person in seventy lives by prostitution. The, against us; and to reconquer it requires a number of divorces yearly (which the Prus- miracle of faith and effort." sian law allows) is one hundred. The What then are the measures by which poorest classes pawn their furniture to take this great and long-neglected work of restor part in masked balls and trips of pleasure. ing the ascendency of Christianity in GerA large portion of the wages of labour are many, and thereby correcting such tremendspent on public lotteries, and even the gifts ous evils as have been glanced at, is now reof charity are sometimes absorbed in the attempted? An answer to this question same abyss. During the prevalence of will open up the whole field of struggle, cholera, some months ago, even when the but we trust also, of progress, over which dead-cart was going daily through the streets, it is the aim of this article to travel; and there was not the least decline in the num- may set in a somewhat clearer light to bers that frequented the public-houses and many persons in this country the peculiar places of amusement, and (horrible to re- difficulties of German Protestantism. We late!) when lately a clergyman was called abstain altogether from the rich and fertile to a domestic baptism, in presence of a large subject of the conflict with Rome; confinnumber of friends of the family-it turned ing ourselves to the efforts of the Protestout that two children were presented instead ant Church towards its own reformation, of one-both of the same age, both by sis- re-organization, and efficient action within ters, and both by the same father, and that its own territory. We shall arrange our father the husband of one of these two-a remarks under the four heads of Doctrine, complication of atrocities, which was re- Government, Worship, and Domestic Misgarded with the greatest sang froid by the sions, and give unity to the whole by controop of guests that had come to the chris- sidering the movements referable to each tening-party. topic not as separate and isolated phenomena, but as manifestations of one great common effort to Christianize, and to Christianize after one type, the whole of nominally Protestant Germany.

This dark picture might easily be painted on a larger canvas. But we have no wish to dilate-far less to convey the impression of unkindness to Germany in such delineations -the materials for which, to their honour be it spoken, Germans in their public con- We begin with Doctrine, because in treatfessions and lamentations have themselves of every ecclesiastical matter, this must supplied. Doubtless details equally har- hold the first place. Doctrine is to the rowing could be selected from our own Church what the blood is to life: and to religious journals and city-mission reports, disparage doctrine under the name of dogas dealing with certain exceptional cities and ma is either silliness or hypocrisy. It is a certain abandoned and neglected classes of necessity of the mind to make doctrine vital; our population. But we honestly think that as is shown by the conduct of those who as characteristic features of our national affect to undervalue it: for the basis of their religious condition, even in great cities, own holy or unholy Catholic Church is alnothing parallel could be adduced: and it ways a creed, for which they are a3 dogmamay be fairly put to the general sense of tic as the bigots of orthodoxy. The first Britain, whether she is prepared by relaxing pleasing symptom of the German Church is her reverence for God's word and day, to the very general and increasingly cordial open the flood-gates of those evils from recognition of this principle. The superciwhich Germany is only beginning slowly to lious latitudinarianism which so long emerge. There would be no escape were reigned is on the wane. An earnest the educated mind of this country once conviction has supplanted it, that faith is brought as in some cases it threatens to the first of Christian graces, and necessary be to the state of the German educated to love and to good works--nay, what is for mind, so emphatically described in the late Germany much harder to pronounce-neBerlin Kirchentag by Dr. Wichern, whose cessary to salvation. A more decided imknowledge of public opinion, high and low, is press is set upon all the leading organs of probably unsurpassed, and whose moderation doctrine than even before the Revolution of of tone contrasted with the more Jeremiah- 1848. What was before dubious has belike despondency of other speakers. "Be not come sound; what was before distinct has deceived. All things tend to the creation of grown loud and even piercing. The so-called two distinct worlds, or rather they are formal and material principles of the Recreated already. Our educated classes read formation-viz. the supremacy of Scripture the Bible no more: and judge of all things and justification by faith-with all that human and divine by another standard. naturally clusters around them-make up The literary world is hermetically sealed the body of doctrine which is now in the

ascendant. It is so in by far the most influ- | ten years ago the general impression was, ential chairs of the different universities (of course statistics were impossble,) that probably the majority as to number; and of the fourteen or fifteen thousand Protestthe same may be almost said of the pulpits; ant clergy of Germany one-third might be though here the point of number is more in the ranks of rationalism, old and new; doubtful. one-third tinctured with the latitudinarianNo university, except perhaps Giessen, ism of Schleiermacher; and a remaining remains still unsubdued by the movement third attached with more or less decision to party. Tübingen is now wrested in a great the doctrines of the confessions. There was measure from Baur and his negative co-ad-probably here an over-estimate both of the jutors; and Leipzig has ceased to bow to Schleiermacher and confessional school; and the sceptre of mere critics and lexicograph- it would have been nearer the truth to have ers. Meanwhile, the men of the middle assigned to rationalism almost the half at school, who have constantly approached, by that period. Now, there can be no doubt paths of their own, the biblical or confes- that the two latter taken together have a sional orthodoxy of the more advanced, may decided majority, and that the confessional be said at last to have reached it; and in party have so advanced at the expense of the persons of Nitzsch and Hengstenberg, both the others as probably not to come in Berlin, these two sections may be de- far short of their united strength. This clared to have so coalesced, as while retain- seems beyond question in Würtemberg, the ing their separate colours, to differ in nothing| Prussian Rhine provinces, and Westphalia, essential. The formation of the minds of and even in the eastern provinces, perhaps the present and next generation is in the also in Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, some parts hands of men-from Heidelberg to Königs- of Hanover, and in most of the great cities; berg-who have not only broken with ra- while in the Hessian States, Nassau, Mecktionalism, pantheism, and spurious criticism, lenburg, and the whole Thuringian and Saxbut actually conquered them; and of whom on districts, the balance inclines heavily the the most eminent (with rare exceptions) are other way. as distinguished for attractiveness of person- Two features are here worthy of notice,al piety as for learning and zeal. The a growing reserve on the one side, and a party of unbelief with the doubtful excep- growing earnestness of speech and action on tion of the Tübingen school are silent. the other. We speak for simplicity's sake Every thing but the theology of the Refor- of two parties rather than three; for the mation is driven from the literary field; and section influenced by Schleiermacher and the general discredit into which speculative holding to his doctrines, has, as a distinct philosophy has fallen-which, indeed, is party, been of late so weakened that it now numbered with the acts of the Frank- seems likely to merge, the better half in fort parliament, has greatly contributed to the more advanced orthodoxy, the weaker the victory of a pure and unsophisticated and worse in the dead immobility of rationalChristianity. The great majority of the ism. In the pulpit, then, the rationalizing younger theologians are found to hold fast Evangelical truth; and Dr. Tholuck, who has been as much honoured as any other in bringing about the change, referred to it in Elberfeld with astonishment, and contrasted the better day he had lived to see, with his own youth, when an attempt was made by a worthy man in the vale of Barmen, to comprise in one catalogue all who were known over Germany to believe in Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son of God.

party, like its leaders from the chair and the press, is become conscious of its moral weakness, and is put on the defensive. We do not mean that its adherents have assumed a polemical attitude, characterized by the bitterness of conscious defeat and a resolution to fight for the last inch of ground; but rather that they have learned to practice reserve in the obtrusion of their anti-symbolical peculiarities, and even to colour them with the phrases and something of So far as the existing pulpits are con- the sentimental unction of orthodoxy. An cerned the inquiry is both more difficult in undisguised, unmitigated attack on any itself and complicated by the wide local well-known article of the Apostle's creed, diversities of a great country. As a whole or a blunt declaration of unbelief in any it may be asserted, that the German pulpits strongly-marked passage of Scripture, would lag a good deal behind the universities in excite too much scandal to be risked in the point of coherent and declared evangelism; pulpit. The excesses of the Friends of and though in the most prominent and far Light, and the miserable figure made by resounding there is a great revival, the the rationalist clergymen, who, as in Baden, majority it is to be feared can hardly yet declared for the Revolution, have made be spoken of as rescued from error. Some their fellows-where they have not been

cided advance in clerical morals as betokens a more earnest feeling all around them.

Still more satisfactory, however, are the evidences of increased boldness and energy, in the teaching as well as pastoral example, of the confessional clergy, though these it would be unreasonable to detail at length. The best German preaching, even of pious men, with a very few exceptions, has been of a too milk-and-water character, neglecting the intellect and conscience, and mainly addressed to the fancy and the feelings, with an adaptation more or less skilful, according to the capacities of the preacher. Inferior, by a long interval in this department, to the masterpieces of French eloquence, it has wanted the intellectual stamina of the Scotch pulpit, and failed in the directness and prac tical power of the English. The beautiful dialectical exercises of Schleiermacher stand alone; and they can hardly be claimed as specimens of Christian teaching based on Scriptural authority. The atmosphere of

taught better lessons-at least too wise in their generation to hazard identification with these martyrs of enlightenment. A smooth and decent Pelagianism, delivered in tones more dulcet or more leaden, is now the staple of their ministrations; and all the angles of heterodoxy are as carefully rubbed off as possible. Coincident with this doctrinal modification, and deserving of notice here as an evidence of the spread of religious earnestness, is the improved attention of the party to the proprieties of cleri- | cal demeanour. It would be an outrage on truth to represent the rationalism of the pulpit in its worst state as unadorned with many fair examples of civil and social virtue. It was so common as not to imply any serious hypocrisy on the part of its adherents, with the invariable tendency of that vice to degrade the moral character. Never theless, the standard of clerical decorum was sadly reduced; and spiritual-mindedness was out of the question. The youthful candidate presented to a living by court the German pulpit has seemed alien to the influence or private patronage, (the choice of the people in those degenerate days would have been no better,) having huddled over his examinations before the consistory, and wriggled through a quasi-test of orthodoxy,-abating in after life the exceptions where he maintained a manful struggle with the help of literature, or rose by native elevation of character into an atmosphere of respect and confidence,-was apt to diverge into mean and crooked ways, in order to fill his basket and store at the expense of his parishioners, waging a petty warfare about glebe-lands and surplice offerings; or if he happened to be a nobler spirit, fresh from university renown, and bearing perhaps a sabre-cut or two as mementos of college duels, became the leading sportsman of the parish, dividing the Sunday between "duty" and a shooting excursion, or acting as chaplain to the freemasons' club, tavern, and theatre. This age is gone by, or at least fast passing away. Dr. Hengstenberg, indeed, declares, in his last year's review of the German ecclesiastical world, that there are very many clergy in every province (he is speaking of Prussia) to all human appearance incorrigible, and so deeply sunk in the eyes of their congregations, that no remedial measure-such as Church visitations, will avail them. But the same faithful censor admits that a still greater number are improvable and improving. And in general it may be said, that though the freer thinking among the clergy still frequent sufficiently the tavern and the dancing party, either to please the flesh or to spite the pietists, there is such a de

VOL. XX.

higher displays of the intellect of its occu pants; and what has been wanting in power of mind has not been compensated for by grave simplicity of statement or energy of appeal. Nothing like the vigor of Barrow has appeared in the colder ages of German Protestantism; nothing like the life and death earnestness of Baxter in his warmth. The pulpit has not been a citadel of strength in Germany since the days of Luther; what it was in the beginning of this century may be learned from the fact, that Blair's sermons were actually translated to enrich its poverty by Schleiermacher in the outset of his career, though certainly far inferior to the contemporary productions of Reinhard, and not to be named with the future efforts of the translator. There has, however, been a great progress towards better things-mark ed by such names as Tholuck, Krummacher, Harless, and others; and if the German pul pit is yet much too sentimental and declamatory, it is at least more earnest, and we rejoice to think also more discriminating. There is more of the preaching which is adapted to make men Christians, and less of that which ignores the necessity of conversion, and finds the whole audience "a devout community." There are louder strains of warning and terror than have for long awakened the drowsy echoes. Much is here still to be done. Where the truth is entire it still wants impetus and momentum to urge it home; and the favourite German style of recommending Christianity as a supply for a want, needs to be varied and vivified by admixture of that still more. apostolic style which presents it as an escape 16

from criminal ruin and danger. There is that beautiful confession,-the well-balanevidently, however, a return to this more ced work of Melanchthon-the earliest excellent fashion of the reformers and the efflorescence of the doctrine of justification greatest of preachers, who have all stood as by faith, before its aroma had been exhaled between the living and the dead. All the by a new scholasticism,-the harmonious recent sermons of the school before us that expression of all the positive doctrines of we have heard or read sustain this convic- Christianity that cluster around that doction; and we may hope that the more tren- trine,-the clear and logical annihilation of chant and decisive edge of the weapon itself all the Romanist errors and abuses that may cut through those semi-universalist and vanish at its presence,-will grudge it this quasi-antinomian sheathings which have hi-honour, to which, moreover, as the most therto blunted the efficacy of German pulpit chivalrous memorial of Protestantism,— Christianity. Among the many other evi- next to Luther's stand at Worms, it is well dences of a more earnest spirit in the pro- entitled. The assent to this confession after mulgation of the Reformation doctrines as a long and interesting discussion, was given the world's sole remedy, may be mentioned almost without a dissenting voice, by the the preaching mission of the two fellow-pro- representatives of almost everything sound fessors in Heidelberg, Hundeshagen, and and progressive in the camp of German Schenkel, to the educated classes. The for Protestantism. The extreme Lutherans mer is known for his able work on German who have refused to attend the Kirchentag Protestantism; the latter for his zealous efforts in the German anti-papal controversy. Both may be said to belong originally to the middle school rather than to the older orthodoxy. Such an advance is therefore the more welcome; and the warm reception which their unconditional and emphatic appeals on the necessity of faith and repentance have met with in the higher circles to which they have been addressed, shows that this keynote cannot be struck too boldly.

from the first, because it emperilled their exclusive orthodoxy, would of course repudiate this act because it did not go far enough, so as to include the Apology for the Confession, Luther's two catechisms, the Smalkald Articles, and the Formula of Concord; in short, the whole heavy baggage of the Lutheran army. Some of the Reformed who were present, hesitated or murmured because it seemed to bind them to a confession of Lutheran origin, though Calvin himself assented to the Augsburg We mention last, as the most decisive evi- symbol. While, of course, the small but dence of a doctrinal progress, the recent respectable minority of German Baptists solemn assent to the leading principles of could not approve of a document which, in the Augsburg confession on the part of the the spirit of that age, condemns their pecuBerlin Kirchentag of September 1853. This liarities with unfortunate harshness. But proceeding somewhat resembled the reno- on the part of the clear and overwhelming vation of the covenants in the days of Scot- majority of the German religious world, we tish ecclesiastical conflicts and agitations. have no doubt that the enthusiasm of the This Kirchentag, as our readers are aware, Kirchentag in reissuing this confession will is a free convention from the ministers and be responded to; since the assembly that members of the Lutheran, Reformed, Unit- adopted it, nearly 2000 in numbers, included, and Moravian Churches of Germany, ed almost without an exception, all the leadforming a kind of annual parliament for the ing theologians and pastors of the great discussion of all public questions, and for central masses of German Protestantismthe advancement of the German Inner Mis- to say nothing of influential laymen, from sion. Heretofore its members had been the Prussian prime-minister Manteuffel required to take only a declaration of ex downwards; on whom and his compeers, animo consent to the Reformation symbols for obvious reasons, no particular stress is in general, and of their purpose in connexion to be laid. We could not rejoice in this with the Kirchentag, to act according to demonstration of the growth of true the them. But this year the farther step was taken of singling out one confession, and that the oldest, and most venerable and catholic-the first doctrinal utterance of the Reformation as the bond of union in this confederation. No one acquainted with

* For a sketch of the formation of this assembly in Wittenburg in 1848 and its subsequent history, see No. XXXI. of this Journal, November 1851.

ology in Germany, if there were in it any displacement of the Scriptures from their supreme position,-any attempt by a sidewind to forward Lutheran peculiarities at the expense of Reformed-or even the shadow of a renunciation of the hope of German theology to improve upon the would indeed be sorrowful to believe that time-hallowed document in question. It the movement of three centuries has been

only in a circle; and that the hasty work, relations to dissent,-out of which, withof a terrible crisis, which bears its mark all out any separate consideration, will spring through, is the perfect form of truth. But the knowledge of what have hitherto been against all such misconceptions, the interest- their most important relations, and their ing discussions referred to, and the nature most injurious, their relations to the of the resolution itself adequately guarded. State. And, therefore, we look upon this procedure The Protestant Church of Germany, in (though liable to misconstruction) on the its two great divisions, the Lutheran and whole, with much complacency, as the re- the Reformed, adopted respectively after ascent of German Christianity out of the some hesitation and attempts at comprodepths of rationalism, to a height where the mise, the two systems of church governgreat landmarks of the past are again in the ment, which are denominated the consissame line of vision, and the shapes of unbe- torial, and the synodal or presbyterian. It lief are all left below. The bearing of this was their common doctrine that the Proinfluential act on German Popery we do not testant sovereign was summus episcopus, stop to notice. We only advert to its bear-in whose hands the supreme administration, ing on English Naturalism. The admirers more however as jus circa sacra than jus in of Germany have now an excellent opportu- sacris, should rest. But in other points, nity of deriving some advantage from their they proceeded on opposite principles, the passion. No protest from the moribund Lutheran organizing the Church from rationalism is likely to strip this act of its above, the Reformed from below. In all national character, as the final utterance of probability, Luther's great doctrine of the German Theology. We expect then recan-universal priesthood of believers would tations and adhesions to the ascendent sys- have conducted him to the same results tem. The blind may now escape from the with Calvin-as indeed there is abundant leadership of the blind. And the muddy evidence that in theory they were one: but draughts of old English Deism reimported the unfortunate peasant war, and the low after a century from Germany as the elixir of state of the Protestant congregations in life, like Thames water that has twice crossed Saxony compelled him, as needful for the the line, with nothing new, but the race of present distress, practically to exalt the the cask, may now be exchanged for the power of the magistrate and of the clerical waters of a native German spring, that runs body, and to neglect the representation of again after the lapse of centuries. the Christian people as such; so that his successors gradually forgot the rights that From this review of the indications of had at first been admitted, and subjected progress in doctrine, we now pass to the the whole Lutheran Church to the adminishead of Church government and organiza-tration of consistories-as successors in tion, where also an impartial spectator, some sort of the Romish bishops-while amidst much that is sadly out of joint, may the authority of the sovereign by whom discern the signs of awakening religious these consistories were named, was unnatu life and ecclesiastical progress. This whole rally extended to a kind of secular popedepartment, partly from its own complexity, dom. For nearly three centuries this conpartly from its remoteness from the general sistorial system in its various modifications field of British ecclesiastical interest, is very has reigned over the different Lutheran state little studied or understood in this country; churches of Germany, including a very and we do not know a single English work, great majority of the whole Protestant great or small, whence a clear idea could be population; while the synodal system derived of those relations of German Pro- nearly resembling that of Holland, Protesttestantism, which fall under this head. We ant France, and Scotland, has chiefly precannot pretend to supply the desideratum vailed in the Palatinate and on the Lower in this paper; more especially as we are Rhine, and other scattered seats of the Rechiefly concerned to give an account of formed; though here and there, as among what is hopeful for the future, and not so the Lutheran communities of Cleves, it has much to lay open the exact statistics of found entrance into the territory of the riwhat has long been stationary. Our read- val system. It is not our purpose to bring ers will excuse us if we therefore explain, an indiscriminate charge against the conrather by implication than with set and sistorial administration in itself, or to reformal purpose, the features of this ob-commend a synodal system of government scure and untravelled region. We shall as an unfailing security of any church either glance at the German Churches in three against corruption of doctrine or neglect of relations, their internal relations, their re- discipline and Christian activity. It is ge lations as churches to each other, and their'nerally admitted indeed, that the Reformed