German Church

“ Even within the limits of the Reformation era, the German church song attained unto such a wonderful degree of excellence, as affords the most convincing evidence of the fulness, power, and spirituality, the genuine elevation and fresh enthusiasm, of the spiritual life of that age. The sacred poetry of the church is the confession of the Lutheran people, and has accomplished even more than preaching for extending and deepening the Christian life of the evangelical church. ”

“ The real pathos first appears when one can talk of 'Blut und Boden', 'Blut und Rasse', 'Blut und Ehre'. The god one really worships is the idol of one's own people. But in the German Church there are men - and fortunately these are not few - who understand what is at stake; what this new religion has to offer the people, from a Christian viewpoint, is nothing less than idolatry. One creates a new god in one's own image, the image of 'the German Man'. The Christians who see this must, through their faithfulness to the Gospel, be forced out into the struggle. ”

“ The Romish Hierarchy repels that German maiden from the altar, who gives her heart to one who owns a different creed,—profanes the virgin modesty of our sisters by wanton questions under the cloak of religion,—takes upon itself, here in the midst of Germany, to refuse the sacraments to mothers, if their children be not nurtured in the faith of Rome,—rages against all attempts at reconciliation between German Catholics and Protestants,—it is the Romish Church that will not hear of peace, however longed for by the people! ”

“ We have means of knowing that many of the best and wisest men in Germany believe that we are now standing on the threshold of great events; and meanwhile, when on both sides of the Alps, Popery is reorganizing itself for a new and fierce attack on Christendom and Heathenism alike, it is most gratifying to know that in the very country of the Reformation—aye, and in the bosom of the Catholic Church itself, there should still be found slumbering the spirit of Luther and his times. ”

“ They presented to the world the noble spectacle of laymen uniting learning with zeal for religion and devotion to the Church, a spectacle seldom witnessed in Germany. Of the two thousand professors and fellows of the twenty-two German universities, how many are there who, untainted by pride and self-sufficiency, call the Church their mother? It is the union of knowledge and piety that produces genuine men, worthy of admiration, and at Malines such men were not scarce. ”

“ Congregations have been formed—a new Church is being established, and men on all sides say and show that they identify themselves with the movement. The Pope is busied now with giving new directions for the German Church; and is earnestly setting himself to narrow, as far as policy, or concession, or remonstrance can do, the evils of the schism which has already taken place. The new Church, it is true, still adheres to the name Catholic, and Ronge has said, that to pure Catholicism he remains true; but we quarrel not with names, if the faith and doings of the men be Protestant in fact. ”

“ But if the German church has become relaxed in morals, it is the fault of those only who before their elevation to the holy office had not, as they were bound to have, the true spirit of their vocation. ”

“ In short, the Church will bathe itself in "the new streams of German power, it will drink from the water which will make our German Will strong and healthy for battle. Our German piety, our German Christianity will assume an heroic colouring, in place of the sentimental tone which has hitherto characterised it." ”

“ Moreover, the skillful diplomacy of the papal legate was really the beginning of a reformation of the old Church in Germany. Many of the abuses were done away with, and the demand for reform, without revolution in doctrine and institutions, was thereby gratified. [285] A German Bible for Catholic readers was soon issued, and a new religious literature grew up designed to prove the truth of the beliefs sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church and to spiritualize its institutions and rites.
Luther's rash talk about the princes and nobles serves to encourage the revolt of the peasants. ”

“ There is no Catholic ruler in a Catholic country to-day able to support and protect the dignity of the Church. The German Emperor is a Protestant monarch, but he is first and last a Christian, and thanks to his usual keen and far-sighted policy, backed up by strong spiritual convictions, religious dissensions are almost unknown in his empire. The Catholic religion enjoys in no country, save the United States, more real freedom from persecution than it does in Germany. ”

“ How, then, can we be asked to admit that the salvation of modern times depends on a belief that has, in the Churches, degenerated into a stupid superstition? All the best that the German mind has ever conceived or felt, for which it has struggled and suffered, all the deepest aspirations of its native religious spirit, which were early quenched by the missionary work of the Christian Church, owe their emergence into light to this Monistic religion of our great thinkers and poets. ”

“ Meanwhile the Protestant evangelical societies have not been asleep. The Gustavus-Adolphus Society (a Society founded for the support of poor Protestant congregations in Catholic countries, and one of the best proofs of the reviving spirit in the German Church,) have expressed their opinion that by the constitution of the Society, they are precluded from assisting the new movement by specific grants of money, but at the same time stating their desire to urge on the spirit that was abroad by all means in their power. ”

“ In their doctrinal and theological literature resides at the present day the strength and the renown of the [Pg 348] Protestants; for a scientific Protestant theology exists only in Germany. The German Protestant Church is emphatically a Church of theologians; they are its only authority, and, through the princes, its supreme rulers. Its founder never really divested himself of the character of a professor, and the Church has never emancipated itself from the lecture-room: it teaches, and then disappears. ”

“ All the power and influence of the German government has, so far, been unable to push the so-called Old Catholics into even a decent show of repute; and no Catholic in communion with the pope will ever lend himself to any such thing as the Bismarckian scheme of a German national church, or national church of any other empire, kingdom, or republic. An independent provincial church is to the mind of the Catholic an utter absurdity; and no proposition looking to any such end 127would for a moment be entertained at Rome. ”

“ Either your children will have to content themselves with the poorest kind of men, or else surrender language and religion, for which you have laid the foundation, thus loading a great guilt upon yourselves. Dear friends, German church-life can impossibly continue to exist as it has hitherto existed in many places. In a few years the churches you already have will be deserted. ”

“ The German Empire numbers 40,000,000 of souls; of these 14,000,000 are Catholics; that is to say, more than one-third of the entire population. Call the relation existing to-day between these 14,000,000 of Catholics and the head of their church, the Pope, between them and their bishops and clergy, what you please, political or religious, the result of the passing of this measure is one and the same—the total breaking up of that relation in all that makes it what it is, in so far as it lies in Prince von Bismarck to effect that result. And so the world understands it. ”

“ The number of Old Catholic congregations in the German empire is now 107, with 38,507 adherents and 56 priests.―Even at their first congress the German Old Catholics, in opposition to the unpatriotic and law-defying attitude of German ultramontanism, had insisted upon love of country and obedience to the laws of the state as an absolute Christian duty. ”

“ With the ecclesiastical principalities the most powerful props of the Catholic church in Germany were lost, and Protestantism obtained a decided ascendency in the council of the German princes. The Catholic prelates were now simply paid servants of the state, and thus their double connexion with the curia and the state brought with it in later times endless entanglements and complications. ”

“ Although the majority of German Protestant Churches remained in connection with the Lutheran Reformation, a German Reformed Church, which bore a moderately Calvinistic aspect, sprang up in several parts of Germany. In 1650 the Elector Frederick II, of the Palatine, embraced the reformed creed, and organized the church of his dominions according to reformed principles. By his authority the Heidelberg Catechism, which soon came to be regarded not only as a standard symbolical book of the German Reformed Church, but was highly esteemed throughout the reformed world, was written. ”

“ During this period of the German Church’s distress the secular clergy were not behindhand in furnishing tried combatants, though the influence of the new ideas and the decline in morals, particularly during the preceding thirty or forty years, had brought ecclesiastical life and learning to an even lower level than before. ”

“ Finally, my colleagues, whose sole endeavours and desires are centred in the welfare of your congregations, the honour, the freedom, and the happiness of your German countrymen, keep no longer silence! You sin against your reputation, your religion, and your fatherland, if you longer hesitate to follow out your improved convictions. I have already, elsewhere, briefly addressed you, and shall therefore now conclude. Prove yourselves the true disciples of Him who gave up all for truth, and light, and liberty. Show that you have inherited, not his garment, but his spirit. ”

“ Meanwhile, all the other evils of the time, the monopolies of the merchant-princes of the cities and of the trading-syndicates, the dearness of living, the scarcity of money, etc., did not abate, but rather increased from year to year. The Catholic Church maintained itself especially in the South of Germany, and the official Reformation took on a definitely aristocratic character. ”

“ We are well aware that in this city, and in the West and South, there are many learned professors, devoted priests, and devout congregations, all of German birth, as well as many reputable merchants, mechanics, and professional men of the same nationality, who worship God according to their hereditary cus [Pg 64] toms; but we think we do not go too far in saying that the majority of German-Americans have practically no religion, that they never enter a church, say a prayer, or perform any of the ordinary duties of a Christian. ”

“ May God grant that rich streams of blessing may flow back from here into united Christendom, and that on the throne as in the hut, that at home [135] as abroad, trust in God, love of our fellows, patience in affliction, and thorough labor may remain the brightest jewels of the German people, and that the spirit of peace may permeate and hallow the Evangelical Church more and more. ”

“ The particular example of Jerusalem warns us insistently that we must suppress as far as possible the slight deviations in our sects, and that the Evangelical Church and the Evangelical creed must put forward a firmly united front here in the East. Otherwise we can accomplish nothing. We can only work through example, through the practice and proof that the gospel is a gospel of love in all quarters of the heavens and that it bears other fruits. ”

“ But the great craving of the German nature was to find itself in close connection with the Almighty, and the longing for the love of God was unquenchable. But the Pope maintained that he was the only administrator of the inexhaustible merits of Christ; and the Church also taught, that by the intercession of saints for the sins of men, an endless treasure of good works, prayers, fasts, and penances were made available for the blessing of others; and all these treasures were at the disposition of the Pope, who could dispense them to whom he chose, as a deliverance from their sins. ”

“ Free-thinking and neglect of religious duties are at present considered the acme of bad form in Germany. Everybody professes the most profound interest in questions and enterprises relating to the church, and a large number of daughters of the most illustrious houses of the German nobility have conferred their hands and their hearts upon penniless Lutheran pastors, whose social status has thereby been entirely changed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, then, a mere matter of pretext. In point of fact, it is the German Empire which is laying claim to absolute and unlimited power in the domain of religion as well as in the domain of politics; it examines and judges dogmas, intrudes itself into ecclesiastical discipline; it closes the priest's mouth in his pulpit—by the lex Lutziana; it closes Catholic colleges and schools; it forbids religious to preach, to hear confessions, and even to celebrate Mass; it forbids the bishops to canonically exclude from the bosom of the church those who openly separate themselves therefrom ”