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AMERICA.

AMERICA

A SKETCH OF THE

HUM, JMal anir |Wpm» <%radw
OF THE
MITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA,
IN TWO LECTURES,

Delivered at BerUn, with a Report read before the German Church Diet
at Framhfort-on-tlie-Maine, Sept., 1854.

BY DR. PHILIP SCHAFF

SfontBlztirir fiom tjj't ©motto.

NEW YORK:
0. SOEIBNEE, 145 NASSAU STEEET.
1855.

Entered according to Act of Congreefl, in tbe year 1855, by
CHARLES SCRIBNEK,
In the 'Clerk's Office of the District Court of tbe U. S. for the Southern District of New Yotk.

W. H. TINSOK, STERSOTYPEtt, GKOHOE BVSSELL, PJllNTHTl.

• PREFACE,

The present work has grown out of two discourses, which I de
livered, by request during a visit to the capital of Prussia, on the
20th and 30th of March 1854, before a select assembly of ladies
and gentlemen, as part of the course of weekly lectures held there
on various topics by Drs. Hoffman, Nitzsch, Stahl, Hengstenberg,
Tholuck, Miiller, Schmieder, Ritter, and other distinguished scho
lars for the benefit of the Berlin Evangelical Society for inner mis
sions, in the Oranien Strasse, N. 106.
I had at first not the most distant thought of their publication,
and so made no written preparation except a general outline. But
they were received by the highly respectable and accomplished
audience, which the King of Prussia and other members of the
royal family occasionally honor with their presence, with an inter
est to me altogether unexpected, although some of the most intel
ligent hearers considered them — perhaps not without reason — too
favorable to the land of my adoption. Aud as a number of emi
nent divines and professors of the University, such as the venerable
Dr. G. Ritter, the acknowledged standard authority in all that re
lates to the earth and its inhabitants, earnestly solicited their pub
lication, I felt it a duty to yield to such honorable requests ; the
more, since the other addresses, delivered in behalf of the Inner
Mission at Berlin during the last two winters, have also been given
to the press.
So I wrote the discourses, as nearly as I could remember them ;

VI PREFACE.
the first, in Berlin and at a neighboring country-seat ; the second
partly in Potsdam under the hospitable roof of my honored friend,
the Court-preacher, Dr. Krummacher (who was once called to the
same professorship in Pennsylvania, which I have now held for ten
years), and partly in Carlsbad, and Vienna. The views and the
train of thought remain the same-; but I have taken the liberty,
especially in the second address, to add and expand in many pla
ces for further illustration, as I would have done in the delivery, if
time had permitted.
But instead of treating the German churches of America, as I
did in Berlin, as briefly as the symmetry of the discourse required,
my publisher thought it more to the purpose to devote to these
a separate part. Accordingly, after an interruption of several
weeks and a tour through Italy and Tyrol, I composed the third
part on my native mountains of Switzerland. Since little is as
yet authentically known in Germany on the subject there treated,
I hope this part will be to many readers a welcome addition. For
there I had the special advantage of moving in the field of my
own immediate experience and observation, and I think I have
depicted light and shade with as much impartiality as elsewhere.*
Thus, contrary to the original calculation, the two addresses
have grown to a little book, whieh bears, perhaps only too plainly,
the marks of its fragmentary and almost planless construction
without the help of a library and amidst the distractions of an
extensive journey. After all it is only an outline miniature of a
country, on which many volumes have already been written, and
many more might be. Had I composed the work at home,
with the aid of my library and the manuscripts, which I have
collected on American church history and statistics, it would
have been, no doubt, more symmetrical, cautious, accurate, and

*In the present edition the discourses are restored to their original form by
inserting an abridgment of the above mentioned Third Part in the proper place
in Partn.

PREFACE. Vil
thorough, but probably also much more prolix and less interesting,
at least for the general public. Miniature pictures, at any rate,
are as well authorized as full-size portraits ; and in the present
burdensome profusion of literature, one must really be grateful to
every author, who uses as few words as possible. Then again, this
kind of composition, with all its inconvenience, has the advantage
of suggesting all sorts of interesting comparisons between Europe
and America, not expressly made indeed in my representation, but
implied by manifold allusions, which will be readily understood
by the reflecting reader.

I have now within the last eight or nine months conversed with
intelligent and excellent men of different ranks, and with many
celebrated scholars and statesmen in Scotland, England, France,
Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, on the subject of Am
erica ; and I have heard the most favorable and the most unfavor
able opinions. By both I have been in general only confirmed in
the views already publicly expressed in Berlin. It might not be
out of place, however, to add here a few remarks on these oppo
site views, with the wish and design to adjust the contradictory
judgments of Europe respecting this remarkable country, which
is increasingly engaging the interest of the Old World. For I
would appear neither as the unqualified eulogist of the Americans,
nor as an unsparing censor of them, especially behind their backs.
There are respectable men, professedly of the highest culture,
especially in despotic Austria, who have a real antipathy to Ame
rica, speak of it with the greatest contempt or indignation, and
see in it nothing but a grand bedlam, a rendezvous of European
scamps and vagabonds. Even in a north-German city, where
there is otherwise so much intelligence respecting the whole world,
a lady of the first rank asked me in good earnest, if I could think
of returning to such a barbarian country, where the mob ruled

VIU PREFACE.
supreme, and where neither person nor property is safe. Such
notions it is unnecessary to refute.
Not so the charges of slavery, materialism, radicalism, and
sectarianism, These features of the country are almost universally
censured in the most intelligent circles of Europe, and set down as
the chief deformities of the United States, and as the rocks, on
which they must ultimately suffer shipwreck, unless they take in
time a different course. Unquestionably these are the sorest places
and most dangerous infirmities of the country ; and under them
it would have to fall, had it not soundness and vitality enough to
react against the morbid matter. But soundness and vitalily it
has ; and this cannot be overlooked without the greatest injustice .
Slavery is, without question, the political and social canker, the
tendo-Achilles, in the otherwise vigorous system of the United
States, and contradicts alike its own republican symbol and the
spirit of Christianity and philanthropy. It may yet divide the
Union, in spite of all compromise measures, and may even produce
the horrors of a civil war, which God in mercy prevent. Quite
recently, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill and the over
throw of the Missouri Compromise have roused the deepest indig
nation in the North, which is bound in self-respect and by still
higher considerations to resist with all constitutional means the
further extension of the curse of slavery on the soil of freedom.
The best men of the Southern states themselves cannot wish it, if
they prize the union of their beloved country, the cause of freedom
and humanity. It is idle to set against it the " white slavery,''
which is bad enough, to be sure, especially in the manufacturing
towns and mineral regions of Europe ; for one sin can never jnsti-
fy another. The appeal to the fact, that humanity and Christianity •
everywhere mitigate the evil ; that the slaves are in many cases
far better off than the free negroes in the north ; and that mon
sters, like Mrs. Stowe's Legree, are rare exceptions • — does not
amount to an exculpation ; for we have here to do with a princi
ple and a legal institution.

IX

But to those, who see only the writings of Theodore Parker, re
cently translated, and the literature of the Garrisonian Aboli
tionists, which are unsound, fanatical, and extremely radical in all
political and social questions, and infidel in religion, and who so pass
an unsparing and unqualified condemnation on the United States
as a whole, I would suggest the following considerations, which
may at least modify ^their judgments. In the first place, the
Americans are not responsible for the introduction of the evil, but
only for the continuation of it ; the introduction of it is due to
the Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English. Second
ly, thousands and millions not only in New England, where aboli
tionism prevails, but also in the middle and western, and indeed
even in the southern states, as thoroughly abhor this institution,
as any European philanthropist does ; though they differ about
the way and the time of abolishing it. Thirdly, this interest has
already lost the preponderance in the Union, and must in time die
out, as it did in the Northern states, where it formerly existed ; for
since the acquisition of California the fifteen slave states have
against them sixteen free states with incomparably better pros
pects of growth and thrift. Fourthly, there is here involved an
almost irreconcilable difference of races, and that not in distant
colonies, as was the case with England, and is still the case with
Spain, but in the heart of the country itself and in the closest con
nection with the material interests of the South. Fifthly, the con
dition of the negroes in the American slave states is a great ad
vance on the heathen barbarism of their brethren in Afrioa. And
finally, since the founding of the American Colonization Society,
which is engaging a growing interest even in the Southern states,
while a part of the Abolitionists fanatically oppose it,, the tragical
mystery of the negro race promises to unfold itself in a truly
providential way, and the gloom of slavery begins to break into
the dawn of the Christianization and civilization of Africa by her
own unfortunate children once violently torn from her and now
peacefully sent back to the Republic of Liberia.

X PREFACE.
Materialism, the race for earthly gain and pleasure and the
worship of the "almighty dollar," finds unquestionably vast
encouragement in the inexhaustible physical resources of the
country and the rapid accumulation of wealth. But it fortunately -
has a strong and wholesome counterpoise in the zeal for liberal
education, the enthusiastic spirit of philanthropy, and the munifi
cent liberality of the people ; and above all, in Christianity,
which points thousands and millions among them away from the
vain glories of time to the imperishable riches of heaven, and fos
ters all the higher interests of the mind and heart. The Ameri
cans, indeed, have better opportunity to get rich, and so are
under greater temptations in this view, than most other nations
But in general they also make very good use of their gains. This is
incontrovertibly proved by the numberless churches, schools, scien
tific and benevolent institutions of all sorts, which owe their, origin
purely to voluntary contributions. The Americans, like the Eng
lish and Scotch, are more avaricious, but also more liberal, than, for
example, the Germans, who keep much more closely what they
once get, and are thus more inclined both to the virtue of
economy and the corresponding vice of niggardliness. I speak,
of course, of the rule, admitting a thousand exceptions. As
there are extremely benevolent and self-sacrificing Germans, so
there are most niggardly and covetous Anglo-Saxons. Of the
correctness of our general assertion one may assure himself daily
and hourly in America by comparing the German and English
churches. Further testimony is furnished by the annual reports of
the Bible and Missionary Societies, which show that England alone
contributes more money for the distribution of the Bible and the
conversion of tho heathen, than the whole continent of Europe. I
would not make light of the vast danger, which threatens America
from her position and her outward prosperity. Only it must be
remembered, that ungodly, worldly philosophy, pantheistic self-
deification, and the most refined pleasure-seeking, are the infirmi
ties of all modern civilization, and are much more deeply rooted

PREFACE. XI
and widely spread in Europe than in Puritanic America, as a com
parison of Boston with Petersburg, New York with Hamburg or
Paris, Philadelphia with Berlin or Vienna, especially on a Sunday,
would very soon show.
Radicalism finds in republican America full play for its wild,
wanton revelings, its reckless efforts to uproot all that is estab
lished, and to lift the world off its hinges. There is a great deal
of political atheism in that country, which practically denies the
divine origin of civil government altogether, and makes the sove
reign people not only the medium and instrumental cause but the
ultimate source of all power. And this kind of democracy is
generally only a decent name for social despotism, or downright
mobocracy. There have occurred lately in the most respectable
cities of the Union — Philadelphia, New York, Cincinnati, and even
Boston— most disgraceful scenes of rowdyism, which, at first
sight, might justify the worst fears concerning tho future of that
country. Happily, however, these wild outbreaks are not the true
expression of the sentiment of the people, and even the legislatures
and the Congress represent by no means the heart of American
society. There is unquestionably in the Anglo-Saxon race a
strong conservatism and a, deeply-rooted reverence for the divine
law and order ; and even in the midst of the storms of political
agitation it listens ever and anon to the voice of reason and sober
reflection. It should never be forgotten, too, that when in 1848
all the thrones on the continent of Europe trembled, and the foun
dations of social life were shaken, England and North America
stood firm. This fact alone proves more than whole volumes of
argument. Despotism and abuse of the power of government
make revolution ; while moderate constitutional liberalism forms
the safest barrier against it. Radicalism, therefore, can never
have such a meaning, and do so much harm in England and
America, as in countries where it is wantonly provoked to revolu
tionary reaction. It continually breaks on the free institutions of
the country and the sound sense of order in the people. Sdme

XI 1 PREFACE.
hundred unarmed constables keep the two-million city of the
Anglo-Saxon3 in order ; while whole armies cannot preserve Paris
from revolutionary outbreaks. All depends, of course, at last
upon the character of the nation. Liberal and even republican
institutions of themselves are no guarantee to the freedom and
order of the people, unless it be fully prepared, by the power of
self-government, to turn them to proper account. This is suffi
ciently clear from the example of Mexico and the other South
American republics, where revolutions and social disorders fol
low each other in rapid succession.
Finally, the Sect System is certainly a great evil. It contradicts
the idea of the unity of the church ; which we can no more give up,
than tho unity of God, the unity of Christ, the unity and inward
harmony of truth. But, in the first place, so long as confessional
controversies are unsettled, it is an inevitable consequence of tbe
universal freedom of religion and worship, which seems to be
making progress even in the public opinion of Europe, and the
advantages of which on the whole outweigh the disadvantages of
a police force and dead uniformity. For religion is the deepest
and holiest interest of man, and thrives best in the atmosphere
of freedom. It is, in fact, itself the highest freedom, the liberation
of the spirit from the bonds of sin and the merely natural life.
"Faith," says Luther, "is a free thing, which can be forced upon
no one.'' Compulsion in this sphere only produces hypocrisy and
infidelity. It is a fact, that the civil equality of all churches and
sects in America, and the voluntary system inseparable from it,
have aroused and are sustaining a great mass of individual activ
ity and self-denial for religious purposes, and an uncommon rivalry.
The editor of a celebrated political journal in Austria who has
lived several years in America (an Israelite, I believe, and there
fore, an impartial witness), lately said to me : " The United States
are by far the most religious and Christian country in the world ;
and that, just because religion is there most free." This is the
opinion of many others, who take an unprejudiced view of the

PREFACE. Xiii
country. Thus God can bless even the sectarian division of the
church, to the advancement of Christianity, as he used the papacy
in the Middle Age for the discipline of the Germanic and Romanic
nations. This justifies neither the former nor the latter in itself.
There may still be something Antichristian in both.
The abstract separation of Church and State, I cannot regard as
the perfect and ultimate condition of things ; for Christianity aims
to leaven and sanctify all spheres of human life, as well as all the
powers of the soul. But the union hitherto subsisting in Europe
is equally far from the truth, and rests in part on grand illusions'
as the year 1848, for example, must show to the blindest. And
where is the European power, which, in the present Eastern con
flict, would put Christian interests foremost, or even allow them a
preponderance over political? Catholic France and Protestant
England professedly declared war agamst a Christian power for
the integrity of Turkey, which can not be separated, as it now
stands, from Mahometanism, the inveterate foe of Christendom.
Russia, indeed, seems to plant the standard of the cross against
the crescent, but the love for territorial aggrandizement is, in fact,
the principal cause of her aggression upon Turkey ; and even if
her profession were perfectly sincere, it would be only the Greek
cross, which is no longer a blooming tree of life, as in the days of
the Apostles, martyrs, and church fathers, but a dead idol and a
despotic sword, intolerable alike to the Latin crucifix, and the
evangelical preaching of the Crucified. Of course the connection
between the temporal and spiritual power, where it exists, ought
not to be arbitrarily dissolved in a revolutionary spirit ; nor was
it so abolished in America ; things took their present shape there,
in this respect, by an entirely natural growth. Christianity pro
ceeds in an altogether conservative spirit and with the tenderest
regard for all existing institutions. With many disadvantages,
union has, in fact, great advantages; not the least of which is, that
it brings all the children of the state under religious instruction
and the spiritual guardianship of the church. A Christian govern-

xiv PREFACE.
ment can be made an infinite blessing to a people ; and to have
such a government must be matter of joy. But in the first place,
the freedom and independence of the church is, after all, a precious
boon. In the second place, it is very hazardous for the church to
expect too much of that union, and to put her trust in the tempo
ral arm, especially in our days, when truly Christian princes and
statesmen have become much more rare than in the times of the
Reformation. And in the last place, the Church will do well to
hold herself in readiness for the possible event of a violent rupture
of that venerable bond, if not for a formal persecution by the tem
poral powers, if they should fall again, by some unexpected turn,
into Red Republican hands. In America, as well as in the Free
Church of Scotland and of Vaud, she already has the practical
proof (indeed, the first three centuries are proof enough), that the
Church can live and thrive without the support of the secular
arm. Furthermore, sectarianism, as we have endeavored to show in
the second discourse, is really not an infirmity of America only,
but, if you please, of all Protestantism. It is the natural result of
the centrifugal tendencies of a one-sided religious subjectivity, and
would reveal itself also in Germany, the moment universal reli
gious freedom were conceded. The theoretical germs of it are all
here. Even as matters now stand, Europe shows not everywhere-'
the same evangelical church ; England and Scotland have their
established churches with a great number of dissenting com
munions, which are likewise Protestant, but have no connection
with. the establishment or with one another; in Germany and
Switzerland there is a multitude of Lutheren United, and Reform
ed national and cantonal churches, each of which has. its own con
stitution, hymn-book, and liturgy, and presents in the pulpit and
the professorial chair the most various theological tendencies,
from the stiffest orthodoxy to the boldest rationalism and pan
theism. For even the question concerning the authority of the
Protestant creed is as yet confessedly nowhere fully [settled.

PREFACE. XV
Only in free conferences of ministers, on the largest scale at the
German Church Diet and the Swiss Ministerial Association, does
-that inward unity of spirit -plainly appear, which, blessed be God,
still exists among all true believers. But these conferences are
not the church in the proper sense of the word. They only repre
sent a part of it. They have no ofiicial and legislative power.
They pass pious resolutions, but not binding decrees ; and they
can be regarded only as a preparation for the one evangelical
church of the German tongue. The difference between European
and American Protestantism in this respect is, therefore, not so
great as would at first sight appear ; and the reproach of want of
unity, which Roman Catholic divines are continually casting up to
us, falls as much on Europe as on America. Indeed Bellarmine
and Bossuet used the argument of dissent and perpetual variation
against the Reformers and their immediate successors ; and Mel-
anchthon himself died of grief over the distraction of the evangeli
cal church in the sixteenth century. Not to give up, therefore,
the good cause of the Reformation and bow to the yoke of Roman
uniformity, preferring the repose of the church-yard to the strug
gle of life, we must regard the present distraction and fermentings
of Protestantism as the necessary transition state to a far higher
and better condition, to a, free unity in spirit and .in truth, em
bracing the greatest variety of Christian life. But first the reli
gious subjectivity and individuality of the sect system, with all the
accompanying infirmities, must freely and fully develop themselves;
just as a full unfolding of the principle of Catholicism, in both the
good form of authority and the bad form of tyranny had to pre
cede the purifying and emancipating struggle of the Reformation.
Now America tends towards this consistent carrying out of the
religious and political principle of Protestantism ; that is, the
practical application of the universal priesthood and kingship of
Christians. These are the leading charges against America. I would not
extenuate them by what I have now said. For I grant, I myself

Xvi PREFACE.
very painfully feel them, especially the misery aud confusion of
the present condition of the church. I only wish to modify them,
and by pointing to kindred evils in Europe, to forestall an im
moderate condemnation of America.
But then on the other hand, I have heard it said in various
quarters, and by most intelligent men too, even by those who
really have no sympathy with the peculiar genius and the present
condition of the United States, that the future lies with this coun
try. This is ascribing to it a vast importance. Even one of the
most experienced aud celebrated absolutist statesmen of Austria,
whom I will not name here, conceded this, though he thought, that
America would have to undergo radical changes, and become a
monarchy, before it could accomplish its great mission. Many
others, among them able writers and former Hegelians, are of
opinion, that old and declining Europe must gradually exhaust
herself by a series of revolutions and convulsions, which only
temporarily failed in 1848, and will repeat themselves on a larger
and larger scale ; and that she must sink into Asiatic stagnation,
that America may be an improved continuation of Europe ; that
is, provided a new age of humanity and the church is to be ex
pected at all. The Romanic nations, say they, have already out
lived themselves, and nothing great is any longer to be expected
from Greece, Italy, and Spain. France is a volcano, which may
break out again at any moment and set all Europe on fire. Even
in obstinate, conservative England the ancient Christian institutions
are gradually giving way, and must sooner or later make room
not only for a change of dynasties, as in 1688, but for a formal
social revolution. Germany has done her work for the history of
the world by the production of the Romano- Germanic empire and
by the Reformation, in the results and after-workings of which she
still lives ; and she will gradually die away, as did Judaism after
the birth of tbe Messiah. From Russia little is to be expected
except perhaps an overthrow of the civilization of western Europe
by a new irruption of barbarism, without much prospect of a new

PREFACE. XVII
creation on the ruins of the old. For the^Sclaves are not fresh
children of nature as were the Germans at the threshold of the mid
dle ag«s, but are already too old, and have taken up the very worst
elements of European civilization, as for example, the most refined
voluptuousness. The only alternative therefore is either to believe
in the speedy destruction of the world, or to look hopefully to the
western hemisphere as the land of promise, to which in fact the
massive emigration from all parts of Europe seems to point.
To Americans of the common stamp, especially the Nativists
and Know-Nothings (as the anti-foreigners call themselves), this
would be water for their mill, and a capital text for Fourlh-of-July
speeches, which usually overflow with the most disgusting self-
glorification at the expense of the Old World. I must confess,
cannot adopt so comfortless a view of the prospects of Europe. At
worst, I would hope for a resurrection of this quarter of the world
from its grave. For if Asia may be regenerated by Europe, as it.
now seems probable, and as the Eastern question seems to indicate.
so that Palestine and Syria, the sacred birth-place of Christianity,
shall bloom again, and East India and China join with them in
praising the triune God ; why may not Europe, if she should ever
decay, be likewise regenerated by America ? As the setting sun
throws back his golden beams to the eastern horizon, as the pledge
of his return in the east ; so history shows likewise its reacting in
fluences. But at all events, Europe still stands on the summit of
Christian civilization, and will certainly yet long remain there in
spite of all threatening storms, and long continue to furnish her
youthful, vigorous daughter beyond the ocean with the richest
nourishment of her spiritual life.
But whatever may become of her venerable mother ,'Europe, Amer
ica is, without question, emphatically a land of the future. This is
no merit of the Americans ; for, of course, they are in themselves
not a whit better than the Europeans. It is the favor of Frovi-
dence ; and it should not make them vain and haughty, but earnest
and humble, that tbey may faithfully and conscientiously fulfill their

XV111 PREFACE.
mission. So surely as the sun goes from east to west, only to rise
again in the east, so truly " Westward the star of empire takes its
way." Of this I have only been more firmly convinced by my
present tour in Europe. This visit will always be to me, indeed,
one of the most delightful memories of my life. For everything
beautiful and good, which I have seen and heard, especially for
stimulating and profitable interchange of ideas and cordial inter
course with many dear friends, old and new, in Germany and
Switzerland, I feel most deeply thankful to God, the Giver of every
good gift. Yet I return with an elevated sense of the vast impor
tance of America for the destiny of mankind.
While Europe is now in the ripest age of manhood, America is as
yet an unripe youth, not seldom wanton and adventurous, but fresh,
vigorous, and promising ; a. giant youth, already stretching out
his arms over land and sea, east and west, even to Africa and
Japan. As to particulars, he is justly open, almost indefinitely,
to censure and reproach ; but on the whole, and especially in per
spective, he is truly sublime in his proportions, like the Niagara
Falls, the Mississippi River, and the Rocky Mountains of his
majestic fatherland. He bas already turned over a new leaf of
the history of the world and of the church, and will assuredly
write it full of great deeds. All is in a ferment there as yet, in
the first formation state ; but looks to the grandest future. A
process of amalgamation is now going on there, like that among
the Germanic, Romanic, and Celtic races at the migration of the
nations, and that in England after the Norman invasion ; but on a
far broader foundation, on a much larger scale, and under much
more favorable conditions. In the United States all nations, all
churches and sects, all the good and evil powers of the old world,
meet without blows or bloodshed ; and while Europe began with
paganism and barbarism, America ' begins with the results of
Europe's two thousand years' course of civilization, and has vigor,
energy, enterprise, aud ambition enough to put out this enormous
capital at the most profitable interest for the general good of
mankind.

PREFACE. XIX
It is, of course, not my design to mingle in European strifes, or
indirectly to favor this or that political or ecclesiastical party.
This would be, indeed, for a stranger, a beginning as immodest
and unskillful as it would be unprofitable. I very well know that
Germany has an entirely different work from America, and that it
would be altogether unhistorical and unnatural to transfer the
institutions of the one country abruptly to the other. Every
country must develop itself from within by a natural growth.
But this process does not exclude the beneficial co-operation of
foreign elements. The German, for example, will never become,
and should never become, an Englishman, nor the Englishman a
German or Frenchman. Nevertheless each may learn very much
from the other. For instance, the realism and the practical church
activity of the Englishman and Anglo-American may stimulate
and improve the German, as much as the idealism and science of
the German may improve the American. But to do this mutual
service they must first become better acquainted with each other,
and drop their mutual prejudices." I would that the following
sketch of the actual condition of America might help them to do
so. There certainly is a great deal in the political and religious
life of the New World which inay both stimulate and warn Ger
many ; and the sight of zealous activity and fresh energy in
others rouses and improves ourselves, even though our work may
be of an altogether different kind.
The great thing now is, to collect and concentrate all the better
powers of the mental and moral world. Europe and America
ought to link themselves together, not only by steamships and
commerce, but by the far closer bond of intellectual and religious
intercourse, that they may learn more and more to understand,
esteem, love, and advance each other in the common work of
extending the kingdom of God and Christian civilization through
out the length and breadth of the world. The Author.
St. Maurice, in Engadin, Switzerland,
August 10, 1S54.

TO THE AMERICAN READER.

In committing this volume to the American public, in a faithful
translation by the hand of an esteemed friend, who thought it worth
while to assume the task, the author would respectfully ask the reader
to keep in mind, that, with the exception of the notes, it was written
in Germany and for Germany, in view of false impressions and
strong prejudices, which are widely spread in the higher circles of
Europe, concerning the United States. The address delivered by
appointment before the Evangelical Church Diet at Frankfort-on-
the-Maine, in September last, is no part of the original work ; but
as it treats on the same subject under a different and more prac
tical aspect, it was translated by another and equally skillful hand
from the published proceedings of that large assembly, and forms
now the third part in the place of a separate chapter on the
German churches, which has been greatly abridged by the trans
lator with the consent of the author.
Since the publication of the original in Berlin, many things
have happened in America in rapid succession in the departments
of both national and state politics, of finance, and of municipal
government, which seem to contradict the highly favorable views
of this book on the present condition and future prospects of our
country, and to justify the fear, that it is rotting before it is ripe,

XX11 TO THE AMERICAN READER.
and will yet add another proof to the sad reflection of the poet
of Childe Harold :
" There is a moral of all human tales ;
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past ;
First freedom, and then glory — when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption— barbarism at last."
In view of the history of the past and present year, we have no
reason to boast and to look down upon any nation of the Old
World. Still I would not on this account retract any sentiment
publicly expressed at Berlin and at Frankfort, and several other
cities of Europe. The manifold appearances of corruption, I hope,
are only the scum on the surface ; diseases of the skin; and not of
the heart. They may darken our immediate prospects, but they
cannot affect our ultimate destiny.
Providence has evidently prepared this country and nation for
the greatest work, and no power on earth can arrest its progress
and prosperity, if we are true to our calling, if we fear God and
love righteousness, mindful of the maxim — " No liberty without
virtue ; no virtue without religion ; no religion without Chris
tianity ; Christianity, the safeguard of our republic and hope of
the world." P. S.
Mercemburg, Pa., Aug. 7, 1855.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
IMPORTANCE, POLITICAL SYSTEM, NATIONAL CHARACTER, CULTURE,
LITERATURE, AND RELIGION OF THE UNITED STATES. Page
i. Size and Growth ........ 9
n. Political Condition  19
m. National Character and Social Life ... 52
iv. Science and Literature  67
v. Religion and the Church . . 86

PART II.
THE CHURCHES AND SECTS
i. General Ecclesiastical Condition op the V. S
n. The Several Churches and Sects
(a) The Congregationalists
(b) The Presbyterians
(e) The Reformed Dutch
(d) The Protestant Episcopal Church.

¦103 125
129142
146 152

XXIV CONTENTS. Page
(e) The Methodists . . 164
(f) The German Churches . 176
(1) The Lutheran . . .... 181
(2) The German Reformed  194
(3) The Evangelical Union of the West . . 200
(4) Smaller German Denominations and Sects . 203
(g) The Baptists  205
(h) The Quakers ........ 213
(i) The Roman Catholic Church . . 218
(j) The Mormons ... . 243

PART III.
GERMANY AND AMERICA.
i. The significance of North America for the future
development of the Kingdom of God . 256
ii. The position and work of the Gerjian Evangelical
Church in America  267
in. Duty of the German Evangelical Mother-Church
towards her Daughter in America . . . 270

THE
UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA.

PART I.
THEIR IMPORTANCE, POLITICAL SYSTEM, NATIONAL CHARAC
TER, CULTURE, LITERATURE, AND RELIGION.
It is not without embarrassment, and an urgent request
for your kind indulgence, that I appear in this metropolis
of German science and of the highest intellectual Culture,
to give you a miniature picture of the political, social, and
religious life of the United States of North America.
The few days since my arrival, the distracting excitements
of a visit to my beloved German fatherland, and the daily
greeting of so many dear friends after a len years' sepa
ration, have prevented my mating a preparation at all
worthy of my theme. But though I cannot do anything
like justice either to such an assembly, as I have the honor
to see before me, or to myself, or to my comprehensive
subject, I have at least the no small advantage of beinS
able to speak not merely from books, but from life ; not as
2

26 AMERICA.
a distant spectator, but from immediate observation and
personal experience, respecting a land,, which the provi
dence of God, without at all weakening my attachment
for Switzerland and Germany, my bodily and spiritual
fatherland, has made a second dear home to me.
America ! — I feel that the sound of that, word leaves
none of my hearers indifferent. In every one, not confined
to the narrow circle of his own personal existence and of
his particular country, but interested, as every man of
intelligence and cultivation should be, in the future history
of the world and the church, the name of America
awakens either deep sympathies or as deep antipathies,
joyful hopes, or desponding fears, or perhaps a strange
mixture of bright anticipations and dark forebodings.
And this is increasingly so every year, the nearer America
and Europe are brought together by the modern space-
mocking means of communication, and the more strongly
and decisively they act and react on each other. For, as
the eastern hemisphere sends its innumerable thousands
and millions in swelling tide across the Atlantic ; so the
new world, on its part, is perceptibly gaining influence, be
it for good or for evil, over the old. This is especially true
of the great North American confederacy, which we here
have particularly in view, and the free citizens of whicli
call themselves, and are everywhere called, simply Ameri
cans ; as if anticipating their destiny to be the lords of
the new world. Already have the United States undeni
ably become a power in modern history, not only by their
commerce, but also by the rise of an independent literature,

INTEREST OF EUROPEANS IN AMERICA. 27
by the weight of their public sentiment, and above all by
the example of their political and religious . institutions ;
and their influence is felt more and more every year in the
movements of Europe, Nay ; they have already, through
the promising republic of Liberia, put their hand to the
civilizing and christianizing of Africa ; and, through evan
gelical missions in the East and commercial relations with
East India, China, and Japan, to the regeneration of
Asia. To this general interest, which all educated men must
feel in America, add the personal concern of thousands in
all parts of Europe for sons and daughters, brothers and
sisters, kinsmen and friends, who have exchanged the old
world for the new, and form through individuals, so many
connecting links between the two.
But where shall I begin, and where shall I end 2 The
older a man grows, the more he feels the difficulty and
risk of passing general opinions on whole nations and
countries. Every vigorous nation is a microcosm, repre
senting all the various tendencies and diversities of our
whole race ; and an advance in wisdom and experience is
also an advance in caution and modesty of judgment.
This is very peculiarly true of my present theme, which
has elicited the most contradictory opinions, according as
this or that subordinate point has been made the criterion.
I would remind you especially, that a complete picture of
the condition and circumstances of America properly
includes a view of all Europe, which transmits both good
and evil forces thither from all her countries. In the time

28 SIZE AND GROWTH.
allotted to me you can expect, of course, only a very
imperfect sketch ; and I will confine myself to points,
which appear to have special interest for my hearers, and
seem fitted to remove, or at least to soften, certain wide
spread prejudices, which I have already had frequent
occasion to notice during my short visit here.
Allow me to speak, first, of the size and growth of the
United States of North America ; secondly, of their
political condition ; thirdly, of their social state ; fourthly,
of their civilization and literature ; and lastly^ of theif
morals and religion. I. SIZE AND GROWTH.
If any one fact of modern history marks an epoch, it is
the discovery, or rather the re-discovery of America by
Columbus. This, with the invention of the art of printing
about half a century before, opened an illimitable perspefl-
tive into the future. But both these events derived their
chief importance from the vast spiritual and intelleotual
movement of the Reformation. They were its forerun
ners ; as now the great inventions of the steam-engine)
the railroad, and the magnetic telegraph seem to be
again undesignedly preparing a new epoch in the history
of the world and the church, a general union of the
nations in one brotherhood by the bonds of civilization
and of the everlasting Gospel. The States of Central and
South America, settled by Roman Catholic Spain and
Portugal, have remained stationary or gone backwards*

EXTENT OP TERRITORY. 29
But North America, which is essentially German or
Teutonic in nationality and Protestant in religion, has
developed itself with unexampled rapidity, and will
become in fifty years more of such progress, nay, is already,
one of the largest and most powerful nations of the.
earth. The United States date their independent national
existence, as is well known, from the Declaration of Inde
pendence in 1116. They are accordingly not yet a century
old. At that time there were thirteen colonies ; now there
are already thirty-one well organized states, besides a
number of territories, either not at all or at best very
thinly inhabited, which will easily make a dozen new
states, each as large as a German kingdom. The whole
area of the United States, since the late acquisition of
Texas, California, and New Mexico, amounts to more than
three million English square miles (3,221,595), — almost as
much as the whole continent of Europe (3,807,195), and
fifteen times larger than France (197,400) ; while in variety
of soil, climate, productions, and natural facilities for
commerce, it surpasses any other equal extent of country on
the globe.
The population has increased in like proportion. About
the end of the last century the Union had hardly three
millions of inhabitants ; now it numbers already five and
twenty millions, the natural increase of whieh is very much
favored by the general prosperity and early marriage. The
growth of many American cities is almost fabulous. It
exceeds European experience ten if not a hundred fold.

30 NUMBER AND INCREASE OF POPULATION.
"Vienna is now nearly two thousand years old, and has not as
many inhabitants as New York or Philadelphia, which have
existed hardly two centuries. Chicago in Illinois was com
menced in 1831, and already numbers over 60,000 souls.
I have seen it stated that forty years ago the whole ground,
on which the city stands, might have been bought for $500,
while now every foot almost is worth more. Before 1788
there was hardly a white man seen on the banks of the
Ohio, where now the " Queen of the West," the city of
Cincinnati, stands with a population little less than
150,000, while the whole State of Ohio numbers upwards
of two millions.
Such an unparalleled growth' of states and cities rising
from the ground as at the stroke of the enchanter's wand,
can only be accounted for, of course, by the swelling tide of
immigration. Hundreds of thousands now annually leave
the various countries of Europe, especially England, Ireland,
and Germany, for America ; and latterly an emigration has
begun in an opposite quarter, in far off China, which, allured
by the gold-diggings of California, is sending from the
bosom of her three hundred and sixty millions an increasing
number across the Pacific to the marts of San Francisco
and the banks of the Sacramento.
We have before us here one of the most remarkable and
important facts of modern times. This tide of emigration
may be called with perfect justice a migration of nations, —
proceeding, however, in the most peaceful way, without
sword or bloodshed. It has no warlike spirit like the
advance of the Germanic tribes on the threshold of the

IMMIGRATION. 31
Middle Ages; it is not the work of religious enthusiasm
like the crusades ; it is chiefly the result of individual and
domestic want and discontent, of national oppression and
misery as regards Ireland, and of the desire for freedom, and
for outward and inward improvement. With the Germans
there is superadded that "Heimweh nach dem All," that
cosmopolitan trait, which may be called both their intel
lectual strength and their political weakness. But in this
vast march of nations from east to west, and from west to
east we must recognize above all the progress of history
itself and the hand of an over-ruling, all wise Providence,
who is here breaking new paths, as he did two thousand
years ago in Europe, and opening new and boundless
prospects for the further development of humanity and of
the kingdom of God.
The basis of the population of North America is the
English and Scotch emigration. For some time past that
of Ireland has been greater than that of all the other
European countries put together ; so as already to -be
spoken of as a formal exodus, threatening even the extinc
tion of the Celtic race and of -Romanism in Ireland. Now,
however, the German emigration exceeds the Irish, and
will do so probably for many years to come. Of late years
more than one hundred thousand Germans have landed
annually at the port of New York alone ; and this year, I
have been told on reliable authority, the German emigra
tion, on account of the gathering storm of a general
European war (which God graciously avert !) in addition

32 ROOM FOR ALL.
to the usual causes, might reach at least between two and
three hundred thousand, mostly to America.*
Bid them God speed, and give them at least your
blessing and your prayers. The American bids them all
welcome ; the good especially ; but even the bad he does
not reject, hoping that in the new world they will become
new men, and not confirm the old adage : " Ccelum non
animum mutant, trans mare qui currant." They all, and
many millions more, can find room and employment in
vast and still uncultivated tracts of the most fertile soil ; in
inexhaustible mines of coal and iron, of which Pennsylvania
alone is supposed to contain more than, the whole continent
of Europe ; on numberless canals, steamboats, and railroads ;
in the building of villages and cities, which shoot up as in
a dream, so that names fail, and old ones have to be
repeated often to confusion ; in the most flourishing com
merce and business of all sorts; and in the bosom of a
nation full of the boldest enterprise and the most untiring
energy. * The number of German immigrants at the port of New York alone for the
year 1854, was 179,648. The whole number of immigrants to America for 1854,
according to the reports laid before Congress, was :
To the United States . . . 460,474
To Canada  63,808
Of these lt is supposed, 225,000 were Germans ;
118,000 " Irish;
61,000 " English and Scotch;
18,000 " French ;
18,000 " Chinese (to California>

WHAT IMMIGRANTS SHOULD EXPECT. 33
The Atlantic coast, which is the most populous part of
North America, and has thus far been the chief theatre of
its history, and already has cities of half a million inhabi
tants and more, is yet very thinly settled in comparison
with the countries of Europe. The Pacific coast — Oregon
and California — has hardly yet risen into the view of the
world, and has room for whole kingdoms. And the
Mississippi valley, the immensely rich river tract between
the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains, .which forms the
proper body of the United States, and contains now hardly
ten million inhabitants, will itself, it is thought, conveniently
support a population of more than a hundred millions.
Only one thing must we say to emigrants : Prepare for
all sorts of privations ; trust not to fortune and circum
stances, but to God and to unwearied industry. If you
wish a calm and cheerful life, better stay at home. The
good old advice : Pray and work, is nowhere more to the
point than in the United States. The genuine American
despises nothing more than idleness and stagnation ; he
regards not enjoyment, but labor, not comfortable repose, but
busy unrest, as the proper earthly lot of man ; and this has
unspeakable importance for him, and upon the whole a
most salutary influence on the moral life of the nation.
The New York merchant is vexed, if stopped with a
question on the street; because he loses a couple of
minutes. The same zeal, the same parsimony of time, ia
employed by the minister, the missionary, the colporteur,
the tract and bible societies, for higher ends. Even the
business man, if in any degree religiously disposed, con-
2*

34 PROMISE OP THIS RAPID GROWTH.
siders his pecuniary gain only a means " to do good " — as
he expresses it ; and though the Americans are not
unjustly reproached with avarice and covetousness, yet
they are entitled, on the other hand, to the praise of a
noble liberality towards all sorts of benevolent objects, — a
liberality unrivalled in modern history save by the extra
ordinary offerings of the Free Church of Scotland in the
glow of her first love.
In view of the extent and growth of the United States,
thus briefly sketched, — a growth absolutely without parallel
in history ; — in view of their inexhaustible resources for
agriculture, commerce, and all kinds of industry, for culture
and science, and all the arts of peace ; and in view of. this
modern European migration to the land of the west, —
nothing but stupidity can be indifferent, and nothing but
narrow-mindedness can deny these states a future.
Even geographically, America stands as in some sense
tbe " Middle Kingdom.'' The people of the United States,
these Americans in the emphatic sense of the term, have
control of a whole continent and of two oceans, one arm
outstretched towards Europe, the other towards Asia ; and
they possess ambition and energy enough to turn the
advantages of their position and relations'to the very best
account. Unless a higher hand suddenly stop the wheel of
universal history, they have — even in the possible though
not probable case of a separation into four republics,
northern, southern, eastern, western — a tremendous prob
lem to solve; and no friend of humanity and of the king
dom of God can behold without the deepest interest the

POLITICAL CONDITION. 35
further development of this land of freedom and of pro-

II. POLITICAL CONDITION.
In their political constitution the United States actually
present the picture of a new world. In Europe all civil
institutions rest more or less on the feudal system of the
Middle Ages, as these again rest on the patriarchal relations
of Asia. The further west, the stronger the tendency to
individual and national freedom and independence. This
is especially the case in the Germanic tribes ; and of these,
most of all in the Anglo-Saxon. Favored by its insular
segregation, moulded by Christianity and by Protestantism'
England has most fully developed the principle of self-
government as the foundation of national strength and
greatness for all nations, and now presents the sublime
spectacle of an organic union of freedom and deeply-rooted
loyalty ; of manly independence and faithful conservatism ;
of a well-organized constitutional monarchy, not artificial
on paper, but of perfectly natural historical growth, joined
with a civil and commercial power, which reaches off to
Canada, Australia, and East India, and carries into all the
colonies the spirit of law-abiding freedom and the seed of
the Gospel and of Christian civilization.
In North America the last traces of medieval feudalism
disappear, except in the slavery of the southern states.
You see there no king ; no nobility ; no privileged class ;
no aristocracy, except that — unavoidable even in a republic —
of character, talent, and wealth ; no orders nor titles, except

36 DISAPPEARANCE OF ALL FEUDALISM IN AMERICA.
the professional, which rest upon personal attainments;
no entailed estates; no standing army; no established
church. Instead of these you find universal civil and
religious liberty and equality ; unrestricted freedom of
speech and of the press ; the sovereignty of the people ;
the election of almost all officers by the majority; the
highest stations, even the presidential chair, accessible to
the poorest and humblest citizen, on the single condition of
personal capacity and merit : and yet, with all this appa
rent excess of freedom, a universal respect for right and
law ; deep reverence for Christianity ; a conservative spirit ;
well-ordered government ; perfect security of person and
property ; and great independence, too, towards other
nations, as was shown by the Mexican war, where glowing
patriotism and national pride supplied in a few weeks the
want of a standing army, threw hosts of volunteers into the
heart of their hostile neighbors' country, achieved victory
after victory over the Spaniards, and planted the star-
spangled banner of the Union on the palace of Montezuma.
To those who are wedded to a particular theory of
politics, who apply the same measure to all countries and
all constitutions, and who fail to see, that history is not a
dead uniformity, but a living scene of change and variety^
and that every nation has its peculiar calling, — to such all
this must be very incongruous and disagreeable fact.
But fact it is, and with facts and an actual state of things
we here have to do. Though a Swiss by birth and an
American by adoption, I have yet lived too long under
monarchies to be at all insensible to their historical neces-

REPUBLICANISM NATURAL TO AMERICA. 37
sity and great advantages. I have no sympathy whatever
with the narrow, fanatical republicanism of " Young Ame
rica" and the radical propagandism of the " manifest des
tiny" men, who see no salvation for Europe but in the
universal spread of republican institutions, and are there
fore disposed to welcome — though certainly in ignorance —
even the worst revolutions, coming from the very spirit of
darkness. But unhistorical, useless, nay, absurd as it would
be to transplant American institutions bodily to European
soil, I think, on the other hand, that for the United States
themselves only one form of government is reasonable and
proper: and that is, the republican. In fact, no other would
be possible under present circumstances. It has there all
traditions and sympathies in its tavor. It grows out of the
whole history and the present mission of the country.
Under it the nation has become large and strong ; under it
she can best develop her physical and moral resources ;
under it she feels contented and happy* Whence, indeed,
could a king for America come ? Certainly not from Europe ;
for on the east and west the republic has an ocean-barrier
against any successful invasion ; and from north or south
she is made impregnable by her own inward force. No
monarch could arise, except as a military despot and usurper, ¦
like Napoleon, out of bloody civil wars, and from such a
one Christianity and good sense we hope will save us.
But though the American constitution rests on a ground
work wholly different from all European systems, and
thus forms an entirely new phenomenon in the history
of the world ; yet it did not come into life by any

38 POLITICAL CONDITION.
means abruptly and without preparation. It stands in the
closest historical connection with England. The Ame
rican revolution of 1776, which gave birth to the indepen
dent confederacy, was entirely different in principle, char
acter, and tendency from all the revolutions of the European
continent since 1789 ; and it is of the greatest importance
to keep this difference steadily in view, if we would duly
¦understand and appreciate that country and its prevailing
idea of freedom. The American revolution has far more
affinity with the rising of the German nation against the
usurpation of Napoleon, and of the Greeks against the
tyranny of the Turks. Properly speaking, it was no revo
lution at all, in the sense of insurrection and radical over
throw of air social relations. It was strictly and only an
emancipation — forcible, indeed, but historically necessary —
of colonies which had arrived at the age of self-government
from the guardianship of the mother country, which had
become unnecessary and oppressive. Language, customs,
religion, laws, and institutions . remained substantially the
same, and were changed only in form and so far as the new
state of things required. The English common law and
the whole judicial process is retained to this day as before
the revolution. In the place of the hereditary monarch
came a president, chosen, it is true, every four years by the
people, but clothed with proportionally as much power and
influence as the queen of England, and in some respects
with more. In the place of Parliament came Congress,
with its two branches, the Senate, — corresponding to the
House of Lords, and representing in general the conservative .

CHARACTER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 39
principle, — and the House of Representatives, answering to
the English House of Commons, and more progressive in its
reigning spirit.
The fathers and leaders of the American struggle for free
dom — excepting Tom Paine, the English Voltaire, who,
however, by bis infidelity, vices, and vulgar habits soon lost
all influence, and was thrust out of all decent American
society — were anything but radical reformers or wild
destructionists, like the heroes of the French and German
revolutions. They were men of sound practical judgment,
of decidedly liberal, and yet' sober, conservative, and
constitutional views, and of the most honorable, moral, and
in some instances even decidedly religious character.
From the first settling of the country, especially among the
Puritanic New Englanders, a very strong practical religious
spirit maintained itself, and prevented the national progress
from running into the wild extravagances of radicalism.
George Washington, the noblest embodiment of the Ame
rican revolution — or rather secession from England, — the
" father of his countiy," " first in war, first in peace, and
first in the hearts of his countrymen," revered from Maine
to Florida, from New York to San Francisco, as a sort of
national god, — was a perfectly disinterested patriot, a mild,
noble-minded, plain, modest man, of irreproachable and
symmetrical character, not of very profound knowledge of
religion, but sincerely reverencing the holy word and law
of God ; a worthy and consistent communicant of the
Protestant Episcopal church, holding private devotion
daily in his library, kneeling and praying over the Bible.

40 POLITICAL CONDITION.
His successors in the presidency, down to Pierce, who regu
larly attends public worship — a practice, which in the
United States is almost inseparable from moral and social
respectability, — need not fear comparison in a moral and
religious point of view with any dynasty of Europe. The
greatest American statesmen and orators have on various
occasions thrown the weight of their voice into the scale of
virtue and piety, and have repeatedly and emphatically
declared that Christianity is the groundwork of their
republic, and that the obliteration of the church must
involve the annihilation of all freedom, and the ruin of the
land. You seldom hear in the halls of Congress, however
badly it may occasionally behave in other respects, a word
of disrespect to religion ; and whenever one is uttered, it is
commonly repelled with indignation. But you may some
times hear there an open confession of the fundamental
truths of revelation. Every session of the Senate and House
of Representatives is opened with prayer ; while a proposi
tion for the same arrangement in the Frankfort parliament
of 1848 was rejected with scorn. No wonder the Scripture
was there verified : " Except the Lord build the house, they
labor in vain that build it." The renowned statesman and
orator, Henry Clay, on his death-bed in 1852, confessed that
he had tried the glories of earth and found them all vanity,
and that he sought peace and salvation only in Christ cruci
fied. His great rival, Daniel Webster, the American De
mosthenes who in the grand simplicity of his style betrays
the study of the Bible, found in his last hours the greatest
comfort in the 23rd Psalm of David, the " rod and the staff"

FATE OF FUGITIVE REVOLUTIONISTS IN AMERICA. 41
of the good shepherd, died in 1852, with a prayer for for
giveness on his lips, and ordered for his epitaph the words
of Scripture : " Lord, I believe ; help thou my unbelief 1"
Such testimonies from such mouths, have in America the
weight of a mighty sermon, and of a sacred legacy to the
whole nation.
Such things explain the well-known fact, that the
modern European heroes of liberty, or rather of licentious
ness — too many of whom have unfortunately been sent
adrift upon us by the abortive revolutions of 1848 —
become mightily undeceived in America, and begin at
once, in beer-houses and infidel journals, to scoff at the
intolerable tedium of the Jewish Sabbath, the pharisaical
church-going, the tyrannical priestcraft, and whatever else
they may call the pious habits' and institutions of the
United States. They find themselves exceedingly uncom
fortable, and would fain come back again to kindle revolu
tions in Europe, which they cannot kindle in America.
' Most of these radicals, who a few years ago made such a
noise in France, Italy, and Germany, have there sunk to
mere cyphers, or have become at best, common citizens,
who earn their livelihood with their own hands, and have
first to build up a character, before they can claim any
influence or importance.
The only revolutionary character, who really made a
great stir, was Kossuth. During his half-year's residence
in America, as the " guest of the nation," he delivered
several hundred English and some German addresses ;
and by his rare gift of agitation, and his certainly most

42 POLITICAL CONDITION.
remarkable eloquence, even in a foreign tongue,-he won the
admiration of thousands. But the history of his meteor
like rhetorical campaign through the States of the Union
may be told in the few words : " He rose like a rocket
and fell down like a stick." When he came back to New
York, where he had been received a few months before
with frantic enthusiasm, he attracted no attention ; and
unnoticed, and even under' the alias of Alexander Smith,
he returned to England to retire into a private house in
one of the suburbs of London. The best proof of the
total failure of his mission, is the fact, that the Ame
rican government still adheres as firmly as ever to the wise
policy, previously observed, and so earnestly recommended
by Washington and the dying Clay, of non-intervention in
the broils of the European powers ; though Kossuth
expended the most brilliant efforts of his inexhaustible
forensic oratory, to turn this policy to an active interference
in favor of all European revolutions, especially of a new
insurrection against the house of Hapsburg in Hungary,
which he predicted as near at hand ; and in this neutral
course the government will persevere, though at this
moment the Russo-Turkish question affords the most
favorable of all occasions for departing from it and for
asserting the influence of America in the councils of the
great powers of Europe. The general government at
Washington, which manages our international affairs,
rightly prefers to stand on a friendly footing with all
European states ; to offer all a free asylum for their over
flowing or oppressed population ; and to operate upon the

AMERICAN IDEA OF FREEDOM. 43
old world, not by the rude power of arms and by gratuitous
intermeddling, but solely by the silent, though far deeper
and worthier moral power of example.*
The whole Anglo-American conception of freedom is
specifically different from the purely negative notion which
prevails amongst the radicals and revolutionists on the
continent of Europe. With the American, freedom is
anything but a mere absence of restraint, an arbitrary,
licentious indulgence, every one following his natural
impulse, as the revolutionists would have it. It is a
rational, moral self-determination, hand in hand with law,
order, and authority. True national freedom, in the Ame
rican view, rests upon a moral groundwork, upon the
virtue of self-possession and self-control in individual
citizens. He alone is worthy of this great blessing and
capable of enjoying it, who holds his passions in check ;

* The appointment of Saunders as consul for London, and of Souls' as
ambassador to Madrid, can hardly be adduced as indication of a foreign-inter
vention policy and an aggressive revolutionary propagandism. For the first was
expressly rejected by the Senate, and the second, although confirmed by that
body, met the decided disapprobation of public opinion and was freely con
demned as an unprovoked insult upon Spain, and an impolitic measure of the
Administration. It is well known that the fiery advocate of Cuban Fiili-
busterism, after, the failure of his efforts to buy or to steal the Pearl of the
Antilles, resigned at the end of last year and is already replaced by the Hon.
Ceesar Augustus Hannibal Dodge, who will not prove as formidable as his name
sounds. It would be the greatest injustice to judge the United States by their
diplomatic representatives abroad. While some of them by their intelligence
and dignity challenge the esteem of foreign nations, not a' few others bring
only disgrace or ridicule upon our good name. It were best either to send such
men to European courts as are really fit for the station and will mind their
proper business, or to give up the diplomatic intercourse altogether.

44 POLITICAL CONDITION.
is master of his sensual nature ; obeys, natural laws, not
under pressure from without, but from inward impulse,
cheerfully and joyfully. But the negative and hollow
liberalism, or rather the radicalism, which undermines the
authority of law and sets itself against Christianity and
the church, necessarily dissolves all social ties, and ends in
anarchy ; which then passes very easily into the worst and
most dangerous form of despotism.
These sound views of freedom, in connection with the
moral earnestness and the Christian character of the
nation, form the basis of the North American republic,
and can alone secure its permanence. We also find there,
indeed, beyond all question, utterly unsound and dangerous
radical tendencies ; in the political elections all wild
passions, falsehood, calumny, bribery, and wickedness of
all sorts, are let loose ; and even the halls of the legislatures
and of Congress are frequently disgraced by the misconduct
of unprincipled demagogues, so that multitudes of the
best citizens, disgusted with the wire-pulling and mean
selfishness of self-styled friends of the people, shrink from
any active participation in politics, or discharge their duty
as citizens by nothing more, at most, than their vote at the
ballot-box. But on the whole, there prevails undeniably
among the people a sound conservative tone, which exerts
a constant influence in favor of right and order; and it is an
imposing spectacle, when immediately after the election of a
president or 'governor, a universal calm at once succeeds
the furious storm of party strife, and the conquered party
patiently submits to the result, never dreaming of such a

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 45
thing as asserting its real or supposed rights in any violent
way. Any dissatisfaction — for such certainly has place
there as well as elsewhere — reaches never to the republican
form of government, but only to the manner of its exer
cise, not to the constitution of the land, but only to the
measures of the dominant party ; and it seeks redress of its
wrongs always in a lawful, constitutional way. So far as
this goes, it may well be asserted, that the North Ameri
can Union, with all the fluctuation and insecurity of its
affairs in particular instances — which is to be expected in
so new a country — -stands in general more firmly on its
feet, and is safer from violent revolutions, than any country
on the continent of Europe.
A very characteristic proof of our assertion, that
American freedom is different in principle from radi
calism and licentiousness, and rests entirely on the
basis of self-control and self-restraint, is presented in
the really sublime temperance movement, particularly
in the " Maine liquor law," as it is called. This
law wholly forbids, not directly the drinking — for this
would be an infringement of personal liberty, — but the
manufacture and sale of all intoxicating drinks, including
even wine and beer, except for medicinal, mechanical,
and sacramental purposes. This law was first introduced
a few years ago in the predominantly Puritanical, New
England State of Maine, and has since been extended to
several other states by a popular majority ; and even in the
great States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the
most zealous efforts are now making by public addresses,

46 POLITICAL CONDITION.
by tracts and periodicals, and other means of agitation, to
secure the election of legislators favorable to the temperance
cause, who will strike at the root of the terrible evil, and
remove even the temptation to drunkenness.* Even last
fall, shortly before the election, I was personal witness of
the zeal and earnestness, with which the agents of the
temperance society, ministers and laymen, canvassed the
counties of Pennsylvania, and spreading their tent under
the open heaven, after a solemn introduction by singing
and prayer, eloquently described the horrible consequences,
temporal and eternal, of intemperance, and demonstrated to
the people by the most convincing arguments, the duty of
using their elective franchise in a way demanded by the
public weal, in the consciousness of their high responsibility
to God and the world.
It must be granted that this Maine temperance law,
in itself considered, goes too far, and is to be ranked
with radical legislation. It contradicts the letter of the
Bible ; for it is a fact, that Christ himself turned water into
wine, drank wine according to the general custom of the
time, used it for the illustration of the most sacred things,
and consecrated it in the holy Supper, as the symbolical
vehicle of his atoning blood. But on the other hand
what St. Paul says of abstinence from meat, is equally
* Since the above was written the Maine law has even passed the Legislatures
of New York and Pennsylvania (in April, 1855), and is to go into effect on the
fourth of July of this year. Think of the law as you please. This is one of the
greatest marvels of self-restraining popular legislation, and we would admire it
still more, had it not been mixed up with politics, which in its present state
seems to spoil whatever it touches, whether men or things.

TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 47
applicable to beverage : " If wine make my brother offend,
I will drink no wine while the world standeth,. lest I make
my brother to offend." The moderate American tem
perance men take the position not of abstract right in the
case, but of present expediency and moral necessity under
existing circumstances. For it must be considered, that
the United States have hardly begun to produce their own
wine, and that most of what is there sold under this name,
is more or less adulterated and fully as injurious as brandy.
Yet, think of the "Maine liquor law " as we may, — and we
would here neither advocate nor condemn it, — we must
admire the moral energy and self-denial of a free people,
which would rather renounce an enjoyment in itself lawful,
than see it drive thousands of weak persons to bodily and
spiritual ruin.
To those, who see in America only the land of unbridled
radicalism and of the wildest fanaticism for freedom, I take
the liberty to put the modest question : In what European
state would the government have the courage to enact such
a prohibition of the traffic in all intoxicating drinks, and
the people the self-denial to submit to it ? I am sure,
that in Bavaria at least the prohibition of bier would
produce a bloody revolution ; for " der schrecklichste der
Schrecken, das ist der Bayer ohne Bier."
Time, of course, does not permit me to enter into a more
detailed analysis of the American constitution; the relation
of the central government in Washington to the rights and
governments of the several states; the composition of con
gress and of the legislatures; the duties of the president

48 SLAVERY.
and the organization of his cabinet ; the differences of the
two parties, Whigs and Democrats, into which the great..
nation has heretofore been divided, and the principles of the
the new party of Know-Nothings which is just now sweep
ing over the country like a whirlwind ; the nature of the
popular elections; the courts; juridical and parliamentary
eloquence ; &c. But on one point I must add at least a
few words ; viz., on slavery. This prevails, indeed, only
in the Southern States, but, by the union of these States
with the Northern in one confederacy, it is made a national
matter ; and latterly, especially' through the unparalleled
circulation of " Uncle Tom's cabin," which gives substan
tially a tolerably true picture of life in the slave States, it
has engaged also in a high degree the attention of Europe.
Slavery is unquestionably the greatest political and social
difficulty of the Union. It keeps up a constant agitation ;
throws the apple of discord, year after year, into Congress
and even into whole churches ; and in 1850 brought us to
the brink of a formal division of the Republic. The leaders
of the two great political parties — Clay and Webster among
the Whigs, Cass and Buchanan among the Democrats — at
that time exerted all the power of their eloquence and
statesmanship to secure the passage of the " Compromise
Measures," as they are called, and thus save the Uuion#
But the agitation on this subject still continues in state and
church ; has broken out anew this winter in the stormy
debate in Congress on the Nebraska bill ; and will only be
abated with the abatement of the evil itself. That there
are in the United States over three millions of negro slaves,

PARTIES ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 49
who may be bought and sold as common merchandize, is
certainly in most palpable contradiction to the first-principle
of that government, that all men are born free and equal ;
or, as it should be more properly expressed, are born or
destined for freedom. What an anomaly, that the freest
country in the world should maintain and defend a relic of
barbarism and heathenism, which humanity and Christi-1
anity, reason and revelation, and all the civilized nations of
Europe condemn with one voice ! But when and how this
social evil, not introduced by the national American govern
ment itself, but inherited from the colonial period, rooted in
the heart of the land, and interwoven with all the material
interests of the South, is to be done away, is one of the most
difficult questions, which statesmanship has ever had to solve.
On the subject of slavery the Union is divided into three
principal parties :
(1.) The Abolitionists of the North, especially of New
England, who regard slavery as sin per se, and insist on its
immediate abolition. These, however, fall again into two
very different branches ; some proceeding on Christian
principles, while others run into the most radical excesses,
even in' other matters ; " women's rights," for example, and
open infidelity, — and thus do the cause more harm than
good. (2.) The Secessionists of the South, especially of South
Carolina, who, embittered by the unsparing attacks of the
Abolitionists, threatened Congress in 1850 with secession
from the Confederacy, and the formation of a southern
republic of their own. Many of these advocate slavery as
3

50 POLITICAL CONDITION.
a necessary social counterpoise to the democracy of the
North, as a conservative element ; appealing to the inefface
able difference between the African and the Caucasian
races, the miserable condition of the freed negroes, and
even to the Holy scriptures of the Old Testament, and to
the Epistle of Paul to Philemon.
(3.) The Union party in North and South. This is by far
the most numerous, made up of both whigs and democrats.
These, from motives of patriotism and interest, would main
tain the Union at all hazards, and leave slavery to the
legislation of the slave states themselves, and to its fate.
Most of them believe that slavery will gradually die out of
itself, and that, in any case, a sudden emancipation, without
previous education of the slaves, would be rather an injury
than a benefit to them.
Die out it assuredly will in time, as it has done in all
the northern states ; and perhaps it would have already
disappeared in Maryland and Kentucky, but for the aboli
tion agitation, which has called forth a violent reaction
against the unsparing condemnation of slave-holders. Thus
much, however, seems to me clear, from the philanthropic
and Christian point of view ; that the state and the church
ought, in a quiet way, and without infringement of the
right of property, to provide for a gradual emancipation of
the slaves, by training them to the rational use of freedom,
and by laws for the liberation of the new generation at 'a
certain age.
But even in case of a general abolition of slavery, it is
still a question of great difficulty, whether the African race

THE COLONIZATION MOVEMENT. 51
can at all stand by the side of the Caucasian in full equality,
amalgamate with it, and enter fully into its destiny. Even
in the free states there is confessedly an impassable gulf
between the whites and the free blacks, and even the most
zealous abolitionist, after all his talk about the absolute
equality of all men, would never, for any price, consent to
marry a negress. I doubt whether an Englishman or a
German would. The condition of the free negroes in
America is in general more pitiable, and not seldom worse
than that of their brethren in bondage at the south, at least
where these are carefully provided for by Christian masters
— of whom, thank God, there are not a few — and are so
kindly treated, that in many cases they will not accept
freedom when it is offered. It seems to me, therefore, that
duty as much requires the northern states to improve by
wise laws and charitable institutions the social condition of
the free negroes, and -to raise them to the dignity of
genuine humanity, as it demands of the southern states the
gradual emancipation of the slaves.
Thus far, I see but one luminous point in the tragic
gloom of slavery ; and that is the American Colonization
Society, and its offspring, the negro republic of Liberia, on
the west coast of Africa. In this colony, which has thus
far made altogether unexpected progress, and which has its
warmest and most liberal patrons in the southern states,
and among the slave-holders themselves, there is at least,
the beginning of a radical improvement in the condition of
the negroes, and. at the same time the groundwork of a
general Christian - civilization for the wild negro tribes

52 NATIONAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL LIFE.
around, in a land whose climate the Caucasian race cannot
bear, any more than the negroes amongst the whites can,
to all appearance, sustain an equal social importance , and
dignity with them. Thus God seems here also tp be giving
a new proof of his wonderful wisdom, which can bring good
even out of evil. By Christian and civilized negroes he
is kindling in the heart of that terra incognita the light of
the everlasting Gospel, and is thus turning the dreadful
curse of American slavery — that grievous crime of European
and American Christendom (for it was under Spanish,
French, Danish, and English rule that slavery came into
the New world) — into an incalculable blessing to the
pagan savages of Africa.

III. NATIONAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL LIFE.
The United States present, in the first place, a wonderful
mixture of all nations under heaven. A tour through them
is in some sense a tour through the world, and therefore
one of the most interesting and instructive journeys one
can make, who would see the confused motions of the living
present, rather than the rich treasures of the dead past;
though of the latter, Italy, for example, that flower-crowned
mausoleum of history, affords infinitely more. In America,
English, Scotch, Irish, Germans of all provinces, Swiss,
Dutch, French, Spaniards, Italians, Swedes, Norwegians,
Poles, Magyars, with their well-known national virtues and
weaknesses, have peaceably settled down together in poli
tical and social equality. And to these representatives of

OBSOLETE EUROPEAN PECULIARITIES. 53
European nations are added the red aborigines of the
country, who are constantly retreating further into the
forests and prairies of the West, and, in spite of all attempts
to Christianize and civilize them, are steadily approaching
the tragical fate of self-extermination by intestine wars,
contagious diseases, and the poison of rum. Then the
black sons of Africa, rejoicing in the childlike cheerfulness
of their nature, and even in freedom bowing instinctively
before the superiority of the whites. Lastly, the yellow
immigrants from the Celestial Empire, attracted by the gold
of California, and bringing with them their oblong eyes,
their quiet disposition and mechanical culture, their indus
try, avarice, and filthy habits.
Thus we have in America an ethnographic panorama,
which one may see pass 'before him in a few hours on a
walk through Broadway in New York, or Chestnut street
in Philadelphia, or along the markets of San Francisco.
Not only the nationalities of the Old World, however, but
even national peculiarities of condition, manners, and habits,
obsolete ih their native lands, there perpetuate themselves
to this day in many instances with remarkable tenacity.
In Virginia you meet the English gentleman of the age of
Elizabeth and the later Stuarts ; in Philadelphia, the Quaker
of the days of George Fox and William Penn; in East
Pennsylvania, the Palatine and the Swabian of the beginning
of the last century ; in New England, the Puritan of the
times of Cromwell and Baxter ; on the banks of the Hudson
and in New Jersey, the genuine Hollander ; on the shores
of the Northern lakes hundreds of Scotch, so that a traveller

54 NATIONAL CHARACTER.
from the country of Burns " at the Kirk on Sabbath would
hardly ken he were frae hame ;" in South Carolina, the
Huguenot and French nobleman of the seventeenth century,
or at least very striking traces of their character, which in
Europe are even far more obliterated. This fact itself
shows, how cautiously one must receive the accounts of so
many European tourists, which take some single element
by itself, and make it the standard for the whole; thus
producing the most contradictory representations.
But now what is most remarkable is, that over this
confused diversity there broods after all a higher unity, .
and that in this chaos of peoples the traces of a specifically
American national character may be discerned. Those,
who- find in the United States only the faint echo of
European nationalities, and so feel obliged to deny that
country an independent future in history, are very much
mistaken. Whoever treads the soil of the New World with
open eyes, perceives at once a thoroughly fresh and
energetic national life, which instantly takes up and
assimilates all foreign elements, excepting only the
African and the Chinese. The American's digestive
power is really astonishing. How many thousands and
millions of Europeans has his stomach already received !
and yet he has only grown firmer and healthier thereby.
The basis of the American nationality is undoubtedly
English, though unquestionably a peculiar modification of
it, possessing much greater capacity than the original for
receiving and working up foreign material. To gain a
clear conception of the Anglo-Saxon race, one must travel

ANGLO-SAXON STRENGTH OF CHARACTER. 55
to England, Scotland, and North America. If he sees the
Englishman only abroad, he meets him in the most un
favorable circumstances. An Englishman on the continent
is like a fish out of water. He commonly retains his well-
known spleen, and by his stiff awkwardness and his
obstinate adherence to his peculiar insular notions and
habits, even down to his favorite tea-kettle, beaf-steak, and
plum-pudding, presents without question a ludicrous aspect,
so that a spectator must wonder, how this strange John
Bull could obtain the dominion of the seas. The like is
true, though not so strikingly, of the American. But what
seems their weakness abroad — seems, I say,, for with all
their stiffness and strangeness one cannot help respecting
and admiring them on other accounts — that very thing is
their strength at home. The Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-
American, of all modern races, possess the strongest
national character and the one best fitted for universal
dominion, and that, too, not a dominion of despotism
but one, which makes its subjects free citizens. For they
are at once liberal and conservative. In them — and this is
the secret of their national greatness and importance— the
impulse towards freedom and the sense of law and order are
inseparably united, and both rest on a moral basis. Con
science and the sense of duty are very strongly marked
in them, and I doubt whether the moral influence of
Christianity and of Protestantism has more deeply and
widely affected any nation, than it has the Anglo-Saxon.
It is characteristic, that the word " glory," which occurs in
almost every sentence of Napoleon's proclamations and
bulletins, never appears in the despatches of Wellington,

56 ANGLO-SAXON STRENGTH OF CHARACTER.
but gives place to the term " duty." Gloire is the motto
of the Frenchman ; duty, of the Englishman. Napoleom
at the battle of the Pyramids, fired the ambition of his
soldiers with the cry : " Centuries look down upon you 1"
Nelson at Trafalgar simply reminded his seamen: "Eng
land expects every man to do his duty to-day !"
Mental energy and solidity the Anglo-Saxons have in com
mon with the Germans ; both being in fact off-shoots from
the same Teutonic root. But whilst in the latter this
mental power turns inward, and occupies itself with
thought and theory, in the former it is rather directed
outward, concerning itself in a practical way with will aud
action. The one has the deeper mind, and can take up
and comprehend everything in himself ; the other has the
stronger character, and can shape and organize everything
out of himself. The German excels in the facility of trans
ferring himself into all circumstances and adapting himself
to all, and thus very often loses himself in foreign
nationalities ; the Anglo-Saxon is stiff and unyielding, but
makes everything, as of itself, serve him. The former is
the most cordial and good-natured man of the world, giving
free play to his warm, hearty feelings and impulses; the
latter has a heart indeed, but it beats under a marble cover ;
be has perfect self-command, and is therefore best fitted to
rule others. True, he puts no hindrance in the way of the
stranger; he gives him perfect freedom, within the whole
some limits of the law. Yet he exerts upon him a vast
power and an attractive force, which cannot be ultimately
resisted. The American has the same organizing talent, the same

PECULIARITIES OF AMERICAN CHARACTER. 57
self-control, the same practical energy, the same business
faculty, as the Englishman. His spirit of enterprise is still
stronger, and not rarely degenerates even into fool-hardiness
and the most reckless disregard of human life, fearfully
manifest in the countless conflagrations in cities, and
disasters on steamboats and railroads.
The American, I grant, has less solidity than the much
older Englishman. But he makes up for this in vivacity,
elasticity, and capacity for improvement. The Englishman,
too, is shut up on his island ; the American moves on a
great continent and between two oceans. The former has
not yet been able to assimilate to itself the Celtic Irishman
in his immediate neighborhood, nor thoroughly to redress
his grievances ; .the latter, at once infuses into the immi
grant the common feeling of the American.
But though the main features of the American national
character may be already quite plainly discerned, and
reveal themselves as predominantly Anglo-Saxon ; yet it is
only in its formation state ; and the more it developes, the
more sensibly do the un-English elements, favored by the
increasing emigration from the continental countries of
Europe, modify the whole. In New York the Hollanders
— the first settlers — in Louisiana the French, can never be
wholly obliterated. Least of all, the Germans, who, with
their descendants, must already number four millions and
upwards. Even now, the middle and western States, in
which most of the Germans have settled, differ very
perceptibly in character, from New England and the
southern States. As they lie between the two geographi-
a*

58 RELATION OF GERMAN AND AMERICAN CHARACTERS.
cally, so they hold a middle place also in a natural and
social point of view. Pennsylvania, for example— the
Keystone State, as it is called, which binds together the
giant structure of the Union — is neither purely English
nor purely German, but Anglo-German ; and will become
more and more so. Even where the German language is
swallowed up by the English, the German disposition and
German ways still maintain themselves under the new
dress, and from the ashes of the old German Adam rises
not rarely an American gentleman, who unites the excel
lencies of the German and the Englishman in beautiful
harmony. Beyond all question the German has a great
work to do in the New World, though he is as yet hardly
aware of it. He will not fully meet the demand, however,
if he coldly and stiffly shut himself out from the Anglo-
Americans, and think to form a state within a state. This
would be the most unwise policy, and would unavoidably
end in a failure. ' He must rather, by his native cosmo
politan, universal spirit, boldly and energetically master
the Anglo-American nature, appropriate its virtues, and
then breathe into it, as far as it may be desirable, the
breath of his own spirit and life. In this way he will
work in a larger and richer field ; whereas by selfish
seclusion, he robs himself of all influence on the cen
tral stream of the American life. If the land of the
Reformation has furnished the ideal part, the heart's blood,
of the modern European history of the world and the
church, its literature and better class of emigrants have
a similar mission also for the United States of America.

NATIONAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL LIFE. 59
Then let the oddities and weaknesses — in a word, the
whole long cue of the raw German — the cue in front, too,
which seems to have become fashionable since 1848 — let
all these go, if only his virtues, his depth of mind and of
heart, may remain, and be enriched and quickened with the
undeniable energy and practical turn of the Anglo-Ameri
can. The German and English, too, mix much easier
than other nations. They are both, in fact, essentially
Germanic or Teutonic. They have, in common, a certain
simplicity and honesty of character, a deep-rooted respect
for woman, love for home and the family life, especially
moral earnestness and a religious turn ; and even the eccle
siastical life has taken a like course in them, the two
being the chief supports of the ideas and institutions
of evangelical Christianity, and holding in their hands
the theoretical and practical mission of Protestantism for
the world. Their duty, therefore, where they are brought
by Providence into immediate contact, and meet in all the
relations of social life, cannot possibly be to hate and fight
one another; it must be to esteem, and love, and learn
from one another, and contribute to each other's perfec
tion. The English national character itself is, like the Eng
lish language, confessedly the result of an organic combi
nation of the British-Celtic, the Anglo-Saxon, or Ger
manic, and the Norman-French nationalities ; the Anglo-
Saxon, however, plainly forming the proper stem, upon
which the Norman was grafted in the twelfth century ; as,
in fact, the fundamental elements of the English language,

60 LUXURY OF HIGH LIFE IN AMERICA.
all the words for the most essential relations of human
life, are of German origin.
A similar process of national amalgamation is now
also going on before our eyes in America ; but peacefully,
under more favorable conditions, and on a far grander
scale than ever before in the history of the world America
is the grave of all European nationalities ; but a Phenix
grave, from which they shall rise to new life and new
activity in a new and essentially Anglo-Germanic form.
The English influence, of course, predominates in Ame
rica, not only in language, but also in the whole social
life ; but it is greatly modified, partly by influences from
continental Europe, partly by the political institutions of
America itself. The further west, and the newer the coun
try, the more unformed and changeable is the state of
society ; and on the frontiers, and in uncultivated regions,
the rudest state of nature sometimes appears. In Califor
nia, for example, with all its gold, I Would not live for any
price. Every thing there is still in chaotic confusion ;
though even in this State the indestructible Anglo-Ameri
can sense of law and order already shows itself energetic
ally among the people. Lately, for example, the authori
ties being too cowardly to do their duty, the people
took the punishment of certain offenders into their own
hands, and executed "Lynch law" upon them. In the
larger States of the west, however, and especially in
the east and south, we find well-ordered, respectable, and
cultivated society. The interior arrangements of a house
commonly afford every thing that the Englishman denotes

DANGERS OF IT. 61
by the untranslatable word "comfort" — carpets in the
rooms, on the stairs, and in the hall ; a parlor, with sofas,
piano, cushioned rocking-chairs, a centre-table, covered
with illustrated works, the latest ladies' journals, &c.
After the English plan, each family occupies a house by
itself, which, at least in the smaller cities and towns, has
generally a garden attached. Many of the larger cities
even, as New Haven and Cleveland, are charmingly
arranged, almost every house having an inclosed green in
front, planted with trees and flowers, so that the streets
present the delightful aspect of a garden promenade.
The smaller towns are, in general,- much handsomer,
the streets wider and straighter, the houses more inviting
and convenient, than in Europe. And in the principal
cities, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Wash
ington, Cincinnati, New Orleans, all European luxury is
making only too rapid and perilous progress. Had not
New York so many churches and Christian societies, and
so strictly kept Sundays, it might already be called a
second Paris, which it will soon be also in point of popu
lation. In the lead of this luxury stand sometimes the most
disgusting forms of a mushroom aristocracy, which rests
upon nothing but the dust of gold. These American fops
and quack-aristocrats, who, void of all true nobility, have
no sense for any thing but outward show, are not rarely
met, to our shame, in European capitals and watering-
places, striving to outdo the polite world in vanity and
folly. I heard but yesterday, for example, that the son of

62 GENERAL CULTURE.
a New York merchant-prince in the Berne Highlands,
where everybody goes on foot, if possible, to' enjoy and
admire, con amove, the sublimity of the mountain scenery,
was driving around everywhere with two horses, to show
the English lords and Russian nobles right visibly his
pecuniary superiority. It is characteristic that the two
largest and most princely mansions in New York and
Philadelphia were built by quacks (Dr. Townsend and Dr.
Jayne) out of the proceeds of their sarsaparilla. Whether
the enormous increase of luxury, and worldly pomp, and
splendor, will gradually undermine the Republic, whose
proper foundation is the patriarchal style of simplicity and
honesty, time must tell. At any rate the flourishing com
merce and growing wealth of the country involves great
danger of a bottomless materialism and worldliness ; and I
see in Christianity alone the powerful corrective, which has
thus far saved the higher intellectual and moral interests,
and which will secure to them in future the predominance
over the " almighty dollar." It is a remarkable fact, how
ever, that wealth'hardly ever continues to the third genera
tion in the States, and that all this artificial aristocracy
soon runs out. The middle classes are there, more than in
any other country, the proper bone and sinew of society,
and always restore the equilibrium.
Social life in America is in some respects freer, in
others stiffer, than in Europe. Much, that is not at all
offensive there, is rudeness to the European ; . and the
American, in turn, is greatly scandalized with things which
in the Old World are innocent customs. It were unjust and

GENERAL CULTURE. 63
pedantic to make such mere externals the standard of
judgment respecting the people. The old proverb here
holds true : So many countries, so many customs. So
highly and liberally cultivated society, as is found for
instance here in Berlin, where, to speak without flattery,
one may spend every evening in the most stimulating and
agreeable conversation, with ladies as well as with gen
tlemen, on matters of science and art and all the higher
affairs of life, is, I grant, very rarely met with in America.
Female education especially is, in general, very superficial
there, valued more for outward show than for inward solid
ity; and in many companies of which, . judging from
appearance, one would expect better things, you sometimes
hear for a whole evening, hardly anything but the flattest
and most insufferable gossip about the weather, the
fashions, and the latest projects of marriage. On the
other hand, however, there is more of a kind of medium
cultivation than in Europe, where accomplishment is
aristocratic, or confined to certain classes. The United
States is the country for average intelligence, average
morality, and average piety. Republican institutions, as
may even be observed to some extent in Switzerland, tend
to level away social distinctions. In America, while there
are not so many towering heights of culture, there is,
on the other hand, no such wide-spread and degrading
ignorance as in the masses of Europe. There almost
every one tries to become a gentleman or a lady ; that is,
to attain the English ideal of outward and inward intellec-
tualand moral culture, so far as his circumstances and

64 THE YANKEE CHARACTER.
position allow. Almost every man has some routine, at
least outwardly ; he can represent something ; he reads
gazettes and newspapers ; knows how to talk sensibly
about the general affairs of his country ; and can, if neces
sary, make a speech, and generally turn his knowledge to
good practical account.
The Yankee especially — that is, the New Englander — has
a natural business genius, and can undertake anything. He
can begin and make a fortune easier with one idea, than a
German can with ten. His mottoes are : " Help yourself,"
and "Go ahead." He early becomes independent, and
even in youth learns to push through all possible difficul
ties. Hence the Jews hardly play any part in America ;
they find their masters in the Yankees. It must not be
thought, however, that these descendants of the old Puri
tans are made only of shrewd, selfish calculation. It would
be the greatest injustice to take the famous Barnum, the
prince of humbug, as the only type of the "universal
Yankee nation." They are generally liberal, conscientious,
temperate, strictly moral, religiously-inclined*" friends of
liberal education, and ardent philanthropists. The six
north-eastern States, included under the name of New
England, especially Massachusetts and Connecticut, are
still, in regard to culture and Christianity, the garden of
America. Domestic life in the United States may be described as,
on an average, well regulated and happy. The number of
illegitimate births is perhaps proportionally less than in any
other country. Divorces are very rare, and are made by

NATIONAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL LIFE. 65
the laws far more difficult than, for example, in Prussia.
This is the good effect of the laws of old England, which
has practically made divorce almost impossible, by requir
ing for it an act of Parliament, and therefore an enormous
outlay of money. True, the American family life is not
characterized by so much deep good-nature, and warm,
overflowing heartiness, as the German. But instead of this
the element of mutual respect predominates. Husband
and wife, parents and children, stand more independently
towards one another, in a respectful dignity, and thus avoid
many collisions. When the partners speak of each other
in the third person, it is not commonly by the familiar
names: My husband, My wife, but by the family name
with Mr. or Mrs. prefixed, or by the official title. In fact,
even in direct address the wife not unfrequently gives her
husband his title of Doctor, Professor, &c, particularly in
company. The American's profound respect for the female sex is
well known. This old Germanic trait, celebrated so early
as by Tacitus, has most fully developed itself in the Anglo-
Saxon race under the influence of Christianity, and is very
favorable to domestic and public morality. Whoever is
acquainted with family life in England, knows how high
and dignified a position woman holds there, and how much
is comprehended in the term lady. America goes yet a
step further. It is semetimes called woman's paradise. I
take it, indeed, that this earthly life is a paradise neither
for ladies nor for gentlemen, but for both a purgatory, to
purify them for heaven. It is a fact, however, that in the

66 FAMILY RELIGION.
United States woman is exempt from all hard labor (ex
cept perhaps among the immigrants, who keep their for
eign customs, and in new settlements, say in Texas, or Wis
consin, or Oregon, where circumstances demand the strength
of all hands) ; that she can travel unattended, from one
end of the vast country to another, without being molested
in the least ; that in the steamboats, the great hotels, and
public places, she finds her own saloons, sometimes ex
tremely elegant, and all possible conveniences, and has the
precedence in every company. It is characteristic, also,
that in America one must address a mixed audience, not
as " Gentlemen and Ladies," as in all other Ianguao-es, but in
the reverse order, as " Ladies and Gentlemen." Of course
this respect for woman requires monogamy as its indispen
sable groundwork ; and it is one main reason why the
Mormons, who are charged, you are aware, with polygamy,
are so hated there, and have been banished even by force
from the territory of the organized States. They will
never make many proselytes among the Americans, and
they are accordingly now directing their missionary efforts
almost entirely abroad.
The crown of the American family life, and one of the
strongest proofs of the power of Christianity over the
people, is table-prayer, which is almost universal ; and daily
family worship, which is the rule at least in religious cir
cles, and is proportionally more frequent there, than in any
other country, except perhaps England and Scotland. The
ultimate effects of this pious custom on children and chil
dren's children are incalculable ; and it must go well with

SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 67
a people, where the father feels it his duty and his joy to
gather the members of his household every morning around
the Holy Scriptures, as their daily bread of life, and to bow
with them before the throne of the Almighty, and implore
His blessing on the labors of the day.
IV. SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.
It were extremely unfair and unreasonable, to demand
of a country so young as America the same degree of sci
entific and aesthetic culture, as of those countries of the
Old World, which have risen through a history of thousands
of years to the height of modern civilization. Bather
must one greatly wonder, that in two hundred years since
the settlement of New England, with which the history of
North America began, that country has even advanced so
far in this respect. We should never ungratefully forget,
indeed, that it had an enormous capital to rest upon and
start with, in the results of the two thousand years develop
ment of Europe. Yet there remains reason enough for
amazement at the uncommon energy, activity, and assiduity
displayed by the Americans even in the sphere of science
and literature. It is ignorance or calumny, which pictures
them so often as a purely materialistic race, estimating a
man only by his money. They have, on the contrary, the
liveliest interest in. all branches of higher intellectual cul
ture, and show it sometimes by a truly princely liberality.
There are instances in New England of single individuals
giving of their own accord hundreds of thousands to estab-

68 SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.
lish scientific institutions. Were this noble liberality to be
found among the Germans of America, we should long ago,
have had in Pennsylvania a complete German university,
which would compare, not indeed in its faculties — for these
require time — but in outward resources, with the venerable
scientific foundations of Europe.
The general tendency in America is to the widest possi
ble diffusion of education and the multiplication of institu
tions. This is in keeping with the republican system of
liberty and equality. Hence the large and rapidly increas
ing number of colleges, seminaries, academies, and literary
associations. Every little synod, or even every little town,
must have its own little seminary or other little quasi sci
entific institution. Of course, then, these are often accord
ingly. Depth and thoroughness by no means go hand in
hand with extension. Even among the professors in the
higher institutions there is a surprising amount of superfi
ciality, joined commonly with learned vanity and magnilo
quence. For superficial knowledge puffs up, while thor
ough knowledge humbles. Profound scientific culture
must necessarily always, be the property of the few. A
world of only scholars could never stand a day. Never
theless that tendency to the widest possible diffusion of a
certain grade of education cannot be restrained in such a
country as America, and it has, after all, its favorable
aspect. I will speak first of the institutions and appliances of
education. 1. Elementary education has now been in great part

OBJECTIONS TO STATE SCHOOLS. 69
taken charge of by the several States ; still leaving parents,
however, a perfect right to send their children to private
schools. All New England, New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and other States, have adopted a general free-school
system, partly after the much admired Prussian model,
which offers even to the poorest and meanest the rudiments
of knowledge. In fact, you will very rarely find one in
New England, who cannot read and write, and who does
not besides know something of the public affairs of the
country. A peculiar phenomenon is the great number of
female teachers. Among these are particularly distin
guished the " Yankee girls," who know how to make their
way right successfully everywhere as teachers ; as in Europe
the governesses from French Switzerland.
Latterly, the Roman clergy in New York and other
States have been making a systematic effort to overthrow
the State schools, because the Protestant influence which
prevails in them imperceptibly draws away the youth from
their church. But the agitation has miscarried ; it has
only made Romanism more unpopular, and confirmed the
old charge against her of hostility to general education.
These public schools, however, as now constituted, have
assuredly their great defects. Though commonly opened
with singing and the reading of the Bible, yet they do not
duly provide for the proper moral and religious education
of the children, without which secular culture can do little
good. True, there are everywhere, along with the State
schools, Sunday schools, as they are called, where the chil
dren receive gratuitous instruction in Bible history and

70 COLLEGE EDUCATION.
the catechism, from male and female members of the
church, who give themselves to this useful labor of love in
disinterested zeal for the good cause. Yet, after all, inva
luable as these are, and benignly as they have operated,
they do not seem wholly to supply the need. Hence pro
minent men, in Protestant confessions, have likewise taken
a stand against these public elementary schools, and are
working for the establishment of parochial schools, in
direct connection with the church, to train the youth not
only for time, but also for eternity.
2. The higher education is begun in academies, as they
are called — i. e. classical schools — and continued in col
leges. The latter answer, in some cases, to the higher
classes in the German gymnasium and lyceum ; in others,
they, at the same time, correspond, in some degree, to a
university, not only requiring a classical preparation, and
embracing almost everything that does not pertain to some
special department, but also have from the State legislatures
power to confer all academic degrees. The age of college
students varies from sixteen to thirty years. A university,
in the full German sense of the word, America properly as
yet has not. The idea of one has lately been suggested
by very influential men, and will perhaps in time- be car
ried out. Such an institution there, however, would pro
bably have to be without a theological faculty, on account
of the rivalship among so many churches and sects ; and
a university without theology — that regina scientiarum —
is without its animating soul and its ruling head. The
nearest approach to a proper university is in the colleges

AMERICAN COLLEGES. 71
at Cambridge, Mass. (Harvard University), New Haven,
Conn. (Yale College), and the University of Virginia. In
these institutions schools of theology, law, and. medicine,
are connected with the literary department. But a philo
sophical faculty is still wanting.' All the philosophy
taught in them is embraced in the proper collegiate or
gymnasial course. But while philological, historical, and
metaphysical studies are not carried so high and deep as
in Germany, the natural and practical sciences receive
greater attention. Several colleges have within a few
years past added a special department under the name of
scientific schools, which correspond somewhat to the poly
technic institutions of Europe. They embrace several dis
tinct branches, such as agricultural and practical chemis
try, geology, and mineralogy, botany, zoology, mathema
tics, and astronomy, engineering, physiology, and mecha
nics. The American colleges proper are organized on the old
English model, with four classes : Freshmen, Sophomores,
Juniors, and Seniors. The students commonly lodge toge
ther in one building, under the eye of tutors or assistant-
teachers. The day's studies are opened and closed with
Divine service. Drunkenness, and other excesses, are
punished with fine, public censure, and suspension, and
repeated offenses with expulsion. Such unlimited freedom
as prevails in the German universities, would be con
sidered dangerous and impracticable in America. It
is thought, that youth must be kept under discipline,
in order to a rational use and enjoyment of freedom in

72 THEIR ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT.
manhood. At the end of their four years' course the stu
dents have to pass an examination before the faculty, and
deliver public orations, at what is called the Commence
ment, which is generally very largely attended by ladies as
well as gentlemen, far and near, and forms a great holiday
for all the neighboring population. On that occasion, the
graduating students receive from the president, in form,
before the crowded assembly, the diploma of baccalaureus
artium, and usually three years afterwards the diploma
of magister artium. An address from the president,
music, and prayer close the festival. On such an occasion
honorary degrees also are commonly conferred ; and
indeed so lavishly that they must at last entirely lose
their significance, unless a reaction take place. There are
American doctors of divinity, who, however distinguished
they may be as men and as preachers, have not done
science the least service, and can hardly read the New
Testament in the original text.
The number of colleges is already very considerable, and
is increasing almost every year. Of course, not a few are
very feeble, and do science no honor. Most have been
founded by churches, primarily as schools preparatory to
theological seminaries, and by voluntary contribution.
Others, as the Universities of Harvard, Michigan, Virginia,
are State foundations, and have no particular denomina
tional character. Still others owe their origin to the lib
erality of an individual ; as Girard College, in Philadel
phia, with its sumptuous buildings of pure marble. The
education afforded by these institutions is not so thorough

students' societies. is
as in Germany, but better adapted to public, practical life.
The students divide themselves into two rival literary socie
ties, which are almost as important for their mental de
velopment, as the recitations and lectures. In the weekly
meetings of these societies they practice declamation and
debate, and learn also the management of public assem
blies, and the whole parliamentary order; a matter of
great importance in the political and social life of a repub
lic. It is remarkable what esprit de corps already reigns
in the students' societies. They are as completely organ
ized as the great political parties of the country.
3. Faculty Studies. — As in England, so also in America,
very many take a college course, who do not devote them
selves to any learned profession, but become merchants,
land-owners, politicians, and statesmen, wishing at the
same time, however, to be educated gentlemen. Yet, the
proper faculty studies are already better attended tp ih the
United States than at the English Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, where they are almost entirely eclipsed
by the general college studies. Jurisprudence is usually
pursued, indeed, privately with a practising attorney, and
deals far less in the abstract theories of law, and its his
torical development, than in the concrete forms of the old
English laws and the American Constitution. Yet Har
vard University, for example, and Yale College have formal
law-schools. Far more numerous are Medical Colleges for
the education of. physicians — in Philadelphia alone there
are three, and, in fact, a fourth for female doctors ! — and
Theological Seminaries for educating preachers.
4

74 SCIENCE AND ' LITERATURE.
Formerly it was customary for students to prepare for
the ministry under some experienced clergyman, and some
do so still ; but since the beginning of the present century
it has been found desirable to erect special institutions for
this purpose, mostly in connection with a college. Now,
almost every respectable denomination and sect has one
such seminary or more of its own ; and the tendency
to multiply them is, in truth, only too strong. For when
the public interest becomes so much divided, it is almost
impossible for any one institution to be duly sustained.
Thus, for example, the various branches of the German
Church of America have already almost a dozen such
schools, most of which are still in their infancy, with
insufficient faculties, few students, small libraries, and still
obliged to struggle for their material existence ; so that
the honor of a theological professor there is not very envia
ble. Sometimes he is even sent out as an agent to collect
the money for his own support. Humbling as this busi
ness is, it sometimes seems unavoidable ; and the self-
denial and energy of the men who undertake it are worthy
of all recognition, when they spring from sincere interest
in the church. And when it is remembered that the
State, being in fact separate from the church, does
nothing for institutions of this kind — that they must be
established and maintained, therefore, wholly by the volun
tary contributions of the church — the wonder will be, that
so much has been done in this line in so short a time.
Many of the older seminaries, as that of the Congregation-
alists at Andover, and that of the Presbyterians at Prince-

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. 75
ton, are not only permanently endowed, and furnished each
with four or five professors, fine libraries, large build
ings for teachers and students, but have also already
displayed no insignificant literary energy. Scientific
theology has, I think, a more genial soil, and in the
last twenty years has accomplished proportionally more in
America than in England and Scotland. Certainly very
much in this department is to be expected from America in
the future. And then these American theological seminaries
have, at all events, this advantage, that the students devote
themselves to theology, not for their bread, as is so often
the case in the State Churches of Europe, but from reli
gious impulse, and hence are, so far as fallible man can
judge, all converted young men ; and that they always
combine practical preparation for the holy office with.
their scientific pursuits. Very often a seminary proves the
mother of a college, as a preparatory school, which from
the first maintains a more or less ecclesiastical and deno-
jninational character.
4. We now have also in America an' institution some
what corresponding to an Academy of Sciences — the
Smithsonian Institute, at Washington, the seat of the Gene
ral Government. It was founded by a wealthy English
man, whose name it bears, '' for the increase and diffusion
of knowledge among men," under the supervision of Con
gress, and the immediate control of three secretaries.
A large part of the interest which had accumulated for
many years, before it went into actual operation, was"
applied to the erection of a magnificent Gothic build-

76 SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.
iug, and the establishment of a library. Thus far it
has devoted itself almost exclusively to the natural
sciences, "though it has already done much towards eluci
dating Indian languages and antiquities, and sends its
superbly illustrated publications to almost all institutions
and societies of learning at home and abroad.
Besides this, there are in almost all the older States
smaller scientific associations, historical societies, &c.
5. Libraries are already very numerous in the United
States, though none have yet reached a hundred thousand
volumes. The most considerable are at Cambridge, Bos
ton, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. Every
scientific institution has a larger or smaller collection
of books. The richest colleges send agents from time to
¦ time to Europe to purchase valuable works in all branches
of literature. Not rarely, whole libraries are bought.
Neander's library, for example, is now in a Baptist Semi
nary at Rochester, N. Y., and that of the late Dr. Thilo,
of Halle, will go in a few weeks to Yale College, New
Haven, for which it has just been purchased by one of its
professors, now present in Berlin. Some years ago, John
Jacob Astor, of New York, the richest man in America, a
German by birth, left nearly half a million of dollars for
the establishment of a public library in the city of New
York. This has lately been opened, with forty thou
sand volumes, in an admirably arranged building in Astor
Place. He might as well have founded, with a part of
his eighteen millions, a full German university, at least for
his countrymen, if he had a right interest in them.

LITERATURE. 77
6. Literature. — The American receives his education
not only in scientific institutions, but almost as much from
public life, and from the enormous mass of periodical and
other literature which circulates through the land.
The United States are the classic soil of newspapers.
Every political party, every religious sect, every theological
school, every literary and philanthropic association, nay,
every village, has its periodical organ, by which it seeks to
form public opinion in its favor. The number of quar
terly reviews, and monthly, weekly, and daily papers, is
therefore, legion. The reading of the political and
religious periodicals has become as indispensable as break
fast. Every respectable man takes, at least, one, not
rarely half a dozen, newspapers, which are commonly in
omnibus aliquid, though very often also in toio nihil.
Such reading tends, unquestionably, to diffuse a kind of
culture among all classes of the people ; but it equally
tends to superficiality — kills taste for the study of solid
books, and dissipates the mind almost as much as novel
reading, in the place of which, to a great extent, it there
comes. An earnest and worthy professor, of New Eng
land, said to me lately : "The religious newspapers, which
often live only on flat gossip and party wrangling, are the
curse of our country." They are, however, at worst, a
necessary evil ; and it is the task of all good men, not to
restrict the public press, which is now absolutely impossi
ble, but to labor to make it more and more the vehicle and
lever" of truth and virtue. The circulation of many of
these sheets is without a parallel in Europe. Several

78 NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.
political newspapers of New York number over 100,000.
"Harper's Magazine," an illustrated monthly, for the
fashionable world, about 150,000 ' subscribers.* The
monthly organ of the American Tract Society has a still
larger circulation. This may be owing to its extraordinary
cheapness and its catholic character. But even denomina
tional, organs far exceed the circulation of German and
French church gazettes. The " New York Observer," for
instance, one of the oldest and best known religious papers,
professing Presbyterian principles, as far, at least, as it suits
its very conservative policy, and containing, after the gene
ral American fashion, a great variety of religious, political,
and other news, devotional pieces, foreign and domestic
correspondence, advertisements, etc., sends out nearly 20,000
copies every week. The "New York Evangelist," the
best organ of New School Presbyterianism, and the
" Independent," which pleads in very able and very radi
cal style the cause of progressive Puritanism and Aboli
tionism, are not yet so long established as their neighbors
* The " New York Tribune," whose chief editor is the well-known Horace
Greeley, called the Napoleon of the American press, and which is devoted to the
interests of Whig politics, abolitionism, temperance, and socialism, has now a
total circulation (daily, semi-weekly, and weekly) of 178,000. See Number for
May 24, 1855. As far as I know, no French newspaper strikes off 100,000 copies
unless it be the " Moniteur." The " London Times " has, no doubt, more
readers, and deserves them too, than any American newspaper, but hardly as
many subscribers as. the " New York Tribune." According to the census
reports of 1850, there were in that year printed in New York city alone 106
newspapers proper (exclusive of other periodical sheets), with an average cir
culation of 82,868,473 sheets; 14 of which appeared daily, 58 weekly, and 14
monthly. The daily circulation amounted to 153,621 ; the weekly to 425,200 ;
the monthly to 401,200 copies.

INFLUENCE OF SUCH LITERATURE. 79
of the " Observer, but will, probably, ere long, reach the
same circulation. Besides, in the absence of an interna
tional copyright, all "the more important English and
Scottish quarterlies, the " Edinburgh," " London Quarterly,"
"Westminster" and "North British Reviews," "Black
wood's Magazine," " Chamber's Journal," " Dickens' House
hold Words," &c, are reprinted either bodily or by
extracts, and sold far cheaper than the original edition.
And the number of other works is in proportion. All
books of any account, which appear in Great Britain, are
reprinted in America, and sold at never more than half the
price. The greatest establishment of the kind, and per
haps the largest publishing house in the world, is that of
the Brothers Harper, in New York. It was burnt last
December (1853), but with true American energy imme
diately put in operation again in another street, and with
the aid of presses in Philadelphia, Boston, Andover, &c, as
if nothing had happened. Intelligent men have expressed
to me the positive expectation, that New York will soon be
the greatest book market in the world. The American
Tract Society vies with the secular press, and multiplies
copies of the classical English works on practical religion,
the ascetic "writings of Baxter, Flavel, Owen, Howe, Bun-
yan, Chalmers; Merle D'Aubigne's "History of the
Reformation," Krummacher's " Elijah," &c, by thousands,
and circulates them by its agents, at a nominal price, in the
humblest cottages of the Far West.
One might think, that this enormous republication of
foreign works must destroy the country's own productive

80 AMERICAN LITERATURE RECOGNIZED IN EUROPE.
power, and choke the growth of an original literature.
But this is not the case. True, America has as yet pro
duced no genius of the first magnitude in science and art,
and scarcely one in twenty of its literary productions is of
any real wprth, the others falling still-born from tbe press.
But we may already observe there at least the promising
beginnings, of an independent American literature ; and
Europe herself, formerly disposed to make sport of it, now
does it homage. How many American books have, within
the last twenty or thirty years, been reprinted in England
and Scotland, and translated into German, French, Italian,
and all the cultivated languages ! The names of Cooper,
Channing, Washington Irving, Longfellow, Bryant, Dana
Hawthorne, Poe, Willis; and of the authoresses, Stowe,
Wetherell, Fanny Fern, &c„ already have a literary repu
tation far beyond their native country. How often during
this visit have I seen "The Wide Wide World" and
"Queechy" on the tables of Berlin! What immense
celebrity, and one may say almost unexampled circulation,
has "Uncle Tom's Cabin" attained in a few weeks, not
only in England, but also on the whole continent ! The
pope himself, in spite of public opinion, has felt it neces
sary to place it with Humboldt's " Cosmos " and Macauley's
" History of England," on the list of forbidden books. As
if such works were more dangerous than Boccaccio's
" Decamerone," to be found in almost every Italian family,
and the text-books of Jesuitical casuistry and refined
immorality. But America can show something far better and more

NATURALISTS, DIVINES, AND ORATORS. 81
permanent, than mere romancS ; though even in this we
must commend a kind of moral earnestness and a religious
turn, which give it a clear advantage over the frivolous
novel literature of the French. Prescott, Bancroft, Wash
ington Irving, and Sparks, take a very honorable rank
among historians ; Story, Kent, and Marshall, among
jurists; Benjamin Franklin, Agassiz (who, however, like
his friend and associate, Guyot, brought his reputation with
him from his native Switzerland), Silliman, Morse, Henry,
Maury, Hitchcock, among naturalists ; Jonathan Edwards,
Stuart, Park, Stowe, Barnes, Hodge, the Alexanders (father
and sons), Nevin, Smith, are all learned and able divines ;
Robinson and Lynch have opened a new path in the inves
tigation of the localities and antiquities of the Holy Land,
and are acknowledged authorities in this department even
in Europe. The natural sciences particularly, on account
of their practical utility and their influence on the develop
ment of the material resources of the country, have there
been carried to a high degree of perfection, and will
probably lead yet to many new discoveries and inventions.
The liberal cultivation of forensic, parliamentary, and
sacred eloquence, which only thrives in the atmosphere of
freedom, is particularly favored by the political institutions
and the synodioal self-government of the churches in
America. The great struggle for independence in the last
century called forth some of the noblest specimens of
eloquence in a noble cause. When the strongest passions
were excited, when the dearest interests were at stake,
when the question was to " sink or swim, live or die,
4*

82 ORATORS.
survive or perish," then " patriotism was eloquent, then
self-devotion was eloquent." But the succession of Patrick
Henry, the "forest-born Demosthenes;" of Otis, Adams,
Hancock, Warren, and Ames is not yet extinguished. I
doubt whether any country, not even England excepted,
can show, in proportion to its population, so great a num
ber of good public speakers, debaters, and preachers, as
the Anglo-Saxon Kepublic, Nor is she deficient in talents
and' geniuses, which rise .far above the level of ordinary
respectability. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Everett, Choate,
Seward, and Sumner, stand, at least, not far behind the
brilliant and unrivalled rhetorical galaxy of the British Par
liament, from the elder Pitt and Burke down to Sir Robert
Peel and Lord Brougham.
Several of Daniel Webster's speeches, on the Dartmouth
College cause (especially the peroration) ; on the landing
of the Pilgrim Fathers ; on the laying of the corner-stone,
and also on the final dedication of the Bunker Hill Monu
ment ; on the death of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson ;
against the nullification doctrine of Judge Hayne (think of
the inimitable encomium upon his native State, Massachu
setts !) and of Calhoun, of South Carolina ; and for the
Constitution and the Union, in March, 1850, will be read
and admired for their strength of logic, simple grandeur,
and classic finish, as long as the Anglo-Saxon tongue is
spoken, and some passages in them fully answer his own
definition of genuine patriotic eloquence, which " comes
like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the
bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original,

SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 83
native force," that eloquence which combines " the clear
conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high
purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on
the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature,
and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his
object ;" that eloquence, which is " something greater and
higher than all eloquence, which is action, noble, sublime,
god-like action."
In the Fine Arts the Americans are certainly still far
behind ; especially in the arts of design, the cultivation of
which has been more or less hindered by the reigning
Puritanic prejudices. . Yet poetry, that highest, most spiri
tual, and most versatile of the liberal arts, already has
respectable representatives, as the names above-mentioned
prove. For Music the Americans have, to say the least,
more susceptibility than the English; Jenny Lind was
received in 1850 with frantic enthusiasm, and her tour
through the States was a real triumphal progress. Archi
tectural taste is rapidly improving, and in the larger cities
there have arisen within a hw years, magnificent churches
in the Grecian, Byzantine, Norman, and Gothic styles.
Benjamin West and Leutze, the distinguished painters, are *
Americans ; and Powers and Crawford rank high amongst
the sculptors of the present day. In the mechanical or
useful arts, especially in the building of railroads, steam
and sailing vessels, and machinery of all sorts, the Ameri
cans already equal, and in some cases even surpass, the
English. I cannot close this section without referring to the grow-

84 INFLUENCE OF GERMAN LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
ing influence, which, in spite of all the prevailing
prejudices, German science and literature have exerted in
the United States for some yeaVs past, especially in phi
lology, history, philosophy, and theology. No important
Latin, Greek, or Hebrew grammar and dictionary, no
edition or commentary on an old classic, has appeared
there, not based on the works of Zumpt, Buttmann,
Kuhner, Winer, Freund, Passow, Gesenius, Bockh, Jacobs,
&c. Coleridge, the English Sehelling, began the transfer
and assimilation of the ideas of German philosophy. His
profound and stimulating works have as many readers and
friends in America as in England. The most important
productions of the modern German theology; the histori
cal works of Neander, Gieseler, and Ranke ; the dogmatic
productions of Knapp, Nitzsch, J. Miiller ; the exegetical
writings of Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Tholuck, and
Lucke ; are widely circulated in more or less successful
translations. Almost every number of the "Bibliotheca
Sacra," of Andover, the " Biblical Repertory," of Princeton,
the "New Englander," of New Haven, the "Methodist
Quarterly Review," of New York, the " Christian Review,"
of the Baptists, the " Mercersburg Review," of the German
Reformed, the "Evangelical Review," of the Lutherans,
presents translations or reviews of the latest theological
productions of Germany. In the most respectable col
leges and seminaries of the Congregationalists, Presbyte
rians, Baptists, &c, some acquaintance, at least, with
German literature, were it only for the sake of opposing it,
is now almost the rule.

IN THE UNITED STATES. 85
The German book trade has accordingly very much
increased in consequence of native American demand
as well as the increase of' immigration. I well remember,
when I landed in America, ten years ago, how hard it was
to procure German books and periodicals with any thing
like regularity. Now, there are in New York alone four
respectable German book-stores, as many in Philadelphia,
and two in Cincinnati, which lay before us the latest
works, especially in theology, within a few weeks after
their appearance.
Many Americans, particularly from New England, visit
German universities, to finish their scientific education.
There are said to be now in Berlin alone more than
twenty engaged in various studies. With the increased
facilities of communication, the tour to Europe becomes
more and more frequent, and even the visit to the far East,
especially to the holy places, which the Saviour trod, and
to which this people of the far West look back with singu
lar interest. Once across the ocean, the American is not
afraid of distances of hundreds and thousands of miles ;
and from the remotest regions of the earth he gathers new
knowledge and new views, and returns with elevated love
and enthusiasm to his native land, to work them up for
the advancement of American culture.
In short, America, favored by the most extensive emi
gration from all other countries, will become more and
more the receptacle of all the elements of the old world's
good and evil, which will there wildly ferment together,
. and from the most fertile soil bring forth fruit for the weal
or woe of generations to come.

I
86 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.
V. RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.
I come now to the point most important in my own
view, and, doubtless, most interesting to this assembly.
But want of time obliges me to confine myself to some
general remarks, which may, at least, help to pilot you
through the mazes of American church history.
It is a vast advantage to that country itself, and one
may say to the whole world, that the United States were
first settled in great part from religious motives ; that the
first emigrants left the homes of their fathers for faith and
conscience' sake, and thus at the outset stamped upon their
new home the impress of positive Christianity, which now
exerts a wholesome influence even on those later emigrants,
who have no religion at all.
The ecclesiastical character of America, however, is
certainly very different from that of the Old World. Two
points in particular require notice.
The first is this. While in Europe ecclesiastical institu
tions appear in historical connection with Catholicism, and
even in evangelical countries, most of the city and village
churches, the universities, and religious foundations, point
to a mediaeval origin ; in North America, on the contrary,
every thing had a Protestant beginning, and the Catholic
Church has come in afterwards as one sect among the
others, and has always remained subordinate. In
Europe, Protestantism has, so to speak, fallen heir
to Catholicism ; in America, Catholicism under the
wing .of Protestant toleration and freedom of con-

CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM IN AMERICA. 87
science, has found an adopted home, and is everywhere
surrounded by purely Protestant institutions. True,
the colony of Maryland, planted by the Catholic Lord
Baltimore, was one of the earliest settlements of North
America. But, in the first place, even this was by no
means specifically Roman. It was founded expressly on
the thoroughly anti-Roman, and essentially Protestant,
principles of religious toleration. And then, again, it
never had any specific ecclesiastical influence on the
character of the country ; for even the prominent position
of the city of Baltimore, as the American metropolis
of the Roman Church, is of much later date. Far more
important and influential were the settlements of the Puri
tans in New England, the Episcopalians in Virginia, the
Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Dutch in New York, in the
course of the seventeenth century, the Presbyterians from
Scotland and North Ireland, and the German Lutherans
and Reformed from the Palatinate, in tbe first half of the
eighteenth. These have given the country its spirit and
character. .Its past course and present condition are unques
tionably due mainly to the influence of Protestant principles.
The Roman Church has attained social and political impor
tance in the eastern and western States only within the last
twenty years, chiefly in consequence of the vast Irish emi
gration ; but it will never be able to control the doctrines
of the New World, though it should increase a hundred fold.
Another peculiarity in the ecclesiastical condition of
North America, connected with the Protestant origin- and
character of the country, is the separation of church and
state. The infidel reproach, that had it not been for the

88 SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
power of the state, Christianity would have long ago died
out; and the argument of Roman controversialists, that
Protestantism could not stand without the support of
princes and civil governments, both are practically refuted
and utterly annihilated in the United States. The presi
dent and governors, the congress at Washington, and the
state legislatures, have, as such, nothing to do with the
church, and are by the Constitution expressly forbidden to
interfere in its affairs. State officers have no other rights
in the church, than their personal rights as members of par
ticular denominations. The church, indeed, everywhere
enjoys the protection of the laws for its property, and the exer
cise of its functions ; but it manages its own affairs indepen
dently, and has also to depend for its resources entirely on
voluntary contributions. As the state commits itself to no
particular form of Christianity, there is of course also no
civil requisition of baptism, confirmation, and communion.
Rehgion is left to the free will of each individual, and the
church has. none but moral means of influencing the world.
This separation was by no means a sudden, abrupt
event, occasioned, say, by the Revolution. The first set
tlers, indeed, had certainly no idea of such a thing ; they
proceeded rather on Old Testament theocratic principles,
like Calvin, John Knox, the Scottish Presbyterians, and the
English Puritans of. the seventeenth century ; regarding
state and church as the two arms of one and the same
divine will. In the colony of Massachusetts, the Puritans,
in fact, founded a rigid Calvinistic state-church system.
They made the civil franchise depend on membership in
the church ; and punished not only blasphemy and open

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. 89
infidelity, but even every departure from the publicly
acknowledged code of Christian faith and practice as a
political offense. In Boston, in the seventeenth century,
even the Quakers, who certainly acted there in a very fana
tical and grossly indecent way, were formally persecuted,
publicly scourged, imprisoned, and banished ; and, in
Salem, of the same State, witches were burnt as accompli
ces of the devil. The last traces of this state-church system
in New England were not obliterated till long after the
American Revolution, and even to this day most of the
States have laws for the observance of the Sabbath, mono
gamy, and other specifically Christian institutions. Thus
the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers is by
no means absolute. While New England had Congrega
tionalism for its established religion, New York also had at
first the Dutch Beformed, and afterwards the English Epis
copal church, and Virginia, and some other Southern
States, also the English Episcopal, for their establishments.
With these the other forms of Christianity were tolerated
either not at all, or under serious restrictions, as formerly
the Dissenters were in England.
But on the other hand, there prevailed in other North
American colonies from their foundation, therefore long
before the Revolution of 1776, entire freedom of faith and
conscience ; as in Rhode Island, founded by the Baptist,
Roger Williams, who was banished from Massachusetts for
heresy, and thus set by bitter experience against religious
intolerance ; in Pennsylvania, which the quaker, William
Penn, originally designed as an asylum for his brethren in

90 GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE
faith, but to which he soon invited also German Reformed
and Lutherans from the Palatinate, guaranteeing equal
rights to all, and leaving each to the guidance of the
" inward light ;" and, finally, in Maryland, founded by
Lord Baltimore on the same basis of universal religious
toleration. After the American Revolution this posture of the
State gradually became general. First, the legislature of
Virginia, after the colony had separated from the mother-
country, annulled the rights, and privileges of the Episco-'
pal establishment, and placed all the dissenting bodies on
a perfectly equal footing with it in the eye of the law.*
Her example was followed by the other colonies, which
had established churches. When Congress was organized
at the close of the war, an article was placed in the
Constitution, forbidding the enactment of laws about
religion ;\ and similar prohibitions are found in the consti
tutions of the several States.
We would by no means vindicate this separation of
church and state as the perfect and final relation between
the two. The kingdom of Christ is to penetrate and
transform like leaven, all the relations of individual and
national life. We much prefer this separation, however,
to the territorial system and a police guardianship of the

* The result is owing to the combined influence of the oppressed dissenters,,
the liberal amongst the Episcopalians, and the infidels of the school of Jefferson,
who was then almighty in the political circles of Virginia.
T " Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 91
church, the Bride of the God-man, the free-born daughter
of heaven ; and we regard it as adapted to the present
wants of America, and favorable to her religious inte
rests. For it is by no means to be thought, that the
separation of church and state there is a renunciation of
Christianity by the nation ; like the separation of the
state and the school from the church, and the civil
equality of Atheism with Christianity, which some mem
bers of the abortive Frankfurt Parliament were for intro
ducing in Germany." It is not an annihilation of one
factor, but only an amicable separation of the two in their
spheres of outward operation ; and thus equally the
church's declaration of independence towards the state,
and an emancipation of the state from bondage to a parti
cular confession. The nation, therefore, is still Christian,
though it refuses to be governed in this deepest concern of
the mind and heart by the temporal power. In fact,
under such circumstances, Christianity, as the free expres
sion of personal conviction and of the national character,
has even greater power over the mind, than when enjoined
by civil laws and upheld by police regulations.
This appears practically in the strict observance of the
Sabbath, the countless churches and religious schools, the
zealous support of Bible and Tract societies, of domestic
and foreign missions, the numerous revivals, the general
attendance on divine worship, and the custom of family
devotion — all expressions of the general Christian cha
racter of the people, in which the Americans are already
in advance of most of the old Christian nations of
Europe.

92 REMAINING CONNECTION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE.
In fact, even the state, as such, to some extent officially
recognizes Christianity. Congress appoints chaplains
(mostly from the Episcopal, sometimes from the Presbyterian
and the Methodist clergy) for itself, the army, and the
navy. It opens every day's session with prayer, and holds
public worship on the Sabbath in the Senate Chamber at
Washington. The laws of the several States also contain
strict prohibitions of blasphemy, atheism, Sabbath-breaking,
polygamy, and other gross violations of general Christian
morality. Thus the separation is not fully carried out in practice,
on account of the influence of Christianity on the popular
mind. It is even quite possible that the two powers may
still come into collision. The tolerance of the Americans
has its limits and counterpoise in that religious fanaticism,
to which they are much inclined. This may be seen in
'the expulsion of the Mormons, who so grossly offended the
religious and moral sense of the people. Great political
difficulties may still arise, especially from the growth of the
Roman church, which has been latterly aiming everywhere
at political influence, and thus rousing the jealousy and
opposition of the great Protestant majority. The Puritanic
Americans see in Catholicism an ecclesiastical despotism,
from which they fear also political despotism, so that its
sway in the United States must be the death of Republican
freedom. Thus the Catholic question has already come to
be regarded by many as at the same time a political ques
tion, involving the existence of the Republic ; and a reli
gious war between Catholics and Protestants, though in

RELIGION AND THE CHURCH. 93
the highest degree improbable, is still by no means an
absolute impossibility ; as, in fact, slight skirmishes have
already occurred in the street fight between the two par
ties in Philadelphia in 1844, and the violent demolition of
a Roman convent at Charlestown, Mass. The secret politi
cal party, of the " Know-Nothings," which is just sweeping
over the States with the rapidity of the whirlwind, but
which, for this very reason, cannot last long in this parti
cular form, is mainly directed against the influence of
Romanism. If, however, the great question of the relation of church
and state be not by any means fuHy solved even in the
United States, still the two powers are there at all events
much more distinct than in any other country.
The natural result of this arrangement is a general pre
valence of freedom of conscience and religious faith, and
of the voluntary principle, as it is called : that is, the pro
motion of every religious work by the free-will offerings of
the people. The state, except in the few cases mentioned
above, does nothing towards building churches, supporting
ministers, founding theological seminaries, or aiding indi
gent students in preparation for the ministry. No taxes
are laid for these objects ; no one is compelled to contri
bute a farthing to them. What is done for them is far,
indeed, from being always done from the purest motives —
love to God and to religion — often from a certain sense of
honor, and for all sorts of selfish by-ends ; yet always from
free impulses, without any outward coercion.
This duly considered, it is truly wonderful, what a

94 - RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.
multitude of churches, ministers, colleges, theological
seminaries, and benevolent institutions are there founded
and maintained entirely by free-will offerings. In Berlin
there are hardly forty churches for a population of four
hundred and fifty thousand, of whom, in spite of all the
union of church and state, only some thirty thousand
attend public worship. In New York, to a population of
six hundred thousand, there are over two hundred and
fifty well-attended churches, some of them quite costly and
splendid, especially in Broadway and Fifth Avenue.* In
the city of Brooklyn, across the East River, the number
of churches is still larger in proportion to the population,
and in the country towns and villages, especially in New
England, the houses of worship average one to every
thousand, or frequently even five hundred, souls. If these
are not Gothic cathedrals, they are yet mostly decent,
comfortable buildings, answering all the purposes of the
congregation often even far better than the most imposing
works of architecture. In every new city district, in every
new settlement, one of the first things thought of is the
building of a temple to the Lord, where the neighboring
population may be regularly fed with the bread of life and
encouraged to labor, order, obedience, and every good
work. Suppose the state, in Germany, should suddenly
withdraw its support from church and university, how
* In 1S54 there were in New York city, forty-eight Episcopal churches, forty-
eight Presbyterian, thirty-five Methodist, nineteen Reformed Dutch, twenty-
nine Baptist, eight Congregational, five Lutheran, and twenty-four Roman
Catholic ; besides the church ediiices of several smaller denominations aud
sects, which must swell the number now to nearly 800.

THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE. 95
many preachers and professors would be breadless, and
how many auditories closed !
The voluntary system unquestionably has its great blem
ishes. It is connected with all sorts of petty drudgery,
vexations, and troubles, unknown in well endowed Estab
lished Churches. Ministers and teachers, especially among
the recent German emigrants in America, who have been
accustomed to State provision for religion and education,
have very much to suffer from the free system. They very
often have to make begging tours for the erection of a
church, and submit to innumerable other inconveniences
for the good cause, till a congregation is brought into a
proper course, and its members become practised in free
giving. But, on the other hand, the voluntary system calls forth
a mass of individual activity and interest among the laity
in ecclesiastical affairs, in the founding of new churches
and congregations, colleges and seminaries, in home and
foreign missions, and in the promotion of all forms of
Christian philanthropy. We may here apply in a good
sense our Lord's word : " Where the treasure is, there the
heart will be also." The man, who, without coercion,
brings his regular offering for the maintenance of the
church and the minister, has commonly much more inte
rest in both, and in their prosperity he sees with pleasure
the fruit of his own labor. The same is true of semi
naries. All the congregations and synods are interested in
the theological teacher, whom they support, and who

96 RELIGION AND THE CHURCH.
trains ministers of the Word for them ; while in Europe
the people give themselves little or no trouble about
the theological faculties. ¦
It is commonly thought that this state of things neces
sarily involves an unworthy dependence of the minister on
his congregation. But this is not usually the case. The
Americans expect a minister to do his duty, and they most
esteem that one who fearlessly and impartially declares the
whole counsel of God, and presents the depravity of man
and the threatenings of the Divine Word as faithfully as
he does' the comforting promises. Cases of ministers
employed for a certain time, as hired servants, occur indeed
occasionally in independent German rationalistic congrega
tions, and perhaps among the Universalists, but not in a
regular synod. A pious congregation well knows that by
such a degradation of the holy office, whieh preaches
reconciliation, and binds and looses in the name of Christ,
it would degrade itself; and a minister, in any respectable
church connection, would not be allowed to accept a call
on such terms, even were he willing.
Favored by the general freedom of faith, all Christian
denominations and seets, except the Oriental, have settled
in the United States, on equal footing in the eye of
the law ; here attracting each other, there repelling ;
rivalling in both the good and the bad sense ; and mutually
contending through innumerable religious publications.
They thus present a motley sampler of all church history,
and the results it has thus far attained. A detailed

THE CHURCH IN A TRANSITION STATE IN AMERICA. 97
description of these at present is forbidden, both by want
of time and by the proportion of the discourse.* Suffice
it to say, in general, that the whole present distracted con
dition of the church in America, pleasing and pro
mising as it may be, in one view, must yet be regarded on
the whole as unsatisfactory, and as only a state of transi
tion to something higher and better.
America seems destined to be the Phenix grave not
only of all European nationalities, as we have said above,
but also of all European churches and sects, of Protestant
ism and Romanism. I cannot think, that any one of the
present confessions and sects, the Roman, or the Episcopal,
or the Congregational, or the Presbyterian, or the
Lutheran, or the German or Dutch Reformed, or the
Methodist, or the Baptist communion, will ever become
exclusively dominant there ; but rather, that out of the
mutual conflict of all something wholly new wiU gradually
arise. At all events, whatever may become of the American
denominations and sects of the present day, the kingdom
of Jesus Christ must at last triumph in the New World, as
elsewhere, over all foes, old and new. Of this wo have
the pledge in the mass of individual Christianity in
America ; but above all, in the promise of the Lord, who
is with his people always to the end of the world, and
who has founded his church upon a rock, against which
the gates of hell shall never prevail. And his words are
yea and amen. * This is given in the second lecture,
5

98 CONCLUDING REMARKS.

With this prospect we finish this outline miniature of
life in the United States. You see from it, that all the
powers of Europe, good and bad, are there fermenting
together under new and peculiar conditions. All is yet in
a chaotic transition state ; but organizing energies are
already present, and the spirit of God broods over them,
to speak in time the almighty word : " Let there be light !"
and to call forth from the chaos a beautiful creation.
Perhaps, in the view of many of my respected hearers,
I have drawn too favorable a picture. But I beg to
remind them, first, that the dark side, which, indeed, I
have not concealed, has been only too often presented in
disproportion and caricature by European tourists or dis
tant observers ; and, secondly, that it would be very
ungrateful and dishonorable for me to disparage my new
fatherland behind its back, to uncover its nakedness with
unsparing hand, and neglect its virtues and its glorious
prospects. In general, however, notwithstanding all differences on
particular points, few intelligent and unprejudiced Germans
certainly will think me wrong in designating America as a
world of the future. I do so, not in disparagement of old
and venerable Europe. She, indeed, unquestionably trem
bled to her foundations in 1848, and seemed on the verge
of a fearful anarchy and barbarism ; but she has since
already shown, that in Christianity and civilization she has
the power and the pledge of regeneration. I do not
believe, that Europe, which we Americans revere and love
as our bodily and spiritual mother, must become a second

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 99
Asia, in order that America may become a higher Europe.
In fact, this critical moment itself gives promise of a rege
neration of the East and of the venerable birth-place of
Christianity. This we may hope, in the providence of
God, will be the final result of the present contest between
Russia and the Western Powers for Constantinople and the
key of the holy sepulchre. The partition walls between
nations and countries are gradually being removed by the
facilities of communication, which must serve in a higher
hand as instruments for spiritual and eternal ends. Europe,
Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, all belong to the
Lord, who died for them all. They come nearer together
every year, and must at last, without distinction of old
and new, whether called into the vineyard early or late,
exchange the hand of brotherhood, submit in free obedience
to the common Lord, glorify his name, and fulfill the pro
mise of one fold under one shepherd.

PART II.
THE CHURCHES AND SECTS.
" Westward the star of empire takes its way." This
verse of a celebrated English philosopher is a characteris
tic watchword of the American's restless Teachings into the
future. It flatters his vanity, it spurs his ambition, it rouses
his energy, it constantly excites and strengthens in him the
impression that his nation is one day to be the- greatest of
the earth, to attain the perfection of church as well as
state, and then to react with regenerating power on
Europe, and from California to convert China and Japan.
These are, to be sure, extravagant notions, favored no less by
ignorance of the state of Europe than by American vanity.
Yet this verse has truth. It expresses the general law
of the geographical march of history both secular and
sacred. Thus far civilization and Christianity have fol
lowed in the main the course of the sun from East to
West. The East, the land of the morning, is not only the
cradle of mankind and of civilization, but also the birth
place of the church. Around the venerable countries of
Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, now desolate, and groaning
under the yoke of the false prophet, cluster the earliest and
holiest associations of Christendom. Hence Christendom
now, at this critical moment, looks out upon them from
Europe and America with the intensest interest, and in

102 CHURCHES AND SECTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
hope of an approaching regeneration of the Eastern
churches. From Asia Christianity spread to Greece and
to Rome ; and thence flowed the conversion and civiliza
tion of the Romanic and Germanic tribes. But as early
as the close of the Middle Age Paris — still further West —
became a model of higher culture, and a chief seat of the
scholastic and mystic theology, and of -reformatory efforts
in the church, which gradually and steadily spread, and
struck deepest root in Germanic soil.
In the sixteenth century, Germany and Switzerland,
became the starting-place of another grand movement of
history, in which we now have our place, and whose end
cannot yet be seen. Germany, lying geographically in
the centre of Europe, was commissioned in the age of the
Reformation to furnish the heart's blood for the modern
history of the world and the church, to bring out from the
inexhaustible mines of the word and the spirit principles
and ideas, which should embody themselves as institutions
and become flesh and blood in other lands.
From Germany and Switzerland the great Reformation
passed to the west of Europe, visiting especially that
remarkable Anglo-Saxon island, which has since risen to
the dominion of the sea and of commerce, and at the same
time to the vast duty of spreading Christianity and Euro
pean culture in all its colonies. From England and Scot
land the northern half of the western hemisphere has been,
and in our own day the still newer world of Australia is
being, colonized and prepared for political and religious
independence. The history of England and North Ame-

COURSE OF HISTORY FROM EAST TO WEST. 103
rica for the last three centuries is utterly unintelligible
without the Reformation. It is at bottom a continuation
of the movement, which, starting from Wittenberg, Zurich,
and Geneva, spread into the Germanic countries North and
West, and has given the Anglo-Saxon race especially the
most powerful impulse towards the fulfillment of its mission
for the world.
In North America all sections and interests of European
Protestantism are now more or less fully represented.
There they all find a free asylum and room for unrestrained
development. There the Boman Church also finds the
same freedom. There all confessions and sects come into
contact, and into a conflict, the result of which must greatly
affect the future fortunes of all Christendom. America
will also in time take a very active part in the Christian
izing of China and Japan, and a lively interest in all great
missionary operations. However unfavorable our judg
ment, therefore, of its present ecclesiastical condition — and
I confess my own dissatisfaction with it — we have every
year less room to deny or, save from sheer prejudice, to
overlook its great prospective importance.
From this point I will now endeavor to present, first, a
general ecclesiastical view of North America, and then a
sketch of each of the most prominent confessions and sects.
I. GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE UNITED
STATES.
As the present can be duly understoood only in its con
nection with the past, allow me to premise a few historical
remarks.

104 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. S.
North America, as already observed, follows strictly in
the train of the ecclesiastical revolution of the sixteenth
century, and is in its prevailing religious character primarily
a continuation of European Protestantism. The American
historian, Bancroft, throughout his extensive work, proceeds
on the presumption, that even the entire civil constitution
and social life of North America, is a product of the Eng
lish Puritanism, which is itself a modification of the Gene
van Calvinism. This is an exaggerated view. Bancroft,
in his "History of the United States," writes in general as
a propagandist of Republicanism — and of Republicanism,
too, as conceived by the Democratic party — and hence sees
some things in an entirely false light. Yet his view has
somewhat of truth. It certainly cannot be denied, that the
American system of general political freedom and equality
(which, however, has a restriction and counterpart in the
slavery of the Southern States), with its kindred doctrine
— not by any means fully applied, yet aiming to be — of
the rights and duties of self government and active coope
ration of the people in all the affairs of the Commonwealth,
is, in some sense, a transferring to the civil sphere the idea
of the universal priesthood of Christians, which was first
clearly and emphatically brought forward by the Reformers.
With the universal priesthood comes also a corresponding
universal kingship ; • though, of course, this no more
excludes a special kingship, or a rank of rulers, than the
other, a particular ministry. This universal kingship is
what the American Republic aims at. Whether it will
ever realize it is a very different question. Certainly not
by the unfolding of any powers of mere nature. The Biblo

AMERICAN HISTORY AND THE REFORMATION. 105
idea of a general priesthood and kingship can be realized
only by supernatural grace, and will not appear in its full
reality before the consummation of all things at the glo
rious coming of Christ.
The Germanic and Protestant character of the United
States reveals itself particularly in their uncommon
mobility and restless activity, contrasting with the mourn
ful stagnation of the Romanic and Roman Catholic
(jguntries of Central and South America. The people are
truly a nation of progress, both in the good sense and in
the bad ; of the boldest, often foolhardy, enterprise ; a
restless people, finding no satisfaction, save in constant
striving, running, and chasing after a boundless future.
I state here an actual' fact, palpable to every one, who sets
foot in the New World, and observes, for instance, the
bustle and headway of such a city as New York. This
spirit of enterprise is shared also by the religious bodies,
even by the Roman Church, which promises itself a
glorious future in America.
The connecting link between European and American
church history is England, — poorer in ideas, than Germany,
but exhibiting Protestantism more as an institution, and
in far greater political and social importance, than any
country of the continent ; as, in fact, she is to this day|the
mightiest bulwark of Protestantism against Rome. The six
Northeastern States, collectively called New England, have
thus far exerted the leading religious influence in the Union.
Through these especially the ecclesiastical life of North
America strikes its deepest roots in those mighty religious
5*

106 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U.S.
and civil contests, which shook England in the seventeenth
century ; in that Puritanic movement, which may be called
a second Reformation, a more consistent, though an
extreme, carrying out of the Protestant principle against
the semi-Catholicism of the Episcopal Establishment.
Apart from what was merely preparatory, the church
history of the United States properly begins with the
emigration of the Puritan " Pilgrim Fathers." These pious,
bible-reading, earnest, and energetic Puritans, persecute
in England for their faith, and sacrificing to religious
conviction their father-land, and all associated with that
sweet word, first sought refuge in Holland in the year
1611 ; thence in 1620 crossed the Atlantic; landed, after
a long, stormy voyage, on the lonely rock of Plymouth,
and here first of all kneeled in tears, to thank their Lord
and God for their happy deliverance from the perils of
death and from all bondage of conscience. Soon re
inforced by larger emigrations of their brethren in faith,
especially in 1630, they founded in Massachusetts, accord
ing to the principles of the strictest Calvinism, a theocratic
state, and became the fathers of a republic, of whose power
and importance they did not dream ; — a striking proof,
that the greatest results may flow from small beginnings.
True, the settlement of Virginia, with the planting of the
English Episcopal Church there, was of earlier date (1607) ;
but this proceeded mainly from commercial interests, and
has accordingly had no such influence in forming the
religious character of the Americans. The same may be
said of the founding of the New Netherland colony by the

RELIGIOUS INTEREST IN THE SETTLEMENT OF THE U. S. 107
Hollanders, who established a trading port on Manhattan
island as early as 1614, thus laying the foundation for the
town of New Amsterdam, as New York was originally -
- called, and some years afterwards transplanted tha Re
formed Dutch Church with the Heidelberg Catechism, and
the Decrees of Dort to the banks of the Hudson and the
Delaware. Pennsylvania, on the contrary, had a decidedly religious
origin. The renowned William Penn, designed it (1680)
primarily as an asylum for his persecuted brethren in faith,
and stamped it from the first with the main features of
the Quaker sect, which may be plainly discerned to this
day, especially in Philadelphia, the " city of brotherly-love."
At the same date Maryland (so called after Henrietta Maria,
daughter of Henry IV., and wife of Charles I.) became a
refuge of persecuted Catholics under Lord Baltimore.
After the infamous revocation of the Edict of Nantes by
' the grandson of Henry the Fourth, many Huguenots betook
themselves to North and South Carolina, New York, and
New Jersey, and there gradually merged themselves in the
Presbyterian and Episcopal churches. In the. beginning
of the last century began " the emigration of tho German
Lutherans and Reformed from the provinces on the Rhine.
This emigration passed chiefly to Pennsylvania, and was
occasioned in part by the devastation of the Palatinate, and
the oppression of the Protestants by the army of Louis the
Fourteenth. Somewhat later the Salzburgers sought and
found in Georgia a home of peace, and freedom for their
Lutheran faith. About the middlo of the eighteenth

108 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. 3.
century Zinzendorf and Spangenburg planted in the same
State, but more especially in Pennsylvania (at Bethlehem
and Nazareth), several communities of Moravian Brethren ;
while Muhlenberg, as commissioner of the Halle Orphan
House, organized the Lutheran Church,- and the Swiss
Schlatter the German Reformed, in Pennsylvania. In the
same period John Wesley and Whitefield several times
appeared on the soil of the New World, as mighty evan
gelists and revival preachers ; and the great movement of
Methodism, in connection with the awakening influence
from New England, mainly from the metaphysical divine
and powerful preacher, Jonathan Edwards, stirred and
fructified the whole land.
Thus was North America from the first, like Geneva in
the time of the Reformation, only on a much larger scale,
an asylum for all the persecuted^of the Old World. And
so it has remained to this day ; though the later emigration
has rather lost the religious character, and is mostly ruled by
secular interests. It is an incalculable advantage for that
land, that its first settlements sprang in great part from
earnest religious movements. Modern infidelity and in-
differentism, which are likewise imported, cannot do it
near so much harm, as if they had laid the foundation of
its institutions.
From this history of the rise of the United States, we can
understand, in the first place, how the principle of religious
toleration should be so deeply rooted in the people. They
must give up their own tradition and their holiest associa
tions, before they can ever bow to ecclesiastical despotism

RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN AMERICA. 109
and exclusiveness. . The persecuted man has always been an
advocate of toleration for his own interest, and, to be
consistent, must also sympathize with all the persecuted.
In America universal freedom of faith and conscience came
by necessity, and with this a separation of Church and
State, even in those colonies where they were originally
united. But this is only one side of the matter. From the
above allusions to American church history it is at the
same time clear, tbat the principle of religious freedom
rests there on a religious basis, as the result of many suf
ferings and persecutions for the sake of faith and con
science ; and thus differs very materially from some modern
theories of toleration, which run~out into sheer religious
indifference and unbelief. The American is as intolerant
as he is tolerant ; and, to appreciate his character, we
must keep this paradoxical fact always in view. In many
things he is even decidedly fanatical. Think only of the
Puritanic origin of New England, and of the enormous
influence which the strict Calvinism still exerts on the
whole land. In the same Geneva, which so hospitably
received all hunted Protestants from France, Italy, Spain,
England, and Scotland, there reigned at the same time
a rigoristic church discipline, and Servetus was burned as
a blasphemer. The American leaves every man at liberty
to belong to any church, confession, or sect, or to none,
according to his own free conviction. But within the par
ticular confessions the lines are far more sharply and .
strictly drawn than in Europe. There every church mem-

110 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U.S.
ber is required to adhere closely to the doctrines and
usages of the particular body, to which he belongs.
Hence in America a preacher or theological professor
far more easily than here incurs suspicion of neology and
heresy, and, though not indeed imprisoned nor banished,
much less burned, as in Papal times, is yet forthwith
deposed, and, if necessary, formally excommunicated, if
after due investigation it appear, that he teaches and acts
contrary to his church, which called him and bound him
to a certain confession of faith. A rationalist, like Paulus,
Wegscheider, Rohr, Bretschneider, Uhlich, Wislicenus,
could not find a place in the pulpit or professorial chair of
any respectable communion, not even the Unitarian ; while
in Germany even the majority of the theological chairs
and superintendencies have for twenty years, in spite of all
obligation to symbols, been filled by men of this or some
similar school. That even at this day a man like Dr.
Baur, who denies the genuineness of all the New Tes
tament books, except four epistles of Paul and the Apoca
lypse, and treats the Gospel history almost like a heathen
mythology, should still hold the first theological chair of
the evangelical church of Wurtemberg, is absolutely
incomprehensible to a Presbyterian, a Puritan, or an Epis
copalian. A man, who does not believe in the divinity of
Christ, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the
necessity of conversion and regeneration, and who does not
at the same time live a strictly moral life, must in Ame
rica enter any other calling sooner than the ministry. In
the pulpit he will appear to the people, who have a very

SENSITIVENESS TO NEOLOGY AND HYPER-ORTHODOXY. Ill
sound discernment in the matter, as a hypocrite, or as au
objective lie, in bold contradiction with the nature and spi
rit of his calling.
From the decidedly Protestant character of the country,
however, one can also, much more easily than in Ger
many, incur the opposite charge of hyper-orthodoxy,
of Puseyism, and of Bomanizing tendencies ; as, for exam
ple, by objecting to the Puritanic views of Catholicism and
of church history, by insisting on the import of the
church, its unity, and historical continuity, or on a mysti
cal view of the sacraments, in opposition to the prevailing
symbolical theory.' I might, if it were proper, give some
striking instances of this from my own experience. In
this respect the German churches of America are more
tolerant, by reason of their connection with the Ger
man theology ; whereas the English and Anglo- American
theology has adhered far more to the lines of the old Pro
testant, especially the Puritanic, extremely anti-Catholic
orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, and has been more
directly under the control of the ecclesiastical authorities.
This supervision of theology by the church is a valuable
remnant of discipline, and ought, I think, to be preferred
to too broad and latitudinarian a freedom of doctrine ;
though I grant, and that from bitter personal experience,
that it is very often associated with shallowness, bigotry,
and the spirit of persecution ; and thus in many ways hin
ders the free development of theology.
The religious character of North America, viewed as a
whole, is predominantly of the Reformed or Calvinistic

112 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U.S.
stamp, which modifies there even the Lutheran Churchy to
its gain, indeed, in some respects, but to its loss in others.
To obtain a clear view of the enormous influence which
Calvin's personality, moral earnestness, and legislative
genius, have exerted on history, you must go to Scotland
and to the United States. The Reformed Church, where
it develops itself freely from its own inward spirit and life,
lays special stress on thorough moral reform, individual,
personal Christianity, freedom and independence of congre
gational life, and strict church discipline. It draws a clear
line between God and the world, Church and State, rege
nerate and unregenerate. It is essentially practical, out
wardly directed, entering into the relations of the world,
organizing itself in every variety of form ; aggressive and
missionary. It has also a vein of legalism, and here,
though from an opposite direction, falls in with the Roman
Church, from which in every other respect it departs much
further than Lutheranism. It places the Bible above
every thing else, and would have its church life ever a
fresh, immediate emanation from this, without troubling
itself much about tradition and intermediate history.
Absolute supremacy of the Holy Scriptures, absolute
sovereignty of Divine grace, and radical moral reform on
the basis of both, these are the three most important and
fundamental features of the Reformed type of Protestant
ism. In the ecclesiastical condition of America, with all the
differences among particular branches, these general cha
racteristics are all clearly defined. The religious life of

DEFECTS OF ANGLO-AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM. 113
that" country is uncommonly practical, energetic, and enter
prising. Congregations, synods, and conventions display
an unusual amount of oratorical power, and of talent for
organization and government ; and it is amazing, what
a mass of churches, seminaries, benevolent institutions,
religious unions and societies, are there founded and
supported by mere voluntary contribution. In all these
respects, Germany and the whole continent of Europe,
where the spirit of church building and general religious
progress does not keep pace at all with the rapid increase
of population in large cities, could learn very much from
America. With these virtues, however, American Christianity, of
course, has also corresponding faults and infirmities. It is
more Petrine than Johannean ; more like busy Martha
than like the pensive Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus.
It expands more in breadth than in depth. It is often
carried on like a secular business, and in a mechanical
or utilitarian spirit. It lacks the beautiful enamel of deep
fervor and heartiness, the true mysticism, an appreciation
of history and the church ; it wants the substratum of a
profound and spiritual theology ; and under the mask of
orthodoxy it not unfrequently conceals, without intending
or knbwing it, the tendency to abstract intellectual-
ism and superficial rationalism. This is especially evident
in the doctrine of the church and the Sacraments, and in
the meagreness of the worship, which lacks not only
all such symbols as the cross, the baptismal font, the
gown, but even every liturgical element (except in the

114 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U.S.
Episcopal and most of the German churches), so that
nothing is left, but preaching, free prayer, and singing,
and even the last is very often left merely to the choir,
instead of being the united act of the congregation.
Here now is the work of the German church for
America; not only of the Lutheran, but also of the
German Reformed, which in fact was never strictly Calvi
nistic, but has always been rather Melanchthonian, mode
rate, mediating between Lutheranism and Calvinism,
between the Germanic and the Romanic Protestantism,
and has accordingly in recent times almost everywhere,
especially in Prussia, fallen in with the Evangelical Union.
The German church, with its hearty enjoyment of
Christianity, and direct intercourse with a personal
Saviour, its contemplative turn, its depth of inward view,
its regard for history, and its spirited theology, might and
should enter as a wholesome supplemental element into
the development of American Protestantism ; and this
it has, in fact, within a few years begun in a small way to
do, assisted by the increasing number of translations of
the standard works of German theology. It is still more
plainly the mission duty of the Episcopal church in that
country to restrain the unchurchly and centrifugal forces
of ultra-Protestantism. By her excellent Prayer Book
she supplies to a much greater extent than the German
denominations the defects of a purely subjective and
jejune worship, and she would recommend herself still more
if she would allow greater freedom and variety in the
liturgical service. Her theological mission too is to

THE SECT SYSTEM. 115
mediate between the extremes of Romanism and Puritan
ism ; but her native American literature so far does not
correspond with her great material resources and social
standing, and has not exerted much influence yet to shape
the theological thinking of the country ; partly on account
of her pedantry and exclusiveness.
As to the good and the evil effects of the voluntary
principle, which follows unavoidably from the separation
of church and state, and underlies the whole American
church system, I have already expressed myself in the
first lecture, and will not here repeat my remarks.
I must here, however, speak more fully of the Sect
system, which I then only briefly touched upon. Ame
rica is the classic land of sects, where in perfect freedom
from civil disqualification, they can develop themselves
without restraint. This fact is connected indeed with
the above-mentioned predominance of the Reformed type
of religion. For in the Reformed church the Protestant
features, and with them the subjective, individualizing
principle, are most prominent. But in the term sect-
system we refer at the same time to the whole ecclesias
tical condition of the country. For there the distinction
of church and sect properly disappears ; at least the
distinction of established church and dissenting bodies, as
it is commonly understood in England and Germany.
In America, there is, in fact, no national or established
church ; therefore no dissenter. There all religious asso
ciations, which do not outrage the general Christian
sentiment and the pubhc morality (as the Mormons, who,

116 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. S.
for their conduct, were driven from Ohio and Illinois),
enjoy the same protection and the same rights. The
distinction between confessions or denominations (as the
word is there) and sects is therefore likewise entirely
arbitrary, unless perhaps the acknowledgment or rejection
of the ecumenical or old Catholic symbols be made the
test ; though this would not strictly apply even in
Germany. Favored by the general freedom pf conscience, the
representatives of all the forms of Christianity in the Old
World, except the Greek — for we here leave out of view
the isolated Russian colony in the Northwest of America
— have gradually planted themselves in the vast field of
the United States by emigration from all European
countries, and are receiving reinforcements every year.
There is the Roman with his Tridentinum and pompous
mass ; the Episcopal Anglican with his Thirty-nine Arti
cles and Book of Common Prayer ; the Scotch Presby
terian with his Westminster Confession, and his presby
teries and synods ; the Congregationalist, or Puritan in
the stricter sense, also with the Westminster Confession,
but with his congregational independence ; the Baptist,
with his immersion and anti-paedobaptism ; the Quaker,
with his inward light ; the Methodist, with his call to
repentance and conversion, and his artificial machinery ;
the Lutheran, now with all his symbols, from the Augus-
tana to the Form of Concord, now with the first only, and
now with none of them ; the German Reformed and
Reformed Dutch, with the Heidelberg Catechism and the

THE SECT SYSTEM. 117
Presbyterian Synodal church polity ; the Unionist, either
with the consensus of both confessions, or indifferently
rejecting all symbols ; the Moravian community, with its
silent educational and missionary operations ; and a
multitude of smaller sects besides, mostly of . European
origin, but some of American. In short, all. the English
and Scotch churches and sects, and all branches of German
and Netherland Protestantism, are there represented. Each
one alone is, of course, weaker than its mother church in
Europe, except the Puritanic, which has attained its chief
historical importance only in New England. But they are
all there, not rarely half a dozen in a single country town,
each with its own church or chapel ; and, where they
have any real vitality at all, they grow there proportion
ally much faster than in Europe. Some, as the Presby
terian, the Methodist, the German Protestant, and the
Roman Catholic, have even almost doubled their- numbers
within the last ten or twenty years.
This confusion of denominations and sects makes very
different impressions on the observer from different theolo
gical and religious points of view. If he makes all of
individual Christianity, and regards the conversion of men
as the whole work of the church, he will readily receive
a very favorable impression of the religious state of things
in America. It is not to be denied, that by the great
number of churches and sects this work is promoted ;
since they* multiply the agencies, spur each other on, vie
with each other, striving to outdo one another in zeal and
success. We might refer to the separation of Paul and

118 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. S.
Barnabas, by which one stream of apostolic missionary
labor was divided into two, and fructified a greater num
ber of fields with its living waters. There are in Ame
rica probably more awakened souls, and more individual
. effort and self-sacrifice for religious purposes, proportion
ally, than in any other country in the world, Scotland
alone perhaps excepted. This is attributable, at least in
part, to the unrestricted freedom with which all Christian
energies may there put themselves forth ; and to the fact,
that no sect can rely on the favor of the State, but that
each is thrown upon its own resources, and has therefore
to apply all its energies to keep pace with its neighbors
and prevent itself from being swallowed up.
The charge that the sect system necessarily plays into
the hands of infidelity on one side and of Romanism on
the other has hitherto at least not proved true, though
such a result is very naturally suggested. There is in
America far less open unbelief and skepticism, than in
Europe ; and Romanism is extremely unpopular. Whe
ther things will continue so is a very different question.
But on closer inspection the sect system is seen to
have also its weaknesses and its shady side. It brings all
sorts of impure motives into play, and encourages the use
of unfair, or at least questionable means for the promotion
of its ends. It nourishes party spirit and passion, envy,
selfishness, and bigotry. It changes the peaceful kingdom
of God into a battle-field, where brother fights brother,
not, of course, with sword and bayonet, yet with loveless
harshness and all manner of detraction, and too often

THE SECT SYSTEM. 119
subordinates the interests of the church universal to those
of his own party. It, tears to pieces the beautiful body of
Jesus Christ, and continually throws in among its mem
bers the fire-brands of jealousy and discord, instead of
making them work together harmoniously for the same
high and holy end. It should not be forgotten, that
Christianity aims not merely to save individual souls, and
then leave them to themselves, but to unite them with
God and therefore also with one another. It is essentially
love, and tends towards association ; and the church is
and ought to become more and more the one body of
Jesus Christ, the fullness of Him who filleth all in all.
If, therefore, the observer start with the conception of the
church as an organic communion of saints, making unity
and universality its indispensable marks, and duly weigh
ing the many exhortations of Holy Scripture to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ; he cannot possi
bly be satisfied with the sect system, but must ever come
out against it with the warnings of Paul against the divi
sions and parties in the Corinthian church. A friend
very near to me, and a thoughtful, deeply earnest theolo
gian, has keenly assailed and exposed the sect system as
the proper American Antichrist. The noblest and most
pious minds in America most deeply disapprove and
deplore at least the sect spirit; and fortunately too, this
spirit recedes in proportion as the genuine spirit of Chris
tianity, the uniting and co-operative spirit of brotherly
love and peace, makes itself felt. In the American Bible
and Tract Societies and Sunday School Union, the various

120 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. S.
•
evangelical denominations work hand in hand and get
along right well together, although their Catholicity is
more of a negative character, not reconciling, but conceal
ing the confessional differences, and although their charity
is at an end as soon as the Romish church is mentioned,
as if she was simply an enemy of Christ. Several of the
most prominent churches maintain a friendly inter-delega
tion ; and even in those which do not, or which make it a
mere form, all the true children of God, when they see
one another face to face, exchange the hand of fellowship
in spite of all the jealousy aud controversy between their
respective communions.
Sectarianism, moreover — and this I might especially
commend to the attention of German divines — is by no
means a specifically American malady, as often represented ;
it is deeply seated in Protestantism itself, and is so far a
matter of general Protestant interest. Suppose that in
Prussia church and state should be suddenly severed ; the
same state of things would at once arise here. The parties
now in conflict within the Established Church, would
embody themselves in as many independent churches and
sects, and you would have an Old Lutheran Church, a
New Lutheran Church, a Reformed Church, a United
Church — and that again divided into a union positively
resting on the symbols, and a union acknowledging only
the Scriptures — perhaps, also, a Schleiermacherian Church,
and who knows how many spiritualistic and rationalistic
sects and independent single congregations besides. Ame
rica in fact draws all its life originally from Europe. It is

THE SECT SYSTEM. 121
not a land of new sects ; for those which have originated
there, as the Mormons, are the most insignificant, and have
done nothing at all to determine the religious character of
the people. It is only the rendezvous of all European church
es and sects, which existed long before, either as estab
lishments or as dissenting bodies. England and Scotland
have almost as many different religious bodies as the
United States, with the single difference that in the former
countries one (the Episcopal in England, the Presbyterian
in Scotland) enjoys the privilege of state patronage, while
in America all stand on the same footing.
In forming our judgment of the American sect system,
therefore, we are led back to the general question, whether
Protestantism constitutionally involves a tendency towards
denominationalism and sectarianism, wherever it is not
hindered by the secular power. This we cannot so very
easily deny. Protestantism ' is Christianity in the form of
free subjectivity; of course not an unregenerate subjecti
vity, resting on natural reason — for this is the essence of
rationalism — but a regenerate subjectivity, based on and
submitting to the Word of God. It is thus distinguished
from Catholicism, whieh takes Christianity in an entirely
objective sense, as a new law, and as absolute authority,
and does not therefore allow national and individual pecu
liarities at all their full right and free development. In
the first, the centrifugal force predominates ; in the second,
the centripetal — there freedom, here authority. And to
harmonize perfectly these two opposite yet correlative prin-
- 6

122 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. S.
ciples, is the highest, but also the most difficult, problem of
history. Accordingly it is the great work and the divine mission
of Protestantism, to place each individual soul in imme
diate union with Christ and his Word ; to complete in
each one the work of redemption, to build in each one a
temple of God, a spiritual church ; and to unfold and sanc
tify all the energies of the individual. But, through the
sinfulness of human nature, the principle of subjectivity
and freedom may run out into selfish isolation, endless divi
sion, confusion, and licentiousness; just as the principle of
objectivity, disproportionately applied, leads to stagnation
and petrifaction ; the principle of authority, to despotism
in the rulers and slavery in the ruled. In North America,
the most radically Protestant land, the constitutional infir
mities of Protestantism, in religious and political life, are
most fully developed, together with its energy and restless
activity ; just as the natural diseases of Catholicism appear
most distinctly in the exclusively Roman countries of
southern Europe.
Now in this unrestrained development and splitting up
of Christian interests, most palpable in America, the
Roman Catholic sees symptoms of an approaching dissolu
tion of Protestantism and the negative preparation for its
return into the bosom of the only saving church. But
such a relapse to a position already transcended in church
history, such an annulling of the whole history of the last
three centuries, is, according to all historical analogy,

TRUE MISSION OF PROTESTANTISM. 123 •
impossible. How inconceivable, that in this age of the
general circulation of literature, the Book of all books can
again be taken away from the people, and all the liberties,
hard won by the Reformation, obliterated ! Catholicism
can, indeed, draw over to itself as it has lately done in
Germany, England, and America, individuals, tired of the
Protestant confusion and uncertainty, having no patience
with the present, and no faith in the future, longing for a
comfortable pillow of absolute, tangible authority. But
Protestantism in the mass can never be swallowed up by
it ; or if it should be, it would soon break out again with
increased violence, and shake the Roman structure still
more deeply than it did in the sixteenth century.
We believe, indeed, by all means, that the present divid
ed condition of Protestantism, is only a temporary trans
ition state, but that it will produce something far more
grand and glorious, than Catholicism ever presented in its
best days. Protestantism after all still contains the most
vigorous energies and the greatest activity of the church.
It represents the progressive principle of history. It
is Christianity in motion. Hence more may be expected
from it than from the comparative stagnation of tho
Roman or Greek Catholicism. Converted regenerate indi
viduals, these subjective Protestant heart-churches, are the
living stones for the true Evangelical Catholic Church, which
is to combine and perfect in itself all that is true and
good and beautiful in the past. But this requires the
previous fulfillment of the mission of Protestantism, the
transforming of each individual man into a temple of

124 GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITION OF THE U. S.
God. Out of the most confused chaos God will bring
the most beautiful order ; out of the deepest discords,
the noblest harmony ; out of the most thoroughly deve
loped Protestantism, the most harmonious and at the same
time the freest Catholicism. What wild controversy
has already raged, what violent passion has been kindled
among theologians, about the doctrine of the Eucharist !
And yet this sacrament is the feast of the holiest and
deepest love, the symbol of the closest fellowship of Christ
and the church. The one, holy, universal, apostolic
church is an article not only of faith, but also of hope, to
be fully accomplished only with the glorious return of
Christ. In America are found, in some degree, as a preparation,
for this great end, all the data for the problem of the
most comprehensive union. For there, not only the
Lutheran and Reformed confessions, but also the English
and all the European sections and forms of the church are
found in mutual attrition and in ferment. But, of course,
Europe likewise, especially Germany and England, must
have its part in the work ; nay, must make the beginning.
For Europe still stands at the head of Christian civi
lization, and is ever producing from her prolific womb new
ideas and movements, which, through the growing facility
and frequency of inter-communication, the swelling emi
gration, and the exportation of elements of literature and
culture of every kind, at once make themselves felt
in America, perpetuate themselves there in modified forms,
and come into immediate contact and conflict, so as to

THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS. 125
bury themselves in each other, and- rise again as the
powers of a new age in the history of the world and the
church. Therefore have I called America, even in respect
to religion and the church, the Phenix-grave of Europe.
II. THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
I proceed now to consider the several confessions; —
" denominations " they are called in America, because the
difference is in fact often merely nominal, and relates not
so much to the doctrinal confession, as to government,
worship, and outward usages. In this sketch I will confine
myself to the most important and influential denominations
which represent the proper ecclesiastical life of the United
States. Besides these there is, to be sure, a legion of
smaller sects, some of English origin, some of German, and
some of American ; the Shakers, the Tunkers, the River
Brethren, the Seventh-day Baptists, Schwenkfeldians,
Weinbrennerians, Swedenborgians, Universalists, &o. But
it were unfair and ridiculous to judge American Christi
anity by these. They have not, in fact, made near so much
noise, nor exerted near so much influence on the American
church, as even the German Catholics and the rationalistic
"free societies" upon the German. Most of these smaller
sects, too, soon run their course and become mere petrifac
tions.* *I must warn my German readers against the ridiculous caricatures of
American Chi'istianity which abound in European works. Such an one has
appeared quite recently in the last volume of the learned Roman Catholic

126 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
¦ In America, as elsewhere, the leading and most com
prehensive division in the church is that of Protestantism
and Romanism. The former embraces the great mass of
the population ; many thousands, however, holding only a
very loose and outward connection with it, and not being
formal members of any particular church, though they
regularly attend public worship. These nominal Protestants,
many of them not even baptized, correspond to the number
less nominal Christians in European state churches, who,
though they have been baptized and have professed their
Catholic, or Lutheran, or Reformed faith, care no more
about the church, than if they were heathens or Moham
medans. In Protestantism we may again distinguish the English
and the German groups of confessions. To the English
belong the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, the Epis
copalians, the Quakers, the Methodists, and the Baptists ;
the last two having also German branches. The Reformed
Dutch are, it is true, of Low Dutch origin, but they have
become in language entirely English, and are closely related

Encyclopaedia of Wetzer and Welte (vol. xi., Freiburg, 1854, p. 49 sq.). There,
in a long article on America, we read of a number of sects, of which we never
heard in our life, and whose existence must be confined to the private opinions
of some eccentric and deranged heads, and such may be found anywhere in the
Romish Church as well as the Protestant. It was not without a smile that we
saw there " Bethlehemites," " Sionites," " Bryonites " (who are reported to pluck
out their right eye in literal understanding of Matth. 5, 29 !), " Ranters of the
right arm," " Latitudinarians," " Six Article and Ten Article Baptists," " Taber-
naculists," "Bible-Christians" (who live on water and vegetable food!)
and " Atheists," figuring along side of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Puritans
and Methodists, as if they were of equal importance.

THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS. 127
to the Presbyterians. The Huguenots, who emigrated
after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, have nearly
all fallen in with the Presbyterian and Episcopal
churches, and the French language is rarely used in
public service in the United States, excepting for the
numerous Roman Catholic Frenchmen in some of the
Southern States, especially Louisiana. The German group
embraces the Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches,
and the Moravian Brethren.
All these may be reckoned to orthodox and evangelical
Protestantism, since they adhere in their symbols to the
fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures and the Reforma
tion, and manifest a corresponding Christian life. The
Baptists and Quakers stand on the extreme limit of ortho
dox Protestantism, and accordingly come nearest to being
sects in the strict sense ; though the Baptists are very
numerous. The Episcopalians, on the other hand, form
the extreme right wing of Protestantism and are the
nearest akin to Catholicism, especially in the high-church
or Puseyite section. The German churches, we may say,
generally hold middle ground between the Episcopal and
the Presbyterian.
There are other religious parties, which stand in radical
opposition to both the Evangelical Protestant and Roman
Catholic Churches, and thus form a group by themselves —
as the Universalists and the Mormons. The latter have
recently attracted so much notice, though undeservedly, even
in Europe, that I must pay them also some attention here.
We will first consider the Protestant communions, partly

128 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
in the order of their importance for America, partly in the
order of their age ; then contrast with them the Roman
Church ; and lastly describe Mormonism, the irreconcila
ble foe of both ; only remarking further, that for want of
the necessary helps I cannot enter into detailed statistics ;
though these at any rate change every year. All I wish to
do is, briefly and clearly to exhibit the reigning life
and spirit and the distinguishing features of the various
denominations. (a) THE CONGREGATIONALISM'S.
The Congregationalists, or Independents, or Puritans in the
strict sense,* sprang up in the later years of Queen Elizabeth ;
but their roots run back to the Calvinistic reformation in Ge
neva. As early as the reign of Edward VI., in fact to some
extent under Henry VHL, two tendencies may be observed
in the English Church ; the semi-Catholic, which, with all
its opposition to the Roman Papacy, would still preserve as
far as possible the mediaeval character, especially in
government and worship; and the radically Protestant,
which broke all connection with the Catholic tradition,
considering it a development of the Antichrist, and with
deep moral earnestness, but also with intolerant and stormy
zeal, insisted on transforming the whole church life direct
ly from the Biblo on the model of Geneva and Zurich.
* In the wider sense the Presbyterian theology also, and still more the Baptist,
may be called Puritanic, i. e., radically Protestant ; for they push the opposi
tion -to Catholicism in doctrine as far as the Congregationalists.

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS. 129
The former party triumphed under the gifted and mascu
line Elizabeth, who hated Puritanism even more than the
Papacy, and, on political grounds, preferred the Episcopal
order as forming a surer support for monarchy (" no
bishop, no king," being the motto of her successor, James
I.), and a more splendid court and state attire. True,
Puritanism afterwards gained the ascendency under Crom
well after a bloody civil war of religion ; but the restora
tion of the Stuarts soon re-established the Episcopal
Church ; yet with unmistakable evidence of the mighty
influence of Calvinism and Puritanism, which it to this
day cannot deny.
But in New England Puritanism found a safe refuge
and an unmolested home. There it has revealed, since the
•landing of the "Pilgrim Fathers" in 1620, its proper
importance for the history of the world. It is the ruling
sect of the six Northeastern States, and has exerted, and
still exerts, a powerful influence upon the religious, social
and political life of the whole nation.
Congregationalism is, in general, an extreme Calvinism,
modified by the English character and peculiar views of
church government. It forms the extreme left wing of
orthodox Protestantism, maintaining the keenest and most
unyielding hostility to Bomanism ; though allied to it on
the other hand by a certain Judaizing spirit and rigid
legalism. Calvin, with all his religious horror of the
Papacy, had confessedly a strong ehurchly vein ; and, with
all his logical acuteness, a turn for mystic depth. This is
especially discernible in the beginning of the fourth book
6*

130 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
of his Institutes, and his doctrine of the Holy Supper,
which is in reality more akin to the Lutheran, than to the
jejune, or to use his own exaggerated and unjust term, the
"profane" theory of Zuingle. These ehurchly and mystic
elements passed on, indeed, into the German Reformed and
the Anglican Churches, but were gradually thrown aside
by the Presbyterian and Puritanic communions. It is a
remarkable fact, that where Calvin's rigid doctrine of pre
destination has prevailed, his view of the Eucharist, though
undeniably contained in all the leading symbols of the
Reformed Church of the sixteenth and seventeenth century,
even in the Westminster Confession, has almost entirely
given place to the more meagre and the clearer common sense
view of Zuingle ; and vice versa. In their doctrine of the
church and the sacraments, as well as in their views of
history and tradition, the Congre'gationalists approach the
German Rationalism, or at least that last form of Superna-
turalism, which, through the intermediate steps of the
Rational Supernaturalism and Supernatural Rationalism,
finally passed into formal Rationalism. In all other
respects, however, they are strictly orthodox, still holding
to the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, drawn up
by an assembly of Calvinistic divines in London in 1642.
On many points, particularly the inspiration, authenticity,
and authority of the Scriptures, they still maintain the
Protestant orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, and charge
most modern German theologians, often not unjustly, with
a dangerous looseness. New England has produced a
series of able divines, such as Jonathan Edwards (a man of

THE C0NGREGATIONALISTS. 131
rare piety, deep metaphysical talent and powerful elo
quence, the friend and co-laborer of Whitefield in the
extensive revival of the last century), Bellamy, Hopkins,
Emmons, Dwight, Wood, &c, who are hardly known by
name in Germany, but who fill an important chapter in the
development of Calvinistic theology, and may claim a place
in our manuals of doctrine history. This " New England
theology," however, is upon the whole rather dry and
jejune, also too local in its character, and not sufficiently
connected with the general history of theology. At pre
sent it is in an unsatisfactory transition state. The old-
fashioned Puritanism of the seventeenth century does not
satisfy the scientific wants and present taste ; while a great
deal of New School Congregationalism has deviated from
the path of Catholic truth, and resolves the process of con
version and regeneration into a scheme of Pelagian Utili
tarianism. Of late, German philosophy and theology is
receiving greatly increased attention in New England, and
the professors in Andover, the most important Congrega
tional seminary, Drs. Park, Stowe, and Shedd, are well
acquainted with it ; Moses Stuart, author of several Bibli
cal commentaries, having broken the way. This study
of the German literature will undoubtedly greatly stimu
late, enliven, and invigorate the New England mind, which
is naturally strong, clear, and active ; but it may also play
into the hands of rationalistic and transcendental tenden
cies. All depends upon the character of the German works,
and upon the natural turn of mind and heart.
But the leading peculiarity of Congregationalism, which

132 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
essentially distinguishes it even from the Genevan Calvin
ism and the Scottish Presbyterianism, lies in its theory of
church government, which exalts and develops the inde
pendence of single congregations.- In this it goes a step
beyond the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and
forms a new stage in the unfolding, or at least in the
application, of the Protestant principle of religious subjec
tivity. It proceeds on the ground, that each congre
gation (hence the name, Congregationalism) is a com
plete church of Christ, and as such independent of all
earthly supervision (hence the name Independency) ;
directly united to Christ, and responsible only to him ;
therefore entitled and bound to choose and maintain its
own officers, and conduct all its own affairs, internal and
external, as prescribed by the divine word itself. Here,
accordingly, the idea of the church coalesces entirely with
the idea of a local congregation, and in place of an organ
ism embracing all believers, we have a loose conglomerate
of independent religious societies, at best only invisibly
united. It is, however, a very good feature of this sys
tem, that a congregation has only one pastor at a time, and
is never allowed to be so large as to put any individual
member beyond the reach of a conscientious pastoral super
vision. For this reason there are forming among the
Congregationalists, and in America in general, immigration
entirely out of view, many more daughter churches with
their own houses of worship and their ownjjastors, than in
Europe. In Berlin there are many congregations, each of
which, on the American plan, would easily make a dozen.

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS. 133
Then there is an important distinction made in each con
gregation between the church, in the strict sense of the
term, or the number of communicants, who constitute a
spiritual association, and manage all the spiritual concerns
of the charge ; and between the parish or ecclesiastical
society, which is a civil corporation consisting of all those
who attend public worship and contribute to the support
of the pastor, and have the control of the secular matters.
The transition from the latter to the former is marked by a
solemn covenant and act of reception, which in fact,
though not in form, corresponds to our confirmation, but
which is left, of course, in America to the free will of each
individual. This idea of the independence of single congregations
was expressed, as is well known, even by Luther in his cor
respondence with the Bohemian Brethren, whom he
advised in their isolated condition to manage their own
affairs without regard to ecclesiastical authority ; and still
more clearly by the fugitive Franciscan, Lambert of Avig
non, at the Homburg Synod in 1526. But it could never
be practically carried out in Germany for want of the
material for such independent congregations. In England
it was first brought forward by one Brown, a preacher,
towards the end of Elizabeth's reign ; and hence the Con-
gregationalists were at first called Brownists. But, as he
afterwards from impure motives returned to the Episcopal
Church, they would have nothing more to do with him,
and rejected the name. With better reason may the wor
thy minister, John Robinson, be regarded as the proper

134 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
father of the American Puritans. He, with his congrega
tion, fled before an unrighteous persecution, in 1611, from
the north of England, first to Holland; thence, in 1620, he
sent his .people, with solemn prayer and fasting, and the
most earnest exhortations to be steadfast in the faith and
grow in the knowledge of the holy word and law of God,
to America, intending to follow them with the next party
of emigrants; but he soon after died, without seeing with
his bodily eyes the beloved land of his hopes. On
»the inhospitable shores and in the unbroken wilds of Mas
sachusetts, which have since been transformed by Puri
tan industry into a garden, his followers and friends
increased under the severest privations and self-denials, and
became the stock of a great nation.
The Congregationalist principle, however, is not fully
carried- out even in New England. Its operation has been
modified by the theocratic institutions of the early settlers
and the principle of Catholic ehurchly unity, without
which the principle of independency must run out into
complete atomism. The Pilgrim Fathers were soon fol
lowed by a great number of other Puritans, particu
larly in 1630 by the founders of Boston, Salem, Hart
ford, New Haven, &c. ; and these, like most of their Eng
lish brethren in faith, were not properly Independents
at all, but either held the Presbyterian principles of
church government or were willing to retain even the
Episcopal system, with essential modifications. Cotton
and Wilson of Boston, Hooker and Stone of Hartford,
Davenport and Hooke of New Haven, and the other

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS. 135
ministers who accompanied these trains of emigrants,
were mostly educated in Oxford and Cambridge, and
regularly ordained ministers of the Church of England,
only suffering for nonconformity, but never having estab
lished a separate church organization. The Rev; Mr. Hig-
ginson, of Leicester, on taking the last view of the coast
of England, in May, 1629, for Massachusetts, addressed
the large company of his spiritual children and fellow-
passengers in these words : " We will not say as the Sepa
ratists (Brownists) are wont to say, at their leaving
England : — Farewell, Babylon — Farewell, Rome ; but we
will say, Farewell, dear England — Farewell, the Church of
God in England, and all the Christian friends there. We
do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church
of England, though we cannot but separate from corrup
tions in it ; but we go to practise the positice part of
church reformation, and to propagate the Gospel in Ame
rica." He concluded " with a fervent prayer for the king,
the Church and State in England, and for the blessing of
God in their present undertaking for New England."
From the co-operation of these two classes of Puritans,
there arose in New England, in the course of the seven
teenth century, a theocratic state church, with a common
Calvinistic confession of faith, and a rigid discipline; thus
limiting the independence of the several congregations by
their connection with the whole. The " Saybrook Plat
form" of 1708 is evidently a compromise between the
Presbyterian and the Congregational principle. And even
now that the union between church and state is dissolved,

136 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
the Congregationalists have their annual and semi-annual
associations and consociations, for the settlement of diffi
culties and cases of discipline, the examination and ordi
nation of candidates of the ministry, and the furtherance
of the general interests of the church. These, indeed, are
not permitted to trespass on the jealously guarded rights
of the single congregations, and have not legislative, but
only advisory, power ; yet they have such a moral influ
ence, that ministers or congregations obnoxious to their
discipline cannot well maintain themselves in public opi
nion. In general ecclesiastical operations, as home and
foreign missions, educational schemes, the establishment
and support of theological and scientific institutions, they
work together without difficulty, and display very great
activity. Thus the Congregational theory in New Eng
land is always associated, more or less, with Presbyterian
practice. From this state of things, therefore, one should by no .
means judge that independent system, to which so many
of the late German emigrants incline, on account of their
hatred of all church authority in matters of faith. For
these, no form of church government is more miserable
than the independent ; and no congregations are in a
worse condition than those cut off from all synodal super
vision. Every one would rule and govern, yet no one
understands even the A B C of church government. Nay,
would .that they were Puritans, in the good sense of the
word ! Would that we had multitudes of living indepen
dent congregations, which the truth had made truly free,

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS. 137
and able to govern and discipline themselves according to
the word of God ! This were a real advance, to be desired
even for Germany ; nay, most especially for Germany.
Here— at least in the northern and eastern parts — Protes
tantism, to its shame, has in three whole centuries pro
duced no proper congregational life at all ; and Luther's
lamentation over the want of material for an efficient con
gregational government growing out of the congregation
itself, must still prevail. But those independent German
churches in America are infinitely different from the Bible-
reading, earnest, rigid Puritans. They are, in fact, nothing
but licentious rationalistic communities, which employ a
preacher as a hired servant, exclude him from the church
council, and thus trample on the dignity of the sacred
office, and rather hinder than favor the kingdom of God ;
whereas, among the Anglo- American Congregationalists
the ministers always preside ex-officio in the church coun
cils, take the lead in all ecclesiastical matters, and are in
general very honorably treated by the congregations, and
held in greater respect than any other class.
The congregational principle, however, even in its best
form, and in union with living faith and a pure confession,
is after all one-sided, and must be balanced by the idea of
the universal church. We need unquestionably indepen
dent congregations, in which the general priesthood shall
be no empty name, but a living reality — and this is the
sinew of truth in Anglo-American Congregationalism ;
but these congregations ought, at the same time, to feel
themselves living members of the church universal, the

138 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS. -
one undivided body of Christ, and to help one another
with the hand of brotherly love in every good work. In
this respect the Episcopal and Presbyterian principles of
church government have the advantage ; since they hold
fast the idea of the organic unity and authority of the
universal church, which must never be given up. True
independence and freedom is not, in fact, inconsistent with
rational authority, but can rightly thrive only in union
with it. Most of the Congregationalists, too, who move
from New England to the middle, southern, and western
states, commonly attach themselves to the Presbyterians of
the New School, whose synods have legislative power. Of
late, however, there is a tendency in New York and the
western states to form strictly Congregational churches, and
it is . not impossible that the New School Presbyterian
body may split yet on this question, and on the rock of
slavery. Finally, as to the form of worship, Puritanism stands at
the extreme of simplicity and meagreness. In this, also, it
goes beyond Calvin. Even those symbolical forms and
ancient church usages, whieh he either approved or at
least tolerated as innocent, it rejects on account of their
real Or supposed connection with the abominated Catho
licism ; such as the cross, the altar, the clerical costume, all
liturgical forms of prayer, and the church festivals, even
Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. In the war ao-ainst
these things the Puritans displayed, in the days of Crom
well, the same pedantry and fanatism, nay, we may say the '
same formalism — only reversed, negative — as the Papists

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS. 139
and Episcopalians in their zeal for them ; and gave proof,
that an extreme spiritualism, which overlooks the true
import of the divinely created body, very easily passes
unawares into its own opposite. Of late, however, they
have considerably softened and changed in this respect.
The former aversion to church steeples, bells, organs, and
choirs has almost disappeared ; and even the Gothic archi
tecture, which really grew out of the Catholic idea of
worship, is now frequently employed in Puritanic New
England. In general, as taste and artistic talent are culti
vated, prejudice against any union of religion with art will
disappear, and Chi'istianity will be seen to be a thoroughly
penetrating and transforming leaven for architecture, paint
ing, sculpture, music, and poetry, as Well as for everything
else. Nay, there is even danger that this progress of taste
in America may lead to an unwholesome predilection for
outward pomp, splendor, and mere form in church matters,
and extinguish the old Puritanic earnestness.
For it is not to be denied, that this Puritanic worship,
with all its nationalistic nakedness and its barrenness for the
imagination and the heart, has yet its excellences. If,
from fear of mechanical formality, the use of liturgies is
unjustly rejected, so that even the prayer of all prayers,
which the Lord himself taught the disciples, and expressly
enjoined upon them, is hardly ever heard from the Puri
tanic and Presbyterian pulpits of America — though the
case is somewhat different in England and Scotland — the
gift of free prayer, on the contrary, is most cultivated in
these communions. This free prayer, however, in the pul-

140 TEE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
pit itself, commonly assumes involuntarily a stereotyped
form, employing from Sabbath to Sabbath nearly the same
phrases, yet making it difficult for the hearer to join, since
he has first to appropriate what he hears, before he can
form it into his own prayer. Just in proportion as the
altar service and the sacramental element of worship is
lost sight of, the sermon receives increased attention. It
is in general decidedly evangelical, urging on the hearers
repentance, conversion, and sanctification ; but it is often
too didactic, at least for the German taste, and resembles
rather a theological essay; while, conversely theological
lectures in America are less scientific and more practical
than in Germany. Finally; although the Puritans and
Presbyterians likewise go too far in rejecting all the church
festivals and the whole idea of the church year, as matters
of merely human tradition and liable to frequent abuse ; yet
it must be granted, that they observe Sunday — or as they
very characteristically prefer to call it the Sabbath — much
more earnestly and worthily, than any other section of
Christendom. That this day, appointed by God, and no
more abolished by Christ than any other precept of the
decalogue, but only spiritualized by association with the
resurrection, should be profaned and degraded to a day of
worldly amusement and dissipation, as it is on the Euro
pean continent, especially in such a city as Paris, is to any
American, but particularly to the Puritanic New Englander,
a real abomination and one of the chief sources of infidel
ity and moral corruption. If this regard for the Sabbath
often runs into Pharisaic legalism and scrupulousness, this ex-

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS. 141
treme is still far less injurious to the public morals, especially
in a country where church and state are separate, than the
opposite extreme of Sadducean and heathen licentiousness.
Puritanism, from its proper home in the six New Eng
land states, has directly and indirectly exerted a greater
and in general more beneficial influence on the whole reli
gious life of America, than any other denomination, I make
this concession the more readily, since I myself am no
Puritan, and, according to my theological education, never
can be one. Puritanism has been the main source of the
energetic spirit of enterprise, the moral earnestness, the
practical organizing talent, the wholesome principle of the
multiplication of congregations, each with only one pastor,
the zeal for the Bible and Tract Societies, for missions, for
general education, for higher institutions of learning, the
liberality- towards religious and benevolent causes, the
strict observance of the Sabbath, the temperance move
ment, the opposition to slavery, and most of the social
reforms of that country.
But it has also nourished unchurchly tendencies and all
forms of fanaticism and radicalism. In the midst of the
Puritan churches there has quite imperceptibly arisen since
the end of the last century Unitarianism, a semi-ration
alistic sect in doctrine, but highly respectable as regards
scientific and esthetic culture and natural morality, espe
cially benevolence. It embraces many of the most worthy
and cultivated families of Boston, the American Athens ;
almost the whole faculty of the University at Cambridge,
Mass., and many of the first authors, poets, and statesmen

142 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
of America, as Chan ning (who was certainly not far from
the kingdom of heaven), Prescott, Bancroft, (who, however,
quite recently professed something like Trinitarian opin
ions), Ticknor, Longfellow, John Quincy Adams, Everett,
Fillmore, etc. From New England principally, although
not exclusively, originates Universalism, which goes much
further and undermines the foundations of the Gospel.
New England is the chief scene of the extravagances of
Garrisonian abolitionism and female emancipation, in con
nection with dangerous leanings to a skepticism and pan
theism, which have been promulgated in writings, public
assemblies, and sometimes even from the pulpit, by such
men as Theodore Parker and Ralph Emerson, to the great
sorrow not only of the orthodox Puritans, but even of all
earnest and sober-minded Unitarians.
But we confidently believe, there is yet salt enough in
New England to counteract these workings of decay. The
days of the stiff, gloomy, old-fashioned Puritanism, how
ever, are over. Its virtues will abide ; but its defects must
give place to a more free, living and spiritual conception
of Christianity and the church.
(b) THE PRESBYTERIANS.
The Presbyterian church of America came chiefly from
Scotland and North Ireland ; but it has received also a
great deal of material from the anglicized descendants of
the Dutch, French, German Reformed and Lutheran emi
grants. Its first presbytery, consisting of seven ministers

THE PRESBYTERIANS. 143
was organized in Philadelphia in 1705. The first General
Assembly met in 1789, when the number of ministers
amounted to 188 with 419 congregations. It now extends
over all the States of the Union except New England, where
Puritanism takes its place. It is without question one of
the most numerous, respectable, worthy, intelligent, and
influential denominations, and has a particularly strong
hold on the solid middle class.
My sketch of this church may be brief, as the Presby
terians essentially agree in doctrme and worship with the
orthodox Congregationalists just described, and have also
the same confession of faith, viz., the Westminster Confes
sion and Catechism.
Presbyterianism really differs from Puritanism only in
its form of government, from which it takes its name ;
showing what importance it attaches to this matter in
opposition to Independency on the one hand, and Episco
pacy on the other. It holds to the idea of a common
church government and of binding authority of synods, to
which single congregations are subject ; but it rejects all
hierarchical orders and leaches on the contrary the official
parity of all the clergy. The organization is essentially
the same as that of the Scotch Reformed church — a con
sistent application of the synodical and presbyterial prin
ciple on the basis of strictly Calvinistic theology and
discipline. At the head of each congregation stands the
consistory or congregational council, called in the old
Scotch phrase the kirk-session. This consists of the
pastor, who is president ex-officio, and of elders chosen for

144 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
life from the congregation ; it is entrusted with the admin
istration of all local affairs of a spiritual nature. A
certain number of ministers, not less tfean three, with as
many lay elders form a Presbytery, which holds generally
semi-annual meetings; and three or more Presbyteries
form a synod, which convenes annually and superintends
the affairs of its district. Over all the synods stands the
General Assembly, which meets every spring, and is com
posed of an equal number of clerical and lay delegates
from all the Presbyteries. It is the highest tribunal in
all matters of doctrine and discipline, and has not only
advisory power, like the Associations of the Congrega
tionalists, but legislative functions, so that a minister or
congregation, which obstinately resists its decrees, is liable
to a formal excommunication.
In 1837 the Presbyterian church split into two parts,
nearly equal in size and influence, the Old School and the
New School branches, as they are called, which are very
jealous of one another, and hold no formal intercourse.
The separation, which with more patience and love
perhaps might and should have tjpeen avoided, was occa
sioned as much by personal collisions and local interests as
by any real differences in doctrine. It has contributed,
however, to the numerical increase of the churches, minis
ters, colleges, seminaries, and benevolent contributions ;
for the Old School alone is now as large as the whole
Presbyterian church was at the time of the division. The
Old School is in general the more strictly orthodox,
conservative, and centralized in its operations. The New,

THE PRESBYTERIANS. 145
indeed, likewise acknowledges the Westminister Confession
as its symbol, and reckons among its members many as
decided Calvinists as there are in the other branch ; but it
reserves to itself, as a body, greater freedom and a wider
range in the theological development of its standards,
especially as regards the doctrines of original sin and pre
destination ; and as to church polity it holds, in some
respects middle ground between the old Scotch Presby-
terianism and Congregationalism. There is a like diffe
rence among the Congregationalists in New England ;, but,
in the absence of a general church organization, it has
taken no such organized form. The New School also is
composed of quite heterogeneous material, and by the
perpetual agitation of the slavery question and other
points of difference is threatened almost every year with a
new division, which it can hardly long escape ; while some
of its members have already returned into the bosom of
the Old School.
Both branches of the Presbyterian church have re
cently, like the Puritans, felt, the influence of ' German
theology, which in spite of very strong and sometimes cer
tainly not unfounded prejudices, will exert an increasing
influence for good and for evil. The professors at Prince
ton, the leading seminary of the Old School, Drs. Hodge,
Add. Alexander, and Green, and the professors, Drs.
Robinson and Smith, in the Union Theological Seminary
at New York, the most important institution of the New
School, have made themselves acquainted with German
theology, some of them by a residence in Germany for
7

146 , THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
the purpose, and pay constant regard to it in their writ
ings. Besides these two sections of the Presbyterian family,
there are in America other smaller Presbyterian commu
nions, differing from the former only in some very unessen
tial usages, and originating in the older secessions from the
Scottish Establishment ; as, the Seceders, the Associate
Reformed, and Reformed Presbyterian bodies. The Cum
berland Presbyterians are, on the contrary, of American
growth, and were excommunicated by the Presbyterian
General Assembly in the beginning of this century (1810)
for leaning to Arminianism and Methodistic measures.

(c) THE REFORMED DUTCH.
Next in order we may mention the Protestant Reformed
Dutch Church, not on account of its, numerical strength
and importance, which is very limited, but on account of
its age and its close affinity with the communion just
described and its medium position, as it were, between
Old School Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, to which we
shall, presently come. It is properly the oldest Protestant
denomination in the United States, with the exception of
the Episcopal church, which dates from the coloniza
tion of Virginia in 1607. For as early as 1614 the
Hollanders, in whose service the English commander,
Henry Hudson, had discovered the river called by his
name a few years before, began to settle on its beautiful
banks and laid the foundation of New Amsterdam, which

THE REFORMED DUTCH. 147
subsequently changed its name to that of New York and
became the commercial metropolis of the New World.
The Dutch Reformed church was even the established
church in the New Netherlands, though it freely tolerated
the others till the surrender of the colony to England in
16C4. Thus it is closely interwoven with the history of
the " Empire State." It formed, for more than a century,
only a branch of the mother church in Europe, and stood
under the immediate jurisdiction of the Classis of Amster
dam, which to this day has the charge of the churches
in the Dutch colonies. But this dependence, at first natu
ral and beneficial, became gradually troublesome on
account of the intervening distance, and interfered with the
growth of the daughter. Finally, after a good deal of
violent controversy between the old Dutch and the young
Dutch parties, which led even to a formal, though but tem
porary, schism^ it assumed an mdependent organization
with the consent of the Classis of Amsterdam and the
Synod of North Holland in 1771, under the conciliatory
influence mainly of the venerable Dr. Livingston, the first
theological professor of its own Seminary.
From that time nearly all connection with the mother
church ceased, and even the Dutch language rapidly
passed away from the pulpit and the school, where for a
long time it had been exclusively employed. The young
generation grew up altogether English, and received no
new increase from Holland, which preferred sending its
surplus population to its own colonies in the East and West
Indies. The neological movements, which, have agitated

148 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
the Reformed church of Holland, especially the Universi
ties of Groningen and Leyden, since the end of the last
century, and nearly set aside there the authority of the
articles of Dort, have not affected the American Dutch
church in the least. But it is equally true that the modern
Evangelical movements, and the influences of the better
German theology, which are now increasingly felt in the
mother countiy, as they were from the time of Ursinus
and Olevianus to that of Lampe, and which are now doing
a good commensurate with the evil wrought by the German
rationalism of the preceding period, have left it entirely
untouched.' A pretty large party in this denomination, con
sisting mostly, I suppose, of ministers who originally came
from the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, has even
seriously agitated the question, recently, of the propriety of
giving up the name Butch altogether, which has a rather
bad sound in some of the States, being improperly used as a
term of contempt for German. But others feel justly proud
of the land of their forefathers, which occupies such a dis
tinguished position in the history of modern civilization,
political liberty, and Protestant Christianity, and of the
honorable connection of their church with the history of
New York. They also fear, not without reason, that the
repudiation of the distinctive name would prepare the way
for the final absorption of their congregations by the more
influential and progressive Episcopal and Presbyterian
churches, to which in fact a great many of their members
have already gone over. To this must be added legal
difficulties in reference to the title to church property ; so

THE REFORMED DUTCH. 149
that, for the present at least, this unimportant, though
characteristic project of a change of the denominational
name may be considered as abandoned.
The Dutch Reformed church is confined to the States of
New York, and New Jersey, and the city of Philadelphia.
But it has there very wealthy and respectable, congrega
tions, especially the Collegiate churches in the city of New
York, which, in consequence of the enormous increase
of the value of certain donations in land, became the
richest ecclesiastical corporation in America, with tho
exception of the Episcopal Trinity church in the same
city. It has also at New Brunswick, N. J., a theological
Seminary and College (Rutger's College), which are among
the best endowed literary institutions in the land, although
their number of students is small and almost entirely con
fined to this particular denomination. In the absence of
an original field of home missionary labor — for the recent
emigration from Holland to the Western States is confined
to a small number of separatists and isolated individuals —
it has lately made an effort to enlarge its territory and
influence by establishing congregations out of foreign Ger
man and German Reformed material, and published a new
German hymn-book.
In doctrine this denomination holds to the Heidelberg
Catechism, but more especially to the Decrees of the
Synod of Dort. The former is practically very little used
now amongst the Dutch. They neglect the regular cate
chetical training of youth in the old style ; reject the
rite of confirmation ; observe none of the leading festivals,

150. THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
and have no sympathy whatever with the ehurchly -ele
ments of primitive Protestantism, in which they can see
only relics of Popery. In their current views of the sacra
ments and kindred subjects they have, it seems, fallen in
entirely with the reigning spirit of modern American
Puritanism and Presbyterianism, which adopt, with few
exceptions, the low Zuinglian theory in spite of the Cal
vinistic teaching of all the Reformed confessions. The
76th Question of the Heideberg catechism must appear to
them, accordingly, as obsolete mysticism and superstition.
They are hardly able, in their present condition, properly
to understand, and to appreciate the German origin and
genius, the Melanchthonian, conciliatory, and catholic spirit
of this admirable production. But in regard to the mys
tery of predestination they are said to be more rigidly
Calvinistic than even the Old School Presbyterians, -and
determine here the sense of the cautious and moderate
Catechism by the express teaching of the anti-Armenian
Synod of Dort, held more than fifty years later. They are
generally considered, with the above qualification, as the
stiffest and most immovable of all the most respectable
Protestant churches in America, and would fain be
regarded as the very Gibraltar of old-fashioned Protest
antism, in the happy dream that the venerable Synod
of Dort settled all theological questions in 1618, and
left us nothing to do but to renew from time to time a
sweeping commonplace protest against Arminianism, and
more especially against Popery, as the veritable Antichrist
and enemy of all civil and religious, freedom. It would

THE REFORMED DUTCH. 151
be more important to make this claim good by positive
achievements in theological science. But the ruling party
in the Dutch Synod seems to be singularly averse to every
movement which threatens to disturb in the least the com
fortable pillow of an easy traditional orthodoxy, and to lead
to more liberal views.*
This aversion to anything new, in connection with some
disappointments of a personal and sectarian nature (not
to mention less honorable motives), was the principal
cause of its recent conduct towards the German Reformed
sister church, which, however, we must in justice add, is
sincerely regretted by many of the most worthy Dutch
ministers and laymen as meddlesome and presumptuous,
uncharitable and unwise. Since the American Dutch
Church has no prospect of enlarging its territory without
interfering, more or less, with the home missionary field of
other denominations, the emigration from Holland having
almost entirely ceased, it is the more desirable that it
should yield to a freer motion within, and justify its
separate denominational existence and increase its useful-
* We ought, perhaps, to make an honorable exception in favor of the " New
Brunswick Review," which was designed to parade the learning and orthodoxy
of a part of the Dutch body before the theological and literary world. But it
has been already suspended after one year's existence (1854-55). We sin
cerely hope it may not sleep as long as the famous Low-Dutchman, Rip Van
Winkle, and that -it may find more noble and profitable work to do hereafter,
than to publish iU-natured and ill-mannered abuses and absurd caricatures of
the so-called Mercersburg Theology, else the editor might bring upon himself
another such withering castigation as his searching neighbor of New Brunswick
felt it his.duty to inflict upon him, in ihe service of truth and justice, through the
columns of the " N. Y. Observer," for June 15, 1854, unless he should be regarded
by such an one with the silence of contempt, according to the proverb : Le jeu
ne yaut pas la ehandelle. Wo wish him neither the one nor the other.

152 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
ness by such contributions to the theology' of the age,
as might be expected from its historical' origin, its own
resources, and its social standing in ArnericanClrristendom.
Apart from this theological stagnation, which character
izes a considerable portion of the Dutch ministry, it is said
to be inferior to none in America as regards general culture
and ability, and takes an active part in the benevolent ope
rations of the day, especially the foreign missionary, Bible,
and tract causes, and the American and Foreign Christian
Union. The government and discipline of the Dutch church is
almost entirely the same with the Presbyterian, except that
in it, as in the German Reformed body, the elders and
deacons are chosen not for life, but for a term of years.
This seems to us rather an advantage, since it brings more
of the lay force of the church into official activity for the
common good.
In worship, the Dutch Reformed denomination has not
given itself up to the exclusive dominion of extempora
neous prayer, which rules in the Puritan and Presbyterian
bodies of America, but still holds fast to a part, at least, of
the old Palatinate liturgy, though it is now engaged in
revising and modernizing it.

(d) THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
This is the oldest Protestant church in the United
States, and although less numerous, popular, and energetic
than the Puritans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists,

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 153
has easier access to the higher circles of society, especially
in the large cities, and the best prospects of a steady and
substantial growth. It was transplanted as early as 1607,
with the new colony of Virginia, and enjoyed there the
privileges of an established church. It obtained the same
advantage afterwards under the protection and influence
of the English government in the colony of Maryland, and
also in New York, since 1693. Nevertheless, it was only
a weak plant before the Revolution, and was merely an
appendage to the diocese of the bishop of London. Its
clergymen could be ordained only in England, and were
mostly sent to it, and in part supported, by the " Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,"
founded in 1701. Different attempts were made, indeed,
to choose a proper colonial bishop — without which a
district so far from the jurisdiction of the London prelate
could not possibly thrive — but they always failed. At
last, the separation of the colonies from the mother coun
try made an independent organization indispensable, and
after many difficulties, an act of parliament was finally
passed, after the conclusion of the war of independence,
empowering the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishop of London to consecrate three 'bishops for the
dioceses of Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia (1787).
Another bishop, Seabury, had been already ordained a few
years before, in 1784, in the independent Episcopal
Church in Scotland for the diocese of Connecticut.
From these descends the American Episcopal succession,
which, on account of difficulties arising in England, but
7*

154 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
soon removed, Bishop White, of Philadelphia, has already
been searching for, in the Lutheran Church of Denmark,
where the succession was confessedly broken' in the
sixteenth century.
Since that time the Anglican church has formally estab
lished itself in the United States, under the name of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, and has made, not very
rapid, but quiet and steady progress.
It does not properly correspond so well as the Puritan
and Presbyterian churches to republican institutions ; and
on account of the English sympathies, which a large num
ber of its clergy cherished for very obvious reasons, during
the Revolutionary war, it incurred suspicion of a want of
patriotism, and was, therefore, for a long time unpopular.
Yet, it has in its favor stanch old English traditions, an
important theological and practical religious literature,
and a name of renown even in the history of America—
for " Washington, for instance, and most of the great
statesmen of Virginia, belonged to it — and by its compact,
imposing, and personally responsible form of government,
and its liturgical worship, without any special missionary
efforts, it has a strong attraction for the higher classes and
the polite, yet would-be religious world. It may be called,
in a certain sense, the aristocratic and fashionable church
of the United States, which, however, involves at the same
time a serious ¦ defect, since in the church of Christ all
distinctions of society ought to disappear in the feeling of
common guilt and common salvation, and before the awful
realities of the eternal world. From its clergy the Presi-

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 155
dent chooses most of the chaplains for the army and navy.
In the country, in the lower orders of society, and in the
west, it has very feeble hold ; but in the great cities of the
•east it is wealthy and strong. In New York, for example,
it possesses, not by any means the most intelligence and
piety — in these it must yield to the Presbyterian — but the
greatest outward splendor, the most imposing and costly
churches, and the fattest livings.. With a mass of high
flying men of the world, who attend its worship merely
for fashion's sake, and perhaps also for the music, but
never think of such a thing as thorough conversion, it
numbers among its members many truly pious persons,
whose religious life is more evenly and harmoniously
formed, than that of most Puritans. The large accession
which the Episcopal Church continually receives from
other denominations, is, by no means, to be referred
entirely to outward considerations, but, in many cases, to
deeper inward grounds. Many laymen, and even Puri
tanically or Methodistically educated clergymen, pass over
to it, because they see in it the true mean between the
extremes of Puritanism and Romanism, and because they
think, that it alone equally meets both the evangelical
Protestant and the Catholic interests. Yet many such
Episcopal clergymen, who have come from other Protest
ant denominations, have been driven by the same desire
for a fixed objective ecclesiasticism and a liturgical altar-
service, beyond this via media into the Roman camp.
I will now briefly present the leading features of this
denomination and its differences from the mother church.

156 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
The Protestant Episcopal Church is primarily the natu
ral continuation of the English established or national
Church, which broke off from Rome under Henry VHL,
and was afterwards under Edward VI., and especially
under Queen Elizabeth, fixed in its present form.*. Its
peculiarity, it is well known, consists in this : that in the
work of reformation it took not only the Bible, but also
church antiquity for its rule, and hence did not push its
changes so far as the Protestant churches on the continent
and in Scotland, but took a middle position between the
two great opposites. It is, so to speak, the result of a
treaty or compromise between the Catholic and Evangeli
cal Protestant principles, outwardly secured by the Erastian
principle, or the supremacy of the crown. On the one
hand, in the Thirty-nine Articles it is Protestant, and
indeed moderately Calvinistic, therefore Reformed ; in
many points, as the observance of the Sabbath and aver
sion to pictures, the cross and altar, it shows even the
influence of Puritanism. On the other hand it is essen
tially Catholic in its episcopal hierarchy (though deprived,
to be sure, of the papal head, to make room for a royal
papacy) and in its liturgy, which with only the omission
of some specifically Roman elements, is an altogether
"faithful compilation and an uncommonly successful trans
lation of the old Catholic church prayers and formularies.
* The designation u High-church," as still frequently used in German works
for the Church of England, is altogether wrong. " High-church," in English,
is not a noun at all, but an adjective, denoting only a particular party in the
Anglican church, opposed to the Low-church party.

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 157
Thus it stretches out one hand to Geneva, the other to
Rome. It does not bring the two principles into vital,
organic union, but merely into juxta-position. It is not
a work of one design and moulding, but, as it were, an
unfinished pile of heterogeneous materials, and yet the
mightiest and most influential national church which
Protestantism can show, and the one which can most
nearly rival Rome. It is not the beating heart and the
thinking, head, but the right arm and the political and
social bulwark of Protestantism.
Hence, there have always been in this church two
parties, which have as little real communion with one
another as two separate confessions ; and which both have
equal ground in the symbols and history of the church, and
are on the other hand equally inconsistent. The High-
church party, which for the last twenty years has been
most earnestly and worthily represented by Puseyism,
takes its stand on the episcopal constitution and the theory
of apostolic succession, and more than all on the Book of
Common Prayer. In spite of all its defects, we regard this )
book as a truly national English work, and — excepting
perhaps the German church poetry — the greatest produc
tion of Protestantism in the sphere of worship. It is
known and venerated as far as the English tongue extends,
even by non-episcopalians, for its admirable language, if for
nothing else, in regard to which it stands related to Eng
lish literature as Luther's translation of the Bible to Ger
man. If now this party should pursue only the ehurchly,
priestly, and sacramental element, it must run into Roman-

158 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
ism ; and many Puseyites, following their former learned
leader, Dr. Newman, have in fact gone over to the Roman
Church. But there arc also fortunate and morally estim
able inconsistencies ; and in matters of religious conviction
one ought not to follow merely the laws of logic — other
wise the most rational were always the most true — but to
regard other far deeper considerations. The Low-church
party stands with equal right on that thoroughly Protes
tant symbol, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican
church, and can appeal to its reformers and many of its
greatest bishops and divines, who were not only Calvinis
tic in the doctrine of election, but even in part at least
Zuinglian in the doctrine of the sacraments. In logical
consistency this party ought to be Presbyterian or Puri
tanical in its fanatical hatred of everything Catholic, and
in many respects it actually is so in principle ; but at the
same time it still cleaves with honest love to the episcopal
constitution and to that " venerable daughter of the Bible,"
the Book of Common Prayer.
Thus there are unreconciled antagonisms in the Anglican
Church. It contains, in some sense, the material for a
Protestant Catholicism or Catholic Protestantism ; but it
lacks that unity of principle and idea, which inwardly
reconciles the antagonism, and brings the Catholic and
Evangelical elements together into an organic whole.
I know some young, talented, and amiable Episcopal cler
gymen in America, some of them educated in German
theology and philosophy, who feel this want, and see more
or less clearly, that above the abstract antagonism of the

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 159
stiff objectivity of the high church party and the arbitrary
subjectivity of" the low church, a third party must form
itself, which shall combine the elements of truth on both
sides, give their due weight to the interests of both objec
tive and subjective, Catholic and Protestant Chi'istianity,
and thus reconcile the two. These gentlemen sympathize
most with Hare, Trench, Maurice, Kingsley, Alford, Cony-
beare, Howson, and such English divines, who cannot be
numbered with either of the extreme parties, and have
therefore been called the Broad-Church School.
This general character the American Episcopal Qjaurch
shares throughout with her mother in England. The
whole Puseyite controversy, one of the most remarkable
and important phenomena in the history of Protestantism,
somewhat analogous to that of the more recent strictly
confessional Lutheranism in Germany, was long ago trans
planted to American soil, whither indeed the vibrations of
all European movements at once extend. Almost half the
Episcopal ministers there are more or less Puseyistic,
and several among them, even a bishop (Dr. Ives of North
Carolina, a well-meaning, but weak man), disgusted with
Protestantism, which they have never fully understood,
have, like many of kindred mind in England, deserted to
the Roman camp ; while most content themselves with the
idea of an Anglo-Catholicism, in hope of a future closer
union with the Eastern churches and the Roman bishop as
patriarch of the West. The antagonism and party spirit
of the high-church and low-church sections, reveal them
selves in America even in all the elections of bishops and

160 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND 'SECTS.
in all the diocesan and general conventions ; yet a formal
rupture has thus far been avoided. They have had much
to do, also, with the late scandalous processes, to which
some high-church bishops, the now justly deposed Onder-
donk of New York and the still acting Doane of New
Jersey, who holds his office on a sort of confession of his
guilt in squandering other people's money for his educa
tional establishment at Burlington, have been subjected by
their colleagues, primarily for moral offences. These trials
have seriously injured the Puseyite party in public opi
nion ;^et they show at the same time, that this church
still exercises a discipline, which even a prelate, in high
official station, cannot escape. It must also be as readily
conceded, that Puseyism has infinitely more worthy repre
sentatives, than either of the above-named prelates, who
have acquired a celebrity, anything but enviable, more by
their outward position, than in any other way.
But with this general resemblance to the English
Church, the American Episcopal Church has certain pecu
liarities growing out of her condition there, which give
he*r even an advantage over her still far larger and
more powerful mother in England. We refer not to the
inconsiderable omissions in the liturgy (the Athanasian
Creed, the prayers for the royal family, the services which
relate to the death of Charles I., the restitution of the
Stuarts in 1660, and the gunpowder treason under James
I.), most of which her altered political condition has
required ; but to modifications in the whole organization
and government.

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 161
In the first place, by its separation from the state it is en
tirely relieved of the iaconsistency of a royal lay episcopaoy,
or the ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown, as it is called,
which in England, to add to the absurdity, resides at pre
sent, as formerly in the days of the maiden Elizabeth, in a
woman ; and the relative passages in the Thirty-nine Arti
cles, the Liturgy and the Canons have been stricken out,
or essentially modified. The Protestant Episcopal Church
in the United States has full freedom, and the invaluable
right of self-government. This was wrested from the
Anglican church by Henry VIII., when he cut off from
the hierarchy the Roman head and set his own tyrant head
on the bleeding stump. True the convocation or legisla
tive synods continued ; but they stood altogether under
the authority of Parliament and the crown. Since 1717
they have sunk to a mere shadow and solemn farce ; and
the earnest endeavors of some of the Puseyite party under
bishop Wilberforce of Oxford to revive them, have, at
least thus far, been frustrated by the obstinate opposition
of the Erastians or emperor-papists.
Then, again, the American Episcopal Church has full lay
representation — a Presbyterian element — which we must
likewise regard as a decided advantage.
Its organization is this : It is divided into dioceses
according to the political divisions of the country, the
names of the dioceses corresponding to the number and
names of the States ; while the Roman Catholics name
their sees after the larger cities. Only the great State of
New York, has two dioceses — an eastern and a western.

162 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
At the head of each diocese stands a bishop, who is usu
ally at the same time rector of one «f the more impprtant
congregations, and is in part supported by it, or draws his
salary from the interest of a special fund, or, if there is no
such fund, or if it is not sufficient, from the annual collec
tions made by his Presbyters. Every spring be assembles
all the Presbyters of his district, with as many lay dele
gates as there are parishes, in a diocesan convention. He,
as president, opens the convention with a charge, consisting
of a statistical report of his official labors during the past
year, with appropriate exhortations, and sometimes theo
logical expositions. Here all the affairs of the diocese are
attended to. To this body belongs also the power of elect
ing the bishop of the diocese, of choosing a standing com
mittee as his council, and of presenting him for trial.
Every three years the General Convention, as it is called,
assembles in one of the larger cities of the Union, for the
most part in New York and Philadelphia alternately.
Agreeably to the arrangement of the old English convoca
tions and of the British Parliament and the American Con
gress, this convention consists of two houses, an upper, or
the house of Bishops (now numbering thirty-one or two),
which sits with closed doors, and is presided over by tbe
oldest or senior bishop — for there are no archbishops as in
England — and a lower, or the house of clerical and lay
deputies, which is composed of an equal number of Pres
byters and lay delegates from all the dioceses, none being
allowed to send more than four of each order, and which
holds its deliberations in open church. This triennial

iHE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 163
General Convention is the supreme judicatory of the
Episcopal Church in all matters of doctrine, worship and
discipline. The concurrence of both houses is necessary
to the enactment of a law. The vote is counted by dio
ceses. The house of bishops has a veto upon the acts of
the lower house. This power may prevent many useful
reforms but also many useless changes or dangerous
innovations, especially in an age and country, which has a
morbid passion for law-making.
All this now looks very well on paper. But in reality
one has to observe with regret, that at these conventions, as
is true indeed also of Presbyterian synods, and as must be
said perhaps still more of the ancient ecumenical coun
cils, to say nothing at all of the Council of Trent— too
much party spirit and passion appear, too much of the
notorious odium theologicum, all sorts of intrigue and
worldly policy, and an unhealthy tendency to empty decla
mation and immature and unprofitable legislation ; so that
the idea has already been suggested of having these con
ventions only once in ten years. Yet the free synodal
constitution, with all its evils, which flow from sinful flesh,
and are in fact incident to every other form of government,
we far prefer to a slavish dependence of the church on the
temporal power and the changing humors of individuals ;
and we believe, that its advantages and its happy influence
in awakening and promoting the general life of the church
infinitely outweigh its defects.
Though the party impulses in this church, its exclusive
ness, its pedantry, its high pretensions, especially with its

164 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
obvious deficiency in original contributions to theological
science, are much to be lamented ; yet it has also many
excellences and advantages, occupies a very important con
servative position in American Christianity, and has, per
haps, of all Protestant denominations the best prospects of
ultimate success in the United States. There is at-present
a movement on foot, headed by several worthy and even
high-church Presbyters, but not favored, as it seems, by
the bishops, of increasing the efficiency and popularity of
this church, by allowing greater liberty in the use of
the Prayer Book, with the privilege of preferring even
free prayers in certain cases ; by providing a greater
variety of forms for many occasions ; by relaxing somewhat
the rigor of the Episcopal succession theory, and entering
into a more liberal and friendly relation to other evan
gelical churches. In this way, it is thought, the Episcopal ,
Church, which was heretofore almost exclusively confined
to the higher classes of society, and has rather discouraged
the poor man from joining it, would be able to reach the
masses, and accomplish a much greater amount of good
among the American people.

(e) THE METHODISTS.
In the bosom of the Church just described has arisen,
since 1729, Methodism, the third great movement of
religious reform in England. It forms almost as important
an epoch in the development and application of the Pro
testant principle, as the Puritanic revolution in the seven-

THE METHODISTS. 165
teenth century ; while now on the other hand Puseyism
represents the counter movement of Anglicanism towards
Catholicism, and is therefore mainly, though by no means
wholly, retrograde. Methodism, however, may almost as
well be called an American product, as an English. Its
founders, John Wesley and George Whitefield, themselves
labored a long time as clergymen of the Episcopal
Church in Georgia ; and the latter, who died in New Eng
land (1770), went through all the colonies repeatedly, as
a genuine evangelist and a powerful revival preacher ; ever
testifying against natural depravity with awful earnestness,
as in the immediate presence of heaven and hell, and warn
ing men to turn from the gaping abyss ; everywhere, as
lightning, striking the conscience, and kindling new divine
life — an incalculable blessing to his whole age. In fact
Methodism established itself . independently in America,
even before it did in England, although the first Methodist
congregation was not founded before 1766 in New York.
Confessedly it originally contemplated no separation from
the Evangelical establishment, but only a revival of that
church. It aimed not to make itself a distinct sect, but, at
most, like the German Pietism, an ecclesiola in ecclesia, and
especially to introduce practical religion among the dread
fully neglected lower classes of the people. But when the
American colonies declared themselves independent, and
thus all connection was dissolved between the Episcopal
Church and England, an emergency presented itself which
John Wesley, then already eighty years old, who had
openly disapproved the war for liberty, and thus drawn

166 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
upon himself the sarcastic censure of that well-known yet
unknown political writer, Junius, thought could be met only
by a departure from the usual church order ; and he, though
only a Presbyter of the Anglican church, on his own
responsibility, in 1784, ordained one of his friends and
fellow Presbyters, Dr. Coke, bishop or superintendent of
his American Methodist Societies, and by this act gave
them the character of an independent religious body, which
has since borne the name of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. At the same time he made an abridgment of the
Common Prayer Book and the Thirty-nine Articles, as a
directory for the worship and doctrine of this new organi
zation. However we may think of this bold step, which was, in
any case, an ecclesiastical irregularity, like Luther's
ordination of Nicolas of Amsdorf, as bishop of Naumburg,
and the ordination of Teasel by QJcolampadius ; it is
obvious, that Methodism has, since then, grown with
uncommon rapidity, and is one of the most important
facts in the modern history of Protestant Christendom. It
has not been entirely without influence, even on the
Anglican mother church. The active zeal of the evan
gelical or low-church party for practical Christianity and
missions is, at least in part, an effect of the -Methodistic
movement. In America, this has had, perhaps, of all
sections of the church, next to Puritanism, the greatest
influence on the general religious life, and especially, as
we shall hereafter see, on the German churches. It must
be regarded as the chief author and promoter of revivals.

THE METHODISTS. 167
These, in this particular fonu, are peculiar to that country,
and date from the time of Whitefield and Jonathan
Edwards. They commonly appear in " camp-meetings,''
and "protracted meetings," and sometimes spread, as by
contagion, over whole districts. The Methodist is, at all
events, one of the most numerous denominations in
America, perhaps the most numerous, and in the State of
Indiana it even controls the political elections. It has
uncommon energy and activity, and enjoys an organization
eminently fitted for great general enterprises and systema
tic, successful cooperation. Its preachers have, in general,
little or no scientific culture, but, on an average, a decided
aptness for popular discourse and exhortation, and they
often compensate by fidelity and self-denial for their want
of deeper knowledge. They are particularly fitted for
breaking the way in new regions, for aggressive missionary
pioneer service, and for laboring among the lower classes
of the people. Their zeal, however, is very frequently
vitiated by impure motives of proselytism, and indulges in
the boldest aggressions on other churches, thinking that it
alone can really convert. Amongst the negroes, too,
both free and slave, Methodism has most influence, and
seems, with its emotional excitements, well adapted to
.their saDguine, excitable temperament. Formerly, appeal
ing to the apostles and evangelists of the primitive church,
it used to condemn learning and theology from principle,
as dangerous to practical piety ; and to boast, that its
preachers had " never rubbed their backs against the walls
of a college," and yet knew the better how to catch fish in

168 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
the net of the kingdom of God. But in this respect, a
considerable change has been, for some years, going on.
The Methodists are now beginning to establish colleges
and seminaries, to publish scientific periodicals, and to
follow the steps of the culture of the age. But it is a
question whether they will not thus lose more in their
peculiar character and influence with the masses, than
they will gain in the more cultivated circles.
The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States
has been divided since 1847 into two almost equal parts,
a northern and a southern. These have broken off all
intercommunion, and have recently had a vexatious law
suit about the division of the common property. The sole
cause of the separation was slavery. The Methodists of
the northern and western States are mostly abolitionists,
and would not suffer that their brethren in the south
should hold, buy, and sell immortal men as pro
perty. In its character, Methodism holds the same relation, both
in light and shade, to English Christianity, as the Pietism
of Spener and Francke to the German ; and it stands
towards the Episcopal Church just as this Pietism does
towards the Lutheran, except that it is organized as a dis
tinct sect, while Pietism still forms only a party within the
Lutheran and German Reformed churches. Hence it takes
most with the Wiirtemberg emigrants, among whom there
are so many Pietists. Wesley himself had been in Ger
many. He was acquainted with the German church
hymns, many of which he reproduced in English (as he

THE METHODISTS. 169
afterwards did Beugel's Gnomon in his Commentary on
the New Testament), and was at first in very close inter
course with Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren, to
whom he owed much, though he afterwards separated
from them. Whitefield particularly admired the Francke
Orphan House, and endeavored to found one like it in
Georgia. Methodism and Pietism have in common an earnest
interest for subjective experimental religion, repentance,
conversion, regeneration ; and this in a particular way or
method (whence the name Methodism). The reigning
spirit of the system demands for a full " getting through,"
violent birth-throes, a powerful struggle of repentance, a
definite sum of experiences of sin and grace, and commonly
also a distinct recollection of the time and place of regene
ration or conversion; — for with the Methodists these two
are the same. They entirely reject the doctrine of election,
and frequently preach from the pulpit against Calvinism.
They are Arminian, and teach, often even to the extreme
of Pelagianism, the freedom and accountability of the
human will, the possibility of resisting and losing the
divine grace, and the possibility and relative necessity of
repeated regenerations. This, it is well known, was the
main reason of Wesley's final separation from Whitefield;
the latter decidedly holding the doctrine of predestination,
though in his sermons he never made imprudent use
of it. In other respects the confession of Methodism is a
simplification of the Thirty-nine Articles ; and the Wesley-

170 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
ans, in England at least, have retained much even of the
Book of Common Prayer, while their brethren in America
are in this matter also more free and radical, and are
almost entirely addicted to extemporaneous prayer.
Yet, after all, there is a very considerable difference
between Methodism and Pietism, founded in the difference
between the English and German national character.
Methodism lacks throughout the German depth, and
inwardness, the contemplative turn for the mystical, and a
vigorous, fruitful, and profound theology ; while on the
other hand, it far surpasses Pietism in energetic outward
activity, going forth to conquest. They are related in this
respect like Martha and Mary, Peter and John.
While Pietism contents itself with working as salt
within the church, and in the use of the ordinary means of
grace, Methodism has a complete, separate, and indeed in
its way admirable organization. John Wesley was not
only a pungent preacher, but also a legislative genius, an
exceedingly shrewd, skillful business man ; while his
brother Charles, the sweet writer of spiritual songs, was of
a more inward, reflective turn, and in this respect supplied
the defect of the isther. Had John lived in the Middle
Age, or in the Roman church, he would have been, with
out doubt, like Dominicus, Francis of Assisi, and Ignatius
of Loyola, the founder of a great monastic order; and had
the Anglical church rightly understood and appreciated
him, and possessed the tact which the Roman shows in
such cases, it would not only not have persecuted Method-

THE METHODISTS. 171
ism, but would have formally sanctioned and patronized it
as a society for home and foreign missions, and thus pre
vented a secession.*
The constitution, drawn up by John Wesley, but after
wards in many respects modified and developed, is in prin
ciple entirely hierarchical, and is so far in remarkable con
trast with the political republicanism of the United States.
It has often been remarked, that Methodism is a full Pro
testant counterpart to the order of Jesuits in the Roman
Church. The legislative power resides in the general con
ference, which consists of a certain number of delegates
from the annual conferences of the various districts ; the
executive, in bishops and presiding elders. The Anglican
theory of apostolic succession, however, of course falls
away ; for the first Methodist bishop was never Episcopally
ordained. It is thus not an Episcopacy exclusively of
principle, but of order and expediency, as with the Mora
vian Brethren. The congregations are entirely passive,
and have not even a voice in the choice of their minister.
The clergymen themselves are in their turn wholly depen
dent on the presiding elders and bishops, and must have
their stations changed by them every two years ; so that a
continual rotation is established, and no room given
* Says Macaulay in his brilliant article on Ranke's History of the Popes : " At
Rome the Countess of Huntingdon would have a place in the Calendar as St.
Selinda, and Mrs. Fry would be foundress and first Superior of the Blessed Order
^ofthe^ails. Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is certain to become the head
of a formidable secession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is certain to be-
the first General of a new society devoted to the interests and honor of the
Church."

172 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
for a really close union, a patriarchal relation, between pas
tor and people. Hence, also, the clergymen are not sup
ported exclusively by their congregations, but partly from
the common Conference funds,, for which, however, collec
tions in the congregations are required, and from the pro
ceeds of their large Book Concern in New York. They
receive a moderate but respectable and fixed salary for
themselves, their wives, and each of their children;
the income rising with the growth of the family. Then
the supernumerary and superannuated clergymen, and
missionaries, and the widows and orphans of deceased
ministers, are well provided for by a large and well-
managed sustentation fund for the purpose. In addition to
this ministry, Methodism has the faculty of employing the
gifted and experienced laity in a sort of clerical activity,
using them very successfully as local preachers and class-
leaders — a work, which then commonly forms, for the
more talented, the stepping stone to the proper clerical
office, and a practical preparation for it.
The hierarchical character of the Methodist Church con
stitution is, on the one hand, its strength and one main
cause of its success and compactness. But, on the other
hand, it is ever provoking reactions in the suppressed lay
element, and has already produced several secessions in
England and America. The largest sect which has gone out
from it in (1830), and has exchanged the Episcopal consti
tution for a tolerably independent one, is the Protestant
Methodist Church, commonly called Radical Methodists.
A still more dangerous and probably incurable schism has

THE METHODISTS. 173
appeared within the last few years among the Wesleyans
in England, and has thrown them into the greatest
excitement. In worship, Methodism -is not satisfied with the usual
divinely ordained means of grace. It really little under
stands the use of the Sacraments, though it adheres tradi
tionally to infant baptism, and four times a year celebrates
the Lord's Supper, as a simple commemoration. It has
far more confidence in subjective means and exciting
impressions, than in the more quiet and unobserved but
surer work of the old church system of educational religion.
The main point with it is always effect on the sinner
by special efforts of the preacher ; and with this view it
has invented and perfected, especially in America, a machi
nery for the purpose, altogether foreign to Pietism — the
system of what is called new measures. This includes
not only prayer-meetings — an institution as old, by the
way, as Christianity, and only invested by Methodism
with a particular meaning and importance ; but also and
especially camp-meetings, commonly held in forests or
under tents, often for weeks together in a good season
of the year ; protracted meetings, which may be held also
in the church and in the winter season, and are designed to
compensate for the regularly returning church festivals
rejected bythe Methodists, as by the Puritans ; class-meet
ings, anxious or inquiry meetings on appointed week days
for the interchange of religious experience, and a special
personal conversation with anxious sinners (a kind of sub
stitute for the Roman Catholic confessional) ; and, finally,

174 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
the anxious-bench, a genuine modern American invention,
i. e., a seat before the pulpit, to which after sermon the
penitent hearers are invited, and where they are pressed
with special exhortations, and wrought up to the most
intense nervous excitement, till the new life "breaks
through," and then the sense of forgiving grace often vents
itself in a jubilee of ecstacy, as boisterous as the violent
lamentations, groans, and not rarely convulsions, in which
the sense of sin had just before found utterance.
One can conceive how many of these "new measures,"
some of which are, however, only modifications of old
ones, may, under wise direction, be very powerful means
of awakening and promoting religious life. I well remem
ber what favorable representations I had made to myself of
a Methodist camp-meeting before my removal to Ame
rica. The idea of a great assembly in the forest by moon
light, and under heaven's blue, starry dome of peace,
devoutly listening -to the solemn warnings and precious
promises o'f the divine word, wrestling with the Lord in
fervent prayer, like Jacob at Jabbok, till break of day, and
filling the vast silence of nature, that living temple of God,
with the praises of the crucified and risen Friend of sinners
— is sublime and captivating. And preaching in the open
street and the markets, in the large cities, where churches
are wanting, may be a real duty, which the societies for
Inner Missions in Germany ought particularly to consider.
Nor have I a moment's doubt, that in those exciting
Methodist meetings, and even on the anxious-bench, many
thorough conversions, and still more superficial but real

THE METHODISTS. 175
awakenings, needing further care, have taken place. But
unfortunately in reality very much that is human and
impure, mingles itself in, and these new measures have led
to the most injurious outbreaks of religious fanaticism ;
above all they have nourished a most dangerous distrust
of the ordinary means of grace, the calm preaching of the
Word, the sacraments, and catechetical instruction. The
Methodists reject not only confirmation, as a useless or
hypocritical form, but also the idea of objective baptismal
grace ; and they often dreadfully neglect all religious train
ing of children, in the vain, presumptuous expectation that
some exciting revival-sermon in a camp-meeting or a
few hours on the anxious-bench, will answer the purpose
of the tedious process of parental discipline and care, and
regular pastoral instruction. No wonder that, under such
influences, the young generation grows up rude and
immoral, and that in many districts where the quick
straw fire of Methodistic revivals has burned brightly, it
has left a complete desolation, with frivolous mockery of
all religion.
The new measures have passed from Methodism into
other churches, the German among the rest, and are there
very frequently still more wantonly abused. Tbe Lutheran
and Reformed have, however, within the last twelve years,
at least in the eastern States, almost entirely come back
from these wild extravagances, feeling that they do not
correspond to the genius of their church ; and they have
returned to the good old measures, which in the end prove
better, than the most artistic stimulants of human inven-

176 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
tion. The flourishing period of new measures is now, in
general, pretty much past, and even among the Methodists
the swollen stream of religious excitement seems to be
again seeking its natural, fixed channels, especially in the
more cultivated city congregations, which have never really
approved those unwholesome excesses.
(f) THE GERMAN CHURCHES.*
It is commonly estimated, that the Germans in the
United States, including their English-speaking descend
ants, number now, at least, four millions ; thus forming
almost one-sixth of the whole population.
But the strength of the German churches ought not to
be estimated accordingly. These Germans are scattered
over all the Union, especially the middle and western
States, and divided into a multitude of sects. They have
not naturally the practical talent for organization, and,
under the State-church system of their fatherland, did not
learn how to take care of themselves. They emigrated,
with few exceptions, not from religious, but from secular
motives. Perhaps more than half the later emigrants are
almost entire strangers to Christianity. And finally, the
German emigrants have been ecclesiastically left almost
entirely to themselves by the mother churches. These
* In the original volume, which was designed for Germany, this section
Btands as a distinct third part, of almost equal compass with the present second
part. It is here abridged, to give the work its due proportion for the general
American reader. — Translator.

THE GERMAN CHURCHES. 177
things fully explain why the German churches of America
are yet in their childhood, compared with the Presbyte
rian, the Congregational, or the Protestant Episcopal, at
least in general culture, social influence, and church
activity. Nevertheless, I am firmly convinced, on account of the
number of pious and educated Germans and Anglo-Ger
mans, which is now considerable, and is rapidly growing ;
on account of the late great increase of life and activity
anions* them; on account of the decrease of transition to
the English churches, and the growing sense of their
peculiar calling ; that the German church and theology in
America have a highly important work, which they alone
can properly fulfill.
The great body of German Christianity in the trans-
Atlantic world belongs to Protestantism, and to the Pro
testant Germans we shall accordingly confine ourselves.
Perhaps one-fourth, at most one-third, of the emigrants,
particularly from Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, the Rhen
ish provinces, and Austria, may be Roman Catholics.
The German Protestants, however, are, like Protestantism
itself, much divided, and represent almost all branches of
the church in the mother country. The great mass belong
to the Lutheran and Reformed confessions. Besides these
there are the United Church, the Moravian Brethren, and
the older sects, as the Mennonites, Tunkers, and Sehwenk-
feldians ; with several others of American and mostly
Methodistic origin, the Albrights Brethren, the United
8*

178 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
Brethren, the German missions of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and a few Baptist congregations. ¦
The German emigration to America began in the time
of Penn, about 1 680, and directed itself particularly to the
colony of Pennsylvania, which is accordingly, to this day,
the principal theatre of the German-American churches.
The ecclesiastical organization did not begin till towards
the middle of the last century. It was mainly the work
of Count Zinzendorf, the Lutheran pastor Muhlenberg, a
missionary of the Halle Orphan House, and the Reformed
pastor, Schlatter, of St. Gallen, who was sent about the
same time, by the Dutch Reformed Church, as a missionary
to the Germans in Pennsylvania. These three worthy
men may be regarded as the patriarchs of American Ger
man Protestantism. Various causes — the rise of Rational
ism in Germany, and wars in Europe and America, the
cessation of emigration, and of the interest of the mother
church for her distant children, want of educational insti
tutions and embarrassing ignorance of the English lan
guage — brought the German church in America to a
stand, and occasioned the transition of many of its
children, especially of the richer and more influential
families, to ,the Presbyterian, Episcopal, or Methodist
bodiesTptbough, on the other hand, its separation from
Germany saved it from Rationalism, and left it firm in the
pious traditions of the fathers. About 1820, it was
awakened from its lethargy, first by the influence of the
Anglo-American churches, then by the fresh stream of

THE GERMAN CHURCHES. 179
renewed emigration, which, with much bad, brought also
much good 'from the newly-awakened Christian life *of
Germany. Under the influence of Puritanic Presbyte
rianism and Methodism, favored by the irresistible spread
of the English language even into purely German settle
ments, this newly-aroused life at first bore, and still, in
some measure bears, a predominantly English character,
partly Puritanic, partly Methodistic, and was for a while
in danger of losing its peculiarity, especially the ehurchly
elements of German Protestantism, its liturgy, festivals,
catechetical training, confirmation, mystical view of the
Lord's Supper, &c. But of late, since about 1840, the
German church has vigorously awakened to a sense of her
origin, history, and mission, and has revealed what we
may term a decided evangelical-catholic and Anglo-Ger
manic tendency, occupying itself with some of the
weightiest religious problems of the age, establishing
theological and literary institutions, and beginning to exert
an influence even on the Anglo-American communions.
Emigration also has very rapidly increased since the close
of the Napoleonic wars, and has of late so swelled as to
attract the attention of the German governments and
American statesmen, and to involve one of the most
important social questions of the age. The number of
German emigrants to the United States at present averages
at least 150,000 a year, and surpasses now that of every
other nation, even the Irish.
These emigrants by no means at once exchange their
language for the English ; and the conflict of the two

180 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
tongues is a peculiar phenomenon and a great practical
difficulty in the history of the American German church.
That the German language, unless constantly reinforced
by emigration, must gradually become extinct as a
medium of popular intercourse in the United States, is
inevitable ; not on account of any outward prohibition of
its use ; but through the irresistible silent influence of the
English tongue, which seems destined and better fitted
than any other, to become the universal language for the
Western Hemisphere ; and through the working of that
mysterious energy, by which all the nationalities of the
Old World are fusing into a peculiar American national
character. In very many Lutheran and German Reformed
congregations of Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Vir
ginia, Ohio, and even further out, the English language is
now either mostly or exclusively used in worship ; and it
is due to truth to say, that these congregations are often
among the most active and zealous of their confessions.
In most cases the transition to the English language and
customs is at the same time an advance in cultivation and
piety. In the older counties of Pennsylvania there has
existed for perhaps a century, a dialect formed by a
singular cross between the Palatinate German and the Eng
lish, which, though it has passed from Pennsylvania into
other States, may be termed, from its origin, Pennsylvania
German. The foreign elements consist of unchanged
English words, Germanized forms of English words and
expressions, and literally translated English idioms and
phrases. Characteristic of the two nationalities is this

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE LUTHERAN. 181
yielding of the German language to the English ; while
in the midst of German settlements, the English has
appropriated only two German expressions : souerkrout
and smierkas ! Such corruption of the German tongue is
commonly in America the bridge to its extinction.
But the extinction of the German even as a popular
language, must be put at least a hundred years in the
future, on account of the vast and still increasing emigra
tion. And then again, this language is, like the Greek
and Latin, probably destined to even a distinct perpetuity
as a learned language and a means of higher intellectual
culture, on account of its exceedingly copious and valu
able literature in all branches of science and poesy.
This contact of the two languages is a source of great
difficulty and constant collisions in the German churches,
often involving even the passionate and bitter opposition
of narrow Native-Americanism aud bigoted Europeanism.
The native Germans are often strenuous for even the
exclusive use of the German in worship ; the native
Americans are as strenuous for the English. The only
true position here is what we may call the Anglo-Ger
manic, allowing both languages -their due, and working '
towards a higher religious union of both the nationali
ties, which Providence has thrown together in America
undoubtedly to be thus united.
Of the several branches of German-American Protest
antism, we place first
(1) The Lutheran Church. — This is the most nume-

182 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
rous and, in its origin and history, the most German of all.
Its organized existence in America dates from the middle
of the previous century, when Dr. Muhlenberg, a mission
ary of the Halle Orphan House, collected the long present
but neglected material into congregations, and (A. D,
1748) laid- the foundation of wha£ was called the United
Ministry, and of the still existing Pennsylvania Synod of
the Evangelical Lutheran church. It drew its material
from almost all the German countries, first from the
Palatinate, afterwards mainly from Wiirtemberg, Baden,
Alsace, Bavaria, Hannover, the Saxon provinces, and from
Sweden and Norway. Though a multitude of nominal
Lutherans in America, as the older emigrants from Sweden
and Norway, have gone over to other communions, as the
Episcopal and Methodist, yet this church has, within the last
ten or twenty years, grown with great rapidity ; and if its
internal condition and its influence had corresponded with
its numbers, it must have already been counted among the
leading denominations in America. It stretches over all
the Middle and Western States, and some of the Southern.
According to its latest statistical reports, it numbers near
nine hundred ministers, and perhaps thrice as many con
gregations. It has eight theological seminaries, five
colleges, or at least beginnings of colleges, and nine
periodicals, four in English and five in German, Its home
missionary field is larger than that of any other American
denomination, and its missionary spirit and liberality is
growing every year.
The multifarious differences of opinion and schools in

THE CERMAN CHURCHES — THE LUTHERAN. 183
this body, representing almost all those of the mother
church, besides specifically American tendencies, make it
no easy matter to describe the character and internal con
dition of the Lutheran confession. Leaving out of view
unimportant and local fractions, we may distinguish in
general three divisions, which we may briefly style the
New Lutheran, the Old Lutheran, and the Moderate
Lutheran or Melancthonian.
The New. Lutheran party is ah amalgamation of Luther
anism with American Puritanic and Mcthodistic elements.
It consists chiefly of native Americans of German descent,
and hence prides itself on being emphatically the Ameri
can Lutheran Church. It is perhaps the most numerous,
at any rate the most active, practical, and progressive, and
indeed almost entirely English, not only in its language,
but in all its sympathies and antipathies. It makes little
of thorough theological education, and much of oratorical
talent, practical activity, and business tact. To it properly
belong the literary institutions at Gettysburg, Pa., Spring
field, 0., Springfield, 111.; and it has thus far spoken the
great word in the General Synod.
The Old Lutheran section consists of a portion of the
more recent emigrants from Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, and
other countries. They are still entirely German, having
not yet amalgamated at all with the English and American
body ; though they outwardly prosper very well, if we are
to judge from the rapid increase of their ministers and
congregations. Their pastors are mostly well instructed,
faithful, conscientious, and self-denying, though, except in

184 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
cases of happy inconsistency, very exclusive, and narrow-
minded, and unable or unwilling to appreciate properly
other churches and nationalities than their own. Luther
is their highest human authority ; and indeed, not" the free,
bold, world-shaking reformer, but the reactionary, scrupu
lous, intolerant Luther, who at Marburg refused Zuingle's
hand of brotherhood offered with tears. In their congre
gations they maintain a certain discipline and order, and
are zealous for the parochial school. Over the experi
menting New Lutherans they have the advantage of a fixed
principle, a well-formed doctrinal basis, and general logical
consistency. They are, however, not harmonious. The
office question, which has thrown even the strictly sym
bolical Lutherans of Germany into discord, in spite of all
their boasted doctrinal compactness and unity, has arrayed
them against each other in two parties, the Synod of Mis
souri and the Synod of Buffalo, which wage a newspaper
war with a bitterness little creditable to Lutheranism and
Christianity, and not at all fitted to inspire the Anglo-
American, if e*fer he hears of it, with respect for this sec
tion of German Christendom. I refer to the controversy
between the two views of the clerical office — one, the com
mon Protestant view, which makes the clerical office only
the organ of the general priesthood ; the other, the Roman
izing doctrme of a separate clerical office, resting on ordi
nation, and specifically different from the general priesthood
of the baptized.
The Moderate Lutheran tendency strikes a middle course
between these two extremes, which are bound together

THE GERMAN CHURCHES — THE LUTHERAN. 185
only by the accident of name. It has the oldest American
Lutheran tradition on its side ; for the first missionaries came
mostly from the Halle Orphan House and thePietistic school
of Spener and Francke, whieh is well known to have been
never- strictly symbolical, but somewhat Iatitudinarian in
doctrine. It is represented by the oldest and largest Synod
— the Pennsylvania — and to some extent also by the
United Synod of Ohio. A considerable number of minis
ters in these .and kindred synods, especially of the older men,
have indeed very indefinite views, are uneducated and
mentally indolent, and care more for their farms than for
theology and the Church, and for the most part blindly
follow some leading minds. But within a few years past
a higher intellectual life and church activity has sprung up
in the Pennsylvania Synod, which now includes some
venerable old and promising young theologians, partly
educated in America, others transferred from Europe.
The true problem of this synod is to mediate, not only
between the old ehurchly and the Puritanic Lutheranism,
but at the same time between European-German, and
American interests ; and thus to facilitate a consolidation
of the Lutheran Church in America. This it has only'just
rightly begun to do, by the recent passage of two impor
tant measures, viz. : acts of union with Gettysburg (by
establishing a German professorship there), and with the
General Synod, from both of which it had hitherto held off
through strong, and in some cases not unfounded prejudices
against the un-Lutheran and un-German spirit reigning in
them.

186 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
The difference between these three grand divisions of
American Lutheranism is more or less manifest in all
departments of church life.
In the first place, in doctrine, and in the posture of the
parties towards the symbolical books. The Old Lutheran
Synods of Missouri and Buffalo, of course, like the strict
Lutherans in Germany, hold the whole Book of Concord,
laying special stress on the Formula Concordia?, as the
consistent logical continuation of the unaltered Augustana,
and -as precisely defining the pure Lutheran doctrine, both
against the Reformed and the Roman Catholic churches.
The Pennsylvania Synod contents itself with only the
Augsburg confession and the smaller catechism of Luther.
With these the Melancthonian tendency is safe ; whereas,
by the Form of Concord it is repudiated as crypto and
semi-Calvinistic. The New-Lutherans, on the contrary, have, in reality,
entirely given up all the points which distinguished the
Lutheran theology from the Reformed, substituting for the
Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, however, the still un-
Lutheran, Arminian theory of free will ; while they not
only retain the Lutheran opposition to Romanism, but run
it to a Puritanic excess. True, the General Synod and the
Gettysburg Seminary go upon a certain acknowledgment
of the Augustana, but only as to substance of doctrine,
therefore with a restricting quatenus, which of course
leaves it to be twisted by every one according to his own
notions. The zealous theological leader of this American
Lutheranism has more particularly defined his own doctrinal

THE GERMAN CHURCHES — THE LUTHERAN. 187
position and that of his numerous disciples and brethren,
stating as its main features : (1) Rejection of the binding
authority of all Lutheran symbols except the Augsburg
Confession ; (2) Acknowledgment of the latter only
as an expression, " in a manner substantially correct," of
the cardinal doctrines of the Bible, which is the only
infallible rule of faith and practice. He then rejects as
unscriptural the following Lutheran doctrines and prac
tices : Exorcism ; the doctrine of original sin and guilt ;
private or auricular confession, as taught in Luther's smaller
catechism ; the lax view of the Augustana respecting the
Christian Sabbath ; the Lutheran doctrine of baptism in its
relation to regeneration and the Lord's Supper.
This last point of difference is the most important. For
it was from this, in fact, that the separation of the two
evangelical confessions began ; and it was on this, that
Luther, during the conference at Marburg, and on every
other occasion, showed himself most unyielding. How
completely is the case now reversed ! When the Reformed
Dr. Nevin, in 1846, vindicated the Calvinistic doctrine of
a real spiritual presence, and a real participation by faith
of the body and blood of Christ, that is, the life-power of
his humanity, the editor of the " Lutheran Observer "
attacked and ridiculed this view as Romanizing, supersti
tious, and senseless. Dr. Schmucker adopts the Puritanic,
essentially Zuinglian theory prevalent in America, and in
a special article on this subject, rejects not only the sub
stantial, but even the dynamic or virtual presence of the
human nature of the Redeemer, declaring, that " there is
no real or ajjdrSal presence of the glorified human nature of

188 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
the Saviour, either substantial or influential, nor anything
mysterious or supernatural in the Eucharist." Anywhere
in Germany this would not even be called Zuinglianism,
muoh less Lutheranism, but the purest Rationalism of
common sense. Even Bretschneider and Wegscheider
leave as much as this of that holy mystery of faith, that
centre of the Christian worship. But in America the
lowest and coldest views of the sacraments and the church
are not seldom" joined with orthodoxy on other points and
much practical Christian zeal. The same is true also, to
some extent, of the English Dissenters, nay, even of the
Scotch Presbyterians and the Low-church Episcopalians ;
so also the leader of the Low-church American Lutheranism,
though he has translated Storr's Dogmatic into an English
abridgment, and has studied the Supranaturalistic litera
ture of Germany, is, in his theology, properly altogether
Anglo-American, partly after the Puritanic Presbyterian
stamp, partly after the Methodistic, xvhich appears in his
Pelagianizing views of the freedom of the will, and his
theory of conversion and regeneration ; but he would feel
highly insulted to be classed with the German Rationalists,
since he holds the divinity of Christ, as well as the Divine
inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures, as funda
mental articles of faith. He has also endeavored to show
that almost all the 'leading men of the Lutheran church of
America, had no higher views of the sacraments than him
self, and that even in the old Pennsylvania Synod very
few rose above the Zuinglian theory ; which may certainly,
till within a few }Tears, have been the case.
Since about the year 1848, however, a rems,rkable reac-

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE LUTHERAN. 189
tion has arisen in the bosom of this Anglo-American New-
Lutheranism, in consequence partly of the growing study
of German theology, partly of occurrences in a sister
church. Many of the best minds and the most influential
disciples and friends of Gettysburg have forsaken their
former views. In the first zeal of opposition to a pseudo-
Lutheranism,. they even inclined to the extreme of the
exclusive Lutheranism of the Form of Concord. But it soon
appeared that this could never rightly take root among
Christians of the English tongue, and in such a country as
America. It is, indeed, the Reformed confession in its vari
ous branches, especially the Calvinistic, which there forms
the central stream of the Christian life ; and in the face of
this perfectly palpable fact, a theory which really lops off this
confession from the tree of the kingdom of God, and treats it
as a complication of heresis, seems a most glaring injustice,
if not an absurdity, and destroys itself without giving any
one the trouble of refuting it. Accordingly, on the pages
of the Quarterly Evangelical Review — established in 1849,
as the organ of this new orthodox ehurchly party of the
Anglo-Lutherans — we see, for example, a vindication of
the symbolical books in the spirit of Sartorius and Rudel-
bach, followed by a demonstration of their unscriptural
errors, and of the entire impropriety of such clogs on
Christian progress. This Quarterly is thus a faithful mirror
of the unreconciled doctrinal antagonisms and the theologi
cal agitation, which have for the last six or eight years
disturbed the English, and therefore most active and
zealous, section of the American Lutheran Church. These

190 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
controversies wijl, it is to be hoped, lead in time to fixed
results, and, much as disputes among brethren are in them
selves to be regretted, will certainly on the whole prove to
be for the best.
In respect to church government, the Lutheran denomi
nation presents as little unity as in doctrine. It is a con
glomerate of Synods, not united, and in some cases
overlapping, thus occasioning an almost hopeless confusion.
Thus, for example, within the territory of the Pennsylvania
Synod there are an East Pennsylvania Synod and a West
Pennsylvania, divided on the subject of new measures.
There are distant ministers in the State of New York
belonging not to the New York Synod, but to the Pennsyl
vania ; and ministers in Pennsylvania belonging to one of
the two likewise overlapping synods of Ohio and Missouri ;
and the reverse. This confusion results in part from doc
trinal differences, in part from the unpractical, helpless
character of the Germans, who have never accomplished
much anywhere in the matter of church government,
being in fact accustomed to regard it as of very little
importance. In my opinion, the different Lutheran Synods
ought to be entirely reorganized, their territories clearly
separated and defined, and a union of them established for
common objects. This, however, can never be done, till
greater doctrinal unity can be secured.
Such a union was attempted in the triennial General
Synod, instituted in 1820. This is now, especially since
the annexation of the most numerous Synod — the Old
Pennsylvania — more worthy of the name than formerly ;

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE LUTHERAN. 191
though perhaps half the Lutheran Synods will still have
nothing to do with it, partly from opposition to the New
-Lutheran or properly un-Lutheran tendency which for
merly prevailed in it, but has now already given way.
The Old Lutheran Synod of Missouri will, of course, never
fall in, unless this General Synod should make all the symbols
from the Augsburg Confession to the Form of Concord,
the binding doctrinal basis, which it will nevg-j^d^ w The
General Synod, however, assumes no legislative power, but
only advisory. It does not enter into doctrinal differences as
such ; though these involuntarily intrude themselves even
into purely business discussions. It only aims at coopera
tion and greater efficiency in the causes of education and
missions. The constitution of the Lutheran church in America is
in some sense a mean between synodal Presbyterianism
and independent Congregationalism ; a position which some
regard as a great excellence, others, as half-way and unde
cided. The German consistorial system, resting on the
basis of a royal episcopacy and supremaey, of course falls
to the ground in a country where church and state are
separated ; and no one there seems to lament it much ;
for though large revenues cease with it, yet the freedom of
the church, the freedom of all freedoms, is an estate so
precious, that for the sake of it great disadvantages are
gladly borne. A return to the Episcopal constitution is
out of the question, in spite of the contact with a flourish
ing Episcopal church ; for there are only very few and
isolated sympathies in this direction, perhaps among the

192 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
Scandinavian emigrants and some Old Lutherans. Even
the system of superintendences, to which these latter lean,
would not rightly thrive there ; and besides, this is only a •
defective substitute for the Episcopal supervision, which
comes recommended by so old historical tradition. Thus
there remains only the Reformed synodal and Presbyterial
constitution, which certainly best answers the idea of an
inde;iii^fijitB>.Protestant community, and has been also
introduced into the Lutheran churches of the Rhine and
Westphalia. But the three leading features of Presbyterianism— the
regular introduction of the laity into church government,
the legislative authority of synods, and strict discipline —
are still very imperfectly formed in the American Lutheran
church. Besides the synod there is nothing but a minis-
terium, as it is called, consisting entirely of clergymen ;
the synods have only advisory power ; the congregations
are in many cases wholly independent and under no fixed
system, and in exclusivelj'' German churches all children
are baptized and confirmed without any strict regard to
religious qualifications, either in themselves or in their
parents. Thus there is much room here also for further
development in American Lutheranism.
Finally, as to worship and Christian life. In the first
place, the Old Lutherans have a more or less complete
liturgical altar-service, even with the crucifixes and candles
burning in day-time ; and in all such matters they cleave
to historical tradition ; while the New Lutherans incline to
the Puritanic system of free prayer, the strict observance

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE LUTHERAN. 193
of Sunday, neglect of the church festivals, and of all sym
bolical rites and ceremonies ; or they allow at most only a
restricted use of liturgies, of which they have several, as
well as a number of German and English hymn-books.
Then they disagree still more in reference to the means
of awakening and promoting religious life in congrega
tions, particularly in reference to the so-called " new mea
sures," which we have already described in speaking of their
native confession, Methodism. The New-Lutherans used
these, especially the anxious bench, from about the year
1830, to the greatest extent, and not rarely with the wild
est hyper-Methodistic excess ; while not only the strictly
symbolical Lutherans, but also the ministers and congrega
tions of the Pennsylvania Synod, set themselves against
them with the gi'eatest decision. One might make a
book on the anxious-bench controversy in the German
church of America (for the Reformed church also was
deeply agitated by it) ; though the task would hardly be
a very profitable or interesting one. Very often, - it is
true, the opposition arose from religious indifferentism and
lifeless formalism, and went again all living piety along with
the Methodistic excesses. The healthy tendency here
took a middle course, and insisted on the revival and main
tenance of a solid ehurchly religious life, resting on sound
knowledge, wrought through the old yet ever new and
effective measures of the Word and the sacraments — in
short, the means of grace not invented by men, but
appointed by God himself, and accompanied by his
blessing. This tendency is now constantly gaining the
9

194 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
upperhand. The system of new measures has already
outlived itself, and is almost confined to the Western States.
The wild straw-fire has burned out ; and what good there
was in this Methodistio thunder-storm and whirlwind, has
remained, and been taken up into a sound ehurchly life.
The Lutheran Church has an important calling in the
new world. This it cannot fulfill by being unfaithful to its
genius and history, and casting away its doctrinal and
practical peculiarities ; nor by thrusting them forward in
rough opposition to the Reformed and English communions,
and thus depriving itself of all influence on them ; but by
faithfully preserving its gifts, and at the same time pro
ceeding in wise and cordial accommodation to the circum
stances of a new country and people, and so making itself
available and profitable' both for the emigrants from its old
home, and for the whole development of Anglo-American
Christianity. Confused and unsatisfactory as its condition
may appear in general and in detail to an outside observer,
yet its rapid progress in latter years, and its great number
of excellent, laborious, and self-denying clergymen, and
plain, virtuous, and substantial laymen, give promise of a
fair future before it.
(2) The German Reformed Church. — If we take the
word Reformed in its original sense in church-history, as
including all the non-Lutheran Evangelical Protestants,
the Reformed Church is the prevailing one in America.
It exists there, however, not as one organization, but
in various mutually independent bodies, which take their

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE GERMAN REFORMED. 195
names either from their national origin (German Reform
ed, Dutch Reformed), or from their forms of government
(Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational). The German
branch of this tree, which has struck deeper roots in Swit
zerland, France, Holland, England and Scotland, than in
Germany, was transplanted to America, and organized
there at the same time with Lutheranism ; first in Pennsyl
vania. In language, manners, and customs, as well as
in their general course of development, the two confessions
are so closely allied, that the people and even many of the
clergy in many places have lost almost all sense of differ
ence. When Pennsylvania farmers are asked about it,
they commonly answer: the Lutherans pray, "Vater
Unser," the Reformed, " Unser Vater." The Reformed, as
is the case also in Germany, are not near so numerous as
the Lutherans, though in influence and efficiency. they are
not a whit behind them; and in some cases even in
advance. The proper home of the German Reformed
Church of America is the Palatinate, from which the
first emigrants proceeded about the time of Penn.
It receives accessions from the Rhenish provinces, from
the different cantons of German Switzerland, and
from Lippe, whither many worthy and earnest men
emigrated some years ago, from attachment to the Heidel
berg catechism and aversion to a rationalistic church
administration. Many of the Unionists also attach them
selves to this church ; the majority, however, to Lutheran
congregations or the Church Union of the West. Its
main strength lies still in Pennsylvania, and next to this in

196 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
Ohio, where it has made considerable progress within
a few years. In Maryland, also, and Virginia, it numbers
several good congregations ; but lower south and far west
it is as yet a weak plant, while in the states of New Jersey
and New York it has permitted its material to be almost
entirely absorbed by the Dutch and other denominations.
It is divided into two closely connected synods, an
Eastern and a Western, separated by the Alleghany Moun
tains ; and each synod is subdivided, into a number of
classes or district synods. Its constitution is the Presbyte
rian, which answers its purpose very well ; but does not so
stiffly oppose itself to other forms of government as the
Scottish jure divino Presbyterianism. It has now over
three hundred ministers, and perhaps a hundred thousand
communicants ; three theological seminaries, and as many
colleges ; two German and four English popular and scien
tific periodicals. Of late years it has been zealously
working its way up, has vigorously increased in the midst
of perpetual conflicts and agitations from without and
within, and has taken a peculiar theological position before
the American public.
As to doctrine, the German Reformed Church still
holds, and for some years past with increased veneration
and love, the Heidelberg catechism, the most genial, pro
found, and spiritual symbol which the history of the
Reformed Church has to show. It dates, indeed, as is
well known, from the Pentecostal age of Protestantism,
but from the later, maturer days of that age, when
the leading phases of the Reformation could already

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE GERMAN REFORMED. 197
be seen and compared, and its results systematically
put together. Accordingly it combines warm reli
gious enthusiasm for evangelical truth with calmness,
clearness, and command of material ; and, as the
joint product of a disciple and intimate friend of
Melanchthon (Zacharias Ursinus) and an earnest prac
tical follower of Calvin (Caspar Olevianus), it presents
the theological and ecclesiastical position of the German
Reformed Church in its whole relation, both as to agree
ment and difference, to Rome, Wittenberg, and Geneva.
This position is decidedly evangelical, and intermediate
between the German and the non-German, the Lutheran
and the rigid Calvinistic Protestantism. In language,
nationality, warmth, and depth, nearly allied to Lutheran
ism, especially in its milder, conciliatory, Melanchthonian
shade, and always inclining even towards union with it,
the Reformed Church varies from it, and approaches Cal
vinism in its conception of the sacraments, its predilection
for the synodal and Presbyterian constitution, for a more
complete independent congregational life, stricter church
discipline, and greater simplicity in worship ; though
without being in the narrower sense Calvinistic. For the
harsh doctrine of a double predestination is, by the entire
silence of the Heidelberg Catechism respecting a decre-
tum reprobationis, thrown out of the province of public
authoritative teaching into that of private opinion and
theological speculation ; and the Puritanic severity of
radical disruption from history have always found but
very few advocates among the Reformed of the German
tongue.

198 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
From this middle, or, if we may so speak, central posi
tion between Wittenberg and Geneva, between the Ger
man nationality on the one hand, and the Romanic,
Enghsh, and Scotch on the other, the denomination of
which, we are speaking can the more readily exert a theo
logical and religious influence in both directions ; recom
mending to Lutheranism, to which it is in America, as
everywhere else, bound by a thousand cords, the peculiar
excellences of the strictly reformed ehurches, and to the
latter the good gifts and treasures of the Lutheran con
fession. And for this work it has in the United States
the best opportunity ; for there all these theological and
national antagonistic forces are brought into immediate
daily contact with each other, and there the German
Reformed branch of the kingdom of God has the freest
room for the execution of its special mission.
This its mission, too, it has come clearly to apprehend.
After having shown for a long time too strong a leaning
to Anglo-American Presbyterianism and Puritanism, and
come into danger of losing its German character, and with
this of course its influence on the German emigration, it
has now become aware of its historical and theological
peculiarity, and attached itself wholly to the development
of the modern Evangelical United Theology of Germany,
which,- being the joint product of both confessions, no
loDger allows so rigid a separation of tlieir respective
doctrinal ideas. Indeed, the opposition of the Old Luthe
rans to the Union arises from the presence of the
Reformed elements in it. This following of the German
theology is plainly the most natural course' for a German

THE GERMAN CHURCHES  THE GERMAN REFORMED. 199
Church, and is found even in Switzerland, many of whose
sons study in Berlin, Halle, Bonn, and Tubingen, and
whose professors are in part from Prussia and Wtirtem-
berg. Almost all the Reformed divines of Germany and
Switzerland, as Ebrard, Hundeshagen, Heppe, Lange,
Hagenbach, Herzog, Schenkel, &c, are quite identified
with the development of the United Evangelical theology
But in the United States German philosophy and
theology come into living contact with the whole Anglo-
American form of Christianity, and thus become essentially
modified. While they act upon the latter, they undergo
themselves a process of transformation. From the collision,
the mutual attraction and repulsion, of these two elements
there has arisen, since Dr. Rauch and Dr. Nevin, the first
presidents of the literary institutions of Mercersburg, a
theological movement, which, on account of the practical
character of the American ecelesiastieal system, under
favor of the free synodal life, and in consequence of much
bitter and unjust opposition from other denominations,
has kept the whole German Reformed communion, laity as
well as clergy, for ¦ the last ten or twelve years, in an
almost constant agitation, the end of which cannot yet
possibly be seen. The whole movement is not the result
of any design or calculation, but evidently providential,
and hence will ultimately result in good. It has, under
God, even already been beneficial, by consolidating the'
church, and exciting a considerable amount of serious
theological investigation and practical activity. As to
the landmarks of this denomination, they have not been

200 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
removed in the least, as is erroneously supposed by
some ; on the contrary, the Heidelberg Catechism is now
more faithfully adhered to and more generally used by its
ministers, than ever before. They look, it is true, upon
the present distracted and confused state of Protestantism
as unsatisfactory and transitory ; but they expect no help
from a retrograde movement to Romanism ; they hope and
pray rather for a new reformation, which should save all
the positive elements of truth and piety in Protestantism,
and unite them with the excellences of Catholicism.
They look not backward to the fleshpots and chainsof
Egypt, but forward to the unity and freedom of the land
of promise, to which God will surely lead all his people
from the wilderness in his own good time.
(3.) The German Evangelical Association of the
West. — This Union is to be regarded as the prolongation
of the Evangelical United Church of Prussia, and those
German States which follow its example in this respect.
It operates in America as in Germany ; instead of fusing
the Lutheran and Reformed confessions into one body,
as it was designed to do, it has thus far become a third
church besides the first two ; it contains, indeed, the
germs of a future reconciliation, but its proper work is
still far from being accomplished. We do not say this
in censure ; for the greater and more important a work
is the more of time and labor is required to effect it.
Previous feeble attempts at union have failed, though the
two denominations there come into so close contact ; and

THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE WEST. 201
now a renewed vigor of church life has re-aroused the
confessional opposition, and retarded the present effort.
Yet favorable conditions exist in the two confessions —
some outward ones peculiar to America, which encourage
the hope of a final accomplishment of the object ; and
this, too, on a far grander scale than the Prussian,
Baden, and Wurtemberg Union at first could have con
templated. In America, where almost all branches of the Pro
testant church, and, indeed, almost all forms of Chris
tianity, are represented and thrown into contact, the idea
of union necessarily expands. In fact, the true idea of
union, in the real spirit of the modern German evangeli
cal theology, covers the whole field of evangelical Pro
testantism, and looks even to the final reconciliation of
the all-comprehending antagonism of Protestantism and
Catholicism — a work, for which the present Church-Union
of Prussia and other German States may, perhaps, in the
hands of Providence, prepare the way, but which it will
require a great many other agencies, and even a
new reformation, for its completion, and may never fully
appear before the second coming of Christ. And to the
idea of union in this comprehensive sense, every theolo
gian, who has an intelligent and warm mterest in the
body of Christ, must be devoted, whatever objections
may be raised to the present actual operation of the
movement in some of the German churches.
The Evangelical Association here before us, though of
course at present confined to a much smaller and more
9*

202 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECT3.
modest sphere, still meets an actual want. It provides
a home for numbers of late emigrants, who have been
born, baptized and confirmed in the United Evangelical
Church of Germany ; .especially in regions where there
are no Lutheran or German Reformed congregations. It
was instituted on the 4th of May, 1841, at St. Louis,
Mo., by seven clergymen of the United Church of Ger
many, under the style: "The German Evangelical
Church Union of the West (Der deutsch-evangelische
Kirchenverein des Westens) ;" and now numbers some
thirty ministers. According to the first paragraph of its
revised statutes, " the object of the Association is, to
work for the establishment and spread of the Evangelical
Church in particular, as well as for the furtherance of all
institutions for the extension of the Kingdom of God.
By tbe Evangelical Church we understand, that com
munion which takes the Holy Scriptures of, the Old and
New Testaments as the Word of God and our only infalli
ble rule of faith and practice, and commits itself to that
exposition of the Scriptures laid down in the symbolical
books of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, chiefly
the Augsburg Confession, Luther's Catechism, and the
Heidelberg Catechism, so far as these agree ; and where
they differ, we hold alone to the relevant passages of
Scripture, and avail ourselves of that freedom of con
science which prevails on such points in the Evangelical
Church." With many difficulties to encounter, and perhaps many
modifications to undergo, this institution still has, in the

SMALLER DENOMINATIONS AND SECTS. 203
character of its members, in the matter of its documents,
and in attainments already made,, the pledge of continu
ance and the warrant of the best hopes for its future. It
was primarily intended only for the more Western States.
Yet there is in Ohio a like association in connection with
.this ; and in the large Atlantic cities there would be Ger
man material .enough for Evangelical congregations. Should
it succeed even there in keeping paee with the times, it
must place itself the more as a connecting link between
the Lutheran aud German Reformed Churches, reach
itowards both the hand of love and peace, and thus draw
them gradually nearer together, and by contributing its
share to their final reconciliation in spirit and in truth,
accomplish the proper object of the Union.
(4) Smaller German Denominations and Sects. —
Among these, very honorable mention is due to the Mora
vian "Brethren," a society of whom was founded in America
as early as the Lutheran and German Reformed Churches,
by the distinguished Count Zinzendorf and Spangenberg
themselves. The Herrnhuters are still a very small com
munity, with little or no prospect of growth ; yet they
exert a wholesome influence in their faay, like the silence
of the country, against the prevailing busy devotion to the
practical and material ; especially through their well-known
male and female schools at Bethlehem, Nazareth, and
Lititz in Pennsylvania, and Salem, N.C., which are sought
by some from a considerable distance. They have kept
the' German language and customs more pure than any

204 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
other class of emigrants, and are distinguished in America,
as elsewhere, for a contemplative turn, missionary zeal,
freedom from bigotry and exclusiveness, warm-hearted
quietness, fine manners, love of music, order, cleanliness?
and chaste ornament. After having been sunk for some
time into a pretty stagnant condition, they seem to have
latterly awakened somewhat to new life, and it is much to
be desired that this most amiable, harmless, and peaceful
of all Protestant sects should, with the warmth of its first
love, still make itself long felt in America.
Other older sects, transplanted from Europe in the first
half of the last century, the Mennonites, Tunkers, and
Schwenkfeldians, are particularly numerous in Lancaster
Co., Pa. They consist chiefly of farmers, of good name as
industrious, quiet, harmless citizens. But as communions
they have no influence, being either distracted by sub
division, or petrified.
The influence of Methodism on the Lutheran and Ger
man Reformed Church at the close of the last and begin-
iDg of the present century, produced several new sects, in
doctrine, discipline, government, and worship entirely con
formed to the Methodist Episcopal model. Such are the
United Brethren in Christ, founded about 1800, by
William Otterbein, a pious Reformed Minister from Ger
many ; the Evangelical Communion (Evangelische Gemein-
schaft), commonly called the Albrecht Brethren, founded
somewhat later by Jacob Albrecht, a Lutheran layman of
Pennsylvania ; the German Methodists, regularly con
nected with the northern section of the Methodist Episco-

THE BAPTISTS. 205
pal Church, and forming its most promising home mis
sionary field ; and the Weinbrennerians, or as they ridicu
lously presume to style themselves, the " Church of God,"
founded in October, 1830, in the town of Harrisburg, Pa.,
by John Weinbrenner, an excommunicated German Re
formed Minister. They combine the new measures and
revivalism of the Methodists with the peculiarities of the
Baptists, and practise feet washing as a sacrament on the
ground of John xiii. Besides these there are some few
Baptist congregations unconnected with the older Men-
nonites and Tunkers, and chiefly of American origin.
All these sects are a reproach and humiliation to the
Lutheran Reformed, and United churches ; but should at
the same time stimulate them to persevering self-purifica
tion, to greater activity, and more faithful discharge of duty,
and thus become a blessing to them, as the dissenters to
the Anglican church,, as Protestantism to Catholicism.
The more life and zeal there are in the church, the less
warrant is there for sects, and the less progress can
they make. But so long as the church neglects its
duty, sects are necessary and beneficial, as taskmasters
and troublers. (g) THE BAPTISTS.
It is often asserted, that the Baptists are the most
numerous sect in the United States. But in this case
the term must at any rate be taken in its widest sense, as
including all parties which agree in rejecting infant bap
tism, though they have no other connection with each

206 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
other. There would then come in the Calvinistic and
Arminian Baptists, who are of English and Anglo-Ameri
can origin ; the free communion and close communion Bap
tists ; the Mennonites and Tunkers, who emigrated from
Germany and settled, mostly in Pennsylvania ; the River
Brethren, a section of the Tunkers ; the Seventh Day
Baptists, English and German, who follow the letter of
the Old Testament, and keep holy the seventh day of the
week instead of the first, and have on this account lately,
but unsuccessfully, petitioned the legislature of Pennsyl
vania for a modification of the Sabbath laws in their
favor ; the Disciples of Christ, commonly called Campbell-
ites (from their still living founder, Alexander Campbell,
originally a scotch Presbyterian), who identify baptism,
that is immersion, with regeneration itself, reject all creeds
and sectarian names, although they added to the catalogue
of sects a new one, and have within a short time greatly
increased ; the " Christians," who boast of having no
founder, and having sprung up as by magic, about 1803,
in three different localities at once, New England, Ohio,
and Kentucky, in opposition to the bondage of creeds and
sectarian distinctions, reject the doctrines of the Holy Tri
nity and the divinity of Christ, as unscriptural, and baptize
only adults, by immersion. There is even a Baptist party
in the Southern States, called the Hard-Shell Baptists,
because, I think, they oppose missionary, tract, and tem
perance societies, and similar movements, as unscriptural
inventions. Of course I cannot here go into an account of all these

• THE BAPTISTS. 207
subdivisions of the Baptists ; but will confine myself to the
most commanding body of them, to which tlie term Bap
tist is in America generally meant to apply. 1 mean
the Regular, or Calvinistic Baptists, as they are com
monly styled, to distinguish them from the Free-will Bap
tists, who hold Arminian or Pelagian views on the
relation of the human will to the divine in conversion and
sanctification, and date in America from 1780, when the
first congregation was formed in New Hampshire.
The Calvinistic Baptists have not the slightest histori
cal connection with those fanatics of the days of the
Reformation, whose excesses in the Peasant War and
the transactions at Munster are so notorious. They
originated in the times of those violent Puritanic
commotions, which, in the seventeenth century, disturbed
the whole ecclesiastical and religious life of England..
They are really not distinguished from the Independents,
except by their theory of baptism. In America they
arose simultaneously from the Puritanic colonies, the first
Baptist church having been founded in Providence, Rhode
Island, by Roger Williams in 1639 ; they were first
much persecuted, fined, whipped, and imprisoned, espe-
-cially in Massachusetts and Virginia ; but grew with great
rapidity after the Revolutionary War, and are now more
numerous in America than in England. In their history
shine such names as those of Bunyan, the author of the
world-renowned " Pilgrim's Progress," one of the best
books of edification ever produced ; Roger Williams, an
exile from the colony of Massachusetts, founder of the

208 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
State of Rhode Island, and one of the first advocates of
the principle of universal religious toleration ; and more
recently, Robert Hall, one of the greatest pulpit orators
of England. They are perhaps most largely and worthily
represented iu New England and the State of New York,
and have latterly made great exertions for the spread of
the Bible, and in the work of heathen missions. They
have also lately established several colleges and semina
ries, and taken a commendable interest in the cause ol
liberal education. Many of their most prominent divines,
as Sears, Hackett, Conant, are acquainted with German
literature ; and one of their literary institutions, the uni
versity of Rochester, in the State of New York, some
years ago purchased the whole library of the late Dr.
Neander, whom the Baptists particularly venerate and
love for his latitudinarian views on infant baptism.
In regard to doctrine, government, and worship, the
Calvinistic Baptists really agree in all essential points
with the orthodox Congregationalists ; and what we have
already said of these, both in praise 'and in censure, is
true of the denomination now before us. We need only
mention, therefore, the points of distinction which make
them Baptists in the specific sense.
The first relates to the proper subjects of baptism, and
consists in the rejection of infant baptism. This they con
sider an innovation which crept into the church in the
third century, which is contrary to the teaching and prac
tice of the apostles, and which should have been discarded
by the Reformers of the sixteenth century, with all

THE BAPTISTS. 209
other papal traditions. Baptism, in their view, neces
sarily presumes the preaching of the Gospel to the sub
ject, and repentance and faith within him. But both
these are impossible in unconscious infancy ; hence bap
tism is here unmeaning, nay a very profanation, and a
violation both of the rights ot God, who calls every man
when he will, and of the rights of man, who ought to
move of his own free will towards God. They certainly
have against them the typical relation of circumcision to
baptism ; the passages of the Acts of the Apostles,
which record the baptism of whole families ; the practice
of the ancient church ; and many theological and philo
sophical arguments drawn from the organic unity of the
Christian family, the constitutional adaptation of Christ
to be the Redeemer of all ages and conditions, the extent
of his covenant of grace, the susceptibility of the child
to the regenerating influence of the Holy Ghost, &c.
But in the first place, the Baptists have a strong hold
on the lamentable fact, that infant baptism is so very
often profaned, and particularly in state churches, is
administered even where the parents and sponsors are
either downright infidels, or at best altogether spiritually
dead and indifferent, and where consequently there is no
foundation of religious family life, and no guarantee of a
parental discipline answering to the baptismal vow, and
fitted to unfold and mature the covenant grace. No
wonder, then, that there are innumerable baptized per
sons who are worse than unbaptised heathens, and iu
whom the- blessing of the sacrament has turned into a

210 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
curse. The practice of the Baptists, however, by no
means secures them against such profanation. For they
are no more infallible than other Christian communions ;
they must baptize many hypocrites and unworthy per
sons ; and their effort to attain absolute actual purity
in the church on earth, and fully separate the tares from
the wheat before the judgment — an effort in itself
entirely praiseworthy — must prove as unsuccessful as
that of the Docatists and other sects of ancient and
modern times.
Then again the Baptists in America have the advan
tage over most modern Puritanic and Presbyterian divines
at least on the score of logical consistency. For the lat
ter either directly deny the idea of objective baptismal
grace; or at least so weaken it, that in the absence of sub
jective faith, on which they make the whole efficacy of the
sacrament depend, infant baptism becomes pretty much
an empty ceremony, being at most a solemn assump
tion of the obligation of Christian training on the part of
the parents. If infant baptism be not at the same time
the beginning of the gracious operation of the Spirit of
God in the child, and the positive seal of a covenant of
grace, it were better to drop it entirely. Meantime, it
must not be thought that the Baptists have any higher
conception of baptism, and of the sacraments in general,
than the Puritans. The common idea with them is, that
baptism is only the authentic legitimation, the seal of
regeneration and conversion, and therefore really imparts
nothing new, but only confirms what is already present.

THE BAPTISTS. 211
The idea of a proper objective baptismal grace and of a
real regenerative efficacy of this sacrament, they reject
as mysticism or popery. Their theology generally is, if
possible, still more unchurchly and anti-catholic, than
that of the Puritans.
The second peculiarity, which distinguishes the Bap
tists from the other Protestant churches, as well as from
the Roman Catholic, regards the form of baptism ; which
they make immersion, in opposition to sprinkling. This
rite they administer, winter and summer, either in bap
tisteries constructed for the purpose, or in streams and
lakes. On this point they have a far greater advantage
from exegesis and church antiquity, than in the rejection
of infant baptism, which must at all events have been
very generally introduced as early as the latter part of
the second century, as appears from Tertullian's isolated
opposition against it, and from the somewhat later testi
mony of Cyprian and Origen in its favor. For immer
sion, the Baptists appeal to the original and almost uni
form meaning of the Greek word /3anri$et,v ¦ to all those
passages of the New Testament, where total or partial
immersion is unquestionably implied in the act of baptism ;
to the general practice of the ancient church, which has
continued to this day in the Eastern churches ; and to
the symboUcal appropriateness of this mode of baptism,
— this alone answering the idea of burial with Christ and
resurrection with him, and an entire washing from guilt ;
while sprinkling effaces this idea.
The Baptists, however, are not content with only giv-

212 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
ing the preference to immersion, and regarding sprinkling
also as a valid though less expressive form. They would
make the latter entirely unscriptural and void, and accord
ingly require converts from other denominations to be
re-baptized ; as if the operation of the Holy Ghost
depended on the quantity of water and the outward form.
A part of the Baptists have for some years been prose
cuting with great energy and considerable expense, a revi
sion of the English version of the Bible ; in which, among
many other improvements, the words baptize and baptism
(which, by the way, are formed from the Greek original
itself, and properly mean submerge), are to be exchanged
for the unequivocal immerse and immersion.
It is no more than consistent with this narrow, exclu
sive view of the mode of baptism and of infant baptism,
that the close-communion Baptists, as they are called,
debar Christians of other denominations from their cele
bration of the Lord's Supper ; as lacking the necessary
pre-requisite for a place at the Lord's table, viz., baptism,
in the above sense of immersion. Besides these, however,
there is a more liberal party, which regards the doctrine
of infant baptism and the admission of the right of sprink
ling as no obstacle to real communion in faith and in the
Supper. Hence these are called open-communion Bap
tists. The most distinguished Baptists of England, both
of former and later times, Bunyan, Robert Hall, Forster,
and Baptist Noel, advocate open communion ; while in
America, so far as I know, the stricter and logically more
consistent theory urevails, at least among the ministers.

THE QUAKERS. 213
(ll) THE QUAKERS.
The Society of Friends, as they call themselves, or the
Quakers, as they are commonly called by others, likewise
dates from that most remarkable period of deep religious
motions in England, the first half and the middle of the
seventeenth century. It was founded by George Fox,
who, from a shoemaker and a shepherd, rose by inward
experiences and visions to a reformer and a prophet, and
plays a similar part in the history of religious sects with
the well-known Gorlitz shoemaker and theosopkus Teutoni
cs in the history of philosophy. One of his first and
most distinguished followers was William Penn. He was
born, indeed, in England, and educated in Oxford, and
also ended his life in his native land, in 1717 ; but he
belongs as much, if not more, to the history of America,
and became there the father of a great and powerful
state, which justly bears his name. He purchased from
the English crown, which owed his father a considerable
sura, the land on the Delaware river, and founded, in
1680, under English jurisdiction, the colony of Pennsyl
vania, and the city of "brotherly love," Philadelphia,
which has since attained a population of half a million.
He designed this colony originally as an asylum for his
brethren in faith, who were at that time still bitterly per
secuted in England, till by James IL, in 1686, they were
allowed the rights of dissenters. But from the beginning
he granted all other Christian confessions free access and
equal rights, and made treaties of peace also with the wild

214 ' THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
Indians, who always received the most humane treatment
in this Quaker colony.
The religious peculiarity of the Quakers, you are
aware, is a sort of mysticism ; the only one which has
proceeded from the bosom of English Protestantism — a
mysticism, which derives all Christianity and moral life
from the principle of the " inward light," as a divine
communication to every man, and repudiates all outward
forms. The Quakers carry their spiritualism even to the
rejection of the ministerial office and of the sacraments ;
so that an attempt to define their relation to the visible
Church of Christ, in the proper and strict sense, brings
us into a strait ; for, on the one hand, the Word and
sacraments are essential marks of the church (especially
according to the definition of the Augsburg confession),
and on the other, it cannot be denied, that the Quakers
bring forth the moral fruits of Christianity, and are at
all events enlightened and warmed by Christian ideas.
They reject the sacraments, indeed, only as outward acts
and rites, and would hold fast, and indeed lay all the
more stress on the idea of a baptism of the spirit, and of
a purely inward communion with Christ. But this leaves
no sacrament at all ; for the essence of a sacrament con
sists in the mystical union of invisible grace with a visi
ble sign. They keep, indeed, the written word of God ;
but they in reality put the inward light above it. They
have no separate clerical office. They exalt to the place
of this the universal spiritual priesthood and prophetic
gift, disregarding even the difference of sex. I myself

THE QUAKERS. 215
once attended a great yearly festival of the Quakers in
London, where eight women and only one man were
moved by the Spirit of God, and addressed prayers to
God and exhortations to the assembly in that peculiarly
tremulous prophetic tone, from which they are supposed
to have received the name of Quakers, or tremblers.
Often, however, after sitting together for two hours, they
separate without a sound having been uttered. For no
one is to preach or pray, unless inspired at the moment
by the Spirit. This one-sided spiritualism of the Quakers
remarkably avenges itself, we may add, by passing into a
pedantic formalism, which adheres most scrupulously to
the most trivial forms, such as a particular color and cut
of the coat, hat, and bonnet. Their fairest traits are
their simplicity, general philanthropy, and sympathy for
all the persecuted and oppressed. That this is not simply
a natural feeling with them, but the effect of divine grace,
a spark of the infinite love of the Saviour, and their pecu
har mission in the household of Christendom, no one can
deny who has carefully read the hfe of Elizabeth Fry
(who, if she had been a Roman Catholic, would have
been canonized as the foundress of the " Blessed -Order
of Sisters of the Tails"), and the memoirs of her
brother, Joseph John Gurney, recently published by
Braithwaite. This original sect has never become very numerous
either in America or in England. It has no spirit of
proselytism ; and the fanaticism which characterized the
first stage of its history, it long ago abandoned. But

216 > THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
through the thoroughly democratic character of its con
stitution, its spirit of toleration, and its rigid separation
of religion from politics, it has exerted a greater influ
ence "on American affairs, than many a larger denomina
tion ; though Bancroft exaggerates its effect by his
idealizing rhetorical exhibition of its principles. It is
still a respectable religious party, especially in Philadel
phia and the immediate vicinity, where it has its largest
meeting-houses. There the Quakers may often be seen
on the street, in their peculiar, but uncommonly clean and
neat dress, with fresh, fair countenances, and the evident
marks of inward content and outward prosperity. They
are mostly merchants, or farmers, or men of fortune and
leisure. They take an active part in the philanthropic
movements, and have done real service in the reform of
prison discipline. The so-called Pennsylvania system of
solitary confinement to favor earnest reflection, and so
promote the improvement of the prisoners, is to be
traced chiefly to the influence of the Quakers. They
still oppose the oath and war — though there was during
the American Revolution a patriotic party, called the
"Fighting Quakers" — and seek to spread the principles
of .peace by special societies and publications. They are
likewise decided enemies of slavery, and are generally
ultra abolitionists.
Their views are altogether in favor of universal freedom
and equality of rehgious toleration. But this sect has an
unfavorable influence in spreading amongst the people the
dangerous opinion, that the ministry and the sacraments

THE.. QUAKERS. 217
are really altogether unessential, and that a man may be
a good Christian, without attaching himself to any
particular branch of the visible Church. Iu the self-
sufficiency of the inward light, they think they may dis
pense with science and theology, as an unprofitable work
of man. Their education is merely of a general kind.
The only theologian they can show is Barclay, and he
was a theologian before he joined them. They live pretty
much by themselves, and they may perhaps be the chief
cause of the comparative unsociableness of Philadelphia.
Beyond Eastern Pennsylvania they have few congrega
tions. In New England they were even from the first,
about the middle of the seventeenth century, bitterly per
secuted and banished from the land, on account of the
fanatical an,d indecent excesses of some Quaker women ;
and since then they have not been able to gain much
foothold there. They-will undoubtedly still, long main
tain themselves, and fill their place in the great family of
Christendom ; but they will always be limited to a very
small sphere. Their youth of the richer and higher
families desert largely either to the Episcopal Church or to
the indifferent world.
Among the American Quakers there are two schools :
the old or orthodox, who firmly hold to the Bible and
their traditional customs, and the Hicksites (from
their founder, Elias Hicks), commonly called "Hickory
Quakers," who hold Unitarian and rationalistic opinions
on the trinity and the divinity of Christ, and identify the
inward light with natural reason." These liberal Quakers
10

.218 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
are among the loudest advocates of the wildest extrava
gances of Garrisonian abolitionism, and female emanci
pation. I have myself heard a Quakeress, Lucretia
Mott, of Philadelphia, in company with Garrison, and
regardless of all true female delicacy, deliver before a
mixed assembly of whites and blacks, in the Baptist
Church of Norristown, in 1848, a perfectly fanatical
discourse against the American Constitution, and in favor
of the full equalization, not only of all races, but also
of both sexes. The moment religious life is extinguished,
Quakerism sinks into the lowest rationalism and skepti
cism, or wanders into the wildest excesses of ultra demo
cracy ; the overstrained spiritualism ends in the flesh.

(i) THE ROMAN CHURCH.
The doctrine, constitution, and worship of this church
I need not describe. They are the same in the New
World as in the Old. In fact, this church is wont, you
know, to boast of this unity and unchangeableness as one
of its greatest virtues. We confine, ourselves, therefore,
to a view of its actual condition and its prospects in
America. If we look to America at large, the Roman Catholic
Church is older there than Protestantism itself, the first
discoveries of Columbus, John and Sebastian Cabot,
Amerigo Vespucci, all Roman Catholics, and natives of
Italy (with the exception of the younger Cabot, who
was born in England), having preceded the Reformation

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 219
of the sixteenth century. We heartily rejoice, as Chris
tians, that the idea of our holy religion entered largely
into the bold enterprise of the noble Genoese, whose
monument is a whole continent in fact, though not in
name, and of his royal patroness, Isabella the Catholic.
When he first presented to the Queen of Castile and
Aragon the temptation of extending her dominions, and
pictured the dazzling wealth of the Indies, it made no
impression upon her." But when he spoke of the poor
heathen on the distant islands, made after God's image,
with souls to be saved, he touched her inmost heart, and
the pious queen poured her jewels into the cap of the
enthusiast, who, a few months afterwards, planted the
cross on the island of San Salvador, and took possession
of a New World in the name of Christ our Saviour, and
the Crown of Spain. Soon after his return he wrote from
Lisbon to Sanchez, the treasurer of Spain : " Let pro
cessions be made, festivals be celebrated, temples be
adorned with branches and flowers : for Christ rejoices on
earth and in heaven in view of the future redemption of
immortal souls. Let us rejoice also over the 'temporal
advantage, which will grow out of the discovery to Spain
not only, but to all Christendom." Ferdinand and
Isabella, after hearing the report of the discoverer, fell
on their knees and joined in the Te JDeum of tho choir of
the royal chapel in celebration of the glorious conquest
to the church as well as to the State. They immediately
ordered the Indians, whom Columbus had brought with
him, to be educated as missionaries, and sent as early as

220 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
1498, twelve priests in addition, to the western hemi
sphere. Our joy in this beautiful prelude of American history
would be still greater and purer, if the first emigrants
from Spain had not dishonored their Christian profession
by barbarous cruelty against the native heathens, and by
the worst vices of civilization, which force even from a
Roman Catholic historian the honest confession : " In
vain almost was the building of Christian churches and
the founding of episcopal. sees under such circumstances ;
for the Indians had such a just aversion against the reli
gion of their oppressors, that the Cazike Hatney said,
the money was the God of the Christians, and he did not
wish even to go to heaven, if Spaniards should ever get
there."* If the Pope of Rome were infallible in the exercise of
his power, the whole of the American continent together
with the islands would now be the sole property of the
Roman Church and the Crown of Spain. For in the
consciousness of the mediaeval papacy, that the successor
of Peter and the vicar of Christ had a right to dispose
of all the kingdoms of the world, and in grateful consi
deration of the merits of the Spanish monarchs in
suppressing Mohammedanism in their territory, Alexander
VI., of infamous memory, himself a Spaniard by birth,
gave the whole western hemisphere to the Crown of

* Hefele, Der Cardinal Ximenes und die Kirchlichen Zustande Spanien^ ara
Ende des 15, und Anfang des 16 Jahrhunderts (1844), p. 513.

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 221
Spain as an inheritance,* But in this, as well as in
regard to the geographical situation of the new dis
covery ,f both Rome and Spain were greatly mistaken,
and doomed to disappointment. God in his providence
had destined the northern half of the New World as a
hospitable asylum for all nations and churches of Europe,
and more especially for the, Anglo-Saxon race and for
Protestantism, which so soon followed the discovery of
America, as if this had prepared a new home for it. In
Central and South America, Romanism and the Romanic
race are still in undisturbed possession of power, it is
true, but they present the gloomy picture of an almost
hopeless stagnation ;| while the United States, with
* In two bulls of the 3d "and 4th of May, 1493, Pope Alexander VI. assigned
to Spain, " omnes insulas et terras ferinas inventas et inveniendas, detestas et
detegendas versus occidentem et meridiem, fabricando et constituendo unam
lineam a Polo Arctico, scilicet septentrione, ad Polum Antarcticum, scilicet
meridiem (sic !)."
t It is well known that Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci died in the firm con
viction that they had only touched parts of Eastern Asia. Columbus made
even his men swear to their belief, that there was a land route from Cuba to
Spain (*' que esta tierra de Cuba fuese la tierra firme al comienzo de las Indias
y fin a*, quien en estas partes quisiere venir de Espana por tierra"). Whosoever
ventured to deny it, should he punished with a hundred Btrokes and the loss of
his tongue. See Alex. v. Humboldt's Kosmos, ii. 277 and 462 (German edition)
and his Examen crit., etc. t."iv. p. 238,250, 261, and t. v. p. 182-185.
\ This is admitted even by Roman Catholic writers. See e. g. " Brownson's
Review " for July, 1855, p. 320. " A traveller through Mexico is struck with what
appears to be monuments of the piety of the Spanish government. Large and
magnificent churches were built, and richly endowed, wherever needed, and in
no countiy was more ample provision made for the material support of religion ;
and yet in no country was the religious and secular instruction of the people
more shamefully neglected. . . . Spain wanted loyal subjects, not free and
'enlightened citizens. The state of religion in Cuba, the queen of the Antilles,

222 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
their predominantly Germanic and Protestant population,
are the very embodiment of life and progress.
On the free Republican and Puritanic soil of North
America the Roman Catholic Church with its mediaeval
traditions, centralized priestly government, and extreme
conservatism, seems to be almost an anomaly, but is per
haps just on this account necessary and useful as a check
and corrective for the extremes of Protestantism and re
ligious radicalism. Her first appearance on the territory
now belonging to the Union, was in Florida, which was
discovered by the Spaniards, under Juan Ponce de Leon,
in 1512, but not annexed to the United States till 1820.
After several unsuccessful attempts the Spaniards, more
than twenty-five hundred strong with five hundred negro
slaves, took possession of Florida on the 28th of August,
1565, the day of St. Augustin, founded the town called by
that name, which is thus forty years older than any other
town in the Union, and butchered about nine hundred
Huguenot settlers a little further north, with their
wives and children, without any provocation, "not as
Frenchmen, but as Calvinists." The French government
of Charles IX. cared nothing for this outrage upon its
Protestant subjects, who were murdered at home in the
terrible St. Bartholomew's night of 15^2. But the
Huguenots effected a private expedition for bloody
revenge in 1563, and after having killed some Spaniards,
" not as Spaniards and sailors, but as traitors, robbers,
is most deplorable, and would gain immensely by the annexation of the island
to the American Union."

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 223
and murderers," they returned to France, not being strong
enough for a permanent occupation. May this bloody
prelude of North American church history never be
repeated on American soil.
In broad and most honorable contrast with this Spanish
bigotry and cruelty, *#©sfcw«*»of the palmy days of the
Inquisition, stands the conduct of the two hundred
people, mostly English Catholic gentlemen with their
servants, who under Leonard Calvert, brother of George
Calvert, better known as Lord Baltimore, landed near the
mouth of the Potomac in 1634, and laid the foundation
of the eolony of Maryland. It is certainly a very remark
able fact, that this Roman Catholie colony, one hundred
and forty years before the War of Independence, about
contemporaneously with the persecuted Baptist Roger
Williams, but more fully than he, and nearly fifty years
before the settlement of Pennsylvania through the equally
tolerant Quaker William Penn, proclaimed the principle
of the fullest religious liberty, and acted upon it, until the
Protestants ' temporarily overthrew it.
As the power of tradition is nowhere greater than in
the Roman church, we believe that this example of Lord
Baltimore and his friends will always have a very decided
influence in filling the minds of the most enlightened
American members of that communion, with aversion
to all penal laws in matters of conscience, and with
a strong attachment to the principle of religious liberty.
But although the Roman church is thus closely and
honorably identified with the history of one of the oldest

224 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
of the original States of the North American confedera
tion, it remained very small and unimportant till a com
paratively recent period. Of all the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, only one was a catholic.
At tbe beginning of the Revolutionary War, there was
hardly a place iu the colonies except Philadelphia, where
the laws of the land permitted a Catholic priest to cele
brate mass ; and even the Constitution of Rhode Island,
which from the days of Roger Williams allowed free
dom of conscience, had a brief disqualifying clause against
the Roman Catholics, which was not removed till 1184.
The first Episcopal see was founded at Baltimore, in
1190, by the election of the Rev. John Carroll, a Jesuit,
and cousin to Charles Carroll of Carollton, the last
though not least of the signers of the Declaration of
Independenee. Only within perhaps the last twenty years, has this
church begun to make its influence felt in the public life
of the United States. This has been the natural
result, partly of the acquisition of Louisiana (1803),
Florida (1820), and Texas (1844), but especially of a
perfectly massive emigration from Catholic Ireland, which
was for several years greater than that from all other
European countries put together, and has done as mueh
to depopulate and un-Romanize Ireland, as to people and
Romanize America and Australia. The emigrants from
the southern parts of Ireland have, indeed, many good
traits, among which are prominent, generosity, chastity,
and a love for the religion of their fathers nndestroyed by

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 225
years of oppression and misery ; but they are in general
terribly neglected, ignorant, addicted to drunkenness and
profanity, quarrelling and fighting, not seldom in the open
street ; and they form on the whole the roughest class of
the American population. Hence, too, they are by no
means fitted to inspire the American, who, like the mass
of men generally, judges from appearances and single
concrete cases, with much respect for the Roman church ;
for they do not seem to be morally improved by any
number of masses and confessions, which they scrupulously
attend. The Irish and their descendants form the majo
rity of most of the Catholic congregations, especially in
the large cities, and they furnish also most of the priests
and bishops. Archbishop Hughes of New York, for
example, and Archbishop Kenrick of Baltimore, the for
mer the shrewdest, the latter the meekest and most learned
of the Roman prelates of America, as also the latter's
brother, the Archbishop of St Louis, and Archbishop
Purcell of Cincinnati, are all natives of Ireland.
Then the Roman Church draws a constant accession
from Germany, especially from Bavaria, Wiirtemberg,
Baden, and the Rhenish provinces ; also from France,
and to some extent from Spain and Italy. Of the German
emigrants perhaps one third are Roman Catholic. They
do not however agree very well with the Irish. They
have their own religious journals, perhaps half a dozen,
and sometimes, with commendable zeal, build themselves
churches of their own, of which St. Peter's in New York,
and St. Alphonsus' in Baltimore (both founded by the
10*

226 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
Redemptorists), are among the largest and finest in all
America. The French have settled principally in the
State of Louisiana, and have hitherto formed in New
Orleans the majority of the population ; but they are
now obliged gradually to adopt the English language.
These likewise furnish many priests, bishops, and sisters
of charity.
On the proper body of the American nation, the
substantial middle class, if such we may speak of in a
republic (and such one must find after all), the Roman
Church has very slight hold. As in England and Scotland,
so in America, it meets only the extremes of society,
especially the lowest, poorest, and most uncultivated class
of emigrants, who form, so to speak, its flesh and blood ;
embracing also, almost everywhere, a larger or smaller
number of influential families of the higher and educated
order, including many converts from the different Pro
testant denominations, especially the Episcopal.
The Roman Church may now number near two millions
of members, not quite one twelfth of the population of the
Union. She is, there as everywhere, very well organized,
and in all more important enterprises operates as a
compact unit ; while Protestantism is full of discord.
She already has a diocese in almost every State of the
Union ; including six archepiscopal sees, of which Balti
more (the metropolitan), New York, and Cincinnati are
the most important and influential. Her higher clergy
are wisely chosen, and among them are many very able,
earnest, self-denying, and worthy men. The jealous watch-

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 221
ing of thousands of Protestant eyes has a good effect on
their morality and zeal ; and places them in these respects
far in advance of the dead and corrupt priesthood of
purely Catholic countries, like Mexico, or Portugal, or
Sicily. In the larger cities she is building costly and
imposing cathedrals, for which she is receiving constant
aid from Europe, especially from France. At the same
time she is everywhere establishing schools (very frequently
attended by Protestant youth), infirmaries, and orphan
asylums under the direction of the Jesuits, Redemptorists,
and Sisters of Charity ; nay, even monasteries and
nunneries, in striking contrast with the driving secular
activity of the country. She knows how to use the lever
of the public press for her purposes, and endeavors to
keep pace with the enormous journalizing zeal of America.
Besides many weeklies and monthlies, she brings out re
prints and translations of the most important Catholic
works of ancient and modern times, and many original
productions. She is beginning* also to mix in politics
and control the elections. But this very effort for power
and political influence may prove extremely dangerous to
her, if not fatal. Quite lately, at the instance of the
National Council of Baltimore, she has made systematic
attacks, in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Mary
land, Ohio, and Michigan, on the public elementary
schools, conducted by the state and mainly subject to
Protestant influence. She has attempted, though thus
far without the least success, to destroy them, in order
(and one can hardly blame her for it) to rid her own

228 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
youth of the contaminating influence of schools, in which
either no religion at all is taught, or the Protestant Bible
is read, and a Protestant tone pervades the whole system
of teaching, as well as the personal character of the great
majority of teachers and pupils.
From all this it is plain, that 'the Roman Church is
awake, and seeking in every way to make herself felt.
Nay; the confident and not seldom most arrogant tone of
her press clearly shows, that she entertains the highest
hopes of her future in the United States, and contemplates
yet most brilliant triumphs there.
It seems to me, many of the most educated and dis
cerning Catholics cannot help feeling, that the Romanic
nations of southern Europe and central and South
America have so far outlived themselves, as to afford, at
least in their present condition, no hopes of any new
spiritual movement from Italy,, Spain, or Portugal, Mexico
or Brazil ; that the Pope in Rome itself sits on a volcano,
and will probably be driven away by a new eruption of
radicalism; when the French bayonets are withdrawn.
On fickle, revolutionary France, where there has been
nothing but revolution and reaction since 1189, where
infidelity rules to-day, and ultramontanism to-morrow,
and where the church of St. Genevieve can as easily
become again in a few years a pantheon of Voltaire and
Rousseau, who still sleep in its vaults, as it could already
be twice transformed from an idol temple into a church ;
— on France, no dependence can be placed, though just
now, under the favor of Napoleon III., Catholicism iu its

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 229
most extravagant forms is in full sway there, and seems
even to have extinguished Gallicanism for the present.
In the East and North of Europe the Roman Church
comes upon her old hereditary and arch-enemy, the Greek,
and upon the colossal domain of the Emperor-Pope of St.
Petersburg, who hates in the Pope of Rome his most
dangerous rival. Hence she turns her eye to the heart
and the West of Europe, to the solid, vigorous Germanic
nationality, to Germany, particularly Prussia, and above
all to the world-ruling Anglo-Saxon race, to Great
Britain, which spans almost every sea, and to its teeming
rival, North America. Could she once conquer England
and the New World, and re-assimilate the Germanic
nationality, she would gain a victory more mighty and
important than even her first Christianizing of the
Germans, and her triumph over the universal empire of
heathen Rome. " Give us the West," said the Catholic
Bishop England, of South Carolina, "and we shall soon
take care of the East." He referred, indeed, immediately
only to the Western States of America in their relation
to the Atlantic coast • but this significant word can be as
properly applied in a wider sense.
But such a re-conquest of the Germanic nationality, and
assimilation of the German, English, and Anglo-American
Protestantism, would be at the same time a complete
regeneration and rejuvenation of Catholic^to itself. For
the many living elements of Germanism and Protestantism,
thus absorbed, would sooner or later inevitably revive and
transform the old system, if not produce in it a funda
mental reformation.

230 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
From some such point of view, which perhaps many
Catholics hold, though they do not avow it, we can under
stand the high hopes which they have for their future in
the western countries, and the enormous efforts which,
to the shame of European Protestants be it said, they are
making in North America for the advancement and per
manent establishment of their interests.
What tends more than all else, to encourage and
strengthen these hopes, is the Romanizing movements
which have been for some twenty or thirty years spreading
through many portions of Protestantism itself. The tran
sitions of prominent German writers, from Stolberg and Hal-
ler to Huster and Gfrorer, are well-known. That the tide
toward? strictly confessional Lutheranism, of late so rapidly
swelling, and the growing disposition to insist on outward
visible unity and historical continuity of the church, on.
altar-service, on the idea of sacrifice, on a more compact
form of Government, and many other things, tend, though
unknown to most persons, towards Catholicism, can hardly
be denied. Yet this is by no means saying they must
necessarily end in Rome ; they may possibly, on the con
trary, form a strong barrier against this extreme, as well
as against infidelity. On this we are not here called to
decide. Still more striking and remarkable is the great
Puseyite movement in the English Episcopal church,
which begaiWn 1833, and has resulted in the transition
of some of her greatest divines, as Newman, and of her
worthiest clergymen, as Manning. So the system of
Irvingism, of almost contemporaneous origin, and likewise
very worthy of attention, is far more Catholic than Pro-

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 231
testant in doctrme, government, and worship, while it
draws its strength in England and Germany almost
entirely from the Protestant ranks.
These catholicizing tendencies have made their appear
ance within some twenty years past, at least have feebly
begun to do so, even in America, in spite of its decided
Protestant character, and in fact, to some extent, as a
natural reaction against it. In the American Episcopal
church, so closely connected with the Anglican, the Pusey
ite movement found an immediate response, and has
already brought many offerings from this quarter to the
Roman church, among which are some twenty or thirty
clergymen, and even one bishop, though one of no great
weight either of intellect or character. It is an interest
ing fact, that in America, as in England, the most learned
and gifted champions of modern Catholicism, asBrownson
and Newman, as well as the editors of most of the Catho
lic church periodicals, the " Freeman's Journal" of New-
York, the "Catholic Herald," of Philadelphia, the
"Shepherd of the Valley," of St. Louis (now defunct),
and " Brownson's Review," of Boston, are apostate Pro
testants. This fact argues, however, as much against as
for the Roman church. It shows, indeed, that she has
power to draw even talented and accomplished minds to
herself ; but it also shows that she has to depend on Pro
testantism for her most effective forces and her most
skillful advocates. Most of these editors are laymen, and
married, who could not well make themselves useful to
the church of their adoption in any other line. This

232 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
growing theological influence of laymen, which appears
also in Europe (think of the editors of the "Ram
bler," the "Univers," the "Historisch-Politische
Blatter," etc.), is quite a new and interesting phenome
non in the history of the papacy, and may prepare the
way for some important change.
Orestes Brownson, of Boston, a consummate logician and
controversialist, who crossed the Rubicon in 1844, and
went right into the heart of the Italian territory, is in
regard to talent, undoubtedly the most important convert
the Roman church has yet made in America ; though in
character he has far less weight than Newman, Manning,
or Wilberforce. He now defends extreme ultramontanism
with the same unrivalled dialectic skill, brilliant eloquence,
and unscrupulous sophistry, though always in decent and
pure language, with which he formerly vindicated radical
democracy and all possible phases of negative Protestant
ism (its positive evangelical life he probably never tasted),
even to downright pantheistic infidelity. This itself will
account for his enjoying so little confidence and exerting
far less influence upon the Protestant reading community,
than his rare talents would lead one to suppose. A man,
who can prove everything, in a moral point of view
proves nothing. In spite of all his asseverations (notice
ably repeated, and for this reason rather suspicious) of
absolute submission to the infallible authority of the
pope and even of his diocesan bishop, Brownson has still
in the bottom of his heart a whole mass of Protestant
principles and impulses of independence and private judg-

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 233
ment, and remains a restless agitator and democrat. Only
he now thinks the Roman church alone can save Ameri
can liberty and the American Republic, while he has the
shameless effrontery to reproach Protestantism with
favoring everywhere civil and religious despotism and
barbarism.* The Catholics, however, look further than these isolated
* How be can reconcile this bold assertion, often repeated in his Review and
public lectures with his recent admission that the Roman Catholic church
eDjoys more freedom in the predominantly Protestant United States, the Know-
Nothing movement notwithstanding, than in any Roman Catholic country of
the globe, we must leave to his logic, which never fails him. " There is no
cause," he says in his Review for July, 1855, page 408, in an article agains
Know-No thin gism (which, by the by, he most ably defended to the great indig
nation of the Irish, about a year ago, when he vainly hoped to be able to con
trol the anti-Catholic fanaticism of this party), — " there is no cause for our
Catholic friends abroad to feel any alarm for American Catholics. Annoy
ances, vexations, and petty persecutions we have always suffered, and shall
continue to suffer ; but nothing can justify the desponding tone of those who
are advising Catholics to emigrate to Canada, to South America, or to some
other country. There is no country where the church is freer than she is here,
and no country, Protestant or even Catholic, where, after all, ecclesiastical pro
perty is safer than with us. Look at Mexico, New Granada, Central America,
Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Baden, Bavaria,
and Austria, and tell us if Catholics are freer, or their church property safer,
than in our Republic ? We can speak as freely in our Review on political and
religious topics as we please, and yet the Cvviltd, CattoUca^ published at Rome,
an eminently Catholic periodical, is prohibited in the Catholic Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies (we add, by the special protector, a friend of Pius IX., when in
exile), and has lost, we are told, four thousand subscribers by the prohibition,
The Correipondcmce, a truly Catholic periodical published in French at Rome,
was suppressed, in order not to offend French sensibilities. Nothing of the sort
has taken oris likely to take place here, and this is probably the only country
where the Catholic press is absolutely free. Let us not be insensible to the ad
vantages we enjoy, nor tolerate without rebuke those misguided journalists, who,
under pretence of defending Catholic, but more especially Irish, interests in
America, traduce the country abroad."

234 THE SEVERAL CHTJKCHES AND SECTS.
cases of conversion. They believe that especially in Ame
rica, where it has not the benefit of state support and
protection, and is left to its own centrifugal tendencies,
Protestantism will continue to dissolve into sects and
parties, till it reduces itself to atoms, and thus, wearied
with the endless fluctuation of subjectivity, and longing
for repose in some tangible infallible authority, negatively
prepares itself to return into the bosom of the one
unchangeable Catholic church.
It is unquestionably very probable, that the ultimate
fate of the Reformation will be decided in America ; that
it will there be proven, whether the work was of God or
of man ; and this gives that country, according to human
calculation, which it is true may deceive, its extraordi
nary prospective importance for church-history. Both
the great parties of Christendom are assembling there
from all quarters of the Old World, and arming them
selves for one of the most earnest and decisive battles,
which the pages of history will record. The sagacious
Cardinal Archbishop Wiseman is reported to have said
once, iu the sweet dream of England's being aheady in
principle won over to Rome, that the Catholic church
would strike her last blow of conquest on the sands of
Brandenburg ; probably on the "Kopeniker Felde" near
Berlin, where, close to the magnificent evangelical dea
coness house of Bethany, she is now erecting a splendid
cathedral, and in a great measure with funds willingly
furnished by a Protestant King, who also liberally aided
the building of the Cologne Cathedral as a symbol of

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 235
future union. We have hot the slightest doubt, that on
the sandy plains of Prussia's Capital great and momentous
things will yet take place, especially in the empire of
thought, which after all rules the world. But we
think the last decisive engagement between Romanism
and Protestantism will fall not in Europe, not even in the
world's emporium of London and the learned halls of
venerable, mediaeval Oxford, but on the banks of the Hud
son, the Susquehannah, the Mississippi, and the Sacra
mento ; and that it will result in favor not, as the san
guine Papists think, of the Roman, but of an evangelical
Catholicism. What is true and great and good and beau
tiful in the hoary but still vigorous Catholic church, should,
must, and will be preserved ; but its temporary form, the
papacy, must perish, and with it saint and relic worship,
the spirit of persecution, tyranny over conscience, and
everything which makes believing Protestants, with all
their longing for church unity, and all their grief over the
weaknesses and faults of their own system, still stand
apart from the Roman church for conscience' sake, and for
the sake of the dearest blessings of the holy Gospel, and
immediate communion with Christ, our all-sufficient
Saviour. Meantime, however, in America, as in England and
Germany, Protestantism must be expected to lose many
more noble spirits, repelled by the growing sectarian con
fusion, and unduly attracted by the idea of unity and
catholicity, by the truly imposing organization of the
Roman church, her rich and fascinating worship, her monk-

236 . THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
ish asceticism, or her supernatural halo of miracles and
saints. And Romanism, on her part, will have still to
suffer mighty convulsions and deep humiliations, before
she will consent to abate anything from her measureless
claims, to bow in simplicity before the Gospel and to
give Christ all the honor due to his name.
Our view here of the prospects of the two confessions
in America, is based chiefly on the vital energy of Pro
testantism, which has already survived so many storms,
and thrown off so much morbid matter ; and on the con
viction that the evangelical truth, whieh was brought
out from the inexhaustible mines of Holy Scripture by
the spirit of God in the times of the Reformation, as
well as the evangelical freedom, which springs from this
truth, can never perish, but, in spite of all hindrances,
must spread in ever enlarging circles. But with this, we
have also other reasons, why we think the ultimate
triumph of Romanism in America impossible.
In the first place, we must remark the fact, thai the
Roman church in the United States, though it has consi
derably grown, as facts previously stated show, still has
not kept pace with the number of Roman Catholic emi
grants and the increase of the leading Protestant
denominations. To estimate its progress fairly, we must
not take it by itself, but in its relation to the whole
country, where almost everything grows with unheard-of
rapidity. The Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Episco
pal, Lutheran, German Reformed churches, have doubled
within a few decades ; and this growth will continue as

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 23 f
long as emigration continues. Nay, more. The Roman
church has even lost in proportion. Several of her own
sheets bemoan, from time to time, the apostasy of so
many-immigrant Irish, Germans, and French from their
mother church. Within the last five and twenty years,
according to reliable Roman Catholic accounts, she has
lost about two millions of Irish ; so that the present
numerical strength of Romanism is hardly as great as its
loss in this quarter alone. Add to this, that in a country,
where every one is free to choose his own religion, the
religion of the minority is always at a disadvantage.
And this may be said with double force of the Roman
church, on account of its peculiar character as related to
the genius of the American nation.
For the Roman church — and this is the second argu
ment against her progress — is extremely unpopular in
America. She has, indeed, as much freedom before the
law, as any Protestant denomination, and more than
she. has in most Roman Catholic countries ; for the
Constitution of the United States -forbids Congress to
interfere in any way, positively or negatively, with mat
ters of religious conviction, handing these over to the
exclusive care of the churches and sects. But the ruling
spirit of the nation, and its institutions, and the power of
public opinion, are most thoroughly Protestant, more so
than in any German State, or even in England* If the
* Even Brownson admits this in opposition -to certain Irish Catholic asser
tions to the contrary. " The undeniable fact is," he says, in his " Review " for
Jan., 1S55, p. 140—" that the United States, as to the dominant sentiment of the
people, are more decidedly anti-Catholic than any other civilized country of
the globe."

238 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
framers of the Constitution could have foreseen the future
growth and importance of Romanism in the States, it is
not unlikely, that they would have inserted some disquali
fying clause, and if the Know-Nothing party should* ever
get the control of central legislation, they would, in all
probability, make an effort to do it yet, at least as far as
the new Catholic emigration is concerned. But it is too
late now for any organic change of the constitutional
provisions for full civil and religious liberty and equality
of all Christian denominations. The great battle between
Romanism and Protestantism in North America must be
fought on this basis.
In Germany, where the two confessions live rather
quietly together on the basis of the Westphalian peace,
and are often united under one government, you eau
hardly form any idea of the deep-rooted horror, which
Puritanism and Presbyterianism have for Popery. Only
think of the fact that so dignified and considerate a body,
as the General Assembly of the Old School Presbyterian
church, at its session in Cincinnati in 1845, solemnly and
almost unanimously unchurched the Church of Rome
altogether, and outpoping the Pope, declared all its ordi
nances, even baptism, null and void ! The popular Pro
testantism of North America sees in Romanism the
bodily Antichrist ; the Man of Sin predicted by Paul,
who exalts himself above all that is called God, or that
is worshipped ; the Synagogue of Satan ; the Beast of
of the Apocalypse ; the Babylonian whore ; an enemy of
all freedom of thought and -faith ; a fearful power of
persecution and of tyranny over the conscience ; a spiritual

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 239
tyranny, which, if it rule, must also lead to political
despotism. They can hardly conceive of the Roman
clergy as embracing any honorable and pious men ; but
only as a horde of slaves under a foreign despot, the
Pope ; a band of avaricious priests, hypocrites, and
rascals. This spirit pervades the religious press of America,-
with a few exceptions, from the "New York Observer"
to the most obscure sheet of the smaller sects, which
happens to sail under the Protestant flag ; and many
of the political organs, -especially those conducted by the
Native American', party,, share in the same prejudices.
The Roman Church is bemired from day to day with all
possible accusations and calumnies, and combated with
Scripture quotations, arguments, mockery, witticisms,
horrible stories and absurd misrepresentations. The burn
ing of the Catholic Convent at Charlestown in 1834, and
of St. Augustine's Church in Philadelphia in 1844, and the
public insults to the archbishop and papal nuncio, Bedini,
in 1853, not to speak of the more recent committees and
enactments of Know Nothing legislatures, are the natural
fruit of this fanatical hatred, which at once meets even
those Protestants, who have the courage to express and
vindicate more liberal and favorable views of the Catholic
Church. And the Catholic press, it is true, does no better, making
allowance, of course, for some honorable exceptions.
Brownson lately wrote in cold blood, that the Reformers,
after leaving the church of Rome, had not a single natural
virtue, to say nothing of supernatural, and asserts again
and again that Protestantism is no religion at all ; but a

240 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
sheer negation, a destroyer, a rebellion against divine aud
human authority, a diabolical movement which must end
in absolute infidelity. The " Freeman's Journal," of New
York, is full of bitter mockery and malicious exultation
over every dispute and every difficulty in the Protestant
camp, and shows towards us the same loveless, I might
almost say Mephistophelian spirit, as the Munich " His-
torisch-Politische Blatter," and the Paris " Univers."
I have observed the Catholic and Protestant presses in
America for years, and could hardly say which exceeds
in injustice, deception, misrepresentation, and passion.
But it is pretty clear that such illiberality and bigotry is
far more inconsistent with Protestantism than with
Romanism. This rabies theologorum in America, which,
however, - shows itself of late in Europe also, so far as
religious interest and freedom of the press prevail, is one
of those most unfortunate things, which might disgust
many a man with the calling of a theologian, It must be
considered, however, that religion is the«matter of deepest
and most universal interest to man, and therefore enlists
his deepest sympathies and antipathies, awakens his
warmest love and his bitterest hatred. I have no doubt
there are many Protestants in America, who would vote
on the spot for the banishment of every Catholic priest,
and would justify this act by their very'theory of universal
freedom of faith and conscience, in the honest conviction,'
that the priests, especially the Jesuits, are the sworn
enemies of this freedom, and are secretly working to
destroy it.
Thus, while the Roman Church unquestionably has in

THE ROMAN CHURCH. 241
America free play, full civil qualification, and unrestrained
intercourse with her centre, in which she has often been
in various ways, and still is in some instances, embarrassed
even by many Catholic princes, jealous of their sovereign
rights, in Spain, France, Austria ; she has on the other
hand a hard lot. She has to swim against the stream of
public opinion, which in republican North America is more
nearly almighty than anywhere else in the world ; and
which sees in Romanism not the pure, simple Gospel with
the branch of peace, but an enslaving politico-ecclesiastical
organization and an ambitious and intolerant hierarchy. '
But finally ; the American-born generation of Catholics
cannot possibly remain entirely uninfluenced by the free
political institutions, and the thoroughly Protestant spirit
of the country. Their bishops, it is true, so far as I know,
belong without exception to the ultramontane school, and
were amongst the most earnest to urge upon the Pope
the propriety of solemnly declaring the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception ; but they are mostly foreigners
by birth and education. The laity cannot be judged of
by them. The majority of these, especially the Irish and
Germans, in political matters, go with even the Democratic
party, the left wing of the Republic ; and the longer they
Uve in America, the more they become familiarized with
political and social views quite foreign to the genius of
Romanism. I know only one theological sheet, which has
ventured there to advocate, for example, the principle of
the persecution of heretics by civil punishments ; while
Archbishops Kenrick and Hughes, and several • other
11

242 'THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
¦ffcoajaa have publicly disavowed it, the first from personal
mildness, the others at least from prudent regard to
public opinion. But the public schools especially, which,
even where religion is not directly taught, are still Pro
testant in the general character of the pupils and teachers,
will gradually free the Catholic youth from the exclusive
influence of the priesthood, and put them on a more liberal
track. This may, indeed, drive them to skepticism and
unbelief; but it may also lead them to positive evangelical
Protestantism. Hence the vigorous efforts of the hierarchy
against these schools, in which it justly sees its life in
danger. I doubt, however, whether it will ever succeed
in overthrowing them • though we ourselves regard them
as very defective in the matter of religious education, and
as needing the addition of, special denominational instruc
tion. Catholicism, therefore, must in process of time assume
a more liberal character in America, than in Europe. It
must more or less approach evangelical Protestantism.
The Pope, it is. true, will never yield as Pope. But we
know not what events may take place in his communion
in spite of him. The Reformation of the sixteenth century,
and Jansenism and Gallicanism of the seventeenth ;
proceeded from its bosom and may be followed by similar
or still greater movements. On the other hand the
jejune and contracted theology of popular American
Protestantism must likewise, and will no doubt, undergo
in course of time a considerable revolution, especially since
the best, most learned Protestant historians, both secular

THE MORMONS. 243
and ecclesiastical, English and GermaD, have taught us
to view the history of the church before the Reformation,
iu a very different light from that in which Puritanism
used to regard it. Such changes in theological opinion would
no doubt also affect the religious sentiment, and greatly
contribute towards removing the bigoted prejudices of the
two confessions, until the present relation of bitter enmity
be exchanged for one of mutual respect and love.
(j) THE MORMONS.
I confess, I would fain pass over this sect in silence.
It really lies out of the pale of Christianity and the
church ; for as to single corrupted elements of Christianity,
these may be found even in Manicheism and Mohammed
anism. Nor has it exerted the slightest influence on the
general character and religious life of the American
people, but has rather been repelled by it, even by force,
as an element altogether foreign and infernal. Besides, I
fear I can say nothing at all satisfactory about this pheno
menon, owing to want of accurate knowledge from the pro
per sources on our own part, and to the general immaturity
of the phenomenon itself. But by such silence I should
.disappoint expectations. For concerning nothing have I
been more frequently asked in Germany, than concerning
the primeval forests and the Mormons — the oldest and
the newest products of America— as if it had nothing of
greater interest and importance than these.
Unquestionably a remarkable appearance in the history
of the religious vagrancy of the human mind is this Mor-

244 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
monism. And the most remarkable thing about it is
perhaps the fact, that this worst product of America
should so rapidly spread in old experienced Europe, and
seem to elicit, even in cultivated Germany, much more
curiosity and interest, than the most important political
and ecclesiastical matters in the New World. Something
similar is true of table-turning and spirit-rapping. If
America is so prolific of all sorts of "humbugs," Europe
has the honor of immediately imitating them.
The principal points in the external history of this sect
are these : — The Book of Mormon, the last prophet of the
Indians, was miraculously discovered, it is pretended, near
Palmyra, N. Y., written on golden plates, abounding in
Scripture passages and gross grammatical errors, and con
sisting of a very tedious romance about the ten tribes of
Israel driven away to America and converted by Christ
in person. The discoverer, Joe Smith, an uneducated
but cunning Yankee, was assisted by an angel to trans
late into English and publish this ijew bible, the original
of which, fall of Egyptian hieroglyphics, has since disap
peared.* He was ordained to the " Melchisedekian
priesthood," and made an effort, at first not very success-
* He furnished himself a history of his life and sect, for Rupp's work on the
Denominations of the U. S., which begins in the following characteristic man
ner : " The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was founded upon
direct revelation, as the true church of G-od has ever been, according to the
Scriptures (Amos iii. 7, and Acts i. 2). And through the w'll and blessing of
God I have been an instrument in his hands, thus far, to move forward the
cause of Zion. Therefore, in order to fulfill the solicitation of your letter of
July last, I shall commence with my life. I was born in the town of Sharon,
Windsor County, Vermont, on the 23d of-Dec, A.D., 1805. When ten years old,
my parents removed to Palmyra, New- York," etc.

THE MORMONS. 245
ful, to gather from the corrupt Babel of nominal Christen
dom, on the basis of this new revelation, a distinct sect,
styled : — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,
and to prepare them for the approaching return of Christ,
(A.D., 1830). This sect moved to the states of Ohio
and Missouri ; and not thriving there, and encountering
violent persecution, they went to Illinois, where they built
a city and a splendid temple at Nauvoo on the bank of
the Mississippi, in 1839. There they were attacked by
a violent outbreak of popular indignation against them,
as a gang of shameless impostors and robbers ; their
temple was destroyed, and their prophet Joe Smith, since
venerated by his successors. as a holy martyr, was killed,
(A.D., 1844). The remnant of the Mormons then made
a toilsome pilgrimage over the Rocky Mountains to the
Great Salt Lake, surrounded by high mountains, in the
fertile and mineral territory of Utah, on the overland
route to California (A.D., 1846). There they founded
the city of the Great Salt Lake, also called the City of
the Desert ; a second Solomon's Temple, which, when
finished, is intended to surpass everything the world has
yet seen in this line ; and a theocratic community under
the direction of the inspired prophet and priest-king, Brig-
ham Young. In this remote high-land of the Far West,
almost cut off from all communication, they have made
rapid material progress. They have sent missionaries
into almost all parts of the world, and have successfully
propagated themselves in England (especially in Wales,
where they are said to have made thousands of converts),

246 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
as well as in Denmark and Norway. Thus, almost like a
second edition of Mohammedanism, has this sect risen in
the extreme West, to the astonishment of the world ; and
just at the time, too, when the old Mohammedanism in
the East is decaying and lying as a carcass, around which
the Russian, French, and English eagles are gathering
together. Their crisis, however, is yet to come, when they shall
have reached the lawful number of sixty thousand (they
now number perhaps half this at Salt Lake), and Utah,
one of the territories of the United States, shall come to
be erected into an independent state. They may possibly
give Congress great trouble, and require its armed inter
ference. For it is very questionable, whether it will
admit into its confederacy a state on such a theocratic
and despotic basis, and with such moral or rather immoral
principles andinstitutions. American toleration, as wehave
before remarked, has its limits ; the separation of church
and state by no means involves a separation of the nation
from Christianity and Christian morality. The uncommon
regard of the American people for the female sex abso
lutely requires monogamy ; and for this reason alone they
can never make terms with the Mormons. Their mis-
sionaries in Europe, it is said, indeed, commonly deny
polygamy ; but in the United States it is universally
believed, that they practice it ; and it has been recently
stated in many journals, that their governor, Young, the
successor of Smith, appeared in public with thirty wives,
sixteen of whom had children at the breast. This would

THE MORMONS. 241
make the system a much enlarged and improved edition
of Mohammedanism, with the best prospect of a numerous
posterity. But, though this fact be not credited, we
must still believe the American captain and engineer,
Stansbury, who in his account of his expedition to the
Salt Lake, states that he himself heard Governor Young
say in the church, he had a right to take a thousand
wives, if he thought good ; and he challenged any one to
contradict him from the Bible. The professed religious
motive for polygamy is chiefly to raise up as fast as
possible a " holy generation for the Lord."
Thus much is certain, that the Mormons "and the
Americans, or the proper people of the United States, do
not fit together, but have a deadly hatred of each other.
Hence the former, persecuted and driven away by their
own countrymen, have tried their fortune in the Old
World ; and have already enticed hundreds and thousands
to travel over sea and land to their New Zion beyond the
Rocky Mountains, near the gold country of California ;
where a Mormon, in 1848, first discovered gold-dust in a
brook. Declamations against their actual and supposed
corruption of Christianity, and their high claims of new
revelations and visions, always find ready access with
a certain class. But at the same time the Mormons
appeal to the spirit of emigration so widely diffused, and
meet it with the most flattering promises. Their emigrant
ships are said to be very cleanly, and in general excellently
furnished. They have a speeial emigrant fund, to which
every member is bound to contribute, to provide for the

248 ¦THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
removal of indigent converts. They are even seriously
thinking of opening an easier passage to the "State of the
West," from the isthmus of Panama.
Mormonism, a*s a system of religion, strikingly resembles
Irvingism. The Irvingites, in fact, see in it a diabolical
caricature of their own figure ; as the Roman Catholic
missionaries thought the striking resemblances of some
heathen religions of the East to the doctrines and usages
of their church could be accounted for only as satanic
imitations. Mormonism and Irvinigism are about con
temporaneous in origin with each other and with Puseyism.
Both look for the speedy return of Christ, and make it a
leading object of faith and hope. Both consider all
present Christendom, Protestant as well as Catholic, an
apostate and hopeless Babel ; only Irvingism is much
more moderate and cautious on this point, having a high
regard for church antiquity, and really seeking to combine
the truth of Catholicism and Protestantism. Both believe,
that the only remedy is to be found in a direct revelation
and a supernatural new creation ; nay, in a divine restora
tion of all the offices and miraculous powers of the
apostolic church. Both have a hierarchy modelled on the
apostolic constitution, with apostles, prophets, and
evangelists. Both lay claim to the gift of tongues, pro
phecy, and the power of miraculous heahng by prayer and
laying on of hands ; and indeed the Irvingites are inclined,
with their rivals, to admit the agency of supernatural
powers, but refer them to a satanic origin. Both regard
the Jewish tithe-paying as a sacred Christian duty.

THE MORMONS. 249
Both send into all the world, where they are allowed
access, apostles and evangelists to collect tho "latter-day
saints" into the true Zion, and to prepare for receiving
the Lord in his glory.
But the Mormons lack the solemn liturgical worship of
the Irvingites ; and above all the fine culture, the deep
moral and religious earnestness, the humility and mildness,
the honest effort after holiness, and the Christian loveliness,
for which the Irvingites, so far as I personally know, and
can gather from the writings of Carlyle, Thiersch, Bohm,
Rothe, and others, are highly distinguished, and by which
they prove themselves true disciples and followers of Jesus,
in spite of all their singular views. Nay, if only the half
be true of what is reported in the public prints respecting
the horrible "spiritual-wife system," as it is called, and
other peculiarities of the Mormons, they are on a decidedly
immoral and abominable track ; so that the Americans
cannot be particularly blamed for wishing to be rid of
such a pest. But then the fact remains the more striking,
which Captain Stansbury gives from his own observation,
that among these " Latter-day Saints " peace, harmony,
and happiness generally prevail. It is remarkable, too,
that Mormonism has had far better outward success, than
Irvingism, which, though less bold and energetic, is incom
parably higher and more pure and earnest in an intel
lectual and moral point of view. The Irvingites have
only two small congregations in America, so far as I
know, in the State of New York ; and even in England
and Germany they setm of late to be rather stationary.
11*

250 THE SEVERAL CHURCHES AND SECTS.
Thus, however, the tares often grow much faster than the
wheat ; and error is not seldom more popular than
truth. But I readily grant, that Mormonism is, to me, still
one of the unsolved riddles of the modern history of
religion ; and I therefore venture no final judgment upon
it. I must only beg, in the name of my adopted father
land, that you will not judge America in any way by this
irregular growth. She has inherited from her mother
Europe, and preserved, much that is infinitely better, and
will undoubtedly produce in future far worthier fruits in
the field of religious and ecclesiastical life.
We need no new sects; there are already too many.;
We need no new revelation ; the old is sufficient. America,
to fulfill her mission, has only to present in its unity and
beauty the old and eternally young church of Christ,
accordmg to the word of God and the nearly two thou
sand years' experience of Christian history, whose results
are there embodied in so many denominations and sects,
yet united in a common national life. Whatever may be
her immediate future, thus much is certain : that there,
as everywhere, the Lord rules supreme over the wisdom
and folly of men, and that all kingdoms must at last bow
to him, " from the rising of the sun even unto the going
down of the same."

GERMANY A N,D AMERICA.

PART III.

GERMANY AND AMERICA.

The Evangelical Church in Germany in its relation to the Daughter
Churches in America, and its duty to the German Emigrants.
Report of Prof . Dr. Schaff, of Mercersourg, Pennsylvania, read,
before ihe Seventh meeting of the German Evangelical Church
Diet, at Frankfort on the Maine, on the 20*A of September, 1854. *
Honored Fathers and Beloved Brethren : —
First I present to you, as the Representatives of the
German Evangelical Churches of Europe, a benediction
and fraternal salutation in the name of the German Evange
lical Churches of America, which although separated from
you by land and sea, are yet flesh of your flesh and bone
of your bone ; and as the two hemispheres are now brought
nearer and nearer to each other through the power of
steam and electricity, so she desires to become more and
more closely united to you through the deeper power of
faith and love.
* This address, as printed in the official report of the Frankfort Church Diet
was translated from the German, by the Rev. Prof. Thomas 0. Porter, of frank
lin and Marshall CoUege, Lancaster, Penn., for the " New York Observer." It
is here added as a third part, although it was not included in the author's book on
America.

254 - GERMANY AND AMERICA.
Thousands of evangelical Christians in the New World,
who still revere and love Germany as their natural and
spiritual birth-place, and take the most heartfelt interest
in the struggles and victories of the mother-church, hailed
also with delight the rise of the Geman Church Diet in
the year of 1848, as a bow of peace and promise, after
the storms of the Revolution, and as the dawning light of
a new day to German Christendom. They saw in it the
fruit of the free pastoral conferences, a beginning toward
the concentration and consolidation of the noblest powers
of the German Churches of the Reformation, a mighty
engine for moral improvement, a living embodiment of
" Inner Missions," a noble evangelist for the suggestion
and furtherance of every good work. With the liveliest
sympathy they followed its annual meetings from Witten
berg to Stuttgart, Elberfeld, and Berlin, were edified by
the beautiful evidences of faith in the most sterling repre
sentatives of the Evangelical theology and piety from all
parts of Germany ; admired the remarkable . unanimity
and lofty enthusiasm, with which, in the year 1853, it
replanted the standard of the venerable Augustana
against infidelity and superstition in the city of Frederick
II. and Nicolai, and hoped for the most complete success
jn its great Work of a thorough inward regeneration of
German Protestantism. And even at this hour, when
you are holding your seventh session in the old imperial
city, so renowned in the history of the nation, innumerable
prayers on your behalf are ascending on the other side of
the Atlantic Ocean, that the humiliating scenes of the

GERMANY AND AMERICA. • 255
Frankfort Parliament may not be repeated in the Frank
fort Church Diet, but that a stream of blessing may issue
thence, flow over all Germany, and even reach the far-
off shores of the Mississippi, and that a deep foundation
may be laid for spiritual unity and moral freedom, till the
Lord himself, beyond our prayers and comprehension,
shall crown our defective endeavors after union and con
federation with the perfect exhibition of one flock,
gathered out of all lands, nations and confessions under
Him, the one Shepherd.
The Church Diet, on its side, has not forgotten its kin
dred in foreign countries and its large heart and true tact
appear in this, that at Bremen it admitted into the com
pass of its transactions the German emigration, and at Ber
lin ihe dispersions of Germans in Europe, as an important
department of Inner Missions. Hence it was very natu
ral to take into view the much greater dispersions of Ger
mans in America and the entire relation of the German'
Evangelical mother-church to her American Daughter.
This is the theme which the central committee of the
" Congress of Inner Missions," handed over to me for an
introductory report. Permit me, therefore, to direct your
attention to the following three points :
1. The significance of America in general for the
development of the kingdom of God.
2. The position and work of the German Evangelical
Church in America.
3. The duty of the mother-church in Europe to her
American-German Daughter.
In so doing, I will consider the German Church of

256 , GERMANY AND AMERICA.
America as a whole, embracing all the denominations, which
the reformatory confessional basis of the Church Diet
marks out ; and I can do this the rather, because I was
ordained in the Evangelical Church of Prussia, and in
January, 1848, the year iu which the Diet took its rise,
estabhshed a periodical, the " German Church-Friend," as
a "central organ for the common interests of the Lu
theran Reformed and United Confessions, and the Mora
vian Brotherhood," the very same communions represen-
tedthis assembly.
I. The significance of North America for the future
development of the kingdom of God.
The United States of North America — whose citizen*
are called Americans in an emphatic sense — because the
bearers of the historical life and progress of the whole
Western Hemisphere — are a wonder in the annals of the
human race. Their development, in its rapidity and gigan
tic proportions, far outstrip all former experience, and
their significance for the future mocks the boldest calcu
lation. Though not an hundred years old, they have
become already, by natural force of expansion, one of the
mightiest empires of the civilized world, with the control
of one entire continent and two oceans, and spread, in the
most peaceful manner, the meshes of their influence over
Europe, Asia and Africa. And yet their history up to
this time is only a faint prelude of what is to come, and
the Americans of the twentieth century will look upon
the present age of their country, with feelings akin to

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 257
those with which modern Europeans regard the exodus
of the threshold of the Middle Ages. The " Young
Giant," has not yet, so to speak, sown all his wild oats,
and along with many heroic deeds, commits also some
wanton and extravagant pranks, which prove, however,
the exuberant vigor of his youthful powers. Providence,
who creates nothing in vain, has there made physical pre
parations on the grandest scale, and formed an immea
surable territory, containing the most fruitful soil, the
most valuable mineral treasures and the most favorable
means of commercial intercourse, as a tempting asylum
for all European nations, churches and sects, who, there
freed from the fetters of antiquated institutions, amid cir
cumstances and conditions altogether new, and with reno
vated energies, swarm, and - jostle each other, and yet, in
an incredibly short space of time, are moulded by the
process into one powerful nationality. Whilst Europe
had first to work her way up out of heathen-barbarism,
America, without earning it, has appropriated the civili
zation and church-history of two thousand years, as an
inheritance, and already put out at the highest rate of
interest for the benefit of after generations.
For, these Americans have not the least desire to rest
on the laurels of the past and comfortably enjoy the
present ; they are full of ambition and national pride, and
firmly resolved to soar above the Old World. They are
a people of the boldest enterprise and untiring progress
— Restlessness and Agitation personified. Even when
seated, they push themselves to and fro on their rocking-

258 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
chairs ; they live in a state of perpetual excitement in
their business, their politics and their religion, and remind
one of the storm-lashed sea, which here
" Seethes and bubbles and hisses and roai'Sj
As when fire with water is commixed and contending "
"  it never will rest, nor from travail be free,
Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea."
They are excellently characterized by the expressions,
" Help yourself" and " Go ahead," which are never out
of their mouths. It is also a very significant fact, that
they have invented the magnetic telegraph, or at least
perfected it, and are far advanced in the useful arts.
For there the car of the world's history moves swifter on
the pinions of steam and electricity, and " the days become
shortened." The grandest destiny is evidently reserved for such a
people. We can and must, it is true, find fault with many
things in them and their institutions — slavery, the lust of
conquest, the worship of Mammon, the rage for specula
tion, political and religious fanaticism and party-spirit,
boundless temerity, boasting, quackery, and — to use the
American word for it — humbug, as well as other weak
nesses and dangers, that are moreover wanting to no
country in Europe. But we must not overlook the healthy,
vital energies, that continually re-act against these
diseases : the moral, yea Puritanical earnestness of the
American character, its patriotism and noble love of
liberty in connection with deep-rooted reverence for the

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 259
law of God and authority, its clear, practical under
standing, its talent for organization, its inclination for
improvement in every sphere, its fresh enthusiasm for
great plans and schemes of moral reform, and its willingness
to make sacrifices for the promotion of God's kingdom
and every good work. The acquisition of riches is to
them only a help toward higher spiritual and moral ends ;
the gain derived from the inexhaustible physical resources
of their glorious country only the material ground-work
toward the furtherance of civilization. They wrestle
with the most colossal projects. The deepest meaning
and aim of their political institutions are to actualize the
idea of universal sovereignty, the education of every
individual for intellectual and moral self-government and
thus for true freedom. They wish to make culture, which
in Europe is everywhere aristocratic and confined to a
comparatively small portion of society, the common pro
perty of the people, and train up if possible every youth
as a gentleman and every girl as a lady ; and in the six
States of New England at least, they have attained this
object in a higher degree than any country in the Old
World, England and Scotland not even excepted.
In short, if anywhere in the wide world a new page of
universal history has been unfolded and a new fountain
opened, fraught with incalculable curses or blessings for
future generations, it is in the Republic of the United
States with her starspangled banner. Either humanity
has no earthly future and everything is tending to destruc
tion, or this future lies— I say not exclusively, but mainly

260 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
— in America, according to the victorious march of history,
with the sun from east to west.
But America has also equally as great a prospective
significance and mission for the internal and external
development of the kingdom of God. The history of the
world is only the vestibule to the history of the church,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, preparing the
way for Him, who shall come. All political events and
revolutions, all discoveries and inventions, all advances in
art and science ; in fine,, all that belongs to the kingdom
of the Father and is under the guidance of his general
providence, must serve the Son and spread abroad his
name, until the whole world is filled with his glory, and
all nations walk in the light of eternal truth and love.
For the Father draws all men to the Son, and " they shall
honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."
American church-history is still in the storm-and-
pressure-period. Its roots, with all their living fibres,
are in Europe, especially in England. It draws its life
from the past, most of all from the conquests of the
Reformation of the sixteenth century, and the principles
then established exert there an enormous power, and find
the freest scope of action and influence upon the entire
national life. Meanwhile it is all merely the labor of
preparation, the heaping up of materials and plans, the
chaotic fermentation that precedes the act of creation.
But the prolegomena are laid out on the most com
prehensive scale ; the cosmos lies in the chaos, as man in
embryo, and He who in the beginning said : " Let there

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 261
be fight !" lives and rules with his Divine Spirit, broodih"*
over the ecclesiastical Thohuvavohu of the New World.
The history of the kingdom of God in America has
already entered upon the dawn of a new era, and will
unfold itself, under circumstances and conditions altogether
peculiar, not indeed beyond Christ — for He is the Alpha
and Omega of church-history, and before Him fhe Ameri
cans bow with the deepest reverence as before the highest
and holiest name in the universe — but beyond all that has
hitherto existed in the ecclesiasticism of Europe. I can
only touch briefly upon the new circumstances and condi
tions, which aid the internal progress of the church. To
these belong the Protestant, or rather Puritan starting-
point of North American Christianity, its complete de
liverance from Mediaeval Catholic and feudal institutions,
its independence of the State, the universal religious
freedom and liberty of conscience, and the meeting of all
European confessions and sects on the basis of the
voluntary s^fetem and political equality. In America the
most interesting experiments in church-history are now
made. There the idea is, to found a church, which,
without any direct support from the government, and
having for this very reason a stronger hold on the
sympathies of the people, shall be the expression of all their
untrammeled convictions, the bearer and guardian of their
high'est spiritual aud moral interests. There the idea is,
to actualize the genuine Protestant principle of a congre
gation, independent and yet bound to an organic whole,
in a far greater degree than has heretofore been the case
in the Old World ; and to make each Christian a priest

262 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
and a king in the service of the universal High Priest and
King of Kings. There the idea is, to settle the conflict
between the greatest diversity and essential unity, between
freedom and authority in religion. There the whole
controversy between Romanism and Protestantism has
been taken up anew, and is rapidly drawing towards a
most earnest, perhaps even a bloody issue. For North
America is a land thoroughly Protestant, almost to an
extreme, since Protestantism embraces not merely tho
large majority of the population, but is the source, at the
same time, of all its social and political principles ; in fine,
is interwoven most intimately with the entire national life,
and goes hand in hand with all the nobler struggles after
freedom and ideas of progress. The public opinion, formed
under the influence of Puritanism, regards Romanism,
whether justly or unjustly, as the veritable Antichrist,
Intolerance and Persecution personified, a system of the
most terrible spiritual despotism, which, if successfully
established, would also annihilate all political ffeedom and
arrest the progress of history. Hence the more this
church grows — although its growth does not keep pace
with the immigration from Ireland, Germany and France,
so that in fact much more material is lost than gained by
the transition to America — the more do national jealousy
and hatred, which have already found vent in manifold
riotous proceedings, increase also. Here it will be seen,
whether the Papacy, under conditions and circumstances
like these, can maintain herself unaltered, or whether she
will rush to ruin, or undergo a fundamental change.
In North America, moreover, the fate of the Reforma-

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 263
tion is to be decided. There Protestantism, along with
its enormous vital energies, its devotion to liberty, its
ability to make sacrifices and its bold enterprising spirit,
exhibits also its faults and weaknesses much more plainly
than in Europe, where its free development is still checked
by the fetters of ecclesiastical and civil forms and regula
tions, the growth of ages. There it will be seen, whether
it, as its enemies prophecy, being left to its centrifugal
and unchurchly tendencies, will at last break up into
atoms, and prepare a greater triumph for Catholicism
than even the victory over the Old Roman and Germanic
heathenism ; or whether, as we believe and hope, follow
ing its positive Christian principles, with the Word of
God in hand and heart, it will come together, consolidate,
concentrate itself, and out of the phcenix-ashes of all
Christian denominations and sects, rise glorified, as the
truly universal, evangelical Catholic Bride of the Lord,
adorned with the fairest flowers of the church-history of
all centuries.
Such a mighty mission appears to lie before the church-
history of the country, of which we speak ; not indeed
as isolated from the rest of the world, but in connection
with the other Christian nations, who are brought nearer
every year, the barriers of space and time being broken
down. To such a mission even the rude beginnings of
their labor point, and thus much, according to human
view, is at all events certain, that North America, along
with England and Germany, furnishes the most important
contributions toward solving the vast problems touching

264 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
Christ and his Church, which now press upon Christendom
with a mighty weight, and which will yet be determined to
the honor of the God-man and Saviour of the world, and
His Bride.
Not only upon the internal development of the Church
but also upon the external spread of the Gospel, in all
heathen lands, America, from its geographical position
and by its rapidly increasing commerce, must exert an
incalculable influence. The Sandwich Islands, that half
way station upon the route over the Pacific Ocean, have,
by Puritan missionaries of New England, been already
won over to the Gospel, and will soon become an integral
part of the great Anglo-Saxon Republic. The ports of
Japan have been lately opened to American trade, and
the various Missionary, Bible and Tract Societies, with
their fresh, energetic powers, will certainly follow up this
advantage at the earliest favorable opportunity. The
railroad and canal, soon to be made over the Isthmus of
Panama, indicate, that the whole commerce between
Europe and Further Asia, as well as the Missionary
operations, for which it has thus providentially furnished
a path, will, in a short time, take up their march through
America, as the real centre of the world. Already a
direct line of steam ships between San Francisco and
Canton has been projected, and through this channel,
Christianizing and civilizing influences beyond number
will stream towards China ; and already these Divine
preparations are met, without their knowledge or wish,
by the inhabitants of the "Celestial Empire " crowding

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 265
by thousands into California, who, lured thither by gold
and the high wages of labor, will yet find there and carry
back to their native land, where just now events occur
that will fill the whole world with astonishment, something
infinitely better than all the treasure of the Sacramento,
the precious pearl of the Gospel. For the Colossus of
three hundred and sixty millions, after a long stagnation,
amid dim forebodings of what should come, has at last
set itself in motion, and rolls, like a tremendous avalanche
of nations, toward a speedy political revolution, which,
in the end, must certainly pave the way for a much more
important one, in the sphere of the Spirit.
Similar stars of hope for the approaching triumph of
the peaceful kingdom of Christ have risen above the Afri
can horizon. In the negro colony of Liberia, founded by
American philanthropists, we not only see the first step
toward the solution of the fearful riddle of negro-slavery,
but the dawn also of a new day for the dark night of
Africa, which will be yet conquered for the Gospel and
civilization by her own sons and daughters, exported as
rude heathen and now returning as Christian men and
women. But finally, North America will also take part in Inner
Missions among the nominal Christians of the Old World,
n order to restore the candlestick of the pure Word of God,
where it has been obscured, or thrust aside, by various
human ordinances and inventions. If Mexico, with its
boundless sources of wealth, is ever to be delivered from
the fetters of Romish ignorance . and superstition, and
12

266 ^ GERMANY AND AMERICA.
raised out of the whirlpool of an eternal revolution to a
state of rational freedom and order ; if " the pearl of
the Antilles" is yet to be transformed into a pearl in the
diadem of the Evangelical Church and become an intellec
tual and spiritual paradise, — then it is evident, that this
must be accomplished chiefly by the nationality and Pro
testantism of the United States. It is known, moreover,
that the Americans have already established flourishing
missions among the schismatical sects of the Greek
Church ; especially among the Armenians in European
and Asiatic Turkey, and that they afford aid to the
modern movements of the Waldenses ia Piedmont, and to
the Evangelical Societies of Geneva and Paris in the work
of evangelizing France and Italy. Through their politi
cal and religious institutions and their new-born literature
I need only remind you of the fact, that the book,
which has been most read during the last few years, is a
religious novel, written by a New England lady, the
daughter of a preacher and the wife of a professor — the
United States exert already a very considerable influence,
partly destructive, but partly regenerative also, on public
opinion in England, Germany and France ; an influence
which must increase every year either as a curse or a
blessing to old mother Europe.
I do not say all this in vain-glorious laudation of Ame
rica, still less of the Americans, who, as men and Chris
tians, are not one whit better than their European fore
fathers. Tlieir vast mission aud significance in the future
history of the Church and the world can just as little be

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 267
ascribed to any special merit on their part, as the choice
of the people of Israel, who, in spite of tlieir stubborn
ness and ingratitude, were called to be the bearers of the
Law and the Prophets, and the stock from whence the
Saviour of the world should spring. There is the hidden
purpose of God, alike in both cases, and each time bound
to a corresponding measure of enormous responsibility.
And just as little do I wish to depreciate Europe and
the Europeans by the above remarks. For America is
indeed the daughter of Europe and operates with Euro
pean forces, of which a fuller stream flows thither every
year. And the signs of the times appear to indicate, that,
as the powers of darkness deepen and concentrate, so
likewise all the positive elements of Christendom, in all
parts of the world, should draw nearer, and become more
closely joined together, so that they may achieve a more
certain victory in the last decisive conflict. America and
Europe ought to understand more clearly, prize more
highly, and seek to know and love each other more fully
in the common service of the one Lord, to whom all the
parts of the globe belong, and must at last submit in free,
blessed obedience.
II. The position and work of the German Evangelical
Church in America.
Into this American chaos of nations, creeds and sects
big with the destinies of the future, the German element
was cast, more than a hundred years ago, like leaven

268 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
into a process of formation, out of which will grow a uni
versal church-cosmos. Next to the English, which is
plainly the original stock of the North American nation,
it is the strongest in numbers and much more important
than the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, or even the
Irish element. The number of Germans in the United
States, including their English descendants, is computed
at four millions, constituting thus almost the sixth part
of the collective population. And in this we find nearly
all the races and religious denominations of our tongue
represented : the Lutheran Reformed aud United Confes
sions, the Moravian fraternity, the 'older sects of German
Protestantism, along with several new ones, which have
sprung up there, mostly of a Methodistical order ; but,
at the same time also, the, very worst forces of irreligion
and infidelity, which, as far as their influence extends,
cover the German name in the New World with shame
and disgrace, and, next to the Roman Catholic Irish, give
the most nourishment to that bitter hatred of foreigners,
which characterizes a strong American party, the Native
Americans, or as they now call themselves, the Know-
Nothings. This German- American population will become stronger
every year, by an emigration, which has almost swollen to
a national exodus. I will "refer to but one fact, that in
the year 1852, in the single port of ~New York, one
hundred and eighteen thousand six hundred and seventy-
four Germans landed ; the next year, one hundred and

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 269
nineteen thousand four hundred and ninety-eight, and that
this year the number will greatly increase ;* for the
German Society of that city mentions the arrival of thirty-
two thousand five hundred and ninety-nine for the month
of May alone. Like a contagious fever, the rage for
emigration spreads through all parts of Germany and all
the Cantons of Switzerland. Agencies for emigrants are
to be met with in every city, works in every book-store,
and advertisements in every newspaper ; and the name
of America has now become as familiar to every German
peasant and laborer, yea to every child in the street, as
that of the nearest neighboring country, whilst to thou
sands and hundreds of thousands, it is the goal of their
warmest wishes and boldest hopes. In all probability,
this movement from the East to the West will rather
increase than slacken for many years to come, as long
indeed as its causes and incentives continue, which are
the diminishing prospect of obtaining a livelihood or
wealth in Germany with its superabundant population,
and, on the other hand, the brightening promise of
material prosperity in America, together with- the fact
that the passage thither and settlement there, are be
coming easier from year to year. No power on earth is
able to check this movement, because a law of historical
development and the will of Providence are thereby fulfilled.
This emigration has two sides. For Germany, under
present circumstances, it is an absolute necessity, and in
* The German emigration to the port of New York alone amounted for 1S54,
to 170,648.

270 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
general a blessing, a relief from an excess of population
with whose growth the products of the earth and the
means of living cannot keep pace ; a beneficial letting of
blood and- a drain for poverty as well as political and
religious disaffection. At the same time, it opens new
markets for German industry, so that the loss from money
carried out of the country is amply repaired by the
amounts, which are ultimately returned. But for America,
this phenomenon has the same significance, as the emigra
tion of the Celtic, Germanic and Sclavonic races from
Asia to Europe, the Greeks into the West, and the
dispersion of the Jews into all parts of the world.
Emigrants, in general, are the pioneers of secular and
ecclesiastical history, the scions of civilization grafted
upon a wild stock in its luxuriant vigor.
Since, then, Providence has imparted to the German
people so great an impulse toward emigration, and directed
it principally to the United States, he must have designed
for them a mission in the New World answering to their
cosmopolitan character. That the Germans, by their
industry, perseverance and skill, can aid and have aided
very , largely in rendering the inexhaustible natural
resources of that country available, and furthering its
material prosperity, is clearly visible and generally
acknowledged. But this must serve only as means for
the solution of a spiritual and moral religious problem,
which is incomparably higher and more important.
This higher problem consists in preserving, applying,
independently unfolding and elaborating the peculiar gifts

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 271
of the German mind and spirit as well as German theology
and piety, partly for their own wants and partly for the
advancement and modification of the entire process of
development in Anglo-American Christianity and its
Churches. The design is, to transplant the treasures of
German literature, the results of thorough investigation
in the departments of exegesis, church-history, dogmatics
and ethics, which the most distinguished English scholars
are learning to prize more and more, into the fruitful soil
of the Western Hemisphere ; the design is, to impart to
the Anglo-Saxon race and thereby complete it, a spirit of
depth and inwardness, a tendency towards the ideal and
eternal, a disposition to dig and burrow into principles,
an enthusiastic love for truth and knowledge for their
own sake, a will to rank the spiritual far above the
material interests ; in short, that which makes up the
peculiar charisma of the German nation and Church in
their noblest representatives ; finally, the design is, to
deliver the German mind itself from its own one-sidedness,
to enlarge and enrich it by a living appropriation of the
great excellences of the English character, and to fit it
for new achievements in the sphere of science and of life.
The German nationality, in its pure form, bears a
similar relation to the English, as the Old Greek to the
Old Roman. The former is predominantly idealistic and
speculative, the latter realistic and practical ; the former
has the deepest mind, the latter the strongest character ;
the former rules the world in that it fathoms and compre
hends it in thought, the latter in that it subjects it to its

272 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
own will and makes it serve its own ends • the former
labors in the quarry and brings the rough material to
light, the latter builds it up into a stately dwelling-house.
Whilst the Germans, perhaps more than any nation ever
did, prepare thoughts and ideas, which are the real life-
blood of profane and ecclesiastical history — look only at
the Reformation of the sixteenth century, substantially
the work of the German mind 1 — 'the English and the
Americans immediately convert thoughts into resolutions,
and resolutions into deeds. With the one, everything
runs into theory, and indeed so radically, that they are
oftentimes in danger thereby of losing all they aim at' :
with the other, everything runs into practice, and it is
quite possible, that many of the best and worst German
ideas will yet attain in practical America a much greater
importance than in the land of their birth, and first
become flesh and blood on tha other side of the ocean,
like certain plants, which need transplanting to a foreign
soil, in order to boar flowers and fruit.
If America, as many suppose, is to become the theatre
of.the last decisive conflict between faith and infidelity,
between Christ and Antichrist ; of the greatest collision
between the various Christian nations aud confessions
and also of their final reconciliation ; then surely the
earnest and deep thinking of the German mind, especially
through the medium of the English language, which is
already and will always be the ruling language of the
whole Northern part of the Western Continent, has no
insignificant part to play therein.

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 27
At all events, if German science, the German Church
and German piety, have yet a future anywhere in the
world beyond Germany, that future lies in America, a
new, vast, yea, immeasurable field of action. But it does
not consist — for I must protest against a shallow over
rating of our language and nationality — in self-sufficient
exclusiveness, or in hostile opposition to, but in friendly
intercourse and union with the sterling and earnest English
nationality, so nearly allied to ours. For surely God has
brought together these two nations, branches of the same
original Teutonic stock, upon American soil, not for hatred,
but mutual completion and gradual intermingling, so that
as one people they should promote the kingdom of God
and Christian civilization. And since America is spread
ing her net further and further over the globe, and exerts
upon public opinion, especially in Great Britain and Ger
many, a growing influence, the American-German Church,
as soon as it lives to see its blooming-period, as we hope
it will, and produces an Anglo-German literature of its
own, can adapt the treasures of the German mind to the
wants and tastes of the entire English nation, since indeed
all important Anglo-American works are re-printed in
England. Thus, to cite only one example, the fifth edi
tion of Torrey's translation of Neander's Church History
has already appeared in Boston and a double reprint of it
in Edinburgh and London, whilst the German original has
only reached the second. On the other hand, such an
Anglo-American literature would bring the peculiar excel-
12*

274 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
lences of the English and American mind nearer to Ger
many, and thereby arouse even her to renewed activity.
0 amiable enthusiast ! So perhaps many will inwardly
exclaim at this statement of the mission of the German
nation and Church for America and the whole Anglo-
Saxon world. But I know as well as any one, that the
present , condition of the Germans in the United States is
still very far removed from this aim ; yea, partly in flat
contradiction to it. I know it, and would here utter in
sharp tones, that in general it is -not at all calculated to
give the least nourishment to the pride of culture of our
old German Adam, but much rather, to cover it with
deep shame and humiliation. The great mass of the Ger
man emigrants have from the beginning belonged to the
lower and uneducated classes, and, therefore, they are
still far behind the Anglo-American population. But the
so-called educated emigrants, many of whom were floated
over by the unsuccessful revolutions of the years 1848 and
1849, are, alas 1 for the most part, not only estranged,
in a painful degree, from all Christianity and the Church,
but even from all higher morality, and deserve rather to
be called the pioneers of heathenism and a new barbarism
than of civilization. Such persons naturally bring only
reproach and shame upon the German race in the congress
of nations in the New World, and expose it to indigna
tion and horror, or to the pity and contempt of all sob,er
and respectable Americans.
Excuse me from the unpleasant task of giving a minute

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 275
description of this godless German-American pest, as it
shows itself daily in the rudest and most insolent fashion,
especially in so many scurrilous political newspapers and
tippling-houses in all the larger cities of the Union. Only
allow me respectfully to remind you, that the guilt of it
rests on Germany herself, who sends over, or permits to
go, to America, as though it were merely a general house
of correction for all European scamps and vagabonds,
thousands, yea, hundreds of thousands, and among them
a large portion of its very worst and most incorrigible
population, without caring for their spiritual and moral
wants, although they are flesh of her flesh and bone of
her bone. On the night-side of German- American affairs
are seen the fearful consequences of German rationalism
.andinfidehty, of political and ecclesiastical mismanagement
and of that modern philosophy, or rather pseudo-philosophy
and mis-education, which makes fallen man, instead of the
living God, the centre and end of all things ; which ex
changes the Bible-doctrine that man was created in the
image of God, for the blasphemous notion that God is no
more than the likeness of man, and, from the dizzy height
of self-deification sinks down into the abyss of brutality
and devilishness.
Yes, these swarms of emigrants, in their sad state'of
spiritual decay, constitute a powerful call on the German
governments and German nation to tremble and repent.
Would that this misery were recognized as a common sin
and a common guilt I O that it would penetrate our very
bones and marrow ! O that the entire German Church,

276

GERMANY AND AMERICA.

along with the abhorrence of the sin, would at the same
time feel a Saviour's love, which led him to seek and to
save the sinner, and neither slumber nor sleep till her lost
sons and daughters, with penitent hearts, return again
into their father's house from the beggarly husks of vice
and impiety.
Notwithstanding all this, thanks be to God 1 there is
no reason to despair. Paul was not cast down, when
solitary and alone he wandered amid the numberless
temples of the gods in Athens and Corinth, and preached
the Divine foolishness of the cross to light-minded Epicu
reans, self-righteous Stoics and immoral worldlings ; and
God blessed his word with the most abundant success.
The Jews were certainly, in the time of Christ, a dege
nerate race, and yet the Saviour came out of their midst,
and his Apostles, the teachers of all centuries — and the
synagogues of the dispersion of the cities of the Roman
empire formed green oases in the wilderness of Heathen
ism and nuclei for Christian congregations. The Greeks
had long sunk down from their eminence under the iron
arm of the imperial Romans, aud yet their literature edu
cated the latter in humane studies, and the conquered gave
laws to the conquerors.
But not this alone. The circumstances mentioned
present only one aspect of the picture. Besides the many
unworthy representatives of the German race, there are
also in America thousands of our countrymen, who, as
workmen, farmers and merchants, as clergymen and schol
ars, belong to the most useful and esteemed citizens of the

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 277
United States, and a sufficient host also of believing
souls as salt to preserve the mass from corruption. The
German Churches of the Reformation with the Augsburg
Confession, the Lutheran and Heidelberg Catechisms,
and- the rich treasures of the German hymns and litur
gies, have been in existence there for a hundred years,
and everywhere offer to the new immigrant a spiritual
home. It is, of course, impossible to give here a detailed
description of the state of the German-American Churches,
and I can the rather pass on, because I have attempted
to do so in a book of mine, just about leaving the press.
I will only say thus much : The German Evangelical
Churches of the United States are yet in the first chaotic
stages of development, and have to contend with innu
merable troubles and difficulties, inasmuch as they are
deprived of the support of religious. institutions and tradi
tions, which are the growth of ages, and are obliged to
create new regulations, and govern and administer their
own affairs ; because there everything rests on the volun
tary principle, to which the Germans, spoiled by the habit
of receiving maintenance and protection from an estab
hshed church, can only become reconciled by degrees.
But notwithstanding all this, their advance is steady and
even very rapid. Out of their long-continued lethargy
and ignorance, they have awakened at last to self-
consciousness and activity. They have not only doubled
their numbers within the last twenty years, but have also
grown in knowledge, piety aud zeal, and assume already

278 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
no mean position beside their English neighbors, although
certainly in many thiugs still behind the leading denomi
nations. They now possess independent scientific institu
tions of their own, and can thus develope their resources
and multiply their intellectual and ecclesiastical powers
every year. Indeed, they can already point to the begin
nings, even if they be small, of an independent theolo
gical literature and earnest eeclesiastical movements. In
spite of countless discouragements and difficulties, they
present one of the most promising fields of missionary
labor, and have as much prospect of external and internal
growth, as any Anglo-American denomination, or any
established church in Europe. The more they expand
and are built up in piety and true culture, the more will
they exert a determining influence upon the course of
development in the whole American Church ; work in it
like a beneficial leaven, bring honor to the German name,
and become a real blessing to the New World.
But just in proportion to this advancement, the con
sciousness of the greatness and responsibility of their
work and their distance from that, which they should and
might be, increases also ; especially in view of the immi
gration, which every year only enlarges their material
and missionary field, without, at the same time, supplying
the necessary spiritual force for its cultivation. They,
therefore, still louder and louder cause to resound over
the waves of the Atlantic, the Macedonian cry : — " Come
over and help us."

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 279
III. The Duty of the German Evangelical Mother-Church
towards her Daughter in America.
In this great and difficult mission of German Chris
tianity in the New World of freedom and the future, it is
clear that the German mother-church ought to take an
active and joyful part, prompted, if not by the higher
motives of duty, at least by a certain Christian ambition
and her own prospective advantage. I do not speak here
of the native American-German population ; for these
the churches there ought themselves to provide ; but of
the new emigrants, who, like flocks without shepherds,
have left their fatherland, and cannot possibly be cared
for by them ; hence the church in which they were born,
baptized and confirmed, must lose a large portion of them
unless a corresponding number of ministers emigrate along
with the people.
We Protestants, and. especially we Germans, are lack
ing in esprit de corps and a conscious feeling of unity.
The interests of the Church, the Body of Christ, an
thus of Protestantism also, are fundamentally the same
everywhere, and become more and more so in an age,
when the most distant regions of the globe are brought
so near together by means of communication that mock
at time and space. If one member suffers, the others
suffer with it ; if one member rejoices, the others rejoice
with it. England will continue to live in America and
Australia, and from thence rule the world, when St. Paul's
cathedral has long crumbled into ruins and bat a single

280 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
pier of Westminster bridge is left standing as a witness
to the departed glory of the city of Two Millions. And
shall German Christianity not be concerned to have itself
worthily and honorably represented on the chief theatre
of future history in the world and the Church ; to have
its peculiar charisms, its profound ideas, its glorious
hymns, its inwardness and. genial spirit maintained and
made a blessing to the whole Anglo-American people ?
Here, if anywhere, a rich missionary field is opened,
and a favorable opportunity afforded for the erection of
enduring monuments of honor and victory. Aud then,
do we not know, that the giving of aid in the kingdom of
the Spirit is reciprocal, and that every gift, sooner or later,
comes back, directly or indirectly, to the giver, laden
with blessings '! It is known, that the most flourishing
Anglo- American Churches begin already to pay back the
debt of gratitude which they owe to Europe ; that during
the terrible famine of the year 1846, they sent large
supplies to Roman Catholic Ireland, even in spite of
religious differences. Such a time of thankful repayment
will also come for the German Church in America.
Remember, that what you do for her, is done, if not
directly for yourselves, perchance for your own, or your
children's children. For the emigration continues and
will go on, and who knows if it may not yet become a
necessity, yea, a Divine command to the faithful, like the
exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. No one,
who has the interests of Germany at heart, can wish for
such a result ; but Europe rests upon a volcano, which

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 281
can at any moment break out into a new eruption, and
no bayonets, no political wisdom is able to stand security
for the present order of things for the space of two years
to come.
It is true, indeed, that matters are not so desperate in
America, as is sometimes represented, that the German
emigrants, if they fail to carry their own ministers with
them, necessarily fall back into heathenism. On the
contrary, America has become to many the birth-place of
the new life. The Bible, Tract and Home Missionary
societies stretch over the Germans also an arm of love,
and several Anglo-American Churches, especially the
Methodists, have for some years labored among them with
considerable success, and established a fair number of
missionary congregations. We rejoice with the Apostle,
if only Christ is preached. It is infinitely better that the
German emigrants should become pious Methodists, or
Presbyterians, or Baptist Christians, than that they
should sink into indifferentisni and unbelief. But the
praiseworthy zeal of Anglo-American Churches in behalf
of the spiritual welfare of our countrymen, does, of course,
not relieve us from our own duty ; it ought rather to
spur us on to renewed efforts, so that the material, that
justly belongs to us, may be, if possible, retained, and
contribute its part to the accomplishment of the great
work, which directly belongs to the German Evangelical
Church and can be performed adequately by her alone.
Yet, why should I bring further proofs for what is as
clear as the light of the sun, the duty of a faithful mother,

282 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
Who can never forget her own child, but follows it every
where with a heart full of love, sends up to heaven
prayers and supplications for its welfare at all seasons,
and beholds in it the continuation of her own life, her joy
and her crown !
The sense of duty in this matter needs not to be
awakened for the first time. Philanthropic societies in
Germany, actuated by motives purely humane, have
already taken care to provide moral regulations for the
emigrants and safe-guards against extortion and cheatery
of every kind, especially in the sea-ports of both countries.
The need also of ecclesiastical and religious regulations in
behalf of the emigrants, so that they^may become a
blessing to Germany and America, has long been felt, and
for supplying this need, several societies have reared up
ministers and school-teachers for sending out to America,
and thus effected much good. It is, therefore, only
required to render this sense of duty already existing, and
the religious interest felt in the affairs of German emigra
tion, more intense, deep and universal, and provide ways
and means, by which this want may be best met, and
profitable results attained in the surest way.
We see little to hope from grand schemes for founding
colonies of German churches ; for their success is more
than doubtful, because of the divisions that reign both in
Europe and America. It is far better for the Germans
themselves to become amalgamated with the Anglo-
Saxon race, and to coalesce with them into one American
nation, than to be isolated and form a state in the state

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 283
and an ecclesiola in ecclesia. For the p^fcsent we must
be content with doing good to individuals and multiplying
the amount of intellectual and spiritual resources, by
which the cause of the Gospel may be best aided to a
final triumph among the Germans in the United States
Organization in mass, the formation of a church-cosmos
out of the American chaos of sects, we must leave to the
creative activity of God and the progress of events. But
the following can, and ought, to be done by Germany, in
order that the emigration to America, which actually
exists and continually goes on, may be made an honor to
our church and a blessing to the Old and New Worlds.
1. The introduction of a farewell service for emigrants,
in whioh, in the presence of the interceding congregation,
they will be warned by their pastor of the dangers and
temptations of the journey, exhorted to remain true to
the faith of their fathers and their own vows of baptism
and confirmation, and provided with Bibles and other good
books and tracts. Such a service has already been intro
duced in several places in the kingdom of Wurtemberg
and with good effect both for those remaining behind and
those departing, since the heart is peculiarly sensible to
religious impressions in moments of separation.
2. The appointment of missionaries for emigrants in
places of embarkation, especially Bremen, Hamburg, Havre
and Antwerp. There are indeed in all these places
agents for their material interests. Why should there
not also be agents of the Church, whose special duty it
shah be to keep a moral guard over the swarms of emi-

284 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
grants, and labPr among them by all lawful means — by
private conversation, by public preaching in the church,
in the streets and on shipboard, and by the distribu
tion of Bibles, hymn-books, works on practical religion,
and useful directions for new settlers ? The beginnings
of such an enterprise already exist.
3. The sending out of well qualified ministers to those who
have emigrated, and especially, if possible, such as possess,
along with the necessary theological culture, sound evan
gelical and ehurchly principles, energetic -faith, a talent for
popular speaking, practical wisdom and a tact for ruling
well and organizing congregations, but above all a self-
denying missionary zeal. The notion, that what is no
longer fit for Europe may be good enough for America,
is radically wrong. He who is not able to help himself
. here will fail completely yonder, where every man is
thrown upon his individual exertions and measured by his
personal merits ; and if the German Church would
assume an honorable position over against the A-Dglo-
American Churches, and do credit to her mother, she
must be represented by a faithful ministry, well qualified,
theoretically and practically, for their work.
The venerable Orphan House of Halle has won great
credit by having sent out the Fathers of' the American
Lutheran Church, and those for the most part, worthy,
able men of blessed memory, such as Muehlenberg, Kunze
and Helmuth ; and, in our times, special societies have
been formed for this purpose at Langenberg, Bremen,
Stade and Berlin. I am personally acquainted with

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 285
several, who have gone from the Langenberg Society, the
Rough House of Dr. Wichern, the Basel Missionary
Institute and the Swiss Pastoral Aid Society,- and here
cheerfully bear testimony to the fact, that they labor,
amid manifold difficulties, with great success, and have
founded many flourishing congregations. How much
even one man may do for America is seen in the examples
of Pastor Loehe, who, in a certain measure, can be called
the founder of the Old Lutheran Synod of Missouri, and
Pastor Spittler, from whose. Missionary Institute at the
Crischona near Basel a Synod has gone forth for the
Germans in Texas. These Societies might be revived,
strengthened and enlarged, and, if possible, other similar
ones besides established, say in Frankfort, Stuttgart,
Hamburg and Bremen.
The chief difficulty appears to lie in the lack of means,
since enough can scarcely be obtained for the growing
practical wants of Germany herself. But every new
want, if only felt aright, creates also its supply, and the
sending out of missionaries to the heathen-world has done
no injury to our list of candidates ; nay rather, the zeal
for Foreign Missions has awakened new zeal for Inner
Missions, and vice versa. Perhaps, by negotiation with
the German Church Governments, there might be brought
about a temporary transfer of candidates, who, enriched
by an experience of five or ten years in America, could
afterwards return home, and thus, at the same time, form
so many personal links of union between the German
Churches in both hemispheres.

286 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
4. The special training of pious and gifted young men
for the service of the German Church in America, with full
regard to her peculiar circumstances and wants. This
can be done, either by the establishment of a particular
theological school in some seaport, like Bremen or Ham
burg ; or in connection with institutions for foreign
missions, like those of Basel and Barmen ; or finally —
the most simple and practicable method — by founding
and supporting professorships and scholarships in the
American-German Colleges and Theological Seminaries
already existing, which are obliged, for want of funds, to
turn away many indigent applicants. By assistance of
this kind, permanent fountains of life and blessing would
be opened in these institutions, and infinitely more
be done for the great mass, than by the contributions of
single congregations towards the building of a church or
similar local ends, which should rest altogether on local
sympathies and be supported by them.
5. The easiest method to obtain the necessary means
for the various undertakings, especially the latter, would
be by raising a voluntary collection in all the churches
which, of course, would not exclude particular efforts in
certain cases. Such a collection should, however, be
repeated, from time to time, especially in countries where
the emigration is the greatest. The money received might
be distributed by a responsible central committee, partly
to American societies of this kind, which already exist in
various cities of Germany, and partly to the Education
Boards of the Lutheran, German Reformed and United

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 287
Evangelical Churches, in proportion to the numbers of
their students, for the purpose of training up preachers
for the German emigrants in the Eastern sea-ports and in
the Western States. If a church-diet similar to the
German, is formed among these American Churches  a
thing not at all impossible— the whole business can be
carried on by the central committees of these two bodies.
But as matters now stand, it can be accomplished with
no great difficulty, through the trustees of the seminaries
and the presidents of the Synods.
This proposition is not altogether new. The Established
Church of Mecklenburg, by the efforts of Dr. Kliefbth,
sent out some years ago a general collection to the
Lutheran Concord College in St. Louis, and the Evangeli
cal Church of Prussia has done the same this very month,
for the United Evangelical Seminary of Marthasville in
the State of Missouri. These are noble deeds of love,
which will hold an honorable place in the annals of church-
history, and bring down the blessing of God on both
parties. O that the entire Evangelical Church of Germany
would imitate these beautiful examples, rear for herself a
glorious monument of helping love, exhibit to the world a
proof of the unity of the German Protestant churches,
and lay her numberless emigrants, with their children and
children's children, under a perpetual debt of gratitude !
I leave it altogether to the Diet, whether to adopt these
or similar propositions, whose practicability is partly at
least guaranteed by experience, or to hand them over to

288 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
the Central Committee of Inner Mission for closer con
sideration and carrying out in due time.
6. But, finally, it is a matter of great importance, to
bring about a more intimate connection between the German
mother-Church of Europe and her German and Anglo-
German daughter in America, for their mutual strengthen
ing and encouragement in every good work. This can be
best done by an occasional correspondence, introduced by
a letter of fraternal salutation from the Church Diet to
-the German Evangelical Churches of America, as well as
by an occasional exchange of delegates ; and in regard to
the latter, I can promise any representative of the German
Church a most cordial reception from all our American
German Synods.
The greatest misery and the deepest wound of the
Protestant Church, next to the wide-spread apostacy from
living faith, is her dismemberment into so many con
fessions, sects and parties. It is the devil, who sows the
seeds of discord and employs against us so successfully
the cunning policy of divide et impera. These divisions, it
is true, must, in the hand of God, who knows how to
bring good out of evil, contribute to the greater increase
of Christian powers and activities, and will at last, as
negative conditions, lead to the highest unity, just as the
fall of Adam was the occasion of the' resurrection of
Christ. But in spite of this, we must condemn them in
principle, and bewail them as a common sin. Melanchthon,
the " teacher of Germany," esteemed the water of the

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 289
Elbe insufficient, as a stream of tears, to give a complete
expression to his grief over the distractions of the
Evangelical Church. Now, it is very questionable,
whether Protestantism * as such and with its present
resources, has the capacity and the mission, to produce an
external church-organism, possessed of complete unity ;
or whether the Lord himself has not rather reserved this
till his second advent. At all events, however, it is the
sacred duty of Evangelical Protestantism, as the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, as a Church bearing witness
by the pure word and sacraments, as the representative
and guardian of personal Christianity,' of direct living
intercourse between the individual soul and its Saviour,
to pave the way for his glorious second coming, and
promote, in the most zealous manner, the free inward
communion of faith and love, the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace, according to the earnest exhortation ofjhe
Apostle, till the Lord, by a new reformation, or by his
personal appearing in the clouds of heaven, gather his
people from all the ends of the earth and create a body
of such inward unity, that the colossal theocratic organism
of Church and State in the Middle Ages— that fleshly
anticipation of the regnum glorice — and all our boldest
ideals of union and confederation will be thrown far into
the shade. Thus much stands immovably firm, as sure as
Christ is the truth : The day will come, when there will
be but one Shepherd and one flock, when all believers will
be perfectly one, as He and the Father are one.
Do not the signs of the times, the present discoveries
13

290 GERMANY AND AMERICA.
and means of communication, point out typically and pro
phetically, the approaching fulfilment of the precious
promise and intercessory prayer of our Great High Priest ?
Europe and America are brought nearer together every
year in the way of commerce and multifarious intercourse,
and the Atlantic ocean forms now a barrier of separation
scarcely greater than the Alps did formerly between Ger
many and Italy. The more pressing, therefore,' does the
exhortation of the Apostle come to us, to cherish and
promote the commnnion of faith and love in the Lord,
who is the fountain and centre of life to all believers ; the
exhortation, which one of the most noble and pious Ger
mans has so beautifully clothed in poetic language :
Let us so united be,
As Thou with the Father art,
Till no more on earth we see
Sundered members dwell apart,
And alone from thy bright glow
Drink our glory like a star ;
Then the world shall see and know
That we thy disciples are.
With this wish and prayer, I turn back again, from the
dear land for my birth and home of my spirit, to severe
labors for the German' Church in America ; and indeed
in great sadness of heart, but, at the same time, in the
certain expectation of a reunion, if not at a European or
an American church-diet, yet in the general assembly
and Church of the First-Born, amid an innumerable com-

GERMANY AND AMERICA. 291
pany of angels, at the grand festival of reconciliation for
all nations and confessions in the holy city of God on
high, the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother and final home
of us all, I bid you an affectionate, brotherly farewell !

THE END .