"Peace!" replied the great philosopher, "peace of heart you will never find in my lecture room. If you want peace, you must go to that little Moravian Church over the way. That is the place to find peace."[143]
CHAPTER III. — A FALL AND A RECOVERY, 1800-1857.
As the Rationalist movement spread in Germany, it had two distinct effects upon the Brethren. The first was wholesome; the second was morbid. At first it aroused them to a sense of their duty, and made them gallant soldiers of the Cross; and then, towards the close of the eighteenth century, it filled them with a horror of all changes and reforms and of all independence in thought and action. The chief cause of this sad change was the French Revolution. At first sight it may seem that the French Revolution has little to do with our story; and Carlyle does not discuss this part of his subject. But no nation lives to itself; and Robespierre, Mirabeau and Marat shook the civilized world. In England the French Revolution caused a general panic. At first, of course, it produced a few revolutionaries, of the stamp of Tom Paine; but, on the whole, its general effect was to make our politicians afraid of changes, to strengthen the forces of conservatism, and thus to block the path of the social and political reformer. Its effect on the Brethren was similar. As the news of its horrors spread through Europe, good Christian people could not help feeling that all free thought led straight to atheism, and all change to revolution and murder; and, therefore, the leading Brethren in Germany opposed liberty because they were afraid of license, and reform because they were afraid of revolution.
For the long period, therefore of eighteen years, the Moravian Church in Germany remained at a standstill {1800-18.}. At Herrnhut the Brethren met in a General Synod, and there the Conservatives won a signal victory. Already the first shots in the battle had been fired, and already the U.E.C. had taken stern measures. Instead of facing the situation frankly, they first shut their own eyes and then tried to make others as blind as themselves. At this Synod the deputy for Herrnhut was a lawyer named Riegelmann; and, being desirous to do his duty efficiently, he had asked for a copy of the "Synodal Results" of 1764 and 1769. His request was moderate and sensible. No deputy could possibly do his duty unless he knew the existing laws of the Church. But his request was sternly refused. He was informed that no private individual was entitled to a copy of the "Results." Thus, at the opening of the nineteenth century, a false note was struck; and the Synod deliberately prevented honest inquiry. Of the members, all but two were church officials. For all practical purposes the laymen were unrepresented. At the head of the conservative party was Godfrey Cunow. In vain some English ministers requested that the use of the Lot should no longer be enforced in marriages. The arguments of Cunow prevailed. "Our entire constitution demands," he said, "that in our settlements no marriage shall be contracted without the Lot." But the Brethren laid down a still more depressing principle. For some years the older leaders had noticed, with feelings of mingled pain and horror, that revolutionary ideas had found a home even in quiet Moravian settlements; and in order to keep such ideas in check, the Synod now adopted the principle that the true kernel of the Moravian Church consisted, not of all the communicant members, but only of a "Faithful Few." We can hardly call this encouraging. It tempted the "Faithful Few" to be Pharisees, and banned the rest as black sheep. And the Pastoral Letter, drawn up by the Synod, and addressed to all the congregations, was still more disheartening. "It will be better," ran one fatal sentence, "for us to decrease in numbers and increase in piety than to be a large multitude, like a body without a spirit." We call easily see what such a sentence means. It means that the Brethren were afraid of new ideas, and resolved to stifle them in their birth.
The new policy produced strange results. At the Theological Seminary in Niesky the professors found themselves in a strange position. If they taught the old theology of Spangenberg, they would be untrue to their convictions; if they taught their convictions, they would be untrue to the Church; and, therefore, they solved the problem by teaching no theology at all. Instead of lecturing on the Bible, they lectured now on philosophy; instead of expounding the teaching of Christ and His Apostles, they expounded the teaching of Kant, Fichte and Jacobi; and when the students became ministers, they had little but philosophy to offer the people. For ordinary people philosophy is as tasteless as the white of an egg. As the preachers spoke far above the heads of the people, they soon lost touch with their flocks; the hungry sheep looked up, and were not fed; the sermons were tinkling brass and clanging cymbal; and the ministers, instead of attending to their pastoral duties, were hidden away in their studies in clouds of philosophical and theological smoke, and employed their time composing discourses, which neither they nor the people could understand. Thus the shepherds lived in one world, and the wandering sheep in another; and thus the bond of sympathy between pastor and people was broken. For this reason the Moravian Church in Germany began now to show signs of decay in moral and spiritual power; and the only encouraging signs of progress were the establishment of the new settlement of Königsfeld in the Black Forest, the Diaspora work in the Baltic Provinces, officially recognized by the Czar, the growth of the boarding-schools, and the extension of foreign missions. In the boarding-schools the Brethren were at their best. At most of them the pupils were prepared for confirmation, and the children of Catholics were admitted. But the life in the congregations was at a low ebb. No longer were the Brethren's Houses homes of Christian fellowship; they were now little better than lodging-houses, and the young men had become sleepy, frivolous, and even in some cases licentious. For a short time the U.E.C. tried to remedy this evil by enforcing stricter rules; and when this vain proceeding failed, they thought of abolishing Brethren's Houses altogether. At the services in Church the Bible was little read, and the people were content to feed their souls on the Hymn-book and the Catechism. The Diacony managers were slothful in business, and the Diaconies ceased to pay. The subscriptions to central funds dwindled. The fine property at Barby was abandoned. The Diaspora work was curtailed.
Another cause of decay was the growing use of the Lot. For that growth the obvious reason was that, when the Brethren saw men adrift on every side, they felt that they themselves must have an anchor that would hold. It was even used in the boarding-schools. No pupil could be admitted to a school unless his application had been confirmed by the Lot.[144] No man could be a member of a Conference, no election was valid, no law was carried, no important business step was taken, without the consent of the Lot. For example, it was by the decision of the Lot that the Brethren abandoned their cause at Barby; and thus, afraid of intellectual progress, they submitted affairs of importance to an external artificial authority. Again and again the U.E.C. desired to summon a Synod; and again and again the Lot rejected the proposal.
Meanwhile another destructive force was working. Napoleon Buonaparte was scouring Europe, and the German settlements were constantly invaded by soldiers. At Barby, Generals Murat and Bernadotte were lodged in the castle, and entertained by the Warden. At Gnadau the French made the chapel their headquarters, killed and ate the live stock, ransacked the kitchens and cellars, cleared out the stores, and made barricades of the casks, wheelbarrows and carts. At Neudietendorf the Prussians lay like locusts. At Ebersdorf, Napoleon lodged in the Brethren's House, and quartered twenty or thirty of his men in every private dwelling. At Kleinwelke, where Napoleon settled with the whole staff of the Grand Army, the Single Sisters had to nurse two thousand wounded warriors; and the pupils in the boarding-school had to be removed to Uhyst. At Gnadenberg the settlement was almost ruined. The furniture was smashed, the beds were cut up, the tools of the tradesmen were spoiled, and the soldiers took possession of the Sisters' House. But Napoleon afterwards visited the settlement, declared that he knew the Brethren to be a quiet and peaceable people, and promised to protect them in future. He did not, however, offer them any compensation; his promise of protection was not fulfilled; and a few months later his own soldiers gutted the place again. At Herrnhut, on one occasion, when the French were there, the chapel was illuminated, and a service was held to celebrate Napoleon's birthday; and then a little later Blücher arrived on the scene, and summoned the people to give thanks to God for a victory over the French. At Niesky the whole settlement became a general infirmary. Amid scenes such as this Church progress was impossible. The cost in money was enormous. At Herrnhut alone the levies amounted to £3,000; to this must be added the destruction of property and the feeding of thousands of troops of both sides; and thus the Brethren's expenses were increased by many thousands of pounds.
At length, however, at Waterloo Napoleon met his conqueror; the great criminal was captured and sent to St. Helena; and then, while he was playing chess and grumbling at the weather, the Brethren met again at Herrnhut in another General Synod {1818.}. At this Synod some curious regulations were made. For the purpose of cultivating personal holiness, Bishop Cunow proposed that henceforward the members of the Moravian Church should be divided into two classes. In the first class he placed the ordinary members—i.e., those who had been confirmed or who had been received from other Churches; and all belonging to this class were allowed to attend Communion once a quarter. His second class was a sacred "Inner Circle." It consisted of those, and only those, who made a special religious profession. No one could be admitted to this "Inner Circle" without the sanction of the Lot; and none but those belonging to the "Circle" could be members of the Congregation Council or Committee. All members belonging to this class attended the Communion once a month. For a wonder this strange resolution was carried, and remained in force for seven years; and at bottom its ruling principle was that only those elected by the Lot had any real share in Church government. But the question of the Lot was still causing trouble. Again there came a request from abroad—this time from America—that it should no longer be enforced in marriages. For seven years the question was keenly debated, and the radicals had to fight very hard for victory. First the Synod passed a resolution that the Lot need not be used for marriages except in the regular settlements; then the members in the settlements grumbled, and were granted the same privilege (1819), and only ministers and missionaries were compelled to marry by Lot; then the ministers begged for liberty, and received the same privilege as the laymen (1825); and, finally, the missionaries found release (1836), and thus the enforced use of the Lot in marriages passed out of Moravian history.
But the Brethren had better work on hand than to tinker with their constitution. At the root of their troubles had been the neglect of the Bible. In order, therefore, to restore the Bible to its proper position in Church esteem, the Brethren now established the Theological College at Gnadenfeld (1818). There John Plitt took the training of the students in hand; there systematic lectures were given on Exegesis, Dogmatics, Old Testament Introduction, Church History, and Brethren's History; there, in a word, John Plitt succeeded in training a band of ministers who combined a love for the Bible with love for the Brethren's Church. At the same time, the Synod appointed an "Educational Department" in the U.E.C.; the boarding-schools were now more efficiently managed; and the number of pupils ran up to thirteen hundred.