The ancient faith of the church had even during this age of prevailing unbelief its seven thousand who refused to bow the knee to Baal. The German people were at heart firmly grounded in the Christianity of the Bible and the church, and where the pulpit failed had their spiritual wants supplied by the devout writings of earlier days. Where the modern vandalism of the “Illumination” had mutilated and watered down the books of praise, the old church songs lingered in the memories of fathers and mothers, and were sung with ardour at family worship. For many men of culture, who were more exposed to danger, the Society of the Brethren afforded a welcome refuge. But even among the most accomplished of the nation many stood firmly in the old paths. Lavater and Stilling, Haller and Euler, the two Mosers, father and son, John von Müller and his brother J. G. Müller, are not by any means the only, but merely the best known, of such true sons of the church. In Württemberg and Berg, where religious life was most vigorous, religious sects were formed with new theological views which made a deep impression on the character and habits of the people. Also toward the end of the century an awakened zeal in home and foreign missions was the prelude of the glorious enterprises of our own days.
§ 172.1. The Hymnbook and Church Music.—Klopstock, followed by Cramer and Schlegel, introduced the vandalism of altering the old church hymns to suit modern tastes and views. But a few, like Herder and Schubert, raised their voices against such philistinism. The “Illuminist” alterations were unutterably prosaic, and the old pathos and poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth century hymns were ruthlessly sacrificed. The spiritual songs of the noble and pious Gellert are by far the best productions of this period.—Church Music too now reached its lowest ebb. The old chorales were altered into modern forms. A multitude of new, unpopular melodies, difficult of comprehension, with a bald school tone, were introduced; the last trace of the old rhythm disappeared, and a weary monotony began to prevail, in which all force and freshness were lost. As a substitute, secular preludes, interludes, and concluding pieces were brought in. The people often entered the churches during the playing of operatic overtures, and were dismissed amid the noise of a march or waltz. The church ceased to be the patron and promoter of music; the theatre and concert room took its place. The opera style thoroughly depraved the oratorio. For festival occasions, cantatas in a purely secular, effeminate style were composed. A true ecclesiastical music no longer existed, so that even Winterfeld closed his history of church music with Seb. Bach. It was, if possible, still worse with the mass music of the Roman Catholic church. Palestrina’s earnest and capable school was completely lost sight of under the sprightly and frivolous opera style, and with the organ still more mischief was done than in the Protestant church.
§ 172.2. Religious Characters.—The pastor of Ban de la Roche in Steinthal of Alsace, “the saint of the Protestant church,” J. Fr. Oberlin, A.D. 1740-1826, deserves a high place of honour. During a sixty years’ pastorate “Father Oberlin” raised his poverty-stricken flock to a position of industrial prosperity, and changed the barren Steinthal into a patriarchal paradise. The same may be said of a noble Christian woman of that age, Sus. Cath. von Klettenberg, Lavater’s “Cordata,” Goethe’s “Fair Soul,” whose genuine confessions are wrought into “Wilhelm Meister,” the centre of a beautiful Christian circle in Frankfort, where the young Goethe received religious impressions that were never wholly forgotten.—Community of religious yearnings brought together pious Protestants and pious Catholics. The Princess von Gallitzin, her chaplain Overberg, and minister Von Fürstenberg formed a noble group of earnest Catholics, for whom the ardent Lutheran Hamann entertained the warmest affection.
§ 172.3. Religious Sects.—In Württemberg there arose out of the pietism of Spener, with a dash of the theosophy of Oetinger, the party of the Michelians, so named from a layman, Michael Hahn, whose writings show profound insight into the truths of the gospel. He taught the doctrine of a double fall, in consequence of which he depreciated though he did not forbid marriage; of a restitution of all things; while he subordinated justification to sanctification, the Christ for us to the Christ in us, etc. As a reaction against this extreme arose the Pregizerians, who laid exclusive stress upon baptism and justification, declared assurance and heart-breaking penitence unnecessary, and imparted to their services as much brightness and joy as possible. Both sects spread over Württemberg and still exist, but in their common opposition to the destructive tendencies of modern times, they have drawn more closely together. In their chiliasm and restitutionism they are thoroughly agreed.—The Collenbuschians in Canton Berg propounded a dogmatic system in which Christ empties Himself of His divine attributes, and assumes with sinful flesh the tendencies to sin that had to be fought against, the sufferings of Christ are attributed to the wrath of Satan, and His redemption consists in His overcoming Satan’s wrath for us and imparting His Spirit to enable us to do works of holiness. The most distinguished adherents of Collenbusch were the two Hasencamps and the talented Bremen pastor Menken.
§ 172.4. The Rationalistic “Illumination” outside of Germany.—In Amsterdam, in A.D. 1791, a Restored Lutheran Church or Old Light was organized on the occasion of the intrusion of a rationalistic pastor. It now numbers eight Dutch congregations with 14,000 adherents and 11 pastors. Under the name of Christo Sacrum some members of the French Reformed church at Delft, in A.D. 1797, founded a denomination which received adherents of all confessions, holding by the divinity of Christ and His atonement, and treating all confessional differences as non-essential and to be held only as private opinions. In their public services they adopted mainly the forms of the Anglican episcopal church. Though successful at first, it soon became rent by the incongruity of its elements. In England the dissenters and Methodists provided a healthy protest against the lukewarmness of the State church. In William Cowper, A.D. 1731-1800, we have a noble and brilliant poet of high lyrical genius, whose life was blasted by the terrorism of a predestinarian doctrine of despair and the religious melancholy produced by Methodistic agonies of soul.
§ 172.5. Missionary Societies and Missionary Enterprise.—In order to arouse interest in the idea of a grand union for practical Christian purposes, the Augsburg elder, John Urlsperger, travelled through England, Holland, and Germany. The Basel Society for Spreading Christian Truth, founded in A.D. 1780, was the firstfruits of his zeal, and branches were soon established throughout Switzerland and Southern Germany. The Basel Bible Society was founded in A.D. 1804, and the Missionary Society in A.D. 1816.—At a meeting of English Baptist preachers at Kettering, in Northamptonshire, in A.D. 1792, William Carey was the means of starting the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey was himself its first missionary. He sailed for India in A.D. 1793, and founded the Serampore Mission in Bengal. The work of the society has now spread over the East and West Indies, the Malay Archipelago, South Africa, and South America. A popular preacher, Melville Horne, who had been himself in India, published “Letters on Missions,” in A.D. 1794, in which he earnestly counselled a union of all true Christians for the conversion of the heathen. In response to this appeal a large number of Christians of all denominations, mostly Independents, founded in A.D. 1795, the London Missionary Society, and in the following year the first missionary ship, The Duff, under Captain Wilson, sailed for the South Seas with twenty-nine missionaries on board. Its operations now extend to both Indies, South Africa, and North America; but its chief hold is in the South Seas. In the Society Islands the missionaries wrought for sixteen years without any apparent result, till at last King Pomare II. of Tahiti sought baptism as the first-fruits of their labours. A victory gained over a pagan reactionary party in A.D. 1815 secured complete ascendency to Christianity. The example of the London Society was followed by the founding of two Scottish societies in A.D. 1796 and a Dutch society in A.D. 1797, and the Church Missionary Society in London in A.D. 1799, for the English possessions in Africa, Asia, etc. The Danish Lutheran (§ 167, 9) and the Herrnhut (§ 168, 11) societies still continued their operations.524—Continuation, §§ 183, 184.