Image mise en avant : La Cité de Dieu (Saint Augustin)

Voir notam­ment sur le sujet :

• Du pas­teur Pierre Cour­thial :
  • La foi chré­tienne et l’his­toire [MP3]
  • Révo­lu­tion ou Réfor­ma­tion [MP3]
• Jean-Marc Ber­thoud :
  • Jean-Marc Ber­thoud et sa vision de l’Histoire (Franck Jullié)
  • La Révo­lu­tion fran­çaise et les révo­lu­tions (Aix-en-Pro­vence, 1988)
• Jean-Marc Dau­mas :
  • Réformes et réveils dans l’his­toire de l’E­glise [MP3]
  • L’É­van­gile : mythe ou histoire ?
• Jean Brun, Les ori­gines intel­lec­tuelles de la Révo­lu­tion fran­çaise, Aix-en-Pro­vence, 1988 [MP3]

Il y a incon­tes­ta­ble­ment une manière chré­tienne d’ap­pré­hen­der l’His­toire, avec un grand H. Dans la pers­pec­tive réfor­mée, l’His­toire est conçue comme les annales du Dieu sou­ve­rain. Rien n’é­chappe à la pro­vi­dence divine. Comme le dit Cal­vin dans l’IC : « Les évè­ne­ments quels qu’ils soient relèvent de la pro­vi­dence de Dieu. »

Saint Augus­tin pro­pose une lec­ture théo­lo­gique des grands nœuds de l’His­toire, des époques, dans son œuvre mai­tresse, La Cité de Dieu. Toute notre phi­lo­so­phie de l’His­toire se trouve expo­sée ici, dans les lignes principales.

À la suite de la chute de Rome, en 410, Augus­tin, obli­gé de défendre la foi chré­tienne, met en évi­dence les fon­de­ments spi­ri­tuels res­pec­tifs des deux cités, la cité ter­restre, péris­sable, et la cité de Dieu, la seule qui ait les pro­messes de la vie éternelle.

« De fait, les deux cités sont mêlées et enche­vê­trées l’une dans l’autre en ce siècle, jusqu’au jour où le juge­ment der­nier les sépa­re­ra. Je vais donc, dans la mesure où la grâce divine m’y aide­ra, expo­ser ce que j’estime devoir dire sur leur ori­gine, leur déve­lop­pe­ment, la fin qui les attend. Je ser­vi­rai par là la gloire de la cité de Dieu qui, com­pa­rée ain­si à l’autre, se déta­che­ra par oppo­si­tion avec un plus vif éclat (CD I.35).

Deux amours ont fait deux cités : l’amour de soi jusqu’au mépris de Dieu, la cité ter­restre, l’amour de Dieu jusqu’au mépris de soi, la cité céleste.

L’une se glo­ri­fie en elle-même, l’autre dans le Sei­gneur. L’une demande sa gloire aux hommes ; pour l’autre, Dieu témoin de sa conscience est sa plus grande gloire. L’une dans sa gloire dresse la tête ; l’autre dit à son Dieu : « Tu es ma gloire et tu élèves ma tête. » (Ps 3, 4). L’une, dans ses chefs ou dans les nations qu’elle sub­jugue, est domi­née par la pas­sion de domi­ner ; dans l’autre on se rend mutuel­le­ment ser­vice par cha­ri­té, les chefs en diri­geant, les sujets en obéis­sant. L’une en ses maîtres, aime sa propre force ; l’autre dit à son Dieu : « Je t’aimerai, Sei­gneur, toi ma force » (Ps 17.2).

Aus­si, dans l’une les sages vivant selon l’homme ont recher­ché les biens du corps ou de l’âme ou les deux ; et ceux qui ont pu connaître Dieu ne l’ont pas glo­ri­fié comme Dieu ni ne lui ont ren­du grâce, mais se sont éga­rés dans leurs vains rai­son­ne­ments et leur cœur insen­sé s’est obs­cur­ci ; s’étant flat­tés d’être sages [c’est-à-dire s’exaltant dans leur sagesse sous l’emprise de l’orgueil], ils sont deve­nus fous : ils ont sub­sti­tué à la gloire du Dieu incor­rup­tible, des images repré­sen­tant l’homme cor­rup­tible, des oiseaux, des qua­dru­pèdes et des ser­pents [car à l’adoration de telles idoles, ils ont conduit les peuples ou les y ont sui­vi] ; et ils ont décer­né le culte et le ser­vice à la créa­ture plu­tôt qu’au Créa­teur qui est béni dans les siècles (Rm 1.21−24).

Dans l’autre au contraire, il n’y a qu’une sagesse, la pié­té qui rend au vrai Dieu le culte qui lui est dû, et qui attend pour récom­pense en la socié­té des saints, hommes et anges, que Dieu soit tout en tous (Rm 1.25). »

La Cité de Dieu, XIV, 28

Cal­vin, de même, dit ceci, ver­sets bibliques à l’ap­pui, au sujet de la pro­vi­dence de Dieu qui conduit l’Histoire :

« Nous croyons non seule­ment que Dieu a créé toutes choses, mais qu’il les gou­verne et les conduit, dis­po­sant de tout ce qui arrive dans le monde et réglant tout selon sa volonté.

Certes, nous ne croyons pas que Dieu soit l’au­teur du mal ou que la culpa­bi­li­té puisse lui en être impu­tée, puis­qu’au contraire sa volon­té est la règle sou­ve­raine et infaillible de toute droi­ture et de toute jus­tice vrai. Mais Dieu dis­pose de moyens admi­rables pour se ser­vir des démons et des impies, de telle sorte qu’il sait conver­tir en bien le mal qu’ils font et dont ils sont coupables.

Ain­si, en confes­sant que rien ne se fait sans la pro­vi­dence de Dieu, nous ado­rons avec humi­li­té les secrets qui nous sont cachés, sans nous poser de ques­tions qui nous dépassent. Au contraire, nous appli­quons à notre usage per­son­nel ce que l’E­cri­ture sainte nous enseigne pour être en repos et en sécu­ri­té ; car Dieu, à qui toutes choses sont sou­mises, veille sur nous d’un soin si pater­nel qu’il ne tom­be­ra pas un che­veu de notre tête sans sa volon­té. Ce fai­sant, il tient en bride les démons et tous nos enne­mis, de sorte qu’ils ne peuvent nous faire le moindre mal sans sa permission. »

Ps 104 ; Jb 34:14 – 15 ; Jn 5:17 ; Hé 1:3. Gn 27:20 ; 1 R 22:34 ; Ps 75:7 – 8 ; 115:3 ; 139:2 – 6, 13 – 18 ; Pr 21:1 ; Es 10:5 – 7 ; 45:7 ; Lm 3:37 – 38 ; Mt 10:29 – 30 ; Ac 14:17 ; 17:26 – 28 ; Jc 4:15. Jb 1:22 ; Ps 5:5 ; Os 13:9 ; Ga 5:19 – 21 ; 1 Jn 2:16 ; 3:8.Ps 45:7 ; 119. Gn 45:8 ; 50:20 ; Jb 12:13 – 25 ; Ac 2:23 – 24 ; 4:28 ; Rm 8:28. Rm 9:19 – 20 ; 11:33 – 34. Jb 1:21 ; Ps 10:14 ; 37:5 ; Rm 5:3 – 4 ; 8:28 – 29 ; 2 Co 4:7 – 18 ; 1 Th 5:18 ; Jc 1:1 – 3. Mt 6:25 – 34 ; 10:30 ; Lc 21:18 .Gn 3:15 ; Jb 1:12 ; 2:6 ; Es 45:1 – 8.

Confes­sion de La Rochelle, Article 8

En anglais, il est impé­ra­tif de lire les cha­pitres des Lec­tures on Cal­vi­nism du grand Abra­ham Kuy­per. Voici.

Lec­tures on Cal­vi­nism : The Stone Lec­tures of 1898 – Abra­ham Kuyper

Sixth Lec­ture – Cal­vi­nism and the Future

The page num­be­ring of the Eerd­mans prin­ted edi­tion has been retai­ned for the bene­fit of readers.

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THE CHIEF PURPOSE of my lec­tu­ring in this coun­try was to era­di­cate the wrong idea that Cal­vi­nism repre­sen­ted an exclu­si­ve­ly dog­ma­ti­cal and eccle­sias­ti­cal movement.

Cal­vi­nism did not stop at a church-order, but expan­ded in a life sys­tem, and did not exhaust its ener­gy in a dog­ma­ti­cal construc­tion. hut crea­ted a life- and world-view. and such a one as was, and still is, able to fit itself to the needs of eve­ry stage of human deve­lop­ment, m eve­ry depart­ment of life. It rai­sed our Chris­tian reli­gion to its highest spi­ri­tual splen­dor : it crea­ted a church order, which became the pre­for­ma­tion of state confe­de­ra­tion it pro­ved to be the guar­dian angel of science ; it eman­ci­pa­ted art : it pro­pa­ga­ted a poli­ti­cal scheme, which gave birth to consti­tu­tio­nal govern­ment, both in Europe and Ame­ri­ca ; it fos­te­red agri­cul­ture and indus­try, com­merce and navi­ga­tion ; it put a tho­rough Chris­tian stamp upon home-life and fami­ly-ties ; it pro­mo­ted through its high moral stan­dard puri­ty in our social circles and to this mani­fold effect it pla­ced beneath Church and State, beneath socie­ty and home-circle a fun­da­men­tal phi­lo­so­phic concep­tion strict­ly deri­ved from its domi­na­ting prin­ciple, and the­re­fore all its own.

This, of itself, excludes eve­ry idea of imi­ta­tive and what the des­cen­dants of the old Dutch Cal­vi­nists as well as of the Pil­grim fathers have to do, is not to copy the past, as if Cal­vi­nism were a petri­fac­tion. but to go back to the living root of the Cal­vi­nist plant, to clean and to water it. and so to cause it to bud and to blos­som once more, now ful­ly in accor­dance with our actual life in these modern times, and with the demands of the times to come.

This explains the sub­ject of my final lec­ture. A new Cal­vi­nis­tic deve­lop­ment nee­ded by the wants of the future.

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The pros­pect of this future does not present itself to us, as eve­ry student of socio­lo­gy will ack­now­ledge, in bright colors, I would not go so far as to assert that we are on the eve of uni­ver­sal social ban­krupt­cy, but that the signs of the times are omi­nous admits of no denial. To be sure, in the control of nature and her forces, immense gains are being regis­te­red year by year, and the bol­dest ima­gi­na­tion is unable to fore­tell to what heights of power in this res­pect the race may attain in the next half cen­tu­ry. As a result of this, the com­forts of life are increa­sing. World-inter­course and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are constant­ly beco­ming more rapid and wides­pread. Asia and Afri­ca, until recent­ly dor­mant, gra­dual­ly feel them­selves drawn into the lar­ger circle of stir­ring life. Aided by sport, the prin­ciples of hygiene exert a gro­wing influence. Conse­quent­ly, v e are phy­si­cal­ly stron­ger than the pre­ce­ding gene­ra­tion. We live lon­ger. And in com­ba­ting the defects and infir­mi­ties that threa­ten and afflict our bodi­ly life, sur­gi­cal science makes us mar­vel at her achie­ve­ments. In brief, the mate­rial. tan­gible side of life holds out the fai­rest of pro­mises for the future.

And yet dis­content makes itself heard, and the thin­king mind can­not sup­press its mis­gi­vings ; for, howe­ver high one may value the mate­rial things, they do not fill out the round of our exis­tence as men Our per­so­nal life as men and citi­zens sub­sist not in the com­forts that sur­round us, nor in the body, which serves us as a link with the out­ward world, but in the spi­rit that inter­nal­ly actuates us ; and in this inner conscious­ness we are beco­ming more and more pain­ful­ly aware how the hyper­tro­phy of our exter­nal life results in a serious atro­phy of the spi­ri­tual. Not as if the facul­ties of thought and reflec­tion, the arts of poe­try and let­ters, were in abeyance. On the contra­ry, empi­ri­cal science is more brilliant in her attain­ments than ever, uni­ver­sal know­ledge spreads in constant­ly wide­ning circles, and civi­li­za­tion, in Japan, for ins­tance, is almost dazz­led by her too rapid conquests. But even the intel­lect does not consti­tute the mind. Per­so­na­li­ty is sea­ted more dee­ply in the hid­den recesses of our inner being, where cha­rac­ter is for­med, .hence the flame of enthu­siasm is kind­led, where the moral foun­da­tions are laid, where love’s blos­soms bud, whence spring conse­cra­tion and heroism, and where in the sense for the Infi­nite, our time-bound exis­tence reaches out unto the very gates of eternity.

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It is in regard to this seat of per­so­na­li­ty that we hear on all sides the com­plaint of impo­ve­rish­ment, dege­ne­ra­cy, and petri­fac­tion, The pre­va­lence of this state of malaise explains the rise of a spi­rit like Arthur Scho­pen­hauer’s ; and the wide accep­tance of his pes­si­mis­tic doc­trine reveals to what a deplo­rable extent this fatal Siroc­co has scor­ched alrea­dy the fields of life. It is true, Tol­stoi’s efforts show force of cha­rac­ter, but even his reli­gious and social theo­ry is a pro­test along the whole line against the spi­ri­tual dege­ne­ra­cy of our race. Frie­drich Wil­helm Nietzsche1 may give us offence by his sacri­le­gious mocke­ry, still what else is his demand for the “Ueber­mensch” (over-man), but the cry of des­pair wrung from the heart of huma­ni­ty by the bit­ter conscious­ness that it is spi­ri­tual­ly pining away ? What is Social Demo­cra­cy also but one gigan­tic pro­test against the insuf­fi­cien­cy of the exis­ting order of things ? Even Anar­chism and Nihi­lism but too plain­ly demons­trate that there are thou­sands upon ten thou­sands who would rather demo­lish and anni­hi­late eve­ry­thing, than conti­nue to bear the bur­den of present condi­tions. The Ger­man author of the “Deca­denz der Völ­ker” des­cries nothing in the future but decay and social ruin. Even the sober-min­ded Lord Salis­bu­ry recent­ly spoke of peoples and states for whose unce­re­mo­nious burial pre­pa­ra­tions were alrea­dy being made. How often has not the paral­lel been drawn bet­ween our time and the gol­den age of the Roman empire, when the exter­nal brillian­cy of life like­wise dazz­led the eye, not­withs­tan­ding that the social diag­no­sis could yield no other ver­dict than “rot­ten to the very core.” And, although on the Ame­ri­can conti­nent, in a youn­ger world, a rela­ti­ve­ly heal­thier tone of life pre­vails than in senes­cent Europe, yet this will not for a moment mis­lead the thin­king mind. It is impos­sible for you to shut your­selves off her­me­ti­cal­ly from the old world, as you form no huma­ni­ty apart, but are a mem­ber of the great body of the race. And the poi­son having once ente­red the sys­tem at a single point, in due time must neces­sa­ri­ly per­vade the whole organism.

Now the serious ques­tion with which we are confron­ted is whe­ther we can expect that by natu­ral evo­lu­tion a higher phase of social life will deve­lop out of the present spi­ri­tual decline. The answer

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his­to­ry sup­plies to this ques­tion is far from encou­ra­ging. In India, in Baby­lon, in Egypt, in Per­sia, in Chi­na and elsew­here, like per­iods of vigo­rous growth the have been suc­cee­ded by times of spi­ri­tual deca­dence ; and yet in not one of these lands has the down­ward course final­ly resol­ved itself in a move­ment towards higher things. All these nations to this day have per­se­ve­red in their spi­ri­tual stag­na­tion in the Roman empire alone has the dark night of bound­less demo­ra­li­za­tion been bro­ken by the dawn of a higher life. But this light did not arise through evo­lu­tion ; it shone from the Cross of Cal­va­ry. The Christ of God appea­red, and by His Gos­pel alone was the socie­ty of that time saved from cer­tain des­truc­tion. And again. when towards the close of the middle ages Europe was threa­te­ned with social ban­krupt­cy, a second resur­rec­tion from the dead and a mani­fes­ta­tion of new vital power were wit­nes­sed, now among the peoples of the Refor­ma­tion, but this time also not by way of evo­lu­tion, but again through the same Gos­pel for which the hearts were thirs­ting, and whose truth was free­ly pro­clai­med as never before. What ante­ce­dents, then, does his­to­ry fur­nish to lead us to expect in the present ins­tance an evo­lu­tion of life from death, whil­st the symp­toms of decom­po­si­tion alrea­dy sug­gest the bit­ter­ness of the grave ? Moham­med, it is true, in the seventh cen­tu­ry suc­cee­ded in crea­ting a stir among the dead bones throu­ghout the entire Levant by thro­wing him­self upon the nations as a second Mes­siah, grea­ter even than the Christ. And assu­red­ly if the coming of ano­ther Christ, sur­pas­sing in glo­ry the Christ of Beth­le­hem, were pos­sible, then the cure for moral cor­rup­tion were found. Hence some, indeed, have been anxious­ly loo­king for the coming of some glo­rious “Uni­ver­sal Spi­rit,” who might again ins­till his vita­li­zing power into the heart-blood of the nations. But why dwell lon­ger on such idle fan­cies ? Nothing­can pos­si­bly sur­pass the God-given Christ, and what we are to look for, ins­tead of a second Mes­siah, is the second coming of the same Christ of Cal­va­ry, this time with His fan in His hand for judg­ment, not to open up for our sin-cur­sed life a new evo­lu­tion, but to receive at its goal and solemn­ly to conclude the his­to­ry of the world, Either this second coming, the­re­fore, is near at hand, and what we are wit­nes­sing are the death-throes of huma­ni­ty ; or a reju­ve­na­tion is still in store for us ; but if so, that reju­ve­na­tion can come only through the old and yet ever new Gos­pel which, at the

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begin­ning of our era, and again at the time of the Refor­ma­tion, has saved the threa­te­ned life of our race.

The most alar­ming fea­ture, howe­ver, of the present situa­tion is the lamen­table absence of that recep­ti­vi­ty in our disea­sed orga­nism, which is indis­pen­sable to the effec­ting of a cure. In the Gre­co-Roman world such recep­ti­vi­ty did exist ; the hearts ope­ned spon­ta­neous­ly to receive the truth. To an even stron­ger degree this recep­ti­vi­ty exis­ted in the age of the Refor­ma­tion, when large masses cried for the gos­pel. Then, as now, the body suf­fe­red from ane­mia, and blood-poi­so­ning even had set in, but there was no aver­sion to the only effec­tual anti­dote. Now it is pre­ci­se­ly this that dis­tin­guishes our modern deca­dence from the two pre­ce­ding ones, that with the masses the recep­ti­vi­ty for the Gos­pel is on the decrease, whil­st with the scien­tists the posi­tive aver­sion to it is on the increase. The invi­ta­tion to bow the knee before Christ, as God, is met so often with a shrug of the shoul­ders, if not with the sar­cas­tic rejoin­der : “Fit for chil­dren and old women, not for us men!” The modern phi­lo­so­phy, which gains the day, consi­ders itself in ever-increa­sing mea­sure as having out­grown Christianity.

_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​
The­re­fore, first of all, the ques­tion must be ans­we­red what has brought us to this pass, a ques­tion deri­ving its para­mount impor­tance from the fact that only a cor­rect diag­no­sis can lead to effec­tive treat­ment. Now, his­to­ri­cal­ly, the cause of the evil is found in nothing else than in the spi­ri­tual dege­ne­ra­tion which mar­ked the close of the pre­ce­ding cen­tu­ry. The res­pon­si­bi­li­ty for this dege­ne­ra­tion undoub­ted­ly res­ts in part with the Chris­tian churches them­selves, not excep­ting those of the Refor­ma­tion. Worn out by their struggle with Rome, these last churches had fal­len asleep, had allo­wed leaf and flo­wer to wither on their branches, and had appa­rent­ly become for­get­ful of their duties in refe­rence to huma­ni­ty at large, and the whole sphere of human life. It is not neces­sa­ry to enter upon this more ful­ly. It may be taken for gran­ted that towards the end of that cen­tu­ry the gene­ral tone of life had become vapid and com­mon-place, ignoble and base at heart. The eager­ly devou­red lite­ra­ture of that per­iod fur­nishes the proof. By way of reac­tion against this, the pro­po­sal was then made by deis­tic and

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atheis­tic phi­lo­so­phers, first in England, but after­wards chie­fly in France on the part of the Ency­clo­pe­dists, to place the whole of life on a new basis, turn upside down the exis­ting order of affairs, and arrange a new world on the assump­tion that human nature conti­nues in its uncor­rup­ted state, This concep­tion was an heroic one, and awa­ke­ned res­ponse ; it struck some of the noblest chords of the human heart. But in the great Revo­lu­tion of 1789 it was put into exe­cu­tion in its most dan­ge­rous form for in this migh­ty revo­lu­tion, in this uphea­val not only of poli­ti­cal condi­tions, but even more of convic­tions, ideas, and usages of life, two ele­ments should be shar­ply dis­tin­gui­shed. In one res­pect it was an imi­ta­tion of Cal­vi­nism, whil­st in ano­ther res­pect it was in direct oppo­si­tion to its prin­ciples. The great Revo­lu­tion, it should not be for­got­ten, broke out in a Roman Catho­lic coun­try, where first in the night of St. Bar­tho­lo­mew, and sub­se­quent­ly by the revo­ca­tion of the edict of Nantes, the Hugue­nots had been slaugh­te­red and bani­shed. After this violent sup­pres­sion of Pro­tes­tan­tism in France, and other Roman Catho­lic coun­tries, the ancient des­po­tism had regai­ned its ascen­den­cy, and to these nations all the fruits of the Refor­ma­tion had been lost. This, by way of cari­ca­ture of Cal­vi­nism, invi­ted and com­pel­led the attempt to strike for free­dom by exter­nal vio­lence, and to esta­blish a pseu­do-demo­cra­tic state of affairs, which was to pre­clude for ever a return to des­po­tism. Thus the French Revo­lu­tion, by mee­ting vio­lence with vio­lence, crime with crime, strove after the same social liber­ty which Cal­vi­nism had pro­clai­med among the nations, but which had been attemp­ted by Cal­vi­nism in the course of a pure­ly spi­ri­tual move­ment. By this the French Revo­lu­tion in a sense exe­cu­ted a judg­ment of God, the result of which affords, even to Cal­vi­nists, cause for rejoi­cing. The shades of De Coli­gny were aven­ged in the Sep­tem­ber mur­ders of Mazas.

But this is only one side of the medal. Its reverse dis­closes a pur­pose direct­ly oppo­sed to the sound Cal­vi­nis­tic idea of liber­ty. Cal­vi­nism, by vir­tue of its pro­found­ly serious concep­tion of life, had streng­the­ned and conse­cra­ted the social and ethi­cal ties ; the French Revo­lu­tion loo­se­ned and enti­re­ly unfas­te­ned them, deta­ching life not mere­ly from the Church, but also from God’s ordi­nances, even from God Him­self. Man as such, each indi­vi­dual hen­ce­forth, was to be his own lord and mas­ter, gui­ded by his own free will and good plea­sure. The train of life was to rush for

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ward even more rapid­ly than here­to­fore, but no lon­ger bound to fol­low the track of the divine com­mand­ments. What else could result than wre­ckage and ruin ? Enquire of the France of today what fruit the fun­da­men­tal idea of her grand Revo­lu­tion has yiel­ded to the nation after its first cen­tu­ry of free sway so rich in hor­rors, and the ans­wer comes in a most piti­ful tale of natio­nal deca­dence and social demoralization.

Hum­bled by the ene­my from beyond the Rhine, inter­nal­ly rent by par­ti­san fury, dis­ho­no­red by the Pana­ma cabal, and more still by the Drey­fus case, dis­gra­ced by its por­no­gra­phy, the vic­tim of eco­no­mic retro­gres­sion, sta­tio­na­ry, nay, even decrea­sing in popu­la­tion, France, as has been well said by Dr. Gar­nier, a medi­cal autho­ri­ty on the sub­ject, has been led by ego­tism to degrade mar­riage, by lust to des­troy fami­ly-life and pre­sents today, in wide circles, the dis­gus­ting spec­tacle of men and women lost in unna­tu­ral sexual sin. I am aware that there are still thou­sands upon thou­sands of fami­lies in France living without reproach, who dear­ly grieve at the moral ruin of their coun­try, but then these are the very circles which have resis­ted the false pre­tenses of the Revo­lu­tion ; and, on the other hand, the almost bes­tia­li­zed circles are those that have suc­cum­bed to the first onset of Voltairianism.

From France this spi­rit of dis­so­lu­tion, this pas­sion of wild eman­ci­pa­tion, has spread among the other nations, espe­cial­ly through the medium of an infa­mous­ly obs­cene lite­ra­ture, and infec­ted their lives. Then nobler minds. par­ti­cu­lar­ly in Ger­ma­ny, per­cei­ving what depth of wicked­ness had been rea­ched in France, made the bold attempt of rea­li­zing this enti­cing and redu­cing idea of “eman­ci­pa­tion from God” in a higher form while yet retai­ning its essence. Phi­lo­so­phers of the first rank, in a sta­te­ly pro­ces­sion, each for him­self construc­ted a cos­mo­lo­gy endea­vo­ring to res­tore a firm foun­da­tion to social and ethi­cal rela­tions, either by put­ting them on the basis of natu­ral law, or by giving them an ideal sub­stra­tum evol­ved from their own spe­cu­la­tion. For a moment this attempt see­med to have a fair chance of suc­cess : for, ins­tead of atheis­ti­cal­ly bani­shing God from their sys­tem, these phi­lo­so­phers sought refuge in Pan­theism, and thus made it fea­sible to found the social struc­ture, not as the French, on a state of nature or on the ato­mis­tic will of the indi­vi­dual, but on the pro­cesses of his­to­ry and

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the col­lec­tive will of the race, uncons­cious­ly ten­ding towards the highest goal. And, indeed, for more than half a cen­tu­ry this phi­lo­so­phy has impar­ted a cer­tain sta­bi­li­ty to life ; not that any real sta­bi­li­ty was inherent in the sys­tem them­selves, but because the esta­bli­shed order of law and strong poli­ti­cal ins­ti­tu­tions in Ger­ma­ny lent the indi­rect sup­port of tra­di­tion to the walls of an edi­fice which other­wise would have imme­dia­te­ly col­lap­sed. Even so, howe­ver, it could not prevent that in Ger­ma­ny also, the moral prin­ciples became more and more pro­ble­ma­tic, moral foun­da­tions more and more inse­cure, no other right than that of actual law recei­ved recog­ni­tion ; and, howe­ver much Ger­man and French deve­lop­ment might dif­fer bet­ween them­selves, both agreed in their aver­sion to, and rejec­tion of, tra­di­tio­nal Chris­tia­ni­ty. Vol­tai­re’s “Ecra­sez l’in­fâme” is alrea­dy left far behind by Nietz­sche’s blas­phe­mous utte­rances on the Christ, and Nietzsche is the author whose works are being most eager­ly devou­red by the young modern Ger­ma­ny of our day.

After this man­ner, then, we in Europe at least, have arri­ved at what is cal­led modern life, invol­ving a radi­cal breach with the Chris­tian tra­di­tions of the Europe of the past. The spi­rit of this modern life is most clear­ly mar­ked by the fact that it seeks the ori­gin of man not in crea­tion after the image of God, but in evo­lu­tion from the ani­mal. Two fun­da­men­tal ideas are clear­ly implied in this : (1) that the point of depar­ture is no lon­ger the ideal or the divine, but the mate­rial and the low ; (2) that the sove­rei­gn­ty of God, which ought to be supreme, is denied, and man yields him­self to the mys­ti­cal cur­rent of an end­less pro­cess, a regres­sus and pro­ces­sus in infi­ni­tum. Out of the root of these two fer­tile ideas a double type of life is now being evol­ved. On the one hand the inter­es­ting, rich, and high­ly orga­ni­zed life of Uni­ver­si­ty circles, attai­nable by the more refi­ned minds only ; and at the side of this, or rather far beneath it, a mate­ria­lis­tic life of the masses, cra­ving after plea­sure, but, in their own way, also taking their point of depar­ture in mat­ter, and like­wise, but after their own cyni­cal fashion, eman­ci­pa­ting them­selves from all fixed ordi­nances. Espe­cial­ly in our ever-expan­ding large cities this second type of life is gai­ning the upper hand, over­ri­ding the voice of the coun­try dis­tricts, and is giving a shape to public opi­nion, which avows its ungodly

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cha­rac­ter more open­ly in each suc­ces­sive gene­ra­tion. Money, plea­sure, and social power, these alone are the objects of pur­suit ; and people are constant­ly gro­wing less fas­ti­dious regar­ding the means employed to secure them. Thus the voice of conscience becomes less and less audible, and dul­ler the lustre of the eye which on the eve of the French Revo­lu­tion still reflec­ted ‑some gleam of the ideal. The fire of all higher enthu­siasm has been quen­ched, only the dead embers remain. In the mid­st of the wea­ri­ness of life, what can restrain the disap­poin­ted from taking refuge in sui­cide ? Depri­ved of the who­le­some influence of rest, the brain is over-sti­mu­la­ted and over-exer­ted till the asy­lums are no lon­ger ade­quate for hou­sing the insane. Whe­ther pro­per­ty be not syno­ny­mous with theft, becomes a more and more serious­ly moo­ted ques­tion. That life ought to be freer and mar­riage less bin­ding, is being accep­ted more and more on an esta­bli­shed pro­po­si­tion. The cause of mono­ga­my is no lon­ger worth figh­ting for, since poly­ga­my and poly­an­dry are being sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly glo­ri­fied in all pro­ducts of the rea­lis­tic school of art and lite­ra­ture. In har­mo­ny with this, reli­gion is, of course, decla­red super­fluous because it ren­ders life gloo­my. But art, art above all, is in demand, not for the sake of its ideal worth, but because it pleases and intoxi­cates the senses. Thus people live in time and for tem­po­ral things, and shut their ears to the tol­ling of the bells of eter­ni­ty. The irre­pres­sible ten­den­cy is to make the whole view of life concrete, concen­tra­ted, prac­ti­cal. And out of this moder­ni­zed pri­vate life there emerges a type of social and poli­ti­cal life cha­rac­te­ri­zed by a deca­dence of par­lia­men­ta­rism, by an ever stron­ger desire for a dic­ta­tor, by a sharp conflict bet­ween pau­pe­rism and capi­ta­lism, whil­st hea­vy arma­ments on land and on sea, even at the price of finan­cial ruin, become the ideal of these power­ful states whose cra­ving for ter­ri­to­rial expan­sion threa­tens the very exis­tence of the wea­ker nations. Gra­dual­ly the conflict bet­ween the strong and the weak has grown to be the control­ling fea­ture of life, ari­sing from Dar­wi­nism itself, whose cen­tral idea of a struggle for life has for its mains­pring this very anti­the­sis. Since Bis­marck intro­du­ced it into higher poli­tics, the maxim of the right of the stron­ger has found almost uni­ver­sal accep­tance. The scho­lars and experts of our day demand with increa­sing bold­ness that the com­mon man shall bow to their autho­ri­ty. And the end can only be

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that once more the sound prin­ciples of demo­cra­cy will be bani­shed, to make room this time not for a new aris­to­cra­cy of nobler birth and higher ideals, bat for the coarse and over­bea­ring kra­tis­to­cra­cy of a bru­tal money power. Nietzsche is by no means excep­tio­nal, but pro­claims as its herald the future of our modern life. And while the Christ, in divine com­pas­sion, sho­wed heart-win­ning sym­pa­thy with the weak, modern life in this res­pect also takes the pre­ci­se­ly oppo­site ground that the weak must be sup­plan­ted by the strong. Such, they tell us, was the pro­cess of selec­tion to which we, our­selves, owe our ori­gin, and such is the pro­cess which, in us and after us, must work itself out to its ulti­mate consequences.

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Meanwhile,2 as obser­ved above, it should not be for­got­ten that there flows in modern life a side cur­rent, of nobler ori­gin. A host of high-min­ded men arose, who, shrin­king from the unea­sy chill of the moral atmos­phere, and taking alarm at the bru­ta­li­ty of the pre­vai­ling ego­tism, endea­vo­red to put new warmth in life part­ly by means of altruism, part­ly by means of a mys­ti­cal cult of the fee­lings, part­ly even by means of the name Chris­tia­ni­ty. Though in accord with the school of the French Revo­lu­tion in their breach with Chris­tian tra­di­tion and in their refu­sal to reco­gnize any point of depar­ture besides that of empi­ri­cism and ratio­na­lism, these men never­the­less, by accep­ting, as Kant does, a crass dua­lism, tried to escape from the fatal conse­quences of their prin­ciple. It is pre­ci­se­ly from this dua­lism that they drew the ins­pi­ra­tion for the many noble ideas ela­bo­ra­ted in their theo­ries, embo­died in their poe­try, conju­red up before our ima­gi­na­tion in tou­ching novels, com­men­ded to our consciences in ethi­cal trea­tises, and, let us never for­get. rea­li­zed not infre­quent­ly in the serious pur­suit of life. With them conscience, side by side with the intel­lect, had main­tai­ned its autho­ri­ty, and that human conscience is so richly endo­wed, (geins­tru­men­teerd) by God. To the vigo­rous ini­tia­tive of these men we owe the nume­rous socio­lo­gi­cal inves­ti­ga­tions and prac­ti­cal mea­sures, which have allayed and alle­via­ted so much suf­fe­ring, and by an ideal altruism have put to shame the selfishness

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in many a heart. Having a per­so­nal pre­dis­po­si­tion for mys­ti­cism, some of them clai­med the right to eman­ci­pate the inner life of the soul from all restraints of cri­ti­cism. To lose one’s self in the Infi­nite, and to feel the stream of the Infi­nite pul­sate through the dee­pest recesses of the inner life, meant to them desi­rable pie­ty. Others again espe­cial­ly theo­lo­gians, –to a less extent divor­ced from Chris­tia­ni­ty by rea­son of their ante­ce­dents, office, or scho­lar­ly occu­pa­tion, fal­ling in with this altruism and mys­ti­cism, set them­selves the task of so meta­mor­pho­sing the Christ that He might conti­nue to glit­ter from the throne of huma­ni­ty, as the highest ideal of the moder­ni­zed human heart. Each and all ins­pi­red by sin­ce­ri­ty and ins­pi­ring by their ideal intent, these endea­vors may be tra­ced from Schleier­ma­cher down to Ritschl.3 He, the­re­fore, who would look down upon such men. would only dis­ho­nor him­self. Much rather v. e ought to thank them for what they endea­vo­red to save, also those women of noble aspi­ra­tions, who by their cha­rac­ter-novels, writ­ten in a simi­lar Chris­tian spi­rit, have coun­te­rac­ted so much that was base and have fos­te­red so many pre­cious germs. Even Spi­ri­tism, fraught with error though it be, has often recei­ved its impulse from the allu­ring hope that the contact with the eter­nal world. des­troyed by cri­ti­cism, could thus be rees­ta­bli­shed through the medium of visions. Unfor­tu­na­te­ly, howe­ver bold­ly concei­ved this ethi­cal dua­lism might be. and wha­te­ver bold meta­mor­phoses this mys­ti­cism might indulge in, there always lur­ked behind it the natu­ra­lis­tic. ratio­na­lis­tic sys­tem of thought which the intel­lect had devi­sed. They extol­led the nor­mal cha­rac­ter of their cos­mo­lo­gy over against the abnor­ma­lism of our belief : and the Chris­tian reli­gion, being abnor­ma­lis­tic in prin­ciple and mode of mani­fes­ta­tion, inevi­ta­bly lost ground to such an extent that some of our best men did not shrink from pro­fes­sing that they pre­fer­red not only Spi­ri­tism. hut Moham­me­da­nism, and Scho­pen­hauer or even Bud­dhism to the old evan­ge­li­cal faith. It is true that the entire pha­lanx of theo­lo­gians from Schleier­ma­cher to Pflei­de­rer conti­nued to pay high honors to the name of Christ. but it is equal­ly unde­niable that this remai­ned pos­sible only by sub­jec­ting Christ and the Chris­tian confes­sion to ever bol­der meta­mor­phoses. A pain­ful fact, but one

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which becomes abso­lu­te­ly evident, if you com­pare the creed now cur­rent in these circles with the confes­sion for which our Mar­tyrs died.

Even confi­ning our­selves to the Apostles” Creed, which for almost two thou­sand years sub­stan­tial­ly has been the com­mon stan­dard of all Chris­tians, we find that the belief in God as the “Crea­tor of hea­ven and earth” has been abo­li­shed ; for crea­tion has been sup­plan­ted by evo­lu­tion. Abo­li­shed also has been the belief in God the Son, as born of the Vir­gin Mary, through the concep­tion from the Holy Ghost. Abo­li­shed fur­ther, with many, the belief in His resur­rec­tion and ascen­sion and return to judg­ment. Abo­li­shed, final­ly, even the belief of the church in the resur­rec­tion of the dead, or at least in the resur­rec­tion of the body. The name of the Chris­tian reli­gion is still being retai­ned, but in essence it has become a quite dif­ferent reli­gion in its prin­ciple, even of a dia­me­tri­cal­ly oppo­site cha­rac­ter. And when inces­sant­ly the charge is brought against us, that in point of fact the tra­di­tio­nal Christ of the Church involves a com­plete meta­mor­pho­sis of the genuine Jesus, whil­st the modern inter­pre­ta­tion has lif­ted the veil off the true cha­rac­ter of the his­to­ri­cal Jesus of Naza­reth, we can but ans­wer that, after all, his­to­ri­cal­ly, not this modern concep­tion of Jesus of Naza­reth, but the Chur­ch’s confes­sion of the Christ is the one that has conque­red the world ; and that cen­tu­ry after cen­tu­ry, the best and most pious of our race have paid homage to the Christ of tra­di­tion and rejoi­ced in Him as their Savior in the sha­dow of death.

Though desi­ring to be second to none, the­re­fore, in sin­cere appre­cia­tion of what is noble in such attempts, I am ful­ly set­tled in my convic­tion that no help is to be expec­ted from that quar­ter. A theo­lo­gy which vir­tual­ly des­troys the autho­ri­ty of the Holy Scrip­tures as a sacred book ; which sees in sin nothing but a lack of deve­lop­ment ; reco­gnizes Christ for no more than a reli­gious genius of cen­tral signi­fi­cance ; views redemp­tion as a mere rever­sal of our sub­jec­tive mode of thin­king ; and indulges in a mys­ti­cism dua­lis­ti­cal­ly oppo­sed to the world of the intel­lect, –such a theo­lo­gy is like a dam giving way before the first assault of the inru­shing tide. It is a theo­lo­gy without hold upon the masses, a quasi-religion

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utter­ly power­less to res­tore our sad­ly tot­te­ring moral life to even a tem­po­ra­ry footing.

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May more per­haps be expec­ted from the mar­ve­lous ener­gy dis­played in the lat­ter half of this cen­tu­ry by Rome ? Let us not too has­ti­ly dis­miss this ques­tion. Though the his­to­ry of the Refor­ma­tion has esta­bli­shed a fun­da­men­tal anti­the­sis bet­ween Rome and our­selves, it would never­the­less be nar­row-min­ded and short­sigh­ted to unde­res­ti­mate the real power which even now is mani­fest in Rome’s war­fare against Atheism and Pan­theism. Only igno­rance of the exhaus­tive stu­dies of Romish phi­lo­so­phy and of Rome’s suc­cess­ful efforts in social life, could account for such a super­fi­cial judg­ment. Cal­vin in his day alrea­dy ack­now­led­ged that, as against a spi­rit from the Great Deep, he consi­de­red Romish belie­vers his allies. A so-cal­led ortho­dox Pro­tes­tant need only mark in his confes­sion and cate­chism such doc­trines of reli­gion and morals as are not sub­ject to contro­ver­sy bet­ween Rome and our­selves, to per­ceive imme­dia­te­ly that what we have in com­mon with Rome concerns pre­ci­se­ly those fun­da­men­tals of our Chris­tian creed now most fier­ce­ly assaul­ted by the modern spi­rit. Undoub­ted­ly on the points of the eccle­sias­ti­cal hie­rar­chy, of man’s nature before and after the Fall, of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, of the mass, of the invo­ca­tion of saints and angels, of the wor­ship of images, of pur­ga­to­ry, and many others, we are as unflin­chin­gly oppo­sed to Rome as our fathers were. But does not cur­rent lite­ra­ture show that these are not now the points on which the struggle of the age is concen­tra­ted ? Are not the lines of bat­tle drawn as fol­lows : Theism over against Pan­theism ; sin over against imper­fec­tion ; the divine Christ of God over against Jesus the mere man ; the cross a sacri­fice of recon­ci­lia­tion over against the cross as a sym­bol of mar­tyr­dom ; the Bible as given by ins­pi­ra­tion of God over against a pure­ly human pro­duct ; the ten com­mand­ments as ordai­ned by God over against a mere archaeo­lo­gi­cal docu­ment ; the ordi­nances of God abso­lu­te­ly esta­bli­shed over against an ever-chan­ging law and mora­li­ty spun out of man’s sub­jec­tive conscious­ness ? Now, in this conflict Rome is not an anta­go­nist, but stands on our side, inas­much as she also reco­gnizes and main­tains the Tri­ni­ty, the Dei­ty of Christ, the Cross as an ato­ning sacri­fice. the Scrip­tures as the Word of God. and the

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Ten Com­mand­ments as a divi­ne­ly-impo­sed rule of life. The­re­fore. let me ask ii Romish theo­lo­gians take up the sword to do valiant and skill­ful bat­tle against the same ten­den­cy that we our­selves mean to fight to the death, is it not the part of wis­dom to accept the valuable help of their elu­ci­da­tion ? Cal­vin at least was accus­to­med to appeal to Tho­mas of Aqui­no. And I for my part am not asha­med to confess that on many points my views have been cla­ri­fied through my stu­dy of the Romish theologians.

This, howe­ver, does not in the least involve that our hope for the future may be pla­ced in Rome’s endea­vor, and that we, idle our­selves, may await Rome’s vic­to­ry. A rapid sur­vey of the situa­tion will suf­fice to convince us of the contra­ry. To begin with your own conti­nent, can South Ame­ri­ca for a moment stand a com­pa­ri­son with the North ? Now in South and Cen­tral Ame­ri­ca the Roman Catho­lic Church is supreme. It has exclu­sive control in this ter­ri­to­ry, Pro­tes­tan­tism not even coun­ting as a fac­tor. Here, then, is an immense field in which the social and poli­ti­cal power. which Rome can bring to bear upon the rege­ne­ra­tion of our race, can free­ly exert itself, a field, moreo­ver, in which Rome is not a recent arri­val, but which she has occu­pied for almost three cen­tu­ries. The you­th­ful deve­lop­ment of the social orga­nism of these coun­tries has stood under her influence ; she has remai­ned in control also of their intel­lec­tual and spi­ri­tual life since their libe­ra­tion from Spain and Por­tu­gal. Moreo­ver, the popu­la­tion of these States is deri­ved from such Euro­pean coun­tries as have always been under the undis­pu­ted sway of Rome. The test, the­re­fore, is as com­plete and fair as pos­sible. Rut in vain do we look in those Ame­ri­can Romish States for a life which ele­vates, deve­lops ener­gy, and exerts a who­le­some influence out­side. Finan­cial­ly they are weak, com­pa­ra­ti­ve­ly unpro­gres­sive in their eco­no­mic condi­tions in their i poli­ti­cal life they present the sad spec­tacle of end­less inter­nal strife : and, if one were incli­ned to form an ideal pic­ture of the future of the world, he might almost do so by ima­gi­ning the very oppo­site of what is the actual situa­tion in South Ame­ri­ca. Nor can it be plea­ded in excuse of Rome that this is due to excep­tio­nal cir­cum­stances, for in the first place this poli­ti­cal back­ward­ness is met with not only in Chi­li, but like­wise in Peru, Bra­zil as well as in the Vene­zue­lan Repu­blic ; while, cros­sing from the New to the Old

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World, we reach, in spite of our­selves, the same conclu­sion in Europe, also, the cre­dit of all Pro­tes­tant states is high, that of the Sou­thern coun­tries which are Roman Catho­lic, is at a pain­ful dis­count. Eco­no­mic and admi­nis­tra­tive affairs in Spain and Por­tu­gal. and not less than in Ita­ly, offer cause for conti­nual com­plaint. The out­ward power and out­side influence of these states is visi­bly decli­ning. And, what is more dis­cou­ra­ging still, infi­de­li­ty and a revo­lu­tio­na­ry spi­rit have made such inroads in these coun­tries, that half of the popu­la­tion, though still nomi­nal­ly Romish, has in rea­li­ty bro­ken with all true reli­gion. This may be seen in France, which is almost enti­re­ly Roman Catho­lic, and yet has voted time and again with overw­hel­ming majo­ri­ties against the advo­cates of reli­gion. In fact we may say that. in order to appre­ciate the noble, ener­ge­tic traits of the Roma­nists, one must observe them, not in their own coun­tries where they are on the decline, but in the centre of Pro­tes­tant North Ger­ma­ny, in Pro­tes­tant Hol­land, and England, and in your own Pro­tes­tant Uni­ted States. In regions where, depri­ved of a control­ling influence, they adjust them­selves to the poli­ty of others and concen­trate their strength as an oppo­si­tion par­ty, under such lea­ders as Man­ning and Wise­man, Von Ket­te­ler and Wind­thorst, they com­pel our admi­ra­tion by the enthu­sias­tic cham­pion­ship of their cause.

But even apart from this tes­ti­mo­nium pau­per­ta­tis fur­ni­shed by Rome her­self through the mis­ma­na­ge­ment in Sou­thern Europe an

South Ame­ri­ca, where she has full sway, in the contest of the nations also her power and influence are visi­bly waning. The balance of power in Europe is now gra­dual­ly pas­sing into the hands of Rus­sia, Ger­ma­ny, and England, eve­ry one of them non-Romish States, and on your own conti­nent the Pro­tes­tant North holds the supre­ma­cy. Since 1866 Aus­tria has been conti­nual­ly retro­gres­sing. and at the death of the present Empe­ror will be serious­ly threa­te­ned with dis­so­lu­tion. Ita­ly has attemp­ted to live beyond its resources : it strove to be a great, colo­nial, naval power, and the result is that it has brought itself to the verge of eco­no­mic ruin. The bat­tle of Addua dealt the dea­th­blow to more than her colo­nial aspi­ra­tions. Spain and Por­tu­gal have abso­lu­te­ly lost all influence on the social, intel­lec­tual, and poli­ti­cal deve­lop­ment of Europe. And France, which only fif­ty years ago, made all Europe tremble

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at the unshea­thing of her sword, is now her­self anxious­ly scan­ning the Sibyl­line books of her future. Even from a sta­tis­ti­cal point of view, the power of Rome is all the while decrea­sing. Eco­no­mic and moral depres­sion has in more than one Romish coun­try brought about a consi­de­rable decrease of the bir­thrate. Whil­st in Rus­sia, Ger­ma­ny, England, and the Uni­ted States popu­la­tion is gro­wing, it has in some Romish coun­tries become almost sta­tio­na­ry. Even now sta­tis­tics give only the smal­ler half of Chris­ten­dom to the Roman Catho­lic Church, and it is safe to pre­dict that within the next half cen­tu­ry its share will be less than for­ty per cent. Howe­ver high­ly, the­re­fore, I may be incli­ned to value the inherent power of Roman Catho­lic uni­ty and scho­lar­ship for the defense of much we also count sacred, and though I do not see how we could repulse the attack of Moder­nism save by com­bi­ned exer­tion, never­the­less there is not the sligh­test pros­pect that the poli­ti­cal supre­ma­cy will ever again pass into Rome’s hands. And, even if this were to hap­pen contra­ry to expec­ta­tions, who could pos­si­bly rejoice as in the rea­li­za­tion of his ideal, if he beheld the condi­tions now pre­vai­ling in Sou­thern Europe and South Ame­ri­ca, repro­du­ced elsewhere ?

We may, in fact, even put it more stron­gly : it would be a step back­wards in the course of his­to­ry. Rome’s world and life-view repre­sents an older and hence lower stage of deve­lop­ment in the his­to­ry of man­kind. Pro­tes­tan­tism suc­cee­ded it, and hence occu­pies a spi­ri­tual­ly higher stand­point. He who will not go back­wards, but reaches after higher things, must the­re­fore either stand by the world-view once deve­lo­ped by Pro­tes­tan­tism, or, on the other hand, for this, too, is concei­vable, point out a still higher stand­point. Now this is what the lat­ter modern phi­lo­so­phy does indeed pre­sume to do, ack­now­led­ging Luther as a great man for his time, but hai­ling in Kant and Dar­win the apostles of a much richer gos­pel. But this need not detain us. For our own age, howe­ver great in inven­tion, in the dis­play of powers of mind and ener­gy, has not advan­ced us a single step in the esta­blish­ment of prin­ciples, has in no wise given us a higher view of life, and has yiel­ded us nei­ther grea­ter sta­bi­li­ty nor grea­ter sound­ness in our reli­gious and ethi­cal, that is, tru­ly human exis­tence. The solid faith of the Refor­ma­tion it has bar­te­red for shif­ting hypo­the­sis ; and in

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so far as it ven­tu­red upon a sys­te­ma­ti­zed and strict­ly logi­cal life view it did not reach for­ward, but back­ward, to that hea­then wis­dom of pre-Chris­tian times, of which Paul tes­ti­fied that God has put it to shame by the foo­li­sh­ness of the Cross. Let no one the­re­fore say : Ye who, because his­to­ry does not go back­ward, pro­test against a return to Rome, ye your­selves have no right to make a stand on Pro­tes­tan­tism ; for after Pro­tes­tan­tism came Moder­nism. The per­ti­nence of such an objec­tion must be denied, as long as my conten­tion be not dis­pro­ved, that the mate­rial advance of our cen­tu­ry has nothing in com­mon with advan­ce­ment in the mat­ter of ethi­cal prin­ciples, and that what Moder­nism offers us is not modern, but rather very antique not pos­te­rior, but ante­rior to Pro­tes­tan­tism, rea­ching back to the Stoa and to Epicurus.

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Only along the lines of Pro­tes­tan­tism, the­re­fore, can a suc­cess­ful advance be attemp­ted, and on those lines indeed sal­va­tion is sought at present, by two dif­ferent ten­den­cies, both of which must lead to bit­ter disap­point­ment. The one of these is prac­ti­cal, the other mys­ti­cal in cha­rac­ter. Without hope of defence against modern cri­ti­cism and still less against cri­ti­cism of dog­ma, the for­mer, the prac­ti­cal ten­den­cy, holds that Chris­tians can do no bet­ter than fall back upon all man­ner of Chris­tian works. Its devo­tees are at a loss what atti­tude to assume towards the Scrip­tures ; they have become them­selves estran­ged from dog­ma ; but what is to prevent such hesi­ta­ting belie­vers from sacri­fi­cing their per­son and their gold to the cause of phi­lan­thro­py, evan­ge­lism, and mis­sions ! This even offers a three­fold advan­tage : it unites Chris­tians of all shades of opi­nion, alle­viates much mise­ry, and has a conci­lia­to­ry attrac­tion for the non-Chris­tian world And, of course, this pro­pa­gan­dism through action must be gra­te­ful­ly and sym­pa­the­ti­cal­ly hai­led. In the cen­tu­ry that has pas­sed, Chris­tian acti­vi­ty was indeed far too limi­ted ; and a Chris­tia­ni­ty that does not prove its worth in prac­tice, dege­ne­rates into dry scho­las­ti­cism and idle talk. It would be a mis­take, howe­ver, to sup­pose that Chris­tia­ni­ty can be confi­ned within the limits of such prac­ti­cal mani­fes­ta­tion. Our Savior made whole the sick and fed the hun­gry, but the para­mount thing in His minis­try was, after all, that in strict alle­giance to the Scrip­tures of

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the old Cove­nant, He open­ly pro­clai­med His own Divi­ni­ty and Media­tor­ship, the expia­tion of sins through His blood, and His coming to judg­ment. No cen­tral dog­ma, in fact, has ever been confes­sed by the Church of Christ which was not the intel­lec­tual defi­ni­tion of what Christ pro­clai­med about His own mis­sion to the world, and about the world to which He was sent. He hea­led the sick body, but He even more tru­ly bound up our spi­ri­tual wounds. He rescued us from Paga­nism and Judaism, and trans­la­ted us into a whol­ly new world of convic­tions of which He Him­self, as the God-ordai­ned Mes­siah, consti­tu­ted the cen­ter. Besides, as far as our dis­pute with Rome is concer­ned, we should not lose sight of the fact that in Chris­tian works and devo­tion Rome still outs­trips us. Nay, let us ack­now­ledge without reserve that even the unbe­lie­ving world is begin­ning to rival us, and that in deeds of phi­lan­thro­py, she tries more and more to over­take us. In mis­sions, to be sure, unbe­lief does not fol­low in our foots­teps ; but pray how can we conti­nue to pro­se­cute mis­sions, unless we have a well-defi­ned Gos­pel to preach ? Or is it pos­sible to ima­gine any­thing more mons­trous than so-cal­led libe­ral mis­sio­na­ries prea­ching only huma­ni­ty and color­less pie­ty, and met by the pagan sages with the ans­wer that they them­selves in their cultu­red circles have never taught or belie­ved any­thing else than just this modern humanism ?

Does per­haps the other ten­den­cy, the mys­ti­cal one, pos­sess stron­ger powers of defence ? What thin­ker or student of his­to­ry would affirm this ? No doubt mys­ti­cism era­diates a fer­vor that warms the heart ; and woe betide the giant of dog­ma and the hero of action, who are stran­gers to its depths and ten­der­ness. God crea­ted hand, head, and heart ; the hand for the deed, the head for the world, the heart for mys­ti­cism. King in deed, pro­phet in pro­fes­sion, and priest in heart, shall man in this three­fold office stand before God, and a Chris­tia­ni­ty that neglects the mys­tic ele­ment grows fri­gid and congeals. We are, the­re­fore, to be accoun­ted for­tu­nate whe­ne­ver a mys­tic atmos­phere enve­lops us, making us breathe the bal­my air of spring. Through it life is made truer, dee­per, and richer. But it would be a sad mis­take to sup­pose that mys­ti­cism, taken by itself, can bring about a rever­sal in the spi­rit of the age. Not Ber­nard of Clair­vaux but Tho­mas of Aqui­no, not Tho­mas a Kem­pis but Luther, have ruled the spi­rits of men.

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Mys­ti­cism is, in its very nature, seclu­sive, and strives rather to avoid contact with the out­side world. Its very strength lies in the indif­fe­ren­tia­ted life of the soul, and on this account it can­not take a posi­tive stand. It flows along a sub­ter­ra­nean bed and does not show shar­ply demar­ca­ted lines above the ground. What is worse, his­to­ry proves that all one-sided mys­ti­cism has always become mor­bid, and has ulti­ma­te­ly dege­ne­ra­ted into a mys­ti­cism of the flesh, astoun­ding the world with its moral infamy.

Accor­din­gly, although I rejoice in the revi­val of both the prac­ti­cal and mys­ti­cal ten­den­cies, both will result in loss ins­tead of gain, if they are expec­ted to com­pen­sate for the aban­don­ment of the Truth of Sal­va­tion Mys­ti­cism is sweet, and Chris­tian works are pre­cious, but the seed of the Church, both at the birth of Chris­tia­ni­ty and in the age of the Refor­ma­tion, has beer. the blood of mar­tyrs ; and our sain­ted mar­tyrs shed their blood not for mys­ti­cism and not for phi­lan­thro­pic pro­jects, but for the sake of convic­tions such as concer­ned the accep­tance of truth and the rejec­tion of error. To live with conscious­ness is man’s well-nigh divine pre­ro­ga­tive, and only from the clear, unobs­cu­red vision of conscious­ness pro­ceeds the migh­ty word that can make the times reverse their cur­rent. and cause a revo­lu­tion in the spi­rit of the world. It is self-decep­tion, the­re­fore, and only self-decep­tion, when these prac­ti­cal and mys­ti­cal Chris­tians believe they can do without a Chris­tian life and world-view of their own. No one can do without that. Eve­ryone who thinks he can aban­don the Chris­tian truths, and do away with the Cate­chism of Refor­ma­tion, lends ear una­wares to the hypo­theses of the modern world-view and, without kno­wing how far he has drif­ted alrea­dy, swears by the Cate­chism of Rous­seau and Darwin.

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The­re­fore, let us not stop half-way. As tru­ly as eve­ry plant has a root, so tru­ly does a prin­ciple hide under eve­ry mani­fes­ta­tion of life. These prin­ciples are inter­con­nec­ted. and have their com­mon root in a fun­da­men­tal prin­ciple ; and from the lat­ter is deve­lo­ped logi­cal­ly and sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly the whole com­plex of ruling ideas and concep­tions that go to make up our life and world-view. With such a coherent world and life-view, firm­ly res­ting on its principle

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and self consistent in its splen­did struc­ture, Moder­nism now confronts Chris­tia­ni­ty ; and against this dead­ly dan­ger, ye, Chris­tians can­not suc­cess­ful­ly defend your sanc­tua­ry, but by pla­cing, in oppo­si­tion to all this, a life- and world­view of your own, foun­ded as firm­ly on the base of your own prin­ciple, wrought out with the same clear­ness and glit­te­ring in an equal­ly logi­cal consis­ten­cy. Now this is not obtai­ned by either Chris­tian works or mys­ti­cism but only by going back, our hearts full of mys­ti­cal warmth and our per­so­nal faith mani­fes­ting itself in abun­dant fruit, to that tur­ning-point in his­to­ry, and in the deve­lop­ment of huma­ni­ty which was rea­ched in the Refor­ma­tion. and this is equi­va­lent to a return to Cal­vi­nism. There is no choice here. Soci­nia­nism died an inglo­rious death ; Ana­bap­tism per­ished in wild revo­lu­tio­na­ry orgies. Luther never wor­ked out his fun­da­men­tal thought. And Pro­tes­tan­tism, taken in a gene­ral sense, without fur­ther dif­fe­ren­tia­tion, is either a pure­ly nega­tive concep­tion without content, or a cha­me­leon-like name which the deniers of the God-Man like to adopt as their shield. Only of Cal­vi­nism can it be said that it has consis­tent­ly and logi­cal­ly fol­lo­wed out the lines of the Refor­ma­tion, has esta­bli­shed not only Churches but also States, has set its stamp upon social and public life, and has thus, in the full sense of the word, crea­ted for the whole life of man a world of thought enti­re­ly its own.

I feel convin­ced that, after what I have said in my first lec­tures, no one will accuse me of under­ra­ting Luthe­ra­nism ; yet the present Empe­ror of Ger­ma­ny has no less than three times fur­ni­shed an example of the evil after-effects of Luther’s appa­rent­ly slight mis­takes. Luther was mis­led into reco­gni­zing the Sove­rei­gn of the land as the head of the Esta­bli­shed Church, and what have we, as a result of this, been cal­led upon to wit­ness from Ger­man’s eccen­tric Empe­ror ? First of all, that Sto­cker, the cham­pion of Chris­tian demo­cra­cy, was dis­mis­sed from his court, mere­ly because this bold defen­der of the free­dom of the churches had so much as expres­sed the wish that the Empe­ror should abdi­cate his chief epi­sco­pate. Next, that at the sai­ling of the Ger­man squa­dron for Chi­na, Prince Hen­ry of Rus­sia was ins­truc­ted to car­ry to the far orient not the “Chris­tian” but the “impe­rial gos­pel.” More recent­ly that he cal­led upon his loyal sub­jects to be fai­th­ful in the

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per­for­mance of their duties, urging as a motive that after death they were to appear before God … and His Christ ? … No ; but … before God … and the great Empe­ror. And final­ly, on the ban­quet of Por­ta Wes­pha­lia, that Ger­ma­ny had to conti­nue its labors undis­tur­bed­ly under the bles­sing of peace, as enjoi­ned, he conclu­ded, by the outs­tret­ched hand of the great Empe­ror, who here stands above us. Ever bol­der encroach­ment, it will be noti­ced, of Cae­sa­rism upon the essence of the Chris­tian reli­gion, These, as you see, are far from mere trifles ; rather, they touch prin­ciples of world-wide appli­ca­tion, for which our fore­fa­thers in the age of the Refor­ma­tion fought their great bat­tles. To I am as averse as any man ; but in order to place for the defence of Chris­tia­ni­ty, prin­ciple over against prin­ciple, the world-view over against world-view, there lies at hand, for him who is a Pro­tes­tant in bone and mar­row, only the Cal­vi­nis­tic prin­ciple as the sole trust­wor­thy foun­da­tion on which to build.

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What, then, are we to unders­tand by this return to Cal­vi­nism ? Do I mean that all belie­ving Pro­tes­tants should sub­scribe, the soo­ner the bet­ter, to the Refor­med sym­bols, and thus all eccle­sias­ti­cal mul­ti­for­mi­ty be swal­lo­wed up in the uni­ty of the Refor­med church-orga­ni­za­tion ? I am far from che­ri­shing so crude, so igno­rant, so unhis­to­ri­cal a desire. As a mat­ter of course, there is inherent in eve­ry convic­tion, in eve­ry confes­sion, a motive for abso­lute and uncon­di­tio­nal pro­pa­gan­dism, and the word of Paul to Agrip­pa : “I would to God that with lit­tle or with much, not only you, but also all that hear me this day, might become such as I am,” must remain the heart­felt wish not only of eve­ry good Cal­vi­nist, but of eve­ry one who may glo­ry in a firm immo­vable convic­tion. But so ideal a desire of the human heart can never be rea­li­zed in this our dis­pen­sa­tion. First of all, not one Refor­med stan­dard, not even the purest, is infal­lible as was the word of Paul. Then, again, the Cal­vi­nis­tic confes­sion is so dee­ply reli­gious, so high­ly spi­ri­tual that, excep­ting always per­iods of pro­found reli­gious com­mo­tion, it will never be rea­li­zed by the large masses, but will impress with a sense of its inevi­ta­bi­li­ty only a rela­ti­ve­ly small circle. Fur­ther­more, our inborn one-sided­ness will always neces­sa­ri­ly lead to the manifestation

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of the Church of Christ in many forms. And, last not least, absorp­tion on a large scale by one Church of the mem­bers of ano­ther can only take place at cri­ti­cal moments in his­to­ry. In the ordi­na­ry run of things eigh­ty per cent of the Chris­tian popu­la­tion die in the Church in which they were born and bap­ti­zed. Besides, such an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of my pro­gram with the absorp­tion of one Church by ano­ther would be at variance with the whole ten­den­cy of my argu­ment. Not eccle­sias­ti­cal­ly confi­ned to a nar­row circle, but as a phe­no­me­non of uni­ver­sal signi­fi­cance. have I com­men­ded to you the Cal­vi­nism of his­to­ry. The­re­fore, what I ask may in the main be redu­ced to the fol­lo­wing four points : (1) that Cal­vi­nism shall no lon­ger be igno­red where it still exists, but be streng­the­ned where its influence conti­nues ; (2) that Cal­vi­nism shall again be made a sub­ject of stu­dy in order that the out­side world may come to know it ; (3) that its prin­ciples shall again be deve­lo­ped in accor­dance with the needs of our time, and consis­tent­ly applied to the various domains of life ; and (4) that the Churches which still lay claim to confes­sing it, shall cease being asha­med of their own confession.

First, then, Cal­vi­nism should no lon­ger he igno­red where it still exists. but rather be streng­the­ned where its his­to­ri­cal influences are still mani­fest. A poin­ting out in detail. with even some degree of com­ple­te­ness, of the traces that Cal­vi­nism has eve­ryw­here left behind in social and poli­ti­cal, in scien­ti­fic and aes­the­tic life, would in itself demand a broa­der stu­dy than could he thought of in the rapid course of a lec­ture. Allow me. the­re­fore, addres­sing an Ame­ri­can audience, to point out a single fea­ture in your own poli­ti­cal life. I have alrea­dy obser­ved in my third lec­ture how in the preamble of more than one of your Consti­tu­tions, while taking a deci­ded­ly demo­cra­tic view, never­the­less not the atheis­tic stand­point of the French Revo­lu­tion, but the Cal­vi­nis­tic confes­sion of the supreme sove­rei­gn­ty of God, has been made the foun­da­tion, at times even in terms, as I have poin­ted out, cor­res­pon­ding lite­ral­ly with the words of Cal­vin. Not a trace is to he found among you of that cynic anti-cle­ri­ca­lism which has become iden­ti­fied with the very essence of the revo­lu­tio­na­ry demo­cra­cy in France and elsew­here. And when your Pre­sident pro­claims a natio­nal day of thanks­gi­ving, or when the houses of Congress assem­bled in Washing­ton are

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ope­ned with prayer, it is ever new evi­dence that through Ame­ri­can demo­cra­cy there runs even yet a vein which, having sprung from the Pil­grim Fathers, still exerts its power at the present day. Even your com­mon school sys­tem, inas­much as it is bles­sed with the rea­ding of Scrip­ture and ope­ning prayer, points, though with decrea­sing dis­tinct­ness, to like Cal­vi­nis­tic ori­gin. Simi­lar­ly in the rise of your uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion, sprin­ging for the lar­ger part from indi­vi­dual ini­tia­tive ; in the decen­tra­li­zed and auto­no­mous cha­rac­ter of your local govern­ments ; in your strict and yet not nomis­tic Sab­bath-obser­vance ; in the esteem in which woman is held among you, without fal­ling into the Pari­sian dei­fi­ca­tion of her sex ; in your sense for domes­ti­ci­ty ; in the clo­se­ness of your fami­ly ties ; in your cham­pion­ship of free speech, and in your unli­mi­ted regard for free­dom of conscience ; in all this your Chris­tian demo­cra­cy is in direct oppo­si­tion to the demo­cra­cy of the French Revo­lu­tion ; and his­to­ri­cal­ly also it is demons­trable that you owe this to Cal­vi­nism and to Cal­vi­nism alone. But, lo and behold, while you are thus enjoying the fruits of Cal­vi­nism, and while even out­side of your bor­ders the consti­tu­tio­nal sys­tem of govern­ment as an out­come of Cal­vi­nis­tic war­fare, upholds the natio­nal honor, it is whis­pe­red abroad that all these are to be accoun­ted bles­sings of Huma­nism, and scar­ce­ly any one still thinks of hono­ring in them the after-effects of Cal­vi­nism, the lat­ter being belie­ved to lead a lin­ge­ring life only in a few dog­ma­ti­cal­ly petri­fied circles. What I demand then, and demand with an his­to­ric right, is that this ungra­te­ful igno­ring of Cal­vi­nism shall come to an end ; that the influence it has exer­ted shall again receive atten­tion where it still remains stam­ped upon the actual life of today ; and that, where men of a whol­ly dif­ferent spi­rit would unob­ser­ved­ly divert the cur­rent of life into French revo­lu­tio­na­ry or Ger­man pan­theis­tic chan­nels, you on this side of the water. and we on our side, should oppose with might and main such fal­si­fi­ca­tion of the his­to­ric prin­ciples of our life.

That we may be enabled to do so, I contend in the second place, for an his­to­ri­cal stu­dy of the prin­ciples of Cal­vi­nism. No love without know­ledge ; and Cal­vi­nism has lost its place in the hearts of the people. It is being advo­ca­ted only from a theo­lo­gi­cal point of view, and even then very one-sided­ly, and mere­ly as a side is

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The cause of this I have poin­ted out in a pre­vious lec­ture. Since Cal­vi­nism arose, not from am abs­tract sys­tem, but from life itself, it never was in the cen­tu­ry of its prime pre­sen­ted as a sys­te­ma­tic whole. The tree blos­so­med and yiel­ded its fruit, but without any one having made a bota­nic stu­dy of its nature and growth. Cal­vi­nism, in its rise, rather acted than argued. But now this stu­dy may no lon­ger be delayed. Both the bio­gra­phy and bio­lo­gy of Cal­vi­nism must now be tho­rough­ly inves­ti­ga­ted and thought out, or, with our lack of self-know­ledge, we shall be side-tra­cked into a world of ideas that is more at dis­cord than in conso­nance with the life of our Chris­tian demo­cra­cy, and cut loose from the root on which we once blos­so­med so vigorously.

Only through such stu­dy will there become pos­sible what I named in the third place : the deve­lop­ment of the prin­ciples of Cal­vi­nism in accor­dance with the needs of our modern conscious­ness, and their appli­ca­tion to eve­ry depart­ment of life. I do not exclude theo­lo­gy from this ; for theo­lo­gy, too, exer­cises its influence upon life in all its rami­fi­ca­tions ; and it is, the­re­fore, sad to see how even the theo­lo­gy of the Refor­med Churches has in so many a coun­try come under the sway of whol­ly forei­gn sys­tems. But, at all events, theo­lo­gy is only one of the many sciences that demand Cal­vi­nis­tic treat­ment. Phi­lo­so­phy, psy­cho­lo­gy, aes­the­tics, juris­pru­dence, the social sciences, lite­ra­ture, and even the medi­cal and natu­ral sciences, each and all of these, when phi­lo­so­phi­cal­ly concei­ved, go back to prin­ciples, and of neces­si­ty even the ques­tion must be put with much more pene­tra­ting serious­ness than hither­to, whe­ther the onto­lo­gi­cal and anthro­po­lo­gi­cal prin­ciples that rei­gn supreme in the present method of these sciences are in agree­ment with the prin­ciples of Cal­vi­nism, or are at variance with their very essence.

Final­ly, I would add to these three demands –his­to­ri­cal­ly jus­ti­fied as it seems to me still a fourth, that those Churches which lay claim to pro­fes­sing the Refor­med faith, shall cease being asha­med of this confes­sion. You have heard how broad my concep­tion and how wide my views are, even in the mat­ter of eccle­sias­ti­cal life. In free deve­lop­ment only do I see the sal­va­tion of this Church-life. I exalt mul­ti­for­mi­ty and hail in it a higher stage of deve­lop­ment. Even for the Church that has the purest confes­sion, I would not dis­pense with the aid of other Churches in order that

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its inevi­table one-sided­ness may thus be com­ple­men­ted. But what has always filled me with indi­gna­tion was to behold a Church or to meet the office-bea­rer of a Church, with the flag fur­led or hid­den under the garb of office, ins­tead of being thrown out bold­ly to dis­play its glo­rious colors in the breeze. What one confesses to be the truth, one must also dare to prac­tice in word, deed, and whole man­ner of life. A Church Cal­vi­nis­tic in ori­gin and still reco­gni­zable by its Cal­vi­nis­tic confes­sion, which lacks the cou­rage, nay rather which no lon­ger feels the impulse to defend that confes­sion bold­ly and bra­ve­ly against all the world, such a Church dis­ho­nors not Cal­vi­nism but itself. Albeit the Church refor­med in bone and mar­row may be small and few in num­bers, as Churches they will always prove indis­pen­sable for Cal­vi­nism ; and here also the small­ness of the seed need not dis­turb us, if only that seed be sound and whole, ins­tinct with gene­ra­tive and irre­pres­sible life.

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And thus my final lec­ture is rapid­ly dra­wing to its end. But before I close, I feel never­the­less that one ques­tion conti­nues to press for an ans­wer. which accor­din­gly I shall not refuse to face, the ques­tion, name­ly, at what I am aiming in the end : at the aban­don­ment or at the main­te­nance of the doc­trine of elec­tion. The­reun­to allow me to contrast with this word Elec­tion ano­ther word that dif­fers from it in a single let­ter. Our gene­ra­tion turns a deaf ear to Elec­tion, but grows mad­ly enthu­sias­tic over Selec­tion. How, then, may we for­mu­late the tre­men­dous pro­blem that lies hid­den behind these two words, and in what par­ti­cu­lar do the solu­tions of this pro­blem, as repre­sen­ted by these two, almost iden­ti­cal for­mu­las, dif­fer ? The pro­blem concerns the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion : Whence are the dif­fe­rences ? Why is not all alike ? Whence is it that one thing exists in one state, ano­ther in ano­ther ? There is no life without dif­fe­ren­tia­tion, and no dif­fe­ren­tia­tion without inequa­li­ty. The per­cep­tion of dif­fe­rence the very source of our human conscious­ness. the cau­sa­tive prin­ciples of all that exists and grows and deve­lops, in short the mains­pring of all life and thought. I am the­re­fore jus­ti­fied in asser­ting that in the end eve­ry other pro­blem may be redu­ced to this one pro­blem : Whence are those dif­fe­rences ? Whence is the dis­si­mi­la­ri­ty, the hete­ro­ge­nei­ty of existence,

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of gene­sis, and conscious­ness ? To put it concre­te­ly, if you were a plant you would rather be a rose than mush­room ; if insect, but­ter­fly rather than spi­der ; if bird, eagle rather than owl ; if a higher ver­te­brate, lion rather than hye­na ; and again, being man, richer than poor, talen­ted rather than dull-min­ded, of the Aryan race rather than Hot­ten­tot or Kaf­fir. Bet­ween all these there is dif­fe­ren­tia­tion, wide dif­fe­ren­tia­tion. Eve­ryw­here then dif­fe­rences, dif­fe­rences bet­ween the one being and the other ; and that, too, such dif­fe­rences as involve in almost eve­ry ins­tance, pre­fe­rence. When the hawk rends and tears the dove, whence is it that these two crea­tures are thus oppo­sed to, and dif­ferent from each other ? This is the one supreme ques­tion in the vege­table and ani­mal king­dom, among men, in all social life, and it is by means of the theo­ry of Selec­tion that our present age attempts to solve this pro­blem of pro­blems, Even in the single cell it posits dif­fe­rences, wea­ker and stron­ger ele­ments. The stron­ger over­comes the wea­ker, and the gain is sto­red up in a higher poten­cy of being. Or, should the wea­ker still main­tain its sub­sis­tence, the dif­fe­rence will be mani­fest in the fur­ther course of the struggle itself.

Now the blade of grass is not conscious of this, and the spi­der goes on entrap­ping the fly, the tiger killing the stag, and in those cases the wea­ker being does not account to itself for its mise­ry. But we men are clear­ly conscious of these dif­fe­rences, and by us the­re­fore the ques­tion can­not be eva­ded, whe­ther the theo­ry of Selec­tion be a solu­tion cal­cu­la­ted to recon­cile the wea­ker, the less richly endo­wed crea­ture, with its exis­tence. It will be ack­now­led­ged that in itself this theo­ry can but incite to a more furious struggle, with a las­ciate ogni spe­ran­za, voi che’n­trate for the wea­ker being. Against the ordi­nance of faith that the wea­ker shall suc­cumb to the stron­ger, accor­ding to the sys­tem of elec­tion, no struggle can avail. The recon­ci­lia­tion, not sprin­ging from the facts, would the­re­fore have to spring from the idea. But what is here the idea ? Is it not this, that, where these dif­fe­rences have once become esta­bli­shed, and high­ly dif­fe­ren­tia­ted beings appear, this is either the result of chance, or else the neces­sa­ry conse­quence of blind natu­ral forces ? Now, are we to believe that suf­fe­ring huma­ni­ty will ever become recon­ci­led to its suf­fe­ring by such a solu­tion ? Never­the­less I wel­come the pro­gress of this theo­ry of Selec­tion ; and

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I admire the pene­tra­tion and power of thought of the men who com­mend it to us. Not for­sooth, on account of what it urges upon us as a truth ; but because it has mus­te­red cou­rage to attack once more the most fun­da­men­tal of all pro­blems, and thus in point of pro­fun­di­ty reaches the same depth of thought, to which Cal­vin bold­ly descended.

For this is pre­ci­se­ly the high signi­fi­cance of the doc­trine of Elec­tion that, in this dog­ma, as long as three cen­tu­ries ago, Cal­vi­nism dared to face this same all-domi­na­ting pro­blem, sol­ving it, howe­ver, not in the sense of a blind selec­tion stir­ring in uncons­cious cells, but hono­ring the sove­rei­gn choice of Him Who crea­ted all things visible and invi­sible. The deter­mi­na­tion of the exis­tence of all things to be crea­ted, of what is to be camel­lia or but­ter­cup, nigh­tin­gale or crow, hart or swine, and, equal­ly among men, the deter­mi­na­tion of our own per­sons, whe­ther one is to be born as girl or boy, rich or poor, dull or cle­ver, white or colo­red, or even as Abel or Cain, is the most tre­men­dous pre­des­ti­na­tion concei­vable in hea­ven or on earth ; and still we see it taking place before our eyes eve­ry day, and we our­selves are sub­ject to it in our entire per­so­na­li­ty ; our entire exis­tence, our very nature, our posi­tion in life being enti­re­ly dependent on it. This all-embra­cing pre­des­ti­na­tion, the Cal­vi­nist places, not in the hand of man, and still less in the hand of a blind natu­ral force, but in the hand of Almigh­ty God, Sove­rei­gn Crea­tor and Pos­ses­sor of hea­ven and earth ; and it is in the figure of the pot­ter and the clay that Scrip­ture has from the time of the Pro­phets expoun­ded to us this all-domi­na­ting elec­tion. Elec­tion in crea­tion, elec­tion in pro­vi­dence, and so elec­tion also to eter­nal life ; elec­tion in the realm of grace as well as in the realm of nature. Now, when we com­pare these two sys­tems of Selec­tion and Elec­tion, does not his­to­ry show that the doc­trine of Elec­tion has cen­tu­ry upon cen­tu­ry, res­to­red peace and recon­ci­lia­tion to the hearts of the belie­ving suf­fe­rer ; and that all Chris­tians hold elec­tion as we do, in honor, both in crea­tion and in pro­vi­dence ; and that Cal­vi­nism deviates from the other Chris­tian confes­sions in this res­pect only, that, see­king uni­ty and pla­cing the glo­ry of God above all things, it dares to extend the mys­te­ry of Elec­tion to spi­ri­tual life, and to the hope for the life to come ?

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This then is what Cal­vi­nis­tic dog­ma­tic nar­row­ness amounts to. Or rather, for the times are too serious for iro­ny or jest, let eve­ry Chris­tian, who can­not yet aban­don his objec­tions, at least put this all-impor­tant ques­tion to him­self : Do I know of ano­ther solu­tion of this fun­da­men­tal world-pro­blem enabling me bet­ter to defend my Chris­tian faith, in this hour of shar­pest conflict, against rene­wed Paga­nism col­lec­ting its forces and gai­ning day by day ? Do not for­get that the fun­da­men­tal contrast has always been, is still, and will be until the end : Chris­tia­ni­ty and Paga­nism, the idols or the living God. So far there is a dee­ply felt truth in the dras­tic pic­ture drawn by the Ger­man Empe­ror, repre­sen­ting Bud&ism as the coming ene­my. A clo­se­ly drawn cur­tain hides the future ; but Christ has pro­phe­sied to us on Pat­mos the approach of a last and bloo­dy conflict, and even now Japan’s gigan­tic deve­lop­ment in less than for­ty years has filled Europe with fear for what cala­mi­ty might be in store for us from the cun­ning “yel­low race” for­ming so large a pro­por­tion of the human fami­ly. And did not Gor­don tes­ti­fy that his Chi­nese sol­diers, with whom he defea­ted the Tai­pings, if only well drilled and offi­ce­red, made the most splen­did sol­diers he ever com­man­ded ? The Asia­tic ques­tion is in fact of most serious import. The pro­blem of the world took its rise in Asia, and in Asia it will find its final solu­tion ; and, both in tech­ni­cal and mate­rial deve­lop­ment, the issue has shown that hea­then nations, as soon as they awake, and arise from their lethar­gy, rival us almost instantly.

Of course, this dan­ger would be far less mena­cing in case Chris­ten­dom, in both the Old and the New World, stood uni­ted around the Cross, shou­ting songs of praise to their King, and rea­dy as in the days of the cru­sades to advance to the final conflict. But how when pagan thought, pagan aspi­ra­tion, pagan ideals are gai­ning ground even among us and pene­tra­ting to the very heart of the rising gene­ra­tion ? Have not the Arme­nians, just because the concep­tion of Chris­tian soli­da­ri­ty has become so sad­ly wea­ke­ned, been base­ly and cra­ven­ly aban­do­ned to the fate of assas­si­na­tion ? Has not the Greek been cru­shed by the Turk, while Glad­stone, the Chris­tian sta­tes­man, poli­ti­cal­ly a Cal­vi­nist to the very core, who had the cou­rage to brand the Sul­tan “Great Assas­sin,” has depar­ted from among us ? Accor­din­gly radi­cal deter­mi­na­tion must

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be insis­ted upon. Half-mea­sures can­not gua­ran­tee the desi­red result. Super­fi­cia­li­ty will not brace us for the conflict. Prin­ciple must again bear wit­ness against prin­ciple, world-view against world-view, spi­rit against spi­rit. And here, let him who knows bet­ter speak, but I for one know of no stron­ger and no fir­mer bul­wark than Cal­vi­nism, pro­vi­ded it be taken in its sound and vigo­rous formation,

And if you retort, half mockin­gly, am I real­ly naive enough to expect from cer­tain Cal­vi­nis­tic stu­dies a rever­sal in the Chris­tian world-view, then be the fol­lo­wing my ans­wer : The qui­cke­ning of life comes not from men : it is the pre­ro­ga­tive of God, and it is due to His sove­rei­gn will alone, whe­ther or not the tide of reli­gious life rise high in one cen­tu­ry, and run to a low ebb in the next. In the moral world, too, we have at one time spring, when all is bud­ding and rust­ling with life, and again, the cold of win­ter, when eve­ry vital stream congeals, and all reli­gious ener­gy is petrified.

Now the per­iod in which we are living at present, is sur­ely at a low ebb religiously.

Unless God send forth His Spi­rit, there will be no turn, and fear­ful­ly rapid will be the des­cent of the waters. But you remem­ber the Aeo­lian Harp, which men were wont to place out­side their case­ment, that the breeze might wake its music into life. Until the wind blew, the harp remai­ned silent, while, again, even though the wind arose, if the harp did not lie in rea­di­ness, a rust­ling of the breeze might be heard, but not a single note of ethe­real music deligh­ted the ear. Now, let Cal­vi­nism be nothing but such an Aeo­lian Harp, –abso­lu­te­ly power­less, as it is, without the qui­cke­ning Spi­rit of God –still we feel it our God-given duty to keep our harp, its strings tuned aright, rea­dy in the win­dow of God’s Holy Zion, awai­ting the breath of the Spirit.

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1. (Ed.) F. W. Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900, Ger­man Phi­lo­so­pher ; died insane. Author of Thus Spake Zarathustra.

2. (Ed.) The fol­lo­wing para­graph has been revi­sed after the Dutch original.

3. (Ed.) Albrecht Rit­schl, 1822 – 1889. Ger­man theologian.