Nitzsch, "who was greatly interested in my call to North America," Bleek, " a very amiable and genial man of full, fleshy face, a German Stuben-Gelehrter" and Hasse, the author of the Life of Anselm, "a finely built and cultivated gentleman." At Elberfeld, he was for several weeks the guest of Dr. Krummacher, whose personal appearance and power in the pulpit he thus described: Krummacher does not make a pleasing impression at first sight. He is not good looking. He is built like a lion, and his eloquence corresponds with his build. An imposing, strong figure, massive facial features, a wild con- fused head of hair, gray eyes, the man vanishes, so to speak, in the pulpit orator. The solemn bass voice which pours itself forth like thunder upon his congregation, the rushing torrent of his figures, the bold but controlled gest- ures, the tossing of the head from side to side, the con- tents of the sermon itself, which is always original and, clothed in splendid garb, unlocks the depths of sin and grace, now breaking to pieces the fabric of the old man and the pleasures of the world, now comforting and with CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 79 magic softness wooing to the source of salvation, this all is adapted to make an overwhelming impression. And particularly worthy of note is it that he does not presume upon this magnificent gift of eloquence, but writes out his sermons at length with great industry and care, yea word for word. The ordination services were held April 12, in the Re- formed church in which Krummacher preached. They attracted a number of pastors from the vicinity and an overflowing congregation. The ordination ritual, used in the Rhine Province since the Reformation, was followed and the candidate set apart to the ministry by the laying on of hands by the ministers present. The charge was delivered by Dr. Krummacher, who founded his remarks on Jeremiah i. 17, " Thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise and speak unto them all that I command thee." He held forth the threefold encouragement that the candi- date weighed anchor at the call of God, was going forth with the pure Word of God, and had the promise that God does not fail to honor them that honor Him. You are to go forth, he said, as the bearer of a pure German national spirit, to assist in restoring to new life a German population whose national character is already half destroyed by the admixture of foreign elements, to rescue it to the consciousness of its original dignity and proper independent existence. You are called to transport German theology in its thoroughness and depth and its strong, free life together with the various branches of learning that stand related to it as a family of full-grown daughters. The many-headed monster of pantheism and atheism, issuing from the sphere of German speculation, as it has there become flesh and broken forth into actual life, in concrete form, spreading desolation and terror, you are called to meet in the armor of the shepherd boy of Bethlehem and to smite with incurable wounds. The congregation sat spellbound under the words, made doubly impressive by the orator's own connection with the 80 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 call to America. The occasion offered him a fine oppor- tunity to display the stately march of his eloquence and the fervor of his imagination. The day after, Dr. Schaff writes : Every word was a two-edged sword. I was stunned by the eloquence, and would have fallen to the ground had I not held on to the table where I was standing. After the singing of the I34th Psalm, I ascended the pulpit, and worn out by standing and the personal application of the eloquence, and trembling before the great audience and the most renowned preacher of Germany, I began my sermon. But I was lifted up and carried along by the prayers of the people. He took for his text the account of Paul's vision of the man of Macedonia, Acts xvi. 8. The main part of the dis- course was devoted to a picture of the religious condition of the Germans in the United States. He fully shared the views of his senior, Dr. Krummacher, that it was most deplorable. Describing the irreligious tendencies in Ger- many which made out of the life of Christ a wreath of fables, he looked across the sea and saw them in imagination, carried to their last results, especially in the far West, where " men thirty or forty years of age, descendants of German ancestors, have not been so much as baptized." Three foes, he said, were threatening the German churches of America, Paganism, Romanism and Sectarianism. Of the countless numbers of his German countrymen who had found their way to the New World in the last century, the smallest portion resembled the first pilgrims to New Eng- land. These left hearth and home for their most holy faith, and took possession of the new country with thanks- giving and prayer. If the German emigrants had only half the seriousness of those Puritans and the pacific Quakers, he would scarcely presume to appeal to his hearers' sympathy in their behalf. Nay, he would, in that CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 8 1 case, rather hold them up to imitation as an example of men whose stern morality and courageous readiness to sacrifice all worldly advantages for conscience' sake, would present a glaring contrast to the Sabbath profanation, the growing immorality, the worldliness, and the other forms of sin with which their own land was defiled. In depicting the third foe, he spake as one who stood appalled. In America, among Protestants, the distrac- tion was more complete than in any other land. Every enthusiast in whose brain has engendered over night some new theological conceit, builds the next day a chapel and baptizes it with his own name, as a legacy for future gen- erations. Their hearts must bleed in view of such deplor- able confusion from which the old enemy of concord is reaping so great an advantage. In conclusion, and breath- ing the catholic views for which he was afterward known, he said : On the strong pinions of hope we pass far beyond sea and land, mountain and valley, yea beyond all space and time, and sin and death into the land of true liberty end- lessly manifold and yet one, the realm of the blessed, where there shall be no Europe, no America, no Catholi- cism and no Protestantism, but an undivided Kingdom of God : No old and no new world, but the one glorious church of the redeemed, resplendent in immortal youth. Here we gaze by faith into the ever-during city of God and behold all the living members of the body of Christ, now separated, gathered into one triumphant throng around the throne of the Lamb that was slain. The Rev. Mr. Schwarz of Boston has this to say of the sermon : The ordination service took place in the presence of an immense audience, singing at the opening Psalm Ixvi. I am probably the only living person on this side of the Atlantic who was present on that grand occasion. Your father's address after the ordination was a long one and 82 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 brought darkness physical over the congregation, and a most remarkable, close, logical sermon it was ! The church became so dark in its delivery that the speaker was only seen by the outline of his person in the big pulpit. The preacher will not be judged too harshly for the exaggerated representation of the perils to which the Ger- mans and the German churches in America were exposed. His views received the unquestioning assent of his hearers, were fully accepted by Krummacher, and were the views current in Germany. Printed copies of the sermon reached America and brought down upon him, almost immediately after his arrival in his new home, virulent attacks from the German-American press. Setting now his face westward in good earnest, Dr. Schaff spent six weeks in England, familiarizing himself with the various phases of English life and thought. His first impression of the practical Christian activity of the English people, and the venerable dignity of the Church of England, were deepened with the wider and fuller acquaintance of subsequent years. The daily record of observations is fresh and entertaining and such that the writer would not have felt obliged to revise much, if at all, in later years. At the time of his arrival, the May anniversaries were in progress at Exeter Hall. He was struck with the large throngs they attracted, the readiness of address in the speakers, the attention paid to practical questions, and the enthusiasm of the audiences, who clapped their hands "when anything pleased them." Writing of the anniversary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, he says : The sight of the great audience was very inspiring. Many of the speakers were in ordinary suits. The greatest freedom, naturalness and tact characterized the CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 83 speeches and a certain tone of assured triumph. In Ger- many, there are no such speakers. The applause seemed at times as if it would never come to an end, and hardly permitted the popular speaker, who had arisen to his feet, to begin his address. ... In passing compliments, the English are experts. An English digestion is necessary to assimilate the sweet things that are said by and to the chairman. One or more celebrated speakers make ad- dresses which usually last one-half or three-quarters of an hour and, for the most part, are based upon a set of resolu- tions. In such speeches the English have a tremendous force. They understand the difference between a ser- mon and a speech and interject anecdotes and humorous sallies. Dr. Schaff heard some of the celebrated preachers of the day, Baptist Noel, Hugh McNeil, Stowell of Man- chester, "who made references to the Anglo-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem, recently established, and declared that Jerusalem would again be the centre of Christianity as Rome was of Roman Catholicism," and King of Ireland, at the anniversary of the Tract Society, who urged that " appropriate tracts for eternity be printed to take the place of the Tracts for the Times." He has this to say of the Anti-Slavery Society anni- versary : While the report was being read, O'Connell came in. The audience had no sooner caught sight of him than a great tumult arose, people cheering, waving their hats and shouting his name. The confusion lasted a quarter of an hour. Then O'Connell took his seat, a man of large, stately figure, eminently adapted to make an imposing impression. What a sight such a man is who, with the power of words alone, can hold a nation in his hands and play with it ! When he arose to speak, the applause was tumultuous. He bowed three times. In the course of his speech he expressed the hope that the meeting would record its dis- approval and disgust at the action of the judge in South Carolina who had condemned a man to death because he had helped a slave woman to her liberty. He hewed this 84 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 man to pieces and called down all the thunders of the judgment upon him. I have attended [he continues] the services of the Church of England often and have listened to the liturgy to my great edification, but the sermons are as a rule not as good as in the Dissenting churches. I heard a most tedious one in St. Paul's by the bishop of . There was not a breath of life in it, and the people arose and went out during its delivery. In the Congregational church at Camberwell I heard Dr. Irons, who had a large congregation. As in Malan's services, the preacher's own hymns were sung. Instead of the liturgical service, a psalm was read and comments and a free prayer offered which lasted a quarter of an hour. If I had my choice, I would have the venerable ritual of the liturgy. There one is freed from the subjec- tive personal element of the preacher. The sermon was good, but too long. Through letters of introduction to Sir Thomas Ackland, Sir Robert Inglis, Dr. Jelf, principal of King's College, and others, opportunity was given to see something of London society and to meet the archbishop of Canterbury and other church dignitaries. He was delighted with English domestic life. Several times he sat at the table of Maurice at Guy's Hospital, and found the " author of the Kingdom of Christ a man of deep feeling and a German temper of mind, who is neither an Evangelical nor a Pusey- ite." With him he called on Thomas Carlyle, " who has an interesting face but seems to have a good opinion of him- self." The quiet of the English Sabbath called forth his favorable comment. On Sunday the terrible noise and din of the working days have given way to an almost unbroken silence, and only a few people are seen on the streets except at the hours for going to church. ... To get a full idea of Sunday observance in England, you must be in an Eng- lish family on that day. Yesterday I spent the day with CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 85 Mr. Jameson. At dinner we had only cold dishes. No cooking is done, that the servants may have rest. As far as possible, all occasions of worldly thinking are with- drawn so that the people may give themselves up uninter- ruptedly to religious meditation and church attendance. With these things they seek to fill up the entire day. It is truly the Lord's day. If we only could have such a Sunday in Germany, I would be contented with cold meals. His impressions of England are disclosed in the fol- lowing letter to Mrs. Heusser: Here I am in the great metropolis, on strange soil, surrounded by strange sounds and customs, and in the midst of noise and tumult such as Berlin does not even suggest. It is a pantheistic atmosphere. All individual and personal life is swallowed up in the universal. That in which England excels the other nations is its immense political power and its religious and churchly life, which has developed the former and assures its continuance. In respect of political power she is the Christian Rome, possessing iron strength of character, splendid genius for organization, bringing to her feet all lands and all peoples without robbing them of their own peculiarities. I saw into the machinery of the political system when a few days ago I stood in company with the secretary of the Prussian legation in the Parliament. The rulers of the world sit there in great composure. Some nod, others pace to and fro, others chat together when a tedious speaker is talking ; but when an important man rises to his feet, they open their ears, as when the present prime- minister, Sir Robert Peel, Wellington, Brougham or Russell speaks, and they seem never to be weary of applauding or crying out, " Hear, hear ! " They intermingle humor with the transaction of business, and their composure is a product of their confidence of dominion and the assurance of the indestructibleness of English institutions. Much more than in this, was I interested in the religious side of the people. When in spite of the size of London and its tumult we observe the rareness of public misde- meanors, see constables and policemen without arms, keeping order by a wink, when we observe the sensible expression on the faces of the people, their respect for custom and law, when we see how on Sunday at a 86 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 moment's notice quiet begins which a minute before would have been pronounced impossible, all shops and theatres closed, women and men going in long rows to church, kneeling down there and listening to the Word of the cross, then we must confess that the moral and religious spirit of Christianity has struck deep roots into the soil of English life; then we thank God that such a nation is Protestant and that for the time being it makes Protestantism invincible. Ten most interesting days were spent in Oxford. The English university was a revelation to the young Swiss. He met many of the distinguished persons connected with the colleges. He speaks of Stanley as "Arthur Stanley, fel- low, and son of the bishop of Norwich. A good dinner with him and a better conversation." Of the late Pro- fessor Jowett, he records that " he seems to have more sympathy with German theological views than any one else I have met here." The decorous manners of the students, the churchly reverence and the historic aspect of the buildings made a most favorable impression upon his mind. On subsequent visits to England, it was his delight to return to the classical shades of Oxford and Cambridge. The following extracts record some of his impressions : In passing from London to Oxford, one passes from the steaming world-market of materialism to the purer atmos- phere of the church and the sciences. The friend of history breathes more freely as he is thus brought back into the rich past of the Middle Ages, and the era of the Reformation which meet him in Oxford at every turn. Outside of Rome, I do not know of a city which has made upon me, in such a high degree, an historical impression as does Oxford. In one sense the pleasure of the historic sense is purer and less disturbed here than there. While in Rome you cannot get rid of the feeling that the present generation is not worthy of occupying that venerable spot of dusty memories, a generation whose tired hand can no more drive the plough, or hold the sword, here you find in CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 87 Oxford the treasures of the past in the hands of conscien- tious and worthy custodians, who are handing down the heritage of the fathers to the best youth of England whose intellectual and religious earnestness cannot fail to win the attention of the German observer. I have received most cordial treatment, and have felt myself at home. The Englishman is not what we call genial \_gemuthlicJi\. To his idea of character and manli- ness, there belongs a certain reserve of the emotions, and an intellectual composure bordering on coldness. A steel cuirass is strapped over his heart. He who in Ger- man fashion gives vent to his feelings, exposes himself, in the eyes of the deliberate and sober Englishman, to the charge of weakly emotionalism or a lack of self-poise. And as for our ideas, we had better leave them at home unless they are thoroughly practical and easily intelligible to a sound common sense. Here they are for the most part looked upon as useless speculations, fancies and intellectual balloonings. The German is the profounder thinker, the Englishman the sturdier character. The first rules the world by thought, conceiving it in all its varied relations. The second rules it by politics, making the world subservient to his wants. German life unfolds itself in various systems and schools of opinion, English life in various sects and political parties. But Germany and England dwell in the same ethical sphere. They complement one another. Idealism without the solid basis of realism turns to airy spiritualism; realism without idealism to bald materialism. The engrossing topic at Oxford was the Tractarian movement. The last of the tracts had been written, in which Dr. Newman set out to show that the Thirty-nine Articles did not exclude the distinctive doctrinal tenets of the Roman Catholic Church. His secession from the Established Church did not occur till a year after Dr. Schaff's visit. Of an interview with Dr. Pusey he writes in part as follows : "With great curiosity, I called this morning on Dr. Pusey who, within a short time, has gotten a European 88 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 reputation. . . . He is rather thin, of middle height, pale and serious, but of friendly countenance. You observe in his face signs of protracted study, and a tendency to asceticism. A cheerful temper, wit and humor, he seems not to have. Discontented with the present, he turns with longing eyes to the first six centuries. The Reformers are not his pets. He misses in them sacred reverence for the church and its commands. He is at home with Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine. The de- crees of the councils are the rule of his thinking. The church from the time of the Apostles to the division of the Orient and the Occident is the venerable mother to whom we must yield unquestioning obedience. . . . " He knew I was on my way to America, and spoke strongly against the sect divisions there, expressing the wish that the bishops of the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church alone had the ground. The chief reason for the pitiable state of affairs was to be found in the renunciation of the doctrine of apostolical succession by the former, and its abuse by the latter. " Having no desire to follow up this discussion, I asked what he meant by apostolical succession. He replied, ' I understand thereby that only those have right to administer the sacraments who have received the ordina- tion appointed by the Apostles. This ordination God gave alone to them, and to the bishops their successors.' " I asked him how he could make that out from the Scriptures, as the presbyter and bishop was the same officer. This was also the case as presented by Clement of Rome in his Epistle to the Corinthians. Pusey said, ' So far as the New Testament is concerned, the question is one of words. When you say that after your so-called presbyter-bishop there was no higher officer, that is an argument ex silentio which does not prove anything. But CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 89 even if, according to Clement, at the time he wrote there was no higher officer in Corinth, it may have been that he was dead or that the church belonged to another diocese. For the whole tradition of the Roman and Anglican churches speaks positively. Irenaeus says distinctly that Paul and Peter consecrated Linus bishop at Rome and that there was a regular succession there, but that this was not the case in all other places. Where a thing can- not be proved from Scripture, then the testimony of the church is final for me. We may rest with confidence upon its teaching during the first six centuries.' " I replied that in my opinion infallibility could not be predicated of the church in the same way that it was predicated of Christ and the Apostles. She is the ground and pillar of the truth, but has held in conjunction with the truth many errors. What else was left for the Reform- ers to do than to ordain themselves ? All Luther wanted was the preaching of the Gospel and the dominion of the Word of God. " Pusey. Why could not the Reformers have applied to England for ordination ? " When I referred to Luther's unsuccessful effort through penances to secure justification and declared it his merit to have found the doctrine of justification by faith in God's Word, to have held it up to the light and to have defended it ; Pusey (smiling and shaking his head) said, ' Whatever of truth there is in the doctrine of justification by faith, is found much better stated in Augustine and the other Fathers. It is just that which Luther is said to have made more clear, that which is to him peculiar, which passes beyond the boundaries of the truth and leads to the most serious errors. Luther had no right to pronounce new doctrines. We dare not go outside the first six centuries.' 90 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 " I replied, Why should we remain in the child period ? Does not the church represent the continuance of the life of Christ, and must she not go on developing to the full maturity of Christ's life ? Did not the Lord promise to be with her till the end of the world ? " Ptisey. All that does not touch the doctrine of the church. " He then went on to attack German theology, to which I replied by citing Neander and Tholuck as its best repre- sentatives. In the whole course of the conversation he declined to pronounce judgment upon individuals. He condemned only their teachings. When I arose to go, he expressed the hope that God, having led me thus far, would lead me still further. I replied I hoped so too, but only not in the direction of Rome, but of the truth, and expressed the hope that God would use the Tractarian movement for the good of the Church Universal and bring the leaders to an appreciation of the services of the Reformation." This conversation proves how unjust the charges were which continued to be made against Dr. Schaff for some years after his arrival in the United States of holding the essential views of Puseyism. It also shows that his views on historical development were already well formed. Enriched with the experiences of this delightful sojourn in England, he sailed from London, and after a voyage of five weeks, the ship came in sight of land. " I see this morning (July 28), for the first time, my future home-land. The sun rose bright upon the hills of New Jersey. A fine sight ! In the evening we passed between Long Island and Staten Island by the light of the moon. Fine homes and extensive woods are in view. The evidences of civili- zation are here, as in the land we left." Two months before he died, and forty-nine years after CHAP, iv CALL TO AMERICA 91 his arrival in New York harbor, Dr. Schaff made a trip with a son and grandson down the bay to Bedloe's Island and Bartholdi's statue of Liberty. Standing upon the raised platform upon which the statue is reared, and look- ing out towards the ocean and in the direction of Europe, and then turning around and looking westward to the teeming cities of New York and Brooklyn, he exclaimed : " How I should like to come back fifty or a hundred years from now and visit the great city and the country to which it is the gateway ! No one can dream what its destiny is to be and what great chapters in the history of church and state are yet to be enacted in its borders." 92 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 CHAPTER V MERCERSBURG 1844-1845 Through Pennsylvania Reception in Mercersburg " Little Jamie " Per- sonal Appearance Theological Seminary Dr. Nevin Inaugural "The Principle of Protestantism " Trial for Heresy LOOKING back over an interval of forty years, Dr. Schaff has this to say of the influence his coming to America had upon his career : Had I remained in Europe, I would have had a more comfortable literary life and perhaps accomplished more in the line of mere scholarship. But my activity in America has been more stirring, more practical and, I trust, more useful than it could have been in Europe. If I was not born here, it was not my fault, but I am an American by the call of Providence and by free choice with all my heart. The United States, I verily believe, is the largest and most hopeful field of practical usefulness on this globe in this nineteenth century and has the brightest future before it. It is more than any other the land of freedom and the land of promise. The aim of our being is to do the most good we can to the greatest number. In the end we are all unprofitable servants. If only we are found faithful servants in the work which the Lord in His all- ruling providence assigns to us. To Him be the glory. On the first Sabbath spent in New York, he occupied the pulpit of a Dutch Reformed church, preaching in German from Philippians iii. I3, 1 which naturally sug- 1 " Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 93 gested the old surroundings he had left and the new sur- roundings into which he had come. He carried letters of introduction to Dr. Edward Robinson, who was well known to German students through his biblical researches in Palestine and Sinai, and whose chair in Union Theo- logical Seminary he was appointed to occupy thirty years later. The synod of the German Reformed Church had deputed the Rev. Bernard C. Wolff of Easton to welcome the new professor on his arrival. For many years he was one of the leading men of the denomination, and at this first meeting impressed Dr. Schaff as being " a pious, well-balanced, cautious and thoughtful man, with the story of personal Christian experience and high character writ- ten on his face. If the Reformed Church has ten such men to offer, the very best may be hoped from it." In company they set out August 5th, in the direction of Mercersburg, going by train to Somerville, New Jersey, and from there by stage to Easton. There they were met by Dr. Hoffeditz, one of the delegates sent to Germany the year before, who accompanied him further on his way to Reading. Everywhere curiosity was felt to see the new professor, and he was much surprised at the attention he received, people both Germans and Americans pouring in to meet him. Dr. Schaff was attracted by the signs of prosperity in town and country, the ample farm-houses, the large and well-cultivated farms and the kindness with which he was entertained. Probably nowhere else in the world is a more generous and unstinted hospitality exer- cised than among the farmers of German descent in Penn- sylvania. Everywhere he heard German, not the German of the peasantry or of the educated classes in Germany, but the colloquial dialect known as Pennsylvania German. It is an odd mixture of German and English words and 94 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 phrases, combined for practical ends, the English words for the most part being set in German forms. The dialect perpetuates itself with wonderful tenacity, and in rural communities the people, accustomed to it from childhood, are often not able to speak either pure English or pure German. Such expressions fell constantly on his ear as, traveller, starten, breakfasten, schmoker, settlers, trubbel, stoppen, den mind aufmachen (to make up one's mind). They never ceased to offer Dr. Schaff food for merriment. He was quick to recognize the good traits of these people, their implicit honesty, uncomplaining industry, thrift, domestic fidelity and warm hospitality. For twenty years he went out and in amongst them, finding sterling virtues not excelled in degree by any other population in the land. They, on their part, were surprised that the scholar just from the German university should be so simple and ac- cessible in his manners and enter so heartily into their social life. To him, however, it was a cause of surprise that in a new country of charming hills and blue moun- tains, of forests and brooks, which seemed adapted to in- vite romance in sentiment and expression, the signs of the ideal element were all lacking. Where he expected to find poetry, the conversation and activities of the people were most prosaic. Continuing their journey from Reading, Dr. Hoffeditz and Dr. Schaff stopped at Womelsdorf, where the aged Dr. Hendel, a venerable figure in the Re- formed Church, then on his death-bed, rejoiced to see the new representative of German theological learning. At Tulpehocken he was entertained by Pastor Leinbach, whom he found serving eight churches, a thing almost if not altogether unknown in Germany, and one which struck him as most strange. At Harrisburg he found the Triennial Convention of the Dutch and German Reformed churches in session CHAP, v MERCERSDURG 95 and met a number of clergymen, including Dr. Nevin, with whom he was about to be closely associated. Writ- ing of a reception given by Judge Bucher, he speaks of feeling that he was looked upon as a sort of curiosity. " Most of the people have nothing to say except ' How is your health ? I am very glad to see you. I hope you like this country.' " On the Sabbath he preached to an over- flowing congregation in the Reformed church. In Chambersburg he was the guest of Dr. Schneck, to whom, with an eye to his stature and influence, he gave the name of the " high priest of the German Reformed Church." A delegation of theological students from Mer- cersburg now took him in charge, George W. Aughin- baugh, since an esteemed educator in the Reformed Church, and D. A. Wilson, who subsequently died as a Presbyterian missionary in Africa. Accompanied by Dr. Schneck, the party arrived at Prospect Hill overlooking Mercersburg in the early evening of August I2th. Mercersburg has secured a fame far beyond its immedi- ate neighborhood and the state, in which it is one of the smaller and remote towns, and has given its name to a school of theology. It became the seat of Marshall Col- lege, the first academic institution of the German Re- formed Church and of its first theological seminary. The serious disadvantages of its remote location were at the time supposed to be more than counterbalanced by the natural beauties of scenery and the quiet of the surround- ings, " so admirably adapted," as the early catalogues never tired of repeating, "to promote studious habits." The town lies in the midst of a fertile valley in the Blue Mountains, which form a crescent around it, and is watered by one of the confluents of the Conocacheague, an Indian word meaning "indeed a long way." The first settlement was made in 1729 by Scotch-Irish Presbyte- 96 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 rians. Early in the present century Germans began to infiltrate into the valley, and have since become an im- portant part of the population. The region is highly picturesque. Three miles away is Stony Batter, a gap in the moun- tains, reached by a wild gorge through which a mountain torrent stream drives its course among the rocks and dense woods. Here in the latter part of the last century, the father of James Buchanan, an immigrant from North- ern Ireland, had built two log cabins to serve as a trading- post for the Indians and the sparsely settled region of Western Pennsylvania. The family afterwards removed to Mercersburg, and an orchard of dwarfed apple-trees and a cairn of stones, reared by students from the neigh- boring college, were all that was left to mark the site of the president's birthplace. One of the log cabins was removed to the village, where it is still to be seen. When James was a little boy, his mother, busy with household cares and at the counter, used to hang a cow- bell around his neck that he might not get beyond her hearing. This motherly device led to the story of " Jamie and the bell," which as told by Dr. Schaff, a few months after the inauguration of Mr. Buchanan, in a Sunday- school address in the Reformed church of Carlisle, ran as follows : Three miles from the town where I live, a little boy was born in the mountains, whose name was Jamie. When four or five years of age, his good mother was afraid she would lose her Irish boy amid the rocks and bushes, or if he wandered too far away would be bitten by snakes, or hurt by the wild beasts. So she tied a little bell around his neck, and thus she could tell if he were near by, or far off. This was "little Jamie with a bell around his neck." When eight years old, his father moved to the town where I live. There he studied Latin and Greek, and CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 97 when fourteen, his father brought him to this big town of yours; and to this big college [Dickinson College]; and here he graduated. This is " little Jamie with a bell around his neck." At twenty-one he was admitted as a lawyer in Lan- caster then was sent to Harrisburg to the legislature; then to Congress at Washington ; and then he was sent to Russia, and then to England, to represent this great government of ours before kings and rulers of the great powers of the world. All this was "little Jamie with a bell around his neck." And now where is " little Jamie" to-day ? He is at Washington in the presidential chair, the chief magistrate of this great American nation ! This is " little Jamie with a bell around his neck." 1 When Dr. Schaff first caught sight of Mercersburg, lying in peaceful repose within the crescent of mountains, it recalled his own Swiss land in those portions where the towering Alps have become softened down to genial but still inspiring hills. Descending Prospect Hill and arriv- ing at the buildings of the academic department, which were brightly illuminated, the stranger found himself in the midst of a large concourse of students, citizens and visitors, assembled to bid him welcome. Forming in pro- cession and preceded by the village band, the company marched down the main street to the public square, and then up Seminary Street to the college and seminary grounds, known as Seminary Hill. Over the gateway to the campus an arch of evergreens had been sprung. The central structure, flanked on either side by the professors' houses, was brightly lighted throughout its four stories, and the tall, massive Doric columns of its portico were fes- tooned with green branches. Cordial enthusiasm was doing its best to bid the new professor welcome. Addresses of greeting in English and German were 1 The incident was erroneously told of Mr. James G. Elaine during the campaign of 1884 when he was a candidate for the presidency. H 98 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 delivered by students. In the reply which he made in his native tongue, Dr. Schaff passed from the scene be- fore him back to Switzerland and Germany, expressed the feelings which had moved him to cross the ocean ; ac- knowledged the kind reception which he had met with in Pennsylvania, and made a forecast of the future of Mercersburg and its institutions. As the coasts of Europe vanished from my sight, the waves of a deep and poignant homesickness swept over me. It is true, they broke upon the rock of my conscious- ness that I was following a call from God, who is able to turn a foreign country into a home; and the nearer I came to the goal of my journey, the stronger became the desire to reach it, and for the pain I felt at leaving the old, came the joy of treading the new land. And lo ! I soon found myself transferred to an American Germany. I was walking at the side of friends through fertile fields, past comfortable farm-houses, flourishing villages and towns, and now my eye delights itself in the charming mountains which recall vividly the land of my childhood. I have heard since the first day of my landing the familiar sounds of my mother tongue, and have seen myself sur- rounded by the signs of a European civilization growing up most rapidly and in part already bearing golden fruits. . . . My call indicates that our church has some longing for the literary and especially the theological treasures of the heart of Europe, and wishes to have them transplanted to the fertile virgin soil of America. . . . Here the pro- found ideas and thorough knowledge which the German mind brings forth in the sweat of the brow from the depths of the eternal wisdom, must render tribute to the practical aim of a religious life and act as a solid founda- tion against every storm. . . . They must be delivered from a one-sided speculative interest by the practical spirit of the American people and be transmuted into life and conduct, flesh and blood, and so help to completely reconcile thinking with living, the ideal with that which is real, the invisible with that which is seen. 1 1 The address was given in full in German in the Christliche Zeitschrift and an English translation in the Weekly Messenger* CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 99 The address, while fervent with feeling, evinced the wise judgment of one who already recognized in some measure, at least, the proper function of German learning in America. He believed in an adaptation rather than trans- plantation, transfusion rather than transportation, of Ger- man theology. The remainder of the evening was spent at the resi- dence of Dr. Nevin. The students sang German and college songs, and as they withdrew shouting, Vivat pro- fessor, the voice of the professor was heard calling in re- sponse from the open window, Vivant studiosi. Writing in his journal of the experiences of the day, he exclaims, " It was too much honor ; I do not deserve it ! I am humbled by it." At this time Dr. Schaff was twenty-five years old, in robust health and of medium size, deep chest and broad shoulders. His complexion was fair and ruddy, his eyes large and lustrous, his hair black, his nose prominent, his head large and broad at the crown. His countenance indicated vivacity of spirits, energy and quick powers of observation. His knowledge of English was still rudi- mentary. His German pronunciation was unmarred by any of the harshness of the Swiss dialect, and free from the long and involved sentences which often mark the German style. People went to hear him preach and lect- ure for the easy flow of his tones, who did not understand his words. An aged German Reformed minister, the Rev. Thomas Pomp, quaintly likened his fluent German to shot rolling out of a smooth shovel. His appearance and manner in the autumn of 1844 are thus described by the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Bausman, one of his early and favorite pupils : As I think of my dear departed friend and teacher, two forms arise before my vision. One is that of a sprightly 100 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 young man, faultlessly attired in black, with black hair and a face as fresh and florid as an Alpine rose ; in his lively conversation speaking with his whole body abound- ing in gestures, graceful and unstudied. Thus, he first greeted me fifty years ago. It happened in the parsonage of the First Reformed church in Lancaster, of which Rev. George W. Glessner was then pastor. My mother had sent me on an errand to the parsonage. For months we had read descriptions in the church papers of the distinguished professor-elect. I had my rural preconceptions of the man. Surely he must be tall, stately and unapproachable. His cordial greeting, his smiling face, his lively chat and animated manner, soon put me, an awkward, shy, country boy, at my ease. At the side of this picture I see him as he appeared a few months before his death. His body slightly bent, and more fleshy than in the long ago, his hair white as snow, the blushes of his face beautifully sub- dued, like the tints of autumn dahlias, and his old-time vivacity matured and mellowed by the growth of half a century. The Weekly Messenger, the organ of the German Reformed Church, indicated the state of local feeling when it stated in its issue of Aug. 28, 1844: Never before has so much expectation in the Old World been embarked upon a religious movement in favor of the New as now upon the mission of Dr. Schaff. And we may add that never before has a foreigner from Germany made his appearance in this country under such general obser- vation and in the face of expectation so large. The paragraph is true if the interest, of which it speaks, is confined to the Reformed communion. The theological seminary, in which Dr. Schaff was called to teach, was just passing out of the period of its infancy. As early as 1817, the Reformed synod consid- ered the matter of founding such an institution, and three years later chose Frederick City as the location. But it was not till 1825 that a theological class was opened with the Rev. Lewis Mayer as professor, at Carlisle, the seat of CHAP, v MERCERSBURG IOI Dickinson College, then under Presbyterian control. The seminary was subsequently removed first to York, and again to Mercersburg, where the main building was com- pleted in 1837. It was thus brought side by side with Marshall College, which had been opened two years be- fore. The faculty of the college were Dr. Traill Green, after- wards for many years a professor in Lafayette College, Dr. Samuel L Budd, William M. Nevin, Theodore Appel, the biographer of Dr. Nevin, and Jeremiah Good, who a few years later " encouraged and especially urged thereto by Dr. Schaff," l went to Ohio and aided in founding and building up Heidelberg University at Tiffin. The first president, Dr. Frederick Augustus Rauch, a pupil of Daub of Heidelberg, a metaphysician of ability and gratefully remembered for his services to the cause of education, had died in his thirty-seventh year, when his work seemed to be but just beginning. He was suc- ceeded in 1841 by John Williamson Nevin, who had been called the year before to the theological seminary. He continued to give theological instruction, and on Dr. Schaff' s arrival divided with him the professorial duties of the seminary. For more than forty years Dr. Nevin remained the chief figure among the educators of the German Reformed Church, and the most conspicuous and influential personage in its public discussions. Born in Pennsylvania in 1803, he studied in Union College and Princeton Seminary, and after filling temporarily the place of Dr. Charles Hodge at Princeton, he was called to the Presbyterian theological seminary at Allegheny. Coming to Mercersburg in the prime of life, he devoted to the interests of the Reformed Church the virile strength of his intellectual powers and 1 Appel, College Recollections, p. 115. 102 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 abounding moral earnestness. He was a man of vigorous, positive and independent thought. He originated no sys- tem, but whatever subject he laid hold of, he grasped with his might and advocated with direct and drastic statement. In manner and address his appearance was imposing. He made the impression of being stern and unsympathetic, and his appearance in the pulpit called forth the epithet " the marble man." Although he had no sympathy with the Puritan theology, his nature was cast in the Puritan mould. The wonder is that, with his Scotch-Irish antecedents, Dr. Nevin should have cast himself unreservedly into the work of a body whose constituency and theological antecedents were German. Yet this he did, declaring in his Inaugural in 1840 that the Reformed Church had a distinct mission of its own, enumerating the salient excel- lences of the German character and announcing his cor- dial readiness to identify himself with the cause of the German- Americans in the church of their ancestors. He cultivated with zeal the study of German theology. As a writer, his style was energetic and his writings, though fragmentary, contributed much towards drawing attention to Mercersburg and developing the so-called Mercersburg theology. He was one of the very first American theolo- gians to be quoted in Germany, Dr. Ebrard giving to his views on the Lord's Supper, hearty commendation and wide currency, and Dr. Dollinger, who took the Mercers- burg Review, being attracted by his original power. As a church leader, he stands out more prominently in the Reformed body than any of its other leaders during the century. His distinctive views, in his final statement of them, have, however, not been adopted by that com- munion, which continues to be Melanchthonian in spirit and conservative on questions pertaining to the Lord's Supper. Dr. Nevin's mind was in constant movement, CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 103 and while he was positive even to peremptoriness at cer- tain ecclesiastical crises, his theological system was some- what vague and remained unsettled. His mental habit was speculative rather than historic, and his method of statement controversial rather than judicial. It was the quality of his mind to divide rather than to heal. He was analytic rather than constructive, polemic rather than con- ciliatory. For this reason he came into frequent colli- sion with representatives of other ecclesiastical bodies as well as with members of his own. It is proper to say, how- ever, that the heated party spirit in his own denomination arose in part from the nature of the subjects discussed, and was almost unavoidable at the stage of progress through which it was passing fifty years ago. While Dr. Nevin expounded the problems it was engaged in solving, he did not display tact or skill in allaying antagonisms when they arose. Endowed as he was in high degree with the intellectual qualities and moral fearlessness and fervor of a great controversialist, he lacked the faculty which builds up a consequential system. Upon entering on his work in Mercersburg, Dr. Schaff formed a high estimate of Dr. Nevin's vigor of mind and moral earnestness. He soon wrote in his journal : " I think I could not have a better colleague than Dr. Nevin. I feared I might not find any sympathy in him for my views of the church ; but I discover that he occupies essentially the same ground that I do and con- firms me in my position. He is filled with the ideas of German theology." The quality of Schaff s own mind, however, was very different from that of his colleague, and fitted him for an independent place and work of his own. To the Ger- man spirit, which Dr. Nevin could never fully assimilate, he added that historic temper which, strengthened by 104 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 familiar acquaintance with the whole range of church history, is tolerant and irenic, broadly appreciative rather than local. He did not possess the gift of the theologi- cal disputant. His was the power of the constructive churchly historian. He did not do so much in the way of developing distinct details and phases of theological truth, but, holding firmly to a few large underlying prem- ises, he went on to broad and comprehensive conclusions in the domain of doctrinal theology and ecclesiastical practice from which he never deviated. The wonder is that, with their sharp differences of original temper and education, these two men should have stood together for a score of years in friendly cooperation. It will appear, however, that this very relation put Dr. Schaff more than once in a position where his real views were subjected to serious miscon- struction. On the last evening of the year of his arrival in Amer- ica, he wrote down his reflections thus : So the twenty-sixth year of my life draws to a close with to-night, the most important year thus far. I have taken the most far-reaching step in emigrating to the New World. The pain at departing from the old, the joys of beholding the new, the splendid reception in my new home, the fierce attacks against me, crowd one upon the other in my memory. What evidence I have had of God's goodness to me in Germany, Switzerland, England, on the Atlantic and here in America ! The Lord has been with me and given me a pledge of His future care. I am not worthy of the least of the mercies which Thou hast shown Thy servant. Abide with me. Go with me over into the new year ; let all things serve to the glory of Thy name, to the good of Thy church and to the edification of my own soul ! This pleasant introduction to his new field of labor was quickly followed by trying experiences, as just indi- CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 105 cated. The first of these was due to the exaggerated construction the Germans of this country put upon his ordination sermon. The other was a trial for heresy arising from opposition within his own denomination. It has already been said that the dark picture pre- sented at Elberfeld was adapted to give great offence on this side of the Atlantic. First published in Krum- macher's Palmblatter, the German 'secular press of the United States got hold of the sermon, 1 and German papers from New York city to Hermann, Missouri, and to Wis- consin in the Northwest, attacked it with vehemence and, in some cases, with bitter virulence. So inflamed was the feeling that the Germans in several localities passed indignant resolutions, disowning the new professor as a traitor to his country and a slanderer of his countrymen, and condemning him to purgatory without any prayer or expectation of his amendment. Parents were warned against sending their children to Mercersburg. While the meaning and purpose of Dr. SchafFs obser- vations were either distorted or altogether lost sight of, the vulnerable points of the address were so manifest to one on this side of the Atlantic that a successful public defence could not easily be made. What met the full approval of an audience in Germany was a firebrand to the Germans here. A week's personal observation would have modified the tone of the discourse and the treatment of its theme. The singular thing was that the very ad- dress in which a deep interest was poured forth should have called down an avalanche of abuse from the very constituency towards whom it went out. Dr. Nevin wrote a defence, 2 but it would not have allayed the excited feeling, even if it had reached the 1 An English translation appeared in the Weekly Messenger, Sept. 4, 1844. 2 The Principle of Protestantism, pp. 5-7. 106 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 offended parties. And even if it were true, as he said, that " perhaps no one ever came into the country with more zeal for the advancement of all German interests as such," the dominant irreligious temper of the German- American secular press prevented it from pronouncing a fair judgment in this case. Men who had a thorough know- ledge of the German character also came to Dr. Schaff's aid with their sympathy, like Dr. C. R. Demme, the leading Lutheran pastor of Philadelphia, who wrote : " Your whole personality is adapted to secure for you a beneficent and extensive influence among our German people." As no public defence could be made satisfactory to the people who felt aggrieved, all that could be done was to allow the storm to wear itself out. This it did, but Dr. Schaff had to labor for a number of years before the distrust and prejudice, stirred up by these criticisms in German- American circles, were entirely counteracted. Not so fretting but more serious was the trial for heresy before the synod of the German Reformed Church. The occasion of the trial was Dr. Schaff's inaugural address in Reading, Oct. 25, 1844. The synod, which had met in October at Allentown, adjourned for the inaugural services to Reading, a city occupying a strategic location in the midst of a large German population. Dr. Schaff was re- ceived from the Evangelical Church of Prussia upon the basis of his acceptance of the Heidelberg Catechism. The subject of Dr. Schaff's address was the principle of Protestantism, and was selected after consultation with his friend, Dr. Schneck. Its object was to state clearly the fundamental ideas underlying the Protestant Reformation, and their bearing upon the posture and mission of the Protestant Church in the nineteenth century. Dr. Schaff felt that a somewhat careful statement of the ecclesiastical views he brought with him from Europe would be timely, CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 107 but he sought to give a popular presentation of his subject in view of the character of the audience he was to address. Only an outline of the address could be given at Reading. It called forth some murmurs of dissent on the spot, which were destined before long to break forth into sharp ac- cusations of Romanizing and Tractarian tendencies. In view of these suspicions and whispered charges, the address was carefully revised and enlarged before it ap- peared in print. The symptoms of suspicion had made such an impression upon the professor's mind that it was coming to be a question whether his work in the United States might not be brought abruptly to a conclusion by the very occasion which was designed to mark its formal inau- guration. The address was published in German and then in English, early in 1845. The English translation by Dr. Nevin contained a sermon on Catholic Unity, preached by him at the Triennial Convention, at Harrisburg, Aug. 8, 1844. An appendix is added to both editions, containing one hundred and twelve theses for the times. 1 The Principle of Protestantism may be regarded as in its consequences the most influential literary work in the history of the German Reformed Church in the United States. The author was never conscious that he had produced anything original or distinctive, and it was with- out any forethought on his part that the address involved the church irreversibly in the doctrinal agitation which went on within its pale for a quarter of a century. It did not strike the first note of that long controversy; Dr. Nevin's tract, The Anxious Bench, did that, and the controversy was, no doubt, in that period of awakening denominational self-consciousness inevitable. Dr. Schaff's 1 The Principle of Protestantism as related to the Present State of the Church by Philip Schaff, Ph.D., translated from the German, with an introduction by John W. Nevin, D.D. Pages, 214. Chambersburg, 1845. 108 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1845 book marshalled the heavy forces and brought them on the open field. Apart from this influence, the address at- tracted wide attention to Mercersburg outside the bounds of the Reformed Church. For these reasons, it is proper to give a somewhat detailed analysis of its positions. The address consists of two parts. In the first part the author sets forth the preparation which was going on in the church of the Middle Ages for the Reformation, vin- dicates the movement on historical grounds, and defines the two principles of Protestantism, the doctrine of the supreme authority of the Scriptures and the doctrine of justification by faith. In the second part he discusses the bearing of this twofold principle upon the development of Protestantism in the past and its mission in the nineteenth century. He does this under three heads : the diseases of Protestantism (which are stated to be rationalism and sec- tarism), Puseyism and a Catholic Protestantism which stands for a new era of development towards which Prot- estantism should move. At the outset Dr. Schaff distinctly declares his stand- point to be that of a Protestant in full accord with the Reformers. 1 He then proceeds to vindicate the Reforma- tion from the charge of being a revolution, an abrupt overthrow of an existing system. Nor was it a simple restoration to an earlier condition of the church. The church after the crisis of the sixteenth century was in living organic union with the church before it, and at the same time represented in some respects an advance. No iconoclastic zeal distinguished Christ and his Apostles. Christ charged his hearers to do what was commanded by those who sat in Moses' seat, and yet his watchword was, " Behold, I make all things new." The same twofold character belongs to the Reformation. Its motto in effect 1 Principle of Protestantism, p. 35; Germ, ed., p. xi. CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 109 was, " I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." Protestantism is not a mushroom, growing up in a night. Luther simply brought out into full view that which thousands before him and in his own time had been struggling in various ways to reach. His work was that of the herald, called forth to announce the higher stage of Christianity in a purified church. Emphasizing the dynamic force in Protestantism, which involves progress and development, the author declares that by the progress of the church was meant only the advance upon the previous apprehension of Christianity, for Christianity, as it is exhibited in its original and norm- giving form in the New Testament, is decisive for all time. In its nature and content as a new order of life, Christian- ity has been complete from the beginning, and no order more perfect is to be expected. It is, however, proper to speak of progress in the church itself or the Christianized world. But this progress from without and from within is never, in the true sense, creative, but comes only in the way of reception, organic assimilation and expansion. All historical development in the church consists in a cumulative apprehension of the life and doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and a progressive and ever-increasing appropriation and manifestation of their spirit and method. The treatment of the supreme authority of the Script- ures and the doctrine of justification by faith, which fol- lows, is such as might be looked for from a discriminating Protestant theologian. In addition to these two principles Dr. Schaff, at a later period, gave a third and distinct place to the general priesthood of believers. 1 The second part of the treatise, discussing the bearing of the positive principles upon the restless and divided state of the Protestant Church, is not quite so clear. The 1 See his Christ and Christianity, pp. 128-134. 110 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1845 author was struggling with a great question which occupied his mind ever afterwards, and did not give full credit to the considerations urged in justification of the denomina- tional divisions of American Christendom, as he did at a later period. 1 He says, Protestantism has been the great moving force in all progress during the last three centuries, but we must not close our eyes to its defects and shadows. It is to be held responsible for rationalism and sectarism, the two historical foes which are none the less dangerous because they claim to be legitimate offspring. As for rationalism, the progress of which is traversed from Semler to Strauss and Feuerbach, its fundamental position is un-Protestant, as it blurs the distinction of sin and holiness and knows nothing of an unconditional sur- render on the part of the sinner to divine grace. Sectarism thrives most perfectly under the protection of free insti- tutions. While there may be some semblance of truth in the claim that denominational divisions serve to stimulate Christian zeal and activity, the New Testament presents the ideal of one flock and one Shepherd. The most dangerous foe of Protestantism is not the Church of Rome, but the plague of sectarism against which it is not suffi- cient to bring forward the Bible, for to that all sects alike appeal. We must plead the idea of the church as the pillar and ground of the truth, the mother of all believers. The author next takes up Puseyism, which he regards as a reaction and a protest against rationalism and secta- rism, but as offering no cure for them. The movement is characterized by deep moral earnestness and a certain spiritual dignity of tone. It cherishes a filial longing for 1 The false views prevalent in Germany on the subject are expressed in a letter received by Dr. Schaff in 1845, * n which the writer says : " I appreciate what an important mission is before you in Mercersburg, especially in view of the labyrinth and great evil of the sects and factions of which here in Germany we can form no adequate conception." CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 1 1 1 the Christian past, but its grand defect is its utter failure to appreciate the providential significance of the Refor- mation. Puseyism looks backwards. We look forwards. Even rationalism and sectarism can be overruled for the church's progress. " God writes on a crooked line," as runs the Portuguese proverb. The theory of historical progress affords the only true principle. The final form of Protestantism is yet to come. Christ will yet appear to gather the separated members of His church once more together. To the church belong the qualities of catholicity and unity. Church unity is not a vague spiritual unity, but a visible and attainable reality. Outward unity does not require one visible head like the pope. Nor is a single organization necessary, as the Puseyites dream. Pro- ceeding as it must from within, from the fount of religious life itself, it will provide for itself a suitable external form. What this will be, we are not prepared now to say. In any case, a living, outward intercommunication between all Christian churches must give practical proof that they are not only one in spirit, but one body also. In our idea of the church we cannot extend our view too far. We may not exclude the Romanists themselves. Examining the Principle of Protestantism after the lapse of fifty years, it is difficult to find anything in it which remotely savors of crypto-Romanism or Puseyism, the charges brought against its author. It bespeaks, it is true, for members of the Roman Catholic communion a place in the church of Christ, but plainly rejects its fundamental errors. Finding much that is worthy of com- mendation in the Tractarian movement, the author clearly declares he can make no common cause with it. He is so outspoken in these particulars that Dr. Nevin in his Intro- ductory essay felt warranted in saying that "far from being 112 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1845 regarded by the Puseyites and Papists as a plea in their favor, the treatise will be deemed one of the most effective and weighty arguments they had up to that time been called upon to encounter in this country." And four years after the delivery of the Inaugural, Dr. Nevin said, "It is our deliberate persuasion that no word has appeared in our American theological literature which contains so fair and able an argument against the high-toned pretensions of Romanism." 1 While there may be detected a tone of youthful self- confidence in treating conditions which avowedly involved one of the greatest of all questions, the great and difficult question of the church, the book is full of the thoughts of one whose faith kept him close to the Scriptures and whose mind was more loyal to Christ than to any ecclesiastical theory or theological dogma. The treatment is fresh, forcible and candid. The author's heart had laid hold of it as well as his head. He pursued it with glowing feel- ing as well as scholarly method, and the conclusions in his last utterance on the reunion of Christendom are substan- tially the same as his conclusions here, but there the sharp- ness of tone has become softened and the spiritual fervor is intensified. The Principle of Protestantism was Dr. Schaff's first introduction through the medium of the English language to the reading public. In Germany, as was to be expected, Krummacher, 2 Tholuck and others marvelled at the exceptions taken to its main positions. Here the work was received with commendation by competent critics outside of the constituency to which it was primarily addressed. The Lutheran Observer, in an extended no- 1 Mercersburg Review, 1849, pp. 63-104. 2 A full account was given of Dr. Schaff's trial in the Palmblatter, 1846, pp. 130 sqq. CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 1 1 3 tice, pronounced "the discussion to be characterized by originality, vigor, and thoroughness, an enlarged spirit, fearless candor and a devotion to Christianity which rises superior to all denominations. . . . The time is not far distant, when by general acclamation Professor Schaff will be assigned his fit place among the best intellects of the land, which, so auspiciously for it, he has adopted." Dr. Charles Hodge expressed his agreement with the work in its statement of the fundamental principles of the Reformation, and declared that the evangelical character of its leading doctrines, the seriousness and warmth per- vading it and the high order of ability it displayed gave ground to hope that Dr. Schaff would prove a blessing to the church and the country of his adoption. 1 An article so favorable coming from such a source could not but have weight in counteracting misapprehensions. Dr. Hodge was already easily one of the foremost leaders in the Old School Branch of the Presbyterian Church. The most elaborate review, which the Inaugural address called out, was from the pen of Dr. Tayler Lewis, 2 a lay- man in the Dutch Reformed Church, one of the most learned Hebrew scholars as well as one of the freshest critics among American theological writers of his genera- tion. Commending its treatment of the doctrine of justi- fication, he said : " Nothing can be more purely evangelical than the manner in which Dr. Schaff sets forth this great article. It must forever place an impassable barrier be- tween him and both branches of the anti-Protestant party. ... As for divisions in the church, it was not necessary for Dr. Schaff to show the cure. It was suffi- cient for him to point out the disorder. The first and great thing is to attempt to revive a true church feeling. 1 Princeton Review, October, 1845, PP- 626-636. 2 Biblical Repository, January, 1846, pp. 79-138. 114 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1845 When the heart has been prepared, God may provide a way." Before these favorable reviews had appeared, certain individuals in the German Reformed Church scented per- nicious heresy between the pages of the book and made it the occasion, as has already been said, of a formal and public indictment for heresy, the only one of general sig- nificance in its history. Dr. Schaff was accustomed in later years to say : " My little book was a harmless book and I had not the remotest thought, when I delivered my address, that I was out of accord with the views of the Reformed Church in this country." On his visit in Read- ing at a meeting of the synod in May, 1893, he attended service on Sunday at the First Reformed church. After the benediction, which he pronounced, and standing within the chancel, he said, " Here I stood fifty years ago and flung out a firebrand. However, I did it unintentionally." It was the Rev. Joseph F. Berg, D.D., who sounded the first public note of alarm, and made definite assault upon Dr. Schaff's orthodoxy. Dr. Berg was pastor of the First German Reformed church of Philadelphia, and also editor of the Protestant Banner. For some years before the Inaugural was delivered, a vigorous anti-Catholic agitation had been carried on through tracts and from the plat- form. Such influential men as Brownlee and Dr. Robert Breckenridge were leading champions of the movement. The language, used to decry the Church of Rome, was inflammatory and extreme. She was pronounced a harlot, the scarlet woman, the synagogue of Satan, the master- piece of the devil. The declaration of the Westminster divines that "the pope is Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God," was emphasized and, if possible, added unto. CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 1 1 5 The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, Old School, in 1845 declared that the Catholic Church had "long since become utterly corrupt, and hopelessly apostate," a view from which Dr. Charles Hodge publicly dissented. The same feeling prevailed widely in the Dutch Re- formed Church, and to some extent in the German Re- formed Church. The Weekly Messenger in 1842 said that Romanism has no more claims to be called Christian than the primary apostasy of Satan, in which it had its origin, and that the papal confederacy might be more fully characterized as a pandemonium, than a society of Chris- tian believers. None of the current outcries were too strong for Dr. Berg. He was a man of ability and of popular style, fluent and fervid in address, and had held up the supersti- tious and impious errors of the so-called Church of Rome in public lectures and in print. 1 He had heard from a converted priest whom he had sent to Mercersburg that the professors there were insidiously, but no less actually and industriously, instilling Romanizing poison in their class-room teachings. Here was the scent of heresy, and the Inaugural Address put it beyond a doubt that Mercers- burg was the seat of crypto-Romanism which threatened to corrupt the whole Reformed Church, and move her from her ancient faith. At the synod of Lewisburg in 1842, Dr. Berg had failed to have a deliverance passed against the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy. His ecclesiastical zeal, undaunted, now discerned a good opportunity to extin- guish Romanizing error, and to deal a fatal blow to neology, a vague term for pestilential error hailing from Germany, and he entered the list against the new Mer- 1 His lectures on Romanism were published in 1840. Il6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1845 cersburg professor and his colleague. The preliminary attack was made through the Banner, which arraigned Dr. Nevin for breach of trust in propagating errors as against the Heidelberg Catechism. Dr. Nevin replied in three articles in the Weekly Messenger, entitled Pseudo- Protestantism. As soon as the Principle of Protestantism appeared in print it was taken up at Dr. Berg's instigation by the classis of Philadelphia, September, 1845. Some of its positions were rumored to be suspicious, if not heretical. A committee, with Dr. Berg as chairman, examined the book. Their report, without specifically condemning it, embodied five resolutions which purported to define the creed of the classis on the leading subjects which the treatise discussed at length, or casually touched upon; namely, the authority of Scripture, the nature of faith, and Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper. They de- clared that the authority of Scripture was under no circum- stances to be derogated from, that the sacraments without faith are unavailing, and that Christ is in no sense cor- poreally present in the bread and wine. A sixth and supplementary resolution was added, definitely calling the attention of the synod to the Principle of Protestantism, a book in which, it was said, many found opinions set forth, contravening the true doctrines of the church, as defined in the previous resolutions. To the last resolution a pro- test was filed. The first five defining the creed of the classis called for no dissent. Still a further resolution offered by the Rev. Jacob Helfenstein was passed, declar- ing it to be the belief of the classis that the papal system was the mystery of iniquity, " the great apostasy " and the mother of abominations on the earth. This was in- tended to be the most unmistakable blow at Dr. Schaff's theology. CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 1 1 7 Among other omens of evil import, so the critics urged, were favorable notices of the Principle of Protestantism in the Churchman^ a " Puseyite organ," and the Catholic Herald. The Christian Intelligencer, the organ of the Dutch Reformed Church, came to the aid of Dr. Schaffs critics in the sister church, declaring he had proposed Puseyism as a remedy for the evils of Protestantism. Flaming articles appeared from correspondents in the Weekly Messenger, bearing such headings as the " Pro- testantism of Mercersburg contrasted with the Protestan- tism of the Bible." * It was perfectly well understood throughout the church what the purpose of the Philadelphia resolutions was, and they were soon met by a counter-blast. At a special meet- ing of the classis of East Pennsylvania, held in North- ampton County, where among other tried men present were Rev. Messrs. Pomp, Hoffeditz and Dubbs, a resolu- tion was passed declaring that the professors had been unjustly attacked, that the Roman Catholic Church had always been regarded as in some sense a part of the Christian Church, and that the positions of the address were in full agreement with the tenets of the Reformed Church. The Protestantism and orthodoxy of Dr. Schaff's In- augural were now the absorbing question in the Re- formed Church. A storm seemed about to burst, the hearts of many waxed faint, and the judgment of some was that the "church was on the eve of rupture. It was being agitated by the dissemination of views and the discussion of questions which no one a year before could have imagined would ever disturb our peace." 2 Dr. Schaff was amazed at the tempest which he had inno- iQct. 15,1845. 2 Letter from Dr. Heiner of Baltimore. Il8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1845 cently stirred up. Never having doubted his loyalty to the Protestant faith himself, he was astounded to wake up one morning on American soil and be told that he was a destroyer of that way and a champion of Romanism. He was, however, not left to conclude that this was the universal opinion. His wise friend Dr. Hoffeditz wrote, (Sept. 3, 1845): "In regard to the rumors of support from Dr. Heiner and Dr. Zacharias, I do not believe that a single preacher in the whole synod agrees with Dr. Berg, but on the contrary that all look upon him with regret and pity. ... As for the Principle of Protestantism, dear brother, I would speak out my praises of it, did you not forbid, but I do boast of my friend- ship for you and of having had a hand in bringing you to this country. ..." Amid intense excitement, the synod met in York, Penn- sylvania, in October, 1845. The action of the Philadel- phia classis came up through the report on its minutes. Charges affecting the standing of the Mercersburg pro- fessors, it was held, could not regularly be made before the synod until they had been previously brought before the Board of Visitors of the Theological Seminary. The professors, however, waived all constitutional technicality, and, at their request, the synod ordered the prosecution of the case to proceed. The matter, being thus fairly before the body, was referred to a committee of eleven members (one from each of the ten classes and one from the Reformed synod of Ohio), with Dr. Bernard C. Wolff as chairman. The report was decisive in tone and took up in detail the charges implied in the resolutions of the Philadel- phia classis. It declared " that the action of the majority of the classis was marked by an entire absence of con- sideration and forethought." It vindicated Dr. Schaff's CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 119 statement of the use of tradition and the Scriptures. As for the implied charges of unsoundness on the effi- cacy of the sacraments as institutions conferring grace irrespective of the spiritual estate of the recipients, they were refuted by Dr. Schaffs own treatment, which de- clared emphatically that justification is by faith alone. The last resolution of the classis touching the manner of the Lord's presence at the Lord's Supper had advanced a charge not justified by any specific statement in the Inaugural, but it was true that Dr. SchafF s view was the view of the church. The committee concluded by giving it as their unani- mous judgment that there was nothing to justify the charges preferred or to awaken the fear that the professors would abandon the true Protestant standpoint. On the contrary the professors deserved the support of all friends of the church. The report brought as the main question before the synod the orthodoxy of the Principle of Protestantism. Dr. Nevin stood at the side of Dr. Schaff, assuming re- sponsibility for the views with which he was charged. Dr. Berg, representing the classis of Philadelphia for the prosecution, spoke for two hours. Dr. Nevin followed him in the evening with an address of the same length. The following morning Dr. Schaff occupied three hours, the main part of his address being in German. The next day he again spoke in his defence for an hour and a half in English. More than once he was obliged to halt for want of an English word, but it being supplied by some one conversant with German, he continued with- out any apparent embarrassment. The facility with which he spoke English surprised every one present. 1 When the vote was taken it was found that thirty-seven 1 The Weekly Messenger, Nov. 5, 1845. 120 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1845 votes were cast for acquittal to three against, two of the dissenting votes coming from elders and the third from Dr. Berg himself. Among others voting in the affirma- tive were Dr. E. V. Gerhart, Dr. Zacharias and Dr. Bom- berger. To this action Dr. Berg entered a protest, closing his address rather dramatically with the words of Luther at Worms, " Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen." A reply to the protest was prepared by a committee with Dr. Bomberger as chairman. Thus the case was settled so far as the supreme tribunal of the German Reformed Church was concerned. The matter, however, was not completely dropped. Attempts were made to bring it to trial again at the synod of Carlisle in 1846, and at several subsequent synods, but without success. A year later Dr. Berg and Mr. A. Helfenstein preferred charges in writing before the Board of Visitors of the theological seminary, and asked that they be placed before the synod about to convene at Lancaster. Dr. Berg's arraignment was confined to Dr. Nevin's work. The attack was shifted from the younger to the senior Mercersburg professor, whom Dr. Berg continued to as- sail in the press, until, finding that the German Reformed Church felt no sympathy with the contention, he withdrew from its communion in 1852 and entered the Dutch Re- formed Church, becoming a professor at Rutgers College. The Rev. Jacob Helfenstein made a final attack in a ser- mon preached at Germantown, March 27, 1853, entitled the " Romanizing Tendency of the Mercersburg Theology." He singled out Dr. Nevin for his assault, limiting his reference to Dr. Schaff to one or two quotations. The same year he connected himself with the Presbyterian Church. Thus ended the agitation over Dr. Schaffs historic Inaugural. The Principle of Protestantism is perhaps as clear a CHAP, v MERCERSBURG 1 2 1 statement as we have had in America of the fundamental doctrines of Protestantism and a broad and comprehen- sive presentation of Catholic Christianity. In the em- phasis it laid upon the person of Christ, the doctrine of historical development and a moderate churchly tendency, it embodied the principle and norm of the safe develop- ment of the Mercersburg theology. 1 Dr. Nevin's Mystical Presence, and his reflections upon the church, which found their chief expression in his articles on Cyprian in the Mercersburg Review and in his Anti-Christ (1847), went beyond Dr. Schaff's positions. It was more than the seed-plot for the ecclesiological development of the German Reformed denomination and more than a plea for a more tolerant view of the church. It was more than Dr. Nevin claims it to have been as an argument against Romanism. It marked a new departure in the treatment of questions in ecclesiastical history on American soil. For, while the treatment was not always mature or calm, it represented the exercise of the judicial attitude, the critical method and a tolerant spirit in the department of the church historian. 2 It opposed the hos- tility to the church of the pre-Reformation period as unreasonable and unhistorical. Protestantism was the product of an evolution as much as of a revolution. Its fundamental idea is, that God has in no age withdrawn Himself from the church. In every age, He has mani- fested His guiding hand. " History does not move back- wards," Dr. Schaff used to say, "but forwards to a goal." 1 Appel, Life of Dr. Nevin, p. 250. 2 In his History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States, p. 145, Dr. Robert Ellis Thompson says : " In the field of church history, Dr. Schaff was breaking new ground in the face of much ultra-Protestant criticism and opposition." 122 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S 'CHAFF 1844 CHAPTER VI IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 1844-1863 Fame of Mercersburg The Church Festivals Seminary Struggles First Endowment Dr. Schaff as a Lecturer Mercersburg Theology Among his Students Removal and Presidency of Marshall College Marriage Home Sorrows Student Stories Friendships Impressions of America THE Mercersburg period, stretching from 1844 to 1863, divides itself easily into two equal parts by a visit to Europe in 1854. During the earlier term Dr. Schaff 's work was chiefly among the German-speaking constituency of the Reformed Church and carried on through the medium of the German language. During the latter he came before a wider public and exerted his influence chiefly through the medium of the English language. Throughout these years he devoted himself with untir- ing industry to his lectures and literary labors. The monotony of life in the mountain town forced him back upon his books and manuscripts. Especially was this the case after the removal of Marshall College to Lancas- ter in 1853. In the wide fields his studies traversed, he prepared himself for the diverse literary and professional activity of later years in New York. Without these studies that varied activity would not have been possible, as Dr. Schaff himself often declared. The heresy trial brought Mercersburg into wide notice in theological circles. All men were set to inquiring CHAP, vi Itf LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 123 where it was and what good thing could come out from that Nazareth. The two professors, acquitted of false doc- trine, went back to their posts to vindicate their positions by a series of scholarly publications and to train up by their class-room instructions the rising generation of preachers. In Germany attention was fixed upon it and, while scarcely another American theological centre was known even by name, Krummacher's Palmbldtter and Schaffs Kirchenfreund and correspondence kept Mercers- burg before an extended constituency. The " Mercersburg movement," as it was now called, was also watched with interest by a certain group in England belonging to the High Church party, who thought they discerned in it a movement akin to Puseyism. Although he had little sympathy with sacerdotalism, Dr. Schaff cultivated a churchly spirit. The church festivals had come to be very generally neglected in the Reformed Church. Good Friday was passed by in the seminary unnoticed. At his instance and with the assent of Dr. Nevin and the other professors a change was insti- tuted. The " ordinary exercises in the college and seminary were suspended on Good Friday and suitable religious services held. A student's choir sang some good old German chorals and Dr. Schaff preached the sermon, which, of course, was in German. He had prepared him- self with care and the result was an outburst of eloquence commencing with Char-Freitag, Char-Freitag (Good Friday, Good Friday)." 1 This was the beginning of a revival of interest in the leading church festivals and the church year among the Reformed churches. In later years Dr. Schaff followed with much interest the change of feeling on this subject in other communions. Mercersburg was at the antipodes of Berlin with its uni- 1 Letter from Dr. Theodore Appel. 124 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 versity, its well equipped faculties, and its unexcelled liter- ary and social advantages. But Dr. Schaff threw himself with all his energy and abounding hopefulness into the work of elevating, if it were possible, the seminary to a place at the side of the older theological institutions of the country. After a few years it became evident that no effort, however strenuous, would suffice to develope a great institution at Mercersburg, nor would it even be possible to meet the wants of the Reformed Church, with it as an educational centre. The situation was barely tenable, not strategic. When the suspicion of this had deepened into an unalterable conviction, the professor's position became irksome, a mere struggle to hold a handful of students, a hopeless attempt to develope a further growth. At times the very existence of the institution was placed in jeopardy by the want of means. The ample buildings and attractive grounds were no substitute for an endow- ment. The funds for the professors' salaries were drawn from the uncertain and precarious contributions of indi- viduals and congregations. Similar embarrassment has been experienced by most of our literary institutions established by denominational or private enterprise prior to the present generation. In the first years the struggle has been for bare existence. The princely donations have come later. The first gift of any considerable proportions was a legacy of $10,000 in 1853, left by a prosperous Pennsylva- nia farmer, Moses Kieffer. Comparatively insignificant as the bequest now seems, its opportuneness and moral force probably far exceeded those of any of the greater dona- tions made in recent years to the institutions of the Reformed Church. It inspired courage in many who even among the leaders of the body had been brought to the point of despairing of the very existence of the seminary. CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 125 Later Dr. Schaff, by his own efforts, secured a permanent fund for a teaching fellowship through gifts from Mr. von Bethmann Hollweg of Berlin and other friends, mostly in Germany. It would have been altogether natural if Dr. Schaff, contemplating his immediate surroundings from Seminary Hill, had at times felt an almost hopeless loneliness. The first flush of enthusiasm could not be maintained. The strength of the hills was there. They were a delight and an inspiration, it is true. But one cannot live upon scenery. Men are more than hills. A teacher can get along better without scenery than without pupils and the stimulus of literary companionship. On his return from his first absence from Mercersburg, at the meeting of the synod of Allentown, he wrote in his journal (Nov. 5, 1844): "I walk from Greencastle [ten miles away] to Mercersburg with Schwarz. How different my entrance into the town to-day and on August 12. Then a large throng of professors, students and people, gathered out of curiosity, pressed around me. Surely all flesh is as grass. The Word of God alone abides. God be thanked that this Word is my light in the darkness, and a brighter and purer light than all human lamps." At times he buoyed up his spirits by recalling the results such men as Ludwig Harms, Fliedner, Wichern and Francke had lived to see come from small beginnings. In the same month he wrote : "I am in a gloomy mood. What faith must August Hermann Francke not have had, whose orphans' home was at first in much greater financial straits than our institutions ! " Dr. Nevin resigned his chair in the seminary in 1850, and Dr. Schaff was left for four years the only professor. He used to say that he was compelled to lecture on every branch of theological study. The theological course cov- 126 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 ered only two years, most of the students were without careful academic training, and the library was insignifi- cant. To the work of the class room the professor brought a practical interest and devout spirit. He felt the force of Neander's motto, pectus est quod facit theologum the heart makes the theologian. His method in his lectures, which were written out in full, was to present wide and comprehensive views of his subject, rather than to enter into details. It was his custom to have a lecture before breakfast, with the double purpose of holding himself to the habit of early rising, and inculcating the same lesson in his students. His lectures were at first delivered in German, but so few of the students were sufficiently familiar with the language to profit by that method that the professor was constrained, by the necessities of the case, to lecture in part in English as soon as he acquired a sufficient command of the language. Before many years had passed, he was giving all his instruction through that medium. No one was more quick, than he was himself, to discover that the attempt to domesticate the German was a failure. Dr. Bausman, who graduated from the seminary in 1852, presents the following picture of his teacher: In the class room he was remarkably fresh and fluent. His memory was a marvel. Even in the sweep of ani- mated utterance, it never failed him in the matter of dates, doctrines, facts and names. Rarely did he refer to his manuscript. He had no eccentricities, like Neander; but in dress, demeanor, graceful manners and simplicity of nature he was always the model of a gentleman. Im- mersed among piles of books and papers, his multiplying labors sometimes led him to forget the hour, till he was startled by the ringing of the bell. Rapidly seizing his manuscript, he would hurry across the campus into the class room with evident annoyance. He always prefaced CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 127 his lectures with a brief prayer or the singing of a part of a hymn. The distinctive tenets of the Mercersburg theology were discussed with much enthusiasm in those days by the students. They were proud of the name which the semi- nary town had won for itself, and were ready to defend the professors against all outsiders. The following inci- dent is an heirloom from that formative period. Some colored men ("darkies," as they were called), working on the seminary grounds, overheard the discussions of the students about historical development, one of the crucial questions in the new movement. Greatly perplexed, they had recourse to Brooks, as to what "this here devilment theory meant which them thar students war talking about so much on the hill." Brooks was a leader among the colored population of the village and also a constant cham- pion of Professors Nevin and Schaff. " Devilment," said he, "devilment ! I guess they've been in enough devilment already. If them students don't look out, the old devil will get hold of some of them, sure." Dr. Schaff sustained close personal relations with his students, engaged with them in their recreations, took long walks with them to the mountains, and entered freely into their troubles and their hopes. "Towards indigent pupils," writes an old student, "he was generous to a fault. It was known to few outside of student circles how much he did for them, buying them books and clothing, and taking them into his family and providing for them for months." Mrs. Schaff joined him in these sympathies by throwing open her home. "I look back," writes another, "with peculiar pleasure to those student receptions, where host and hostess vied with each other to bless their guests with the graces of genial hospitality. This, too, was part of our education, 128 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 which taught us the amenities of refined social inter- course." The same qualities won for him the friendship and regard of the community. While looked upon as a learned man, he was found to be accessible to all classes, and his company was sought by all who could appreciate laughter and a good story. One of the conspicuous figures in that region was Dr. McDowell, the family physician, a man of blunt humor and large physical pro- portions. Of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian antecedents, he was known for his doughty championship of the Mercers- burg theology, and the cause of the Mercersburg profess- ors. He ultimately connected himself with the Reformed Church, an event which nettled the Presbyterians of the vicinity not a little, and led them to make comments not always the most kindly. On one occasion, when the Rev. Theodore Hoffeditz of the " Corner," a Presbyterian neighborhood, was sick and nearing his end, Dr. Schaff in bidding him good-bye asked him when he got to heaven, to give his love to his father (the delegate to Germany). This remark to the dying man scandalized some of the people, and they reported the affair to the physician as something quite improper. " That is all right," was his bluff reply. " Dr. Schaff knew very well that this was the only chance he would ever have of sending a message to heaven from that neighbor- hood, and thought it best to improve the opportunity." In 1849, the number of students in the seminary had risen to twenty-two, and two years later it was twenty-six. In 1854, the chair left vacant by Dr. Nevin's resignation was filled by the appointment of Bernard C. Wolff, and afterwards a theological tutor, the Rev. W. M. Reily, relieved the professors of the drudgery of the drill in Hebrew and Greek. Dr. Schaff followed with paternal interest the CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 129 careers of his Mercersburg students, who became the bone and sinew of the German Reformed ministry. Those were heroic days, and the time of high hope. A new era seemed to be breaking. Mercersburg theology imparted a felt individuality and importance to the semi- nary. There was little to divide or to distract the atten- tion of the students from study. There were no great preachers in the neighborhood to vie with the professors in their esteem. There were no amusements outside the games on the campus and the walks to the mountains. The memory of seminary life is with them, first and last, a: reminiscence of Seminary Hill, with the great trees, the in- spiring views out upon the mountains, the village ensconced among fertile fields, the halls and class rooms, the profess- ors and their families. With these their life there began, and with these it came to an end. In the years to come the Reformed Church will turn back to the memories of that period as to something sacred, and the lover of the past in its communion will make his way in reverent pilgrimage to the venerable buildings in Mercersburg, once the seat of its first school of the prophets and the earliest of its collegiate institutions. When it came to be generally recognized that the Re- formed Church had made a mistake in selecting the site of its educational institutions, the eyes of the denomina- tion were turned to Lancaster, which had originally com- peted for the prize of their location. The change to Lancaster, so far as the college was concerned, was con- summated by its consolidation with Franklin College, which had its seat there, and was named after Benjamin Franklin, the citizens making a gift of $25,000 to secure this result. Franklin College had been under the control of trustees composed of three equal groups, representing the German Reformed and the Lutheran churches, and the 130 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Reformed Church secured the rights of the Lutherans by the payment of $17,000. Among those who gave the enterprise active support was Mr. Buchanan, afterwards president of the United States, whose residence was in the city, and who served for several years as chairman of the Board of Trustees. The greatly superior advantages of the new location were promptly sounded forth in the first catalogue of Frank- lin and Marshall College, issued in 1852-1853. While in previous catalogues stress had been laid upon the seclusion of Mercersburg as most favorable to uninter- rupted study, " the whole state probably not furnishing a site in all respects more eligible," now the advantage was claimed for Lancaster "that no place could be more central. Telegraphs and railroads place it in near com- munication with distant towns and cities on all sides, and in point of health the location is all that the most anxious parent can wish." Into the project of removal, which through opposition was at times in danger of failing altogether, Dr. Schaff threw himself with characteristic energy. Writing to Dr. B. C. Wolff, he said : - We must remove our institutions to Lancaster. Such an opportunity, such an addition to our funds, such a denominational charter, will probably not be offered to us again from any other quarter; and even if the Lan- caster people raise but half the proposed sum, it would still be better to go there than to stay here. It is pretty certain that a continuance in this place will either be the ultimate ruin of our college or at least of its dwindling down to a high school. Following up an elaborate German address on the sub- ject in the court-house of Lancaster, June 5, 1850, he said in English : CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 131 This is an opportune time for the establishment of a high literary institution calculated to help in deciding the educational character of the state for all time to come. This is to be something original and independent, produced by the combined strength of the English and German mind, brought in this region into close contact and making their contribution to the new leaf in history which is being written in America. No place is better adapted for the consummation of this purpose than Lancaster, in the heart of the German population and the garden spot of the state. The removal of the college was effected in 1853. The theological seminary was detained at Mercersburg for nearly twenty years longer. When, after weary waiting, it was removed to Lancaster in 1871, Dr. Schaff no longer had official connection with it. The action of the synod in holding the institution in Mercersburg was a denominational blunder due to shortsightedness, and to Dr. Schaff it was a keen disappointment. Pending these changes he was called to the pastorate of the Salem Reformed Church in Philadelphia, the strongest German-speaking congregation in the denomination, and two years later, in 1853, to the presidency of Franklin and Marshall College, which Dr. Nevin had declined. Persons outside the denomination, like Dr. Bowman, afterwards assistant Bishop of Pennsyl- vania, urged him to accept the appointment. He wrote r " I hope you and your friends will not find any insuperable obstacle in the way of accepting the post to which you have been chosen with even more unanimity, as you see, than Dr. Nevin." A small minority who still associated Romanism, Pusey- ism and all manner of other doctrinal evil with the Mercersburg professors, was greatly agitated with fears for the new institution and opposed his election as it had opposed the election of Dr. Nevin. It became clamorous and made disturbance altogether out of proportion to its 132 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 numbers. Secret conclaves of ministers were held in Lancaster to check the alleged onflow of Romanizing tendencies. The most unfounded rumors were set afloat and were spread through the secular press. Here is one of them from the Pennsylvania Telegraph of Philadelphia (September, 1853):- Dr. Schaff, the president of the college now located at Lancaster, seems to be gaining many converts to his peculiar views, in this country. Dr. Nevin is one of the most prominent. But as we take it, the views he holds bear about the same relation to the creed of the Reformed Church that Puseyism does to the Episcopal Church. We understand that Dr. Schaff uses the prayers of the Catholic Church in his family. Of course, this is none of our busi- ness, but we are at a loss to comprehend why such a man is permitted to be the big gun of a church so antagonistic to the Church of Rome. Dr. SchafFs name, which appeared in the first catalogue (1852-1853) as "President-elect and Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy," did not appear again, as the synod again declined to sanction his withdrawal from the seminary. " He had no idea of disobeying the voice of the church," he wrote to the trustees. In this strain he expressed himself to Prof. Thomas C. Porter: "In many respects I congratulate myself, that I am free from the great responsibility and trouble of the station to which I had been called. For the college will necessarily be in a more or less unsettled condition for several years to come. It is no small matter to remove a literary institution, and we shall long feel the consequences of it for the seminary as well as for the college." What Dr. SchafTs success might have been as a college president in the midst of a great and congenial German- American population can only be surmised. He possessed executive ability, as was shown by his subsequent direction CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 133 of important movements involving wide interests. The cares and duties, however, of the position would probably have resulted in loss to his influence and reputation as a scholar. Dr. Schaff was married in December, 1845, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Schley, a daughter of David Schley of Frederick City, Maryland. She was of German and Huguenot ancestry, her forefather on the paternal side having come to this country in the middle of the eigh- teenth century. The family had lost the knowledge of the German tongue, and the marriage brought Dr. Schaff in an easy and natural way into familiar contact with Ameri- can modes of thought and habits of life and forced him to the use of idiomatic English in the domestic circle. Up to the year 1854, his journals are written in German; after that in English, except when he was travelling abroad. He began the use of English in addresses and correspond- ence in I845. 1 In his home he was simple in his tastes and gave vent to the exuberance of his spirits, with his children. He romped with them, delighted in telling them over and over Grimm's Hausmarchen, and took part in the Christmas festivities with the merriment of a child. The favorable impression he had received from the observance of the Sabbath in England, led him to adopt a similar practice in his own home. He prepared a catechism for use in his family, in which the questions are grouped successively around the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments and arranged in fifty-two lessons to correspond to the weeks of the year. 2 In the introduction 1 His first English sermon preached before synod was in 1851, on Syste- matic Benevolence. 2 Chambersburg, 1861, 2d ed., 1862. The German edition, by gift of the author, passed into the hands of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and the English edition to the American Sunday School Union. 134 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 he says : "I was led to undertake this work out of regard for my own children and without thinking of its publication. The world is ruled and the kingdom of God is built up from the nursery and school room. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength." When the German edition appeared, three thousand copies were disposed of at once. It was made the basis of a work for use in German schools and gymnasia by Professor J. G. Pfleiderer, then head master of the school in Kornthal, under the title of Christliche Glaubenslehre, and it has been translated into Bulgarian, Syriac, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and other languages. Dr. Schaffs home was frequently the scene of poignant sorrow. Five out of eight children preceded him to the heavenly life, two of them during the residence in Mercers- burg. 1 The death of one of these children, Philip William, a healthy, happy, promising boy, not yet three years old, was singularly touching. It occurred as the result of swallowing a chestnut hull. An incision was made into the throat, through which the little fellow breathed for three weeks, and three weeks later he passed away, after great suffering endured with much heroism. The father's deep feeling is poured out in a letter to Mrs. Meta Heusser. Nature round about me is in her gayest dress, but under every tree, at every blooming rose, in every spot in my home and yard the innocent form of my dear and tenderly loved Willie daily rises before my soul and calls forth sorrow and tears. And yet I know I should rejoice and be glad that the pure little boy is now delighting in the eternal spring of paradise, on the green pastures of peace, and is drinking from the fresh waters of the fountain of life. And I ought to feel that the death of every loved one is designed also to emancipate us more and more from 1 A memorial was prepared by the father for private distribution under the title Our Children in Heaven, New York, 1876, pp. 76. CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 135 earth, and bind us to heaven, whither our Lord has gone, not like Elijah in a chariot of fire, whom no one can follow, but as a real mediator and trusty bridge from the earth to heaven. How I rejoice in the thought of seeing my be- loved child again, my little angel, so inexpressibly amiable, so early transfigured, and of whom I was so unworthy ! I am sure that over yonder he will also greet you as if you were his grandmother, and laughing, throw his arms about your neck, caress you and make you glad with his childish and innocent thoughts. Dr. Schaffs study was the scene of laborious toil. A stout constitution and simplicity of diet enabled him to endure long and protracted hours at his desk. Horse- back riding, and frequent trips among the churches of Pennsylvania and more extended journeys, brought him physical recreation and mental relief. Whenever he entered his study he went immediately to some fixed task. He never waited upon moods. A maxim he often repeated was, " What I have to do, I do at once." He seemed always to have some definite literary task to perform, and habit gave him rare power of concen- tration. When studying he seemed to be completely ob- livious of everything beyond the matter in hand. In later years he was not disturbed by animated conversation or the playing of his children in the same room. The house was filled with books, the number of which he kept reduc- ing on two principles, that books unused by himself might be of use to others, and that a library beyond certain pro- portions was unmanageable and undesirable for the private student. During his lifetime he contributed hundreds of volumes to Mercersburg and other theological seminaries. Prominent among the pictures on his walls was the familiar one of Neander in his high boots and long coat, leaning heavily upon his desk, absorbed in study. The students found in their professor's absorption in 136 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 study and in his fancied lack of practical sagacity, fertile ground for humorous stories. One day, so the story ran, as he was proceeding to his class room, engrossed in thought, he failed to notice a clothes-line left stretched across the path, which gracefully removed his hat. Look- ing good-naturedly at the offending obstruction as if trying to decide what should be done, he deliberately took out his knife and cut the line in two, then picked up his hat and walked on as if serenely satisfied with his solution of the difficulty. On another occasion, it was reported, he came on horse- back to the creek at the edge of the town. Instead of let- ting the horse drink from the stream, he rode across to the opposite side, borrowed a bucket at a farmhouse, went back to the stream, filled it and carried it to his horse. Such stories as these, it is fair to say, had their origin in an active academician brain rather than in the professor's lack of practical sagacity. The fame of Mercersburg attracted a number of well- known Germans, laymen and clergymen, visiting this country, such as Theodore Fliedner, Eduard Hengsten- berg, brother of the Berlin professor, and the brothers Reihlen of Stuttgart. Here his schoolmate William Ju- lius Mann spent the first months of his life in America. In May, 1845, Dr. Schaff had written to Dr. Mann from a steamer on Lake Michigan : I would not hesitate, if I were in your place, to come to this country. In Wiirtemberg it looks like autumn, here all is fresh and in the bud. It is true, with us great confusion prevails in many departments of the church, but there is a vast amount of material here for a grand, new era in church history. In these last days and weeks, I have been travelling in the West, and have seen Cincin- nati (where there are twenty-three thousand Germans), St. Louis, Chicago, and know from personal observation CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 137 the crying need of German preachers. He who has the genuine missionary spirit, is willing to endure hardships and to gather the scattered Germans into congregations, has here a limitless field of labor, and may become a source of blessing to thousands. Dr. Mann, who met his friend on American soil for the first time during the progress of the heresy trial in York, was a man of sprightly and vivacious mind, full of resources, a large fund of humor and aesthetic tastes. 1 He came to stand in the very front rank of Lutheran preachers who use the German in our country. The two friends differed about some things. Dr. Schaff often expostulated with Dr. Mann for clinging to the German in the pulpit and in his writings to the narrowing of his sphere of influence. He was of the opinion that had his friend cultivated the use of English, he might have taken a place as the peer of any American preacher. Congrat- ulating him upon the adoption of English, in writing his Life and Times of Heinrich Melchior Milhlenberg^ Dr. Schaff said : "This is a noble monument to the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America in the language in which all that is good in the German Church in America must be perpetuated for the benefit of future generations/' Nor did they agree in their theological standpoint. Dr. Mann came to occupy a conservative position on the basis of the Lutheran confessions, and, in spite of all the urgency his friend could use, he stood aloof from the Evangelical Alliance and other movements for church union. He did not see how one might be faithful to the confessional interests of his own denomination when to 1 An interesting Memoir of Dr. Mann in English has been issued by his daughter, Miss Emma Mann, Philadelphia, 1893. Also a biography in Ger- man, by Dr. Adolph Spath, Reading, 1895. The latter devotes a chapter to the friendship between Dr. Mann and Dr. Schaff, pp. 67-81. 2 Philadelphia, 1887. 138 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 be loyal to the Evangelical Alliance involved " putting one's confession away in one's coat pocket." Writing to him, during the controversy which grew out of the charges against Dr. Briggs (April 7, 1892), Dr. Schaff thus ex- pressed his mind : " What right had the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to prescribe to future generations all theological thinking? We are as near to Christ and the Bible as the framers of the confessions of faith." Replying, Dr. Mann exclaimed, "What right had the framers of the American Constitution to lay down the basis for the administrative life of this nation ! " But, in spite of these differences, which were continually find- ing expression in their correspondence, the two friends remained closely and cordially attached to the end of their lives. With such theologians abroad as Tholuck, Krummacher, Julius Miiller, Dorner, Erbkam and Jacobi, Dr. Schaff kept up a diligent correspondence. An extract from one of Dr. Tholuck's letters, written in Stuttgart, discloses the nature of some of this correspondence : I will write about a movement such as we have never before seen, and in fact is only possible now that the American motto " Help yourself " holds for our church, at least in a degree. We have just been holding the Kirchentag, and we have witnessed an assemblage of two thousand Christians such as Stuttgart itself has not seen before, and there has been a spirit of worship and brother- hood pervading all hearts. All those questions which for a long time have been agitating the minds of English and American Christians have been here taken to heart in Germany for the first time, with reverent and careful attention, such as Sunday observance, the care of the poor, laborers on the railroad, etc. Impressive addresses were made, and great influence will go out to the old Lutheran brotherhood which, in the end perhaps, will force it to direct its attention to that part of Christendom which has fallen away from the church, while now, unfort- CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 139 unately, it is giving itself up one-sidedly to theological issues and sharpening ecclesiastical distinctions. The very stiffness of some of our Lutherans will pave the way for the approach of the more liberal party amongst them, as the history of the church has often shown. Narrow- heartedness overreaches itself and will lead the moderate party to rise up against the extremists. ... At the last missionary convention in Niirnberg, the rigid party de- clared it to be a sin even to be the medium of conveying gifts to the Basel missionary establishment ! But the faculty at Erlangen [strict Lutheran] rose up against this narrowness. Some of the stiffer Lutherans of Bavaria even go so far as to travel to Silesia to partake of the communion with independent congregations. The following extract from a letter to Mrs. Heusser lays bare Dr. Schaffs lively interest in the questions agitating the religious circles of the Continent : As for the controversy between Lange and Krum- macher, it is plain that Krummacher does our friend great injustice in classing him with the rationalists and pantheists. But it cannot be denied that Lange is not seldom tempted away by his poetical imagination from a safe scholarship and careful argument, and from a whole- some simplicity, by his intellectual opulence and liking for the piquant. A little pietism or conventual sentiment would not hurt our amiable theological poet. Where others are deficient, he has a surplus. But, as you well know, I do not mean to say any evil of Lange. His is a fresh and beneficent mind, and I am very glad that in his Life of Jesus he has laid such emphasis upon the human element as against the rigidly orthodox view which at times comes close to the heresy of the Docetists. To the same correspondent he wrote a few months later: The controversy goes on here over church and sac- raments, and over Catholicism and Puseyism which my book [the Principle of Protestantism} and Dr. Nevin's Introduction, stirred up. They are the subject of much radical misapprehension, some of it apparently intentional. Heretofore, the English-speaking churches have been in 140 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 the habit of looking down in pity or contempt upon the German churches and to use as almost synonymous, the terms, "Dutch" and "vulgar," " German " and " barbar- ous." Hence, the outcry, that from such an obscure nest as Mercersburg should go forth an assault upon the popedom of the philosophical system of Locke and rationalizing ultra-Protestantism. But with all the belligerent onsets upon us we have many warm friends outside the Reformed Church, among them some leading men, especially in the Lutheran and Episcopal churches and even in New Eng- land. Where the controversy will lead to, no one can just now say. A book is about to appear from the pen of my esteemed colleague Dr. Nevin, on the Lord's mystical presence in the church and in the sacrament, and it is likely to prove a new firebrand in the theological contro- versy. It assumes the highest sacramental standpoint which can be held within the pale of the Reformed Church without departure to the side paths of heresy, and it bears the stamp of German speculation. For this rea- son, if for no other, the appearance of the book on Ameri- can soil is an event. Dr. Nevin just now is engaged upon a translation of my tract, " What is Church History ? " in which I defend the theory of organic and progressive development in history, upon which American theologians seem to look with little favor. Writing again, January, 1847, ne gives some of his views concerning the separation of church and state : Protestantism in Germany, Switzerland and England certainly made a mistake in binding itself so closely to the worldly power and in transferring its episcopal rights to princes and kings. The church is called upon to bear no other yoke than the easy yoke of its bridegroom. It is called to a royal estate in the world. An American cannot submit to the theory of dependence in which the church stands to the state in Europe. But the church's inde- pendence of the state does not necessarily carry with it true freedom. There is also danger, when religion is left absolutely to the choice of the people, that masses will go astray, who, under the European system, might remain in some connection with the church. At any rate, in order to avoid this evil, we must have prevailing among us here a far more active missionary spirit than is necessary in * CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 141 Europe. Beyond a question, the Americans are a people thoroughly in earnest, full of enterprise, energy and tire- less industry. Yes, a people more capable than any European nation of spreading Christianity in spite of the separation of church and state. Here he gives to Mrs. Heusser some pictures of village life in the Moravian settlements of Pennsylvania : I am on a vacation tour to this place, Bethlehem, whose name reminds us of God's best gift to man. As you will have surmised, it is a community belonging to the Unitas Fratrum. It is one of the earliest German settlements in Pennsylvania, was founded by Zinzendorf himself, and has been a rallying point of the Herrnhuters ever since. The town is prettily built and is distinguished by order, quiet and neatness. You feel you are in Moravian atmosphere. The German language is spoken in more purity than is the case generally among Pennsylvania Germans, even those in close proximity to this place. But here, too, it is being superseded by the English. I find also, to my regret, that the original kindly and genuine customs of this most amiable of all the Protestant sects, are giving way in a degree to worldliness and coldness, which it is hard to conceal under the forms of a former religious glory. The Unitas Fratrum certainly had a great work to do in arousing a dead orthodoxy and pointing it to the atonement of the Saviour as the central point of faith, and stirring up the spirit of brotherly love where confessional narrowness prevailed, and in looking out towards the heathen world. To-morrow I go to Nazareth, another Moravian community, where Dr. Hoffeditz lives, one of the delegates who went to Germany to present Dr. Krum- macher his call. This is the first opportunity I have had to visit this venerable and beloved man in his home, where I hope to enjoy a few days of rest, unless, in true American fashion, he puts me into the harness, which is quite prob- able. The Americans have a most extraordinary stomach for the digestion of sermons, and indulge in that sort of diet almost to excess, although in the matter of wine and spirituous drinks they are conscientiously abstinent. Allusion has already been made to Dr. Schaff's first introduction to the Pennsylvania Germans, who have an 142 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 individuality of their own. Social by nature, simple in his tastes, and never obtruding his scholarship, his was always a welcome presence. He performed semi-episcopal func- tions among them, petitions pouring in upon him to offici- ate on all sorts of occasions, secular and sacred, from the dedication of churches and the installation of pastors to addresses at holiday celebrations. Encouraged by him, Dr. Henry Harbaugh published his poems in the Penn- sylvania-German dialect, the Pennsylvanisch-Deutsch, after- wards collected in a volume called Harbaugh 's Harfe)- Its most pretentious piece, Das Schulhaus an der Krick, he used to repeat with great spirit. It is said that the first poem 2 in this dialect ever printed, Margets scheent die Sun so schb\ appeared in the Kirchenfreund, edited by Dr. Schaff. Of these relations with the Pennsylvania Germans the Rev. Dr. Bausman writes : His ministrations among them were always greeted with crowded churches. The simple, unspoiled life, thrifty hab- its and the unstudied genial hospitality of this people, and their deep reverence for sacred things and places, greatly pleased him. From the first they took him to their hearts, and to this day the memory of his visits lingers in many a farm-house as a precious tradition. In many parsonages, tender ties were formed between host and guest whose sweetest results both are now enjoying in the perfect fel- lowship in heaven, as I believe. From the beginning, Dr. Schaff was a recognized au- thority for American students who were cultivating the study of German theology, which, introduced by Moses Stuart and Edward Robinson, was then in its infancy. It was a widespread belief that all the theology of Germany was pernicious, and the term neology was used to express 1 These poems first appeared in the Guardian. 2 Abendlied, by the Rev. Mr. Rondthaler, a Moravian minister, Kirchen- freund, 1849, p. 306. CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 143 the feeling against its speculative, rationalistic and de- structive tendencies. A conservative professor expressed the wish that German theology might all be sunk in the middle of the Atlantic on its way hither. The movement, however, could not be checked, and Dr. Schaff found him- self consulted from all parts of the country about German books, universities and schools of opinion. Many of the inquirers were made his lifelong friends. He had no thought of leading an insulated life among circles of German antecedents. Soon after his arrival in America, he began to cultivate the acquaintance and friendship of American theologians beyond the pale of the Reformed Church. He had been in the country scarcely a month when we find him in Philadelphia, attending the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (Sept. 21, 1844), an d listening to a sermon by Bishop Ives, of North Carolina, who shortly afterwards entered the Catholic Church. Before a year had elapsed, he had made an extended trip as far as St. Louis and Chicago, then in the far West. These were the begin- nings of constant journeys out from Mercersburg as a centre. His social propensities were as generous as his theology became comprehensive. He found friends in all denominations and in all theological centres from Cincin- nati to Andover and from Newton Centre to Princeton. The Lutheran seminary at Gettysburg, the Methodist college at Carlisle, and the Episcopal college of St. James, near Hagerstown, were the nearest neighbors of Mercers- burg, and furnished him with his first circle of friends outside of the Reformed Church, in which were included such men as President Robert Emory and Dr. S. S. Schmucker, Dr. John McClintock and Dr. Krauth. With the last two he stood in relations of intimate friendship. Dr. Krauth was from the first his warm advocate. And 144 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 during Dr. Schaff's first years in Mercersburg, he met Professors George E. Day and Calvin E. Stowe at Lane Seminary, Dr. Barnas Sears of Newton Centre, Drs. Hodge and J. Addison Alexander at Princeton, Professor Tayler Lewis of Union College, Dr. Leonard Bacon at Yale, Pro- fessor Park at Andover and Henry B. Smith at Union Seminary. These names stand for an intelligent interest in German theology at that period, and are mentioned to show how determined Dr. Schaff was to identify himself with the land of his adoption, and how far back dates the broad undenominational and unprovincial spirit which was marked by all who knew him only in his later years. These early personal contacts contributed materially to the inter- denominational and composite literary labors which after- wards engaged his thought. From the beginning he recognized America as the land of the future, to which it was given to work out a destiny in its own way. At the earliest opportunity he became a naturalized citizen, and as early as 1850 he was constantly preaching in English in different parts of the country. He did not stop to fret over little national differences in modes of thought and social custom. He did not condemn the rush and hurry of America's commerce, the freedom of her social life, her experimentation in all departments of endeavor, as many an educated foreigner has done. His hopeful nature was quickened by the atmosphere breathed in the New World. As early as 1845, he wrote to friends in Germany, " Think of America as one may, there is here more personal piety and practical church activity than any- where in the Old World, unless it be in a few limited circles in Germany. Here is the future of Protestantism, the cradle of a new and splendid reformation." In an address delivered a few months later he gave it as his opinion, that the United States would be the chief CHAP, vi IN LECTURE ROOM AND STUDY 145 arena of history both secular and sacred in the future. 1 He said : History pursues the course of the sun from the east to the west. It arose in the Orient ; then directed its march over to Greece and Rome, and during the Reformation to Germany and England, whence the northern portions of the New World were principally settled. . . . History pro- ceeds with wonderful foresight. It prepares the soil for its future developments long before it abandons its earlier field of action. Such a preparation is here going on before our eyes daily, and that on a magnificent scale. On the other hand, there is no want of convincing signs, that the stream of history is in reality directing its course, more clearly every day, from the Old World to the New. Again, a few years later, in 1848, he said : If America has its shortcomings and evils, Europe is probably afflicted in greater measure. ... In hardly a country of Christendom are there relatively so many con- verted people, the Bible held in such universal reverence and used so generally as the rule of life, the Sabbath observed with greater seriousness, and so much given in free-will offerings, and finally evangelical religion has such wide recognition as here. His first opportunity of addressing an audience in Berlin, on his visit in 1854, he used to express the same opinions. " The grandest destiny," he said, is probably reserved for the American people. ... If anywhere in the wide world a new page of universal history is to be unfolded, it is in America. Either humanity has no earthly future, everything is tending to destruction, or this future lies I say not exclusively but mainly there, according to the victorious march of history from the east to the west. 2 On that visit in Europe he was on one occasion seeking to free himself from the charge of yielding up his German identity, when Dr. Krummacher laughingly declared that 1 Der Anglogermanismus, pp. 5 sqq. 2 Schaff, America, pp. 258 sq. 146 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 America had a big stomach and would certainly swallow him up and still have capacity left. The prediction was verified by the issue, but not in the sense that Dr. Schaff ever abated his admiration for German scholarship, his warm regard for his German friends or his affectionate recollection of the associations of his early years. He was fond of quoting Bishop Berkeley's prophecy : Westward the course of empire takes its way, The first four acts already past ; A fifth shall close the drama of the day Time's noblest offspring is the last. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 147 CHAPTER VII THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND GERMAN THOUGHT IN AMERICA 1844-1863 Perpetuation of the German Element in America The German- American Churches The Reformed Church and the Americanizing Process Dr. Schaff as Mediator between German Theology and American Thought As Interpreter of American Institutions abroad The Kirchenfreund History of the Apostolic Church Reception of the Work Historical Development IN coming to America Dr. Schaff had no other purpose than to labor among the population whose antecedents were German. The Reformed Church had called a pro- fessor from Germany with the avowed aim of meeting the demand for clergymen trained by the methods of German culture and disciplined in the use of the German language. Urged, soon after his arrival, to substitute German for English in the lecture room, he declined to comply, on the ground that he would thereby be defeating the very object the synod had in view in calling him from Berlin. 1 Little did he dream that the time would come when the sphere of his activity and influence would be predominantly among the English-speaking population, or that he would become a mediator between the theology of Germany and American scholarship. It is necessary here to trace his serious effort to follow the line laid down for him and the attitude he assumed 1 See Introduction to Principle of Protestantism, German ed., p. vi. 148 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 toward the movement whereby German religious thought and church method have come to mingle in the new stream of American church life and culture. The difficult problem, which sprang out of the contact of a large Teutonic population with the English language and modes of church practice on American soil, Dr. Schaff had to face the moment he arrived on these shores. The yearly immigration from Germany had begun to assume unprecedented proportions. In 1846 it reached nearly 100,000 and in 1850, 573,000. The population of German extraction was estimated at that time at four millions, or one-sixth of the entire population. The problem was whether the German people and German ideas should perpetuate themselves by way of transplantation and separate existence, or become identified with American social and ecclesiastical institutions by way of transfusion and adaptation ; whether the perpetuation of the German language should be encouraged on the street, in the school and in the church, or whether the Germans should gradually adopt Anglo-American institutions, and by fusion contribute their share to a new type of national civilization and ecclesiastical practice. The German has resisted, as is natural, and not seldom brusquely resisted, the call upon him to renounce his racial identity and all the usages of his fathers. He has resented the notion that he shall be so completely absorbed as to carry nothing with him from his ancestral inheritance. The intense feel- ing he has shown on this question has often been mistaken for obstinate and contemptuous resistance to the genius of this country. On the part of some it has been. On the part of the more intelligent class of German-American citizens, such resistance is simply a reverent affection for the traditions of their fathers, and the expression of an altogether proper self-respect. The demand that German CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 149 life and usage should immediately surrender their identity and become lost in American institutions rudely ignored the temper of the German mind by overlooking the altogether delicate tenacity with which a people holds on to what it has inherited by tradition and has learned to love. To the German it seemed to violate the theory of freedom which our institutions boast of offering. The feeling of German emigrants and their children is well expressed in the remark of an elderly German woman to Dr. Schaff, on hearing him preach soon after his arrival, in Mercersburg. " English," she said, " is like cold water poured out upon my heart, German is like balsam." The feeling on the question in Germany finds illustration in the conversation the writer had a few years ago, with a professor of theology in Berlin, one of the foremost in Germany. He was strenuous in insisting that the German- Americans were under obligation to perpetuate their lan- guage and preserve their identity in America. He could not discern any middle ground between complete absorp- tion in the Anglo-Saxon type and the full conservation of the German language and customs, and failed utterly to appreciate the importance of a single language to national unity. As a result of his own observations, and from patriotic considerations drawn from the evident destiny of the nation, Dr. Schaff espoused the liberal and American theory. He did not thereby mean to pronounce judgment as to what was good for Germany, but to define what he thought was best in America. It was not in his mind a question of disparaging the customs of German social life, or of depreciating distinctive features of German church prac- tice and theology. It was a question of fitness and expedi- ency. He came to look upon the Americanization of the Germans as inevitable, as it was desirable, and to regard measures intended to thwart or retard the process as unwise. 150 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 In announcing his position he incurred the public charge of being untrue to the land of his birth and to his kinsmen, and called forth sharp criticism from some of his most inti- mate German-American friends. Even in the German Reformed Church there were some who parted ways with him over the matter. One of its leaders, using the German language, wrote as late as 1860, taking him to task for his Americanizing spirit. After paying due respect to his services as a representative of believing German theology, he added : But we may not on this account overlook your faults. With deep pain, we miss in you the German national feel- ing and we believe that you sin greatly when you give to English the preference, as you do, in the home, the school and the church. But it is with much more pain we miss in you the love for the old doctrines and ways of the church, of free grace and of a simple form of worship. 1 How far Dr. Schaff was from disparaging the usages of his fathers or their language was evident, as from public expressions of opinion so also from his deep concern that his children might learn to speak German in the home. His feeling on this point may be dismissed with a single quotation. Writing to Mrs. Schaff from Europe in 1854, he said, "It would be a great shame if my own children should never learn German." The principle of transfusion and adaptation also con- trolled his attitude to matters of church practice. The beginnings of the German churches in the United States constitute an important chapter in American church his- tory. The German immigration began in the middle of the seventeenth century. In the year 1742, the number of Germans in Pennsylvania alone is estimated to have been a hundred thousand. A portion of these immigrants 1 The reference is to the German Reformed Liturgy in the preparation of which Dr. Schaff was actively interested. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 151 crossed the ocean from religious considerations, such as the Tunkers, the Mennonites and the Lutherans of Salz- burg, who, driven out by the Jesuits, settled in Georgia in 1734. A year later the Moravians came over with Spangenberg, likewise settling in Georgia ; and soon after the Moravian communities of Nazareth and Bethlehem in Pennsylvania were founded. For the most part there was poor provision for the spiritual wants of the new set- tlers, whose condition was thus described by Dr. Miihlen- berg in 1743: "It seems as if God were about to visit America with his special grace. It is certainly high time. Were things to continue a few years longer as they have been, our poor Lutherans would surely have passed away into heathenism. Their state is so pitiable as to call for tears of blood." In 1741 Zinzendorf visited America and under the guidance of Conrad Weiser of Womelsdorf and others, made journeys among the Indian tribes. He attempted to unite the Germans under one religious organization. A far mbre important bearing on the development of the German churches in America was the arrival of Heinrich Melchior Miihlenberg and Michael Schlatter. Miihlenberg belonged to the school of Spener and Francke and was sent out by the directors of the Halle Orphan House, in 1742. His practical sagacity, his warm piety and his abundant labors entitle him to a most honorable place among the religious founders of the land, as well as to the honor of being the father of American Lutheranism. Schlatter, a Swiss by birth, was sent to America by the Reformed Church of Holland, in 1746. With three other ministers, he organized the Ccetus Pennsylvaniensis, and became the founder of the German Reformed Church. Considerable sums were collected by him in Holland for the establishment and maintenance of schools in Pennsyl- 152 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 vania among the Germans. It is highly interesting to know that these founders of the two most numerous com- munions of German Christians in this country were on terms of friendship. Muhlenberg wrote, July 28, 1752 : " To-day the Reformed pastor, Schlatter, called upon me, and embraced me in the old genuine way of friendship and love. He arrived last night by ship from Holland with six new preachers." 1 The labors of these godly men were followed in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this one by a period of spiritual decline and torpor. Some of the more susceptible elements were warmed by the fervor of Methodism and seceded under Albright and Otterbein, the founders of the Evangelical Association 2 and the United Brethren in Christ. A third period in the history of the Lutheran and Ger- man Reformed churches, beginning with the second quar- ter of this century, was marked by the effort to revive their distinctive and traditional features both in faith and practice. It has been distinguished by a more general assimilation with the American spirit and church usage on the part of the Reformed Church than has been the case with her sister. It was in the early morning of this third period of revival that Philip Schaff arrived in Mercersburg. The Reformed Church was entering anew into the conscious- 1 The early annals of Lutheranism in America are largely derived from Miihlenberg's reports to Halle, Nachrichten von den vereinigten deutschen Evangelisch- Luther ischen Gemeinden in Nordamerika, absonderlich in Pennsylvanien, 1750-1787, pp. 1518. Edited by Dr. W. J. Mann and others. Allentown, 1886. Schlatter's "Journal of his Missionary Labors in Holland," in Dutch, was translated and published in the Magazine of the German Reformed Church, 1829. 2 Not to be confounded with the Evangelical Synod which corresponds to the Evangelisch- Unirte Kirche of Prussia. In 1894 it had 766 ministers and 978 churches. Its chief strength is in Illinois and Missouri. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 153 ness of its historic heritage and ecclesiastical individuality. Its fresh life expressed itself in the careful study of the Heidelberg Catechism and the usages of the Reformed churches of Germany and Switzerland, and in the earnest and able discussions of the Mercersburg theology. After a struggle lasting for a quarter of a century, a well-defined position was taken on the question of catechetical instruc- tion, liturgical worship and the observance of the greater festivals of the church year. The proper and final relation of the German element to American institutions and modes of thought has been for a century one of the most difficult and troublesome ques- tions the Lutheran and German Reformed churches have had to deal with. They have had the double problem to settle, to satisfy the first and second generations of their adherents who used the German tongue exclusively or chiefly, and to retain their hold on the succeeding genera- tions in whom the American element has come to pre- dominate. A constant struggle has been going on in families of German antecedents. The parents seek to perpetuate the use of the German language and customs among their children. The children feel a strong impulse to break away, and, if the use of German is persisted in at public worship, wander off into the Anglo-American churches. The friction has led to many a heated contro- versy and to serious denominational ruptures and large losses. Dr. Schaff found the German element predominant in the German Reformed Church. 1 The work lying at his hand was to train ministers who should use the German tongue. It was only a short time, however, before it became evident 1 As late as 1826 at the Reformed synod in Frederick, Maryland, a young minister was openly rebuked by the president for attempting to make an address in English. 154 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 to him that the Americanizing process was working rapidly and that what has proved the actual result was inevitable. Such efforts as that of the Rev. Mr. Lohe and the Bava- rian Missionary Society in Missouri, to build up a purely German church, he soon came to regard as blunders. The children, or at any rate the children's children, would speak English in spite of all efforts to the contrary. He did not choose to close his eyes to the direction in which the current was running. He also soon came to the conclusion that it would be unwise to check it, if that had been possible. He looked to the future and saw, as he thought, the purpose of God to have here a nation of one spirit and one speech. Natural attachments were to be respected and proper provision made for the tem- porary use of the German language in public worship. A paper written so late as 1887, commending the Ger- man Theological School at Dubuque and bearing upon the point, contains the words : " The evangelization of the ever-growing masses of our immigrant population is a most important part of Home Mission work and can be carried on effectually only by German ministers of our own train- ing in German institutions which are in full sympathy and direct contact with that population." Nevertheless, in his judgment, any system was to be discouraged which sought to perpetuate the use of German indefinitely and bind the children to it. The survival of the German element was not to be secured by the perpetuation of outward forms, but by the power of ideas and the force of moral virtues. Of the same nature were Dr. Schaff's views on the rela- tion of German theology to religious thought in the United States. They were based from the first on a sober regard for the situation. He said: 1 "German theology should be transmuted into flesh and blood, into life and activity. 1 German Literature in America, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1847, PP- 53-5 21 - CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 155 For this work the American nationality, which possesses an uncommon practical talent, is peculiarly fitted, and if the better element of German theology were transplanted to the soil of the New World it would bear much richer fruit than it has in the land of its birth." The policy of a free reproduction and adaptation he applied at a later period in his treatment of Lange's Commentary and the Herzog Encyclopedia. His last utterance on the subject was given in 1893, when he said : J German theology is becoming more and more an impor- tant factor in American theology, but cannot replace our systems of thought. German ideas cannot take root in English, Scotch or American soil unless they are freely reproduced in the English language and adapted to the practical wants of a free church in a free state. These views on the ultimate destiny of the German element were developed in some of his earliest public addresses and writings after his arrival in Mercersburg. In an address on Anglo-Americanism, delivered in 1846, he said : 2 The German element, unmodified and as it is developed in Europe, cannot maintain itself here and dare not ex- pect to exert a leavening and lasting influence till it has become Americanized. It would be as unwise as it would be useless to attempt to perpetuate the German as an inde- pendent organism. We are living here in a new world, which has other tasks than Germany. . . . Germans are masters in the theory of things. But they should learn from the English a lesson in the value and secret of organization and enterprise, in strength of character and self-poise, in respect for law and order and the rational use of liberty. The English and Scotch also should not be content with merely repeating on American soil the life of old England and Scotland. 1 Propaedeutic, p. 402. 2 Anglo- Germanism or the Significance of the German Nationality in the United States, Chambersburg, 1846. The address was delivered in German before the Schiller Society of Marshall College. 156 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 These sentiments he did not hesitate to repeat at Ber- lin, in I854. 1 "Without doubt," he said, the German has a great mission in America, although he can hardly be said as yet to have realized it. He will not fulfil it in any adequate manner by rigidly and stiffly secluding- himself from the Anglo-Americans and making it his purpose to build up a state. Rather should he, in a cosmopolitan spirit, energetically appropriate the Anglo- American nature and its excellences and, as far as possi- ble, penetrate it with the wealth of his own German temper and life. As long as he well could do so, as has been said, Dr. Schaff followed the lines laid down for him in the call of the German Reformed synod. Having resisted for four years the demand to substitute English for German in the class room, he finally yielded because to have re- fused, would have been hurtful to the best interests of the German Reformed Church. The effort to make Mercers- burg a centre of German culture, as at first proposed, was conscientiously made, but proved a failure and had to be abandoned. The maintenance of the distinctive confessional charac- ter of the Reformed Church and the perpetuation of its historic life was quite another thing. Dr. Nevin, in his inaugural address in 1840, had laid stress upon this and warned her against " merging herself in a foreign interest." Dr. Schaff took a similar position and continued to main- tain it. " The German churches," he said, 2 must preserve the German spirit and, in larger measure than heretofore, appropriate the intellectual treasures of the mother country if they are to retain their original peculiarity and not to lose their identity in purely English denominations. On the other hand, they must not hold themselves aloof from the unmistakable excellences of the 1 Kirchenfreund, 1854, pp. 322 sqq. 2 Anglo- Germanism. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 157 English people and church and, if they wish to avoid the danger of ossification, must enter into vital sympathy with American life and keep up with its development. His idea was that the German Reformed and Lutheran churches should maintain their historic individuality at the side of the Puritan, Presbyterian and Methodist reli- gious types. These bodies would, however, serve their own interests best not by pursuing a policy of ecclesiastical isolation, but by coming into sympathetic cooperation with the other Christian communions of America. For the Lutheran Church, he always expressed warm esteem. It was there he was confirmed, and the influential religious friendships of his youth in Wiirtemberg were within its pale. In later years, although he did not admire the Formula of Concord, he pronounced the Augsburg Confession " the most churchly, the most Catholic, the most conservative creed of Protestantism." 1 He recognized that through the systems of the two great Continental churches of the Reformation a pervading difference runs which "affects more or less their entire theology, organiza- tion, worship and practical piety" ; 2 but in spite of this, it was his hope that a German-American church might arise uniting both confessions. 3 He hoped and labored for such a consummation, not from a vapid indifference to theological traditions and distinctions but upon the basis of a common 1 Church History, Vol. VI. p. 708. 2 Germany and its Universities, p. 168. 3 For a discriminating statement, see " Dr. Schaff and the Lutheran Church," by Professor H. E. Jacobs. Papers Am. Soc. of Ch. History, VI. pp. 13 sqq. Dr. Jacobs says : " Dr. Schaffs ideal, after coming to Mercersburg, was the foundation of a German-American church, uniting the Reformed and Lutheran confessions. This was possible, however, only as it could find a firm historical basis upon which to rest. ... In the powerful reaction that came in the Lutheran Church in America, leading it back to its historic foundations, his influence must be regarded as a very important factor. There is not a Lutheran scholar in America, especially among those who use the English language, who does not owe to Dr. Schaff an inestimable debt." 158 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 historical consensus. On the one hand he trusted in the Melanchthonian strand in the Lutheran system, and at the same time exposed the departures of the American Lu- therans from some of the distinctive doctrinal features of Lutheranism. 1 On the other he expounded the Heidelberg Catechism and was true to it as the standard of the Reformed Church. He felt that there was a spirit of comprehension which could honestly unite both types in one body without any sacrifice of principle. When he arrived in Pennsylvania, he found many of the church buildings owned conjointly by Lutheran and Reformed congregations ; a Union hymn-book had been in use ; Union Sunday-schools were held under the same church roof. Familiar with the Union Church of Prussia, combining both confessions, he saw in America the oppor- tunity for a union on a larger scale. As for his friendships, they were scarcely less intimate with the Lutherans than with members of his own communion. The Kirchenfreund was established as an undenominational organ to serve the common interests of the churches of German ancestry. If, as Dr. Jacobs has said of the powerful reaction in the Lutheran Church of America, which led it back to its his- torical foundations, " the influence of Dr. Schaff was a very important factor," it must also be said that he strongly deprecated the spirit of ultra-Lutheranism in Germany and in this country, as being offensively sectarian and out of harmony with the true Christian spirit of the age. The following letter to Dr. Mann, written in 1887 while Dr. Schaff 's History of the German Reformation was passing through the press, bears excellent testimony to the latter's attitude to the Lutheran Church at this early period. 1 Germany and its Universities, p. 169. The work gave a chapter (pp. 167-177) to a comparison of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. For the German-American churches see his America, pp. 176-205. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 159 You persist that I am a " Gegner des Lutherthums " (an opponent of Lutheranism), and I persist in being a " Freund des Lutherthums " (a friend of Lutheranism). I have been so ever since we both received our theological training in Wurtemberg without any known difference ex- cept that you were a Wurtemberg Lutheran to the manner born, I a Reformed from Switzerland. I expect to continue a friend to that type of Lutheranism (and even of the more rigorous types up to the Missouri school) as long as I live. My German Reformed friends used to call me a theologus Lutheranizans, and were rather displeased with my eulogy of Luther in the Principle of Protestantism. Now who is right, you, or my Reformed friends, or I ? Perhaps I am confused and do not understand myself. It is impossible to please everybody. Darum aber keene Feendschaft nekt unter uns (but we will not have any ill feeling on this account). May the good Lord settle the quarrels in his church ! He will no doubt do it in His own good time and way, and it will be a marvellous surprise. We shall not live to see it but we may pray for it. Whatever judgment may be passed by his fellow German- American citizens upon his Americanizing tendencies, it may with confidence be said that no one of his generation surpassed Dr. Schaff in his efforts to introduce and domicili- ate German religious thought and literature in America. This he did by the original contributions of his pen, by his encouragement of translations of German works and by the introduction of American students to German theologians in their studies and class rooms, as well as by his whole personality. On the other hand he contributed more than any other man of his time to make known in Germany the condition and needs of the German-American churches. Through him the German Reformed Church was brought into closer union with the Reformed churches of the Con- tinent than it had ever been before or has been since. He presented American affairs in articles in German periodi- cals and at various times in public addresses in the princi- pal German cities from Bremen to Zurich. He repeatedly 160 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 appeared in person on the floor of the Kirchentag, 1 the most imposing religious assembly of Germany, or sent to it papers setting forth the needs of the German-American churches. 2 For half a century he was regarded among German churches abroad as the chief representative and exponent of German-American and distinctively American religious thought, and, in the early half of this period more particularly, was appealed to from every quarter in Germany for information in regard to American affairs. He secured German students and pastors through Dr. William Hoffmann of the Missionary Institute at Basel and Dr. Colsman of the institution at Langenberg, through Dr. Tholuck and other professors. He secured contributions of books and endowment funds from German friends for Mercersburg and other institutions, Lutheran and Reformed. In addition to his general ser- vices as an expounder on American soil of German the- ology, he introduced many inquirers to an acquaintance with the administration and professors of the German universities in his book on that subject. He prepared a new edition of the Heidelberg Catechism, compiled a Ger- man hymn-book and founded the first German religious periodical of a higher order in this country. To him also German literature in America owes its first scholarly treatise in the department of theology, namely the History of the Apostolic Church. By this manifold activity, as well as by his immediate personal contact with the German- American churches throughout his career, he sought to fulfil his duty to his kinsmen according to the flesh. Prior to his first visit to Europe in 1854, Dr. Schaff had thus produced three works of more than ordinary impor- tance, the Principle of Protestantism already considered, 1 At Frankfurt, 1854; Stuttgart, 1869, etc. 2 His first paper was contributed to the Church Diet at Bremen, 1852. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 161 the German periodical, Der deutsche KircJienfreund and a History of the Apostolic C/iurc/i. The Kirchenfreund) founded in 1848, appeared as a monthly for six years under his editorial care, when Dr. Mann became the responsible editor. It was discontinued in 1859. That magazine was intended to occupy an un- cultivated field and supply German readers with a German periodical of a higher order. Its position was an inter- mediate one between the weekly religious press on the one hand and such periodicals as the Studien und Kritiken in Germany, whose place it did not aspire to occupy. In its management Dr. Schaff had to contend with no ordi- nary obstacles. The supervision of both printing and bind- ing, which were done under great disadvantages, fell at times upon the editor. He imported the first German printer and font of German type to Mercersburg, and not seldom was obliged to set the type with his own hand. 1 He had also, to a large extent, to train his literary helpers. . The most efficient aid came from his friend, Dr. William J. Mann. The contributions of his pen were many and val- uable. From Germany also aid was secured from such men as Erbkam and Ebrard. Much space was devoted to historical questions and hymnology. Translations of Ger- man hymns appeared by Dr. J. W. Alexander, 2 Professor Thomas C. Porter and others, some of which have become classic. Here also a number of Meta Heusser's poems were published for the first time. In 1863 Dr. Schaff established another German periodi- cal, the Evangelische Zeugnisse aus den deutschen Kirchen in Amerika* which was discontinued after 1865. His only 1 These matters were referred to at length by Dr. Mann on assuming the control of the periodical Kirchenfreund, 1854, pp. I sqq. 2 " Dr. Alexander is beyond doubt one of the best translators of German hymns into idiomatic English." SCHAFF, Literature and Poetry, p. 293. 8 Evangelical Testimonies from the German- American Churches. M 1 62 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1849 further editorial connection with periodical literature was as co-editor with Dr. E. V. Gerhart of the Mercersburg Review (1857-1861). Once launched, the Kirchenfreund won for itself favor beyond German-American circles. Professor Calvin E. Stowe, then of Lane Seminary, pronounced it " a very much-needed counteracting power to the too exclusively unhistorical individualism of the Christianity of our re- public." President Woods of Bowdoin College wrote (Dec. 17, 1849): Allow me to express the pleasure with which I read in the Kirckenfreund your views on the church and the high sense I entertain, in connection with many others, of the salutary influence exerted by them upon a wide circle of thought in this country. I know of nothing which is oper- ating more powerfully to restore the sound view of the church and the sacraments than what is now so well known as the Mercersburg publications. With reference to the good which might be done in our circle of ministers in this neighborhood, I have regretted that the Kirchen- freund has not been in English. The Review was also the first German-American peri- odical to find any considerable recognition in Germany, and did a good service by correcting some of the false and often grotesque mistakes current among Germans of intel- ligence and high position concerning life and thought here. To mention a single case of blunder, Dr. Hengstenberg of Berlin, through the columns of the Evangelische Kirchen- zeitung, circulated the news that Dr. Krummacher, in being called to Mercersburg, was promised a yearly salary of $20,000 (the total amount Dr. Schaff received for his services during twenty years). His brother, Dr. Edward Hengstenberg, after a sojourn in 1845 of eight months in the country, including a visit in Dr. Schaff's home, sent back CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 163 a most gloomy picture of the condition of the German churches in America and declared all hopes for any revi- val and advance among them to be an empty dream. Die Zeitschrift fur die Unirte Evangelische Kirche devoted the better part of two numbers (April, 1849) to a hearty notice of the Kirchenfreund and excerpts from its articles. " We greet," it said, the appearance of this periodical as a cause of rejoicing, yea, as an important event. If Dr. Schaff succeeds in joining German scholarship to the practical bent of Amer- ica and in quickening the spirit of denominationalism reigning there with the ideas of the unity and the univer- sality of the church, we shall have in America the picture of the ideal church conditions. The Kirchenfreund was intended to be, as its title-page states, "an organ for the common interests of the German churches in America," and to combine their theological forces. The effort to maintain its undenominational character was not without success, and it secured the co- operation of prominent adherents of the Lutheran, the Reformed and the Moravian churches. Indeed the irenic spirit with which the Review was conducted brought down upon the editor the charge of Lutheranizing tenden- cies from parties within the Reformed Church. The History of the Apostolic Church was the first church history in America written in the spirit of modern histori- cal composition and incorporating the latest researches in its department. Published in Mercersburg in 1851, it appeared in German, under the title Geschichte der christ- lichen Kirche von ihrer Griindung bis auf die Gegenwart, and was announced to be the first volume of a general history of the church in nine volumes. Here again the author was publisher. He was obliged to purchase a special font of . German type and as in the case of the 1 64 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1851 Kirchenfrcund) he set up not a few of the pages with his own hand. 1 In publishing the work in German and resisting the counsel of friends to send it forth in English dress, the author was moved in large part by the purpose to magnify the German element in this country, and to minister to the interests of the German churches. It was his chief literary attempt, and his last attempt, to found a distinc- tive school of German-American theology. "Although my work," he says, will bear on every page marks of its German antece- dents, it is designed primarily and chiefly for readers in America and it is written from this American or Anglo- German standpoint. . . . My mission has been to the German churches of America . . . and should this at- tempt not receive encouragement it will still remain a proof of an earnest effort towards establishing an indepen- dent school of German-American theology. The volume was dedicated to Neander, as the father of modern church history, who gave the work his blessing, a short time before his death, in these words : " I can only express to you my most heartfelt thanks for this sign of your affectionate remembrance and for the honor you propose showing me, by wishing you for your work all illumination and power from above." 2 The method in which Dr. SchafT proposed to write church history is indicated in the first English edition. It is my wish [he says] to give from reliable sources under the guidance of our Lord's twin parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, a complete, true and graphic account of the development of Christ's kingdom on earth 1 Dr. Schaff refers to these things in the preface to the Leipzig edition, 1854. The English translation was by the Rev. Edward D. Yeomans, D.D., New York, 1853. 2 The letter is given in full in Dr. Schaff's St. Augustin, Mdanchthon, Neander ; pp. 165 sqq. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 165 for the benefit especially of ministers and students of theology. . . . With most modest claims and most peace- ful intentions, polemical and uncompromising only towards rationalism and infidelity whether of German or English origin, but conservative, conciliatory and respectful towards the various forms of positive Christianity and reaching the hand of fellowship towards all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth, this work sails out upon the ocean of a deeply distracted, yet most interesting and hopeful age, where, amid powerful fermentation and keen birth throes, a new era of church history seems to be pre- paring. The reception given to the work could hardly have been more cordial if it had been the work of a veteran historian, and not a young man scarcely thirty. Praise came from scholars at home and abroad. The learning and genial Christian spirit of the author, his independence, the mas- tery of his subject, the orderly precision of the arrange- ment and the simple perspicuity of the style are qualities singled out for commendation. The personal element is emphasized as in Neander's History of the Planting of the Christian Church. But Dr. Schaff pays more attention to the organization and outward development of the church than did his eminent teacher. Probably from no American source could a testimony have come more influential and worthy of consideration than from Dr. J. Addison Alexander of Princeton Semi- nary, who placed " the author in the highest rank of living and contemporary church historians." The book, he said, besides the evidence of solid learning which it contains, bears the impress of an original and vigorous mind, not only in its clear and lively mode of presentation, but also in the large and elevated views presented and the constant proof afforded that the author's eye commands and is ac- customed to command the whole field at a glance as well as to survey more closely its minuter subdivisions. This power of attending to both great and small in due proper- 1 66 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 tions throws over the details a pleasing air of philosophical reflection rendered still more attractive by a tinge of poetry. 1 On the appearance of the English translation, Dr. Charles Hodge gave similar high praise. 2 Dr. Leonard Bacon, 3 representing theological thought in New England, pronounced it a great work. ... In more respects than one this mas- sive volume is a phenomenon in the theological literature of our country and may be taken as an indication of a new era in the history of American theology. . . . All churches owe a debt of gratitude to the Reformed Church for having made such a man an American and having given us the privilege of knowing that the foremost of living church historians, the Neander of his own generation, is not a foreigner, but a fellow-citizen of our own country. Among other favorable notices abroad were those of Dean Alf ord, who spoke of it in the Edinburgh Review 4 as promising to be one of the best compendiums extant of church history, Ullmann, 5 author of Reformers before the Reformation, and Bunsen, who pronounced it to be a work of much importance (hb'chst bedeutungsvoll}? Sharp reprobation, however, was not wanting. Time alone shows whether the faults are in the literary compo- sition or in the critic's eye. The charges called forth by the Principle of Protestantism were marshalled against the new work. They proceeded chiefly from the New Bruns- wick Review? controlled by parties within the Dutch 1 Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, October, 1851, pp. 649-657. 2 Princeton Review, January, 1854, pp. 148-192. 3 New Englander, May, 1854, pp. 237-254. * January, 1853. 5 S'dchsisches Kirchen- und Schulblatt, edited by Kahnis. Leipzig, March 16, 1853. 6 Hippolytus, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1853. 7 " Dr. Schaffs Work on Church History " and " Dr. Schaff as a Church Historian," New Brunswick Review, 1854, pp. 1-63, 278-325. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 167 Reformed Church, which tried to prove the author dis- qualified for the work of a historian by narrowness of mind, self-complacency, a poetic and romantic sentimental- ism and an excessive admiration of German literature. To these elements of unfitness was added a strong Romanizing tendency. Was this not evident from the praise of Dr. Brownson, the Roman Catholic editor, "that Dr. SchafFs history was the best history of the church which had pro- ceeded from a Protestant pen " ? In fact, the work was nothing more nor less than a historical plea for the papacy. A minute review of these criticisms in the New York Observer (June, 1855) written by a scholar, understood to be Dr. Henry B. Smith, closed with the statement that no theological student could afford to be without Dr. Schaff's book. These attacks found little favor and the History of the Apostolic Church established the theological position of its author beyond controversy before the American public. There could thereafter be no plausible ground for making the charge against him, as a representative of the Mercers- burg theology, that he was a covert enemy of Protestantism. In Dr. Schaff's conception of the church and its history, was involved the principle of historical development. He had used the theory in his treatment of the Reformation in the Principle of Protestantism, vindicated it at length in the tract, What is Church History^ and now in the Introduction to the History of the Apostolic Church he gave to his views their final expression. Although in Germany the theory was generally accepted, it was at that time considered by most in the United States dangerous and by many heretical. The very expression " historical development " was con- demned. Dr. Hodge, in his review of the Apostolic Church, 1 What is Church History? A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Devel- opment, Philadelphia, 1846, pp. 128. 1 68 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1844 took issue with its author on this subject. 1 He held that Dr. Schaff s theory, if he understood it, was un-Protestant. While it was true that Hegel was not endorsed, neverthe- less in his handling of the theory was involved the false notion that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life. Dr. Hodge himself accepted a law of historical progress, that Christianity as a system of doctrine is contained in the Bible in all its completeness but that the settlement of its teachings is progressive. Dr. Schaff never replied to Dr. Hodge's criticism. It was not necessary. They were agreed in the essential position that the final court of authority was the Bible. The main difference was in the relative emphasis placed upon doctrine and life. A year after Dr. Schaff's inaugural, Dr. John Henry Newman published in 1 845 his famous Essay on the Devel- opment of Christian Doctrine to justify his transition from the Anglican to the Roman Catholic Church. His theory is that of a gradual accumulation in the unbroken line of Roman tradition and excludes the Protestant Reformation as a heretical apostasy and revolution. But even in that work Cardinal Newman did not lay emphasis on the infallibility of the church, as a true Catholic would have done. The criticism was made at the time, as for example by Dr. Brownson, that the work was anti-Catholic. Dr. Schaff's theory of historical development differed as widely from the Roman Catholic as from the rationalistic. It was this. The church is the body of Christ, the com- munion of the regenerate. In view of the promise of Christ's perpetual presence, it may be properly said to be a continuation of his life and work on earth. Having had its genesis, it is having its growth. The new man in Christ, like the tree, grows. The church, which is the 1 Princeton Review, 1854, pp. 148-192; System. Theology, I. p. 118 sq. CHAP, vii GERMAN LANGUAGE IN AMERICA 169 organic body of believers, is subject like the individual man to a law of development. It has stages but at the same time preserves throughout its identity. The de- velopment is organic, a process of life springing from the vital energy imparted by Christ. Looked at objectively as an order of being, Christianity is complete in Christ and is presented in the New Testament in a pure, original, perfect form which is absolutely normative for all times. The apprehension and appropriation of Christianity is pro- gressive. The church advances from one state of know- ledge and sanctification to another. This is a process of development, and the full unfolding of the church exists from the beginning potentially in Christ. In his own interleaved copy of What is Church History, Dr. Schaff has inserted the testimony of Rev. John Robin- son in his farewell address to the Pilgrims. The faded characters indicate that it was copied there many years ago. Among the words transcribed were those often quoted in recent years. " The Lord has more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy Word Luther and Calvin were precious shining lights in their times, yet God did not reveal His whole will to them, and were they now living, they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light as that they had received." To the full passage he appends his own note. "Thus we have the principle of a progressive historical development, stated on the birthday, we may say, of American church history and sanctioned by the venerable father of New England Puritanism." Dr. SchafFs last word on the subject was written in 1892 and has value in view of the recent treatments of the theory of evolution. 1 It runs : The true theory of development is that of a constant growth of the church in Christ the head, or a progressive 1 Propadeutic, p. 240. 1 70 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1844 understanding and application of Christianity, until Christ shall be all in all. The end will only be the complete unfolding of the beginning. All other theories of develop- ment which teach a progress of humanity beyond Christ and beyond Christianity are false and pernicious. In the revised edition of his History of the Christian Church no discussion is found of the theory of historical development. What had once been looked upon with general suspicion had in one form or another come to be generally accepted and the space was too valuable to jus- tify a repetition of what had been said before at a critical time. "When Philip Schaff, then freshly from Switzer- land," says the latest historian of the American Presby- terian churches, "enunciated the more generous view of the past, he was assailed as a Romanizer. His heresy has become almost a commonplace now." 1 1 Robert Ellis Thompson, A History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States, New York, 1895, P- 3 O2t CHAP, vin A YEAR IN EUROPE \j\ CHAPTER VIII A YEAR IN EUROPE 1854 Failing Health Scotland Maurice and Bunsen Oxford A Sunday in London Paris In Germany again Dining with the King Lectures on America Hurter and Prince Metternich Venice and Trent Swit- zerland The Kirchentag Manning and Cardinal Wiseman LATE in the autumn of 1853 Dr. Schaff sailed for Europe, taking advantage of a year's leave of absence granted by the synod " in view of the arduous labors he had been rendering the church." His eyesight was threatened and his voice so affected that he could not speak in public so as to be heard. His ten years of resi- dence in the New World had been a stormy period. He was in need of rest and the stimulus which comes from personal contact with scholars and theologians. The tour extended as far as Venice, the Crimean War preventing its further extension to Constantinople and Jerusalem. To the pursuit of recreation was added a diligent purpose to present the cause of the German-American churches on the Continent and the delivery of addresses on America and its social and ecclesiastical institutions. Arriving in Liverpool, he hastened to Scotland, mak- ing the first of many visits to that country where in later years he had some of his warmest personal and literary friends and was equally at home in each of the three great Presbyterian churches. He respected the strength, THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 honesty and seriousness of the Scotch character and felt deeply the spell of Scotland's heroic history and stanch fidelity to religious principle. Of his first Sunday, he says : " How quiet the streets, how full the churches, how devout the worshippers ! Say what we please, a Scotch Sabbath is one of the most imposing sights, a powerful sermon, the glory of the land and a blessing to the people. The Americans are indebted to the Puritans and Presby- terians for this treasure. May they never lose it! I heard to-day Dr. Candlish, the most influential man in the Free Church, and Dr. Guthrie, who preached an original and exceedingly impressive sermon to a densely crowded church. . . . " Although the number of literary celebrities is not so large here as it once was, yet there are enough of excel- lent and distinguished scholars, authors and ministers to amply repay a sojourn of weeks and months in Edin- burgh. The contrast between the old city with its narrow lanes and the new city with its parks and wide spaces is very striking. Our ideas of comfort were unknown in the olden time. The room in the castle in which the unfortu- nate Queen Mary gave birth to James VI, is so small that there was hardly room enough for a bed and a few chairs. Mary's pathetic career stands out before you in lifelike outlines at Holyrood. Her rare beauty and irresistible charms, her French training, her difficult position among her semi-barbaric noblemen and rigorous Reformers whom she did not understand and who in turn did not under- stand her, her tragic fall, her protracted imprisonment, her attachment to the religion of her fathers, her imposing courage in the hour of death, her touching dying prayer, beautiful by its musical cadence as well as by its devout- ness, all these make an impression on the heart and imagination calculated to blind us to the mistakes and CHAP, viii A YEAR IN. EUROPE 173 faults of her life. The sense of righteous indignation for her improper relations with Rizzio, Darnley and Bothwell and her breaches of faith give way to a feeling of compas- sionate sympathy due even to the greatest sinner in the hour of tragic fall and prolonged suffering." From Glasgow, where Mrs. Stowe had been recently visiting, he wrote : " The enthusiasm for the author of Uncle Tom s Cabin, as far as I have seen, is universally shared here. Every one who can read is reading her book. I have had a delightful visit with Dr. Robson of the United Presbyterian Church, who entertained Mrs. Stowe during her stay. We have talked long on slavery. The feeling against it is very strong all over Scotland and I am tired of talking on the subject, for I can neither defend slavery nor on the other hand permit the unjust charges against America because of it. I generally re- mind my Scotch friends that all the obnoxious and inhu- man laws in the slave states were made under English rule. . . . " If there be a country in the world where the earnest spirit of Calvin has found, as it were, a national embodi- ment, it is in the land of his faithful pupil, John Knox. In the point of temperance Scotland has much to learn, but taken as a whole I believe it deserves its reputation for piety and virtue and need not fear a comparison with any nation of the world. The noble sacrifices which the Free Church made are without a parallel in modern times and will always form one of the brightest pages in her history." Proceeding southwards, he stopped at Burton Agnes, missing Archdeacon Robert Wilberforce, who had been unexpectedly called away to his brother's, the bishop of Oxford. He stayed over night at the archdeacon's man- sion and " sat in the chair of old Wilberforce, the great 1/4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1854 slave emancipator, and found a magnificent library, includ- ing many German books and also the numbers of the KircJienfreund and the Mercersburg Review." In London he found the air full of rumors of the com- ing war. The first Sabbath he worshipped at Lincoln's Inn Chapel " where Professor Maurice, then recently deposed from his chair in King's College, officiated. The liturgy was read with full responses and the Lord's Supper was celebrated. Although I belong to another branch of the Kingdom, I went forward and found my way to com- munion with the Lord." The next morning he was breakfasting with Maurice who told him that the Catholic Church did not take strong hold of society in England. The days following he was dining with Mr. Buchanan and the Prussian ambassador, Dr. Bunsen. " Bunsen," he wrote, " treated me with very marked kindness and invited me to be a constant guest at his table during my stay in London. He is under size, but erect, of remarkably fresh and healthy complexion. He is a thorough Protestant in his feelings. He showed me his work for the new edition of the Hippolytus. The extent and comprehensiveness of his learning are quite remarkable, and he is unquestion- ably one of the most interesting men of the age. He overwhelms one with talk of the most suggestive charac- ter. He is more than a man of brilliant genius, a Christian gentleman actively interested in all the movements of the church and Christian philanthropy." At Cuddesdon he had his first experience as a guest in an English episcopal residence. There he met Archdea- con Wilberforce, soon to pass over into the Roman com- munion, who was visiting his brother, the witty, eloquent and popular bishop of Oxford. "The bishop's palace," writes Dr. Schaff, "is isolated in location and has the appearance from outside of being old and uncomfortable, CHAP, vin A YEAR IN EUROPE 1 75 but within it is comfortable and palatial. The surround- ings are pretty and the gardens fine with great trees and ivy. Here I get an idea of the union of aristocratic life and devout Christianity which seems to characterize the bishops' residences in England. The title ' Lord Bishop ' points plainly to both elements. We had dinner at seven with perhaps thirty gentlemen and ladies sitting at the table. At ten or eleven we had devotion in the bishop's chapel. The next morning we had devotion again at nine with a short, earnest, practical talk by the bishop, followed by breakfast. I have long conversations with the arch- deacon about the church question. He is a man of fine culture and seems to be deeply religious." At Oxford he saw Pusey again " who does not seem to be shaken in his ecclesiastical position by the defection of Newman " and received from him, a few days after, a char- acteristic letter in which he said : " I do believe that the Lutheran and other Dissenting bodies are under great loss. I do think that by virtue of their baptism pious individuals who are in ignorance, belong to the soul though not to the body of the church. By baptism they were made members of Christ and may continue so, unless by any wilful acts of their own, as to faith and morals un- repented of, they forfeit it. But the other great sacra- ment, as well as the Power of the Keys, I believe to be tied to the Priesthood. I mean that Priests only can con- secrate the Holy Eucharist or absolve, and that Priests only can be made Bishops. I have no doubt that this was the belief of all from St. Ignatius to Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. I cannot but think, too, that the Lutheran doc- trine that a ' man is justified because he believes himself justified ' is not only untrue, but eats out the doctrine of the Sacrament." In a letter to Mrs. Schaff, dated Oxford, January 24, he 176 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1854 said : " I reached here a few days ago in the bishop's car- riage from Cuddesdon. I have had most intercourse with Archdeacon Wilberforce and have found him a deeply religious man but very high church in his views. He takes a lively interest in the Mercersburg movement, es- pecially in Dr. Nevin whose writings he reads. . . . Here I have seen old and new friends and have daily invitations to breakfast and dinner ; but I have not been so much im- pressed with the mediaeval character of Oxford as I was ten years ago when it was fresh and new to me. It seems to me to be modernized. I think I will find as I go on, that for England and Scotland I am too much of a Ger- man, for Germany and Switzerland too English, and for all too much of an American." Returning to London he dined with Bunsen, who enter- tained him till after midnight, reading large portions of his work on the chronology of the oldest Roman festivals and giving him " freely his views on the Eastern question. He does not seem to be at all a Russophile as he is charged with being. He calls Hengstenberg and von Gerlach the two popes of the Prussian church. " Sunday (January 29) was a day full of remarkable con- trasts. At eleven I went to St. George's, the Catholic cathedral, which was thronged, and paid a shilling for a good place. At least a dozen priests joined in the service which, with the music, made a strong appeal to the senses. The sermon was by Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark, for- merly a soldier in the British army. ... At three I go to Westminster Abbey. Fine liturgical service uttered in a voice one can understand. The sermon was by Dr. Wordsworth. It was carefully written, delivered with energy and contained many excellent thoughts on the unity of the church which, with much emphasis, he based on the episcopal order and Apostolic succession with CHAP, viii A YEAR IN EUROPE 177 polemical remarks against the ' Roman schism ' and 'Protestant dissent.' Although evidently well meant, it was wholly unsatisfactory to me. Maurice tells me I could not have heard a more characteristic sermon from Dr. Wordsworth. ... In the evening I heard Dr. Gum- ming in the Scotch Presbyterian church. First he gave an exposition of John ii. i-i I against Mariolatry and the advocates of total abstinence. Then he preached from John i. 2 against the Unitarians. It was a popular ex- hortation, clear and trenchant but full of peculiarities, Greek citations, quotations from the Fathers, parade of names and other distasteful things, and leavened with van- ity. I am told he hardly ever preaches without fighting against the pope. Here, the pulpit was in the foreground ; the altar had disappeared. The sermon was everything. The church was so crowded that I had to stand during the entire service. Gumming has an easy facility in exposi- tion and the application of Scripture. He does not carry away by bold strokes of genius, depth and vigor of thought, brilliant images and strong bursts of enthusiasm as did Edward Irving. . . . " Breakfast this morning with Maurice, meeting Arch- deacon Hare and Professor Trench, a heavy thick-set man, not very talkative but very genial and strongly anti-Catholic. He invited me to spend some days with him at his country vicarage. In the evening I attended a brilliant reception at Dr. Bunsen's where I met Sir John Herschel, Professor Lepsius, the Egyptian traveller, Max Miiller, a Sanscrit scholar of Oxford, Dean Milman, Stanley and others." The next day he heard Melville preach the Golden Lecture which he pronounced " an excellent composition, edifying, pungent and full of original thoughts. He is a real master of eloquence. The natural virtues, he said, far from having a justifying power, rise up for our condemnation if we 178 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1854 neglect our duties to God." In a letter to his wife he writes : I saw the procession of the queen to parliament from the palace of the Prussian embassy and had a capital view of this truly magnificent scene, as the queen, with Prince Albert and the Duchess of Sutherland and her whole train, passed by through St. James' Park filled with an ocean of people in orderly agitation. The Turkish ambassador was much cheered. All England is thoroughly aroused against Russia. . . . Sunday I spent the greater part of the day with the Irvingites. In the morning I found their beautiful Gothic church in Gordon Square, the first of the seven churches of London, thronged with devout worshippers. The Lord's Supper was administered with great solemnity, an imposing ceremonial, many hundreds communing. They ob- served the best of order, passing up one aisle, then kneeling and passing down the other aisle. The liturgy is very beautiful. I dined with the angel of the church, Mr. Heath, meeting his large and amiable family, and have seldom been in a household so adorned with Christian graces. Then at four I attended the service designed for the congregation and at seven the service of the evangelists for outsiders. The service this morning, I believe, was the most beautiful and perfect liturgical service I have yet attended : even more so than the one in St. George's, for this you can understand. . . . The real body and brawn of the English nation is radically Protestant and will certainly never sub- mit to the yoke of an Italian church ruler or permit itself to be despoiled of the Bible, the pulpit and the other forms of the Reformation. The last day of his visit Dr. Schaff breakfasted with Chevalier Bunsen, " who was very cordial and in the pres- ence of his whole family kissed me in true German fashion on both cheeks. He gives me letters of introduction to Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem." A few months later Bunsen was removed from his high post, and retired to his chalet near Heidelberg, where Dr. Schaff spent some time with him. Writing from Paris (February 9) to his wife, he said : CHAP, vin A YEAR IN EUROPE 179 I have seen the emperor and Eugenie several times. The empress looks pale, delicate, amiable, almost as beau- tiful as she is generally represented in her pictures. The emperor I saw on horseback between two aids, of middle size and well built. He has the appearance of a cold, reserved but resolute character. His eyes are dull and his saffron face seems to express unconcern about persons and things around about him. Like his uncle, he is iden- tified with the French nationality but seems to be above it, with a taciturnity and self-command that are in strong contrast with the loquacity and vivacity around him. . . . But what are all the attractions of even such a city as this without a friend ! Men are after all worth much more than the glories wrought in wood and stone and silver. I have been much with the Monods, especially Adolph, my old and warm friend. He is of middle size, great fire and energy, yet kind and amiable and adorned with a rare amount of humble devotion and spirituality and with ex- traordinary pulpit talents. I have heard that Lacordaire has said that he is the best living preacher of France. Per- fectly simple and natural in delivery, his sermons flow from the most conscientious study of the text, from freshness of religious conviction and experience and are characterized by great power of faith and fervor. His voice is of a sin- gular sweetness and his Frencfi pronunciation is unexcelled. He always speaks as if in the face of eternity and the final judgment while a certain sadness rests on his serious yet mild countenance. He has chosen St. Paul for his model. Recollections of the far-off home press in upon the tour- ist. No matter how gay and novel the surroundings may be through which he happens to be travelling, the soul finds itself now and again hushed by voices inaudible to the outward ear. At one of these times he wrote to his wife : I thought I could not spend to-day, the anniversary of Willie's burial, more appropriately than at Pere la Chaise. Here repose the ashes of some of the greatest warriors, statesmen, artists and scholars of France, under monuments of elegant architecture and large dimensions. . . . On the other side of the cemetery lie the bodies of the unknown poor, marked simply by a black cross ; many of them, I hope, 180 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 sincere disciples of Christ who will shine in brighter lustre on the great day of account than many of the most illustrious marshals on the pages of French history. By far the most interesting monument to me was that of Abe- lard and Heloise, in the Saxon style of the thirteenth century formed out of slabs from the abbey of the Paraclete. I stood there full half an hour, meditating on the Middle Ages, the scholastic and mystic theology, the history of monasticism and all those themes which the two sleepers suggest. Then I looked over to the great and beautiful city ... to the landscape beyond, up to the clear skies and forward into the world to come and to that day when all the dead shall rise and appear before the judge of man- kind. But amidst all these crowding thoughts and scenes our own home and the sufferings of our little Willie, whose lovely spirit now enjoys the sight of the angels in heaven, were uppermost in my mind. By the middle of February he was again on German soil, spending the first Sabbath at Elberfeld, where he was "met with overflowing demonstrations of friendship, wherein the Germans differ so greatly from the English with their cold and measured politeness." At the depot at Magdeburg he unexpectedly came upon Professor Tho- luck. " He embraced me and kissed me, saying, when we see a person coming from America we must stand off for a while to reassure ourselves that it is the same person, a being like ourselves. He is the same old person (er ist nock ganz deralte}" Here are some of the notes from Dr. Schaffs journal : At Halle " I dined with Tholuck, Dr. Miiller, Guericke, Hupfeld. Everywhere I am received most cordially and spend exceedingly pleasant hours. Have a most interest- ing conversation with Leo about the church question. He believes the pope will be driven again from Rome in five years but that within twenty years the majority of the German people will be Catholic. If the Catholic Church were to go down to-day, Protestantism would have to res- CHAP, viii A YEAR IN EUROPE l8l urrect it to-morrow so as not itself to fall to pieces. He admits such reasoning would drive him to Rome, but religion is not a matter of the reason but a matter of the heart and Protestantism is able to do much that Catholi- cism is not able to do." At Leipzig he found Kahnis " who has become a strict Old-Lutheran, but otherwise remains the same genial, cheerful, fresh man as ever. We talk over the church question, the importance of which he is beginning to feel. He is against union and against Nitzsch. I was able to find more common ground with Liebner, who is also a Lutheran but not a narrow and exclusive one. Ultra-Lu- theranism, he says, often sets his nerves jumping. Christ is central and nothing is to be tolerated which is put as a substitute for him. As for Tischendorf, the celebrated critic and scholar, he seems to be still quite young, is ex- tremely fresh and vivacious, and overwhelmed by edited and unedited manuscripts and editions of the New Testa- ment, but is full of self-conceit and harsh in his judgments upon scholars otherwise held in highest repute, such as Lachmann. He showed me his papers, letters from Mez- zofanti, Angelo Mai (whom as a critic, he says, he does not trust for a single line), Humboldt and from the papal secretary himself. Thilo's codex apocryphorum he declares to be unusable ; Schwegler's work on the Clementines he calls a Schweinerei and so he goes on." At Berlin he spent several months. As in England so there the general topic was the Eastern war. "Von Beth- mann Hollweg is the leader against Russia in the Prussian parliament and Ludwig von Gerlach against Turkey. It seems as if the time for the fall of the false prophet had come. Into Constantinople he forced his way by the sword, and with the sword, by a nemesis of history, he will have to be driven forth. Constantinople must again be- 1 82 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1854 come a hearthstone of Christianity and exert a regenerat- ing influence upon the Oriental churches and advance the cause of civilization throughout Europe." Many changes had occurred in the Prussian capital, the chief of which was Neander's death, of which he writes, "to the grief of his old pupils, his memory is temporarily put into the background." The influence of Hengstenberg was supreme. Nitzsch represented the unionistic ten- dencies. Hoffmann, formerly of Basel, was chief court- preacher and exerting a wide and salutary influence. Krummacher had been transferred to Potsdam. The rapid development of the rigid and exclusive Old-Lutheranism had been one of the marked features of the recent period. Ranke was at the height of his powers and " dilated to me," writes Dr. Schaff, "in a most interesting and piquant way on a great variety of subjects. He feels a deep inter- est in the United States and speaks with esteem of Pres- cott and Bancroft." As for Schelling, "his piercing eye and snow-white hair give him a most interesting appear- ance. He continues to hold firmly to his views of the Petrine, Pauline and Johannine theory of the development of the church. He hopes for nothing from the papacy. He is still working away at his manuscripts." Of Krum- macher he says : " He has not changed and remains as mild and amiable as a lamb in the family circle, and as bold as a lion in the pulpit. After the morning sermon the king held a review of an infantry regiment. So he finds it impossible to do away with all Sabbath desecra- tion ! Krummacher and his wife take me to the king's palace, Sans Souci, to Babelsberg, and to the summer palace of Prince Charles. I heard an original and highly brilliant sermon by Krummacher before the king, queen and the prince on the text, 'if they hear not the prophets,' in which he made three witnesses for repentance rise up CHAP, vin A YEAR IN EUROPE 183 from their graves, the Great Elector, Frederick I and Frederick II, repeating with tremendous effect the last one's words to his minister, ' Schaff mir wieder Religion ins Land (Bring back religion into the country).' I assist in the distribution of the elements at the communion." The following is his account of a dinner with the royal family (May 11) : "I dined with the king at two o'clock, driving with Krummacher to the palace. Soon the guests began to arrive, the president of the ministry, von Man- teuffel, in dress and appearance a plain man, with gold spectacles, who spoke little and was probably worn out with concern over the Eastern question ; Count von Bis- marck of Schonhausen, a delegate to the Bundestag on a visit from Frankfurt, a fine-looking, stately and amiable gentleman laden with orders ; Lieutenant-General von Gerlach ; Niebuhr, the cabinet counsellor, not very agree- able but a favorite with the king ; Count von Alversleben, formerly a cabinet minister and now sent on an exceed- ingly important mission to Vienna concerning the Eastern question, and three ladies of the court. Then the queen and king appeared. I was presented by Count von Keller. The queen, who has a gentle and friendly manner and bright eyes, asked after my place of residence and birth and the Germans of Pennsylvania. The king held a long conversation with me after dinner about Graubundten, Chur, Mercersburg, America, and the German revolution- ists in America, mentioning some of them by name and saying that ' ploughing would do some of them good and he hoped they would remain at it. He was sorry for Kinkel on account of his fine talents.' He talked much about the Germans in America and said, ' It won't do them any harm to learn some English ways but on the contrary good/ At the table the king was very agreeable and related a number of anecdotes. He is a genial Berliner, his dialect 1 84 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 like von Gerlach's. His jokes are not Berlinese, but puri- fied by his broad culture and Christianity. He is a man of large information, much goodness of heart, but little decision. The meal lasted an hour and a half and then we spent another hour in an adjoining room, drinking coffee and in conversation. It was a most interesting experience for once, but I pity those who have to dine with the king every day. The temptation to flattery is enormous. Great loss of time. At five I go out with von Alversle- ben and Bismarck to Berlin." During his visit in Berlin Dr. Schaff was invited to deliver lectures on America in the rooms of the Evangeli- cal Verein. The audiences represented the culture of the city. At the conclusion of the first effort, the famous geographer Ritter went up to him and, pressing his hand warmly, thanked him for the address and expressed his entire concurrence with it. The lectures appeared in an elaborated form in a volume under the title of Amerika. In a letter to his wife, he writes: "A most unexpected honor and pleasure were afforded me a few days ago by the theological faculty of this city, who unanimously con- ferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Such a manifestation of regard from the first university in the world, which is usually very sparing in its distribution of academic honors, is alone worth the whole trip to Europe. . . . They tell me from various quarters that I have been called to fill Lange's place at Zurich. Whatever I might do some years hence, I could not accept now." The following are his journal accounts of interviews with Hurter, a convert to the Roman church, and Prince von Metternich, at Vienna. Hurter's scholarly volumes on Gregory VII were among the very last books Dr. Schaff had in his hands, one of them lying open on his table the day he died. "Hurter is an odd-looking man with gray CHAP, viii A YEAR IN EUROPE 185 hair, but animated and healthy in appearance. He has a pleasant Swiss accent. He said he was fully satisfied with the Catholic Church, which is a world by itself. He goes twice to mass daily and there the subjective element van- ishes that is made so prominent in the sermon, especially the Protestant sermon. Certain virtues like obedience are not possible under Protestantism. Protestantism has a certain amount of truth, but it is taken from Catholicism and it is losing its power. It consists of disjecta membra and is solid only in the single matter of opposition to the Catholic Church, and here it is not organized. A corpo- rate union between the two is not possible, and the only thing left was for individual Protestants to submit to the church, which is much milder than represented; and her doctrine about the saving quality of the church is not to be understood as if all possibility of salvation were taken away from Protestants. On the whole, I found him milder in his Catholicism and less cautious in the expression of his views than I expected. . . . " Herr von Pilat took me to-day (June i) to see Prince Metternich, now in the evening of his life, who entertained me for a full hour most interestingly. He is eighty-one years old, has three sons and three daughters, is hard of hearing but otherwise retains all his intellectual vigor, tall but somewhat bowed with age, large eyes, with a wide clear space between the eyebrows, dignified, aristocratic in his bearing, but very friendly and very talkative, just now broken a little by the death of his third wife. He gave me at length his views on the United States and the church there. He says they are like a boy thirteen or fourteen years old, full of ideals and impulse, but also full of self- will and silly tricks. This will change as they pass into mature age. A nation has three stages, the start, the voyage and the arrival. America is now in the second 1 86 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 stage. She has the advantage of boundless territory, which gets better as you go west, where every one can find room for himself. Russia also has abundance of terri- tory but, in her case, this is rather disadvantageous than otherwise and the land gets worse as you recede from the centre of the empire. America's influence on Europe is hurtful, for it furnishes a disturbing element and does noth- ing in the way of building up European institutions. The nation was at first Anglo-Saxon. Now it is a chaotic mixture, but it cannot remain in this condition and will go through a great organic change in the next fifty years. It is possible, however, that it will pass through a stage of progress beyond Europe. . . . Then, speaking of the church, he said, 'There is but one church and many states. That church is the Catholic. The Protestants are Christians because they believe in redemption through Christ but they are no church only confessions, reli- gious schools without stability and the firm principle of authority. The Lutherans were nearest being a church, for they had not rejected the episcopate but transferred it to the states, a thing which in the Catholic Church was impossible. The Reformed churches were more logical and consistent in discarding the episcopate. The Union Church of Prussia was the least permanent of all, as it got along without any dogmas whatever and one might be- lieve what he pleased. The Catholic Church was inde- structible. It had the truth and was like an island of rock against which the waves of the ocean beat, loosening here and there a fragment which falls into the depths but only to strengthen the foundations. The more the Protestants split into parties and sects, the more will the unity of Catholics become conspicuous. A capitulation between the two is impossible, for Catholicism is the truth. Prot- estantism will send some of its adherents back to the true CHAP, viii A YEAR IN EUROPE l8/ church and others off into scepticism.' Prince Esterhazy had to wait a long time till Metternich got through. On leaving I strolled with Herr von Pilat through the magnifi- cent grounds and gardens adorned with statues by Canova, Thorvvaldsen and others, some of which were presents from Frederick William III and IV, Ludwig of Bavaria and the Duke of Tuscany. The conversation was one of the most interesting I have ever had." From Vienna Dr. Schaff's route took him to the north- ern Italian cities and Trent. Writing to his wife from Venice, he said: The dream of my youth is realized. The wonderful city lies before my eyes like a floating marble flower and a sweet fairy tale of bygone years. Where are remains of glory so grand, so beautiful, as in this incomparable city of the Adriatic ! How bold and confident of victory the winged lion of St. Mark looked out upon the fields of Italy and the far-away seas to the Greek lands, the temple of St. Sophia at Byzantium and the pyramids of Egypt ! And now the same lion is dead stone and nothing more ! " A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged lion's marble piles Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles ! " This and the other verses of Byron's description were often on his lips. He wrote from Trent : Here the celebrated council of the Roman Catholic Church was held three hundred years ago to settle the great Protestant controversy and to condemn the doctrines of the Reformation. It is the principal city of the Italian Tyrol, has thirteen thousand inhabitants, lies on the Etsch in a deep valley surrounded on all sides by high mountains, has several fine churches and old palaces but is stagnant and destitute of enterprise. The people speak the Italian mixed with many German expressions. Yesterday morn- ing I heard mass and a tolerably good Italian sermon by 1 88 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 a Capuchin monk on prayer, and another in German on the Trinity. I also attended the service of instruction and benediction at St. Maria Maggiore, the church where the council was held. A picture near the altar represents its last session. On the way I saw a notice of the perform- ance of // Barbiere di Seviglia that evening although it was Trinity Sunday. I have seen nothing here which would induce me to alter my views on Romanism ; nothing which would confirm the Puritan condemnation of it as the synagogue of Satan or its own claims to be the only church of God. At mass I knelt and prayed fervently that God might keep and confirm me in the simplicity of the evangelical faith, in the knowledge of His holy Word, in living communion with Christ, in the confidence of his atoning sacrifice on the cross and in love for all his peo- ple. I prayed for you and the children, for my friends in the Old and the New World, especially for Dr. Nevin and Dr. Wolff, for the German Reformed Church and her in- stitutions, for the church universal, for the conversion of the world and the fulfilment of all the great promises con- cerning the glorious extension of the kingdom of Christ. I went back to my quarters much edified and enjoyed the peace of God in quiet meditation. ... I will answer Dr. Nevin's last letter and say to him that my respect for Romanism has not increased and my confidence in Protes- tantism has not been weakened by my visit to Europe. . . . I shall return a better Protestant and a better American than I left and yet full of filial veneration for good old Europe. By way of Innsbruck, Dr. Schaff crossed over into Switzerland. He revived old memories at Chur and deliv- ered an address on America. "My native town," he wrote, "makes upon me the impression of stagnation and hum- drum detail of life and of spiritual traditionalism. I am thankful that God in His grace has transferred me to Amer- ica and, as I recall the stringent poverty of my childhood, I praise the unmerited grace which has guided and sus- tained me. As pleasant as it is for me to see old friends, I could hardly return to Graubiindten to live and be con- tented. Here, the church is quite dependent upon the state, and such a state government as it is ! Among the CHAP, vni A YEAR IN EUROPE 189 pastors there is a great lack of trust in God's power and communion with Him." At Basel he stopped with the elder Professor Stahelin, the author of a Critical Study of the Pentateuch and other writings, "a semi-rationalistic and a very genial Easier," an eccentric genius who always gave a banquet in Dr. Schaff's honor on his subsequent visits to Basel. On such occasions the equally eccentric Professor Miiller was a striking figure, who used to be called Indianer-Miiller on account of his work on the Urreligionen Amerikas (the Primitive Religions of America), which he wrote without himself knowing a word of English. "Auberlen," Dr. Schaff notes, " who gives up the anti-papal references in the Apocalypse, and Hagenbach received me most cordially and paid me many flattering compliments for my Apostolic Church. . . There is more Christian life and activity in Basel than anywhere else in Switzerland. The Mis- sionary Institute has just celebrated its anniversary and sent six new missionaries to different parts of the world. The meetings were edifying and delightful and the reports very encouraging. The town was full of visitors who were hospitably accommodated and the churches crowded. . . . " At the anniversary of the Protestant Pastors' Society of Switzerland, I delivered the principal address and di- rected attention to the wants of the German Reformed Church in the Western States. I hope I have prepared the way for some future efficient aid to Tiffin Seminary." Writing to Professor Gerhart (July 7, 1854), he said : I appealed to the Swiss church to do something perma- nent for its daughter in the New World, to erect a monu- 'mentum acre perennius, instead of merely contributing to this or that local object. I proposed the founding of per- manent Swiss scholarships and of a German professorship at Tiffin which would be a permanent fountain of life to the destitute German population of our confession. 190 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 At Zurich he was informed that they were ready to call him to the chair made vacant by Lange's removal to Bonn if he would give assurance of his acceptance, which he told them " plainly that for the present at least he was unable to do." From Bern he took a two weeks' trip back to Chur by way of Interlaken, the Briinig pass, the Rigi and Reichenau in company with his university friend, Dr. Marz. He writes : " At Unterwalden we were told there was neither printing press, billiard table nor confection- ery shop in the canton. The Unterwaldeners are good Catholics. Marz, once a follower of Hegel and a wor- shipper of modern civilization, but now a pious evangelical minister, was much pleased with the information and ex- claimed that the best thing that could happen to the world would be the stopping of all book and newspaper presses for fifty years to come ; and yet he himself is an author ! " From Chur Dr. Schaff went to St. Moritz, from which he wrote : I am writing from the highest inhabited valley in Switzerland, which lies 5771 feet above the sea and is con- siderably higher than the Rigi. It is remarkable for situ- ation, its pure air, its high mountains and glaciers, its mineral waters, its mixture of language, Romansch, German and Italian, its clean and solemn villages, its limpid lakes, its comparatively strict morals and the enterprising spirit of the inhabitants, many of whom conduct the largest and best confectionery establishments, coffee-rooms and hotels in various cities of Europe and regularly return home again to spend the remainder of their days among their friends and the grand scenery of their native mountains. On account of its altitude, the Engadin is, of course, very cold. The saying is, it has nine months of winter and three months of cold. Yesterday (August 7th) we were surprised, on getting up, to see the roofs covered with snow. The valley is now covered with fresh verdure of the greenest hue. The mineral waters of this village were pronounced by the famous Theophrastus Paracelsus, as long ago as 1529, to be the best of their kind in Europe. The CHAP, vin A YEAR IN EUROPE 191 new fountain, discovered a year ago, is still stronger than the old one. If the accommodations were better, the place would probably be filled to overflowing with visitors. Last week I delivered a free lecture on America, and a collection was taken up amounting to several hundred francs for the benefit of the unfortunate villagers of Cappel in Thurgau, which was entirely destroyed by fire a few days ago. Closing his journal, he says : " How beautiful are these mountains of the Engadin, how clear its air, how healing its waters ! Happy he in whom they arouse the feeling of homesickness for the beautiful hills of Zion, whence cometh our help, for the purer atmosphere of eternal peace and for the healing spring which flows from the side of Christ and makes body and soul well with the power of eternal life." St. Moritz in the Engadin and Lake Mohonk in New York, different as their natural features are, seemed to Dr. Schaff to be the two ideal spots for a summer's recreation and lookouts to the eternal world. His route next took him to Ragatz, where Schelling lay dying. " He is above eighty years old now, looks pale as death and yet spoke to me kindly and with an unclouded mind. He complained of his physicians and the failure of the treatment to help him and expressed the fear he might not get to Berlin again. He spoke of the glories of the Swiss scenery and expressed regret that unbelief was penetrating into the Swiss valleys through the pupils of Baur. He will not live long. This unexpected meeting has been a great pleasure to me." So Dr. Schaff wrote in his journal, and a few days later the philosopher was laid in his grave. Here are his notes on leaving Switzerland : " Switzerland has become to me by this visit even dearer than it was before, both the land and the people. Never shall I forget the majestic priestly procession of the Bernese Oberalp and the Jungfrau, which has never lifted her white veil, the Monk who stands silently at her 1 92 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 side, the jagged Schreckhorn and Wetterhorn and the men- acing Finsteraarhorn, the waterfalls of the Staubbach and Giessbach, the Gothic palaces of the Rhone glacier, the wild rocky solitude of the Grimsel pass, the luxuriant Alpine flora, the green meadows at the foot of St. Gothard. Long will the sermon preach itself in my memory which God the Al- mighty spoke to me in the unfolding of the finest of pano- ramas through the morning glow on the Rigi, begetting a sort of Pentecost. . . . Especially was I delighted with my own home canton and the Ober-Engadin with its green pastures, lovely lakes, dignified villages, noble peaks and majestic glaciers." From Stuttgart he wrote : " I cannot tell you how affec- tionately I am treated here by my old friends. In Berlin they made me doctor ; here they call me brother. . . . Knapp said to-day of Krummacher that he depicted Jesus Christ as galloping into Jerusalem on a splendid steed instead of riding on a lowly ass. For purposes of edi- fication, he reads neither Krummacher nor Tholuck, but Bengel and sometimes Zinzendorf." At Heidelberg he saw " Rothe, a small, agreeable and genuinely German scholar, who said that Protestantism and Catholicism will never unite as churches but as Christian peoples. The ancient church was decidedly catholic in its tendency but the content of Christianity is too rich and deep to be covered or lost in an ec- clesiastical form. Christ, it is true, promised a church, but we are not justified in putting into this ecclesia our modern conceptions of the church. Matthew xvi. determines nothing as to the outward form of the congregation. Peter alone was called the rock-man and he was certainly that. But the rocky character of the papacy is not Petrine but is of the stony soil which Christ condemns. The civilization of Europe will go down pri- CHAP, viii A YEAR IN EUROPE 193 marily by Slavic inundation and then it will pass over to America and, revived again, go forth on a new mission. The best Catholics will, along moral and Christian lines (not churchly), approach Protestantism more and more." At Frankfurt Dr. Schaff attended the meetings of the Kirchentag and delivered an address on America and read a report on the German-American churches. He urged upon the churches of Germany the duty of fostering Christianity in America by contributions of money, send- ing preachers and by the immediate care of the emigrants. He was in the midst of stimulating company. Among those whom he met daily were Kapff, Bahrdt, Krummacher, Hoff- mann, Ebrard, Hundeshagen, Dorner, Ullmann, Wichern and Rothe. Thus he wrote to Mrs. Schaff : " These have been days of continual excitement of the most pleasant kind. The greatest and best men of the German churches have met here in consultation on the vital interests of Christianity. The number of guests has been two thou- sand. I have been almost drowned in the sea of friend- ship and the most exciting conversations on all sorts of topics, political, social and ecclesiastical, European and American, past, present and future." Reaching London again in October, he has this to say of Archdeacon Wilberforce : " He is about to go to Italy, where he is to meet Cardinal Wiseman and will probably take the last step to Rome. He sees no help from Protes- tantism. The edition of his book on Church Authority is already exhausted. He took me to the Athenaeum, and admits that the English nation is the greatest, but it is puffed up. At his rooms I met Archdeacon Manning, a very amiable and, as it would seem, pious man. He said the motto extra ecclesiam nulla sains was a Catholic dogma, but was not identical with the motto extra ecclesiam nulla gratia, which was a Jansenist proposition, condemned IQ4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1854 by Rome. Every one is responsible only for as much light as he has received from God. God's spirit and grace operate also outside of the church, as is plain from the cases of Job and Melchizedek. He is a man full of life. I said that if all were like him, a reconciliation might be reached some day between Protestantism and Catholicism, but he replied that day would not come, as the antagonisms were such that they could not be reconciled." A day or two later he saw Dr. Manning again : " He talked to me to-day over the comparative merits of personal and social morality in Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. This had been the main difficulty which had kept him for four years from the Roman communion. He found from Salvian that the same thing had been the case in antiquity, the heartless barbarians being more moral than the African Christians. (He forgot that for this very reason the latter were swept away.) The Greeks and Romans were far ahead of the Jews in civilization, order and government (for which reason he might have said the terrible judgment came upon the Jews). But he disputes the facts. In point of chastity the Irish peasantry are far above the English peasantry. The most fearful crimes rest upon England ; cold-blooded, long-premeditated mur- der, poisoning, infanticide, etc., more than on any Catholic country. Scotland was more intemperate than any other country, Sweden more unchaste. Much of the Protestant morality is purely nature and found most among the Quakers. . . . " Manning took me to-day to see Cardinal Wiseman, who lives in a plain house. His library is good and contains all the standard Catholic works. We found him clad in a black gown with a red band about his neck. He has a fine, imposing figure, wears gold glasses, is cautious and measured in his utterance, and looks more like a well-fed CHAP, vin A YEAR IN EUROPE 195 Italian prelate, fond of good living, than like an ascetic. The impression upon me was not pleasant. He impressed me not as a man of winning amiability but of calculating shrewdness. His face is almost entirely lacking in spirit- uality and intellectuality, both of which his writings would lead you to look for. He betrayed almost total ignorance of German theology. Directing himself to the question of Protestant and Catholic morals, he said that it was a popular delusion that in Protestant lands the standard of morality was higher than in Catholic lands. The moral character of the Catholic Irish is far superior to that of the English. He had paid particular attention to this subject because there was such a loud popular outcry over it in England." The cardinal was on the eve of starting for Rome to attend the assembly of ecclesias- tics called together in the interest of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, proclaimed Dec. 8, 1854. Before leaving England Dr. Schaff called upon Dean Howson, then principal of the Liverpool Institute, and recently made famous by his Life and Letters of St. Paul. The year had been one of storms and frequent and ap- palling losses at sea. Among the vessels that went down were the Arctic, the St. Francisco, from whose deck one hundred and fifty soldiers were swept away, the Yankee Blade, the City of Philadelphia and the City of Glasgow (on which he had gone to Europe) with all her crew and passengers to the number of four hundred ". . . without a grave, Unknelled, unconfined and unknown." After a voyage of fourteen days in company with his life-long friend Dr. Moses D. Hoge of Richmond, he reached New York. " How happy shall I be," wrote Dr. Schaff, " if after the voyage through the stormy seas of life the 196 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1854 shores of eternity break as softly upon us and fill the soul with gladness as the shore has broken upon us to-day (November 13) after this long passage ! " He came back to the United States enriched with the latest results of German scholarship acquired from the fresh fountains in professors' studies, class rooms and pulpits. Much attention had been shown to him on ac- count of his German-American personality. He, on his part, had embraced many public opportunities to make known the conditions of American society and church life. It is evident from his private papers as well as from the German edition of his work Amerika that he was not untrue to the land of his adoption. Warm as the at- tachments were to the Old World, the ties now binding him to the New World were stronger. FROM AN ENGRAVING BY SARTAIN IN 1856. CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 197 CHAPTER IX LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 1855-1863 Mercersburg again Drs. Wolff and Rauch New Era in the Reformed Church Attitude to the Catholic Church To the Episcopal Church Liturgy and Liturgical Forms German Hymn-book Civil War Tercentenary of the Heidelberg Catechism Mercersburg Theology DR. SCHAFF returned from his European tour in perfect health, feeling, as he wrote to Dr. Gerhart, " almost ten years younger in body and spirits." During the remaining years spent at Mercersburg he participated in the litur- gical movement within the Reformed Church, and gave himself to the continuation of his Church History and other literary work. The sense of isolation was relieved but little by the feeling that the retention of the seminary there would not be permanent. After the breaking out of the Civil War, the work of the class room suffered from repeated interruptions. In a lonely hour he wrote to his intimate friend, the Rev. Dr. Henry Harbaugh : " Sometimes, I confess, I can hardly endure longer the dreary separation from the springs of life and exile from congenial intercourse. What folly to put the institutions of the church away from the centre of population to an inaccessible outpost ! What will be thought of such a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy in 1900?" This isolation was forcibly brought to mind by the 198 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1855 removal of the remains of President Rauch from the grounds of the Reformed Church to Lancaster. Dr. Schaff made the following note of the event : March I, 1859, a rea l spring day. Exhumation of the remains of Dr. Rauch (deposited here March 5, 1841) by order of the trustees of Franklin and Marshall College under the supervision of Dr. Gerhart, who showed the tender affection of a pupil to a teacher. A singularly affecting scene. We formed in procession, teachers, stu- dents and spectators, and followed the coffin in solemn silence through Seminary Street and Main Street. It was then taken to Chambersburg to be deposited in the Reformed Church over night and will be transported to-morrow to Lancaster, there to be solemnly reinterred. This is the end of Dr. Rauch's body, till the great resur- rection day. His spirit lives and his memory will never die in the history of the German Reformed Church. One of the first services he attended after his return was the inauguration (Nov. 29, 1854) of his colleague, Dr. Wolff, who was many years his senior. While Dr. Wolff had given his support to the Mercersburg professors in their time of stress and arraignment, he was averse to contro- versy and had sought to act the part of a mediator in the church. His election was a wise choice, calculated to estab- lish confidence in all circles. In 1863 he resigned his pro- fessorship and spent the evening of his days in Lancaster. The misunderstandings of a former era were now in large part removed, at least so far as Dr. Schaff himself was concerned. The leaders of the agitation against the Mercersburg theology had withdrawn from the denomina- tion, or finding their fears unfounded had become silent. Harmony prevailed at the meetings of the synod. "This has been throughout the most harmonious and pleasant synod I have yet attended," Dr. Schaff wrote from Cham- bersburg, 1855. Controversy still went on in the church ; but the charges CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 199 of Romanizing tendencies were sleeping well in their grave. Meeting Dr. Berg at the dedication of a Moravian church in Philadelphia, he said to him : " I have not gone to Rome yet and do not mean to ; but I did want to go to Jerusalem, but was not able." Writing to Dr. Bausman, then studying in Berlin, he said : You are right to dismiss all Romanizing tendencies. Let the dead bury their dead. We belong to the living generation and believe in a living Christ and in a steady progress of his kingdom. He needs no vicar except in Rome, but is Himself present with His people to the end of time according to His own gracious promise. As to your further projects, I would say, by all means go to Rome, but do not stay there. See the wonders of the Eternal City and then shake the dust off your feet and go to Jerusalem. But do not remain there either, for Christ has risen and left only an empty tomb. The Greek church is after all a mummy of Christianity in a praying posture. Return enriched and encouraged to America, the land of freedom and of promise. Those who at any time had felt suspicion that Dr. Schaff was in danger of departing from the fundamental principles of Protestantism were ignorant of the real temper of his mind. While his theology was compre- hensive, his convictions on the essential doctrines were positive and firm. It was not with him as it was with his distinguished colleague. Dr. Nevin's contributions to the Mercersburg Review started an expectation in circles out- side the Reformed Church that he might pass over to the Catholic communion. The Freeman s Journal of New York, a Catholic organ, spoke of "the time as not far distant when the doubts and sufferings of his long trial shall be abundantly compensated by the joy of heart which is the unfailing portion of all who with unreserved wills submit to the church." x 1 Dec. 23, 1852. 200 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1853 Although Dr. Charles Hodge l had pronounced the Mer- cersburg theology anti-Protestant, he regarded Dr. Schaff as untinctured with Roman error. He urged him, how- ever, to publicly disavow sympathy with Dr. Nevin, that the suspicions in regard to himself might be shown to be without any just foundation. The feeling within the pale of the Reformed Church finds expression in a letter from the Rev. John Beck of Easton, Nov. 25, 1852 : The general opinion of you, Dr. Schaff, is that you are a sound orthodox champion of Protestantism but of Dr. Nevin that he must go to Rome, driven there by the overwhelming force of his own logic and the fatal con- cessions he has made. . . . From this opinion of Dr. Nevin and his position, I differ. The reference to Dr. Schaff's loyalty to Protestantism may be brought to a close with an extract from a letter to Professor Oertel, the editor of the Katholische Kirchen- zeitung, of New York. Professor Oertel, writing to console Dr. Schaff upon the loss of his son Willie, the account of which he had seen in the Kirchenfreund, had glanced aside at the attitude of the Mercersburg professors towards the Catholic Church. Dr. Schaff's reply, dated Mercersburg, May 15, 1853, ran as follows : In the case of death we forget Luther and the pope and fix our eye upon the cross, the tree of life. At such a time we take up neither the Formula of Concord nor the Tridentine Decrees ; but the ancient confession of Peter, in which we are all able to unite, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life." Over this confession and the confession " I believe in one holy Catholic Apostolic Church " I gladly extend to you and to every pious Catholic the hand. It may seem strange to you, if it does not appear to be an inexplicable incon- sistency, that one can be at one and the same time a 1 Review of Schaff's History of the Apostolic Church, Princeton Re-view, 1854, pp. 148-192. CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 2OI child and servant of Protestantism and an admirer and friend of Catholicism. This is not, it is true, the Protes- tantism of the sixteenth century, but I hope it may yet become the Protestantism of the nineteenth. At the same time, I hope and pray that the Romanism which in the six- teenth century drove forth from its bosom thousands of its active and energetic children with the most terrible curses, as once the Jewish synagogues cast out the Apostles, will approach Protestantism in the spirit of intercessory love and will go before it with a shining illustration of charity, purity and sanctity in secular and national life, as in the personal lives of layman and priest. Then the hour for the reunion of the sundered parts will strike, and then will- we together overcome Antichrist and all the powers that to-day make for destruction in Catholic as well as Protes- tant lands, and more in Italy and France than in Protes- tant England and Prussia. Then shall we be prepared for the coming of the Lord in His glory. From the following letter to Dr. George L. Prentiss, Dec. 14, 1849, it i s apparent what Dr. Schaff's attitude was to the revival of a churchly spirit in the German Reformed Church and, at the same time, to the Episcopal Church. I have been led to suppose, by a conversation, that you had gone over to the Episcopal Church. But I am glad that you have not. For we must, by no means, give up the hope of reviving a sound and vigorous church feeling such as the age seems to demand in the non-Episcopal portions of Protestantism, not to speak of the many objec- tions which I have in my own mind to the Episcopal High Churchism, making the external organization the first and the internal life the second thing, whilst life and doctrine are to me the main thing from which all forms derive their importance. But I must not begin to discuss the great church question which has become so dear and so troublesome to my mind and heart, particularly since I have been in America, which I look upon as the theatre in which the question ultimately and practically must be solved. Among the important questions with which the Re- formed Church had to deal in this period was the prepara- 202 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1857 tion of a liturgy. For twenty years that work engaged its attention and at times threatened its unity. Dr. Schaff was a warm advocate of the movement and its chief promoter. A book of Forms prepared by Dr. Lewis Mayer in 1841 had been adopted by the church, but no longer satisfied its wants. The desire for a more adequate liturgy led, in 1849, to the appointment of a liturgical committee, with Dr. Nevin as chairman. A year later Dr. Nevin reported that it was doubtful whether the time had come for the execution of the task. 1 Dr. Schaff was then made chair- man. His energy in prosecuting the work was attested from all sides. Dr. Bomberger wrote, June 4, 1852: "I am glad you are pressing the preparation of the proposed liturgy so earnestly. It is certainly high time to have our movements in this direction brought to some available issue." Giving an account of the movement years later, Dr. Nevin bore the testimony that "Dr. Schaff went to work in earnest and set the rest of us to work also in preparing new forms. . . . He had faith in the movement. As for myself, I confess I had almost none." 2 The first report of progress in 1852 proposed that the ancient liturgies should be made, as far as possible, the basis of the work, and after them the Palatinate and older Reformed liturgies, and that the liturgical element should not be pushed so as to restrict extempore prayer, but so as to regulate it. Dr. Schan at once followed the adoption of these gen- eral principles by apportioning the work to individuals 1 Dr. Nevin was one of the first advocates of the movement. See his arti- cle, Mercersburg Review, 1849, pp. 608-612. 2 Vindication of the Revised Liturgy, Philadelphia, 1867, p. 17. In a letter to Dr. Schaff, dated Dec. 3, 1855, Dr. Nevin wrote, "I have no faith, no heart, no proper courage for any such work." CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 203 and among the sub-committees. 1 The committee sat in St. Paul's Church, Lancaster, and the Race Street Church, Philadelphia, and held one hundred and four meetings. Radical differences of opinion were disclosed during the progress of the work. These Dr. Schaff did not mean to ignore in the following note in his journal of the last meet- ing of the committee, Oct. 21, 1857, in Philadelphia: The committee closed its work at six o'clock with prayer by Dr. Nevin, in a very solemn manner. Members present, Drs. Nevin, Wolff, Bomberger, Zacharias and my- self. The manuscript is now all finished. . . . Thus by the infinite mercy of God has been brought to a close a work of six years' labor of more than ordinary difficulty and responsibility. Thus far, instead of dividing and dis- tracting, it has been substantially a work of peace, bring- ing different elements of the church represented on the committee together. May it prove a work of peace and union for the whole German Reformed Church, and to God shall be all the praise. Amen. Some idea of the labor involved in the enterprise may be had from a letter written to the Rev. Eli Keller, a member of the committee, for the preparation of a German liturgy. " Your committee will have a hard road to travel. I would not again go through the trouble I had as chairman for seven years for any sum of money. But the members of your committee are fresh and new and can stand it." The committee presented the result of its labors to the synod in 1857, and the liturgy was ordered printed in pro- visional form under the title " A Liturgy or Order of Chris- tian Worship." In 1861 it was referred back to the com- mittee with instructions to incorporate changes suggested by the classes and from other quarters. Dr. Schaff still continued, though with some reluctance, J The committee, after 1855, stood: Drs. Schaff, Nevin, B. C. Wolff, ]. H. A. Bomberger, Henry Harbaugh, Elias Heiner, Daniel Zacharias, Thomas C. Porter, E. V. Gerhart, Samuel Fisher, as the clerical members. 204 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1857 to act as chairman, and sought to reconcile the two parties represented by Dr. Nevin and Dr. Bomberger, which the project had developed. In the preparation of the revised " Order of Worship " which resulted, and which was presented to the synod in 1866, he took comparatively little ^part and in the subsequent labors resulting in the " Direc- tory of Worship," presented in 1881 and afterwards adopted as the liturgy of the German Reformed churches, he did not share. Dr. Schaff favored a free use of devotional forms. In his own family he was accustomed to use the liturgy on Sunday morning, and his public prayers followed the form of the ancient prayers and incorporated much of their lan- guage. His estimate of the value of a liturgy he expressed in these words : " Next to the Word of God, which stands in unapproachable majesty far above all human creeds and confessions, Fathers and Reformers, popes and councils, there are no religious books of greater practical importance and mfluence than catechisms, hymn-books and liturgies. . . . Luther did more good by his catechism and his few hymns than by all his twenty-four large quartos, save only his translation of the book of books. The author of the simple verse, * Now I lay me down to sleep/ was one of the greatest benefactors of children and through them of the race. " It is difficult to say which of the three nurseries of the church occupies the first rank. In Protestant Germany, hymns have a power and influence as in no other land. The Presbyterian and Puritan churches would no doubt at once give the preference to the catechism and confession and look upon liturgies with suspicion as tending to for- malism. In the Episcopal Church the Book of Common Prayer has probably done more to keep her together, to attach her membership and to attract a certain class of CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN" MERCERSBURG 205 foreign material than all her bishops, priests and deacons. The best state of things would perhaps require the equal excellency and harmonious cooperation of the doctrinal and liturgic standards. But we know of no denomination which may claim to have at once the best catechism, the best hymn-book and the best liturgy." l The circle of his friends continued to widen, and the demand for his services on public occasions increased out- side the limits of his own denomination. Of a meeting at Dr. Henry M. Field's, March, 1855, he wrote, '" Dine with Dr. Field and his wife, a highly educated French lady. Pro- fessor Henry B. Smith, who is full of the German spirit and certainly one of our best divines, Dr. Bellows, Dr. William Adams, Dr. Prentiss and Mr. Cyrus W. Field of the trans- atlantic telegraph were present." Dr. Bellows, writes Dr. Field, " said, ' Who is he ? Who is this Dr. Schaff whom we are to meet ? ' At a later period, when any movement was on foot and he learned that Dr. Schaff was connected with it, he would say : ' Then it is all right, it will go.' " On another occasion, stopping at Dr. Field's, he met the historian Bancroft for the first time, who, as he writes, remarked that "Shakespeare had not a single faultless character, and this confirms the doctrine of the corruption of human nature." The day before being Sunday, he had taken a cold Puritan dinner with his close friend Dr. Muhlenberg, then of the Church of the Holy Com- munion. Returning from one of these visits to New York, he had the following conversation with Dr. Hodge at Princeton : " 'And how is Dr. Nevin?' he said. I replied, * He is building a house, not at Rome, but at Lancaster.' ' But Rome is ubiquitous,' said Dr. Hodge. * Yes, but Calvinists do not believe in the ubiquity of the body,' was my answer." 1 Mercersburg Review, 1858, pp. 199 sqq. 206 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1856 Mercersburg, in 1856, was brought into prominence as the birthplace of James Buchanan, the Democratic nominee for the presidency. During the campaign Mr. Buchanan paid a visit to his native place and was received with noisy demonstrations of delight and the cry, " Hurrah for Uncle Jimmie!" He stopped with Dr. Schaff on Seminary Hill. Mrs. Schaff, in giving special instructions to the colored cook, had told her that the expected guest might become President of the United States. To which, after listening placidly, she replied, "Well, missus, I guess he ain't God Almighty, is he ? " "We talked freely," writes Dr. Schaff in his journal, on various subjects, and especially on the political as- pects of the country. He feels pretty sure of being elected ; but he thinks it would be much to be regretted if he did not receive the votes of some of the Northern states. A predominantly Southern triumph of the Democ- racy would not ensure the Union and might be the beginning of the end. Fremont's election, he thinks, would be a virtual dissolution of the Union, which would not hold together ninety days after it. The South would send no delegates to Congress. He looks much older than when I last saw him in London, and may not outlive his term. Soon after his election he visited Wheatland, Mr. Buchan- an's seat near Lancaster. " I saw," he writes, the Bible, the Way of Life, the Union Bible Dictionary, Ranch's Sermons, and several other religious books on his study table, together with the Constitution of the United States and Story's Commentaries. He spoke of our liturgy as the " platform." " I have no objections to Uni- tarians," he said, " but if Jesus Christ was a mere man and did not make an atonement, I would not give a fig for Chris- tianity." When I repeated what Rousseau and Napoleon said about the divinity of Christ, he expressed his full assent. During this period, three original works appeared from Dr. Schaffs pen, the first volume of his History of the CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 2O/ Christian Church?- America, being a sketch of the political, social and religious character of the United States, 2 and Germany, its Universities, Theology and Religion? The volume on America broke new ground in Germany by its accurate treatment of American affairs. Germany and its Universities was one of the author's most useful works and the first written by him in English. No work just like it in scope or fulness had appeared before in English. Its most valuable features were the pen-and-ink sketches of the leaders of German evangeli- cal thought from Olshausen and Neander to Lange and Hagenbach. With all these men, except Olshausen, the author was personally acquainted. Of the first volume of the History of the Christian Church, Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock wrote to the author in his incisive way (Feb. 14, 1859): Do you know, my dear friend, how large a debt you owe to Providence for having sent you over to our keen and practical atmosphere ? You have made a vastly better book than you could have done, had you remained in the Old World. You have lost nothing in learning while you excel all your Teutonic rivals in this field, in definiteness, wholesomeness and heartiness of statement. A real contribution to devotional literature and at the same time one of Dr. Schaff' s most timely services to the German-American churches was his German hymn-book, Das Detttsche Gesangbuch, adopted by the Eastern synod of the Reformed Church in 1859. The collections of German hymns, at that time in use in the American churches, were antiquated and lacking in hymnological 1 History of the Christian Church from A.D. 1-311, New York, 1858; Vols. II, III, carrying the history down to 600, New York, 1867. German edition, Leipzig. 2 Anttrika, Berlin, 1854; 2d edition, 1858; 3d edition, 1865. English translation, New York, 1855, pp. 291. 3 Philadelphia, 1857, pp. 418. 208 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1857 taste and critical knowledge. Strange as it may seem, the book prepared by the order of the Lutheran synod of 1853, called the Evangelische Liedersammlung, did not in- clude in all its four hundred and twenty numbers a single one of Luther's hymns, not even Einfeste Burg ist iinser Gott. There was no uniformity in the use of hymn-books in the Reformed Church. Two German collections, printed under its auspices, appeared in 1797 and I842, 1 and were superseded by the new book. The synod in 1857 confided the preparation of such a collection to a committee, but the task fell entirely upon the chairman, Dr. Schaff, as did the expense of publi- cation. 2 Dr. Schaff took advantage of the revival of hymnological taste in Germany, starting with Arndt's work in 1819 and descending to the works of Albert Knapp, Koch and others. Some of the hymns were con- tributed by Lange and Meta Heusser. The feeling in rationalistic German-American circles toward such a col- lection is apparent from the remark of a German editor in Cincinnati, to whom it was offered for review. On look- ing it over, he remarked, " These are the same old orthodox embers warmed over again (Das ist wieder der alte ortho- doxe Kohl aufgewarmt^" As an indication of the growing interest in the treasures of German hymnology it may be said that the collection was translated into English metre from beginning to end by a cultivated physician of Boston, Dr. Edward Reynolds. Carrying his studies into the domain of English religious poetry, Dr. Schaff issued a collection of Christian lyrics for private devotion from all ages in his Christ in Song? 1 Neues und verbessertes Gesangbuch and Sammlung evangelischer Lieder. 2 The book became the property of the Eastern synod in 1876. 8 New York, 1869; English edition, London, 1870. Revised edition, with CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 209 His last contribution in this department was the arti- cle "German Hymnology," in Julian's Dictionary of Hym- Mercersburg, if not within the belt of the battle-fields of the Civil War, was just on the outskirts of it. Harper's Ferry and the Potomac were thirty miles away. Antietam and Gettysburg were close enough for the rumbling of the cannons to be heard by placing the ear to the ground. The region was constantly exposed to raids from the Con- federate forces and at different periods of the war were full of uncertainty by day and alarm by night. Bands of con- traband negroes, escaping from their masters in Virginia or fleeing from the scenes of carnage, were continually passing through on their way to places of safety. Dr. Schaff was loyal to the Union. If a friend like Gustav Schwab wrote, " I remember that my father once repeated Goethe's remark that Christianity was an institution upon which sinking nations climbed up again to independence and strength," he assented, adducing historic proofs that nations, like individuals, were often purified by the fire of conflict and suffering. He made many public addresses l in support of the national government, and on his visit abroad in 1865, made the war and slavery the frequent subjects of lectures in the principal cities of Germany. 2 In September, 1861, he wrote to Mrs. Heusser: You are quite right in pronouncing the slavery question the core and pivot of the American Civil War. Perhaps the extermination of slavery is one of the secret purposes additional Hymns, 2 vols. New York, 1896. Edited by a son. In con- nection with Mr. Arthur Oilman, Dr. Schaff issued the Library of Religious Poetry, New York, 1880. 1 Slavery and the Bible. A Tract for the Times, Chambersburg, 1861. See Christ and Christianity, pp. 184-212. 2 The lectures were published under the title Der biirgerliche Krieg und das christliche Leben in Nord-Amerika, Berlin, 1865, 3d edition, 1866. 2IO THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1862 which Providence has in view, but this is not one of the declared purposes of the government. On the contrary, the glove thrown down by the South, it has taken up only in the interest of the maintenance of the Union. It is a battle of national integrity against disunion, of loyalty against rebellion, of the authority of the law against trea- son. The conflict involves the entire destiny of the American form of government, and the ultimate issue God alone knows. For the present He is using the South to chastise the North, and the North to chastise the South. He has blessed us with His goodness as well as by His wrath. He sits on the throne and will make all things right. If you were here, you would hear about nothing from morning till night except this colossal rebellion and the uprising of the North, which is equally colossal. In spite of the commotion, I have, during the summer holi- days, been working upon a catechism for children, and on occasion been preaching to the soldiers in Hagerstown and Williamsport. A year later, when the stress of war was greater, he wrote again : We are yet far removed from peace. The land is full of war and the sound of war, and is now turned into a vast camping ground, as the President has just called out six hundred thousand volunteers. The war takes on more colossal proportions. Neither side has the slightest idea of yielding. The battle must be fought out, terrible as the necessity is. It is being intensified in order that the nation may discover its providential design, probably the sup- pression of slavery, though man's wisdom cannot foresee what is to become of four million emancipated slaves. But all the wisdom of man in the present dark hours is shown to be foolishness and is not even able to see through the mystery of the morrow. God alone is great. God alone is wise. In His hands lies the future of this land ; He is on the throne and will turn the wrath of this gigantic rebellion to the honor of His name and the good of His people. This is the one solid comfort we have ; but it is comfort enough to lead us through the darkest depths. To show how religion enters into this conflict, I will give you a single example. This town of Mercersburg has re- cently sent to the front, at the call of the nation, a company CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 21 T of one hundred and fifteen volunteers, among them the choicest of its young men. They went forth, after addresses and prayers by its six clergymen. One exhorted them against self-indulgence ; another against profanity ; a third directed them to the moral battle against the flesh, the world and the devil, which they were under no circum- stances to forget ; a fourth pointed to the banner of the cross with the inscription, "In this banner shall ye conquer," and to the immortal crown. To every soldier a New Testament was given. The women were busy night and day preparing all sorts of comforts for the march. And so they departed amidst the tears and prayers of mothers and sisters. I went with the procession on horse- back to the railroad ten miles away, returning in the even- ing. It was an inspiring spectacle. I felt a desire to go along as chaplain and thought of Zwingli's conduct. Soon after the date of this letter, the Confederate cav- alry under Stuart made one of their bold flying raids into Southern Pennsylvania. On a fine October day (1862), when the near presence of the enemy was altogether unsuspected, several companies of troopers burst upon the town like a hailstorm in summer, completely overawing the inhabitants. Horses and all articles which they could lay their hands on, and which could be easily removed, were quickly seized. Farmers, coming into town and not dreaming of the rebels, were ordered to turn their horses into the train of the invaders. The troops seemed to know exactly where to go for booty, a fact which gave rise to the suspicion that persons in the vicinity were acting the part of traitors. This was a constant dread of the war in those parts. By evening they had vanished, leaving the people of the place half-paralyzed with wonderment. Dr. Schaff speaks of the raid in a letter to the Rev. Eli Keller, Oct. 25, 1862: The rebels behaved very decently. They were gentle- men robbers. The people took it in good humor, while keenly feeling the insult and humiliation. It was a marvel 212 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1863 that two or three thousand cavalrymen could cross the river in the face of an army of two hundred thousand, but it was a still greater wonder that they could recross with all their booty without molestation. They took our town council with them and promised us further occa- sional visits. This makes Mercersburg a very bad place for study. The winter of 1862-1863 ne spent in Andover, supply- ing the chair of church history, made vacant by the removal of Professor W. G. T. Shedd to New York. Returning to Mercersburg, he found himself more inter- rupted in his work than ever by the confusion and excite- ment of war. "This whole southern region of Pennsylvania," he wrote in his journal, June, 1863, is suffering from an actual invasion, by a large portion of Lee's army. The darkest hour of the republic and of the cause of the Union seems to be approaching. We are now fairly, though reluctantly, in the Southern Confed- eracy, cut off from all newspapers and letters and so isolated that there is no way of safe escape, even if horses and carriages could be had for the purpose. These interruptions made it impossible for the professors to hold their classes together, of which he wrote in his journal, June 16. The day before a large Confederate army had passed within ten miles, through Greencastle: We had a meeting with the students this morning. The seminary is suspended, partly because it is impossible to study under the growing excitement of a community stricken with the panic of invasion, partly because we have no right to retain the students when the state calls them to its defence. We advise the students to act as patriots and to enlist in the service of their native state to expel the invaders, for what are seminaries and colleges and churches if we have no country and home ! We con- cluded the services with prayer, the singing of the Gloria and the Litany. CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 213 Here are some extracts from a special journal for the days before the battle of Gettysburg : 1 " The rumors of war are worse than war itself. I now understand as I did not before, the difference between these two expressions as used by the Lord (Matt. xxiv. 6). The sight of the rebels was an actual relief. . . . " Ferguson, the rebel colonel, told me from the saddle to-day, speaking very courteously but firmly : ' I care noth- ing about the right of secession; but I believe in the right of revolution. You invaded our rights, and we would not' be worthy of the name of men if we had not the courage to defend them. ^You will have to fight till you acknow- ledge the Confederacy or until nobody is left to fight. We will never yield.' . . . "As we were sitting down to dinner, the children ran in crying, ' The rebels are coming ! The rebels are coming ! r The advance pickets had already occupied the lane and dismounted before the gate of the seminary. In a few minutes the drum and fife announced the arrival of the whole brigade of seven regiments of infantry, most of them incomplete, one only two hundred strong, with a large force of cavalry and six pieces of artillery, nearly all with the mark 'U. S.' and wagons captured from Milroy and in other engagements. This brigade belongs to the late Stonewall Jackson's command, and has been in fifteen battles, as they say. They are evidently among the best troops of the South and flushed with victory. They made a most motley appearance, roughly dressed yet better than during their Maryland campaign last fall; all provided with shoes and, to a great extent, with fresh and splendid horses and with United States equipments. Uncle Sam has to supply both armies. They seem to be accustomed 1 This journal was published after Dr. Schaff's death under the title of "The Gettysburg Week," Scribner's Magazine, July, 1894. 214 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1863 to every hardship and are in excellent fighting condition. The whole force was estimated at from three thousand to five thousand men. General Stewart and staff called a few of the leading citizens together and had a proclama- tion of Lee read, to the effect that the advancing army should take supplies and pay in Confederate money, or give a receipt, but not violate private property. They demanded that all the stores be opened, some being almost stripped of their remaining goods, for which payment was made in Confederate money. . . . "The town was occupied to-day by an independent guerilla band of cavalry, who steal horses, cattle, sheep, store goods, negroes, and whatever else they can make use of, without ceremony and in evident violation of Lee's proclamation read yesterday. They were on a regular slave-hunt, which presented the worst spectacle I have yet seen in this war. They proclaimed, first, that they would burn down every house which harbored a fugitive slave and did not deliver him up within twenty minutes. And then commenced the search upon all the houses on which suspicion rested. It was a rainy afternoon, and they suc- ceeded in capturing several contrabands, among them a woman with two little children. A most pitiful sight it was, sufficient to settle the slavery question for every humane mind. . . . "My family is kept in constant danger, on account of poor old Eliza, our cook, and her little boy, who hide in the grain-fields during the day, and return under cover of the night to get something to eat. Her daughter, Jane, with her two children, was captured and taken back to Virginia. Her pretended master, Dr. Hammel, from Martinsburg, was after her, but the guerillas would not let him have her, claiming the booty for themselves. These guerillas are far worse than the regular army, who CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 215 behaved in an orderly and decent way, considering their mission. One of the guerillas said to me, * We are inde- pendent, and come and go where and when we please.' . . . " General Imboden, who is a large, commanding and handsome officer, said within my hearing, ' You have only a little taste of what you have done to our people in the South. Your army destroyed all the fences, burnt towns, turned poor women out of house and home, broke pianos, furniture, old family pictures, and committed every act of vandalism. I thank God that the hour has come when this war will be fought out on Pennsylvania soil.' This is the general story. Every one has his tale of outrage, committed by our soldiers upon their homes and friends in Virginia and elsewhere. Some of our soldiers admit it, and our own newspaper reports unfortunately confirm it. If this charge is true, I confess we deserve punish- ment in the North." After the battle of Gettysburg, the seminary buildings at Mercersburg were turned into a hospital for a train of Confederate wounded, captured by Colonel Pierce. This is a "novel chapter in the history of the seminary," wrote Dr. Schaff, " and one full of sad interest. Charity and curi- osity were busy in providing for the prisoners an abun- dance of food and attention, which seemed to fill them with delight and gratitude. One colonel from North Carolina remarked : * Your kindness makes it almost a luxury to be a prisoner here.' This speaks well for this place, which has suffered such heavy losses during the last few weeks from rebel guerillas and now turns around without a mur- mur to nurse their sick and wounded." In the autumn of 1863, Dr. Schaff secured leave of absence from his professorship for two years. Declining an overture looking to his becoming professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia, he decided to 2l6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1863 remove to New York, which henceforth became his perma- nent home. One of his most congenial and one of his last services to the Reformed Church before his removal from Mer- cersburg related to the three hundredth anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism celebrated at Philadelphia, Jan. 17- 23, 1863. He had been one of the first to propose its celebration, in May, 1859. Largely through his mediation the cooperation was secured of Reformed theologians abroad, Herzog, Hundeshagen, Ebrard and Ullmann. Closing an English address on the mission of the Re- formed Church in America which was meant to be a plea for harmony, he said : " The convention, now drawing to an end, forms an epoch in the history of a new period. We have reaped a rich harvest of past labors and cares. Let it also be seedtime for still richer harvests for our chil- dren and children's children. . . . Let us bury beneath this altar all our past animosities and controversies and let us go forth as one body, one heart and one soul with re- newed zeal and vigor, to do the work assigned us as indi- viduals and as a church in God's holy service." 1 He also commemorated the event by issuing a German edition of the Heidelberg Catechism with an elaborate introduction. 2 The Mercersburg period of Dr. Schaffs career coincided with the rise and development of the Mercersburg theol- ogy, which in later years he declared was chiefly due to the writings and personal influence of Dr. Nevin. His im- posing personality and his positive form of statement fitted Dr. Nevin to be the conspicuous figure and the leader of 1 The German volume of the proceedings was edited by Dr. Schaff. Ge- denkbuch der drei-hundert jahrigen Jubelfcier des Htidelbcrger Catcchismus, pp. 449, Chambersburg, 1863. 2 First edition, 1863, based upon the original 3d edition; 2d edition, 1866, based on 1st edition of 1563. CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG the movement. Dr. Schaff s studies, however, furnished the safe historical basis for its progress, and his consistent course held it to the bounds within which it afterwards proceeded to its final expression of a churchly Protestantism. He did not at any time become involved in the mazes of the sacramental speculation, or lose his balance over churchly ideals. The primal questions which the Mercersburg theology brought to the front were the prerogative and unity of the church. Dr. Nevin's sermon on Church Unity, preached at Harrisburg in August, 1844, and the Principle of Prot- estantism fully launched that issue upon the German Reformed Church. Its discussion and the discussion of emergent questions unsettled the minds of some in the Reformed Communion and sent them into the Catholic Church ; but it was out of the ferment and turmoil of thought which it stirred up that the leading tenets of the Mercersburg theology were developed. These were, that the person of Christ is the central doctrine of theology as it is the central fact of revelation ; that the law of historic development must be predicated of sacred history, the church being an organism, and not merely an aggregation of believers ; and that the Lord's Supper is more than a mere commemorative celebration. The doctrine of the real presence taught by Calvin, and as set forth by Dr. Nevin, Dr. Schaff continued to defend in his later years. 1 To the promulgation of these doctrinal tenets was added that the church became established in the recommendation of a liturgical form in worship, the recognition of the church year and the practice of catechetical instruction. In these principles Dr. Schaff concurred, his own writings, however, being the interpreter of his views. 1 Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I. pp. 456 sq. ; Church History, Vol. VII. pp. 589 sqq. 2l8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1863 Of the Mercersburg theology, which he looked upon as an episode in American theological progress, he said in his journal the day of Dr. Harbaugh's Inaugural at Lan- caster, May 22, 1864: "The Mercersburg theology has a principle of vitality. It cannot be traced to any scheme or previous calculation, but came by historic necessity and divine appointment. It has shaken the German Reformed Church and awakened it to a sense of its theoretical and practical mission and given it a theological character and position among the American churches." If Dr. Schaff be looked upon simply as a representative of German theology, it is clear that the Reformed Church made no mistake in his call in 1844. At that time Ger- man theology was subject to suspicion, and American students were everywhere warned against attending Ger- man universities. He lived to witness a great change in these respects, and to this change of sentiment he made his own contribution. As for his immediate influence in the class room, it was strongly on the side of a reverential regard for church institutions, a tolerant respect for all Christian communions and schools of thought and the devotional spirit in private life. As the years wore on, he turned with mellow affec- tion to his early American students. One of his last de- sires was to visit Mercersburg once more ; and it was one of the consolations of the closing period of his life, when controversy was at its height in the Presbyterian Church, that, if a change should be made necessary in his ecclesias- tical relations, he would again find a welcome among his old students and a home in the German Reformed Church. On his last visit to Lancaster, in company with Mrs. Schaff, October, 1892, he received from the Eastern synod, meeting in St. Paul's Reformed Church, an address read by Professor Thomas G. Apple, congratulating him on the CHAP, ix LATTER YEARS IN MERCERSBURG 219 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of his work as a teacher of theology. Professor Gerhart had referred to the fact that he was the only one present of those who half a century before had united on the floor of the synod in Winchester, in electing Dr. Schaff to a professorship. "Deeply moved," Dr. Theodore Appel writes, "Dr. Schaff went to the pulpit and recalled the incidents of his call to Mercersburg and his life there. His voice at first was husky, but gained in clearness as he went on. At the start tears came into his eyes, but he soon gained control of himself and made an eloquent address." Speaking of the growth of the seminary and the German Reformed Church, he said : When I arrived in Mercersburg I found but few theo- logical students ; now you have sixty-four. Then you had but two professors, who had to divide their time between the seminary and the college ; now you have five profess- ors wholly devoted to the seminary. You have just added a new professorship and resolved to erect a new building for recitation rooms and a library on a commanding site in this city. Then there was but one seminary ; now you have four. Then there was but one Reformed church in Lancaster, one in Reading and two in Philadelphia ; now their number there is sixfold and tenfold. Your synod, which is the mother synod, has given birth to half a dozen daughters in the South and the West. Your membership has increased in proportion. Your theology and order of worship and the education of your ministry are far in ad- vance, beyond the crude and unsettled state of things of fifty years ago. The closing words of this valedictory address were : l Providence may still have a few years of usefulness in store for me. The autumnal storms are followed by the Indian summer with its bright sunshine and balmy air, before nature goes to sleep till the resurrection of the spring. But whether one year or ten years may yet be granted 1 The address was published in full in the Lancaster dailies and in the Reformed Messenger. 220 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 to me, I shall never forget the sweet memories of this day, and it is with profound gratitude that I bid you, my old and dear pupils and friends, an affectionate farewell till we meet again, in the general assembly of the first-born in heaven. There (in the words of my sainted friend, Dr. William A. Muhlenberg, written about sixty years ago in this very city, where he was then rector of the Episcopal church) : " The saints of all ages in harmony meet, Their Saviour and brethren transported to greet ; While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll, And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul ! " CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 221 CHAPTER X FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 1864-1870 Denominational Interests New York Sabbath Committee Secretary The American and Continental Sabbath German Mass Meetings Bishop Coxe Presentation of the American Theory in Germany The American Lange Dr. Schaff as an Exegete Qualifications of an Exegete Presi- dent Lincoln's Death Visit abroad in 1865 London Father Ignatius The Matterhorn Stuttgart Sunday Schools Berlin Lectures on the Civil War Mercersburg again Death of Dr. Harbaugh Elected Professor at Hartford " The Person of Christ " Visit abroad in 1869 Spurgeon Dean Alford Tregelles The Evangelical Alliance The Engadin Pere Hyacinthe THE third period of Dr. Schaff's life, which was spent in New York, included thirty years. It was marked by the variety and wide extent of his literary labors and his efforts in behalf of the church at large. On his election to a professorship in the Union Theological Seminary, he transferred his relations from the Reformed to the Pres- byterian Church. He was not, however, again as closely identified with the doctrinal fortunes and outward progress of a single denomination as he had been before. This was not because he set a low estimate on the value of service within a particular communion. It was far from his habit to disparage by word or practice denominational enthusi- asm and activity. The problems of oecumenical Christi- anity now engaged his attention. His literary labors and official services in various fields called for the exercise of catholic sympathies and developed them. The result was that, during the latter years of his life, probably no single 222 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1864 theologian on the continent was regarded with more per- sonal confidence by so many branches of the church as he nor the ecclesiastical judgments of any single one so widely appealed to from different quarters. Professor Jacobs of the Lutheran Church was probably not far out of the way when he said that no " theologian was so familiar with the life and history of the churches that have found a home in America, as was he. His name was preeminently that which would have been given by an intelligent repre- sentative of any of the large communions as the name of the one scholar outside of his church who best knew it." 1 Dr. Schaff's first official connection in New York was as secretary of the New York Sabbath Committee, a position he held for six years. The committee was called into being by the alarming inroads made upon the observance of the Sabbath in consequence, in large part, of the immi- gration from abroad and especially from Germany. While the observance of the day in New York had not been as rigid as in New England, it had followed Puritan pre- cedent. Towards the middle of the century, however, street processions accompanied by bands of music, the opening of beer gardens and other places of public amuse- ment, pleasure excursions, the running of trains and street cars and the publication of Sunday editions of the news- papers and the noisy hawking of them through the streets, broke in like a flood and threatened to completely sub- merge the peace and quiet which had marked the Ameri- can Sabbath theretofore. The progress of this secularizing movement was accelerated during the Civil War, when Sunday was chosen for special military parades and for the departure of troops and their reception on their return. A partial check was put upon this desecration by the famous order of President Lincoln in November, 1862, 1 Proceedings of American Society of Church History, Vol. VI. p. 13. CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 22$ "enjoining the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service." In that period of earliest clash, fifty years ago, between the continental and the American theories of keeping the Lord's day, the entire German press of our larger cities combined to attack with great vehemence the prevailing American view, and not infrequently assailed with ribald abuse its declared defenders. It was denounced as a Puri- tanical invention, and all legislation looking to its quiet and orderly observance as a narrow and bigoted attempt to coerce individual liberty. Unjust as such measures would be anywhere, they were declared intolerable in the land whose boast it was that it offered the fullest liberty of opinion and practice in matters of conscience and religion. Masses of the German population of New York, meeting in beer gardens in the Bowery and calling them- selves " Friends of Liberty," vociferously gave expression to these opinions. Organized in 1857, the New York Committee took the lead among the organizations of its kind in the country. Its aim was not to defend the Sabbath as a religious festival, but as an institution recognized by civil legis- lation. All the states of the Union, with perhaps the single exception of Louisiana, recognized the propriety of Sabbath rest by statutes. While the Committee has not been able to preserve the general respect for the day which early American traditions called for, it has done honorable service in checking its complete secularization. As early as 1859 Dr. Schaff began to cooperate with the Committee, 1 and delivered an address under its auspices 1 Among its members in 1864 were such well-known citizens as Norman White, Nathan Bishop, John C. Havemeyer, William A. Booth, Frederick G. Foster, Otis D. Swan, William E. Dodge, Gustav Schwab, Robert Carter, Jonathan Sturges, John Elliott, James W. Beekman, O. E. Wood, F. S. Win- ston, J. M. Morrison and John E. Parsons. 224 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1864 (Oct. 16) in the hall of Cooper Institute. The meeting was the first popular rally of Germans held in the interest of Sabbath observance in New York. The attendance, nearly two thousand, was unexpectedly large ; Gustav Schwab presided. The German pastors of the city were almost without exception present, and influential Anglo- American clergymen participated in the exercises. The novelty of the occurrence attracted wide attention. The size and enthusiasm of the audience gave encouragement to the hope that a movement might be developed from within the German population to counteract the pressure in favor of the Continental Sabbath. The impression made by Dr. Schaffs address was so favorable that he was at once turned to as the proper man to organize and develope public sentiment among the Germans. A year later a petition, prompted by the Com- mittee and signed by twenty-four German ministers of New York and Brooklyn, urged him to remove to New York and to take charge of a German daily paper which should represent the feelings of the American church on the Sabbath and kindred questions. Influential laymen stood ready to furnish the capital for the enterprise. While he felt the importance of such a journal as an offset to the German press of the city, which, almost without an exception, was controlled by influences hostile to evangeli- cal religion, he did not see his way clear to abandon the class room and undertake the care of a secular newspaper and become responsible for its success. Continuing to press upon him the claims of its work, the Committee secured his participation at the notable national Sabbath Convention which met in Saratoga, Aug. 11-13, 1863. Among the speakers were President Mark Hopkins, Professor Henry B. Smith of Union Semi- nary, and Dr. Willard Parker, an eminent physician of CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 22$ New York City. Dr. SchafF s address on this occasion, subsequently printed in English and German under the title of the Anglo-American Sabbath, 1 has since occupied a prominent place in the literature of the Sabbath question. His German extraction and cordial endorsement of Ameri- can institutions combined with other qualities to fit him, in an exceptional manner at that particular juncture, for the work of directing the affairs of the Committee, and in 1864 he accepted the post of secretary. From the start, his scholarship gave him the respect and confidence of the Ger- man pastors and churches, who looked up to him as a leader. On the other hand, his mastery of the subject of Sabbath observance, his vigor and practical sagacity united the English-speaking pastors and churches of New York and vicinity in cordial and undivided support of the Committee. By documents, editorials of his own in the secular and reli- gious press, by constant appeals from the pulpit and the platform, in German and in English, he kept the matter be- fore the general public. The main thing was, if possible, to counteract the violent and bitter opposition of the German secular press, which refused to treat with any tolerance the American idea of Sabbath observance and the right of the state to regulate it. The work of the Committee required courage and vigilant persistence against the vast odds of deep-seated national custom and prejudice. New York at that time was, with its one hundred and fifty thousand Ger- mans, the fourth German city in point of population in the world, and the German population of Brooklyn added fifty thousand to this number. A novel feature introduced by Dr. Schaff was the mass meetings of Germans held in the great hall of Cooper Institute and in other centres. They were conducted in 1 Document XXVI. of the Sabbath Committee's publications; also in Christ and Christianity, pp. 241-275. Q 226 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1867 German. German chorals were sung with enthusiasm. Prominent laymen and clergymen from the English- speaking churches sat on the platform and gave their en- dorsement to the movement. The size of the audiences and the high character and commercial prominence of Germans taking part gave additional weight to the appeals for restrictive legislation. Altogether they were timely and effective demonstrations at junctures when the repeal of the excise laws of the state of New York or the pas- sage of new laws were under discussion in the legislature. These animated and stirring popular gatherings took the German press by surprise. Gustav Schwab wrote, "The Sabbath movement has penetrated among classes of Ger- mans who have heretofore been wholly indifferent to it." Of one of these meetings Dr. Schaff wrote in his journal (Jan. 27, 1867): "The German papers are dumbfounded. They did not dream such a meeting possible. The Demo- krat notices it in an editorial entitled ' Muckerthum (Straining out gnats).' " One of his own forcible remarks was recalled to him on the streets of Jerusalem by Bishop Hendrix, who had heard it in Cooper Institute : " The American Sabbath is in danger of being crucified between two thieves, Irish whiskey and German beer." One of these meetings was held in Plymouth Church, April 28, 1867, whose pastor, Mr. Beecher, was then at the height of his fame as an orator and preacher. By antecedent habit of mind and social relations, he had not been brought into sympathetic relations with the German population, and the effect of his endorsement, before an audience of German-Americans, of Sabbath observance and temperance was felt throughout the country and even in Germany, and had a happy effect in counteracting the prejudice against him excited by the German press. " Even the Staatszeitung is tolerably moderate in its re- CHAP.X FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 227 ports, although it evidently feels the cut like the family horse you spoke of," wrote Dr. Schaff to him. During Dr. Schaffs service in this cause, the Sunday liquor laws were, under one name or another, retained and legislative measures for the restriction of public amuse- ments and street demonstrations enacted. The most that could be hoped for was to check, as was successfully done, the abolition of all restraint upon open Sabbath desecration. While the traditional rigor of the Puritan Sabbath did not commend itself to Dr. Schaff for universal imitation, he preferred it to the loose practice prevailing in conti- nental Europe. The practical advantages to the morals, health and prosperity of nations accruing from the Anglo- American custom he held to be attested by the fact that the two nations that keep the Sabbath day most strictly Great Britain and the United States are the wealthiest, freest and the most actively religious on earth. Sabbath rest is the condition of successful labor during the six days of the week, and successful labor is the parent of wealth. The proper keeping of the Sabbath is also for the individual one of the best schools of moral discipline and self-government, the only ground on which freedom can permanently rest. It promotes every public and pri- vate virtue. In reply to Dr. Coxe, late Bishop of Western New York, who objected to the use of the word "Sabbath," in the official title of the New York Sabbath Committee, he wrote : You prefer the name, the Lord's day, but you will agree with me that "Sabbath" is preferable to the Con- tinental name " Sunday " with its Pagan associations. Of course, we mean the Christian Sabbath or day of rest, and have never defended the Puritan theory, except as far as we maintain that the fourth commandment, as to 228 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1867 its substance, is still binding, or, in the language of the judicious Hooker, "We are to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty which God's immutable law doth exact forever." This I take also to be the position of the Church of England and her daughters. And I am sure that you would be one of the last to advocate the omission or alteration of the term " Sabbath " in the Book of Common Prayer. It is one of the peculiar charismata of the English Reformation towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, to have restored the Christian Sabbath, which has been the bulwark of popular Christianity in England, Scotland and America, ever since. God forbid that we should ever exchange our holy day of worship and charity for the holiday of amusement and frivolity. The former is an incalculable blessing, the latter a curse, to any people. The influence of the New York Sabbath Committee was not confined to the city of its origin. Under Dr. SchafFs lead, committees were formed in Baltimore, Chi- cago, Boston, San Francisco and other centres of popula- tion. He sought to extend the influence of the movement by organizing mass meetings of Germans in many of the large cities of the East and West as far as St. Paul and St. Louis. The Sabbath cause was also brought before constituencies on the continent of Europe by his advo- cacy. To a Bremen paper (in 1866) he wrote: "It would be an inestimable blessing for the family, the church and the state, if a better observance of the Sabbath could be introduced into old Germany and Switzerland. The dis- regard for the Sabbath is one of the most fruitful causes of infidelity and immorality in Europe." On his visit in Europe in 1865 as the accredited representative of this interest, he set it forth before ecclesiastical conventions, and before groups of pastors and laymen which assembled at his appeal. This was one of the very first personal appeals from America to the churches of the Continent for a stricter church life, and was heard from Elberfeld CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 229 to Basel and from Bremen to Chur. Extracts from his cor- respondence manifest his characteristic activity. From Stuttgart he wrote to Mr. Norman White of New York: Since I wrote to you last, I have visited nearly every Protestant canton of Switzerland, keeping in view always the cause of the Sabbath and Sabbath schools as promi- nent characteristics of American Christianity which deserve the serious attention of Christians in Europe. I have preached nearly every Sunday or delivered my lecture on the religious condition and life of the United States and attended Bible and missionary festivals and pastoral con- ferences as one of the speakers. In this way I have labored at Chur, Schiers, Zurich, Interlaken, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Basel, Frauenfeld and Stuttgart. At 'Frauenfeld I ad- dressed the annual General Pastors' Conference of Switzer- land, where two hundred and fourteen ministers and several professors of theology, including Dr. Tholuck, were present. Here at Stuttgart I have made three addresses in the Cathedral Church, which holds three thousand persons, and which was crowded each time to its utmost capacity. My descriptions of the bright side of American Christianity seem to have created a deep interest. Prelat Kapff, the most influential preacher in the city, has promised to make a personal appeal to the king and the heads of the depart- ments, setting forth the evils of Sabbath profanation. To the Rev. James Gilfillan of Stirling, Scotland, he wrote a little later : During my stay on the Continent I have fallen in with the anniversaries of Bible and missionary societies and the Gustav Adolphus, Inner-Mission and other benevolent societies, and thus had large and attentive audiences. Having personal friends in all the university towns, I have had no difficulty in getting a hearing from the pulpit or the lecture room wherever I have gone. The success of my mission so far has surpassed my expectations. I have found the most earnest and devout men everywhere com- plaining of the growing evil of Sabbath abuse and ready to cooperate in a reform movement. The Sabbath question has been more generally and earnestly discussed in German papers during the last few months than I have ever known it to be before. 230 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1864 " Providence sometimes provides work for us which we never would have chosen ourselves, and the longer I have been connected with the Sabbath Committee, the more I have felt convinced that the hand of God was in the ar- rangements which led to this connection." In these words, Dr. Schaff announced the close of his official relations with the Committee. The direction of its movements and the advocacy of a better observance of the Sabbath were not one of the least services of his career, and witnessed to the versatility of his gifts and the enthusiasm with which he prosecuted whatever he undertook. The printed reports and other documents and addresses from his hand attest his grasp of the situation, and his skill in adapting meas- ures and statements to special exigencies. It was during this period that the American edition of Lange's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments began to appear. The first volume, the Commentary on Matthew, was issued in 1864. Lange's Commentary still remains the most extensive work in the department of exegesis yet produced in America. The combination of a large number of scholars from different denominations in its production of itself entitles its appearance to be regarded as a noteworthy literary event. The German original ap- peared under the title Theologisch-homiletisches Bibelwerk, and engaged the labors of nineteen scholars besides the editor in chief for twenty years, from 1857 to 1877. The general editor, John Peter Lange, who died in 1884, at the age of eighty-two, was one of the most prolific and brilliant theological writers of his generation. Dr. Schaff pronounced him to be " undoubtedly one of the ablest and purest divines that Germany ever produced, a man of rare genius and varied culture, sanctified by deep piety and devoted to the service of Christ. He abounded in original ideas, and, if not always convincing, he is always fresh, CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 23 1 interesting and stimulating ; at home in the ideal heights and mystic depths of nature and revelation and yet having a clear and keen eye for the actual and real world around him." i As early as 1858, Dr. Schaff was corresponding with Dr. Lange with a view to reproducing the Commentary, and two years later he had made arrangements with Mr. Charles Scribner to issue an English edition. The realization of the project was interrupted by the Civil War, but, once resumed, it was pushed vigorously ; and yet with all the despatch- that could be brought to bear, sixteen years elapsed before the whole series was issued. It demanded twenty-five large volumes, containing fifteen thousand closely printed pages of two columns. While the principle on which the American issue was prepared was not that of a reconstruction, it was the editor's purpose to adapt the German work as thoroughly as possible to the needs of its new constituency by a free translation, doing "justice to the thoughts of the author and the language of the reader," as well as by the in- corporation of new material. Naturally the question of dissent from the German original often arose. On this point Dr. Schaff wrote to one of the American contribu- tors : I would not restrain your critical views and tastes in any direction, provided the well-understood theological and religious standpoint of the Bible-work be not sensibly in- terfered with. The conjectures of Ewald may be good enough in their place and for professional scholars, but while it is right and proper to translate a work and im- prove it, it is manifestly absurd to translate a work and refute it. He did not choose to have the Commentary a parade- ground for feats of biblical equestrianism, and declined to 1 Lange's Commentary on Matthew, Preface, p. xi, American edition. 232 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1864 allow the obtrusion of peculiarities of interpretation which ignored sober restrictions and the respect due to the variant exegesis of difficult passages current in the church. Touching the enrichment of the German original, his views appear in the following communication to Dr. E. A. Washburn, one of his American colaborers : All that is original and valuable in Alford, and espe- cially in Ellicott and other English standard commentators, you should incorporate in the proper place, together with such original matter as will make the work of value to the American student and is not sectarian in character or in conflict with the evangelical catholic spirit and aim of the work. The chief object of the translator, to which all others must be subordinate, should be to furnish the best commentary which the combined scholarship and piety of Europe and America can produce in the present age. In the same vein, he wrote to Dr. Elijah R. Craven, who prepared the commentary on the Apocalypse: It should be your aim to produce not only an idiomatic translation or transfusion of Lange's work, but the best commentary on the Revelation which you, yourself, can make with the aid of the ablest English and American as well as German works. In all your additions keep in mind the encyclopedic and evangelical catholic features of Lange's Bibelwerk. Avoid all that is of a sectarian charac- ter. The millenarian theory should be fairly and fully stated, but no disproportion be allowed to this or any par- ticular scheme of interpretation which may interfere with the spirit or unity of the work. Lange's Commentary was the first attempt on an ex- tensive scale on this side of the Atlantic to enlist on an exegetical enterprise, in joint and friendly authorship, the pens of a guild of theological writers belonging to different denominations. What is now common was then novel. In spite of the differences of opinion represented, the American editor's friendly relations with all the contribu- tors survived the completion of the work. The portraits CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 233 of the forty-nine American and the twenty German co- laborers were subsequently gathered by him in an album, where they repose side by side in undisturbed and peaceful communion, a type of the harmony which marked the production of this unsectarian work. Dr. Schaff's original contributions to the series were the commentary on Matthew, and in part the commentaries on the Gospel of John and Romans. The work grew on his hands. The number of volumes kept extending be- yond the limits originally proposed, and delays were inevi- table. In a tone of short-sighted but quite natural solici- tude, he wrote to Mr. Scribner : " I am very desirous of going on rapidly with this vast undertaking so that I may see it completed or, at least, nearly completed before I die." In the same way he wrote to one of the contribu- tors, Professor H. B. Hackett : " Lange's Bibelwerk is of such vast magnitude that we will never see the end of it unless I push it with all ardor and perseverance." As volume was added to volume it came to be a common saying : "All things come to an end, but Lange." The Commentary is a vast exegetical thesaurus, a sort of symposium of the theological views and homiletical hints of all ages and schools of opinion, with the editor as presiding judge and umpire. Taken as a whole, it was in the original excelled by De Wette and Meyer in skill of critical exegesis and by Bengel and other com- mentaries in sententious spiritual pungency searching to the very heart of the text ; nevertheless it forms a val- uable library in itself by the combination of all the elements of biblical exposition, grammatical, doctrinal and homiletical. At the time of its appearance, there was an urgent demand in America for a work which should give the best results of the exegetical scholarship of Germany. Scholarly commentaries on individual books of 234 THE LfFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1864 the Bible had been produced on American soil by Moses Stuart, J. Addison Alexander, Hodge, Hackett and others, but this was the first commentary on the whole Bible which could lay just claim to having brought into use all the modern critical and expository helps. After the publication of the first volume of the American Lange, translations were begun of other German commentaries, as Keil and Delitzsch on the Old Testament and Meyer on the New Testament. The Edinburgh translation of Lange was stopped after the issue of several volumes, it being unable to compete with its American rival. Dr. Schaff also exercised an influence upon the work by aiding Dr. Lange in the choice of scholars for the later volumes of the German edition. Lange wrote to his American colaborer: "As an author I am thankful for the honor you confer upon me by your cooperation ; as a Christian I rejoice in the furtherance of a work which has been owned and blessed of the Lord." So diligent a reader of commentaries as Mr. Spurgeon expressed the opinion that " the American additions are often more valuable than the original matter. For homi- letical purposes these volumes of Lange are so many hills of gold." Where the work failed was in giving too much. Bishop Hurst has recently called it a "colossal work." 1 Its very attempt to be exhaustive leaves the reader dazed in the midst of the plethora of doctrinal deductions and homiletical suggestions. Not content with the execution of this enterprise, Dr. Schaff edited two other general commentaries, the Inter- national Illustrated Commentary on the New Testament, in four volumes, 2 and the International Revision Commen- 1 Proceedings of the American Society of Church History, VI. 10. 2 Also called The Popular Commentary, New York and Edinburgh, 1879- 1883. CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 235 tary on the revised version of the New Testament, extend- ing through the Epistle to the Romans. 1 In these works he engaged the cooperation of a number of the biblical scholars of Great Britain as well as of the United States. Dr. Schaff's reputation in the department of biblical scholarship will rest more upon the wide extent of his biblical erudition than upon his mastery and skill in textual exegesis. For, while his critical notes on Lange's Matthew, for example, are discriminating, unwarped by prejudice, and show thorough study, he did not possess the keen, critical and philological sense which gives such scholars as De Wette, Meyer, Ellicott, Lightfoot, eminence as exegetes. It has been said by one competent to speak by reason of his scholarship and his intimate acquaintance with Dr. Schaff's literary work that "in exegesis, his familiarity with the results attained by previous inquirers prevented him from offering as novelties what had already been suggested and repudiated. Besides his abundant knowledge, he had that indispensable prerequisite for a successful exegete, profound sympathy with the charac- ter and purpose of revelation. It is, I think, quite un- fortunate for his reputation in this department that his contributions to the literature of the New Testament are intermingled with the work of other men, as in the volumes of Lange on Matthew, John and Romans ; but whoever consults the notes and expositions there given will find reason to commend his scholarship, penetration and fair- ness of mind." 2 Dr. Schaff's view of the qualifications and functions of an exegete is, in brief, 3 that, important as the intellectual 1 New York, 1881-1884. 2 The late Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, Proceedings of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VI. p. 4. 8 Propccdeutic, pp. 186 sqq. 236 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1865 and scholarly qualifications of the expounder of Scripture are, a conscientious regard for the truth and sympathy with the spirit and subject of the writers are equally es- sential. No amount of grammatical or historical learning can compensate for the want of that affinity and insight which are the immediate product of the enlightening in- fluence of the Holy Spirit. Some of the German bibli- cal expositors and teachers of the century he regarded as unfitted for their work by their lack of the spiritual sense. The ideal of a commentary would be a combination of philological, theological, and practical exegesis under three distinct divisions, with a revised critical text as a basis. After an interval of eleven years the opportunity of a second visit abroad was offered to Dr. Schaff in the spring and summer of 1865. The country then had rest from the turmoil and uncertainty of war. The assassination of Mr. Lincoln had just occurred. He thus gave expression to his feelings in his journal : The news of the assassination arrived this morning, April 15. The crime is startling, paralyzing. Everybody feels like bowing in reverent silence before this mysterious Providence. Nothing worse could have befallen the Rebel- lion, nothing better the cause of loyalty and the govern- ment. The assassination will produce a powerful reaction in the South and abroad in favor of our government. As to Mr. Lincoln, he was taken away without pain in the hour of national triumph, on the most memorable day which inaugurated and virtually concluded the Civil War, after having fulfilled his arduous task. He will hereafter be second only to Washington in the affections of the people and first in that noble army of patriot-martyrs whose blood will be the seed of a new republic. A whole nation in mourning ! This is a sublime spectacle. I am to preach an Easter sermon to-morrow, but feel more like preaching a funeral discourse. On the Thursday morning following he preached on the event in the Fifth Avenue Reformed Church- CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 237 Calling a year before upon Mr. Lincoln at the White House in company with the Rev. Dr. Stearns and Dr. George L. Prentiss, he heard one of his characteristic remarks. When asked how he was getting along, the President replied, " I am browsing about and getting my victuals as I can." Once more in Great Britain, Dr. Schaff was anew im- pressed with the moral earnestness of the English. " It is remarkable that an island and not the mainland should contain London, the largest city of Christendom, and that this insular people is the mightiest sea power on the earth, and has established kingdoms in the East and West. The explanation of this phenomenon is to be found chiefly in the moral and intellectual energy of the English people. Just now, we Americans have reason to be offended be- cause of the sympathy which has prevailed here, especially among the higher classes, with the Rebellion and Southern slavery, otherwise so 'hated in England. However, such temporary occasions of offence must not blind us to the greatness and excellencies of the English people, the freest and mightiest nation of the day. Her mighty influence she uses for the advancement of Protestantism and real progress, and does far more for the circulation of the Bible and Christianity throughout the world than any other people. By the tie of language, customs, laws and religion she stands closest to us." He heard Father Ignatius, the apostle of the new Angli- can monasticism. "He is just now," wrote Dr. Schaff, "creating a sensation by his attempt to found monastic institutions within the pale of the Protestant Church. He goes about with a cowl and sandals, tonsured and pale of face, preaching repentance and collecting gifts for his convent at Norwich. A remarkable and untimely phe- nomenon, but a natural growth from Puseyism, and pre- 238 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1865 senting a contrast to the rationalism of Colenso and the writers of the Essays and Reviews." Passing on to Switzerland, he made a trip to the Bernese Oberland, in company with Mrs. Meta Heusser and her daughters. " Our whole journey was spiritualized and sanctified by a rich exchange of experience and thoughts. Uhland, Schwab, Schiller, Shakespeare, Goethe, Ruckert, Lenau, Geibel, Knapp, the singers of Israel, the Apostles of the New Covenant, many departed and living friends, were with us in spirit, and contributed to our pleasure." In company with his friend of Mercersburg days, the Rev. Edwin Emerson, and his oldest son, he went to Zermatt and crossed over the pass of St. Theodule to visit Aosta, the birthplace of St. Anselm of Canterbury, and then back to Switzerland over the St. Bernard pass, spend- ing a night with the monks at the renowned hospice, " which only the spirit of Christ could found and keep going for centuries." The fearful tragedy on the Matterhorn had taken place a few weeks before, in which Lord Francis Douglas, Rev. Mr. Hudson, Mr. Haddo, and the guide, Michael Croz, fell and were dashed to pieces among the cliffs and abysses four thousand feet below. From the foot of the mountain, up to that time deemed insurmountable, he wrote : " The Matterhorn looks invincible. To the ordinary traveller, the idea of scaling it appears to border on insanity, and even the practised climber almost shudders as he gazes at the stupendous precipices and broken crags which tower up five thousand feet above the glacier level. The attempt had been made repeatedly from every side and by the boldest and strongest climbers, but all in vain. At last this most stubborn citadel of nature is conquered, and we need not be surprised that, in the very moment of defeat, she struck the last and fatal blow." CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 239 From Stuttgart he wrote to Dr. Mann:- One of my objects in coming here was to attend the Bible and Missionary festivals and the annual meeting of the Evangelical Society. I have been able to contribute something, delivering two sermons in the Stifts Kirche and one in St. Leonhard's to thronged congregations, and mak- ing addresses to select circles, bringing a message from our own churches in America. Last Sunday I received the elements of the Lord's Supper from our dear Prelat Kapff's hands for the first time for twenty-five years. He is the personification of Swabian pietism and amiability. The peace of God rests on his face. He is almost crushed down by the confidence of the people. And even many men of the world treat him as their conscience. ... At Tubingen I found Beck, the best beloved and most influ- ential teacher ; for theology with him is not a matter of dialectics or intellectual gymnastics nor an object of rati- ocination, but a matter of faith and life. He adheres to the Scriptures and passes by the philosophical systems and the modern critical hypotheses as dead men's bones. On the other hand, he is quite unchurchly and belittles pietism and all attempts at church union. This pleases the Tubingen students, but it is Beck's weakness which often leads him to do injustice to his own companions in the faith. . . . The nature and place of Christ are still the chief theological and religious problems of the day. Strauss has recently issued a writing against Schenkel and Hengstenberg : Die Halben und die Ganzen. He criticises the half-way Schenkel with terrific keenness and really cuts him to pieces over his recent presentation of Christ's character, or rather his caricature. Dr. Schaff is looked up to as the father of Sunday schools in Stuttgart, the first of which he established on this visit. The Sunday-school movement in Germany had been inaugurated two years before, the first schools in Frankfurt and Berlin owing their existence to the labors of Mr. Albert Woodruff of Brooklyn and his interpreter and coadjutor, Mr. Brockelmann. The system has since assumed considerable proportions with Berlin, Elberfeld and Stuttgart as centres, in the face of the German preju- 240 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1865 dice against lay teaching and the fear lest it might con- flict with the appointed religious instructions in the day schools and the catechetical instructions of the pastors. Not only in Stuttgart but in other cities and university centres like Halle and Giessen, Dr. Schaff advocated the establishment of Sunday schools, before groups of pastors, professors and laymen who assembled at his invitation. In subsequent years he was constantly coming upon the fruits of these labors. To the Rev. Dr. Stuckenberg, recently pastor of the American Chapel in Berlin, he wrote, January, 1866: I am sure there are great blessings in store for Germany from the Sunday school. It is one of the most effective means for developing the lay element and training up a new generation of Christian workers ; it will infuse life and vigor into the congregations and make them active, working organizations of practical Christians ; it will pro- mote the proper observance of the Lord's day by giving them useful Sabbath work. Since my return to New York I am more convinced than ever that whatever be the excellencies of European Christianity, our American Christianity certainly has the advantage as regards prac- tical energy and efficiency. The two most fruitful sources of evil in Europe are the union of church and state, which prevents the development of free, self-supporting, and self- governing Christianity and nurses hypocrisy and infidelity, and the awful desecration of the Lord's day, which paralyzes the ministry, undermines the happiness of the family and turns the day of blessing into a day of curse. In Berlin he was again, as in 1854, invited to deliver lectures on the United States, which he subsequently repeated at Basel, Stuttgart, Halle, Leipzig, Elberfeld, Bremen and other cities. They were printed under the title Der Burgerkrieg und das christliche Leben in Nord- Amerika 1 (The Civil War and Christianity in North 1 A translation appeared in the Christian Intelligencer (twelve articles) by the Rev. C. C. Starbuck, March 3~May 17, 1865. CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 241 America), and represented, as the author in a letter said, "the best service he was able to do at that time to America and Germany." Of his second lecture in Berlin he wrote in his journal, Oct. 16, 1865 : "My topic was the American war and the abolition of slavery. Immense crowds. Hundreds had to go away for want of room. The closest attention and at last loud applause and the singing of Nun danket alle Gott [the German Te Deum]. Dissat- isfaction in the aristocratic party which sympathized with the Rebellion and with slavery." This dissatisfaction found vent in a vigorous attack from the Kreuzzeitting, the organ of the upper classes in the city, and a news- paper controversy followed in which the views of the lecturer were defended by persons like-minded with him- self. At that time Dr. Schaff' s name was prominently mentioned in connection with the chair of Neander, and it was rumored that any chance he might otherwise have had of receiving this appointment was shattered by his cordial presentation of American institutions and advocacy of the Union cause. The following extract from a letter to Mr. Norman White, written from Berlin, indicates the extent of his activity : - Since I wrote to you last from Stuttgart, I have been constantly on the wing in truly American style, and visited Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Neuwied, Bonn, Wiesbaden, Rhei- neck, Cologne, Elberfeld, Barmen, Giessen, Marburg, Gotha, Leipzig, Halle, Wittenberg. I called everywhere on the prominent theological professors, ministers and Christian laymen, preached almost every Sunday on the subject of the Sabbath to large congregations, and delivered lectures on American Christianity and the issue of our late national conflict, on which there is still a great deal of con- troversy and confusion in Europe. To-night I lecture on the abolition of slavery, and I am told that the room will be crowded by the leaders both of the conservative and the liberal party. I shall speak freely but cautiously and 242 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1865 avoid giving unnecessary offence. The Christian public, especially in the higher aristocratic circles of Berlin, have largely sympathized with the Southern cause and to some extent even with slavery. It is important to dispel the clouds of ignorance and wilful misrepresentation of Ameri- can affairs in Germany, and to bring out the bright side of American institutions and American Christianity as an encouragement to the revival of vital practical religion. On the eve of sailing from Bremen, he wrote to Mrs. Meta Heusser : How could I ever forget the delightful hours and moments last summer, at the Hirzel and in the Bernese Oberland, which evade description, when we all felt ourselves nearer to the Lord and to eternity than ever before ! These were the high places of my tour abroad, offering precious retro- spects back into the past and more precious outlooks into the future and into the promised land of the eternal Sabbath rest beyond the Jordan. And you, who have received from the Lord the gift of transferring the deepest experiences of the inner soul-world to the classic form of poetry, you must on some quiet winter evening sing the wonders of the divine power and Almighty wisdom as they were revealed to us there and our feelings as we looked upon the Alps. . . . Christians may always look forward to meeting again. In this hope I start upon my sea journey. Pray for me that the Lord who rules over storm and sea may preserve my life, and by His grace bring me, together with you all, into the kingdom of His glory. On his return to New York, Dr. Schaff resigned his professorship in the theological seminary in Mercersburg. When the attempt was immediately made to secure his consent to a reelection, he repaired with his family to his old home that he might reflect over the matter on the spot. He had pleasant intercourse with Professors Har- baugh and Apple, but he wrote, " Quite natural and home- like as it looks, I would not like to live here any more." A severe personal blow came in 1867, in the death of Dr. Henry Harbaugh, one of his most congenial friends in CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 243 the Reformed Church. Dr. Harbaugh, he wrote, " now knows all about the ' Heavenly Home,' 'Heavenly Recog- nition,' and the * Heavenly Employments,' about which he wrote so beautifully in the days of his youth to the edification of many thousands of readers. . . . He was endowed with rare gifts of mind and heart. For the defects of his early education he made up by intense appli- cation. He was a poetical genius, the only one who has risen, as far as I know, from the German-American popula- tion. I first suggested to him the desirableness of im- mortalizing the Pennsylvania-German in song, as the Allemannian dialect has been immortalized by Hebel. He took up the hint and wrote his Schulhaus an der Krick, which he modestly submitted to me, and which, when pub- lished, produced quite a sensation among the Pennsylvania- Germans, and found its way even to Germany." During his connection with the Sabbath Committee, Dr. Schaff was not idle in his own department of church his- tory. He delivered a course of lectures on that subject at Drew Theological Seminary, then recently opened, and filled a more protracted engagement from 1868 to 1871 at Hartford Seminary, declining the permanent professorship to which he was elected. To this period belongs his work on the Person of Christ, an answer to the attacks of Strauss, Renan and Schenkel. Its object was "to show in a popular style that the person of Christ is the central miracle of history, and the strongest evidence of Christianity, and that the dwelling of God in Him is the only satisfactory solution of the problem of His amazing character." x If circulation be made the cri- terion, the volume has proved one of the most useful of the author's books. It is enriched by a collection of testi- monies from unbelievers to the character of Christ and 1 Preface, p. 4. 244 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1869 the moral power of Christianity. The work was the oc- casion of the following incident, which illustrates the use sometimes made of books. Attending a lecture by a well- known personage, Dr. Schaff was surprised to hear him borrow, without acknowledgment, whole paragraphs from its pages. The lecturer, being introduced to him, showed his embarrassment and said : " I have quoted you a great deal to-night, and in my manuscript here I have given you credit." "I replied," says Dr. Schaff, "that books are written to be used, and I thank you for turning mine to account for the public good." In 1869 he was again in Europe, in part as the deputy of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, to make arrangements for its contemplated conference, event- ually held in 1873. At the Lord Mayor's dinner on the anniversary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he responded to the toast, America, and at the public meet- ing at Exeter Hall he made an address on " Christ the Light and Life of the Bible." He concluded it with the hope that Macaulay's New Zealander might not sketch the ruins of St. Paul's until England and America, shoul- der to shoulder, had finished their great mission of giving the Bible and, with it, civilization and true liberty to the nations of the earth and thus brought on the time when Christ shall be all in all. Reverdy Johnson, "a kindly old gentleman " with whom he dined, was just closing his term of service as American ambassador, and assured him that " the excitement between America and England was dying out and that there was no danger of war." A month later he was the guest of his successor, Mr. Motley. He made an address at "the annual meeting of the Con- gregational Union of England and Wales, heard an able address by Mr. Dale of Birmingham, and saw a noble- looking set of men of genuine Puritan stock." The day CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 24$ came to a close with a dinner at Lambeth Palace with the Archbishop, of Canterbury, where, among others, he met Dean Alford and Dean Mansel for the first time. Here are some of his experiences : I heard an excellent sermon to-day by Mr. Spurgeon at his Tabernacle, on Things Present (" All things are yours "): i. present blessings, 2. present trials, 3. present opportuni- ties. Every seat was occupied. The most impressive part was the singing of the immense congregation, standing, and without the help of an organ. Simplicity and gran- deur were combined. I spoke to Mr. Spurgeon in his study, and after the sermon attended the communion service in the basement, which was very simple, and yet impressive. The service lasts twenty minutes, and takes place every Sunday after the apostolic manner. Strangers who wish to commune receive tickets. Dr. and Mrs. Boardman were also present. In the afternoon I heard Lord Rad- stock at St. George's Hall, who, when I proposed to him to come to the United States, replied that " he would lay it before the Lord." I spent Whitsuntide very pleasantly and profitably at Harrow, in the happy home of Canon Westcott [now Bishop of Durham]. An excellent scholar and interesting man. Amiable wife and children. Beautiful views from his windows over the country, clothed in fresh verdure, to London and the Crystal Palace. Attended the services in the chapel three times and partook of the communion. Five hundred pupils were present dressed in tail coats and silk hats. Dr. Butler, the head-master, invited me to tea. Agreeable family, with all the refinements of an English home. Matthew Arnold is absent. Professor Masson breakfasts with us. .Westcott and Hort's Greek Testa- ment I think will suit me exactly. Passing to Edinburgh, he had his first introduction to the assemblies of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church. He breakfasted with the moderator of the Assembly of the Established Church, Dr. Norman Mac- leod, " a courtly gentleman, who treated me with marked attention." Returning to England, he spent several days 246 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1869 with Dean Alford during the Canterbury festivals, of which he writes : I arrived at Canterbury, the mother church of Anglo- Saxon Christianity, and was met by Dean Alford. A delightful visit. He puts me in the room and bed of the archbishop. Historical associations. Fine gardens. Mrs. Alford a lady of simple and charming manners, sympathizing with the dean in his tastes. She reminds me of Mrs. Tholuck. This is the place to write church history and commentaries. I can hardly imagine a more desirable residence for a scholar than Canterbury deanery. Mendelssohn's Elijah is performed with great success. The dean is a musician, poet, gardener and carpenter, as well as a commentator. He is well up in German theol- ogy, very liberal in his views. Broad Church. I heard him preach a capital sermon of seven minutes on " Time is short." Canterbury will be an ever green spot in my memory. Tregelles, whom he met at the British Museum, he calls " a singular genius, modest, devout, with fine face, delicate, scarcely able to speak audibly, deeply plunged in biblical studies, his edition of the Greek Testament nearly com- pleted. He speaks of Tischendorf's new edition as good, bad and indifferent ; Alford's is a good step in the right direction. I spent three hours with him, examining the fourth volume of the Codex Alexandrinus, and found the disputed passage in the first Epistle of Clement of Rome to read eVl TO rep/jua rrjs Sucreet)?." l The same day he dined with the family of Archbishop Trench and the Bishop of Limerick (brother-in-law of Professor Ranke of Berlin). "Trench was very kind and friendly, but is very timid and has no sympathy with the Evangelical Alliance movements." In Paris, he had " a glorious meeting of the members of the French branch of the Evangelical Alliance at Dr. 1 " To the extremity of the West," the passage bearing on the western limit of Paul's journeys. CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 247 Grandpierre's house, the parsonage of the Oratoire. Pro- fessor St. Hilaire, G. Monod, Pressense, Bersier, Fisch and others were present, representing the strength of the evangelical Protestantism of France. The invitation of the American Alliance was enthusiastically accepted. The best action was taken that could be taken. Te Deum laudamus ! Bersier, Pressense and others promised posi- tively to come to New York. Dine with Bersier, who is a splendid specimen of a French gentleman and Christian. He will excite attention in New York." Passing to Holland, he makes a note of a meeting at Utrecht in the interest of the Alliance. " Evidently the hand of God is in this movement. I spent the night with Dr. van Oosterzee in his spacious and comfortable home. My interview was especially pleasant. It is quite surpris- ing that he should make up his mind for a voyage across the Atlantic. He must weigh over two hundred pounds, looks heavy and ponderous, somewhat like Dr. Bethune, but is full of life and vivacity of mind, and is acknowledged to be the first public orator of Holland." Some time later, at the request of the authorities, he communicated with Dr. van Oosterzee with reference to his acceptance of a pro- fessorship in Rutgers Seminary. The movement awak- ened considerable interest among people of Dutch ante- cedents in New York City and New Jersey. Arrived in Germany, Dr. Schaff spent several days at Bonn. Of a Sunday's experience he wrote: "Dine with Dr. Lange, one of the purest and noblest men on the face of the earth. He is now sixty-seven years young, as fresh and laborious as ever and is engaged on his commentary on the Apocalypse. The afternoon I spent with Lange, Christlieb and Krafft. Then take tea with Lange, whom I enjoyed till ten o'clock, parting with him with a kiss. This belongs to the solemn rest-days on the way to Canaan." 248 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1869 In Berlin many changes had occurred since 1865. Nitzsch, court-preacher Krummacher and also Hengsten- berg, the leader of the conservative school of the Old Testament critics, were gone. " Great reminiscences," he wrote, " I have to-day. Schleiermacher, Neander and others pass through my mind in review. Visit the daugh- ters of Krummacher in remembrance of former days and go to his grave, plucking some fresh roses. Peace to his ashes ! " Among other Americans in the city were Professor Thayer of Andover and the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, to whom Dr. Schaff, some time before, had given letters of introduction to Dr. Dorner and others, and whom he was to introduce into the faculty of Union Seminary five years later. Pressing his mission as deputy of the Evangelical Alliance, he " secured a most excellent meeting, with speeches of fire and interest by Koegel, Semisch, Count Bernstorff, Hoffmann and Dorner, and positive promises from the last two, each of whom is a host, to attend the conference in New York. Minister Bancroft was present and seemed to enjoy the meeting greatly." The entries of his journal give insight into the hearti- ness with which Dr. Schaff mingled with old teachers, and old and new friends. Here are references to professors in Halle and Leipzig : I dined with Tholuck to-day. A continual feast of reason and flow of soul. ... A walk with Tholuck and three students at eleven. . . . Last interview with Tholuck and a walk in the garden. He was unusually pleas- ant and entertaining, and kissed me with real affection. . . . Dinner with Dr. Julius Miiller, a Protestant saint, whom I cannot look upon without profound reverence and affection. ... I met Delitzsch for the first time, and had a long interview with Tischendorf, Kahnis, Delitzsch, Luthardt and Keil (the leaders of strict confessional Lutheranism in Germany), and we spent a very pleasant CHAP, x FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 249 and interesting evening together and discussed the sub- ject of the Evangelical Alliance and Christian union. Delitzsch made the warmest approach, and all are per- sonally favorable to the cultivation of Christian union as distinct from church union and amalgamation, but cannot consistently take part in the New York conference, as it would put them in the position of associating with Union- ists, Baptists and Methodists, whom they oppose at home. At Stuttgart he met the eloquent young evangelist, Carrasco of Madrid, who had recently been ordained in Geneva and four years later went down at sea on the return journey from the conference of the Alliance in New York. Of an address to the Sunday schools, he writes : " I made with Mr. and Mrs. Adolf Reihlen, Pro- fessor Gimther and others, a Sunday-school excursion with several hundred fresh and lively children to a neighboring wood and delivered a speech to them from a rock, a nat- ural pulpit. Giinther introduced me as the father and grandfather of the Sunday schools of Stuttgart." After attending the semi-centennial of the Kornthal community, he continued his journey to Switzerland, accompanied by a son, spending delightful weeks at the home of Mrs. Meta Heusser, and finding his mother, then eighty years old, still fresh and vigorous of mind and walking several miles at a time. From there we ascended to the Engadin over the Albula pass. Great was the change which had taken place since Dr. SchafP s pre- vious visits in these elevated valleys, which had come to be a fashionable resort for royalty and other visitors from afar. He was entertained by his schoolmate, one of the von Plantas of Samaden, visited Pontresina, " lying like a poem at the foot of the mountains," and ascended the peak Languardt, from which the day offered a clear view of the splendid panorama of the Bernina group, and the mountains further away. He industriously visited every 250 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1869 spot of interest from Chiavenna on the Italian side to Tharasp, preached in the Kur Hans on the Woman of Samaria and called upon the pastors of all the villages he entered. This is a note of a special trip to Belalp above Brieg : "A notable episode in my journey. Spent a delightful Sabbath with Dr. and Mrs. Henry B. Smith of New York at Belalp, a new hotel which affords a magnificent view over the grand Aletzsch glacier and the Valois mountains, even the Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn, which I was most happy to see again. Dr. Smith has retreated to this isolated citadel in pursuit of health. He looks fairly well, but his mental machinery is still in a half-broken condi- tion and cannot stand any strain. He takes long walks and climbs, but cannot endure any excitement." Dr. Smith had been obliged to temporarily abandon his work at Union Seminary and to seek recuperation. After presenting the matter of the Evangelical Alliance before the Conference of Swiss pastors at Geneva, and at Basel, he visited, upon invitation, Dr. Alzog, the church historian at Freiburg. Alzog had recently returned from Rome, where he had served as a member of the doctrinal committee, making preparations for the approaching oecu- menical council. ' He hopes," Dr. Schaff wrote, "for a reunion of the two churches by the way of knowledge and love and great events, but not by the way of doctrinal con- troversy." This meeting, which Dr. Schaff looked back to with singular pleasure, was one of many friendly meetings with Roman Catholic scholars and dignitaries at home and abroad. Without being untrue to his own convictions, he found common ground with them in the great objective facts of the Christian system and the cardinal articles of the Catholic creeds. On his way north he stopped at Han- over to meet Dr. Meyer, the New Testament commentator, CHAP.X FIRST YEARS IN NEW YORK 251 and found him propped up in an easy chair and wasted by sickness. " He received me most cordially, declared that the longer he studied the New Testament writings, the more convinced he was of the historic character of the events they narrated, and their authenticity. He gave me his photograph and the fifth edition of his John as a token of friendship." It was a sort of continuation of his European journey, when, upon his arrival in New York, Dr. Schaff met Pere Hyacinthe, who was on his first visit to America.- A month before (September, 1869) he had issued his mani- festo against the usurpations of the papal see and the defect of oecumenicity in the call of the Vatican Council. Writing to Mrs. Heusser he says : I took dinner this evening with Pere Hyacinthe. He will remain here for two weeks till his case is decided in Rome. Mrs. Stowe was also one of the guests. It was a most interesting occasion. The most famous French Catholic preacher, and with him the most famous American author- ess who has again set the whole literary world in commotion by her work on Lord Byron's life. Pere Hyacinthe made a pleasant impression on me. He is an amiable Frenchman, a modest man and an earnest Christian, now on the bridge between Protestantism and Catholicism. He will probably be excommunicated by Rome. He ought to remain in the Catholic Church (as the Apostles did in the synagogue), so long as his liberal testimony against Ultramontane tendencies is tolerated. He looks for the Johannine Church of the future. Paul, he said, "I esteem above Peter, and John above Paul." Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, our host, suggested that as a pupil of John he should pro- claim the kingdom of the future, to which the monk replied : " I am only a pupil of John the Baptist, and we all are instruments only to prepare the way of the future." I parted with him, repeating the words of Pascal, " En Jesus Christ toutes les contradictions sont accordees." Professor Stowe, who speaks no French, said " Dominus vobiscum," to which Pere Hyacinthe added, " et cum spiritu tuo." 252 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1870 CHAPTER XI MOVEMENTS TOWARDS CHRISTIAN UNION 1870-1876 The Evangelical Alliance Proposed Conference in New York Dr. Schaff the Organizing Spirit Franco- Prussian War and the Vatican Council Deputation to the Czar in 1871 Tholuck and Hodge Jubilees Visits to Europe for the Alliance, 1869-1873 The Jansenists of Holland Chisel- hurst Interview with Emperor William The Conference in Session Dr. Schaff s Estimate Alliance of the Reformed Churches The Baxter Monument The Old-Catholic Conference Dr. Dollinger The Evangelists, Moody and Sankey YORK had never before witnessed so large or so im- posing a religious gathering as the sixth conference of the Evangelical Alliance held there in 1873. In fact, nothing had occurred on the American continent approaching it in the number of the attending clergymen from abroad of established reputation. The conference, following the principles of the Alliance, proposed as its object not the formulation of doctrinal decrees nor the exercise of disciplinary functions, but the union of members of differ- ent communions in fraternal Christian intercourse and in the discussion of themes of a common doctrinal and prac- tical import. It sought by the moral force of its testimony to advance the work of the church at large in its conflict with the world and with error within its own pale. The presence of scholars like Professor Dorner, eccle- siastics like the Dean of Canterbury, preachers like Dr. Coulin and believers from the ends of the earth like the CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 253 noted Indian convert, Narayan-Sheshadri, aroused wide attention even in circles where, by reason of denomina- tional exclusiveness or religious indifference, little sym- pathy was felt in the objects, or, at any rate, with the methods of the Alliance. The deep solemnity, the cordial enthusiasm, the intellectual excellence of the addresses, went beyond all expectations and attracted to the meet- ings the interest of the churches, not only in New York and vicinity, but throughout the land. Testimony to the wide extent of this interest was borne by the space given to the proceedings by the daily press. The New York Tribune published each day the addresses and proceedings in full. It was to the judgment, energy and organizing skill of Dr. Schaff that the success of the conference was in a large measure due. Into the preparations he threw him- self from the start with his whole soul, and, as those preparations progressed, the chief burden and responsi- bility fell upon him. His extended personal acquaintance with theologians abroad and a sensitive appreciation of ecclesiastical and national differences qualified him for the task of selecting the representatives from the Con- tinent, securing their attendance and assigning to the speakers their themes. To his efforts alone it was due that, at a time of great national suspicion and bitterness, the hearty cooperation of all the Continental branches of the Alliance was secured. The history of the conference involves so intimately his movements and his pen for four years, that it requires care to set aside that which belongs peculiarly to the subject o'f this Memorial from that which is of a more general interest. From its first organization in London, in 1846, Dr. Schaff had been a warm advocate of the Evangelical Alliance. He prepared a paper on the state of religion in 254 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 the United States for the third General Conference, held in Berlin in 1857. He received a special invitation from the Dutch committee of arrangements to the fifth General Conference, held in Amsterdam in 1867, but the first conference he was able to attend was the one held in New York. In the organization of the American branch he took an active part. An impetus had been given to it by Dr. James McCosh, then professor in Queen's College, Belfast, and a member of the council of the British Alliance. On his visit to the United States in 1866 he attended the preliminary meeting in Madison Square Presbyterian Church, June 7, at which Dr. Schaff presided. The resolutions which Dr. Schaff brought in at a subsequent meeting, June 22, " called forth," to use his own words, " radical speeches against ancient creeds, but were carried substantially in the end." Considerable as was the interest in the movement, he was obliged to say six months later, writing to Dr. McCosh: "Unfortunately we have no en- couragement whatever from the laity as yet. But we hope for the best." The organization of the American branch was completed Jan. 30, 1867. Following an invitation extended through Professor Henry B. Smith and Dr. S. Irenaeus Prime at Amsterdam, it was decided to hold a General Conference of the Alli- ance in New York. Appointed for the autumn of 1869, it was postponed, for lack of time to perfect the arrange- ments, to the following year. While in Europe in 1869, Dr. Schaff acted as commissioner of the American alli- ance. Reference has already been made to his presenta- tion of the subject before the French pastors in Paris, the Swiss Pastors' Society in Geneva, the Kirchentag in Stuttgart and elsewhere. His credentials provided pleni- potentiary powers in the matter of invitations, and made CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 255 provision for the expenses of the foreign delegates. In England he met the council of the British organization, and by securing the recognition of the independent au- thority of the various branches of the Alliance in dif- ferent lands and " their perfect fraternal co-equality " as coordinate bodies, settled a hotly disputed question of jurisdiction which threatened to give much trouble. His mission was successful beyond his expectations. Interest in the project was aroused on the Continent as well as in England and Scotland, and promises to attend were given by such men as Bersier and Pressense" of France, van Oosterzee of Holland, Carrasco of Spain, and Dorner, Hoffmann, Wichern, Tischendorf, Krafft, Grundemann and Christlieb of Germany. This was a most gratifying representation, in view of the great aversion of Conti- nental scholars, especially the scholars of Germany, to venturing upon the Atlantic. On his return to New York, enthusiastic public meetings were held at which Dr. Schaff predicted the success of the coming conference in these words : 1 We have abundant material at our disposal for one of the most imposing and interesting religious assemblies ever held in this or any other country. The character and weight of such an assembly does not depend upon the number, but on the quality, of its members. From Europe we may see one hundred or two hundred delegates ; but even if only twenty or thirty truly repre- sentative men should come with the acknowledged weight of their names, and with the matured results of their life- long study and experience, they will carry the influence of the meeting to every country and church in the world. No building in this city will be large enough to accommo- date the multitudes anxious to see and hear them. Words could scarcely have been chosen, after the con- ference was held, more suited to describe the general im- 1 Evangelical Alliance Documents, iii. 256 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 pression of its meetings. In the following letter to Professor Dorner (March 14, 1870), the development of public interest is indicated, as well as the extent of Dr. Schaff's own labors : The approaching conference is assuming larger and larger proportions, and will be, if God wills, the most important religious assembly ever held in America. The Lord Mayor of London day before yesterday presided over a large meet- ing preparatory to our own. Three hundred delegates have been announced from England, but I cannot believe that more than one-half that number will come. The Continen- tal delegates whom we have invited will all come, with the exception of four or five German celebrities whom I would most of all like to see here. Besides yourself, Tholuck has declined on account of his high age, but he will send a paper on the conflict of evangelical theology in Germany with rationalism. . . . The German religious press ought to be set vigorously agoing. I have written articles for the Augs- burger Allgemeine Zeitung and the Neue Evangelische Zeittmg, and other sheets, but it is impossible for me to do everything. The whole burden* of the European corre- spondence rests upon my shoulders, and I must also take part in the other preparations. This is all in addition to my usual labors. But I cannot withdraw from the Alli- ance work, for the honor of Protestantism and the honor of the United States are now involved in this conference. Services are being held every Sunday in preparation for it, and they are well attended. General Grant and Vice- President Colfax and Secretary of State Fish have set their names to a paper indorsing the aims of the confer- ence and expressing the hope that it may further the cause of Christian union among all the churches of the land. To Bishop Mcllvaine, who was then in England, Dr. Schaff wrote, March 21, 1870: "We must rally at this gathering all the forces of evangelical Christianity for an effective demonstration against infidelity and superstition, and make the most of a rare opportunity which will not occur again for a long time to come." With but few exceptions the clergy of New York were CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 257 cooperating heartily in the project, with William E. Dodge as the chairman of the committee and Drs. Schaff and Prime as secretaries. Branch alliances were formed in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburg and other cities. The organization was complete. The programme was perfected, Dr. Angus and other delegates from abroad had already arrived, expectation was high and rising when the war between France and Germany sud- denly burst upon Europe. In quick succession telegrams followed one another from Paris, Berlin and London calling for the postponement of the conference. It be- came evident that there was no other course to pursue, and thus Dr. Schaff made note of the decision in his journal, August 5 : The General Conference is dead and buried, in the hope of a blissful resurrection in 1871. I am busy all week with winding up the business. It is a very sore disap- pointment. So much precious time, strength and care apparently wasted ! But when God speaks, man must be silent. The postponement will be overruled for the best. Amazing success of the Prussian arms ! The tables are turned. France is invaded and humbled to the dust. Napoleon is doomed. With him goes military despotism, haughty imperialism, a standing menace to the peace of Europe, perhaps also the temporal power of the pope. God is dealing harder blows to Rome now than the General Conference could have dealt. Germany is united, and the union cemented by blood spilled in defence of the father- land. We stand in silent awe before the judgment of the Almighty, who is now writing a stirring chapter of history on the soil of unhappy, deluded France. In common with thoughtful men, he followed in almost dumb amazement the events of the summer of 1870. Few months of any year in modern times have been so freighted with imposing occurrences. The observer of the contem- porary trend of politics and the student of the long periods of history were alike astounded at the rapid and victorious 258 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1871 movements of the German armies and the acts of the Vatican Council. While the council, beginning its first session under terrific thunder and flashes of lightning, declared the pope infallible, the empire of France col- lapsed at Sedan with the surrender of Napoleon, the pope's chief defender, and the armies of Victor Emmanuel entered Rome, taking possession of it as the future capital of the new kingdom of Italy. It was not the most im- portant consequence of these contemporary events that the map of Europe was changed. The most important consequence was that an empire arose on the Continent which was controlled by Protestantism and the spirit of Luther, and that the kingdom of the Italian peninsula stood for the overthrow of the temporal power of the papacy. To the history and probable consequences of the Vatican Council, Dr. Schaff devoted his pen in a volume entitled the Vatican Decrees}- He did not share the view that the day of the Roman Catholic Church was at an end. Nor was it at any time his opinion that there were any reasonable indications that it would cease to exist. As little did he expect that it would be absorbed or transformed by Protestantism. His hope was that reforms might, under the guidance of Providence, start from within its bosom, and a new era of doctrine and ecclesiastical practice be ushered in by the action of some future incumbent of the see of St. Peter or of an oecumeni- cal council. On the subject of the unification of Italy, Dr. Schaff thus expressed himself to a correspondent, Jan. 3, 1871 : Every American citizen who has an intelligent appre- ciation of the inestimable blessings of civil and religious 1 New York, 1875. Being in part taken from his work, the Creeds of Christendom, and containing Mr. Gladstone's Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance. CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 259 liberty, as shown in the experience of his own country, must hail the unification of Italy on the basis of a liberal constitution as one of the most important and hopeful signs of the age. If the claims of the pope be well founded, he ought to rejoice in this relief from the cares and the odium of secular government, and throw himself without distrust or fear upon the affections of one hundred and eighty millions of Roman Catholics, remembering that Peter and his successors during three centuries of perse- cution had neither silver nor gold, and that Christ himself, who became poor for our sakes, expressly declared that his kingdom was not of this world. History proves that the church is not a loser, but a gainer, by its separation from the state. Christianity prospers best in the at- mosphere of liberty, and all it ought to expect and demand from the civil government is protection in the exercise, and freedom in the enjoyment, of its rights and the exe- cution of its mission of peace and good will toward all mankind. In 1871 Dr. Schaff was in Europe again, and acted as a member of the deputation of the American Evangelical Alliance to make appeal to the Czar in behalf of the Protestants in the Baltic Provinces. Deputations were also appointed by the Alliance from England, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and other countries. The aim was to secure the abandonment of the process of pacification, so-called, which had been going on for some years, whereby, as was claimed, the Lutheran emigrants in Livonia, Esthonia and Courland were being forced, contrary to compact, into the Orthodox Greece-Russian Church. The Czar was at the time visiting his sister Queen Olga and her consort, the king of Wurtemberg, at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. The deputations met by appointment at Stuttgart, choosing Dr. Schaff chairman. Other delegates present from the United States were the Rev. William Adams, Bishop Mcllvaine, the Rev. Drs. Noah H. Schenck and E. A. Washburn, 260 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1871 the Hon. William E. Dodge, Cyrus Field and Nathan Bishop. Arriving at Friedrichshafen on the I3th of July, they found the city in festal array in honor of its sover- eign's silver wedding anniversary, and the day following they had an interview with the Russian prime minister. Here is the record of this interesting event taken from Dr. SchafF s journal : " We were summoned before Prince Gortschakoff at 10 A.M. in the Villa Taubenheim. The deputies, thirty-seven in number, met beforehand and discussed the mode of proceeding. Against my decided remonstrance, I was forced into the delicate position of spokesman of the deputations. We went in procession to the villa, met a most courteous reception and had a full exchange of views for an hour and a half. I got through my talk better than I feared." Dr. Schaff expressed the respect entertained by the constituency of the Alliance for the person of the em- peror and its gratitude for his liberal and enlightened policy, especially as shown in the emancipation of twenty- three million serfs and the amelioration of the religious condition of the Protestants in the Baltic Provinces since the presentation to his majesty, the year before, of the memorial on the subject by the Paris branch of the Alliance. The deputations had neither ecclesiastical nor political objects to serve. Their motive was in the inter- est of Christian charity and the cause of religious liberty. "May God," so he closed, " bless his imperial majesty, the Czar, and give him wisdom and courage to proclaim relig- ious liberty throughout his vast empire. Such a noble act will crown his illustrious reign, and secure for him the applause of the Christian world and the gratitude of millions yet unborn." The prince replied that he was pleased at the respectful manner in which the delicate subject had been brought to his attention. He had no CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 261 doubt of the purity of the petitioners' intentions, and their freedom from political aims. His majesty's sym- pathy with the cause of religious liberty was his own. In Russia all religions were tolerated except as they incul- cated immoral tenets. Persecution was not allowed nor, on the other hand, was propagandism. Putting his hand before his eyes and looking through his fingers, he said, "It is thus we deal with the sects." 1 The English memorial, Dr. Schaffs journal continues, "created trouble and was declined. Ours was declared unobjectionable and presentable, but we withdrew it on account of the refusal to accept the English document. The Quaker memorial was likewise withdrawn. The prince in a private talk assured me at parting that the emperor, as well as he himself, was fully in favor of religious liberty, and authorized me to say this, and to publish the substance of the interview. He, however, declined to give me a written answer to our appeal, say- ing, ' Much writing spoils or prevents action. I am seventy-three years old and write as little as possible.' The conversation was in three languages, which the prince speaks with equal fluency." Turning aside from Switzerland, Dr. Schaff witnessed at Oberammergau the decennial performance of the Pas- sion Play, which had by this time begun to be well known and to be sought out by many tourists. It made a deep impression upon his mind and for months formed a subject of conversation with him. He wrote : The Passion Play lasted from 8 till 5 o'clock with an intermission of one hour. It is worth a journey to Europe, and I am thankful I have been permitted to witness it. Remarkable it certainly is, that a performance so solemn 1 A detailed account of the interview is given in the Report of the Alliance Deputation in Behalf of Religious- Liberty in Russia. New York, 1871. 262 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1871 and so well conducted should be carried out by these simple mountaineers secluded from the world and almost untutored by modern civilization. The scene of the cru- cifixion is deeply impressive. Meier, who represented Christ, continued hanging for fifteen or twenty minutes on the cross. Even the thrust of the lance and the scene of the breaking of the bones were enacted. Thence he proceeded to Starnberg Lake, and at Fazing met Dollinger and had an hour's talk on the Old-Catholics. " Dollinger is quite clear, fresh and strong. The commen- tator Harless, on whom I called at his villa at Feldhafing, puts a low estimate on the Old-Catholic movement, tracing it chiefly to Bellinger's Gelehrtenstolz (scholastic pride). He pronounced it destitute of all evangelical spirit. Har- less is half broken by a stroke of paralysis." At Paris, in company with Dr. William Adams and Mr. John Crosby Brown, he met the representatives of the French Evangelical Alliance and concluded the intense feeling against the Germans might make it necessary to postpone the General Conference indefinitely. The Pari- sian pastors even suggested that, as a condition of their participation in such a gathering, the Germans should sign a paper disclaiming all wars of conquest. During his sojourn in England he met Daniel Sedgwick, whose fine hymnological collection was afterwards pur- chased for Union Theological Seminary, and has this to say of him : He is a great hymnological curiosity. Find him in a small, old house, full of hymn-books, little room, short sleeves, cap, old, withered face, dark eyes, poor, proud of his hobby, was once nearly insane and almost ready to commit suicide, found comfort in the New Testament and hymns of Providence, such as " God moves in a mysterious way," and thus became passionately fond of hymns, gave himself up to hymnology, and was found out through Mac- millan by Sir Roundel Palmer and showed him, "who knew no more than a monkey," how to make a hymn-book. CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 263 A few days after Dr. SchafFs return to the United States, occurred the funeral of Charles Scribner (Sept. 29), who had died at Luzern the month before. In a note of the services, in which he participated, he said : " Ever since the publication of my Apostolic History, Mr. Scribner has been one of my best friends. He was one of the most useful public men, pure in motive, honorable in principle, consistent in conduct, thoughtfully considerate and tenderly affectionate as a son, a husband, a father and a friend, and most deserving of the high name and title of a Chris-, tian gentleman. To know him was to esteem and love him. His best public monument is his list of publications, in which there is not one that can be objected to on moral grounds." The pleasant relations between author and publisher were continued with Mr. Scribner's sons, the eldest of whom, Blair Scribner, followed his father in a few years to the grave. An event in the theological world at this time (1870), in which Dr. Schaff took a warm personal interest, was the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Tholuck's career as a professor. He was the nestor of evangelical theology in Germany, as Leo, also of Halle, who celebrated the same anniversary a few months later, was the nestor among German historians. The celebration lasted three days. Tholuck, in his address, spoke of his conversion as a baptism of fire, and declared very characteristically that he had not sought to be a book-professor, but a student- professor. Among other testimonials which the occasion called forth was a memorial fund, started in Germany. Dr. Schaff, who entered very heartily into the arrange- ments for the celebration, transmitted gifts amounting to six hundred dollars from pupils and admirers in the United States. The fund was applied by Dr. Tholuck to the aid of theological tutors (decent eri) at Halle, and is known as 264 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1870 the convict. After her husband died, Mrs. Tholuck con- tinued to take a warm interest in the charity until her own death, in 1894. Here are Dr. SchafF s congratulations to his honored teacher : Allow me to send you from afar some words of cordial congratulation and grateful love on the occasion of your fiftieth jubilee. Seldom does a teacher have the joy of celebrating the golden wedding of his academic activity. And this is the only one I know of in which the scholars and friends of more than one country and one continent have joined hearts and hands to do such an occasion honor. I go back in my thoughts thirty years to the time when I was permitted to sojourn under your hospitable roof ; and the regard and love I then conceived for you have remained unchanged since, and will go with me to the grave, yea, through eternity. With my whole heart do I hope and pray that the good Lord, who has so richly blessed you and your labors, may be with you in the evening of your life with His spirit and His peace. Professor Tholuck thus acknowledged through Dr. Schaff the receipt of the American gifts : The charitable project of my dear former pupils to sur- prise me at my festival of honor with a donation, has now been disclosed, and I learned after the arrival of your con- tributions to-day, as after your affectionate greeting of a few days ago, with what devotion you have labored for this object. From my heart I thank you, as I do also my dear friends, Prentiss and Smith, for their cooperation in what is the joy of my old age. Although I am a constant sufferer, there is some prospect that I may yet have suf- ficient strength to labor for some time and make many happy by the fruits of this charity. It was a truly noble and blessed festival, which brought together so many hun- dreds of my friends of by-gone days, and brought to me hundreds of letters from distant localities, England, America, Madrid, Athens, Smyrna and other parts, with their tokens of affection and regard. CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 265 Two years later a similar event, and one of much signifi- cance, occurred in our own theological world, the fiftieth anniversary of the professional career of Dr. Charles Hodge, which was also celebrated with imposing tributes of affection and esteem. Dr. Schaff had met Dr. Hodge soon after his arrival in this country, and as years went on, came to regard him as "a saintly man." He was present at the jubilee exercises, April 24, 1872, and in his journal says: An immense throng of ministers was present. It was an event in American church history. A fruit of the Tholuck celebration in 1870, but more imposing. Forty- three thousand dollars have been contributed for a Hodge professorship. Fifteen thousand are given to Dr. Hodge as a mark of respect. He spoke admirably and charac- teristically, introducing reminiscences of Neander. " In himself he was nothing. He was all things in Christ, whose service is true freedom." He told Dr. Prime after- wards that he never felt so humble in all his life as he did on this occasion. I stopped with my genial countryman,' Professor Guyot. In 1872 preparations for the General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance were resumed and vigorously pushed, the date being set for the fall of the following year. Dr. Schaff again went as commissioner to Europe to further its interests, and secure a worthy delegation from the Eu- ropean churches. He arrived in Edinburgh in time for the Scotch assemblies and also addressed the General Assembly at Belfast. At London he made a note of a visit to the Deanery of Westminster. "Stanley calls the pope the head of our profession and speaks of Rainy's reply to his laudation of Scotch moderation as 'delightful and wonderful for so short a preparation.' This is truly broad. His un- married sister is a Roman Catholic. He admires the 266 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1872 pope and Sakya-Muni as a religious prophet to the Hin- doos. His liberality is as broad as the universe. Oh ! if we could only be as broad as God's charity and as narrow as God's justice ! " In Paris he arrived in time for the meeting of the Re- formed synod in the Church of the Holy Spirit, the first since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The follow- ing words from his journal point to the sensitive state of the French mind with reference to any cooperation with the Germans. " I made a statement of my mission to the French ministers. My being Swiss saved our cause. A unanimous resolution was passed in favor of the confer- ence. This was a most happy result. A heavy weight is lifted from my heart. The conference is now safe. Thanks be to God! My mission is nearly finished." At Utrecht he had an interesting interview with the Jansenist archbishop, H. Loos. Renewed attention had been called to this dissident church by the consecration administered by one of its bishops to the Old-Catholic bishop, Professor Reinkens. "The archbishop," wrote Dr. Schaff, is a plain, venerable old man, speaks only Dutch and a little French ; presides over a theological seminary, with five students (including three who are preparing for a theological course), disowns Jansenism, but protests against the bull Unigenitus, which condemned Jansenism. He stands on the Council of Trent, regards the pope as a tyrannical father, who has expelled his children. But these continue to respect and obey him, except as far as he has made additions to the Council of Trent, and has appended the dogmas of the immaculate concep- tion and papal infallibility. He calls his priests the Old- Catholic clergy. He represents a hopeless condition of waiting on Providence. He holds the Augustinian views on grace, and exhibits a strong opposition to Jesuitism. He speaks with warm sympathy of the Old-Catholics of Germany. There are six thousand Old-Catholics and Jan- CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 267 senists in Holland, with three bishops. They are a quiet, good people, and are isolated both from the Protestants and the Catholics. As the time finally set for the conference drew nigh, it was found necessary that Dr. Schaff should once more go to Europe. By the end of May, 1873, one-half of the delegates from abroad, appointed for the programme, had either declined or had died. Among the latter were Guthrie, Norman Macleod and Dr. Hoffmann of Berlin. Professor von Tischendorf, who had looked forward with great interest to visiting America, was disabled by paralysis, from which he died a year later. Something had to be done and done quickly, to revive the interest abroad. Dr. Schaff was commissioned to do this work in England and on the Continent, and Dr. John Hall of New York and George H. Stuart of Philadelphia, to present the matter in Scotland and Ireland. Arrived in England, he speaks of attending the con- vocation of Canterbury. " Breakfasted with Archbishop Trench. Then I was introduced by Dean Stanley to con- vocation in Jerusalem Chamber, a very interesting sight but a dull antiquarian discussion about some rubrics in the communion service. Then I lunched with the dean and many dignitaries. Charming politeness of Lady Augusta, the model of an English lady." In visiting Professor and Mrs. Plumptre at Bickley Vicarage, he walked with Professor Plumptre to the mansion at Chisel- hurst which Napoleon III had occupied. "I mused long, looking at the spot where one of the most interesting chapters of modern history expired. The house is sur- rounded by stately trees and situated in a large park. No visitors are admitted. The empress is at Arenenberg, the prince at Woolwich. The emperor, I am told, was very popular in the vicinity." 268 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1873 One of the satisfactory results of his visit in England was the promise of a public document from the Arch- bishop of Canterbury commending the conference. Much encouraged, he hastened to Germany. In Bonn a bold attempt was made to enlist the cooperation of the leaders of the Old-Catholic movement. After consulting with von Schulte, Bishop Reinkens and Professors Reusch and Langen, he determined to invite the approaching Old- Catholic Congress to send three delegates as honorary guests of the conference, making out all the papers in von Schulte's study. While the invitation did not result in the mission of any Old-Catholic delegates, a letter was sent by the congress, conceived in a warm Christian spirit, and expressing the hope that the conference in New York might lead to a closer union of the different branches of the Protestant Church, and that the bond of mutual love between its members and the Old-Catholics might be strengthened as a means to a final reconciliation of all creeds. After visiting Berlin and Leipzig, where he saw the leading churchmen, and Vienna, where the World's Expo- sition was being held, he went to Bad-Gastein to secure an approval of the conference from the emperor of Ger- many. The emperor granted Dr. Schaff an audience, and gave a hearty endorsement to the Alliance, which removed all doubts from the minds of several German scholars who were still wavering as to whether they should attend the conference. The following account is from Dr. Schaffs journal (August 10): " I attended service this morning at the Protestant church, court-preacher Rogge preaching an able and faithful sermon on the Fall of Jerusalem, this being the anniversary of that event. Emperor William, who was present, was very attentive and devout in manner, stand- CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 269 ing during the prayers and following the hymn with his glasses on. After the service, I had an hour's interview with him alone in his private room. He was sitting at his writing-desk. He spoke with amazing frankness on the state of the church and religion. He said, if Christ is not the Son of God but only a man, however good and perfect, our faith is vain and His death cannot atone for our sins. He deplored the want of positive faith and unity in Protestantism and the rapid progress of mate- rialism, money speculation (Geldschwindel) and luxury since the war. ' God used us Germans as instruments for doing great things for Germany, and we cannot be sufficiently thankful for it. Instead of being so, we are getting worse and ourselves deserve a humiliation.' He spoke of papal infallibility, the Old-Catholics (whom he would like to favor), the question of church union in the new provinces, his attachment to the Union Church [of Prussia] and his aversion to forcing it upon any one. He emphatically and expressly authorized and requested me to bear his cordial greeting and best wishes (Gruss und SegenswunscJi) to the conference at New York, and to say that he sustained precisely the same attitude to it as his brother, King Frederick William IV, had publicly taken in regard to the General Conference in Berlin in 1857, one of whose ses- sions he had attended in the Garnisons Kirche. . . . He spoke with interest of several names on the programme, Hoffmann, Godet and others, and of the topics, and ex- pressed the hope that another conference might be soon held in Germany. In parting he took me warmly by the hand, and thanked me for bringing the subject to his attention. He made upon me the deep impression of being a God-fearing, unpretentious, frank, honorable and conscientious man, just as he appears to be in his de- spatches sent during the war and his conduct since. A THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1873 true Helden-Kaiser (imperial hero) is he, worthy to head the list of the emperors of the new German empire ! This is a most important interview and the crown of my visit and mission. The Lord be praised ! " A year later the emperor showed his continued interest in the Alliance by promptly acknowledging the receipt of a printed copy of the proceedings of the conference. Entering Switzerland, Dr. Schaff again set forth the cause of the conference before the Swiss Pastors' Society at Aarau. At Basel, he represented it for the fourth time. At Neuchatel, once more but in vain he urged his friend, Professor Godet, to venture across the seas. In Paris, he was again confronted with the delicate task of reconciling the French delegates to a union meeting as against a dis- tinct French section, and was successful in guarding in advance against any fretting displays of national feeling in New York. The middle of September found him once more on the ocean homeward bound, in company with Dr. John Hall and Mr. George H. Stuart. The result of this tour upon the success of the confer- ence of the Alliance can hardly be overestimated. With his usual power of intellectual comprehension, Dr. Schaff sought to secure words of endorsement in high quarters and succeeded. Failing to secure an endorsement from the queen, he secured the public recognition of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. He then went to Paris and won the approval of the Protestant synod, boldly sought to enlist the sympathy of the Old-Catholic Congress, and then had his interview with the German emperor. The flagging interest of branch alliances in Great Britain and on the Continent was revived, new delegates were secured and a fresh spirit of hopefulness and reassurance was com- municated to the offices of the Alliance at New York, as from time to time Dr. Schaff's encouraging messages were received. CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 271 The conference, which lasted from October 2 to 12, opened with a classical address of welcome by Dr. William Adams, and responses by Professor Christlieb and other delegates from abroad. The tide of interest and enthusiasm increased steadily until it was felt like a wave of great power through the city and among the churches in the vicinity. It was a Pentecostal season, an occasion where all felt the pressure of a common hope and the constraint of a common Christian cause. The success from the beginning to the end surpassed all expectations. An imposing demonstration was given of the concentrated power of Protestantism, and a visible proof of the spiritual unity of Christian believers. Two and sometimes four meetings were held simultaneously at as many different places, with the hall of the Young Men's Christian Association as the central place of assembly, and were attended by throngs who listened with unabated attention to the discussion of a wide variety of topics, bearing upon Christian union; materialism, rationalism and other phases of unbelief; Romanism, missions and methods of practical Christian work. Never before at an ecclesiastical council in this country had such an array been brought together of scholars, clergymen and eminent Christian laymen. The popular meetings on the two Sabbath evenings were of great power, the final meeting, held at the Academy of Music, being brought to a solemn close by the delegates and the audience repeating the Lord's Prayer, each in his own tongue. Great as Dr. SchafF s pleasure was to welcome such scholars from Germany as Dorner, Christlieb and Krafft, he was no less cordial with the French and French-Swiss delegations, and made one of the principal addresses at the French public meeting. He then said : 2/2 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1873 As Americans we can never forget the debt of gratitude we owe to France for her efficient aid in achieving our national independence, and your Lafayette is one of our household words in inseparable union with the name of Washington. To Switzerland we are indebted for the example of a well-regulated republic, resting on moral self- government and combining the advantages of a centralized and confederate government. As Christians we cannot forget that France from the days of Irenseus to Bernard, Pascal and Fenelon furnished the richest contributions to the noble army of divines and martyrs and the model university after which all other Continental schools of learning in the Middle Ages were organized. As Protes- tants we shall always remember that France, in the person of John Calvin, gave to the world the foremost divine, legislator and disciplinarian of the Reformation and, in the Huguenots, a race of Christian heroes like the Puritan fathers who sacrificed everything to their sacred convic- tions and, being expelled from their native land, became the benefactors of every Protestant country on the globe. Coming to our own times the writings of your own Guizot, Monod, d'Aubi^ne, Pressense", Godet, Bersier and Guyot are as well known among us, and more widely spread than they are in their native land. . . . The conference not only made a deep impression on this side of the Atlantic ; l its influence was felt in Europe. On the return of the foreign delegates to their homes, public meetings were held in London, Edinburgh, Paris, Geneva, Berlin and other centres to listen to reports of what they had heard and seen. Some described their experiences in books. They did not find the crude condi- tion of affairs in society and the church which long tradi- tion had led them to expect. The reports they gave contributed to spread accurate information of American affairs. Dr. Dorner wrote to Dr. Schaff : 1 Dr. Schaff, in connection with Dr. S. I. Prime, edited the Proceedings and Papers of the New York Conference with a History, New York, 1874, 773 pages. CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 2/3 The memories of our journey continue to be fresh and vivid, and I am sure that North America, the much-ridi- culed and ill-famed, has won a place of esteem in the eyes of the German Christians, from a churchly and Christian point of view. For us the gain is this, that our hearts look out into the future of the church with more courage and freedom. Dr. Stoughton told him a few years later in London that the conference was " the most interesting and delight- ful episode of his life." The following is the private record of Dr. Schaff's own impression of the conference at the close of its sessions : What a conference ! It has surpassed the most sanguine expectations. The Spirit of God took hold of it and sub- dued all explosive elements and antagonistic interests, national (French and German), sectional (North and South), sectarian and personal, and has made it a grand and imposing exhibition of Christian unity. God has shown what He can do when. He chooses, and He will bring about a real unity in His own good time to the amazement of the world. All little discontents are drowned in the ocean of universal harmony. Great en- couragement of faith and hope. Gratitude of delegates who were overwhelmed with hospitality and kindness, such as they never experienced before. The interest of the community has been astounding. All my labors of four years are abundantly rewarded. Thus ends the most important chapter of my life, too rich to be noted down here. God be praised. I never felt more thankful and more humble. The following words, written in his journal several years after this, show how deep was his interest in Christian union : How little have I done, how little can any single agent do, for such a noble and holy cause ! And yet the least contribution towards the fulfilment of the promise of " one flock and one shepherd " is well worthy the efforts of a long life, and is a perpetual cause of rejoicing. 2/4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1873 The American constituency of the Alliance could not do too much to show their friendly regard for the delegates from abroad. They took them on excursions to Princeton and the national capital, and sent them, without expense to themselves, to the Falls of Niagara. At the invitation and at the expense of some of the churches in Pittsburg, a number of the delegates visited the city and held a meeting lasting several days. At Washington the delegation was received by Presi- dent Grant. The body sang in the rotunda of the Capi- tol, " All hail the power of Jesus' name," and repeated the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, and sang the dox- ology on the steps of the building. Dr. Schaff often related several instances of Henry Ward Beecher's humor on the visit of the Alliance delegation in Princeton. He walked from the station to the college buildings arm in arm with Mr. Beecher on one side, and Dr. Charles Hodge on the other. It was Mr. Beecher's first visit in Prince- ton. The conversation turning on Princeton theology, he remarked it was like St. John's book, "sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly." Being shown in the library a collection of manuscripts of old sermons, he stood off for a moment, as with a twinkle in his eye he remarked, that he thanked God he had come on the excursion if for no other reason than that he would thenceforth know one dry place to flee to at the next deluge. The New York conference also had its martyrs. Five of its delegates were returning to Europe on the Ville du Havre when she was struck by the Loch Earn and sunk, Nov. 22, 1873. Carrasco of Spain, barely thirty years of age, and Pronier, professor of theology in Geneva, sank with the ship. A few months later the Rev. Emil Cook, who with two other French delegates, the Rev. Mr. Lorriaux and the Rev. Mr. Weiss, had escaped and CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 27$ reached France, died from the effects of the shock and exposure. These deaths awakened wide-spread sympathy in the churches of the United States, and under the au- spices of the Alliance generous sums were contributed to provide for the families of the deceased. It seems to have been Dr. Schaffs good fortune to be associated with almost every important gathering for a gen- eration that is prominently associated with Christian union and toleration. Two years after the conference of the Alliance, in 1875, he participated in the measures resulting in the Alliance of the Reformed churches, and attended the Old-Catholic conference at Bonn. His cabin-mate across the Atlantic was Dr. Henry M. Field, borne down by the recent death of his wife, whom Dr. Schaff called " a brilliant woman, and one of the very best conversa- tionalists among women he had ever met." l Arriving in Edinburgh, he went out from an honored seat next to the moderator in the Assembly of the Free Church, to which he had been " quite unexpectedly called upon motion of Professor Rainy," and accompanied the re- mains of the Rev. William Arnot to the cemetery, where he sleeps with Chalmers, Cunningham, Guthrie and " other noble men for whom the church universal is indebted to Scotland." In London, social contact was renewed with the group of men who had attended the New York meet- ing of the Alliance and with the members of the English Committee of Bible Revisers. 1 Dr. Field in his From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn (2Oth edition, 1896, p. n) makes the following reference to this companionship: " It was my good fortune to have as a fellow-traveller one who was alike at home in Europe and America, the beloved Philip Schaff. . . . While full of learning, he never oppresses you with oracular wisdom, but is as ready for a pleasant story as for a grave literary or theological discussion. No foreigner who has come to our shores, not even Agassiz, has rendered a greater service than he in establishing a sort of literary and intellectual free trade between the educated and religious mind of America, and of Great Britain, and of Germany." 2/6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1875 In July the international conference of Presbyterian churches met in London to consider the formation of an Alliance of the Reformed churches. Participating in its deliberations, Dr. Schaff was in his element. The meeting of the delegates in the Jerusalem Chamber, by invitation of Dean Stanley, is noted as an occasion of rare interest. The dean, who takes under the broad wings of his the- ology all the churches and schools of Christendom from the pope as the head of the clerical profession to the rationalistic bishop of Natal [Dr. Colenso], took the mod- erator's chair, as he pleasantly remarked, and gave us with his usual skill and taste an admirable summary of the his- tory of that chamber from the period of the Crusades down to the labors of the Bible Revisers, dwelling mainly on the Westminster Assembly which in this memorable hall com- pleted the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Dr. McCosh expressed the hope that the Jerusalem Chamber might yet serve a still nobler purpose than any in the past, namely in promoting the reunion of Christendom on the basis of the revealed truth of the Scriptures. In my address, I called the attention of the delegates to the fact that no less an authority than the dean himself had recently declared the article of the Westminster Confession on the Scriptures to be the best symbolical statement ever made. A week later we find him, in company with Dean Stanley and Dr. Stoughton, on his way to the unveiling of the monument of Richard Baxter at Kidderminster, the scene of the labors of that tolerant representative of a broad and inclusive churchmanship. The statue reared near St. Mary's parish church, where he ministered, represents the great divine clad in Puritan gown, preaching " a dying man to dying men," one hand resting on the Bible while with the other he points to the Saint's Everlasting Rest. Dr. Schaff used to speak of the day as one of the most instructive, as it was one of the brightest, days he ever spent in England. After the unveiling of the statue by Mrs. Philpot, the wife of the Bishop of Worcester, ad- CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 277 dresses were made by Dr. Stoughton, representing the Nonconformists, and Dean Stanley, representing the Es- tablished Church. Puritan and Cavalier united in doing honor to the occasion in the spirit of the motto which Baxter seems to have dug up from the treatise of Rupertus Meldenius, and which Dr. Schaff as an unofficial repre- sentative of the Evangelical Alliance may be regarded as having stood for, namely "in necessary things unity, in matters of doubt liberty, in all things charity." We next find him at Bonn sitting among the scholars and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Old-Catholic con- ference, which assembled in August, 1875. The Bonn Conference, as it was called, was the most interesting ecclesiastical event of the year and another exhibition of the idea of Christian union, now struggling for, now bursting forth into expression in the latter half of the century. It was a bold attempt to settle by a few strokes what the oecumenical councils of Lyons and Florence and a library of learned treatises had been unable to settle. The chief question under discussion was the procession of the Holy Ghost, or whether the words " and from the Son " (filioque) added by the Latin Church to the state- ment that "the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father," could be so modified as to satisfy representatives of both the Eastern and Western communions. Dr. Dollinger was altogether the most conspicuous figure at the meetings and their controlling genius. There were about one hundred and fifty theologians and divines present, representing the Greek Church, the Old- Catholics, the Anglican Church and several of the Ameri- can churches. The names of ninety-nine persons, of whom twenty were Orientals, were officially printed as taking part. The Anglican Church was represented by Dr. Liddon, the Bishop of Gibraltar and Dean How- 2/8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1875 son. Among others from the United States besides Dr. Schaff, were Bishop Henry C. Potter of New York, and Dr. Nevin of St. Paul's, Rome. Dr. Krafft, professor of church history, was the only member of the Protes- tant faculty of Bonn who showed interest enough in the conference to attend its sessions. Lange and Christlieb held aloof, "having no confidence in Dollinger's sin- cerity," as Dr. Schaff says. All the more prominent of the Old-Catholics were there except the lay-leader, Professor von Schulte, who, he declares, " was more ready to treat with the Protestants than with the Orientals." These are some of Dr. Schaff's notes of the gathering, taken from his journal : 1 It is certainly a very unique assembly, a sort of minia- ture oecumenical council, Greek, Latin and Anglican with a sprinkling of Protestant Dissent. As a psychologi- cal and theological phenomenon, it is of the greatest interest. Here are the legitimate descendants of the fathers, and schoolmen of the East and West, who wrote ponderous volumes on the single and double procession of the Holy Spirit and have kept the two largest churches of the world separated for a thousand years. Never since the Council of Florence in 1439 have so many Orientals been in the West for the express purpose of negotiating with Latin Christians about church union, and never did they meet before face to face with Anglicans and Ameri- cans for the same purpose. Dr. Dollinger is the soul of the conference and speaks more than all the other members put together. He not only has opened each session with a lengthy lecture of an hour or more in length, such as he would deliver to his students in Munich, but he made a speech of his own on almost every speech made by others. This would have been intolerable but for the absence of all appearance of egotism and for the intrinsic importance of what he said. Although seventy-six years of age, he is in full vigor and 1 Elaborate articles from Dr. SchafPs pen appeared on the subject in the Independent and the New York Evangelist. CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 279 has an extraordinary command of the whole field of ancient and modern church history. It may be confi- dently said that he knows more about church history than any other man living, Catholic or Protestant. . . . From his immense resources he brings fearful charges against the papal and Jesuitical system. He makes it responsible for the divisions of Christendom, for the dis- tractions in Germany and the Thirty Years' War with its endless misery and the stagnation, ignorance, supersti- tion and hidden infidelity of Roman Catholic countries contrasted with the learning, progress and general pros- perity of Protestant lands. He made "clean work," as he said, with purgatory and indulgences, stamping them as mediaeval corruptions and means of papal aggrandizement and avarice. He exposed the impudent literary forgeries of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals and the doctrinal fabri- cations which laid the foundations of papal absolutism and papal infallibility. He showed that the Vatican decrees, which Cardinal Manning says must be believed as much as the existence of God, are a high-handed revolution, and brought about by the Jesuits for the destruction of liberal Catholicism, and are in irreconcilable antagonism to all the nobler and higher tendencies of the age. I told Dollinger that according to his lectures the devil had fully as much or more to do with the origin and development of popery than even Protestant theologians had ever con- tended ; whereupon he smiled and remarked, " Yes, if you understand by the devil the old Adam." If learning could settle a dispute, he might do it without having convened this conference and put the Greek and Russian delegates to the trouble of travelling so far. At Bellinger's request, Dr. Schaff made an address in which he stated his views on the procession of the Holy Ghost, and spoke of the efforts towards Christian union, of which the conference was one. A full agreement in the theological conception of the Holy Spirit and the inex- haustible mystery of the Trinity seemed to him impossible and unnecessary. There was a distinction between an article of faith and a theological speculation. The church has no right to go beyond the Scriptures in her doctrinal 280 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1875 symbols. The Greek statement "from the Father, alone" and the Latin addition "and from the Son," were both *-/ra-scriptural. The Scripture statements that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son, are sufficient for dogma and union. We should go behind the fathers to the grandfathers, from St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom to St. Paul and St. John ; and from the living stream of the church to the fountain of inspiration, and seek true and living union in the person of one com- mon Lord and Saviour. He spoke with that positiveness and precision which was his custom when he came to a place where a definite statement of his position was called for. In the elaboration of his lectures, he made a clear distinction between the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit which is from God the Father, and his mission which is of God the Son. At the request of the Old- Catholic Professor Reusch, he committed his address to paper. No ecclesiastical results can be traced to the Bonn Conference. Nevertheless Dr. Schaff continued to look back upon it as one of the most stimulating ecclesiastical assemblies he had ever attended and a striking episode in the church history of the century. It is characteristic of that flexible American Protestant churchmanship of which Dr. Schaff was a representative, that it can pass easily from a doctrinal conference of Old- Catholics and Orientals to an evangelistic service con- ducted according to modern methods, and seeks to find the working of divine Providence no less in practical movements than in scholarly discussion and doctrinal statement. He gave his encouragement by word and presence to the meetings held on a large scale in New York in 1876, under the leadership of Moody and Sankey. Of them he used to say, " It is a sin to act or speak against such a religious revival, perhaps the greatest the world has CHAP, xi CHRISTIAN UNION 281 seen since Wesley and Whitefield. It is the best refuta- tion of infidelity, and shows what power the simple Gospel story of sin and grace still has." He often used to tell the story of Mr. Moody 's conversation with Glad- stone after one of the London meetings. " I wish I had your chest," the statesman is reported to have said ; "And I wish I had your head upon it," was the quick rejoinder. In his journal the notes run like this: "These meetings are a wonderful phenomenon, altogether exceptional. If only Christ be preached and souls are converted, we should rejoice. ... I heard a powerful sermon by Moody, at seven o'clock this morning, on heaven or rather St. Paul, -'that little Jewish tentmaker,' who did not work for pay, for he took no money but helped himself, nor for salvation this he got long before, when he exclaimed 'who shall separate us/ etc. but from sheer love of Christ. . . . To-day we dismissed our students that they may study practical theology at the feet of the fishermen of Galilee at the Hippodrome. . . . Mr. Moody showed great wisdom and common sense in answering only proper questions." 282 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 CHAPTER XII UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 1870-1893 Again Professor Union Theological Seminary Its Faculty Dr. S chaff's Inaugural In the Class Room Estimates of Students Anecdotes Charge to a Class Charge to a Pastor Doctor of Laws Friendships at Home and Abroad Home Sorrows Tour in the Orient Egypt The Pyramids The Wilderness Mt. Sinai Vexations of Oriental Travel The Mosaic Records Jerusalem Nazareth Beirut Reflections on Palestine Constantinople and Athens "Through Bible Lands" Oriental Travel and Theological Study IN 1870 Dr. Schaff accepted the professorship of theo- logical encyclopaedia and Christian symbolism in Union Theological Seminary. At the same time he sought ad- mission to the Presbytery of New York. It was understood, however, that this step indicated a change of ecclesiastical relation, not a change of theological views. The type of Calvinism prevailing in the German Reformed Church has an acknowledged right in the Presbyterian Church. This very same year its General Assembly formally recognized the Heidelberg Catechism as a valuable compend of Christian doctrine, and approved its use in the instruction of children in its churches. Little as the names, Presby- terian and Calvinist, stood for a definition exhausting Dr. Schaff's theological views, he sought to be loyal to the interests of the denomination with which he was connected. During the greater part of his residence in New York he worshipped with his family at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, of which Dr. William Adams was CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 283 pastor. He also listened with interest to Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, the present pastor. He made the following note of his introductory sermon (Feb. 28, 1880): "The sermon was a piece of fine, effective rhetoric on the granite foundation of solid learning and philosophical and theological culture. It settles him here as a man of power in New York." The return after an interruption of six years to the active duties and literary associations of the class room, was in a high degree agreeable to Dr. Schaff. With the professors of Union Seminary he stood in relations of intimate friendship, and he had already filled temporarily the chairs of Hebrew and church history. The Union Theological Seminary was founded by min- isters and laymen of the Presbyterian Church in 1836, a time of stormy theological discussion. The controversies which involved the origin and contents of the Auburn Declaration of Faith were in full progress. The trials of Lyman Beecher of Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, and Albert Barnes of Philadelphia were in progress. Wide-spread apprehension was felt in the Presbyterian Church of the relaxing influence of New Haven divinity, fathered by Dr. Taylor, and revival methods. The atmosphere was charged with suspicion and accusations. The more rigid interpretation of the Westminster system was insisted upon chiefly in those sections of the church which had drawn their traditions and their type of ecclesiastical thought from Scotch-Irish sources. The party which favored the milder interpretation had been influenced by New England Calvinism and the Presbyterianism which came through Puritan channels. The rumors of disrup- tion were in the air which occurred two years later, in 1838, and divided the church into two bodies popularly called the Old School and the New School. 284 THE LIFE OF p H ILIP SCHAFF 1870 The founders of the seminary, deprecating the extremes of confessional interpretation and favoring a moderate exercise of ecclesiastical authority, sought to provide an institution " around which all men of moderate views and feelings who desire to live free from party strife and to stand aloof from all extremes of doctrinal speculation, practical radicalism and ecclesiastical domination may affectionately rally." 1 Such was their published decla- ration, but while averse to theological controversy and to emphasizing unduly denominational peculiarities, it was their declared purpose to be loyal to the standards and the polity of the Presbyterian Church. The seminary did not pass under the control of either branch of the church. It was, however, by the views of the directors and the teaching in the class room identified with the type of doc- trine in vogue in the New School body. The faculty, at the time of Dr. SchafFs accession, com- bined eminent gifts. Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, professor of pastoral theology, was closing his career. At a meeting of clergymen at his home, a week or two before his death, in 1871, "he recited, with singular emphasis," says Dr. Schaff, " as his favorite hymn, the hymn of Schmolcke, ' My Jesus, as thou wilt.' It affected me deeply, and who knows but that it may be the swan song of this man of saintly simplicity and purity? I never saw a divine who excelled him in purity, spirituality, unction and heavenly mindedness." Henry B. Smith occupied the chair of systematic the- ology. Born in New England and trained under Tholuck and Julius Miiller, at Halle, he brought to his work a frail constitution but a clear and philosophical mind, an ample preparation, a courteous manner and a catholic spirit. 1 See George L. Prentiss, The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, New York, 1889. CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 285 He held his students by the discriminating skill and fresh- ness of his intellect, and drew them to him by his unpre- tentious and modest demeanor. The chair of church history was filled by Roswell D. Hitchcock. As a master of sentences, he stood almost without a peer among his American contemporaries. The judgment he used to pass upon Wyclif might be applied to himself he was as keen as a Damascus blade. His sentences were blazing meteors. He kept abreast of the sociological movements of the age as well as its theo- logical thought. In the class room and the pulpit he impressed himself upon young men as a bold, indepen- dent, brilliant thinker and rhetorician. The department of New Testament exegesis was in the hands of William G. T. Shedd, whose mind was better fitted by its metaphysical turn for the chair of theology, which he subsequently came to occupy. He was a dogmatician rather than an exegete or historian. He was not adapted for the floor of ecclesiastical assemblies. The wonder is that, with his mental traits, he should have written so good a book in the departments of homiletics and pastoral the- ology as he did. He was a master in careful logical dis- cussion and precise definition. His premises granted, his logical superstructure was impregnable. Definitions of the divine attributes and paragraphs on the divine decrees, he could draw forth one by one as an old armor-smith might have drawn forth one blade after another, each as keen and flashing as its predecessor. With this meta- physical quality he combined a forcible English style, chaste and finished. His theological system was rigid ; his heart was warm. Where his students could not accept his rigorous Calvinism, they admired the simplicity and ingenuousness of his Christian character. Three years after Dr. Schaff's election, the faculty was 286 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 enriched by the accession of William Adams and George L. Prentiss. Dr. Adams' advent marked the beginning of a new era in the discipline and outward prosperity of the institution. Coming, like the three last, of Puritan ante- cedents, his rich Christian culture gave him a rank of pre- eminence in the ministerial profession of his generation in America. His fine figure, urbane manners and culture of speech would have made him a marked man in any body of men. During his administration the cramping financial conditions of the seminary were terminated by the princely endowments of Mr. James Brown and Gov- ernor Edwin D. Morgan, since added to by the gifts of Mr. Charles Butler, D. H. McAlpin, Morris K. Jesup, D. Willis James, William E. Dodge and other benefactors among the living. Professor Prentiss, the last survivor of this group, was also a New Englander by birth, and a favorite pupil of Tholuck. In addition to his literary and theological equipment, he brought to the seminary an intimate know- ledge of its history and polity in its earlier days and a deep spiritual intuition and culture. Dr. Schaff brought to the faculty a new element. He was encyclopaedic in his theological attainments. With the catholic spirit and irenic temper of his colleagues, he sympathized fully, and was behind none of them in regard for the sacredness of the pastoral office and in the prac- tical aim of his teaching. Brought up in the atmosphere of the Reformed faith, a native of the land where Zwingli was born and Calvin labored and both are buried, he rep- resented the mild type of Calvinism. In this respect he was at one with his associates except Dr. Shedd. In taking the pledge to be faithful to the system of doctrine taught in the Westminster standards, a pledge required of its professors, he did so with the understanding that this CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 287 act did not involve any renunciation of his theological views. Defining his attitude to Calvinism, at a time when the question of revising the Westminster Confession was up for discussion, he said : : " How could I ever subscribe to the Westminster Confession ? some one may say. I will answer that question. I honestly stated my objections to the Heidelberg Catechism (eightieth question) before I signed it and after my call to a professorship in the Re- formed Church, in 1844, and I as honestly stated my objec- tions to the Westminster Confession when I was called (in- view of all my previous publications) to a professorship in the Union Theological Seminary ; and on both occasions I was assured by men then in highest authority, as Dr. John W. Nevin, William Adams, Henry B. Smith, Edwin F. Hatfield and others, that the terms of subscription were so liberal as to leave ample room for all my dissent- ing views on these and other points." Dr. Schaff began his lectures Sept. 19, 1870, and his Inaugural was delivered a year later, Oct. 18, 1871, the venerable Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox, himself at one time a professor in the seminary, presiding. Its subject was the Theology of our Age and Country. 2 American theology, he said, should mark a new era in the development of the Christian church. This might be expected from the prac- tical type of American Christianity and the dominance of the voluntary principle of church support and the com- mingling of denominations on American soil. The volun- tary principle is adapted to keep from the ranks of the ministry those who in state churches pursue theology like an ordinary profession for a mere living, and in so doing degrade and paralyze it. Thus it secures a theology more 1 Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Churches, New York, 1890, p. 37. 2 Included in Dr. SchafPs volume of Essays, Christ and Christianity, pp. 1-22. 288 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 scriptural and more in sympathy with the religious life of the people than in countries where professors and minis- ters are officers of the state as well as of the church. As for the commingling of denominations, here they pursue their respective missions with unrestrained liberty and learn by their acquaintance with each other to foster the spirit of a large-hearted Christian liberality and charity. The fruit of this spirit will be Christian union which can- not be enforced or artificially manufactured. It must grow spontaneously from the soil of Christian freedom, must proceed from the Spirit of God, and rests on the vital union of individual believers with Christ. A very different reception was given to this Inaugural from that which was given to the discourse delivered at Reading twenty-seven years before. The address on the Principle of Protestantism looked more to the past and was more elaborate in treatment. It abounded in quota- tions and scholastic distinctions. The address in New York looked more to the future and was more practical and pacific in expression. Both agreed in laying empha- sis upon Christian union. The former approached the subject from the negative side of the evils of sectarian divisions, the latter dealt with it from the aspect of the providential purpose in placing denominations side by side in this free arena of Christian thought and enter- prise. Dr. Schaff had learned that the denominational distinctions of American Christianity might be a fruitful seed-plot of the Christian virtues and of emulation in good works. His first courses of lectures were on the introduction to the Old Testament, theological encyclopaedia and sym- bolics. The last two subjects were particularly congenial, and he continued to treat them during the remainder of his connection with the institution. As distinct subjects CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 289 of lectures, they were new in the theological curriculum of our seminaries and some wondered what the new pro- fessorship might be. Dr. Schaff used to relate how Dr. S. I. Prime, the acute and witty editor of the New York Observer, said to him, " Pray tell me the name of your professorship ? " On hearing it precisely stated, he wittily replied : " Theological encyclopaedia and symbolics ! As for symbolics, I never heard of that in all my life ; and as for encyclopaedia, if you are a professor of that, the semi- nary needs no other." By subsequent arrangement he was transferred in 1873 to the chair of Hebrew, in 1874 to the chair of biblical literature, covering New Testament exegesis, and in 1887 to the chair of church history. Dr. Schaff' s influence as a lecturer in Union Seminary came through his ripe scholarship, encyclopaedic learning, a genial spirit, mental honesty and the example of indus- trious habits. "We learned a great deal from him by absorption," a student writes. The classes admired and confided in his erudition. Beyond him and his judgments it was not thought necessary to go. He did not crowd his lectures with details, and was most suited to give instruc- tion where historic knowledge and generalization played a prominent part. Despite his participation in outside movements, he always appeared in the class room with a prepared lecture, the heads of which at least were care- fully committed to paper. It was his habit to keep con- stantly revising and re-copying his lectures to the end of his life. Students well remember him hurrying through the streets with his lecture book under his arm and reaching at the last sound of the bell the lecture room, all out of breath. After offering a short prayer or an- nouncing a verse from a familiar hymn, he proceeded to question the class or plunged at once into his subject. He held to the decided advantages of the American 290 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1870 method of theological training over the method which prevails in the German universities in the respect of class-room discipline, the opening of each lecture with prayer and the daily chapel worship. And irksome as the task of daily questioning was for the lecturer, he regarded the system of recitation as yielding far better results than the mode in vogue in Germany, whereby the final examination is the only test of the student's scholar- ship. His warm interest in his students was manifested by visiting them in their rooms and associating them with himself in his daily walks. He took them two by two and spent the noon hour in this peripatetic way through Washington Square or, after the seminary buildings were removed, through Central Park. His own hardships dur- ing student life made him sympathetic towards students of limited resources. He used to say, in view of the aid granted to theological students in America, that seminary life here was a paradise for poor students compared with Germany. In the class room Dr. Schaff was also known on the genial side of his nature, often interrupting the gravity of the hour by a witticism or a story. In a genial way he knew how to administer reproof. On one occa- sion a student appeared at the lecture in his morning gown. Quick to mark the exception, the professor ex- claimed, " Oh ! I see we have a cardinal among us." The following anecdotes given by his students 1 might be indefinitely multiplied. On one occasion, speaking against the dogmatic spirit with which theological opin- ions are held, "There's only one man in the world," he said, "who is infallible, the pope; and he is mistaken." The following remark, made in playful humor, did not 1 The Rev. Henry K. Miller, now of Japan, and the Rev. Harvey M. Shields of Chicago. CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 291 indicate any lack of regard for Princeton Seminary, which he held in high esteem and whose professors were his friends. The class was being quizzed on the German Ref- ormation, and just at that time the Presbyterian Church was in the early stages of the so-called Briggs contro- versy. A Mr. J., being called upon to answer certain questions about Luther's antagonist Dr. Eck, was asked where Dr. Eck came from. Happening not to remember, Dr. Schaff answered the question himself by saying, " He came from Princeton." Tremendous applause followed.- After it had subsided and pretending he had committed an error, he corrected himself, saying, " No, he came from Ingolstadt ; I make that correction authoritatively." At one of the conferences in the chapel, a clergyman of the Methodist Church was addressing the students, and becoming enthusiastic exclaimed, " Gentlemen, I am a Methodist and, in view of the wonderful progress made by my church, I cannot help saying, ' Glory to God ! ' ' Promptly Dr. Schaff, who with the other professors occu- pied the platform, responded with a loud " Amen." This was so unexpected and yet so characteristic, that it utterly upset the gravity of the students, who filled the house with laughter and vigorous applause. " It was difficult to recite to him, when the student was called upon to give the substance of a previous lecture. This or that statement would call forth an explanation from the doctor. In such cases he went on and on, the student remaining on his feet. The teacher and not the student was doing the reciting and then Dr. Schaff would say, 'Very good, now you may sit down.' We were cer- tain that the student had received a capital mark even though he had said nothing at all. Woe, however, to the man who attempted to do all the reciting, himself ! He never tried it twice." 292 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 Dr. Thomas C. Hall of Chicago writes : - My acquaintance with Dr. Schaff dates back to my boy- hood when, with profound admiration for his scholarship, I used to be amused, as in my father's presence he would tell characteristic anecdotes of men whose names were then often unfamiliar to me. I came fully under his influence when I entered the seminary in 1879. I was sitting one day at the long library table in the old building when Dr. Schaff joined me with his arms full of books, and first made a deep and abiding impression upon my life. On telling him that I had been using the summer months to pick up a little German, he at once entered into an interesting discussion of German theology and its influence upon American thought, and urged me to master the language. He men- tioned names of Germans I ought to read and fired my first ambition to become acquainted with German literature and thought. Many times I had earnest interviews with him, bringing to him some of those perplexities that an entrance into a new world of thought and life is likely to produce. To his lectures I listened, as did all his students, with open-mouthed admiration for the encyclopaedic char- acter of his attainments, and, all through my seminary course, there was no one more willing to take minutes from a busy life for the giving of private advice and imparting information than was Dr. Schaff. When, at his advice, I went to Berlin in 1881, I carried with me among other letters a very kind personal note to Dr. Dorner. I found Dr. Dorner so ill that I did not present my letter until he sent for me, saying that Dr. Schaff, in correspondence, had mentioned my being in Berlin and he would like to see me. I had two interviews with Dr. Dorner, in both of which Dr. Schaff's work formed a meeting-ground, and one of these interviews must have been very nearly the last that any outsider had with the great thinker, for he was on his dying bed and spoke with great difficulty but pressed me to carry to his friend in America a message of good cheer and of hope for both of a meeting in God's presence. That message I brought back and it moved Dr. Schaff to tears as I delivered it. One of the last associations with Dr. Schaff was at the stormy Assembly 1 of 1893 in Washington, where again he 1 The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 293 took me into his confidence and spoke, for the first and only time I ever heard him mention it, of his own trial for heretical teachings. I shall never forget the kindly tone in which he spoke to me of the peril to young men who might be borne away in the intellectual struggle for the spiritual realities that were involved. He was then in poor health, and spoke feelingly of the possible shortness of his stay and of his longing for peace and quiet in the church with which he was identified. Another student of an earlier period, Dr. Teunis S. Hamlin of Washington, says: The charm of Dr. SchafFs lectures was not more in his vast erudition, his philosophical tracing of cause and effect, his superb English style and his broad Christian charity than in his simple and beautiful personality. Indeed the transparent Christlikeness of his character was his most valuable gift to us young men. . Very often have I dropped my pencil and sat feasting eyes and heart on his face, so handsome, pure, strong, spiritual. On occasion he was eloquent, as when one day, casting aside his notes and violating every seminary tradition by rising from his chair, he broke into an impassioned description of the character and career of Julian, which ended amid ringing and re- peated applause. In nothing was his sweetness and breadth more evident than in his ability to sympathize with pastors, though he had never been a pastor himself. Dr. Schaff's parting counsel to the graduating class of 1871 reveals his conception of a proper equipment for the ministry. Remember, first of all, the true bearing of theological study on your personal character. Scholarship is good, virtue is better, holiness is best of all. We admire great men, we respect and love good men. Genius is a free gift of God bestowed upon very few, character is the result of the combined action of divine grace and human effort; this is within reach of you all and upon this mainly the value of your public life must depend. You have studied to little purpose if your studies have not made you more humble, devout and charitable. . . . Your learning and 294 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1870 eloquence will do little good in the world unless they are quickened by spiritual power. The more we learn, the more we find out how little we know and how much we shall know hereafter. Theology is like a Gothic cathedral or an Alpine mountain ; the nearer we approach them, the grander they appear, and the more keenly we feel our own littleness and insignificance. Remember next that theological study looks to public usefulness. It is not merely an intellectual gymnasium, a gratification of liter- ary curiosity and taste, but it is all that for our fellow-men, for whom the Son of God died on the cross, and whom we are to lead to Him. Theology should never be separated from the life of the church, and professors should keep up an intimate connection with ministers and pastors. Throw yourselves into your public calling with enthusi- asm. By enthusiasm, I mean intense energy, a spirit of fire kindled at the altar in heaven. Nothing great and good can be accomplished without it. Faith propelled by the spirit of fire is the pioneer of every great work, invents new plans, builds seminaries and universities and houses of charity, reforms the church, civilizes savages, discovers new worlds and wins them for Christ. Finally, let the love of Christ be the all-absorbing passion. Love is the greatest conqueror, mightier than armies and navies. It has won Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and barbarians, free- men and slaves, and transformed them from enemies into friends, from sinners into saints. It works moral wonders every day from the pulpit, and in its quiet and unobserved walks of self-denial and good will, seeking the lost, raising the dead to spiritual life, and changing the very miseries of earth into means of grace and steps to heaven. The following paper was found on the table of a young clergyman to whom he gave a charge at his installation : My young friend : Thank God that He has called on you to be a minister, the highest, noblest and most useful office. You have freely chosen your profession from pure motives, and God has so far blessed your ministry. Let your past success stimulate you to greater efforts. Walk in humility and the fear of God and in constant depend- ence on His grace. Prepare your sermons with great care at your desk and on your knees. Preach by your example CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 295 even more than by your teaching. Feed the lambs as well as the sheep, and draw the young into the Sunday school that they may be prepared for the church and in the church for heaven. Keep your mind open to all the im- portant events and questions of the day, and all that is true and good and beautiful in the church and the world. Study human nature as well as books. Cultivate a cheer- ful and hopeful temper, knowing that God rules the world, and that truth and righteousness must prevail in the end. Be kind and friendly to everybody. Preach Christ, lead men to Christ, build up His kingdom. So shall your ministry be fruitful, and you will be saluted with "well done, enter into the joy of the Lord." Until the last few years of his life, Dr. Schaff preached constantly. He used, with equal ease to himself, German and English. It was his habit to think out his sermons on his feet as he paced up and down his study for an hour or more before the service. The tradition ran among the students, while he was giving lectures in Andover, that all he had to do was to fold his hands behind his back and walk up and down the room once or twice and his sermon was ready. He used no notes in their delivery. He fre- quently adduced Schleiermacher as a good example for young preachers. For a number of years that divine wrote his sermons out in full and committed them to memory ; then, having formed the sermonic habit, he con- fined his immediate preparation to noting down the heads of his discourses. Luther's receipt for preaching was often upon his lips, Tritt frisch auf, mack's Maul auf, hor' bald auf. The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by Amherst College. The following conversation indi- cates no lack of appreciation of the honor. " I attended the commencement exercises at Yale and the alumni din- ner (June 29, 1876). General Sherman and Yung Wing were made LL.D.'s. I told General Sherman that this 296 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1873 meant the inauguration of the millennial reign of peace. I was also informed that I had been made LL.D., to-day, by Amherst College. I asked Dr. Woolsey, who sat beside me, what a man who knows nothing about laws was to do under such circumstances ? He smiled and said I should not take it hard. He had been made LL.D. by Dart- mouth and D.D. by Harvard University, and took them both complacently. Dartmouth knew nothing about law and Harvard nothing about theology." Few Protestant clergymen of his day equalled Dr. Schaff in the wide range of his clerical friendships. He had many friends, because he had an irrepressible desire to meet men. His wide personal acquaintance on two conti- nents put him in command of a large treasury of personal anecdotes, which he drew upon to relieve his own heavily taxed brain, as well as to brighten many a social hour. He magnified the good traits of others. If he was not able to commend, he was silent ; and yet, when it became necessary for him to give his judgment, he was concise and positive. A type of character which had his admira- tion is indicated in a letter (March 9, 1870), after the death of his friend John McClintock, of Drew Seminary : " I attended yesterday his funeral and was moved to tears. He was a loyal and true Methodist, and always in hearty sympathy with all other branches and interests of Christ's kingdom. That's the style of man I admire and love." The following extract from his journal, written early in 1873, exhibits his interest in his friends and in men in general : The last year has been fraught with lessons of vanity and mortality, with public calamities by land and sea, and the death records of distinguished men, many of whom I knew personally, as Morse, Merle d'Aubigne", Hundes- CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 297 hagen, Norman Macleod, Frederick Maurice, William H. Seward, Francis Lieber, Professor Hadley, Horace Greeley and others. With Professor Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, I was brought into frequent contact toward the end of his long and useful life in matters of the Evan- gelical Alliance and the Russian embassy in behalf of religious freedom, and learned to esteem him as a venera- ble sage of beautiful simplicity of character and of child- like faith. Norman Macleod I saw for the last time, last June, a few weeks before his death, when he delivered his last and most eloquent speech on Indian missions in the Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He looked strong and healthy, but told me with foreboding presentiment that the critical state of his health obliged him to abstain from all mental labor and care, and that he was going to sail in August to America for rest. With Merle d' Aubign6, the eloquent historian of the Reformation, who fell peace- fully asleep after conducting family prayers, I became acquainted at Geneva in 1841, and had occasional corre- spondence till within a few days before his death. Pro- fessor Hundeshagen I met in his vigor in 1854 at Frankfurt, Heidelberg and in Switzerland, and, for the last time, in Bonn in 1871, when he was broken and ready to depart. With Professor Maurice I spent many a de- lightful hour in company with such men as Archdeacon Hare (his brother-in-law) and Dr. Trench, and was im- pressed with the meekness, gentleness and humility of his character. Mrs. Canon Kingsley told me last summer he was the purest man she ever knew. Mr. Seward spoke to me in Washington, in the darkest hour of our Civil War, with sanguine hopefulness of the certain victory of the Union. Lieber was full of information impregnated with intelligence, but very vain. The death of Horace Greeley was a thrilling sermon on the vanity of all earthly ambition. His last intelligible sentence amidst the dreams of delirium was the comfort of the patriarchal Job "I know that my Redeemer liveth." . . . And now, the whole world is turned to the imperial corpse at Chiselhurst, reviewing the eventful life of Napoleon III [died Jan. 3, 1873], who for twenty years was the central figure on the political stage of Europe the man of destiny, the adventurer of Strassburg and Boulogne, the prisoner of Sedan, the architect of his fortune and ruin, the rebuilder 298 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1873 of Paris, the supporter of the temporal power of the pope, the arbiter of Europe, the blunderer in Mexico, the exile in England whose proud queen once condescended to kiss him as her mighty ally and cousin ! What startling con- trasts of the greatest successes and greatest failures ! I saw him once when he was at the giddy height of his power, and few dreamed of his utter fall, although his uncle's career easily suggested it. The friends of a smaller circle, who were passing away, called forth words of remembrance and greeting. Hear- ing of the death of Mrs. von Krocher, in 1874, he wrote : " An important chapter in my early life follows this good woman into eternity." The death of Antistes Kind at the venerable age of ninety-two called forth these words : " My oldest teacher in religion also is gone. Farewell, dear old pastor, teacher and friend, till I salute thee again in the kingdom of glory with thy good wife, sons and daughters, companions of my youth in Chur ! " The day before the arrival of this announcement, Mrs. Meta Heusser died. Although prepared for the event, he says : " The news over- whelmed me, filling my heart with sadness and my eyes with tears. She was one of the purest and the noblest women, and the most gifted woman, I ever knew. ' Love never faileth.' This was the last utterance of her lips. The Hirzel, once my sanctissimum and the culmination of my visits to Europe, is now desolation to me. How every- thing changes ! So many friends in the better world ! How soon shall I follow ? Lord, prepare me for the great change ! " Of his mother, who survived Mrs. Heusser a few months, he says : " My dear old mother died without a struggle. She has for a long time felt homesick in this world and longed for the rest of heaven. She was speech- less, but died looking calm and peaceful, with a smile of contentment." About the same time (1876) he notes : CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 299 Lady Augusta Stanley has died and is now buried in Westminster Abbey. Of the highest rank and culture, she was as simple as a child, the intimate friend of the queen and equally beloved by the poor. She always treated me with unaffected cordiality and I shall gratefully cherish her sweet memory. Thus another death is added to the many which have made me poorer on earth this winter, but richer in heaven. Twesten and Erbkam are also gone. How many memories do their names awaken in me ! Happy days and hours of the past ! Death and eternity, what awful mysteries ! Oh, for faith, faith, faith in Him who is the resurrection and the life everlasting ! Sorrows also came to his own home. A son, Philip, passed away a few months after the change of residence to New York. Under date of Aug. 14, 1864, the father wrote : " Philip, though very sick, repeated the whole of the Te Deum, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The dear, darling son ! It was his last Sabbath on earth. He died on Wednesday, two days before his seventh birthday, to which he looked forward with so much pleasure, and now he is celebrating it in heaven with his little brother Willie and his little sister." Another son, John Edwin, died suddenly from a fall, nine years old. " At four (Aug. 20, 1870), Johnny, bright, charming, frank, generous, exuberant, full of imagination, was a corpse on our bed. Climbing unseen, except by a little boy, to a tree, he fell senseless on his back on the stone pavement, crushing his life out in an instant. There was no visible injury. Merciful God and Father ! What a terrible affliction to us all and especially to my dear wife, who loved Johnny with a boundless love and would readily have given her own life for his. Give us grace to bear this affliction and to kiss the hand which has smitten us. This is now the fourth child that Thou hast taken from us to Thyself in heaven. Make heaven with such treasures nearer and dearer to us all. The colored 300 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1876 woman eighty-seven years old, who came in from a neigh- bor's and was attracted to Johnny because of his kindness to her, was right when, bending over his body, she said : ' He is a little angel in heaven. That is just what he is, and that you ought to think and nothing else.' What is life and the world without religion, the religion of Him who is the resurrection and the life ! " The child's sudden death called forth poems from Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss Johnny Sleeps and Margaret B. Sangster, From his Play. 1 Once more, in the summer of 1876, death entered the home and removed a fifth child, Meta, in the bloom of early womanhood, at the age of twenty. She was a young lady of much charm of manner and rich mental culture, having graduated from the New York Female College with the third honor in a class of one hundred and twenty, of which she was the youngest member. In spite of the medical skill of Dr. Austin Flint, her vigorous constitution succumbed to typhoid fever, contracted at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The father thus speaks of this beloved daughter : " All is over, Meta is safe, above suffer- ing and sin. If there is a God, there is a heaven. If there is a heaven, Meta is surely there. Meta, the very image of beauty, health and loveliness, fully equipped for the fairest and most useful part of her life, cut down like a flower ! It seems incredible. But if she was so fair and charming at the footstool, what will she be to us at the throne above in the radiance of glory! The Lord who giveth will return a hundredfold what He hath taken away. Blessed be His holy name ! " The first verse of the poem dedicated to this daughter by Mrs. Meta Heusser runs: 2 1 They are given in the memorial volume, Our Children in Heaven. 2 Found in Alpine Lyrics. CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 301 Child, dear child, though to divide us, Seas and continents combine, Yet by the bands of faithful friendship And thy name I call thee mine ! " This affliction became the immediate occasion of Dr. Schaff's visit to the Orient in 1877. On the eve of setting out on the journey, he wrote : I wish to read the fifth Gospel as a commentary on the other four and to be an humble student, that I may teach the better. I cannot expect to make any discoveries or researches, but hope to receive new inspiration from Bible lands and Bible studies. Personal inspection may lessen the romance, but as I hope will deepen the reality. Then, if I return, I may expect a few more years of active use- fulness until I get ready for the last journey to Jerusalem the Golden. After "a touching farewell service in the chapel of Union Seminary," and accompanied by Mrs. Schaff and their daughter, they sailed, landing at Liverpool on one of the last days of 1876. There he conferred with Professor Blaikie, about the meeting of the Alliance of the Reformed churches, appointed for the following summer in Edin- burgh. Afterwards throughout his tour in the East as well as in Southern Europe, he was engaged in calling attention to it, and making provision for the attendance of delegates. Letters from Dr. Blaikie on the subject followed him to Naples, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut and Athens. Arrived in London, Dr. Schaff refers to having heard " a most admirable sermon by Dr. Oswald Dykes in the Regent-Square Presbyterian Church on the closing years of Abraham, the father of the faithful." Some time before he had declined to consider a request received through Dr. Dykes, that he allow his name to be proposed for 302 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1876 the new Memorial professorship in the Presbyterian Col- lege in London. I thank you [he wrote] for the high and undeserved compliment you pay me in proposing my name for the chair in the Presbyterian College. Nothing could be more flattering or inviting to a young and rising scholar in full sympathy, as I am, with Presbyterian reunion. But I am too far advanced in life to make the change. Nor have I any disposition to seek one. I am firmly fixed in the Union Seminary, with an able and congenial body of col- leagues and a numerous body of students. I have as large a field of usefulness as I could desire and am able to culti- vate. It would, therefore, be wrong for me to hold out any prospect of acceptance and to allow my name to go before the directors as a candidate for election. After conducting some delicate negotiations bearing on Bible Revision, he passed on to Paris and Neuchatel, leaving his daughter in the family of Dr. Godet. Again he executed official responsibilities, assembling at Bern and Geneva the councils and friends of the Evangelical Alliance, and making arrangements for a General Confer- ence to be held at Bern. The place of meeting was sub- sequently changed to Basel. It was characteristic of his kindly thought that, in the midst of official arrangements and with the tour in the Orient before him, he turned aside to call on Mrs. Pronier at Geneva and Mrs. Cook at Lausanne, whose husbands had lost their lives on the Ville du Havre after the New York Conference in 1873. Embarking at Brindisi, the party sailed for Egypt. We shall follow him, with his daily note-book in hand and letters to American correspondents. Arrived at Alexan- dria he exclaims: "What a babel of tongues, what a pict- uresque motley of nationalities, costumes and colors ! Here are Arabs, Copts, Turks, Nubians, Greeks, Italians and other Europeans in strange mixture ! " Who can CHAP, xii UNION- THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 303 forget the first day of travel in Egypt from Alexandria to Cairo, the flat country, the mud, the villages of sun-dried brick, the minarets, the dusky-faced people, the men look- ing like apparitions from the grave in their long black gowns, the women erect in carriage, with their faces partially or altogether veiled behind the yashmak and bear- ing the water jar on their heads, children half-naked or completely naked and with shaven heads, the camels and donkeys, the fellaheen ploughing or pumping water, the buffaloes, the flocks of ducks, ibis and pelicans, the clumps of stately palms in the distance and the clay mounds sug- gesting thoughts of buried temples, cities and manuscripts ! Dr. Schaff had an eye for everything. The street life of Cairo he calls a perpetual carnival, a moving panorama at the side of which the boulevards and streets of Western cities present a tame aspect. The dense crowds and the confusion of the Mooskee quarter, the endless variety of face and costume from the green-garbed descendant of the Prophet to the lean little babies straddling their mothers' shoulders and with faces left in undisturbed possession of the flies, and to " Far-away Moses," the patriarchal-looking Jew who was still living and offering cups of Persian tea at the bazaar all engaged his at- tention. The old Mohammedan university at the Mosque El Azhar with its eleven thousand students, which he visited with his Swiss fellow-countrymen, M. Dor, Egyptian min- ister of Public Instruction, and a second time with Dr. Lansing, reminded him by its appearance of a "huge Sunday school. The simplicity and self-denial of this student life is something marvellous. The most of the students support themselves. There, within the walls of the mosque, many of them eat and sleep as well as study." 304 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1876 Here is a description of the visit to the pyramid-field of Ghizeh : It is an event surpassing all description and is worth a voyage to Egypt. The pyramids grow as you approach them. The view from the top is unique, to the west the desert, and to the east Cairo and the garden of the Nile, which approaches like a thread from the south. A most startling contrast ! The panorama has no equal in the world and the impression is deepened by the historical associations which pass before the eye from Abraham to the campaign of Napoleon. The pyramid is the most appropriate symbol, the best welcome and the best fare- well to the land of the Pharaohs, who themselves rose up like pyramids in solitary grandeur, far above the desert plain of slavery round about them. The Sphinx makes an overpowering impression, as with sleepless eyes he stares out in majestic repose over the valley of the Nile and the vast wilderness beyond, reminding one of the impenetrable mysteries of eternity. "All things pass away but the Sphinx." From the Arabs claiming custodianship of the pyramids, he began to learn the full meaning of that everlasting word of the Orient, " baksheesh." " Baksheesh is the first word the children of the East learn and the last they forget. You hear it everywhere from morning till night, from old and young as if it were the chief end of man. It opens the way to everything worth seeing in the East except the harems and the cave of Machpelah at Hebron." These self-constituted guides and guardians of the pyramids he found to be as clamorous as ravenous wolves, importunate, prying and utterly unprincipled. At the first demonstra- tion of their importunate familiarity, Dr. Schaff brandished his cane in vigorous fashion and set them stampeding. But he found they took it as a good joke and a moment later pressed in upon him like the shifting sands at their feet. Laughingly he would say of these children of the desert : " They are a necessity, a source of amusement, as well as CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 305 a nuisance. It is not worth the while to fall out with them." He found the trip up the Nile the most interesting and profitable river-journey in the world, enriched by the archi- tecture and the historical associations of centuries, en- livened by the novel and often humorous living scenes of men, donkeys, fields and villages and under the clear- est of skies at noon, and the most enchanting play of colors at dawn and at sunset. " The trip is a perpetual enjoyment, and one of the best recreations for mind and body. Here, one can enjoy, even better than in Italy, il dolce far niente. ... I read much of the history of old Egypt, but it is a hieroglyphic labyrinth of strange names, uncertain dynasties of gods and men, with few certain dates and facts. The Egyptians wrote their monotonous his- tories in stones and pictures and sculptures representing the same colossal proportions and hideous mythology over and over again, the kings worshipping animal-gods, the people a mass of nameless slaves used as machines in times of peace and in war." Mariette had done his work of excavation and Brugsch had written his history of Egypt under the Pharaohs, but the mummies of the kings at Thebes, including Rameses II, had not yet been found, nor had Naville made his striking discoveries at Pithom or Flinders Petrie in the Delta region and the Fayum. At the close of a trip on the Nile, Dr. Schaff wrote : This is the last day of our Nile trip of twenty days. We have had a respectable and pleasant company, English, Scotch, American, twenty-seven in all, four of them clergymen. We have been travelling away from intelli- gence and civilization, the beautiful island of Philae being the utmost limit of our journey. Now we are journeying towards them again. Several dahabeahs have passed us with English and American tourists aboard, who can afford to spend two or three months in recreation. I hope I may 306 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1876 never be compelled by reason of ill health to kill so much time. Twenty days on steamer and thirty days through the desert will be enough for me. I would gladly give up the Wilderness, if it were not for Mt. Sinai. The Nile is truly a river of life, without which Egypt would be a barren desert. The ruins of Sakarah, Denderah, Edfu, Luxor and Karnak are very grand and imposing, but dis- figured by the hideous Egyptian idolatry, the worship of crocodiles and insects. The greatest sights are the pyra- mids of Ghizeh, the temple at Edfu, the temple at Karnak and the tombs of the kings in the mountain defile of Thebes. Say to Dr. Hitchcock that we saw the Southern Cross at Assouam, which he told me to look out for. The people of Egypt are the most picturesque in color and dress and the most beggarly and slavish in condition I have ever seen. I admire the missionaries and their self- denying and successful labors. On Wednesday I shall form a branch of the Evangelical Alliance in Egypt for mutual encouragement and protection against persecution. The day after I will leave for Mt. Sinai. The dragoman and camels start to-morrow. Reaching Cairo again, he had an exhibition of the wor- ship and cult of the Copts at a wedding. "The Coptic patriarch and a bishop were present. Many boy singers, richly dressed, assisted. Together they spent three mortal hours chanting or screaming or muttering in Coptic or Arabic from written service-books ! Is this the church of Cyril, of Athanasius, Origen and St. Mark ? And are these ceremonies Christianity at all ? " With the life and activity of the Protestant missions of the United Presbyterian Church, which stand in striking contrast to this dead ceremonialism, Dr. Schaff took special pains to familiarize himself, and he has this to say : " I examined the fields of American missionary labor in lower and middle Egypt, attended the services in schools and churches, and became convinced of the solid and hopeful character of this mission, especially among the Copts, who are naturally shrewd and intelligent. The CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 307 seed which is being cast upon the fertilizing waters of the Nile in due time will sprout and bear fruit for the great harvest." The meeting for the organization of the Egyptian branch of the Evangelical Alliance was held in the mis- sion church at Cairo, Dr. Hogg coming from Assiout and some of the missionaries from Alexandria, to assist in the service. Dr. Schaff characteristically closes his note of the meeting (February 28): "The meeting was very interesting, but too long, lasting till eleven P.M." The next day, parting from Mrs. Schaff, who took the steamer to Jaffa, he turned his face toward Mt. Sinai. The journey through the Wilderness from Suez to Hebron called forth the following words : The intense heat, the vile insects, the growling of camels, the barbarous habits of the Arabs, the occasional sand storms and the many inevitable inconveniences take away the rainbow color from the poetry. The journey is a weariness to the flesh from the beginning to the end, and ought not to be attempted except by persons of vigorous constitution. But the desert stimulates deep and serious meditation. Its immensity and the silence suggest grand and solemn thoughts. It makes you feel, as you can per- haps feel nowhere else, the pressure and the power of God, and the need of His constant protection and care. Of the exact location of the Exodus he did not become convinced. This first Sabbath in the Wilderness [he wrote to a son], the great and terrible Wilderness of the Scriptures, is a most remarkable experience. I wandered to the shore of the gulf, two miles off, over the sands, with a few ruins of walls, and looked at the mountains on the western shore. I read the song of Moses, that grand ode of liberty, with deepest emotion as never before, and felt the blessing of a day of rest for man and beast (Exodus xvi. 23). Here is the boundary between Africa and Asia. Here we have the sandy desert, the river like a sea, the silvery moun- 308 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1876 tains in the west, and the traditional locality of the great- est event in ancient Jewish history, which has left its mark on all subsequent ages. Here, or near here, Moses and Miriam sang the song of deliverance. Wherever they passed, whether north or south of Akabah, whether here or at the head of the gulf or through the Bitter lakes still further north, it is certain that the Israelites did pass, for the whole subsequent history of Israel presupposes the event. The culmination of the journey is Mt. Sinai. With Dr. Edward Robinson, who ascended the peak in 1838, and Dean Stanley, Dr. Schaff was fully satisfied that Ras Susafeh was the mountain on which Moses received the tables of stone. In ascending its granite flanks he did some of the hardest climbing of my life and concluded that Moses must have been a good climber. ... If ever there was a poetic fitness between an event and its locality, we have it here. This Sinai group stands in awful silence in the midst of death and desolation, reflecting the majesty and terrible holiness of Jehovah, and is the fittest pulpit for the Law which threatens death and damnation. Such a sight of awful grandeur I never saw before, nor do I expect to see its like again. Here I felt more deeply than ever before the contrast between the old and the new dispensations, the severity and terror of the Law and the loveliness and grace of the Gospel. Truly the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. At the convent of St. Catherine, he found the thirty monks enjoying good health, leading a simple, temperate but idle and stupid life and attaining to an old age. Twenty years before, Tischendorf had discovered in its library the Codex Sinaiticus. Dr. Schaff had heard from the finder's own lips the romantic story of the discovery and rescue of the precious document, and says : " He was indeed the happiest theologian I ever knew. He never got over the intense satisfaction and delight of the discovery which CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 309 would immortalize a man of far less learning and merit than Tischendorf. His indomitable perseverance in the search and subsequent publication of the manuscript is almost without parallel in the history of literature." Later he saw it in St. Petersburg. The remarkable and equally unexpected discovery of the Lewis Syriac palimpsest of the Gospel was made just before his decease. From Mt. Sinai on, the journey is one of almost unin- terrupted monotony through the dreary desert. The party took the shorter and northern route, hostilities among trie Bedouin tribes preventing the journey by the way of Petra. Here are some of Dr. SchafF s notes : March 2Otk. Left at 9.30 A.M. that miserable Nakhl, after witnessing a violent war of words among the Arabs, and marched seven hours over a dead plain of sand and gravel, a real desert, on the way to Gaza, which the Bedouin have forced us to take and to pay for the incon- venience of so doing. . . . March 2\st. Marching over a dead plain of sand and gravel in hot weather, I suffer day and night from rheumatism, which will be either killed or cured in this desert. My mind wanders over all crea- tion, dwelling mostly on home, Union Seminary, theology and the translation of Herzogs Encyclopedia. March 22d. Another weary march over the dead plain of sand and stone in burning heat. March 23^. A heavy march of ten hours over waterless sands and hills. Mr. H., after having industriously bottled up for days chameleons, ser- pents and scorpions, broke his bottles to-day and de- stroyed his treasures. Meals are fast degenerating, the water bad, the bread hard and almost uneatable. Eggs all gone. These trials fortunately had an end, and a few days afterwards, it being the Sabbath, the party found itself encamped on a fertile plain three hours from Gaza. Here they exchanged their camels for horses, and were soon fairly within the limits of the Holy Land. The experi- ences in the Wilderness confirmed Dr. Schaff s conviction 310 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1877 of the truthfulness of the Mosaic records, and he used to say that if certain sceptics had taken the journey before promulgating their doubts, they would not have had doubts to promulgate. At Hebron, his curiosity nearly cost him personal injury. While he was venturing close to the mosque enclosing the cave of Machpelah, a Mohammedan devotee, supposing him to be about to enter the sacred precincts, used violence to push him back. The incident produced a great excitement, and a crowd quickly gath- ered. The governor was informed of the indignity and sent word to the camp that the assailant had been put in chains, and offering the party protection. A letter, writ- ten from Jerusalem to a son, refers to the incident, which gave rise to the report of Dr. Schaff 's violent death, which was sent as far as the United States. He wrote : The trip through the Wilderness nearly killed me, tor- mented as I was with rheumatism. At the mosque of Hebron we were nearly mobbed by the fanatical Moslems, who hurled the Moslem curses against us as Christian dogs. But the governor of the place sent us a military guard and put the fanatic, who struck me with his fist, into prison. We left yesterday for Bethlehem, completely vindicated. We found it reported in Bethlehem that ours and another party were murdered or captured by the Bedouin, and a detachment of ten soldiers was sent to Hebron to meet us. The tourist approaches Jerusalem with feelings of rev- erent curiosity. No city has so solemn and tragic an in- terest Much as its present aspect may disappoint him who comes furnished with pictures of the imagination, the sacred sites exercise a growing spell which equals, if it does not exceed, the spell of Rome or Athens. Dr. SchafFs first and last impression was expressed by the last words of the Lord over it, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 311 sent unto thee . . . behold, your house is left unto you desolate." His visit fell during Easter week. He was daily in the company of Mr. De Haas, the American consul, and Mr. Schick, the German architect and archaeological ex- pert. It is impossible to follow him to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, to Gethsemane and Bethany and other sacred localities within the city and without its walls, or to the school on Mt. Zion, the hospital and school for neglected girls, Talitha Cumi, maintained by the Kaisers- werth deaconesses, or the Lepers' Home, under the charge of the Moravian missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Tappe, formerly of Labrador. To Dr. William Adams he wrote (April 2, 1877):- I came out of the great and terrible Wilderness last Thursday and, although very much fatigued, have seen already a good deal of the people and things of Jerusalem. Yesterday I preached a resurrection sermon in Christ Church on Mt. Zion for Bishop Gobat. I find Jerusalem the most holy and the most desecrated of all places, not indeed Jerusalem the golden, yet intensely interesting as the scene of our blessed Lord's crucifixion and resurrec- tion for the salvation of mankind. At Mar Saba, he repeated one of his favorite hymns, commonly attributed to St. Stephen, who passed his life "Art thou weary, art thou languid ? " At the Dead Sea, which presented a " picture of mourn- ful picturesqueness," he concluded to adhere to the tradi- tional view of the location of the Cities of the Plain at the lower end of the lake. At the fords of the Jordan, he " took a most refreshing bath. After a salt bath in the lake of death, it was like a bath of regeneration. I im- mersed myself ten times and felt so comfortable after it that I almost imagined I was miraculously delivered from rheumatism. I have plunged into many a river and lake 312 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1877 and into the waves of the ocean, but of all the baths I have taken, that in the Jordan will linger longest in my memory." Thence the journey bore northwards to Nazareth, of which he writes : " Here we are in this retired mountain- village where the Saviour of mankind spent the greatest part of His life on earth. In Bethlehem, we felt the joy of His birth ; in Jerusalem, the awe and anguish of His crucifixion, but also the glory of His resurrection; here we contem- plate the humble abode of His youth and early manhood. Talent and character are matured in quiet seclusion for the great battle of public life." Journeying eastward to the Lake of Galilee, he felt "an overwhelming sense of the contrast between the past and the present as he recalled the life which once pulsated in the cities on its shores and the deathlike silence which now prevails." With the imposing mass of Mt. Hermon in view, the party passed on to Banias (Caesarea Philippi), at whose base one of the fountains of the Jordan bursts forth. Then the way leads over the mountain and through the desolate region suddenly broken at the north by the lovely basin of green in which Damascus, the eye of the East, the ancient head of Syria, nestles. At Baalbek, so Bishop Hendrix writes, a photographer took a picture of the party standing in the Temple of the Sun. Bishop Marvin's tall form cast a dark shadow upon the doctor. Some one exclaimed, on seeing the proofs, "The bishop has eclipsed the doctor." "Yes," replied Dr. Schaff, "but not my head." "No," responded Bishop Marvin, " nobody can eclipse the doctor's head." On the road to Beirut he was met by a carriage sent out by Dr. Jessup and the next day heard Dr. Jessup preach in Arabic, after which he preached himself in English. He shared the pride felt by American Chris- CHAP, xil UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 313 tians when they look upon the commanding site and im- posing buildings of the Protestant Syrian College at Beirut, built up by American gifts and scholarship. It was a delightful episode, which Dr. Schaff often recalled, there under the shadows of the Lebanon and in full view of St. George's Bay and the Mediterranean, to meet such men as Dr. Van Dyck, President Bliss, Dr. Jessup, Dr. Dennis and Dr. Post. The first definite news of war between Russia and Turkey reached him there. In leaving Beirut, he made the following record of his im- pressions of Palestine : I have found the country and the people pretty much as I expected. My faith in the Bible has been confirmed. Many facts and scenes which seem to float ghostlike in the clouds to a reader at a distance assume flesh and blood in the land of their birth. There is a marvellous correspondence between the Land and the Book. The Bible is the best handbook for the Holy Land, and the Holy Land is the best commentary on the Bible. Pales- tine is a library of revelation engraved on stones, moun- tains and hills. Nature cannot be destroyed. The slopes of Gennesaret, and the plains of Philistia, of Sharon, of Es- draelon and of the Hauran, though overgrown with weeds and overrun by the wild Bedouin, are still there as fertile as ever. The hills and mountains, though denuded of forests, are there. The flowers still adorn the earth in spring as when the Saviour drew lessons from the lilies of the field. And what the indolent Turks will never do, the industry and skill of foreigners will do, and Palestine will be made once more a land of promise flowing with milk and honey, where every man may sit under his own vine and fig-tree. . . . The process of regeneration has already begun. We see the small but hopeful tokens of a better future in the carriage road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, in the orange and olive groves of recent planting, in the German colonies of Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, in the fine houses, gardens, churches, schools and orphanages which the mis- sionary zeal of foreign Protestants has established in Jeru- salem, Bethlehem and Nazareth. With these hopes for the future, we bid farewell to the Holy Land and 3 14 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1877 " Those fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which, eighteen centuries ago, were nailed, For our advantage, to the bitter cross." Since these words were written, new signs of Western civilization have appeared. The railroad from Jaffa to Jerusalem has been built and others surveyed or con- structed from the coast leading back to the east, Jerusalem has been lighted with electricity and American petroleum drives the wheels of flour mills in the Holy City ! From Beirut, the itinerary led to Constantinople and Athens. Dr. Schaff s high expectations of the imperial city on the Bosphorus were surpassed by the reality. " No city in the world equals her in beauty of location and capacity of power. Two continents and two seas combine to crown her the queen of cities. She has been great, but she waits for a still greater future." He enjoyed atten- tions from Mr. Maynard, the American minister, and Eugene Schuyler, Secretary of Legation. As at Beirut and Cairo, so here, among his most pleasant experiences were delightful hours spent at the Bible House, and at Robert College with his friends President Washburn and Dr. Long. In addressing the college students he ex- pressed the opinion that while " the American mission in Turkey has done much in the past, a much greater work is before it in the future." From Athens, he wrote : Thirty-five years ago, when fresh from the reading of the classics, I would have gone into raptures over the first sight of Athens, the eye of Greece, the mother of philoso- phy and art, the home of Socrates. The Acropolis is a cluster of ruins, but these ruins still reflect the highest triumph of art. The Academy in the olive grove on the banks of the Kephissus is forsaken, but Plato still teaches. No crowds assemble on the Pnyx, but Demosthenes still inspires by his eloquence. What was once good and true CHAP, xii UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 315 and beautiful can never die or lose its hold upon the mind. As long as men philosophize, they will be elevated by Plato's ideas and regulated by Aristotle's logic. As long as they love poetry, they will read Homer, Pindar and Sophocles. As long as there are architects and sculp- tors, they will look up to Mnesikles and Phidias as mas- ters. . . . Modern Athens, though a mere shadow of the old, is a beautiful capital, with fine streets and about sixty thousand inhabitants. This is far behind ancient Athens, which, in the age of Pericles, had more than ten thousand houses (according to Xenophon), and probably over one hundred thousand souls ; but there is a great advance upon its wretched condition in the last century, and still more beyond its utter dilapidation after its capture by the Turks in the war of Greek Independence, when there was hardly a house standing, as the venerable Dr. Hill (who came here in 1831) informs me. . . . As for the Are- opagus Hill, it is a rocky elevation, separated from the western end of the Acropolis by the valley of the Agora. Here was the pulpit of St. Paul, for the gospel of salva- tion from sin and death. I was always struck with the con- summate wisdom and skill of its adaptation to the time, the place and the people, but I felt it more keenly than ever when I stood on the spot and looked at the surround- ings. Here was a wisdom higher than Plato's, here an eloquence deeper and stronger than that of Demosthenes, as the Christ whom Paul preached is far above the gods of Greece and the revealed truths of the resurrection and the judgment are above the speculations of philosophy. The American missionary Dr. Kalopothakes was away at the time, but Dr. SchafF s last evening in Athens was spent at his home in the company of Mrs. Kalopothakes, " singing some Greek hymns to English tunes, reading the seventeenth chapter of Acts and offering prayer." He reached Western Europe by the way of Venice, " the most picturesque city in the world, and a bridge between the East and the West." Dr. Schaff's observations of his Oriental tour were pub- lished in the volume, Through Bible Lands. 1 The testi- 1 New York and London, 1878. Several editions since. 316 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1877 mony of Dr. Henry H. Jessup of Beirut to its merits ran as follows : " Those who know most about the lands of the Bible will most enjoy this volume. It is scholarly and practical, learned and yet genial, grappling with the knotty problems of Egyptology and topography with a grace that is really fascinating and commands the confidence of the reader. Dr. Schaff sees the old lands in the light of the coming age of Christian civilization and evangelical life, and his views of Eastern politics are marvellously sagacious and sound." Looking back upon this journey from the ocean steamer which carried him, the following August (1877), across the Atlantic, he thus expressed himself : The shadows of Meta's death followed us everywhere, but also the God of Israel with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. At the end of this, the longest and most instructive and most interesting journey of my life, my uppermost feeling is of gratitude to my heavenly Father who has accompanied us every step. Many have been the troubles, vexations and disturbances of travel, but they will soon be forgotten and the pleasant memories remain. I only regret that I did not visit the Orient thirty years ago, when I might have turned my knowledge to better account than I can expect to now. In after years it was his custom to urge theological students to make the trip to the East as a part of their education. After saying that such a visit is not a condition of high biblical scholarship, as Augustine, Calvin, Bengel, Meyer, Ewald and other great biblical scholars were never there, his counsel was for " every theological student, who can afford it, to complete his education by a visit to the Holy Land. It will be of more practical worth to him in his pulpit labors than the lectures of the professors a Oxford or Cambridge, Berlin or Leipzig, valuable as these may be." 1 1 Through Bible Lands, p. 15. CHAP, xiii COUNCILS AND MEN 317 CHAPTER XIII COUNCILS AND MEN 1877-1884 First Council of the Reformed Churches Dr. Schaffs Address A Con- sensus Creed Dr. Muhlenberg and Henry B. Smith Pius IX Salt Lake City and the Mormons Yosemite Valley Dean Stanley's Visit to America Berlin and Bismarck The Basel Conference of the Evan- gelical Alliance Tributes to Dr. Adams, Nathan Bishop, Dr. Washburn Literary Work The Luther Celebration in 1883 Ezra Abbot Europe in 1884 From Scotland to Scandinavia and Russia Deaths of Dorner and Lange Von Ranke Conference of the Evangelical Alliance of Copenhagen BEFORE returning to the United States, Dr. Schaff attended the first Council of the Reformed churches, commonly called the Pan-Presbyterian Council, held in Edinburgh, July, 1877. Full as he was of his journey to the East, he acted on his return to Europe as though his mind were wholly absorbed with this meeting. Reaching Switzerland, he devoted himself to its interests, inviting, as he had been authorized to do, such representative Swiss and German scholars as he chose, to take part in its pro- ceedings. In London he saw, for the first time, in Dean Stanley's study, a printed copy of his Creeds of Christendom. He had carried the dean's Sinai and Palestine in his satchel through the East, and it was natural that he should wish to give him the latest news from there. " Dean Stanley took me to the House of Commons," he wrote. " He has no faith in councils, Presbyterian or Episcopal or Old- 318 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1877 Catholic. They were a mistake from the beginning," he says. " If there had been no councils in the old church, we would have no Eastern question now." The end of June found him in Edinburgh enjoying the "rare privilege of being in company with Godet in the comfortable home of his friend Sir Thomas Clark." Dr. Blaikie had written, urging him to be on hand a week previous to the meeting, " for a man is needed to put life into our operations and you are the man. Moreover, the sensitive state of feeling needs a man to go between par- ties, who is a stranger to all parties. You see you know every set of people more or less, and you know who is who and what this man and that man can do best. Now, my dear friend, I know it would be a sacrifice to leave the Swiss hills before you had designed to do so, but I am quite sure that your services on the present occasion would be simply invaluable ; nay, would probably be the means of preventing a degree of confusion which would go far to wreck the whole undertaking." Such was the testi- mony to Dr. SchafFs mediatorial relation between men of different theological schools and nationalities. Mention has already been made of the meeting, prelimi- nary to the Edinburgh Council, held in London. 1 The following letter to Dr. Dorner (July 26, 1875) shows what Dr. Schaff hoped from the Alliance : The preliminary meeting is over. We have adopted a constitution. ... So the Reformed Alliance is no more a pium desiderium, but a fact and a new expression of the idea of union which is gradually breaking for itself new paths. We have the Christian union of individual believers in the Evangelical Alliance and now this is a confederation of churches of all Presbyterian and Reformed bodies. The last step would be organic union in one body, which will 1 The history of the origin of the Alliance is given by Dr. Blaikie in the Pro- ceedings of the First Council in Edinburgh. CHAP, xiii COUNCILS AND MEN 319 hardly appear till the millennium. But, in the meantime, the Lutheran churches should have a Lutheran Alliance, and the Episcopalians, Methodists and other ecclesiastical families should have their alliances. In this way the prob- lem of union would be simplified. His interest in the movement is shown by his attendance upon all the general councils except the Council at Toronto just before his death. He hoped for a positive and tangi- ble result in some general statement of common doctrine adapted to the wants of the age, but at this point his sanguine temperament met with disappointment. He felt that religious assemblies and alliances, to have permanent usefulness, must do something more than prepare and listen to papers and addresses. As between the two schools of opinion represented in the Alliance, Dr. Schaff was, as was to be expected, a prominent spokesman in favor of comprehension. Thus he pleaded for a generous recognition of the Reformed communions of Germany and Bohemia, and, when the question of admitting the Cumberland Presbyterians came up for discussion, he gave the weight of his pen and voice in their favor. A service of a different kind was his part in inducing the German Reformed Church at its synod in 1878 to send delegates to the Council in Philadelphia. When Dr. Nevin declined to unite in the original call, he wrote as follows to Professor Gerhart (March 18, 1874):- I want to ask you to allow your name to be used in a call for a General Presbyterian Council in which all the Reformed churches will be represented or, if you cannot serve, to induce Dr. Thomas Apple or Dr. Bausman to do so. I think it important that the German Reformed Church should be well represented. We ought not to isolate ourselves from our sister churches and neglect such an opportunity of exerting our influence in the right direction. 320 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1877 The Council at Edinburgh Dr. Schaff hailed as an omen of the federation of the great Protestant families of churches. The first paper was his own, on the Har- mony of the Reformed Confessions, 1 and it did not dis- appoint the hope that it might strike a firm note and give tone to the whole meeting. " Your consensus paper," Dr. Blaikie had written, "will do great service by bringing out the great doctrines of grace at the foundation of the creeds of Reformed Christendom. On your paper everything will depend. God grant it may give us a noble start." The following is Dr. Schaff's own note of its delivery : "July 4//z. I got through my part in thirty minutes. Professor Godet followed in French. Professor Krafft's paper formulating the con- sensus was read. Thus three fellow-students and friends combine on the same theme ! " On his way to Edinburgh he had stopped at Bonn to compare his paper with Dr. Krafft's. Dr. Schaff's recent protracted studies in the creeds of Christendom, for his work on their history, had especially fitted him for the presentation of his chosen theme. Thus girded with strength, he furnished an elaborate essay which for its historical basis, its comprehensive sweep, its charitable yet firm and independent tone, com- pares well with anything that ever proceeded from his pen. It abounds in ringing statements. His best mood was freely and freshly breathed into it. Dr. Schaff, who spoke without notes, opened happily with a reference to Cranmer's invitation in 1552 to leading Reformers of the Continent to a conference in England, for the purpose of 1 The Harmony of the Reformed Confessions as related to the present state of Evangelical Theology, New York, 1877. Also in the British and For- eign Evangelical Review and in the Proceedings of the Council. See Dr. Schaff's Christ and Christianity, pp. 153-183. CHAP, xm COUNCILS AND MEN 321 framing an Evangelical union creed, and to Calvin's reply that for such an object he would willingly cross ten seas and that no labor and pain should be spared to remove by a scriptural consensus the distractions among Chris- tians which he deplored as one of the greatest of evils. After stating the points in which the Reformed con- fessions were in harmony, he called upon the Alliance to formulate a doctrinal consensus, a new confession which would be a statement of the living faith of the church and a bond of union among the different branches of the Reformed family, as the Apostles' Creed is among all Christians or as King James' version of the Scriptures is among the English-speaking denominations. The doc- trine of predestination holds a disproportionate place in the Calvinistic system. Modern theology is not solifidian nor predestinarian nor sacramentarian, but Christological. The central doctrine around which all others revolve is not justification by faith, nor election and reprobation, nor the mode of the eucharistic presence, but the great mystery of God manifest in the flesh, the divine-human personality and the atoning work of our Lord. The ad- dress concluded with a fervent appeal for Christian unity upon the basis of personal union with Christ. No other man probably could have said just such things and others like them at the Council and yet retained its respectful hearing and preserved the unity of its parts. No one had quite such qualifications as he, for in Dr. Schaff s person Swiss birth was combined with American citizenship and in him recognized historical learning was united with well-known and unremitting efforts for Christian union. The proposition for a consensus creed was met by the appointment of a committee on creeds and confessions, Dr. Schaff being the chairman. Its report presented to the Council of the Alliance in Philadelphia in 1880 for 322 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1877 which he also served as chairman of the committee on programme contained a large amount of information se- cured from the various Reformed churches of the world. 1 At the third Council in Belfast, in 1884, it was decided to take no further action. 2 The Edinburgh Council over, Dr. and Mrs. Schaff with their daughter made a visit at Lochernhead, at the culti- vated home of Rev. Eric Findlater and Miss Jane Borth- wick, a friend of Mrs. Heusser and the translator of her poems, and next turned their faces to lona. At Obau Dr. Schaff speaks of meeting the late Professor Blackie, " the champion of Gaelic, an eccentric genius of striking head and white hair. If the Highlanders had a chance to elect a king, they would elect him. He is certainly one of the most interesting of living scholars in Scotland." The cele- brated island of lona, the lonely retreat of St. Columba, furnished a profitable excursion of which he could speak and write with enthusiasm. 3 " A good close of this memo- rable trip," he writes, " we made by spending the last night with the Crossfields at their beautiful and happy home at Aiybury," and the next day they sailed on the Spain, which had landed them at Liverpool more than eight months before. Of two of his more intimate New York friends who had been called away by death during his absence, he had this to say : " While I was travelling in the East, I was called to mourn the loss of two very close friends, my colleague, Professor Henry B. Smith, and the venerable Dr. Muhlen- berg, the founder of St. Luke's Hospital and the author of * I would not live alway.' I could write many pages of reminiscences of these distinguished servants of Christ. 1 Proceedings of the Philadelphia Council, pp. 260 sqq. 2 Proceedings of Belfast Council, pp. 43 sqq. 3 As in his History of the Christian Church, Vol. IV. pp. 65 sqq. CHAP, xm COUNCILS AND MEN 323 Dr. Smith was one of the best scholars and metaphysi- cians America has produced. Dr. Muhlenberg was cast in the mould of St. John. Both were broad churchmen in the best sense of the term that is, truly evangelical, Catholic, moderate, comprehensive, humble and in hearty sympathy with all that is pure and good and Christian." At a luncheon given several years before by Dr. William Adams to Dr. Muhlenberg, at which, among others, Henry Ward Beecher was present, Dr. Schaff remarked to Dr. Muhlenberg, " Your hymn, ' I would not live alway,' makes you immortal." The author replied that he had an idea it was not just according to the spirit of the Gospel and then read various changes which it had occurred to him to make. "Well, you may not be able to evangelize the hymn," interrupted Dr. Adams, "but you cannot kill it." A short time afterwards Dr. Muhlenberg published a little volume entitled, / Would not Live Alway y evangelized by its Author, and bearing the dedication : " To Dr. Schaff as the loving patron of my verses, this last of them is with Christian affection and esteem inscribed by his friend and brother, William Augustus Muhlenberg." On the first day of 1876 Dr. Schaff, making his last New Year's call on his venerable friend at St. Luke's Hos- pital, found him lying upon his sofa very weak. His silken white hair, thin features, transparent skin and bright eye gave him an almost etherealized appearance. As the visitor was about to leave, a memorable scene occurred. The saintly man arose clad in a morning gown reaching to his feet. Dr. Schaff said, " We may not live to greet one another again on a New Year's day on earth." "Yes, yes, doctor, that is true," Dr. Muhlenberg replied, " but, whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord, whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's." As he said these words he lifted up . his 324 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1878 hands and, waving to his visitor a farewell, turned to go back to his couch, " as a saint already half within the veil," as Dr. Schaff remarked as we went out. It was his last New Year's day on earth. In the summer of 1878, Dr. Schaff made a journey to Salt Lake City and the Pacific coast, presenting by the way the cause of Bible Revision in such cities as Cleve- land and Chicago. The territory beyond the Missouri River was new to him and the Union Pacific was then the one road to the Far West. Only three towns broke the monotony of the long stretch of three hundred miles beyond Kearney to the western line of Nebraska. The entire western portion of the state was in the possession of the cowboy and the cattle herds. We stopped at North Platte that Dr. Schaff might take part in the installation of one of his former students, the Rev. James A. Gerhard, as pastor of the Presbyterian church, the sermon being preached by another one of his pupils, Charles N. Cate. North Platte, then a cattle centre for an extensive region, had two thousand inhabitants, but not a tree, except two or three, planted as an experiment in earth brought from a distance. Dr. Schaff seemed to manifest as much interest in discovering the secrets of the cattle business and the life of the cowboys as if he were studying a period of church history or visiting lona or Philae. At Ogden, where our cars were coupled to a typical train of Mormon immigrants, he came into contact, for the first time, with the " Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints." The immigrants, three ^hundred and sixty in number, hailed for the most part from Scandinavia and England. Those were still the days when the Mormons were all-powerful in Deseret, the El Dorado where, as Dr. Schaff used to say, the saints are sinners and the sin- ners are saints. Whatever may be thought of the gold CHAP, xiii COUNCILS AND MEN 325 plates which Joseph Smith swore he discovered in 1829 purporting to have been written by " the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi," there has been but one opinion about the beauty of the Mormons' heritage in Utah. The biblical names which a rude piety has fixed upon many of the chief localities inten- sifies, or creates, the impression of resemblance between the natural features of Utah and Palestine. Dr. Schaff attended the service at the Tabernacle and heard three sermons, by a bishop, the apostle Wilford Woodruff and' the president, John Taylor. The first speaker said "he had nothing special on his mind (his looks bearing him out), but he spoke nevertheless for half an hour. He praised the sermon of the previous Sabbath by Orson Pratt, who is said to be able to read the Greek Testament (the only one in the Mormon Church) and declared to be mighty in the interpretation of the prophecies. All three addresses were quite ordinary, and magnified the perse- cutions against Joseph Smith and the prosperity of the Saints." His general impression of the people and religion of Utah he gave in these words : The Mormons dress and look like other people and pre- sent the aspect of an industrious, temperate and pros- perous community. I have seen as healthy children here in Salt Lake City, as anywhere. I am told that the women are even fanatical upholders of polygamy and often urge their husbands to get additional partners. This, however, is so contrary to nature as hardly to be credible. Considering that the city is the product of one generation of poor immigrants, we must marvel at the skill and industry which have accomplished so much. Even a bad religion seems to be better than none at all. Brigham Young was in his way a sort of Bismarck, but rude and despotic. . . . The system of Mormonism is a singular compound. If Mohammedanism is an eclectic religion, Mormonism is much more so. It is monotheistic 326 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1878 but ascribes to God a human body and passions. It teaches the preexistence of the soul. It practises immer- sion, rejects infant baptism and teaches vicarious baptism and baptism for the dead. Mormons believe in the con- tinuance of miraculous gifts. They have a complete hie- rarchy and expect the speedy coming of Christ and His millennial reign on the earth. However, with these doc- trines and practices, they enjoin honesty, industry and strict abstinence from intoxicating drinks and tobacco, but encourage polygamy and sanction dancing and theatricals under the supervision of the church. Reaching San Francisco, he preached on the Revision of the Bible to some of the leading Congregational and Presbyterian congregations of the city. Thus the churches on the far Pacific slope were joined with the churches of the Central and Atlantic states in furthering that cause by their gifts. These engagements and the strain of social pleasures and sight-seeing, it might be supposed, would have been enough to occupy his attention in San Francisco. But it was not so. He notes that he borrowed books from Dr. Scott on the Dead Sea, read Lynch's account of his expedition and collected materials for a chapter in his Through Bible Lands. The goal of tourists to the Pacific coast in those days was the Yosemite valley, as Alaska is now. On his trip thither, the ride of seventy miles by stage from Merced to Big Tree station, taken in company with his friend, the Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, Dr. Schaff pronounced, in spite of his experiences in the Orient, to be " the dustiest, hottest and dullest ride he could remember, but relieved by Dr. Cuyler's good humor and lively stories. The trees of the Yosemite, the Methuselahs among trees, reminded me of the Antediluvian age." He missed the sublimity and variety of the glaciers and the everlasting snow, the lakes, the invigorating air, and the people of Switzerland. But "it surpasses Switzerland," he wrote, "in the number CHAP, xiii COUNCILS AND MEN 327 and the height of the waterfalls, and the churchly archi- tecture of its rock masses. It is decidedly High-Church, not Broad-Church, has spires, domes, arches, a cathedral cut in the solid granite, by nature's own architect. The valley is narrow and exclusive. But the panorama will continue in my memory as a thing by itself. Everything is beauti- ful in its own order. On the Sabbath Dr. Cuyler preached us an appropriate sermon on the journey of life." On the return journey, Dr. Schaff continued to present the cause of Bible Revision in such places as Colorado Springs and Kansas City, where he was piloted about by that nestor of Presbyterian missions in the state of Kansas, Dr. Timothy Hill. The event of the earlier part of the year 1878 had been the death of Pius IX. Dr. Schaff remarked that " infal- libility is suspended till the next pope is elected. What a rich piece of history is just now closing simultaneously with the solution of the Eastern problem ! " As a result of his observation in Constantinople he had supposed that Muradh, the brother and predecessor of the present sultan, was to be the last of the sultans. One of the chief events in the latter part of the year, in the literary and ecclesiastical circles of New York and in the personal life of Dr. Schaff, was the visit of Dean Stanley. Among all the distin- guished men of the Church of England, probably no one would have received a more cordial welcome than he. Known in America for his scholarly writings and independent and liberal views in the department of eccle- siology, he had become endeared to a still larger constitu- ency by his liberal use of the pulpit and mural spaces of Westminster Abbey. Dr. Schaff was probably his oldest friend in America, having met him in Oxford in 1844. On the dean's first visit to New York, September 27, the Bible Revision Committee was having its monthly session. 328 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1878 It was most fitting that he should meet the American Revisers, himself the first to open official correspondence with Dr. Schaff on American cooperation and one of its most strenuous advocates at a time when such cooperation was seriously imperilled. At a luncheon given by Dr. Schaff, addresses were made by representatives of differ- ent communions : Drs. Woolsey, Crosby, Strong and Ken- drick of the American committee, and by Dr. Washburn, whom on this occasion Dr. Schaff introduced as "the Stanley of the American Church." He then called upon the member of the committee belonging to a denomination " whose eloquence is often silence, and whose modesty we perhaps might best honor by a little pause, remember- ing the time when there was silence in heaven for half an hour." Thereupon President Chase, the Quaker member of the committee, arose and, addressing the guest, said, " I welcome thee as a friend." To this the dean instantly re- plied, " We are all Friends here." The dean, in a graceful response, said he regarded the Revision work as of the utmost importance not only in its bearing on the improve- ment of the English Bible, but in its indirect effect upon a closer union of the different denominations of English- speaking Christians. Such a cooperation of scholars from two countries was a unique phenomenon in church history and it inaugurated a new era in the inter-denomi- national relations of England and America. The dean's frequent addresses at all kinds of gatherings showed to the best advantage his tolerant churchmanship, and his readiness in adapting himself to occasions. His successor, Dr. Bradley, in a letter to Dr. Schaff (Oct. 7, 1888), said well of his Addresses and Sermons in America, that "if everything else was lost, his American volume would preserve a real specimen of what he was." The length of Dr. Schaffs notes attests the interest CHAP, xin COUNCILS AND MEN 329 he felt in Stanley's visit. In accepting Dr. Tiffany's in- vitation to the reception given to him by the Methodist bishops and clergy, Dr. Schaff wrote: "Were John Wesley living now, Dean Stanley would invite him to preach in Westminster Abbey and he would thereby honor himself as much as the great apostle of Methodism." Of a sermon preached in Trinity Church, he has this to say: "Stanley preached a bold, Broad-Church sermon this morning (No- vember i), telling the straight-laced High-Churchmen that there were four churches as good as theirs, the Greek. Church, which handed down our old creeds, the Latin, which Christianized and civilized our forefathers, the Lutheran, which searched out the Scriptures, and the Calvinistic or Reformed, which quickened the individual conscience and promoted civil and religious liberty." At a breakfast given by the Episcopal clergymen to the dean at the Union League Club, Dr. Storrs and Dr. Schaff, representing non-Episcopal catholicity, made addresses. "I mentioned" he says, "four characteristic features of true Broad-Churchism, moderation, comprehensiveness, charity and humility, growing out of the sense of the littleness of our minds compared with the infinite ocean of divine truth, and closed with a reference to Dr. Muhlen- berg." The following day, Dr. Schaff, in company with Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler and Dr. Henry M. Field, accom- panied the dean on a pilgrimage to Greenwood Cemetery to visit the grave of Dr. Edward Robinson. " This was a most interesting and touching visit," he notes, "of four mourners to the grave of that eminent scholar to whom Stanley paid such a graceful tribute in Union Seminary. 1 1 He said, among other things, that Dr. Robinson's Biblical Researches was one of the few books he had read through word for word. Dr. Schaff made a happy reply to the dean's address on that occasion. On his way to the 330 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1879 Dr. Robinson's son and daughter were there by appoint- ment to meet us. After looking at the simple granite monument, the dean exclaimed, 'That granite crown is simple solidity, just like the man himself.' " From there, the party went to the grave of Dr. Cuyler's little boy, George, whose death was the occasion of that book of comfort to the bereaved, The Empty Crib. In the summer of 1879, Dr. Schaff attended the con- ference of the Evangelical Alliance at Basel, and spent several months in Scotland and England convening the committee on the Consensus of the Reformed Confessions and attending to matters connected with the American cooperation in Bible Revision. He was present at the meetings of the English New Testament Company, and lunched with the Revisers. He notes in his journal : " The American corrections on the Gospels are pronounced by Bishop Ellicott, Dr. Scrivener and others exceedingly valuable and accurate. ' Hades ' is adopted, ' devils ' and 'penny' retained." At Durham he visited Bishop Light- foot and went with him to Oxford, at the time the bishop was honored with the degree of D.C.L. Again he met Dr. Pusey, finding him "a venerable mummy, deaf, un- shaven, complaining of the wave of rationalism and agnos- ticism ; still hoping and trusting in Anglo-Catholicism as the via media" He delivered the address at the closing exercises of the Baptist College, Regent's Park. After spending some days as a guest of the Bishop of Winchester, he writes, July 10 : "I had to-day the last and most pleasant confer- ence with the Old and New Testament Revision Com- panies now in session in Westminster Deanery. They cemetery the dean told a new anecdote : He had attended a colored service in Philadelphia where the preacher declared that "the Gospel was true, no matter what Tom Paine or Dean Alford might say about it." CHAP, xin COUNCILS AND MEN 331 were exceedingly kind and spoke more highly than ever of the value of American cooperation in this great work. I feel especially grateful to our heavenly Father for this last interview and carry home with me the kindest feelings and salutations of the British Revisers." Passing to Berlin he found Dr. Dorner " aging fast, his Dogmatik just published, and Weiss whose lectures on John are well attended and very thorough, Dillmann lect- uring on Isaiah and rather dry, and Piper and his sister reminding me of Neander and Hannchen." A passing journal note, at this point, concisely makes the comparison between the theological teaching in the United States with that in Germany as it lay in Dr. Schaff's mind. "Theology as a theoretical science is no doubt carried much further in Germany than in England and America, with boundless freedom of research for truth as such, while with us theology is a daughter of the church and better adapted for its practical uses." At a visit on General Superintendent Buchsel, who was made Doctor of Divinity by Berlin University at the same time as himself, in 1854, he heard a number of interesting anecdotes of Bismarck. " You think, like others," the chan- cellor said to Buchsel, " that I am very wise. But that is not true. I first seek to find out the will of Providence by prayer and then I hobble after. Otherwise I would make silly mistakes and do much harm." " Bismarck's aims are good," said the famous parliamentarian Dr. Windhorst to Buchsel, " as also are the aims of Falk, but the May laws have helped the Catholic Church and hurt the Protestants. No man in Europe has helped the Catholic Church so much as Bismarck. First, he expelled the Jesuits and so has Jesuitized the whole church. Second, he sought to break the power of the pope and no pope has ever been so popular in Germany as Pius IX. Third, he gave the 332 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1879 quietus to the Old-Catholic movement which represented elements of truth and might otherwise have seriously damaged the Roman Catholic Church, but the May laws made it impossible for any decent Catholic to go over to the Old-Catholics." After meeting Bismarck a few weeks later at Kissingen, Dr. Schaff wrote : His herculean frame, massive head and commanding eye indicate a man of extraordinary dimensions. Force, dignity and self-repose reside under his brow. He is the greatest statesman of the age, a man of Providence, a sort of political Luther. His achievements will assign him the first place among German statesmen, as Emperor Will- iam will figure in history as the first of all its emperors and von Moltke, the thinker of battles, as the ablest of its generals. Such a combination of genius and success as was exhibited by this trio in two wars has never before been seen. Bismarck seldom goes to church, but he is a Christian man. 1 He reads the New Testament and the collection of daily texts, annually issued by the Moravian Church. Proceeding to Bohemia and to Pesth, he visited the Protestant congregations in the interest of the Alliance of Reformed churches. At that time a wave of persecution was passing over them and at the Basel conference of the Evangelical Alliance, which met August 31, he secured the appointment of a committee to advocate their cause before the emperor of Austria. This conference of the Alliance Dr. Schaff pronounced second only to the conference held in New York both for the public interest and hospitality it called forth and the ability of the papers presented. "Altogether," he writes, "the Alliance was worth a trip to Europe." He took an active part in the proceedings 1 Dr. Kogel, then court-preacher at Berlin, said to me a few years after this: "Bismarck is christlich (Christian), but not kirMich (churchly, not a churchman) ; von Moltke is christlich und kirchlich" CHAP, xin COUNCILS AND MEN 333 and presented a paper on the state of Christianity in the United States. 1 Among other American delegates present were Drs. John Hall, E. A. Washburn, Charles A. Stod- dard, Bishop Hurst, then president of Drew Seminary, and Dr. Scovel, president of Wooster University. Not less than two thousand guests and delegates from abroad were present and the places of meeting were crowded to overflowing from morning till night. Bismarck gave the German delegates free passes over the Alsace and Lorraine railroad on their return from Basel to their homes. After spending the last hours of the year 1879 at a watch-night service in St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church with Dr. Tiffany, the pastor, Dr. Crosby, Dr. Will- iam M. Taylor and others, to pray the old year out and to welcome the new year in, he wrote : This day closes my sixtieth year. I feel that I have reached the height of my activity, and cannot look for many more years of labor. The day is far spent, the night is approaching. But as long as I live and God gives me strength, I mean to work and to toil, to teach and to write. I cannot be sufficiently thankful that the Lord has given me useful work to do. Time is becoming more precious every day. The less of it there is ahead, the more precious it seems. The nearer the end of the journey we are, the greater the speed we try to make. Time is money, yea, more than money. "I have no time to make money," said my countryman, Professor Louis Agassiz. A noble word worth remembering in this age of feverish chase after wealth. I spoke with him on this very subject when I saw him twenty years ago in Cambridge. I must hurry if I am to finish what work I have yet to do in this world. In the spring of 1880, he presented the cause of Bible Revision at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 1 See Proceedings of Basel Conference, pp. 79-101, also the Princeton Review, September, 1879. 334 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1880 Church in Madison, Wisconsin, which he attended as a commissioner. Stepping beyond ecclesiastical lines he found Archbishop Henni of the Catholic Church, a fellow-countryman and a native of the same canton, Graubtindten, "lying on his sick-bed, very old and very feeble, but very kind and agreeable." This visit might have recalled a visit upon Archbishop Purcell of Cincin- nati a few years previous, in the interest of the Sabbath cause, of which he wrote: "The archbishop received me very courteously and assured me that he would cooperate for the restoration of the civil Sabbath and the execution of the Sunday laws. I told him an anecdote of Pius VII in an interview with Napoleon and his unconditional trust in the blood of Christ as the only ground of salvation. He remarked that fortunately in this we agreed. He took me to the cathedral and inside the chancel, where we heard a sound sermon on Christ's power and willingness to save sinners." The years were making large inroads upon the circle of Dr. SchafF s friendships at home and abroad. To Dr. William Adams and Nathan Bishop who died in 1880, and Dr. E. A. Washburn who died a few months later, his Personal Reminiscences pay tributes which testify to the comprehension of his mind and heart. Dr. Adams was a prince among men, tall, handsome, highly cultured, eloquent, refined and faultless in dress and in his sense of propriety, courteous, sympathetic, symmetrical. He was an aristocrat, but in the best sense of the word. His force lay in his personal character and the ensemble of virtues and graces. He was greater than anything he wrote or did, and yet he did a great deal as preacher, pastor and professor. With what uniform cour- tesy, dignity and kindness he presided at our faculty meet- ings at Union Seminary ! How deep and active was his interest in the welfare of the institution and of every stu- dent, especially the poor and struggling students ! I saw CHAP, xin COUNCILS AND MEN 335 him a few days before his death at Orange Mountain when confined to bed and waiting for the great change. His last words to me were, " Remember me to your family, to my colleagues, to the students and brethren of Chi Alpha," a clerical circle of which he was the chief ornament. Then he drew me to himself and gave me a kiss of farewell. Nathan Bishop was a Baptist, but of the most liberal sympathies for every good work in every denomination, a genuine Christian philanthropist who spent the latter part of his life in active and unselfish benevolence, as officer or manager of many societies without salary. While secre- tary of the New York Sabbath Committee I saw him and Mr. Norman White, the worthy and judicious chairman, almost daily. My last official connection with him was in the work of Bible Revision. He took a great interest in that work and was a most liberal contributor to its expenses. When we organized the finance committee of laymen, he was elected chairman. Hearing of his serious illness, I went to Saratoga two days before his death to see him. I found him in great physical pain but serene in mind, with his faith firmly fixed on Christ. He never sought notoriety, cared nothing for fame and delighted in doing good for the sake of doing good. He was a truly good man, and although his name will not be recorded on the pages of history, it is written in the hidden book of life which shall be opened on the great day of account. . . . With Dr. Washburn I became acquainted thirty years ago in the study of Dr. Muhlenberg. He was then a rising man in the Episcopal Church and attracted my admiration by his brilliant mind, his knowledge of German theology and philosophy, his independent views and his gentlemanly culture. He became a leading minister in his church and had no superior and few equals in ability. High-Church- men and Low-Churchmen disliked or abhorred his liber- ality, but admired the man and his fearless independence. He was a charming friend, and I spent many happy hours with him in his study and in my own and also in travelling abroad. We were delegates together in 1871 to the czar whose assassination is just now filling all the newspapers (March, 1881). The emancipator of twenty-three millions of slaves deserved a better end. Alexander II will stand well in history as one of the best of Russian emperors. I induced Dr. Washburn to become one of the honorary 336 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1882 secretaries of the Evangelical Alliance. He aided me in the American Lange, contributed some choice translations of Latin hymns (as Pone hictum, Magdalend) to my Christ in Song, and was of essential service to me when I organ- ized the American Revision Committee. I naturally con- sulted him in the selection of the Revisers from the Episcopal Church. He himself was an active member of the committee, a good Greek scholar, a keen critic and an excellent judge of good old English. In this period he added to his preparation of volumes of his Church History and his Creeds of Christendom, the preparation of the Companion to the Greek New Testament and the English Version^ and the Encyclopedia of Reli- gious Knowledge -, commonly known as the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia. 2 The opinion having been expressed that the Companion was " Dr. Schaff's best book," the author wrote in his private notes : " This is strange, and I hope it is not true. At all events, my Church History and Creeds of Christendom cost me a great deal more labor. It is, however, the best service I could render to the Revision Committee and the cause it has had in hand for the last thirteen years." The work discusses the language and manuscripts of the New Testament, the ancient versions, the printed editions and the history of the authorized and revised English translations. The reproduction of Herzog's Real-Encyclopcedie, long contemplated by the American editor, was for the most part made from the second edition of the original work. It was the editor's plan to give in condensed form the information contained in the original work, introduce new 1 New York, 1883, and since. 2 A Religious Encyclopedia, based on the Real-Encyclopf the conference at Copenhagen," Dr. Schaffs journal goes on, "he expressed great interest in it. He inquired after the main positions of my paper, which aims at an alliance of all Christendom, and said that Frederick William IV would, no doubt, fully sympathize with the sentiments. The king had often spoken to him of the churches as ships steering for the same harbor. Ranke's outlook into the future is hopeful. A little old man, shrunk together but full of vitality and vigor. A parallel to our Bancroft." Two years later Dr. Schaff visited the historian's grave. He had died in May, 1886. " Stuckenberg accompanied me. Ranke sleeps in the Sop hie *n Kirchhof, at the side of his wife. The fading leaves and other tributes to his memory are still there, one from his students with the inscription dem geliebten Lehrer (the beloved teacher); another dem grossen Meister der deutschen Geschichtsschrei- ber(tt\Q great master among German writers of history). His funeral was the grandest seen in Berlin for many a year; the Academy, the University, the magistrates, the crown-prince and people of all classes were there. Sleep in peace, brave and noble man ! " The conference of the Evangelical Alliance at Copen- hagen in September, 1884, was a worthy successor of the previous gatherings. It was marked by the interest shown by the royal Danish family and also of the people of Copen- hagen in spite of their intense Lutheranism. The introduc- tory meeting in the great hall of the university was presided over by the venerable advocate and writer on missions, Dr. Kalkar. He had attended the Basel Conference five years before and in a closing interview had parted with Dr. Schaff, to meet " either at a conference of the Alliance in Copen- hagen or in heaven." Of him Dr. Schaff wrote: "This conference is due to him most of all. He is eighty-two CHAP, xiii COUNCILS AND MEN 351 years old. If he dies of the Evangelical Alliance, he will die a happy death. He will never have a better oppor- tunity." The fears of antagonism on the part of the ex- treme Lutherans were set to rest by the presence of four of the seven Danish bishops at the opening session. A month before the conference Dr. Kalkar had written : " Here there are hundreds upon hundreds who want to see the professor from America with their own eyes and wish to hear him with their own ears. I remember how, very many years ago, an address which I heard you deliver made a lasting impression upon me. I look upon you as prceciptium membrum nostri conventus et quasi prcesidem [as the chief member of our convention and as it were its president]." Dr. Schaff presented a paper on the Discord and Concord of Christendom a and thus speaks of its de- livery : This evening (September 2d) I delivered my address before a crowded and brilliant audience, including the king and queen of Denmark, the crown-prince and princess, and their suite, and the king and queen of Greece. I spoke in German and without notes and was in a specially good frame of mind. But I had no idea that my address, with its liberal, broad-church views and outlook, would meet with such a cordial and even enthusiastic response as was expressed to me after the meeting by many of the most distinguished among my hearers. Even the three royal pairs, to my great surprise, came up to me on the plat- form and expressed by cordial handshaking and gracious words their satisfaction and agreement with the spirit and scope of my address and full sympathy with the aims of the Alliance. This was in many respects the proudest day of my life. I never before have received so many thanks and congratu- lations for an address. Thus, I have been permitted before scholars and princes to bear my testimony against the divi- sions and distractions of Christendom, and for Christian union on the basis of religious liberty. This is the idea 1 Included in Christ and Christianity, pp. 293-310. 352 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1884 and aim of the Alliance, and I thank God for the humble share I have had in its advocacy and promotion since 1857. I shall never forsake it or cease to promote its grand ob- ject. For it is in harmony with the sacerdotal prayer of our blessed Lord and Saviour that they all may be one, even as we are one ; I in them and Thou in me that they may be perfected in one. Subsequently he had an audience with the crown-princess, by her request, in her palace at Amalienborg. " She is a Swedish princess," he notes, "of simple and pleasant manners and decided piety. She again thanked me for my address and spoke of the joy of the communion of the saints." The address was also sought in manuscript by the queen of Greece, and afterward involved him in a pleasant correspondence with her majesty. In one of her letters from Athens she says "that her majesty always retains benevolent recollections of you and will never forget the happy moments she spent attending to your address at Copenhagen. She desires to express again to you her most sincere thanks for that document, to which she attaches great interest." The address was a broad presentation of the mission of denominations and the duty of seeking Christian unity on the basis of personal union with Christ. It was made in the speaker's best spirit. One of the greatest sins of which the churches and sects, with few exceptions, have been more or less guilty, is the sin of intolerance and exclusiveness which springs from the selfishness of the human heart They vainly imagine that they possess the monopoly of truth and piety and have, in their polemics, exhausted the vocabulary of reproach and vituperation. . . . Religious persecution beginning with the crucifixion is the darkest, we may well say, the satanic chapter in church history, though it has been overruled by Providence for the progress of religious truth and liberty ; for the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. . . . We look hopefully for the reunion of CHAP, xiii COUNCILS AND MEN 353 Christendom and a feast of reconciliation of churches, but it will be preceded by an act of general humiliation. All must confess " We have sinned and erred ; Christ alone is pure and perfect." . . . The evil lies not in denominationalism and confessionalism, but in sectarian- ism, which is an abuse of denominationalism and is noth- ing but extended selfishness, the spirit of the Pharisee who boasts of his righteousness, and thanks God that he is better than the publican. It is a serious defect in Prot- estantism that it has a tendency to needless and injurious distraction. It is one-sidedly centrifugal, while Romanism is one-sidedly centripetal ; it gives too much liberty to individual dissent, while the other exercises too much authority. The Christian church was never visibly and organically united in the strict sense of the term. The apostolic churches were of one faith and animated by one love, but maintained a relative independence without a visible head. Paul opposed with all his might the tenets of false teachers, and withstood even Peter to his face at Antioch when he compromised the spirit of Christian lib- erty, and, rising above all bigotry and party spirit, pro- claimed the great principle that in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. When he left Denmark it was with reminiscences of the most pleasant sort. The day after his arrival in New York he was busy at his lectures and upon the fourth volume of his Church History. During his absence the new buildings for Union Seminary on Park Avenue had been completed. On visiting them for the first time he exclaimed, " What a change from the old buildings to this literary palace ! A new departure calling for new zeal and devotion ! I would like to teach for twenty or thirty years longer, but shall be thankful for ten years more of work." A few months later the structure was dedicated, President Hitchcock delivering the chief address. 2A 354 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 CHAPTER XIV THE REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 1870-1885 Origin of the Revision Movement American Cooperation Dr. Angus and Dean Stanley The Episcopal Bishops The American Committee First Meeting Organization Completed Bishop Mcllvaine's Judgment Plan of Cooperation Cooperation Imperilled The University Presses Final Compact Dr. Schaff's Conception of the Work His Share in the Revision The American Appendix Publication of the Revised Scriptures Estimate of the Work Standard American Edition Dr. Schaff's Last Words on Revision Estimate of his Services IT was quite in keeping with the mediatorial and union- istic feature of his career that Dr. Schaff should have had a prominent part in the Anglo-American Revision of the English Scriptures of 1881-1885. The Revision was the first effort in two hundred and fifty years, with any ecclesiastical authority behind it, to improve King James' Version. If the Revised Version does not come into general use, it will not be because the best scholarship of Great Britain and the United States was not adequately represented in its production. It was much more than the product of an impulse of Greek and Hebrew scholarship. It represented the devout purpose to make the pure meaning of the Scriptures more accessible to English readers. One of the noteworthy features of the move- ment was that it united together the leading Protestant denominations in Great Britain and America through their representative scholars. The possibility of such CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 355 concert of action had been seriously doubted 1 and the fear that some single body might take up the work in an insular denominational spirit had confirmed a disposi- tion to disparage all efforts at Revision and to be satis- fied with a translation which, by general consent, was susceptible of improvement, lest, in the attempt to im- prove, several versions might come into use. As early, however, as 1828 Bishop Herbert Marsh had declared the Authorized Version to be in need of amendment. 2 Previous efforts looking to a movement for Revision had not been wanting. In 1856 motions were offered by Canon Selwyn in the Convocation of Canterbury and by Mr. Heywood in parliament, praying the queen that a commission be appointed to make amendments to the Authorized Version. While the motions failed, the sen- timent was too strong to be ignored. About the same time a private essay at Revision was made, which attracted wide attention. Induced thereto by the persistency of the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, five scholars met together and made a Revision of portions of the New Testament. The first result of their labors appeared in 1857, in The Au- thorized Version of St. Johns Gospel, revised by Five Clergymen, and was recognized as having superior merits. The repute of the scholars who took part would of itself have called forth careful attention to their work. Four of their number, Dean Alford, Bishop Ellicott, Prebendary W. G. Humphry and Dr. George Moberly, subsequently Bishop of Salisbury, were afterwards members of the committee which made the Revision of 1881-1885. Referring to the manifest occasion for improving the Authorized Version, Archbishop Trench in 1858 had said, " However we may be disposed to let the question of 1 George P. Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 641. 2 Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible, pp. 297 sqq. 356 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1870 Revision alone, it will not let us alone." 1 A few years later, in 1863, Professor Plumptre gave it as his opinion that the work ought not to be delayed much longer. 2 Perhaps it was due to Bishop Ellicott and Dean Alford more than to any other single individual that the sub- ject of an authoritative Revision continued to be agitated and was kept before the public, until upon motion of Bishop Samuel B. Wilberforce action formally inaugu- rating the movement was taken by the Convocation of Canterbury and a committee was appointed to report upon the desirableness of it. On May 3, 1870, the convocation, acting upon the committee's report, decided that Revision was desirable and adopted rules for its prosecution. It contemplated "no new translation of the Bible nor any alteration of the language except where in the judgment of the most competent scholars such change is necessary." A com- mittee was then appointed, the Bishop of Winchester at the head, to inaugurate the work and invite the " coopera- tion of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong." The Lower House appointed a similar committee, and the first meeting of the New Testament Company was held on June 22, 1870. The enlistment of American scholarship in the under- taking definitely dates from the proposition to " invite the cooperation of some American divines " which was the subject of action in the convocation as early as July 7, 1870. It was unofficially agreed that Bishop Wilberforce should enter into correspondence with the Protestant Episcopal Church and Dean Stanley with other American religious bodies. In the formation of the American com- 1 On the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 180. 2 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Art. "Authorized Version," Am. edition, p. 3442. CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 357 mittee Dr. Schaff was called upon to take the initiative and leading part. He selected, in consultation with the British committee, its members, and made arrangements for its organization and first meeting. The provisional draught of its constitution emanated from his hand, and, when the American Revisers met, he was chosen chair- man. This office, besides requiring the general oversight of the committee's affairs, involved protracted negotiations of a delicate nature, first with the English committee and then with the University presses of Cambridge and Ox- ford, which finally decided the nature of the American cooperation, whose continuance was at one time seriously imperilled. Dr. Schaff acted also as a member of the New Testament Company. Dr. Schaff's first note of his connection with the Re- vision movement is as follows : "Aug. 19, 1870. I drew up, at the request of Dr. Angus and Bishop Ellicott, a plan of cooperation of American scholars with the British commission for the Revision of the English version of the Bible. I suggested suitable names for the committee." Dr. Joseph Angus, a Baptist divine and one of the British Revisers, coming to the United States as delegate to the conference of the Evangelical Alliance, had been author- ized by Bishop Ellicott, the chairman of the British New Testament Company, to confer with Dr. Schaff and other American scholars, as he might select, on the subject of American cooperation. After several private conferences with Dr. Angus, Dr. Schaff, at his request, sent him a series of suggestions bearing upon the organization of an Ameri- can committee and a list of scholars to carry on the work, and recommended that the members of the American com- mittee be taken from the best biblical scholars of the lead- ing evangelical denominations, that it cooperate on terms of fraternal equality with the British committee and that, if 358 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1871 any differences remained after a comparison of their work, a joint meeting should be held, if possible, of the two com- mittees, either in London or New York, for the settlement of the final Revision. The suggestions provided that the expenses of the American committee be met by American friends of the Revision. Returning to England in the middle of September, Dr. Angus wrote to Dr. Schaff : I reported to our committee the encouragement I had received on the other side and all here were greatly pleased to find you were so cordially disposed to help. I expect that you will receive from Dean Stanley or from the Bishop of Gloucester an application to cooperate with us in the way proposed. Here, the New Testament Company are getting along very well. Our rate is about thirty verses a day. The Old Testament friends are less diligent or more talky. Our meetings continue in spirit all that can be wished. We have had an offer from publishers to publish the work for ten years. The further correspondence was carried on with Dr. Schaff by Dean Stanley and Bishop Ellicott. The meas- ures upon which he then entered for organizing the Ameri- can committee were temporarily checked by the declination of the bishops of the Episcopal Church as a body to cooperate in the movement and the subsequent difficulty in securing the assent of any of their number to do so. Under date of Jan. 13, 1871, the dean wrote: I address myself to you as having been the centre, as I understand, of the communications of the non-Episco- palian churches with Dr. Angus during his recent visit. May I ask you, in consideration of the distance of space and the length of time which would be involved in re- peated correspondence with each member, to enter into such negotiations as you may deem advisable with the scholars of these churches ? From the list of scholars which the dean enclosed, and which with one or two exceptions was the list Dr. Schaff CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 359 had forwarded, the names of the Episcopalian divines were omitted, "in consideration," as he wrote, "of the communication opened between the Bishop of Winchester and Bishop Potter, it being thought more convenient and important that they should be invited through that channel." It seemed to the English committee, as Dean Stanley in a later communication to Dr. Schaff said, that direct com- munication with the American bishops through the Bishop of Winchester was "the mode that would be most agree- able and respectful to themselves." The House of Bishops, acting upon a formal communication from Bishop Wilber- force to Bishop Potter (Aug. 7, 1871), declined to take favorable action, stating that " this House, having had no part in originating or organizing the said work of Revision, it is not at present in condition to deliver any judgment respecting it." At the same time, the body expressed its readiness to consider with candor the work undertaken by the Convocation of Canterbury whenever it should be com- pleted. 1 In his letter of Jan. 13, 1871, the dean had suggested to Dr. Schaff that, if he thought fit, he might com- municate with Bishop Horatio Potter, representing the Protestant Episcopal Church, "and to whom I have not written, as the bishop will understand, only because he has already received a communication from my superior in rank, the Bishop of Winchester." Acting upon this suggestion, Dr. Schaff communicated to the bishop his readiness to receive any communication he might be pleased to make on the subject of Revision, and "to act in concert with him in that important enterprise." Dr. Potter replied (Feb. 14, 1871) that his letters from the Bishop of 1 Journal and Proceedings of the Bishops, Clergy and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1872, pp. 615, 616. 360 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1871 Winchester had made no reference to the formation of an American committee, and that, in any event, it would not be in his power to take any action in relation to it. In view of this turn of affairs, Dr. Schaff deferred further steps in the formation of the American committee till he had communicated with England. Under date of Feb. 27, 1871, he wrote as follows to the dean : I have made all arrangements for carrying out your wishes in regard to American cooperation with the work of Revision, but a communication from Dr. Potter, bishop of the diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New York, makes it desirable to wait for further instructions. At your suggestion I wrote to the bishop that I was ready to receive any communication he may desire to make to me on the subject, and to act in concert with him. He cour- teously replied, first, that his letters from the Bishop of Winchester have as yet made no reference to the forma- tion of an American committee, and second, that it will not be in his power, in any event, to take any action in relation to it. Please inform me as early as convenient : (i) Whether you wish me to organize the committee, as far as the non-Episcopal scholars are concerned, with- out waiting for further action on the part of the Bishop of Winchester and his correspondents in this country. (2) Whether, in view of Bishop Potter's declining to act in the matter, I may be authorized to invite Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio (who is well known in England), the Rev. Dr. Washburn of Calvary Church, New York (a highly accom- plished scholar), or any other Episcopal scholars you might name, to act as members of the American Cooperative Committee on Revision. Several weeks later (March 20, 1871), in a private letter to Dr. Angus, he thus expressed himself in regard to the constituency of the American committee : It is impossible to give the Episcopal Church such a preponderance in the American committee over larger denominations on equal footing before the law, as the Church of England may claim over Dissenters in the Brit- ish committee. Unless the American committee can be CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 361 constructed on principles of justice and in conformity with the configuration of American Christianity and scholarship, it will prove a failure. Acting upon a further communication from Dean Stan- ley, Dr. Schaff proceeded to organize the American com- mittee. In a letter to the dean, May i, 1871, he transmitted documents bearing upon the subject. The letter ran as follows : I received your letter of April 8th, in which you renew your request, with the approval of the Bishop of Win- chester, that I should organize an American committee in cooperative union with the British committee. I shall now without delay proceed in this work and discharge the trust as well as I can. I intend to confine myself to a small and select number of biblical scholars of recognized authority and representative character, who are able and willing to give efficient aid in this important and responsi- ble enterprise. I have drawn up a plan and submit to you three printed documents: i. A Letter of Invitation. 2. The principles of the British committee. 3. Draught of a constitution of the American committee. I shall be glad to learn your opinion on this plan. His letter inviting American scholars to join the com- mittee bore the date of May 12, 1871, and ran in part as follows : I have been requested and authorized by the British committee for a Revision of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, through the Dean of Westminster, to form an American committee in cooperative union with the British, and to invite a select number of biblical scholars from different denominations to assist in the proposed Revision. You are aware that this important work has begun under very favorable auspices and has already en- listed the best biblical scholarship of Great Britain. It affords me great pleasure to extend to you hereby an in- vitation to become a member of the Old (New) Testament Company of the American committee. 362 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1871 The summer of 1871 Dr. Schaff spent in Europe and had conferences with Dean Stanley and Bishop Ellicott and with the Revision Committee as a whole. From his daily journal it appears that on June 26, he saw the dean. " I had a very important interview with Dean Stanley. All the details about Bible Revision are settled satisfactorily. The steps I have taken in organizing the American committee are fully approved. At Dr. Stoughton's, I dine with a number of the Bible Revisers." Of the sessions of the Revision companies at the Deanery of Westminster he has this to say : " The meeting of the New Testament Revisers was intensely interesting. Lightfoot, Westcott, Hort, Scrivener, Angus, Merivale, Eadie, David Brown, the Bishop of Gloucester (by whose side I sat), the Bishop of Salisbury and others were all there. No outsider is admitted except the Archbishop of Canterbury." Before his return to the United States the revision of Matthew was completed, but the copies which were ready for transmission were detained on account of the delay in securing one or more bishops of the Episcopal Church as members of the American committee. The first meeting of the American committee was held in Dr. Schaff's study in the Bible House, New York, Dec. 7, 1871. Besides Dr. Schaff, there were present at the meeting Ezra Abbot of Harvard, Dr. Thomas J. Conant of Brooklyn, Professors George E. Day of Yale, William H. Green of Princeton, George E. Hare of the Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia, Charles P. Krauth of the University of Pennsylvania and Henry B. Smith of Union Theological Seminary, and Dr. Edward A. Washburn of Calvary Church, New York. 1 The following 1 To the Old Testament Company were subsequently added Professors Charles A. Aiken of Princeton, Charles M. Mead now of Hartford and Howard Osgood of Rochester, and Dr. Talbot W. Chambers of New York, and CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 363 scholars, not present, had also accepted the invitation to cooperate in the movement : Professors John De Witt of Rutgers, Joseph Packard of Virginia, Calvin E. Stowe of Hartford, James Strong of Drew Seminary, Tayler Lewis of Schenectady, H. B. Hackett of Newton Centre, James Hadley of Yale, Charles Hodge of Princeton, Matthew B. Riddle then of Hartford, Charles Short of Columbia Col- lege and J. Henry Thayer then of Andover, and President Theodore D. Woolsey of Yale and the Rev. Dr. C. A. Van Dyck of Beirut. Dr. Howson, Dean of Chester, then on a visit in this country, was also present by invitation. Dr. Schaff announced the principles on which he had selected the committee to be reputation for biblical scholar- ship, denominational affiliation and accessibility to New York in order to secure regular attendance upon the meet- ings. The draught of a constitution presented by him was adopted with changes. It provided that the American committee consist of two companies and conduct its work upon the basis of the principles adopted by the British committee. The American companies were to receive the Revision text of the British companies and transmit their emendations back to them. It was stipulated that a joint meeting of the American and British committees should be held, if possible, in London before final action. This clause was subsequently made inoperative by another mode of procedure. On the evening of the day on which the American com- mittee was organized, a popular meeting was held in the to the New Testament Company the Rev. Jonathan K. Burr of Trenton, Presi- dent Thomas Chase of Haverford College, Dr. Howard Crosby of New York, Professors Timothy Dwight of Yale College and A. C. Kendrick of Rochester, and Bishop Alfred Lee of Delaware. Professor Smith participated in the first meeting for organization only. Professors Hodge and Lewis were not present at a single meeting. Dr. George A. Crooks afterwards of Drew Seminary, and President Warren of Boston, declined the original invitation. 364 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1871 interest of Revision in Calvary Episcopal Church, New York. The audience completely filled the room. Dr. Washburn and Dean Howson made addresses which set forth the need of a Revision. Dr. Schaff followed with an address bearing upon the plan upon which the work was being carried on in England and what might be expected from it. In part he spoke as follows : Our very respect for the English version of the Script- ures demands that we should free it from defects, and our respect for the Christian Church demands that we should give it the benefit of all that accumulation of scriptural learning which has come to pass since the Authorized Version was prepared. . . . There is at present combined upon this work a larger amount of biblical scholarship than there has ever been seen before on any version of the English Scriptures. I am convinced that the work will succeed. The Revisers expect to be engaged seven years in it, although they hold meetings every month in the Jerusalem Chamber. When the work has passed through their hands, it will be offered to the Christian communions for their approval. It may take a long time before the churches reach a final decision. It took two hundred years for the Latin Vulgate of Jerome to supplant the older Itala. Though we travel much faster, it may take a generation until this new version shall supplant the old one. Without doubt, every reader of the new version will be convinced at once that it contains innumerable improve- ments, without losing any of the idiom of beauty of our present English version. The changes which are to be made involve greater accuracy, clearness and consistency. The body of the translation will be maintained to such an extent that the ordinary reader, in hearing it read, will hardly perceive the difference. The actual inception of the American committee's work, as already indicated, was delayed by the temporary fail- ure to secure a member from the bishops of the Epis- copal Church. It was felt by the constituency of the Church of England that the American episcopate should be represented. Bishop Ellicott wrote to Dr. Schaff: CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 365 " The presence of two bishops or so would at once give the home public of Church people the needed confidence." Dr. Schaff had (May, 1871) invited Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio and Bishop Lee of Delaware to join the committee. Dr. Mcllvaine declined on account of his "brain health." At the same time, in the broad churchly spirit for which he was known and beloved, he expressed his satisfaction at the selection of Dr. Schaff as the mediator between the British committee and American scholars, in these words : I am glad that as the Revision in England was set on foot by a convocation of the Church of England and is proceeding mainly under such guidance and control, in constituting an American committee to cooperate the work of formation has been given by the British com- mittee to a non-Episcopalian and to you. 1 This will not only greatly help the all-sidedness of the work, but, in case it shall be desirable to introduce it into substitution for the present version, will very materially prepare the way for such result. In order to meet the wishes of the British committee, Dr. Schaff now opened correspondence with Bishop Wit- tingham of Maryland, Bishop Williams of Connecticut, and again, through Dr. Washburn, with Bishop Lee. The two former prelates declined, although not, as they stated, "from any hostility to the Revision itself." Bishop Lee, who at first declined from the fear he would not be able to meet the responsibility involved and from un- willingness to "occupy a merely nominal position in so weighty an enterprise," after further correspondence ac- cepted the invitation. The result was satisfactory to the British committee. In the summer of 1872 Dr. Schaff again had personal conference with the Revisers in London. Dean Stanley, 1 The italics are the bishop's. 366 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1872 replying to his question whether one bishop was satis- factory, said, " One bishop is quite enough." His first interview with Bishop Ellicott on the subject, he speaks of as lasting three hours, "the bishop keeping me till after twelve, chatting most pleasantly on other matters as well as on matters of the Revision." The result of the conversation was so satisfactory to him that he con- tinues, "All will come out right now." On his return to the United States he carried with him revised copies of the first three books of the Old and the first three books of the New Testament for distribution among the Ameri- can Revisers. These copies were treated as strictly con- fidential. Dr. Schaff's first copies contained, in Bishop Ellicott's own hand, these words or words like them : First and Provisional Revision. Private and confidential. This copy is for the use of Professor Philip Schaff alone, and is not to be published or communicated to any one beyond the body of American Revisers. Signed C. J., Gloucester and Bristol, Chairman. The organization of the American committee was com- pleted Oct. 4, 1872, Dr. Schaff being elected presi- dent and Professor George E. Day, secretary. The two companies into which it was divided, after choosing their respective officers, proceeded to their work. Not many months elapsed, however, before the question arose what treatment their labors were meeting with in England and what weight was to be attached to them in the final text of the Revision. A new turn was given to the question by the transfer of the copyright in England to the Uni- versity presses, which assumed all the expenses of the enterprise. American cooperation became in consequence seriously imperilled, and for some time it seemed as though it would have to be altogether abandoned, the American committee either disbanding or undertaking CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 367 an independent Revision. To the maintenance of relations of harmony and cooperation, Dr. Schaff now gave the full strength of his influence and to the final conclusion reached contributed very largely. His whole influence was given on the side of continued cooperation. He regarded it of such importance for the interests of religion in general as to justify the most strenuous efforts and, if necessary, such concessions by the American committee from the original understanding, as it lay in his mind, as were not inconsist- ent with proper self-respect. The American Revisers had undertaken the work of Revision with the understanding on their part that they were invited to share a joint responsibility with the members of the British committee and that by the election of some of their members into the British committee, or by a con- ference of representatives of both committees for the final determination of the text of the Revision, or in some other such way, their coordinate rights would be recognized. The agreement of the English committee with the Univer- sity presses, being subsequent to the formation of the American committee, it was felt that no obligations thus incurred should invalidate the prior understanding. The expression "cooperative union " had been the one employed by Dean Stanley to indicate the relation of the American committee and also by Dr. Schaff in inviting the American scholars, and Dr. Schaff in one of his first letters to the dean had used the expression " American Cooperative Committee." The mode of cooperation was not exactly defined in all details, but included the possibility of a joint conference to determine the final text, either in London or New York. This was distinctly referred to in the constitution of the American committee. Dean Stanley had made objection to the article embodying this idea when the provisional constitution was sent to him by Dr. 368 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1873 Schaff, but the constitution, having been adopted by the American committee and sent to the British companies and its receipt acknowledged, no exception was taken to the article. Under these circumstances, it was fair to assume that it was acceptable in all its parts. The American Revisers entered upon their task with the impression not that they were simply advisers, but that they were fellow- revisers. This was Dr. ScharFs distinct understanding and it is not probable he would have seriously thought of entering upon the work on any other condition. On going to Europe in 1873, he was instructed by the American committee to confer with the British Revisers concerning the relation of the two committees, and "to intimate that it was expected a positive and well-defined weight" should be accorded to it in the final determination of the Revised text. Dr. Schaff made the following notes in his journal bearing upon the subject during his visit in London : July 6th, 1873. Dine with the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol in Portland Place. Met his venerable father and mother. Striking likeness between father and son and similarity of speech. The bishop is truly a chip of the old block. We had a long conversation about Bible Revision, continuing until eleven o'clock. . . . July gt/i. Appear before the Old Testament Revision Company in the library of the Deanery of Westminster. Very impor- tant. Professor Perowne in the chair. July 1 5///. Meeting of the New Testament Revision Company in Westminster Deanery. Had a delightful interview. Most courteously and kindly received. Responses to my address by Bishop Ellicott, Archbishop Trench, Bishop Wordsworth and others. July i8///. Received official answer from the Revision companies. Met with the Old Testament Revi- sion Company in the Chapter library, Bishop Brown, of Ely, presiding. A very pleasant interview, the conserva- tive tendency prevailing. Here ends my journey in England, which has been in every way important and satisfactory. CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 369 In their action taken at this time the British companies declared that they would attach " great weight and impor- tance to all the suggestions of the American committee, and in each case take into account the unanimity or pre- ponderance of opinion with which the suggestions have been made," and that it was their desire to recognize these labors in the fullest possible v/ay compatible with their own arrangements with the University presses, but that they were "precluded from admitting any persons not mem- bers of their own body to take part in their decisions." 1 , Cordial as this statement was, it left unsettled the point at issue. Correspondence was continued until in 1875 the American committee, insisting upon " a positive and well-defined weight in the final determination of the Re- vised Scriptures," commissioned Dr. Schaff to have per- sonal conference with the British committee. He found, on his arrival in Edinburgh, that both companies had already met and contented themselves with reiterating their former action. On receiving the official notification Dr. Schaff expressed his feelings in his journal in these words: June 4t/i, 1875. My mission about Revision is appar- ently cut off by the resolution of the two British companies adhering to their former action. He was, .however, not a man to turn back. Pushing on to London, he conferred with individual members, espe- cially the chairmen, Dr. Ellicott and Dr. Brown, then Bishop of Winchester, and met with both the companies. The following extracts from his journal portray the course of the negotiations which he deemed as among the most important events of his life. June \Afth. I have had full and satisfactory exchange of views on the relation of our Revision committee to the British companies. I shall propose, as an ultimatum, a 1 The action was taken July 16, 1873. 2B 370 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1875 committee of conference and an independent cooperation with the separate publication of an English and an Ameri- can Revision differing only on minor points of national taste, etc. June \^th. Meet Dean Stanley at the Deanery at eleven. Have the greatest contest of my life. Sum- moned to the Jerusalem Chamber at 2.45, I fought with the New Testament Company for three hours for the American rights, and proposed as an ultimatum indepen- dent cooperation to the end, with two Revisions. I must fight the same battle with the Old Testament Revisers. June \Jth. Breakfast with Mr. Gladstone. I was delighted with his simplicity and frankness. His broad common sense suggested the same solution of the Revision question which I had arrived at, namely, independent cooperation. Gov- ernor Winthrop of Boston was present. June igt/i. Lunch with the Bishop of Winchester. A delightful Christian scholar and gentleman. Fine family. Dean Howson also present. Important conversation about Revision. July *]th. I spend the evening in preparing for the second great contest. July 8t/i. I met the Old Testament Com- pany in the Chapter library, Westminster, at eleven A.M., Bishop Brown in the chair. Made an address in behalf of the American Revision Committee, which was very kindly responded to by the chairman, and then answered many questions. July \^th. To-day the New Testament Company unanimously adopted the Old Testament Com- pany's proposal for a settlement of the American question by adopting some members of our committee into theirs, subject to the approval of the University presses. July i6th. Rain, rain, rain ! New Testament Revision Com- pany adjourned to-day. I was in the Jerusalem Chamber. Dr. Scrivener congratulated me for getting so much out of the English companies. He says it is a marvel. Canon Troutbeck gave me the action which is conditioned, but gives me more than I asked and secures mutual protection. In his addresses before the British companies, Dr. Schaff claimed for the American committee the standing of " fellow-revisers and fellow-authors with corresponding claims and responsibilities." He pressed the claim on the score of justice and expediency ; justice, because the American committee was fully organized and was giving CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 371 the benefit of its time and scholarship, and it would be strange if a single member of the British companies should have a power superior to the entire American committee ; expediency, inasmuch as proper recognition should be granted to the American scholars who stood as the representatives of millions of English-speaking peo- ple, if one version was to continue in force for the English- speaking world. The settlement Dr. Schaff proposed was, that the British and American committees cooperate as independent bodies, each communicating its work to the other and having the privilege to publish a Revision of its own, each reserving the right to retain its own renderings where it was found impossible to agree. The action of the British companies went further than Dr. Schaff asked, in providing for the "cooptation" of four members from each committee into membership in the other, or "the appointment of certain members of the American com- mittee as members of the British committee, and vice versa." " This plan," said Dr. Schaff a few years later, " was certainly all that the Americans could ask or wish, and more than they could have expected, considering that the English began the work and had the larger share of the responsibility. The proposal is the best evidence that the British companies sincerely desired to continue the connection on the most honorable and liberal terms." The action of the British companies was final as far as they were concerned, but the arrangement was made conditional upon ratification by the University presses, to whom the English copyright had been transferred. When a consummation so honorable to both parties seemed to be reached, it was a startling surprise to the American com- mittee to have the question of copyright protruded the rock upon which all cooperation came near suffering ship- wreck. The syndics of the University presses, with whom 372 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1876 Dr. Schaff at once put himself into communication, acting formally upon the resolutions of the British Revision com- panies, agreed to ratify them on condition that the American committee purchase the copyright of the Revision for a consideration of five thousand pounds. The American committee declined the proposal, taking the position that its relation to the work of Revision was exclusively a moral one, and that the question of joint authorship and responsibility for it were matters wholly distinct from property and commercial rights. They felt that the mat- ter of copyright was intrusive. The British companies, being informed of the attitude of the American Revisers, reaffirmed their action of July 8, 1875, declaring that they had no right to interfere with the legitimate rights of the University presses. At this point a final rupture of the two committees was narrowly avoided. The following record occurs in Dr. SchafFs journal March 31, 1876: - Bible Revision meeting to-day. We finish the second Revision of the Catholic Epistles and take up Romans. The letters of Bishops Ellicott and Brown (for the two British companies) were referred to a special committee, consisting of Drs. Woolsey, Krauth and Chambers, to report at the next meeting. An important crisis in our relation to the English committee and the University presses. When the committee met again (April 28), it appeared that a strong sentiment existed in favor of independent action. Dr. Schaff favored delay and further conference. He was not opposed to independence if that were the only alternative consistent with self-respect. He was fully convinced of the abundant competency of the American committee to produce a valuable and satisfactory Revision without help from England. But what he was anxious for was, that unanimity should characterize the course of the American Revisers and the relation of friendly co- CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 373 operation between London and New York should be main- tained if effort and good will could bring that result about. His journal makes the following note of this important meeting : - We have a most important discussion from twelve to one and from two to six in the afternoon on the resolution of the special committee recommending a declaration of inde- pendence from the English committee. Every member fully expressed his views. About twelve for and twelve against independence. I made a speech and opposed all action at present till we secure full harmony among our- selves. The report of President Woolsey, Chambers and Krauth could not be passed and was referred, on motion of Dr. Osgood, to a new committee, consisting of Drs. Crosby, Chambers and Washburn, to report at the next meeting. The Episcopalians (Drs. Lee, Washburn, Pack- ard, Hare and Professor Short) are unanimously against independence. Dr. Green likewise. So we must resort to a compromise. Again Dr. Schaff refers to the matter in his journal for May 26 : Bible Revision meeting at nine. Full attendance. Gen- eral meeting of the whole committee at twelve and again from two to six P.M., discussing our relation to the English committee. We adopted a number of resolutions reported by Drs. Crosby, Washburn and Chambers, after boiling them down considerably. All voted in favor but Dr. Krauth, who objected to the rhetoric. Dr. Dwight would probably likewise have voted no, but he left before the vote. He is in favor of cutting loose from the English and going on on an independent basis. The resolutions are simply a restatement of our former position. This position was that the question of copyright was irrelevant and intrusive something which did not have a place in the original agreement. . The point at issue was the recognition of the American committee as fellow- 3/4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1876 revisers 1 by the British committee, irrespective of copy- right or any other such consideration. The next word from England was that the University presses had prohibited the British companies from sending any more material to the United States. The following is Dr. Schaffs note touching this commu- nication : July $th. Meeting of the New Testament Company. I read the letter of Canon Troutbeck announcing the start- ling intelligence that the University presses forbid the sending of further material. We concluded to go on with the Revision independently, if necessary, and refer the whole subject to a general meeting of the committee on the last Friday of September, the Old Testament Com- pany concurring. The American companies did actually go on, making independent revisions of Isaiah and the Epistle to the 1 The following extract from a private letter to Dr. Schaff from the late Professor Hort, a member of the New Testament company, shows how in England the question of copyright was considered to be necessarily involved in any agreement between the two committees, and how anxious English Re- visers were that the American cooperation should not be abandoned. " It is a great disappointment to find that fresh difficulties have arisen in the negotiations about the Revised Version, when all seemed to be promising well. I do not see how it would have been possible to separate any such formal recognition of cooperation as would have served your purposes from questions of copyright ; and the University presses had clearly a right to a voice in the matter affecting copyright, as indeed in other matters that might touch their interests. But further I must confess my inability to find fault with the re- quirements put forward by the presses. The terms themselves appear to be reasonable, to say the least. In return for the terms asked, the American committee would at all events obtain complete command of the American market and exemption from the cost of press composition. You may rest assured that there is among us, not in the companies only, but also, if I may speak for my own university, in the authorities of the presses, a strong desire to maintain the substantial unity of the Revised English Bible of both coun- tries and also to respect and uphold the just self-respect of our brethren across the water in every practicable matter. We are convinced, however, that we should not be really promoting these ends by ignoring the inevitable condi- tions and accompaniments of so large an undertaking." CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 375 Hebrews. Here is Dr. Schaff's entry of the next rneet- September 2tyh. A most important meeting of the Re- vision committee. We discussed all day our troubles with the English companies and the University presses. I was chairman of the committee to prepare resolutions and spent all afternoon and evening with Dr. Woolsey, Dr. Green and Dr. Day. Our minds worked in different directions, but we agree upon two resolutions (Woolsey's) and two proposals to the English presses (one by Dr. Green and one by myself) and a preamble (Dr. Day and myself) to be laid before the whole committee to-morrow. The action taken the next day was in view of a letter from the representatives of the University presses (July 10, 1876) reopening correspondence and asking whether the American committee had any further proposition to make touching cooperation with the British companies, and promising to take it into respectful consideration. The purport of the action in reply was that the two com- mittees work together on the basis of the same principles as before, and aim at one and the same Revision, differ- ences to be finally settled by conference or otherwise ; or else, if the differences remain unadjusted and it seems best for each committee to issue a recension of the com- mon work, each has the right to do so. During the visit of Dr. Schaff in England in January, 1877, on his way to the East, a final mode of agreement was settled upon between himself and Dr. Cartmell, as the representative of the University presses, which was sub- sequently endorsed by the American committee and formed the final basis on which the Revision thereafter proceeded. 1 1 The full text of the correspondence with the University presses is given in The Documentary History of the American Committee on Bible Revision, pp. 99-128. The work, which was marked "private and confidential," was pre- pared at the instance of the committee by Dr. Schaff, New York, 1885, 186 pp. 3/6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1877 He thus wrote to a son from London, Jan. i, 1877: "I have just sent a telegram which you no doubt have trans- mitted to Professor Day. I am exceedingly thankful for the result and so is every British Reviser I have seen. This happy issue is alone fully worth a trip to Europe. Our relations will hereafter be more cordial than ever. The arrangement which I have concluded with Dr. Cart- mell, who manages the whole business for the University presses, will no doubt be ratified in a few weeks." The matter was, however, not finally settled till six months later. By this final compact, the British Revision companies were to forward their revised text to America and to give careful consideration to the American changes and suggestions. The result of a second revision in England was to be transmitted to the United States and the Ameri- can emendations thereon to receive "special consider- ation." The authorized text of the Revised Version was to contain for a period of fourteen years an Appendix con- taining such changes as the American committee insisted upon and which had not been adopted by the British Re- visers. On their part the American Revisers agreed not to issue any edition of their own or to encourage any but the authorized edition proceeding from the University presses, during the term of fourteen years. By this arrangement, it was Dr. SchafFs judgment, the Americans secured the full recognition of their rights as fellow- revisers. 1 So were concluded the negotiations which 1 See his Companion to the Greek Testament, pp. 401 sqq. In the course of an elaborate and carefully written letter to Dr. Schaff on the subject of the Revision (March 5, 1883), Dr. Ezra Abbot said: "In view of the extent to which the suggestions of the American committee were actually adopted not- withstanding they were precluded from voting and the influence which their general endorsement of the Revision has had and will continue to have in promoting its reception in this country, the American Revisers have no reason to regret their cooperation, or to feel that their self-respect has suffered by their compliance with its inevitable conditions. Finis coronat o#us." CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 377 required great care and delicacy of treatment and, it may be said again, were to the American Revisers a matter of deepest concern in view of the possible religious interests involved. Dr. SchafF s personal acquaintance in England and the respect in which he was held by all parties con- tributed, without doubt, materially to the final adjustment. The Revised text itself shows what his personal contact with the British Revisers assured him of, as well as the official correspondence from England that great weight was attached to the American changes by the British companies. The expenses of the American committee were met by voluntary gifts and by receipts from presentation copies of the Revised Old and New Testaments elegantly bound. The members received nothing for their services and time, their expenses to and from New York alone being paid. Under Dr. Schaff's direction, a finance committee was organized including prominent clergymen and laymen, Dr. Nathan Bishop being chairman, and Mr. A. L. Taylor treasurer. The burden of presenting the cause before the churches and to individuals fell, however, very largely upon Dr. Schaff. The repeated thanks of the Revision Com- mittee were extended for his services in this behalf. The uncertainty for several years as to the exact standing of the American committee made the collection of funds, which otherwise would have been easy, at times laborious. The expenses of the English committee, amounting to more than one hundred thousand dollars, were borne by the University presses. The total amount expended by the American committee during the fourteen years of its labor was not quite forty-eight thousand dollars. It may be regarded as most noteworthy that one whose mother tongue was not English should be chosen for the responsible place of leading in a movement for the Revi- 3/8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1881 sion of the English Scriptures. To Dr. Schaff s inter- national reputation as a biblical scholar his selection as the organizer of the American committee must chiefly be ascribed. It is safe to say that he was better known in this respect in Great Britain than any other living Ameri- can divine. His broad ecclesiastical sympathies and the confidence with which he was regarded in all evangelical communions no doubt confirmed the judgment that he was the proper man for a task where the combination of all Protestant confessions was a matter of almost para- mount importance. Once having accepted the chairmanship of the American committee, he threw himself with great ardor into the per- formance of the executive duties within the committee; and in the wider task of setting forth the claims and mode of Revision before the American public, he was indefati- gable. He presented the cause in pamphlet and press; before individual churches and at gatherings convened for the purpose in private parlors; before clerical meetings and ecclesiastical assemblies. He travelled from New York to San Francisco, and from the New England states to Richmond, Augusta and Savannah (December, 1880), in order that all parts of the country might have a share in the Revision of the Scriptures. In one of his publica- tions on the subject, the forces that should combine in producing the work are thus emphasized: l The Revision must be chiefly a work of biblical scholar- ship, but its success will depend by no means on scholar- ship alone. The most thorough knowledge of Hebrew and Greek would, after all, only enable us to understand the letter and the historical relations of the Scripture, but not i The Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, published separately and also used as an Introduction to a volume republished by Dr. Schaff and containing the essays of Trench, Lightfoot and Ellicott on the reasons for a Revision, New York, 1873. CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 379 its soul, which lives in the body of the letter. The Bible is a divine as well as a human book, and reflects the theanthropic character of the incarnate Logos. To under- stand, to translate and to interpret the Word of God, we must be in sympathy with its spirit, which is the Holy Spirit. Profound sympathy with the ideas of the Bible, religious enthusiasm, a reverent and devout spirit, breathe through the Vulgate, Luther's German and the Authorized English version, and give them their enduring power ; and only the same qualities, united with superior scholarship, can commend the proposed version to the acceptance of our churches. Dr. Schaff was a regular participant in the work of the New Testament Company. The two companies met in adjoining rooms at the Bible House, one of which was his study, on the last Friday and Saturday of each month ex- cept during the summer, when they held a session, usually lasting a week, at New Haven, Princeton, Lake Mohonk or some other place. President Woolsey, as chairman, sat at the head of the table around which the New Testament Revisers worked. 1 Dr. Howard Crosby sat at the foot. Dr. Schaff's place was next to Professor Short, who, as the original secretary, sat at Dr. Woolsey's left. Opposite them, at the chairman's right, sat Bishop Lee, Professor Thayer, the permanent secretary, and Ezra Abbot. The day's proceedings were opened with prayer. When Dr. Woolsey, who gave almost unrestrained liberty for discus- sion, was absent, Dr. Crosby presided, carrying with him to his seat his usual reputation for promptness. Or, as Dr. Schaff was accustomed to say, " Dr. Crosby drove very fast." Such cautious and deliberate scholars as Dr. Abbot sometimes looked on with amazement at the rapidity with which matters were pushed, but all held Dr. Crosby in love. 1 This table is deposited in the museum of the Union Theological Seminary. The table at which the Old Testament Revisers sat is in the possession of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 380 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1881 The discussions were often very animated, hours some- times being devoted to single renderings, or to the proper English expression to be used. Although Bap- tists, Methodists, Friends, Episcopalians, Congregational- ists, Presbyterians and a Unitarian 1 sat together and joined in the discussion and wide differences of opinion were expressed in matters of the Greek text and the English idiom and construction, there was at no time any departure from the principles of Christian courtesy and good will. Dr. Schaff assumed a moderate position in relation to the changes. In all cases he favored the best-attested Greek text, but he would on occasion have admitted dif- ferent English equivalents for the same Greek word. He was opposed to retaining archaic expressions, as charger for platter, let for prevent, by and by for immediately, meat for food, or faults of grammar. He was willing to make concessions to the English ear in passages endeared by association, provided the meaning of the original was not misrepresented. A single change shows his faithful- ness to church history. The final Revision, Paul's address to the elders, Acts xx. 28, as it came from Eng- land in 1879, contained "overseers" in the text and "bishops" in the margin. In Dr. SchafFs own copy he has written on the margin " Bishops in the text in all pas- sages, and overseers in the margin (moved by Schaff and adopted unanimously April 30, 1880). The discussion was long." The printed copies of the Revision, it will be seen, contain the American change and read : " Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops." The following entry on the margin of Dr. Schaff' s pro- visional copy of the American Appendix, written in his 1 The Lutheran and Dutch Reformed churches were represented on the Old Testament. CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 381 own hand, gives a valuable statement of the feeling of the New Testament Revisers in regard to the number of the changes to be insisted upon for the Appendix. The discussion referred to took place at a meeting in New Haven, July 7, 1880. Dr. Woolsey read the section in the Agreement bearing upon the American Appendix. The question is what are changes of "special importance." 1 Dr. Crosby: favors the smallest Appendix, confined to classes of changes, that the reader may get an impression of our agreement rather than disagreement. Bishop Lee : same opinion. At the same time he wishes other changes might be pre- served. Professor Chase : undecided. Dr. Dwight : Our suggestions are analogous to the marginal readings. Our Appendix is an enlargement of the margin. The Revision will be severely criticised for not having this or that improvement, for unfaithfulness to our oppor- tunity. This objection will be met in part by a large Appendix. Dr. Schaff : suggests a small Appendix for the authorized edition of the Revision, and a separate publication of all our changes, which shall perpetuate the results of our ten years' labors, for the use of scholars. Dr. Abbot : We are bound in honor to take the language " of special importance " in its natural sense, but we can- not say without special examination what is of special im- portance. Dr. Riddle : of the same opinion. Go on with a view to reducing the number of suggestions. Dr. Thayer: sides with Dr. Dwight for a large Appendix on the ground of intrinsic merits rather than practical effect. Dr. Kendrick : gives a liberal construction to our agree- ment, yet narrows it so as to make the Appendix as small as is consistent with fidelity to the Word of God and to the readers of the Bible. An Appendix is in itself an evil ; the larger the Appendix the greater the evil. Dr. Wool- sey : favors with Drs. Dwight and Thayer a large Appen- 1 The article referred to reads : " Such differences of reading and rendering as the American committee may represent to the English companies to be of special importance [that is, after the preceding interchange of emendations had been made] shall be distinctly stated either in the Preface to the Revised Version, or in an Appendix to the volume during a term of fourteen years from the date of publication. 382 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1881 dix. If the Appendix is to be so small as Dr. Crosby suggests, I shall feel I have spent my time in vain. Dr. Schaff suggests a special publication. That may be done, yet the Appendix ought to be pretty full. A note in Dr. Schaffs journal bears upon the final sit- ting of the New Testament Revisers in 1880. October 22. Last meeting of the New Testament Com- pany of the Bible Revision Committee from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. New Testament finished after eight years of labor beginning October, 1872. An important chapter in our lives. We parted almost in tears with mingled feelings of gladness at the completion of the work and sadness at the breaking up of our monthly meetings so full of instruc- tion and interest and ruled by perfect harmony. Of the last session of the Old Testament Company in 1884, he writes : December i^th. On this day the Old Testament Com- pany of Revisers finished their work of fourteen years. Next week I shall send the American Appendix to Eng- land. Te Deum laudamus. We lunched together yes- terday and to-day at Sieghortner's and parted thankfully, yet sadly, after so many years of harmonious cooperation. I am making good progress in securing subscribers to the Memorial Edition and hope to secure ten thousand dollars, which will cover all our expenses and leave something over for possible future work. The Revision of the New Testament was given to the public in May, 1881 ; the Old Testament four years later, in May, 1885. The publication of the New Testament created a sensation scarcely equalled and probably not excelled in the history of English literature in this country. The enterprise of the daily press gives an indi- cation of the popular interest. In their Sunday issues of May 22, two days after the work was issued in New York, the Chicago Times and the Chicago Tribune gave the text entire in their columns. A copy was received in CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 383 Chicago on Saturday night and the Tribune employed ninety-two compositors to set it up. More noteworthy still was the enterprise of the Times, more than one-half of whose issue was made from a telegraphic report. This journal, not without proper pride, said of its issue : " Such a publication as this is entirely without precedent. It in- dicates on the one hand the widespread desire to see the Revised Version, and on the other the ability of the Times to supply the public with what it wanted. The four Gos- pels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans were telegraphed from New York. This portion of the New Testament contains about one hundred and eighteen thousand words, and constitutes by manifold the largest despatch ever sent over the wires." Dr. Schaff's journal contains the following notes bear- ing upon the issue of the New Testament. May 17, 1 88 1. Intolerable excitement and disturbance 1 in view of the approaching publication of the Revision. It was published to-day in England and will be in New York on Friday. May 2Qth. To-day the Revised New Testament is issued. Two hundred thousand copies are sold in New York. The greatest literary sensation. It is a republication of the Gospel to the English-speaking world. [A short time later he said :] The eagerness of the public to secure the Revision, and the rapidity and extent of its sale, surpassed all expectations and are without par- allel in the history of the book trade. Who will doubt that the New Testament has a stronger hold upon man- kind now than ever before and is, beyond all comparison, the most popular book among the two most civilized na- tions of the earth ? On his visit to England in 1884 he had his first oppor- tunity of hearing the judgments of English scholars upon the Revision. In company with Professor George E. Day 1 He is referring to the condition of things at his own study in the Bible House. 384 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1884 and Professor Mead, he attended a meeting, the last but one, of the Old Testament Company, and with them, at the invitation of the chairman, Bishop Harvey, made an address. From the Bishop of Gloucester he learned that the New Testament Company was " disinclined to re-con- vene for work and considered itself practically disbanded." At Oxford, he found Dr. Hort and Professor Westcott engaged upon the revision of the Apocrypha, but both opposed to any attempt at re-Revision. It might only re- sult in a sacrifice of truth and accuracy to popularity and linguistic prejudice. So Dr. Vaughan also expressed himself, thinking that if the old committee were to reas- semble the result would be the same, but that another generation would take up the work and modify it. Arch- deacon Palmer thought there was no hope for the success of the Revision in the present generation. At a reception given to the American Revisers and in- vited guests, by Mr. and Mrs. Elliot F. Shepard at their residence Oct. 26, 1882, Dr. Schaff said : Having spent over ten years on the work and discharged their trust to the best of their ability, the Revision com- panies leave the result to Providence and the decision of the churches, for whose benefit the Revision was made. They knew all along that the Revision did not come up to their own ideal. No perfect work can be expected from imperfect men, nor is it possible to please everybody. But it is the best they could offer as a compromise be- tween the often conflicting views of some fifty scholars of all denominations and two countries. They expected a searching criticism, friendly and unfriendly, and they are not disappointed or discouraged at the result. The judgment of the public has not been as favorable upon the Revision as Dr. Schaff expected it would be. At its first appearance, the work was vigorously and some- times truculently assailed. This was to be expected. The attack on the New Testament was led by the late CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 385 Dean Burgon, and on the Old Testament by Dr. Charles A. Briggs. A certain kind of popular prejudice, ex- pressed in the words which Dr. Schaff often laughingly repeated, " that if St. James' Version was good enough for St. Paul, it is good enough for me," he was prepared for. He expected that its adoption would follow only after some years of use, but that in time the recognition of its merits would outweigh all the objections drawn from the changes of text and English idiom. He expressed himself in this confident way, a few years before the New Testament appeared : I never have had the least fear of the ultimate fate of the Revision text. There has never been such a truly providential combination of favorable circumstances and of able and sound biblical scholars from all the evangeli- cal churches of the two great nations speaking the English language for such a holy work of our common Christian- ity, as is presented in the Anglo-American Bible Revision committees. This providential juncture, the remarkable harmony of the Revisers in the presentation of their work and the growing desire of the churches for a timely im- provement and rejuvenation of our venerable English version justify the expectation of a speedy and general adoption of the new version in Great Britain and America. 1 Dr. Schaff knew well that Jerome's Version owed noth- ing to official action. It won its way by its merits. He knew also that it was without official action that King James* Version came into gradual use. He hoped, how- ever, that authoritative ecclesiastical recognition would be given in Great Britain and the United States, not by supplanting the old version, but by allowing the new. His optimism and confidence that the impulse of progress would yet bring this about continued to assert themselves 1 Anglo-American Bible Revision, being a series of essays by members of the American committee, p. 20, Philadelphia. [-"79. 386 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1885 in the face of the failure of ecclesiastical organizations to take action. 1 When spoken to about the matter, he always went back to original principles, expressing him- self in words like these : English readers will not be contented with King James' Version. They know that something better can be made. It is in the interest of loyalty to God's Word that errors should be corrected and a good translation take the place of an inferior one. Such a providential combination of circumstances and such a cooperation of denominations can hardly be expected to occur soon again, if ever. Certainly not within fifty or one hundred years will a new Revision be undertaken. And if undertaken, then the work would have to be done over from the start, as the scholars would be fresh at their task. No faultless piece of work can be expected. The Revised Version is not free from defects. I would have had some things different, if I had been the only one to be consulted. But upon the whole, the Revision is a vast improvement upon the Ver- sion of 1611, and the best that the combined scholarship represented on the committee could make it. 2 In the course of a reply to the congratulations of the Yale theological faculty on the occasion of his semi-centennial in 1892, he wrote to President D wight : No members of the Revision Committee were better prepared, more regular in attendance and more weighty in judgment than the three representatives of Yale. I look 1 The only denomination to take favorable action during Dr. Schaff s life was the Baptist, at its convention in Saratoga in 1883. Dr. Schaff pre- sented the claims of the Revision before the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church at Stanton, Virginia, May 24, 1881, and a week later before the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church at Pitts- burg as he had done before at Madison in 1880. 2 The judgment of Bishop Westcott on the Revision in an article published in the Expository Times, 1892, Dr. Schaff regarded as deserving of great weight. The writer says : " I cannot but regard that period of anxious labor on the Revised Version with the deepest satisfaction and thankfulness. The Revision has brought, as I believe, the words and thoughts of the Apostles before the English people with a purity and exactness never attained before. ... I rarely hear a sermon when it is not quoted. . . . The acceptance CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 387 back upon our monthly meetings at my study in the Bible House with unalloyed satisfaction. It is impossible that a work to which a hundred scholars of various denomina- tions of England and America have unselfishly devoted so much time and strength, can be lost. Whether the Revised Version may or may not replace King James' Version, it will remain a noble monument of Christian scholarship and cooperation, which in its single devotion to Christ and to truth rises above the dividing-lines of schools and sects. After the publication of the New Testament, the Ameri- can committee continued to maintain its organization, holding annual meetings for conference and business until 1891 1 and social gatherings, as at the residences of Elliot F. Shepard in 1882 and Morris K. Jesup of New York in 1883. It was Dr. Schaffs earnest hope that after the expiration in 1895 and 1899 of the copyright agreement entered into with the University presses, a standard Ameri- can edition incorporating the changes of the American Appendix might be issued. He felt that it was important that this should be done with the authority of the Ameri- can companies before their members were removed by death. 2 Action looking to this result was taken at the meeting in November, i885, 3 and subsequent annual meet- which it has received has been beyond my expectation, and as I believe beyond the acceptance of the Revision of 1611 in the same time." Bishop Ellicott in the Expositor for April, 1896, declared that " there seem now many reasons for thinking that in due time " the opposition to the Revised Version will die out. This judgment Dr. Schaff would have been inclined to share. 1 The last meeting of the New Testament Revisers which Dr. Schaff at- tended was at New Haven, June, 1893. 2 Six members of the American Old Testament Company and three of the New survive. 8 Professor J. Henry Thayer, the secretary of the New Testament company, wrote me, under date Aug. 19, 1895, f tne proposed American Standard edition of the Revised New Testament as follows: "With your father's death the prospect of success in the solicitation of funds for a seemly edition disap- peared, and our diminishing numbers and taxed leisure have held the whole 388 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1885 ings. In 1897 only nine of the thirty-two members of the committee were living. Dr. Schaff's last published statement 1 on the subject of the Revision refers to this action and points out the particulars in which, according to his judgment, the Amer- ican Standard edition should differ from the edition of the Oxford and Cambridge presses. The American Ap- pendix should be incorporated in the text, headings be prefixed to the chapters, and references be made in the New Testament to its quotations from the Old Testament. These are the closing words of the article and his last published words on this subject : The Revisers ask only that the work which has cost them fourteen years of earnest and disinterested labor, and in which the scholarship of all the leading Protestant de- nominations was represented, should have a fair chance. It is for the Christian public and the churches to decide whether the Revision shall be authorized for optional or exclusive use in the place of King James' Version. The committee was commissioned to give the most faithful ver- sion of the purest texts obtainable. This they have done, and it is remarkable that the severest critics have as yet not been able to discover any real error of translation. On the contrary their objections amount to this, that the Revision is too faithful or, in the words of the late Bishop Wordsworth, " that it is too well done." Here are two testimonies to this, one of the most honor- able labors of Dr. Schaff's life : The first is from the late Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, one project in suspense to this hour." Since then the work has been prose- cuted, and Dr. Thayer writes, Aug. 14, 1897: "At the present time both companies are engaged in preparing an edition incorporating the American preferences, which will be published on the expiration of the period of fourteen years from the completion of the English Standard edition in 1885." 1 In the Sunday School Times, Feb. 28, 1891. See also Dr. Schaffs articles on the " Revised Version and its Critics " in the Independent, March- July, 1883, and "The Present Status of Revision" in the Independent, April, 1886. CHAP, xiv REVISION OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 389 of the most faithful members of the Old Testament Com- pany. 1 " Dr. Schaff, as a member of the New Testament Company, took his share of the Revision there carried on, but his most remarkable service was performed in securing ways and means, and providing for what may be called the general work of the committee. Here, he showed himself a man of affairs, endowed with no small share of executive wisdom and tact; . . . his industry was un- wearied, his tact marvellous. What he did was done with his might. He spared no pains, and constantly surprised his colleagues on the committee with the fertility of his resources. The Revised Version is a great boon to all English-speaking peoples, as it puts in their possession, in a convenient form, the results of the scholarship of more than two centuries ; and for the American share in the work, the Christian public is indebted to Philip Schaff more than to all other persons together." The other is from the American committee of Revisers, given in the authoritative account of its work. 2 "The committee desire to record, in this review of their labors, their acknowledgment of the great service rendered by their president, Dr. Philip Schaff. His untiring energy and constant devotion to the interests of the work, from its inception to its close, deserve the thanks of all who have cooperated in any way in the preparation of the Revised Version, and also of all who shall find in it help and light in their reading of the Word of God. It was owing to him, more than to any other, that the work was undertaken in this country, and to him likewise is largely due the success with which the means for carrying it forward have been secured." 1 Papers of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VI. p. 6. 2 Historical Account of the Work of the American Committee of Revision^ New York, 1885, p. 56. 3QO THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1885 CHAPTER XV GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 1885-1888 Roman Catholic Baptism in the Presbyterian Church German Universi- ties Gottingen and Ritschl Marburg and Giessen Zwingli Festi- val Bonn, Berlin, Greifswald, Leipzig Halle and Jena Hase Heidelberg Celebration Spain Renan Henry Ward Beecher Drs. Prime and Hitchcock Lake Mohonk as a Summer Home Pro- fessor of Church History Bologna Doctor of Divinity again St. Andrews Bishop Hefele and Papal Infallibility The Death of Friends AN occasion was again given to Dr. Schaff in the early part of the year 1885 to lift his voice effectually in favor of catholic Christianity. At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church meeting in Cincinnati, in which he sat as commissioner ("not expecting to be of much use, for I am not an ecclesiastic"), the validity of Roman Catholic baptism came up for discussion under a resolu- tion introduced by Judge Drake, 'declaring the Roman Catholic Church to be no part of the church of Christ. In leading the opposition Dr. Schaff was in line with Presbyterians of unquestioned loyalty to the Westmins- ter standards, like Dr. Charles Hodge, who had vigor- ously resisted similar action forty years before; and he was congratulated by one of Dr. Hodge's successors " for his success in keeping the church right on Romish bap- tism " on this occasion. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 391 The following letter to a son gives some account of the debate : Yesterday afternoon began the great struggle in the Assembly over the validity of Roman Catholic baptism, and it will be continued to-day. I made my speech, which was listened to apparently with great attention and will kill Judge Drake's resolution that the Roman Church is no church of Christ at all, but the synagogue of Satan, that her priests are usurpers, and her ordinances null and void. I just reversed his resolution and proved that the Roman Catholic Church, though corrupt and holding un- scriptural errors, yet retaining the Holy Scripture and ancient creeds with all the fundamental truths of Chris- tianity, is still a branch of the visible church of Christ and that, therefore, baptism performed by her ministers into the name of the Holy Trinity and with the inten- tion to baptize is true and valid Christian baptism which cannot and ought not to be repeated. I proved my posi- tion from the confessions and the uniform theory and practice of all the Reformed churches. Judge Drake's resolution cannot pass, but it is quite possible that both his anti-popery resolutions and my substitute will be tabled, and the Assembly declare its ignorance and leave the question of the validity of Roman baptism with the church sessions, to dispose of according to their superior wisdom. Such a result would be rather humiliating yet infinitely preferable to the endorsement of an outrage upon two hundred millions of professing Christians. I feel relieved after my speech. Dixi et animam meam salvavi. I know now why I was sent to this Assembly, and am thankful that I have been permitted to bear my testimony against this unreasoning and uncharitable anti- popery fanaticism. In his address he said that, " if converts from the Roman Catholic Church are to be rebaptized, then we must dig up the bones of Calvin and Zwingli and Luther and sprinkle them over again. The Roman Catholic Church solemnly condemns rebaptism. Shall the Presbyterian Church out-pope the pope? The Presbyterian Church is orthodox enough to be liberal." 392 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1885 A pastor from Michigan recalled the scene of this discussion after Dr. Schaff's decease: 1 The burning question of the Assembly was Roman baptism. Dr. Schaff's speech was the feature of the debate. Never before was the importance of a know- ledge of church history better shown. His proofs of the positions of the Reformers and the consequences re- sulting from the denial of Roman baptism were simply overwhelming. The beginning of his speech was en- livened by a piece of wit which will be remembered by all who heard him. The preceding speaker had made a bitter attack on the Church of Rome and wound up his address by the statement that in Rome there were baptized jackasses. Dr. Schaff then took the platform and with twinkling eyes began by saying, "We will dis- cuss to-day the baptism of men and women, and leave the jackasses alone." The roar of laughter which fol- lowed completely extinguished the previous speaker and prepared the way for the strong historical argument which followed. In the summer of 1885, Dr. Schaff began a systematic tour among the universities of Germany, which was com- pleted the following year. It was thirty years since he had sent forth his work on German universities. His object now was to form the personal acquaintance of the younger generation of theologians, who were filling the places of the teachers of his early years, and had already supplanted not a few of his contemporaries. Only a few of the teachers with whom he was personally ac- quainted in 1844, such as Hase, Lechler, Kahnis and Jacobi, were left. There is no better illustration of Dr. Schaff's youthful turn of mind than this effort to keep himself abreast of the theological opinion of the age. Some of his observations were given in two series of articles in the Independent. The first tour included Gottingen, Giessen, Marburg, Heidelberg and Strass- 1 New York Evangelist, Dec. 21, 1893. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 393 burg. The following observations are extracted from his notes : German scholars are very accessible and always ready for an intelligent discussion of doctrinal, historical and critical problems and all the live questions of the day, except politics, of which they know little and care less. They exercise a simple and inexpensive hospitality and season it with the feast of reason and the flow of soul. They have the happy faculty of enjoying themselves rationally among books and in the open air with natural ease and freedom without any show and ceremony. After being in Gottingen, he had this to say of Ritschl : He is now sixty-three years of age, but looks well and hearty. He is very frank and blunt, has strong, positive convictions, is a good lecturer on dogmatics and ethics and has about one hundred hearers. He is the only living divine in Germany who has a regular school and he con- trols by his pupils the faculties of Marburg and Giessen. His system is a species of new Kantianism and theo- logical agnosticism, and a reaction against the pretentious over-speculation of the Hegelian school. Like Schleier- macher, he draws a sharp line of distinction between phi- losophy and theology, and his chief object is to expel metaphysics from the domain of dogmatics, and to con- fine the latter to the limits of revelation in the Bible and Christian experience. He emphasizes the ethical element above the dogmatic. On hearing of Ritschl's death several years later, he wrote to Dr. Mann as follows : So Ritschl is dead. But not his school. I do not have so unfavorable an opinion of it as you have. It is a reactioji against the Hegelian much-knowledge and all- knowledge ( Vielwissen und Allwissen). It once more leads away from the realm of speculation and up to the sources of revelation and from confessional ecclesiasticism to biblical Christianity. At any rate, Ritschl has started a movement in the department of theology. There is, how- ever, no unity among his pupils. He told me in 1885 that he was a good Lutheran. That is open to grave doubt. 394 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1885 His doctrine of justification is altogether un-Lutheran, as is also his theory of the atonement. He himself held on firmly to the Gospel of John, but several of his pupils, like Schiirer and Harnack, put it down into the second cen- tury. . . . Zahn and Harnack are at present engaged in a duel over the canon of the New Testament. They are spirits equally endowed, equally learned and equally keen, veritable bristle brushes (KrateOiirsten). Harnack is at the present moment the leading teacher of Germany and only thirty-eight years old. But the contemporary brood of theologians is considerably behind the former generation, Schleiermacher, Neander, Baur, Ewald, Nitzsch, Muller and Tholuck. At Marburg, he was curious to meet Wellhausen, then of the philosophical faculty, whose History of Israel had popularized the theories first set forth by Vatke and Reuss. In his Syriac collegium Dr. Schaff found a single student. The professor told him he had two, but one was so far advanced that a second class had to be constituted for him. In the history of the Orient, he had twenty hearers. He sat with him at his table and found him an agreeable conversationalist, with a good deal of humor. Wellhausen said that theological students waste too much time on Hebrew, which they afterwards forget, and ought to study the Septuagint instead. Dr. Kurtz, the ninth edition of whose popular manual of church history had just appeared, was then living in retirement at Marburg at the age of seventy-six. To a question touching the liberalizing influence of the study of church history, he replied : " Yes, my study of the past history of the church has liberalized my views most decid- edly. I have long since been emancipated from strict con- fessional Lutheranism." AtGiessen, he found Schiirer, Harnack and Kattenbusch. " Schurer," so he writes after spending an afternoon with him, " is a sober, cautious, critical (rather sceptical), con- CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 395 scientious and thorough scholar. ... I spent seven hours with Harnack. He is only thirty-four and among the first patristic scholars of the age. He has an extraordinary working power, is a fresh, interesting and stimulating lect- urer and excites enthusiasm among his students." Dr. Schaff predicted at that time that Harnack would soon be called to a larger field and probably to Berlin, a prediction fulfilled two years later. At Strassburg, Holtzmann and Edward Reuss, the ven- erable senior of the faculty, were the most interesting figures. Reuss was at the time eighty-four years old, but in full activity. Dr. Schaff had corresponded with him, but never met him before. He spent a delightful evening in his study and with his family, and, after a cursory examination, came to the conclusion that his library of fourteen thousand volumes was probably the finest private theological library in existence. He was one of the few German divines who could read English. From Strassburg, he went to Heidelberg and to Switzer- land, visiting the universities of Zurich, Bern and Basel. During his visit in his native country, the unveiling of the fine statue of Zwingli at Zurich occurred, August 25. It stands on one of the streets of the city to which he gave his life, and represents the Reformer facing the lake and looking up to heaven, with one hand holding the Bible, the other resting on the sword. This festival occasion [writes Dr. Schaff, on the evening of the unveiling] is a striking proof how deeply the mem- ory of Zwingli is embedded in the heart of his people. It was truly a festival of the people. This evening the whole city of Zurich and the villages on the lake* as far as Horgen were illuminated, and presented a spectacle such as Zurich never saw before on so large a scale. . . . Al- together the Zwingli festival was an unqualified success and will long be remembered. Such a festival would be 396 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1885 impossible at Geneva in honor of Calvin, for the popula- tion of that city is Roman Catholic, and, for a large portion of the Protestant population, Calvin has unfortunately been replaced by Rousseau. Calvin was not a man of the people as were Luther and Zwingli. In 1886 Dr. Schaff extended his university tour to Bonn, Berlin, Greifswald, Leipzig, Halle, Jena and Heidelberg. He used to observe that of some German professors it might be said that the good Lord knows everything but they know a little more, especially when it comes to the Bible. Ewald was indignant when he heard Strauss had published two volumes on the life of Christ, and exclaimed, " If he had asked me, I could have told him everything ! " Bonn was less homelike now that Lange was dead. Christ- lieb and Professor Krafft remained. With Langen and Reusch of the Old-Catholic faculty he also had fellowship, and with Bishop Reinkens, who gave him Bellinger's Luther-pamphlet and the French translation of his lect- ures on the Reunion of Christendom. Ultramontane pro- fessors had just been appointed to lecture side by side with the representatives of the Old-Catholic movement. " The May laws were a mistake," notes Dr. Schaff. "The way to oppose the Roman Church is to build up the Protestant." Of the university of Berlin he expressed the opinion that, if an American student had time for only one term in Germany, he should spend it there. Neander, Mar- heineke, Nitzsch, Hengstenberg, were long since dead. Kaftan, the occupant of Dorner's chair, he found an able lecturer. Dillmann he heard on Deuteronomy and Isaiah. Bernhard Weiss he pronounced " an earnest, animated and enthusiastic teacher. Pfleiderer represents the speculative and critical theology, a pupil of Baur and a Wurtemberger. He ably reproduces the Tubingen views, which utterly fail to explain the mystery of Paul's conversion." CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 397 The older professors at Greifswald were Cremer and Zockler. The latter Dr. Schaff pronounced " perhaps the most extensively learned man among' living divines in Germany. His knowledge not only embraces all branches of divinity, but also the natural sciences and the relation of science to religion. His deafness promotes his familiar- ity with books, but hinders his popularity as a lecturer. He is a most excellent and pious gentleman and a scholar of untiring industry. He is in the prime of life and will make the best use of his future years." At Leipzig he was joined by Dr. Arthur McGiffert, now his successor in the chair of church history in Union Seminary. They met the theological faculty at Luthardt's table. He made a visit on Kahnis which he calls most touching. " He is now a mental ruin. I found him, how- ever, in a lucid interval and he conversed with touching tenderness about our early associations as fellow-students in Halle and as colleagues at Berlin. He is a man of genius and in the days of his strength was one of the most interesting and spirited 'of lecturers. His wife is blind. What a change ! . . . Delitzsch, seventy-three years old, is a Jew outwardly, but a thorough Christian inwardly. He has made considerable concessions to the modern critical school yet without change of his doctrinal position and reverence for the Word of God." Delitzsch's change of critical attitude made a deep impression upon Dr. Schaff, and he was inclined to lay more stress upon it than upon any other utterance from the modern critical school of Old Testament criticism. A most interesting incident occurred at an evening entertainment given by Professor Lechler. In making a toast to the guest, the professor drew from his pocket a diary of the year 1838, and, to Dr. Schaff 's great surprise, read a report of his trial sermon in the class room at Tubingen. Lechler was then 398 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1885 repetent. His criticism of the sermon was " good use of the text, well-memorized, fresh, energetic in delivery." At Halle, he found Mrs. Tholuck " still the same lovely and sweet woman, keeping in order the house and garden made sacred by the footsteps and presence of her husband, and devoting her time to the Tholuck institution in the adjoining building, where eight or ten theological students are housed." From there he wrote to Dr. Prentiss : " Last evening I invited Kostlin and all the theological professors and tutors to a plain supper and we indulged till after midnight in pleasant academic reminiscences and innocent jokes. It was a delightful meeting. I have had a most delightful visit to the Luther localities, as Witten- berg and Eisleben. I was also at Leipzig hearing lectures by day and spending the evening with the professors, who received me most kindly. "Such feasts of reason one after the other ! Es war was Enormes ! Our poor friend Kahnis is a mental ruin, but I had the great satisfaction of seeing him in a lucid moment. He talked of you and Henry B. Smith and Halle and Berlin." The professors at Jena were Lipsius, Grimm, Nippold, Siegfried, Hilgenfeld and Hase. With Hilgenfeld, who, with Holsten, was the last survivor of the Tubingen school, he took walks, also hearing him lecture. With Lipsius he dined. But it was his fellowship with Hase he remem- bered, if possible, with most pleasure. His visit upon that patriarch 1 among German church historians was made in company with Dr. McGiffert. Hase was then eighty-five, "bowed but clear-headed." Dr. Schaff com- pared him with " Ranke and thought he might, like him, celebrate his ninetieth birthday. The study of history seems to be favorable to longevity. Dollinger, the most celebrated Roman Catholic historian, is eighty-eight, and 1 Hase died Jan. 3, 1890, at the age of eighty-nine. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 399 our own Bancroft is eighty-nine, and both retain in a re- markable degree their mental faculties. Hase has just finished the eleventh edition of his admirable manual, which brings the history down to Bismarck's settlement with the pope, so he tells me. At a dinner to which he had invited a company to meet me, including several bright German students and McGiffert, he made a toast, delivering a humorous address, in which he said, ' There are three generations of church historians ; for ancient history, Hase, for mediaeval history, Schaff, who is not old but aging (nicht alt aber alternd\ and modern history or the history of the future, McGiffert and Kruger.' Hase goes every year to Gastein." It was on this occasion he uttered the words which Dr. Schaff afterwards often had on his lips in after years : " Gastein has often done me much good and for this I must be thankful, for truly life is beautiful (denn das Leben istja dock schon)" In this journey to the universities I saw a side of Dr. Schaff's character [writes Dr. McGiffert] which was new to me, who had known him hitherto as a pupil knows a teacher. I was impressed with his love of good company ; the enjoyment of good stories of which he had a fund of his own and always the best that were told ; the apparent complete abandonment of care in the thorough delight of meeting old friends and making new ones ; the facility in interesting and entertaining all whom he met, and the entire circle when he had a circle around him ; the cordial good-fellowship with which he got on, even with those whose theological views were most opposed to his own, as in Jena, where we had a most delightful time, and nearly every one we met was a radical and the discussion waxed warm at the dinner table. He entered into those delight- ful days with an almost boyish zest. I remember the pro- fessors' many expressions of amazement at the American enterprise displayed by Dr. Schaff in visiting Europe so frequently, and at the seeming marvellous prosperity of American theologians which enabled him to do so. But they responded in the warmest way to his demonstrations 400 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1886 of friendship and had a warmer heart not only for him personally, but apparently for America as well, after he had left them. Dr. Schaff cultivated the habit of looking ahead with hope, and strove conscientiously to read the message the younger and rising scholars were announcing in the ears of their generation. He believed that good was to be expected to come to the church through the pious and in- dustrious labors of Christian scholarship in the future as good had come in the past, and that along new lines also. Among the professors the older generation presented to him none more interesting and congenial than Weiss, Kostlin, Hase, Delitzsch and Merx, the Orientalist of Heidelberg. Among the younger generation, none inter- ested him so much as Harnack, Loofs of Halle and Victor Schultze of Greifswald. The tour to the universities was brought to a close by a visit to Heidelberg for the five hundredth anniversary of the university, during the first week of August, 1886. Dr. Schaff makes this reference to it in a letter : I have spent five weeks in Berlin studying the sources of the history of the Reformation, visited Eisleben and other Luther localities and made a tour of the universities I missed last year. Everywhere I have been most kindly received and here I am enjoying, in company with profess- ors and other friends, the celebration of the fifth centen- nial of the university, the oldest within the limits of the present German Empire. It has passed off with complete success and without an accident. The chief attractions have been the reception of the academic deputations, the commemorative orations, historic processions, the recep- tions of the deputies by the Grand Duke of Baden and consort, and the Crown Prince of Germany, and the illumi- nation of the castle. I had a very pleasant chat with the Crown Prince and have met many academic celebrities. The whole city of Heidelberg was in festive attire. The houses were decorated with flags and flowers. The streets CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 401 were crowded with visitors from morning till night. The rectors of the universities and other deputies wore their orders and ribbons, gold chains and academic gowns and caps and seemed to be as proud as the military officers in their gala uniform. One of the chief addresses was by Kuno Fischer, the historian of philosophy, which was three hours long and which would have been much better if it had been two hours shorter. The students say everything has an end but Kuno Fischer. ... I saw the illumination of the castle from the beautiful villa of Professor Hausrath. It was a magnificent sight, a fairy scene witnessed by an immense crowd along the Neckar and on the streets of the city. Yesterday I looked over in the university library the four volumes of the magnificently printed and bound cata- logue of the Palatine library (whose manuscripts were once the richest treasure of the university) captured by Tilly in the Thirty Years' War and transported to the Vatican. Leo XIII sent the catalogue by a messenger as a Jubilee gift and keeps the books ! Before going to Germany in 1886, Dr. Schaff made a tour through Spain, thus completing the journey through the states of Europe. His health had shown serious signs of giving way, the centre of difficulty being the heart, and at the advice of his physician he broke away sooner than usual from New York. The winter before he had had a solemn warning, falling suddenly, on his way to attend the lecture of Dean Farrar on temperance at Chickering Hall. Reaching London, he attended, by special invita- tion of Dean Bradley, the funeral of Archbishop Trench in Westminster Abbey, whom he had met on his first visit to England forty years before. Crossing over to Spain, he gives this general description of the country: Spain is more than fifty years behind the age. The Spanish railways are the worst constructed and worst managed in Europe, so far as I have observed ; trains are few, slow and irregular ; the hotels, with few exceptions, scarcely rank with third-class taverns in other countries ; the newspapers are small and void of news ; the people 2D 402 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1886 are ignorant and superstitious, though courteous and polite. . . . And yet Spain is eminently worth visiting. It is full of glorious reminiscences and monuments of a mighty past. It fills some of the most thrilling and inter- esting chapters of mediaeval history and the conflict with Mohammedanism. 1 The following letter to Dr. Mann was written from Cordova : I have just returned from the wonderful cathedral- mosque. The one spoils the other, but the combination is unique and makes both more interesting, though less complete and less conspicuous. We I mean myself and my daughter, who is a great comfort to me have already been four weeks in Spain and shall leave this afternoon for Madrid. It is a very interesting country, in which old Roman, Moorish and mediaeval Catholic reminiscences are strangely interwoven, especially here in Cordova, in Seville and in Granada. The people are more Catholic and bigoted than the Italians, and further behind the age in civilization. Their noble traits are bravery, courtesy and temperance. Strange to say, cathedrals and bull rings are the most prominent buildings and draw the greatest crowds in Spain. This incongruity is characteristic and furnishes the key to the understanding of the Spanish character and history in which Catholic piety and heathen cruelty meet. Hence the horrors of the Inquisition and the autos-da-fe in majorem Dei gloriam [for the greater glory of God]. It is a strange paradox that the same people who celebrate the feast of the resurrection in the morning, delight in the bloody spectacle in the afternoon. The cathedrals are sombre, solemn, imposing buildings, the grandest monuments of the Middle Ages. At the Alhambra the ghost of history hovers, whispering the tale of Moorish dominion and the victory of the cross over the crescent. The ceremonies and processions of Holy Week, which I witnessed in Seville, surpassed even those in Rome. But immediately after them, on the afternoon of Easter Day, began a series of bull-fights which, from all the descriptions I heard from eye-witnesses, are spectacles 1 His observations in Spain were given in a series of articles in the New York Observer. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 403 of barbaric cruelty, exhibitions of butcheries of innocent animals. The bull-ring of Seville has thirteen thousand seats and every one was occupied. The immense audience presented a rare spectacle, but I am very glad I conquered my curiosity. Proceeding northward, Dr. Schaff stopped in Paris to meet his " dear friend Godet," and to make studies in the Calvinistic literature. He met, for the first and only time, Renan. The following is his note of the meeting. " May i$th, 1886. At two I heard a very interesting lecture on Psalm cxviii. by Renan in the College de France. He sits at a round table with twelve students and a few other hearers before him (two ladies among them) and explains without notes the Psalm philologically, critically and historically in the purest and most elegant French. His face is very coarse and flabby and his stomach very large. I had an interesting chat with him and said to him that the strongest arguments for Christianity were the Jews and Palestine, which Renan himself calls the fifth Gospel, torn but legible. He smiled and said * Neander might well say the Jews were the strongest argument, for he was himself a Jew ! ' ! Returning to England to make final arrangements with scholars for his edition of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, he was present at a " memorable gathering," at Cheshunt College. " The Congregationalists and Baptists held a marriage feast, and I, a Presbyterian minister, pro- nounced the benediction." Spurgeon, Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Allon and Dr. Schaff made addresses. Spurgeon "was suffering from the gout, had his arm in a sling but spoke to great advantage." "Two episodes at least," said the Nonconformist and Independent, giving an account of the occasion, "will never be forgotten. One was the im- pression made by the declaration of Professor Schaff that 404 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 18,86 he would rather be an humble preacher of the Gospel than President of the United States, and an experience related of Mr. Spurgeon when before four thousand people he took the felt hat off his head and said, 'I would not change that and preaching the Gospel for the crown of all the Russias.' " After visiting Edinburgh, where he was pub- licly received by the Assemblies, he crossed over again to the Continent, and spent several weeks in Berlin consulting documents at the Royal library and finishing his Remi- niscences of Neander. 1 This period was signalized in the narrower circle of Dr. SchafFs friends in New York by the death of Dr. Samuel Irenaeus Prime in the summer of 1885. Not sharing his intense Presbyterianism, he was an admirer of his brilliant social qualities and his eminent ability in the editorial management of the New York Observer. They were associated together in close relations as secretaries of the American Branch of the Evangelical Alliance and in other branches of Christian work for a quarter of a century. He paid this tribute to his worth : Dr. Prime was a wise counsellor, a man of an uncommon amount of common sense, executive ability, of quick wit, rich humor and a hopeful temperament. His generous sympathy and inexhaustible fund of illustrations and anec- dotes made him one of the most agreeable companions and friends I have known. He was one of the leaders of public opinion, and altogether one of the most tireless and useful writers and workers of his generation in America. On the death of Henry Ward Beecher a year later, March, 1888, he wrote in his journal : I attended Mr. Beecher's funeral to-day at his church in Brooklyn, which was turned into a flower garden. No funeral just like it has taken place since the world began. I looked upon the dead body with the closed mouth, once 1 Gotha, 1886. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 405 so eloquent, and the eyes once flashing with genius. There were and there are preachers more profound and more spir- itual, and orators more weighty and more polished than Mr. Beecher, but it is doubtful if any generation has pro- duced a more powerful popular speaker in the pulpit or on the platform, a speaker who had such complete com- mand and magnetic hold of his audience. His imagination was as fertile as that of a poet, though he never wrote a poem or quoted poetry. His mind was a flower garden in perpetual bloom, enlivened by running brooks and singing birds. He was in profound sympathy with nature and with man, especially with the common people. A few months later he attended the funeral of his colleague in Union Seminary, Professor Hitchcock. " He was a man of rare genius," wrote Dr. Schaff at the news of his death, and a brilliant lecturer. He had a rare gift of clear, terse, epigrammatic, almost startling statement. He roused the attention at the first sentence and kept it up to the close. He was always instructive, interesting and stimulating. He always stopped at the right time. He always set the right word in its proper place. He never failed in a single speech I ever heard him make. His deep, sonorous voice and expressive gestures aided the effect of his thought. He was a consummate rhetorician. I doubt whether any living platform speaker or preacher could excel him in the combination of solid instruction and in impressiveness of dictation and delivery. This event led to Dr. Schaff' s last change of official position, he being chosen Dr. Hitchcock's successor in the chair of church history. Writing to Professor Mitchell at St. Andrews, he spoke of the change as follows : You have no doubt heard with surprise of the sudden death of my colleague. He was a rare man that combined genius, learning and eloquence, and had a curios a felicitas verborum [a remarkable felicity of words]. It is a pity that he did not publish his lectures on church history. I have been unanimously appointed in his place and, al- though I shrink at my time of life from the intolerable 406 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1887 drudgery of preparing new courses of lectures, I am glad to go back to my old chair again. I am now busily en- gaged in an inaugural address on American church history. 1 The news of Dr. Hitchcock's decease reached Dr. Schaff at Lake Mohonk. For a number of years it had been his custom to make it his summer resting-place when he did not go abroad. The lovely mountain scenery, the pure air, the excellent company and the healthful Christian atmos- phere of the Mountain House, he found unequalled any- where else in the land. He looked forward with impatient desire as the seminary sessions neared their close to going there. The genial hosts, Mr. Albert Smiley and Mrs. Smiley, were his friends. Dr. Schaff came to be one of the familiar figures on the piazza and in the walks. But the place where he was always looked for first of all was the Rock reading-room, one of the two reading- rooms of the hotel, well furnished with books and numerous periodicals. Here, in this cool chamber over- hanging the lake, one end of one of the tables and some of its drawers were, by common consent, accorded to Dr. Schaff for his books and papers. Resting by doing nothing would have been severe drudgery to his active temperament and his acquired habit of industry. He always carried a box of books with him up the moun- tain, and there in the forenoon and at other hours of the day and evening his form was expected to be seen bending over books and the pages of his manuscript, pen in hand. These serious occupations did not make him grave or unsociable. On the contrary, there was no one more cheerful than he. At Lake Mohonk he ex- pected to meet from year to year with many congenial friends. It is the custom there to observe the Sabbath 1 Church and State in the United States, New York, 1888. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 407 with religious services and to call upon guests and others to fill up the evenings with music and lectures. Dr. Schaff was often drawn upon to preach and to lecture. Following the custom by which some of the picturesque summer houses have been named after distinguished guests, as Dr. McCosh, Dr. Cuyler, President Hayes and Whittier, one has been named, with appropriate allusion to Switzerland, Chalet Schaff. Here is a note in his journal showing how at Lake Mohonk he combined recreation with literary toil : This is my last day of vacation (Sept. 11, 1887). I have spent here more than two months, preached three times, delivered lectures on Spain, on Luther and the Reforma- tion, on the crowned heads I have met, conducted the Bible class twice, written my inaugural address on the Relation of Church and State in the United States, and several sections of my History of the German Reforma- tion, and associated most with Dr. Stille, Dr. Cuyler, Mr. Schell, played chess with Denton Smith and others. The notable event in the literary world in 1888 was the celebration of the eight hundredth anniversary of the university of Bologna. For the thirteenth time and ac- companied by Mrs. Schaff and their daughter, Dr. Schaff went abroad to attend the festivities as the representative of New York University. Harvard was represented by James Russell Lowell, and Yale, Pennsylvania, Michi- gan, Johns Hopkins and other American institutions were worthily represented by delegates. The Italian university is more venerable in years than Heidelberg, tradition trac- ing the origin even as far back as the reign of Theo- dosius II in 425. One of the features giving an air of romance to its history is that the university has admitted learned ladies to its faculty. The celebration occurred in June and lasted three days. Dr. Schaff writes : I doubt whether there ever has been such a numerous and brilliant gathering of professors and students, except 408 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1887 at the recent celebration of Heidelberg University. On the morning of the first day the king and queen arrived from Rome, and were received with the heartiest demon- strations of joy. They gave to the eighth centenary a national and patriotic character. It was a celebration of united and free Italy fully as much as a literary festival. The clergy of Bologna showed their indifference and hospitality by their absence from the festivities and by preventing the use of the historic church of San Petronio, where the academic promotions formerly took place. The European delegates appeared in their academic gowns, hoods, golden chains and decorations and presented a mediaeval spectacle. In the evening, the queen gave a brilliant reception in the palace. She is a highly accom- plished lady, full of grace and beauty, and had a pleasant word to say to every delegate presented to her, in his own language. . . . Tuesday the I2th was the great day of the feast. The representatives of the Italian, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, English, Russian, Scotch, Irish, Austrian, Hungarian, Scandinavian, Swiss and American universities, together with the professors and directors of Bologna University, the dignitaries of the city and a very large train of students in every variety of costume and color, marched in procession from the new university building to the old. In the crowd of spectators I saw, for the first time, Father Gavazzi, a Bolognese, who in 1848 with Bassi, his friend and fellow-Barnabite friar so fired the heart of his fellow-townsmen by his dra- matic eloquence, on the square before the church of San Petronio, that men and women in large numbers were seen emptying their purses and laying their watch-chains and ear-rings at his feet as an offering to the cause of Italian unity and liberty. . . . The great festive oration was entrusted to Giosue Carducci. It was an eloquent produc- tion, pervaded by the glow of patriotism and delivered with an animation and earnestness that kept the audience spell-bound. Among the interesting episodes was a letter of greeting from Frederick III, emperor of Germany, recalling the ancient relations which had bound Germany to Bologna, from which the legal culture of Germany had received nourishment unto this day. The day after it was read, a telegram arrived announcing the emperor's death. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 409 Dr. Schaff commemorated his visit in Bologna in an address on the University, Past, Present and Future, 1 delivered at a public reception given by the New York University and presided over by the president of the council, Mr. Charles Butler. Returning to London, he attended the Fourth Council of Reformed churches, and presented a paper on the Tolera- tion Act of 1689. From there he passed to St. Andrews University to publicly receive the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In reply to a communication from Professor Alexander F. Mitchell (Feb. 12, 1887) announcing the honor, Dr. Schaff wrote: Your letter was an agreeable surprise to me. I con- sider it a great honor that your venerable university, which is, I believe, the oldest in Scotland, and dates from 1410, should have conferred upon me the doctorate of divinity. I shall always appreciate it among the most valuable tes- timonials to my humble services in the cause of sacred learning. But if personal presence is required, as in Edin- burgh, I regret that I must lose the benefit. For this year, I must remain at home and work on my History of the Reformation, which I desire to finish before I die. Next year, possibly, I may be able to visit good old Scot- land and England again, for the last time, and use your libraries to finish my history, which I intend to carry down to the Westminster Assembly and the Westphalian Treaty. I have now been three times honored with the title D.D., first in America ; 1845 (from Marshall College), then from Berlin in 1854, and now, last but not least, from St. Andrews. My providential mission has been to labor as a sort of international theological nuncio and mediator. I have fulfilled it very imperfectly, but it would be un- grateful not to acknowledge the hand of God and His bless- ing. Few works survive their authors, and mine will not live much longer than I do myself. We must be satisfied if we can be useful to our generation. If I can complete my History down to 1648, I shall be quite ready to go to 1 Included in Dr. Schaff's Literature and Poetry, pp. 256-278. 410 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1888 rest. ... It may amuse you to learn that, the day after receiving your letter, I received a proposal from an Edinburgh clothier to make a hood for me for thirty- five or forty shillings. Meeting a son at Bonn, who was on his way to the Orient, they journeyed together as far as Stuttgart, where Dr. Schaff renewed the memories of school days and con- sorted with surviving friends. In company with Dr. Rob- erts, then president of the Lake Forest University, we made an interesting call in Stuttgart upon Lauxmann, the hym- nologist. Lauxmann said, "We try in Wiirtemberg to combine pietism with orthodoxy." To which Dr. Schaff replied, "Orthodoxy is dead without pietism." "Yes, that is true, but pietism without orthodoxy is a body with- out bones," added the host. He visited the Solitude Castle where he had been sick, sat again with Dr. Rieger and other ministers at the Vereinssaal, in a circle of minis- ters and Christian laymen, and replied to a toast on church and state in America. After attending services in the St. Leonhard's Kirche, where he listened to a sermon by Stadtpfarrer Knapp, and recalling how at the same place he had been stirred as a boy by the sermons of his father, the hymnologist, and Wilhelm Hofacker, he wrote to Dr. Mann, " Im Alter kehrt man gerne in die Anf tinge zuruck (When we are old we are glad to turn back to the first paths)." At Tubingen, he was much in the company of Dr. Weizsacker, stopping with him in the Holle, as his resi- dence is called and where Landerer formerly lived. Weizsacker, a man of courtly manners, and at the time rector of the university, had just finished his History of the Apostolic Church. When we left, he tenderly kissed his guest and was affected to tears. A notable evening he spent with Kubel, meeting Kautzsch, who had just been CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 411 called to Halle, the historian, Dr. Funk of the Roman Catholic faculty, and other professors. An episode of singular interest to Dr. Schaff was a visit, under the guidance of Dr. Funk, upon Bishop Hefele, Pfarrer Pressel, one of Dr. Schaff' s student friends, a theological oddity and a voluminous contributor to Herzog's Encyclopedic, accompanying us. The episcopal residence is at Rottenburg, an unattractive German village of seven thousand people. Hefele was professor in Tubingen in 1837, when Dr. Schaff was a student. He had risen with Dollinger and Alzog to the first rank of church historians in the Catholic Church. Several works on Pope Honorius, called forth by the oecumenical council of 1870, combating the doctrine of infallibility, were written by him. The eyes of all Christendom were at that time upon him, as they were upon the eloquent prelate Strossmayer. He was one of the bishops who cast their votes against that doctrine. He subsequently yielded and promulgated his acceptance of the doctrine through his see. Dr. Schaff had said with reference to his great historical work, and his sub- mission to papal authority, that " Bishop Hefele has forgotten more about the history of the councils than the infallible pope ever knew." Passing through the wide and bare halls and up the high, winding stairway of the palace, we were ushered into the bishop's study, a comfortably, but not luxu- riously furnished apartment. On the walls hung sev- eral pictures, including one, the gift of Queen Olga of Wiirtemberg, to which the bishop, with evident satisfac- tion, directed our attention. It represented a mother carrying a little child, which was reaching out his hands for the host which she was receiving. On the table, oc- cupying a conspicuous place, was a large volume marked Sacra Biblia, a photograph album and a Life of St. Vin- 412 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1888 cent de Paul. There were no ornaments to suggest the worship of the Virgin. The bishop was tall and rather spare in figure, his eyes large, and his face animated when he spoke. His eyesight had failed so that he could not read. His forehead was broad, his hair gray. He pre- sented an imposing and venerable appearance, and was in his eightieth year. He spoke with evident interest of Tubingen and of Mohler, whose successor he had been. He listened with marked attention to Dr. Schaff's state- ments about Dollinger, his new books, and his alacrity in going upstairs, taking two steps at a time. He said he had recently written Dollinger two letters, calling upon him to return to the church, but he had received no reply. The statement seemed to give him pain. They had been closest friends. When Dr. Schaff expressed the hope that Christendom might be reunited, Hefele approved the sentiment, but added, " We old men will not see it. That belongs to the world's architect (\Veltbaumeister) to effect." About to take his departure, Dr. Schaff said that " the New Testament, after all, is the greatest of books." Hefele made no reply, perhaps he had not heard, and went on to say, "We must constantly bear in mind the motto memento mori and be prepared to go home." Walking away from the episcopal palace, and sitting in an inn, the conversation turned upon how the bishop had reconciled his acceptance of the dogma of papal infalli- bility with the historical facts of Honorius' pontificate, which he had made so much of in 1870. " He cannot have changed his view of those facts." "No, probably he did not," was the answer, "but he submitted to the dogma, in order to conserve the unity of the Catholic Church in Wiirtemberg. If he had not done so, a rupture would have taken place in his diocese. For the peace and unity of the church, he made a heavy, personal sacrifice. CHAP, xv GERMAN UNIVERSITIES REVISITED 413 He looked forward in the hope that sometime in the future a general council would retract what the Vatican Council had raised to the dignity of a dogma." Looking back from the steamer to this visit in Europe in 1888, Dr. Schaff wrote in his journal: My present visit has been full of instruction and enjoy- ment of old friendships, though not unmingled with sad- ness at the departure of many companions of my youth and early manhood. Among them are several academic pro- fessors of theology, who have died during the year, as Jacobi of Halle, with whom I graduated as licentiate of theology and lectured in Berlin ; Kahnis of Leipzig, with whom I studied in Halle and lectured in Berlin as privat- docent ; Semisch, Neander's successor in Berlin; E. Ranke of Marburg (a most lovely gentleman); Schweizer of Zurich and Ebrard of Erlangen ; and a few weeks ago my dear friend, Gustav Schwab of New York, finished his earthly course, one of the purest and best men I ever knew. Thus the friends of my youth and student life are nearly all gone. Mann of Philadelphia and Prentiss of New York remain. A few months before he had written to Dr. Mann : To-day I paid a visit to our dear old fellow-student and friend, Schwab. He is very dangerously ill, and is preparing for the last lonely journey to the unseen world. A new generation is growing up around us which is strange to us. Let us make the most of what time and opportunity re- main, and look serenely and hopefully into the future. We are in good hands, and our heavenly Father will take care of us in life and in death. We talked over old things, and over Bismarck's great war and peace speech in the Reichs- tag and the terrible affliction of the Crown Prince [Fred- erick III]. I cannot but think of my interviews with him at Andermatt and Heidelberg, when he was so well and hearty, a manly, handsome figure, very intelligent, cour- teous and affable. And the good old emperor in his ninety- first year seeing his only son and heir passing away ! No crown and glory can save from the trials and troubles of this mortal life. . . . Bismarck's speech was an event. But the greatest statesman, after all, will be he who brings 414 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1889 about a general disarmament and introduces an era of peace and good will among the nations of the earth. A few more wars will be necessary to settle the map of Europe. And what terrible and destructive wars they will be! To his other duties Dr. Schaff added, in the fall of 1888, a course of lectures on church history before the students of Princeton Seminary, Dr. Moffat having retired from his professorship. "At their conclusion," Dr. Dulles wrote, " the professor sat down in the midst of what may fairly be called a storm of applause, that told plainly enough of the appreciation with which his lectures had been received." Dr. Schaff' s relations were always cordial with the pro- fessors of Princeton Seminary and dated from an early acquaintance with Dr. Addison Alexander and Charles Hodge. Differences of theological interpretation were subordinate with him to the ties of Christian friendship. The following note occurs in his journal for the first day of the year 1889 : " Yesterday I completed my seventieth year, the usual limit of mortal life. May the good Lord grant me a few more years of grace to finish my work on earth and to prepare for heaven. Be ye also ready." The year also brought its shadows. Among friends in Europe to be called away were Lechler of Leipzig, Christlieb of Bonn, and Reuter, a fellow-student of Gottingen. President Woolsey's death still further diminished the number of his surviving associates of the Revision Committee. The year, however, went out with bright outlooks into the future, and preparations for a visit to Rome and a renewal of the experiences of fifty years before. CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 415 CHAPTER XVI ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 1890-1892 Last Voyage to Europe Rome The Pope at Mass Life of Dr. Nevin Switzerland German Universities once more Stuttgart Godet and Lightfoot Revision cf the Westminster Confession Dr. Schaffs Endorsement Calvinism and Arminianism Letters to Drs. Van Dyke and Morris The Theology for the Present Time Dr. Briggs' Inaugural The Detroit Assembly and Union Seminary Dr. Worcester Liberty and Ecclesiastical Authority Church Schism Inerrancy Deliverance Calvin and Servetus Liberty and Peace FOR many years Dr. Schaff had looked forward to again spending a protracted season in Rome. It was a moment of exquisite pleasure when on a bright day in February, 1890, he stood with Mrs. Schaff and his daughter on the deck of the steamer Entella, waiting to loose anchor from New York and to steer towards Gibraltar and sunny Italy. It proved to be his last journey to Europe and was a fitting conclusion of his many voyages across the Atlantic. As in almost all his previous trips abroad he combined with recreation some definite literary or ecclesiastical purpose, so it was with this one. From the steamer he wrote : One more voyage to Europe, the fourteenth and prob- ably the last. This time my object is the study of church history in the Vatican Library at Rome that I may finish the fifth volume of my life-work, especially the chapter on the Renaissance. In Switzerland I hope to complete my studies on the Swiss Reformation. As on previous oc- casions a deputation from the students came to bid me 41 6 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1890 farewell, so this time three from each class. The affection and gratitude of students is the best reward and encour- agement to a teacher. I have had abundant proof of it during the last few days in my closing lectures, and it is also a cause of profound gratitude that I carry with me the good feeling of my colleagues. On the voyage he revived his knowledge of Italian and tried to decipher the fine characters and abbreviations of his faded diaries of travel from Berlin to Sicily and back, written a half-century before. He preached on the two Sabbaths at sea and delivered a lecture on Dante. " A sensation of the voyage," he writes, "was the sight of Santa Maria, one of the Azores, with its green pastures, mountains, white church and a little village visible on the hill." A day spent at Gibraltar was "a great day and more than paid for the whole voyage." The middle of March, the boat reached Genoa and in a few days the party were in the Italian capital. In his excursions among the monuments of the city and to its environs, he brought to the fervid intensity of youth, with which he had visited them before and much of which he retained, the sober judgment of age. "I am amazed when I read my journal, how much I saw and how much I have since forgotten. And now, after the lapse of nearly half a century, I am again here to spend several months, this time not in the study of pagan Rome or the catacombs, but that mediaeval Rome which immediately preceded the Reformation and the modern Rome of free and united Italy, the Rome of Leo X and Leo XIII." Furnished with letters from the secretary of state, Mr. Elaine, Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Corrigan and Dr. Funk of Tubingen, and with the help of the German ambassador to the Vatican, Baron von Schloezer, and others, he enjoyed some coveted privileges. Through CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 417 Cardinal Hergenrother, the Cardinal librarian, he received almost unrestricted access to the treasures of the Vatican Library and Archives. The latter is a distinct department, containing the papal correspondence, encyclicals, regesta and other documents pertaining to the curia. The hours from nine to one he spent in the Vatican or, when it was closed as during the festivities of Passion week, in the Library of the German Archaeological Institute with its thirty-two thousand volumes. Father Denifle, the keeper of the papal archives, and Father Bollig, the librarian, he says, were helpful to him almost daily. He saw the pope for the first time at a reception given to a group of German pilgrims in the sala ducale. Pale and in white robes, he made, " after some singing by German students, an address with much spirit and gesticulation in Ciceronian Latin and imparted his blessing." The next day he was present at the pontifical mass for the pilgrims. The pope first said mass in Latin, which was followed by mass said in German. Dr. Schaff speaks of " standing during the ceremonies for two mortal hours." The service impressed him anew with the power of the papacy and its wonderful organization, by which "the prisoner in the Vatican is backed by the best-disciplined army of priests and monks and legislates for two hundred millions of people in all continents." " I find kind friends everywhere," he wrote home, " and see much of Dr. Scott of Boston, Mr. and Mrs. Morris K. Jesup and other Americans. Yesterday I had an unex- pected meeting with Archdeacon Farrar among the ruins of the palaces of the Caesars, where he paid me an unex- pected compliment by saying, ' I always feel under the deepest obligations to you for the benefit I am deriving from your works.' I am making progress on my History and am filled with new admiration for the literary and 2E 41 8 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1890 artistic treasures of Italy." Nor did he forget the Wal- denses and the other Protestant missions in Rome, and held a meeting in one of the Waldensian churches in the interest of the Evangelical Alliance. It was in Rome he first saw Dr. Appel's Life of Dr. Nevin. After looking through it, he wrote to the author : - I have just looked over your Life of Dr. Nevin, which his son Dr. Robert Nevin has sent me. . . . All Dr. Nevin's friends and pupils and the whole German Reformed Church are under heavy obligations to you for this noble memorial of his life and services. The record of the origin and progress of the Mercersburg theology, and my share in it, read to me almost like a dream. But I feel confident that both Dr. Nevin and myself were but humble instruments in the hand of Providence for exciting life and thought in the Reformed Church and giving a new im- pulse to theology in the direction of evangelical Catholicism. The chapters on the declining years of Dr. Nevin affect me deeply. I feel that my own work must soon be closed. I am still as active as ever and most anxious to finish two or three volumes of my Church History, but, having passed my seventy-first year, I can hardly expect to do it. I must look upon every month as a special allowance of grace. During his visit in Rome Dr. Schaff was in vigorous health and the best of spirits. On the last Sabbath (May 25) he preached in the chapel of the German embassy and dis- tributed the communion, the German and Swiss ambas- sadors, Count Solms and Herr Bavier, being present. The service was a fitting close to his visit, as on his first sojourn he had temporarily filled the position of chaplain. The chapel organist, Mr. Schultz, who presided at the organ in 1842 and continued to hold the position, remembered Dr. Schaff and his services fifty years before. That Sab- bath afternoon he went to the Trevi fountain, recalling the tradition that they who drink will return. " My daughter Mary drank from it," he notes in his journal ; " I did not, and shall never return to Rome, but shall keep it in grate- CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 419 ful remembrance. Our sojourn has been without cloud or shadow." The next day the train hurried them northwards. Thus closed a delightful visit, full of exceptional privileges and memorable reminiscences. In departing from the Eternal City, half a century before, the young Berlin tutor started off with his pupil, knapsack on his back. Life, with its opportunities and its reputation to make, were then ahead. What a career of varied experiences and of industrious labors now stretched behind him, such as he could not have dreamed of at its opening ! At Florence, Dr. Schaff wrote an introduction for the Italian translation of his Bible Dictionary. He also gave the encouragement of his words to the preparations being made for the General Conference of the Alliance held there in 1891, when his essay on the Renaissance and the Reformation, 1 read in an Italian translation, was received with frequent applause, and called forth a special vote of thanks. By way of the Italian lakes and the St. Gotthard he reached Luzern. At the spacious old mansion of Colonel von Sprecher at Maienfeld, containing the richest library on the history of Graubiindten, he began a new chapter of his Church History. " Then followed some most instructive and pleasant days in my old native town, mainly in com- pany with Rev. Mr. Herold, Martin Risch, Rudolf von Planta and Anton von Salis, all that are left of the friends of my youth, and my relative Ludwig Christ. I spent the last evening at the table of Anton von Salis and some invited friends, tarrying till eleven o'clock. A delightful conclusion of this probably my last visit to Chur! My 1 For the English text see the Evangelical Alliance in Florence, being Document XXX, published by the American Evangelical Alliance. The Italian translation was published in Florence under the title // Rinascimento e la Reforma. 420 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1890 four old school friends are gray and stooping, but clear and strong in mind, and they have been as kind to me as ever. It has been a great satisfaction to me to see them once more." In the Cantonal library at Chur there is, among the pictures of the other worthies of Graubiindten, one of Dr. Schaff, and publications from his pen, including a set of his Church History. He again visited his mother's grave at Glarus, turned aside for a few days to the Hirzel, spent a week in the city library of Zurich, enjoying the help of his friend, Professor von Wyss, on his History of the Swiss Reforma- tion, and again attended the missionary conference at Basel, meeting the University professors, among them Riggenbach, a fellow-student and the last of his con- temporaries in the faculty. To the end Dr. Schaff seemed to reckon neither distance nor fatigue when a meeting of literary friends was possi- ble. So once more he planned a flying tour to the German universities, accompanied by Dr. Scott of Massachusetts, whose company, he says, " I regard as another provi- dential favor to me." The tour included Tubingen, Heidelberg, Giessen, Marburg, Berlin, Halle, Leipzig and Munich, and enabled him to see once again many of the theological celebrities of Germany. 1 The following is an extract from a letter to a son : My lightning excursion of two weeks to the German universities to take leave of surviving academic friends is over. It was a most interesting, satisfactory and ever-mem- orable episode in my great journey. It has cost less than one hundred dollars, and is worth thousands to my memory. We saw the theological faculties, and talked with them till midnight. To gain time I previously arranged for a joint meeting at our hotel or with one of their own number. They all accepted with great readiness. There were, of 1 Dr. Scott gave an account of the tour in Our Day, March, 1892. CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 421 course, speeches and toasts. Altogether, it was a unique trip, brimful of intellectual and spiritual enjoyment. The third volume of your friend Harnack's Dogmengeschichte is just out a stirring book. He made an admirable little speech at our banquet in Berlin. His lecture room is crowded. So I have studied the Renaissance in Italy, the Reformation in Switzerland, the theology of the present day in Germany, and shall return home vastly enriched and profoundly grateful to a merciful Providence. Leaving Switzerland, Dr. Schaff attended the twenty- fifth anniversary of the Sunday schools of Stuttgart. The first school, organized under his direction, had multi- plied to nineteen with five thousand three hundred and seventy children and two hundred and ninety teachers in the city and in Wiirtemberg one hundred and ninety-six schools with thirty thousand scholars. 1 He preached at St. Leonhard's and on Sabbath evening met a few clergy- men at Mr. Reihlen's villa, and " parted after prayer and singing Knapp's beautiful hymn, Eines wiinsck ich mif vor allem andern (More than all, one thing my heart is craving)." It was not an unfitting close to Dr. Schaff's last visit in the genial Suabian capital. By way of Bremen he sailed for New York, where he arrived in energetic mood for work. Looking back over his European jour- neys, he said, " They have probably prolonged my life and certainly preserved my capacity for labor." Man reist, damit es uns zu Haus erst recht gefalle, Und wer durchs Leben reist, der ist im gleichen Falle. Gereist zu sein, wie wirds dich in der Heimath laben Und, O wie wohl wirds thun dareinst, gelebt zu haben ! 2 In the following letter to Dr. Godet, written soon after 1 These statistics are taken from Dalton's Sonntag Schul Freund. 2 We travel that we may enjoy our homes the more, And, journeying through life's path, we also shall rejoice That we have reached our home, the journey o'er, Glad to recall that we once walked and lived below. 422 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1890 his return (October, 1890), Dr. Schaff sets forth his hopeful views of the progress of religion, which he emphasized the latter years of his life : I wish I could answer your kind letter of October 6, in correct and elegant French, but I am afraid of slips. With English you are not so well acquainted as I am. And so I will write to you in the language in which we conversed so many happy hours away in Berlin. You have crossed the threshold of your seventy-ninth year, and I am on the threshold of my seventy-second. Both of us must hold ourselves prepared to pass out of the land of faith and into the land of sight. Then we shall for the first time adequately understand exegesis and church history. Here all our knowledge is patchwork and partial. What you say of the increase of rationalism in France is saddening. But we are approaching a new era of faith. We are just now living in a period of transition like the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. Scepticism roots up everything and unsettles everything, but it can satisfy no one. The religious demands of the soul will make themselves heard and gain the upper hand. After the pulling down, begins the process of building up. Cold winter is followed by fresh, hope-stirring spring. God rules. ... I am de- lighted that you have thought my Church History worthy of being looked through again, and I hope you will bring your Introduction to completion. I have worried my brain over the Synoptic and Johannean problem. The fourth Gospel is to me a mystery with John as the author. But it is a much greater mystery on the supposition that it is the product of some Christian Plato of the second century, of whose existence we know nothing. On the first theory, the close relation of the favorite disciple to the Master and the doctrine of inspiration furnish a key for the solu- tion of the mystery. In the other case we have the para- dox that the most exalted product of the human mind is a lie. What a contradiction that would be ! At the death of Bishop Lightfoot, in the autumn of 1890, he thus wrote to Dr. Westcott, his successor : - I shall always remember the instructive and pleasant hours I spent with Bishop Lightfoot at Cambridge, London, Durham and Bishop-Auckland. He once wrote CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 423 me that he received the first impulse for historical study from my History of tJie Apostolic Church, but I am sure I have learned much more from him than he could ever have learned from me. He kindly sent me all his works as they appeared and I have been careful to make note of them in the successive editions of my Church His- tory. I have dedicated to the bishop's memory a little book of biographies of St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine. It is a modest tribute to the greatest patristic scholar of the age, but it is along his line of studies and in sympathy with his evangelical catholic spirit, as reverent as it was critical and free. I rejoiced when I heard that you were selected as his successor. I met Archdeacon Farrar last Easter among the ruins of the Palatine Hill in Rome, when he informed me that you were to be consecrated, that very day, and that his prayers were with you. May the great Head of the Church grant you many years of health and strength to feed and bless your flock. At this period the controversy was going on in the Presbyterian Church over the revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which subsequently gave way to the controversies over the teachings of the Higher Criticism, so called, and the public trials of professors in Union and Lane seminaries. Into the discussion over the revision of the Confession, Dr. Schaff entered with great spirit and hopefulness. The proposal to amend this venerable document he regarded as a sign of theological progress and in the interest of truth. To the solution of the prob- lem he actively devoted his pen, sending forth a pam- phlet 1 on the subject and articles in the Presbyterian Review, the Independent and other periodicals. On com- pleting his article for the Presbyterian Review, he wrote in his journal : " It is frank and may provoke opposition, but I have cleared my conscience and am too old to be tried for heresy. Scholastic Calvinism, supralapsarian and infralapsarian, must give way to a confession which 1 Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Churches, pp. 67. New York, 1890. 424 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1890 is more human than Calvinism, more divine than Arminian- ism and more Christian than either." It was a sore dis- appointment when the movement was finally defeated. He favored a revision of the confession as against a new creed, chiefly on the ground of expediency, believing that it was the only plan possible of adoption at that time, but also because it was in accordance with the traditions of the American Presbyterian Church, which had from time to time made changes in the document. He com- bated vigorously the assertion that the present generation was incapable of formulating a creed, as disparaging the Holy Spirit's operation in the church. The following letter was addressed to Dr. Gloag, one of Dr. Schaffs warm Scotch friends of the later years, in whose home at Galashiels he spent happy hours : It is rather remarkable that I should, within the last few weeks, have received encouraging letters from three Scotch ex-moderators, 1 approving my course in regard to the burning question of revising the Westminster Confession of Faith. Yours was personally the most sympathetic and backed by the judgment of Mrs. Gloag, which I esteem very highly, for ladies are generally very conservative and instinctively opposed to any changes unless they are clearly for the better. Yet I doubt whether any intelli- gent Presbyterian lady really believes in reprobation and preterition and the possibility of non-elect children going to everlasting perdition. A dogma truly "horrible." I have been unexpectedly, though not unwillingly, drawn into this discussion and taken the same decided stand for the creed revision that I did years ago for the Bible Revision. The movements are parallel and look to the same end of conforming our English Bible and our Presbyterian confession to the present state of Christian scholarship. The movement to revise the confession was the product of a widespread feeling within the Presbyterian Church 1 Dr. Paton J. Gloag of the Established Church, Dr. David Brown of the Free Church and Dr. R. H. Story of the Kirk. CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 425 that in some respects it went beyond Scripture, if it was not positively anti-scriptural, and in some respects it was not scriptural enough. The sections singled out for modi- fication or elimination were those which defined the ap- plication of the decree of election too exactly, taught the decree of preterition and, by a possible inference at least, the perdition of some infants dying in infancy, and as- sailed the Roman Church as idolatrous and the pope as anti- christ. The adoption in 1879 by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland of an explanatory statement, emphasiz- ing human responsibility, and the preparation of new arti- cles by the Presbyterian Church of England, were in the line of a moderate Calvinism. The admission of the Cum- berland Presbyterian Church to the Alliance of the Re- formed churches in 1884 also had its influence in calling attention to its objectionable clauses. Memorialized by the presbytery of Nassau and other presbyteries, the General Assembly of 1889 sent down an overture to the presbyteries asking whether they desired a revision of the confession, and if so, in what respects. A large majority sent back an affirmative reply to the first question. Besides other men east and west, men belonging to different schools, such as Dr. Robert W. Patterson, Professor Herrick Johnson, Professor Morris of Lane Seminary, Dr. James McCosh and Dr. Henry J. Van Dyke, favored revision and took a leading part in commending the movement on the ground that " it was doubtful whether some of the passages of the confession are founded on the Word of God, and because there was a want of a clear prominent utterance, such as is found in the Scriptures, of the love of God as is shown in the redemption of Christ, which is sufficient for all men." In general, Dr. SchafF s view was that the Westminster Confession should be modified to suit the theology and 426 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1890 Christian conscience of the present age. He held that what cannot be preached in the pulpit ought not to be taught in a confession of faith, either expressly or by fair logical inference. On the other hand, what is taught in the confession ought to be preached in the pulpit. 1 The serious objections to it were the overstatement of the doctrine of the divine sovereignty to the apparent disparagement of human responsibility, the decree of reprobation, the statement about children dying in infancy from which it might be inferred that a portion of their number would be lost and the clauses condemnatory of the Catholic Church. Dr. Schaff held to the decree of election, but denied that the Scriptures taught the nega- tive decree of preterition "whereby for the glory of His sovereign power God passed by some men and ordained them to dishonor and wrath for their sin." He consid- ered it a fundamental defect which loyalty to the truth made it imperative to rectify, that nowhere is the doc- trine distinctly elaborated in its articles that " God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." In general, he regarded the con- fession as too metaphysical, dealing with the hidden coun- sels of the deity in eternity, and so going beyond the safe ground of necessary Scripture truth. The following state- ment, which he wrote down on an odd sheet in 1888, was regulative of his treatment of the whole subject : Calvinism and Arminianism represent two ideas, the sovereignty of God and the freedom of man, which are logically irreconcilable, but equally true, are taught in the Scriptures and practically held by all Christians. Every Arminian prays as if all depended on God, and every Calvinist preaches and works as if all depended on man. Both unite in singing Toplady's Calvinistic Rock * Creed Revision, p. 14. CHAP, xvi ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 427 of Ages, and Wesley's Jesus Lover of my Soul, forget- ting the theological conflict of the two authors. Thus theological conflicts may be solved in Christian experience. Yet the preponderance given to one or the other of the two ideas gives shape and form to religious character. The Calvinistic type of piety is controlled by the fear of God, the sense of duty. True theology is more divine than Arminianism, more human than Calvinism and more Christian than either. But it is not as yet formulated and organized and waits for a genius greater than Augustine or Calvin or Arminius or Wesley to give it shape and form. In the course of a letter to Dr. Henry J. Van Dyke he- says : I must thank you for your two articles : on the changes of Calvinism. You have made out your case. Princeton Calvinism is widely different from Calvin's Calvinism on the subject of heathen damnation and infant damnation. You might have added some other points, as the attitude of Hodge to Romanism and to the question of church and state. Calvin, as you know, defending the burning of Ser- vetus in an elaborate treatise in 1554, and the Westminster theory of the union of church and state, justify the per- secution of dissenters. Fortunately those articles were changed a hundred years ago. Why, then, not make the other changes which the overwhelming majority of our church demands ? The following letter (Dec. 7, 1890) to Professor Edward D. Morris, one of the members of the Assembly's com- mittee of Revision, gives Dr. Schaff s views of changes proposed by the committee : The changes made thus far and communicated by you in confidence are judicious and in the right direction. The new sections on the Gospel and the Holy Spirit will be most important additions and should contain the germs of the new theology which has taken strong hold of the Pres- byterian Church. The chapter on the Gospel will no doubt express its universal intent and the consequent duty of the church to offer it sincerely in God's name and to 1 Printed in the New York Evangelist, 1890. 428 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1890 every human being made in His image. But this is incon- sistent with the old historic Calvinism, which confines God's love and redeeming mercy to the circle of the elect, and leaves a great mass of men in the state of condemna- tion in consequence of Adam's fall. To make the revised confession consistent with itself, a number of passages, teaching expressly or impliedly the limitation of God's love and redemption, should be eliminated. We need a creed broad enough to embrace Toplady and Wesley and which clearly teaches both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But I cannot conceive of responsibility without a corresponding degree of liberty, which is wholly denied in the confession. . . . The trouble with our con- fession is that it is a system of theology rather than a creed. Metaphysical and polemical theology have no proper place in a confession of faith, but belong to the school and the professor's chair. It is of interest to know how Dr. Schaff expressed him- self to a correspondent belonging to the family of the Reformed churches completely removed from the atmos- phere of the Westminster divines and the Scotch type of Christianity, Professor von Wyss of Zurich. Friendship and love [he wrote] are the deepest springs of happiness in this world. And what else is the sum of Christianity than God's love in Christ, Christ for the world and we for Christ ? The theology of the future must start from John's definition of God, "God is love." Just now we have set on foot in the Presbyterian Church a revision of the Westminster Confession. The confession is too rigidly Calvinistic for my liking, a creed for the small number of the elect but not for the whole world for which the Saviour died. The Reformers were all strict predesti- narians and particularists, even Zwingli, who in his book De Providentia makes God the originator of sin without sin, much as the official puts the criminal to death without guilt. We stand in need of a new Reformation on the founda- tion of the old, and especially on the foundation of the Bible, which is eternally new and from which many treas- ures are yet to be drawn. CHAP, xvi ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 429 His views of the spirit which should control a confes- sion of faith were forcibly expressed in these words : : We need a theology, we need a confession, that starts, not from eternal decrees, which transcend the utmost limits of our thoughts, nor from the doctrine of justifica- tion by faith, nor from the Bible principle, nor from any particular doctrine, but from the living person of Jesus Christ, the God-man and Saviour of the world. This is the burden of Peter's confession, the fruitful germ of all creeds ; this is a central fact and truth on which all true Christians can agree. We need a theology and a confes- sion that is inspired and controlled, not by the idea of divine justice, which is a consuming fire, but by the idea of divine love, which is life and peace. Love is the key which unlocks His character and all His works. And this love extends to all His creatures, and has made abundant provision in Christ for the salvation of ten thousand worlds. We need a theology and a confession that will not only bind the members of the denomination together, but be also a bond of sympathy between the various folds and the one flock of Christ, and prepare the way for the great work of the future the reunion of Christendom in the Creed of Christ. The discussion of the revision abruptly ceased when the nervous agitation arose over the inaugural address of Dr. Charles A. Briggs, pronounced at his induction into the new professorship of biblical theology in Union Seminary, and the real or apparent menace from the Higher Critical School to the doctrines of inspiration and of the books of the Old Testament commonly held in the church. The contention was now shifted from the West- minster standards as the centre of danger to Union Semi- nary and one of its professors. A disagreement had arisen in the course of the joint editorial management of the Presbyterian Review, by Princeton men on the one hand and Professor Briggs on 1 Creed Revision, p. 42. 430 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1890 the other, which led to its abandonment, a new review being substituted in its place under different control. It was generally supposed that the cause of this disagree- ment was a wide divergence of opinion upon fundamental matters of biblical criticism. Loud mutterings of dissent had been heard within the Presbyterian Church against the views published by Dr. Briggs in the Review and sup- posed to underlie his work on Biblical Criticism. He was regarded, whether justly or not, as being an advanced ad- vocate of those tendencies in biblical study whereby the human element is supposed to be magnified to the dis- paragement of the divine, tendencies associated with the names of Graf, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith and other critics. His inaugural on the Authority of the Holy Scriptures, delivered Jan. 20, 1891, was the signal for the bursting of a storm equalled in the history of the Presbyterian Church during the century only by the dis- turbance which resulted in the disruption of 1837. The cause of the disturbance was the statement that the sources of authority in religious matters were three, the Bible, the church and the reason, these three seeming on the printed page to be coordinated as of equal value. Cardinal Newman was taken as an example of one who found " divine authority in the institutions of the church," who could not find it through the Bible or the reason, while Dr. Martineau found " God enthroned in his own soul, who could not find divine authority in the church or the Bible." A loose sheet, written with prominent characters, as was his frequent custom, and found in his desk, may be taken as expressing Dr. SchafFs views on the question which now came into surpassing prominence and which to his, regret distracted attention from the revision of the West- minster Confession. " Three Sources of Authority : The Church is higher than Romanism. The Bible is higher CHAP, xvi ROME AFTER FIFTY YEARS 431 than Protestantism. The Reason is higher than Rational- ism. God is supreme over all and the only fountain of authority." It was at this period (1890) that Professor Shedd re- signed his professorship in the seminary and Professor Stearns, of Bangor Seminary, was elected in his place. Impelled by scruples against subscribing to the West- minster Confession, Dr. Stearns declined and Dr. Henry J. Van Dyke, theretofore known as a representative of the conservative school of theology in the Presbyterian Church, but recently one of the most determined champions of the revision of the Westminster Confession, was elected to the chair. His sudden death a few months later took place before the time set for his entrance upon his duties. The General Assembly, meeting at Detroit in 1891, had the question before it of Dr. Briggs' appointment to the new chair of biblical theology in Union Seminary. A paper had been signed by his colleagues deprecating the dogmatic and irritating mode of statement in the inaugural and other writings, but declaring him in their judgment to be a devout student of the Bible. 1 In spite of this paper, which was regarded as not being properly before the body, and a strong plea on the floor of the Assembly by Dr. Worcester of Chicago for delay, in order that conference might be had with the directors of the seminary, the Assembly vetoed the appointment. The plea for a sus- pension of judgment was met by the argument (called the " now or never " argument, from the frequent use of the expression in debate) that the authority of a General Assembly does not extend beyond the period of its ses- sions, and it must act upon a case of that kind finally or the church lose its power to act at all. This action was 1 The document is found in the Agreement between Union Seminary and the General Assembly, by Professor George L. Prentiss, pp. I36sqq. 432 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1890 rejected by the directors of Union Seminary, on the ground that the appointment of the professor being of the nature of a transfer from .one professorship to another and not an original introduction into the faculty, belonged to the inner management of the institution, which did not properly come under the judicial cognizance of the Assembly. The controversy subsequently led to the trial of Dr. Briggs on the charge of denying the infallibility and suffi- ciency of the Scriptures and of teaching progressive sancti- fication after death, and his suspension by the Washington Assembly of 1893 from the ministry, and also to the trial and suspension one year later of Henry Preserved Smith, professor in Lane Seminary. Union Seminary, as a con- sequence of the controversy and the acts of the Assembly, withdrew from its direct jurisdiction and control, and as- sumed an independent position. On the part of the Assembly, the controversy also led to deliverances on the doctrine of inspiration, which declared the Scriptures to be inerrant in all matters of which they treat, and to an effort to increase its direct authority in the control of the theo- logical seminaries under its care. This whole agitation has an interest here because it involved the difficult and far-reaching question of eccle- siastical toleration and the degree of liberty teachers may exercise in dissenting from the accredited tenets of a church confession while they yet remain within the bounds of the church and enjoy its protection. On this question Dr. Schaff took a broad and yet not uncautious position. The German Lehrfreiheit, the prin- ciple by which a teacher of theology has unhampered freedom to promulgate whatever theological views he thinks fit, he regarded as open to grave objections. On the other hand, he did not sympathize with an ecclesiasti- cal rule (as Dr. Charles Hodge did not) commanding un- CHAP, xvi ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 433 qualified assent to all the details of a confession of a faith or think it expedient or right to enforce conformity to its articles and interpretations when they were contrary to the received opinion of the best teachers of the age. He was too good a church historian to deny the place of ecclesiastical authority. What he insisted upon was that the largest liberty consistent with fundamental truth be allowed, and due account be made for the errancy of human judgment in settling what is the teaching of Scripture. Where the line was to be drawn, was the difficult thing to determine, but in any case formulas of subscription, required of Christian teachers, should lean toward liberty rather than rigor. He quoted with ap- proval the statement of the elder Dr. Van Dyke, made during the controversy, "As between liberty and ortho- doxy, give me liberty." The attitude in which Union Seminary was placed as the object of suspicion and attack was a matter of per- sonal pain to Dr. Schaff, as were also the estrangements between friends of long standing which resulted from the discussions through the press and on the floor of pres- byteries and the higher ecclesiastical bodies, although he was not conscious of such alienation as affecting his own friends and himself. At no time had he any but words of condemnation for sentiments looking to a new division in the Presbyterian Church. Writing to Dr. McGiffert (May ii and Aug. i, 1891), he said: "We are threat- ened with a new division. May God prevent it. My in- most desire is for greater union among all Christians on the basis of Christian liberty. I trust Dr. Worcester will act as peacemaker. We must fight for freedom, but within the Presbyterian Church with loyal devotion to her true interest. God rules and truth will prevail." He re- peatedly said that, if at any time he should feel morally 2F 434 THE LrFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1890 forced to leave the Presbyterian Church by the applica- tion of the Inerrancy deliverance, he would go back into the German Reformed Church. "But where could I go, if I were to leave the Presbyterian Church, and be, upon the whole, better suited ? One will find things to object to in all churches. Perfection is not to be found on the earth." To Harnack he thus expressed himself (Aug. 30, 1890): "Our dogmas and doctrinal systems are troubled brooks, but nevertheless they come from the spring of the divine truth which rises pure and fresh in the New Testament." Dr. Schaff was present at the Assembly in Detroit, in 1891, as a looker-on. Of the action proposed by the com- mittee on theological seminaries, of which President Patton was chairman, to veto the appointment of Dr. Briggs and without having conference with the directors of Union Seminary, he says in his journal : " It was all law and no gospel. Christian wisdom and Christian charity are superior to rules of assemblies." The action being taken, a committee was appointed to confer with the direc- tors of Union Seminary as to the meaning of the com- pact between it and the General Assembly. The veto measure was not adapted to heal. A delay of final judg- ment, from which there was no appeal, would, it is fair to suppose, have led to an amicable adjustment of the difficulty between the two parties. At the close of the Detroit Assembly, Dr. Schaff made a visit in Jacksonville, Illinois. It was expected that he would be all excited over the recent discussion. On the contrary, he seemed to be perfectly calm. " The action," he said, " is contrary to my judgment of what is right and proper. But God knows what is best. He can overrule it and He must have some good plan to work out. I do not see it, but He will in time make plain what seems CHAP, xvi ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 435 to me to be only a dark mystery." At Jacksonville, he met, for the second time, Dr. J. H. Worcester, who had come to the city to deliver an address at the closing exer- cises of one of its educational institutions. Dr. Schaff had heard his address at Detroit in favor of delay and conference, in the case of Union Seminary. When, a few months later, Dr. Worcester accepted the chair of syste- matic theology in the seminary, a call he was then consider- ing, one of the elders of his church said to him, " What has decided you to change your work and give up the pastor- ate, seeing you have been so successful as a pastor and are so much attached to your congregation ? " " In a con- versation with Dr. Philip Schaff at Jacksonville," was his reply, " he said, ' God has no greater work for any man than to train men for His work.' The words have not let me alone. They have decided me to accept the professor- ship." Returning to New York, Dr. Schaff found that the directors of the seminary had already declined to accept the action of the Assembly on the ground that it had tran- scended its rights, and some time later (October, 1892), they resolved to terminate the compact entered into between the institution and the Assembly at the reunion of the Presby- terian churches in 1870. The latter action was taken after they had unsuccessfully memorialized the Assembly of Portland (1892) to join them in abrogating the compact, claiming at the same time the right of either party to do so for itself. 1 In withdrawing from the compact, the direc- tors renewed the declaration of their individual loyalty to the doctrine and government of the Presbyterian Church. In the trial of Dr. Briggs before the Presbytery of New York, which ensued, Dr. Schaff voted against his condem- nation. As for the so-called Inerrancy deliverance, pro- 1 See Minutes of General Assembly for 1892, pp. 64-67. 436 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1891 nouncing the " Bible as we now have it, in its various translations and revisions, when freed from all errors and mistakes of translators, copyists and printers, to be the very Word of God, and, consequently, wholly without error," l he declared himself against it, howbeit he would have yielded to no one in emphasizing the authority of the Scriptures as the rule of faith and doctrine. "The Bible," he said, "is a book of religion, a rule of faith and duty, no more, no less, and as such it can and will main- tain its authority and power to the end of time." Upon the basis of Dr. Briggs' explanatory statement before the Presbytery of New York, Nov. 4, 1891, when he said, " The reason is a great fountain of divine authority and yet not an infallible rule of faith and practice ; the Bible is a great fountain of divine authority and the only rule of faith and practice," Dr. Schaff said the "great Presby- terian Church should have room and to spare for such scholars as he." He, however, went on to say, what is no doubt historically true, that " Dr. Briggs stated his views on the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures and the higher criticism in such a defiant and exasperating tone against what he called bibliolatry that the inaugural ad- dress sounded like a manifesto of war, and aroused at once a most determined opposition on the part of the con- servative and orthodox press. It is this aggressive style and manner which brought on the trouble." 2 The following letter to Dr. Gloag (July, 1891) shows the direction in which Dr. Schaff' s feelings were running in these controversies : Our next term at the seminary will be very much dis- turbed by the Briggs controversy. His trial for heresy will probably come to nothing, for Dr. Briggs is no more 1 Minutes of General Assembly at Washington, 1893, P- l &9- 2 " Heresy and Heresy Trials," The Forum, January, 1892. CHAP, xvi ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 437 a heretic than you or I. If he had the suaviter in modo as well as the fortiter in re y he would not offend anybody except inveterate old fogies in theology who believe in the infallibility of John Calvin and the Westminster divines. The result of the controversy will be progress, but, while it lasts, it makes bad blood and eats up charity, the best of all the Christian graces. I have spent [he wrote to Dr. Mann a few weeks later] the whole vacation in this delightful summer home (Lake Mohonk), with the exception of a few days which I devoted to the celebration of the sixth centenary of the Swiss con- federation in New York City. It passed off very well, and I feel proud of my native land. I have spent, however, most of my time in the study of Calvin, that most extraor- dinary genius, who, by purely intellectual and moral force, within twenty years changed Geneva into a Gibraltar of Protestantism and a school of churches and nations, and has left a deep and lasting impression on the Anglo-Ameri- can race. The Presbyterian churches are the heavy artil- lery in the Protestant army. The strictest Calvinists are the strictest moralists. They have backbone. Yet I have not changed my views on the theology of Calvin and the necessity of a revision such as it is now undergoing in Scotland and in this country. It will succeed in the end. Again, a few months later, he wrote to Dr. Gloag : Our seminary is in a critical condition. The General Assembly, which is to meet in a few weeks at Portland on the Pacific, will probably reaffirm the action of the last Assembly vetoing the appointment of Professor Briggs, and cut our seminary off from the Assembly, unless we submit to its dictation, which we shall not do. We must have room for liberty as well as orthodoxy or we might as well close our theological schools. ... I am now busy on the trial of Servetus. What a combination Calvin was ! An Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas in theology, a Hildebrand or Innocent III in church government and a Torquemada in dealing with heresy. The greatest divine of Protestantism with his hand dyed in blood ! That was the orthodoxy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries down to the Westminster Assembly. The heretical Ana- baptists and Unitarians were the only Christians that raised 438 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 a protest against the execution of Servetus. Even the gentle Melanchthon fully approved it. Writing to* Dr. Mann in the spring of 1892, he said : I feel prostrated from the heat and weary of work. Had I wings, I would fly to the mountains of Switzer- land. . . . The meeting of the Church History Society at Washington passed off successfully. The Proceedings are now in the printer's hands and will do credit to the society. A generation of church historians is rising up. The historic spirit and interest are growing. The Hebrew and Semitic studies have absorbed too much attention of late. After all, the New Testament and church history are far more important. Our seminary is moving on smoothly, but we expect lively times at the next General Assembly in Portland, Oregon. I think our seminary will be driven back to its original independence. The General Assembly is too large, composite and changeable a body to control the election of professors. There is such a thing as Presbyterian popery as well as Prelatical and Roman popery, and the first is the most inconsistent and unreasonable of the three. There must be elbow room for development and liberty of investigation, or we may as well shut up our seminaries. I have serious objections to a rigid Symbolzwang (confessional test). It provoked rationalism in Germany. What right has the sixteenth or seventeenth century to prescribe to future generations all theological thinking ? We are as near to Christ and the Bible as the framers of the confessions of faith, which contain so much metaphysical and polemical theology of a questionable character. After the Assembly in Portland which made the Iner- rancy deliverance, he wrote to Dr. Gloag (July, 1892): I have just finished the dark episode in Calvin's life the trial and execution of Servetus. A Protestant auto da fe in Protestant Geneva ! What an anomaly and burning shame ! But the flames of Champel have burnt up Cal- vin's intolerance together with the heresy of his antago- nist ! . . . We are likely to be kept in hot water for two years. We seem to be on the brink of a new split in the Presbyterian Church which would be a calamity and a dis- CHAP, xvi ECCLESIASTICAL LIBERTY 439 grace, which God in mercy prevent. We have divisions enough and to spare in Protestantism. I would rather dimmish than increase them. Catholics and infidels laugh at our sectarian quarrels. . . . As to Dr. - , for whom you inquire, he has taken up an extremely conservative position in defence of the moonshine theory of the iner- rant apostolic autographs which no one has ever seen or is likely ever to see. The last Assembly seems to have given some countenance to it by an oracular deliverance. Fortunately assemblies are not infallible. The address on the case of Calvin and Servetus, which was read at the opening of Union Seminary, September, 1892, closed with the words: " In the interest of impar- tial history we must condemn the intolerance of the victor Calvin as well as the error of the victim Servetus and admire in both the loyalty to conscientious convictions. HERESY is AN ERROR; INTOLERANCE is A SIN; PERSECU- TION is A CRIME." These last memorable words fully express the temper of Dr. Schaff's mind. He felt that a public teacher in pulpit or theological chair should not remain in a denomination when he found himself out of accord with its fundamental tenets. On the other hand, he held that questions there still were which must be set- tled by the slow process of Christian scholarship and which assemblies should be slow to pronounce upon cate- gorically in advance. Changes had occurred in the doc- trinal belief of the church ; it was both unhistorical to assume there would be no more in the future and unwise to block the way of their coming. Writing to a son Feb. 6, 1893, he said: I go for reasonable liberty, without which there can be no progress. When presbyter becomes priest writ large, he must be reminded of Paul versus Peter and the Epis- tle to the Galatians. But I must not follow any one into a split in the church and shall do all I can to prevent it. A return to the old division after twenty-two years of success- 440 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 ful reunion would be a calamity and a disgrace. We have sects enough and to spare. I am too old to have a heresy trial. I shall not leave the Presbyterian Church till I am expelled. The General Assembly is certainly on a wrong track in trying to impose a new test of orthodoxy. The best spirit of the age is tending towards greater liberty. The seventeenth century could not do all the theological thinking for the nineteenth. The theory of the original autographs has no foundation in fact, and would make all existing Bibles and Bible translations worthless on account of their undeniable and admitted errancy. To enforce such a dogma would expose our churches to the contempt of the theological world and make the Presbyterian Church a refuge for obscurantism. I have read Dr. McPherson's sermon on Heresy with pleasure and written to him a letter that it ought to be widely circulated in the Presbyterian Church. The death of Dr. Worcester has again left the chair of systematic theology vacant. It is certainly strange that Dr. Van Dyke, Dr. Stearns and Dr. Worcester should have died within so short a time, but God will provide a successor. Dr. Worcester was a man of great wisdom and discretion and turned the theology of our seminary into its proper channel, by using Dr. Smith as a text-book. Calvinism must be developed into an evangelical catholic and Christocentric theology. Two years before he had written to Dr. Prentiss (July 3, 1891) : "I fear the heresy trial, which will eat up charity, of which we have none to spare even in our presbytery and in America. The election of Dr. Worcester will be gener- ally approved. He can act as a peacemaker between the seminary and the General Assembly in the committee of conference which will meet early in the autumn. What we want is both LIBERTY and PEACE." CHAP, xvn FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 441 CHAPTER XVII FIFTY YEARS A THEOLOGICAL TEACHER AND AUTHOR 1842-1892 These are indeed exceptions; but they show How far the gulf stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives. LONGFELLOW. Old Age Optimism Godet's Eightieth Birthday Dr. Mann's Death Paralytic Stroke State of the Presbyterian Church Letter from Godet Semi-centennial of Public Activity Dr. Schaff's Literary Habits The Creeds of Christendom Dr. Schaff as a Church Historian Per- sonal Acquaintance with Church Historians Bishop Lightfoot's Testi- mony to his Influence Historical Study in America American Society of Church History The Semi-centennial Epistle from Berlin University IN 1892 Dr. Schaff passed the fiftieth year of his activity as a theological teacher. The year was also marked by the first serious check to his physical strength and his public labors, sustained in a stroke of paralysis. Even those whose vigor is most reliable are apt to look for- ward to the limit set by the psalmist of threescore years and ten as the probable terminus of their active careers, if not the end of the earthly journey. The history of active labor in all departments shows, however, that nature does not invariably respect that period. And Dr. Schaff took courage from the example of historians contemporary with himself who pursued the composition of history even beyond the term of fourscore, such as Hase, Ranke and Bancroft. He had a good deal of the spirit of Arnauld, who at eighty-two replied to Nicole, " Rest ! 442 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 Shall we not have the whole of eternity in which to rest ! " But after passing his seventieth year in 1889, Dr. Schaff had constantly before his mind the thought of death. Not that his keen desire to live and finish his literary work abated. The usual elasticity of his mind and his vigor of will seemed only on occasion to have suffered diminu- tion. The clearness and strength of his sight continued till the end of his life, and he made no distinction in read- ing the intricate German print and the Roman at night as by day. Those closest to him scarcely discerned any waning of the power of his memory, which had always been reliable and which continued to the end to be in almost all cases infallible. Yet to himself his natural force seemed to be abating. His memory he felt was losing its grasp. He noticed this first in his dealings with his students. Once invariably identified by him at sight, their names were not now always readily recalled. This failure became a matter of delicate embarrassment, and he even seriously considered whether he ought not to regard it as a signal for giving up his work in the class room. Nevertheless, his eye continued to be, as it had been, towards the future. He did not linger over old portraits. He took measures to keep himself young and fresh in spirit. He attached himself closely to younger men, seeking to enter into their plans and expectations. He was never heard in his family to say that the old ways were better. Not that he forgot the dead, but memory with him did not reduce itself to an organ of complaint. He felt that the future had better things in store than the past had yielded and he believed changes of national con- ditions, improvements in mechanical appliances, discoveries through research and marked advance in the kingdom of God to be impending. CHAP, xvii FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 443 Historical progress with him was more than a logical analysis. It was a sensible conviction of his heart, an experimental category. Optimism was the atmosphere with which his lungs were filled. He was accustomed to compare the present century with its restless research, marvellous inventions and colonization, to the fifteenth century with its geographical discoveries, its printing press and its literary activities, and regarded the nine- teenth century as a forerunner of an age of firmer and more efficient faith as the fifteenth century had been the forerunner of the era of the Reformation. This spirit he carried into the reminiscences inevitably called forth by the semi-centennial of his public activity in 1892. With this anniversary coincided the eightieth birthday of Dr. SchafP s oldest surviving correspondent abroad, Dr. Godet. The American friend joined with others in presenting him with a memorial on that occasion and wrote as follows: First of all let me send you my hearty greetings for the new year, and your entrance upon your eightieth year. May the Lord preserve your life to the new century. I have entered my seventy-third year, and so am seven years younger than you. And you, the older of us, are still young and vigorous enough to publish an Introduc- tion to the New Testament in four volumes ! This re- minds me of Ranke, who was eighty-five when he began his History of the World. Your Introduction is a very opportune work, and will bear its testimony against the negative and destructive criticism which here in America also goes on spreading. I could have work enough for ten or twenty years more, but I shall thank God if He will permit me to finish several more volumes of my Church History. Then I will be glad to enter upon the great journey into the peaceful region of eternity. . . . Dear friend, we have been bound together for more than half a century. Let us be thankful to God for this long and undisturbed friendship. A precious gift it has been and sanctified by faith and love for our Lord and Saviour. 444 THE LrFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 How many delightful days and hours we have spent in company one with the other in Berlin, Neuchatel and Edinburgh ! Shall we see one another again ? Certainly in eternity, if not here. On June 2Oth, of this semi-centennial year, 1892, a friendship of more than fifty years was interrupted by the death of Dr. Mann. Dr. SchafP s last two letters to his friend are written in German, as they all had been except as here and there an English paragraph was interjected. A few weeks before his death he wrote : Dieser Monat ist ein Kuss den der Himmel gibt der Erde Dass sie jetzt seine Braut, kiinftig eine Mutter werde. 1 With these lines I greet you on this first day of the month of delights. The sun is shining warm, the grass is green, the trees display their wealth of leaves, the birds sing their songs of praise and I, I would like to fly away to the Swiss hills, to the Lake of the Four Cantons, to the Engadin. But the mighty command of duty and work chains me here and does not yet permit me to think of vacation. . . . Last week I attended the corner-stone lay- ing of the monument of General Grant, the saviour of the Union. They have made me chairman of a committee to collect funds from the clergy. The corner-stone was laid by the President, Mr. Harrison, in the presence of an ocean of fifty thousand people. It was, perhaps, the most splendid spectacle of the kind I have ever seen. What is to be the future of social democracy, of William II, and the old pope ? I would fain live on. But the years hasten by and soon we too shall rest in the cool grave. ... I would like to see you once again, and in the old, congenial way celebrate with you the sunset of our fifty years' friend- ship and the hope of eternity and its beautiful dawn. And yet once again he wrote : You stand not "in the vestibule of death," but in the forecourt of heaven and the life eternal. I walk at your side. God alone knows which of us shall first reach the 1 This month is a kiss from heaven upon the lips of earth, To-day heaven's bride, and in the days to come, a mother. CHAP, xvii FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 445 goal. A few days ago I read with great personal and literary interest your opportune biography of Columbus and thought as I read it of the great journey of discovery which lies before us both. I am ready to go, but would like to remain here till I have finished my CJiurcJi History, at least, till I bring it down to the peace after the Thirty Years' War. This task chains me to the study table and will claim the greatest part of my vacation. The summer was spent at Lake Mohonk. Worn, but not more than was usual by the work of the winter, he had looked forward with eager zest to the pure air, the' fragrant woods, the lovely scenery and the excellent com- pany of this summer retreat. It had become to him a second home. Again he carried with him his manuscripts and books. His pen was busy day after day on his Pro- pcedentic, which had been a source of much anxiety. He had set a date for its completion, and to meet his engage- ment put forth the most strenuous exertion. He was also busy on the concluding chapters of the seventh volume of his Church History and especially the trying case of Servetus' condemnation. In the month of July he went down to the city to com- plete some literary arrangements. The heat, always ex- hausting to him, was intense. Early one morning he was found lying helpless on the floor, where he had fallen in attempting to rise. It was a premonition of what was to happen in a few days. Helped back into bed and after resting for a while, he was able to rise without assistance and went about the tasks of the day as if nothing had occurred. In the afternoon he returned to Lake Mohonk, accompanied by his friend and literary co-worker, the Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Jackson. He was in high spirits that evening. The next morning (July 15) he wrote to several correspondents, and after breakfast and worship in the parlors of the hotel, repaired to the Rock reading-room to 446 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 continue his studies. On her return from a walk Mrs. Schaff found him lying on the bed helpless and speechless with paralysis. The right side was affected, the right limb and arm being temporarily useless and the power of articulate speech gone. The following words were written by Dr. Theodore Cuyler a week after the stroke : " No face has been more familiar to the dwellers in this house for many summers than that of Dr. Philip Schaff. It has been his favorite resort ; for he said that these cliffs and peaks were always a pleasant reminder of his native land. Beside this reading-room table he has done an immense amount of hard work upon his books at a season of the year when most other workers are enjoying some rest. From his wonted seat I miss him this morning. Instead of seeing his bright eye poring over his books, I read on the bulletin board of the house, ' Dr. Schaff has passed a restful night and feels better.' If the fervent love and prayers of a great host of God's people can avail to the lengthening of this precious life, then it will be pro- longed for many a year to come." The invalid's vitality of spirits and original vigor of con- stitution quickly made themselves felt. In a few weeks he was able to articulate and was sitting on the piazza pro- jecting from his rooms. The physicians reported him as improved beyond expectation and a good prospect that he would soon be able to resume his work. The following letter from Dr. Henry M. Field in the Evangelist (July 28, 1892) contains a characteristic anec- dote bearing upon the state of the Presbyterian Church at that time : The report that Professor Schaff has had an attack of paralysis, however slight, will awaken universal sorrow. Nor will it occasion less surprise, for he has long been CHAP. XVII FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 447 conspicuous among his brethren for his intense vitality, which, as it seemed, nothing could abate. No scholar in America has worked harder. He was always writing books and articles in reviews, taking part in the contro- versies of the day, to which he brought all his wealth of learning. And yet he was not at all a dried-up book- worm, but retained all his freshness of spirit, and was in social intercourse one of the most delightful of companions. Only a day or two before his late attack he was in our office, having just come from that of the Independent, where Dr. Ward had saluted him with the question, " How is the Presbyterian Church ? " to which he replied by telling a story, which he repeated to us and we pass it on to our readers for a double purpose : to illustrate the character of the man, in whom wit and wisdom are united ; and also as conveying a side lesson that is not without its application in our times. You know, he said, the late Samuel Wilberforce, Lord Bishop of Oxford, was a famous character in England. Besides being a very learned ecclesiastic, he was a special favorite in high society, per- haps a little too much so, for his polished manners may have seemed to be more those of a courtier than of a man wholly devoted to his spiritual duties, so that the English dubbed him Soapy Sam. One day, as the story goes, he was the guest in some great house, when a child, not frightened by the great man's presence, ran up to him and said, "Why do people call you 'Soapy Sam'?" He did not take it as a bit of impertinence ; but, appreciating the humor of the exclamation and seizing the child, he took her up on his knees and answered, " I will tell you, my darling. It is because I very often get into hot water, but always come out clean ! " That, said Dr. Schaff, I think answers your question in regard to the condition of the Presbyterian Church. It may be in hot water just now, but it is coming out of all its troubles in due time, clean and refreshed. The expressions of friendship which his illness called forth from many sources almost made it seem to him worth the while to pass through such a severe experience. To take a single extract from the extensive correspondence, Dr. Godet wrote : 448 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 It is with great sorrow that I have learned of the affliction which has befallen you. Your daughter writes me that the doctor hopes for your complete recovery. I accompany that hope with my wishes and my prayers. . . . We, you and I, are approaching that luminous night in which none can work. May there be given to each of us before leaving this life the strength to finish our work al- ready begun, to you, your History, which it seems to me is an unsurpassed monument. . . . God has already blessed us both and the iO3d Psalm should be our psalm. Fare- well, my dear old faithful friend. Again let me repeat to you one of the last words of Tholuck. One of his old students was visiting him and recalled that he had once said that when one was old and feeble, one must put oneself into the arms of the Good Shepherd to be brought home by Him. Tholuck looked at him without seeming to under- stand and then he spoke these words, " Ein alter milder Mann, eingutertreuerHirte" (An old tired man, a good faith- ful Shepherd). That which was true for our dear teacher is now true for us. Let us rest our tired heads and hearts, often bruised, upon the Good Shepherd. The nearer one comes to the end, the more one is inclined to look back to the beginning and that with a deep feeling of humble thanks. I have eighty years behind me ; this is goodness enough and each new day I regard as a donum superadditum. Happy are we who are able to look peacefully behind and ahead, thanks to the blood which flowed for us and the Holy Spirit who will keep us to the end and in the com- munion of our glorified Brother and Saviour; day and night may He be with you and your grateful friend. On his return to New York in September Dr. Schaff reported at a meeting of his ministerial brethren that he had " learned two lessons in his sickness. One was that he had more friends than he had been aware of and the great value of friendly attentions and sympathy. The other was that it is easy for an old, weary workman to die, as he has a good and faithful Shepherd ready to take us up in His arms and to carry us home." This note, taken from his journal, is the first he recorded in his own hand- writing after his sickness. Thus the high hope with CHAP, xvn FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 449 which he had been approaching the fiftieth anniversary of his academic activity was dimmed by this serious warn- ing and presage of failure to physical powers and cessation from all earthly work. On Nov. 1 6, 1842, Dr. Schaff acquired from the university of Berlin the venia legendi, or the right to lecture. Nov. 16, 1892, found him professor of church history in Union Seminary, and indulging a hope of per- forming the duties of the chair for some years to come. The tributes which the anniversary called forth from in- dividuals and public institutions such as the universities of Berlin, Giessen and New York (which also conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity), and Union, Yale and Lancaster theological seminaries, on two sides of the Atlantic, are full of testimony to his usefulness as a teacher and author, as also to his services in connection with various ecclesiastical movements and as a mediator between the theological thought of Europe and the United States. Many of them were published in a volume, The Semi-centennial of Philip Schaff}- With the address of the theological faculty of Berlin, this chapter will be brought to a close. During this half-century Dr. SchafFs pen was scarcely ever dry. From his first publication, an article in the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, written while he was a stu- dent in Tubingen in 1838 on the Preparation of the World for Christianity, to his last composition, the pamphlet on the Reunion of Christendom, his mind was full of literary projects, and never more so than during the last five years of his career. The judgment expressed after his decease by the American Society of Biblical Literature and Exe- gesis, that he was the most prolific of American theological 1 Printed for private circulation, New York, 1892. pp. 66. 2G 450 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 writers, is probably capable of being substantiated. 1 But not only for the bulk of his theological writings does he hold a prominent place, but for the value of them and the wide range of their treatment. His literary activity was extended to many fields of theological composition. If he was an exegete, he was an encyclopaedist ; if he was a church historian, he was a popular writer on contempo- rary national characteristics and personages. He made contributions to hymnology and to the literature of the Sabbath. He wrote catechisms for children and ex- plained the creeds of Christendom for mature minds. When it is remembered that there was no time during his life in America that he was not busily engaged in the duties of official positions, this extensive literary produc- tion can only be explained by habits of great industry and a well-defined purpose kept constantly in view. He may be said to have practised the old motto, nulla dies sine linea. With some definite literary object always in view, no special preparation of mind seemed for him to be neces- sary in passing from one exercise to another. Those at his side were never aware that he was weighing what he should take up next. When off on journeys, as well as when he was sitting at his study desk, he was rarely without a manuscript to which he was devoting his pen. To give an illustration, proofs from the printer followed him to St. Moritz, where, on his first visit in 1854, he cor- rected his work on America for the press, and again on his visit in 1869 he finished there the English edition of his Christ in Song. This labor did not seem to be irksome to him in the sense that any worry of it was carried into the hours not actually devoted to his desk. He passed with ease from his manuscripts to a walk for recreation or 1 A list of Dr. Schaff 's writings will be found in an appendix at the close of this volume. CHAP, xvn FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 451 to the social gathering, and as quietly and easily did he re- turn to his studies. When it happened that he had a few moments before the other members of the household were ready for the morning worship and meal, he sat down at once at his desk and took up, apparently without looking over the manuscript, the sentence where he had left off the night before. What he accomplished, was accomplished in good part by the habit of concentration. What he did, he did with his might. He did not wait upon moods. The habit of occupying himself with a definite task be- came so dominant that he was restless and unhappy with- out one. Besides outdoor exercise, he found throughout his life recreation in playing chess. In later years he learned the simple games of halma and parcheesi, in which he took an almost childish delight after the evening meal. His undivided attention was given up to the play when he was at it. But the moment it was over and conversation ceased, he returned readily to his books, and was at once sunken in them. And so complete was his power of absorption, that conversation in the same room or music seemed not to interfere with his study, or the flow of his thoughts through the pen. His vigorous constitution enabled him to endure a great amount of con- tinuous work. His only rules for study were to do at once what he had to do and never to be idle. His luncheon was often forgotten and omitted in the stress and absorption of his literary labors. During the period when he was engaged upon the volumes of Lange and upon the Creeds of Christendom, he did not retire till after midnight. He was a sound sleeper, and the moment he touched his head to the pillow he sank into sleep. All this, however, must not be understood to mean that his work at no time became wearisome to Dr. Schaff. An insight into these moments of weariness is given by his 452 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF journal while he was writing his Creeds of Christendom: "Aug. 26, 1876. The last two weeks I have studied very hard to complete my work on creeds, which lies like an incubus on my mind. I wish to finish it before the seminary opens, September 20, but I am not yet done with the Westminster Assembly, although I have drafts on the Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers, Moravians and Cumberland Presbyterians. After this I shall not soon write another book." At various periods he had warnings of danger. In 1869 his hair turned rapidly white, so that a great change became manifest in his appearance within a few days. "It was a satisfaction," wrote Dr. Nevin in 1870, "to receive your photograph, though I could hardly at first recognize you in your old face at all. I had heard, how- ever, of the rapid change of your hair." But there were never any days of confinement to the house or enforced separation from society. His health would have broken under the great burden of his literary labors but for their variety, his frequent journeys to Europe, his ability to turn easily from one form of occupation to another and his love of social intercourse. Free from all mannerisms and pedantic assumption, he was always accessible when advice was honestly sought or a friend knocked at the door. His eye remained keen and the glow of his face continued. On writing his signature under one of his photographs, he jestingly remarked to the student stand- ing by, " We will get better looking when we get to heaven." Dr. SchafFs writings are characterized by directness of aim, clearness of style, accuracy, an impartial spirit and the habit of generalization. The reader has no diffi- culty in getting at what he is writing about and writing for, and is conscious that each new paragraph adds new CHAP, xvii FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 453 material. " He never adds a new clause without adding a new stroke," wrote a keen critic. 1 It has been said by Dr. George P. Fisher, that " no one of his works will be found to be superficial, barren of valuable contents or defective in scholarship." His material was gathered from original sources, where they were within reach. He studied microscopic accuracy, and declared the mistakes of many books to be due to the inexcusable unwilling- ness of the writers to take pains. So concerned was he to secure accuracy that he had many of his works pass under the eye of specialists in their particular de- partments before they were issued from the press. Por- tions of the earlier volumes of his Church History passed under the eye of Dr. Henry B. Smith and Professor R. D. Hitchcock. The sheets of his Companion to the Greek Testament were read by Ezra Abbot, and the last volumes of his Church History, on the Lutheran and Swiss refor- mations, were read by Kostlin and by Godet and Professor von Wyss. Another characteristic of his literary activity was that he kept his works abreast of the times. No new publication in his department escaped his eye. He was constantly amending and correcting, and each new edition incorporated the most recent literature and researches. By choice and by mental fitness, Dr. SchafT was an historian. In view of the incompleteness of his Church History, it is hard to avoid a feeling of regret that he did not sit in a chair of church history during his entire career and have opportunity to devote himself continu- ously to that department. His instinct and methods were historical rather than metaphysical and dogmatic. This was made evident in his first work produced in America, the Principle of Protestantism, as well as in the first of all his works, the Sin against the Holy Ghost, 1 The Rev. Charles C. Starbuck. 454 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 in which he illustrated his theme by the elaborate treat- ment of the death of Francesco Spiera. His place as a contributor to theological literature will ultimately rest upon his Creeds of Christendom and his church histories. Other contributions to the department of his- tory were numerous brochures, such as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Church and State and his edition of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. The Creeds of Christendom or Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesicz Universalis, which first appeared in 1877, gives in two volumes the text of the chief creeds of Christendom with translations, and in a third volume a history of their formulation and a statement of their contents. In this work the author did a positive service for the church. Even in Germany such critics as Dorner declared that it filled an unoccupied place in theological literature and satisfied a real need. " The very conception of the work was a great thought which presupposed unusual courage and enterprise" 1 he wrote. Here the student has at easy command the authentic material for the study of the doctrinal standards of the church from the earliest con- fession of St. Peter down to the articles of the Evangelical Alliance and the decrees of the Vatican Council. To the author creeds are the answer of man to the revelation of God, the milestones and finger boards in the history of Christian doctrine, the embodiment of the faith of genera- tions and the most valuable results of religious contro- versies. The work has been considered by some as his most valuable contribution to theological literature. In 1878, after an interval of more than ten years, Dr. Schaff set himself to the task of continuing his Church History. Nearly thirty years had passed since the His- tory of the Apostolic Church had appeared. In resuming ^ Jahrbiicher fiir Deutsche Theologie, 1877, p. 22. CHAP, xvii FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 455 the work, he found that in order to satisfy himself, a radical reconstruction of the volumes already published was necessary. The new work carries the history, in seven volumes, through the Swiss Reformation, the fifth volume, designed to traverse the second period of the Middle Ages, being left unfinished. This, in a real sense a new beginning of the work of his life, involved a fresh survey of the whole field of church history and a review of all the materials at command. The subject-matter of the first volumes of the old edition and the new differed widely. In the old, the history was a narrative of the outward extension of the church and its progress in life and worship during the apostolic age. In the new edition the literature of the apostolic age is made prominent and the circumstances of its composition and its contents are examined in detail. Like Neander, Dr. Schaff divides the history of the church into three periods, ancient, mediaeval and modern. With him it stands for the rise and progress of the king- dom of heaven upon earth. It is a continuous commentary on the two parables of the mustard seed, which represents the outward extension of the church and its institutions, and the leaven, which represents its transforming power in the individual and in society. The church is not a finished organism, but grows and developes from within. It is humanity itself regenerate and on the way to per- fection. Church history presents Christ as He lives in His people and the great cloud of witnesses who have been sanctified and led by the Holy Spirit. All history before Him was preparatory for His mission ; all history since the Incarnation must ultimately be made to con- tribute to His glory. The duty of the historian is to dis- cover and follow the path of Divine Providence. In every age and church, the historian finds the footprints of 456 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 Christ, the abundant manifestations of His Spirit and a slow but sure progress towards the ideal church which St. Paul describes. 1 Dr. SchafFs treatment brings the history of the church into inseparable contact with the general history of the world. It is not a current running side by side with a greater current, but a pervasive force entering into human activity and thought in every department of political and social life, letters and education, art and commerce, and modifying, stimulating and controlling them. Of this in- fluence he makes more than did Neander. With Neander, he insisted upon the practical and devotional aims of the church historian. The history of the church is a witness of the divine power of Christianity, and should be studied for instruction and edification. It is a school of expe- rience and all its periods have a message from God to man, which it is important for the present age to under- stand. Dr. Schaff was not a mere antiquarian, studying and recording past events for their own sake. History to him was not a catalogue of dates and names, but was like a great building manifesting a plan and proceeding to a goal. He transferred himself to past ages ; but he did not stop there. He placed the past under the light of the present, and sought to lay bare the providential pur- poses in the past with reference to the present and future. For example, in his treatment of the Reformers in the two volumes on the Reformation, he studies the religious spirit and conduct of the sixteenth century in the light of modern toleration. Especially is this trait apparent when he enters into the trial of Servetus, to which he gives many pages. His purpose was to present not merely the questions which interested the age in which they were discussed, but to treat all questions in their bearing 1 Reunion of Christendom, p. 34. CHAP, xvii FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 457 upon the thought and life of the present generation. This mode of treatment is exposed to the serious danger of judging the past by the present, but makes the history more real and lifelike. Dr. Fisher, emphasizing this feature of Dr. SchafF s work, says : 1 " One of the main sources of his interest in historical studies was their bearing on problems in the church which confront us in the present day. If he journeyed back into the past, his life was in the present. Hence his frequent references, made sometimes with a kind of naivet^ to debates or to other religious phenomena of one sort or another which are now taking place." German reviewers were startled by these occasional refer- ences to present events and modes of thought in chap- ters treating periods long past. Kawerau, reviewing 2 the volume on the Lutheran Reformation, is surprised to find an account of the celebration of Luther's anniversary in 1883 introduced, and the presence of the German Crown Prince Friedrich at the festivities in Wittenberg referred to. Dr. Schaff never reached his own ideal. Writing in 1891 to Professor von Wyss, he said: The longer I study church history and teach it, the more do I feel that our knowledge is partial. We only see the surface and do not see into the hidden depths of the divine plan of redemption. Everywhere we touch upon a re- vealed and a concealed God sufficiently patent to strengthen our faith, and sufficiently hidden to test our faith. The conflicts of the period of the Reformation repeat them- selves in our time, and will, it is to be hoped, lead to a better result, to peace in the church. As an historical student, as has been said, he went to the sources, but he cannot be said to have been a specialist 1 Dr. Schaff as an Historian, Papers of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VII. p. 8. 2 Literatur-Zeitung, Aug. 30, 1 886. 458 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 in any one period or department of church history in the sense that he was an authority on it above all others. But he was so variously and thoroughly studied in many periods, so careful in his statements and so widely read in the literature, that his work is an authority at the side of specialists in those periods. Harnack ventured the pre- diction that Dr. Schaff s would be the last great general history of the church written by a single pen. He was not controlled by a desire to present novel facts. His love of the truth was so mandatory, and his habit of harmonious generalization so controlling, that he was restrained from being an antiquarian on the one hand and an iconoclast on the other. It is, further, a part of his method to present the salient events of a period, and to depict its leading actors in life- like manner, rather than to speculate upon the causes of movements and elaborate upon the inner development of historic forces. This pictorial habit, cultivated under a strong impulse to make intelligible and accessible the figures and events of the past, may seem to have been practised at times to the disparagement of the philosophic method. To candor and a graphic pen were added freedom from obtrusive preconceptions and the power to systematize his materials. Dr. Schaff was a man of positive judgment, but seldom the partisan. Not being the servant of any church, there was no occasion for him to adjust historic facts to ecclesiastical affinities. He had warm admiration for strong and energetic leaders in the history of thought and action, but his admiration does not hold his pen back from portraying their faults. Admiration for great names never passes into prostration before heroes. On debated questions his judgment will be found to be pretty near the point towards which the soundest minds are centring. In CHAP, xvn FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 459 his regard for fairness and respect for scholarly research, he never passes by the arguments of those who differ from himself. His unbiassed judgment is so evident and his acquaintance with the sources so wide, that it is not easy to assail his historical judgments. The bibliographical portion of Dr. Schaffs writings have found wide recognition. Kolde of Erlangen, reviewing the volumes on the Reformation, declares that, if they had no other merits, the notices of the literature would make for them an honorable place among the works on that period. Dr. Fisher has also emphasized " this invaluable feature of Dr. Schaffs work." As might be expected, the irenic and optimistic temper breathes freely through Dr. Schaff's historical writings. His alertness to see a providential mission in all commun- ions of the church catholic communicates itself to his judg- ment of every period of the church's progress. Unlike the older historians before Neander, who searched ancient and mediceval history for weapons with which to defeat their theological opponents, he looked for the good in every type of Christian doctrine, and found noble characters in all ages of the church's history. He entered into all its periods and shut himself up in none. The Reformers had their faults and weaknesses. All churches have their sins for which they have reason to fall down in dust and ashes. The irenic spirit, however, nowhere degenerates into sen- timental moralizing or disregard of proper ecclesiastical distinctions. Dr. Schaff used to say of himself, " I am an inveterate hoper." This expectancy of better things, of good to come out of evil, was not the subtle ideality of Neander. His historical judgment was always modified by his practical instincts, cultivated in the walks of daily life, from which Neander by reason of his shrinking nature was withheld. 460 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 In his address at the Neander centennial before the uni- versity of Berlin in 1889, Harnack made the discriminat- ing statement that it is impossible to think of Neander as a church historian without thinking of him as a Chris- tian. Of Dr. Schaff's historical work it may be said you can never think of him as a church historian without thinking of him as the tolerant friend of all phases of Christian belief and life. The last words he wrote on the study of church history were characteristic : " When it is pursued with 'malice toward none but with charity for all,' it will bring the denominations closer together in an humble recognition of their defects and a grateful praise for the good which the same Spirit has wrought in them and through them." * With reference to the testimony given by the theological faculty of Berlin, that Dr. Schaff's was " the most notable monument of universal historical learning produced by the school of Neander," 2 it may be said that he continued to have a filial veneration for his old teacher and that one of the last things the writer remembers him to have done was to take down a volume of Neander from his shelves and, after looking at some of its pages and returning it to its place at the side of Gieseler and Baur, to say, " It is a great work, full of valuable material and pervaded by devotional warmth and a high regard for truth." He expressed him- self in a letter to Dr. Gloag : You have seen the accounts of the recent celebration of the centennial of Neander's birth, in Berlin and elsewhere. So the memory of that great and good man is perpetuated. He was a Church Father in the nineteenth century and at the same time the Father of modern Church History, who made it a book of life and edification. He was not as creative a genius as Schleiermacher, but morally and spirit- ually far his superior and his labors have been more useful 1 Reunion of Christendom, p. 35. 2 See p. 467. CHAP, xvn FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 461 to the church at large. Schleiermacher's position in the German Church often reminds me of that of Origen in the Greek Church. The best of his pupils, Nitzsch, Miiller, Twesten, left his errors behind and were far more orthodox. But he broke the spell of the older rationalism and intro- duced a new era. While Dr. Schaff was unable to accept the invitation to make an address at the celebration in Berlin of the one- hundredth anniversary of Neander's birth, in 1889, he honored the occasion by publishing a volume of Reminis- cences of Neander? of which Gossler, the Prussian minister of education, wrote, "You have in advance of all others placed a right worthy literary monument to the great theologian." Perhaps no portion of Dr. Schaff 's Church History will be regarded as more valuable than his volumes on the German and Swiss reformations. He entered upon their prepara- tion with great enthusiasm. He corresponded with the chief scholars of that period in Europe and America. He examined the literature in the libraries where it was most valuable and extensive, from Paris to Berlin and from Zurich to Rome. While he described the chief events, he descended to the details of personal habit and appearance in accordance with the motto, " Nothing human do I count as without interest." He strove to make the chief Reform- ers live again before the eyes of the modern reader. In his extended notice in the Studien und Kritiken, which reached New York after Dr. Schaff's death, Kolde said : 2 " These volumes have such a richness that they will be used for a long time to come as works of reference, and I do 1 Gotha, 1886. 2 January, 1894, pp. 173-200. Of an Italian review entitled "La Storia della Chiesa del Filippo Schaff," in the Archivio Storico Italiano, 1892, Professor Comba informs me that " Dr. Schaff was the first Protestant historian of the church to be so warmly introduced to Italian studiosi in the first historical review of Italy." 462 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 not know where else one could go more safely and easily for information than to them." Luther, of all the Reformers, aroused his enthusiasm. With a patriotic interest he narrates the story of his countryman Zwingli. For Calvin as a theological genius he had a high admiration, but he pronounced him to be " one who forbids familiar approach." To Dr. Kostlin he wrote (1888): "I am now working on the Swiss Reforma- tion, but I cannot stir up as much enthusiasm for Calvin or Zwingli, although he is my countryman, as for Luther." About the same time he wrote to Dr. Mann : The Reformation everywhere had its defects and sins, which it is impossible to justify. How cruel was the per- secution of the Anabaptists, who by no means were only revolutionary fanatics but for the most part simple, honest Christians and suffered and died for liberty of conscience and the separation of church and state. And how sad were the moral state and the rude theological quarrels in Germany! No wonder that Melanchthon longed for deliverance from the rabies theologorum. I hope God has something better and greater in store for His church than the Reformation. The same generous reception accorded to the first edition of Dr. SchafF s Church History was accorded to the new one. If of the earlier work Dr. Julius Miiller of Halle said, " It is the only history of the first six centuries which truly satisfies the wants of the present age " ; of the later work Dr. Sanday declared he "knew no better Church History in English," 1 and Professor Alfred Plummer, that he "believed it to be the most instructive and helpful book on the subject in the English language." And Professor McGiffert expressed the opinion that it entitled its author to a place among the greatest of American historians sacred and secular. 2 His friend and fellow church historian in 1 Contemporary Review, July, 1889, p. 51. 2 Harper's Weekly, Nov. 4, 1893. CHAP, xvil FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 463 America, Professor George P. Fisher, closed his notice of him as an historian with the words that "among Dr. SchafF s manifold productions the History of the Chtirch will remain the most lasting monument of a scholar who served his generation in the use of remarkable powers and with un- wearied industry." 1 But no sentence coming under the author's own eye was regarded by him as of more weight than that pronounced by the historian Edward A. Free- man, who was not quick to praise contemporary authors. He said : " Dr. Schaff presents a connected history of all the great movements of thought and action in a pleasant and memorable style. His discrimination is keen, his courage is undaunted, his candor transparent, and for general readers he has produced what we have no hesita- tion in pronouncing the History of the Church." In the range of his personal acquaintance within the guild of church historians, few, if any, scholars equalled him. Not only did he hold friendly relations with the older and contemporary generation, but kept his eye on the younger men and was ready to consult with them and learn from them. He interested himself deeply in Har- nack's call to Berlin, whom he declared at a time when he was assailed to " be an earnest investigator of truth and qualified above any other living man for the responsible position to which he had been called. The chair of Neander is now filled by a competent successor. He will again attract students to Berlin from all parts of the world as Neander did fifty years ago." 2 A little later he wrote to Harnack : " I did not make a mistake when four years ago I told Minister Gossler and Professor Weiss when your call to Marburg was under discussion, ' Harnack's way goes by Marburg to Berlin to Neander's chair, which has 1 Papers of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VII. 2 The Independent, Oct. 25, 1888. 464 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1892 been vacant since 1850.' ' His personal acquaintance with church historians in Germany included Mohler, Hergen- rother, Alzog, Hurter, Hefele and Funk, among Catholics ; Dollinger and Langen, among Old-Catholics ; Baur, Nean- der, Niedner, Ullmann, Lechler, Kurtz, Hase, Weizsacker, Harnack and Loofs, among Protestants. The historians Erbkam, Kahnis, Jacobi, Reuter and Piper were fellow- students or io[\QVf-docenten. To this list should be added the historical students of Great Britain from Professor Mitchell of St. Andrews in the north, to Lightfoot, Stanley, Hatch, Farrar, Creighton and Plummer in the south. Two testimonies from abroad may be adduced to the influence which Dr. SchafFs historical writings had in awakening and confirming an interest in the study of church history, the one by Kolde, who, in the article al- ready referred to, speaks with gratitude of the enthusiasm aroused in his earlier years by the perusal of Dr. SchafFs volumes, the other by Bishop Lightfoot. The latter wrote in 1883: "Your work on the Apostolic Age was one of the earliest which I read as well as one of the most in- structive when I first took up the subject as a very young man; and it is, therefore, with especial pleasure that I now follow your latest thoughts on the same period." Dr. Schaffs services in the department of church his- tory were not confined to the volumes proceeding from his pen. He was concerned to encourage the study of church history and to develope a new generation of historical students in the United States. In 1889 he declared 1 the study of church history had hardly begun in America. He lived to see the evidences of a rapid change. By enlisting the pens of some of our younger scholars upon his library of the Nicene Fathers and other works, by the 1 The Independent, March 28. CHAP, xvn FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 465 timely encouragement of words and by introducing them to scholars abroad, he put them on the track of historical investigation and composition. To him the American Society of Church History owed its foundation. It was organized in his study, March 23, 1888, and he acted as its president till the time of his death. He was present at all its sessions and contributed elaborate papers to its proceedings. The series of American Denominational Histories, published under the auspices of the society, was due to his suggestion and to the measures he perfected for their composition and publication. Of these volumes, none of which he lived to see in print, Bishop Hurst writes : " The series is Dr. SchafF s work as much as if he had written it and followed it through the press. He gave an example and impulse to the study of church history in this country that will never cease." The purpose which Dr. Schaff hoped these histories would serve is expressed in a letter to Dr. O'Gorman of the Catholic University, Washington (March 17, 1891). "I sincerely hope," he wrote, "that the contemplated series of denominational histories prepared by competent scholars will not only be a valuable authentic contribution to our theological and historical literature, but also tend to remove ignorance and prejudice and to bring Chris- tians nearer together." In the same vein he wrote to Professor Walker of Hartford: "Besides the literary inter- est, I confess to have a moral interest in the contemplated series as a means of bringing the different churches into closer union and ultimate cooperation." Four years after his death, in 1897, the society was merged into the American Historical Association. Among his last written words was an appeal for the establishment of separate chairs of American church history in our seminaries. 1 In 1 The Independent, "American Church History," Dec. 22, 1892. 2H 466 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 these various ways Dr. Schaff sought to promote the pur- suit of church history. Concerning the reward of the church historian, he wrote, during his visit to Rome, 1890, to Professor McGiffert : I am deeply engaged in the study of church history, and go daily to the Vatican Library and the Archives, also to the National Library and the Library of the German Archaeological Institute. But who can master such a mass of material ! I wish I had twenty years more before me. History is long, life is short. The longer we study, the more we find out the limitations of our knowledge. Others will follow, and do better work. The Lord bless you with long life and vigor. There is no richer field for a rising American divine than church history. It carries its own exceeding great reward. It furnishes a solid base for all other departments. The hope of his later years was that he might complete his History down to the treaty of Westphalia. He also would gladly have lived to carry out the idea, first urged upon him by Dr. J. Addison Alexander, of preparing a concise manual of church history for popular use. He was busily engaged upon the fifth volume of the chief work of his life when he passed out from the scenes of the church militant to the vision of the church triumphant. The following are the main sections of the congratula- tory address sent by the theological faculty of the uni- versity of Berlin, which, it is understood, was written by Professor Harnack. In his acknowledgment, Dr. Schaff declared he could not " have wished for a nobler and more honorable testimonial to his labors." BERLIN, Nov. 16, 1892. Most Worthy Sir, Most Honored Colleague : On this, the anniversary of the day when fifty years ago you won in our High School the venia legendi, the Theo- logical Faculty of the Frederick William University would CHAP, xvii FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER 467 present to you, most honored colleague, their heartiest good wishes and prayers. You entered upon your work as academical instructor in our High School at the time when the study of church history, under the lead of Neander and Baur, had taken on a marked impetus. Erbkam, Piper, Kahnis and Jacobi were among your immediate pred- ecessors ; Reuter followed two months later ; these, with yourself, all grateful pupils of Neander and filled with the noble spirit that animated him, were one in their deter- mination to seek the welfare of the church by mastering with loving zeal the distinctive features of Christian life and thought in order faithfully to impart the results to others. . . . Like Martin Bucer, who three hundred years before you crossed over to England to carry thither the light of German theological science, you went over to the New World to sow there the seeds of the same culture, and thus became through your tireless and richly blessed work the theological mediator between the East and the West. If to-day the famous theological seminaries in the United States have become nurseries of theological science, so that the old world no longer gives to them alone, but receives from them instruction in turn, this is owing chiefly to your activity. You have introduced into your new fatherland in Eng- lish translations an array of valuable and weighty works of German theology, thus naturalizing there that science and causing it to be appreciated. This, however, forms but a small part of your great and fruitful work. You have ad- vanced the science of theology by works both in German and English, particularly by your great works, the History of the Apostlic Church, the History of the Christian Church and the Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesice Universalis [the Creeds of Christendom^, together with numerous treatises on subjects pertaining to church history, which are the fruits of your own independent studies. Your Church History in particular has taken a most honorable rank among the church histories of the day, by virtue of the thoroughness of its execution and the clearness of its style. It is the most notable monument of universal historical learning produced by the school of Neander. In addition to this, and thereby resembling the great mediator between the Greek and the Latin churches in 468 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1892 the past, you have shown the most lively interest in both the original text of the New Testament and its translation into English. Your Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version has become a most useful hand-book. And as president of the American Bible Revision Committee in cooperation with the Eng- lish Committee, you have played a most prominent part in bringing that great work to a happy conclusion. But, unlike Jerome, your aim was not to introduce into one country the theological conflicts of another, nor to draw party lines of doctrine as strictly as possible, but, on the contrary, you have ever made it your task to promote reconciliation, to draw together the various parties in the church, and everywhere to bring about " the speaking of the truth in love." If the signs of the times do not de- ceive us, your work in this regard also has been crowned with special blessing. The various evangelical denomina- tions of your new home are indeed drawing nearer to one another, and their ecclesiastical and scholarly emulation no longer minister to strife, but to mutual recognition and cooperation. . . . The Lord Almighty has vouchsafed to you, most hon- ored colleague, to pass the threshold of your seventieth year with activity and strength undiminished. Within the past few years you have begun two great undertak- ings, the founding of an American Society of Church History, whose president you have become and in the forefront of whose work you stand, and the editing of an English translation of a Nicene and Post-Nicene Library of the Fathers. That your health and strength may long abide unim- paired in order that you may bring to a successful issue all you have undertaken, is our most heartfelt wish. THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF THE ROYAL FREDERICK WILLIAM UNIVERSITY. B. WEISS, Dean. CHAP, xviii THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 469 CHAPTER XVIII THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 1893 Health Resigning Professorship Seminary Scheme Last Words to the Reformed Church Bible Revision Theological Propadeutic The- ological Position Modern Biblical Criticism The Old Testament Last Summer The Columbian Exposition Parliament of Religions Thf Reunion of Christendom Letter from Dr. Godet DURING the fall and winter of 1892 Dr. Schaff withheld himself from the lecture room, and for the first time knew what it was to be obliged to refuse engagements on the score of something else than lack of time. His health again permitted him to appear before his classes a few times in the spring of 1893. He continued to take an active interest in the controversies going on in the Pres- byterian Church, and went on with his literary work. So fully did he seem to recover his former buoyancy of spirits and power of literary application, that those who stood nearest to him were almost deceived into thinking that the stroke had been as the mere falling of a branch rather than the staggering of the trunk. To those who inquired about his health, he often replied, "My trunk is packed and I am ready to go at any time, but I would be glad to stay a little longer and finish the fifth volume of my History." In the spring of 1893 he resigned his professorship, not without the natural feeling of regret at giving up a con- genial, life-long occupation, and yet without complaint. 470 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 He was made professor emeritus and lecturer on propae- deutic and symbolic, but with little expectation on the part of the directors of the seminary that he would be able to lecture again. " I have received," he wrote, "nothing but kindness from my colleagues, the directors, and my other friends during my sickness. It always costs a great struggle and sacrifice for an active man to lay down his work. I hope, however, for sufficient strength to deliver two lectures a week next term and to finish the fifth volume of my History." One of his last attempts to serve Union Seminary was the preparation, at the request of Mr. Butler, the president of the Board of Directors, May 15, 1893, of a scheme for the enlargement of its usefulness. The suggestions ran in part as follows : Among the other improvements I will mention, are : (1) The extension of the curriculum to four years. (2) The founding of a professorship of modern church history with special reference to American church history. (3) An enlargement of the department of systematic the- ology so as to include Christian ethic and Christian symbolic and irenic. (4) The founding of a professor- ship of the English Bible for students who have not a suffi- cient classical preparation to be benefited by Hebrew and Greek exegesis. (5) The adoption of a scheme similar to that of University Extension, that is, a series of popular lectures to be delivered by professors and tutors on the latest discoveries and advances in theological science and literature for the benefit of the Christian public at large. This schedule clearly exhibits the tendencies of Dr. Scharf's mind. He felt that the demands of scho- lastic theology should not encroach upon the practical aims of seminary training and on the other hand that the practical purpose was not to be dwelt upon in such a way as to disparage the pursuit of biblical and theological science in a scientific spirit. While he emphasized the training of a corps of close and careful students, he would have made CHAP, xvin THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 471 the advantages of the seminary course available for men possessing gifts for the clerical office, but who have no knowledge of the classical languages. Writing from Ger- many in 1890, he had said : Theology is important the queen of sciences ; but re- ligion is more important. Theology is for the few, religion for all ; theology affects the head, religion the heart and the will. Professor Wellhausen told me a few weeks ago, "the farther theology and the church keep apart, the bet- ter for both." He expressed the opinion of the liberal critics. The prevailing American sentiment is just the reverse. Theology is the daughter of the church and should not rebel against the mother. In a German uni- versity a theological professor is appointed by the state, supported by the state, responsible to no creed, and ex- pected to teach and promote science. The state looks only at theoretical qualifications, and cares little or noth- ing about the orthodoxy and piety of the candidate. The church, as such, has nothing to say in the matter. The result is that a professor may teach doctrines which are utterly subversive to the church, and disqualify the stu- dent for his future work. This is an unnatural state of things. It may be favorable to the freest development of theological science and speculation, but very dangerous to the healthful and vigorous development of church life. He was greatly interested in the General Assembly which met in Washington, in May, 1893, and pronounced judgment in the case of Dr. Briggs. "I wonder at the strength of your father," wrote Mrs. Schaff. "He at- tended all the meetings of the Assembly, all the receptions, and was incessantly engaged in conversation." An extract from a letter to Dr. Oswald Dykes reveals his disappoint- ment at the defeat of the effort to revise the Westminster Confession, which was announced at this meeting. Your new creed is thoroughly evangelical, and yet avoids all the harsh features of scholastic Calvinism. Our con- fessional movement has unfortunately failed, and a new short creed can hardly be expected for a number of years 4/2 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 to come. The Presbyterian churches of England and Scotland are far ahead of us. The General Assembly in Washington has, by a majority of votes, but not by argu- ments, arrested the legitimate progress of theology. But God rules and overrules the wisdom and folly of men, From Washington he went to Reading, attending the triennial meeting of the Eastern Synod of the Reformed Church and finding relief from the strain of controversy at the Assembly in the quiet companionship of friends and students of the Mercersburg period. The synod was celebrating the centennial of its organization. Dr. Schaff made one of the addresses, on " Switzerland the Cradle of Religious Liberty," which proved to be his valedictory address to his early American constituency. It began with the words, " Switzerland, like Palestine and Greece, is a country of small circumference but of large significance. Palestine is the mother of Christianity, Greece is the mother of civilization, Switzerland the mother of Reformed churches." Speaking of the limitations of the Calvinistic theology and the Reformation, he said: The Reformation of the sixteenth century is by no means the last word which God has spoken to His people. He has other and greater Pentecosts in store. By His provi- dence all nationalities and creeds are brought together in this land of freedom, of which the Reformers could not dream. Here is the material, the possibility and oppor- tunity for a settlement of the controversies of Christen- dom. Calvinism, after all, is onlyone type of theology and church life and only one half of the Gospel. It limits God's love to the elect, and limits the number of the elect to a minority of the human family. It does not compre- hend in its fulness the fundamental truth of the Gospel, that God is love, and so loved the whole world as to give His only begotten Son for the salvation of the world. American theology is moving towards Christ, as the cen- tre which sheds light on all other articles of faith. Christocentric theology is more human than Calvinism, and more divine than Arminianism and more Christian CHAP, xviii THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 473 than either, and furnishes a basis for the concord of the discords of creeds. If Christians are ever to be united, they must be united in Christ, their living head and the source of their spiritual life. Dr. Bailsman, who was his host, writes as follows : It was delightful to witness how Dr. Schaff could lay aside all professional restraint and, as artless as a child, enjoy the freedom of the parsonage. . . . His presence was one of the chief features of the synod. About fifty of his old pupils were present, who lovingly crowded around him like children around a father. His address at the centennial banquet was for the occasion an ideal produc- tion. He dictated the whole of it in my library. He in- terspersed the reading of it with additional remarks. His heart was larger than his paper. At table his more grave conversation would be seasoned with humorous incidents. A grotesque Pennsylvania German oddity or story from other source would provoke him to hearty laughter. He repeated from memory a verse from the poem in the Penn- sylvania German dialect published years ago in the Kir- chenfreundy with a tender voice and evident feeling. Ach ! wie duts mi doch gelischte Nach der blowe Wohnung dart ; Dart mit alle gute Chrischte, Freed zu have, Ruh alsfart. 1 Handing him a dish of oranges, I repeated Goethe's couplet, " Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bliihen Und wo im dunklen Laub die gold' Orangen gliihen?" Upon which he sat erect, and with graceful gesticulation, dramatically recited nearly the whole of the poem, his face beaming with delighted animation. His religious trust was as unclouded and confiding as that of a child. The reposeful peace of his old age, blended with the innocent sprightliness of youth, was a unique characteristic of the late years of the honored man's life. 1 Oh ! how my heart is filled with longing For the home in heaven above; There forever with all good Christians, To have sweet peace, to have sweet rest. 4/4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 Memorials of Dr. Schaff's affection for the church which called him to the United States appear at Lancaster Semi- nary in "the Schaff prize in Church History," founded by him, and the library building to whose erection he gave a stimulus by a substantial donation and which was com- pleted the year after his death. A bronze plate at the entrance bears the inscription : " The Library Building of the Theological Seminary founded by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., New York." Then follow the names of other donors. These gifts were to him a source of genuine delight. Of his work in Mercersburg he wrote to Dr. Gerhart (Aug. II, 1891): "I hope you will finish your magnum opus during the winter. We must both hurry on. Ars longa, vita brevis. If I had but ten more years before me, I might bring my History down to our generation, but I cannot hope for such mercy. We have not labored in vain and some fruits will survive us. Mercersburg theology has left a permanent impression." An incident occurring on his way back to New York shows his freedom from pre- tentiousness and his kindliness of heart. Walking through one of the streets of Philadelphia, he met the assistant janitor of Union Seminary, who had taken care of his study. Knowing that he had been in poor health, Dr. Schaff insisted, in spite of remonstrance, on taking the heavy valise he had in his hand and carrying it for some distance. The cause of Bible Revision claimed Dr. Schaff's atten- tion for the last time at a meeting of the New Testament Revisers in New Haven in June. It was his very eager desire that final arrangements should be made for the pub- lication of an American standard edition of the Revision. Dr. Schaff was present [writes Professor Thayer], al- though somewhat feeble and showing traces of his first shock. The other persons present were President Dwight and myself of the New Testament Company and Professor CHAP, xvin THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 475 Day for the Old Testament Company. The project for an Americanized edition was talked over (as it had been re- peatedly before) and in conjunction with Dr. Riddle, I was urged to take steps towards its publication. An American- ized copy of the New Testament I had previously prepared by request of my former associates. It was your father's wish that the American edition should be equipped with chapter headings and references and Dr. Riddle and I had some correspondence on the subject and even went further. The same month, before leaving the city for the sum- mer, Dr. Schaff finished his last volume, his work on Theological Propcedeutic, which was the first original work in its department produced in America. It gives a bird's- eye view of the whole field of exegetical, historical, sys- tematic and practical theology. The author had given lectures in this department from his arrival in Mercersburg. The book was in no sense a transfer of lecture sheets to the printed page, but represents a thorough re-study of the whole subject and of the most recent literature with special reference to publication. The author's mind worked freely in this congenial and repeatedly traversed realm and his stores of bibliological knowledge were easily at command. He began the preparation for the press with enthusiasm, and, although at times it was carried forward amidst physical weariness, the words safely may be applied to it which Dean Farrar used of his Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, that it is " marked by all the wisdom, caution, tolerance and accurate research of the author." In the Propcedeutic and in articles in the religious press, thrown off during its preparation, we find Dr. Schaff' s last published words concerning the authority of the Bible, the place of metaphysical theology and the movement known as the Higher Criticism. Everywhere he gives his un- mistakable endorsement to the evangelical views as the only basis of a tenable and lasting theology. His position 476 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 was that of a thoroughly evangelical mind controlled by a tolerant historical judgment and warm Christian sympa- thies. The construction of his mind and his studies did not fit him to formulate a logical system of divinity with the tools of pure reason. With him theology was a matter of the heart as well as the head. His theology was Christo- centric. Not that a treatise on dogmatics should begin with Christology, but Christology should furnish the key for theology and anthropology. 1 Neither strict Calvinism nor a pliant Arminianism answered his mental or moral needs. The principles of divine sovereignty and human freedom had equal rights and must both enter into the final theo- logical system. "How to harmonize them, I, at least," he used to say, " do not know ; I believe them both." I believe [he wrote to a correspondent] 2 in inherited depravity, but not in hereditary guilt, which is removed by Christ's universal atonement. Zwingli had the right view on this subject; all other Reformers were too much under the spell of the great and good St. Augustine. We are all born into a sinful world with an inclination to all evil, but also into an economy of grace, freely offered to all on con- dition of faith. We need a reconstruction of our theology on the basis, not of God's sovereignty, but of God's holy love to all mankind, which He has made in His own image, and redeemed with the blood of His own Son. The Gos- pel of God's love alone furnishes a proper basis for the duty to preach the Gospel to every creature sincerely, not hypocritically, as must necessarily be the case if God in- tended to save only some and to pass by all others. The contradiction made by Augustine, Luftier and Calvin between a hidden and a revealed will of God overthrows the moral character of God and destroys the distinction between truth and falsehood. In an introduction written for Professor Gerhart's In- stitutes of the Christian Religion? he expresses himself 1 Propcedeutic, p. 363. 2 Professor G. W. Northrup of the Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicago. 3 Two volumes, New York, 1891, 1894. CHAP, xvin THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 477 clearly upon the divine love as revealed in Christ as the starting-point of theology. " The divine-human person of Christ," he says, "is the sum and substance of Christian- ity. This is the article of the standing or falling church. All other doctrines which have been made fundamental and central derive their significance from their connection with it. The eternal decree of election, which is made su- preme in the Calvinistic system, is an election in Christ. And without Christ the decree is but a barren metaphysi- cal abstraction. Justification by faith, which Luther made the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesice, presupposes Christ as the object and condition of justifying faith. A theology constructed on the metaphysical doctrine of pre- mundane decrees, or on the absolute sovereignty of God, is out of date. . . . Every age must produce its own the- ology. What do we know about decrees passed millions of years ago in the hidden depths of eternity ? Can we conceive God as deliberately discussing with Himself a plan of constructing a world, and finally coming to a con- clusion and making out a programme? Is this not subject- ing the infinite and eternal Being to the limitations of time and the conditions of a logical process of ratiocination ? " But we do know the historical manifestations of God in Christ. We do know the God of the Gospels and the Epistles and the God whom Christ has revealed to the world is a God of saving love. There is no greater word in the whole Bible than the sentence 'God is love/ and the other which is like unto it, ' God so loved the world (that is, all mankind) that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.' Shall we substitute for this, 'God is a sov- ereign ? ' ' God loved the elect,' and the elect only ? . . . God's love is universal in its aim, and intent and abundant in its provision for the salvation of every human soul made 478 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of Christ. If any one is lost, he is lost by his own unbelief, not by an eternal decree of reprobation or an act of preterition, or any lack of intention or provision on the part of God. . . . The theology of the future will be the theology of love. Such a theology will give new life to the church, and prepare the way for the reunion of Christendom." The following words are found written opposite the thir- teenth chapter of First Corinthians, on the margin of a Greek New Testament on which Dr. Schaff wrote private thoughts. " A psalm of love. The Song of Songs of the New Testament. This is the height of the Epistle. Love is the solution of all difficulties, the cure of all evils in the Corinthian church. Compare John xvii, Romans viii, Hebrew xi all classical chapters without any parallel in ancient literature, and alone sufficient to prove inspiration. If Paul had written nothing else, he would be one of the greatest writers and benefactors. Here is the harmony between Paul and John ; both learned the lesson of love from Christ who manifested it in the highest and purest form, unknown before. Bengel has rightly said, Dens non est spes, Deus non est fides, sed Deus est caritas (God is not hope, God is not faith, but God is love)." As for biblical criticism, Dr. Schaff claimed for it a wide range, but held that it should be controlled by a devout spirit and the love of truth. Such criticism "keeps theology from stagnation. The Bible need not fear the closest scrutiny. The critics will die, but the Bible will remain the Book of books for all ages." * His students understood his position to be that textual research and the most destructive criticism have not disproved or de- 1 For Dr. SchafPs judgment upon the superhuman origin of the Scriptures, see his General Introduction to Lange in volume on Matthew, and his Propa- deutic, pp. 99 sqq. CHAP, xviii THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 479 stroyed a single doctrine commonly held among evangelical Christians. In the following letter to Dr. Gloag (1890), his views upon the Johannean problem appear : So you are still at work on St. John. I do not wonder at it. The Johannean problem is the most difficult in the literature of the New Testament. I have published my little wisdom on the subject in the first volume of my Church History and the annotations to Lange's Com- mentary on the Gospel of John. That Gospel is a mystery if the work of the beloved disciple, but a still greater mystery if the work of some unknown Christian Plato of the second century. Hase says, that one risks his scien- tific reputation nowadays in Germany by conceding the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, but significantly adds : " It was not so once and it may not be so always." I strongly hope and believe that some master critic will rise up before long to turn the tables and to restore once more this Gospel of Gospels to its rightful place which it held in the heart of Christendom from St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom down to Schleiermacher and Llicke. Weiss and Beyschlag, you know, still manfully defend the genuineness in their Lives of Christ and the former also in his Introduction to the New Testament. The late Ezra Abbot has, I believe, settled the question as to the out- ward testimony. In his last letter to the same correspondent, dated two months before his death, Dr. Schaff gives a clear insight into his views on the composition of the first three Gospels : The agreements and disagreements of Matthew, Mark and Luke and their equally striking differences from John, pre- sent the most complicated and difficult problem of literary criticism. I am pretty certain there must have been various fragmentary Gospels, as is evident from the preface to Luke. I am also convinced that the tradition of Papias concerning an original Hebrew Matthew is well founded and it would be a great help to critics if this Hebrew Matthew could be discovered, which is by no means im- possible in view of recent experience in this age of discovery. I am also settled in my mind as to the origi- 480 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 nality and priority of Mark, who has so many pictorial traits, which can only be explained by a personal eye- witness-ship. He was the interpreter of Peter, and in his rapid movement reflects the sanguine impulsive tempera- ment of his master. I have no settled opinion as to how far Matthew and Luke have used the Hebrew Logia and Mark, but Matthew and Luke are certainly indepen- dent of each other. The German critics have almost exhausted the possibilities of hypothesis, but the outcome of their minute and painstaking researches must certainly bring us nearer the truth. As for the Old Testament, Dr. Schaff was cautious about expressing his judgment, holding that research and scholarship must be allowed to do their work before a categorical sentence is passed. He expected a reaction to take place. "The process of action and reaction will go on and it would be un-Protestant and unwise, if it were possible, to stop it. Truth will in the end make its way through the wilderness of conflicting hypotheses." A letter to Professor W. G. Blaikie, dated Aug. 15, 1893, contains this opinion of the recent critical theories of the Old Testament : We are of the same age, 1 and have enjoyed the same great privilege of celebrating the centennial of our ministerial and professional labors. We may look forward to a brief Indian summer, with bright sunshine and balmy air. Every day for us is a special allowance, but it is good to be in the same situation as St. Paul, "in a strait between life and death, ready for either as the Lord will." Like your- self, I feel deeply grieved that the General Assembly has committed itself on extra-confessional questions of biblical criticism, which can only be solved by the slow process of Christian scholarship. I am not a specialist in the study of the Pentateuch, which is exceedingly difficult and com- plicated. But I have lived through the whole process of New Testament criticism in the Tubingen School. I studied with Dr. Baur at the time when he began to 1 Dr. Blaikie is one year younger than Dr. Schaff. CHAP, xvin THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGION'S 481 revolutionize the traditional history of the apostolic and sub-apostolic age, and left only the four great Pauline epistles as a safe basis. But since that time all the Pauline epistles, with the exception of the three pastoral epistles, have been conceded by most of Baur's own pupils. The Gospel problem has been brought nearer to a satis- factory solution by Tatian's Diatessaron, the fseud0~Goape\ of Peter, and other discoveries of the last thirty years. I am confident a similar reaction will also take place in the criticism of the Old Testament when we shall know more of the earlier sources on which the historical books are con- fessedly based. The summer spent at Lake Mohonk was a most happy one for Dr. Schaff. He seemed to enjoy every moment of his time. He felt his health was gradually improving. He slept well the night through; his appetite was good. He enjoyed his walks and mingled as freely as ever with the guests of the hotel. But it was evident to others that he was no more a robust man, and after spending an hour, or, at most, two hours over his manuscripts, he grew weary. With the waning of his capacity for literary labor, the emotional faculties and the childlike part of his nature sought larger expression. He displayed a gentle mellow- ness and tenderness, especially towards children, which was marked by every one. He had often referred with feeling to the last labors of the chancellor Gerson, which were among children, and to President Woolsey, whose last literary work was the preparation of the Sunday- school lessons for the Sunday School Times. The trait was not something new. Its affecting exhibition had waited upon the quieting down of the machinery of severe literary toil. In earlier years Toplady's Rock of Ages had been his favorite English hymn, and now Cardinal Newman's Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, laying bare the feelings of the soul crying out for divine guid- 21 482 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 ance, seemed best to express his own feelings and his trust in God in view of the uncertainty of life, and he came to repeat it each morning before rising. Dr. W. W. Atterbury thus speaks of a conversation with him : " In that hour spent alone with Dr. Schaff in one of the summer houses at Lake Mohonk in 1893, I learned more of his inner life than in all the years of association with him before. To my question, 'What, Dr. Schaff, is your attitude to the question of eternity in view of all the discussions of the last few years ? ' he replied : ' My only hope is in the mercy of God. My trust is in Christ, my Saviour, who died for sinners.' Then he repeated to me the three verses of Lead, kindly Light. I was impressed with the deep spiritual tone of the hymn as never before, and I went at once on leaving him to my room and com- mitted it to memory, and have repeated it again and again since that time." The reunion of Christendom was engaging his thought, and his working hours he devoted to a paper on the sub- ject for the Parliament of Religions held in connection with the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The com- position cost him much anxious and weary labor. Once he broke into the summer's mountain rest by going down to New York to meet Dr. Hermann Dalton of Berlin, then on his way around the world. In a description of the meeting, 1 Dr. Dalton says that he found Dr. Schaff at the hottest hour of an August day in his study engaged upon his manuscripts. He tried to produce a favorable feeling in his friend's mind toward the Parliament of Religions, and went over the leading thoughts of the paper he was preparing. " It was touching to see the intense interest with which he spoke. Now and again his voice would fail for utterance. Then again words carried the fervor of his 1 In the Evangefach-Reformirte Blatter, January, 1894, Leipzig. CHAP, xvni THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 483 soul when he said, ' It is the sum of my life and of my theological activity, and my testament to the church and to my contemporaries.' In taking leave of him I related how Fliedner a few days before his death called to me Auf Wiedersehen, and when I suggested that we might not meet again, Dr. Schaff smiled and replied, ' Und dock auf Wiedersehen, lieber Freund, entweder unter dem Himmel oder im Himmel ' [And still let us say, my dear friend, till we meet again, either under the heavens or in heaven]." Dr. Schaff' s address at the Parliament of Religions was set for September, the 25th. He arrived at Chicago in high spirits and seemed as eager as any young man in the full bloom of health and hope to see everything that was to be seen at the exposition, the neighboring grounds of the new Chicago University and the Parliament itself. " At a lunch given by a few friends at the Union League Club," writes Dr. Gray, the editor of the Interior, " he gave us in his inimitable style Hans Breitmann gave a party and between the stanzas joined heartily in the laughter." His physical alacrity and social freshness surprised even the members of his family. He struck Dr. Henry M. Field, who came upon him unexpectedly at the exposition grounds, "as one who can never grow old. His eye is as bright and his heart as warm as ever." "This is the place," he said, as he lingered in the chambers of the La Rabida, " to study the beginnings of American history." And as he sat down to rest on a bench outside and looked over Lake Michigan and back upon the splendid combination of the exposition buildings and at the great crowds peaceably surging through the grounds, he added, "This is the place to study what America has come to be. But who can dream what the future of this great country will be any more than we can dream what is out yonder on the lake beyond the horizon ? " 484 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 It was a surprise and a satisfaction to him to find, in look- ing over the five thousand volumes of the Model Village Library, in the Government building, no less than thirteen of his own writings, including his Creeds of Christendom and Church History. The bold project of gathering together in one conclave representatives of all the religions of the world had secured Dr. Schaff' s endorsement from the first. In reply to a communication from Dr. John Henry Barrows, to whose indefatigable efforts its success is largely to be attributed, he wrote early in 1 892 : I give you, with pleasure, the liberty of using my name in the list of those who recommend the holding of an inter- national and interdenominational religious congress in con- nection with the Columbian Exposition, hoping that such a congress will not only exhibit the religious progress of the world, but contribute also to a better mutual under- standing and the ultimate reunion of the various branches of Christendom. It will afford the broadest platform for the broadest study of comparative religion. He had arrived in Chicago at midnight after a wearisome delay on the train, but the first thing to be done the next morning was to go down to the city and seek out the Par- liament and learn how it "was getting along." Once at the Art Museum, where the sessions were held, he put on the badge and entered into the details of the project as if it was one of the great events of his life and he had never been at a convention before. Entering the rooms where the Roman Catholics had their headquarters, and carefully pre- serving the documents that were offered bearing on Ro- manism, he remarked : "They 1 are wise not to allow such an occasion to slip by unused. This Parliament affords a rare chance for publishing the truth, and the denominations have 1 With reference to the action of the Presbyterian General Assembly ad- verse to the Parliament. CHAP, xviii THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 485 missed an opportunity of a lifetime who have withheld them- selves from it. Influences will go out from here to the ends of the earth. We must use all means, if only we can reach men and preach the truth." At the close of his first day in Chicago, he wrote in his journal: "The World's Fair is a collection of all the wonders of modern civilization ; the impression is overwhelming and crushing. Chicago itself is the greatest wonder. The Parliament of Religions is a religious World's Fair, unique, an epoch-making fact, a new departure in the history of religion." Important as the one hundred and sixty congresses held during the Chicago Exposition were, the Parliament was the most important one, if we judge by the vastly larger throngs which attended its meetings, or the vastly larger amount of attention paid to its deliberations by the daily press of Chicago. It did not occur to Dr. Schaff that its chief use would be to afford an opportunity for the ethnic religions to exploit themselves or that it would make the impression that they were coordinate in value and author- ity with Christianity. He felt that, in the end, the truth would not be dimmed, much less smothered, by error, by giving erroneous systems a fair chance to be heard. The true David will be discovered when he comes to run his fingers over the harpstrings. It did not occur to him that he was sacrificing any of his Christian convictions by participating in its discussions, nor that any dishonor was being put upon Christianity as the supreme revelation of God by giving other religious systems an opportunity to state their beliefs and announce their achievements. What is done in a volume on comparative religion, it would not be irreverent to do on a platform where the representatives of different religions joined in discussion, so long as the movement was under proper Christian con- trol and guided by a reverent spirit. Christianity, he 486 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 said, has nothing to fear by comparison with other reli- gions, and the non-Christian constituency and the world have everything to learn. Dr. Schaff made his journey to the Parliament of Religions at the risk of his life. After leading the audience, on the morning of September 22, in the Lord's Prayer, he said : I was warned by physicians and friends not to come to Chicago. They said it might kill me. But I was deter- mined to bear my last dying testimony to the cause of Christian union in which I have been interested all my life. And if I die, I want to die in the Parliament of Re- ligions. The idea of this Parliament will survive all criti- cism. The critics will die, but the cause will remain. And as sure as God is God, and as sure as Christ is the way, the truth and the life, His word shall be fulfilled, and there will be one flock and one Shepherd. His strength not being sufficient to justify him in ex- posing himself to the excitement of reading his paper, the Rev. Dr. Simon J. McPherson read it for him, while he himself occupied a place on the platform. It was received with an ovation by a crowded audience in Columbus Hall, the applause culminating at the conclusion. On the plat- form sat Christians of different denominations, side by side with Chinese, Brahmans and Buddhists. It is not possible here to give more than a brief resume of what was characterized by Dr. Henry H. Jessup of Beirut as "apostolic, one of the most Christ-like utter- ances in all church history." * In accepting the invitation to prepare the paper, Dr. Schaff had written that he hoped to be able to present clearly and faithfully the lessons of his- tory, rather than any personal views on the great problem 1 Parts of the paper were also read at the congress of the Evangelical Alliance in Chicago. It was published by the Evangelical Alliance, Document XXXIII. pp. 70. An edition appeared after the author's death, containing the testimo- nies of twenty-five European and American divines of different denominations, on the subject of the paper. CHAP, xviii THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 487 of the reunion of Christendom on the basis of Christ and His Gospel of love and peace. After expressing the conviction that ultimately God will unite all His children in one flock and under one shepherd, he took up the different kinds of Christian union, and pronounced the union demanded by the pope upon the basis of submission to him an impossibility. He then urged confederate union between allied Protestant communions. As for the Chicago-Lambeth proposals, so called, he declared the "historic episcopate" an insupera- ble stumbling-block to all non-Episcopalians, which will never be conceded by them as a condition of church unity if it is understood to mean the necessity of three orders pf the ministry and of episcopal ordination in unbroken historic succession. Christ says nothing about bishops any more than about patriarchs and popes, and does not prescribe any particular form of church government. . . . " Let us learn something from history. All respect for the historic episcopate ! It goes back in unbroken lines almost to the beginning of the second century, and no one can dispute its historical necessity or measure its use- fulness. But God has also signally blessed the Lutheran, the Presbyterian and the Congregational ministry for many generations, with every prospect of growing useful- ness for the future ; and what God has blessed no man should lightly esteem. The non-episcopal churches will never unchurch themselves, and will only negotiate on the basis of equality and a recognition of the validity of their ministry. Each denomination must offer its idol on the altar of reunion." He went on to make a bold surmisal. 1 Should the 1 Reunion of Christendom, pp. 28, 29. These words were written before Leo XIII issued his famous encyclical calling upon the Greek and Protestant churches to return to the communion of the Roman Church. 488 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 federation of the Protestant churches be accomplished, the greater work would still remain to be done. If any one church is to be the centre of unification, the honor must be conceded to the Greek or the Roman communion. But will Rome ever make concessions to the truth of history ? Dr. Schaff replied that he hoped she would. What if the pope, in the spirit of the first Gregory and under the inspiration of a higher authority, should infalli- bly declare his own fallibility in all matters lying outside of his own communion, and invite Greeks and Protestants to a fraternal pan-Christian council in Jerusalem, where the mother-church of Christendom held the first council of reconciliation and peace ! But whether in Jerusalem or Rome, or (as Cardinal Wiseman thought) in Berlin, or (as some Americans think) on the banks of the Mississippi, the war between Rome and Constantinople, and between Rome, Wittenberg, Geneva and Oxford, will be fought out to a peaceful end, when all the churches shall be thoroughly Christianized and all the creeds of Christen- dom unified in the creed of Christ. After illustrating by historic examples the idea that the church must adjust her methods to the new social problems and her doctrinal statements to the established results of biblical and historical criticism and natural science, he brought forward five means for promoting Christian union. These are the cultivation of an irenic and evangelical catholic spirit, the personal intercourse of Christians of all denominations, cooperation in Christian and philan- thropic work, the study of church history in an unpar- tisan spirit and prayer offered in the spirit of the Lord's sacerdotal prayer. The paper closed with a glowing tribute to the various communions of Christendom from the Greek and Latin churches down to the Salvation Army, "the members of which are good Samaritans, an honor to the name of Christ and a benediction to a lost world. We welcome to the reunion of Christendom all CHAP, xvin THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 489 denominations which have followed the divine Master and have done His work. Let us forget and forgive their sins and errors, and remember only their virtues and merits. There is room for all these churches and societies in the kingdom of God." To his treatment of the reunion of Christendom, Dr. Schaff brought, as was to be expected, a large heart, an open and tolerant mind and an assured hope. If he holds that the practical solution of the problem, humanly speaking, lies in large part with the pope, he also lays stress upon the case of Peter and Paul at the Council of Jerusalem as a scriptural precedent for the movement of reconciliation starting with him. If he magnifies the necessity of personal attachment to Christ, it is because he saw therein the only tie of an abiding union in the family of Christian believers. And if he prefixed to his address the prayer of the Lord that His disciples might all be one and refers to it again and again, it was because he felt the safe ground for the assur- ance of the reunion of Christendom lies in His atoning sacrifice and His intercession. This testimony in favor of the reunion of Christendom at the Parliament of Religions was not an unfitting close to Dr. SchafFs public career. He had dealt with the subject often in essay and address at home and abroad. 1 For many years he had been identified with religious councils which had for their object its promo- tion. More than this, in his personal intercourse he had fraternized with men of all denominations and worshipped with profit in all Christian churches. Scholars of different communions at home and abroad he had united together in the preparation of a number of literary works. He served as president of the undenominational committee 1 A number of these papers are included in Christ and Christianity, pp. 124-310. 490 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 of Bible Revision. On his last visit to Washington City he called upon Bishop Keane. " He came out and em- braced me. Was not that remarkable ! " he exclaimed with his characteristic simplicity. At his death Dr. Bright, the veteran editor of the chief organ of the American Baptist churches, the Examiner , declared that " Philip Schaff did more than any other man of his time to promote Christian unity." Archdeacon C. C. Tiffany said : " He was a friend to all to whom his Master's cause was dear. No portion of His kingdom was without interest to him, or apart from his sympathies." Speaking as a member of the Catholic communion, Dr. Shahan, of the Catholic University at Washington, used the following words : 1 "On different occasions Dr. Schaff, it is remembered with gratitude by Catholics, corrected misstatements of their doctrines and rebuked exaggerated and false notions concerning them. . . . He belongs in the same category with men like George Calixtus, Grotius and Leibnitz, whose efforts for the reunion of Christians the Catholic Church remembers with sympathy, while she regrets their untimely failure. . . . When the Catholic historian and theologian considers his natural and acquired abilities, his earnest zeal, his manliness, his astounding productivity, he is tempted to exclaim : " Tails cum sis, utinam noster esses." And the reunion of Christendom was the very last interest of a public nature that engaged his mind and heart. His closing hours were occupied in reading the communications which he had solicited on the subject it treated from divines at home and in Europe, and in arrang- ing them for the printer. In his last days, which were at 1 Papers of the American Society of Church History, VI. pp. 24, 28. CHAP, xvin THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 491 hand, when it was hinted that his illness and approaching death were due to his exertion at the Parliament of Re- ligions, Dr. Schaff distinctly declared to members of his family that if he were certain that his toil upon his address and his journey to Chicago had brought on his sickness and were abridging his life, he still was glad that he had done what he did, and would under the same circumstances do the same thing over again. The chapter may fitly be closed with a letter from Dr. Godet written after he had received the pamphlet contain- ing Dr. Schaff' s paper, and dated Neuchatel, Oct. 2, 1893. It was the last letter but one (which was from a member of his family) that Dr. Schaff opened and read. It is magnificent, it is startling ! This is the exclamation with which I rise from the perusal of your paper, read at the council in Chicago. Yes, it strengthens the heart and gladdens one's faith to thus contemplate the work of God in its numerous ramifications and in spite of the modifica- tions to which human instruments have subjected it. And every one of your readers will join with you in the senti- ment of adoration in the words of St. Paul with which you close this beautiful work. . . . Thanks that you have given it to the church. Your optimism goes far when you picture to yourself the pope using his infallibility for pro- claiming his fallibility in a certain sense and beyond a cer- tain domain. You also go quite far in recognizing claims in certain denominations upon you for praise. But it is not possible to escape from the current of optimism and universality with which you impress the heart of the reader, who would like to join with you in saluting in advance the work of the twentieth century. For the time and in the face of the future which is very near, I must confess that I am profoundly a pessimist and that I see gathering a storm which will sweep over the church. But it may be that out of this ruin a saved church will come forth, re- juvenated and unified, as you hope. 492 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 CHAPTER XIX THE LAST DAYS 1893 Death smote him twice. He struck first time, . The flesh that shrank as his of old When angel-struck. The mind as bold As Jacob's climbed, serene, sublime, On breaking strength to God; as might Some Alpine traveller aglow, With daring thoughts, into the night, Walk firm on sinking crusts of snow. Death smote again ; he could not dim The light that overflashed his cloud, A glory wreathed the forehead bowed, So with the sound of creed and hymn The conquering saint bade coward death to fly " I never knew how easy 'twas to die." CHARLES L. THOMPSON. 1 Inauguration of a Successor Last Lecture Final Sickness Funeral General Estimate of Dr. Schaff 's Career German Learning and American Scholarship Dr. Schaffs Practical Bent Social Sympathies Friend to Students Religious Faith Tributes At the Funeral From Societies and Assemblies From Friends THE service to the Parliament of Religions being ren- dered, Dr. Schaff hurried back to his home to be present at the inauguration of his successor in Union Seminary, Professor Arthur C. McGiffert. The last entry in his journal relates to Dr. McGiffert's address, which he pro- nounces " excellent and the exercises most satisfactory." 1 "In Memoriam, Philip Schaff," The Inferior, Nov. 23, 1893. CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 493 Once more he lectured on propaedeutic, and he believed he would be able to follow it up with several lectures weekly. But he had overestimated his strength. During the first week in October he was busy getting together his tools, as he called his books and papers, for the continua- tion of his Church History, and met a number of exacting engagements outside of his study. On Sunday, October 8, he attended service at the Brick Presbyterian Church. In the afternoon a caller made a protracted visit, from which he ascended to his study feeling oppressively weary. He was quiet and heavy during the evening and, unable to converse or read, retired early. At three o'clock Monday morning he awoke with an agonizing pain in the region of the heart. During the following days he was confined to the house ; but, able a part of the time to sit in his study, he read a little, dictated a few letters and occupied himself as he felt able arranging the correspondence on the reunion of Christen- dom for publication. The nights were spent in restless- ness, an experience wholly new to him, and became an object of dread as only those can understand who have suffered the helpless weariness of insomnia. The agoniz- ing heart-pains returned. And yet there was hope, and the chief physician, Dr. William H. Thomson, said, " Doctor, you will get up from this attack, if nothing inter- venes." Early Wednesday morning, the i8th, a new foe intruded. It was a second stroke of paralysis. All hope of full recovery was taken away, nor was recovery to be asked, for in case life should be prolonged, the patient would be a helpless invalid. The paralysis rendered the left arm and lower limb motionless and deprived him of the power of speech. Consciousness continued, apparently without loss, and he communicated by signs. Late Thurs- day evening a son, who had come from a distance, found 494 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 his father still conscious, and during the entire night sat at the bedside, attempting to occupy his mind without weary- ing it. He had strength to make a violent effort to speak, but in vain. It is said of that teacher of many scholars, the Vener- able Bede, that after finishing the last words of his version of St. John's Gospel, he turned his face toward the spot where he was wont to pray and chanting the Gloria quietly passed away. Although on that last night it was not possible for Dr. Schaff to engage in audible worship, the main portion of the hours were occupied with listening to portions of Scripture, favorite hymns, the Creed, the Lit- any, the Te Deum, and some of the old collects to which he assented, and which he had made familiar to his family by constant use. Among the chapters said to him were some of the Psalms, the fourteenth chapter of John, and the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and other por- tions of the New Testament. To the English hymns were added German hymns, such as Ein feste Burg and Lamm das gelitten of Mrs. Heusser. Often when the passages expressed more distinctly our sinful estate or God's mercies, the patient marked his assent by a pressure of the hand, which he could still in a measure control, or later by the pressure of the elbow. And when the reference was to the coming glory and the estate of the blessed, he would make a motion upward with his forearm or hand, or by a movement of the eye. The last passages uttered were at half-past five Friday morning. When the words had been said through, which begin, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock," a slight movement of the forearm indicated assent and they were repeated again. Then it was said, "To him that over- cometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 495 written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." As the words were being spoken, it seemed as if the idea of a new name might suggest to the patient at that moment a train of thought not the most consoling and it was said, " It may be that the new name means 'believer or Christian,' " and there was a movement of the elbow as if that were not an agreeable interpretation and it was said, " But we believe it means the name of Christ, which only those can fully understand who believe," and here he made a repeated pressure outwards with his arm as if to express emphatic assent, and the words were added, " For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." At this he was agitated and made a great but futile effort to lift his arm as if to point upwards, as he had done before. A little while longer and the spirit returned to God who gave it, in the early morn- ing of Oct. 20, 1893. And now we repeated, as we had heard the father repeat at the departure of his children, " The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." The mail-carrier at his early round brought the Quarterly Review of the German Reformed Church, containing an article on the Crusades, one of the last writings from Dr. Schaff's pen. Among those that called during the day was Professor Shedd, who was destined to follow his colleague a few months later. Going out, he said to a member of the family : " We will all of us soon be gone. Death is a monster, but there is victory through Christ and eternal life. That is everything. The life here is a little thing and chiefly of value as a preparation for the life beyond." The body was placed in the study, where the sleeper rested close against the desk over which he had bent for a quarter of a century and with his books all around him as 496 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 silent witnesses of his assiduous and friendly use. Of them he had said, a few months before, as he walked around the room and looked up at the shelves : " These have never given me any trouble. They have never done me any harm. They have been good and patient friends." On Sabbath evening the casket was removed to the parlors below and placed underneath an oil portrait repre- senting Dr. Schaff in his St. Andrews' gown and cap, a copy of one presented by Mr. Charles Butler to Union Seminary. The funeral services were held on Monday, October 23, at ten o'clock, in the Church of the Covenant. Before leaving the house, the family read from Dr. Schaff 's own copy of Christ in Song: " Christ is arisen, joy to thee, mortal, Out of His prison, forth from His portal." Then eight students from the seminary, lifting the body of their teacher, firmly and tenderly bore it away. In spite of a fierce storm and the rain which swept angrily through the streets, the body of the church was filled, but not more than half a dozen ladies had dared to brave the weather. The pastor of the church, Dr. Mcllvaine, presided. The students of the seminary sang impressively, Art thon weary, art thou languid? and Luther's hymn, A safe stronghold, our God is still. The addresses were made by President Thomas S. Hastings as representing the later period and Professor Emil V. Gerhart as represent- ing the earlier period of Dr. Schaff' s life and friendships in America. The services were appropriately closed with the Te Deum and the Apostles' Creed, which were said by Dr. Gerhart, the congregation joining. The body was laid away in Woodlawn Cemetery, the student-guard remaining CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 497 with it to the end. A granite shaft bears the following inscription : VI VAT INTER SANCTOS. REV. PHILIP SCHAFF. JAN. i, iSig-Oer. 20, 1893. A TEACHER OF THEOLOGY FOR FIFTY YEARS. HISTORIAN OF THE CHURCH. PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE OF BIBLE REVISION. HE ADVOCATED THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM. In forming an estimate of Dr. SchafF s public career, four distinctive interests stand out prominently, his in- termediary mission between the biblical scholarship and church life of Europe and America, his work upon the Revision of the English Scriptures, his advocacy of Christian tolerance and the reunion of Christendom, and his labors as a church historian. 1 Of the last three feat- ures of his career, sufficient treatment has already been given. It is possible that his connection with the Revised Version is the feature which will preserve his name long- est in remembrance. This was the judgment of the secular press at his decease, as, for example, the New York Tribune, which said : 2 " Great as has been Dr. SchafF s work as an instructor, historian, commentator and an advocate of Christian freedom, his efforts for the Revision of the Authorized English Version of the Scriptures must take the precedence." 1 Dr. John De Witt, professor of church history at Princeton, in a letter on the occasion of Dr. Schaffs semi-centennial, wrote : " Your long, noble and wonderfully useful life, we all thank God for. Like every minister in the country, I am your debtor. Author, editor, mediator between German and Anglo-American theological thought, ecclesiastical diplomatist, uniting Ameri- can Protestantism in the Evangelical Alliance, and Presbyterians in the Alliance of the Reformed churches, and England and America in the Revision of King James' Version, I think your career an exceptionally great career." 2 Oct. 21, 1893. A l so tne Evening Post of New York and the Evening Telegraph of Philadelphia. 2K 498 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 Any future study of the influence of the theology of Europe upon American thought in this century will not overlook his name. His services in this sphere constitute the unique feature in his career. Moses Stuart was the pioneer in bringing the treasures of German theological learning, more particularly German exegesis, to the know- ledge of American students. Others followed where he had led. But Dr. Schaff was fitted, as no other man, to interpret Teutonic learning to the scholarship of America. He had sat at the feet of some of the leading German divines of the century, Schmid, Tholuck, Julius Muller, Twesten and Neander. He had enjoyed the personal acquaintance of almost all the theological leaders of his generation in Germany. When his intimacy is considered with that long line of eminent men, from Knapp, Nitzsch, Ullmann, Rothe and Hengstenberg, to Hase, Lange, Ebrard, Dorner, Hagenbach, Herzog, Wichern, Godet, Kahnis, Kostlin, Weizsacker and others, it will be felt what a rare advantage he had in this respect. If he heard Schelling, Ewald, Baur and Ranke, he also cultivated the acquaintance of Harnack, Schultze and Loofs. If his personal ac- quaintance ranged from Vatke to Wellhausen, it also ran from Glaus Harms and Krummacher to Dreiander and Weitbrecht among evangelical preachers. It is probable that a theologian could scarcely be found in Germany who had so wide a circle of friendships in the universities of his native country as had Dr. Schaff. He was regarded there as outside of all schools a sort of cosmopolitan in theology. And in the wide range and intimacy of per- sonal acquaintance with English and Scotch biblical scholars, it is probable no American equalled him. It is probably no exaggeration to say that he was on terms of personal intercourse with more Anglicans than any Ameri- can Episcopalian, with more Independents than any Ameri- CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 499 can Congregationalist and with more Scotch divines than any American Presbyterian. This influence in bringing the best German theological thought to America, Dr. Schaff exerted through his own theological personality and system, by specific interpre- tations of German systems from the conflicts of evangeli- cal teachers with rationalism and the school of Baur to the system of Ritschl, by translations and reproductions of German works and by introducing American students to the class rooms of German universities. Nor was his service an inconsiderable one, as has been indicated in a previous chapter, in making American institutions and theology known in Germany. In this regard no other man of his time can be compared with him. To this international function Lange gave recognition, from the European side, in the memorable inscription which he wrote in a copy of his Theological Encyclopedia and presented to Dr. Schaff in Bonn in 1877: Dem unermiidlichen Internuncius zwischen der alien und derneuen Welt (To the tireless internuncio be- tween the Old World and the New). Dr. Mann expressed the same thing in a letter when he called him " the pre- siding genius of international theology." " Dr. Bahrdt," so he himself wrote, "told me once, after I had made an address at the missionary festival in Basel (1854), 'You are a pontifex? that is, a bridge-builder. If I understand my- self, God has assigned to me the mission of a mediator between German and Anglo-American theology and Chris- tianity. I hope I have contributed something towards the mutual understanding and appreciation of European and American divines and the great cause of Christian union." The autograph album Dr. Schaff brought with him across the Atlantic contains words which seem to be almost prophetic. Here are the words of Professor Hein- rich Steffens, the Christian philosopher, who wrote with 500 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 trembling hand, March 4, 1844: "Let Europe live in America, bring America nearer to Europe and hasten the time when both continents shall understand each other in Him the Lord and Saviour. Thus we shall not be apart. God's blessing and merciful aid accompany you on your way." Bishop Hurst, himself a co-worker with Dr. Schaff in paths of church history and exegesis, has this to say : l - He saw whatever of German theology was best to intro- duce in this country. . . . He gave to multitudes of us our first passion to cross the water and go by a straight path to the feet of Tholuck, Dorner and other coryphaei of the later German theology. As in general literature future generations will remember Coleridge and Carlyle as first revealing to the Anglo-Saxon mind the wealth of German literature of the time of the Weimar pantheon, so will our friend, the youngest of us all in hope and the senior of us all in charity, be remembered gratefully as the first to bring to the Anglo-Saxon mind the theological treasures of the fatherland. If Dr. Schaff could have chosen one term above another by which to be remembered, it would have been that of Christian scholar. His was not a mind of creative, speculative genius, but a mind of large stores of knowledge, strong grasp and clear discrimination in arranging and presenting -the materials of scholarship in symmetrical and structural form. His eye seized the leading points. His power of generalization dominated his other mental habits. To the last he was a learner. An historian of the past, he did not linger in the past. His mind was open to new truth and he tried earnestly to find out the new ways of the future. " He was eminently wise and good, was the mas- ter of a culture very rich and various and exemplified very wonderfully the diligence which makes the most of life," wrote Principal Rainy. He used to say of himself : " I 1 Papers of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VI. pp. 7-12. CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 501 have not genius. I am simply a hard worker and what I am I owe to God and to constant application, keeping my wits about me." To his erudition, Dr. Schaff brought a practical bent of mind. His knowledge was not locked up in a chest ; there was no sound of bolt or key in getting at it. His resources were immediately available. Scholarship, for its own sake, he did not seek after. His studies were subservient to the aim of communicating knowledge and doing good. He took a genuine interest in movements of practical Christianity. If he participated in church councils, he commended the Salvation Army and attended national conventions of the Christian Endeavor Society and was stirred by their enthusiasm with new hope that Christian- ity was to conquer the world. At the Columbian Expo- sition he seemed as desirous to hear Mr. Moody again and to witness his methods for reaching the changing throngs as to see the exposition itself. He had a deep interest in young men which did not stop with words. " Give the young man a chance," was a sentence which he wrote not once or twice, but many times, commending many an applicant for a position as teacher or professor. Referring to this feature of his character, Professor Samuel Ives Curtiss writes : " His great cordiality and kindness to young men who were seeking to make a career in theological and literary lines impresses me most deeply. In this respect, I know of no man who I believe was so broad and disinterested in find- ing places for young theologians. It makes my heart warm to think of him." A similar testimony was borne by Dr. Ernest C. Richardson : l For that friendliness which is alert and ingenious to drop you a good word on behalf of the reputation or 1 Papers of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VI. p. 30. 502 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 prospects of another or for you to others, he was certainly unusual. The number of men having more or less favor- able positions of influence to-day who, if the history were traced, would be found to owe their opportunity to that word of Dr. Schaff must be considerable. In a letter called forth by Dr. SchafPs semi-centennial, Professor Matthew B. Riddle wrote : I place much emphasis upon the undoubted fact that you have done more than any scholar in America to set other men to work. In my own case I have, publicly and privately, said that without your kind offices and your urging, I should not have attempted most of the work that I have been able to do with that help. My tastes and habits were, I trust, scholarly, but I could not have done the drudgery and detailed work, had not you been a leader and guide. As I have known you longer than most of your friends and worked with you, beginning twenty- seven years ago, perhaps my testimony may be worth something. In his personal wants he was simple, as in his outward demeanor he was unostentatious. Wrote President Wash- burn of Robert College : " He had the heart of a child, so simple, so sincere, so absolutely without guile. I always felt that there was nothing he would not do for me if I should ask him, and he was always doing without waiting to be asked. I suppose the world will remember him as an historian, but all who knew him personally will remem- ber him first of all for his gentle, loving heart, his broad sympathies and his truly catholic spirit." His system of thought was controlled by loyal regard for Christ. In the Person of Christ, he laid down the per- sonal testimony : " Christ lives in me and He is the only valuable part of my being. I am nothing without my Saviour. I am all with Him and would not exchange Him for ten thousand worlds." His devotional spirit finds a striking expression in the collects written for Christ in CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 503 Song. Writing to Professor Stearns of Bangor (Feb. 2, 1891), he said: " Experience is after all the best antidote for agnosticism, scepticism and infidelity. The aim of our existence is to do the most good we can to the greatest num- ber. In the end we are all unprofitable servants. May we only be found faithful servants in the work which the Lord in His all-ruling providence has assigned to us. ... We must come to the conclusion that Christianity is life and power and independent of critical questions on the extent of the canon and the mode of inspiration." So he wrote at different times to a son. In his attitude to ecclesiasti- cal forms, he was churchly but not churchy. This dis- tinction is his own. After pronouncing the Epistle to the Ephesians the most churchly book of the New Testament, he adds, " Nothing can be further removed from the genius of Paul than that narrow, mechanical and pedantic churchiness which sticks to the shell of outward forms and ceremonies and mistakes them for the kernel within." 1 It was characteristic of his theology, as well as of his simple faith, that the last summer of his life it was his great desire to preach once more on the simplest of Gospel statements, from fulfilling which his friends, in the interest of his health, gently dissuaded him. And the text was John iii. 16, " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." " Criste's lore and his Apostles twelve He taughte, but first he folwed it himselve." In preserving some of the tributes which Dr. Schaff s death called forth, we shall be pursuing a plan which he followed himself in his books. 1 History of the Christian Church, Vol. I. p. 779. 504 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 In his funeral address, Dr. Hastings used the following words : Professor SchafFs Creeds of Christendom and his History of the Christian Church which the faculty of Berlin pronounced " the most notable monument of univer- sal, historical learning produced by the school of Neander," alone involved an amount of labor sufficient for an ordi- nary lifetime. In addition to these important works, was the prodigious task of transferring to our language and reconstructing the voluminous commentary of Lange and the great encyclopaedia of Herzog. Nothing short of heroic devotion could have accomplished so much. As I have seen him all these years, I have often thought of what Cecil said of Sir Walter Raleigh, " I know that he can toil terribly." If Hogarth's definition is true, " Genius is nothing but labor and diligence," or Buffon's, " Genius is protracted patience," or Carlyle's, " It is transcendent capacity for taking trouble," if these definitions are true, then cer- tainly Dr. Schaff was a genius. Professor Gerhart : Philip Schaif did not pass from one stage of his history to another by dismissing or superseding the true and good characteristic of the antecedent stage. But each period lived on in him in mature form. In respect of learning he was the peer of the foremost teachers of the fatherland. In the practical relations of his calling he was, as regards industry, foresight and persistence, the equal of his fellow- laborers on American soil. But the quality of character which is principally to be noted is that scholarship and energy, industry and freedom, manifold as were the de- partments of his literary labors, were all spontaneously consecrated to his Lord and Saviour. His faith in Christ was the profoundest formative principle of his ethical and spiritual life ; and in the transforming, sanctifying and en- nobling virtue of this faith he grew with the progress of his studies and the extension of his activity as an author. Those who knew him well during his first years in Mer- cersburg and also knew him well during the last ten years of his life could not but see and feel that he was growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Not less enthusiastic at the age of seventy than CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 505 twenty-five, his enthusiasm had in it less of the purely natural tone and much more of spiritual unction. Not less decided and firm as a catholic Christian, as an evangelical Protes- tant and a representative of the Reformed family, there was during his latter years a livelier sympathy with all who love our Lord, a warmth of fraternal fellowship, a gentle- ness and mellowness of personal character in his words and deeds and in the general habit of the man that indi- cated ripeness of Christian personality. The religious press of all Protestant denominations joined in enlarging upon his sense of order, his clear head and broad outlook ; his comprehensive knowledge unequalled in America, his marvellous memory and assiduity ; his lead- ership in the scholarship of the country ; his warm heart and lovable qualities ; his transfusion of German thought into American thinking and its adaptation to American wants; his position as representative of no one but of all Protestant churches and an honor to all ; the wide and beneficent influence he exerted upon the Christian thought of the age and his position as one of the best influences in the American Church, whose impress is permanent. 1 Professor McGiffert gave this estimate : 2 Though Dr. Schaff wrote ecclesiastical, not secular, his- tory, his work is of a general as well as of technical interest and its character such as to entitle him to a place among the greatest of American historians. With a marvellously tenacious memory, which gave him ready command of im- mense stores of learning, with a critical sense of no mean order, with a broad and catholic spirit which put him into sympathy with the best in all men and in all systems of thought however diverse from his own, and which emanci- pated him to a remarkable degree from the evil effects of prejudice and bigotry, he was peculiarly fitted for the 1 The expressions are taken from the German Reformed Messenger, Chris- tian Intelligencer, Lutheran, Lutheran Observer, New York Evangelist^ New York Observer, Examiner (Baptist), the Outlook and Christian Work (Congregational), Deutscher Volksfreund and Independent. 2 Harper's Weekly, Nov. 4, 1893. 506 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 work of an historian. . . . For the cause of biblical learn- ing few men have done so much as he. His work in this department alone insures him a permanent place in the memory of English-speaking Christians. . . . Upon all with whom he came in contact and among them more than a thousand theological students, he left the indelible impres- sion of his broad and noble manhood, of his magnificent devotion to a high ideal, of his unswerving loyalty to truth and of his untiring diligence in the pursuit of it. Memorial meetings were held at different churches east and west, by the faculty and students of Lane Seminary and under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance, the Century Association 1 and the American Society of Church History, and resolutions were passed by ministerial asso- ciations, synods and other religious bodies. The Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, at the head of whose original list of members Dr. Schaffs name stands, adopted a series of resolutions signed by Professor J. Henry Thayer, as chairman, from which the following extract is taken : Seldom does a man of foreign birth, who has won a name as a scholar before becoming an American citizen, succeed so completely as did Dr. Schaff in catching the spirit of our political and religious life, and coming to so thorough and sanguine a faith in our country's privileges and opportunities. So catholic was his spirit, so broad were his interests, so multifarious his activity, so enterpris- ing and many-sided his literary undertakings and achieve- ments, that he has often been pointed out as the typical American scholar. [After enumerating the publications that emanated from his pen, they go on :] These are of proportions which fairly entitle them to be called gigantic. In short, he is undoubtedly the most prolific writer in the department of theology our country can as yet boast of. ... He possessed rare skill for a scholar, in the popular presentation of learning; and no one could well 1 The address was delivered by Professor Marvin R. Vincent and published in full in the Report of the Association, 1894. CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 507 surpass him in imparting the contagion of his own enthu- siasm to others. Many were the young men of promise who were stimulated by the opportunities he opened for them, or by the association of their labors with his own. The memorial meeting under the auspices of the Ameri- can Society of Church History, held in New York, Dec. 27, 1894, bore striking witness to the wide range of Dr. Schaffs studies and his oecumenical habit of heart, in eight papers by scholars representing as many different confessions. 1 The topics presented him as a Bible student and Reviser, as uniting Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon schol- arship, as a church historian, as a literary worker and bibliognost and treated his relations to the Lutheran, Prot- estant Episcopal, Roman Catholic and Unitarian churches. The following minute, proposed by Professor Mitchell of St. Andrews, was passed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland : The Assembly takes this opportunity of expressing their deep sense of the great loss which the Alliance of the Reformed churches generally have sustained by the death of Dr. Philip Schaff, whose History of the Christian Church is so far in advance of those previously existing in the English language, and whose addresses in the Assembly of the Church of Scotland were always listened to with special delight. To these formal tributes we add private words from four of Dr. Schaff' s friends in Scotland, England, Switzerland and America, which were not written with an eye to publication. From Dr. Gloag : I greatly venerate the memory of Dr. Schaff. He was not only the most learned theologian with whom I was ever intimately acquainted but the most lovable of men. He has now entered upon the reward of his labors and 1 The Papers of the American Society of Church History, Vol. VI. pp. 1-33. 508 THE LIFE OF PHILIP SCHAFF 1893 is mingling in the company of Melanchthon, Neander and Schleiermacher and other kindred spirits whose character he venerated and whose virtues he imitated when in this world. From Dr. Alfred Plummer of University College, Dur- ham : Both as a student and a friend I owe him much ; and I shall always consider it one of the happinesses of my life to have known him. He had the happy combination of great ability and great learning which makes not only a successful accumulation of knowledge, but also a most successful imparter of it. In his published writings, so far as they are known to me, the judgment with which he selected the points to be chiefly insisted upon and the clear method exhibited in his arrangement of them were equally remarkable. This is splendidly illustrated in his Church History, which I believe to be the most instructive and helpful work of the kind in the English language. The spirit of piety and love of truth which pervaded his writings, although never paraded, are felt to be there. But with none of the things into which he threw himself with such enthusiasm and success have I deeper sympathy than his striving after the reunion of Christendom. It was in the very midst of them that he was taken to his rest felix opportunitate. Could those who loved him best have chosen the time of his departure, they could hardly have found a better hour than when he was en- gaged, in accordance with his Master's high-priestly prayer, upon such work as that. From Dr. Godet : I have never met a theologian among my contemporaries with whom I felt myself in such complete accord on almost all questions, scientific and ecclesiastical. And this accord about things on the circumference proceeded from an ac- cord more profound, and from that more intimate and real thing, that thing which is for the Christian the foundation of life, love for the divine-human person of the Saviour who has been revealed in His excellency, and who fits us to worship the only Being worthy of adoration He in us and God in Him that was the tie, it seems to me, from our first meeting, the point of contact between us, and it CHAP, xix THE LAST DAYS 509 remained the bond of our union unto the last day. ... I thank God for such a friend. My relations to him were full of sweetness and as full of profit to myself. I am confounded with astonishment at the abundance of his labors and of the literary productions which proceeded from his pen that extent of knowledge, that precision of care, that justice in appreciation, that firmness of faith, that warmth of piety, which made of him one of the most consummate theologians of our times, and with all that there was humility and charity, which are the most excellent crown of Christian disciples such was my old friend. The last words, adopted by the directors of Union Seminary, Nov. 14, 1893, are from the pen of Dr. George L. Prentiss : Philip Schaff spent nearly a quarter of a century in the service of the Union Seminary, as professor first of theo- logical encyclopaedia and Christian symbolism, then of sacred literature, and lastly of church history. It is not too much to say that in two of these departments he sur- passed all in this country who went before him, and left no equal either in the extent of his acquirements or in the value of the works which he gave to the public. He was our foremost church historian, and taught us more about the creeds of Christendom than all our other scholars. . . . He was a remarkable man, highly gifted in many ways, of immense learning, and specially fitted to do a great work for American Christianity. Through him the influence of such eminent servants of God in the land of Luther as Tholuck, Neander and Julius Miiller was widely felt and will continue to be felt on this side of the Atlantic. Nothing could have been more fitting and beautiful than the closing scene in the life of our revered friend and brother. He had just completed the semi-centennial anni- versary of the beginning of his theological career at Berlin, and the occasion brought to him from far and near congratulations and expressions of personal affection and esteem such as only merit of the very highest order can call forth. He died, as he lived, in the love and admiration of a goodly company of the leading Christian scholars of the world. 510 THE LIFE OF PHILIP S CHAFF 1893 Almighty God, who hast revealed Thyself in Thy Son Jesus Christ, as a God of infinite love and wisdom, and who dost offer us in Him complete salvation and everlasting bliss: work in us, by Thy Holy Spirit, a hearty, constant and abiding faith in Thee and in Thy Son, that we may never be ashamed to confess Him before men, and, following His holy example, may overcome the world, abound in fruits of righteousness and, having fought the good fight of faith, carry away at last the crown of life ; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, world without end. Amen. A COLLECT FROM " CHRIST IN SONG." APPENDIX LIST OF DR. SCHAFPS WRITINGS The works marked by a f are out of print ; those marked by a * are in the writers judgment his more, and by ** his most, important writ- ings. The list is arranged in part according to subjects and in part according to dates of publication. Dr. Schaff 's contributions to ency- clopaedias and reviews and the weekly religious papers are too numer- ous to be given. They extend over a period of fifty-five years, from an article on the Preparation of the World for Christianity ( Welt- historische Vorbereitung auf das Christenthum}, in the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, September, 1838, to an article on Denominational m and Sectarianism, in the Independent, November, 1893. ORIGINAL WORKS German fDiE SUNDE WIDER DEN HEiLiGEN GEisx, nebst einem historischen Anhang iiber das Lebensende des Francesco Spiera. (The Sin against the Holy Ghost, together with an historical Appendix on the Close of Francesco Spiera's Life.) pp. 210. Halle. 1841. fDAs VERHALTNISS DES JAKOBUS, BRUDERS DES HERRN, zu JAKO- BUS ALPHAI. (The Relation of James, the Brother of the Lord, to James, the Son of Alphaeus.) pp. 99. Berlin. 1842. *|DAs PRINCIP DES PROTESTANTISMUS. (The Principle of Protestant- ism.) pp. xiv, 1 80. Chambersburg, Pa. 1845. fDER ANGLOGERMANISMUS. (Anglo-Germanism.) English Transla- tion by J. S. Ermentrout. pp. 24. Chambersburg. 1846. fGESCHiCHTE DER AposTOLiscHEN KiRCHE, nebst einer allgemeinen Einleitung in die Kirchengeschichte. (History of the Apostolic Church.) English Translation, see below, pp. xvi, 576. Mer- cersburg and Philadelphia. 1851. 2d edition, revised and enlarged, pp. 680. Leipzig. 1854. Dutch Translation : GESCHIEDENIS DER APOSTOLISCHE KERK. pp. 718. Tiel. 1857. 5" 512 APPENDIX J-SYSTEMATISCHE WoHLTHATiGKEiT. English Translation : SYS- TEMATIC BENEVOLENCE, pp. 32. Mercersburg. 1852. f AMERIKA : Die politischen, socialen und kirchlich-religib'sen Zustande der Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika mit besonderer Riick- sicht auf die Deutschen, aus eigener Anschauung dargestellt. pp. xxiv, 366. Berlin. 1854. 3d edition, enlarged. 1865. English Translation : AMERICA, A SKETCH OF ITS POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTER, by Edward D. Yeomans. pp. 291. New York. 1855. Dutch Translation by De Schryver. Rotterdam. 1855. fDEUTSCHLAND UND AMERIKA. (Germany and America.) An ad- dress before the German Evangelical Church Diet at Frankfurt. 1854. JDER HEILIGE AuGUSTiNUS.' Sein Leben und Wirken. pp. vi, 129. Berlin. 1854. English Translation : SAINT AUGUSTINE. His LIFE AND LET- TERS, by Prof. Thomas C. Porter, D.D. pp. 150. London and New York. 1854. *CHRISTLICHER KATECHISMUS mit Bibelspriichen fur Schuleund Haus. (A Christian Catechism with Bible Texts, for the School and Home.) Chambersburg. 1861. Enlarged, pp. 192. Philadel- phia. 1862. Small edition, without Scripture proofs and notes. pp. 83. Both editions frequently republished, and since 1892 issued by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. An enlarged German edition by Prof. Dr. J. GEORG PFLEIDERER: Philip SchafTs Christliche Glaubens- und Sittenlehre. pp. 279. Stuttgart. 1874. DER ANGLO-AMERIKANISCHE SONNTAG. pp. 32. Sabbath Com ee Doc., No. XVII. New York. 1863. English Translation : THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SUNDAY. An address delivered at Saratoga, Aug. n, 1863. -f-DER HEIDELBERGER KATECHISMUS. Nach der ersten Ausgabe von 1563 revidirt, und mit kritischen Anmerkungen, sowie einer Ge- schichte und Charakteristik des Katechismus versehen. (The Hei- delberg Catechism, Revised according to the first edition of 1563, with critical notes and a history and characterization of the Cate- chism.) pp. 168. Philadelphia and Bremen. 1863. Revised edition, 1866. f DER BtiRGERKRIEG UND DAS CHRISTLICHE LEBEN IN NORD AMER- IKA. (The Civil War and Religious Life in the United States. An address delivered in Berlin and other cities of Germany.) pp. 72. Berlin. 1865. 3d edition, 1866. English Translation by Rev. C. C. Starbuck, in the Christian Intelligencer, New York. 1866. APPENDIX 513 JGESCHICHTE DER ALTEN KiRCHE von der Geburt Christ! bis zum Ende des 6ten Jahrh. (History of the Early Church from the Birth of Christ to the Close of the 6th Century.) pp. xvi, 1250. 1867. 2d edition in 3 vols. Leipzig. 1869. *DiE PERSON JESU CHRISTI: das Wunder der Geschichte. (The Person of Jesus Christ: The Miracle of History.) For English edition, see below. Gotha. 1865. pp. 234. New York. 1865. PP- 336. Dutch Translation by J. H. Cordes, with an Introduction by Dr. J. J. van Oosterzee. Groningen. 1866. French Translation by M. Sardinoux. Toulouse. 1866. Italian Translation by G. Romano. Florence. 1896. Also translations in Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, Japanese, etc. DIE CHRISTUSFRAGE. pp. 39. Berlin. 1871. New York. 1872. f AUGUST NEANDER. Erinnerungen. pp. viii, 76. Gotha. 1886. English *fTHE PRINCIPLE OF PROTESTANTISM, as related to the Present State of the Church. Translation, with an Introduction, by Dr. John W. Nevin. pp. 215. Chambersburg. 1845. fWHAT is CHURCH HISTORY? A Vindication of the Idea of Histori- cal Development. Translated from the German by Dr. Nevin. pp. 128. Philadelphia. 1846. fDANTE's DIVINA CoMMEDiA. An Address before the Goethean Lit- erary Society of Marshall College, August 28, 1846. Translated by Jeremiah H. Good. pp. 47. Chambersburg. 1846. fAMERiCAN NATIONALITY. An Address before the Irving Society of the College of St. James, Md. pp. 24. 1856. ^GERMANY: ITS UNIVERSITIES, THEOLOGY, AND RELIGION. With sketches of distinguished German divines of the age. pp. 418. Philadelphia. 1857. - Dutch Translation by Dr. D. Harting. Utrecht. 1858. {THE MORAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. An Address before the Porter Rhetorical Society of Andover Seminary, August I, 1860. pp. 53. Chambersburg. 1861. **A CHRISTIAN CATECHISM FOR SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. Chambersburg. 1861. Philadelphia. Large edition, with Proof- texts and Notes, pp. 167. Small edition, pp. 74. Now pub- lished by American Sunday School Union, and also in various editions, authorized and unauthorized, Boston, New York, Phila- delphia and Toronto. Translated by American missionaries into the Nestorian, Arabic, Syriac, Chinese, Bulgarian, and other lan- guages. 2L 514 APPENDIX **HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH, with a General Introduction to Church History. Translated by Edward D. Yeomans. pp. 684. New York. 1853. Several editions unchanged. Edinburgh. 1854. 2 vols. {HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH from the Birth of Christ to Gregory the Great, 1-600 A.D. 2 vols. pp. 528, 1037. New York. 1858-1867. Superseded. **HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 5th edition, thoroughly revised and enlarged. New York and Edinburgh. 1882-1892. Vol. I. Apostolic Christianity, A.D. i-ioo. pp. 871. Vol. II. Ante-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 100-325. pp. 877. Vol. III. Nicene and Post- Nicene Christianity, A.D. 325-600. pp. 1049. Vol. IV. Mediaeval Christianity, A.D. 590-1073. pp. 799. Vol. VI. Modern Chris- tianity The German Reformation, pp. 755. Vol. VII. Modern Christianity The Swiss Reformation, pp. 890. Partial trans- lations into Chinese by Rev. D. Z. Sheffield, and into Hindustani by Rev. Robert Stewart. *THE PERSON OF CHRIST : The Perfection of His Humanity Viewed as a Proof of His Divinity. With a collection of impartial testi- monies, pp. 375. Boston. 1865. Revised edition. New York and London. i2th edition. 1882. Last edition. 1895. {THE REPORT OF DR. SCHAFF'S MISSION TO EUROPE IN BEHALF OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE FOR THE SIXTH GENERAL CON- FERENCE, pp. 39. New York. 1870. {REPORT OF THE DEPUTATION OF THE AMERICAN BRANCH OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, APPOINTED TO MEMORIALIZE THE EM- PEROR OF RUSSIA IN BEHALF OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, pp. 32. New York. 1871. f CHRISTIANITY IN THE UNITED STATES. Address before the Seventh General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance. Basel, Switzer- land, pp. 69. New York. 1879. {THE CONCORD AND DISCORD OF CHRISTENDOM. An Address de- livered before the Eighth General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance at Copenhagen. English, Danish, and German, pp. 39. 1884. {THE HARMONY OF THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS, as related to the Present State of Evangelical Theology. An Address before the First Council of the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance at Edinburgh, 1877. pp. 70. Edinburgh and New York. 1877. fTHE THEOLOGY FOR OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. Inaugural Address as Professor of Union Theological Seminary, pp.27. New York. 1872. THE REVISION OF THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE. pp. 49. New York. 1873. Also as an Introduction to the Essays APPENDIX 515 of Lightfoot, Trench and Ellicott, on Revision. New York. 1873. 3d edition. 1877. **BlBLIOTHECA SYMBOLICA ECCLESLE UNIVERSALIS. THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM. New York and London. 1877. 6th edition. 1893. 3 vols. Vol. I. The History of Creeds, pp. xvii, 941. Vol. II. The Greek and Latin Creeds. With translations. 6th edi- tion. 1896. pp. vii, 607. Vol. III. The Evangelical Protestant Creeds. With Translations. 6th edition. 1894. pp. vii, 914. *THKOUGH BIBLE LANDS, pp. 434. New York and London. 1878. Revised edition, pp. 460. 1889. *A DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, pp. 960. Philadelphia. 1880. 5th edition, revised. 1890. Translations in Italian by Enrico Meille. Florence. 1891. Arabic by Dr. Post, of Beirut; Marathi by Kassim Mohammed Dhalwauee and Henry J. Bruce, and other languages. A COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. In " The International Revision Commentary on the New Testament." pp. 416. New York. 1882. *A COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. In "The International Popular Commentary on the New Testament." pp. 66. New York. 1882. **A COMPANION TO THE GREEK TESTAMENT AND THE ENGLISH VER- SION. With facsimile illustrations of MSS. and of standard editions of the New Testament, pp. xvii, 616. New York. 1883. 7th edition, revised. 1896. THE TEACHING OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES ; or, THE OLDEST CHURCH MANUAL, pp. 301. New York and Edinburgh. 1885. 3d edi- tion, revised, pp. 325. 1889. SAINT AUGUSTIN, MELANCHTHON, NEANDER. pp. 168. New York. 1886. * CHURCH AND STATE IN THE UNITED STATES, pp. 170. New York. 1888. Italian Translation by P. Fea. Torino. 1892. fTHE TOLERATION ACT OF 1869. A Contribution to the History of Religious Liberty, pp. 59. London. 1888. THE PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AS SHOWN IN THE HISTORY OF TOLERATION ACTS. pp. 126. New York. 1889. f HISTORY OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. An Address before the Hugue- not Society of America, March 21, 1889. pp. 29. New York. 1890. fTHE EIGHTH CENTENARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. Re- port before the New York University, April 18, 1889. pp. 29. New York. 1889. *CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. Studies in Christology, Creeds and 516 APPENDIX Confessions, Protestantism and Romanism, Reformation Principles, Slavery and the Bible, Sunday Observance, Religious Freedom, and Christian Union, pp. 310. New York and London. 1885. CREED REVISION IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES, pp. 67. New York. 1889. 2d edition, revised. 1890. *LITERATURE AND POETRY. Studies in the English Language, the Poetry of the Bible, Dies Irae, Stabat Mater, Hymns of St. Bernard, the University, Dante and the Divina Commedia. pp. xi, 436. New York. 1890. The essay on Dante was translated into Italian by Professor Marco Lessona. pp. 56. Turin. 1892. fDANTE's THEOLOGY, pp. 21. New York. 1890. *THE RENAISSANCE, pp. 132. New York. 1891. (THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION. A paper prepared for the Ninth General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, held in Florence, Italy, pp. 17. New York. 1891. Italian Translation by Rev. Giov. Luzzi. pp. 29. Florence. 1891. fTHE MYTH OF LUTHER'S SUICIDE. A refutation of Paul Majunke's Luther's Lebensende. New York. 1890. SAINT CHRYSOSTOM AND SAINT AUGUSTIN. pp. 158. New York. 1891 . fTHE FRIENDSHIP OF CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON. pp. 21. New York. 1892. **THEOLOGICAL PROPAEDEUTIC. A General Introduction to the Study of Theology, pp. 596. New York. 1893. *THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM. A paper prepared for the Parlia- ment of Religions, pp. 71. New York. 1893. EDITED WORKS German DER DEUTSCHE KIRCHENFREUND. ORGAN FUR DIE GEMEINSAMEN INTERESSEN DER AMERIKANISCH-DEUTSCHEN KIRCHEN. (The German Church-Friend. An organ for the common interests of the American-German churches.) Mercersburg. 6vols. 1848-1853. EVANGELISCHE ZEUGNISSE AUS DEN DEUTSCHEN KlRCHEN IN AME- RIKA. Eine homiletische Monatschrift. (Evangelical Testimonies from the German Churches in America. A homiletic monthly.) Philadelphia. 1863-1866. **DEUTSCHES GESANGBUCH. (German Hymn-book.) pp. xiv. 663. 1859. Enlarged edition, 1874. Philadelphia and Cleveland. Dif- ferent editions, with and without tunes. GESANGBUCH FUR DEUTSCHE SONNTAGSSCHULEN. (Hymn-book for German Sunday Schools.) pp! 272. Philadelphia and New York. 1864. APPENDIX 517 fGEDENKBUCH DER DREIHUNDERTJAHRIGEN JUBELFEIER DES HEIDEL- BERGER KATECHISMUS IN DER DEUTSCH-REFORMIRTEN KIRCHE DER VEREINIGTEN STAATEN. (Memorial of the Tercentenary Celebration of the Heidelberg Catechism in the German Reformed Church of the United States.) pp. 449. Chambersburg and Phila- delphia. 1863. English A LITURGY; or, ORDER OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, pp. 408. Phila- delphia. 1857. **A COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. By JOHN P. LANGE and other European divines. New York and Edinburgh. 1864- 1880. 25 vols. Cheap edition, 1884-1886. Dr. Schaff translated and enriched the Commentary on Matthew, the first three chap- ters of Luke, wrote the annotations on St. John and on Romans (chs. 1-9), an essay on Hebrew poetry in the volume on Job, and Introductions. *THE INTERNATIONAL ILLUSTRATED COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. 4 vols. New York and Edinburgh. 1879-1882. The maps by Arnold Guyot ; the illustrations by William M. and William H. Thomson. Called also A POPULAR COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. New edition, 1888. THE INTERNATIONAL REVISION COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTA- MENT. Carried through Romans. New York. 1882-1884. THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY : Including UEBERWEG'S History of Philosophy, New York and London, 1871, 2 vols. ; VAN OOSTERZEE'S Christian Dogmatics, 1874, 2 vols., and his Practical Theology, 1879. ** CHRIST IN SONG. Hymns of Immanuel. pp. xx, 701. New York. 1868. Republished in London, pp. 577, 1869. Last edition (en- . larged), 1895. 2 vols. LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS POETRY. In connection with Arthur Gilman (the chief editor), pp. xxxi, 1004. New York. 1880. New edi- tion, 1885. HYMNS AND SONGS OF PRAISE FOR PUBLIC AND SOCIAL WORSHIP. In connection with Roswell D. Hitchcock and Zachary Eddy, pp. 597. New York. 1874. EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE CONFERENCE. History, Essays, Orations, and other Documents of the Sixth General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, held in New York, 1873. Edited in connec- tion with S. Irenaeus Prime, pp. 773. New York. 1874. J-THE VATICAN DECREES IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE ; A POLITICAL EXPOSTULATION. BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLAD- STONE, M.P. To which are added: A History of the Vatican 518 APPENDIX Council ; together with the Latin and English text of The Papal Syllabus and the Vatican Decrees. By Philip Schaff, D.D. pp. 1 68. New York. 1875. flN MEMORIAM. Our Children in Heaven. For Private Circulation, pp. 76. New York. 1876. DOCUMENTS OF THE NEW YORK SABBATH COMMITTEE, from 1863-1867. DOCUMENTS OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. Nos. II I. -XV. from 1869-1884. New York. ANGLO-AMERICAN BIBLE REVISION. By Members of the American Revision Committee, pp. iv, 192. Philadelphia and London. 1879. {OFFICIAL LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS OF THE AMERICAN BIBLE REVISION COMMITTEE. Private and Confidential, pp. 186. New York. 1885. An abridgment, prepared by President Timothy Dwight, was sent to the subscribers to the Memorial Edition of the Revision. THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE ORIGINAL GREEK. By WESTCOTT & HORT. With an Introduction of eighty-nine pages prepared by Dr. Schaff. New York. 1881. 5th edition, revised, 1893. **RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPAEDIA: Based on the Real-En cyklopadie of Herzog, Plitt and Hauck. In connection with Prof. Samuel M. Jack- son, D.D., LL.D., and Prof. D. S. Schaff, D.D. New York. 1884. 3 vols. 3d edition, revised and enlarged, in 4 vols., which includes the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIVING DIVINES. 1891. Usually called the " Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia. 1 ' Dr. Schaff was one of the associate editors of Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, contributed to Appleton's American Cyclopedia, the German Herzog (first and second editions), Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Dictionary of Christian Biography, McClintock and Strong's Theological Ency- clopedia, Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, etc. *A SELECT LIBRARY OF THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. First Series. 14 vols. (St. Augus- tin and St. Chrysostom). New York. 1886-1890. Second Series (with HENRY WAGE, D.D., Principal of King's College, as co- editor). 13 or 14 vols. Dr. Schaff's supervision closed with Vol. I. (Eusebius) ; and II. (Socrates and Sozomenus). New York and Oxford. 1890. 11 vols. thus far. WILMORE'S NEW ANALYTICAL REFERENCE BIBLE, pp. 2189. New York. 1891. Dr. Schaff is responsible for the Comprehensive Bible Helps and the Preface. THE AMERICAN CHURCH HISTORY SERIES. 13 vols. New York. 1893 sqq. Dr. Schaff originated the plan, selected the contributors and arranged for the publication. INDEX Abbot, Ezra, estimate of, 340, 362; work on Dr. Schaff's Companion to the New Testament, 376, 379, 381. Abelard, 180. Adams, William, 205, 259, 262, 271; and Union Theological Seminary, 286, 311, 323; tribute to, 334. ^Etna, Mt., 42. Agassiz, 333. Agrigentum, 40. Aiken, Charles A., 362. Alexander, J. Addison, 144; on Dr. Schaff's Apostolic Church, 165, 414, 466. Alexander, James Waddell, 161. Alforcl, Dean, on Dr. SchafPs Apostolic Church, 1 66, 245, 246, 355. Alliance, Evangelical. See Evangeli- cal Alliance. Alliance of the Reformed churches, London Conference, 276; Edinburgh Council, 301, 317; Belfast Council, 342; London Council, 409. Allon, Henry, 403. Alzog, 250. America, religion in, 140; love of ser- mons in, 141; destiny of, 144 sqq.; Metternich on, 185; its type of Christianity, 287. American Christianity in Germany, 240. American Society of Church History, 465, 57- Andover, Dr. Schaff lectures at, 212. Andrews, St., confers title of D.D. on Dr. Schaff, 409. Anglo-Germanism. See Germany. Angus, Joseph, 257, 357 sqq. Apostolic Church, History of, 163 sqq. Apostolic succession, 88, 487. Appel, Theodore, 101, 219, 418. Apple, Thomas G., 218, 242, 319. Arminianism, 426 sqq. Athens, 314. Atterbury, W. W., 482. Auberlen, 189. Aughinbaugh, G. W., 95. Bacon, Leonard, 144; on Dr. Schaff's Apostolic Church, 166. Bahrdt, 499. Bancroft, 205, 248. Baptism, Roman Catholic, 390 sqq. Barrows, John Henry, 484. Basel, 189; conference of the Evan- gelical Alliance, 330. Baur, viii, 18 sqq. Bausman, on Dr. Schaff in 1844, 99; as a lecturer, 126, 199, 319, 473. Baxter monument, 276. Beck, John, 200. Beck of Tubingen, 239. Beckwith, Colonel, 58. Beecher, H. W., and the Germans, 226; and Princeton, 274; his death, 404. Belfast, Council at, 342. Bellows, Dr., 205. Berg, Joseph F., 73, 114, 120, 199. Berlin, university of, in 1840, 32 sq. ; letter to Dr. Schaff in 1892, 466. Bersier, 247. Bethmann-Hollweg, von, 181. Bible Revisers, list of, 362 sq. Bible, Revision of the English, 324, 328, 330, 354 sqq., 474; American committee formed, 366; expenses f 377 > cooperation imperilled, 367 sqq. ; the Revision issued, 382; 519 520 INDEX Dr. Schaffs part in, 357, 388, 497; his judgment of the Revision, 364, 379, 384 sqq. Bishop, Nathan, 260, 335. Bismarck, and the Roman Catholic Church, 331 sq.; as a statesman, 414. Blackie, Professor, 322. Blaikie, W. G., and the Alliance of Reformed Churches, 301, 318, 320; Dr. Schaffs letter to, 480. Bleek, 78. Bliss, President, 313. Boardman, Dr., 245. Bologna, University, celebration, 407. Bomberger, 120, 202, 203. Bonn Conference of Old-Catholics, 277 sqq. Books, a use of, 244. Bradley, Dean, 328. Briggs, Charles A., 248; attacks the Revised Engl. Bible, 385 ; inaugural, 429, 43 1 * 437- Bright, Dr., 490. Brown, David, 424. Brown, Bishop of Winchester, 330, 369, 37- Brown, James, 286. Brown, John Crosby, 262. Brownson, Dr., 167. Buchanan, President, his birth, 96, 131, 174; on the Union, 206. Biichsel, 331. Budd, S. I., 101. Bull-fights, Spanish, 402. Bunsen, 166, 174, 176, 178. Burgon, Dean, 344, 385. Burr, J. K., 363. Butler, Charles, 286, 409, 470, 496. Cairo, 303. Calderwood, Professor, 342. Calvin, 342, 396; and Servetus, 437, 462. Calvinism, 286, 321, 426 sqq. Carrasco, 249, 274. Cartmell, Professor, 375. Catechism, Dr. Schaffs, 133. Chambers, Talbot W., 362, 373, 388. Chase of Haverford, 328, 363, 381. Chautauqua, 337. Chicago-Lambeth Articles, 487. Chicago Times and Tribune print the Revised New Testament, 382. Children, Dr. Schaffs, I34sq., 299 sq. Christ in Song, 208. Christian Union, 252 sqq., 273. Christlieb, 72, 247, 271. Chur, 6, 188, 419. Church and state, 140, 1 86. Church historian, Dr. Schaff as a, 121, 164 sqq., 454 sqq. Church history, study of, 466. Civil War, the, 209 sqq. Clark, Sir Thomas, 318. Colosseum, the, 44. Columbia Exposition, 483 sq. Comba, Professor, 461. Companion to the Greek Testament, 336, 340, 376. Conant, 362. Confession of faith needed, 429. Congregational Union, the, 244. Consensus Creed, 321, 341. Constantinople, 314. Cook, Emil, 274. Copenhagen, conference of the Evan- gelical Alliance at, 351. Coptic wedding, 306. Corrigan, Archbishop, 416. Coxe, Bishop, 227. Craven, Elijah R., 232. Creed Revision in the Presbyterian Church, 423 sqq. Creeds, binding force of, 138. Creeds of Christendom, 454. Crooks, George A., 363. Crosby, Howard, 328, 333, 363, 379, 38i. Cumberland Presbyterians and the Alliance of the Reformed Churches, 3I9- Gumming, Dr., 177. Curtiss, Samuel Ives, 501. Cuyler, Theodore L., 326, 329 sqq., 407, 446. Dalton, Dr., 482. Day, George E., 144, 362, 366, 375, 383. Dead Sea, 311. INDEX 521 Delitzsch, 248, 397. Dennis, J. S., 313. Detroit, General Assembly at, 431, 434. De Witt, John, 363. De Witt of Princeton, 497. Didache, 7Yie, 340. Dillmann, 331, 396. Discord and Concord of Christendom, 351- Dodge, William E., 257, 260, 286. Dollinger, 28, 262, 278 sqq., 345,412. Dorner, 22, 67, 75, 256, 271 sq., 292, 318, 331, 345. Drake, Judge, 391. Drew Seminary, 243. Dulles, 414. Dwight, Timothy, 363, 373, 381, 386, 474- Dykes, Oswald, 301, 471. Eastern Question, the, 181. Ebrard, 68, 72, 102, 498. Edinburgh, 172; Council at, 317 sqq. Egypt, 302 sqq. Ellicott, Bishop, 330, 355 sq., 362, 366, 368, 378, 384, 387- Emerson, Edwin, 238. Engadin, 4, 191, 249. England, 82 sq.; Church of, 84; power of, 85, 237 sq. English, Dr. Schaffs use of, ix, I37sq. Erbkam, 66. Evangelical Alliance, the, 9, 138, 244; New York Conference of, 252 sqq.; 265 sqq., 271; in Egypt, 306; in Copenhagen, 352 sq.; at Basel, 330; at Florence, 419. Evangelist, the, 392, 446. Evening Post, 497. Ewald, 20 sqq. Exodus, the, 308. Farrar, A. S., 341. Farrar, Fred. W., 341, 417, 475. Field, Henry M., 205; on Dr. Schaff, 275, 329, 446, 483- Findlater, Eric, Rev., 322. Fisher, George P., 453, 457, 463. Florence, 419. Footwashing at Rome, 49. Franco-Prussian War, 257, 269. Franklin and Marshall College. See Marshall College. Frederick William III., dining with, 183- Freeman, Edward A., on Dr. Schaff 's Church History, 463. Funk, Professor, 411, 416. Gaussen, 60. General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, at Cincinnati, 390 sqq.; at Detroit, 431 sqq.; at Washington, 471. Geneva, 60 sqq. Gerhart, Emil V., 120, 162, 189, 197, 476, 496; on Dr. Schaff, 504. German churches in America, 98, 142, 147 sqq., 1 55 sqq., i6osqq. German Reformed Church, the, church~i festivals, 123; history of, 152; Ger-/ man element in, 154; liturgy of, I 202 sqq.; Dr. Schaff bids farewell to, 218 sq.; influence on, 418. German universities visited, 392 sqq., 420 sqq. German theology. See Theology. German views of America, 75, 80 sq., no (note), 148, 154. Germany and its Universities, 207. Gibbons, Archbishop, 416. Gilfillan, 229. Gladstone, 281, 370. Gloag, 424, 436, 437, 438, 479, 57- Gobat, Bishop, 311. Godet, 67, 270, 318, 320, 340, 402, 421, 443, 447, 491, 508. Good, Jeremiah, 101. Gortschakoff, 260. Gospels, 479, 481. Grant, General, 444. Graubiindten, canton of, 4, 6. Gray, W. C., 483. Greeley, Horace, 297. Green, Traill, 101. Green, William H., 362, 375. Gregory XVI, 53. Hackett, H. B., 233, 363. Hadley, James, 297, 363. 522 INDEX Hagenbach, 189, 498. Hall, John, 267, 270, 333. Hall, Thomas C, 292 sq. Halle University, 27 sqq. Hamlin, Teunis S., 293. Harbaugh, 142, 197, 218, 243. Hare, George E., 362. Harless, 262. Harms, Glaus, 35 sq. Harnack, 394, 400, 458, 460, 463. Harpers Weekly, 505. Hartford, Dr. Schaff called to, 243. Hase, 28, 398, 498 sq. Hastings, President, viii, 496, 504. Hatch, 341. Hefele, 411. Hegel, 1 8. ^Heidelberg Catechism, 216. Heidelberg Celebration, 400 sq. Heiner, Elias, 117. Helfenstein, Jacob, 116, I2O. Hendel, Dr., 94. Hendrix, 226, 312. Hengstenberg, 32, 72, 162, 182. Henni, Archbishop, 334. ' Heresy trial, Dr. Schaff's, 106, 1 18 sqq. Hergenrother, Cardinal, 417. Herzog, 62, 216. Herzog, Schaff-, Encyclopaedia, 336. Heusser, Meta, 8, 32, 36, 85, 134, 139, 209, 242, 249, 298. Higher criticism, the, 397, 422, 430, 439 sqq., 478 sq., 480. Hill, Timothy, 327. Historical development, 167 sqq. History of the Christian Church, 207, 454, s5 s qq- Hitchcock, Roswell D., 207, 285, 306, 353, 405, 453- Hodge, A. A., 342. Hodge, Charles, 30; on the Principle of Protestantism, 113 sq., 167, 200, 205; jubilee, 265, 390, 414. Hofacker, William, 15. Hoffeditz, 71, 93, 118, 141. Hoffmann, 160, 182. Hoge, Moses D., 195. Hogg, 307. Holy Spirit, Procession of, 279 sq. Hort, 362, 374, 384. Howson, 363. Hundeshagen, 297. Hurst, Bishop, 234, 333, 465, 500. Hyacinthe, 251. Hymn-book, German, 207. Hymnology, Dr. Schaff s contributions to, 207, 209. Ignatius, Father, 237. Imboden, General, 215. Inaugural at Reading, 106; in New York, 288, 406. Independent, 392, 423. International Commentary, 234. lona, 322. Irons, Dr., 83. Irvingites, 178. Italy, Dr. Schaff travels in, 38 sqq., 415 sqq.j unification of, 258. Jackson, Samuel M., 445. Jacobi, 35, 66. Jacobs, Professor, 157. James, D. Willis, 286. Jerusalem, 310. Jessup, 312, 316, 486. Jesuit sermons, 45. Jesup, 286-, 387, 417. John's Gospel, 394, 422, 479. Johnson, Herrick, 425. Johnson, Reverdy, 244. Jowett, Professor, 86. Kahnis, 65 sq., 181, 397. Kalkar, 350. Kalopothakes, 315. Kapff, 12, 229. Kawerau, 457. Keane, Archbishop, 490. Keller, Eli, 203, 211. Kendrick, Professor, 363, 381. Kind, Antistes, 7, 298. Kirchenfreiind, 1 6 1 . Kirchentag, 160, 193. Knapp, 15, 192. Kokle, 459, 464. Kornthal, n sq. Kostlin, 400, 453, 462, 498. Krafft, 247, 271, 396. Krauth, 143, 363, 372. INDEX 523 Krocher, Mrs. von, 32, 298. Krummacher, 71, 78, 79, 145, 182, 192, 248. Kurtz, 28, 394. Lancaster, 131, 218, 474. Landerer, 77. Lange, u, 78, 139, 190, 230, 233, 247, 345 347. 499- Lauxmann, 410. " Lead, Kindly Light," 481. Lechler, 397. Lee, Bishop, 363, 365, 373, 379, 381. Leinbach, 94. Leo of Halle, 180, 263. Leo XIII, 488. Lewis, Tayler, 113, 144, 363. Liberty, religious, 259, 432, 439, 440. Lieber, 297. Liebner, 68, 181. Lightfoot, Bishop, 341, 362, 422, 464. Lincoln, 236. Liturgical forms, Dr. Schaff on, 204. Liturgy of the Reformed Church, 201 sqq. Loofs, 400. Loos, Archbishop, 266. Lorriaux, 274. Luther, 338. Luther Celebration, 337. Lutherans, 151, 157, 159, 181. Lutherans, Old-, 138, 181 sq., 338. Lutheran Observer on Dr. Schaff, 112. Macleod, Norman, 245, 297. Malan, 60. Mann, Dr., 13, 136, 161, 338, 393, 402, 413. 437. 438, 444, 462. Manning, Cardinal, 193 sqq. Marheineke, 76. Marriage, Dr. Schaffs, 133. Marsh, G. P., 355. Marshall College, 101, 124, 120; Dr. Schaff, president-elect, 131. Marvin, Bishop, 312. Matterhorn, 238. Maurice, F. D., 84, 174, 297. May anniversaries, 82 sqq. McAlpin, D. H., 286. McClintock, John, 143, 296. McCosh, President, 254, 276, 407, 425. McGiffert, 397, 399, 462, 466, 492, 505. Mcllvaine, Bishop, 256, 259, 360. McPherson, S. J., 440, 486. Mead, 362, 384. Melville, Andrew, 177. Mercersburg, Dr. Schaff called to, 71 sqq.; arrival in, 95 sqq.; fame of, 122, 136; students, 129, 131, 219; isolation of, 197; soldiers from, 210; Dr. Schaff resigns professorship in, 242. Mercersburg theology, 120, 127, 140, 21 7 sqq., 418. Merle d'Aubigne, 60, 297. Messina, 42. Metternich, Prince, 185 sqq. Meyer, 250. Miller, H. K., 290. Missions, American, in Egypt, 306. Mitchell, Professor, 405, 409, 464, 507. Mohonk, Lake, 406, 445, 481. Monod, Adolph, 67, 179. Moody, 280, 501. Moravians in Pennsylvania, 141, 151. Mormons, 324. Morris, Edward D., 342, 425, 427. Morse, Professor, 297. Miihlenberg, 151. ^ Muhlenberg, Dr., 205, 323. Muller, Julius, 65, 248, 462. Napoleon III, 179, 267, 297. Nazareth, 312. Neander, 34, 35, 164, 182, 348, 459, 460. Nevin, Dr., 73; first meets Dr. Schaff, 95> 995 character and theology, 101; Dr. Schaff upon, 103; defends Dr. Schaff, 105, m, 119; resigns, 125, 131, 140, 156, 176, 199, 205, 217, 319,418,452. Nevin, Robert, 278. New Brunswick Review, 166. New York, Dr. Schaff removes to, 221. New York Conference of the Evan- gelical Alliance, 271 sqq. New York Tribune, 497. Newman, Cardinal, 168. Niccolls, 339. 524 INDEX Nile, 305. Nitzsch, 74, 78, 498. Northrup, G. W., 476. Norway, 343. Oberammergau, 261. Observer, New York, 404. O'Connell, 83. O'Gorman, 465. Old-Catholics, 266, 268, 277, 332, 396^ Oosterzee, van, 247. Ordination of Dr. Schaff, 79 sqq., 105. Overbeck, 43. Oxford, 86, 1 74. Packard, 363. Palermo, 39. Palestine, 301, 313. Palmer, Archdeacon, 384. Pan-Presbyterian Alliance. See Alli- ance of the Reformed Churches. Park, Edwards A., 30, 65. Parkhurst, 283. Parliament of Religions, 469, 484 sqq. Passavant, 7, 25. Passion Week in Rome, 46 sqq. Pastor, advice to a, 294. Patterson, R. W., 425. P,atton, President, 434. Pennsylvania-Germans, 94, 142, 243. Perowne, Bishop, 368. Person of Christ, 243. Peter's, St., illumination of, 52. Pfleiderer, 396. Pius IX, 327. Plummer, 341, 462, 508. Plumptre, 267, 356. Pope, audience with, 53. Porter, Thomas C., 132, 161, 203. Post, Dr., 313. Potter, Henry C., 278. Prentiss, George L., viii, 30, 31, 54, 201, 286, 300, 398, 440, 509. Presbyterian Church, 434, 437. Presbyterian Review, 429. Prime, S. I., 254, 272, 289, 404. Princeton theology, 274, 291, 414. Principle of Protestantism, The, 107 sqq., 114; attacked, 116 sqq.; in- fluence, 121. Privat-docent, Dr. Schaff as, 64. Propfzdeutic, theological, 475. Protestantism, 108 sqq., 1 86, 1 88. Purcell, Archbishop, 334. Pusey, 87 sqq., 175, 330. Puseyism, 1 10. Pyramids, 304. Rainy, Principal, 265, 275, 500. Ranke, 348 sq. Rationalism, in Switzerland, II; in Germany, 17, 76, HO. Rauch, 101, 198. Reformation, the, 108. Reihlen, 249, 421. Reilly, W. M., 128. Reinkens, Bishop, 396. Renan, 403. Reunion of Christendom. See Chris- tian Union. Reuss, 395. Reynolds, Dr. Edward, 208. Reynolds, Dr., 403. Richardson, E. C., 501. Riddle, 363, 381, 475, 502. Riggenbach, 420. Ritschl, 393. Roberts, W. C., 410. Robinson, Edward, 30, 308, 329. Roman Catholicism, 114 sq., 132, 181, 186, 188, 193 sqq., 201, 390, 465, 490. Rome, 42 sqq., 416 sqq. Rothe, 78, 192. Russia, 344. Sabbath in England, 84; in Scotland, 172 ; committee, 222 sqq. ; in Ger- many, 229 ; President Lincoln on, 223. Salvation Army, 488. Sanday on Dr. Schaff 's History, 462. Sangster, Margaret, 300. Sankey, 280. Schaff, Philip (see Table of Con- tents), parentage, I ; appearance, 99; health, 401, 452, 481; calling and mission, viii, 63, 92, 501 ; personal faith, 13, 24, 70, 333, 436, 439, 448, 478, 502, 504; in his home, 133 sqq., INDEX 525 299 sqq., 451; social qualities and friendships, 143, 296, 322, 346, 405, 414, 428, 451, 464, 498, 507; as an American, 91, 144, 149, 155, 483, 506; as a student, 122, 135, 451; as a teacher, 126, 289, 291, 450, 471; his students, 290, 292, 316, ^416, 435, 502; his theology, 273, , 286, 321, 424 sqq., 429, 476 sqq., 508; as an exegete and Biblical critic, 235, 422, 436, 439, 478-481; as a church historian, 164, 170, 453, 456, 506 sq.; as a Bible Reviser, 357 378 386 sqq., 497; as a "^mediator between the theological --^thought of Europe and America, 156 sqq., 499, 500; as an advocate ^of ecclesiastical toleration, 321,437, k 439, 452, 459, 484, 488; as an ad- \s- vocate of Christian union, 157, 254, 273, 352, 433, 488; his titles, D.D., 184, 409, 449; LL.D., 295. Schell, 407. Schelling, u, 23,34, 182, 191. Schenkel, 239. Schlatter, 151. Schleiermacher, 461. Schmid, 19, 78. Schmucker, 143. Schneck, 72, 73, 95. Schultz, Victor, 400, 498. Schwab, Gustav, 14, 209, 226, 413. Schwarz, 81. Schvvegler, 19. Scotland, 171 sqq. Scott, 417, 420. Scovel, President, 333. Scribner, Charles, 231, 233, 263. Scrivener, 330, 370. Sears, Barnas, 144. Sedgwick, 262. Seminary, schedule, 470. Semi-centennial, Dr. Tholuck's, 263; Dr. Hodge's, 265 ; Dr. Schaff's, 441, 449, 476. Servetus, 445. Seward, 297. Shahan, 490. Shedd, viii, 212, 285, 431, 495. Shepard, Elliot F., 384, 387. Sherman, General, 295. Shields, 290. Short, Professor, 363, 379. Sicily, 38 sqq. ,Sm dgzzz'wj/ the Holy Ghost, 68. Sinai, 308. Skinner, T. H., 284. Slavery, 173, 240; in Germany, 242. Smiley, 406. Smith, H. B., 30, 144, 167, 250, 254, 284, 322, 362, 453. Smith, H. P., 432. Spath, 137. Spain, 401 sq. Spiera, 69. Spurgeon, 245, 341, 403. Stahelin, 189. Stanley, Dean, 86, 265, 267, 276, 299, 308, 317, 327, 356, 362, 367. Stearns, 431. Steffens, 499. Steudel, 15. Stille, 407. Stoddard, 333. Storrs, 329. Story, R. H., 424. Stoughton, 273, 276. Stowe, Calvin E., 144, 162, 251, 363. Strauss, David P\, 10, 18, 239. Strong, James, 363. Stuart, George H., 267, 270. Stuart, Moses, 498. Stuckenberg, 240, 348, 350. Students, stories of Doctor Schaff, 128, 136 ; Dr. Schaff's advice to, 293 sq., 316. Study, Dr. Schaff's, 135. St. Catherine, convent of, 308. St. Moritz. See Engadin. Stuttgart, 13, 192, 249. Sunday schools in Germany, 239, 249. Simday School Times, 388, 481. Switzerland, 4, 15, 35, 191 ; rational- ism in, 10. Syracuse, 41. Systematic Benevolence, 133. Tasso, 45. Taylor, A. L., 377. Taylor, W. M., 333. 5 26 INDEX Thayer, J. Henry, 248, 363, 379, 381, 387, 474, 506. Theological education, 470 sq. Theology, Dr. Schaff's, 476 sqq. ; in Germany, 155, 331, 471, 498; Dr. Schaff as a theological mediator, 499 ; experimental, 503. Tholuck, 29, 30, 65, 138, 1 60, 1 80, 248, 263, 398, 448. Thompson, C. L., 492. Thompson, J. P., 251. Thomson, W. H., 493. Thorwaldsen, 43. Tiffany, Dr., 329, 333. Tiffin Seminary, 189. Tischendorf, 181, 267, 308. Tolerance, religious, 432 sqq., 439, 440. Tregelles, 246. Trench, Archbishop, 177, 246, 267, 355- Trent, 187 sq. Troutbeck, 374. Tubingen University, 1 7 sqq. Ullmann, 67, 78, 166, 498. Union Theological Seminary, 262, 282 sqq. United States. See America. Van Dyke, 425, 427, 431, 433. Vatican, Council, 258 ; library, 415. Vatke, 76. Vaughan, 384. Venice, 187. Vincent, Bishop, 337. Vincent, Marvin R., 506. Vinet, 62. Waldenses, 57 sqq. Walker, 465. Walther, 339. Ward, W. Hayes, 447. Washburn, E. A., 232, 259, 314, 328, 333. 362, 365, 373- Washburn, President, 502. Weekly Messenger, 98, IOO. Weiss, 331, 400, 463, 468. Weizsacker, 17, 20, 410. Wellhausen, 394, 471. Westcott, 245, 362, 384, 386, 422. Westminster Confession, Revision of, 423 sqq. White, Norman, 229, 241, 335. Whyte, Alexander, 342. Wieseler, 68. Wilberforce, Archdeacon, 173, 193. Wilberforce, Bishop, 356, 447. Wilderness of Sinai, 307. William, Emperor, interview with, 268 sqq. Williams, Bishop, 365. Winchester, Synod of, 73. Windhorst, 331. Wiseman, Cardinal, 194. Wittingham, Bishop, 365. Wolff, B. C, 93, 118, 128, 198. Woodruff, Albert, 239. Woolsey, President, 296, 328, 363, 372, 375,381,481. Worcester, 431, 435. Wordsworth, Bishop, 176. Wiirtemberg, 10, 410. Wyss, von, Professor, 428, 457. Yeomans, E. D., 164. Zacharias, 118. Zahn, 394. Zockler, 397. Zwingli, 395. f\T? ^ A T TT^T>-*TT * -r ^~ , 11 RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO' 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 ; | ^ JviU* ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW ' :. ^7- -*t SENT ON ILL AUG 3 JUW-2-a . SEP 1 1 2002 U. C. BERKELEY [> g ft 21 DEC 1 8 2001 NOV 5 200Z 2 8 2002 14 2002 KAY ? 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