§ 174.3. The Sciences.—Schelling’s profound theories were of all the more significance from their not being restricted to the philosophical strivings of his time, but inspiring the other sciences with the breath of a new life. To the fullest extent the natural sciences exposed themselves to this influence. There was not wanting indeed a certain shadowy mysticism, to which especially the fancies of mesmeric magnetism largely contributed; but this fog gradually cleared away, and the Christian elements were purified from their pantheistic surroundings. Steffens and Von Schubert taught that the divine book of nature is to be regarded as the reflex and expansion of the divine revelation in Scripture. The Hegelian philosophy, too, seemed at first likely to infuse a Christian spirit into the other sciences. In Göschel, at least, there was a thinker who imparted to jurisprudence a Christian character, and to Christianity a juristic construction. In other respects Hegel’s philosophy in its application to the other departments of science gave in many ways a predominance to an abstruse dialectic tendency. Its adherents of the extreme left sought to construct all sciences a priori from the pure idea, and at the same time to root out from them the last vestiges of the Christian spirit.
The greatest names in natural science, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Haller, Davy, Cuvier, etc., are household words in Christian circles. All these and many more were firmly convinced that there was no conflict between their most brilliant discoveries and Christian truth. In A.D. 1825 the Earl of Bridgwater founded a lectureship, and treatises on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation, have been written by Buckland, Chalmers, Whewell, Bell, etc. It was otherwise in Germany. Even Schleiermacher, in his “Letters to Lücke,” in A.D. 1829, expressed his fears of the prophesied overthrow of all Christian theories of the world by the incontrovertible results of physical research, and Bretschneider in his “Letters to a Statesman,” in A.D. 1830, proclaimed to the world without regret that already what Schleiermacher only feared had actually come to pass. Physicists, awakening from the glamour of the Schelling nature philosophy, pronounced all speculation contraband, and declared pure empiricism, the simple investigation of actual things, the only permissible object of their labour. And although they handed over to theologians and philosophers questions about spirit in and over nature, as not belonging to their province, a younger generation maintained that spirit was non-existent, because it could not be discovered by the microscope and dissecting knife. Carl Vogt defined thought to be a secretion of the brain, and Moleschott regarded life as a mere mode of matter and man’s existence after life only as the manuring of the fields. Feuerbach proclaimed that “man is what he eats,” and Buchner [Büchner] popularized these views into a gospel for social democrats and nihilists. Oersted, the famous discoverer of electro-magnetism, had sought “the spirit in nature,” but the spirit which he found was not that of the Bible and the church. The grandmaster of German scientific research, Alex. von Humboldt, saw in the world a cosmos of noble harmony as a whole and in its parts, but of Christian ideas in God’s great book of nature he finds no trace. In A.D. 1859 the great English naturalist Darwin, died A.D. 1882, introduced into the arena the theory of “Natural Selection,” by means of which the modification and development of the few primary animal forms through the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest by sexual selection is supposed, in millions, perhaps milliards, of years, to have brought forth the present variety and manifoldness of animal species. Multitudes of naturalists now accept his theory of the descent of men and apes from a common stem.—In Medicine De Valenti on the Protestant side, with pietistic earnestness, maintains that Christian faith is a vehicle of healing power; while a circle in Munich on the Catholic side make worship of saints and the host a conditio sine qua non of all medicine. A more moderate attitude is assumed by the Roman Catholic Dr. Capellmann of Aachen, in his “Pastoral Medicine.”
§ 174.4. Of Christian Jurists we have, on the Protestant side, Stahl, Savigny, Puchta, Jacobson, Richter, Meier, Scheuerl, Hinschius, etc.; and on the Catholic side, Walther, Philipps, etc. Among Historians, the greatest in modern times is Leopold von Ranke, who, with his disciples, occupies a thoroughly Christian standpoint. There has appeared, however, on the part of many Protestant historians, such as Voigt, Leo, Mentzel, Vorreiter, Hurter, Gfroerer [Gfrörer], etc., a tendency in the most conspicuous manner to recognise and admire the brilliant phenomena of mediæval Catholicism, even going to the length of renouncing the vital principles of Protestantism, and glorifying a Boniface, a Gregory VII., and an Innocent III., and characterizing the Reformation as a revolution. Ultramontanes have been only too ready to turn to their own use all such concessions, but show no inclination to make similar admissions damaging to their side, so that with them history consists rather in the abuse of everything Protestant as vile and perfidious, instead of being a record of independent research. Janssen [Jansen] of Frankfort stands out prominently above the billows of the “Kulturkampf” (§ [197]), as the greatest master of this ultramontane style of history making.—Geography, first raised to the rank of a science by Carl Ritter, received from its great founder a Christian impress and owes much of its development to the researches of Christian missionaries. Finally, Philology, in the hands of Creuzer, Görres, Sepp, etc., unfolds in a Christian spirit the religion and mythology of classical paganism; and in the hands of Nägelsbach and Lübker expounds the religious life of the ancient world in relation to Christian truth.
§ 174.5. National Literature (§ [171, 11]).—To some extent Goethe, but much more decidedly the romantic school of poets, was attached to Schelling’s philosophy of nature. The romanticists developed a deep religiousness of feeling, as shown in Novalis and La Motte Fouqué, and violent opposition to rationalistic theology as shown in Tieck, which in the case of Fr. Schlegel ran to the other extreme of moral frivolity as seen in his “Lucinde.” The romantic school as thus represented by Schlegel was joined by the party of Young Germany with its gospel of the rehabilitation of the flesh. Its mouthpiece was the gifted poet Heine. The pantheistic deification of nature by Schelling, and the self-deification of the Hegelian school obtained poetic expression in Leop. Schafer’s Laienbrevier und Weltpriester, as well as in Sallet’s Laienevangelium; while the sympathies of the young Hegelians with the revolutionary movements gained utterance in the poems of Herwegh, and in a more serious tone in those of Freiligrath. More recently the views of the Protestantenverein (§ [180]) have found their poetical representative in Nic. Eichhorn, whose “Jesus of Nazareth,” a tragical drama, 1880, deals with the life, works, and sufferings of the “historical Christ,” after the style of free Protestant science, with rich psychological analysis of the character in a brilliant imaginative production. Though composed with a view to theatrical representation, it has never yet been put on the stage.
§ 174.6. The Christian element was present in the noble patriotic songs of E. M. Arndt[525] and Max. von Schenkendorf much more distinctly than in the romantic school. Enthusiasm in the struggle for freedom awakened faith in the living God. Uhland’s lovely lyrics, with their enthusiasm for the present interests of the Fatherland, entitle him to rank among patriotic poets, and their brilliant and profound rendering of the old German legends places him in the romantic school, which, however, in clearness and depth he leaves far behind. Without being a distinctively Christian poet, his warm sympathy with the life of the German people gives him a genuine interest in the Christian religion. The same may be said of Rückert’s highly finished poems, which transplanted the fragrant flowers of oriental sensuousness and contemplativeness into the garden of German poetry. A more decided Christian consecration of poetic genius is seen in the noble and beautiful lyrics of Emanuel Geibel, died 1884, the greatest and most Christian of the secular poets of the present. Of those ordinarily ranked as sacred poets may be named Knapp, Döring, Spitta, Garve, Vict. Strauss, etc., who for the most part contributed their sacred songs to Knapp’s “Christoterpe” (1833-1853). A later publication of equal merit, called the “Neue Christoterpe,” has been edited since 1880 by Kögel, Baur, and Frommel. But with all the Christian depth and spirituality, freshness and warmth, which we meet with in the productions of these Christian poets, none of them has been able to rise to the noble simplicity, power, popular force, and fitting them for church use, objectivity which are present in the old evangelical church hymns. In this respect they all bear too conspicuously the signature of their age, with its subjective tone and the noise and turmoil of present conflicts. Of all modern poets, Rückert alone approaches in his advent hymn the measure and spirit of the old church song.—In the department of novels and romance there has been shown an almost invariable hostility toward Christianity, religion being either entirely avoided or held up to contempt by having as its representatives, simpletons, hypocrites, or knaves.
§ 174.7. In France, Chateaubriand in his “Genie du Christianisme” pronounces an eloquent eulogy on the half-pagan Christianity of the Middle Ages. In another work he makes the representatives of heathenism in the age of Constantine act like Homeric heroes, and those of Christianity speak “like theologians of the age of Bossuet.” Lamartine may be described as a Christian romanticist. Victor Hugo, Balzac, George Sand, Sue, Dumas, etc., influenced by the Revolution, developed an antichristian tendency; while naked naturalism, photographic realism in depicting the lowest side of Parisian life, especially adultery and prostitution, is represented by Flaubert, Daudet, De Goncourt, Zola, etc.—In Italy, the amiable Manzoni gave noble expression to Christian feeling in his “Inni Sacri,” and in his masterly romance “Promessi Sposi;” and the famous poet Silvio Pellico, in his “La mia Prigioni,” affords a noble example of the sustaining power of true religion during ten years’ rigorous imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon. The most gifted of modern Italian poets, Giacomo Leopardi, sank into despairing pessimism, which expressed itself in the domain of religion in biting satire and savage irony. Among the poets of the present who, with glowing patriotism, not only yearned for the deliverance and unity of Italy, but also lived to see these accomplished, and have since given expression, though from different political and religious standpoints, to the desire for the reconciliation of the free united kingdom with the irreconcilable church, the most distinguished are Aleardi, Carducci, Imbriani, Guercini, Cavalotti.—In Spain, Caecilia Böhl von Faber, although the daughter of a German father, and educated in Germany, introduced, under the name Fernan Caballero, the modern romance in a thoroughly national Spanish style, and in a purely moral and catholic Christian spirit. In the Flemish Provinces, Hendrik Conscience, the able novelist, has described Flemish village life in a spirit fully in sympathy with Christianity.—England had in Lord Byron a poet of the first rank, who more than any other poet had experience in himself of the convulsions and contradictions of his age. In powerful and impressive tones he sets forth the unreconciled disharmonies of nature and of human life. Incurable pain, despair, weariness of life, and hatred of mankind, without hope, yet without desire for reconciliation, enthusiastic admiration of the ancient world, passionate love of liberty and titanic pride in human might mingle with scenes of grumbling, misery, and profligacy. On the other hand, the rich and mostly solid English novel literature is prevailingly inspired by a Christian spirit.
§ 174.8. Popular Education.—While the poetic national literature for the most part found entrance only among the cultured and adult circles, this age, almost as fond of writing as of reading, produced an enormous quantity of books for the people and for children. But only a few succeeded in catching the proper tone for the masses and the youth, and still fewer supplied their readers with what was genuinely pious. Pestalozzi’s “Lienhard und Gertrud,” Hebel’s “Schatzkästlein,” and Tschokke’s “Goldmacherdorf,” respected at least the Christian feeling of the people, although they did not strengthen or foster it. But, on the other hand, in recent years a number of writers have appeared, thoroughly popular, and at the same time thoroughly Christian, who, as popular poets and novelists, have become apostles of Christian views, morals, and customs to the people. The most distinguished of these are Jeremiah Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius, died 1854), whose “Kate the Grandmother” was translated in the Sunday Magazine for 1865, Von Horn, Carl Stöber, Wildenhahn, Nathusius, Frommel, Weitbrecht, etc. In the Catholic church Albanus Stoltz, died 1883, developed a wonderful power of popular composition, which, however, he subsequently put at the service of a fanatical ultramontanism, and so sacrificed much of its nobility and worth. From the enormous mass of children’s books only extremely few attain their aim. In the front rank stands the brilliant patriarch of Christian tale writing, Von Schubert, died 1860. After him are Barth, the author of “Poor Henry,” Stöber, and the Swiss Spyri, and the Catholic Christian Schmid, author of the “Easter Eggs.”—The Public Schools, especially under Dinter (died 1831), member of the consistory and schoolboard of Königsberg, were for a long time nurseries of the tame, flat, and self-satisfied rationalism of the ancien régime; but since 1830, and more particularly in consequence of the violent agitations of the seminary director Diesterweg, who died in 1866, put to silence in 1847, but still for his work in connexion with education always highly respected, many of the teachers took a higher flight in the naturalistic-democratic direction. By word and pen Diesterweg carried on a propaganda in favour of a free and liberal education for the people. His disciples, wanting his earnest Christian spirit, carried out recklessly his radical tendencies, and now the Christian faith has no more persistent foes than the teachers of the public schools. In A.D. 1870, a Teachers’ Association in Vienna gave a vote of 6,000 in favour of radicalism. At a Hamburg meeting in A.D. 1872 of 5,100 teachers, progress was shown by individuals raising their voices in defence of Christianity, which, however, were generally drowned in shrieks and hisses. A Teachers’ Evangelical Association held its ninth assembly at Hamburg in A.D. 1881 with 1,500 members. Christian opinions are now ably represented in schools, educational journals, and literature. A burning question at present is whether the national school should be preferred to the denominational school. Liberals in church and state say it should; conservatives say it should not; while both parties think their views supported by the experience of the past. The Prussian minister of education, Falk, A.D. 1872-1879, firmly insisted upon the development of the national system, but his successors Von Puttkamer and Von Gossler reverted to the denominational system. The German Evangelical School Congress of Hamburg in October, 1882, demanded that both elementary and secondary schools should have a confessional character.
§ 174.9. Art.—The intellectual quickening called forth with the opening of the new century imparted new spirit and life to the cultivation of the arts. Winckelmann, died A.D. 1768, had opened the way to an understanding of pagan classical art, and romanticism awakened appreciation of and enthusiasm for mediæval Christian art. The greatest masters of Architecture were Schinckel, Klenze, and Heideloff. The foundation stone of the final part of the Cologne cathedral was laid by a Protestant king, Frederick William IV., in A.D. 1842, and the work was finished by a Protestant builder in A.D. 1880. Statuary had three great masters, who gave expression to profound Christian ideas in bronze and marble, the Italian Canova, the German Dannecker, and greatest of all, the Dane Thorwaldsen, whose Christ and the Apostles and other works form a main attraction to visitors in Copenhagen. Three younger German masters of the art, who have heired their fame, are Rauch, Rietschl, and Drake.—In Painting too a new era now began. A group of gay German artists in Rome, with Overbeck at their head, formed a Society in A.D. 1813, and mostly became perverts to Romanism. Peter Cornelius, the ablest of the school, himself born a Catholic, answered his friends’ request to place Luther in a picture of the last judgment, in hell: “Yes, but with the Bible in his hands and the devils trembling before him”; and in a subsequent picture of the judgment, he gave the German reformer his place among the saints in heaven. His pupil, Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld is well known by his “Bibel in Bildern.” Ludwig Richter, the Albert Dürer of the nineteenth century and creator of the modern woodcut, has filled German houses with his artistic and poetic creations, which breathe of God, nature, and the family fireside. The Frenchman, Gustave Doré of Strassburg, has also illustrated the Bible in a manner worthy of ranking alongside of Schnorr, though a characteristically French striving for effect is everywhere discernible.—Painted Glass (§ [104, 14]) for church windows had during the eighteenth century passed almost wholly out of use, but again in the nineteenth came into favour, and was made at Dresden, Nuremberg, and Munich. The most eminent artist in this department was Ainmiller of Munich, specimens of whose workmanship are to be seen in all parts of the world.
§ 174.10. Music and the Drama.—In Vienna the three great masters of musical composition, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, produced in the department of sacred music some of their noblest works. Mendelssohn, in his St. Paul and Elijah and in his Psalms, sought to reproduce the power and truth of the simple word of God. An early death prevented him giving expression to his ideal of Christ in music. The Hungarian virtuoso Liszt sacrifices sacred calmness and dignity to theatrical effect. His son-in-law, Richard Wagner, inspired by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, a richly endowed poet and composer, proclaimed by his followers as the Messiah of the music of the future, going back to mediæval legend, has produced a quasi-Christian musical drama, in which the gospel of pessimism takes the place of the gospel of the grace of God.—Quite different is the Passion Play of the Bavarian village Oberammergau, which is a reproduction of the mediæval mysteries (§ [115, 12]). It originated in a vow made in 1633 on the occasion of a plague which visited the place, and is repeated every ten years on the Sundays from the end of May to the middle of September. The history of the Saviour’s passion is here represented with interludes from Messianic Old Testament passages explained by a chorus like that of the classical tragedy, with appropriate scenery, drapery, and musical accompaniment. In the presence of an immense concourse of strangers for whose accommodation a large amphitheatre was been built, almost all the villagers, men, women, and children, take part in the performance and show rare artistic power. The text of the drama for the most part agrees with the gospel narrative, only occasionally interspersed with legend, and quite free from ultramontane hagiology and mariolatry. The performance of A.D. 1850, and still more that of A.D. 1880, attracted crowds of pilgrims and tourists to the quiet and remote valley. An independent exhibition, falling little behind the original in the artistic character of its composition and production, was given, in 1883, on the Sundays of July and August in the Tyrolese village of Brixlegg, and was visited by similar crowds.