There is another small Protestant sect, which likewise originated in Germany; this is the sect of Mennonites. As is well known, they combine the Baptist refusal of infant baptism with the principle of non-resistance. They came from Germany to Pennsylvania at the end of the seventeenth century in order to escape persecution, and were there known as the German Friends. Their little band has the honour of having registered, in 1688, the first protest against American slavery. Their numbers have since been augmented from Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia, and to-day the largest part of the Mennonites is said to be in America—in spite of which they number hardly more than 150,000 persons.
In many respects the Quakers may be compared with the Mennonites. The Quaker Church was founded in the middle of the seventeenth century by an Englishman, John Fox, and spread to America as early as 1656, where it now numbers, perhaps, 400,000 persons, living chiefly in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Quakers lay great emphasis on silence, and even in their meetings they observe long pauses, in which each member communes with the Holy Spirit. The sins for which a Quaker may be excommunicated from his church are the denial of the divinity of Christ or of the divine origin of the Bible, enlistment in the army, encouragement of war, trading in alcohol, drunkenness, blasphemy, making wagers, participation in lotteries, giving an oath in court, and requiring an oath. They dress in black or grey, and are known for their mild, gentle, and yielding characters.
The Roman Catholic Church in America is little different from the Church in Europe. It has grown rapidly in the nineteenth century, owing to the tremendous numbers of Irish, South German, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish immigrants. Catholic missionaries, it is true, were the first Christian ministers in the New World. They accompanied the Spanish expeditions, and their first bishop landed in 1528. Maryland was the chief English colony of Catholics, while most of the other colonies were very intolerant of the Romish Church. In 1700 New York, which has to-day a half million Catholics, is said to have had only seven Catholic families; and even in 1800 the Catholic population of the whole United States was estimated at less than 150,000. In 1840 they had increased tenfold, and number to-day probably ten millions, with sixteen archbishops and a cardinal. The Catholic centres, in the order of the size of congregations, are, New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Paul, New Orleans, Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, Newark, Providence, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee.
The Jews, who are said to have first come from Brazil in 1654, have likewise increased rapidly in recent years, owing to the extraordinary immigration from the East of Europe. They must number to-day about a million people, and if the latest estimates are correct, nearly one-half of these have not gone farther than New York City, which would therefore have a larger Jewish population than any other city in the world. The larger part of these people are Russian Jews, who live together in great poverty and are very little Americanized. The division made by the census into Orthodox and Reformed Jews does not represent two sects, but merely a manner of grouping, since the congregations present a very gradual transition from rigid Asiatic orthodoxy to a reform so complete as to be hardly Jewish at all, and in which the rabbis are merely lecturers on “ethical culture.”
Many other churches might be mentioned, such as the widely spread sect of Disciples of Christ, which originated in America, or the Moravians, Dunkards, and others which have come from Europe. But it will be enough here to speak of only a few specially typical sects that have been manufactured in America. The profane expression is in place, since they are all artificially devised organizations, whose founders have often been thought dishonest; such are the Adventists, the Mormons, the Spiritualists, and the Christian Scientists. The Adventists were gathered in by William Miller, of Massachusetts, who in the year 1831 calculated from figures which he found in the Bible that Christ would appear again on earth in the year 1843. This prophecy caused a great many small congregations to spring up, and when the momentous year came and brought disillusionment, and even after a second similar disappointment at a later year, these congregations did not break up, but contented themselves with the less risky prediction that Christ would make His appearance soon. There are Adventists in all the states, and especially in Michigan. They have broken up into smaller sects, of which a few are always making new computations for the coming of Christ. In all, they amount to about two hundred thousand people.
More famous, or perhaps more notorious, are the Mormons. Their first prophet, Joseph Smith, began in 1823, when he was eighteen years of age, to have dreams in which he was intrusted with a religious mission. Four years later, with the help of certain persons of his dreams, he “discovered” the Book of Mormon—a set of metal tablets on which the history of America was written in “reformed Egyptian” characters. The first American colony had been organized, according to the Book of Mormon, by a race of people which had helped to build the Tower of Babel, and which in 600 B.C. had settled in South America. The American Indians, the book says, descend from this race; and Christ also, it says, was for a time in America. Finally, an angel came who appointed Smith and a friend of his as priests, and they then began the regular formation of a church. Miracles were rumoured; missionaries were sent out and congregations formed in several states, even before polygamy was ordained. In 1843 Smith received the inspired message which proclaimed the new ordinance of “heavenly marriage.” In the following year Smith was murdered, and his successor, Brigham Young, when hostile demonstrations became frequent, led the group of believers on a bold expedition into what was at that time the almost impassable West—to Utah, on the Great Salt Lake.
The settlement grew, and under its rigorously theocratic government made remarkable economic progress. A large garden was planted in the wilderness, and Salt Lake City is to-day a large, modern town on the railroad line to California, and the Mormons compose only half its population. But they alone and under terrific difficulties carried civilization across the prairies, and as a token of their industry the largest church in America stands there, the Mormon Temple, which they built by forty years of labour, exactly according to the plans which Young saw in a vision. While people are readily admitted to the curious hall of prayer, no strangers are allowed to enter the Temple. Polygamy was introduced, undoubtedly, from no immoral motives, but from the religious belief that an unmarried woman will not go to heaven. Economic motives may have helped the matter along, since the priests permitted new marriages only when the contracting parties had sufficient means to support several families, and so used the satisfaction of polygamous instincts as a reward for unusual economic industry.
The stern morality of the American people has always looked on the Mormon tribe as a thorn in the flesh, and yet it was difficult for a long time for the federal government to suppress the abuse. Serious opposition began in the early eighties with the passing of special laws; thousands of Mormons were put in prison, and millions of dollars were paid in fines. The Mormons fought with every legal means, but were repudiated by the Supreme Court, and finally gave in. In the year 1890 their president, Woodruff, published an ordinance forbidding new polygamous marriages. This has not prevented the Mormons from holding polygamy sacred, and they have abandoned it only on compulsion. The marriages which were solemnized before 1890 are still in force. Such polygamous families do not impress a stranger unfavourably, since, in spite of its complexity, their family life appears to be a happy one. From Utah the sect has spread to Idaho and other Western States, and embraces now perhaps half a million people.
There have been some other curious religious congregations with unusual marriage ordinances. For instance, the Oneida Community has had an apparently most immoral form of cohabitation. It is here a question not so much of religion as of a communistic and economic experiment. Such experiments are, for the most part, short-lived and flourish secretly. Celibacy is practised by fifteen communities of Shakers, who live in a communistic way. They broke away from the Quakers at the end of the eighteenth century, and have unique religious ideas. God, and, therefore, every human soul, is thought to be a double principle, both male and female. The male principle was revealed in Christ, the female in an English woman, Anne Lee, a Quakeress whose visions during imprisonment occasioned the formation of this sect.
The Shakers were so called because they are “shaken” by religious fervour; and the lower classes of the American populace are uncommonly predisposed to this ecstatic and hysterical religious excitement. General revivals, great camp-meetings, and hysterical and tumultuous meetings of prayer, with theatrical conversions and divine illuminations, have always played a prominent role in America. Thus at the end of the fifties, after a time of declining piety, a wave of religious conversion swept over the country, having all the appearance of a nervous epidemic. The doings of the rapidly growing Salvation Army also often have a somewhat neurotic character.