§ 171.11. The German National Literature.—When the powerful strain of the evangelical church hymn had well-nigh expired in the feeble lispings of Gellert’s sacred poetry, Klopstock began to chant the praises of the Messiah in a higher strain. But the pathos of his odes met with no response, and his “Messiah,” of which the first three cantos appeared in A.D. 1748, though received with unexampled enthusiasm, could do nothing to exorcise the spirit of unbelief, and was more praised than read. The theological standpoint of Lessing, A.D. 1729-1781, is set forth in one of his letters to his brother. “I despise the orthodox even more than you do, only I despise the clergy of the new style even more. What is the new-fashioned theology of those shallow pates compared with orthodoxy but as dung-water compared with dirty water? On this point we are at one, that our old religious system is false; but I cannot say with you that it is a patchwork of bunglers and half philosophers. I know nothing in the world upon which human ingenuity has been more subtly exercised than upon it. That religious system which is now offered in place of the old is a patchwork of bunglers and half philosophers.” He is offended at men hanging the concerns of eternity on the spider’s thread of external evidences, and so he was delighted to hurl the Wolfenbüttel “Fragments” at the heads of theologians and the Hamburg pastor Goeze, whom he loaded with contumely and scorn. Thoroughly characteristic too is the saying in the “Duplik:” That if God holding in his right hand all truth, and in his left hand the search after truth, subject to error through all eternity, were to offer him his choice, he would humbly say, “Father the left, for pure truth is indeed for thee alone.” In his “Nathan” only Judaism and Mohammedanism are represented by truly noble and ideal characters, while the chief representative of Christianity is a gloomy zealot, and the conclusion of the parable is that all three rings are counterfeit. In another work he views revelation as one of the stages in “The Education of the Human Race,” which loses its significance as soon as its purpose is served.In familiar conversation with Jacobi he frankly declared his acceptance of the doctrine of Spinoza: Ἓν καὶ πᾶν.[522] Wieland, A.D. 1733-1813, soon turned from his youthful zeal for ecclesiastical orthodoxy to the popular philosophy of the cultured man of the world. Herder, A.D. 1744-1803, with his enthusiastic appreciation of the poetical contents of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, was not slow to point out the insipidity of its ordinary treatment. Goethe, A.D. 1749-1832, profoundly hated the vandalism of neology, delighted in “The Confessions of a Fair Soul” (§ [172, 2]), had in earlier years sympathy with the Herrnhuters, but in the full intellectual vigour of his manhood thought he had no need of Christianity, which offended him by its demand for renunciation of self and the world. Schiller, A.D. 1759-1805, enthusiastically admiring everything noble, beautiful and good, misunderstood Christianity, and introduced into the hearts of the German people Kantian rationalism clothed in rich poetic garb. His lament on the downfall of the gods of Greece, even if not so intended by the poet himself, told not so much against orthodox Christianity as against poverty-stricken deism, which banished the God of Christianity from the world and set in his place the dead forces of nature. And if indeed he really thought that for religion’s sake he should confess to no religion, he has certainly in many profoundly Christian utterances given unconscious testimony to Christianity.—The Jacobi philosophy of feeling found poetic interpreters in Jean Paul Richter, A.D. 1763-1825, and Hebel, died A.D. 1826, in whom we find the same combination of pious sentiment which is drawn toward Christianity and the sceptical understanding which allied itself to the revolt against the common orthodoxy. J. H. Voss, a rough, powerful Dutch peasant, who in his “Luise” sketched the ideal of a brave rationalistic country parson, and, with the inexorable rigour of an inquisitor, hunted down the night birds of ignorance and oppression. But alongside of those children of the world stood two genuine sons of Luther, Matthias Claudius, A.D. 1740-1815, and J. G. Hamann, A.D. 1730-1788, the “Magus of the North” and the Elijah of his age, of whom Jean Paul said that his commas were planetary systems and his periods solar systems, to whom the philosopher Hemsterhuis erected in the garden of Princess Gallitzin a tablet with the inscription: “To the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness.” With them may also be named two noble sons of the Reformed church, the physiognomist Lavater, A.D. 1741-1801, and the devout dreamer, Jung-Stilling, A.D. 1740-1817. The famous historian, John von Müller, A.D. 1752-1809, well deserves mention here, who more than any previous historian made Christ the centre and summit of all times; and also the no less famous statesman C. F. von Moser, the most German of the Germans of this century, who, with noble Christian heroism, in numerous political and patriotic tracts, battled against the prevailing social and political vices of his age.
§ 171.12. The great Swiss educationist Pestalozzi, A.D. 1746-1827, assumed toward the Bible, the church, and Christianity an attitude similar to that of the philosopher of Königsberg. The conviction of the necessity and wholesomeness of a biblical foundation in all popular education was rooted in his heart, and he clearly saw the shallowness of the popular philosophy, whether presented under the eccentric naturalism of Rousseau or the bald utilitarianism of Basedow. His whole life issued from the very sanctuary of true Christianity, as seen in his self-sacrificing efforts to save the lost, to strengthen the weak, and to preach to the poor by word and deed the gospel of the all-merciful God whose will it is that all should be saved. He began his career as an educationist in A.D. 1775 by receiving into his house deserted beggar children, and carried on his experiments in his educational institutions at Burgdorf till A.D. 1798, and at Isserten till A.D. 1804.His writings, which circulated far and wide, gained for his methods recognition and high approval.[523]
§ 172. Church Life in the Period of the “Illumination.”
The ancient faith of the church had even during this age of prevailing unbelief its seven thousand who refused to bow the knee to Baal. The German people were at heart firmly grounded in the Christianity of the Bible and the church, and where the pulpit failed had their spiritual wants supplied by the devout writings of earlier days. Where the modern vandalism of the “Illumination” had mutilated and watered down the books of praise, the old church songs lingered in the memories of fathers and mothers, and were sung with ardour at family worship. For many men of culture, who were more exposed to danger, the Society of the Brethren afforded a welcome refuge. But even among the most accomplished of the nation many stood firmly in the old paths. Lavater and Stilling, Haller and Euler, the two Mosers, father and son, John von Müller and his brother J. G. Müller, are not by any means the only, but merely the best known, of such true sons of the church. In Württemberg and Berg, where religious life was most vigorous, religious sects were formed with new theological views which made a deep impression on the character and habits of the people. Also toward the end of the century an awakened zeal in home and foreign missions was the prelude of the glorious enterprises of our own days.
§ 172.1. The Hymnbook and Church Music.—Klopstock, followed by Cramer and Schlegel, introduced the vandalism of altering the old church hymns to suit modern tastes and views. But a few, like Herder and Schubert, raised their voices against such philistinism. The “Illuminist” alterations were unutterably prosaic, and the old pathos and poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth century hymns were ruthlessly sacrificed. The spiritual songs of the noble and pious Gellert are by far the best productions of this period.—Church Music too now reached its lowest ebb. The old chorales were altered into modern forms. A multitude of new, unpopular melodies, difficult of comprehension, with a bald school tone, were introduced; the last trace of the old rhythm disappeared, and a weary monotony began to prevail, in which all force and freshness were lost. As a substitute, secular preludes, interludes, and concluding pieces were brought in. The people often entered the churches during the playing of operatic overtures, and were dismissed amid the noise of a march or waltz. The church ceased to be the patron and promoter of music; the theatre and concert room took its place. The opera style thoroughly depraved the oratorio. For festival occasions, cantatas in a purely secular, effeminate style were composed. A true ecclesiastical music no longer existed, so that even Winterfeld closed his history of church music with Seb. Bach. It was, if possible, still worse with the mass music of the Roman Catholic church. Palestrina’s earnest and capable school was completely lost sight of under the sprightly and frivolous opera style, and with the organ still more mischief was done than in the Protestant church.
§ 172.2. Religious Characters.—The pastor of Ban de la Roche in Steinthal of Alsace, “the saint of the Protestant church,” J. Fr. Oberlin, A.D. 1740-1826, deserves a high place of honour. During a sixty years’ pastorate “Father Oberlin” raised his poverty-stricken flock to a position of industrial prosperity, and changed the barren Steinthal into a patriarchal paradise. The same may be said of a noble Christian woman of that age, Sus. Cath. von Klettenberg, Lavater’s “Cordata,” Goethe’s “Fair Soul,” whose genuine confessions are wrought into “Wilhelm Meister,” the centre of a beautiful Christian circle in Frankfort, where the young Goethe received religious impressions that were never wholly forgotten.—Community of religious yearnings brought together pious Protestants and pious Catholics. The Princess von Gallitzin, her chaplain Overberg, and minister Von Fürstenberg formed a noble group of earnest Catholics, for whom the ardent Lutheran Hamann entertained the warmest affection.
§ 172.3. Religious Sects.—In Württemberg there arose out of the pietism of Spener, with a dash of the theosophy of Oetinger, the party of the Michelians, so named from a layman, Michael Hahn, whose writings show profound insight into the truths of the gospel. He taught the doctrine of a double fall, in consequence of which he depreciated though he did not forbid marriage; of a restitution of all things; while he subordinated justification to sanctification, the Christ for us to the Christ in us, etc. As a reaction against this extreme arose the Pregizerians, who laid exclusive stress upon baptism and justification, declared assurance and heart-breaking penitence unnecessary, and imparted to their services as much brightness and joy as possible. Both sects spread over Württemberg and still exist, but in their common opposition to the destructive tendencies of modern times, they have drawn more closely together. In their chiliasm and restitutionism they are thoroughly agreed.—The Collenbuschians in Canton Berg propounded a dogmatic system in which Christ empties Himself of His divine attributes, and assumes with sinful flesh the tendencies to sin that had to be fought against, the sufferings of Christ are attributed to the wrath of Satan, and His redemption consists in His overcoming Satan’s wrath for us and imparting His Spirit to enable us to do works of holiness. The most distinguished adherents of Collenbusch were the two Hasencamps and the talented Bremen pastor Menken.
§ 172.4. The Rationalistic “Illumination” outside of Germany.—In Amsterdam, in A.D. 1791, a Restored Lutheran Church or Old Light was organized on the occasion of the intrusion of a rationalistic pastor. It now numbers eight Dutch congregations with 14,000 adherents and 11 pastors. Under the name of Christo Sacrum some members of the French Reformed church at Delft, in A.D. 1797, founded a denomination which received adherents of all confessions, holding by the divinity of Christ and His atonement, and treating all confessional differences as non-essential and to be held only as private opinions. In their public services they adopted mainly the forms of the Anglican episcopal church. Though successful at first, it soon became rent by the incongruity of its elements. In England the dissenters and Methodists provided a healthy protest against the lukewarmness of the State church. In William Cowper, A.D. 1731-1800, we have a noble and brilliant poet of high lyrical genius, whose life was blasted by the terrorism of a predestinarian doctrine of despair and the religious melancholy produced by Methodistic agonies of soul.
§ 172.5. Missionary Societies and Missionary Enterprise.—In order to arouse interest in the idea of a grand union for practical Christian purposes, the Augsburg elder, John Urlsperger, travelled through England, Holland, and Germany. The Basel Society for Spreading Christian Truth, founded in A.D. 1780, was the firstfruits of his zeal, and branches were soon established throughout Switzerland and Southern Germany. The Basel Bible Society was founded in A.D. 1804, and the Missionary Society in A.D. 1816.—At a meeting of English Baptist preachers at Kettering, in Northamptonshire, in A.D. 1792, William Carey was the means of starting the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey was himself its first missionary. He sailed for India in A.D. 1793, and founded the Serampore Mission in Bengal. The work of the society has now spread over the East and West Indies, the Malay Archipelago, South Africa, and South America. A popular preacher, Melville Horne, who had been himself in India, published “Letters on Missions,” in A.D. 1794, in which he earnestly counselled a union of all true Christians for the conversion of the heathen. In response to this appeal a large number of Christians of all denominations, mostly Independents, founded in A.D. 1795, the London Missionary Society, and in the following year the first missionary ship, The Duff, under Captain Wilson, sailed for the South Seas with twenty-nine missionaries on board. Its operations now extend to both Indies, South Africa, and North America; but its chief hold is in the South Seas. In the Society Islands the missionaries wrought for sixteen years without any apparent result, till at last King Pomare II. of Tahiti sought baptism as the first-fruits of their labours. A victory gained over a pagan reactionary party in A.D. 1815 secured complete ascendency to Christianity. The example of the London Society was followed by the founding of two Scottish societies in A.D. 1796 and a Dutch society in A.D. 1797, and the Church Missionary Society in London in A.D. 1799, for the English possessions in Africa, Asia, etc.The Danish Lutheran (§ [167, 9]) and the Herrnhut (§ [168, 11]) societies still continued their operations.[524]—Continuation, §§ [183], [184].