Morning journal and courier., 1880-03-18
A Century,s Religious History.
tFrom the Contemporary Reviewl

As early as 174O reaction of religious sen- timent began to make itself felt. The pietism
 which, 50 years before, had renewed for century the growth of religious life in Germa- ny, awoke in England also. The dissenters were still feeble minority at the beginning of the century-about 1 in 22 to the adherents of the State church. The independents or Congregationalists, who would have been glad to see the State church broken up into number of small bodies, independent of the State, and who were strongly Calvanistic in their dogmas, especially in the doctrine of predestination, had, after great show of re- sistance, been almost carried away by the re- ligious reaction. The political instincts of the English rebelled against church which was to be only an invisible spiritual community of the elect scattered over all the world. The Anabaptists, who were bent on purifying the character of the church, and who sought to make the initial rite more rational act, and the Quakers, who believed in the abolition of all outward rites, set themselves against the new movement. They still lived on, and lost but few of their adherents, but they won no new ones Only the young sect of the Unita- rians, so entirely creation of the last centu- ", grew and 1ourished; this was however, of necessity, only creed for the cultured, and could not become national religion even in this century of enlightenment For it re- quired, as an essential feature, the complete emancipation of the church from all obliga- tions which could in any way limit the doc trinaI liberty of the clergy; and religion, national religion, cannot exist under such con- ditions. It otherwise with Wesleyansm, which did not at first ldenulIy itself with dis sent, but, like pietisnl in Germany, made it's aim to renovate the national church through the feelings and by a spiritual regeneration. It therefore formed lay societies and associa- tions within the church, and required mani fest conversion and the personal reception of revealed truth by every individual 1t even in 1-Ra nHrTo Ify1fJn himself was in direct connection with the Moravian body. He wished, however, to re- main in the communion of the established church. Such compromise could not, of course, be lasting, but he had, so to speak, to be turned out by the shoulders. Long after he and his apostle, Whitefeld, had transferred their activity from the church, which had driven them out, to other and freer fields, they declared themselves to be true members of the established church First, in 1785, and more positively in l795, the evangelical movement" as it was at first called, was con- . sodated into the Methodist sect, which now numbers in England alone million of mem- bers (some say 9 400 OOO1, and in America D. 900 OOO Nevertheless, it began from that time to decline, for although powerful relig- ious movements always emanate from the classes which are inaccessible to philosophical culture, they are nevertheless doomed to be- come unfruitful unless they are capable of similating some philosophical element" Geslie Stephen This unfruitfulness must be understood however, only of Methodism as sect Wesleyansn, historical fact was abuudantly fruitful. It gave new life to the State church, reused it to resistance, and discovered to it it's own weak points. Such movements, however, arising out of feeling always produce in the end a reactionary effect, as had already been shown in the case of Ger man pietisn, while, on the other hand, ration alistic movements are, of necessity, always progressive. The Tractarianism, Pusseyism, ritualism of the present century, which would never have arisen but for the impulse given by Wesleyanism, are thoroughly reactionary in their nature Thus has this much caIum- niated eighteenth century, which produced such fair flowers and noble fruits on the con- tinspt, left deep and beneficial traces also in England It was an era of increased politi- cal liberty, of revival in literature, and of re- markable religious development This should be remembered by the radicals, advanced thinkers and high churohmen, who are won't to look back with so much contempt on the age of their grandfathers. A century in which England twice, at the commencement and at the close, defended European inde- pendence against schemes of universal mon- archy, and built up and perfected it's own in- ternal constitution age which produced from "Gulliver" to "Hallow'en," series of literary masterpieces such as no other nation in the world possesses; an age which exercised the most complete religious toleration the world has ever seen, without falling prey to religious marasmus-such century need not shrink from comparison with any other, even in the glorious annals of English history.